The Airportline: Observations

Sometimes I wonder what you see. You who come here, to this blog, to read these lines. What kind of puzzle you make of it, if you close your eyes, what shapes you see, what colors your heart draws with. Yesterday I told someone that 'my blog has no intention of not misleading people'. But I am leading you somewhere, cause you follow what I write, you read the words in the same order that I write them. Or so I believe. What you do with them I don't know, how you interpret them is for you to decide. I control the words and you control meaning. You might want to make yourself more passive than this, maybe you are uncomfortable with the control that this gives you, but this is how it will always be. Going here, to airportline, to find some kind of truth, some kind of accurate description of what I do, and where I am going, that will be in vain. The only truth is how you interpret these words. The truth is yours and I am only writing.

An era is over, the door is locked, the floors are wiped, the view over the library now blocked by trees is no longer. My home for almost a year is now beyond me. I'm not very nostalgic though, I've never been when it comes to places I've lived in. The only thing I miss are people, and maybe the fireplace in my former San Francisco apartment. Next week I make my move south east to a quite spectacular new place with two good friends standing by, so there is no need for concern, airportline is not becoming homeless. Before all that happens I will once again fly north for a couple of days for some basketball playing and thesis writing among the Danes.

The fastest lighter on earth.
Imported from Prague.

Amsterdamned gave me fever. And serious pain in my body. I've been sleeping, waking up, drinking, sleeping, and sweating. The timing is terrible for many reasons, but life can not always hold your hand. I should know that by know. In my somewhat confused fever-state-of-mind I visited Swedish pop mastress El Perro Del Mar's nice blog. She had a link to this fantastic DJ Spinna remix of We're Almost There with Jackson 5. It made me happy, so happy, here in my bed. So if you need a pick me up song, go here and download this gem.

This is what I will be doing this weekend.

I could write something about this song but it would just be melodramatic. I could write about singer Mark Kozelek and his surprising AC/DC cover album. How he wrote all his songs to one woman. How Red House Painters created what was called the slowcore movement. But all that doesn't really matter. So I'll suggest you'll listen instead.

Being a hipster is hard work. You see them looming around the internet looking for the next big thing. Or small thing they can leave when it becomes big. You them in second hand stores pulling weird looking scarf's off the rack. And in the foreign magazine section in the book store. Or maybe that is me? Anyhow, last fall Adbusters had a cover story called Hipster: The End Of Western Civilization. The author was less than impressed with the hipster wave, claiming that:
Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims it.

To further put salt in the wounds of the current hipster he conclude that:
the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

I remember thinking that he is a bit over dramatic and that the author was making some very sweeping arguments. But, its a fun read and as a person very familiar with hipsters through, among other things, my music interest, festivals, and a stint in San Francisco I do recognize a lot in his texts. But then again, generalizations has never been my cup of tea. So I advise drinking it with some milk. And sugar.

Going through my old code book for the work I am doing for the University. Transferring notes to the new code book. On page 34 in my old code book I have written 'Swans are like Paris, they're beautiful but sometimes unfriendly'.

Summer came to Amsterdam again.
But I missed it.
Sitting inside with my coffee and my thesis.
Looking out.
Listening to You're So Pretty.
By Field Music.
Try not to discard the song due to the poor video.
This song deserves more.

When I get home I think about you and your demeanor;
You've got grace.

I won't shut up, I know that I should,
I'd rather stay in the time when I saw a smile on your face.

You're so pretty I could talk to you all night
I could sit here, I could talk to you all night

I made a list. A few weeks ago maybe. Inspired by a Stockholm list in Dagens Nyheter. I made an Amsterdam remix. Why? I do not remember at this point. But, it would be a shame to leave it collecting dust on my laptop. So, with confusion and some black coffee I present,

