Haori - One Year Shopping Hiatus VII

The shopping hiatus makes me look more. Today, a rather delightful haori. It scares me to see how much of our economy that's been built by purchase a little item here and a little item there. We seem to have to make our homes more shabby chick, cuter, softer, whatever. Is it a kind of protection? Does the shopping work like a drug? What about the people who have very little?

I strongly believe in "museum quality utilitarian" that will last for years. Things that will give the greatest pleasure every time we use them - and good friends and a nice guinea pig to share my home. Ola the guinea pig may well get a little friend soon, by the way. They are social animals and we want the best possible life for him. He gives us great joy and relaxation every day. 

Link to Kimono Fleamarket Ichiroya

Guinea Pig Night with Bach

Ola the guinea pig and I are twirling:)

Oslo Graffiti 35

Oslo Graffiti 34 - Frost

It was almost bitterly cold. We are in need of slightly warmer weather.

Muskat

THE tail - what else could it be - Muskat under a pillow, please don't ask, she's a diva

Gardian cat

I Definitely Did Not Feel Like It - one year shopping hiatus VI

Today I got a belated birthday present, I had to buy it myself and I disliked the buying very much. Of course, getting a new garment is nice, but it felt like breaking my vow. It seems like I have to keep this up properly, I really like the process.

Erik Bruhn's Answer to the Perennial Question: "How are you?"

"I am, only more"

(picture)

One Year Shopping Hiatus V

Just watching the bustle feels like relaxation. I think I see more clearly not seeking the rush of buying and I enjoy deciding what I do like and do not like without thinking of buying it. I do not like much, respect for the Earth demand a high skill in the artisan, so I'm becoming a difficult customer. Flowers are a temptation though, and yarn. A friend might want me to make her a cardigan. I do not miss clothes buying, I'm off ETSY and will cancel Amazon today together with Paypal. I window shop and get shocked by how easily I used to get into the rush of a t-shirt here and a top there just because it was cute and then loose interest in it quite quickly.

A few days ago I read that it is practically considered bad form to have heating in the bathroom floor when living in Berlin. It makes me hopeful. Here it is very usual and I've been worried about not having it. Somehow comforts that are expected can be just too much. We need to get closer to nature. 

Brave New World - one year shopping hiatus IV

My partner and I talked it over, again. He thinks it is a good idea. No more little gifts for him, but he is fine with that.

Today I went past IKEA, took a look inside and got a very real Huxley moment. "Get the IKEA card, spend now, pay later (you bet we charge interest, but we don't tell you that, at least not right now)" Cups and pans, not the kind made to last for years and years in abundance. This year's colours in gift wrapping, so easy to buy as it might come in handy - upbeat, cute and inexpensive. I got four packages of paper napkins. It is something I actually have to have for work. When having pupil's concerts we always have cakes afterwards. I've horded five packages. I wanted to get a stemmed up rosemary tree, but decided it would be shopping for shopping's sake, so no little tree. I do love the availability of beautiful things, and maybe the not so beautiful things too, but it is nice to try not to be part of the shop, throw away "garbage", shop again circle. I wish I could avoid buying the napkins, but I find it somewhat difficult to produce linen napkins for 60 people.


I think I'll stick with my grandmother's iron frying pan though. It is at least 50 years old and quite sturdy.

I Don't Feel Like It - one year shopping hiatus III

Today is a marvelous day. I'm finally rested enough to rest properly, but that is not my subject. 

Lately, due to my vow of doing my very best to have a one year shopping/spending hiatus, I went window shopping, considering, among other things, how much improved H&M's designs are now, and  thinking about what I'd like if going on a shopping spree. I also thought of an acquaintance who does quite a power play to be able to do his bit of getting what he wants at any given time. I remember suggesting some cucumber on his glue - sandwich (white bread and lots of cheese, reminds me of glue somehow). No, he didn't feel like it. What was I to say? It was the very best way to get someone to shut up once and for all, one just knows that there is no way of getting the point through. The king had spoken. It was all very entertaining, if not so sad.

So what I would like are a pale pink linen dress and a whole bucket of these - but then - I don't really feel like it, do I?

Monday Sermon

It is everywhere, this is nothing. I see huge pieces of cardboard and plastic bags. Are we blind? I try not to become too sad. Is this an example of the theory of abundance? We must be blind, thoughtless and blind.

The Perfect Guy VII

After a little bath that unfortunately was absolutely necessary, as he seemed to have been jumping up and down on pieces of  banana - among other things ... Awfully sticky fur. I did not enjoy it, but he adored the drying, making little "I love" sounds for an hour while I massaged his fur with a towel. Somewhat spoilt? Yes! But it suits him very well.

