Thursday, January 31, 2013

Best new blog find


If you think British Library's Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Blog sounds boring, think again. Images are awesome, captions great. I personally am rethinking my vow never to get a tattoo. You might see top pic somewhere on my body soon. I don't understand it but I love it, a dog throwing rocks at rats. Yes. 





British library captioned this woman losing it to bag pipe music "Disco fever".



Just hanging out with a monkey and a falcon and some flowers. Yes.




This one is weird. Then again, what isn't. 



Can totally relate here. 


One of my fave entries so far is called "Bad news birds" and contains the following lovable creature:




BECAUSE YOU LOVE WOMEN WITH GUTS AND TALENT!

HALL OF FEMMES
I LOVE ANGELA & SAMIRA.
And the others.

So fkin proud to be part of this whole thing. am listed in the about section, where I seem to be the only one who can't believe I made the team! bursting with joy.

As Tina Charles so aptly put it:

I found my sense of rhythm but I lost my self control. 

VILL SKRIVA ALLT PÅ SÅNT PAPPER.

 Välkomna att gifta er på Stadsmuseet!
Nästa tillfälle är lördag den 16 februari och 4 maj 2013.

Vigselförättare är Ann-Charlotte Backlund.
Önskat musikstycke på piano framförs till alla par som så vill. Vigselbevis utfärdas på papper tillverkat av fibrer från regalskeppet Vasa:s ankartross.

Kostnad 500 kr.
Information och bokning: bokning.stadsmuseum@stockholm.se
tel 08-508 31 620 mån–fre kl 9-12

Ps. ANDERS, vad säger du? Ska vi inte gifta oss en gång till?!?!!?

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

F U Apple.











Why do you make it so hard to pay you money to watch your stuff? Have spent an entire evening trying to solve this. 



All set.

Jag: Sedan i New York, då pratar de bara engelska. Men du kommer lära dig fort.

Niki, 5: Jag kan redan engelska.

Jag: Perfekt. Får jag höra?

Niki: Jag vet hur man säger kung på engelska!

Jag: Ok! Släpp ut det!

Niki: Kingeling!

Surprise gifts...happily accepted here!


















If you feel like you just have to give me something, there is this one thing I'm wishing for that nobody knows.

It's a trip to a place so special that...I can't even write the name out. Perhaps this year, it will happen. I want to go to there.

-Liz.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Klitschkos



















Can't stop looking at this pic.

Nu är det varannan måndag.

Ny krönika i Metro. Sprid. Sprid. Vet inte axakt vad som ska motivera er att göra det, för min skull men gör det!  Det är en så trevlig tillvaro att skriva krönikor. Hjälp mig ha en trevlig tillvaro? I gengäld får ni...önska krönikeämne? Vad ska jag skriva om?

http://preview.tinyurl.com/b98wzsy

Oh Kelis.

Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, Brad and Jen, TomKat, Heidi and Seal, Danny DeVito & Rhea Perlman (GOOGLE IT) - to me these breakups meant nothing to me compared to the sadness of the end of romance between Kelis and Nas.

I love them both.
Have added Leoness@ to the run playlist. KELIS IS KING. All bow to the king.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

The one line from Girls that's on repeat in my head

I'm a man living my man life. 

---
Though I keep hearing myself muttering to myself ""I'm a woman living my woman life.""
It's like some kind of weird mantra. I don't even know what it is I'm trying to tell myself, it's so banal.
Yet slightly comforting. It's like the world's shortest pep talk. I'm just going to do what I have to do cause "I'm a woman living my woman life."

Try it.
If you're in between genders or prefer not specifying, perhaps "I'm a person living my person life" or "I'm a human living my human life"will also work.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Word of the day: Filibuster

I've read the word so many times, not ever taking it seriously because the weight, shape and color of the word is so light, soft around the edges and pastel colored.

I read up on the meaning:

filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure where debate is extended, allowing one or more members to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal. It is sometimes referred to as talking out a bill, and characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body. 


