#kaur kender

[turianhumanclient]

What I know about the situation at Zaum Studio OÜ, developers of Disco Elysium

Perhaps you've heard of the deplorable situation of Disco Elysium's fired leads, of the oust by majority shareholder and CEO, of the lawsuits and rest of the cultural association and 'old guard' still at work there, quiet and held quiet by corporate policy and perhaps embittered by the 'auteur' theory holding parasocial public.

What I am going to share with you is information that is publicly available through Estonian and United Kingdom company registers. I haven't seen any news outlet feature this information yet.

WHAT IS NEW HERE?

Ilmar Kompus, the current CEO who was installed in 2020, had actually been a shareholder all along since Zaum Studio's founding in Estonia.

Kaur Kender, the author in his own right and producer at Zaum, has founded a lot of game development companies in Estonia and United Kingdom, while Zaum worked, published and updated Disco Elysium. These apparently went nowhere, some of them are now defunct. All of them had Ilmar Kompus or some ZAUM subsidiary as shareholders, and some also shared correspondence addresses with ZAUM's UK subsidiaries.

The 'game pitch' that cost Zaum 4,8 million euros and funded Kompus' acquisition of majority share from Linnamäe, the so called Pioneer One, has been previously reported by one gaming news outlet to have come via Anu Reiman's YESSIRNOSIR Limited. I have discovered that Kaur Kender held a game company in UK called Pioneer One Ltd that was active between years 2018-2022, and it had an Estonian artist Kristiina Ago as its secretary. I cannot prove that it was this entity that sold it instead, but it is a glaring coincidence nevertheless.

Kaur Kender and later Ilmar Kompus have founded a succession of ZAUM studios (Zaum London, Zaum UK, Disco Elysium UK and now Zaum Studio Limited) which have held the main development operations in UK. Kurvits and Rostov/Taal hold minority shares in Zaum UK. The later ones are all Ilmar Kompus-held in shares. I suspect this is a method of his to sever the fired leads' means of control to the company's branches in UK.

Both the 'main line' of Zaum's UK companies and Zaum Studio OÜ back in Estonia have loaned money to the tune of millions to Newelysium and Revachol in UK (Note, Revachol OÜ in Estonia is held by ZAUM cultural association members and is not a game studio)

What does it all mean then? I am not certain. I have not practical experience in game dev industry to say whether constantly making side companies or shells is a sign of a healthy leadership.

However looking at all the shell companies made near annually, and how the successive ‘main studios’ have consolidated into Kompus’ hands, I am going to speculate a bit. This has been a long con. Whether there was going to be a product that sold well or not, Kompus, Haavel and Kender were going be the ones collecting the jackpot. There were shell companies being established even as the game was floundering after the estonians’ walkout. All the ‘artists’ had to do was just do the work and not get in the way of money.

But then ZA/UM made an award-winning darling game of the year. TV show adaptation deals. Lead developers like Kurvits and Hindpere standing at the Game Awards Show spotlight. Audience eating up all that and latching onto whatever crumb and morsel might come next.

A clean exit sale out of a modest studio became impossible. Now there were developers in the studio who knew they were worth A LOT and with shareholders’ power both in Zaum Studio OÜ and Zaum UK Ltd to hamper any sale to Tencent, Amazon or Microsoft. Now we reach the part of “toxic misogynist auteurs trying to steal the IP for themselves.” who had to be let go.

Kender's lawsuit around the turn of 2022-2023 and divestiture of his Zaum Studio OÜ shares as result muddles the water for this speculated theory even more as he still holds directorship in a number of shell companies with Kompus back in UK. There is also Dark Maths Studios that he founded this April in UK, so it remains to be seen what he'll do and if its with Kompus and Haavel or alone.

[literallysatanofficial]

Alright, I'm going to attempt to hopefully clear up a few misconceptions and assuage some worries about this Disco Elysium sequel and the general situation at za/um right now.

I see the shitshow that is unfolding on social media, and as someone who has known about this whole disaster for over half a year now I'd like to weigh in on it and provide some context for everyone who may not know the full story.

First off, Robert Kurvitz was fired at the end of last year. December 2021. As is strongly implied on Martin Luiga's twitter, the reason for this is greed (calling them "money men" and "crooks" and other similar statements for like, months now), and the executive producers, Tõnis Haavel (who has previously been tried for fraud) and Kaur Kender (who has previously been tried for... other things.) screwed everyone over. Kender provided funding for the game, as the majority of the original za/um cultural association did not have the financial means to.

The original za/um cultural association consisted of Robert Kurvitz, Jüri Saks, Martin Luiga, and Aleksander Rostov, originally founded in in 2009. The group, along with Argo Tuulik, played many different ttrpg campaigns over the years, several of them set in Revachol (centred around Precinct 41), and slowly built the world up from there. Kurvitz released the book The Sacred and Terrible Air, set 20 years after Disco Elysium, back in 2013* but the novel flopped, and it was decided that they would make a video game. Rostov has always been more than just an artist for Disco Elysium, as you can see from the dev threads he frequently updated promoting the game, as well as on his personal instagram, tumblr sketch blog, and several other accounts he used while the game was first gaining traction.

*The most notable credits for TSaTA are as follows:

Author: Robert Kurvitz, Editor: Martin Luiga, Cover Design: Aleksander Rostov, Worldbuilding: Robert Kurvitz, Martin Luiga, Kaspar Kalvet, Argo Tuulik. Helen Hindpere and Kaur Kender also appear in the credits.

I say this because some of the staff at za/um are now accusing fans of being unable to overcome the "auteur theory" of it all (ie. seeing Kurvitz as the singular creative mind behind it all) but the fact is that they have now lost not only the original ttrpg campaign's game master, The Sacred and Terrible Air's author, and Disco Elysium's lead writer/director (Kurvitz) but also their lead writer for the Final Cut's political vision quests (Hindpere) as well as their "co-founder" and art director/designer (Rostov). They are all CREATIVE LEADS, and not just well known only for their reputations/titles.

Luiga himself (who originally broke the news) was an Elysium world builder and provided much of the pale and innocence-related lore. He was also a part of the original tabletop campaigns (Chester McLaine is his player character!), but left midway through Disco Elysium's development due to creative differences (or as he says, "bad vibes" at the company). He is credited as an editor, but claims to have written a good chunk of the text in the game, including much of Joyce's dialogue about the pale. I have seen people discredit him due to his early departure, but Rostov also tweeted out confirming that he, along with Hindpere and Kurvitz were no longer at the company, with no additional comments. Rostov also posted a drawing on his twitter several months back depicting a man jerking off over an NDA, so take that as you will.

So what does this mean for the future?

Luiga has said that he has hope for the sequel, which could either mean that the script was finished or nearing completion before Kurvitz was fired (likely, and fits a pattern in the industry) and it's just a matter of finishing the actual game development aspect, or it may be that he has hope for the original za/um creatives to be able to re-acquire the IP.

