Søndagstur

E was really eager to go for a walk in the woods to a special place we found a few weeks ago. This time we rode our bikes from home into the woods up to the point where the trail gets really steep, then walked the rest of the way. KE had baked banana-carrot bread earlier in the day, so we took that along to eat. There were also, amazingly enough, still quite a few blueberries. We had a little fire and ran around playing "three billy goats gruff" (all three) and motocross (boys only). We could really feel and see that autumn is upon us.

For the past few days E has been into wearing the crazy stripy sweater I knit for him last summer. Here he is with it, along with the ancient strawberry hat:

And here's the proud baker enjoying the fruits of his labor along side the fire:

And of course yours truly, appreciative of yummy snacks and wearing a sweater that is close to twenty years old:

Ah. All together a lovely afternoon.

Opplysning

I finally picked up a book that I had bought back in January. It's called The Cultural Construction of Norden, and after having read just the introductory chapter I feel like I have reached a whole new understanding of how and why the Scandinavian countries are different from the rest of the world. The authors of the book base the difference in the pragmatic way that Enlightenment thought was received. I'm so glad I've been reading my Holberg this past year, since the Enlightenment is such a key period in the development of Nordic cultural identity.

The question of cultural constructs (of identity, of nation, etc.) has really been on my mind this past week. I was grappling with it one insomniac early morning when I banged out four pages of the introduction to my book (the first real start on the project), and it was at the center of the inspiring lecture by Julia Kristeva (yes, really!) that I attended on Friday. Kristeva was trying to argue for an effective response to fundamentalism (of all kinds) based on particularly European traditions of multi-lingualism, which creates an inherent self-questioning. Somehow this tradition needs to be harnessed, according to Kristeva, in order to counteract the totalitarian discourses of fundamentalism.

So it's a good thing that I'm working on an incredibly mindless knitting project:

Acres of plain stockinette and garter stitch in unbleached linen. If I have learned anything in this year of knitting sweaters, it's that I really enjoy the plainest possible knitting. It's not that I can't do the fancy stuff. I know that I can. I just don't find it very enjoyable, and get much more satisfaction out of knitting things that are quick and easy. I do included stranded knitting in the "easy" category, despite the fact that I've only done one stranded sweater and 1 1/2 stranded stockings this year:
Hmm. I think I'd better get that second sock finished before ski season starts!

I think the reason I like easy knitting is that it allows me to think about other things (like identity construction) in a meditative way.

Random Roundup: three things I found on the blogs I frequent that really appeal to me:

1. I found this really subtle and elegant home tour on Apartment Therapy. This is just the kind of subdued, eclectic, and quirky interior that I wish I could pull together. I love that the person who lives there suggesting making a list of the words that describe your design style/aspirations, then trying to pare that list down to just two words, and using those as a guiding principle.
   
2. I also found lots to like in Soule Mama's home tour on Indie Fixx for almost opposite reasons. It's much funkier and more colorful, but still edited and carefully thought out. It's more stuff than I want in my life, but I really like the functionality of each little corner.
3. Med pinner reminded me of a Norwegian artist whose work I had first seen in a lecture last fall, Kari, Steilhaug. She works a lot with knitting in her art, sometimes using and unraveling bales of used handknit sweaters, sometimes knitting covers for boulders, and sometimes, as in her recent piece, "De ufullendte," in this year's Statens Høstutstilling, compiling other people's unfinished objects and the stories behind them.

Unfortunately, all this aesthetic and intellectual input has quite literally made my brain hurt. I've had a headache since Friday morning. Three days (I'm writing this on Sunday morning, even though Blogger thinks it's still only Saturday) is a bit much. It sucks.

Ting jeg liker i USA

There's just not a lot to like about the US right now, what with all the birthers, teabaggers, and fundamentalists shouting for attention all the time. During my recent trip back, I made a concerted effort to generate a list of things I truly like (or even love) about my country of origin. It wasn't hard to come up with a list of trivial things, in addition to the obvious big three: friends, family, and the wilderness. Here's what I generated while en route to and in Utah:

1. Microbrew beer. I'm not much of a drinker. I tend toward sips rather than pints. I don't really like wine, even after all these years. But oh, how I wish I had taken more advantage of yummy, rich, dark microbrews when we were living in Oregon. D'oh!


