an anthropology of creativity and freedom
Cislunar space is the name for the volume of space between Earth and Moon. This space is sparsely occupied, mainly by one international space station and a steady growth of satellites and space junk in orbit around Earth. Now and then, an asteroid passes by close enough to earn it the name near-Earth-object or –... Continue Reading →
On August 27 2020 I am scheduled to attend the annual European Astrobiology Network Association Conference. Yet on the same day, NASA is hosting the annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference. Because it is still ‘during the corona’ in the United States and in Europe both conferences have been moved online so I... Continue Reading →
As 2020 wears on, Mars is all over the news. There’s corona, there Black Lives Matter, there’s Beirut, there’s starvation, there’s Hong Kong, there's Trump & Biden, and now there’s Mars. SpaceX has successfully launched astronauts going to the International Space Station from the US for the first time since 2011. I had no idea... Continue Reading →
The map-making angle seems for the longest time to be a dead end. ‘During the corona’ I get the fantastic idea one day that I can interview WASD20 through Zoom. WASD20, whose name it turns out is Nathan, teaches American history at a high school. I quiz him about the economy of youtube channels and... Continue Reading →
In 1928, Virginia Woolf was asked to give two lectures on the topic of Women and Fiction at two women’s colleges in Cambridge. Her digressions over the title she had been given to lecture on resulted in her book “A Room of One’s Own” (Woolf 1929). Why is it, she pondered, that she was asked... Continue Reading →
In 2017, Queen Anastasia, the sovereign Monarc of Ruritania, hosted the biannual convent of MicroNations in Atlanta, Georgia. Ruritania is a micronation hidden an unknown place in Europe. “Most of my citizens never even meet me” she tells the interviewer from Vice News. “They send in the application, I approve it. We also get a... Continue Reading →
Determined to explore the youtube angle further, I have been to the high street of the little Danish village where I am holed up having secured a room of my own to concentrate and write. So far I have ‘done’ by means of shopping – I have bought drawing utensils suddenly overcome be an urge... Continue Reading →
Nick and I were lying in bed one night in our rented apartment at Ibiza. The kids had just fallen asleep after a long evening of card games and laughter followed by me reading aloud a few chapter’s from The Bend Coin. Such harmonious and close-knit evenings with the kids happen rarely to us, the... Continue Reading →
Something is beginning to bother me. Why are there only men in my stories? Why are they all middle-aged? “I think,” said my self-taught carpenter partner when I turn to him with my insistence that there is an important link between Utopia, Mars, and the founding of micronations at Sea, “I think”, said Nick, “you... Continue Reading →
A pattern begins to appear. Something about border politics. Something about not only wanting to get something, but also about wanting to get away from something: Michael Oliver wanted to flee the America of welfare rights and civil rights. A world he felt would propel North America into socialism and chaos (Hennessy 2018). Lazarus Long... Continue Reading →
Mars: A Room of My Own 