goodbye danmark - hello scotland!

i like to think of myself as deeply flexible - always have been in my joints (i love to fold myself in half) - but suddenly i cannot handle being "behind" in this ELE JOU. meaning, i want to write about where i AM NOW rather than where i've been.

therefore, i will say GOODBYE to KØBENHAVN: to Martin and to Boris and to the bridges and the lakes and the incredible CYKEL KULTUR (bicycle culture) that weaves through that lovely city.

we flew into Edinburgh yesterday. i hope you can imagine it said with the proper scottish burr. 

try EDINBUTTA.

the GREEN out the window as we were landing was OVERPOWERING (i feel myself moving into a phase of wild hyperbole. please enjoy the ride or dial me down a few notches. warning: capital letters may become rampant).

edinburgh landing

Ann Mackie Miller was there to meet us. we got some pounds from a money machine, picked up our rental car and headed north across the FIRTH OF FOURTH. Ann rode shotgun which is the only thing that kept the car on the road. i haven't driven LEFTY in over 20 years and it's a LOT to adjust to. i only hit the curb twice (badly) and though there were a few close calls, i did pretty well.

i consider this kind of thing ALZHEIMER PREVENTION. seriously challenging the brain to FLEX. oh, did i say it's MANUAL TRANSMISSION? getting my left hand to manage the gear shift is a HILARIOUS comedy of errors.

we are staying in a tiny fishing village called CRAIL in a cottage just steps from the North Sea.

the beauty is heart-stopping. but even more arresting, for me, is the antiquity - the experience of being in the lap of a civilization that's been active in the same place for several thousand years is mind-boggling for a person from a pipsqueak country such as america.

panorama from back window 

next house through bathroom window

boat ties

me and Ann Mackie Miller 

next door neighbors

today, we spent in St. Andrews (especially apt for Andrew) where Ann went to university. a walled city dominated by the ruins of an enormous cathedral looking out over the sea, the streets are bustling with academics and holiday-makers. we exhausted ourselves tramping round the town and came home knackered (that's UK for bone tired) but we stayed up for the pink pink sunset that happened round about 10 pm.

 

andrew voigt in st. andrews playing "Pope of Scotland"

 

10 pm pinkness over Crail, Scotland

travel games: digital evidence

when i travel, i like to play a game and here's how it goes:

how can i tell i'm not in san francisco? 
how can i tell if i'm in America?

how can i tell where on god's earth i might be?

i like to leave language out of the picture (Danish signs, for instance, are dead give-aways. too easy with the Ø's and å's and Æ's). instead, i concentrate on roof lines, building materials and ornaments, the way the streets are made or laid out, what kinds of shops predominate, the look of the horizons, light fixtures, the clothes people wear, etc.

it can start simply like: 
there are no lakes in the middle of the city of san francisco.

 

københavn søerne (5 lakes)  

and

we don't do turrets much.

turreted corner building

plus we use very little brick or stone.

on buildings or on streets

brick detail

large brick face

cobblestones (in danish "brosten" which translates to "bridge stones")

but the biggest difference is we don't have many houses that were built before1600 and we almost never paint them orange or yellow!

orange house leans on grey

 

orange house, red shutters 

 

 burnt orange building

orange house, yellow stripe  

close up of aging burnt orange

something about LOOKING THROUGH

i am not a voyeur. not per se.
but i am a person who likes to LOOK THROUGH.
or THROUGH and INTO.

i like to look through the camera lens. i also like to look through windows and doors, making them frames for seeing life. and i also love REFLECTIONS: mirrors of things not seen directly.

all these aspects of PERCEPTION change how we see, what we see, if we see, when we see.

feeling contemplative, i offer a few small lens from Danmark (that's Danish for Denmark) in this evening's ELE JOU...