TALKING OUT A BILL. DELAY OR ENTIRELY PREVENT A VOTE ON A GIVEN PROPOSAL.

My life is an endless chain of filibusters presented to me primarily by my two younger children. They'll talk talk talk themselves out of most situations. 
I know I'm doing them a huge disfavor by meeting their demands, the world will not be as co-operative.

Or perhaps they'll filibuster their way to the political top. Would not surprise me in the least. 





English that only makes sense in Sweden





















I mean the wording, not the concept. Other countries might adapt this standard too, in like a few hundred years.

Life, work, Sweden in January





















It's not night in this pic, it's taken around 4.20 pm. It's gloomy and cold but know what you can't tell from this pic? The air in this pic smelled so freaking good. There's an industrial coffee roasting plant right there. Smelled so good you barely notice the cold, dark and gloom. We'll take what we can get!

From the mouths of babes

"I just have to look at mustard to know I won't like it. "
-Niki, 5.

Even the luckiest person in the world

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All the pretty containers


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The sadness, love and comfort of dreams

Last night met two dead friends in my dreams. It was so great to see them. Even in my dreams I knew I was dreaming and thought to myself "this must be a dream, but I don't care, I need to touch them, hug them" I did and it was fantastic to hold them once again. But then they morphed into my daughters and I lost them again.

I love those dreams. They're a poor consolation but at least some consolation.
I don't think I'll ever reconcile with the notion of death and loss. There will never be peace for me. Reconcile is such a ridiculous word here, as if death and I had ever conciled before.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Interesting

                                                                                                                           Doug Mills/The New York Times

















How to make two of the world's most influential people look like cake decorations.

My new daily read

BK to the fullest

Sunday, January 20, 2013

DORD!!!!

DORD!

What people magazine calls "A killer body"




































"We don't know where the actress has been hiding lately, but our guess is the gym based on her killer figure, which she displays in this black halter mini at the Hugo by Hugo Boss show in Berlin."

The glorification of extreme thinness must stop. Some people are naturally thin, but hello vast majority, this is not a way you can look and maintain your overall health.

Thinking back, I wish every image of an adult woman with a BMI equivalent to Renée's in this picture had come with an alert stating: Caution, vast majority, this is not a way you can look and maintain your overall health.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Omedelbart kär i Jenny Seth

Läs här.

Anders is off to New York.




Kids asleep. Now it's just me, the MacBookAir, some wine and matzos. Not complaining, just so uninterested in food lately. One of my best friends quit her very successful advertising careers (the wine  is doing spelling and grammar now) to be able to spend more time with food, thinking about food, dreaming about food, cooking food, hosting a tv-show about food, writing about food, laughing about food, being concerned about food etc ad infinitum.

How can two close friends be so different? I'm happy and grateful to have food but that's about it. My friend also hates to write but loves to have written. I'm the complete opposite. Writing, I'm in a daze, surfing the waves of words (what a cheesy metaphor (to put food to use beyond the plate)).

Ps. Weirdly - am fairly interested in cookbooks? But that's because I use cookbooks to fantasize about fantastic meals with entertaining, interesting people in wonderful places. All those everyday lunches and dinners...I do enjoy them but thinking about them beforehand? Not so much. Here's a very nice cookbook. I met up with Rachel the other day, such a sympathetic person.

Ps 2. Any readers in Bordeaux?
http://www.rachelkhoo.com/travel/je-cherche-un-assistantrunner-a-bordeaux

how many of you

moved to a foreign country when you were little? and started school in a language other than your own?

Thursday, January 17, 2013

On writing

I write. That's what I do for a living. I can't believe my luck in getting paid to write. I constantly feel an urge to pinch my arm, wondering if I'm not really dreaming. In work situations I imagine everyone must be secretly jealous of me, since I get to do the most fun part. I've even asked this question: "aren't you all jealous of me?!?!?!??!!?" and they have stared back and replied (in what seems to be all honesty) "hell no, we hate writing".

