Category Archives: Culture

Fear and loathing in Hummelmora

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Last weekend I was witness to the most important Swedish ritual of the year — Midsommar — wherein small children are converted to socialism whilst adults revel in the ungodly pursuit of booze.

My midsommar took place on the Stockholm Archipelago, which was constructed to maximize the amount of coastline, so that a waterside summerhouse could be had by all according to need, not greed. Joachim and Elise and their two-year old, David, invited me.

Before setting off, I was instructed by my hosts to report to System Bolaget, the state organ in charge of alcohol dissemination. I have a love-hate relationship with this monopolistic institution. Although I am against monopolies in principle, there is something to be said for the state deriving significant income from my drinking habits — clearly, our interests align in his case.

Most System Bolaget stores look like pharmacies. You take a number; while waiting for your turn, you may peruse giant glass-cased display shelves of wine organized by color, region, price and type. Go to the counter, where a functionary takes your order and fetches it from their stock. At first, I would simply ask for the vintages or brands I craved, but now I have discovered another advantage to the monopoly regime: Since I am not about to buy this alcohol anywhere else, store employees are actually quite happy to discuss my purchase at length. They even have a help line.

Let me just repeat that. They even have a help line. In other words, whereas other countries might subsidize AA centers, in Sweden a government employee will gladly help you plan your next blinder.

On the ferry to Ljusterö, which was chockablock Thursday afternoon as the city emptied, the boozing started in earnest. On deck, in the rain, a man cradled his case of oversized beer cans, going through them at an impressive rate, but careful to keep the empties so he could recycle. His pal decided to gift ferry passengers his guitar music, and he was soon joined by a chorus of woken, wailing babies.

Two hours later, I was on “dry” land again, with dry in scare quotes as it was still raining, and would do so for most of the weekend. The upside, however, was that we could take David snail hunting. The modus operandi was to place one of David’s toy animals within talking distance of a snail, and then to engage it in conversation. David did most of the talking: “Hej snigel! Hej? Hej! Hej snigel?…”

On June 20, Midsommar day itself, we were prepped for the ritual dancing around the maypole (majstång), which symbolizes the pivotal role the state plays in Swedish society. First, we all drank shots of aquavit purchased at System Bolaget. Then, the children were carted off by tractor, probably to a re-education camp, while the adults made their way to the festivities:

Before proper homage could be paid, the maypole had to be raised. For this, foreign labor was required, so I volunteered, and together with other Swedes we hoisted the great green branches of government. Those who work for the state even got to wear branches on their head:

Just in time, the children reappeared, and they proceeded to do a dance where they act out how they are but small helpless deaf frogs (små grodingen, ej öron), in need of welfare.

Afterwards, back at the summer cottage, many of the invited guests took part in an impromptu soccer match in the rain. It was eerily like the last scene in Tillsammans/Together. The object of the game, much like with parliamentary proceedings here, was to ensure a draw for the sake of the children. We quit when the score was 14-14.

June 20 was also the day that one guest, Ludwig, turned 5. He got a cake and a bug examination kit, so we set off to find some bugs. We soon found an ant and a milkweed bug, and I suggested we put them together in the same box to see who would win a fight to the death. We never did find the answer, for Ludwig kept on rescuing the ant. I think he will grow up to work for SIPRI. There was no sun, so the magnifying glass proved useless.

There was some hope, however, in the form of Ludwig’s younger brother, Erwig, who the next day was caught using his boot heel as a WMD on snails. They performed an ostracism on him, and by now he’s probably been cured of all antisocial impulses.

With every passing day, I get closer to the dark underbelly of Sweden’s soul…

May I introduce Miss Philips?

