Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis Aaron has left the building.
Sigh.
- by Francis S.
Monday, August 19, 2002
The height of civilization is not Einstein's theory of relativity or Mozart's operas, not riistafel or the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh or even The Simpsons.
The height of civilization is sitting for hours and hours in a café on a warm summer's day in a European capitol, say, Helsinki, and watching the people go by on the elegant tree-lined Esplanade, sipping cafe latte and eating rhubarb cake slowly with a spoon.
Amazingly enough, all the romantic notions I had as a 16-year-old American living in the suburbs of Chicago are absolutely true when it comes to sitting in a café on a summer's day.
As for Helsinki, there is a small grandness to it, a green-ness, a great charm and a faint Russian flavor. My favorite Finn and the lovely and pregnant J. walked me round and through the city, pausing and peering in at libraries and churches and markets and theaters, and I was duly impressed. We drank pear cider and on Saturday afternoon stood in a sea of runners, waiting for a friend who was taking part in the Helsinki marathon. We worried that we had missed him somehow, and we listened to the four or five 7-year-old boys next to us having a grand time, high-fiving any runner willing to slap their hands, and very tunefully singing a song of their own composition:
They were still singing it even as we left once we'd found our friend and given him congratulatory hugs and handshakes and sent him on the rest of his 27-kilometer way.
There are of course lesser heights to civilization, some of them nearly on a par with sitting in a café near the Esplanade. For example, an obtuse conversation with a nearly falling-down-drunk chef at the weekend's party (I'm not sure what exactly the topic was, but it was important), the ride on the streetcar to Temppeliakio (I am in love with all forms of train travel; alternatively, I rather loathe buses); even the hamburgers at Hesburger Carrols, Finland's homegrown answer to McDonald's.
My favorite Finn and the lovely and pregnant J. sure know how to make a guy feel at home.
The Swedish word for the day is Helsingfors. Which is the Swedish name for Helsinki.
- by Francis S.
The height of civilization is sitting for hours and hours in a café on a warm summer's day in a European capitol, say, Helsinki, and watching the people go by on the elegant tree-lined Esplanade, sipping cafe latte and eating rhubarb cake slowly with a spoon.
Amazingly enough, all the romantic notions I had as a 16-year-old American living in the suburbs of Chicago are absolutely true when it comes to sitting in a café on a summer's day.
As for Helsinki, there is a small grandness to it, a green-ness, a great charm and a faint Russian flavor. My favorite Finn and the lovely and pregnant J. walked me round and through the city, pausing and peering in at libraries and churches and markets and theaters, and I was duly impressed. We drank pear cider and on Saturday afternoon stood in a sea of runners, waiting for a friend who was taking part in the Helsinki marathon. We worried that we had missed him somehow, and we listened to the four or five 7-year-old boys next to us having a grand time, high-fiving any runner willing to slap their hands, and very tunefully singing a song of their own composition:
- Parhaita ootte, kultamitalin saatte,
Parhaita ootte, kultapokaalin saatte
(You are the best, you'll get a gold medal,
You are the best, you'll get a golden trophy)
They were still singing it even as we left once we'd found our friend and given him congratulatory hugs and handshakes and sent him on the rest of his 27-kilometer way.
There are of course lesser heights to civilization, some of them nearly on a par with sitting in a café near the Esplanade. For example, an obtuse conversation with a nearly falling-down-drunk chef at the weekend's party (I'm not sure what exactly the topic was, but it was important), the ride on the streetcar to Temppeliakio (I am in love with all forms of train travel; alternatively, I rather loathe buses); even the hamburgers at Hesburger Carrols, Finland's homegrown answer to McDonald's.
My favorite Finn and the lovely and pregnant J. sure know how to make a guy feel at home.
The Swedish word for the day is Helsingfors. Which is the Swedish name for Helsinki.
- by Francis S.
Friday, August 16, 2002
And now off to Helsinki for the weekend to visit my favorite Finn.
The Swedish word for the day is, um, finnjävel. It's a rather unkind word for a Finnish man, meaning something along the lines of Finn devil.
- by Francis S.
