wandering in oslo

when we went last month, i hadn't been in oslo in 5 years and it seemed to be much cooler and more happening than i remembered. a lot had changed, a lot had been built (some of it by apparently blind architects, as it's a real mish-mash (more about that in another post)), a lot was under renovation. it seems that norway, with its gazillion dollar sovereign oil fund, didn't suffer from the same economic crisis as the rest of the world. oslo is a pretty and very walkable little city. they had this art thing going on along aker brygge and i took a few shots of some of the thoughts. i'm not sure what i make of them, but i kind of like that they also ended up as selfies. i was happy to be wearing my new felt hat. we need to wear hats more often, don't you think? what do you make of these quotes?

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i need me a bibliotherapist.

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wacky theories about the pyramids are nothing new.

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the danish brand of socialism is actually pretty good.

street philosophy

"we own time, but time also owns us."

just had to share the

profundities from the streets of oslo.

set in stone

back on may 1, which turned out to be a holiday and i was stuck in norway because That Girl booked my tickets all wrong, i used my time wisely and went to the wonderful Vigeland Park in the center of the city. it features 200+ bronze and granite statues, all done by Gustav Vigeland (at least the the clay originals--craftsmen actually did the carving and casting) in the early part of the 20th century.

for me, many of them had the larger-than-life feel of the depictions of New Soviet Man and Woman prevalent in the same period in the early soviet union. i'm sure there are many who would balk at that description, looking back as we do through the distorted lens of history, but i do think there's something of it in some of the work. but perhaps even the soviet sculptors were capturing a general zeitgeist.

most fascinating to me were the depictions of children together with their parents (presumably that's who those adults were). they are at once frozen and yet there is a sense of movement in them, like maybe you just blinked at the wrong moment and missed it, but it's still lingering in the air.

it was a gorgeous spring day and the sculpture provoked many thoughts that day. there's just something about good sculpture--it's at once static and moving, solid yet fluid, warm and lifelike yet cold. when it's really good, it captures the dynamic of life--the dichotomies and opposites present in us all.

i think that's what speaks to you from good sculpture..although it's quite literally set in stone, there is life and movement and fluidity.  there's that sense that if you blink you'll miss the movement. i feel it reminding me to be ever watchful, not to miss a thing--in life as in sculpture. to try to capture the moments and hold them in memory, although memory is more porous than stone or bronze, it doesn't really stop us from trying does it?

note:  if you're thinking that i skipped the monolith, which is perhaps the most famous one, you're right, but i'm saving it for another post. 

welcome to wonderful...

so much inspiration today. so many ideas. so much beauty. so much wonderfulness. so much elation and happiness. so many words tumbling in my head. so i will let them gel and instead just show you pictures. more tomorrow, i promise...

this was the moon when left this morning:

this was when i arrived in oslo and waited for the train. 

it was a cold, crisp -11(C) and the snow was fantastic:

and this is where i worked all last year

and where i will work again very soon:

isn't it lovely?

i still blame i all on the moon.

take that, GEC.

i'm back on form

because i haven't made any for awhile, i bring you two campaign buttons for tangobaby's presidential quest.  two because i couldn't really decide. you'll see....

it's totally amazing what a little fluffy snow will do for one's mood. 

i was even charmed by the plane being de-iced. those little de-icing machines are so futuristic-looking:

i have a strange affection for SAS:

i'm not sure if the affection stems from the elderly stewardesses (SAS = Sexy After Sixty) or the charming scandinavian mix of onboard staff--the humor of the danes, the style of the swedes, the tree-hugging-ness of the norwegians. whatever it is, if one can feel affection for an airline, then oddly, i do for SAS.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

this morning, when i went outside, this is the world that greeted me:

why is it that a magical coating of fluffy, white snow, while hell on the traffic, somehow softens the world? the edges are all a little less pokey and everything seems that much more magical. and that somehow makes everything better.

it's been a great day. i've written three small articles. they flowed out like a gorgeous extra virgin olive oil into a pan. i've turned the tide on the bad week. and it's all because of the snow. and the new shoes don't hurt.

a new parking structure

a very quick posting for today, since it's been a full day of work. i might have to do my assignment tomorrow when i get home. this evening, as we left our business dinner, we went to my colleague's car in the aker brygge P-hus. we were parked on the "athens" level. as we drove through a positive maze of twists and turns to get to the exit, i realized that this parking structure was definitely going to feature in my mall/parking structure dreams in the near future. it is complex beyond belief, with twists, turns, switchbacks, and narrow parking spaces. i can't find any pictures of it online and i didn't have my camera with me, but i'm not sure that pictures would convey it anyway. i'd need architectural drawings to properly show you what a labyrinth this place is and i couldn't find any of those either. i cannot even imagine what the designers were thinking. people must take wrong turns and bump their cars in there all the time. it's definitely the stuff of nightmares.

poetry on the streets

see, the streets of olso ARE paved with poetry. this says something like, "if time had been larger, you would have been smaller" and is by Ibsen.

