i'm interested in creating beauty out of the discarded and forgotten, making art that stands the test of time, and being a better person. I'm fascinated by words and voices, colour and texture, architecture and public space, the healing power of music and dancing
Music
is a good house to live in.
Check out my band Mr. Something Something here on myspace
or at www.mrsomethingsomething.com ------------------------------------
Lately I've been listening to a lot of Toronto songwriters, many of which are neighbourhood friends (there are so many great musicians in this city); you'll find most of them on myspace. Check out Justin Rutledge, Janine Stoll, Brian MacMillan, Lori Cullen, Royal Wood, Dan Goldman, John Southworth & Bob Wiseman for starters
Movies
A Clockwork Orange, The Adjuster, Aguirre, Aimee & Jaguar, All About My Mother, Altered States, Amadeus, Amelie, Annie Hall, Bad Education, The Barbarian Invasions, Being John Malkovich, The Big Lebowski, Black Cat White Cat, Breaking the Waves, Boys Don't Cry, Cache, Capote, The Celebration, Cinema Paradiso, City of God, Crash, The Cuckoo, Dancer in the Dark, Dead Man, The Decalogue, Delicatessen, The Departed, Dirty Pretty Things, Down By Law, Dr. Strangelove, 8 1/2, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Eyes Wide Shut, Fanny & Alexander, Fargo, Fight Club, Fitzcarraldo, Following, Gadjo Dilo, Ghost Dog, The Graduate, Happiness, Harold and Maude, Head-On, Hiroshima Mon Amour, The Holy Girl, The Hours, The House of Sand and Fog, The Ice Storm, The Idiots, Koyaanisqatsi, The Last Tango in Paris, Lost Highway, The Lovers of the Arctic Circle, Magnolia, The Man Without a Past, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Mulholland Drive, Natural Born Killers, Night on Earth, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Paradise Now, Paris Texas, Pi, The Piano Teacher, The Pianist, Pickpocket, The Princess and the Warrior, Pulp Fiction, Requiem For A Dream, Reservoir Dogs, Run Lola Run, Sex And Lucia, Slacker, Songs from the Second Floor, Seven, The Seventh Seal, The Shining, Short Cuts, Six Degrees of Separation, Smiles of a Summer Night, Smoke, Stalker, Stranger Than Paradise, The Sweet Hereafter, Talk to Her, Taxi Driver, The Three Colors Trilogy, Together, Trainspotting, 12 Monkeys, Underground, The Usual Suspects, Va Savoir, Vera Drake, Waking Life, Wild Strawberries, Wings of Desire etc ----------------------- Documentaries: American Movie, An Inconvenient Truth, Baraka, Bowling For Columbine, Boys of Baraka, Brother's Keeper, Capturing the Friedmans, The Corporation, Crumb, Darwin's Nightmare, Don't Look Back, Earthlings, The End of Suburbia, Etre et avoir, Fahrenheit 9/11, Fog of War, The Future of Food, Go Further, Harlan County USA, The High Cost of Low Price, Iraq For Sale, Jesus Camp, Keep The River on Your Right, Ladies and Gentlemen...Mr. Leonard Cohen, Life and Debt, Mission Accomplished, My Architect, Naked States, Orwell Rolls in His Grave, Rivers and Tides, Rize, Roger & Me, Salesman, Shake Hands With the Devil, Trembling Before G-d, War Photographer, Who Killed the Electric Car?, Why We Fight, The Yes Men etc
Television
I don't understand how I ever found the time to watch it
Books
Fiction by Paul Auster, Jorge Luis Borges, William Boyd, Italo Calvino, Albert Camus, Douglas Coupland, Fjodor Dostojevskij, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gogol, Gunther Grass, Hermann Hesse, Aldous Huxley, Franz Kafka, Jack Kerouac, Milan Kundera, George Orwell, Georges Perec, Jose Saramago, Carol Shields, Hunter S Thomson et al --------------------------------
Poetry by Raymond Carver, Leonard Cohen, Gunnar Ekelof, Hafiz, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, Gary Snyder, Tomas Transtromer, William Carlos Williams et al
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Recent non-fiction: Endgame by Derrick Jensen, Strangely Like War by Derrick Jensen, Good News For a Change by David Suzuki, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast, Sleeping With the Devil by Robert Baer, You're Being Lied To (editor Russ Kick), In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, The Legacy of Luna by Julia Butterfly Hill, Water by Marc de Villiers, Stupid White Men by Michael Moore
Heroes
Gandhi, Hafiz, Jose Saramago, Marvin Gaye, Raymond Carver, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Lars von Trier, Bob Dylan, Gustav Klimt, John Cage, Alvar Aalto, Franz Kafka, Gunnar Ekelof, Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Klee, Gogol, Andy Goldsworthy, Hermann Hesse, Robert Greenwald, Bobby McFerrin, Andrei Tarkovskij, Friedrich Hundertwasser, Vincent van Gogh, Ingmar Bergman, Tomas Transtromer and everyone else who lets the fire in their heart light their way
