Peter X. Eriksson – writer & photographer

On New Year’s Day I heard someone saying, “No more resolutions – it’s the circumstances turn to improve”. That one resonated deeply with me. I’ve had to be stronger than I possibly can be for years now, hoping that next year will be a little bit easier, but next year always says “You thought that was a total shitshow? Hold my beer…”

I’m not going to list all the disasters and misfortunes of 2022, I’m so so so so tired of doing that each year, I don’t want to turn into Dostoevsky, but there are some things that really pulled a dark curtain over this year. The worst being the death of my uncle Bosse. I’ve more or less been his “parent” these last couple of years since dementia stole his mind. And after surviving blood sugar levels that would have killed a mountain, a heart attack, several bouts of covid, and even breast cancer; he just stopped breathing one evening. He had turned 81, which for a diabetic is like being 110 (they have at least 20 years shorter lifespan), and I suspected that he was actually immortal, but everything ends…

Since I’ve been “in charge” of him these last couple of years, it fell on me to handle all the administrative procedures, and boy is it a lot of paperwork when somebody dies. It took months. And it such a weird feeling to bury someone close in both a practical and emotional sense as well as in a bureaucratical way. Now it’s done, but I still keep his number in my phone…

The other shitty thing was when I woke up one morning and the vision in my right eye was like looking through an old jam jar – the world looked blurry, twisted and green. I got sent to the eye-doctor, and the verdict was retinal detachment. The retina is the layers of nerve tissue at the back of the eye that receive images and sends them to the brain. So it’s kinda vital for being able to see. If you are very unlucky, the retina can start to peel away from the eye and eventually tear. And of course I was that unlucky. This is an emergency, so I was quickly transported to a hospital specialised in this kind of surgery. When the surgeon explained the procedure to me, I was thinking that going blind would be the better option. First they cut open the eye, then they squeeze out all the stuff inside the eye, fixate the retina with laser, then fill the eye with nitrous oxide and close it again. But before the anxiety could rev its engines, I was drugged with a lot of funny pills, so by the time I was wheeled into surgery I was having my own private rave party. In fact, the procedure was a very chill and trippy experience that I almost enjoyed. Now I get why people do drugs.

Surprisingly the worst part of the procedure was sleeping after the surgery. The reason my eye was filled with N2O was so the gas could put pressure on the retina. In order to put pressure on the right side of the eye, I had to sleep face down. No biggie, I thought, but goddammit how frustrating it can be to not move at all during the night. I also had to have my head bent downwards for 24 hours, walking around like a contemplating monk (or someone with a floor-fetish). It took almost two months for the gas to leave my eye, and when I could see again I noticed that the world looked weird. Unfortunately, the tear in the retina had damaged the macula (the most sensitive part of the retina that process sharp and detailed vision), and that is a permanent damage. The best way I can describe it is like a sort of mix between a funhouse mirror and looking out a window on a rainy day. The world seen through my right eye is bent and askew. It’s survivable when I’m out and about but sitting in front of a screen is a pain in the ass. The letters look weird and it’s difficult to read, and my head gets tired quickly. Not a great thing when my job as a writer is 100% screentime. Now it takes me a day to do what I used to do in 1-2 hours. Stupid retina, wanting to separate when we had it so good together….

This is just two picks from a big pile of shit happening this year, and there is a lot more there that I don’t even have the strength to talk about yet. Sure, when I’ve been talking with my friends in Ukraine and Iran, I have realised that things could definitely be worse, but I am only human, and I passed my limit a long time ago. My mental and physical warning lights are blinking so frantic now that I must look like a christmas tree having a seizure. Lately I’ve been having blackouts where I suddenly find myself crying and hyperventilating on the floor without having any idea how I got there. And my blood-pressure is probably 4 digits by now. If things doesn’t change I suspect my 2023 year-in-review will be replaced with my obituary. But I’m crazy enough to have hope. Hope that I will tell stories about the most wonderful things next year…

At least this disaster of a year had a really good soundtrack. Great releases from Rammstein, Meshuggah, Devin Townsend, Tegan & Sara, Polyphia, Spiritbox, Muna and many others. But my favourite album was Soilwork’s Övergivenheten (The Abandonment). A beautiful collection of songs blending melodic death metal with melancholy like only Soilwork can. Making this album even more special was the tragic twist that their guitarist and main songwriter David Andersson passed away (from mental health problems and alcohol) shortly after the release. With titles like Dreams of Nowhere, Is It In Your Darkness and Death I Hear You Calling, maybe there were signs that something wasn’t right. You will be deeply missed David…

Of the movies that I’ve watched 2022, I can highly recommend Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Werewolf By Night, Deadstream, The Batman, Top Gun Maverick, Prey, Mad God, and most of all: Everything Everywhere All at Once (this was definitely Michelle Yeoh’s year).

Lots of great tv too. But there were two shows that really blew me away. I was so thrilled to finally see Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece The Sandman on screen. Like many others I was cautiously hopeful, because it is a very special story that is hard to translate into moving pictures. But they made it, and it was a bliss to watch Dream, his sister Death, and the others come to life. I have watched the first season three times now, and it is perfection! But the biggest surprise of the year was Andor. How can a prequel to a prequel starring the third lead from Rouge One be this good?! This is what Star Wars can be when you take the franchise seriously. Great writing and even greater acting. Mature, thrilling, complex, intelligent, and the most realistic and captivating Star Wars ever.

Since 2022 was all about surviving and enduring, stuff like being creative or having a life had to be put aside. But I did take some pictures…

Stay safe peeps!

