 |
 |
|
|
|
|
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.
Another day glued to CNN, with a pinch of Fox TV and Al jazeera. Furloughs in the blogosphere have been most disappointing, however; and this at the supposed hour of glory for blogsPerhaps the title The demise of the blog is a bit strong but I liked it too much not to use it. Also, this post is positioning itself so that when the inevitable backlash against blogs occurs, I can say I was ahead of the curve..
I opined a few weeks ago how blogs would add a unique new perspective to our understanding of war. But I was wrong. Embedded journalists who feed us victory and defeat live via videophone provide the unique new perspective in this war. Some reasons why blogs have failed to live up to the challenge:
Perhaps blogs have been promoted above their station. They are not proving to be the optimal tool for distilling the fog of war war into clear conclusions (though there are exceptionsBlatant plug for MemeFirst, I know.). The best blogs know their place—say, as a pointer to original commentary, or as a place for discussion among self-selecting groups; or act as a clearing house for local information, such as gossip.
 |
 |
These are some of the pictures I took on September 11, 2001, from the roof of my apartment at 109 St. Marks Place. |
Predictably, both pro- and anti-war opinion mongers have found much in the war to date to bolster their respective moral high grounds. But that which is predictable is also boring. More interesting is to wonder what it would take to engender a change of heart on either side. Any conviction worth having should be falsifiable. Popper's theory of epistemology turned conventional wisdom on its head in its contribution to the scientific method: Theories are only useful to the extent they are falsifiable, i.e. can be disproved through empirical tests.Beliefs that can never be tested against empirical evidence are merely dogmatic.
So I have constructed a set of tests that I offer up for consideration by both sides of the debate. For example, if you are for the war, you should agree now to admit it was a mistake if most of the following scenarios take place:
Conversely, if you are against the war, you should agree now to admit you were mistaken if most of the following scenarios take place:
Feel free to suggest your own criteria. It is of course possible for scenarios from both sides to play out, but the litmus test, I think, will be the reception of US and UK troops as they enter Baghdad.
As far as military objectives are concerned, I think the war is going well for the US, even after today. Anybody who assumed the US and UK would suffer at most the odd flesh wound is placing unrealistic expectations on the coalition. Television coverage is riveting, and worth a post all to its own. Here in Sweden, CNN is on all the time, but another channel achieves balanced coverage by alternating between hours of Fox News and Al Jazeera. Both are blatantly partial, and bizarrely compelling.
But Iraq has the potential of turning into another Vietnam, with a nightmare scenario wherein the civilians are liberated against their will, and good intentions pave a path to hell. Gulf War One is widely considered to have been the war where the US decisively overcame its Vietnam War syndrome. But one hopes that the US military did not forget the lessons of Vietnam. Afghanistan is not a good comparison for the challenges facing the US and UK in Iraq: There are much larger population centers in Iraq, there is a trained, patriotic army defending them, and they have the morale boost of defending their homeland against foreign invaders. The coalition operates with the handicap of an unwillingness to inflict civilian casualties, yet with a likelihood of such casualties occurring and with the success of their mission depending to a large extent on their reception by this civilian population.
Confidence based on expectations of inviolability is the most brittle kind. And the morale of soldiers who are not absolutely convinced they must fight to save their families is the most vulnerable. For coalition troops, the coming days will test both their confidence and their morale.
On Saturday, Helena (Gustavsson, from SAIS Bologna days) and her sambo Christer sambo: person you live with but are not married to.hosted an important event in the yearly calendar of Swedish rituals: Communal watching on TV of the selection of the official Swedish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), to be held in Riga on May 24, 2003.
If you have never been subjected to the Eurovision Song Contest, count yourself blessed. I suspect ESC is responsible for fully 20% of New York immigrants from Europe. But try as they might, nobody really ever escapes its insidious influence. Case in point: it launched the career of Celine Dion, who won in 1988.
But you only really begin to appreciate the brilliant depravity of ESC when it dawns on you that she won because she was better than the rest. Brilliant marketing idea: a double CD-set with all the worst songs over the years.My own youth was scarred by a single accidental exposure to ESC in Belgium. Not only was the Belgian entry atrocious, we then had to sit through hours of "Belgique, nul points" as we were officially shamed for being even worse than tolerable.
If there is one silver lining to the whole ordeal, it is that it helps the young learn early how European politics really operates. All the French speaking countries vote for each other, all the English speaking countries team up with the Scandinavians, and the rest engages in balance-of-power politicking. Also, Turkey always loses.
If you live in Europe, then, you have to develop a coping mechanism. And the best way to cope is not to cower, but to stare the beast in the eyes, and then give it a big wet sloppy kiss on the mouth. This is what we were doing Saturday night, addled by fine wines, which made it easier to leave one's ironic detachment at the door (there were children there, after all).