aaah--slo

i'm in oslo, where the sun is shining, the streets are quite literally paved with poetry and the entire city smells of lilacs.

heavenly.

i'll be back on friday...

of travel cynicism and leading a simpler life

so, i wandered for an hour or so around oslo this evening after i left work. i was looking for bookbinders design, a swedish store where they sell the most beautiful fabric-covered journals, to which i am wholeheartedly addicted after stumbling upon them in singapore a couple of years ago. they're lovely, like this one, which is incidentally my favorite color, tho' i managed to make myself buy other colors this evening:

my one that's this blue color, which is called the aptly poetic duo emerald, is almost full and i will soon need a new one, especially since i seem to be drawing in them these days. so i stocked up-in green and reddish rusty orange.

anyway, my point was actually totally different, got a little carried away there with the pretty blank books of unlined(!) paper....my point was that i felt rather giddy with happiness to be walking around the streets of oslo. i think i'm falling in love with it. which, strangely, disturbs me a bit. i'm the CYNICAL traveler. the one who says, "singapore--it's like disneyland with nationhood." or "thailand is so seedy, i hope i don't have to go back there, there seems to be a glowering menace underneath all that bowing and politeness." or "thank god i haven't had to go back to india since the bull attacked us on the beach in goa--it's been so long my visa has thankfully expired."

so, how can i be so enchanted by oslo? is it the fjord? the mountains? the snow? the fact that it's not copenhagen, which has, after all, lost its charm for me in its level of familiarity? is it just that residual, long-buried american inner voice that thinks, "hey, it's cool to say, i work in oslo." much cooler than the rest of my working life, which has just been in denmark, apparently. again, familiarity breeds contempt, right? and that's kind of silly, because there are many good things about denmark and who i am to crave mountains, having grown up on the prairie? but anyway, perhaps i shouldn't over-analyze and should just appreciate it! perhaps it's a sign of my healing after my last job, which surely drove me to that level of cynicism in my travel. and, if i'm honest, there are many places i love. manila is one of my favorite places on earth, followed closely by cape town and moscow--i'm totally a moscow person. i liked palanga/klaipeda in lithuania (admittedly, maybe i just like SAYING palanga). it was a lovely little tucked away corner of europe that was extravagantly undiscovered by other tourists and therefore wonderful. so perhaps i'm not as cynical as i think. maybe i just don't really like singapore. or thailand. and they can pretty much keep india. which i'm actually sure they're quite happy to do.

so, i'll stop dwelling on that and get to my other point...paring down and living a simpler life. this has been on my mind for awhile, but thoughts of it have been provoked again this week by the discovery of this wonderful blog and several comment conversations with the writer of the blog. (totally strange that i feel that i know her and yet so totally do not--but that's a whole 'nother posting, isn't it and another of my many digressions). anyway, back to the point. so as i dined alone, i thought about what aspects of my material existence i would be willing to give up. and sadly, they are few. i would give up the t.v. and the car. i'm already not one for prada shoes or gucci bags, tho' you would be hard-pressed to separate me from my zebra bag. look at it, it's fantastic (and this is really my very bag in the picture from the african gameskin website)

oh, please, don't be shocked. zebras are NOT endangered. he was going to die anyway and he may as well have been made into something lovely that i truly enjoy every day, rather than being devoured by a lion. but AGAIN, i DIGRESS!

i want my writing house and the sauna in the garden (and the environmentally-friendly materials are all ordered--oak beams and not a bit of treated wood in sight). i can do without all of the plastic junk that comes into our house thanks to having a 7-year-old who adores things like Bratz and Littlest Pet Shop. but that would be HER doing without, not me, wouldn't it? actually, if i'm honest, hand the kid a stick and some pretty rocks and she's happy. tho' admittedly spoiled as all hell--example: on our last flight to manila, "mom, why are we in monkey?"(a statement of which i am perhaps perversely proud--but again a whole 'nother post)--but perhaps she could do without all the plastic toys. those Bratz have a seriously trashy way of dressing anyway--that can't be good for her psyche.

but, i want lovely fabrics and yarn in my life. things which i can make something out of with my own two hands (if i ever learn to knit--which i will). do i have to do without things like that? they can't be that bad, can they? i would like to limit the chemicals in my home. i would like to use natural products. i buy organic food unless i'm absolutely desperate--the store is closing and the only milk they have left is the regular stuff. i try to buy locally-produced whenever there is a choice and i do without (on occasion) if there's not. i've taken to buying wines produced from organically-grown grapes. i'm concerned about pesticides and gene-manipulated foodstuffs. i'm concerned about the world we're going to leave to sabin--what will she have to deal with?

i love owning books. my books make me happy. when i sit in the room next to the book shelf, it calms me. it makes me happy, just being there, among the books. but i SHOULD visit the library more. i don't need to own them all. just the ones i want to write in. which is, if i'm honest, most of them.