I think it's worth pointing out that the original pitch for "Disco Elysium" was actually "The Return", and Disco Elysium was meant to be the smaller-scale prequel to introduce players to the world. Considering that the team was planning on this sequel all along, I think it's possible that a large amount of the "original" game was written years ago, so it's not all that far fetched to believe that the basic outline may be finished, or even that a large portion of the script already exists. Keep in mind that there are a large number of writers for both Disco Elysium and The Final Cut, and it may still be possible to work with a base that the others provided. We have no idea how far into development the sequel may be. Of course, proceeding without three key members of the original team is kind of a kick in the balls, and imo really quite disgusting, especially with how long the company has been keeping their departures secret (dishonesty is not a good look lmao), but it may still be canon, true to the authors' vision, and genuinely a good game in the end.

Argo Tuulik, original Elysium world builder and part of the old ttrpg campaigns, as well as a main writer on Disco Elysium, is still working at za/um. Justin Keenan, former writer on The Final Cut who wrote the political vision quests alongside Helen Hindpere, still works at za/um (and has been promoted to lead writer, according to his LinkedIn), as does Kaspar Tamsalu, who painted several character portraits, (René and Gaston) and worked as a concept artist on the original game. Plenty of the original creatives still remain. The sequel could very well still be in good hands at the development level, even if the higher ups are "crooked".

So, in conclusion... If this game comes out and they still haven't worked things out with Kurvitz, Rostov and Hindpere? Honestly... fuckin' pirate it. But it is very likely it could still be a great game that plays out as it was meant to! All that being said, FUCK za/um as a company, don't support them through Atelier or their merch store. I wish everyone luck if they do attempt to get the IP back, and I sincerely hope this fan pressure will help get things moving for them.

[estherax]

Disco Elysium creative team VS Studio ZA/UM: the complete(?) timeline (updated on March 24th)

Recent news confused a lot of people, including me, so I made a timeline of events to understand the situation better! If you have any corrections, more info and sources feel free to reach out to me or add to this post!

Important parts are highlighted in orange, names and organizations to keep in mind are in italics, the newest corrections and updates are highlighted in green, other information elaborating on the situation is in (brackets).

October 1st, 2022. Martin Luiga puts out a Medium post announcing the dissolution of ZA/UM cultural association and confirming that Kurvitz, Hindpere, Rostov no longer work at ZA/UM studio "since the end of last year and their leaving the company was involuntary."

October 3rd 2022. Kotaku published an article, claiming "the studio hasn’t been transparent about what exactly happened with staff either." According to "two sources familiar with the situation, the studio’s internal announcement of Kurvitz’s departure late last year [2021] also contained a threat of possible legal action against him. Any split would have been made messier by Kurvitz and Rostov being shareholders in the studio, the sources said. It’s also clear ZA/UM has gone out of its way to try and keep the situation quiet. Kotaku reached out for an interview with Kurvitz in February [2022]. The studio declined on his behalf, but provided no indication the developer had already left the company." Kotaku also mentions a tweet from Martin Luiga announcing the dissolution of ZA/UM cultural association. One of Martin's tweets (further elaborating on the dissolution) was quote tweeted by user nob69691 with caption "the suits have killed disco", to which he responded with pictures of the game’s executive producers, Tõnis Haavel and Kaur Kender.

October 25th, 2022. Kotaku Australia reports Kurvitz’s company, Telomer, has filed an application against Studio ZA/UM to "obtain information and review documents." Court date is listed as November 28th, 2022.

Kotaku also reached out to Martin Luiga for a comment; when asked if the case’s purpose was to regain control of the Elysium IP, he responded, “What else could it possibly be?”

November 9th, 2022. Studio ZA/UM puts out a statement detailing the dismissed employees (unnamed) "had limited to no engagement in their responsibilities and work, created a toxic work environment, demonstrated misconduct towards other employees including verbal abuse and gender discrimination, and attempted to illegally sell ZA/UM's intellectual property".

In an Estonian newspaper, Estonian Ekspress, ZA/UM CEO Ilmar Kompus has further accused Kurvitz and shareholder Saandar Taal (Rostov's alias) of "humiliating colleagues and intending to steal IP" as well as "belittling women and co-workers."

Kompus added that their dismissal was demanded and carried out by Kaur Kender, executive producer on Disco Elysium and their direct manager at the time. Kender was placed on a leave of absence on medical grounds in late August according to Kompus.

Speaking to the Estonian Ekspress, Martin Luiga said he was "driven to drink by the unnatural work arrangement" at the studio. "The work was organised in such a way that the goal did not seem to be to make games, but rather to make people quarrel with each other."

(I am also adding anonymous claims, take them with a grain of salt)

One source that spoke to GamesIndustry.biz, who asked to remain anonymous, described the situation as "not black and white," and said that long-term staff were reluctant to speak out about Kurvitz’ behaviour because they respected him, and felt like they owed him for their positions. Sources that spoke to the Estonian Ekspress described a clash of two visions between the business team of ZA/UM led by Kompus, and the creative team formerly headed by Robert Kurvitz, which considered profit "secondary." This was corroborated by our sources, one of which described the situation as "CEO corporate scheming on one side, a toxic auteur on the other."

On the same day, Kurvitz and Rostov shared a Medium post explaining their side. Kurvitz and Rostov are minority shareholders in Studio ZA/UM, while "the majority of this company’s shares were initially held by Margus Linnamäe, who provided the initial capital. In 2021, Linnamäe was bought out by another minority shareholder," a company called Tütreke. They say this company "is a vehicle for two Estonian businessmen — Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel." Kurvitz and Rostov described Linnamäe as a trusted majority shareholder, but didn't share the same sentiment regarding Kompus and Haavel. "As soon as they became majority shareholders, we were quickly excluded from daily operations, our employment was terminated and our access to the company’s information was shut off. Our firing came weeks after we started asking for documents and financial data, which is still being kept from us. We have now learned that Tütreke OÜ must have obtained control over Zaum Studio OÜ by fraud. We believe the money used by Tütreke OÜ to buy the majority stake was taken illegally from Zaum Studio OÜ itself".

Studio ZA/UM denied any claims of fraud and insisted that dismissal of wokers "was a decision that had to be taken for the wellbeing of the collective."

Correction: Ilmar Kompus's statement came out first on Estonian Ekspress on November 8th 2022 21:06. His statement and Studio ZA/UM's statement given to GameIndustry.biz were reproduced and published in a GameIndustry.biz report on November 9th. Rostov and Kurvitz's Medium statement came out later on November 9th. GameIndustry.biz report added an excerpt from Medium on November 10th. (i used Wayback Machine to check this, the report was updated between 11:08 and 11:53)

November 9th 2022. Kotaku puts out an article, summarizing the above statments from Studio ZA/UM, Kompus, Kurvitz and Rostov. "When asked by Kotaku, a spokesperson for ZA/UM declined to elaborate beyond its original statement [about dismissal of employees over misconduct], including whether the allegations also applied to Rostov as well as Helen Hindpere."