Well, that was a big fucking disappointment. But who’s surprised? I’m not the kind of person that glance in the rearview mirror even under normal circumstances (the future is so much more interesting than the past), and with a year like 2021 behind us I feel like complete and utter denial is the correct way to deal with it. It was just a bad dream.

But for the sake of keeping up the tradition of some kind of annual “stuff that happened this year”, here’s some of the things I do remember from 2021…

My body told me that I need reading glasses, and hair oil. Also noticed that I have more body that usual (and it’s the pasty kind). Not getting any younger…

Was offered an audio book deal. But the contract was a disappointment, and I don’t want to support business models that throw the author under the bus. But it got me thinking about investing in recording equipment and do my own audio books in the future.

Retired my old Lenovo Legion for a brand-new Dell XPS 13. Believe the hype. So smoooooooth. It’s the Bollinger and silk sheets of laptops. And I love all the ways it’s possible to pimp the design. I’ve put a Silverblack Wood skin on it.

Got my vaccine shots. Didn’t feel a thing. Not even the needle. Science is wonderful! Now I just need a booster-shot for my faith in humanity. I have made my peace with human irrationality by now, but this is getting ridiculous. Is this really the way we behave now, or is it all a giant absurd art-installation?

Have tried to avoid reality as much as possible. It’s all really very overrated. Except the part with cheese.

I swear the last 6 months of 2021 was just two weeks long.

Participated in my fist live-streamed funerals. Or the Funeral Doom Zoom as I like to think of them. Worked just fine sitting by the kitchen table and sobbing in front of the laptop.

Was expecting at least two more funerals (#fuckcancer), but some people are just really hard to kill. Glad I’m getting some more time with them.

Vice of the year: mini salamis

I’ve been so hyped about Spiritbox ever since they released their first songs a few years ago. They’ve grown so much and so fast. This year they have released killer song after killer song. When their debut album arrived after the summer my jaw dropped. Is this really a debut from a band that is still recording their stuff in their kitchen? It’s a milestone in metal history and a game-changer. It landed as number 1 on Billboard’s Top Rock/Hard Rock Albums, and 13 on the Billboard 200. That’s unheard of. But it’s a unique band. They manage to blend all kinds of genres and influences and still consistently sound like themselves. There’s darkness, brutality, dreamlike soundscapes, emotions enough to make you cry, hooks, breakdowns, rage, tears, everything! As one reviewer put it: “Spiritbox already sound like multi-platinum superstars, the kind that metal hasn’t produced in years at this point. It’s that unmistakable, overwhelming feeling of listening to a classic record for the first time.”

I’m so proud of them!

There was also great music from: Gojira, Times of Grace, Twelve Foot Ninja, Jinjer, SION

Dune. What an epic movie. Denis Villeneuve is a cinematic genius. And after Dune part 2 he is set to make Rendezvous with Rama. Can’t! Wait!

I’m one of those that enjoyed Matrix Resurrections. Loved the meta-approach. And Keanu and Carrie-Ann had tons of more chemistry between them this time.

Small screen stuff:

• Squid Game – believe the hype.
• Brand New Cherry Flavor – what a surprise! Amazing and weird horror drama that felt like it was a collaboration between David Lynch and David Cronenberg. Loved it!
• Star Trek Discovery – best ST in years. And it actually has David Cronenberg! In front of the camera!
• Hawkeye – how did they manage to make such an entertaining mini-series about the most boring Avenger?!
• Loki – forever the least boring Marvel character
• The Nevers – Joss Whedon is apparently a complete asshole, but he managed to make old tropes about people with abilities feel fresh and engaging
• The Expanse – Bummed out that this was the last season of the best sci-fi show this side of Battlestar Galactica. But what a way to end this masterpiece!

My brain still won’t let me read. I feel mentally impotent – willing but unable…

Didn’t take a lot of pictures this year. But I’m learning a lot about editing. Here’s some stuff, both new and old-but-seen-through-new-eyes…

Stay safe sweethearts!

If life is like a movie, then 2020 is that moment when the projector breaks down and you just sit there in the dark, staring into nothing, feeling your life pass you by, one slow second by one even slower second.

…oh, and about 2 million people dies of bad popcorn.

We all now what a complete shitshow of a garbage fire this year was. No need to wallow in it. I think the personal image that captures this year best was when I was out for an evening stroll on Christmas eve, and I saw a cosy house with a lot of warm xmas lights in the windows. A hearse stood parked outside with its rear tailgate open, waiting for the body. No Santa this Yule, only the grim reaper…

Did I catch the virus? Probably. At the beginning of the pandemic I got a really bad case of what felt like the flu on steroids. The testing hadn’t begun at that time, so all I could do was to be down and out in bed. What made this different from a normal flu was that I lost all taste for about a week after I was sick. Even garlic tasted like wet cardboard. So yeah, it was probably Covid, but none of that matters really…

It was scarier when an elderly family member with health problems got it. I just waited for the phone to ring with bad news. But it all ended happily.

It didn’t for a lot of people…

The thing with this pandemic/quarantine/lockdown year is that it didn’t change much for me personally. Sure, it ruined a whole lot of plans, but that happens pretty much with every plan I ever make. Other than that, I have worked from home the last 20 years, social distancing is a lifestyle for me (I’m not an introvert or a misanthrope, it’s just better for my wellbeing), every plan I ever make goes to hell and beyond, I’m on first name basis with isolation, and I know how it is to feel your mental health spiral into black flames because disaster after disaster is slamming you down and refusing to let you get up, and every time you try to do something about it the shit takes a graceful swan dive into the fan. 2020 was pretty much like life always is for me.

