Kulturradikalisme

Humming away on the Miss Honeychurch these past few days--I'm just about to do the increases on the lower body. This Drops Lin yarn is knitting up totally differently than the thrift-harvested cotton that I used in the first version. I'm a little concerned, but still hopeful. I tried it on today and it does appear to fit fine.

Yesterday I was incredibly unmotivated for anything at all, but today I had a good day at work (got to read a fabulous chapter on monsters by my PhD student) and managed to get my US tax return finished. Printing it out turns out to be a bit of a pain, though. Since it's US letter size and the only paper I have here is A4, the right margin (where all the numbers are) gets cut off. I'll fiddle with it tomorrow.

Dear Reader, read no further unless you're game for a pointless ramble on Norwegian political ideologies:

In terms of work I finally tracked down the sources I need on defining "kulturradikalisme": one of 3 articles by Eivind Tjønneland on the topic as well as Torunn Borge's 2000 book Gudsskrekk, which is basically a critique of Tjønneland (along with all the sources they cite, giving me more articles to track down. Sigh). Kulturradikalisme is one of those terms that gets bandied about all the time here in Norway, but that sometimes seems to means different things depending on the speaker. Or at least the term is used very imprecisely. It has an identifiable genealogy with three phases: roughly 1. 1870s & 1880s (Brandes/Ibsen/Jæger), 2. 1930s (Øverland/Hoel/Krog), 3. 1960s (the Profil-group). The one that concerns me is the third wave, since that's what Frobenius writes about. I still haven't clarified for myself to what degree kulturradikalisme overlaps with (or is synonymous with) "68-erne" (the so-called 1968 generation).

I'm hoping that the readings I located will help me understand what's going on ideologically in Frobenius' Teori og praksis. It appears that there are simultaneously three different ideologies being critiqued in the book: 1. Conservativism (Høyre-politikk), 2. Social Democracy (Arbeiderpartiet), and 3. Kulturradikalisme itself, though this last one is hard to pinpoint and perhaps ironic, since that's the protagonist/author/narrator's (initial?) position.

What finally hit home for me today is the enormous cultural gap and open antagonism between man-on-the-street Labor and the intellectuals who make up kulturradikalisme. I guess I always assumed that the kulturradikale elites were somehow encompassed under the happy Labor umbrella, but it turns out they're most definitely not, as Frobenius' novel point out. Actually, I should have known that anyway, but it gets complicated, what with the elite's bizarre flirtation with Maoism and contrived identification with the working class (which never really accepted them).

Kulturradikalisme is/was at any rate anti-bourgeois, anti-religion, and anti-capitalism and at the same time highly critical of the ruling labor party precisely because that party had great political and economic power. This is counter-intuitive for me, since I would typically assume that the left and the radical left would share values. Perhaps it's just my American biases at work here, where labor (primarily in the form of unions) and management (a.k.a. "capitalist pigs") are traditionally construed as being adversaries. In the Scandinavian welfare states, on the other hand, the official labor parties cooperate extensively (some would say "are in bed") with management, and there is no perceived contradiction.

Argh. I'm not getting anywhere here. The short version:

Kulturradikalisme is (or at least has been in one or more of its waves) ANTI:

• religion
• capitalism
• the bourgeoisie
• anything that smacks of hypocrisy and/or moral double standards

Kulturradikalisme has been described as being in constant opposition to the status quo, so much so that it doesn't have any positively expressed ideological platform. Nonetheless, along the way it has embraced certain ideologies. Thus:

Kulturradikalisme is (or at least has been in one or more of its waves) PRO:

• sexual liberation (the whole gamut from Jæger's idealized free love to today's moderate social democratic policies on things like birth control, divorce, or the number of sexual partners it is generally viewed as acceptable to have had in one's life)
• Freudian psychoanalysis
• Marxism

That last point is the most contradictory in some ways, since Marxism has frequently lead to totalitarianism in 20th century politics, and especially since Maoism in particular (of all things) was embraced by the intellectual elite in the 60s and 70s. Tjønneland actually has a really good explanation for that: he says that an ideological position that demands complete freedom will inevitably create a backlash in the form of a longing for authority.