23rd of November, 2022. PC Gamer reports a hearing was held in Harju County Court in October, where Kurvitz and Rostov argued that Kompus had allegedly sold four concept sketches (for Disco Elysium sequel), to Tütreke for just over €1 and then immediately bought them back for €4.8 million using Studio ZA/UM's money. This amount is what was apparently used to buy Linnamäe's large stake, and put it in the hands of Kompus. "Kompus allegedly hoped that ZA/UM and Disco Elysium could be resold quickly. [...] But there remained a problem: Robert Kurvitz is the creator of Disco Elysium, still owns a piece of it, and has the right to block any acquisition."

The latest legal battle was lodged by Kaur Kender, executive producer and marketing manager of the game, "who claimed in court that Kompus cheated him out of just under €1,000,000." At Kender's request, the court seized Kompus' stake in Studio ZA/UM to prevent a sale or transfer of holdings during the proceedings.

Haavel is also accused in the lawsuit of following Kompus' actions. The filing pointed out that the holder of the IP rights to Disco Elysium is a subsidiary called YESSIRNOSIR LTD, which is owned by ZA/UM UK. The director of ZA/UM UK is Anu Reiman, who is also reportedly a partner of Haavel's. Kender claims that Haavel's involvement is being "kept secret" because he's €11.2 million in debt as a result of his 2015 conviction.

Speaking to the Estonian Ekspress, Kompus denied the existence of a lawsuit against him, and Haavel called the allegations "completely absurd." Both were shown legal documents by the outlet and did not respond.

December 8th, 2022. According to GamesIndustry.biz article, Kaur Kender has withdrawn a lawsuit against Tütreke.

Studio ZA/UM provided a statement from Kompus, but could not provide a reason for Kender's withdrawal. Kompus says: "We are pleased that Kender and his attorneys have chosen to withdraw their lawsuit – one that should never have been filed in the first place. Their decision affirms there was no basis for their accusations and that I have acted appropriately and responsibly, as underscored by the corporate records I provided."

The article also mentions Studio ZA/UM was unable to provide an update on the suit's progression against Kurvitz's company, Telomer.

PC Gamer reached for comment, Kender stated that his lawsuit against the owner of Studio ZA/UM proved to be successful and provided a timeline of the lawsuit:

Kaur Kender's lawsuit against the owner of ZA/UM was successful.

Kaur Kender's (his company, Chromed Investing OÜ) lawsuit against the owner of Zaum Studio OÜ proved to be successful.

On October 25, 2022, Kaur Kender's company filed a lawsuit against OÜ Tütreke (Ilmar Kompus company), in which was demanded the seizure of Zaum Studio OÜ's share belonging to OÜ Tütreke.

On October 29, 2022, the Estonian court secured the action and shares belonging to OÜ Tütreke were seized.

On October 31, 2022, the order securing the action was forwarded to Nasdaq and the Estonian Business Register.

On November 1, 2022, Kaur Kender sent a letter in English to contacts, including Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel, stating that the minority shareholders demand the convening of a general meeting.

On November 4, 2022, Ilmar Kompus' company OÜ Tütreke paid a total of 4 million euros to Zaum Studios OÜ in two payments.

On November 11, 2022, Ilmar Kompus' company OÜ Tütreke paid 800,000 euros to ZA/UM Studios OÜ.

Ilmar Kompus referred in the corresponding payment orders: "Return of the amounts received on the basis of the contract on 12.2021-01.2022 due to the nullity of the contract".

To the extent that Ilmar Kompus returned the illegally taken 4,800,000 euros, Kaur Kender achieved the goal of the lawsuit filed, and the court proceedings in this case will be terminated.

PC Gamer also provided commentary and an excerpt from Estonian Ekspress: "Eesti Ekspress reports that Kompus "paid back" €4.8 million to Studio ZA/UM in November. The outlet says that the reason provided for the transaction was that the €4.8 million "was received on the basis of a void transaction." Eesti Ekspress points out that Kompus "controls both sides" of that void transaction. [...] By now transferring €4.8 million to the company to repay it for a "void transaction," the intended message seems to be that he didn't use company money to buy his shares. But why did he have the €4.8 million in the first place?"

Robert Kurvitz told PC Gamer that his party is aware of "Kompus’s view that the money taken from ZA/UM Studio was 'repaid'." Kurvitz says he's seen a "partial bank statement allegedly confirming such repayment," but remains unclear on the "source and legal nature of this repayment, and the further use of the allegedly repaid funds."

"Further, any 'repayment' of the company’s money which was used to illegally acquire a majority stake does not erase the main consequence of the initial injustice⁠—which is that Kompus remains the majority owner, a position that he was only able to attain by using the company’s money as his own," said Kurvitz. "In light of this, there has been no material change in our situation, and we continue to consider our legal options. We cannot comment on the decisions taken by Kaur Kender with regard to his claim, to which we were never a party."

March 14, 2023. GamesIndustry.biz reports legal dispute between Studio ZA/UM and the game's producer Kaur Kender has been resolved.

"ZA/UM has announced that ex-staffer Kender has repaid all debts owed to it. Also, per a court order, Kender has repaid CEO Ilmar Kompus for legal fees from a lawsuit that was eventually withdrawn back in December. Additionally, he's divested all his shares in the games company.

Studio ZA/UM says both Kurvitz and Rostov have dropped their "unfair dismissal" claims due to lack of evidence. However, the company says it continues to face a "series of baseless allegations from former employees" and expects more claims to "fall apart under legal and factual scrutiny."

March 16, 2023. In a statement sent to GamesIndustry.biz, Kurvitz and Taal (alias for Aleksander Rostov) said the press release is false in multiple areas. The pair maintain they are the remaining minority shareholders of the studio. The developers explained, "The press release implies that our employment claims against the studio were withdrawn for lack of evidence. They were not. We see our dismissal as part of a larger campaign against us and will pursue legal options accordingly." The statement adds that they disagreed with Kender admitting the lawsuit he withdrew in December 2022 was misguided.

"Kender's lawsuit was based on the misuse of ZA/UM's funds (€4.8 million) by the majority shareholders [Ilmar Kompus and Tõnis Haavel] to increase their own stake in the company. In the press release, Kompus and Haavel admit to this misuse, arguing only that the money has been 'paid back to ZA/UM,' " the duo explained.

"Paying back stolen money, however, does not undo the crime; here, it does not undo the majority that Kompus and Haavel have illegally gained in ZA/UM."

Additionally, they described that, unlike Kender, they will not be silenced in this ongoing legal dispute. "Unlike Kender, we have not participated in the looting of ZA/UM, and Kompus and Haavel have no power over us."

March 23rd 2023. GamesIndustry.biz updates initial post with a reply statment from ZA/UM. The studio reiterated that Kender admitted that the lawsuit was misguided on his part. It said, "In addition, as part of a court order, he also paid the legal fees for CEO Ilmar Kompus, who had to respond to that now-withdrawn claim." ZA/UM adds, "Using details like 'looting,' 'stolen money,' and 'crime' make for riveting reading but are far from reality. The actual harm to the studio is not from some fictional 'looting,' but rather from Mr. Kurvitz and Mr. Taal, while employed by the studio, refusing to do their jobs, creating a toxic workplace, demeaning colleagues, and attempting to misappropriate Studio IP."

