The Airportline: Observations

Among the many fine Swedish authors I've read Bodil Malmsten stands out as one of the most important. This many people know. Bodil also has a blog (in Swedish), where she writes long and short things, sometimes fiction about a faimly of tejp, sometimes small sad observations of life, a life she used to live in France but now does in Sweden. She has humor, like when she linked to this article in The Guardian titled 'Ten rules for writing fiction'. Her only comment to this link, with numerous novels written? 'I've always wondered.'

The article lets authors give their advice on the writing process, and even though I am against rules in fiction writing there are some good things, like reading what you have read out loud or Magraret Atwood's suggestion of what to think about when writing on airplanes:
'Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.'

I finished a novel in Swedish this past week, and in the spur of the moment sent it out to some people who I trust. This was, according to Atawood a good plan as her number 8 rule is:
'You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.'

Anyway, read the article, its funny and even though I do not agree with many things I always find it interesting when authors discuss the writing process.

When I was in Copenhagen I felt that I had to write to Bodil Malmsten. She is a Swedish author and I eat her books like they are chocolate. So I wrote an email to someone in charge of her webpage and asked if she could forward it to her. How to find Bodil’s email I could never understand. What I wrote I can’t remember either, it was morning and I was confused and just wrote. And pushed send. It had to do with how amazing I think she is, although I of course phrased it much better than that. It is good to tell people that are good that they are good. To not take them for granted. On the internet there is a culture of finding problems and complaining. There is nothing inherently wrong in that. But sometimes people seem to forget to mention the good stuff, the nice things, all that beauty that you stumble across. Because I do hope you stumble across beauty at times. Anyway, recently Bodil thanked all the nice comments she got for the radio program she did in Swedish radio this past weekend. All the nice bloggers. She wrote it under the heading ‘Tack’ (Thank you in Swedish). She also thanked that no one got back to her and told her that she would burn in the everlasting fire and die slowly for something she said.

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.

From note book, Wednesday 24th of June:

I've read another Bodil Malmsten book. I start them, like all other books. But then I keep going, every minute I get, I steal minutes from everywhere, just take them, from cooking, studying, music listening. Until its over, until I draw my fingers over the last page, feel the end of the story on the blank page. The other books I start, they take time, I have to force myself sometimes. But Bodil is like water for me, I can't stop drinking it. Every day in a Bodil Malmsten book is like a day in the desert, I need more water all the time. The other books lie there in my room in piles, read to be read, begging to be read. But they feel just like sand, and there is enough sand, in the desert.

Mother Airportline brought Swedish newspapers and a book by Bodil Malmsten when she came. She didn't think of this herself, I ordered her to do it. Or asked kindly. It's hard to order my mom to do anything, she is Finnish, they are not people who easily obey. They fought the Russians while the Swedes lived in their socialist dream.

Bodil Malmsten is one of the most inspiring authors I know, everytime I read her I want to write, and everytime I start writing I have to face the fact that her world is so much bigger than mine, and her Swedis prose is so much more poigant than mine. Maybe because she is older, and wiser. In a recent blog post she writes:
'I have to learn not to write. I already know how not to be able to count.' (my disturbingly poor translation).

In her book Kom och hälsa på mig om tusen år (Come and visit me in a thousand years) she writes (again, my poor translation) about reading, writing and Samuel Beckett.
'Becket was what he wrote, he wrote what he is.
There is something I've learned through the years, through all my reading, all I've read and forgotten, one thing has become clear - it's not the book your reading, its the author. No matter how little the author thinks she or he is writing about him or helself, it is about him or helself that the author is writing.'

I've never read Samuel Beckett.
I doubt that he would have the same effect on me as Bodil Malmsten.

I'm really into France right now
These are the reasons:

I'm reading Bodil Malmsten's – Priset på vatten i Finistère (in Swedish), about her first year in France after leaving Sweden. A bit too much about gardening, but full of wisdom.

I'm also reading her blog where she writes about life in France, and Finistère.

I'm in love with Phoenix new song 1901 I wrote about here. It was the most blogged about song in the world the past week. If you haven't gone to their website and downloaded it, you really should. They know how to craft a hit, Paris based Phoenix.

I'm going to French speaking Brussels tomorrow for three days of cultural, beer and European Commission action. I will try and write something about my experiences in 'Urine City' on the blog.

I've rediscovered Une année sans lumière, the part French song from Arcade Fire's monumental debut album Funeral.

And I'm watching this video of Eddy Izzard explaining how difficult it is to say the monkey is on the branch in French, in France.

It's all about France and nose spray here in my room.

Today I was supposed to be a wonder of efficiency. After securing a supervisor for my thesis, not falling once in yoga, and getting praise for an outstanding performance during floorball practice on Monday I decided that Tuesday would be a day of productivity as well. It started well with me getting up at 9.30 (sadly this is early for me these days), but now, three hours later not much has come out of this early rise. All I’ve done is to watch a Cot Copy concert on pitchfork.tv, read about the Swedish governments cultural proposition, watched the video to M. Ward’s Hold Time three times, read the Swedish author Bodil Malmstens blog where she writes ‘never trust anyone over 30’ and boiled porridge which floated out all over the microwave. And now I’m writing this. I’m great at dodging the OECD-report I have to have read before a meeting at 2.30. I’m great at being productive in the wrong places.

Friday evening and I’m sitting with four newly showered floorball players in a car on the way from Amersfoort to Amsterdam. I like going between cities in the Netherlands during daytime cause it gives me the chance to see some cows. I tell this to the floorball men who are fogging the windows in the car. They laugh, no one tells me their favorite animal. Maybe they don’t have favorite animals? When I lived in Malaysia I spent a lot of time thinking about favorite animals. And now it’s Monday and I went to yoga for the first time ever and stepped out in the world a bit confused with all the movement. I put on King of Convenience in my mp3 player and biked to Albert Hein to get some food. But when I got there I forgot what I was suppose to buy, so I stood in the isle to try and figure it out, starring at some asian wook sauces. Then I went home and read in the Swedish authors Bodil Malmsten’s book ‘Hör bara hur ditt hjärta bultar i mig’ (Just hear how your heart is pounding in mine, if I try and translate the title) where she writes (once again my translation):

Only the dumbest think thats it exclusively glamorous to break up from a country you have been living in for 50 years and settle down in another culture.