Sweden's 12 candidate songs fall into two classes. Those sung in Swedish by people wearing elk fur which have no hope of winning, and those sung in "English." The scare quotes are justified this year. Here are some of the "lyrics:"
Alcazar: Not a Sinner, Nor a Saint
... I'm not a sinner nor a saint, Not that I will lose my head and faint. ... Am I a bad boy? Maybe. Am I a sad boy? Let see...
Nul points! Sad enough?
Barbados: Bye Bye
You make me feel like a UFO, This time I've had it, I will take no more, I'm better off alone out of this war zone. ... Who's going to turn you on when I'm gone?
Nul Points! Bye bye.
Fame: Give Me Your Love
I can be the one you love forever, I can be the dream of your heart. ... You can turn the winter into summer, oh yeah You can be me my wonder every day. Everytime I see you I just want to hold you, I wish you felt the same way that I do.
These guys won. Yes, Sweden's official entry is a song about... stalking.
Friday night, I finally got to see Lukas Moodysson's Lilja 4-everAnd it pains me to say it, but he is barely three months older than me. You may know him from Tillsammans (Together), which was playing at Angelica NYC in the months after 9/11, and which was the first movie to get me laughing out loud again.
— a movie that leaves no doubt he is one of the best directors working today.
Lilja 4-ever joins only two other movies that are so compelling in their trajectory towards despair that I dread watching them again: Dancer in the Dark and Breaking the Waves. Interestingly, all three depict resourceful women who come undone by a trust in others that borders on the naive.
In Lilja 4-ever, we watch how a 16-year old Russian girl (Lilja, played brilliantly by Oksana Akinshina) is forced into prostitution in Sweden. Most of the film takes place in Russia and is in Russian, but the scenes in Sweden are what have caused the most impact here. For Lilja's clients are affluent Swedes, and Moodysson leaves no doubt that they are abettors to the crime.
Stylewise, we see some dogme influence, with abrupt cuts and shaky camera work. But Moodysson veers away from that esthetic when it suits him: There is a soundtrack, for example, though it exists to express Lilja's inner turmoil, not to tug at the audience's heartstrings. Rammstein, Germany's answer to hard rock, plays at crucial moments.
When you see the movie, you will be struck by echoes of the imagery in Wim Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire). But unlike that movie, and Breaking the Waves, where the last scene annoyingly insists on the reality of a miracle, Lilja 4-ever never passes into spiritual la-la land. Moodysson is a socially committed filmmaker, and he is not going to let a facile religious redemption make everything alright. In his movies, the only angels are the ones you make yourself.
Three days in a row it's been 10ºC and sunny in Stockholm. Three days in a row all the Swedes I know have tittered in unison about the coming of daylight savings time. March 30 this year.But they reserve their widest smiles for when they tap me on the elbow and tell me, again, how wonderful those outdoor cafés will be... in May.
To better understand such ebullience at a mere turn in the weather, it helps to read a Swedish grammar exercise book. Exercise books in other languages deal with such innocuous topics as the color of one's pencil. My exercise book has taken it upon itself Första övningsboken i svensk grammatik, by Gunnar Hellström © 1994. I heartily recommend it. By far the best of its kind.to prepare us immigrants for the Lutheran take on life:
Jag får inte börja jobba. Jag har inget arbetstillstånd. ~ I am not allowed to work. I don't have a work permit.
Ta det lugnt, mormor! Doktorn kommer snart här. ~ Shut up, grandma! The doctor will soon be here.
När tänker du betala tillbaka pengarna som du lånat? ~ When are you thinking of paying me back the money you borrowed?
Min mamma har cancer och tror att hon kommer att dö. ~ My mother has cancer and she thinks she's about to die.
Those last two sentences are meant to illustrate that Swedes have 3 lexemes for the verb to think, Not to be confused with morphemes.much like eskimos have 15 lexemes to describe their wealth of experience with snow. If you think you might die (belief), you tror. If you're thinking of suicide (intent), you tänker, and if you think dying would be nice (opinion), you tycker. Choose the wrong verb, and your fear of death turns into a deathwish. Who said Swedish was easy?
WWII was brought home via the radio. Vietnam via TV. Gulf War I via live TV. Gulf War II will be blogged.
We've had the war blogs, and then the anti-war blogs, and now the meta-war blogs, and these will all shift into high gear a week or two from now in an orgy of point and counterpoint and I-told-you-sos and last words. But the most interesting posts will come from blogs on the ground. Kevin Sites, a CNN foreign correspondent covering the war, started his blog 4 days ago, and so far all of it has been riveting reading.
Of course, blogging from inside the warzone could come to a screeching halt with a single use of the fabled electromagnetic pulse bomb.Chance of this being used in Iraq: 80% I think. Barring that, we could be in for some interesting color.
