At the Lighthouse

Professor: Now, we know for a fact that the flesh-and-blood writer of this story is a woman. But at what point in the story did you realize that the narrator is actually male?

Girl student: Well, for me it was something very specific. I mean, when the narrator talks about having had oral sex with a woman and describes the sensationof the roof her mouth as ”hard and warm”, I figure it would pretty much have to be a man.

Professor: Uh, yes. Yes, very good point. And that’s… that’s… that’s a darn good observation for a female writer to make, by the way…

- Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen

/marie

I work at the literature programme at the University Radio and love every minute of it, and not just because the work is rewarding. What makes it so great is just as well the incredible editorial staff that are my co-workers, and the good times we spend together. Because they are delightful people and their presence, being students of Danish Literature or Comparative Literature like me, allows for such wonderfully nerdy and humourous conversations and exchanges, the likes of which I have yet to find anywhere.

Someone really ought to overhear these conversations and post them online, overheardinnewyork-style, but since most of our hanging-out takes place at our regular pub, and since our regular pub is this very classy place, the majority of our conversation is lost upon drunkenly deaf ears, amidst loud jazz music, thick cigar smoke, and shout-outs at bartenders to bring down more beer.

Therefore, I have taken it upon my shoulders to write down and share with you a couple of my favourite exchanges, all derived from rendez-vous with my fellow editorial staff-members. Enjoy! I have resisted to share the names of my co-workers’ name out of respect for their privacy.

Me: Well, my surname is rather uncommon, and it wouldn’t go well with another uncommon surname, I think.

Editorial Staff Guy #1: Right. So you’d better find yourself a husband with a really common surname then, huh? Man, that would be a cool criteria for choosing a life-parther…

Me: Yeah. Like romantic dada-ism.

Editorial Staff Guy #1: Totally.

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Me: Where does your girlfriend live?

Editorial Staff Guy #2: Oh, she lives near Svanemøllen, you know that cosy Musician’s Quarter? She lives right next to that quarter. Where it’s really un-cosy.

Me: Yeah. Where everyone is always miserable. And no one is allowed to play any music there.

Editorial Staff Guy #2: Right! What they do there, is that they count things. It’s the Counting Quarter. Like: ”…780, 781, 782″ “What are you counting?” “…Dammit!!! …1, 2, 3, 4…”

————————————

Me: …and there she finds Bluebeard’s ex-wives hanging, all dead, and there’s blood all over the floor.

Editorial Staff Girl: God, that is so creepy! But what were there in the other six rooms then?

Me: I don’t know, actually.

Editorial Staff Girl: I bet there was cake in one of them. A whole room. With nothing but cake.

Me: Yeah!

Editorial Staff Girl: And then there was one with nothing but faux velvet.

Me: Ugh! *winces*

Editorial Staff Girl: Yes. That was when she should have known not to go any further.

 :D

And now, because I really don’t care as much about the privacy of my co-workers as I let on, here’s the most recent picture of the editorial staff, (that’s me with the fringe in the front row, looking selfconscious and oddly greasy-skinned). We’ve got that cosy, messy, camp-school look to us, I think, which seems very appropriate somehow.

/marie