This has made me make the journey from existentialist to nihilist and coming out on the other side as an absurdist. So, when a global catastrophe like the Corona-virus happens, I get curious and bring out my notebook and some spicy nuts (not a fan of popcorn). Here are my notes:

We need to stop saying “Avoid it like the plague” – people clearly don’t do that.

The inevitable baby-boom after lockdown must get the generation name “The Coronials”.

Covid backwards is divoc, and divorces are skyrocketing. Spending more time together is clearly not always the answer.

For the first time in history, we could make everything better by just being passive in front of the tv all day. Wouldn’t you know, we even failed at that.

The best horror movie I’ve seen in a long time was Host – a found footage horror flick about a haunted Zoom-meeting, where everything happens on webcam. It has no reason to be as scary as it is. Creativity really blooms when the going gets though.

It was a good year to be a Devin Townsend fan. That guy has created and released more music than ever during lockdown. And made a lot of awesome charity concerts from his home. And he has not been alone. There’s been such a huge flow of new music, fun collaborations and livestreams that it’s been a 24/7 job to enjoy it all. This shit year kinda turned into manure for creativity.

Holy crap, Spiritbox are really getting extremely good. Their haunting, dreamy, brutal and atmospheric music is the most exciting thing happening in metal. Their releases this year, Blessed Be, Holy Roller, Constance – made me headbang, sing-along, and cry (sometimes all at the same time).

Speaking about crying, My Octopus Teacher was the documentary we really needed this year. Octopuses > Humans.

I’m pretty sure the entire planet has doubled its weight. I’ve gained so much that even my shoes are bursting at the seams.

10 months of this made a lot of people break down and fall apart. I feel them. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, so my mental pressure gauge is about 4-5 times deeper into the red. It really is ok to not be ok. But hey, tacos fall apart, and we still love them.

What doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger. In truth, “stronger” is a rare outcome. What doesn’t kill you will most likely make you tired, empty, disillusioned, traumatised, indifferent, pissed off, lost… It’s steel that get hardened in fire – people get burnt to ashes or scarred. Let’s take care of each other. A lot!

Dark mode was all the rage this year. So now I have dark mode on Instagram, Google, YouTube and my mind.

Everything is temporary. This year we’ve been living without travel, hugs, cinemas, parties, plans, concerts etc… Next year we will learn to live without the shitshow that was 2020. Let’s make it a good one…

And here are some pics I created this year:

Listening to: Igorrr
Reading: Stephen Graham Jones: The Only Good Indians
Watching: The Expanse
Drinking: Zinfandel

I’m not going to talk about 2019. It was the worst year of my life, and the sooner it is forgotten the better.

There will be updates during 2020, because some amazing things are brewing. In the meanwhile, here are some pics from last year…

Listening to: Sleep Token
Reading: Unfortunately not
Watching: Doctor Who 
Drinking: Zinfandel

It’s hard to talk about 2018 without resorting to Deadpool dialogue. I mean, I’m a professional writer, and the most poetic phrases I can conjure up about this year are “What the fuck was that?”, “2018 – fuck you and the horse you rode in on”, “This was about as much fun as a sandpaper dildo”, and my personal favourite: ‘Fuck!!!’ repeated 218 times, louder each time.

To sum it up: 2018 was a depressing, chaotic shitshow both on a personal level and regarding the world in general. And that’s my ‘glass half full with 12-year old Caribbean rum’ take on it. If I would stop being this positive and cheerful about things, my words would start spinning their heads, vomit green bile, and say very nasty things about your mom. So I have decided not to write about my year this time.

I will explain it in gif’s instead.

But even if 2018 have made me stressed, frustrated, exhausted, depressed, fat, lonely, nihilistic, and made me lose my faith in humanity even more than usual, I still have a lot of fucks left to give. And I will give them as much as I can 2019

Also, a huge I AM VERY SORRY to all the wonderful people that I have neglected this year. I’ve suffered a serious deficiency of time, energy and me. I’ll be back.

Did I have time to take any pictures? Somehow, a few…

And now for my favourite music/books/tv/movies of 2018…

Music:
Christel Alsos, Eva Dahlgren, Eyes Set To Kill, Four Stroke Baron, The Naked and Famous, Olafur Arnalds, Rivers of Nihil, Scars on 45, Sevendust, Slugdge, Soilwork, Spiritbox

Books:
Hans Rosling: Factfulness, David Lynch: Room To Dream
I’m sure there were a lot of other wonderful books this year, but I haven’t had the time or the energy to read… 🙁

Movies:
Annihilation, Avengers: Infinity War, A Quiet Place, Deadpool 2, Hereditary, Solo, Mandy, Hold the Dark, Anna and the Apocalypse, Aterrados

TV:
Altered Carbon, Jessica Jones, Legends of Tomorrow, The Alienist, Ash vs Evil Dead, Legion, The Expanse, Westworld, Daredevil, Channel Zero: The Dream Door, Doctor Who, Fortitude, DiableroA

Take care of yourselves, and let’s create a really wonderful 2019!
/Peter

Listening to: Jinjer
Reading: Josh Malerman: Bird Box
Watching: Diablero 
Drinking: Pineapple rum

Most years have a narrative. There’s a story to tell about the things that happened, like lost and found jobs and loves, graduations, births, deaths, travels, surprises, dreams, failures, successes, new scars, etc…
My 2017 doesn’t have a narrative. I think I overslept this year. Hit snooze and went back to hugging the pillow, blinking sleepily 12 months later, surprised it’s over.

