oslo ++++

this is an epic post, so get comfortable.
GOOD NEWS!
Jesper, my trusty officemate and friend, helped me find a community center where i could develop my own film for a very low price. and last night i did a marathon and developed 8 rolls! so, i have the negatives that i can scan and share with you. i am still working out a scanner that really gets the negs well, but this post has some scans that i tried to make presentable enough for you, my savvy readers.

first, meet Lasse! This is Ane, Kristin and Årild's dog. I stayed with them in Blaker and they were amazing hosts. I will post pics of them when i can scan the negatives better. all the people shots are too light.



That is most definitely Lasse hording my shoe. I took it as a sign of affection, though he wouldn't let that thing go. I was scheming a plan to lure him away with a piece of Jarlsberg cheese(his current favorite--such a mature, Scandinavian palate), when Årild came into the house and there is really no better distraction than his Papa.

The first night that I actually stayed in Oslo, I didn't have any plans, but I had seen a poster in a bar window for music that was free and something about caught my eye, so I decided I would have a beer there after I had rested from my day of walking around. When I got there, the band was sweet--playing good covers--and then they had a break. I had brought a book on the off chance I would find myself alone and so I began to read. Not long after someone asked my what I was reading and before I knew it I was meeting a whole table of Norwegians who were sweet and fun and great conversation. I mentioned that I thought the hotdog stands were cool and one guy told that, that day's paper had a magazine insert with Norwegian hot dog stands as the cover story. On my way home I picked up a copy and it was true! 8 pages of glossy hotdog glory! It was incredible. I have scanned a few to show you, though, I haven't really dedicated myself to trying to read the text. but, i am not alone. in fact, i may have really struck a chord with this hot dog stuff.


And, though a Danish dog is not perfect by any stretch, I do have to say I rate it higher than the Norwegian dogs, which are mostly steamed, not grilled. Big difference.



One last thing. My colleague at the Center is writing her PhD and one of her subjects is a town not far from Copenhagen. Her main text is a book from the 50's that has all these cute drawings/pics of the town and one has the cutest hot dog stand in it. The three pics above are the drawing, a close up of the hotdog sign(i highlighted the text in yellow) and a picture of the new stand that is there now, present day. Cool. So, as I suspected, the Danes have been doing this hot dog stand gig for quite some time now. Maybe I can find an even earlier example.

chateau de suzette

this is killin' me with it's amazingness. in response to my post "for mom (WMW)" ryan embellised my montage with a title. that deserves a fantastisk! thanks ryan.

oslo + trivia

i finally submitted a draft of my thesis. i am taking today off because i have worked so many hours since i returned and then it is back to 9-5, using my freetime to make things, daydream, take walks and explore copenhagen. today i am starting to post about beautiful oslo, our partner to the north. on my first day exploring, i did the museum circuit and regret not buying books for the Sverre Fehn exhibit at the National Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design, which by the way if FREE to ALL, ALL THE TIME.

a page from Sverre Fehn's many sketchbooks which put my sketchbooks to shame but also opened my eyes to so much more that i could do. his drawings are anything but perfect, but extremely accurate. full of feeling and life. i was very impressed. and i don't think i really know how to talk about his architecture so i will leave it to you do discover. why didn't i buy that book!? i thought it was too heavy. darn.

Løwaas and Wagle

can anyone identify this?

can anyone identify this?
Then i crossed the street to the Museum of Contemporary Art
which is also FREE to ALL and there was an exhibit with a huge collection of WOVEN arts! Løwaas and Wagle weave fabric, paper, panty-hose, you name it and the results are incredible. I was really struck by there work. Do, go to the link and scroll through the 10 or so images on the front page and see more. it is so worth it. it really inspired me to take those woven postcards to the next level! The collection there was very impressive and full of things that i would pick if i could afford them. i think we must have similar taste! i was making notes in my little pocket notebook about the names of the art/artists above but some of the pages are missing and i need your help. does anyone recognize these? maybe there is a prize in it for whoever guesses, so if you answer, leave your address.

ok. it's my day off! i am going to go mess around and do NO work!