Additionally, the studio explained that Kurvitz and Taal are welcome to challenge these facts in court.

(The next court hearing is scheduled for September 11th.)

[bluastro-yellow]

hello can u share the disco elysium video?

it's the People Make Games video on the scandal behind Kurvitz, Rostov, and Hindpere's firing (I think the first half is a useful recap and the interviews are interesting but I don't like the focus on Kurvitz's behaviour with everything else going on)

Argo Tuulik at 56:42:

"As far as I know, the idea to turn it into a game came from [Kaur Kender], as well as the idea, like a prototype for for- Harrier is actually Kaur's father, who was a murder detective in the Soviet Union Milit- the Militia.

And this scene where the inspector arrives on a scene and the stench of a corpse is so bad that they can't keep their gut in and throw up, this is also something that happened to Kaur's dad"

[creekfiend]

Can someone help me understand what this means

What is going onnnnnnnn

[yekokataa]

chapter 22 of polish boys dropped yesterday. in the previous chapter, we met abraham goldowski, our kaur kender stand-in, who threw our idealist gang into a game of ideological twister as they struggled to incorporate this moneyman into their group. chapter 22 revolves around the newspaper takeover, based on the real life events with the estonian cultural paper sirp. goldowski brings nine of our "street urchin" writers to the newspaper, shaking things up with a new editorial approach and causing quite the scandal, despite the fact that no one paid much attention to this paper until the establishment writers were suddenly ousted. suddenly, everyone in fake-poland despises our gang. it's a harsh change of events.

yet to come: abraham goldowski and sułislaw will resign in disgrace after publishing something they weren't authorized to publish, assuming the novel follows the real life events.

[lunar-lumi]

UPDATE! there’s still hope! kurvitz and rostov respond to za/um:

[margbarcisforever]

has anyone else stumbled onto (excerpts of) kaur kender’s writing during this disco elysium court stuff ? i am glad that guy was never the one writing the game lmao

[jeintalu]

KAUR KENDER TAAS KOHTU ALL

Kui Kaur Kender kirjutab nüüd romaani pealkirjaga "Z", siis kaevatakse ta taas kohtusse.

Seekord peab ta kohtus tõendama, et tema romaan "Z" on kunstiteos ega ole mõeldud poliitilise agitatsioonina. Eelmine kord pidi ta veenma, et tema romaan "Untitled" on kunstiteos ega ole mõeldud lapspornona.

Nii nagu enne, nii ka nüüd peab Kender vastama kohtus küsimustele, mida ta mõtles, kui ta selle romaani kirjutas. Nagu varemgi, kutsutakse välja tunnistajad, kes Kenderiga suhtlesid romaani kirjutamise ajal.

Ja loomulikult ka nüüd saadetakse Kender kohtupsühhiaatrilisse sundekspertiisi, sest ei prokurör ega kohtunik usu, et vaimselt terve inimene paneks oma romaani pealkirjaks "Z".

[magalarajoonideprohvetid]

blackouts [transgressive anthropology]

«Wow! I thought the lights went out!» (sudden exclamation by prof. Carlo Cubero at Debates in Anthropology lecture on the 15th of March 2018)

This moment is embedded in my memory, an ultimate manifestation of honesty, said out loud with no restraints, the peak of the lecture, the peak of the whole course – a sudden darkness. I do not know about you but I have on several occasions felt a sudden blackout, like the blink of an eye and I am not sure – did I just blink, did the lights go out for a micro-second, did my brain shutdown for a second, did I have a stroke, did only I (not) see it? Usually I have had others around me to calm me down, «Yes, we saw it also, I think the electricity flickered for a moment.» Is it you, Niko, sending us inter-dimensional messages through your most known invention, chthonic news through alternative current? If there would not be electricity in our households, would I even be writing about this phenomena, is momentary blackout a ‘thing’ without the light bulb? Or am I writing about something completely different, the blackout our unconsciousness creates when our consciousness is not ready for the incoming message?

writing culture

If there are any dogmas in anthropology, it is the inclusion of fieldwork into the methodological frame - for it to count as anthropology, a researcher needs to step out of academia and come back with outsourced data. Yes, it is extremely valuable that there is something new added to the usual academics circular referencing, agency has been given to the unheard and original voices. But in the same time questions arises - what is and when is anthropology? Is it students reading the theories? Or is it anthropologist on the fieldsite? James Clifford analyzes the cover picture of Writing Culture, where Stephen Tyler is writing during his fieldwork:

«In this image the ethnographer hovers at the edge of the frame—faceless, almost extraterrestrial, a hand that writes. It is not the usual portrait of anthropological fieldwork. We are more accustomed to pictures of Margaret Mead exuberantly playing with children in Manus or questioning villagers in Bali. Participant observation, the classic formula for ethnographic work, leaves little room for texts.» (Clifford, 1)

This picture gives the impression than an anthropologist does everything in the field, he participates, observes and simultaneously writes. In reality the ‘real’ writing happens retrospectively, and that might be one of the biggest problems of anthropology – there is no anthropology of the present, the reproducible anthropology is classically done in the post-fieldwork stage. This is valid for both ethnographic writing and film, as both ‘texts’ are produced afterwards. Doing currently auto-fieldwork, being on ‘ramadan-mode’, I am deeply stressed as I cannot do much writing, my notes are scribbles bearing no great weight, I am too heavily influenced and too stuck in the actual experience to do any reflective writing. Vincent Crapanzano says similar things about Goethe’s experience of the carnival:

«A conventional Ash Wednesday meditation, perhaps, Goethe's conclusion marks are turn to contemplation, introspection, and concern for the meaning of what we do. His “return” parallels a return in the ceremony he describes. During the carnival there is no reflection, just play, masquerading, and, as we say nowadays, acting out. With Ash Wednesday begins a period of penitence, and, we must presume, a return to introspection, order, and individuality.» (Crapanzano, 68)

After the experience thou, the author becomes active and starts to describe the lived experiences; how the description is done, how it is reflected and to whom it is directed, that depends on the author. Crapanzano describes the ethnographic encounters of George Caitlin with the Mandan tribe in North America and their initiation rituals of O-Kee-Pa:

«Here Catlin moves from his (objectifying) metaphorical perspective to that of the tortured; despite this move, his intention is not phenomenological, but rhetorical: He does not describe either the Indian's or his own experience of the torture. The «imps and demons as they appear» (to whom? to Catlin? to the Mandan?) is stylistically equivalent to «there is no hope of escape from it.» They are directed to the reader, and it is the reader's reaction that will guarantee Catlin's perceptions.» (Crapanzano, 57)

So Caitlin’s intention was to captivate the reader, to tell the story in a way that it works specifically on the reader, it is not him nor Native Americans in the story he has written, it is the reader he is trying to drag into the story. In Caitlin’s case, the author is playing around with the reader’s morality and the reader’s possible endeavor toward morality. Crapanzano gives another example, where the author is more inclined to play on the ‘dirty’ thoughts of the reader by using contemporary puns:

