a unique perspective on this crazy world

Archive for October, 2012

what turns you on? ;)

You will either be relieved – or disappointed – but this is a G-rated post.  We are finally back in London.  At the rate I’m going I will be hitting Frankfurt airport again before I have dispensed with London… but I try to squeeze in some thoughts when I can…

So… the header relates to the small epiphany I had while I was roaming the cobblestones in East London, frequently lost or disorientated, but enjoying even those moments.

I live in a city where sport rules.  People are fit.  People do sport.  People watch sport.  People talk sport.  I’m not anti-sport – and fitter than the average North American – but I always feel like a freak in my hometown.

Cause sport just doesn’t turn me on the way art does.  I do enjoy the endorphin high from a good run – or the wonder of the landscape when you hike here in nature’s wonderland – but I am equally thrilled by a great building or awed by a visually and intellectually challenging piece of art.

So, without question, London turns me on 😉 Architecture, art, theatre, music – and some of the greatest intellectual achievements of mankind.  Each trip is different – but I always come away knowing a little more – and having my worldview challenged – and reshaped.

There were a number of intellectual experiences on this trip to London but this post will be about the Tate Modern.

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

I’m not always sure what to make of modern art.  There was a time when it seemed to be following the “Fifty Shades of Grey” route… it just needed to be shocking, not necessarily great art.  I saw quite a few head scratching exhibits and came away convinced there was no way the general public was going to walk away enlightened and I just decided it was stupid art…

As this blog demonstrates, I am not afraid of having an opinion 🙂 And I am a huge fan of making the world a smarter place, but elitist bullshit designed for a clique that excludes most of the population… you will not be getting a “like” from me on facebook.

And art straddles that complex space.  It is meant to be more than just pretty pictures.  So, I will always be enamoured of the Impressionists… and they were shocking in their time.  But I also love the idea of art as a vehicle to ask questions about – and hopefully change – society.

So I try to understand modern art.  And definitely toss myself into its wake to see what happens…

And at the Unilever Series at the Tate stuff does happen!  Sadly, this is the last year of it.  And I just realized it was happening.  I went to see some exhibits in the Tanks… hey, it sounded intriguing 🙂  They were OK – but what was more interesting was the history of the Unilever Series at the Tate.

A number of years ago now I went down a slide at the Tate.  Not exactly what you usually do at a museum!  And I tried to avoid it! 🙂  Because it wasn’t a slide made by an engineer… it was a slide made by an artist… so it looked like my cashmere sweater was not going to make it out alive…

But I had met these cool English guys at Whistler.  One was an artist and the other an art aficionado so that was how I ended up at the Unilever Series.  And they graciously offered to hold my sweater so I could go down the slide…

At the time I didn’t realize I was part of art history – and the Unilever Series!  But it was one of the puzzle pieces in helping me understand modern art, the idea of conceptual art… The slide was meant to have people participate in the art… and you did… it was rough and not terribly slidey… German engineers would have designed it so that you went from the fourth floor to the ground in a couple of seconds!  But then it wouldn’t have felt like an experience… worrying you might get stuck in the tube – and having to push yourself through at points – made it an experience… both for you and for the spectators watching you…

While I might have entered the slide reluctantly, this time I was trying to find the Unilever art… it’s meant to be conceptual and maybe not so obvious…

I had noticed on the way in there was a lot of movement in the Turbine Room… and some of it looked choreographed… but not in an obvious way… but after I’d spent my time in the Tanks, I stood and watched for a little while…

Obviously that was the “art” for 2012… random groups of dancers who looked like art students but then would spontaneously combust in a modern dance piece that had them moving fluidly amongst the crowd… being disconcerting but never actually touching someone.

I was thinking about trying to photograph it so was standing still for a while… when some older gentleman approached me…

Strangers talk to me all the time so I was suspicious right away… it was more like an actor’s monologue than a conversation.  Apparently he and his wife had just moved into this “ready-made community” and they wanted them to join the local council.  He went on for quite a while and it was strange – but entertaining.  I wondered if I was being filmed 🙂

Finally he asked what I thought about “ready-made communities”.  I think I might have made his day 🙂 I live in a city where planning is an important foundation of the metropolis so first we discussed that.  The concept of zoning and approving development to “create a community” a concept I am very familiar with – and have seen work well.

But the most interesting part of the conversation was when I talked about the sense of community I experienced as a child growing up in a small town.  It’s a genuine community.  And, if you don’t want people to know your business – or expect you to participate in the community – a bad choice.  But it also means the community keeps tabs and knows what is going on in a way that is really difficult in a large city like London.