slave to the keyboard

I think must be the longest work bender I have ever done. And ptuiii! I have had it. I know she'll(the thesis) be comin' around the mountain when she comes, but boy I would like to hit fastforward and watch that horse's legs do triple-time all the way to the graduate school to hand this sucker in. I allowed myself a beer last night--the only one I have had since I returned from traveling and I nearly lost it. I was near euphoric. But then I had to reign it in because I am nowhere near done. Tomorrow I send off a draft to my advisors (Hi Thaisa and Nancy!) who have kindly allowed me to extend my deadline a few days and then I can go back to doing 9-5. That will be a relief.

Enough ranting. Here's a rave. I got cherries in this bag in Berlin and I thought it was very sweet. Obst means fruit in German. Check out that cute drawing.

This is a demolition site of a housing block in Leipzig (Grünau).

And I swear, Norway posts are coming soon!

ships passing by again

i did finally fix the "i like to watch ships passing by" woven card and i want to post it again so you can see it in in all of it's finished glory. the other picture is my sketchbook where i schemed and calculated how to get the darn thing to fit on that tiny card. sometimes sketches and drafts are so much more interesting.

i am still knee deep in thesis production, some writing, some graphics-making. i made this graphic last night comparing a small planted area as calculated by Seattle Green Factor with that of Berlin's version, Green Area Ratio. something about it reminded me of that sketchbook page, so i thought it would make a good addition to this post.

this one's for grandma

i haven't been able to get into a dark room to develop all the film pictures i have taken (and it's soooo expensive at the photo store) and so, first, all summer i will be posting pictures from the trip that are held in the silver gelatins of my tiny film canisters. i sure wish i could see them now. but second, the most urgent consequence of not printing real pictures is that my grandma doesn't use the internet, as far as i know, so i haven't been able to show her what i am seeing. so, i found a cheap old polaroid at a flea market in berlin full of exposures and with a new cartridge of exposures. the film that was in the camera must be old, but the effect is kind of pretty. these are my two most recent polaroids and one is the beginning of posts about norway. the color striping only happened when i scanned it. they really are almost exclusively orange and yellow. click the photos to see them at full size.

a tiny moment of procrastination

i am really burning it down tonight and i need a break so i am blogging one more tiny thing. real fast! this is a cool picture taken at the art school in Leipzig. when i look at this i feel like it must be in Rome or something, though i have never been there. and the girl on the cel phone. priceless. historic + modern + art = this picture. wow, that was cheezy--save me from myself. back to work!

bestill my beating bärheart

when you take a kid into the meat shop in Germany they usually offer the child a little slice of meat and if you are really lucky, they give them one with a bear face on it. and there is owen doing his best berlin bär. precious. it's pretty amazing how much he was able to mimic the smile of the bear. i think he has been getting those slices on the sly and practicing for my arrival. comments, owen? he got those slices of bear-bologna special for me and boy was i a dancing bear. when i lived in bremen, for a while they had batman shaped designs. cutting edge.

flee market find + still working

got this little set of mini postcards about SYLT, an island in the North Sea, and this the darlingest cover illustration. when i was an au pair in Bremen, everyone up there talked about Sylt like a summer heaven in a mythical, dreamy way. the postcards prove that they are right. sand dunes and long stretches of tall yellow grass. the beaches are dotted with little striped tents and dingies. delicious. this edition is pocket-sized measuring about 3.5 x 2.5 and makes it easy to take the magic wherever you go.

i am making lots of progress, but still worrying about completing everything i want to make my thesis really great. i made a set of postcards entitled "worry" to purge myself of the worries. this is one of the series. the answer to my question is a resounding: YES!

home sweet home

click to enlarge

back on danish soil and very glad to be. it was a great trip and i have so much to tell you all, but duty calls. that is, i am running down a thesis deadline that will put me in really good shape so the blogs will be thin this week and mostly little moments from the trip. and really i have to rewind the clock because i pretty much stopped blogging in leipzig because it just wasn't fun to sit in front of the computer when i could be out looking at things. so, i will start with my last delightful day with owen leipzig. we went to a little lunch spot tucked away in an old building full of art studios and i got a chance to see some of the people i met while there, one more time. owen really has good people and this last moment couldn't have been any better. hi/bye all in leipzig! come to seattle and visit!