«The title of Clifford Geertz’s essay «Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight,» written about the time the film Deep Throat was all the rage, announces a series of erotic puns—puns, Geertz maintains, the Balinese themselves would understand—used throughout his essay. Puns are frequent in ethnography. They position the ethnographer between his world of primary orientation, his reader's world, and the world of those others, the people he has studied, whom at some level, I believe, he is also addressing (Crapanzano 1977a). Through the pun he appeals collusively to the members of one or the other world, usually the world of his readership, there by creating a hierarchical relationship between them. He himself, the punster, mediates between these worlds.» (Crapanzano, 68-69)

Crapanzano’s general theme for the article in Writing Culture is anthropologist/ethnographer as god Hermes, someone who is always bringing messages, someone who is a translator between ‘gods’ and ‘humans’, but whose messages might not contain the whole truth, they (singular!) might be lying for the sake of themself, the informants or for the sake of the readers, they needs to make a convincing case (Ibid, 52).

transgressive fiction

If I have to name three books from high school that really influenced me (both literally and literary), then these books were not and most probably will not be in the obligatory reading list. Two of them were loaned to me by friends, they had read them and suggested that I would be interested – Dead Babies by Amis Martin and The Beach by Alex Garland. Both stories travel in closed communities where sex and drug usage is common among the characters, where atrocities happen to them, and in general the environment of the book, its locus is a degenerate one. If one is to make charts, then Dead Babies is in my opinion a few grades more on the transgressive fiction side than The Beach. Now the third book was Check-out by Estonian author Kaur Kender, the first and last book in Estonia that has had «PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTENT» sticker on it (only for advertisement reasons, there has not yet been such restrictions in the literary scene). The protagonist of this book is a filthy rich business-man, whose main efforts in life revolve around fornication and intoxication, both fueled by boredom and leading to the humiliation of others as he is capable to do whatever he wants with other people, it is self-destruction and liberation, mirroring society back at itself. Having grown up watching movies like Pulp Fiction and Dobermann, where protagonists are the ‘baddest’ on the conventional moral and ethical paradigm but in the same time there is something likable about them, they stand on the right side of life whilst doing bad things, Check-out did come as a shocker because there was nothing good about the main character, he was utterly bad, none of that misunderstood Robin Hood type of ‘badness’. For the first time I had been transgressed by the author, and I transgressed into the character. In retrospective Kender has said (heard it on a public event of the re-release of the Check-out in 2016), that the character was based on the stories he had witnessed and heard of local businessmen, and of his own alcohol and drug addictions (especially the ending of the book, where the protagonist starts using heroin). His book was based on participant observations and autoethnographical method.

Chuck Palahniuk is most known for his novel Fight Club, made famous by movie adaption and Brad Pitts’ six-packs’. I have not read that novel but I have read Haunted by Palahniuk (that one also has a PARENTAL ADVISORY sticker on the cover, Kender’s book was released almost a decade earlier). It tells the story of a group of people who apply for an experimental creative writing course and are then locked up in an abandoned art-house cinema. Every chapter consists of a poem about the main character of that chapter, a story of her/his origin, and a part of the main narrative with her/him as the leading character in it. The first chapter tells the story of a character named Saint Gut-Free, it consists of three different stories about ‘masturbation gone wrong’, onanism that might have killed the onanists. On page 17 of this 400 page modern horror story I have a blackout, the story becomes so disturbing, so real in my head, every word brings me closer to the conclusion of the story, and in my mind I already know where it is leading, Palahniuk has given enough hints, there is no happy ending, and every word brings it closer and my heart is rushing and I feel noxious… I blackout, I skip a paragraph (of course I read it later), I calm myself and continue reading. Palahniuk writes in the afterword a longer explanation how this story came to life, and how the reception has been so far. We tend to hope that the craziest stories are not the ones taken from real life, that these are made up, the fruit of fantasy. Palahniuk ruins the illusion the same way Kender did:

«No, this week, my writer friends just laughed, and I told them how the three-act story of ‘Guts’ was based on three true anecdotes. Two had happened to friends, and the last had happened to a man I’d met while attending sex addict support groups to research my fourth novel. They were three funny, gradually more upsetting true stories about experiments with masturbation gone wrong. Horribly wrong. Nightmarishly wrong.» (Palahniuk, 407)

Without mudding the water, I say out that in my opinion he was performing a participant observation, he, as many other writers, are ethnographers without the academia and without theory. Palahniuk’s emphasis is not on the credibility, it is on style and on affect:

«Reading ‘Guts’ takes a full head of steam. You don’t get many moments to look up from the page. But when I did, the faces in the front row looked a little gray. Beyond that were questions and answers. The book signing. The End.

It wasn’t until I’d signed the last book that a clerk said two people had fainted. Two young men. They’d both dropped to the concrete floor during ‘Guts’ but they were fine now, with no memory of anything between standing, listening, and waking up surrounded by people’s feet.» (Ibid, 408)

I could have been one of these two fainters, or at least fluctuating between consciousness and blackout. The main question for me is in the affect of the text, how something that is usually considered ‘unreal’ can make us feel physically sick?

transgressive ethnography

In a way, ethnographers have always written transgressive texts, most of the texts describe social norms and activities very different from the one of the audience of these texts. One of the dogmas for transgressive fiction is that the protagonist emerges through the violations of norms as a free(er) individual. One way of describing anthropologist is that they are like translators, who translate different cultures to an understandable format (as a colonialist discipline it used to be for the Europeans but things should have changed?). Another way of describing anthropologists is not so much as an interpreter but an inventor, s/he invents a culture, dogmatizes its principles into an ethnographic ‘holy book’, how this culture should be, has been, and will be, not understanding that it is not how it used to be, that is not how every single person inside that environment and/or space relates to that culture, and people do not have to spend their lives fulfilling the dogmas set in the ethnographer’s ‘holy scripture’ (most probably half a year later there will be a missionary there and everyone is wearing pants and singing songs of our Saviour Jesus). Vincent Crapanzano unites these two description into one:

«Like translation, ethnography is also a somewhat provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages – of cultures and societies. The ethnographer does not, however, translate texts the way translator does. He must first produce them.» (Crapanzano, 51)

Lets take for instance the infamous case of Margaret Mead and the Samoans. As we know by now, Margaret Mead went to do fieldwork with Samoan, came back and wrote an awesome ethnography on how Samoan teenage girls are sexually liberated. Derek Freeman waits a few years after Margaret Mead’s death, publishes a book on how she was wrong and that Samoans have actually very strict rules for sexual conduct. Now, there are several interpretations for this controversy, and explanations, some of them, like Paul Shankman’s The History of Samoan Sexual Conduct and the Mead-Freeman Controversy gives more ambivalent interpretation to the sexual norms and behaviors in Samoa (Shankman 1996). It could be possible that both Mead and Freeman just saw different sides of the same society, if there only would not be this moment when one of Mead’s informants tells a retrospective view of the incident:

«Yes she asked us what we did after dark. We girls would pinch each other and tell her that we were out with the boys. We were only joking but she took it seriously. As you know Samoan girls are terrific liars and love making fun of people but Margaret thought it was all true.» (Heimans 1988, 3:36)

So what did she do – ‘translate’ the culture in the wrong way, had wrong data, or maybe she was in a way creating something the readers wanted to hear? Looking at both Mead and Palahniuk I must come to the following conclusions: Samoans lied and we were happy, Palahniuk presumably told the truth and it is disgusting. We as readers, we like to read about ‘sexually liberated’ women, and Samoan girls played that role in Mead’s ethnography really well. In a way, Mead’s ethnography tells more about her own society and herself than about the Samoans, she was giving liberation to the Western world and to herself.

