This week’s photo is from Madrid. Not that I went but my brother did and as on most of his travels he took his walrus Valle. Here he is contemplating the view from the hotel.

Valle has been to many places and this photo reminds me of how Amelie’s dad’s garden gnome went to all those exotic places as well.

I hope Valle will get to go to Russia also. Then maybe I’ll come too. Instead this coming week it’s Berlin for me visiting two great friends, one of whom just gave birth to a daughter. Looking forward to seeing them all and drinking hot chocolate in obscene amounts while listening to baroque music.

/anna

After having just given a paper at a conference I enjoy the freedom of having my evenings off. I keep thinking I should be doing something and then I realise that, no, I don’t have to do anything but watch House M.D. and episode after episode of it. And then I did a little YouTube search on Hugh Laurie and it all came together… here is what I found and mind you this is exactly the way people speak at conferences – at least at the humanities kind of conferences. You would be utterly amazed. This is not a sketch. This is truth.

And please re-watch. I know it gets better every time I watch it. By now all I have to do is having it as background noise while doing the dishes and it’s a party.

/anna

First day of my least favorite month. Ugh. November. And of course today was grey, windy and cold. But I got to eat brunch with a great friend and that’s what one should do. Eat.

I have been looking for a good picture… and all I found was this sort of Altdorfer’ish thing from Sweden. But it illustrates November quite well I think. So there.

/anna

I just came upon a very, very funny youtube clip. Funny because it’s sad. Oh, so very sad and phoney.

One of my favourite singers, mezzo soprano Tuva Semmingsen, seems to have been in some dire economic need or possibly just out of her freakin’ mind. She actually joined the Danish version of Dancing with the Stars – and that would be sort of OK were she actually dancing, but no, no she had to join the orchestra in doing the most kitschy version of Giuseppe Verdi’s Libiamo ne’ lieti calici from La Traviata I have ever heard.

OMG the drummer who just takes the Verdian-oom-pah-pah to a whole new level – I mean, this duet can only take that much tackiness and it will just turn to the dark side – the drummer is not helping here. And OMG Tuva’s companion (who happens to be her husband), and OMG the whole, awful set-up.

I mean Tuva does a great job. But why even be there with all that bad dancing, faux elegance, and the vulgar Las Vegas lights?

I am crying here. A little bit of laughter and a lot because this is how Verdi outta sound:

/anna

At the moment I seem to be spending most of my time at my desk at home and at my desk at work – having a lot to do on the job and with a paper I’m going to give next week. So Puss and I are sort of seeing a lot of each other, the cat being the only funny thing around – I sure am not…

So here are some photos of Puss approaching the stale flower water – just as she prefers it. Fresh water, not thanks! And I will not tell what she just did in the bathroom. Ok… she drank out of the toilet, darn beast!

It always starts with the posing. With the flowers.

Then the sniffing.

And then she forgets all pretense and just goes for it. Stale and all.

That was as good as it got this week… Oh and I saw two great films: Looking for Eric with Eric Cantona and by Ken Loach. And A Serious Man by the Coen Brothers. GO. SEE. BOTH.

/anna

Aren’t these onions on the dark ground just the perfect illustration for autumn?

I’d use them in a stew of some kind – one that should be simmering all day. Or maybe for a French style onion soup like this one.

/anna

Apples all around – at our Swedish house (in an area where they even have apple festivals), at home and by my uncle’s. So what to do with all those apples, besides pies, jellies and eating them raw? Must of course. Apple juice that is. So here is how it’s done:

After having located the nearest apple tree you put on your best sequined shoulderette and your favorite boots and get that apple picker ready.

Put the apples in a container.

Guard that container with you life.

Contact your uncle (the one with the apple pressing device) and have him wash the apples.

Have your dad cut the apples in to handy pieces and have him fill the apple pressing device.

Get your youngest cousin, the juice expert, and her lovely assistant, the other uncle, and have them control the mashing process.

Makes sure she stays. This is essential.

Then have your brother remove the juice expert before she drinks all the must (do you see that MUST-DRINK-THE-MUST-look on her face?).

Call on your aunt to monitor the last drops being pressed.

Eat said aunt’s delicious lunch with a glass of freshly pressed apple juice. Highly recommended and highly addictive!

Oh, the joy of autumn!

/anna

I passed this little piece of street art the other day. I love things like that. If it weren’t already done I would do a street art blog. But this is all you get.

/anna

I’m all about vampires at the moment having read the Twilight books and chewing away at the series True Blood. Two very different things – the former I’m a bit cringy to admit having completely swallowed up to a point where addiction might be the appropriate word and hey these books are so terribly adolescent girly and I don’t want to be like that ten years post festum. But I am. Twilight rules. There, I said it. And I can’t wait ’til the new movie hits the theatres…

Having said that my next fix True Blood is so much more worthy of being hailed. This series is so quirky, funny, bloody, violent, sexy and tongue in cheek’ish, and I think it is perfectly fitted with a zeitgeist that requires a smirk and a sarcastically raised eyebrow while exposing all the worst things of today – religious fanaticism, war, prejudice. Let’s laugh at it, have a ball and drink ourselves senseless – right? True Blood is all that all the while also just being a cliffhanging whodunnit.

One of the best things about True Blood (apart from the great acting) is the soundtrack and strangely enough the intro sequence. The music combined with the pictures of the predators and the redeemed all the while moving through decaying things towards night is just brilliant and I have that song (by Jace Everett) glued to my iPod.

And as none of the characters actually star in the intro I’ll give you another spot-on video from the series – the promo for season two with another great singer, Bob Dylan.

Yay!

/anna

Last night Rio de Janeiro was granted the 2016 Olympic Games at the IOC session here in Copenhagen. And, oh my, has the police been going crazy about all those crowned heads and heads of state visiting – just too many heads to protect I guess. They have been driving around in their big blue vans closing streets and on motorcycles escorting black cars with toned windows like nothing else mattered for the past couple of days. And I tell you – working at the Copenhagen Opera House did not make things easier since the Opera hosted a gala show on Thursday night. That meant checking every single employee in the police registers, regularly searching the building for bombs the month leading up to the event (or whatever all those uniformed types were at…) and on the day we all had to go through a security check airport style. This may be normal behavior at some tough American schools but in Denmark it seems just a tad hysterical. Well maybe not with Michelle Obama there and all (not to mention Oprah!). What do I know. Well, at least I know that the Danish version of the CIA does not regard me as a threat to the state’s security – they even let me go to work!

I would have loved to have shown you the masses of police officers and how they had the Opera surrounded, but I was afraid they would kick me out or send me to Guantanamo or something if they caught me taking pictures of their defense systems (hee). So I went to the foyer instead where the preparations for the evening were being carried out. Quite calm. Can you find the discreet Olympic presence?

And yes Mr Obama came too and messed with our normally smooth traffic. Looks like he enjoyed it – after all he was already on the Air Force One when the news of Chicago’s defeat hit him…

/anna