The Amsterdam List

Favorite drink and in what Amsterdam bar? Zatte at Brouwrij et IJ
Best microwave food: oat meal porridge
Best staadsdel in Amsterdam: Jordaan
Like to go for a coffee at: Latei, Crea (see picture), Cafe Stevens, Westerpark
Best lunch place: Crea's home made soup with bread
Best coffee: Coffee Company
Best concert hall: Paradiso
Best bar: Nieuwe Anita (fresh fruit overdrive)
Here I take my parents to dinner: Last time Bazar, but that was too loud.
Latest Amsterdam find: East of Oosterpark around Dappermarkt
Last seen exhibit: Richard Avedon at FOAM (pretty damn good photography!) and The World Press Photo Exhibit.
A good go away present: Home made mix-cd made with love and care.
Favorite luxury article: My Dolce & Gabbana perfume my sister gave me for Christmas
Reading right now: Sensemaking in Organizations, two week old New Yorker Magazine, I Trygghetsnarkomanernas land, The Prague Revue issue 8.
Most like to read: Bodil Malmstens blog, International Herald Tribune, Dagens Nyheter at OBA, The Economist, Miranda July.
Favorite color: red
Favorite brand: Woody Allen
Favorite shoes: My sailor shoes I bought from a fat lady in the Austrian Alps. Comfort, style and ocean reference combined.
Spend on clothes monthly: 20 Euros
Fashion role model: Every Oxford professor that wears tweed.
Exercise: Floorball, jogging, biking, yoga
The most expensive thing I bought: My education.
Favorite product in the pharmacy: nose spray for colds / nose spray for allergies
Best drunk food: Whopper Meal at Burger King / Southwest Smothered Burrito at The Taco Shop
Listens to: Better, more educated, interesting, new, glamorous, existential music than you do.
Best pre-party music: Depends on the people, but lately souly hip hop and rap.
Latest songs I hummed: El Perro Del Mar – You Gotta Give To Get
Latest bought album: Whitest Boy Alive - Rules
Most likely to dance to: funk, electro pop, hip hop, swing, jazz, balkan
Latest impulse buy: airline ticket to Copenhagen
Latest great deal: airline ticket to Copenhagen
Latest second hand buy: two shirts for 16 Euro's in some boutique in Berlin.
Practical thing: water boiler in combination with coffee filter, bike, Internet.
Fashion I never want to see again: Stockholm filled with black trench coats.
Supports: Chelsea, love, Whitest Boy Alive t-shirts, Yellow Bird Project, intimacy (not the Bloc Party album though, that really sucks), views, concerts, biking, newspapers and probably a bunch of other things which I do not have the energy to list here.

Two hours and ten minutes. Its a short trip between Valencia and Amsterdam. But long. I cannot write cause I have been doing it. On paper, in notebooks. I've taken a shower and my skin is screaming. I'm listening to music cause my ears are bleeding. I'm back in normal temperatures. Back among the green, the water, the drunk tourists, the soberly dressed Amsterdamers, the bikes with bells. There are no more slow waking people hiding from the afternoon sun, no motorbikes that cry on their way up the hills. The is no sound of the ocean. There is now and that is the only place you can be. And Frightened Rabbit are singing that it takes more than fucking someone you dont know to keep yourself warm. That might not be a novel thing for you, my dear reader, but it might be worth thinking about. When the summer sun is setting. When you have moved two hours and ten minutes. North.

I'm sill in Spain. Its still warm. Brutal even. I read and sleep and swim in a pool. In the morning our family walk on the beach with other old people. Some with walking sticks. Its all very middle aged. During siesta we rest, then no one can swim, or walk. Thats how they do it here. If you are Swedish you have to obey. Swedish people are good at obeying. You tell a Swede to stand in a straight line in a snowstorm the Swede will do it. And say nothing about it. I read Bodil Malmsten of course, now a book about a former model who's drug addict parents committed suicide. Now she lives in Paris and steal from rich women. But mostly she is angry, hatefull even. Its very dark and depressing. When I look out the windows of our apartment and see the dry Spanish mountains something doesn't ad up. I don't know Spanish litterature, but I find it hard to imagine a Spanish person writing anything this cold and dark. But a Swede. Having stood in straight lines in snow their whole life? Of course that will leave a mark.

Airportline is in Altea. That is in Spain. Where the motorbikes cry up the hills, where the sun is burning my Swedish legs and where English is just a language like any language. And, where everyone drinks Amstel. Yes, its messed up. Me and my reading family are hiding in an apartment with reading material to last us through a war. We even carry the latest Harvard Business Review. We call it holiday and it taste like the sweetest kiss of relaxation you´ve ever tasted.

