VIKTOR DONOVAN

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

LIGHTS IN SWEDISH WINDOWS

Four weeks before Christmas (beginning on the first Sunday in advent), Swedes put electric candelabra in their windows and keep them on all night and also during darker days. Many have a candelabra in every window. Since Swedes rarely pull their curtains at night, it is beautiful to walk the streets and see the many lit candelabra. Though most Swedes are not particularly religious, they do enjoy the candlelights in the dark of the long winter. (This is oddly not a Danish customs)

The shops are full of them.
Here is one manufacturers page with a lot of different models.

"Advent is the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, and it also marks the start of Christmas festivities in Sweden. More people visit Swedish churches on the first Sunday of Advent than any other time of year; they come to sing the well-known Yuletide hymns. This first Sunday is also the day communities decorate their streets and squares with wreaths, garlands, lights and Christmas trees. At home, Swedes light one candle on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, in special four-pronged candelabra.

Another way of counting the days until Christmas is the Advent calendar, a card with "windows" that you open, one by one, for each passing day until Christmas Eve. These calendars, which were introduced as late as the 1930s, have become increasingly popular. Swedish radio and television broadcast daily Advent programs for children based on a specially published calendar.

During Advent many people hang luminous stars of paper, straw or perforated metal in their windows. Introduced from Germany around 1910, these stars have become a central feature of Swedish Advent celebrations."

Source: "Traditional Festivities in Sweden"; Author: Ingemar Liman; Published by: The Swedish Institute, ISBN 91-520-0113-X

Saturday, November 3, 2012

ABSOLUT POETRY ?

This is from my great great grandmother's scrap book.
The shape of the bottle looks very much like an Absolut Vodka bottle, but when this was written (around 1915), the vodka bottle and its distinctive shape had not been conceived. It was actually modeled (decades later) after an old medicine bottle found in an antique shop in Stockholm.
For those who have not seen the super-clever Absolute Vodka advertisements, here is a slideshow of some of them.

Monday, October 29, 2012

MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S SCRAPBOOK

My great grandmother, American Anita Ball (related to George Washingtons's mother, Mary Ball-Washington) lived with my grandmother here in Sweden for long stretches. She was stern and often seen reading books and magazines. My mother said that the nine children used to come and talk to her and most often they got some money when they left.

When my grandmother died, I was given two large, handmade scrapbooks that had belonged to her mother, Anita Ball.

The books are covered with black cloth and are obviously hand made.

The outside cover is roughly sewn on.

This book was made during the first World War and this clipping shows women taking men's jobs at a farm in Missouri, USA.

Food was very scarce during the war, at least in Europe, and people took to raising chickens.

There is also interest in dancing steps .

How to build interesting garages -- always interesting to a woman of means.

The war kept the American steel industry in Pittsburg busy.

A clever thief with an extra arm!

Silk stocking advertisment

Typical sentimental domestic bliss scene.

More fashion

Something that must have struck her fancy.
She has pasted new things over previous clippings.

Recording artists of the time

Fancy Party Costumes

Anita Ball had many varying interests and these are just some of the many images in the book.

Monday, October 22, 2012

ART IS ALL AROUND YOU

TOWEL ART

SLICER ART

JUICER ART

Thursday, October 18, 2012

CARL MILLES - SWEDISH SCULPTOR

I walk by this fine Carl Milles sculpture almost everyday.

Carl Milles sculpture GENIUS is a lyre-playing angel -- an hommage to the Swedish writer August Strindberg

The Dancing Girls 1917
Carl Milles created several pieces with dancing women. At the turn of the last century a new form of free dance developed. Carl Milles was a great admirer of this modern dance and attended many performances both in Paris and in Stockholm. Dancing meant short moments of hovering and the dancers lose contact, if only momentarily, with the ground. When Carl Milles sculpted dancing women, it was the first time that he was interested in the concept of hovering and lacking gravity, concepts which later nearly dominate his sculptures. (Text from Milleasgarden)

The Sea God POSEIDON By his size, he overshadows the smaller fantastic sea creatures surrounding the basin. (Placed at Götaplatsen in Gothenburg)

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

AMERICAN DELICACY

Fantastic color on this well kept Buick Riviera that appeared on a Gothenburg street this summer.
"Stunningly smart" as described in advertisements of its day.