So… in the end… he thanked me for the conversation… I walked away having not only SEEN the art – but having BEEN part of the art… and – most importantly – we agreed, if you want to be a badass criminal, you better move to the city… in proper communities, you will be sanctioned by your peers to behave better… kind of like how you can’t steal from your own grandmother… food for thought… what all great art should be…

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artsy stuff, social commentary, travel stories

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has everyone been watching jamie oliver?

Or Nigella?  My personal girl crush 🙂

This is definitely a way to prolong your vacation 😉  But I had some fun experiences in London so will attempt to share them… maybe a little late, but most things not of the moment…

I am hoping this post does not just represent some strange adventure in a parallel universe but an experience that could be repeated…

As noted earlier, I first arrived in the UK in 1989.  My memories of the food mostly involved trying to avoid the grease.  There was a lot of deep-frying – and not all that fat was fresh.  Accompanied by mushy peas and vegetables cooked to the point of torture (I think after that long in a pot you can be accused of crushing a carrot’s soul), it looked like a dream destination for a Weight Watchers commercial.

If, of course, you had a palate… and just said “no”.  On the very first trip, I did that a lot.  Of course, I got enough calories from shortbread and clotted cream I couldn’t exactly become a Weight Watchers spokesperson.  But I did develop an allergy to the stuff the English liked to trot out and suggest was food.

I wasn’t the only one!  And somewhere over the decades, gastropubs emerged, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsay became so famous that even someone who doesn’t know how to turn on a stove has likely heard of at least one of them.

I wouldn’t necessarily thank any of them personally because they are just famous and I am sure it was lots of people we have never heard of that actually changed British cuisine.  What came first – the chefs stepping away from the fryer – or the palates of the customers expanding and asking for more – or less in the case of recycled fatty acids.

I was just an observer.  I have been going to London regularly for over 20 years and I have started to enjoy eating there once in a while.  It has always seemed obscenely expensive though.  I live in this rarefied universe that combines a climate favorable to produce, a bevy of talented chefs at every price point and an adventurous gang of local customers anxious to eat out and spoiled for choice.

To impress me, you have to be great!  And I will care about the value.  So great will not be enough.

Because my city allows me to be such a spoiled brat I am tough on the rest of the world.  So, if I am impressed, it is something to be reckoned with.

And, this trip blew me away.  I’m not sure whether it’s London, me, or the global economy.  My guess would be a little of all three.  London cuisine has definitely improved over the years.  And the multicultural stew that London has become has provided the ingredients for better stew 😉 I am getting more adventurous in my wanderings and less prone to wander into a tourist trap.  And London is feeling the world’s pain given that so much of it involves financing the world’s ventures.  So a menu promising good value, rather than good champagne, is likely a much bigger sell than in the go-go days of the City’s early century heyday.

Poor investment bankers work for me 😉 I was astonished in that every meal that I had in London was above average.  That has never happened before.  And – even more impressive – none was wildly expensive.  I hung out mostly in the East.  Next trip that will be my stomping ground.  But I stayed at the Rockwell Hotel en route to and from Stockholm because it’s right on the Piccadilly Line so it was fantastically easy to get to and from Heathrow.  And the restaurant?  It was astonishing.  A fresh salad full of yummy veggies and fruits.  A salad in the UK?  How the world has changed.  I love it.  And the best fish and chips I have ever had!

http://www.therockwell.com/

Gordon Ramsay would be jealous 🙂  Of course, Gordon’s food isn’t all his reputation suggests.  I think he spends too much time these days mugging for the camera… but that’s a story for another time…

Just in case anyone is headed for London, here are the recent adventures in dining I would recommend checking out…

Pizarro/José

http://www.josepizarro.com/

Zucca

http://www.zuccalondon.com/

The Botanist

http://www.thebotanistonsloanesquare.com/

Anchor and Hope

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eating & drinking - well, travel stories

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the grand hotel doesn’t seem so expensive…

a little blast from the past 😉  As will become obvious, I mostly wrote this in the moment, my final night in Stockholm… the memories still resonate fondly 🙂

For those of you who haven’t been researching a trip to Stockholm, the Grand Hotel is the city’s grande dame.  This is where you get to stay if you have won a Nobel prize 🙂

I just walked through four different Stockholm neighborhoods and it is my last night so I am rewarding myself with a drink at the bar as the Nordic light fades and the twinkling artificial lights appear on the harbour.  This is a stunning city and the view is worth the price of the drink.

The crazy part is that the city is so expensive, the drink in the Grand Hotel costs about the same as less grand places.  When you see someone use a VISA card to pay for a Sprite, you know you are in another world 🙂

Tomorrow I leave for a final day in London and then onward to my real home.  Stockholm is the perfect place to not feel homesick.