2. Tom's of Maine toothpaste. The only toiletry I can't live without. All other toothpastes taste sugary and gross. I bought three tubes in Provo (made a special separate trip by city bus just to find it), and it was even on sale. I mean after all tooth paste is something you put in your mouth, and you do it at least twice a day. Peppermint only, please.

3. Celestial Seasonings herbal teas. For someone like me who can't (okay, won't) drink coffee or regular tea, the pickings in Norway are really slim. Fruit teas like rosehip are too acidic for me. Most people here mistakenly think that black teas with flavoring or green teas are acceptable substitutes for someone who can't tolerate the stimulant in tea. They are not! Herbal teas are teas made from herbs rather than from tea leaves. Technically speaking, I suppose they shouldn't even be called "teas." I always know that with Celestial Seasonings I'll have a wide variety of warm drinks that I actually like, and that won't give me heart palpitations and make me super jumpy. I bought two boxes of peppermint tea in Provo.


4. Starbuck's Coffee Almond Fudge Ice Cream. How's that for specific. I think it's the only ice cream in the world that I truly like.


5. Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. I can watch this on tv here in Norway. No one can capture the absurdity of American political life like Stewart.

6. The Public Broadcasting System's Newshour, or more specifically the Friday evening news round up with Mark Shields and David Brooks. I have a perverse affection for Brooks, even though he is a conservative hawk. Although I think his view of the world is warped, I always want to know what he thinks, and much of the time I actually agree with him.

7. National Public Radio. Norsk rikskringkasting doesn't even come close. I don't think I've ever heard a truly compelling radio report here in Norway. NPR can bring me to tears.

8. For lack of a better term, "roots" music. Here I'm including bluegrass, blues, country, the narrow range of jazz that appeals to me, and "folk" artists like Woody Guthrie. I'm thinking of all the rich variety of music that has sprouted up in various contexts, often associated with poverty and social marginalization, or protest and activism.

9. Enthusiasm. You can say a lot that is negative about the stereotypically upbeat American "temperament"--that it's childish, superficial, banal, two-faced, irritating, hypocritical--but sometimes it's just such a breath of fresh air to be surrounded and lifted up by the enthusiasm and hopefulness.

10. Public drinking fountains. They're just a good idea. I miss having them around here in Norway.

Not quite sure about that last one, but it sure seemed like a good idea when I was compiling my list. I was also jet-lagged and dehydrated at the time, though.

ETA: I came up with a solution for sweater number 12 for this year's 12-sweater challenge. Rather than finishing up one of my two WIPs, I pulled out yarn purchased earlier this spring and started a totally boring (but totally wearable) tunic:

Politikk

Since the parliamentary election here in Norway on Monday I have been feeling a political post brewing. I'm not quite sure what it is I want to say, but I'll just dive in. Here are some basic premises:

1. I think all humans are inherently selfish and egotistic. We have philosophy and the arts (among other things) to help counteract those impulses. Religion is supposed to do that too, but it (as an institution) has an unfortunate tendency to get tangled up in power structures to a greater degree.

2. I also think all humans are inherently corruptible, and that political (and economic) power corrupts. As the saying goes: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's all just a matter of time and degree.

So, if you take those two thoughts as a point of departure and apply them to contemporary U.S. politics (on a very abstract level), I think you could make the arguments that:

1. Both the Democratic and the Republican parties are riddled with corruption because both are human institutions, and both institutions exercise power. No one should be surprised to see politicians doing stupid and exploitative things.