In a discussion about transgressive fiction, we cannot continue without talking about Untitled 12, a modern horror story by Kaur Kender, where the first person protagonist is a pedophile (and sadistic sexual pervert in general). I read the whole story on Nihilist.fm on the night it came out and it was a devastating experience, I skipped parts of it as I was not capable to read even the obviously exaggerated and absurd descriptions of sexual violence, I felt hollowed after that experience, and that was something he wished to accomplish (Kender 2015). What happened was that someone reported to the police, that it might be child pornography (Estonian laws include a very wide range of material from pictures and videos to written text as it might depict underage children in pornographic situations), and police went after it. It was taken to court and got media coverage even outside of Estonia (as it is not usual any longer in Western societies that known writers have been taken to court for these specific charges) (ERR 2017). In the end he was declared innocent by two levels of court, and has since then left Estonia with a promise to never write in Estonian again. But what was very interesting with this case was the possibilities for alternative situations and how would they have been perceived. For instance, if it would have been someone’s personal experiences, someone who had been raped as a child and if that someone writes about this experience with graphic details, could that be also considered child pornography? Or if someone describes their sexual experience as a minor (depending on the explanation of the Penal Code it could be either under 14 or 18 years old), could that be considered child pornography? As a reader, was I consuming unknowingly child pornography if Kender would have been found quilty? These may sound as hypothetical questions, but if one is active in literary world (both as producer and consumer) then these questions become rather substantial.

Untitled 12 is made up, it is fictional, and from this fictional world it became very realistic, I was in court during a few of the open hearings and those benches, the jury and the prosecutor, they were all very real. But how is this all connected to anthropology? In some cases anthropologist are not the good guys, friendly scientist, who participate with respect and observe with sincerity. For instance José Padilha’s documentary Secrets of the Tribe deals with several controversial incidents what different anthropologist researching Yanomami tribe had caused. One of these anthropologist was Jacques Lizot, who according to his victims had raped and sexually abused several young Yanomami boys (Padilha, 42:44-55:08). This was known by other anthropologist and researchers, but it was overlooked for many years and until today there has been no court cases nor other serious consequences for his real transgressions. He transgressed in real life, not in a fictional world, his victims are real human beings and not made up characters. His contribution to anthropology? Yanomami dictionary, with specific terms for sexual activities like masturbation etc.

Lizot case is a real pedophilia case, this kind of behavior is not accepted in the current Western society nor in Yanomami society, it is a taboo. Gilbert Herdt’s case is a little bit different, but the similarities reside in the transgression, in his case it is the witnessing and writing part what matters. Herdt has done fieldwork with the ‘Sambia’ tribe (pseudoneum he created for the tribe) in Papua New Guinea and has published several articles on them and a collection of these articles Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field (Herdt, 1999). The Sambia tribe used to have a rather controversial initiation rituals for young boys (current situation with these rituals is unknown for me) – they were taken from their mothers at age 9, put through painful purification ritual of bloodletting from the nose, and then forced to perform oral sex on older boys. Later on they become the boys who receive oral sex, and after that they become adult man who will marry a woman and presumably only participate in heterosexual activity. Reasoning behind the ritual is that the bloodletting will purify them from the attachment to their mother (and women in general), and that men are born without semen and to have semen one has to digest semen. Herdt seems to view these rituals from a less negative stance, as a form of bisexuality and gives agency to free sexual desires. James Giles, who has written a review of Herdt’s book, is less enthusiastic about it and clearly questions the rituals as in his opinion they are not connected to desire at all:

«… sexual behavior can be engaged in for numerous reasons, many of which have nothing to do with sexual desire (Giles, 2004). This fact is especially important to be aware of when one is studying the sexual desires of people from a sexually nonpermissive and prescriptive culture like that of the Sambia.» (Giles, 2004, 414)

Now my point is neither condemning of Sambian rituals nor Herdt’s presentation and analyze of them, my point lies much more in the product, in the ethnography. If an anthropologist writes on a similar topic, something that is in generally considered a taboo topic, that s/he describes with graphic details, then there is a chance, at least in Estonia, that someone might complain to the police, as was the case with Kender’s book. Police will then forward it to the “Porn-committee”, expert committee in Ministry of Culture, who will then decide if it is pornographic or not. We might say “But this is science and it is protected by the constitution”, but this was also the case with Kender – both are protected by the constitution:

«§ 38. Science and art and their teachings are free. Universities and research institutions are autonomous within the limits prescribed by the law.» (The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia)

What is problematic, is the Penal Code, definition of child pornography is rather broad and thus it can include different forms of it:

Ǥ 178. Manufacture of works involving child pornography or making child pornography available

(1) Manufacture, acquisition or storing, handing over, displaying or making available to another person in any other manner of pictures, writings or other works or reproductions of works depicting a person of less than eighteen years of age in a pornographic situation, or a person of less than fourteen years of age in a pornographic or erotic situation, is punishable by a pecuniary punishment or up to three years’ imprisonment.» (Penal Code)

I have been so far talking only in the context of written text, most probably the situation becomes more difficult if the text includes pictures, Allah forbid if it is not text but a film. In case it includes pictures, or if it is a film, then we have a serious ethical and moral problem, and that is not even connected to the child pornography laws. It is a question for us anthropologist, can we and should we show visual data to others, are we abusing the right for privacy, are we exploiting our informants? A great friend of mine had a self-made zine which he called National Pornographic, he had taken old National Geographic editions, cut out all pictures of naked ‘indigenous’ people and glued them together with added sensual texts. He did it purposely to show how Western society has sexualized the ‘natives’, how their breasts and nipples can be shown without censoring, as if the same rules do not apply to ‘them’ as do to ‘us’. National Geographic is a safe haven for monsters like Lizot.

[non]clusion

There are occasions when anthropologists truly transgress. And there are occasions when anthropologists write truly transgressive ethnographies. Unfortunately it usually happens after they themselves have been transgressed. Such is the case when reading Eva Moreno’s chapter Rape in the field in collection Taboo: Sex, Identity, and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork (Moreno 1995). First, and basically the foremost, she builds the story (ibid. 219-232), like the rapist built the assault on her, she builds it the same way as Palahniuk built his story, the reader is obviously hinted from the title that there will be rape but she is calmly leading the reader toward the rape, adding with the suspension until one fatal page she hits us with it. And I do blackout again, skipping paragraphs ashamed as I have a privilege to do it, she did not have a chance to skip it. The reflection part of the chapter (Ibid, 236-248) adds other layers, it elongates the rape but in a weird way calms the reader as you will see the surviving after the rape. I do not know her feelings about the chapter and writing it, but it does feel as if she has done something that is more on the positive side than on the negative one, that this text has been written with traumatic emancipation.

