t h e . c h e r r y . b l o s s o m s . a l l . w i l t e r e d . a n d . d i e d , w i l t e r e d . a n d . d i e d *

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Do you remember this excess in pink glory?

This is the cherry tree that grows in our tiny yard. From my window I've watched autumn have its way with it. It's a grim affair, the tree bursting into flames as its dress is torn asunder ( - there is a little emo poet in me).

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** 2 **

** 3 **

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One morning they had swept up all the leaves and the yard was intensely grey and dull. Cherry glory come back.

* Perfect title for a Monday morning, don't you agree?

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b a k i n ' . g r a f f i t i

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It was the Glenn that pointed out that my childhood cloud ginger cookie cutter is shaped exactly like a graffiti cloud.

It makes me wonder...is it the housewives that are the clandestine bad asses, hiding fat caps in their apron pockets and rolling their hair on spray cans? They'd get away with it. Should we start - join? - the movement?

On another note, I miss blogs to follow beginning with the letters W, R, I and L. (Oh, and Q, Z, X, Å, Ä and Ö, but I don't have high hope for those. Lisa, you're an O, as in OMG.) Help me connect all my computer keys to blogs, please.

Thursday and Friday I'll spend at Uppsala International Short Film Festival's talent program. My short film The Second World War (2007) will be screened for program buyers for international TV channels. I can't wait to hear what they'll say about it. You can watch it here.

In other words, see you next week!

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w h a t . d i d . y o u . d o . o n . o c t o b e r . 2 1 s t . 2 0 0 5 ?

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The lavatory at Transit is covered in posters, proclaiming various past cultural events. Yesterday I took a closer look at the one from restaurant Landet only to realize it dated back to 2005, when Karol, Carlos and I used to run electro clubs under the name Startling! Rebound... And lo and behold, there it was - the evening of Cynthia Stern's first live!

And the first time I met the Glenn. I was chocked.

Sometimes I think back at our club nights with regret: Why didn't we record - film - photograph them? Something.

Then I think about this great post on living vs. documenting by Verhext, especially the end of the first passage:

"I remember a baby riotgrrl moment for me, at a Bikini Kill show in 1994 when the floor of the Fakehaus started caving in, and no one cared – completely absorbed in the experience. I can’t imagine stopping to tweet."

So I'm claiming this poster. I know it's yucky and wrong, but I don't care. Mine! to quote Elsie.

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c h r i s t m a s . t r e a t

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2012 Moon Calendar

Inc drawing on 90g, off-white paper

One line for each month of the year

A4, 21x29,7cm

Each print signed and unframed

€4.50 (= 39kr) + shipping

Free if you purchase another item, the Christmas cards excluded

Limited offer, that lasts from now until December 15th

Get it at Skerrie Things
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Christmas cards

Set of four, envelopes included

Printed on 200g, off-white paper

14x14cm

€9.00 (87kr) + shipping 

Limited offer, that lasts from now until December 15th 

Get'em at Skerrie Things



The Glenn and I decided to make a special Christmas treat for Skerrie Things this year: Cards with Northern mysterious trees and frost roses to combat cheery santas - and yes, one of the cards shares the same motif as the first Colouroïd single -  and a graphic black and white print reminding of the secret heavenly motions.
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c o n c r e t e . h e a r t s . c a n d y

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After sunshine comes rain... More pics from yesterday's day at Transit - does that sentence make sense?

At Transit I'm taken with the constant changes in the sky, unused to having a view other than our dark, tiny, triangular yard. Mesmerized, my nose flat to the cold glass, I keep thinking: I could get used to this!

On the downside, even though the radiators are on it's so draughty now that autumn has come - brrr! - that fleece one piece, here I come (it rhymes). Not only will my nose be flat, I'll be furry too.

During a recent bout of insomnia, googling Mary Shelley and her sci fi novel The Last Man (1826) on Sthlm's library site - this is perfectly normal to me, but what do you do when you can't sleep? - I came across different spellings of Frankenstein:

Frankenshtajn - Albanian. Frankensjtejn - Russian. Frankinshtayn - Arabic. Fulankensitan - Chinese.

Fulankensitan. Now you know what makes me giggly during lonely nights.

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I LOOK INTO THE SUN AND SEE DARK SPACE

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Do you as I do see star constellations in the flat surface of this cupboard?

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Autumn sunshine! These pics were taken last week at my studio. 