The Swedish word for the day is, um, finnjävel. It's a rather unkind word for a Finnish man, meaning something along the lines of Finn devil.
- by Francis S.
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Eduardo.
All about him, all about Edu.
First, he is small.
This might explain a good deal, making up for his size as he does by the extraordinary amount of space he seems to occupy... is it because he moves so much? So restlessly, endlessly cutting his way neatly through the apartment like a little sailboat tacking across the sea. He appears so efficient as he mops the floor with fierce sopping strokes, back and forth and back and forth. And yet, he is not efficient, the cleaning and rearranging of the apartment, moving plants from one balcony to the sink and then the other balcony for instance, is more of a ritual, a kind of purifying eucharist. (He is in fact inefficient with his cleaning, with his time, his money, his energy.) But the movement only explains in part, the space he occupies. The rest is all emotion.
His hands. The nails are chewed to the quick, the skin rough and dry, the fingers small as the rest of him. His hands are, I'm sure, older than the rest of him, so much a part of him but with their own peculiar life, a pair of well-trained swallows doing and not doing his bidding. The singularity of those hands, like as not, with a cigarette, an inch of ash at the tip, tucked carelessly between any two adjacent fingers or thumb, it doesn't seem to matter which two. I laugh, just thinking of it, at how he claps his hands together like a very little boy, his fingers splayed, palms bouncing.
His eyes, not blue, and not green or brown but somewhere midst the three colors, are rimmed in short, very black lashes that, like any good picture frame, are pleasing in and of themselves while calling attention to the art they encircle. Edu's eyes seem to be the source of all his happiness and woe, taking in what is given and sending it fiercely back out, honed and polished and sometimes ugly, but always steeped in that great overwhelming emotion.
His teeth are white and perfect except for one missing incisor, his nose small and slightly hooked, a distinguished Italianate nose from his father's side of the family. His dark hair is cut close to his scalp.
His limbs, those skinny arms and legs of his, are just as tough as they look. Edu has a certain physical strength, he can lug an ungainly and ugly easy chair up the seven flights of stairs to his apartment, and, after Pepa the cat has pissed in the same chair one too many times and nothing will remove the smell, well, he can lug the chair back down the seven flights and onto the street, where he found it in the first place.
But these are mere physicalities. It would take a book to capture him to the full.
(from a Barcelona journal, 1998)
Eduardo Destrí
b. May 19, 1960 - Buenos Aires
d. August 9, 2002 - Barcelona
I am heartsick.
- by Francis S.
All about him, all about Edu.
First, he is small.
This might explain a good deal, making up for his size as he does by the extraordinary amount of space he seems to occupy... is it because he moves so much? So restlessly, endlessly cutting his way neatly through the apartment like a little sailboat tacking across the sea. He appears so efficient as he mops the floor with fierce sopping strokes, back and forth and back and forth. And yet, he is not efficient, the cleaning and rearranging of the apartment, moving plants from one balcony to the sink and then the other balcony for instance, is more of a ritual, a kind of purifying eucharist. (He is in fact inefficient with his cleaning, with his time, his money, his energy.) But the movement only explains in part, the space he occupies. The rest is all emotion.
His hands. The nails are chewed to the quick, the skin rough and dry, the fingers small as the rest of him. His hands are, I'm sure, older than the rest of him, so much a part of him but with their own peculiar life, a pair of well-trained swallows doing and not doing his bidding. The singularity of those hands, like as not, with a cigarette, an inch of ash at the tip, tucked carelessly between any two adjacent fingers or thumb, it doesn't seem to matter which two. I laugh, just thinking of it, at how he claps his hands together like a very little boy, his fingers splayed, palms bouncing.
His eyes, not blue, and not green or brown but somewhere midst the three colors, are rimmed in short, very black lashes that, like any good picture frame, are pleasing in and of themselves while calling attention to the art they encircle. Edu's eyes seem to be the source of all his happiness and woe, taking in what is given and sending it fiercely back out, honed and polished and sometimes ugly, but always steeped in that great overwhelming emotion.
His teeth are white and perfect except for one missing incisor, his nose small and slightly hooked, a distinguished Italianate nose from his father's side of the family. His dark hair is cut close to his scalp.
