BareBente

Category: history

  • anthropomorphism – you are like me

    anthropomorphism – you are like me

    Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts (Wikipedia). It is human to see human responses around us, and we have the ability for abstraction. So we apply human patterns to animals and objects. “An evil wind blows..”

  • noble genealogy

    noble genealogy

    I was at my sisters place over christmas, and was reminded of my grandmother by this oilpainting of her (painted by Ragnhild Thrane in 1904). Her mother and father both had unusual family names, and for a laugh I thought I should see what I could find on that grand internet of ours.

  • crime and punishment

    crime and punishment

    My next-door neighbour is the guy responsible for the bomb in Oslo and the massacre at Utøya. It is a prison. But there is an ironic twist, that he is incarcerated at Ila Landsfengsel. During the occupation of the second world war it was only known as Grini, the first concentration camp in Norway. It…

  • back to squirrels & bones

    back to squirrels & bones

    Back in DC. Back to the bones, the squirrels and the schnapps.

  • oslo mysteries

    oslo mysteries

    If you walk slowly enough, you see little things in Oslo. I came across a couple of mysteries.

  • norway, my stupidly beautiful country

    norway, my stupidly beautiful country

    Norway is stupidly beautiful. Sometimes there is no words left, and laugh is all you can do.

  • travels with/out internet

    travels with/out internet

    I travelled in South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand back in the dark ages before the internet. I remember my brother told me before I left, that in the future, I could use any computer anywhere in the world to talk to him. Back then I thought, but why would I want to?

  • bachelor thesis: a walk in the rift valley, four million years ago

    bachelor thesis: a walk in the rift valley, four million years ago

    Bachelor Thesis: The Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program Database: Relating scientific data through time and space. Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. Lars Bjørkevoll, Audun Hodnefjell, Bente Halvorsen

  • relatives and ancestors

    relatives and ancestors

    australopithecus africanus, approx. 2.5 million years old

  • Images from Riga

    Images from Riga

    -three days in Riga

  • Crop circles, math and outer space

    Crop circles, math and outer space

    I know a lot of strange people. Some of them are the kind you might think the most ordinary figures, until.. something seeps out. I know a guy who believes crop circles are made by creatures from outer space, the «wee folk» or «unidentified streams of energy». That is pretty off, but extraordinary coming from…

  • Northern Irelands silly ghosts. Attempted murder, hahaha!

    Northern Irelands silly ghosts. Attempted murder, hahaha!

    I admit I don’t really keep up with Northern Irish news much these days. It’s either desperately provincial – or just plain desperate. Yes, someone planted a bomb the other day, and yes, somebody got hurt. And I’m sure the obscure rural radio show is still going on without me. So. Some things never change.…

  • The worst books ever written

    Few books deserves a place on the bookshelf of shame, and I’m a little ambivalent about this – should I dignify the biggest drivel I have ever read, or is the best plan to let them die in silence? For artists and authors the worst thing is indiffrence. Hate is at least an emotion too.…

  • Beirut

    Beirut

    The sea – most of all the sea. Coming from Damascus, two things are sights for sore eyes: the sea, and green things. I drank in green; on corners, on waste ground, balconies, flowerpots. My friends had lived in, and not really left Damascus, for a month at this point and I can only imagine…

  • Letraset, academics and writing

    Letraset, academics and writing

    Went through some old notebooks, boxes and piles of stuff before moving here.. and the in the process found my old, precious Letraset book- it used to be a treasure, and a priced possession. Hands up, all who have done plaka lettering; meticulously drawing up and painting letters on awful quality paper. Thought not. Not…