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Zed and Clarice swept through town over the weekend, bringing Georgian cognac The cognac came labeled with a strange and wonderful script I had never seen before.
 
 and taking with them most of the contents of Södermalm’s thrift shops. Clarice had a Berlitz European phrase book from 1974 with her, with a chapter for Swedish:

The section on dating in particular suggests the 70s were a simpler time, before pickup-line inflation, when smoking was a language common to all, when the romantic (and the optimistic) could hope to get lucky during a night on the town armed with nothing more than this Berlitz guide and courage-through-lager. I wonder if the editors field-tested their lines. I imagine they assumed a typical “date” would go something like this:

Of course, the “datee” would only be able to nod yes or no, since the “dater” wouldn’t understand actual Swedish responses Some helpful phrases for dating in Georgian.. However, there is this helpful icebreaker:

The highlighted part especially seems like a good idea, though the more logically aware might hit a serious philosophical impasse if they ever needed to look up the phrase “Just a minute. I’ll see if I can find it in this book” in order to use it.

Rubadubbing the wrong way

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NYCulture vulture Felix Salmon reviews Dramaten‘s New York production of Ibsen’s Ghosts at BAM, directed by Ingmar Bergman. He can’t get over the fact that they’ve decided to offer simultaneous translation from Swedish á la UN instead of surtitles á la Opera.

The idea of dubbing any performance, as opposed to sur/subtitling it, is not just plain irritating, but wasteful, and unimaginative in its use of modern technology.

Irritating, for the same reason that dubbed movies are irritating. Actors’ voices are an integral part of the performance. Dubbing replaces part of the performance, while sur/subtitling complements it. And — not that Felix is in any danger of learning Swedish — it insulates the viewer from new languagesThe French, Germans and Spaniards — all notorious film dubbers — speak far worse English than the Dutch, Flemish and Swedes..

Astonishingly, I’ve actually met people here in Europe who prefer dubbed films. There is less information to process; it’s easier, they say. I wonder if Bergman — who not only likes to control every aspect of a production, but who is known to condescend — assumed Americans couldn’t handle surtitles. Too many notes, so to speakImagine applying the same logic to Opera: simultaneous translation of La Bohème into English, helpfully read out to you through a headset..

Wasteful, because the performance, whether on screen or live, is a fixed text. Having translators would make sense if the words were improvised, but having them grope for the same mot juste every performance seems silly. From Felix’s description, it seems they didn’t even have a fixed text to read from.

An unimaginative use of modern technology, and not just because the deaf have no recourse, as they do with sub- and surtitles, to text versions of the spoken wordI love Swedish DVDs of Swedish movies because they all have Swedish subtitles; perfect for learning..

I have no idea how much it would cost to buy or rent a surtitling system as with the opera. It can’t be that much — it’s glorified trainstation timetable technology. But perhaps the systems are just not portable enough for limited runs. In which case, how about setting up a little Wi-Fi network in the theatre and renting out Palms/Pocket PCs with a push technology app on it? You’d have the entire script right in front of you, with a little dot, much like with karaoke machines, running alongside it. You could even have the original Norwegian script, if you’re a devout Ibsenist, or the director’s written commentary to follow. This last feature, instead of having you walk out half-way, might have you come back for seconds.

Great reads

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Here are some great reads I’ve come across over the past week:

An article by Dan Bilefsky in the Wall Street Journal details how Antwerp’s Hassidic Jews are being displaced by Jain Indians as the city’s predominant diamond traders. This came as a complete surprise to me — I’ve obviously been out of the country too long — but I suspect most Belgians are not aware of this shift either; the Hassidic diamond cutters remain an iconic presence in the institutional memory of the city.

It makes sense that an industry so dependent on trust would be dominated by people bound by strict moral codes. With uncut diamonds so easily pilfered by employees, western-style companies don’t stand a chance in this market. The Jain, however, are more than just incorruptible: they’ve managed to coopt the forces of globalization, cutting their diamonds much more cheaply in India, while Antwerp’s Jews are still debating whether they should open shop on the Sabbath.

A few weeks ago, the New York Review of Book had a landmark appraisal of the animal rights movement at age 30 by Peter Singer, the renowned philosopher who popularized the movement. This article continues the NYRB tradition of camouflaging suasive essays as impartial book reviews, but it makes for fascinating reading. Unlike much that is written by and about animal rights advocates, Singer avoids emotional appeals, restricting himself to the philosophical arguments, knowing full well they have the best chance of leaving an impact.