His limbs, those skinny arms and legs of his, are just as tough as they look. Edu has a certain physical strength, he can lug an ungainly and ugly easy chair up the seven flights of stairs to his apartment, and, after Pepa the cat has pissed in the same chair one too many times and nothing will remove the smell, well, he can lug the chair back down the seven flights and onto the street, where he found it in the first place.
But these are mere physicalities. It would take a book to capture him to the full.
(from a Barcelona journal, 1998)
Eduardo Destrí
b. May 19, 1960 - Buenos Aires
d. August 9, 2002 - Barcelona
I am heartsick.
- by Francis S.
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Sunday, 11:21 a.m. - began reading En Komikers Uppväxt (A Comedian's Growth).
Monday, 1:37 a.m. - finished reading En Komikers Uppväxt.
A new milestone: reading Swedish novels as if they were a bag of cheese doodles after a day without lunch. Not unlike my English reading habits.
The one sentence review: It's a bit funny, a bit poetic, a bit sad, a bit sentimental, a bit melodramatic and I liked it.
And maybe I'll get to meet the author, Jonas Gardell, at the wedding of the priest and the policeman. The husband says he might be there on account of he's a friend of the priest.
The Swedish phrase for the day is ost bågar. It's kind of fun to translate this in my mind into cheese boogers, but in fact it means cheese doodles.
- by Francis S.
Monday, 1:37 a.m. - finished reading En Komikers Uppväxt.
A new milestone: reading Swedish novels as if they were a bag of cheese doodles after a day without lunch. Not unlike my English reading habits.
The one sentence review: It's a bit funny, a bit poetic, a bit sad, a bit sentimental, a bit melodramatic and I liked it.
And maybe I'll get to meet the author, Jonas Gardell, at the wedding of the priest and the policeman. The husband says he might be there on account of he's a friend of the priest.
The Swedish phrase for the day is ost bågar. It's kind of fun to translate this in my mind into cheese boogers, but in fact it means cheese doodles.
- by Francis S.
Monday, August 12, 2002
It's time to come out of the closet.
The fact is, I'm insecure. You see, the husband's ex has moved back to Sweden after some six years in Shanghai and Hong Kong. He's bringing his American boyfriend along with him. Both of them are so tan and handsome and fit. And when I met my husband, I was tan and thin and fit and, well, four years younger. Now I'm pasty-white, have less hair in places that should have more, and more hair in places that should have less, and I could stand to lose a good 10 pounds. Or at least tone up the extra 10 pounds that I have.
I'm not jealous or worried, honest. I just wish I had taken the time to shape up so that the husband's ex couldn't possibly think that I'm "a nice enough guy alright, but he's gotten kind of flabby - they may be happy together but at least I've kept my looks..."
Is it true that marriage means one inevitably loses ones' shape?
The Swedish word for the day is viktväktarna®. It means weight watchers®.
- by Francis S.
The fact is, I'm insecure. You see, the husband's ex has moved back to Sweden after some six years in Shanghai and Hong Kong. He's bringing his American boyfriend along with him. Both of them are so tan and handsome and fit. And when I met my husband, I was tan and thin and fit and, well, four years younger. Now I'm pasty-white, have less hair in places that should have more, and more hair in places that should have less, and I could stand to lose a good 10 pounds. Or at least tone up the extra 10 pounds that I have.
I'm not jealous or worried, honest. I just wish I had taken the time to shape up so that the husband's ex couldn't possibly think that I'm "a nice enough guy alright, but he's gotten kind of flabby - they may be happy together but at least I've kept my looks..."
Is it true that marriage means one inevitably loses ones' shape?
The Swedish word for the day is viktväktarna®. It means weight watchers®.
- by Francis S.
Sunday, August 11, 2002
We've all looked at our blog families.
Now it's time to look at our blog neighborhoods (hats off to John O'Keefe for the link.)
Now, if only I can figure out what it means exactly.
- by Francis S.
Now it's time to look at our blog neighborhoods (hats off to John O'Keefe for the link.)
Now, if only I can figure out what it means exactly.
- by Francis S.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)