The Landscape of Music

When I was young in the 80's, one of my favourite Swedish bands was Adolpson and Falk. Light and soft synth pop, with oh so clever lyrics. Every year since then I smile when listening to the song "Mer jul" (More Christmas) because I really love Christmas and have lots of decorations up for at least two months.

One song that stuck with me was "Ifrån" ("From", my translation although some twists and turns definitely are lost):

Through the darkness of the night
I see the lights outside
Is it the sound from the train
Or the throbbing of my heart I hear
I'm miles away from myself
And I have no special destination
I'm not travelling to some place
I'm just leaving

Sometimes time stands almost still
But just as often it suddenly slips away
The line between hope and despair
Is all too thin
And you fall without mercy
But somehow you cope
By not travelling to something
but by leaving instead

Through their music, or perhaps rather the buzz around them, I came in contact with the landscape architecture profession. I had never heard of it before learning that Anders Falk was one. It even made me apply for the five year long university program and I was accepted. Although I ended up studying computational linguistics instead, I've kept an eye on the development in the area and I don't know how many gardens I've visited in Sweden and abroad. 

Lately I bought "Guide till svensk landskapsarkitektur" (The Guide to Swedish Landscape Architecture) and the lovely Natural Garden Style by Noël Kingsbury. I even asked for a list of plants from the Piet Oudolf Woodland section in Trädgårdsföreningen (The Garden Society of Gothenburg).

The housing cooperative where I lived is called "Ekkullen" (Oak Hill) because the quite extensive grounds actually include a small wood on a hill with around 40 "young" oaks. It's long been rather neglected and I've decided to try to convert it into proper woodland, hence the book-shopping. So far I've focused on clearing the shrubs but I'm dreaming of planting high grass and flowers in the new perennial style. However, I've left some raspberries for everyone to enjoy.

Fuck Yes, Or No

Some decisions are hard. For different reasons. How to go forward in a country after civil war is what constitutes a wicked problem, that has no right solution and where you can only hope to help people form a common vision of the future and start moving in that direction.

Deciding what cancer treatment to choose when the doctor presents the alternatives is hard because you are ill and tired and don't have the knowledge to understand the consequences. Putting down a beloved pet who is in a lot of pain and terminally ill is often a given choice, but so very hard to execute.

Another tricky situation is when two options seem equally good, but in different ways. Should I live in the city or in a suburb? Buy a Volvo or a Saab? If you don't find a way out of this situation, you will be stuck in what Robert Fritz calls an oscillating structure. The remedy is to list all the underlying factors and set them against each other. Is having a garden more important than being close to work? Is extra legroom more important than boot space?

Fritz has also developed a method for identifying what to focus on when an organisation is in trouble, but doesn't know where to start. He calls it digital decision-making. How is the market doing, fine or not? Growing or not? Are the employees fine or not? Is this a trend?

Some decisions shouldn't be that hard. For example, if you should stay at your present workplace or not. Or if you as a boss should help an employee find another job. Again, there is help available. This time from Marcus Buckingham, who investigated what characterises a good workplace and developed methods for doing strength-based employee interviews. I really like his book "First, break all the rules".

Another no-brainer should be what suppliers to keep and what customers to continue working with. Tom Peters has captured this well in his Lust Hierarchy for customer satisfaction. It ranges from satisfy, conform to requirements, exceed expectations, delight all the way to a big WOW from raving fans who lust to work with you and come up with excuses to do so.

Finally, it shouldn't be that hard to see if a person is interested in you or not and make the decision to stay or to leave. This topic was explored in Sex in the City, where the message "he's not that into you" was coined and later turned into a book.

Mark Manson put it a little more crudely in his 8 minute read blog entry "Fuck yes or no", although the message is the same: If you’re in the grey area to begin with, you’ve already lost. 

We all deserve to be with someone who is totally into us.

Snark Hunting

Today I went to Hasselblad Center to have a look at the Ishiuchi Miyako exhibition "The Fabric of Photography". I very much liked her illustration of time as wrinkled hands. Some day I'll do a black-and-white series too.