Seriously, I’ve slept for, like, 99,999% of 2017. And the seconds I’ve been awake I’ve been daydreaming about sleeping.
Here’s why: The last couple of years have been challenging, to put it mildly. So many life-plans have derailed in such messy ways that Matt Damon’s trouble in The Martian seems like a vacation in comparison (Lucky bastard! What wouldn’t I do to be deserted on a lifeless planet and grow potatoes in my own poo!). And being who I am – stubborn, not very good at compromising or settling for anything but exactly what I want in my patended all-or-nothing way – I’ve continued along the hard path, even when it has led me under the mines of Moria, across lakes of fire, and to that level of hell filled with hipster mimes talking at movies (…but with no wifi). Then one day my trusted companions hope, persistence, motivation, ideas, creativity, energy and ambition stepped into my office and demanded a word. Said something along the lines of “Boss, we’re f*cking tired, we’ve worked day and night for ages. Sisyphus have an easier job than us. We’re going on vacation, indefinitely. You’ll notice when we get back. If we do…” And then they vamoosed. Alone in my office I later got a memo from my body, saying “Heard what your emotions just did. Those guys are so effin’ right. I’m checking out too. See ya!”

Strangely enough things have still happened even if I’ve tried my best to hibernate entire 2017.

When it comes to photography I have somehow managed to take pictures in my sleep. Some of them even got published on actual paper in two issues of the art magazine Endorphine Therapy Magazine. Big thank you’s to the editor Laurie Anne for including my work.

The kind people over at DeviantArt awarded me a Daily Deviation for my piece A Beautiful Death:

I also did a commissioned portrait session (I took pictures in exchange for renting a place, long live the barter economy!). I promised the model the pictures would stay between us, so you have to take my word for it when I say they turned out really good (I had an excellent model). But most of all it was fun! I’m the only model I usually work with, because I am always available, very cheap, and always do what I say; but I can both do and learn so much more when I am behind the camera all the time. I’d love to do more of these portrait shoots, so if anyone is interested, please let me know. I travel a lot, so location isn’t a big deal, and the whole thing can stay between photographer and model. I don’t care about stuff like gender or age or things like that, I just want to shoot carbon-based lifeforms. Are you one of those and want to model, give me a holler.

The best photography adventure of the year was when I got invited to Poznan, Poland for a collaboration with artist Ewelina Dudaszek. We shot in an abandoned train factory, in a lake, in a cellar, and around in Poznan, and I had a great time. And for once I was in front of the camera more than behind it. Read more about that endeavour and see the pics in my blog “Steampunk and stomach flu in Poznan”

I really should do more collabs, get inspiration and fresh input, see new things, spitballing ideas, improvise, go nuts. If anyone feels like doing that, I’m game!
Most of all I hope my creativity will return from its vacation. I can shoot pics on pure muscle memory, but I really miss the creative process and having ideas.

About writing.
I actually write every day, because that’s how I pay my bills. But it is work-stuff, and you won’t be able to read it anywhere with my name attached. And work-writing is about making clients happy, not art.
But a lot of people ask me about the recent years lack of books, columns, articles, blog posts, captions and all that stuff I used to make a lot of. If I had a penny every time someone asked when my next book/play/article is coming, I could build a bridge to Saturnus made of diamonds. So I’ll try to explain the story behind this, and hope I can make a long story short…

Once upon a time I had so much stress in my life it broke me. Fun fact: long-term stress can mess up your autonomic nervous system and your body chemistry, causing burnout, severe exhaustion (the kind a good night’s sleep can’t fix, maybe not even a good year’s sleep), pain, illness, and depression. So all that happened. It wasn’t fun. And even if I got better it’s like a bum knee – put too much strain on it and it breaks again. I’m very sensitive to stress since then. And boy have there been a lot of stress these last couple of years. Like, I could export it to China and still have enough to give away to charity. So I am currently broken again. My energy-levels are… let’s say that a normal person sleep for 8 hours to be able to do stuff the rest of the day; my ratio is more rest 20 hours to have the energy to do stuff for 4 hours. I run out of energy faster than a phone with 4 326 apps running at once. And then there’s the depression. When people hear that word they think “sad”, but that’s a feeling, like when your cat leave you for someone else and you get down about it. Depression and sadness are two very different things. When someone depressed say that they are just that, people get it wrong and usually respond with something like “then use your pain to make art”. But depression isn’t a feeling. It’s an illness caused by chemical imbalance in the brain. A lot of things happen, but most of all your emotions fail. Not all at once, first the good ones malfunction, leaving you with the negative stuff like despair, pessimism, helplessness and anxiety; but eventually those falter too, and then there’s just emptiness. The kind of emptiness that make the dead space between the stars look like the front row on a Justin Bieber gig. There’s just … n o t h i n g…
You know when you have a cold and even the most delicious spicy food taste like over-boiled cardboard? That’s what it’s like to have depression, but not being able to sense emotions instead of not being able to sense flavour.

I’m sorry for the long and dreary lecture on clinical depression, but I wanted to explain my lack of creative writing once for all. It’s not about laziness, excuses, writers block, or being too busy beating level 146 in Homescapes. Having barely enough energy to put my socks on, in combination with being totally dead inside, makes even writing a shopping-list with three items an insurmountable challenge. I can’t write any more than someone with a broken leg can run. My creative vehicle won’t go anywhere until I have repaired the engine and have gas in the tank again. But broken things heal. I will return back to regular programming when my broken parts are fixed again. Count on it. There will be words.

