Remo, who organized things in Madrid, has done a far better job than I’ll ever do of tracking this trip and compiling video off YouTube.
There’s a lot more out there if you go poking around. There are almost as many cameras as people at these events. It’s interesting to see the same event from so many different angles.
Arrived in Stockholm. Just past immigration, Melissa dropped her passport in the toilet, so…bad day for her. Worse since she hadn’t flushed yet.
The city is lovely. I have to say that about every city these days, since usually a lot of people from that place are reading. But in this case, I’m not lying.
Nevertheless, my catalog of photos shows a clear fascination — not with the architecture — but with a particular linguistic trait of many Northern European languages.
I became, for one afternoon, an avid fartographer.
Then there was this set of sculptures we happened upon.
I don’t get it. But I like it.
Here’s a thing: in Sweden there are a lot of very very white people and not a lot of not-so-white people. Now and then you will see some very very white people dressing in hip hop fashions — corn rows, basketball jerseys, articles of "bling." They seem content with themselves and confident that they are pulling the look off with great success. This is because there aren’t a lot of not-so-white people around to make them feel like idiots. It’s a controlling presence that is sorely needed.
Learned about the Stockholm Bloodbath, which happened somewhere near here.
The Danish king decided he wanted to run things in Sweden. So in 1520, he invited the entire Swedish nobility over to his house for a barbecue. Then once everyone showed up, he said "gotcha!" and beheaded all of them. They say the streets around the palace literally ran red.
This event becaming a rallying moment in Swedish history and triggered centuries of back and forth reprisals with Denmark. But unlike SOME countries (and I’m not naming names), both sides got over it and moved on.
We shot the clip outside of old town, in the more modern part of the city. The turnout was on the smaller side, which is actually a good thing from time to time cause we can go in closer and allow each person’s dancing to register.
For the first time since we started this, we got a group consisting almost entirely of teenagers. I have no idea why.
As part of the sign-up process, I have to take a close-up picture of each person who participates. After accumulating hundreds of these, I’m realizing that what started out as a mundane legal safety measure is actually a bit more than that. I have an opportunity to snap random strangers with little pretense, in fairly unguarded circumstances. They’re usually not posing, so their faces and expressions are honest. And because we’re prancing all across Europe, I get to see a wide swath of the population looking pretty much how they really look. It’s turning into a worthwhile document in and of itself.
The bottom line is: people are interesting to look at. And the more natural they appear, the more there is to see.
There is an extra spring in my step today, because Steven Spielberg just posted a picture he took.
I’ve heard all the ranting and complaining about how old he is and la-dee-da. I don’t care. Indiana Jones is walking on this earth again. We’re getting another one. To me that means a lot more than when they cart out Rocky or John McClane or the Terminator one more time. This is special, and weirdly moving.