Hi All,
It's New Years Eve. All night, beginning at about 5:00 p.m. people all around Kristiansand have been launching fireworks. I'll try to get some pics.
Happy New Year!
Martha et al.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Walter's class Pageant at Oddernes Kirke --Dramatisering under Julegudstjenesten, Dec. 20, 2010
The headmaster leads the way for all of the students at Presteheia Skole to attend the Christmas Pageant. It's still dark at 8:40 a.m.
Walter is in the choir here.
Walter is in the choir here.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Christmas Eve
Late this afternoon, we trekked out to Christmas Eve service at Vor Frue Kirke, a neoclassical church with statues by Bertel Thorvaldsen depicting Jesus and the apostles. During the service, entirely in Danish, the priest gave what one congregant called a courageous indictment of a Danish law that makes it very difficult for low-income immigrants to gain residence rights, even when they marry Danish citizens.
When we returned home (the small house grandma rented southeast of Copenhagen), the boys played on the computer while Bill and I made dinner and grandma relaxed with her ipad. Hearing the tell-tale signs of the Angry Birds app from Grandma's ipad, Walter exclaimed, "Grandma's playing Angry Birds. That's amazing!" As he peered over her shoulder, we heard him say "Good job, [Grandma]." Could it be that Angry Birds is the great bridge over the generational divide?
When we returned home (the small house grandma rented southeast of Copenhagen), the boys played on the computer while Bill and I made dinner and grandma relaxed with her ipad. Hearing the tell-tale signs of the Angry Birds app from Grandma's ipad, Walter exclaimed, "Grandma's playing Angry Birds. That's amazing!" As he peered over her shoulder, we heard him say "Good job, [Grandma]." Could it be that Angry Birds is the great bridge over the generational divide?
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Copenhagen
We have had much fun exploring Copenhagen. Lots of intrepid bicyclists braving the Scandinavian winter, and we have yet to see a wipe out.
The first pics were taken at the Danish Design Center (Uncle Dan and Aunt Jenny, we thought of you and took many pics of chairs, a folding bicycle, and a eco-friendly pig farm, which we'll post soon). The prehistoric pics are from the National Museum, which offered an excellent rendition of Zealand stone-age to bronze-age cultures. Prehistoric peoples, who worshiped the sun, sacrificed people and objects in the bogs, which preserved the objects quite well. We also went to the National Art Museum, where we tried to figure out what distinguished Danish modernism from its counterparts in other countries. I don't think we quite figured it out. It would have helped if we could have seen the pre-twentieth century Danish art, but those galleries were closed.
Today we went to the Louisiana, a modern art museum 40 minutes from Copenhagen, where the boys worked on craft projects in the three floors devoted to children's act activities, wandered through the exhibits, and watched a film, Flooded McDonald's, by the Danish artist collective Superflex, a group committed to progressive politics. We all found the film absorbing--funny at points--the "Caution Wet Floor" sign floating in water, Ronald McDonald losing his footing and toppling, the floating french fries like mini logs in a jam--and disturbing too as the film screen slowly became a sea of plastic garbage; the film is apparently a commentary on global warming. Here's a snippet of the larger film, which we found on Youtube.
We also marveled at the Audubon-inspired allegorical paintings of American artist Walton Ford. What particularly fascinated me is that Ford found his inspiration for his paintings from texts, which reveal our seeming compulsion not only to anthropomorphize animals but to mystify them. Here is Ford talking about his work:
Tomorrow we'll go to church at Vor Frue Kirke. Thank you, Sarah, so much for the warm socks, which I am wearing now, and, on behalf of the boys, thank you for the geography game, which we're going to play tomorrow. And thank you, Cheryl, on behalf of Walter, for the harmonica, which provides a delightful musical challenge to Walter. And thank you to John and Colleen for the d.v.d which the boys and Grandma loved. (Martha and Bill were making dinner)
Love to all and Merry Christmas,
The Thomas-Patterson clan
p.s. Mom found her luggage and fell in a snowbank, though this sentence does not imply causality.
The design challenge for this chair was to create a piece of furniture for a prison that could not be used as weapon, could not be used to hide anything, would be easy to clean and would not make a lot of racket when banged against a wall. This chair, which is made out of recycled plastic bottles, had the feel of hard felt.
Taken at the National Museum of Denmark.
The Museum of Danish Resistance, 1940-1945
The exhibits: the rose made of chewed rye bread by a Danish prisoner of war; the tattered and carefully mended concentration camp uniform with the Jewish star; the school book for German children teaching them that Jews were akin to fiendish wolves; the label for Zyklon B pellets. The stain-glass window commemorates members of the Danish resistance given death sentences by the Nazis. Below the stained-glass window, I read the last letters home written by the condemned prisoners.
The National Art Museum
The Louisiana Museum für Moderne Kunst, Humlebæk, Danmark
The first pics were taken at the Danish Design Center (Uncle Dan and Aunt Jenny, we thought of you and took many pics of chairs, a folding bicycle, and a eco-friendly pig farm, which we'll post soon). The prehistoric pics are from the National Museum, which offered an excellent rendition of Zealand stone-age to bronze-age cultures. Prehistoric peoples, who worshiped the sun, sacrificed people and objects in the bogs, which preserved the objects quite well. We also went to the National Art Museum, where we tried to figure out what distinguished Danish modernism from its counterparts in other countries. I don't think we quite figured it out. It would have helped if we could have seen the pre-twentieth century Danish art, but those galleries were closed.