 

What about life in 2017 then?

Well. I am still technically homeless. I’m not sleeping under a bridge or anything (the trolls threw me out because I snored). I mostly do a combo of couch-surfing and short-term renting. I have once again slept in more beds than I can count. I know that sentence sounds very promiscuous, but the only time I woke up beside a strange face was when the cat Roman slept on my back (much to Roman’s human’s surprise, Roman doesn’t like people and generally avoid anyone but his human, which again brings suspicion that I am not actually “people”).
There are ups and downs with this way of living. The ups are the constant input of new places and people and impressions. It’s an inspiring adventure, stimulating my curiosity, and it brings a lovely perspective with a constant flow of new things. The downside is that beside my bag of clothes, nothing is mine. Not the furniture I sit and sleep in, not the art on the walls, not the cup I drink my coffee in. And I’ve always been very particular about those kind of things, accepting only unique, carefully chosen, personalised things with my mark on them. Living in places that are not designed by me or filled with my choice of stuff have sort of made me forget who I am and what I like. I feel like a garment that have lost its colour from being washed too many times.

I will probably get myself a home in 2018. There’s really no practical obstacles in the way, my biggest problem right now is that my heart isn’t in it. Too many derailed moving-plans have deflated my enthusiasm. But I think I will shop around for a place to drink my coffee from my own mug in. Any suggestions? It has to be a big city, not have snow in the winter (or at least not very much or for very long), and preferably be by the sea. I’ve lived in Sweden most of my life so I don’t mind living somewhere else, and my kind of work can be done from anywhere as long as there’s wifi.

And speaking of living abroad. While I was collaborating in Poznan I stayed in Poland for some time. We kind of get along me and Poland. Especially the people and the art. Politics, not so much. But I feel relaxed there. And Poznan was a very nice city to stay in. I suspect the winds will bring me back to Poland again…

 

I’ve been too tired and empty to care about what’s going on in the world 2017, but one thing that got to me was the #metoo movement. Back when I wrote my first book more than ten years ago (for you non-swedes – it was a satirical analysis of what it means to be a man, and the set of rules coming with behaving “manly”) the research and the writing of it took me from being just another clueless “not all men”-guy to being very upset about the state of gender equality and how we look at gender roles (especially the male one). I felt a revolution was needed. Now the first part of that revolution is here. Women have finally had enough of taking shit from men. Now the next step of the revolution is for men to stop delivering said shit, and get a new, fresh “How to be a man”-manual, because there’s dinosaur excrement on the old one. I really hope I can write about that in my 2018 year-in-review.

But it was a good year to be hiding from the world, because when I hide from the reality I hide in the world of art. And 2017 had some magnificent art, especially on the screen. Denis Villeneueve proved with his Blade Runner 2049 that you can make both astonishing, unique sci-fi and honour the original. Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi broke the rules for what a Star Wars movie is, and took the franchise to the next level. American Gods not only was a great version of Neil Gaiman’s story, it was a unique show with a wonderful take on religion and sexuality (c’mon, how often do you get to see a show with a man swallowed by a vagina and with sex between two Middle Eastern men, and it doesn’t even feel provocative, just a natural part of the story). David Lynch have never been more Lynchian than in his revisit to Twin Peaks, and it was even more weird and wonderful than we ever dreamed it could be.
But the tv-moment for me was of course when Peter Capaldi passed on the torch and left Doctor Who. His Doctor is probably my favourite, and dead as I am inside I bawled like a baby when he uttered his last words, “Doctor, I let you go”, and regenerated. But for the first time ever the next Doctor is a woman. Finally! Jodi Whittaker is going to ace this one. She owned the first 30 seconds of the role. And you gotta love someone that delivers that first crucial line in such a thick Yorkshire accent that “Oh, brilliant” sounds like “Branknana”

But the best part of my 2017 is the people. For hiding from the world as much as I do, kind and interesting strangers sure do find their way into my life. They just pop up, and share their troubles, worries, stories, art, dreams, hopes, …even the end of their lives. And I am surprised, intrigued, humbled, and most of all grateful for that. They have reminded me that the world is more than the inside of my head, that there is fun to be had even in the dark moments, that loners also need others from time to time, and that we all are brothers and sisters and need to help each other out. Thank you strangers-becoming-friends, for reminding me what life is all about.

 

I have no wishes, resolutions, plans or anything else for 2018. I will improvise this one.
But I’ll do my best to not hit snooze this year too…

 

And now for my favourite music/books/tv/movies of 2017…

Music:
Arch Enemy, The Chain Gang of 1974, Flor, Handsome Ghost, Igorrr, MUNA, Olafur Arnalds, Pale Waves, The Rescues, SikTh, Spiritbox, Von Grey

Books:
Neil Gaiman: Norse Mythology, Grady Hendrix: Paperbacks from Hell, Caitlin R Kiernan: Agents of Dreamland, Philip Pullman: La Belle Sauvage

Movies:
Okja, Dunkirk, Baby Driver, Your Name, Logan, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, Raw, Blade Runner 2049, The Shape of Water, The Last Jedi

TV:
American Gods, Ash vs Evil Dead, Broadchurch, Channel Zero: No-end House, Dark, Doctor Who, The Exorcist, Fortitude, Game of Thrones, The Gifted, Legends of Tomorrow, Legion, Lucifer, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, Stranger Things, Taboo, Twin Peaks, Walking Dead