It does seem colder here.  And I have had to channel my prairie roots and just huddle into my lightweight fleece because I am way too cheap to buy a new jacket 😉  As I agreed with the girls at reception on the first day, you don’t survive long in the north if you aren’t tough.  As a teenager on the prairie, you are always trying to not get frostbite when you are underdressed and it’s 40 below because it’s just not cool to dress properly.  So a Swedish autumn is a piece of cake… 😉

I did buy a pashmina shawl in London at a good price – and I brought gloves along after freezing in Berlin in April but I haven’t had the good sense to bring either along with me on this afternoon’s excursion.  Today there was a big clock announcing it was 11 degrees.  I wish I was wearing more but I’m not getting frostbite so it’s not really cold 😉

Stockholm does have moody weather, lots of water and clean streets.  The architecture really puts Vancouver to shame but there are more similarities than differences.

It is a little too “white” for me.  Seeing too many white people in a city always feels a bit strange – especially after multicultural London.  But the good news is that there are some non-white people here and they seem very integrated into the fabric of the country.  Now that I know some Swedish history, I know that immigration is a fairly new concept here.  It’s only been in the last fifty or sixty years people weren’t trying to get the hell OUT of Sweden.

So it is mostly full of Viking offspring.  But – contrary to popular belief – the blond, blue-eyed Swede is not very common.  It’s too cold for Latinos so most people have a similar look but it’s a much broader palette than one might expect.  The main thing the Swedes share – and I inherited – are the non-brown eyes.

I had an interesting conversation with some Swedish guys about “the Swedish look.”  They both looked different – but obviously northern Europe.  Two sets of green eyes.  One set of blue.  As we noted, a recessive gene.  I’ve already expressed my thoughts on the virtues of a mocha world.  It would be great for racism.  But the world is so full of interesting facial features.  I hope a few pale coloured eyes will survive.  Maybe they will have to be accompanied by pale skin.  But it’s the attitude that matters.

And Sweden has a lot to teach us about asking questions and playing a role in creating a society you want to live in.  An inclusive place where pretty blue eyes, pretty brown eyes or even obscure green eyes, male or female, you are considered an equal and interesting member of society.  That’s the kind of world I aspire to live in… this blog will continue to promote it until it is actually reality 😉

p.s. I ended my visit with an amazing cake and hot chocolate at the Sundbergs Konditori in Gamla Stan.  It’s been in business since 1785 but obviously still going strong…

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shining examples, social commentary, travel stories

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finding my inner viking

We are soon to depart from my ancestral homeland so the final posts will be a little introspective…

As noted, these are my people.  And I also have Icelandic, Scottish and Irish genes… so the Vikings loom large in my genetic composition.  What that means is hard to determine.  The Vikings aren’t quite as mysterious as the lost city of Atlantis but they were some of the first people to try and conquer others (and explore the world), long before foursquare.  If only they had taken photos during a marauding venture on their iphones and posted them to their facebook friends we might know what had been going on…

I have now had two ventures into Scandinavia and the take on being a Viking is interesting.  The rest of us don’t know much – and generally I would say the rep doesn’t seem that appealing.  But apparently Vikings had some cool, modern traits as well – and, like any culture, came with attributes.  They were not just vicious plunderers.

I will need to learn more – and it will take time.  The Historiska Museet gave me a starting point.  And some interesting facts.  And some intriguing stuff to see.

The most spectacular part is the Guldrummet (Gold Room), which displays more than 3,000 artefacts in gold and silver, from the Bronze to the Middle Ages.  It was a wild time in history so hording metal seemed to be a common hobby.  Definitely makes for some great exhibits for us modern visitors.

There are also some exceptional rune stones and excellent exhibits on Viking history.  It’s the same as the other Swedish museums with lots of questions posed to make visitors think, not just read and accept.

As I’ve already noted in a previous post, there was a special exhibit trying to provide a Wikipedia entry version of 1,000 years of Swedish history.  It started with clans, who are not the best way to build an inclusive society.  They were replaced by kings, also not a great model for universal anything.

The power of the kings was gradually replaced by the nobility and the church, often working in conjunction with each other to oppress and suppress most of the population.  The exhibit also explored the role of chivalry and the aristocracy in shaping society (not so positive…).