Gardinglede

Ah, that's more like it. I had to go to 2 stores in Oslo, 3 on Nesoddtangen, and 6 more at the mall before I found an acceptable curtain rod, and even then I couldn't find any café curtain rings to hang the curtain with. After trying a couple of different things, I ended up crocheting a row along the top with loops. I'm really glad that I'm getting more proficient at crochet, as it is such a versatile and useful technique. I would have never thought of this solution if I hadn't made the ripple blanket. If I do say so myself, I think the curtain is darling. Strictly speaking I should knit a second one, as this doesn't cover the whole window. I doubt that's going to happen any time soon, especially since it's mostly just meant to be decorative.

I also took a snap of the blue linen Miss Honeychurch that I started last night:

I have modified it a tiny bit so that there is a column of knit stitches at each of the raglan seams. It bothered me with the first one that only one of the four seams had that. It's knitting up rather loosely. Of course I can't be bothered to check the gauge. I hope I don't live to regret my lackadaisical attitude!

Tomt ... in a good way

I did it! I finished my lace curtain. I feel like I should be entered into some kind of elite and very secret society open only to those who are loony enough to knit a lace curtain. Here's a picture of it while blocking:

Not much to look at just yet, and I need to find a curtain rod somewhere, but the lace pattern looks pretty nice. Can't wait to get a snapshot of the curtain once it's up. And with this, I now, officially and for more than 24 hours, have not a single craft work-in-progress! Totally cleared out! This hasn't happened since I picked up knitting in earnest again in 2008. Of course I still have a stash, but even most of that is now dedicated to specific projects. Feels good to have "orden i sysakene."

Last night I had yet another dinner invitation--this time at the Oslo pied-à-terre of a UK-based colleague. It was just four of us, me and three women academics in their 60s. I was a little worried that I wouldn't fit in very well, but it was actually a relaxed and even fairly fun evening. I spent the earlier part of the day in Oslo running around like a chicken with my head cut off though, trying to get things to work and run errands.

Today I was able to devote a good long block of time to the Frobenius article, which is starting to come together. The last remaining hitch is the question of how the term kulturradikalisme (of the so called third wave or post-1968 variety) is defined in the debates surrounding Teori og praksis. I can't even fine a clear definition of the term in Norsk idéhistorie, which really surprised me. At any rate, I got out as much on paper as I possibly could today, and now I'm feeling pretty drained. Time for a little nap and then it's on to take two of Miss Honeychurch.

Første forsøk

Look! I sewed something and it didn't turn into a disaster. Thrilling! This is Simplicity pattern 9949 view G, using the same unbleached Ikea linen that I apparently use for all sewing projects. It turns out that my machine doesn't have a zipper foot, so I had to sew the zipper in by hand, but otherwise this was all (well, "all" is probably a stretch. There was a total of 9 very short seams) done on my machine and I don't think I swore once. There are some problems with it, but it does give me hope that I will someday be able to machine sew. I'm just going to keep plugging away at small "low impact" projects like this made out of fabric I have lying around. I cut out the pieces for another one of these, and I'll just try to do better on the things I messed up on this one.

I didn't make any fused plastic today because the weather was cold and sleety, and thus not conducive to working with open doors and windows. In the afternoon the sun came out though, so I was able to take some pictures, including the finished and blocked ripple blanket:

Bold, no? I still have loads of 10 colors of this yarn (Garnstudio Drops Alpaca) left over. I'm contemplating making a granny square afghan out of it, since that's easy and very portable. I've started looking around on Flickr and Ravelry trying to figure out what granny square aesthetic appeals to me. They're so incredibly varied, and some are astoundingly ugly. I was thinking maybe I should make hexagonal blocks rather than squares. Clearly not sure of what I want to do here, so I'll let the yarn marinate. Now it's back to the lace curtain, which feels a bit like a chore. Only about 10 cm to go, I think, so there actually is an end in sight, even though it doesn't feel like it. Can't wait to cast on for a new sweater as soon as it's done. Right now I'm thinking it will be another Miss Honeychurch (in the blue Garnstudio Drops Lin that I bought last spring), though that is obviously very subject to change.

