[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: What I did on my summer vacation: Stockholm

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
What I did on my summer vacation: Stockholm
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1156543377.shtml


   Our residence in Stockholm was a hotel/boat, moored in the downtown
   tourist area. This is the masthead that guarded the entrance.

   The hotel boat worked better as a concept than as an actual living
   place. We booked late, so we got smaller rooms, with bunk beds and
   permanently closed windows. I got the top bunk, and it was a little
   stuffy. If you do book these rooms, call early.

   During our first (jet-lagged) night, we wandered around town.. The
   oddest thing we found was an American food store, with exotica like
   corn muffins and Doritos. This may be a popular spot for expat
   American students. When I was in Germany, I would have paid lots for
   the rare pleasure of spiced corn chips.

   The next day we took a long boat tour of Stockholm's archipelago, a
   place I wouldnât have even known about if I hadnât read [1]Celia
   Farberâs post here. Thanks Celia.

   The archipelago is a beautiful and fairly unspoiled vacation spot.
   Sailing a big or little boat is one of the most popular things to do
   there, but the swimming was nice, not much colder than a lake in
   Maine.

   We didnât visit Celiaâs favorite island, Runmaro, but we did get a
   chance to see the very remote and beautiful Bullero. (one cool fact â
   Bullero is [2]renewable-energy powered)

   Our guide told us about how Peter the Great destroyed an ongoing
   âpeace processâ by burning down homes in the archipelago. If we hadnât
   already heard about the horrors of Swedish imperialism from the Finns
   and the Russians, we might have believed her. (Did they even have
   peace processes in those days?)

   The next day we searched for, and found, lots of clothes that fit tall
   women. We also visited the Modern Art Museum, and found a
   disappointing display of âartâ done by performance artist [3]Paul
   McCarthy. Creating props for porn shows must be this guyâs day job,
   and he should not quit it. Like most performance artists, heâs
   obsessed with pop images and fecal matter, projecting their personal
   faults onto the whole of western civilization. Itâs hard to be both
   disgusting and predictable, but McCarthy manages to do it.

   The artists of our generation are so obsessed with âshockingâ and/or
   horrifying the public, so obsessed with the past and the present, they
   never consider the future. Do they want museumgoers in 2050 to think
   that, say, McCarthyâs Spaghetti Man, a rabbit in a boyâs body with a
   12-metre long, soft rubber penis that lies in coils on the floor,
   represents manâs hopes and dreams at the turn of the millennium? Do we
   want our descendants to think that this represents us?

   While the artwork at the Museum was disappointing, the architecture
   displays were not. Like the Finns, the Swedes excel at design, at
   making modernism livable. I wonder if this focus on design, plus the
   influence of performance art, is making traditional forms of art
   irrelevant.

   We only spent two days in Stockholm, and I wish we'd stayed longer.
   The food was better than I expected (but then again, I love pickled
   herring), the people were friendly - not the 'Germans without a sense
   of humor' our Danish friends had told us about.

References

   1. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1151564711.shtml
   2. http://www.engineeringtalk.com/news/sgt/sgt114.html
   3. http://www.modernamuseet.se/v4/templates/template1_graycolumn.asp?lang=Eng&id=2837