I thought I would be an art director or perhaps an expert on East Asian issues. For a while I contemplated becoming an archeologist. I'm not cut out for any of these three specialties. The feedback an art director receives proved frustrating for me -so vague and emotional - "I'm not sure how I feel about this, could you make it a bit warmer/cooler/more retro/less feminine etc."

East Asian studies...well yes perhaps. Archeologist? Too impatient.

I've never been one of those people who feels "they have to write or they'd die" or "I have a novel inside, yearning to be told".

No. Writing for me is what dessert seems to be to others - a guilty pleasure, something you perhaps shouldn't have every day but enjoy even more because it's pure frivolous delicacy, removed from the strains of having to be nutritious, wholesome or even filling.

Writing is an excuse to use words like frivolous, a perfect little word that sounds ridiculous and effete when spoken but ok when written, unlike effete which is just that both written and spoken.

I've made a living off writing since I was in my 20s. Like most people who write for a living, I still don't really know how to write and think I don't qualify as a real writer until I publish my first book. Because of this, I buy books on how to write books. I have all of them. If you want to be sure you have a reader for your book or at least someone who'll pay to have it around, write another book on writing, I'll buy it.

One of my books on writing states the following:
"Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the author's childhood. A writer's childhood may well have been the last chance of his only firsthand experience." (From Annie Dillard's The writing life).

I think that's sad and hilarious at the same time but thats not how I imagine my writing life (Why imagine, don't I have one at this point? but this is how it is. writing is still in some way about imagining another kind of existence). I want to write like Edith Nesbit whose friends couldn't really figure out exactly when the highly successful author ever wrote. Or like Agatha Christie: "Many friends have said to me 'I never know when you write your books, because I've never seen you writing, or ever see you go away to write.' I must behave rather as dogs do when they retire with a bone: they depart for an odd half hour. They return self-consciously with mud on their noses. I do much the same."




Now and then












Same people, just 11 years apart.

Bilden till vänster arrangerad av en person, bilden till höger arrangerad av två. Det är sådant som ändras. Vad heter "bilden är arrangerad" på engelska? Kommer inte ihåg

Video featuring one of my greatest loves



Dressing
















What's the process like when you get dressed? Who/what is your inspiration? DO you even have one or do you just pick up yesterday's clothes off the floor/chair?

I've had many dressing icons over the years. You know how I obsess over Marion Cottillard, which is ridiculous since she's clad by Dior just like I'm dressed by a combination of luck and whatever's around. But these days, I often think "what would Jessa wear" and leave it at that.



Ps. Top pic also shows me FLAUNTING MY POST-BABY BODY, something that's said of any famous person that's had a child, ever. Watch me flaunt, flaunt, flaunt.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

One of the scariest Swedish words

In Swedish, gangrene is called Kallbrand - cold fire. Do not, I repeat, do not check this word on Wikipedia or image google it. You will be sorry and perhaps faint. Just take my word for it.

Anyone?

WHEN WILL JANELLE MONAE'S NEXT ALBUM BE OUT?!??!?!?!

I LOVE JANELLE. I love this speech. Just like Jodie's the other day, the love spills everywhere.

Lägger ut här också!

Några kompisar till mig råkade sön 13/1 få med sig en blå IKEA-kasse från Kottlasjön, med fyra par skor i. 


I ett av paren (just dessa skor hade storlek 38) står namnet HUGO. Är det någon som hört att bli stranded på isen i skridskor och förgäves leta efter sina skor - hör av er till mig, så ska jag sätta er i kontakt med de förkrossade "tjuvarna".

Monday, January 14, 2013

Hur man tydligen ser ut efter några år utanför Sverige








Blir lite rädd.

