Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
Discreetly hidden under the northern side of the eastern bridgehead of rural Täckhammar bridge is a spray-painted mural. I found it while checking for geocaches. It depicts an evil-looking male face accompanied by a really funny piece of Satanist prose poetry.
"Dark vengeance of cryptic slaughter and Satanic suffering. The boundaries of Hell will brake [!] and humanity fall into frantic oblivion. Hatred and pain will forever rule the realm of Man."
Dark Vengeance is a 1998 computer game. Cryptic Slaughter was an 80s thrash metal band. "Frantic oblivion", though an oxymoron, is actually a common expression with many google hits. The mural is protected from the elements down there, and my guess is that it was sprayed a decade ago (note the algae covering the left-hand margin) by some metal-head teen. I wonder if he still foresees the braking of the boundaries of Hell.
[More blog entries about graffiti, thrashmetal, satanism; graffiti, thrashmetal, satanism.]
Comments
Thank goodness somebody put the brakes on the ever-expanding boundaries of hell. I was worried there for a minute.
That reminds me of this: http://pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF105-The_Schlorbians_Strike_Again.jpg
Posted by: reh | April 30, 2010 5:25 PM
Haha, that's great!
Posted by: Martin R | May 1, 2010 5:10 AM
Do Swedes commonly spray their graffiti in foreign languages, or was Täckhammar the site of an international millennial head-banger concert a decade back?
How many comparably verbose samples of metal-ista graffiti samples could neo-archaeologists find in the US with English spelling that good?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 1, 2010 11:01 AM
Yes, a lot of Swedish graffiti are in English. Post-WW2 cultural imperialism. I type this in English while wearing blue jeans and my daughter is wearing her plains Indian outfit.
Swedish metal heads tend to be a little on the nerdy side. (-;
Posted by: Martin R | May 1, 2010 12:17 PM
I wonder how many/percentage of various inscriptions, murals, carvings, etc. in the archaeological record are 'similarly' made by semi-disgruntled teens/young adults asserting their individuality/coolness.
Posted by: Prof.Pedant | May 1, 2010 1:07 PM
If y'all were really under the sway of modern American pop culture (and I doubt most USAnians have seen anyone wearing a plains Indian outfit for years, except those consuming or producing in the tourism industry), you would get the spelling right [more wrong]!
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 1, 2010 1:30 PM
So, when are you gonna have a post on Scandanavian Viking Metal? I'm listening to Amon Amarth's "Twilight of the Thunder God" right now. The lyrics are English, the band's name is Sindarin, and the music is... quite charming.
For example, "Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzv7DAgqhvk&feature=related
Posted by: jomega | May 1, 2010 5:45 PM
AA's singer's sister is a regular Aard reader!
Posted by: Martin R | May 1, 2010 5:55 PM
The four symbols are pretty intriguing. Stylised runes? "k-u-s-o"?
Posted by: Pär | May 2, 2010 2:56 PM
My guess is that they're occult sigils copied from some record sleeve. Latter-day echoes of the Led Zeppelin symbols, perhaps.
Posted by: Martin R | May 2, 2010 3:25 PM
Frantic Oblivion is a phrase from the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which would support a date of 1998 or shortly thereafter. Not sure whether the expression is also found in Hunter S. Thompson's original 1971 novel, but that would perhaps have been unfamiliar to the average Swedish metal-head teen anyway.
Posted by: codero | May 3, 2010 7:45 AM
Aha! I checked Google Books and found the phrase in a 1996 edition of the novel:
"... just a flat-out high-speed burn through Baker and Barstow and Berdoo and then on the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion: safety, obscurity, just another freak in the Freak Kingdom."
Posted by: Martin R | May 3, 2010 8:11 AM