About me: according to my mother i'm poorly equipped to deal with life's hardships. she may be right. but i have successfully sold vaccuum-cleaners door-to-door in germany. i love biking in rush hour traffic. i feel younger than i did ten years ago. i am a workoholic. i sleep too much. i don't sleep for days. i like my coffee strong and black. i rarely cook anymore. when i'm happy i laugh out loud to myself. when i'm sad i want to bash my head open to let the sorrow out. i'm a good listener, but i get restless like a jonesing junkie. i eat too fast, but i speak slowly, sometimes too slowly. i am addicted to wine gums. my friends tell me that i think too much. i haven't smoked a cigarette in seven months...well...except for the ones i smoked on vacation. i have no savings, but i do have a ridiculously large collection of vintage shirts and ties. i have no fat inheritance coming my way, but i get freckles in the summer. i had my heart broken by a girl once. the smell of skunk reminds me of coffeecake. i will learn to speak french and spanish (damnit). i rarely drink anymore. i like wearing suits. i have very few close friends. i would probably get along with you. i'm too proud for my own good. i miss speaking swedish. i'm a small town boy turned city kid. i should get back into yoga and meditation. i should find a girl to fall madly in love with. i should stop using the word 'should'.
i used to make my living busking on the streets with my best friend. i love autumn. i'm afraid of becoming too much like my father. i love the moment right before the city wakes up. i was going to be a soccer player. i was going to be an engineer. i was going to be a diplomat. i was going to be a teacher. i was going to be a journalist. i was going to be a singer.
Who I'd like to meet: the contagiously curious, the fearlessly creative, the passionately political, the brutally honest, the blindingly beautiful; shakers and movers, pilgrims and seekers, dreamers and believers
Johan from Mr. Something Something's Friend Space (Top 23)
Johan from Mr. Something Something has 406 friends.
"By all intents & purposes I shouldn't be here. I should be a forlorn figment of nobody's imagination; the impossible secret dream of my mother's troubled heart. By all outward appearances I should have been swimmin' in the load she swallowed; swirling about in that milky glob that flew in her eye. I should have been the one who always got away. If the devil did care, he would have assigned me to a permanent post in the realm of sweet possibility. But did any of this honkey tonk bullshit happen? Noooooooooooooo. That would have been way too fucking easy for everybody. Instead, by the apparent (miraculous) intervention of unseen forces, what began as an innocuous nipping of the nuggets would become the baddest little bitch who could."
'her tumor had a heart of glass' by paula m. stinson
Hi, stopping by to wish you all the best for your upcoming birthday. I hope it is filled with Peace.
I have written a poetry book of peace called “Aspire Peace” and and will donate all proceeds from sales of the book to charity, please add the site (click on the picture below) for this book and pass the peace along...
hi johan. i was just observing your photo gallery and you have some very lovely photos, indeed. mmm... with all these options of virtual communication, and so much to say, i feel strangely shy.
Happiest of days to you and all the very best in the coming year. Hope that life will once again bring you west and know you always have a place to rest your head. Cheers to you!!!!
Your friends ... Paul, Julie and the ArtsWells Crew....
Reykjavik Jazzfestival var nästan över när Hanna frågade om jag inte ville gå. Så tittade vi närmare på vilka skulle spela sista showen. Finske Jimi Tenor, islands funksnubbe nr.1 och Antibalas.
Vi trängdes längs fram hela natten.
Två kanadensare kom fram för att fråga var jag fått min gröna Mr. Something Something t-skjorta... De tyckte att Mr.ss skulle komma hit till Airways-festivalen nu i höst. Eftersom ni är ännu bättre :)
Out of the blue I popped by your page to say hello and you've got a Django tune on your page. Just a few hours ago was the guy producing my cd playing me some of his stuff. Weeeeeeeeird.
Hope your summer is bringing you lots of happiness!
Hey Johan, Thank You! You guys were a pleasure to have. It was a great night and you and Mr. Something Something definitly had the crowd warmed up. I have a really cool shot of you guys in the alley. Let me know where to send it.
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