perhaps what i should think about is which of the things i have that make me happy. and then focus on those. because in this world, sadly, it's about stuff. and stuff does, in the case of great books or yarn or blank fabric-covered books in jewel tones or that zebra purse, have the capacity to make me happy. but it would also make me happy to be more CONSCIOUS (and conscientious) about what we consume as a family. and i am doing that more and more all the time. not only keeping the food journal, but selecting things wisely and from an energy-conscious standpoint. or from a humanist standpoint.

for example, i haven't set foot in a wal-mart since 2003. and it's not only that i live where there isn't one. even if i still lived in the US, i wouldn't go there. i object to how they treat their employees and the conditions in the factories where their things are produced. tho' i have on occasion, on this very blog, complained about the danes being insufficiently capitalist--there is a limit to how capitalist one should be. and wal-mart is WAY too capitalist. i don't care if i can shop for my cleaning products at 3 a.m. (which i used to love, before i became more conscientious). it's simply wrong how they do business and how they treat their employees and the communities in which they do business. and i'm so proud of my dad, who writes a little anti-wal-mart nugget in his column every week and who is 74 and has never set foot in a wal-mart. now THAT'S commitment.

but i do so want a mac. i just got a new dell laptop from my new job. if i were really a good person, i would have refused it since michael dell was one of bush's biggest campaign contributors and let's face it, bush isn't really going to go down in history as the greatest president ever (again with the digression). i am a mac person on the inside (and was one until i started to work for microsoft, where, funnily enough, they're not that into macs). i mean macs are vibrant and creative and there are even OLD guys (in nice suits, i'll grant you) in the business lounges at the world's airports with MACS!!! and PCs are stodgy and middle-aged and lumpy. and i'm definitely none of those things....right? ok, maybe a little middle-aged and probably more than a little lumpy, but definitely not stodgy. and totally creative. for sure. and trying to be a better, more conscientious consumer, in little ways for now, working up to the bigger ones as i gain strength. that's all one really can ask, isn't it?

i think i could live here

can i just say that oslo is beautiful? maybe it's because it's a "new" city for me. it's my third visit (or is it my fourth?)...but each visit has been short and spent mostly in meetings or in the office. however, this time, most everything is covered with snow. and snow makes things magical, doesn't it? they look clean and fresh under all that glorious whiteness. when the sun shines, like it did today, it's all sparkling and lovely. and if you eat a totally delicious dinner at a beautiful restaurant with fantastic service up near the holmenkollen, as the sun sets and the city lights below begin to twinkle, well, it seems just almost heavenly. and that dinner takes place after you've had a day of fantastic discussions about a really, truly exciting new project...well you start to think that maybe you could live here...and that maybe even you should.

i'm not sure i've fallen in love with a city like this since cape town. but there's something about snow-capped mountains and a fjord and being on a the 31st floor of the radisson that just totally kicks copenhagen's flat no-more-than-6-stories-tall butt. it makes me feel that copenhagen doesn't DARE to really be anything. i mean, it's sweet and quaint and nice enough in its own derivative dutch renaissance architecture kind of way, but let's face it, the key word about the little mermaid is "little." and that's actually kind of strange, because the danes are otherwise the most design savvy of the scandinavians. they have style when it comes to furniture (not clothes, i grant you--if you see anyone well-dressed in copenhagen, i guarantee you they're swedes). but maybe oslo just has nature on its side. and what nature! i think i could live here...do you suppose they'll want half my salary in taxes too?

jonesing for juice

i went to oslo on wednesday night and came home on friday night. that was a little over 48 hours away from my juicer. not good. i could feel my cells crying out for the direct hits of vitamins to which they had grown accustomed in just a few short days. on thursday afternoon, i did manage to find a juice bar where i got a fix, but even that wasn't quite the same as feeding carrots and apples and other yummy things into my own machine. i wonder if they make a portable model that would fit in my suitcase?

other than jonesing for juice, it was a good couple of days in oslo. oslo strikes me as, strangely enough, more city-like than copenhagen. it could remind a bit of glasgow (which i mean as a compliment). there seemed to be more visible diversity on the streets than there is in copenhagen. copenhagen is crawling with "foreigners" too, but they're all swedes. the danes have better shoe fashion than the norwegians tho', i have to give them that.

it's always interesting, going to a new city and learning your way around. i always have a strange feeling that i don't want to learn it too quickly. i want to retain that feeling of anticipation of something new around the next corner. i like it when the city keeps some secrets from me that i can discover later and be surprised by. but it do prefer that the public transportation is easy to figure out, that's one secret i don't want a city to keep. the things i like to discover slowly are restaurants or wonderful shops full of colorful, unusual things, or parks or tucked away cafés serving chai lattes and sandwiches stuffed with brie and peppery rocket leaves.

i always think about how the discovery can happen only once. there is only one first visit to a place. you have only the one chance for the first impression. after that, it's over and it's somewhere you've been. somewhere that you know something about.