It happened. I turned 27, and for some reason I feel nostalgic. Otherwise I have labeled it 'as the time when wisdom is upon me', so I hope that this is true. I do feel considerably wiser now than one year ago. But this might be temporary. However, Airportline will celebrate this occasion with random people. Swedish style. In Amsterdam. Cultural clarity has never been high on my agenda.

This is an example of a distant mind. Or so they say.

Our Zürich correspondent went to Sardegna and found this cow. Airportline loves cows.

Airportline is on a one day holiday. After a weekend of news coding my head said that I needed a break. So I took one, booked a hostel in Valencia for Friday, applied for some jobs, transferred some money while grumping over the exchange rate, had coffee, made a copy of my passport and forgot my passport in the copy machine. Took a bike ride to deliver the copy of my passport. Realized I had forgotten my passport in the copy machine. Found my passport in the copy machine. Read Blink by Malcom Gladwell, watched one of last years best band Ra Ra Riot play in church on Pitchfork.tv, read about what happened when Charlemagne from The Economist met the Swedish King, and then this article where his love for Sweden blooms into full on infactuation.

You were beyond comprehension tonight
But I understood
I understood
If only I could hold time
Hold time
Hold time

Words have failed me tonight, failed me tonight
But you knew what I meant
You knew what I meant
Yeah, you heard what I said the whole time
The whole time
The whole time

And I wrote this song about it
Cause I didn't care about anyone in this photograph
Yeah, I wrote this song just to remember the endless, endless summer in your life
Endless summer in your life

If someone asked me right now which my favourite song of 2009 was I might say Hold Time, and I might look out the window dreaming while saying it. And if you've never been beyond comprehension, if you've never seen the endless summer in someone's eyes, then close you eyes, listen, and imagine. M Ward have experienced it and made a song about it. A hazy, slow, dreamy song about feeling. That is more than most people manage in a life time. Hold Time.

Being from Sweden is interesting. People love Sweden. Even though they have never been there, the image of my home country is painted with blond women, free health care and beautiful nature. And ABBA. A disturbingly large part of the world population find that this is something we Swedes should be proud of. I find this love for Sweden a bit unsettling at times, not because I'm not proud of my home country, but because it is built on some ideas that might not be completely accurate.

Ruben Andersson in The Guardian went full out on Sweden last week in article called Death of the super model, punching holes in all kind of ideas. And even though his picture is almost equally as inaccurate like that of the Swedish paradise, it is an interesting read. This is his explanation of the Swedish health care system:

Take healthcare. Swedes do not enjoy free public care: it costs to see a GP. That is, if you manage to see one. Queues are long and scandals rack the system. Psychiatric care, the source of many such scandals, has a near-medieval penchant for authoritarianism with few European equivalents. People are locked up for months for not taking medicine, given no therapy, and spat out of the system into despair and destitution. The mentally ill die in wards and in outpatient isolation. And they do not even have charities to turn to because state-run healthcare is supposed to work: this is Sweden, after all.

Having some knowledge about the Swedish health care system, which by all means is not perfect, this is a tad bit (as he Brits might say when they discuss it over some biscuits) over exaggerated. Still, I don't see the harm is some Sweden bashing from time to times. And to be honest, now with Andy Murray being out of Wimbledon, anything to make the Islanders a bit happier.

Jens Lekman, one of Sweden's finest pop exports has gotten Swine flue. He describes what happened after he told the stewardess that he wasn't feeling well it in his blog :
A ring of empty seats formed around me. Peoples eyes were kind but determined, they read "Poor you, I really wish you all the best but if you come near me or my kid I will have to stab you with this plastic fork". I got up and went to the bathroom where I fainted.

As a tribute to this magnificent artist and lyricist we turn our lights down and listen to this summer gem, then we drink one can of Albert Hein pilsner and silently hope that Jens will churn out another fantastic album in not the too distant future. The global pandemic has never felt so close.

Airportline is busy. Things are piling up and yesterday he could be spotted in the south of Amsterdam carrying a mattress and wooden things on his bike. But, I will not leave you in need, so here I present one of my favorite songs of all time. This is how I describe it in a document I'm writing about the top 30 songs on my last.fm list.

About two people that once had a realtionship who meet again and realize that it meant nothing. With beautiful strings, and then when Amy Millan enters with her soft voice and sings 'this scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin, tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in' its an example of how great popmusic with one male and one female singer can be, how they can use different perspectives. A song that no one should miss.