Singer charts the movement’s success in curbing animal testing, but points to the relative lack of animal welfare concerns on US factory farms, especially when contrasted with conditions in Europe. As if to prove his point, one of Sweden’s largest supermarkets is presently phasing out the selling of factory-farmed eggs. Their advertising prop: A narrow human-sized cage [Swedish] at Slussen, a busy commuting point in Stockholm, inviting you and 6 friends to climb in and experience factory farming from the chicken’s perspective.

In 1992, Norman Rush wrote Mating, one of my favorite novels. He’s just come out with Mortals, set in Botswana a few years after Mating, and it promises to be as good a read, perhaps even better.

Until I get my hands on itUpdate (2003/06/03): Found it at Hedengrens! I snatched the (only?/last?) copy. I’m reading it now., I’ll have to content myself with this excerpt. But what an appetite whetter it is! Novelists can only appeal to experiences held in common by the readership; what Rush excels at is finding emotional states to articulate which otherwise seem so peculiar and private that we internalize them. Here is an example:

But I’m fine, he thought, trying not to relive a moment from the walk home that had made him feel fragile. Near the school was a rundown property whose occupants kept a goat. The goat had run up purposively to the fence as Ray came by and for an instant Ray had thought something monstrous was happening, because the goat’s tongue seemed to be a foot long. He’d been frightened until he’d realized that it was only a goat eating a kneesock. Iris could be asleep. He would look for her, softly.

That second of near-panic because the brain has formed a preliminary conclusion from visual data that jars strongly with everything you know as normal — it’s a state I’ve felt before. I vividly remember one such episode: I was 11, we lived on 66th and 3rd in New York in one of those twenty-something story white-brick buildings built in the 60s, and our penthouse had a terrace that ran all around the exterior of the apartment. One night, while I was studying at my desk facing my window, I looked up and noticed the reflection of my dad standing behind me, looking over my shoulder. I turned around, but he was not there. The second it took to figure out he was standing outside on the terrace, looking in, was terrifying. I thought I had seen a ghost.

John Updike somewhat sniffily reviews the novel in The New Yorker, with a faux neutrality betrayed by a tone of regret, words that are slightly sharpAccusing Rush of logomania is rich coming from a man who wrote the famously prolix Rabbit books., and this question left rudely unanswered:

Are C.I.A. novels literature? I haven’t read many, but Rush seems to have the lingo down pretty well, and the little subterfugal tricks.

One wishes he would just come out and say that he did not like the novel.

The piece on Slavoj Zizek by Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker is a much more interesting critique, but only if I am right in my suspicions that it is sublimely ironical, in the sense that it purports to be a friendly portrait of the man when instead it aims to lay bare the banality of much that he espouses.

And I don’t just mean all that uncritical fawning over Lacan, “the French Freud“, famously defrocked Thomas Nagel’s hilarious essay on Sokal’s exploit: “It is not always easy to tell how much is due to invincible stupidity and how much to the desire to cow the audience with fraudulent displays of theoretical sophistication. Lacan and Baudrillard come across as complete charlatans, Irigaray as an idiot, Kristeva and Deleuze as a mixture of the two. But these are delicate judgments.”as a French Fraud by Sokal in his 1996 hoax in Social Text. To me, the sign that a reading between the lines is in order is a retelling by Mead, a New Yorker, of Zizek’s elevator riff in a fashion completely devoid of sarcasm:

[Zizek] has also noted that the “close door” button in an elevator does nothing to hasten the door closing but merely gives the presser a false sense of effective activity. Like many of Zizek’s observations, this is the kind of insight that forever changes one’s experience, in this case of elevator riding …

With apologies to Zizek, noticing that the “close door” button does not work is something every New Yorker living above the 5th floor figured out by the time they were seven. In fact, you can spot out-of-towners in an instant if they reach for the “close door” button. Slovenia obviously has few high-rise buildings. And when Mead comments that “he may appear to be a serious leftist intellectual, but is it not the case that he is in fact a comedian?”, I think what we are seeing is a backhanded compliment: philosophers of the absurd are just comedians who take themselves way too seriously.

