April 19, 2010
April 15, 2010
April 14, 2010
April 13, 2010
Dancing in the streetcars named Desire
Well no there wasn't really any dancing in any street/cars/streetcars, no Martha Reeves or Bowie and Jagger either. But there was me, by myself, and my bike (as yet not named Desire). Importantly, I was flying solo! Let loose on the streets of Malmö! A momentous occasion!
For me, at least.
It might seem a trivial thing. But for me it epitomised the moment when I felt settled in. It meant I could get around by myself, I knew where I was going and where places that I wanted to go were, I could navigate the cycle paths, and use correct cycling etiquette.
It was a beautiful spring day, blue skies and a crisp breeze, but not a wind that will chill you as you are cycling along. A bit of cloud coverage, as to not impinge upon my vision with dreaded sunstrike. In short, a brief but rather thrilling ride.
And there was a pot of gold at the end of the cycle path - in the shape of a large second hand store, half clothes, half bric-a-brac: some uninspiring framed paintings and cheap prints, old luggage, swedish records and seemingly the entire back catalogue of James Last recordings. Not really much to write home about on the record front. Was almost tempted to purchase various Agatha Christie's in Swedish, but I am sure they will wait until I might have the ability to read a sentence.
Sadly the perfect trench coat also eluded me (how am I meant to walk around like I am from a Chandler novel without a trench coat?) but definitely hit the jackpot with a pair of shoes for 50:-, the equivalent of 10NZD.
All of Malmö's second hand shops have redeemed themselves with this purchase. I also picked up a 1940's style white blouse, which will be good for the warmer weather, as I keep reminding myself I am not actually moving into winter months, but out of them.
To celebrate my one small step for man one giant leap for Florence in Sweden, i made a cake in a fry pan. A Swedish Apple Cake it is called, a close sister cake to the Swedish Visiting Cake, replacing the almonds for apples. Attempt 1 went ok, I feel a few tweaks and corrections to the recipe should turn it into a popular fave. I think Ikept confusing it in my head as to what the blazes I was actually cooking: cake? slice? pie? (It was continuously referred to as 'pie', but it is not a pie at all.) Devoured with lashings of Vanilla Whip (its like cream with vanilla! or ice cream without being cold!) whilst watching Twin Peaks, naturally.
It might seem a trivial thing. But for me it epitomised the moment when I felt settled in. It meant I could get around by myself, I knew where I was going and where places that I wanted to go were, I could navigate the cycle paths, and use correct cycling etiquette.
It was a beautiful spring day, blue skies and a crisp breeze, but not a wind that will chill you as you are cycling along. A bit of cloud coverage, as to not impinge upon my vision with dreaded sunstrike. In short, a brief but rather thrilling ride.
And there was a pot of gold at the end of the cycle path - in the shape of a large second hand store, half clothes, half bric-a-brac: some uninspiring framed paintings and cheap prints, old luggage, swedish records and seemingly the entire back catalogue of James Last recordings. Not really much to write home about on the record front. Was almost tempted to purchase various Agatha Christie's in Swedish, but I am sure they will wait until I might have the ability to read a sentence.
Sadly the perfect trench coat also eluded me (how am I meant to walk around like I am from a Chandler novel without a trench coat?) but definitely hit the jackpot with a pair of shoes for 50:-, the equivalent of 10NZD.
All of Malmö's second hand shops have redeemed themselves with this purchase. I also picked up a 1940's style white blouse, which will be good for the warmer weather, as I keep reminding myself I am not actually moving into winter months, but out of them.
To celebrate my one small step for man one giant leap for Florence in Sweden, i made a cake in a fry pan. A Swedish Apple Cake it is called, a close sister cake to the Swedish Visiting Cake, replacing the almonds for apples. Attempt 1 went ok, I feel a few tweaks and corrections to the recipe should turn it into a popular fave. I think Ikept confusing it in my head as to what the blazes I was actually cooking: cake? slice? pie? (It was continuously referred to as 'pie', but it is not a pie at all.) Devoured with lashings of Vanilla Whip (its like cream with vanilla! or ice cream without being cold!) whilst watching Twin Peaks, naturally.
April 12, 2010
A whole new world
Three pages into Tintin in the New World and already I am in raptures. Could this be the greatest use of appropriation ever?
"Old age? Auguring asteroid! I'm not yet fifty! Tintin, my lad, if you'd learn to drink scotch and love women, you, too, would have cheering memories in old age!"
"I have no feeling for either."
"How do you know till you've experienced them?"
Yes, Snowy thought, why doesn't he try? Maybe he'll grow up a bit and stay home more.
I think it's only going to get better. A few sentences later the Captain is saying something about how Tintin bought two Arabian steeds and 'rode them an inch to foamy death'. Cripes, what the deuce is this?
"Old age? Auguring asteroid! I'm not yet fifty! Tintin, my lad, if you'd learn to drink scotch and love women, you, too, would have cheering memories in old age!"
"I have no feeling for either."
"How do you know till you've experienced them?"
Yes, Snowy thought, why doesn't he try? Maybe he'll grow up a bit and stay home more.
I think it's only going to get better. A few sentences later the Captain is saying something about how Tintin bought two Arabian steeds and 'rode them an inch to foamy death'. Cripes, what the deuce is this?
April 11, 2010
Hardboiled in a nutshell
The lobby looked like a high-budget musical. A lot of light and glitter, a lot of scenery, a lot of clothes, a lot of sound, an all-star cast, and a plot with the originality and drive of a split fingernail.
A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pyjamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.