Later that day I had a moment when everything turned beautiful. I walked to the café to get a latte, and saw sudden photo opps in everyday things, things I've looked at so many times before without noticing anything special. Both my camera and phone were out of batteries --- so I won't know if the beauty was in my head or transgressed me.

I love being in that state of mind, it's like having access to magic.

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ALL BLACK

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Lately I've been googling wedding photos of a(aa)ll kinds for a masquerade. After cream puff, sailor, drag, clown, synth, white linen, November Rain, mods, Lennon-Ono and so much more, it was time for traditional Swedish costumes, and of course Elin Ivre's beautiful all black interpretation of a traditional dress:

Pic linc one and two.

This is the Vingåker and Österåker costume made in all black, to better show its cut and composition. The beautiful simplicity of this project keeps me returning to it. 
  Here is more info - only in Swedish, sorry!

Wedding in Delsbo, Hälsingland, 1880 - 1929. Pic linc.

Look at the beauty of her costume - and the serious faces.Who were these people? 
  I wonder what they would have made of Elin Ivre's dress? 

(This is a cropped close up to better show her wedding gown, the pic link leads to the original.)

Bridal couple from Delsbo, 1890 - 1910. Pic link.

My mind wandered to the difficult beauty of mass weddings. I love the black and white penguinlike patterns they make. Pic link.

On a personal note, I'm happy my own wedding is over, and all the choices made before it. Getting married was great - being married is better.

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b l a c k

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On Sunday, I was struck by the beauty of some black doors - these are indeed quick snaps since happy families kept trying to get by me, I wasn't the only one out on a Sunday stroll. I wonder if it's a remnant from the old church going days, like the family fun, going on visits to have tea before dinner and chores?

Today I feel pensive. I woke up with difficult questions on my mind. I don't know if I should stop and think, or just keep going?

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v o * * * v o

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Three pics from Sunday - a brisk walk through town (to walk Saturday's two dinners off - I'm sometimes greedy!) and visiting dear Jessica and Ellis at their five months old new home. 

The day was sunny and cold, quiet and as made for snuggles in the dusk of our tiny home. The Glenn and I watched horrible films, worked on our web shop and I scraped some paint off of a table. Some Sundays that's all it takes.

It feels like ages since I posted my own photos, though it was only a week ago - blog time might move different than regular time.

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l e t t e r . t o . a . b e d b u g

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Hey bedbug, 

are you the one that's come to live with us, the one I sometimes brush off in the middle of the night, like a tiny clawed peppercorn attached to my skin? Or so I'd like to imagine you - because I've never actually seen you. 

I like how Anticimex said that we after their "intervention" must use our bodies to lure you out into the poison. It makes me feel so in demand. Though I'm not sure it ever was about me, or us.

So, we have a date after dark?

Ella

Pic link. (Since it seems I've used other people's pics all week I'll end in style.)
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t r e m e

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Ever since the Glenn and I began watching the TV show Treme I can't stop thinking about Mardi Gras Indians - gaudy compels me - and the troubling thing that is authenticity. In Treme the New Orleansians wrestle with staying true to tradition and putting food on the table in a zero sum world, to use an expression from the show. To follow their struggle you need to believe that what the TV show presents to you is authentic - so you can separate the authentic from the fake -  and as an onlooker at the same time get comfortable in the role as the tourist. Because that's probably what you'd be if you were in the show (depending on where you're from, of course). The attraction is a mix of exoticism and identification.

This is a state of mind that I recognize from watching The Wire and other series aiming to compress "real life" into the format of the episode. It's fascinating and troublesome as the series themselves form a tradition of "what's real" that we'll in turn relate to. 

An artist mentioned to me very briefly that we use an uncharted part of the brain when we watch TV and movies - we're not in a state of being fully awake, yet we're not dreaming. I think a sensation of being split applies to many of the fleeting moments that is reality (and so authentic), whether you're yourself the main event or the tourist - or both, at the same time. Everything, even life, needs a recognizable format for us to find it believable. With this said, I'll continue reading about New Orleans fascinating history.

Pic link to the original photo. You're not supposed to tamper with other people's photos and I did. And I didn't ask for permission either.
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f l o w e r s . o f . a n d r o m e d a

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{ Pic linc. }

By chance I saw this image in a paper clipping last week, of Ralf Lundsten in his Andromeda Studio. This floral wallpaper - yup, that's what caught my eye! - is what made me re-return to the black and white flat in Suspiria. (The image is quite zoomable, so go ahead.)