What was most fascinating is that the 21st century Sweden with its strong sense of identity is a new entity, barely 100 years old.  What is most impressive is how they took an old-fashioned, not so great nation state model, and used logic and planning to create a nation state that is an enviable place.  The US thinks that is their mojo – but they missed the part about engaging your brain to develop a nation state model that will benefit the majority of its citizens, not just the rich guys.  Nation states benefiting the rich guys are a dime a dozen.  Africa does THAT – in spades!  But a nation state that really seems to be working on behalf of the entire population.  That really gives one food for thought…

The museum definitely gave me an interesting sense of what it might mean to be a Swede.  Or even a Viking 🙂

The Swedes do seem to be part of Europe, while also maintaining some distance where they feel it might be wise.  They are shrewd.

And smart I think.

After all, they have declined to participate in the crazy Euro experiment.  The EU leaders must have got bored in Brussels and popped over to Amsterdam.  After enough pot brownies, the Euro likely seemed like a great idea 😉 Like a David Lynch film, it only makes sense if you’re high 🙂

The French dude who wrote Delicacy seemed to be dissing the Swedes.  They weren’t interesting enough.  Not enough of the adolescent drama queen ridiculousness that the Latin parts of Europe hold so dear.

They dismiss the Nordic elements as boring and lacking in imagination… but when they have run up the gambling debts that come with such irresponsible behavior they don’t take it on the chin and face the loan sharks… they hide under the skirts of their responsible neighbors.

It is a lot of fun hanging out in southern Europe.  But the Norse are my people… and someone has to bail you out of jail… Greece, Italy, Spain, France – you might want to keep that in mind 😉

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social commentary, travel stories

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apparently misery DOES love company

This all started when I was browsing in the shops seeing if Swedish fashion would entice me to part with some more kroner.  But the palette made me feel kind of depressed.  It seemed to resemble the weather outside.  I wondered what came first…  and if, between the challenging weather patterns and all this black and grey clothing, the Swedes were depressed.

But I just thought it was more of my silly black humour.  I didn’t buy anything though.  It was all too shapeless and dark.  I guess Swedish women are so gorgeous they can wear a potato sack and look good.  Most of the clothing seemed to be working on that model.  Along with an awful lot of parkas!  If you need a black parka, this is your paradise 😉

I tried to like Acne – but it just looked mostly weird and I didn’t think it would look terribly flattering on me.  I am more a Dolce and Gabbana kind of girl.  I like it when French guys young enough to be my son come up to me and shyly tell me in broken English that they like my dress.  I didn’t think Acne was gonna get me that kind of attention…  I realize I don’t look very hip.  But it seems that looking sexy means I meet a lot more strangers – and my travel stories are better 😉

After my Swedish shopping experience I was reading a novel on the plane home called Delicacy by David Foenkinos.  It’s definitely worth reading.  But he’s French and I thought he was really picking on the Swedes with the Markus character.  And there was this big emphasis on the Swedes being suicidal.

I am a woman who enjoy facts more than chocolate so I had to get some info before I wrote about the depressing clothing in my blog.  Apparently, the Swedes ARE famous for being suicidal.  But the average Swede… pretty happy.  It would appear that really cool happy places make the unhappy people more unhappy.  Not enough other people around to commiserate with apparently.

So it would appear Sweden is a kind of Disneyland.  So, if you are more a Sartre Nothingness kind of person, you should likely hole up somewhere like the Democratic Republic  of Congo.  Lots of miserable people there to make you feel better about your lot.

Or you might just try not caring so much what other people think…

Personally I would be really happy in Sweden 🙂  But then I am pretty happy everywhere.  You make your own happiness – and a lot of your luck.

I was definitely happy when I was observing – or learning about – Swedish design.  They may dress like shapeless goths – but they like their interiors full of colour, shape and function.

I won’t bore you with all the details of everything I learned about Swedish design.  One of the coolest things I saw was the dollhouses at the Nordiska Museet.  What was especially fascinating is that they weren’t all for kids… and normally children were not allowed to play with them, just to observe.  But some of the early ones were to show people how to apply interior design in their homes.  An early version of the Home and Garden cable channel 😉

Another highlight for me was tacking on the Architecture Museum to my Moderna Museet tour.  Not only an entire history of Swedish architecture but some of the key architectural wonders happening all over the world at the same time.

One of the most interesting things I learned about was the One Million Dwellings Programme, an ambitious housing project implemented in Sweden between 1965 and 1974 by the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party to make sure everyone could have a home at a reasonable price. The aim was to build a million new dwellings in a 10-year period.  At the same time, a large proportion of the older housing stock was demolished.

In the end, about 1,006,000 new dwellings were built, which accounts for 25% of Sweden’s housing. There was criticism that the new apartments were ugly but they were modern and well-designed and generally the people who got to live in them were thrilled.  Yet another example of rational thought by the Swedes as to how to make the general society a better place.