 

Take care of yourselves, and have a really wonderful 2018!
/Peter

 

Listening to: Eivor
Reading: John Constantine Hellblazer
Watching: Doctor Who fan edits
Drinking: Merlot

Every carbon-based lifeform on this planet seem to be in agreement that 2016 sucked. And it’s been a hard and sad year, in many ways. A year that took David Bowie, Prince and Alan Rickman as an appetizer, went on like a school of piranhas with a binge-eating disorder, and finished with the grand finale of ruining Christmas by killing off George Michael, Carrie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds (dying of a broken heart just one day after her daughter). 2016 wanted our tears, and it got a river of them.
But I think we mourn more than just people we loved and cherished. This is also the death of an era. The people we have lost became our heroes because they were themselves in ways most of us never dare. They had a rare oddity inside that they let flourish and bloom, we gladly let them, and in return we got the most wonderful art. They don’t make them like that anymore, and when we lose them now, we also lose the era of being unique, awesome, and true. Of singing your own song, and dancing to your own beat. That is perhaps the biggest loss of all.

This has also been a year when democracy got elbowed in the kidney by mean-spirited bullies. When facts and knowledge became useless, and the fakes and lies took the stage. When tragedies came in the form of truck attacks and sunken boats. When an ignorant, misogynistic, spiteful oompa-loompa got elected as a powerful world leader. When people fled war and death, and our response was to become selfish xenophobes. It’s been a year of suffering, bullshit, discontent, egoism, hate, sorrow, and bad sequels (I’m looking at you ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’). There wasn’t even a season of Doctor Who this year for fraks sake!!! 2016 was a stinky old diaper of a year, and it feels like there are so many reasons to feel despair.
But you know what? Let’s not. Let’s be wise and kind. Let’s be weird and hopeful. Let’s care about truths and facts and honesty. Let’s celebrate diversity and uniqueness. Let’s open our hearts and expand our minds. Let’s be better than this. We are not helpless – we are writing our own stories. Let it be a really good one for 2017, and beyond.

My personal life 2016 has been … let’s use the word ‘challenging’.
This story is still in the middle of the chapter, and I want to wait with telling all of it until it’s coming to a natural page-break, but it’s been a year in transit. I’m still on my way to my next destination, and the road is full of twists and turns, so the journey has taken longer than planned. Which means that I’ve been homeless this year. Not in the ‘sleep under a bridge’ sense of course, but in a ‘living in my bag and never staying long in each place’ way. I’ve slept in more than ten different beds during the year (most of them in southern Poland or northern Sweden). I feel like a touring rock star, but without the free booze or the screaming fans (so I guess I feel like a roadie).
It’s a strange and funny life. I’ve felt welcome and familiar in a place where I don’t even speak the language, and completely lost and alien in the place I grew up.

Navigating through everyday life has been more or less a full time job. I’ve learned tons about myself and about the world, and I’m very grateful for it, but at the end of the day it’s really exhausting. And it’s really been messing with my serotonin levels (hello darkness my old friend). When people ask why I haven’t written any book this year, I want to answer “for the same reason people don’t do math tests while riding a rollercoaster”. But experience is always valuable, and my story- and idea-storage is filling up to the brim. Once I get home and can sit down in peace, there will more stories than I’ll have time to write during my lifetime.

So my creative output hasn’t been the most impressive this year. You know when you open up Photoshop on your laptop, but the anti-virus software is already hogging so much memory and processor power that it’s impossible to run anything else, it’s only crashing or running so slow it’s basically not running at all? That’s how my mind’s been 2016. The overload of life’s troubles and worries have stolen all my processor power, and there’s been little left for the creative processes.
But since rent have to be paid and cheese is not free, I’ve done a bit of this and that. Most of it not worth writing home about, but there are some things that have been out of the ordinary. For very different reasons.

Let me begin on the bad end of the scale. I like to try new things. I’ve written for comedians and lawyers, created scripts for talk show hosts and programs for operas, written horror and social satire, and tons of other stuff. It’s fun and educational to jump around different fields. So I decided to dip my nose into this content writing the kids are talking about these days. What is this ‘content writing?’ I hear you ask. Well, it’s all this “Ten reasons why Hollywood won’t hire Jar-Jar Binks anymore” and “You won’t believe this hungover piglet’s reaction when it reads its horoscope” you procrastinate with when you should be working. The stuff that fills the internet. Now I’ve tried it. And … Worst. Job. Ever. First of all, it pays so bad I’ve would have made tons more if I had used that time to rob squirrels of their nuts. But the worst part was the deception. I love making things up, but then I clearly put a label on it saying “This is a story, I made it all up, it’s not true”. Now I’ve written positive reviews of things I’ve never touched, created travel guides for places I’ve never been, and much worse. I feel dirty. And I feel regret. This world has more than enough of deception, illusion and fakery. I’ll make amends for this when I find a really good way to do it, but for now – don’t believe everything you read. Really don’t!

On the positive end of the work-scale I got a gig that certainly should have been on my bucket list if I even had dared to dream about it. The Spanish publisher Quaderns Crema decided that of all the images in the world, they wanted to use my ‘Wheels of Time’ for the cover of their collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry. Edgar fucking Allan Poe! I’m so proud that even my hair is doing the happy-dance. I can die happy now…

I’m also a bit proud of the script I wrote for this commercial for a last minute restaurant seat app/service. It turned out as a really cute and fun and positive little video. It’s in Swedish, but it’s a couple of seconds of fun for all languages.