The (Euro)Vision thing

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21:07 CET: I thought I might blog the EuroVision song contest (ESC) in semi-real time. It’s starting just now in Riga, Latvia, and it is already descending into pre-scripted multilingual hell. A sure sign of the interest Swedes are showing the festival is how the other Swedish TV channels have capitulated for the night. Populist Channel 5, whose demographic is a natural match for ESC, is showing Waterworld.

21:15 CET: The Icelandic and Austrians have just performed, and I have to say that the Swedish entry is beginning to look very promising all of a sudden.

21:39 CET: Stockholm is now at its best. Three weeks ago, the trees were still bare, but today the parks and gardens were bursting with green. Perhaps the timing with the ESC was on purpose, but Stockholm had a festival of outdoor music today, with most public places given over to performances of some kind, some so close together you could listen to two at once. There were marching bands, choirs, folk singers, jazz bands, rock groups; even the Hare Krishnas went for a chant around the block.

21:46 CET: The weather for it was perfect, and Stockholmers were out in force. There were perhaps even more performers than audience members, which led to an interesting (to me) question: What is the root cause of this Swedish love for performing? Foreigners at the very least are aware of ABBA, that summit of the Swedish pop pyramid, but there is so much more lurking beneath them. There is an exhibitionist streak in Sweden: They invented the first reality television show, for example. Survivor is the US adaptation of Robinson. Caroline from Vesalius College helped to produce the very first Robinson, while Anna’s Magnus is in Malaysia as we speak keeping score for Robinson 2003.

Then there is the obsession with Swedish Big Brother. But the most popular show here is undoubtedly Fame Factory, where aspiring singer songwriters and boy/girl band wannabees compete on TV for household ubiquity (in Sweden)The German group just actually sang “Let’s get happy and let’s be gay” with absolutely no notion of any double entendre.. In the US, you will know this concept as American Idol. But it’s been going strong here for years.

21:50 CET: Tatu is playing. The Russian lesbian duo has been blogged here before. They are the Russian entry for the ESC (I thought only amateurs were allowed, but what do I know?). A popular paper here today blared “Shlager favoriter vill visa brösten” (ESC favorites want to bare their breasts [at the festival]) and apparently the Swedish TV had a crisis meeting in order to decide what to do in case they did. The world is safe — They’ve just finished and they did not.

22:04 CET: Time to articulate a pet peeve: All pretence of these perfomances being live has been dropped. There are no bands, the singers mouth the words; the only thing plausibly authentic is the choreography. Then why does everyone insist on holding a microphone? Are they a performer’s security blanket? Or are we meant to engage in the willing suspension of disbeliefPerhaps I am wrong — the Norwegian has just belted out some fantastic false notes.?

22:26 CET: Back to ferreting out the roots of Sweden’s penchant for the performance: I think there is a clue in the ease with which the US adopts Swedish pop-cultural ideas (and vice versa). Both societies have a devout religious tradition, one in which the church plays/played a central social role. Seeing the older generation perform in Stockholm today, unselfconsciously, it seemed to me that the church performance would be a natural breeding ground for Sweden’s tradition of talent. In the US, of course, many singers graduate from church performances.

That’s my theory. Eurof, what’s yours?

22:34 CET: The Belgians are coming! The Belgians are coming! And their song so far is excellent, but why is it sung in Sami (Lap)? Or is it Native American? Ooh, and bagpipes too. And an accordion. So multinational. Actually, I suspect the only way the Flemish and the French managed to agree on a group was to have the lyrics be completely unintelligible. But clearly this is much too good to be here. I fully expect them to be completely unappreciatedUPDATE: It’s Celtic, apparently, but sung by real Belgians..

22:46 CET: Sweden’s Fame (of Fame Factory) just did their act, and I have to say, they can more than hold their among tonight’s competition, though as I write this they are sounding awfully similar to the Slovenian act, which is going last. Perhaps that would be a better way to hold future ESCs: Just like those car races where all the cars are the same and the only difference is the driving talent, perhaps everybody could all sing the same song. They all sound similar enough, really.

