little flovver

Look what bloomed in our bathroom the very day Little Jacket came to visit!

It had been coming for ages but in the morning while cleaning my teeth I saw that it had absolutely burst open. I’m thrilled as it seems Mr. Snow and I are now not only capable of keeping our orchid plants alive but even getting them to blossom. There seem to be four more flowers on the way. Maybe the plant is pacing itself for our future summer guests?

The weather here has been fabulous and it looks like it’s just going to stay that way, if not get warmer. Little Jacket and I set up camp on the river bank yesterday evening with white wine, a blanket to sit on and our books, though the latter went unread as we had too much news (gossip?) to exchange. Island hopping in the Oslo Fjord looks like it’s on the schedule for this weekend. Will be sure to report back!

the greatest silence: rape in the congo

On a mission… Lisa F Jackson. Photograph: Bryan Bedder/Getty

Not at all an easy read but a worthwhile one. Taken from the Guardian, Friday May 9, 2008.

Filmmaker Lisa F Jackson survived a terrifying sexual assault in Washington. But she was still shocked by the tales women told her when she made a documentary about rape in the Congo. She talks to Kira Cochrane.

In a long conversation, the only time that Lisa F Jackson falls quiet is when I ask which moment most affected her in the making of her film The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo. Was it meeting a teenager, Immakilee, raped by soldiers and left pregnant at 15, who, as Jackson says, “has eyes that look like the world has abandoned her”? Or hearing the story of 42-year-old Marie Jeanne, whose husband was beaten and killed and, as she explains in the film, cut “into three parts, the head, the chest, and the bottom part … then they raped me and abandoned me there. I passed out next to my husband’s legs”?

dave eggers websclusive

Yesterday evening’s sun went slightly to waste as about a hundred of us descended into the dark bowels of Litteraturhuset to listen to Dave Eggers being interviewed. As consolation, it was an entertaining, relaxed hour and a half. He talked a lot about his book What is the What, Valentino Achak Deng, McSweeney’s, the publishing house he helped set up, some about his writing lab and tutoring centre 826 Valencia, a little less about his other books and very little indeed about himself. Luckily as Norwegians seem to shy away from encounters with authors (either face to face or from the audience) I got both to ask a question and get my book autographed without having to elbow a single soul out of the way.

As such myyearonline has the pleasure of bringing you an international web exclusive of Things You Might Not Have Known About Dave Eggers and Might Otherwise Never Find Out:

- Spending a year with his wife writing, writing and pretty much almost only writing gave him cabin fever

- The title of his book ‘A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius’ was a joke working title, until it turned out it was too late to change it and he was stuck with it

- He wore braces as a child, which the wrap-around microphone last night reminded him scarily of

- He set up the first independent pirate supply shop in the Mission, San Francisco (Humungous and Jeans, now you know where to go for your party eye patches!)

- The What in Dave Eggers’ world, as learnt from Valentino Achak Deng, is being brave enough to choose the unknown What although the known alternative may be more comfy and safer

- He’s been in Bangkok but didn’t like it, and really wants to go to KL because he has friends living there and they say it’s cool. Our kind of guy!!