In Praise of the Amateurish

Last week I went with a friend to our local library, for a Book Café. It´s a very unpretentious function, tea or coffee in plastic mugs, and one of those flat, long-shaped buns the Swedish call vetelängd.

Two librarians, of two different generations, present reading suggestions to a small congregation of middle-aged and elderly ladies and a couple of culturally afflicted men. One of the ladies was positive to everything, even the fairly large pile of dystopian novels the young guy presented. The older guy was more into local history, as am I, and I did come away with some interesting reading suggestions.

What bugged me a little bit was how they talked too much about the content of the books. It reminded me of when my mother-in-law has read a book that has made an impression on her, she can go on and on for hours, retelling the entire story in detail, as if it´s something that happened to a dear friend of hers. Of course, that is what good literature will do to you, but if not careful, you can spoil a potential reading experience for others. Reading excerpts from the last page of a book is perhaps not the thing to do.

Also, it is a bit surprising that they don´t have a woman librarian there, considering the majority of the librarians are women. But, my impression is that an overwhelming majority of booknerds are very introverted, and perhaps it´s hard to even get anyone to want to do it. Even though we of the audience are so very nice and encouraging.

I will continue to go, awkward as the execution of this Book Café-concept might be. This is probably a surprising statement coming from someone who bloggs about books (mainly), but I am not usually a fan of book talk. I avoid book programs on television, rarely watch interviews and talks given by authors. I prefer to read the books. With a few exceptions. Some writers can really talk and make another kind of art from that, but it´s rare. And I rarely read other book blogs, except for Robby Virus´ Blogging the Canon, which is so unpretentious I can´t help but love him. I´m sure there are plenty out there, if I would just bother looking for them.

Yeah, I suppose I liked the Book Café just because it was kind of faulty and amateurish and didn´t attempt to be anything else. Amateurs are perhaps a bit shaky in the execution, but they have heart to make up for it. A plenty.

I made this!

I  made a band for my Fortis watch, and the closest I could come to James Bond was something that looks more like it came from a peasant costume. I used a folded bias band, layered it with the striped band and improvised a closure mechanism with what I had in my sewing stash.

I am actually rather pleased with it. A press stud would have been better than a hook and eye, but it´s ok.

And then I made this. I have probably never had a wrist ornament this fashionable.

But seriously, what´s with this trend for wearing clunky, beady bracelets with handsome watches? I can´t help but thinking how that watch will be so beat up from all those beads´n´stuff, I doubt I will ever actually wear it this way. It looks nice, though.

Food for Thought

You haven´t failed until you have given up.

From My First Photo Album

I new what was good from an early age.*

 

Grandpa was a football player, a legendary (in a regional kind of way) goalkeeper.

Reading is the Mother of all superpowers.

Some people love you for no apparent reason.

 **

I used to lie on the sofa and have my reading material on the floor.

Some people fit in, others stand out.

Best friends often look alike.

Yeah, writing.

Being an older sister has probably defined my character more than anything.

I have a very big head brain.

All I see in this picture are the shoes. Loved them.

I have forgotten much. Some details remain, like the shape and smell of that handbag.

* My parents were not negligent in any way. They filled the beer bottles with squash. I wanted to do everything my dad did.
** Some games turn into habits.

Stars and Stripes

Are you aware that the annual Orionids meteor shower is visible in the night sky these coming days (nights)? I had never heard of them, but apparently they are debris from Halley´s comet, a swarm of meteorites of which some fall into the Earth´s atmosphere every year around October. The look like they are coming from Orion, which is what has given them their name.

I took a pause this morning to stand and stare at Orion. Nothing much happened. I might have seen a tiny meteorite, but it may also have been a street light reflecting in an eyelash as I blinked. Perhaps it´s easier to see in the country, where the light pollution is less. They don´t exactly shower down on Earth, either. On a good year, there can be 50-70 meteors in an hour. I don´t think it was very good this morning. However, when I randomly turned my eye towards Cassiopeia, I definitely saw a meteorite. But it probably wasn´t ever part of Halley´s comet.