22:53 CET: I just tried to vote for the Belgians from Sweden, and I was told I should try again later. Favorites besides Belgium: UK, Sweden, Romania, Slovenia, Ireland. Worst: Austria and Germany. By a mile. But also Turkey; what were they thinking, ululating in English? Didn’t work for me.

23:00 CET: Successfully voted for the Belgians. It’s the first time I’ve voted for anything, I think. Certainly not ever in a Belgian general election. The only time I lived there during an election I was in Luxembourg absailing for the weekend.

21:13 CET: Oh, no, it seems like they no longer announce “nul points!” This was my favorite part — the squirming and the public humiliation of the losers. To answer your question Eurof, there has definitely been favoritism, but since the voting is by the public, it is interesting to see changing attitudes over time: For example, the Turks just gave the Greeks 4 points, which they are SO undeserving of.

23:20 CET: Wow, Belgium is in the running. I don’t know if I can handle this. And our natural allies have yet to vote. And the Bosnians want to vote twice. I love how this is a little microcosm for Europe. Much more effective than the euro for building a civilizational identity. And much more inclusive, with 26 countries being allowed to playHere are all the songs for you to listen to and make up your own mind, in case you missed the show..

23:31 CET: Belgium is fading, and still has to vote. But the big embarrassment is the Latvians not managing to get a single point yet, together with the British. They weren’t that bad, were they? Or is this payback for euroscepticism?

23:41 CET: If Belgium doesn’t win, it would be truly wonderful for Turkey to win. They need to be in the EU as soon as possible, and if the ESC is one thing, it is a popularity contest that eurocrats would do well to listen to. Russia’s Tatu should not win: too much chance of an organized fan base calling in and skewing the results.

23:42 CET: Belgium in the lead again. But they have yet to vote. Typical scenario for the Belgians: losing by giving the Turks the lead when they vote. Watch for it.

23:53 CET: Belgium voting. They’ve built up enough of a lead to widthstand giving 12 points to the Turks and still be ahead. It will depend an small differences in scores from the Estonians, Slovenians, Romania and Sweden. Belgium just gave 12 points to Turkey. How galant of us!

23:59 CET: And nul points to the Belgians from the Swedes. My vote was clearly wasted. It’s all up to the Slovenians now. The Belgians have a 5 point lead. I really would not be used to us winning…

00:05 CET: And Turkey wins!! Belgium second. Russia third. The Slovenians gave the Belgians only 3 points. Definitely the best possible political result. Though I still think the Belgian song was the best. I might even consider listening to it again on a normal day. I obviously missed something with the Turkish song.

In the final analysis, Belgium may well have lost the contest as a direct result of the general elections held there last weekend. The main shocker was the gains made by the anti-immigrant Flemish nationalist party, which got nearly 20% of the overall vote (and much, much higher tallies in Antwerp). Giving Turkey 12 points was a way for Belgians to atone for this political embarrassment, and a way to show solidarity with our many Turkish immigrants. It may have cost us the win by a few points.

24 nya fotografer

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Anna Lekvall is having her first “real” photo exhibit, as part of a group show with fellow classmates from Kulturama. Needless to say, the photo they chose to headline the show is hers. Aren’t we proud? I helped them design the poster:
 

 
If you’re in town, drop by for the opening on May 16. It’ll be a lot of fun.

Lawrence of Arabia: The Interview

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Mr. Lawrence, gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to talk with me. If an indication of greatness in a work of art is its relevance to future generations, then David Lean’s
Lawrence of Arabia is getting better all the time. I saw the film again last weekend for the first time since the Iraq War. You can construct an astute critique of the situation in the Gulf today merely by judiciously quoting the script verbatim. For example…I would like to start by asking you to comment, Sir, on the suspicions many Arabs have regarding the Coalition’s ambitions in the region.

LAWRENCE: I’ve told them that that’s false: that we’ve no ambitions in Arabia, have we?

ALLENBY: I’m not a politician, thank God. Have we any ambition in Arabia, Dryden?

DRYDEN: Difficult question, sir.

LAWRENCE: I want to know, sir, if I can tell them in your name that we have no ambitions in Arabia.