This wallpaper isn't a fave though, it's much too multi coloured and crazy, it's more the idea of it.

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THE BLACK AND WHITE FLAT IN SUSPIRIA

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{ Drama. }

In periods I get a little obsessed with floral wallpaper. Not so much the romantic stuff, more 60's, 70's hand drawn with sharp contours, lately I prefer it in black, white and magenta. 
  I love the flat in the midst of the visual abundance - colours! lights! blood! - that is Suspiria (1977). The gorgeous wallpaper, the glam chrome furniture, the matching get up of the hostess.
  Also take notice of the black walls, the giant matching fat TV and the scary wall of fur.

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MELANCHOLIA

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I find it the hardest to write about the things that move me the most. Like Melancholia. Of which I really want to write, like a bible or two. For the time being though, I can't.
  Except for The Kingdom II I haven't been a von Trier fan, though I've always appreciated that he's there, making an exquisite fleshy mess. Watching movies I break down easily, and after Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark I temporarily lost all will to live. Movies sometimes give me mini depressions that last for like an hour or two. So stupidly I've some to realize that unless I want to deal with that, I have to monitor what I watch. Antichrist I've so far decided to avoid because of the sexual violence. Melancholia I was pensive about, but I couldn't resist it.
  So, Melancholia. I'll give you my review in four sentences:

I didn't know depression could be this devastatingly beautiful. The destruction of the world - oh yes. Melancholia is one of those films that I wish I hadn't watched so I could watch it again for the first time. I won't compare it to no other (at least not within this post).

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o f f ( w i t h . h e r . h e a d ! )

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This glass wall I pass each time I exit Konstfack where I have my office - you know, the place where I haven't been all week.

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r a i n b o w

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How soon after waking up is it advisable to start blogging? It's more or less become my morning routine. The Glenn leaves in a millisecond of a flash and unless I have a morning meeting I just sit there in the aftermath, yawning and confused.

This week I've decided to stay at home. It's been good but I'm getting itchy. I love having me an office - and I love not having to be there. Transit is a great place. Last time it was devoid of people though. I could hear someone walking --- somewhere.

This rainbow of cables is property of mr Bobergotti, and the photo was taken the same day as I took these. I've tried to find an old quote of Björk to go with it (I was sure it was in a Pop or Bibel!) saying that electronic music isn't cold, we all have electricity inside of us. Though as I remember it, she said it so much better.

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n e n e h

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Nighttime blogging has grown on me. It feels kinda forbidden, a feeling that must be a remnant from when you were little and had to go to bed. I'd read books under the covers and sneak into the kitchen and eat sugar cubes. Crunch crunch. I'd sometimes get caught. 

I knew exactly what parts of the floor that creaked - those closest to the stairs - and I remember how cold and slippery the kitchen floor was. That we had a giant black dog lurking in the dark didn't help, though he wouldn't rat me out, he just slid with me. Thank you Robin, I miss you.

I wouldn't go by my given name, so I gave myself another. It was quite similar to that of Neneh - Neneh Cherry. I remember I had mixed feelings the first time I heard of her and realized there was another one "like me", a very different someone "like me". 

I watched her live for the first time about a month ago, playing the same night as ESG. There was love and laughter and shimmering rays of light.

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a u t u m n

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This could be my one pic à post week. It's a format I like, though it is demanding - everything shows. Famapa is the best at this - like so and so. Big smiles.

When I first saw this photo about a week ago, you know, just browsing through the latest batch of snaps, I got quite a chock. Even though it is October - ! - I'm in denial. Autumn is not here yet, y'hear me? I'm not ready. I feel like a sun catcher or sun collector of some kind -

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f u l l . f r o n t a l

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Hiya Monday! Hiya world! I'll take ye on! No, I'm not still curled up in bed with a bucket of coffee contemplating watching re-runs of Project Runway, how dare you! I'm preparing my naked attack.

Many of the statues of Sthlm are ridiculous once you notice them. Lisa watched this guy get a buttock tune up from the nice handymen of the city. She was cameraless at the time.

I'm so sleepy my full frontal attack on the world might turn into a free falling. Today I'll chase papers. Print papers. Might do some experiments on printing papers. I'll call Anticimex. I'll need my spiked helmet, for sure.

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