But if you take a step back and look at the primary motivations and fundamental philosophical principles that the two parties stand for, I think it's pretty clear that the Democrats have the moral high ground. In general, the policies they have advocated in the past 100 years have been more altruistic and democratic than those advocated by the Republicans, because they were intended to benefit the greatest number of citizens. Many of those policies as actually implemented are terribly flawed and don't function as intended, but at least the intention generally appears to be good. The Democratic party was generally on the morally right side on issues like social security and civil rights. (They were also on the wrong side of lots of issues). My perception has been that Republican policies have in general been less altruistic and more self-serving. Given that both sides are corrupt, I still think that a Democratic vote is slightly less morally reprehensible than a Republican one.

If we relate these thoughts to the current health care/insurance reform debates in the US, it seems pretty clear based on empirical evidence from other countries that it would be more altruistic (more morally correct) to offer universal health care than to maintain the current system, which is heavily biased in favor of the wealthy and the permanently employed.

Does anyone but me find it really hard to understand why Obama is being accused of being the devil incarnate for propounding a policy change that falls far short of the universal healthcare that we enjoy here in Norway? Why is the right wing fringe starting to agitate (at least under their breath) for what sounds a lot like armed rebellion over these reforms?

A lot of people on the left are just accusing the right wing of being racist. I suppose that could be valid for some, but for me it sounds a lot more like pure and simple greed and egotism. People don't want to give up anything they've got, and they don't want anyone else to gain benefits if they're not perceived as earning it.

Meanwhile, in Norway (and lots of other countries) healthcare is a human right. KE mentioned the perfect comparative example:

Our friend T broke his arm in a soccer game in the US. He was in between jobs (literally--he was already hired at the next place) and thus had no health insurance. He had to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket. KE broke his ankle at a soccer practice here in Norway. He was unemployed at the time (though he would have been covered by health insurance through my job had we been in the US when it happened, thankfully). Because we were in Norway where everyone is covered, regardless, the entire event was covered: ambulance boat, ambulance, complicated operation, three days in the hospital, etc.

Which brings me to my last point: why, oh why do Norwegians flirt so promiscuously with the same kind of right wing populist politics that have been so disastrous in the US, and as we currently are seeing play out yet again, this time with healthcare (the very kind of healthcare that Norwegians take for granted)? Why does Fremskrittspartiet get more than even the handful of lunatic fringe votes that one might expect?

I'm starting to think that we have to go back to my first point to find an answer: selfishness and egotism. Of all the people I heard in the news media debating the various political options, not once did I hear an argument for a Fremskrittspartiet policy that wasn't based in simple greed or egocentrism. I am not at all saying that the other parties are without their bad sides. Just that I can't seem to find a single good side to Fremskrittspartiet. It's interesting how often their voters are embarrassed to admit which party they're voting for. There's good reason for them to feel ashamed of their egotism, dammit!

Fremmedgjøringseffekten

I'm back from a relatively short but intense work trip to the US. I went to Provo, Utah, where the Scandinavian Studies faculty there hosted a seminar for contributors to the four volume history of Nordic literary cultures that is being developed. It was one of the most stimulating and productive seminars I've ever attended, but the travel to get there was so grueling: Oslo-London-Dallas-Salt Lake City, or to put it another way, home-bus-boat-taxi-train-plane-plane-plane-car-hotel.

It was very weird to be traveling to the US from Norway, knowing that I would be returning "home" to Norway, rather than "home" to the US. The US felt especially foreign to me since I was going to a region that I've only ever briefly visited. Yet at the same time it was really fun: I knew the ropes, as it were, and it's very easy to be a tourist in one's homeland.

I decided I needed the most mindless knitting project imaginable for the trip, so I started knitting a basic ribbed scarf out of the Rowan Kidsilk Haze that I bought earlier this spring. It has been very satisfying to knit, though not the most exciting thing to look at:


I'm knitting two strands together, so the fabric is fairly dense.

I got into Provo a day early in hopes of recuperating a bit before the seminar itself, and in order to get some shopping done. I bought a new digital camera for myself, which I'm still getting the hang of. We stayed in a really decent hotel in the center of Provo, so I did a lot of walking and taking the city bus around town that first day, which was actually pretty enjoyable. This is the view leaving the front entrance of the hotel:

And this is the view out of the window in my room:

I actually really liked the town. It reminds me of so many places I've been in the western states--it combined elements of towns I've been to in Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, and of course the mountains are spectacular. What makes Provo, different, however, is the overwhelming presence of the Mormons. Brigham Young University was a fascinating place--it looks and behaves like a serious university, yet at the same time it is a thoroughly religious institution.