Our social adventure last night turned out to be a good experience for all. E and his auntie appeared to really bond. AK said she had fun with E, and he was totally at ease spending the night at her house. KE and I had a nice time at the dinner party we were invited to. It was a very academic crowd, and even though it was at a colleague's home I'm not sure I really got any closer to getting to really know them any better. But given that this is Norway, it was a huge breakthrough just to be invited, and it was a lovely evening. The whole event feels like a milestone in our family dynamics. We got off the bus at midnight along with a neighbor, who remarked with surprise that she certainly wasn't used to seeing us out at that time of night.

Åpenbaring

I hate to say it, but OMG! I am so freakin' stoked! I started poking around on upcycling groups on Flickr, and discovered a craft that really hadn't made it into my consciousness until now, namely fusing plastic bags to make fabric. Here is a tutorial on how to fuse the really thin plastic grocery bags you get in the US. Check out this amazing bag lady coat (there's a close up of the wild patterns here) and this sweet little coin purse made out of US bread bags. Then, for a totally different look, there's this minimalistic striped bag. Very, very, very, very cool.

We of course have massive amounts of plastic bags, so I've spent most of the morning sorting them by color and have started cutting some up. Yay! Of course the process of fusing the bags itself is highly toxic, since you're melting plastic. Definitely something to do in warm weather with the doors and windows wide open. But once you get over that stage, the project possibilities are endless. I'm guessing (though I have yet to actually try) that the process of layering and fusing is really fun and challenging, since that's where you can build up patterns and layers into interesting designs.

I got so excited about this that I almost forgot to mention that I did actually (finally) finish the ripple baby blanket last night. It's blocking now. I was a little bummed to see that my gauge changed from the beginning to the end (the first few ripples are much looser). I'm hoping the blocking will even that out a bit.

I haven't cast on for a new project (still plodding along with the curtain), but I suppose technically this new plastic bag obsession counts as one (but since I'm just cutting up bags, I think it's okay, at least in my world, especially since I'm the one who imposed the rule about not starting a new project until the curtain is done!).

Tonight E is spending the night at his aunt's house so that KE and I can go to dinner at a colleague's house. I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing, but we have to start this kind of social activity some time.

Grinebiter

The people I most admire are the ones who are able to rise above every day frustrations with serenity, humor and kindness. I am not one of those people. I've been cranky for most of the day. Sometimes I get so filled up with irritation that I just want to spit, or pinch someone hard: having to do things over again, forgetting things, spending money unnecessarily, people who stand right in front of the doors on the subway so I can't get out, ice on the sidewalks, the smell of smoke in my office, the list goes on and on. I don't really have anything to say about this other that, hey, I'm grumpy today. Proceed with caution.

But actually, the small non-grumpy part of my personality is doing okay. I helped a colleague with something today and I think it was really appreciated. Despite spending a lot of time on that I still got some work done on the Frobenius article and cranked through four or five tedious tasks that needed doing. I still have more tedious stuff (it never ends) and some big things too--like US federal income taxes--but at least I'm not drowning in it all like I sometimes feel.

I also picked up that extra skein of black yarn for the baby blanket, so I'll probably finally finish that in the next day or two. Then it's lace curtain knitting until I reach 120 cm or have a stroke, whichever comes first. I think right now I'm at about 97 cm. I have so many potential projects flying around in my head that It's dizzying, but I so want to have the experience of having no project in process, if only for a day. It's good discipline, if nothing else.

Given how many times I've strained my hands and wrists this winter with knitting and crocheting, I'm starting to give some serious thought to what I could occupy myself with if this becomes chronic. My immediate thought is that a life without handwork would be hard to maintain. For whatever reason, I am hardwired to make things. I don't have any particular need for artistic expression, but I do need to be constructing things, and preferably things that serve a practical purpose. Reading or other quiet leisure activities are fine, but they're not a viable substitute, since there's no material end product (plus I read for a living, which makes it less appealing as a leisure activity).