ALLENBY: Certainly.

That is gratifying, but surely you agree that Coalition and Iraqi interests do not automatically align. For example, in the preferential granting of oil exploration rights?

BRIGHTON: I must ask you not to speak like that, sir. British and Arab interests are one and the same.

FEISAL: Possibly.

ALI: Ha! Ha!

I see. Ah, Mr. Bentley, from the Chicago Courier, you had a question?

BENTLEY: One: What, in your opinion, do these people hope to gain from this war?

LAWRENCE: They hope to gain their freedom. Freedom.

BENTLEY: They hope to gain their freedom. There’s one born every minute.

LAWRENCE: They’re going to get it, Mr Bentley. I’m going to give it to them. The second question?

No, that’s enough from him. I would like instead to gauge your sentiments on what is next for the region. Is there a hitlist of rogue states? Is Syria next? Surely such aims can only be a pipe dream at this juncture?

BRIGHTON: Dreaming won’t get you to Damascus, sir, but discipline will. Look, sir, Great Britain is a small country; it’s much smaller than yours; a small population compared with some; it’s small but it’s great, and why?

ALI: Because it has guns!

BRIGHTON: Because it has discipline!

FEISAL: Because it has a navy; because of this, the English go where they please and strike where they please and this makes them great.

LAWRENCE: Right.

So might makes right? That’s quite an audacious statement, Prince Feisal. But this hasn’t stopped your Arabian Kingdom from throwing in your lot on the side of the coalition’s might.

FEISAL: And I must do it because the Turks have European guns, but I fear to do it; upon my soul, I do. The English have a great hunger for desolate places. I fear they hunger for Arabia.

LAWRENCE: Then you must deny it to them.

What do you mean by that, Sir? You’re not seriously prescribing pan-Arabism as a solution?

LAWRENCE: So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people; a silly people; greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.

I’m only being cruel to be kind in my questioning, Mr. Lawrence. But perhaps I’ll allow a softball question. What was your favorite bit of the war?

LAWRENCE: We’ve taken Aqaba.

BRIGHTON: Taken Aqaba? Who has?

I think he is confusing Aqaba with Umm Qasr, Colonel Brighton.
Understandable, they’re both their respective country’s only port. I’m sorry, do continue Mr. Lawrence. Did you meet stiff resistance on the part of the Iraqis?

LAWRENCE: No, they’re still there, but they’ve no boots. Prisoners, sir. We took them prisoners; the entire garrison. No, that’s not true. We killed some; too many really. I’ll manage it better next time. There’s been a lot of killing, one way or another. Cross my heart and hope to die, it’s all perfectly true.

And how… Yes, Mr. Bentley, what is it now?

BENTLEY: Well, it’s just I heard in Cairo that Major Lawrence has a horror of bloodshed.

FEISAL: That is exactly so. With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion: with me it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable.

Let me guess; yours? But you yourself have been quite expert at playing off against each other the interests of the Americans, British, Russians, Iranians…

FEISAL: … and the French interest too, of course. We must not forget the French now…

Quite. One final question, If I may. Looking forward, what do you see as the lasting impact of this war, say 10 years from now?

DRYDEN: Well. It seems we’re to have a British waterworks with an Arab flag on it. Do you think it was worth it?

ALLENBY: Not my business. Thank God I’m a soldier!

Thank you gentlemen.

Draken

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There
 
Sweden has the highest per-capita number of cinema screens in Europe, according to this book, which is also the source of the images and information for this post.is a brilliant new performance space in Stockholm, but it is in desperate need of talent.

It’s the Draken Cinema, a standout example of Swedish modernist design. The main room is spectacular, with a very unusual all-beech arched ceiling that reminded me of the wooden concert hall at the Sydney Opera House. Built in 1938, it is one of many classic Stockholm cinemas, but it was closed in the mid-90s as it was simply too large to profit from its one screen and over 1,000 seats.