What seems to be essential in this inner discussion is the role of the author. These texts (both literary and audiovisual ones) would not exist without the author, people and culture and practices and incidents would abide in their own realm as they are, but these texts need the author. And as much as these texts need the author, so does the author need the texts, it is a validation of their experience. Having just finished Michael Muhammad Knight’s Osama Van Halen, sequel for his debut novel Taqwacores, I feel compelled to do something with the author. Knight’s take on the author was that he included himself as character into a fictional story, as Michael Muhammad Knight and as ‘the author’, he tossed himself around in the novel until he is beheaded by one of the main characters, by ‘burqa wearing riot grrrl’ Rabeya (Knight 2009, 207). Is the symbolical beheading of the discipline, the removal of the ‘mind’ and revival of the body, is that something that I am after as an author? Sometimes we need to blackout to flashin.

«Sun set a few hours ago, and moon is not around. Sky is striped with clouds, stratocumulus and stratus clouds, altocumulus and altostratus clouds, they are all there. Midnight prayer was already 2 hours ago and I look on horizon as the rays of dawn shine there. Smoke diffuses and the bud drops in the ashtray, I recede to lay on my bed and to watch the first season of Narcos. As the violence on screen escalates, I have doubts in my sanity, I think I am hallucinating as I continuously see flashes of lightning outside of my window. Delusions were happening already on the first week of Ramadan, I saw glimpses of movement, small swirls of energy in midair, flashes of something from the corner of my eye. Today there is lightning I see from the corner of my eye, moments of flash/ins instead of black/outs. It’s not raining and the clouds are not dark, air doesn’t feel as it has been electrified to that extent. Kristi is sleeping and I can’t get verification from anyone. After the first flash I think maybe it was some kind of trick my mind played on me, after second one I think maybe it was a reflection from TV, after the third one I assume it was an ambulance car light (I live next to a hospital). After the fourth and final flash I am afraid to look out from the window, instead I drink my last glass of water and pray dawn prayer. 17th day of Ramadan has a weird start. As I fall to sleep, I hear the rain arriving, it sooths my fears of going insane. I saw the lightning and heard the rain, but I didn’t hear the thunder nor see the drops.» (Fieldwork notes; 17th of Ramadan, 1439 / 2nd of June, 2018)

References

Clifford, James. 1986. Introduction: Partial Truths. In James Clifford & George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography ( 1 – 27 ). Berkeley, California and London, England: University of California Press.

The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia.

Retrieved June 5, 2018 from

https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/530102013003/consolide

Crapanzano, Vincent. 1986. Hermes’ Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in Ethnographic Description. In James Clifford & George E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (pages of chapter). Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

ERR. 2016. Finnish PEN club: Kender’s ‘U12’ is a ‘grotesque thriller’, not child porn. Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR). Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://news.err.ee/118569/finnish-pen-club-kender-s-u12-is-a-grotesque-thriller-not-child-porn

Garland, Alex. 1999. Rand [The Beach] (Turu, Rein, Trans.). Tallinn, Estonia: Varrak.

Giles, James. 2004. Book Reviews: Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 33(4), 413–417.

Heimans, Frank (Director). 1988. Margaret Mead and Samoa [Documentary]. Cremorne, New South Wales: Cinetel Productions. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8puR-AaSrg

Herdt, Gilbert. 1999. Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays From the Field. Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Kender, Kaur. 2001. Check out. Tallinn, Estonia: Pegasus.

Kender, Kaur. 2015, January 14. Mõned sõnad Untitled 12 kohta [Few words about Untitled 12] [Web log post]. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from http://nihilist.fm/moned-sonad-untitled-12-kohta/

Kender, Kaur. 2014. Untitled 12. Nihilist.Fm : ZA/UM

Knight, Michael Muhammad. 2009. Osama Van Halen. Brooklyn, New York: Soft Skull Press

Martin, Amis. 2000. Surnud lapsed [Dead Babies] (Metsaots, Kati, Trans.). Tallinn, Estonia: Olion.

Moreno, Eva. 1995. Rape in the field. In Don Kulick & Margaret Willson (Eds.), Taboo: Sex, identity, and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork. London, England: Routledge.

Padilha, José (Director). 2010. Secrets of the Tribe [Documentary]. Brazil: Avenue B Productions Zazen Produções. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd7SXbsn0hU

Palahniuk, Chuck. 2006. Haunted. London, England: Vintage Books.

Penal Code of the Republic of Estonia. Retrieved June 5, 2018 from https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/522012015002/consolide

Shankman, Paul. 1996. The History of Samoan Sexual Conduct and the Mead-Freeman Controversy. American Anthropologist, 98(3), 555-567.

[turianhumanclient]

ZAUM vs Telomer part 2

New court hearing scheduled for September. Kurvits didn’t take the judge’s deal then.

[tankestreger]

kl.23:53   d.6 oktober 2017

en liste over de digtbøger, jeg har stående i min bogreol lige nu, bare fordi: 

rupi kaur : milk and honey anne waldman : makeup in empty space charles bukowski : love is a dog from hell / poems 1974-1977 leonard cohen : book of longing  piet hein : husk at elske / udvalgte digte og gruk  patti smith : the coral sea  lola baidel : en sagte raslen lola baidel : du skal passe din have sofie diemer : lol-lita piet hein : lad os blive mennesker allen ginsberg : howl sylvia plath : ariel  lola baidel : kun noget levende  madison kuhn : eighteen years tupac shakur : the rose that grew from concrete k.y. robinson : the chaos of longing nayyirha waheed : nejma

lola baidels en sagte raslen var min allerførste digtbog, som jeg selv investerede i, og købte den udelukkende fordi den var fin og kostede 15 kr i vangsgaards på fiolstræde. læste den fra start til ende på samme aften og har elsker baidel lige siden ( og jagtet hendes digtsamlinger ned i alskens bogantikvariater ) baidel er virkelig nok en af de mindst prætentiøse digtere jeg kender til og absolut guld værd 

[sysadminnid]

Kaur rüüpas üleoleva muigega Statoili topsist kohvi ja silmitses pilkavalt kurvalt ja kohmetult käsi süles hoidvat vadvi kes hoidis püüdlikult pilgu maas, et mitte musketärile silma vaadata.

"Ma saan aru, et minu sunniviisiliselt moraalselt ja sotsiaalselt haletsusväärne hetkeseis siin rahumeelse vaimuhaigla seinte vahel teeb sulle teatavat tuska?" irvitas Kender.

"Nojah," ohkas vadv masendunult ja jätkas endiselt pilku maas hoides: "ma küll üritasin neile selgeks teha, et kirjandusliku teose loomisel ja reaalsel tegude tagajärgi mittemõistval hullumeelsusel on mõningased olulised erinevused, aga..."