Today we went to the Louisiana, a modern art museum 40 minutes from Copenhagen, where the boys worked on craft projects in the three floors devoted to children's act activities, wandered through the exhibits, and watched a film, Flooded McDonald's, by the Danish artist collective Superflex, a group committed to progressive politics. We all found the film absorbing--funny at points--the "Caution Wet Floor" sign floating in water, Ronald McDonald losing his footing and toppling, the floating french fries like mini logs in a jam--and disturbing too as the film screen slowly became a sea of plastic garbage; the film is apparently a commentary on global warming. Here's a snippet of the larger film, which we found on Youtube.
We also marveled at the Audubon-inspired allegorical paintings of American artist Walton Ford. What particularly fascinated me is that Ford found his inspiration for his paintings from texts, which reveal our seeming compulsion not only to anthropomorphize animals but to mystify them. Here is Ford talking about his work:
Tomorrow we'll go to church at Vor Frue Kirke. Thank you, Sarah, so much for the warm socks, which I am wearing now, and, on behalf of the boys, thank you for the geography game, which we're going to play tomorrow. And thank you, Cheryl, on behalf of Walter, for the harmonica, which provides a delightful musical challenge to Walter. And thank you to John and Colleen for the d.v.d which the boys and Grandma loved. (Martha and Bill were making dinner)
Love to all and Merry Christmas,
The Thomas-Patterson clan
p.s. Mom found her luggage and fell in a snowbank, though this sentence does not imply causality.
The design challenge for this chair was to create a piece of furniture for a prison that could not be used as weapon, could not be used to hide anything, would be easy to clean and would not make a lot of racket when banged against a wall. This chair, which is made out of recycled plastic bottles, had the feel of hard felt.
Taken at the National Museum of Denmark.
The Museum of Danish Resistance, 1940-1945
The exhibits: the rose made of chewed rye bread by a Danish prisoner of war; the tattered and carefully mended concentration camp uniform with the Jewish star; the school book for German children teaching them that Jews were akin to fiendish wolves; the label for Zyklon B pellets. The stain-glass window commemorates members of the Danish resistance given death sentences by the Nazis. Below the stained-glass window, I read the last letters home written by the condemned prisoners.
The National Art Museum
The Louisiana Museum für Moderne Kunst, Humlebæk, Danmark
Monday, December 20, 2010
An Early Christmas
Hi All,
We had a beautiful but hectic day. At 8:30 a.m. I walked down to Oddernes Kirke (which Bill photographed early), where Walter played an excerpt of Grieg at his school's Christmas pageant. Then mom and I had lunch at the Julelunsj sponsored by the University of Agder. We drank a non-alcoholic version of glögg, had a lunch of salmon, roast beef, potato salad and raspberry cake, followed by singing, speeches, and gifts. I enjoyed one song, in particular, Julekveld I Skogen, which Wiki describes below:
"The plot of the song takes place in a dilapidated living in the woods, where there lives a poor and old couples, without any other Christmas food a "musty pork rind." Poverty these suffers are described with words like "Christmas Tears," "Christmas hulk" and "Christmas sigh." Christmas is saved by the eldest son of the couple, the family's black sheep, come home from America with a suitcase full of Christmas gifts. Thus ends the song, after all happy with that, "It was in July anyway!"."
What I loved was the prodigal American son wears sunglasses, sports a cigar, and brings bounteous gifts, including new false teeth for his parents. The song was written in 1963 before Norway reaped the boon of oil wealth.
From there we went downtown for Walter's recital at a local nursing home--Mark, meanwhile, attended a birthday party at a bowling alley.
Then we opened a few gifts, including the Norwegian sweaters from Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jenny (thank you so much for the monetary gift that went towards Bill's sweater.)
We are now all officially Norwegian. Tomorrow it's off to Denmark at 5:30 a.m.!!, albeit sans some of Mom's luggage, which still hasn't arrived via SAS.
Love,
Martha, Bill, Mark and Walter
We had a beautiful but hectic day. At 8:30 a.m. I walked down to Oddernes Kirke (which Bill photographed early), where Walter played an excerpt of Grieg at his school's Christmas pageant. Then mom and I had lunch at the Julelunsj sponsored by the University of Agder. We drank a non-alcoholic version of glögg, had a lunch of salmon, roast beef, potato salad and raspberry cake, followed by singing, speeches, and gifts. I enjoyed one song, in particular, Julekveld I Skogen, which Wiki describes below:
"The plot of the song takes place in a dilapidated living in the woods, where there lives a poor and old couples, without any other Christmas food a "musty pork rind." Poverty these suffers are described with words like "Christmas Tears," "Christmas hulk" and "Christmas sigh." Christmas is saved by the eldest son of the couple, the family's black sheep, come home from America with a suitcase full of Christmas gifts. Thus ends the song, after all happy with that, "It was in July anyway!"."
What I loved was the prodigal American son wears sunglasses, sports a cigar, and brings bounteous gifts, including new false teeth for his parents. The song was written in 1963 before Norway reaped the boon of oil wealth.
From there we went downtown for Walter's recital at a local nursing home--Mark, meanwhile, attended a birthday party at a bowling alley.
Then we opened a few gifts, including the Norwegian sweaters from Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jenny (thank you so much for the monetary gift that went towards Bill's sweater.)
We are now all officially Norwegian. Tomorrow it's off to Denmark at 5:30 a.m.!!, albeit sans some of Mom's luggage, which still hasn't arrived via SAS.
Love,
Martha, Bill, Mark and Walter
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Norwegian Words for Snow
Hei All,
My seminar leader for the spring, Gunhild, kindly put this list together of Norwegian words for snow--I love all of the distinctions. About 30 cm fell yesterday and last night.
Grandma comes today!!
Cheers,
Martha, Bill, Mark and Walter
My seminar leader for the spring, Gunhild, kindly put this list together of Norwegian words for snow--I love all of the distinctions. About 30 cm fell yesterday and last night.
Grandma comes today!!
Cheers,
Martha, Bill, Mark and Walter
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