It’s been a day of getting out and about and enjoying the warm weather. Stockholm is such a beautiful city. I love the water and I love the parks. I also love the way how everything grows wild in summer, in contrast to the cold, winter months. And today was just spectacular. Here’s a brief slideshow of photographs from my adventures today wandering around and observing summer life, activity, buildings and nature in central Stockholm.
As my trip to Sweden is now only three weeks away, I’ve started to become “very serious” about my Swedish language lessons.
I’ve recently begun doing “Swedish Sundays” where I try to consume only Swedish language material, and try only to speak in Swedish. It was a little impractical last weekend when I caught up with friends John and James, but it’s generally been quite good fun, as I’ve listened to Swedish music, watched Swedish films, and read Swedish newspapers.
Nonetheless, Swedish class was a little difficult tonight, as we’ve begun to listen to more complex things. We’re no longer listening and speaking “like five year olds”, as I sometimes say. Both the complexity and the speed of the material we’re dealing with has increased significantly over the last few weeks. Best of all? We’re doing less grammar, and listening and speaking more which, ultimately, is what I’m interested in.
After class tonight I was feeling a little tired, so didn’t head off to the pub, as is my usual routine. I came home, tried to watch some television, and then nodded off for a few minutes. I woke up in time for Embarassing Bodies or Illnesses, or whatever it is at the moment, which tonight was totally gross.
So I went online and hunted around for some new Swedish pop.
My favourite right now is Juvelen, a singer with a style reminiscent of some of the earlier funk material by Prince.
I absolutely LOVE his song, Hanna from a couple of years ago.
I bought the mp3 download of his latest EP a couple of weeks ago. As part of the deal, I’m also receiving the EP on vinyl. Yes, seriously vinyl. I know it’s all very cool and fashionable these days amongst the young folk, but I personally haven’t bought anything on vinyl since the late 1980s.
The other song I discovered tonight which I also like very much is called “Om sanningen ska fram” (if the truth by told) by by Eric Amarillo. It’s currently the #1 song in Sweden and it’s awfully catchy.
The lyrics are about someone being totally honest with someone else, and yet also kinda saying the honesty is really all about just wanting to sleep with them.
The chorus is…
Vill du ligga med mig då om sanningen ska fram?
Vill du ligga med mig då, vill du ligga med mig?
Vill du ligga med mig då, om sanningen ska fram?
…which roughly translates as “do you want to sleep with me if the truth be told” (and variations on that).
Even though the video has a slight “old man hanging out with young people vibe”, I quite like the song.
It’s also given me a new Swedish phrase which might come in handy in the next few weeks… “Vill du ligga med mig då?”
And then a few months ago, I had to wear a suit to work one day. The result was a range of really positive comments of how good I looked, how much it made me “look the part”, and how it made me look thinner. And so I’ve been doing it ever since.
But rather than spend a fortune on new shirts and ties, I went to a fantastic second hand store on the corner of Broadway and Glebe Point Road and bought a whole bunch of both for a total of less than $20. Good value, eh? Even better value than the famous Marj Simpson Chanel suit. The woman behind the counter had also told a colleague another woman had recently bought a whole new wardrobe for work for a total of less than $250. How many other middle managers have done the same?
Despite the second hand clothing, which I’ve openly discussed with some colleagues, people DO tend to take me a little more seriously and people DO tend to respond more favourably to what I have to say. Odd, isn’t it?
This photograph of me was snapped the other day, part of a much larger photograph taken at Parramatta Westfield. I kinda like it because it isn’t posed, it’s quite natural, and I guess for the first time it gave me a chance to see what I look like in the workplace now.
Does my bum look fat in this?
The thing about art gallery opening nights in Sydney is that they often”clump together”. They’re often on a Thursday night or a Saturday afternoon, and they’re often at exactly the same time. 6-8pm on Thursday. 2-4pm on Saturday. This is both good and bad. On the bad side, it means you sometimes have to rush between openings; on the good side it means you can move on if you think the work isn’t that interesting.
