YOURS0026 a letter from isak to TTA

dear friends

after indulging in a singapore sling at the raffles hotel, (the hotel hasn't been the same after they abolished the formal dress code), feeling rather lonely amongst all the people and mildly poetic, I found myself writing this letter to you.

"you"; since I do not wish to be rude, but rather the fact that I think that "you", as in the reader of this letter, are alone in front of your computer.

my real name is isak landaboure. i grew up in gothenburg, or rather a suburb to gothenburg. which suburb serves little relevance in depicting the person that is me. however, it should be stated that being a child of; readers, foreigners, travelers and foremost workers, has formed me into something that incredibly few can relate to or even imagine, funnily enough.

i realize that i might be vague in what I'm trying to say, so i'll try to
sum it up without being to vibrant in my descriptions:

all my life, I thought myself as rootless, or accurately "partially
rootless". i guess it can better be described as perceiving gothenburg, as "the heart", but sweden not as "the body", leaving the conclusion that my patriotism is only regional. i found myself looking for peers or similar-minded people (one might argue against it, but humans are flock-animals) in order to establish some sort of dialogue (or pity). however I found it as hard as finding a liverpool inhabitant that does not know the lyrics to "You'll never walk alone". hard that is.

at an early age, my father taught me that coming from a working class background does not enable you to indulge. indulge in food, music, sports, culture, criminality and love in addition to this knowledge, i found myself traveling the world, eating
all different foods with different tastes and shapes, widening my musical spectrum, ending up somewhere in between ODB and edith piaf. running, boxing and kicking my way through various different sorts of sports, winning the swedish championship in handball, and being part of the national karate-team (I know look back at it mildly enthusiastic), painting graffiti (a habit I still can't kick) and finally indulging myself in both women and drugs.

and wherever i turned, i found no understanding nor pity for my behavior.

that is, until I heard The Tough Alliance.

i am not going to dwell upon descriptions of excellency nor geniality, since one must take in account that the brilliant people that we meet in life should inspire you, not restrain you (take no heroes, only inspiration). but, i guess that i, isak landaboure, really want to say: thank you, both informally and formally.

thank you, for writing the soundtrack of my life, or parts of it.

it might be considered quite ironic to thank someone or somebody for exploring the outside of a frame, since it inevitably puts them back into the frame. one might also wonder about the quite laughable matter of me, the writer of this letter, using english in order to show my gratitude, since both my swedish and french are more developed. but I guess it enlightens the world we live in today, also known to a few, as "the spectacle".

again, thank you. and please do forgive me for all this highly inappropriate ranting, i suspect that it is the singapore-sling talking.

yours sincerely

isak

SY february 2007


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