Speech act story

Speech act story

John Bjarne Grover

Paul Grøtvedt, a good friend of mine from Oslo, originally from Fredrikstad, has a name reminiscent of Pearl Grotefend. He is a passionate pipesmoker, however much that may invoke ideas of links to P.O.Pedersens Vei at Isegran or the concept of a 'popesmiker'.

In the first half of the eighties some time, he said I could borrow from him a cottage on top of a small forested hill (a 'berg') in Bærum which he said he used to borrow from actress Bab Christensen and Lasse Kolstad (wellbearded actor, cp. 'la sekken stå' and 'Che Guevara'). Paul was apparently not an agent for these when he offered me the keys to the cottage on top of the hill, but there was something there. I did not know Bab Christensen or Lasse Kolstad.

I took the trip out to the cottage in Bærum and stayed at the place for a couple of days - reading Arne Næss: "Hvilken verden er den virkelige?" and drinking some whisky - before I returned the keys to Paul. I suppose I said thanks in some way or other, but perhaps not with the conventional speech act wording. Could be there were some associations connected with indexes which could cause a speech act 'thanks' to mis-imply consent on unfortunate things. It was not clear to me why he had offered me the use of his friends' cottage. Apparently it was because he was a good friend. Of them. Of me.

The story of the speech act is perhaps reminiscent of the story that attached to the three volumes of music notation studies (from a 'PANOT' project) I received from professor George J. Skapski at the California State University in 1991 after I had published my similar three volumes of music notation studies at University of Oslo in 1990. Skapski wrote that he had heard about my interest in pedagogy (maybe he had heard about my sister?). A leaf with underscored comments on a Wagner opera libretto had slipped in by accident in one of the volumes. For some reason or other, I did not manage to write back, not even only to say thanks for his studies, untill the year 1996, when I returned the leaf and a thanks in a letter of 6 October. Some months later, I received a letter from a friend of his (Daniel Kessner) at the same department who wrote on 21 Jan 1997 that Skapski had given in after a long battle against cancer some months earlier (August 1996), which means that he had died a few days before I sent my letter. I don't remember now if I had started writing it some time earlier. I went right from the post office where I got the letter and read it, to see an exhibition with 'Fast Forward' style works from the nearby school, and met Anne-Helen Mydland who had exhibited her 'Lady Lazarus' hommage to Sylvia Plath, a sculpture of a body trunk in three parts - which, though, as well could be an interpretation of the three parametres in my study of Israel and the cognitive categories as these three volumes from Skapski.

'Speech Acts' = chapter Twelve (of) Acts of the Bible, about the norses. (See the chapter on 'Israel and the cognitive categories').

There have been a few 'skap-skies' (information left on top of high cupboards) after that story. Could be that was after the news about Daniel Pearl.

Daniel Kessner with Paul Grötvedt gives Daniel Pearl and Grotefend. The 'gråte-venn' of 'a Skapski'.

My thanks to Bab Christensen and Lasse Kolstad for the use of their cottage.

Which of course does not mean that I agree to have my skull sawed up.

I notice that the name 'Paul Grøtvedt' lends itself by an easy and relevant rewrite into 'Saul Grøver' from those chapters of (speech) Acts, as if the schedule were to have me turned into the most ardent nazi after the 'conversion'. That conversion won't come! And I am certainly not going for a pulk-race: If any such converted John Bjarne Grover, former Auschwitz prisoner, should pop up with heavy nazi propaganda, it isn't me and I would not have agreed to anything such. I have been led to meet several people who could have been central nazis and whom I could consider my friends - but I was never informed about any historic background and my knowledge of them can not be used for argueing that I support nazism in any form. I have asked to be relieved of the mythomaniac role for that nazi theatre. I am never going to see anything but a giant reactionary mistake in it. Future won't start progressing untill the nazis are out of power.