and this is owen his classroom/habitat. actually, i didn't get any pics of him in the photo dungeons which are probably more accurately his habitat these days. owen is a really hard worker. this picture is going out to his mom, Nancy. hi nancy! owen is doing great. and thanks again owen! i had such a good time.

alles jute

:: GOODBYE BERLIN ::



i took off from berlin, but not after spending some time at the Badeschiff(a floating swimming pool on the Spree River complete with sandy beach, sunbathing decks and a bar) and seeing Jamie Liddel play. and wow, definitely makes it into the TOP 5 of all shows, ever! he was incredible. he has a bit of a Jerry Lewis / Soul Singer / Church Revival schtick and boy, does it work wonders. i was spellbound by his movements, not to mention his incredible singing voice and creative power which he excercised in beat box loops and layers to create a musical army of himself which he then sang over. in short, if hasn't played in Seattle yet and there are still tickets, run, don't walk to get these. i also want to mention, in further support of JL that going to a show by yourself can be a downer, as many of you know, but i didn't even notice that i was by myself. FANTASTISK!




does anyone agree with this statement?


break
now i am in Leipzig, a town in the former East Germany with Owen and it feels really nice to slow down a bit. Owen is a lovely host and has bee treating me like a princess. he borrowed a bike for me to ride, has been cooking and inviting me to meet all of his darling and wonderful friends. the pictures are just shots from around town. there are still parts of the city that look pretty run down, though much of it has been renovated. the differences in texture between the new and old buildings, even new ones built during the DDR is astounding. yesterday was a holiday and owen took me to a barrbecue where i got to have a long conversation with a couple who were 19 and 23 at the time the wall fell and had grown up in East Germany. they were eager to share stories about their lives then, the wall-falling and what it has been like since. i can tell you all about that stuff when i get home.
tomorrow i head to olso via berlin. i am a bit travel weary, but excited to check out oslo.

a thing for libraries

been spending a bit of time at the library of the Technical University and i believe i have a fetish. the rows of books on shelves with beautiful colors really get me.

and i found this hilarious shop called "HotDogs and Juice". what a crack up!

thesis update: found the dissertation i needed and went through all the hoops to get photocopies, but have not been able to connect with the originator of the code. he just returned from a trip, so i am going to see if i can get into berlin before my oslo flight on wednesday in order to meet with him.

JA!

so, remember when i posted that image of a postcard that said JA! in yellow and red. well, i made that to enter into a contest here at school and i just found that i won and i won 1000Euros!! hell yea. i am so excited. it was a contest to come up with images for 10 principles of sustainable cities and i wrote a text to go with. it is one of ten images that will be used in a publication, though i am not sure of the details. i will, as always, keep you posted on all news. hot diggity dog! that deserves a FANTASTISK!

i've finally succumbed to being a tourist

so, i hate to say it, but i am going to pander a bit and for the next week or so, this blog is going to look more like vacation slides than my dorky everyday updates. this is a long one, so make yourself comfortable.

met up with Owen and it is so nice to hang out with a old friend. we had beers at the Prater Garden in my neighborhood and yes all your comments about the temperature are true. it is already summer in berlin.

i couldn't resist coercing Owen's buddy, John, into letting me have a photo-op with his wurst (we have left the land of the Pølse and now it's just WURST!) on the condition that he got to be in the photo. and i did have a few nibbles of this delicious german brat. it's a totally different beast than that the danish dogs. and if i had to choose to only eat one for the rest of my life, i think i would choose a german bratwurst. they are hard to beat.

yesterday we headed out to the Staatliche Museum für Kunst which is housed in the former Hauptbahnhof and has turned out to be an excellent, spacious exhibition space where extremely large works like Richard Long's "Berlin Circle" can be shown and in a proper way.

