{"id":387,"date":"2004-06-22T00:43:04","date_gmt":"2004-06-22T07:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=387"},"modified":"2004-06-22T00:43:04","modified_gmt":"2004-06-22T07:43:04","slug":"top-ten-things-i-hate-about-stockholm-vii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2004\/06\/top-ten-things-i-hate-about-stockholm-vii\/","title":{"rendered":"Top ten things I hate about Stockholm, VII"},"content":{"rendered":"

The seventh in an occasional series.
 
Ten: Predatory seating<\/a>
Nine: Culinary relativism<\/a>
Eight: Pre\u00ebmptive planning<\/a>
Seven: Premature mastication<\/a>
Six: Irrational discalceation<\/a>
Five: Radiotj\u00e4nst i Kiruna AB<\/a><\/span>Four: Temporal engineering<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s the longest day of the year, I’ve got front-row seats at Mosebacke terrace<\/a> for a glorious slo-mo sunset that’s been turning Stockholm orange for hours, hot air balloons are wafting past a crescent moon, and I have the audacity to write about something I hate here.<\/p>\n

Well, I have to. I’m writing a series about things I hate, not love, about Stockholm. To be honest, I was running out of subject matter, but that was before it was brought to my attention just last week that Midsommar — the summer solstice and Sweden’s most treasured day — is not on June 21 this year, but instead has been decreed to occur on June 26, because, well, it makes for a more convenient three-day holiday.<\/p>\n

This is quite shocking. Latter-day druids everywhere are dancing around menhirs at this very moment; huge man-made structures in Latin America are perfectly aligned with the sun at great cost to previous generations; people in the Antarctic<\/a> are suffering right now for this cause; and it is the one day that keeps Swedes going between November and March — but if nature has the gall to have the longest day happen on a day other than Saturday, Swedes reschedule it like it’s a dentist appointment.<\/p>\n

How is this different from celebrating Christmas on December 27 — because the presents are cheaper? Cinco de Mayo on nuevo de Mayo? New Year’s on January 3? Would you mind? I thought so.<\/p>\n

Last year, my first Midsommar did fall on a Saturday, so I was not then apprised of this cavalier attitude Swedes have towards the natural rhythms of nature. But I should have known better: Over the past 18 months, I’ve repeatedly butted against another example of this predilection for ruthless temporal engineering: The week-based calendar.<\/p>\n

In my first Stockholm apartment, the hallway was swept by tenants according to a rotation posted on the communal bulletin board: Next to my name, it said “V.40-48-3-11…” Swedish readers already know what this means, but I had to ask a neighbor, who told me that it was my turn to clean on the 40th week of the year, on the 48th, och s\u00e5 vidare<\/em>. And when might that be? “Look it up.”<\/p>\n

Instead I guessed, and clearly wrongly, as everytime I thought it was my turn somebody else cleaned ahead of me that week. Nobody said anything, though. Maybe they were embarrassed about their calendar, and with good reason, as I have just had to delve into its fiendish machinations for the sake of this post. It is emphatically Napoleonic in its arbitrary rigidity: You’d think week 1 is always the week the new year starts on. You’d think wrong — In 2004<\/a>, week 1 starts on Dec 29, 2003; in 2005<\/a>, week 1 starts Jan 3, 2005. 2004 has 53 weeks, 2005 52. I’m surprised anyone cleans at all.<\/p>\n

At a work-related meeting last week, I was asked if I would be in Stockholm during the 33rd week. “What, do I look pregnant to you?” is the retort I stopped myself from using, instead asking for a translation into western dates.<\/p>\n

Maybe the adoption of the week as a calendaring tool was the gateway to all this insouciance regarding Midsommar: After all, it’s not as if the holiday is being moved out of week 26, so what’s the fuss?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The seventh in an occasional series. Ten: Predatory seatingNine: Culinary relativismEight: Pre\u00ebmptive planningSeven: Premature masticationSix: Irrational discalceationFive: Radiotj\u00e4nst i Kiruna ABFour: Temporal engineering It’s the longest day of the year, I’ve got front-row seats at Mosebacke terrace for a glorious slo-mo … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-sweden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-6f","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}