The grill is an orgy in chrome.
The Swedish slang for this type of car used to be "dollar grin".

Fantastic details.

Whitewall tires

NEW BOOK!

Much of human activity is centered around food. We think of food whether we’re hungry or not. We spend a great deal of time buying it. We take hours preparing it (well, some do). We talk about it. We read about it in cook books. We watch television when chefs talk about it (sometimes to excess). When we socialize, it is often centered around the communal intake of it. We give it as gifts. Food, we can’t escape it! Some people become keenly interested in preparing food for themselves and others; many have become what we call “good cooks”. Usually a degree of creativity is involved together with a keen interest to entertain and a need to take care of others, to be a good host. It is such people that one remembers, and that is how I got started on Food & Folk, remembering, for example that excellent couple, Beatrice and Clayburn La Force on their ranch in Alpine California. After that I just kept going.

MY HOMETOWN GOTHENBURG

A series of closeups (224 photos) of Gothenburg, Sweden. Language: English and Swedish.----- This book consists of a series of closeups of Gothenburg. It is no history book but, hopefully, it will generate some curiosity about our city. When you walk in a city like London you are struck by Britain’s colonial past and its enormous wealth which manifests itself in buildings and institutions all over the city. When you walk in “Little London” as Gothenburg is often called, one is keenly aware of its importance as the best fortified city in Northern Europe. Two forts still watch over it. Remnants of the seventeenth century wall, and the meandering moat are a reminder of the city’s military past. Positioned on the West coast of Sweden, Gothenburg was once a world leader in ship building and shipping and evolved naturally into a merchant’s city. The English and Scottish heritage here is very important. There are clues and traces everywhere. One has only to look.

A GARDEN IN MY HOMETOWN

A book in English and Swedish about the Garden Society of Gothenburg--TRÄDGÅRDSFÖRENINGEN -----The Garden Society of Gothenburg is one of the best preserved early 19th century parks in Europe. It is situated directly downtown, offering lovely walks in the park or in the shaded woodland areas along the canal/moat, waterfront. The garden recently went through a major renovation under the auspices of Ulf Nordfjell, the internationally known landscape designer. The aim was to bring the garden back to its old nineteenth century glory. Carpet bedding returned and five new woodland areas were designed by five international garden designers. A superb new rose park was added, a successful blending of historical roses and perennials.

Love letters from my Swedish grandfather Folke to my American grandmother Olga 1909 - 1961

My American grandmother, Olga, met my Swedish grandfather, Folke Jonsson, in Brussels in 1909. Olga was 18 and Folke, 23. They settled in Gothenburg and Särö, Sweden. Olga, being American, had her family in Florida, and Folke soon came to realize that if you marry a woman from another continent, and this woman is charmingly independent, innovative and brave, and has her own means to boot, she is bound to want to visit her native country some time -- or several times -- or more than several times. To Folke, a sensitive soul, the long separations were quite painful and he suffered till his darling Olga returned. He “talked” to her in his frequent letters. Olga saved all his letters, in their original envelopes, in neat little bundles held together with different coloured ribbons. They were a treasured lifelong testament of his love. Olga and Folke corresponded in English as Olga was American and preferred writing in English. Had my grandfather Folke married a Swedish woman who had stayed at home, there would not be this stack of his letters today. He never intended the letters to be shown to others, but more than one hundred years have passed since Folke wrote them to his darling Olga. I have enjoyed getting to know my grandfather in this manner and I think others, not only relatives, should also share that privilege.

A pictorial Companion to the letters in the book above: 150 pictures of Olga & Folke 1909-1978

NEW BOOK BY DONOVAN O'MALLEY

REVIEW: "...O'Malley continues to prove that he is one of the more important writers around, a writer who with every book brings into our lives some very strange, often exceedingly humorous, and now, frequently very lonely people. His ability to create language for each of his characters is sharp, well studied and written, and without belittling anyone he, in language, shows the difference between class, and education, and exposure. Likely that comes from his experience in writing plays where characters are alive and moving, but with his considerable literary skills he makes his written page people morph into real life folks. He is in top form here ... " Grady Harp, June 12 (Hall of Fame reviewer)