Deckare

 

 Last week my friend Kah Bee posted a link to the post Cocktaildags: Vintage Swedish Books Covers - a collection of Swedish editions of popular crime stories.

My two personal favourites -

Raymond Chandler, Den stora sömnen (Original title: The Big Sleep), cover by Martin Gavler, printed 1963

John Bingham, Mord i månsken (Original title: Marion), cover by Per Åhlin, printed 1965

And from my own collection - 

Raymond Chandler, Mord, Min Älskling (Murder my darling) (Original title: Farewell, My Lovely), cover by Olle Frankzén, printed 1985

As my Swedish vocabulary slowly but surely increases, I have succumbed to the temptation of purchasing a few of my favourite 'deckare' (crime novels) in Swedish, in the hope that one day I will have become bilingual enough to make it further than the first chapter before I throw my hands in the air in despair and frustration. I recently stumbled across the amazing 1980's Swedish edition of 'Farewell, My Lovely' (Mord, Min Älskling) by Raymond Chandler in a second hand shop around the corner from my house for 10kr.

Judging a book by it's cover is surely one of the best things one can do on such occasions.

Village

Wandering around the Helgummanen fishing village on Fårö. Small wooden cabins filled with wooden bunks and wool blankets, miscellaneous tin objects, small rocks and pieces of glass, sea shells. I liked the use of driftwood as makeshift wall brackets, and the stones weighing down the lids on the dinghies, which tourists had used to spell out their initials, like I used to do with the rocks in the crater of Mt Eden.

I loved the juxtaposition of natural materials in the grain heavy timber, the different rich shades of varnish each cabin had, and the walls created by layering flat slate rocks on top of each other. The small cluster of sparely but sturdily built shacks reflected the village's sparse rocky surrounds and muted colour palette - greys, browns, greens and blues.

3 Grains of thought

Two recent wood grains I have come across over summer, and a close up of LIMBS, a work I did for The Physics Room Kiosk in 2009. The first is the side of a small shack at Helgummanen fishing village on Fårö. The second is a wood grain blouse from Weekday.

If I was a pattern I would most definitely be wood grain. The search continues for more wood grain printed/patterned/covered apparel/furniture/odds and ends.

People these days are always seemingly talking about 'inspiration'. Who inspires them, what inspires them and so on, as though their inspiration divulgences somehow justifues one's idea. People bemoan the demise of originality, the constant complaint of 'everything being done', but if perchance someone unearthed an original idea, it would have to be inspired by something. It couldn't just exist, could it? I was thinking about something along these lines today while I was ironing my wood grain shirt and admitting to myself that wood grain "inspires me".I don't actually know if it is the wood grain that actually inspires me, but perhaps the associations I make with the wood grain which forms a mind map of interlinked and intertwined inspirations.

It is strange thought. One I obviously haven't thought too clearly about. But it is quite nice having half realised thoughts on your finger tips.