At the seminar there were a total of eight presentations--three by the editors of the literary history and five by contributors (including me). It was very informal--the idea was for them to clarify the (rather ambitious) goals and theoretical framework of the project and help us shape our individual essays to fit the goals and framework. I got tons of questions after my presentation, and then after lunch got a really in-depth critique from three of the editors. These happen to be three of the most interesting and creative minds in my field (Tom DuBois, Mark Sandberg, and Dan Ringgård for those in the know) so I felt incredibly privileged. I left that session feeling overwhelmed but inspired.

They gave us about four hours off the afternoon of the second day. I napped and puttered for most of it, but then woke up with a totally clear vision of how to restructure my essay. I banged out six pages at lightening speed. They're only asking for fourteen pages total, so I feel that I'm well on my way to having a really kick-ass essay done. I think they really liked my topic, since they've asked me to get mine done early to use as an example for other contributors.

Saturday night they drove us up to Sundance (of Robert Redford fame) for dinner. It was a lovely evening. We strolled around the grounds first and then had a really scrumptious steak dinner. Over dinner one of the participants (John Lindow) started talking about the Getty Villa, which apparently is an exact replica of the villa preserved at Herculaneum after the volcanic eruption there. My simulacrum-detector went off, of course, and it started me thinking about Baudrillard's notion of the hyperreal, and how that might relate to the literary history project. I should back up and say that I'm contributing to a volume on "place" in Nordic literary culture. It occurred to me that the research I started way back in 2003 on the "spel" phenomenon (where communities around Norway put on annual outdoor theatrical reenactments of historical events, including, interestingly enough, the black plague) might be the starting point for a second essay in the volume. I talked to one of the editors about it and he seemed really gung-ho.

Each night I was there I woke up at three o'clock in the morning, which was kind of a pain, but also useful for getting to watch every single episode of Survivor 18: Tocantins online (can't access them from Europe) and also for writing. That last night (or should I say morning) I woke up with a crystal clear idea of how to structure this second essay, which I sketched out in about three pages. So all together I got nearly ten pages of new writing done while at the seminar. That's a pretty darned good result, not to mention the fun of hanging out with a bunch of smarty-pants.

ETA: And just in case my trip caused me to feel even the slightest glimmer of nostalgia for my homeland, there's always stuff like this blog, which collected a smattering of anti-Obama protest snapshots, to keep me eternally thankful for the fact that I live in Norway now.

Nummer elleve

Why, yes! That is a finished Francis Revisited sweater you see there. I was beginning to think I would never finish it, since I ripped it out and re-knit so many times. It ended up being much longer in arms and torso than the patten called for. I think I'll wear it a lot this winter, and it's a much better fit than the first sweater I knit with this yarn.

This is the eleventh sweater I have completed this year. Now I'm trying to decide what to do next. I have two partially finished sweaters that I could finish. Or I could start something new--I have enough yarn in my stash for two sweaters.

• Lattice Lace Pullover (Ravelry link) started September 2008
• 64-17 Short Sleeve Lace Cardigan (Ravelry link) started July 2009
• Halle by Elsebeth Lavold (Ravelry link)
• another 112-24 Knitted Tunic (Ravelry link), this time in the color Natural instead of Black
  

My practical side says I should really finish the two works-in-progress. Both of them are lace patterns, though, and one of the things I've discovered this year is that I really don't enjoy lace knitting very much at all. I don't mind the process and have gotten much better at it technically. I'm just not really that wild about the end product (gasp! I know that's heresy amongst knitmeisters). I like the look of it in theory, but not in the practice of wearing things. I'll take another look at the short sleeve cardigan, as I don't think there's that much to go on it.