See those two tiny dots in the sky? Jupiter and Venus. Bringers of jolliness and love, right?

I like to know what´s going on in the sky, being a night worker. My source of excellence in these matters is Skyview Café, where I can see exactly what is going on in my sky, at any particular moment. Over the years, I have learned the names of the major constellations, the brightest stars, and what planets I can see. At the moment Jupiter is in Taurus, and Venus comes up brightly in the east in the morning hours. I have this amazing photo from March, when Venus and Jupiter were really close in the sky, and I managed to capture it from my balcony. I tried to zoom in, but without a steady tripod, that´s a vain project.

Lapland is not really an ideal place to watch the stars. In summer, we see absolutely nothing but the sun. In winter, we see plenty, but it´s too freezing cold to stand it for long. The aurora borealis, the northern lights, are pretty cool, and there have been years with plenty of that going on. The most amazing aurora I ever saw was one All Saint´s night (roughly Halloween), when we went to the church yard to light candles on the graves, which is a Swedish tradition. The aurora was so strong that you couldn´t see the stars, but all the candles on the ground made it look like the stars had come down to rest on the ground for a bit, sit on the graves while the aurora was showing off. There were all the aurora colours, white, green, pink, purple. And some people can hear it. I get the sensation of an almost crackling sound. I don´t know if that´s for real or if it´s just something my mind is making up.

I have never managed to take a photo of the aurora, but there are plenty of photographers who have.

And, while I´m on the subject of astronomy, look at what I just bought. It´s a Fortis watch, a tiny, very handsome ladies watch. However, Fortis also make watches for the Russian cosmonauts. Which is approximately 90% of the reason why I bought it. I haven´t decided on a band for it, I´m trying different things. I am toying with the idea of crafting a miniature, striped Nato-band, like the one James Bond wears with his Rolex. We´ll see.

Sunshine In A Jar

It´s been a wonderful weekend. After weeks and weeks of rain and frankly DEPRESSING weather, we have had two gorgeous days, with blue skies and bright sunshine. Saturday we took a walk by the river, and thanks to my husband unexpectedly pulling a plastic bag from his pocket (I have, over the years, come to expect him to carry nothing at all of use, so that was very surprising), I came home with enough rowanberries to make jam of it, from a recipe from my oracle-on-Swedish-cuisine-cookbook, "Vår kokbok" (=our cookbook). 

I have wanted to do this for a while, and this fall, the rowan trees have been so amazingly abundant with fruit. From what I have read, the bird that most favour rowanberries is the fieldfare, but by this time of year, the fieldfares have all gone south. And I have only seen one guy out picking the berries, so most of it just falls to the ground.

I remember picking them when I was little. My mom made jelly at least one year, and I remember they must be picked after the first frost, just like the sloeberries. Picking berries, both wild berries like lingonberries, blueberries and wild raspberries, and cultivated berries like strawberries and blackcurrants, was a big part of my childhood summers. And when we visited my grandparents we would pick cherries. They had amazing cherry trees of several kinds, and apples and plums, too. We would eat home-made preserves and drinks made from fruit syrup, what the English call squash, all winter.

I love the look of rowanberrys. When you pick them apart from the clusters, they look like tiny miniature apples. I prepared 1½ liters, boiled them and added sugar, exactly the same way I make lingonberry jam. Rowanberrys are usually turned into jelly, which is then served with meat, preferably game of different kinds. Making jam is so much easier, though, and it makes more sense to me to not throw the berries away. Fiber, you know. And the finished product tastes as good as it looks. I got about a liter of jam.

Really, I should do this every year. Looks great, doesn´t it!

A Bit of Wisdom

”Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad—you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year.” 

Ray Bradbury

I´m reading less and writing more, which is why I´m blogging more book-unrelated stuff. This may be a good thing, I don´t know. It´s harder, but I have my friend Ray to encourage me!