I've decided that machine sewing would be the logical skill to start building up. I have written before here about how stressed out machine sewing makes me. I hate feeling so incompetent and at the mercy of a machine. I have the same kind of irrational tunnel vision about a sewing machine that some people have about computers. I get nervous just looking at it, and that means that I get erratic, instantly furious, and absurdly incompetent as soon as I try to start sewing. It is not pretty. Yet at the same time, I love the idea of sewing clothes and other practical items. I love the look of tidy seams and exactly the right fabrics and colors, but nothing I've ever sewn on a machine has ever turned out right.

So I was poking around on Amazon looking at some of the sewing books that get mentioned on the blogs I follow, and I discovered one book that looks different from the rest. It's incredibly minimalist and, well, very Japanese. The book is Linen, Wool, Cotton: 25 Simple Projects to Sew with Natural Fabrics by Akiko Mano. Despite totally hating the project on the front cover, it looks like there are many things that I would like to make. There's a preview of many pages of the book here so you can check it out yourself. Some of the projects are so simple that it's embarrassing that I would need a book to teach me how to make them, but honestly I'm so incompetent that I need the most remedial projects imaginable to practice on--things like kitchen towels and handkerchiefs that are literally just rectangles!

Oppdatering

Frobenius article: just hit the top of page 11 and am still finishing up my main points about the novel itself. Next up is the first critical article about the novel.

Ripple blanket: ran out of black yarn with only 1/2 a row, one more colored stripe, and one more black stripe to go. The irritating thing is that I went to Tjorven on Friday to pick up a skein of another color I ran out of, but didn't have the foresight to buy a skein of black. Ooops.

Leaf lace curtain: started working on it again since I'm out of commission on the ripple blanket and have gotten about 10 cm knitted. I'm a little distressed to see that my gauge is much looser than before. I am tightening it up now that I can see the difference, but there will definitely be a wonky patch up about 4/5 of the way up the curtain. Ooops, again.

Life: the cold is almost gone. Just hacking up the occasional lugie. Gross, I know. I stayed in my pjs all day today. I baked a kick ass pizza. I watched Norwegian cross country skiers kick ass at Holmenkollen (on tv, of course). I did laundry. I forgot to brush my teeth. I am still in my utterly neurotic phase of not being able to fall asleep with KE in the room. I'm such a freak.

Outings: E was so wiped out by ski day (he's the kid in an apple green snow suit) on Thursday that he refused to go to preschool on Friday. I needed to pick something up at my office so I took him with me into Oslo. We had a nice little outing. He said hi to a few of my colleagues, and laid down on the floor in the hall explaining (in a quite animated fashion) to a couple of them that he was dead. We hit Tjorven and Riktige leker on the way home: both of us were pleased with our little shopping trip. And of course E loved all the modes of transportation: bus-boat-subway-subway-boat-bus!

Gode råd

Yesterday was my third meeting with my mentor. It was really productive and inspiring for me. I was able to articulate some of the issues I've been having with getting going in earnest on the book manuscript. There's a constellation of anxieties and commitments that seem to be getting in the way. It was good to reflect over them before the meeting and then try to articulate them for an impartial but sympathetic listener.

When I came here last winter I had a fairly long list of smaller projects that I had committed to, and it was actually super fun to plow through all of those and clear the decks for the cabin book. Then I spent the summer and fall reading and orienting myself for the book. Back in December I had felt that I was right on the verge of diving into the writing phase, but then I got hit with this extra (and very time consuming) class to teach, which really threw me off track.

I can see now that a whole bunch of anxieties have been building up in relation to the book. I need to face them or they're not going to go away.

The primary anxiety is just the knowledge of how much weighs on my writing the book. I was told by one of my colleagues that it would be "unforgivable" if I didn't finish it during my fellowship. I already knew that, and had actually secretly been harboring the hope that I could finish two book manuscripts during this time (crazy, probably). But somehow hearing the word "utilgivelig" out loud made it sound like a death knell.