I couldn't resist browsing through the books in the souvenir shop. Because of the celebration of the birth of Tove Jansson 100 years ago, there was a section with books written and/or illustrated by her. A thin and pale hardcover caught my eye: The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll. Apparently Tove was commissioned to illustrate a Swedish edition of this book in 1959, but it was forgotten for more than fifty years.

I stood there for more than a minute with the book in my hands, indecisive. It wasn't expensive, so I could easily have bought the book for myself. Especially since I could justify such an extravagance by claiming I deserved it since I have been ill. Still am. Finally, I put it down.

I wanted the book. Still do. However, I realised that I wanted it to be a true gift. From somebody who knows how much I adore English literature, that I read heaps of it and feel a bit embarrassed about how few Swedish authors I'm acquainted with (especially the contemporary ones). Who recognises I have a background in ICT and that I'm obsessed with metaphors and thus should enjoy Lewis Carroll. Who appreciates my weakness for Nordic design and have seen my coasters depicting Moomin running through the dark and scary woods. And knows what went through my mind when I bought them, or at least was concerned enough to ask. Who sees that when I'm close to tears I play the CD with the music from the Lewis TV series, since the oboe seems to have a soothing effect on me. And who understands that the connection between the book and the TV series is not the name Lewis, but that one of the TV episodes, The Soul of Genius, was about "The Hunting of the Snark". And who remembers that, although I do like Oxford, I simply love Cambridge.

From Pilane 2011

I suppose I'm also looking for the snark. But I'm done hunting.

Undertow

After a month of more than 50 shades of grey, we finally had some sun today. And thus also frost. I hope the garlic and the Jerusalem artichoke I planted yesterday will make it until spring. I trust the book from the Mandelmann family "Självhushållning på Djupadal" (Self-sufficiency at Djupadal) that says it should be planted late in the season. Apparently some seeds such as lavender and verbena, also need a frost nip in order to kick-start the chemical processes that leads leaves and flowers. 

Maybe that's also the case with some people and some relationships. They need to get really cold to have a chance to survive long-term and not just rot.

They say that this winter will be very cold, because of the warm ocean. I hope that will entail snow. And lots of it. Winter becomes so much endurable with the bright snow and the prospect of skiing even in the south of Sweden where I live.

Snow also muffles the sounds and you long to cuddle in the sofa looking at an open fire, or, in my case, at lots of candles. Two songs come to mind, from Genesis' record "And Then There Were Three": Snowbound, of course, but also Undertow.

Better think awhile

Or I may never think again

If this were the last day of your life, my friend

Tell me, what do you think you would do then?

Stand up to the blow that fate has struck upon you

Make the most of all, you still have coming to you

Lay down on the ground and let the tears run from you

Crying to the grass and trees and heaven finally on your knees

Let me live again, let life come find me wanting

Spring must strike again against the shield of winter

Let me feel once more the arms of love surround m
Telling me the danger's past, I need not fear the icy blast again

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

It's been a year of firsts. The first New Year, the first Easter, first Midsummer, first birthday, first All Saints Day and now the first Father's Day without you. We miss you. I miss you. The you you were before you got ill.

Mother is doing fine. You made a good decision to move back here. I'm so sorry you didn't get to experience it. She has reconnected with some old friends and have made some new ones. And she still keeps in touch with your old neighbors. She cries sometimes, especially when she goes to church. It's hard to see your Mother cry. But you know all about that.

We saw your brothers this Friday. Watched the play that might be the last one Henric does. He looked just like you on the stage. We saw that, both Mother and I. We talked about the decline of the Linnea. And we showed them the stone we got for you and Magnus. I hope you like it.

I know you were worried about my trip to Uganda. But I think that you got the message that I made a safe return. We never had the chance to really talk after that. You started your own journey, and we were not meant to come along.