A One Year Shopping Hiatus II

It is shopping hiatus time. All of a sudden it occurred to me that I can't knit, because then I would have to buy yarn (I almost wrote "yearn" here, that pretty much sums it up). I did count the homemade cardigans, and there are quite a few. I'm finishing a last carding now, soft, soft alpaca wool - I love wool and textiles far too much. I will have to feast my eyes on pictures of haute couture in the mean time and imagine the touch of silk yarn. Luckily I have a vest made with a collar made from sari silk cuttings - how's that for being spoilt?

(picture)

 Somehow I imagine I will get much more time on my hands to do gardening, take photographs, read and jog if I get off ETSY, do not buy movies and get off Amazon once and for all. I also will have more money if I do not buy t-shirts on impulse, stop eating out and just stop buying my partner (sorry for that!) and myself little gifts. I will also have to empty my stash of tea, and that is about time. The general idea is more time on my hands, less money spent, less clutter in the house and a greener, less egoistical life style. Let's see how it works out. I start on the 14TH.

Spring Geese

Richmond park spring geese from M in London

Happy Easter!

“I feel a very unusual sensation -

if it's not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.

 -Disraeli

The quote is taken from this posting (link)  from the amazing blog Little Augury

Sam Francis III

(picture)

Stavanger Graffiti

A One Year Shopping Hiatus

On the 13TH it is my birthday. My mother asked me to get myself something nice. I got a small artwork and a vegan cookbook. I also made a vow:

• no more shopping for a year - exceptions maybe absolutely necessary items of clothing, but no more little gifts to stoke my ego and use just a little more of the world's resources. I will keep you posted about my project. Keeping you posted should keep me in line, hopefully.

Easter

No link for this one, sorry

Silence

Guerilla Easter

Happy Easter !!

Halvor!

Last week there was my father in law's funeral in Stavanger. He died after being ill for some time. The family was very brave about it all. I mostly did the dishes and tried to make myself useful. It was interesting to see how things were done, so very differently from what we did when my father died. I liked it a lot - memorial service with much music by J.S.Bach, good speeches, big gathering afterwards, flowers in abundance.

Flying

Now I think I get why my father liked piloting a plane so very much.  Nina, my Tønsberg friend, and I dream of taking lessons:)

The Perfect Guy VI

Ola customizing my scarf

Copy of the Oseberg Ship

In the center of Tønsberg, a copy of the Oseberg ship is made

Unfortunately the picture can not convey the smell of tar or the sound of axes

Spring in Tønsberg

Leo, Stein's kind dog - a bit difficult to take pictures with him wanting to run all the time, but ...

Part of the fjord in Tønsberg. We have spring now!

Halvor!

Picture by S.E. or V.E:

The Perfect Guy V

Ola and some unfortunate textiles

True punk

Recovery IV

The Perfect Guy IV

(picture)
It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself. 
Johannes Sebastian Bach 

Quietude VI

Like Silk Blowing in the Wind

I have been taking stock of my life lately. I'm told that's what people do when they are dying, but I thought it a point to do it while I'm in fairly good health and there might still be time to change a few things.

Winning the global lottery of where being born makes me lucky. Norway is rich country, we have water, we have food, there are jobs still. We are all together quite well off. It feels somewhat strange to demand things of life when so many people have so very little. I also got into medical school, where there seem to be plenty of alpha animals intent on trying to save the world (by hopping on a plane). I'm not sure I'm one of them. If I get to finish, I want to work with drug addicts and illegal immigrants. That is, if I find the energy to finish. Now there is no energy.

There are many things to sort out. My mother is ill again, it is the fifth time we have serious illness in the family since I started med school, I have to say that 18 hours of work every week, med school and all that illness has just taken all the energy there is. There are financial issues as well, in Norway you get eight years of student loan, and you do not get a new round of government funded student loan even if you have paid back the previous one in full. I have three and a half years left (thankfully I worked when writing my Cand.philol. thesis), and there might even not be that, as I have taken breaks due to the illness in the family. There is the option of a house loan, but that takes some time getting used to. Anyhow, I can't work like I have, if I want to finish my studies.

Yesterday, I cleaned out old drawers in my mother's flat. It is strange, I got to know so much I didn't want to know. She has been ill for a long time and before her my father was ill for years and years. I threw out two grocery bags of old medication (pharmacies take care of old medication here, thankfully) -- among so many other things. I found four very beautiful knitted jackets, partly finished and a pair of unfinished mittens.

