War-knitting

It has been quite a while, but my business has been great. Apart from having a full-time job, I have also been working quite a lot on my thesis and searching for an apartment. The latter task, I am happy to say, is finished. I found a very nice two-room apartment in central Stockholm, in a house built in the late 1920s. It has a fireplace, a balcony and is damn nice. The problem, as expected, is that it will cost me a bloody fortune to live there.


Somebody has knitted here. I have no idea whether they made the whole thing right there, or if only the finishing touches were made at the site.


This is probably one of the best pictures I have ever taken. I am sure you will agree.


When taking a walk with a friend, I found this nice plank. It says "WE WALK SLOWLY" and I have no idea what it means.


Yes, I have been drinking again, as is painfully apparent.

I found The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to be the best Murakami book as of yet. Not only was it rock-solid through the whole story, but it also had an ending I did not dislike. I also read Hard-Boiled Wonderland, but it was really nowhere near as good. A Wild Sheep Chase which I am reading at present seems to be more like the former, which makes me pretty happy.

I took a pause in my Murakami marathon these last few days to read the latest Terry Pratchett book, Making Money. I found it to be very easy to read, but a little bit shallow. Of course, we are talking Pratchett here, and his books always tend to be rather shallow, but in a good way. Lots of archtypes and a few real characters, simple but effective stories, wonderful to read. It is not exactly a wonder why Homer (or whoever wrote those books) is such a famous guy. However, Making Money was somehow a little bit more shallow than usual. Only the main protagonist is given any character at all. Everybody else is just a cardboard cutout. Still a very good read, but I would have expected a wee bit more.

Today, I was a bit ambitious and went to Kulturhuset where I ambled around for a bit and looked at Martin Parr and Nobuyoshi Araki photo exhibitions. Parr was rather interesting. No fantastic pictures, no great art as such. However, he seems to be very gifted when it comes to capturing the spirit of a time and/or place, which sometimes counts for a lot more than the perfect composition. Araki seemed to like women who are tied up and have plastic lizards stuffed up their reproductive organs. It was a little silly, but there were some fantastic pictures of flowers and his beloved cat which made me forgive the rather tedious bondage bits.

A friend, a flower, a wild strawberry

Hey, I am all grown up, bitter and artsy. Since I have a camera, everything must now be in black and white. Also, I am honestly trying to learn to like jazz of the Bix Beiderbecke kind, but it is not going too well. I always switch to VNV Nation or Einstürzende Neubauten after five minutes.

I found a friend, a flower, a wild strawberry (which was not so wild since it grew on a balcony, so I would call it a tame strawberry, but then I would have a hard time conveying the fact that it is one of those small strawberries, Fragaria vesca, which we Swedes call smultron), a sunglasses-wearing child in a church holding a fish in front of the altar (oh, the symbolism) and a big clay butt next to flowers.







I also found I could fry some Quorn in lots of Kikkoman soy and white rice vinegar, add various vegetables and then throw in a bunch of udon noodles. Needless to say, this is a damn tasty dish which I fear I may get tired of very soon if I continue to make it all the time.

I also finished reading Dance Dance Dance which I felt was strangely familiar at times, I cannot really place it, but it was very much like some other book I read a long time ago. It also bore a passing resemblance to Lolita, which is not a bad thing. All in all I liked Kafka on the Shore a bit better, though. Of course, I have already started on my next Murakami book - The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - which hitherto is decidly better than both of the above. That might change though. The ending is so often the crucial part. The funny thing is that The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is certainly feeling eerily pertinent right now.