Sunday 21 November 2010

Modern traveling



photo: Henrik Nor-Hansen
Internet has changed the concept of sailing around the world. Actually, we have seen the change in all kinds of traveling. We go further, to more remote and exotic places, but at the same time we keep our friends and family updated. We keep in touch with the place we left. This has again changed the concept of leaving; there's really no point in crying.

But there's a serious downside to this. Emails, Facebook, Twitter, etc; it all means that the modern traveler brings along friends and family, in what is called 'hyperreality'. The traveler never really leaves his own bubble. And then the significance of a new place is never seen, never felt and never understood.

photo: Henrik Nor-Hansen




Tuesday 2 November 2010

I'm pulling ahead

photo: Henrik Nor-Hansen
I'd already been up for two hours, editing a difficult line in a poem, when the nearby military base sounded the reveille. I paused and looked at the clock, wondering if the American war machine was getting lax.

I'm pulling ahead, I thought, feeling suddenly uplifted. It might be a chance that poetry will win after all.

photo: Henrik Nor-Hansen
photo: Henrik Nor-Hansen