 

three colored cups

store window paper lampshade (late candidate for lighting fixture post)

  

paintings in blågårdsgade window

 

svane (danish for swan) window curtains

me and a noiseless typewriter

blue tree car rain

silk panty window

 

window deck water

Ann-Marie Kløft reflected in her own home  

finally KØBENHAVN (that's Copenhagen)

on tuesday afternoon, we returned to Arlanda, stockholm's airport to fly to København. this is the real danish way to spell the town and, if you are Danish, it should sound something like this: Cuban-hown.

try saying it a few times now. it won't be right, because danish is a VERY DIFFICULT LANGUAGE, but it is still fun to try. the hardest part? the sounds that come out of their mouths are nothing like what the words look like on their pages. on top of that, the shape their mouths makes has nothing to do with the sounds that emerge.
VERY MYSTERIOUS.

i lived here on and off during the 90s, teaching and performing the movement form Contact Improvisation with my then-partner, Riccardo Morrison. i have not been in København since 1997 and it is strange and intense to return. some aspects of my history that i did not know were pending, apparently are. meaning, i feel extremely emotional here and have been thrown into a kind of existential free-fall. i keep expecting to see myself, 15 years younger, flying around a corner on a bicycle. as unlikely as that might be, part of me holds her breath, waiting...

meanwhile, i distract myself with light fixtures and surface textures. endlessly fascinating. perhaps the danish are obsessed with light because it is SO ridiculously dark here during the winter and SO ridiculously light here during the summer.

 

bank overhead artichokes

 

 

dotty lamps 

 

planet globe

 

martin's overhead

 

paper hanger

 

 

pinpoint light spheres 

 

church candelabra from below

 

library overhead beneath skylight

 

street light suspended over traffic intersection

STILL STOCKHOLM / FREE-FLOWING EVIDENCE:

 stockholm harbor panorama

STILL STOCKHOLM /
FREE-FLOWING EVIDENCE:

the problem with a travel journal is FALLING BEHIND. because now, of course, i am already somewhere else and eager to talk THAT place. but i WILL catch up with myself. somehow.

we landed Saturday and spent three days in Stockholm. it rained for much of the time but we are hardy types with raincoats in our luggage and a will to slog - highly motivated, especially in a place i've never been. like Stockholm.
amazingly enough, my sneakers did not get very wet.

we stayed in GAMLA STAN which is the Old Town (not a Swedish take-off on Turkistan or Uzbekistan). our friend Lennart hosted us in a beautiful, cozy and well-appointed apartment contained within walls built in the 1600s (his partner LiseLotte was in Arizona, poor thing - warm and dry).

THE 1600s! such antiquity drives me wild in a splendid way.
and i know, i know - for Europe, 1600 is really sort of just a teenager. but being American, everything we see and have is NEW. so things that are old tend to be resonant and appealing and mystifying and awesome.

(click on any photo to get a large slideshow)

 gamla stan, stockholm

buildings, red and pumpkin

corner, from above 

 

 

lennart's glasses

  

various white things (olika vita saker)

i guess the most amazing thing we saw in Stockholm was the remains of the old ship Vasa.

they finished building the boat in 1628 and there was a big launch party in the harbor after which it was to sail off to win a war with Poland. it had 64 canons on-board - 2 decks full of guns. 

the ship went less than one nautical mile when a gust of wind tipped it perilously. the gun flaps (see below) were still open from firing ceremonial celebratory rounds and water poured in but the Vasa righted itself. moments later, another huge gust capsized the boat and she SUNK TO THE BOTTOM OF THE HARBOR.

323 years later, the ship was raised and reconstructed. it is 98% original timbers because there are no "ship worms" in the Baltic Sea - the water has just the right amount of salinity to have preserved the black oak from which it was built. magnificent carvings, reconstructed rigging, skeletons of 30+ people who perished on-board. exquisite, evocative, and very stimulating to the imagination!

the good ship VASA

10 pm, late night light

stockholm smorgåsbord

the flight from nyc was uneventful and this is ALWAYS what i wish for on an airplane. it was LONG but not as long as flying to europe from san francisco which is VERY LONG.

humans have been trying to manage, tame, understand and master time for ages but the best we've been able to do is to put it in a box marked with 12 numbers. of course, something funny happens to time on an airplane but nobody is laughing.

 

on the wing - arrows pointing backwards

 

sunset on the wing

 

a welcome sign

 

sunrise on the wing

 

pelting rain on the wing in Stockholm

the first thing i noticed about Stockholm was three different kinds of chairs AT THE AIRPORT that i would be proud to have in my home - good design, gorgeous fabric, amazing color. 

 

green leather swivelers!

 

triple connected orange lozenges!

 

textured wool mustard armless!

in addition, i found some faucets embedded in marble, some crazy paisleys, a red public phone box and a tablecloth used as a light fixture. all these things warm my design-y heart.

 

sink fixtures

 

building through curtain

 

iron door grille 

 

pay telephone!

 

overhead light fixture fashioned from tablecloth