I'm sorry I smashed your car. Although I know you would never yell at me or call me a bad driver. You'd only be happy I was still alive. I tried to save the sticker I got for you in Kivik, the one saying "Real men don't eat bananas, buy Swedish fruit!". It was difficult to make you happy the last years, but I know from Mother that you really liked this one. But it was stuck.

I think you'd have liked the new car we bought. A really small one. A black KIA. The kind you said was going to be your next car. You always made plans for the future. You did not go gentle.

Things To Remember

I admit. I'm a hoarder. The older I get, the more I keep on to things rather than throwing or giving them away. I also very much like my things. Not because they have any greater monetary value, but because they help me remember.

I've made several trips to Bangkok and every time I use one of the silk shawls I bought there, I remember how the breakfast mango tasted, I hear the roar from the traffic on Sukhumvit road, I feel the smoke from the fires at the temple yards in my nose and eyes, and I sense the warming sun on my skin.

From ITP I2W Bangkok 2009

Things also help me remember people. I keep my travel stuff in a black chest of drawers that once belonged to my father's aunt Bertha. She was a nurse, biking to her patients all over Småland, but also very active in helping the poor. When my father Göran went to school in Alvesta, he stayed with her and he was always very fond of her. 

Here I also keep the violet perfume flacon my mother's father Gösta gave to my grandmother Gudrun on Christmas Eve 1933 on their way back from Australia. There he transformed the stuffy Swedish church in Melbourne into a vibrant community with lots of activities for young people, a concept he took with him back to Sweden. Gudrun worked as cantor when she didn't run the vicarage. She made trousers for her daughters to wear, something of a revolution in the 1940's in rural Öland.

Not far from the sturdy chest of drawers stands a special shelf for sheets of music, simple yet rather elegant. It stood beside an old black piano that my father's mother Edith used to play. You can see and hear her play, 94 years old, at the end of Katarina Dunér's program on Swedish Houses. Edith loved reading and was always keen on learning. When her oldest son, my uncle Olle, started painting she wanted to try it herself. One of her still life paintings now hangs in my kitchen.

I've also kept a beetle boot jack. As a small child, it met me in the hallway to the teachers' house in Mistelås where my father's parents lived. Edith taught the small children and Martin the older ones. He was also very active in developing the community, initiating building a sauna at the stream and supporting the local football team. 

My parents got engaged at the football field, deep in the woods. It was my father who insisted on marriage. My mother Sigrun thought it wasn't that necessary, but he persisted, and they were married for more than 50 years. She now wears the ring she gave him in a necklace, where it encircles a small heart of gold.

From Lyse juni 2010

Today we celebrate All Saints Day in Sweden. Although we have sadly imported the commercial American Halloween tradition to some extent, this is very much a time when we gather to remember and celebrate the dear ones who've passed away. Candles are lit at the churchyards and graves are decorated with fir tree branches and cones.

Escapism

I saw you at the Central Station today. In your hoodie. Oblivious of the crowd. Enchanted, not by a broccoli forest, but by your smartphone.

My brain saw you before my eyes did and it gently steered me to the right to avoid a collision. Although my heart missed a beat, my step didn't falter and I continued to Moderna Museet.

I watched the exhibitions, sculpture after sculpture. And I wondered about what we choose to perceive. Social realism is not my thing. "I get enough of that in reality" I say when friends want me to watch a Roy Andersson movie. I also hide behind my camera, preferring not to see myself, unless reflected in some shiny object. It's a way of life. I try to not stay in the moment.

I suppose we' humans are good at not talking about the elephant in the room. We rather pretend to be saints and look the other way. Or ghosts, omnipresent but not really interacting. Nowadays, we can even let technology help us select what to focus on through augmented reality. Perhaps I should develop some Google Glass software that identifies people who are likely to make you miserable and gives you a nudge in another direction. I think the market is bigger than just me.

You didn't see me. I don't think you ever saw me. Saw. Me. I didn't want to see you. Not the real you. So, what did we see in each other? Perhaps we were just means for self-expansion and self-supression. What I do know, is that the elephant is still here.