The latter is what happened for my friend and I. We were excited at the prospect of a double up with the John Fries Award at COFA (sorry, UNSW Art & Design as it’s called now), and an exhibition at the nearby National Art School. Though there were lots of lovely people to chat to at John Fries, we were both quite disappointed with the works. One of the two I’ve shown you my friend said she “actually hated”. Down below, however, there’s a terrific exhibition called “Troubled Waters” with photography, video and even crayon drawings dealing with the subject of climate change. The video work from China, in particular, is fantastic.
And so, having spent an hour or so at UNSW, we headed down Oxford Street to the National Art School, for their current exhibition Sixth Sense. It’s such a great exhibition, with so many works made up of things that “smell”. As you enter on the lower level, there’s some fragrances in bottles and some of those smelling cards (sorry, I don’t know the word, but those cards like you would find in a cosmetics store) with fragrances which include freshly sharpened pencils! Upstairs, there are other wonderful works which are made from herbs, chillies, and even ashes. Definitely worth visiting.
On the weekend I finally got around to watching the brilliant television program “Friends Of Dorothy” by William Yang. William is a really important Australian photographer whose work documents, in particular, Sydney’s gay and lesbian scene in the last forty years.
I have met William on a few occasions and have concluded he’s a very lovely man. He also has a really interesting life story, having grown up in country Queensland, but also having made a life in (and important contribution to) Sydney’s gay, lesbian and queer, and photography and arts communities.
The program told me a lot more about William’s life than I’d previously known, including mention of his friendship with the Australian designer, Jenny Kee who is famous for her very colourful outfits.
When Jenny Kee’s name and photograph were featured in the program I had a sudden flashback, remembering that a distant family member had once remarked “you know Jenny Kee is part of our family”. At the time it was one of those stories where I thought “how interesting” but never thought much further of it. But on hearing her name again, I decided I would dig a little deeper, to see if there really was a connection or if it was just “one of those stories”.
It didn’t take long for me to find out Jenny Kee’s parents were William Ah Kee and Enid Olive Marchionni. From there, it was fairly simple to establish – thanks to Google – Enid’s parents were Olive Annie Victoria Love and Cesare Giovanni Marchionni. A further generation back and it was also easy to establish Olive Annie Victoria Love’s parents were Joseph Francis Love and Margaret Rebecca Denny. Joseph was the son of John Love and Ellen Sullivan. John was a son of Joseph Lester Love.
And so it goes… back to our common ancestors John and Martha Love, who came to Australia in 1791.
For all of the effort involved, it would have been much simpler if I’d simply emailed Lyle and Margaret Cooper who organised the Love Family Reunion of 2011, and who published their wonderful book about the Love Family in Australia. A quick email to them and I was able to establish and confirm the connection
The book contains the information I had been seeking with a couple of notable quotes…
For more information, there’s a book called “A Family began with Love”. For more details, contact Lyle & Margaret Cooper, 11 Kernel Street, The Gap Qld 4061 Ph: 07 33122365 0427 122440 landmdcooper@optusnet.com.au
Despite our common ancestry, Jenny has become a great Australian fashion designer, and I (obviously) have absolutely no fashion sense at all…
I’ve been feeling slightly restless in the last few days, and so have been wandering a fair bit, taking a few photographs here and there, a few of which looked better in black and white than colour, so I thought I’d share them. Nothing special, all on my camera phone, with a black and white filter.
I was up before dawn, determined to have a lovely walk to Nobby’s Beach at Newcastle, and to take some photographs along the way. The weather and beach didn’t disappoint, and it was pretty good to see a large cruise ship in the harbour, Rhapsody Of The Seas, attract attention.
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You have some really great photos there!
Really wonderful pictures!
Interesting photos, some of the water scenes remind me a bit of Sydney.
Yes there are similarities, though the harbour doesn’t freeze over in winter. The climatic extremes are part of the physical appeal of Stockholm for me.
Really nice pics.
Stockholm is the world´s most beautiful town, isn´t it?