And sound. Latest innovation in the blogosphere is audioblogging, whereby you call in your post to your Blogger.com-powered siteThe site promises to support other engines, including Movable Type, soon. and your visitors can listen to the audio. The likely success of this meme among arm-chair bloggers is questionable, but for those personal publishers in the field, far from internet access but close to a phone and with something urgent to say, this makes all the sense in the world. It is the marriage of radio's immediacy with the internet's scalability, and makes potential radio broadcasters of us all.
From radio in WWII to radio in GWII: The wheel turns full circle. Oh dear, just noticed GWII could also stand for the current Prez. Guess this war will indeed define his presidency.
I was all ready with my thesis as to why there are no blogs in Europe, why nobody here even knows what a blog is, when I decided I should perhaps search for the odd French or Italian blog just to prove my point. I now regret this bout of empiricism. A day's worth of euroblogging later, my theories lie in shambles.
I will now have to write about why the Anglophone world doesn't know about European blogs. But because I am my own worst editor, and this is my blog, you first get to read all about my reasons why there are no blogs in Europe. I'll be brief...
We think Europeans don't blog because we don't read their blogs. We can't read their blogs. It's the language barrier, stupid. Yet blogging is done by educated elites and schoolkids on both sides of the Atlantic — and not by anybody else. There are fewer blogs in all of West Virginia than in the West Village; this I am sure of. Much as we wish it to be true, blogging is not as ubiquitous as TV, neither in the US nor in Europe. We build blogs, but only other bloggers come.
I start my tour with the Francophone equivalent of the Bloggies: Les Blogs d'Or. The cynic in me immediately hones in on the categories. Best Belgian blog? But only if it's in French? Potverdekke. No chance of blog@stefangeens.com competing. I delve into the current event blogs category. The quality is very high, but I am eventually reminded of I first read this essay in his book Mortal Questions. Gist: No amount of reductionist gymnastics is really ever going to really let us know "the subjective character of experience" of being a bat. Why a bat? Any animal will do, but bats have sonar, and Nagel hammers home his point by asking you if you can really know what it is like to be that animal if you cannot even perceive the world as it does.
Thomas Nagel's famous essay, What is it like to be a bat? These blogs have a different taste, a different feel, one that i suspect would not survive translation. And then it occurs to me that the entirety of Anglophone blogs have a different such subjective character of experience too.
This is the best I can do to explain: A language's blogs collectively tend to have similar assumptions about what the reader brings to the blog, and these assumptions in turn are distinct from those of blogs in other languages. Francophones seem more able to widthstand long, navel gazing neo-Baudelarian rants Francophone blogs also have a penchant for really small text. Maybe it's because they have low res monitors still...by authors who have themselves photographed smoking cigarettes. Italians are more pragmatic; and their posts tend to be far shorter, and more concerned with media personalities than anything else.
But in one way Italian blogs are much more accessible. Italian blogs do a far better job of linking to familiar Anglophone sites in addition to their homegrown offerings, Before you bash the French, tell me how many links to French blogs your site has.while the French seem to be more autonomous in their linking.
I think I will go survey Swedish blogs next. An early entrant, a runner-up in the Bloggies no less, is How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons.
I would love to hear of any favorite non-English blogs you frequently read.
No posts for over a month because in my mind, BLOG@STEFANGEENS.COM had aquired lame-duck status qua design. This involves a non-trivial amount of manual labor porting over comments, as well as media, and it is not yet done, so no complaining if your acid-lined gems of old have temporarily disappeared.
Also check out Text Pattern, another promising content management system for blogs.Ever since I had decided I was going to change my content management engine from Blogger to Movable Type I saw little use for adding new writing to a soon-to-be obsolete system. Also, I needed a break. Not from blogging, but from the constraints that the blogging format was beginning to impose on me — or so I felt.
So I redesigned the site. Site design is to me what I imagine gardening is to some people. It just pleases me to do it.
For this latest iteration of BLOG@STEFANGEENS.COM, I decided to focus on readability. Specifically, I hankered after the simplicity of the page in a book: black, serifed text on white space. My inspiration came from Robert Bringhurst's excellent The Elements of Typographic Style, which has become the typographer's bible since it was first published 10 years ago. Question: What is the ideal amount of characters on a line of text? Answer: 66It is an immense pleasure to read, because it constantly practices what it preaches.
But Elements gave me another idea. It uses marginalia copiously, to great effect. For the web, marginalia seems a natural addition: It breaks off from the narrative's one-dimensional thread, but does not quite amount to the radical break of a link. It's an extra half dimension of freedom, allowing short diversions that would otherwise be heaved into brackets, distracting from the flow of the text.
1.618034... or 1 plus the square root of 5, divided by 2.How wide to make the marginalia? I went with the Golden Mean, that naturally pleasing ratio. We'll see if it works. This site will need a few weeks to mature yet. But welcome back in the meantime. I have plenty to write about.