On Saturday, it reopened in its new guise as space for occasional events. Instead of rows of seats, there are now terraces flowing towards the stage, with tables and chairs on them. The potential for this place is enormous. Upgrade the Ikea furniture, replace the ad-hoc (but cheap) student-run bar in the back with what Sturehof has on offer, put the zitty kids in black tie, set a latin Jazz band on stage, and you’d have yourself the swishiest, grooviest nightclub this side of, er, Berlin.

We were among the first in — a misunderstanding on Anna’s part (this night out was all her doing) — so we had plenty of time to catch up on politics over vodkas Anna was for the Iraq war, but against the Afghanistan war. I was thoroughly confounded.. This was a good thing, for the booze inured us against the assault on our musical taste that followed.

First up: Two guys with synthesizers wearing scarves made from Christmas tree lights. One of them had discovered how to electronically alter the tone of his voice and proceeded to sing old Swedish songs as a girl for half an hour. They both put cardboard boxes over their heads. Maybe they were ashamed.

Then there was a very long intermission. We wondered where the next act was. Then we wished we hadn’t. Next up, three guys with synthesizers and a drummer with no sense of timing. They proceeded to play traditional Lap polyphonic songs transcribed for three synthesizers and arhythmic drums. Or they might have been.

Next up, a guy who performed for exactly 20 seconds (no synth), followed immediately by one guy on a synthesizer and a singer. They did Talking Heads/Cure inspired music, without the inspiration. Then we left. No wonder they drink themselves into a stupor here. I certainly had to. I consequently have no idea who these people were, who organized it and why. But I do know Draken deserves a whole lot better than this.

Anthony Lane on Lilja 4-Ever

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The New Yorker, arriving in Stockholm with a month’s delay, has been unreadable of late, because nothing destroys my interest in a thriller more than knowing the plot. And I certainly know the plot of this war. So I’ve turned to the online samplings, in effect mortgaging my future pleasures to tide me over during this intellectual dust storm from paper-based pundits.

But it is with great pleasure that I discovered Anthony Lane’s review of Lilja 4-Ever online, and I feel gratified that he seems to have liked it as much as I do; for the strange thing about this film is that you do not just care about Lilja, you come to care about the movie itself. It’s the kind of movie you want to make sure your friends see. I still get flashbacks from specific scenes: the deflated basketball, Lilja in the mud, her name carved in the bench, and that Rammstein music…

But what is up with the name change? Why does it have to be called Lilya 4-Ever in its US release? it’s not as if the intended audience—the usual east coast art-house crowd and not a soul more—are in danger of mispronouncing the name, and in doing so deciding to forego it.

La Bohème

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I went to La Bohème at the Kungliga Operan on Thursday. Curiously, they’ve decided to set the Opera in a Södermalm-ish present day,

Södermalm is the East Village of Stockholm. with protagonists wearing hoods and jeans and leather jackets.

Sound familiar? The musical Rent borrowed La Bohème’s plot outline.Here is a slightly meatier synopsis of La Bohème. Now the compliment has been returned, with a traditional production of La Bohème adopting a contemporary sheen.

But not all too convincingly. Rent took liberties with the storyI never saw Rent, of course. One lives in New York for the choice, not to actually choose. Choosing is only necessary when you entertain tourist friends. that a faithful production of La Bohème can’t. Dying of consumption in a Swedish nanny state? I don’t think so.

AIDS worked in Rent. Perhaps we should just pretend Mimi has SARS? And while no heat or light for starving artists during an East Village rent strike might make sense, in Stockholm they’d be in state-subsidized apartments and on to their second child.

There are some fateful set design choices too. The loft with which the opera opens—in fact a float that is wheeled on to the stage—is a tricky affair. At the close of the first scene, the incipient lovers are meant to be basking in moonlight as the stage drifts off slowly, not holding on for dear life atop an Abrams tank making for Baghdad. It’s hard to profess eternal love when you’re about to take a running dive through a perspex window.

But these are just quibbles. When Rodolphe launched into Che gelida manina [mp3]. I got the shivers down the spine, which is a rare enough occurrence for me to declare the evening a stunning succcess then and there. Last time that happened was during the opening sequence of Fellowship of the Ring, in particular the bit where the orcs fall off the ledge during the battle.