Then there's the fact that many of the texts I'm working on for this project just don't excite me at all aesthetically. They're boring, which makes it boring to work with them. I have previously either chosen to work on texts I love, or - barring that - text that were formally and stylistically interesting in some significant way. That's just not the case for most of what's on the line up for this book. Don't get me wrong, if you work on anything with the right approach it can and probably will become interesting. But I miss the extended engagement with exquisite writing.

At any rate, it was useful to articulate all this, plus my general anxiety about my future, my financial security, and all that stuff. My mentor's conclusion was: "You need a vacation!" He said he though I should give myself a couple week's reprieve from thinking about the book. I was kind of shocked, but I love the idea. As he said, who's going to look at what I did for two weeks in March in 2010? We came up with a plan, which is for me to spend two weeks working on a small, totally unrelated project that I came up with back in the fall. I can probably bang out a complete article draft in that amount of time. I think it has the potential to get me back on track - just getting back into the habit of writing and feeling productive will help. Plus writing about a text that I find intellectually and aesthetically stimulating (Nikolaj Frobenius' Teori og praksis from 2004) is probably what I need most of all right now.

After the meeting I went right back to my office and started working on it. I had a couple of pages of notes from the fall, and by the end of the day I had about five pages of text. I noticed too that it is being adapted to film right now. Frobenius himself has written the screenplay, so there is a potential new layer to my article, and an obvious timeliness because of the adaptation, which is due out in 2011. I'll send what I have to a slow journal like Scandinavian Studies, in the hopes that I'll be able to see and respond to the film by the time the article is accepted (or not).

Beyond that specific piece of advice, it was just really nice to be able to air my worries and have someone say that they were totally understandable and that he would feel exactly the same way were he in my position.

On my way home from work though I slipped on the ice for the first time this winter. Not bad really to make it all the way to 9 March before falling. My knee is banged up and I hurt my wrist in the fall, but it's nothing I won't get over after a few days. KE was very sympathetic when I got home.

Basic black

Black and white was the only way I could get the pattern to appear in a picture of this sweater, and given that the yarn itself is the darkest possible charcoal gray, it's actually pretty accurate in terms of color any way. Not sure what's up with my facial expression? I think I'm mostly trying to minimize my double chin. At any rate, the news is that I did indeed end up having enough yarn to finish the oversized guernsey, which I did this afternoon. I'm generally pretty pleased with it, and I think I'll be wearing it a lot.

I spent some time yesterday tidying up my yarn stash. I frogged a couple of projects I wasn't happy with (the Whisper Cardigan in blue Alpaca Cloud and the first failed pair of nether garments I started for E) and wound the yarn on my snazzy yarn winder. That means that I now have a grand total of only two works-in-progress: the ripple baby blanket and a lace curtain that I started knitting back in 2004 before we got married. I'm actually thinking that it may be fun to pick that up again after the blanket is finished, believe it or not. It would just generally be totally cool to not have any works-in-progress at all before I start the next project (whatever that ends up being). So freeing!

This coming week is going to be really packed, work wise. I have to finish up a review of someone who is going up for promotion, start a book review, work on the new article on children's books, and tomorrow I have a massive amount of preparation for my literature course. I have some good ideas for where to go next with the article, which I think is starting to come together conceptually. I just feel like I never get time to work on it because of all the other (especially teaching) responsibilities. I really need to work on prioritizing my research and writing time more.

"Sørvis"

I have had an ongoing issue with the IT-support at my job since January. This week it came to a bit of a crisis, and I actually felt that I had to go to the lengths of complaining about the lack of service. Here's a time line:

20 January: sent request to Orakel for help with showing film clips in my classroom for my film course.

30 January: received an email back asking whether I still needed help. I wrote back to say yes.

24 February: I sent a reminder, since I had not received a response in nearly a month.

26 February: received an email back suggesting a time to meet that conflicted with another class I teach (Monday, 1 March 14.00). I wrote back asking for another time and asking where I should go.