A cigarette girl came down the gangway. She wore an egret plume in her hair, enough clothes to hide behind a toothpickm one of her long beautiful naked legs was silver, and one was gold. She had the utterly disdainful expression of a dame who makes her dates by long distance.
- Marlowe. Drink while waiting?
- A dry martini will do.
- A martini. Dry. Veddy, veddy dry.
- Okay.
- Will you eat it with a spoon or a knife and fork?
- Cut it into strips, I said. I'll just nibble at it.
-On your way to school, he said. Should I put the olive in a bag for you?
-Sock me on the nose with it, I said. If it will make you feel any better.
-Thank you, sir, he said. A dry martini.
'You're a man named Marlowe?' she asked, looking at me. She put her hips against the end of the desk and crossed her ankles.
I said I was a man named Marlowe.
'By and large,' she said, 'I am quite sure I am not going to like you one damned bit. So speak your piece and drift away.'
'What I like about this place is everything runs true to type,' I said. 'The cop on the gate, the shine on the door, the cigarette and check girls, the fat greasy sensual Jew with the tall stately bored showgirl, the well-dressed, drunk and horribly rude director cursing the barman, the silent guy with the gun, the night-club owner with the soft grey hair and the B-picture mannerisms, and now you - the tall dark torcher with the negligent sneer, the husky voice, the hard-boiled vocabulary.'
Passages from 'The High Window', by Raymond Chandler.
Another sunday rolled around, and I started another detective story. I read, eat some popcorn washed down with a glass of pepsi and accompanied by the American Graffiti soundtrack and some Sinatra. A top-notch sunday really, maximum excitement with minimum exertion.
Chandler's writing is exciting enough. I find myself rereading passages and experiment reciting them in my head, with inflections on different words, some parts sped up, others slowed down. In my head I feel like I am almost spitting the words out, and my voice is scathing and rambling and rude and witty and charming all at the same time. I love how the descriptions of people and places are so sharp and original and lyrical. I begin to test out phrases in my mind from my everyday life in Chandleresque prose . And its intimate, you know, written in the first person. Sometimes I find it hard to pick up what is dialogue and what isn't. The way you feel that it is only you who can understand Marlowe's jargon and insults, and the puns and wisecracks float over the other characters' heads (sometimes this happens, sometimes not).
Raymond Chandler, I feel, could be a man to agree that 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. Then is it strange that he writes hard-boiled fiction? Perhaps not.
We watched 'The Big Sleep' last night, with Bogie & Bacall. It was great, it is great, a staple of the film noir genre, major stars acting well, snappy dialogue, all that jazz. Its presevered by the Library of Congress, for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and all.
But Chandler's lyrical descriptions couldn't quite be transformed to celluloide and
the film just didn't quite get there. Its nice to think some books still come out trumps over cinematic adaptation.
A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pyjamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.
A cigarette girl came down the gangway. She wore an egret plume in her hair, enough clothes to hide behind a toothpickm one of her long beautiful naked legs was silver, and one was gold. She had the utterly disdainful expression of a dame who makes her dates by long distance.
- Marlowe. Drink while waiting?
- A dry martini will do.
- A martini. Dry. Veddy, veddy dry.
- Okay.
- Will you eat it with a spoon or a knife and fork?
- Cut it into strips, I said. I'll just nibble at it.
-On your way to school, he said. Should I put the olive in a bag for you?
-Sock me on the nose with it, I said. If it will make you feel any better.
-Thank you, sir, he said. A dry martini.
'You're a man named Marlowe?' she asked, looking at me. She put her hips against the end of the desk and crossed her ankles.
I said I was a man named Marlowe.
'By and large,' she said, 'I am quite sure I am not going to like you one damned bit. So speak your piece and drift away.'
'What I like about this place is everything runs true to type,' I said. 'The cop on the gate, the shine on the door, the cigarette and check girls, the fat greasy sensual Jew with the tall stately bored showgirl, the well-dressed, drunk and horribly rude director cursing the barman, the silent guy with the gun, the night-club owner with the soft grey hair and the B-picture mannerisms, and now you - the tall dark torcher with the negligent sneer, the husky voice, the hard-boiled vocabulary.'
Passages from 'The High Window', by Raymond Chandler.
Another sunday rolled around, and I started another detective story. I read, eat some popcorn washed down with a glass of pepsi and accompanied by the American Graffiti soundtrack and some Sinatra. A top-notch sunday really, maximum excitement with minimum exertion.
Chandler's writing is exciting enough. I find myself rereading passages and experiment reciting them in my head, with inflections on different words, some parts sped up, others slowed down. In my head I feel like I am almost spitting the words out, and my voice is scathing and rambling and rude and witty and charming all at the same time. I love how the descriptions of people and places are so sharp and original and lyrical. I begin to test out phrases in my mind from my everyday life in Chandleresque prose . And its intimate, you know, written in the first person. Sometimes I find it hard to pick up what is dialogue and what isn't. The way you feel that it is only you who can understand Marlowe's jargon and insults, and the puns and wisecracks float over the other characters' heads (sometimes this happens, sometimes not).
Raymond Chandler, I feel, could be a man to agree that 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. Then is it strange that he writes hard-boiled fiction? Perhaps not.
We watched 'The Big Sleep' last night, with Bogie & Bacall. It was great, it is great, a staple of the film noir genre, major stars acting well, snappy dialogue, all that jazz. Its presevered by the Library of Congress, for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and all.
But Chandler's lyrical descriptions couldn't quite be transformed to celluloide and
the film just didn't quite get there. Its nice to think some books still come out trumps over cinematic adaptation.
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