"Aga mu kallis inglisüdamega vadv," naeris musketär kavalalt jutuotsa üle võttes: "aga miks sa arvad, et siiasattumine ei ole parim asi, mis sai juhtuda? Kõik see, millest ma olen terve meie franzeksuaalse protsessi jooksul ajakirjanikest lõngustele seletanud, omandab uue tõeväärtuse, kui siin riigis kirjanik fiktsioonide kirjutamise eest sunduslikus korras hullarisse saadetakse? Pealegi," Kaur võttis uue lonksu Statoili kohvi ja jätkas pilkaval toonil: "alates hetkest, kui mind siia suunati tunnen ma uut kõikvõimsat seksuaaltungi ja soovi avada tulevikus oma uutes novellides veelgi veidramaid keelatud pimedaid fantaasiaid, mille peale ma selle totaka kaheteistkümne kirjutamise ajal isegi mõelda ei osanud. Minu ees on avanenud uus suurepärane alasurutud kirgedes vaevlev auditoorium andunud lugejaid, kelle olemasolust ma selle totaka jutu kirjutamise ajal täielikus teadmatuses olin ja kellele ma olen valmis armulikult jagama täpselt niivõrd palju perversseid fantaasiaid kui nad oma mandunud ajudes ära menetleda suudavad."

Advokaat tõstis esimest korda pilgu hullumaja palati põrandalt, vaatas ehmunult Kenderit ja suunas pilgu häbelikult kiirelt palati rahustavate seinte keskel hoomamatusse surnud punkti, lootuses, et Kender võtab huvipuuduuse teesklemise korral kuivema tehnilisema tooni ning arutab edasist menetlustaktikat, arvestades, et rektaalne kogus psühhiaatriaeksperte oli mõne aja eest juba palatist lahkunud.

"Mõtle näiteks," irvitas Kaur, "kui ma järgmisena kirjutaksin novelle üksikutest kõrgharidusega suguliselt rahuldamata naistest, kellel on pakkuda võimsaid kogemusi ja kes on noorte hõreda habemega häbelike hipsterite karvase näljase kiskja oma pihku saamise nimel rikkuma kõiki kirjutatud ja kirjutamata seadusi ja reetma  selle nimel isegi..." Kender irvitas, nähes kuidas laitmatult viigitud tumeda ülikonna, terava ninaga saledate nahkkingade ja kurguni nööbitud särgiga vadv punastas: "... Põhiseaduse?"

"No mõtleme siiski sellele, millised on menetluslikult meie võimalused siiski selles asjas edasi minna ja ..." vadv oli ehmunud sellest, mis suunas mille vestlus oli võtnud.

Kaur tundis, kuidas avalik pornograafiliste perverssustega seotud platoonseksuaalne alandamine hullukomisjonis ja ette kindel süüdimõistmine moraalselt kintsarinnaliste tagurlaste kolleegiumi ees vabastas teda iga minutiga järjest enam ühiskondliku range formaalsuse kütkeist ja aju tundis järjest tungivamat vajadust panna kirja seksuaalselt järjest väärastunumaid fantaasiaid, mille ainsaks kirjanduslikuks resultaadiks sai olla seda lugevate inimeste totaalne vabanemine igasugustest ettekirjutatud ahistavatest reeglitest. Totaalne soov kehtestada täielik seksuaalne anarhia selles osas, kes keda ja mis tingimustel panna võib, mida keelatum, seda parem, võttis temas järjest rohkem võimust ja häbelikkuse koorma all täielikult kössi tõmmanud vadvi allasurutud seksuaalsete ihade stimuleerimine erinevate eluliste fiktsioonide abil pakkus omamoodi desadistlikku humoorikat vahepala üleüldisele valitsevale masendavale primitiivsele hallusele.

"Ütle mulle ausalt, mitu korda oled sa istungil vastaspoolt panna tahtnud?" Kaur irvitas. "Kindlasti on olnud mõni mimm kellest raisk, vihkad kirglikult, no igakord kui suu lahti teeb, raisk, tunned, et vererõhk, aga samal ajal tahaks tegelt esimese korruse neoontuledega wc-s kabiinis jõuliselt kokkuleppemenetluses mõnda kohtuvälist ... lahendit ... proovida?"

"Kuule, see noh," vadv oli täielikult kaotanud mõtlemisvõime: "see, saad aru, see ei ole oluline!" Advokaadihärra näppis meeleheitlikult oma range ülikonna ülemist nööpi ja vaatas sekundi jooksul kolme erinevasse palati punkti lootuses, et sealt ilmub järsku mingi päästev soovlahendus täielikult kiivakiskuvale vestlusele keelatud seksifantaasiatest järjest rohkem tuld koguva kirjanikuga.

"Aaa... ei olegi nii, et igakord on tulemuseks vastastikuse menetlushuvi puudumine..." irvitas Kender: "saad aru, see on täiesti normaalne. Ma vaatasin ju isegi ootekoridoris et ossa raisk kus ainult ülbed kostüümides mimmid kabetavad tuima näoga ringi, ranged ülikonnad seljas, kõik ihad räigelt alla surutud. Tead, kui saad müürist läbi ja SELLE" kirjanik tegi tähendusrikka kandva pausi: "paisu tagant pääsevad kohiseva mere vahutavad lained valla ... assa raisk, sellised naudingud on isegi Tatari tänaval eksklusiivsed ja hangitavad vaid lisatasu eest. Muuseas," Kaur rüüpas veel ühe lonksu Statoili XL topsist: "ma arvan, et üks erootiline, nagu kultuuriminister kunagi ütles, Cartlandi stiilis lühinovell, õigusorganite töötajate... mm, tööajal toimuvast ... kinnisest erimenetlusest, oleks päris okei nädalavahetuse mõtteülesanne, noh, nii, esmaspäevaseks lugemiseks".

"No aga ikkagi, me ei saa istungisaalis hakata esimese asjana arutama vastaspoole menetlustrahvi taotlust sinu nädalavahetuse nihilisti juttude kohta ja ja" vadv otsis kiiresti sõnu: "sinu katseid sellega ajakirjanduse vahendusel kuidagi otsust mõjuta..." vadv oli näost ehmunud ja häbi pärast tulipunane ning jätkas kätega anuvalt žestikuleerides peaaegu nutval häälel: "me peame ikkagi kuidagi mingi diili saama, et kuidas seda asja ajada ja need noh, sinu sellised asjad... noh sellised asjad, sellest võib suur jama tulla. Ametiisikute solvamine, minul maitea, aukohus..."

Kaur torkas sõrme kohvi sisse pani selle seejärel demonstratiivselt ehmunud vadvi nähes suhu, lutsutas selle veniva aeglusega kohvist puhtaks ja ütles kuratliku naeratusega: "keelatud niisked mängud võimuka daami ja häbeliku noore juristi vahel lukustamata kabinetis... lõunapausi ajal... ainsaks tunnistajaks vaikiv Dike, oleks... ebaõiglane ja väljaspool seadusliku väärastumise piire. Aga see oleks, vääga... magus ja hea. Ja mis on hea, on... õige."

Vadv peitis näo meeleheites käte vahele.

[rusutus]

"Sest seni kuni sul on luule, oled sa üle kõigist ja kõigest." Kaur Kender "Ebanormaalne"