1 March: received an email back suggesting Tuesday, 2 March at 11.00. No indication which office I should go to.

2 March: I went to the Orakel office on the second floor and asked for the person. It turns out he was there at that office, but had to work the help desk since someone else was sick. I asked if I could just ask my questions there, when there weren't any other people with questions and was told "no." It would be "easier" to have our meeting in his office at another time. I told him to give me a time, and we agreed to 13.00 on Wednesday, 3 March at his office. There is a certain rich irony in the fact that the person who was working the "help desk" refused to help me.

3 March: I went to his office and he was not there. A colleague of his walked by and said he hadn't seen him that day, and that he was probably sick. I went to the Orakel office and explained the situation, and one of the young student workers had some useful suggestions for part of my problem. When I asked whether there was anyone I could talk to about the complete lack of support I received, he said I should talk to my department chair.

Now I'm not the most patient person in the world, but I really have tried to be in this case. The absurdity of the guy refusing flat out to help me while he was working the help desk is the straw that broke the camel's back. Clearly he was just really stressed because I was asking him to help me with something he had no clue about. Rather than face the perceived humiliation of not having an answer, he just kept avoiding me.

I got another email from him today (after I wrote to say I was going to try to figure it out on my own) trying to set up a meeting for tomorrow. I know that I wouldn't be able to behave myself, so as gently as possible I wrote back saying (again) that I would work out the problem on my own.

Sigh. At least the sun has been shining, my students' papers are (mostly) good, and I seem to be on the mend finally. It was good to stay home today, I think. I got a little grading and reading done and a lot of rest, which appears to be what I need the most right now.

Here's a little comic gem, "Help desk." It's the opposite problem (idiotic customer), but gets across some of the frustration and absurdity of the situation:



ETA: Whoa! Stop the presses! News flash! I am totally astonished by the fact that Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Långstrump was (apparently) inspired by and is a revisionist narrative of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. I mean, really?! Wow. I devoured both as a kid, especially the entire Anne series and never made the connection. I must acquire the following article immediately in order to get all the details:

Åhmansson, Gabriella. "Mayflowers grow in Sweden Too: L.M. Montgomery, Astrid Lindgren and the Swedish Literary Consciousness." Harvesting Thistles: The Textual Garden of L.M. Montgomery. Ed. Mary Rubio. Guelph: Canadian Children's Press, 1994. 14-22.

Litt av hvert

Phew. Finished teaching my last class for the week without collapsing from sheer exhaustion. On Monday I taught Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's Synnøve Solbakken, then today it was Roy Andersson's Sånger från andra våningen. Talk about cognitive dissonance. This cold or whatever it is has really wiped me out. I am feeling a bit better though, after two really good night's sleep and the sudden reappearance of the sun.

This week I used up all my brain power on finishing one of the "hjerterå" sudokus in Dagens Næringsliv (I scavenge for the paper on the ferry ride into Oslo sometimes), so I'm not up for any blog philosophizing or academic musings in this post. Instead, I thought I'd update the knitting and crocheting that I haven't been doing (letting the hands heal up a bit).

Here's the ripple baby blanket. I did eventually find my crochet hook (it was in my tool bag all along. D'oh), but haven't done any more on it:

I've pretty much decided that it is not ugly, just bold. But maybe I'm wrong. Still not sure. I'm going to crochet at least six more ripple rows, maybe more.

Then there's the oversized guernsey:

That's all the yarn I have left for the rest of the front (the sleeves are already done). You can see why I'm worried there won't be enough! I have a plan B and a plan C in place for how to deal with not having enough, but it's still irritating.

Then I realized that I forgot to post a picture of the finished raglan with Drops Highlander yarn. In fact, I even forgot to photograph it, so here's a really quick snap from arm's length:

At least you get an idea of what it looks like. I've found it to be incredibly comfortable to wear. The yarn is so lightweight that it feels like wearing a fleece top instead of a wool sweater. Very nice, especially when home with a cold. When I was finishing it off I took a picture of how much (or rather how little) yarn was left over after I cast off the final stitches:

Eep. 'Tain't much! But all's well that ends well, eh?

I'm starting to get a little antsy and eager to start a new project, but of course I can't possibly do that until I have gotten as far as I can with the guernsey. I imagine it will help just to work on that. The sudoku is mildly engrossing, but a pale substitute for knitting!