Title: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com -------------------------------- Title: I haven't worked as a waiter in 20 years. But, I s... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110891316347631263 Date: Sun Feb 20 15:12:00 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
I haven't worked as a waiter in 20 years. But, I still have waiter dreams. Like last night, when I dreamt I was serving three tables full of people - girls ordering vodka and frangelico, and a guy ordering some strange drink with caraway seeds and eggs - and I couldn't get the drinks out fast enough, and then the bowls for the soup were strangely shaped like fish with knobs sticking out in
-------------------------------- Title: The Christian right has it all wrong. The biggest ... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110881460852845422 Date: Sat Feb 19 11:47:00 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
The Christian right has it all wrong. The biggest threat to the heterosexual lifestyle is not the widespread practice of numberless girly-men like myself marrying each other, it's the widespread practice of numberless girly-men convincing their straight counterparts that depilation is a good thing. "Doesn't everyone shave their balls? Hairy balls are disgusting!" said our badboy boarder, sitting
-------------------------------- Title: Swedes have an interesting attitude about fame: It... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110866570797106926 Date: Thu Feb 17 17:16:00 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
Swedes have an interesting attitude about fame: It's not a good thing, more or less. (Not unlike being a boss, which is also nothing to aspire to in Sweden. It all has to do with that damn jante-law thing wherein no one is better than anyone else, supposedly.) As an American, it comes as a shock to see popular rockstars, TV actresses, duchesses, best-selling novelists or beloved comedians walking
-------------------------------- Title: I'm nothing if not inconsistent as I sigh to mysel... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110857886294587237 Date: Wed Feb 16 18:20:00 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
I'm nothing if not inconsistent as I sigh to myself that at last, Stockholm has a good thick coating of snow, nearly a foot. Despite my whining about spring being far away, I'm quite childish in that I still like my winters to be snowy. So much so that I'll even go out of my way as I walk home at 6 p.m. just to meander through Humlegården, the park that surrounds the royal library, to be cast
-------------------------------- Title: If you let it, preparing food can be a kind of rit... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110830364436372083 Date: Sun Feb 13 13:32:00 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
If you let it, preparing food can be a kind of rite, a connection to all the people who ever prepared and ate food before you. You should start by taking the corn husks from the bag - cutting the knotted piece of cornhusk that was used to tie the back shut - then pick through them and choose 12 that seem large enough or maybe just please you for no particular reason. It seems a bit cruel to have
-------------------------------- Title: The third Mr. Marilyn Monroe has died. I never car... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110813853022847337 Date: Fri Feb 11 16:01:00 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
The third Mr. Marilyn Monroe has died. I never cared much for the few plays of his that I've seen. But, he was one the guys who stood up to Joe McCarthy, and that counts for a lot. Even more, he was married to Norma Jean Baker, and that's really something. The Swedish phrase for the day is Men pappa, du vet att jag vet att det finns ingen jultomte!. Which is what a little boy walking behind me
-------------------------------- Title: On the train back from Västerås today, the woman s... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110798306689444133 Date: Wed Feb 09 20:57:26 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
On the train back from Västerås today, the woman sitting in front of me - probably 70 - carefully set herself down and delicately patted her hair, as if every strand weren't already carefully shellacked into place, instantly bringing back memories of my mother when I was boy, when she would go and get her hair set. Does anyone other than 70-year-old women in purple overcoats get their hair set
-------------------------------- Title: Damn the policeman! He was over here yesterday wit... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110772950120432261 Date: Sun Feb 06 22:02:59 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
Damn the policeman! He was over here yesterday with the priest and their daughter, Signe, and he played this Jimmy Durante song for me and now I can't get it out of my head. "I'll never forget the day I read a book. It was contagious. Seventy pages. There were pictures here and there, so it wasn't hard to bear, the day I read a book. It's a shame I don't recall the name of the book.
-------------------------------- Title: Seen from the No. 42 bus at 6:38 p.m.: two women t... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110754086264840445 Date: Fri Feb 04 18:03:22 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
Seen from the No. 42 bus at 6:38 p.m.: two women tanking up their car at the gas station on the corner of Kungstensgatan and Birger Jarlsgatan (I think I read somewhere that it's the oldest gas station in Stockholm); one is dressed in a bathrobe and slippers and appears to be wearing nothing underneath as she stands chatting with the other, who is dressed in typical parka, jeans and boots. The
-------------------------------- Title: Worst Swedish translation of a movie title: Måndag... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110737053062078594 Date: Wed Feb 02 18:44:06 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
Worst Swedish translation of a movie title: Måndag Hela Veckan - which means Monday the Whole Week - for the movie Groundhog Day. To be fair, I guess it was hard to come up with something that would make sense to the average Swede because oddly enough, groundhog day is not mentioned on any Swedish calendars. Now, off to watch my favorite holiday movie ever. (Isn't Bill Murray great? Even
-------------------------------- Title: When travelling to far-flung places, Paul Bowles i... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110729837186269731 Date: Tue Feb 01 22:28:20 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
When travelling to far-flung places, Paul Bowles is perhaps not your best choice for reading material. It's easy to become suspicious of even the generous and trustworthy Thai people or the horrendously poor Cambodians if you're spending your evenings reading short stories that feature hapless westerners faced with strange cultures that they invariably fail to understand or worse, misread so
-------------------------------- Title: I feel like Sally Field: "You like me!" It's all o... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110729416292608355 Date: Tue Feb 01 21:13:15 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
I feel like Sally Field: "You like me!" It's all on account of a Satin Pajama Award for best writing, my second blog award since I started this whole writing project. Thanks, David Weman and the rest of the folks at Fistful of Euros. And kudoses to Mike M., who won two awards, and to Torill, who won one, and to those - Mig and Zoe and Des and Mr. H, Stefan, for instance - who should've won as
-------------------------------- Title: Talking on the phone today with the former punk ro... Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110718583766750698 Date: Mon Jan 31 16:28:39 UTC 2005 Creator: Francis S. Subject: Category: Content:
Talking on the phone today with the former punk rockstar, who has been homebound for over a week suffering with a flu that won't seem to go away, she told me that she has had it with television. The only thing on anymore are these horrible reality shows, she told me. "Pretty soon there's going to be a new kind of psychological syndrome and a whole group of people suffering from it," she said.