 

Clumsy me managed to drop my camera in the ground, but I gave it some first class health care, and it’s up and running again. I’ve taken a picture or two during the year that I’m proud of.
The very nice people over at deviantART gave me a Daily Deviation for my picture ‘The Night Reader’. I’m actually very happy with this picture, because it was just a spur of the moment improvisation/test to see what could be done with available light, and it turned out better than things usually do when I think them through carefully. 🙂

My personal favourite of all the photons that have entered my camera is this picture. It has two of my favourite subjects in it – hands and water.

 

During years like this one it’s really good to have art as a hiding place from reality. There’s been a lot of really good music, books and moving pictures. Here are my personal favs:

Music:
Broods, Devin Townsend Project, Gojira, HANA, Immanu El, Killswitch Engage, Meshuggah, Moda Spira, The Naked and Famous, Periphery, Serpentine Dominion, Tegan and Sara, Voices From The Fuselage, Young Summer

Books:
Neil Gaiman: The View From the Cheap Seats, Matt Ruff: Lovecraft Country, Dexter Palmer: Version Control, Ken Liu: The Paper Menagerie

Movies:
Kubo and the Two Strings, Captain America: Civil War, The Witch, Deadpool, Green Room, Arrival, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Rogue One

TV:
Westworld, Class, Channel Zero: Candle Cove, Ash vs Evil Dead, Legends of Tomorrow, Lucifer, Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, The Man in the High Castle, The OA

So… 2017 is here. Here’s what I’m going to do with it:
Create more. Especially write more.
Experience glory and adventure.
Sleep for a month. Wait, make that two months.
Hug like an octopus made of glue.
Humanity disappointed me in 2016, so I’m going to try to be a better human 2017. Maybe it’s contagious…
Be as unique as I can. Sing my own song as only I can, even if it sounds like a bunch of tone-deaf cats having an orgy.
Cherish knowledge and facts. Be honest and true.
Be grateful. The things I love and care about the most are alive and well and still in my life. That’s all I really care about.
Go home. To where I can live, laugh and love. To where my heart belongs, and my soul is peaceful.
Finish this chapter. It’s a good story after all, with a wonderful ending in sight, and I can’t wait to get there, and tell you all about it.

Take care of yourselves. Be wise, be kind, be awesome, and have a really wonderful 2017.
/Peter

 

Listening to: Tony Anderson
Reading: Thomas Olde Heuvelt: Hex
Watching: Sherlock
Eating: Cheese

Tempus fugit faster than a butterfly-fart on fire, and things change. 2015 was a year when a lot changed for me. A year of ending and beginnings.

It’s been an unforgettable journey. Slow, sad and dark at times. Wild, crazy and adventurous at others. Sentimental, scary, hopeful, refreshing, exhausting, fun, educating… you name it. But it’s all been valuable. Even the bad bits, in their way, because everything’s a lesson, and nothing worth having ever comes easy. (Except perhaps the male orgasm, it usually takes very little work, and is always appreciated by those having it)

One thing that ended was ye ole teamwork of Eriksson & Holmlund. It was a peaceful and friendly ending, and it will continue to be a very good friendship. No need for sympathies or pity or anything like that. But if someone want to buy me a drink I’m on anytime. I can’t for the life of me don’t understand why there need to be a breakup or something before friends can get drunk together, I’m sure it’s the hamster’s birthday or something we can use as a reason.
Anyway, besides friendship the digital publishing house Turtle Bite Books is also still a common endeavor, and new books are on their way.
Everyone’s fine, and life goes on.

I have moved. Or to be more specific: I’m still in transit. I should have put my bags down in London this fall, but since life is full of unexpected twists and turns, I haven’t. Yet. While me and my bags are on our way, I live pretty much everywhere. Most of all in Poland. It’s been an extremely healthy trip outside my comfort zone to be a stranger in a strange land, not knowing the language, or anything else.
Not knowing the language is an amusing adventure. Ever since I accidentally bought buttermilk instead of ordinary milk, and had the worst cup of tea in my life (it tasted like expired beaver puke), I have begun to use the Google Translate app on everything I’m not sure what it is. Problem is, as soon as the label isn’t in clear, well-spaced Arial, the app gets a bit confused. So far I’ve had soup with ‘dragon’ and ‘snake’ as ingredients, I’ve been instructed to add “a spoonful of monsters”, and the laundry detergent was “concentrated lawsuit”.
But dziękuję Poland for being a kind host. Your vodka is excellent, your artists even better, and your food prices that make it possible for me to buy a week’s dinners for what I used to pay for half a peanut back in Sweden has been a wonderful disaster for my waistline. Now, just get rid of those medieval blasphemy laws, remember what democracy is, and start smiling, and everything will be peachy.

And while we’re on the subject of Poland. Last year I discovered that pictures have a language of their own, tell stories just as words does. I also discovered that my pictures most likely spoke Polish, because I got a lot of feedback from Polish artists. With one of them, Ewelina, our common languages were so many and went so deep that the cooperation kicked in the door and didn’t take no for an answer. We are writing, creating stories, conjuring up images, composing music, turning dreams and fantasies and magic into reality. It just flows. It is very amazing to have found my kindred soul.
It’s all still work-in-progress, but expect to hear a lot from team Eriksson & Brzozka in 2016.