So I'm considering what I want out of life. Right now I just want to quit school and start working in a flower shop for a couple of years -  live, exercise, play with Ola the guinea pig and see my family and friends. Unfortunately this is not a good solution. I'm tired. Some people seem so consistent. I feel like silk blowing in the wind - somewhat delicate, no real direction.

There are also the diet questions I try to sort out. I worry about the world, about animal welfare. I do not like those silly low carb diets! It is difficult to eat meat when you guinea pig has just slept on your stomach.

I have to buy this year's nasturtium seeds now. Simple to grow, that's a start.

Remedy II

Ryuichi Yamashiro (b. 1920) Hayashi-Mori, 1955 (Forest – Grove) One of the most famous Japanese posters, designed for a campaign to protect forests (Forest Protection Movement). The forest symbolized on the poster is made up of just two Chinese characters: "hayashi", more secular and "mori", which has more religious connotations.  (link)

Quietude V

I'm diving into

the land of lost socks again ....... oh dear.

(picture)

An Everlasting Problem in Music It Seems

From this source (link)

Gidon Kremer’s rebellion – a leading maestro voices his support

July 28, 2011 By Norman Lebrecht

The conductor Fabio Luisi, music director at Zurich Opera and principal guest at the Met, has issued a personal endorsement of Gidon Kremer’s attack on the machinations of the classical music industry and its manufacture of fake stars.

I present Fabio’s letter without commentary. His views on the British classical industry in particular will be widely supported. Here’s Fabio:

Dear Norman,

It is all about balancing business, audience reception and art – an old issue, if we think of “Wunderkinder” in the past. But now it is not so much about “Wunderkinder”, more about the managers’ (and audience’s) loss of capacity of discerning between talent, appearance and real musical maturity.

Take singers, for example. Could Jessye Norman have become Jessye Norman without her time spent in Düsseldorf as member of the Ensemble, allowing her to deepen the repertoire and to learn new roles away from the “big” (and dangerous) stages, and even making a pause for learning, refusing to sing opera for five years?

Or conductors: Karajan without having been in Aachen, Kleiber in Stuttgart, Thielemann as coach in Berlin and Bayreuth (and then in Nürnberg as conductor), emerging on the “big” podiums of important orchestras and opera houses relatively late.

We are now experiencing an attitude of  ”the younger, the better”, insinuating the following message: if they conduct (or sing, or play) with such orchestras, in such opera houses, in TV, on DVD, they must really be geniuses. They are presented as such and the media swallow these PR-strategies, slavishly repeating pre-cooked sentences.

This means profit for PR-agencies, for artist management companies (sorry to say this, Norman – British companies have a lot of responsibility in this) and eventually for promoters and presenters as well.

I don’t blame institutions for being a part (the paying one, actually) in this circus: I probably would act alike, since my priority would be to sell tickets and to have artists in my season whom the public recognise. I blame those who sell as “art” something which is mainly “business”, and those who are not willing to tell (or maybe to see? even worse!) that “the emperor has no clothes”.

We see many young, gifted musicians who reach the most important music places in the world, pushed by managers and sought after by presenters who must constantly offer “fresh meat” to the audience: the next Netrebko, the next Pavarotti, the next Bernstein, the next Rubinstein, the next Oistrakh. They are “the nextes” and they don’t have time to be themselves, to develop to be themselves – many of them will disappear soon (we already have seen how many have disappeared after a couple of CDs, after concerts in Salzburg, Verbier, after productions in Milano, New York or London) although they might have talent and skills for a serious career.

This is the reason I appreciate this wonderful Gidon Kremer letter, because it is fresh, ironical, true and it comes from a real artist which constantly worked on himself trying to improve himself, refusing to be pushed by whomever.

Yours

Fabio

Remedies to Share?

These are my remedies. Do you have remedies to share? I love some new ideas.

• Ola the Guinea Pig - a one kilo therapeutic fur ball and role model - as an outstanding vegetarian with the instincts of a wild animal, but still trusting - and the kindest little guinea pig ever born. I'm a true Ola-chauvinist 

• A good cup of tea - works as a sedative, caffeine or not, probably due to so many delightful cream teas in my youth with my London friends

• Stay-at-home days

• Sleep

• Water - run through a Brita/Anna mug, to overcompensate for the tea

• Barley tea - when tired of water (lucky me, having the luxury of being able to tire of clean water!)