The other interesting fact that I learned – both in Stockholm and in London – was the impact of the first World’s Fair at the Crystal Palace (London) in 1851.  I’ve been to the Crystal Palace – and to the shells of a few other World’s Fairs over my travels.  There were some interesting aspects to most visits but the importance of the concept was lost in the abandoned look of the sites.

But this is why it’s good to keep travelling… and learning stuff.  In Sweden, design is life it seems and the very first World’s Fair had a huge impact on Swedish society.  And the world in general.  Back in those days when google wasn’t a verb and the internet had not yet been invented – by either Al Gore or Tim Berners-Lee – information didn’t travel very far so the World’s Fair was a revelation… and all those interior designers selling themselves on reality TV should be eternally grateful to the Brits for kick-starting their careers generations before they were even born 🙂

In 1930, Sweden hosted the Stockholm Exhibition and introduced the world to Swedish functionalism.  Ingvar Kamprad was only 4 so I doubt he attended but the rest of the world who didn’t attend would learn about Swedish functionalism via the little company he started in 1943.  He called it IKEA…

So… it would appear the Swedes are mostly really happy, they like to dress in dark colours and they have a sense of style that is world-famous.  All the Swedes I met seemed pretty sunny… and the sun does pop out from time to time and – thanks to that Nordic light – when it does, it’s spectacular.

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artsy stuff, life philosophy, social commentary, travel stories

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from the power of horses to the horsepower of the internet

The magnificent 20th century… OK, so there were a couple of world wars, we built an atomic bomb, communism in practice was a lot less successful then communism in theory, terrorism went global – but I am a glass half full kind of girl and the 20th century also improved the lives of a lot of people.

I guess it started with the millennium.  It’s not too often in your lifetime you can celebrate an event like that.  But the first 900 years compared to the last 100.  Now that’s a hockey stick in biz speak.  Human development in the 20th century looked like the sales charts for iphones at apple 🙂

I am fascinated by the twentieth century.  Part of it stems from the fact that both of my grandmothers were born within the first decade of it and lived just shy of their 100th birthdays so their lives spanned the entire 20th century.

Of course, those were the people who grew up in the era where personal information was horded like a stack of dollar bills in an airtight safe.  And both my parents were the youngest in their families so there were several generation gaps between us and I didn’t have the vision as a teenager to ask them, “what was it like?”

Because it must have been a wild ride!  To be born into a world where electric power was new and the automobile a fairy story, the airplane an impossibility.  And then to die in a world connected by bytes of magic that meant you no longer needed to get on a plane to have a face-to-face conversation with someone on the other side of the globe.  Oh, electricity, thou art a goddess at whose feet we should all worship 😉

As I’ve already mentioned, I was really impressed by the intellectual content of Swedish museums.  So, intrigued by an exhibit entitled, “Picasso vs. Duchamp” at the Moderna Museet.  Apparently the Moderna Museet has a very large Duchamp collection.  And Picasso painted enough stuff every major museum in the world has some Picasso.

Apparently they were great rivals.  And very important figures in the history in modern art.  This may well be blasphemy but neither has ever done much for me.  So I had underestimated their importance.  But the museum’s exhibition was clever enough to get its point across… really modern painting or more or less the creation of the idea of conceptual art.  Paint all the time and promote yourself as some kind of art whore who might be better at being famous… or produce so little art infrequently that you might come across as a bit above the whole idea of art as a business…

Personally I was far more intrigued with the WHEEL!  Picasso and Duchamp met for the first time in 1912.  They are definitely two of the most influential forces in modern art in the 20th century.  The museum suggests that the 20th century saw more major changes in both historical events and art history quiz items than any century before.  To help support the point, a giant wheel was created with each year of the last 100 labeled and one art event and one historical event for that year cited.  Visitors are encouraged to carefully turn the wheel to follow the history of art and of mankind in action…  For history geeks like me, wow!  Better than either of the artists’ stuff 😉

http://www.modernamuseet.se/sv/Stockholm/

Apparently when the Moderna Museet opened in 1958 it was one of the world’s most groundbreaking contemporary art venues.  It introduced Swedes to all kinds of crazy art that at the time was being questioned as to whether it was really art or not?  Now it’s modern art collection seems a bit more like a museum piece but the building is great and the collection is well organized and worth checking out.  Probably better though not to go to the Tate Modern first 🙂

And, even if the permanent collection seems a bit tiny compared to the Tate or MOMA, the special exhibition was definitely worth seeing… if only for the wheel of history.  So much more interesting than the Wheel of Fortune.  Spin this one and you might just learn something…  😉

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