Today, a certain desperation set in. I realized with alarm that I am already in the middle of my stay in Sweden! I have written very little of my script! I have not visited neither Stockholm nor Uppsala! I did not meet almost any Swedish people! I did not discover the secrets of the Scandinavian…
Category: Articles
Sweden. Day 15. Art for Art's Sake.
Today the day was mostly consumed assisting with the filming of a performance by other artists who are residing or visiting up here. I do not have much idea of what it was about, other that it involved ties being tied around a person. It is interesting that most of the artists currently residing or…
Sweden. Day 14. Aurora borealis.
Yesterday I was told that the “aurora borealis”, also known as northern lights, might be seen late at night, even from down here at Björkö. So I set my alarm clock to wake me up at 3:30 AM. But at first I could not sleep, and when I finally did, I kept dreaming that I…
Sweden. Day 13. Scenes from marriages.
Today I just made a short walk to Marum, near the sea, across frozen swamps, but yesterday we watched the Swedish film “Tillsammans” (Together, 2000) by Lukas Moodysson. It is about a sort of hippie community in the 1970s in Stockholm. I had seen it years ago when it came out, but I didn’t remember…
Sweden. Day 12. The sound of a tree falling.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If I write a daily report from Sweden but no one reads it, does it even exist? Walking around the local forest here at Björkö, you will notice several fallen trees, here and there. And…
Sweden. Day 11. What a difference a day makes.
Today the temperature went up, it was sunny and 6 degrees Celsius outside. A lot of the snow around had melted and one could have a better idea of how idyllic this place can look during summer. I walked with a fellow artists to the coast of Simpnås. I had been there before, but this…
Benefits of living in a school
I am staying in an old house in Björkö that is now an Arts Residence space, with studios and apartments for artists, filmmakers and writers, but which until very recently was an elementary school. (It closed in 2017). And it seems to be an old school, perhaps from the beginning of the century, although I…
Sweden. Day 10. Cows and horses.
I didn’t do much today, but I had fun feeding a couple of carrots to a cow and a horse. The cows are Highland cows (a breed originally from Scotland). The horse, I am not sure. It seems to be a type of pony, with shorter legs than a normal horse, and a bit longer…
Are politicians mentally ill?
Or do they just love the new control they found? (Daily rant.) There is a pandemic going on, but it’s not a respiratory disease. It is a disease that only affects politicians and makes them create insane laws to try to “control a virus” and force an unwanted and inefficient vaccine on every man, woman…
Sweden. Day 9. Animals.
Many wild animals live in the archipelago of Björko-Arholma. We can see their footprints in the snow all the time, one track crisscrossing another. Once you learn their basic shape, you can identify them: hares, elks, lynxes, deer, foxes, wild boars, otters — and… well, others. However, spotting the actual animals is a bit harder….