Lives ended. We lost legends like Leonard Nimoy, Robin Williams, Christopher Lee, Terry Pratchett and Lemmy. I lost people close to me. Some long before their expiration-date. Some that I even didn’t get a chance to meet face-to-face before they suddenly left.
Life isn’t fair. Never been. The only antidote is to always follow your heart and your dreams. Never wait, only live and laugh and learn.

I think that I finally defected from reality this year. You are kind of nice, Real World, I’ve always liked you in one way or the other, but you have lost your heart. I need a warmth and a kindness you don’t seem to have anymore. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to live in you anymore. But I’m sure we’ll see each other at some Christmas party or something. Take care of yourself!

I’ve written. Quite a lot actually. Some of it the most important I’ve ever put in words. Nothing ended up in any bookstores this year. But don’t worry, things will. Even if I will have to drop handwritten notes between the shelves in secret.

I took pictures. Only about half as many as last year (+10 000 jpg’s in my end-of-the-year backup). I must be making less mistakes. 🙂
I even got paid to do it (why can’t my hobbies ever stay hobbies?). The cartoonist/author Tony Cronstam needed new portraits, and I gave it a shot. It involved laughter, hugs, pastries and cognac. And good results. It was much too fun to be called work. But I will gladly do it again, if anyone need a portrait and a good time. Just look how pretty and happy I made Tony look. 🙂

 

If you want to buy prints on everything from hq photo-paper and canvas to leggings and pillows, I’ve set up a shop over at Redbubble.

I’ve taken pictures just for the fun of it too. I was going to pick out one favourite, but I couldn’t. So I picked out the bunch that both I and people that are not me seemed to like the most.

 

I went to my Twitter-feed to see if it could help me summarize the year. I don’t think it did, but it’s a kind of a representative MRI-scan of that stuff between my ears that makes me have insane ideas and do crazy shit:

• Just took +100 pics of colostomy bags. And what have you done today?
• BB King once addressed Mick Hucknall as “Simply”, because he thought his name was Simply Red.
• Word of the day: OORIE – miserable as a result of cold weather.
• The blankets in my bed has accepted me as one of their own. If I leave I might lose their trust.
• Today’s best headline: “Earth endangered by new strain of fact-resistant humans.”
• Best poetry of the year came from a bad Chinese-to-English auto-translation on eBay: “Strong adsorbability, prevent the shift, water flow smoothly, Starfish shape adds funny”.
• It’s sink or swim, and I don’t know how to sink.
• Just had a beer that tasted like an iron fence, but in a good way.
• Today I accidentally created the genre “erotic butterfly comedy”.
• Dreaming summer dreams, because if you don’t dream, nothing ever happens.
• There’s something about finding empty condom wrappers in cemeteries that always make me smile.
• Just tasted the abomination of marzipan filled with salty liquorice. My suffering will be legendary even in hell.
• I’m so tired even my pockets are nodding off.
• Took a nap, and woke up from the fluttering of a lost butterfly trying to use my face as a landing spot.
• The joy of reading a brand new Terry Pratchett-book. And the deep sadness that it will be the last time I do.
• Things I’ve seen today: a fistfight, a butterfly, rats, tears, my own blood mixed with instant coffee, and hope in an unexpected place.
• Planning and designing my next home. Realise that I probably will have to do all my shopping in Diagon Alley this time.
• Sad me wanted to have cookies and brandy for dinner. Reasonable me said “No, fix things instead!” I hate being a grown up sometimes…
• Instead of doing something that resembles work, I’m googling pillow forts. I think my hibernating instincts are setting in.

 

Enough about my life.
Here’s the stuff I really liked 2015:

Music:
The Agonist, CHVRCHES, Fightstar, Flor, Ghost Ship Octavius, Goldmund, iwrestledabearonce, Killing Joke, Lifehouse, Marina Mena, Outside The Coma, Periphery, Ryn Weaver, Soilwork, Twelve Foot Ninja, Young Guns.

Best Song of the Year:

 

TV:
Daredevil, Sense8, Jessica Jones, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Penny Dreadful, Hannibal, Sleepy Hollow, Walking Dead, Ash vs Evil Dead, Helix, Wayward Pines, The Expanse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Books:
Neil Gaiman: Trigger Warning, Kelly Link: Get In Trouble, Terry Pratchett: The Shepherd’s Crown, Scott Hawkins: The Library at Mount Char

Movies:
Mad Max: Fury Road, An Honest Liar, Ex Machina, Bone Tomahawk, Shaun the Sheep, The Little Prince, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best acting & best anti-war speech:
Peter Capaldi’s been on fire as the 12^th Doctor this season. The man’s embraced the role like no one else has, and I’ve had to rewatch every episode because Capaldi’s been chewing scenes with such brilliance I’ve forgot the plot. In ‘The Zygon Inversion’ he’s not only giving a masterclass in acting, but also giving us all the reasons no one can ever win a war…

 

Well, you have a wonderful 2016 now my darlings!
In this coming year, I hope that you will laugh, learn, live and love.
Don’t wait – do. Tempus fugit really fucking fast.
Don’t regret. The past is just an old stick drifting away in the river.
Create something. If you had fun doing it, then it’s a success. And don’t mind if you suck at it, all art has a place (and others will probably love you for making them look good).
Use your brain and your heart all that you can. The world needs kindness and wisdom like never before.
Be nice. Be happy.
Today, and all of your tomorrows.
♥
/P.

Listening to: Ine Hoem and Sikth
Reading: Molly Tanzer: Vermilion
Watching: The Expanse
Drinking: Havana Rum Coffee