there were even works by Owen's former proferssor, Thomas Ruff

and an enormous exhibit showing what is probably only a fraction of Wolfgang Tillman's many works. i like this one for it's simplicity.

then we made our way to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which was pretty thrilling for me to see in person because I wrote my undergraduate thesis on this piece while it was still in the planning phase and have not yet experienced it myself. the space is incredible and effective despite the tawdry row of tourist shops that have cropped up on one side. there is very little specificity in it's form. the gray steles, though varying in height, spread out like a piece of dark cloth, disappearing into swells and fashioned in such precise order that if it weren't for the different heights creating unexpected plays of light and shadow on the quadratic surfaces, it would seem like they go on forever in perfect symmetry. the memorial doesn't tell you what to think, and it seemed, by wandering ourselves and watching others, that those who visited were having physical interactions with the site that made them curious and want to know more. i didn't go into the information center below ground because i am still a bit saturated with Holocaust information so i can't say anything about that part. to say the least, i was impressed.

then, Potsdamer Platz
where I was sorely disappointed. I have read, heard and seen so much hype about Atelier Dreiseitl's design for the site and it was really nothing special. the waterways were loaded with algae bloom, it was dark and dull and the context of Potsdamer Platz is pretty miserable. the details of the site that i had seen in photos looked so lack-lustre and tired in person and the ponds had a typical stench of water that is not taken care of. i took one picture and then wondered if i had come to the wrong place by accident. honestly, it left me feeling a bit duped about Dreiseitl and everyone who has been praising that project. Maybe when it was first built it was really lovely and worked well but it doesn't now, and i think i will be much less likely to use precedents that i haven't visited myself.

the disappointment of Potsdamer Platz passed quickly when we came upon just one of so many amazing public spaces in Berlin. this one is right on the River Spree and you can see the Parliament buildings in the background. lovely.

interview dog flight interview

i have to say, i love copenhagen, but it is a relief to be somewhere where i speak the language. i feel so much more a part of things. the meeting in malmö with the former city ecologist went great. i got lots of good information and...


i lugged my rolly bag all over malmö and got to berlin with no trouble. i am becoming a regular jet-setter. i even have sensible shoes. the place i am staying is lovely. if you ever come here, ask me for the email of this guy. it is kind of like a guest house and the rooms have high cielings, are very clean, there is a shared kitchen, bathroom and it looks out onto a really nice courtyard.


a few blocks away, i spent my morning at cafe Liebling, literally darling. i started with breakfast while i worked and then continued right onto lunch! below is a little vid i made about how today went.

today i am rolling out with owen to mess around town and see stuff. he knows berlin a bit so he is going to be my ambassador here.

freedom dog

it's really a fransk hotdog. but if i had to rename it, i would name it a tysk (german) dog, because the efficient design of this food is undeniable. the bun is basically a pocket that the ham captain(skinke captjan) squirts condiments into, then she slides the dog into the neat and tidy portable pocket. this one deserves a FANTASTISK!, though the bun was chewy low quality. i guess that is what i get for buying a hot dog when the bakers are just getting to work. i should start logging their locations, but i am a little too lazy for that. i bought this one on Amagerbrogade, if you really want to know. oh, and coming soon, a series about the pølse vagen themselves. i have been highlighting the food but a friend brought to my attention that my reporting is a bit one-sided and you deserve to learn more about the wagons themselves. also, a magic moment. my guy, the one who owns the three wagons in my hood and who i almost always get my dogs from, gives me the sweetest insider deals on dogs now. normally they cost 20 Kr- and he gives me my regular for 10! woah. this is a real milestone. or is this just how they get you hooked?

another evening walk along the Lakes. the clouds were reflected so perfectly in the water. it is almost hard to tell which is sky and which water.
also ///
tomorrow i am going to Malmö to meet with the city ecologist about how to integrate hotdog wagons into the green infrastructure. ha! i wish. no, i am going to interview her about the Western Harbor, but the word on the street is that in Sweden you can get a hotdog with a huge pile of mashed potatoes on top. brilliant. that is fusion cooking, i tell you. i'll report back about what i find.