Yesterday we finally went to one of the flea markets that the Kiwanis Club puts on regularly here on Nesodden. It was totally packed with people, but quite fun. KE ran into an old friend, E had fun running around, and I got to scratch my current shopping itch (don't know where that came from, but I'm really craving the sensory input right now). We bought one item, an old-fashioned knapsack:

What's funny about this is that we went through separately, and on my round the only thing I came across that I really wanted to buy was one of these, but since I had E with me it really wasn't practical to start looking seriously (there were 3 or 4 of them). When we walked up to the cash register there was KE standing with this in his hands, asking the price. He had picked up the coolest one. Great minds think alike, clearly.

I bought my Mom's ticket online yesterday, so she'll be coming for E's birthday in December--yay! I also talked to my Dad and M on Skype yesterday for the first time. That was really fun. I also finally got my flight information for my trip to the Nordic Literary History meeting in Utah yesterday. I leave on Wednesday, so I was getting a bit frantic, and sent three panicky emails before I got a response. Now I'm really looking forward to the trip!

Refleksjoner...

I turn 42 today. That feels a little odd. I've also been in Norway almost nine months now, and that doesn't feel odd at all. All in all, I think the move and the timing of it have worked out really well. E is now in a preschool that he loves, and his social and other skills are already starting to improve in all sorts of tangible ways. KE actually finished his BS, and although he's at loose ends (still no job leads) he seems to be dealing with the transition well. As for me, I love my job more and more, and I totally love our house and yard, and living out here on Nesodden. I am starting to think that the reason I was unhappy living in Oslo back in the early 1990s is simply that I don't like Oslo all that much. I'm sure there are little pockets of the city where I could be happy living, but basically I find it stressful to be there. It is always a relief to get on the boat to come home.

A couple of days ago I had a meeting with a colleague. I was telling her about my upcoming trip to the states, then mentioned something about doing something when I get back "home" to Norway. We both looked at each other in surprise and laughed about that. It is the first time I have referred to Norway as my home, and it felt sort of weird, but also right.

I think I have been more aware of not "going native" this time. I have started pronouncing my last name in English, rather than how a Norwegian would say it as written. I still pronounce my first name in Norwegian (since I like the sound of that better and it is a common name here any way). I like marking my non-Norwegian-ness in that subtle way. Looking back, I guess I felt that I wasn't "allowed" to utter one word of English any time I spent here, because I needed to maximize my time studying the culture and language while here. It is a relief to just be a normal person, and not feel like every waking minute is an oral proficiency exam in process.

I am getting less and less self-conscious about speaking English with E when we're in public. Basically, I no longer feel compelled to prove constantly that I am fluent in Norwegian. I know I'm pretty much as good as I'm going to get in the spoken language, and that is a very high level of proficiency, so I can just relax a bit, and focus more on improving my writing skills.

Yesterday I got to look at a book printed in 1780. It was written in French, and I could actually read the chapter I needed without a dictionary (I tend to forget that I actually have a pretty good working knowledge of French--just can't speak it to save my life). I got asked to co-edit an anthology of articles on Hamsun. I had a meeting to plan my guest lecture in a colleague's course. I spent hours in the library tracking down all the sources on a new, smaller project that will be a component of the cabin book. I feel so incredibly privileged to have this job. Someone at the Hamsun conference told me to my face that on principle I shouldn't have gotten this postdoc. position because I already had a permanent job back in the states. I was really taken aback by that, and felt miserable about it for a couple of days. I guess that kind of criticism is inevitable. The only thing I can do is do the best work I can and make as much of a contribution to the program as possible. I think my colleagues truly appreciate having me in the program, and that matters a lot more than what someone from another program says about me. 3 years, 3 months and counting before the best job of my life ends...

ETA: I'm writing this on the morning of the 4th, but I guess Blogger records the date on US time, where it's still the 3rd.

E again TA: WOW! I just stumbled across the amazing art of Freddie Robins via this post on Jane Brocket's blog. The bizarre "sweaters" and "gloves" are so eerie and beautiful...