Från och med nu ibland ditt sällskap i kollektivtrafiken























Har börjat skriva för Metro: (Jag blev avgiftad – för 145 kronor )
Anders kollade de andra krönikörerna och sa "du ligger där någonstans mellan Pascalidou och Greider". Kändes plötsligt som en total summering av hela min identitet - idémässigt, politiskt, utseendemässigt. Vardagsromantiken -he really gets me.

Ps. Så här ser den ut (Amish-phonen, inte vardagsromantiken):


Thursday, January 10, 2013

F**k.





















I was photographed for a new job yesterday. I'll be writing a bi-weekly column starting Monday.
Sadly, I hadn't seen the above pic of Beyonce beforehand.

Had I, my byline-pic would have been an exact imitation of Queen B.
Reenacting her stance was a bitch though (like everything she does, she makes the hard look so easy):






Re-enacted the GQ cover too, haven't yet decided if I should share it with you or not.


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

I hear the NRA...

I hear the NRA are suggesting a new "Gun Appreciation Day".
I don't dare to say what I think about this because I don't want to upset so many people who are obviously armed. So all you people who say the 2nd amendment protects the 1st - I'm yet another example of a person who limits her freedom of speech because of guns - the very opposite of your theory.

I don't agree with the idea of GAD, so would like to suggest a whole different new holiday called "Guner Appreciation Day".

Members of the Guner clans, are you with me?

sincerely
-e. guner, armed only with love.

Music breakthrough of 2012

earl sweatshirt, thank you.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

IMPORTANT!!!

PLEASE HELP! Do you know any contemporary illustrators who evoke the same kind of style as Louis Darling?

Dear NYT

Today you asked the question "Should we tax people for being annoying" and I just wanted to shout YES PLEASE!!!!!!

I give you today your daily visual bread

























At first you may think (like I did)  "damn, that guy in the back needs to trim his pubic hair". But then you think through symbols in art and wonder if this is perhaps St John with his old camel skin wrestling some bad ass (actually, that ass is not that bad?) Roman? But did you ever hear a story about that? No. So who could it be? Hercules and his golden fleece battling Anteus in a tight embrace. I love their facial expressions. Like they're pausing mid-fight to pose for the painter.

Or like my kids when they go "he started it".

Monday, January 7, 2013

Limbourg brothers, WTF?

























You know I love you, Limbourg brothers, but Jean, what are you up to here in your image of January?

Is that a sword in your cloak or are you just really happy to see the wine guy?




















February is even more explicit about showing off your privates:


























All were not so generous with the view, check out the medieval version of Abercrombie & Fitch in blue above.




















Ps. For some reason, Blogger won't let you zoom in on the pics. Go here to see the whole naked truth about February.

I love this

























This is January back in the day. It's unusal in the sense that we see a woman chilling with her baby, and she's not a saint or Mary or anything, she's just a lucky well-off woman who can afford to stay in the warm indoors with her husband and a cat.

Swedish words of the day

Today I'd like to share two great words that you don't seem to have in your otherwise extensive English language.

1. Sjusovare 

translates to "Seven sleeper" - one who sleeps til 7am. A very tardy, tired, lazy person.

The exaggerated ridicule of someone who sleeps til 7 doesn't make sense anymore, but in the days before electric light, people couldn't afford to let the daylight slip away while they themselves slept. Sjusovare is still used quite a lot though few people besides kids stop to think about the actual meaning of the term.

2. Lillgammal. 
translates to "Little old". Someone who is too grown-up for his or her age. You say precocious, don't you? I was a lillgammal child. I read poetry and liked to be by myself. My vision of hell was a place where you'd have to play horse and take interest in cliques. I was little old. I still am, only now, the rest have caught up and in some cases have matured beyond even our age. No rush.

Friday, January 4, 2013

2012, looking back

I don't know about you, but my personal non-personal 2012 climax was watching the dance scene in Puss in Boots for the first time.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Ri-ri

















More surprised to see Rihanna in bed with Marimekko than in bed with Chris Brown. Or is this (agreed more likely) Yayoi Kusama for Louis Vuitton?