• Tomato juice - very red, tasty and also bringer of fond memories (and I'm not talking about Bloody Marys here:)

• Oranges

• Other people - they are usually interesting and fun (and I do like my family)

• Perfume, bath salt and essential oils - a nice, flowery scent adds a certain oomph?!?

• The hope of being self contained at some point (but not a nasty know-it-all)

• Books 

• That wicked, little, non vegetarian spoon of cod liver oil I take every day

• Vegetables&walking

Recovery III

Part of Oslo University Hospital

Hospital art, name of artist not found

March 11TH - Japan

From Ichiroya's (link) weekly newsletter today:


Hello from Japan! This is ¡¥

It is March 11th, exactly one year ago, a big earthquake hit Tohoku(northern east area of Japan)and the tsunami caused by the earthquake wiped away ordinary people's lives. In cluding 3155 missing lives, approx 20 thousands people lost their lives, we cannot imagine how many people are there who lost their beloved family members and friends.

Today, there have been prayers and memorial concerts and gatherings all over Japan. I was in a big book store in Osaka, in the afternoon, and there was an announcement for silent prayer at the time when the tsunami hit Tohoku.
All TV channels had special commemorative programs, and showed the devastating video over and over.

Wherever I went, my feelings could not be lifted but sunk down. We offered prayers at our church today, and are having a charity concert next Saturday. There are positive message all over but the tsunami was too overwhelming. If I were one of the people who lost their houses and families in an instant, I probably could not be positive only in one year, I cannot even imagine wheather I could get over it and live on my own. 
There are so many charity concerts and events, but on the other hands, there are also many writers, artists, and singers who became not to write, or play music. One popular woman writer was saying in an interview the other day, she feels very responsible to express in appropriate words about this disaster but she is still seeking for the words.
I had hard time finding a topic about newsletter this time, and I cannot help introducing the action by American Marine who saved people of small island called Kesennuma Oshima(it is different from Oshima of Oshima tsumugi).

Kesennuma Oshima is a very small island in Miyagi prefecture with only 3000 people. When the tsunami happened, it hit this small island from all direction over and over. Since the damaged area was so vast in northern area, this small island was left and isolated. Gareki(rubble- which is now the most serious problem after the disaster) blocked rescue mission boats from landing. Some rescue members of Japanese self-defense force were there but they were working to find survivors and could not handel all the work for other residents. They even lacked drinking water, so were drinking from school swimming pool by claryfing water for themselves.
To that isolated island, more than three hundred US Marines landed for help. They built showers, cleaned rubbles-called on each house, and asked what they could do. One man and his wife who owned a very small restaurant lost everything and things from the restaurants were all under mud with bad odor. One Marine offered to clean the debris- and the man and his wife saw the stacking bowls and dishes collected by this young Marine from the mud and rubble. They thought everything has ended and they lost their restaurant, but they have reopened their restaurant again, using these dishes and bowls- they said, when they saw the dishes dug out by the young Marine, they thought they should start again.
Also the Marine members saw a small boy cleaning up rubbles alone to make a path, they started to do the work with him.
This is what this boy wrote in his essay:

My house has gone.
My father's fish store has gone. I know he kept the store for a long time.
My mother said not to cry, and encouraged me but,
I could not stop crying.
I cried and cried and I used all my tears.
Now my tears stopped.

His parents were worried about this little son, and let him as he wanted to do.
I do not think the Marine members read the essay but saw this boy working alone to make a path-the Marine member who was taking photos said, he just could not help coming to the boy to help him and work with him.
The action on this island by US Marine was one of the action of Operation Tomodachi.

Actually, the damaged area was so big, and what happened to this particular small island was not known so broadly, but this boy and the residents of the island were helped by tomodachi(friends). All the residents saw the Marine members off when they left the island, and then invited them again after 9 months for the token of their thankfulness-they were so happy to see them again and promised, to show the island again with the complete rebirth.
Wiki page only have Japanese but you can see the photos of children of the island and the rebble at the shore:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/大島_(宮城県気仙沼市)
To real fukko(rebirth), it will be a long way. We may never be able to express in appropriate words what this Shinsai(disaster by tsunami and earthquake)gave us, and what words to tell to the victims. 
However, the offered hands truly helped so many people who got hurt. This will never be forgotten. Whole Japan will never forget the offered hands from all over the world.¡¡We heard we received help from 163 countries and area.

Thank you, domo arigatou gozaimasu

(link)

Seasonal Treats in Stavanger? But not on Saturdays

"Berliner bollene (stir fried cakes/buns with jam inside) are here, but not on Saturdays - yum yum" Not sure I want any?...?