norwegian advertising
Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever understand Norwegian mass culture. This ad for vanilla sauce, for example: NYHET! Endelig med skrukork! (“NEW! Finally with a screw cap!”) It doesn’t market any other feature. No great taste, no new recipe, just… a screw cap.
lunch at fiskeriet
Decided to have lunch today at Operapassasjen (“the opera passage”), a walk-through building that used to house Oslo’s opera (not to be confused with the beautiful new building by the sea). At the entrance facing Youngstorget, there’s a small fish market called Fiskeriet — surprisingly one of the few fish markets in Oslo. Attached to the small market is a small … Read More
language wars
For you English language buffs: a brief history of the fight between prescriptivists and descriptivists (by Joan Acocella in the New Yorker). In short, prescriptivists believe language follows certain rules, so there is a correct way to speak and write; descriptivists believe that language doesn’t necessarily follow strict rules so the best we can do is describe how people currently use … Read More
50,000 tiny statues
Very cool new piece of public art in Oslo: “Grass Roots Square”, in front of government building R6 (Teatergata). It consists of 50,000 tiny statues embedded into the stones of the walkway, inviting people to walk atop them. The artist is Korean-born Do Ho Suh, and while this piece has come to symbolize a lot more since the 22/7 terror attacks … Read More
africans and indians
In Nairobi, the upper middle class are Indians–and not “fresh-off-the-boat” Indians, but those that have been here for several generations. According to wikipedia, the origin of Indian migration was for the construction of the Uganda railway (or “lunatic express“; see also last post) in the late 19th century. There are now over 100,000 Asians in Kenya today–and all the successful … Read More
the train to mombasa
G and I are in Kenya for a 3-week holiday, and our only concrete plan was to take the overnight train to the coast. So shortly after arriving to Nairobi, we went to the railway station to check out our options. There is only one train route going through Nairobi:
per petterson
James Wood, from the New Yorker: I have a friend, a writer, who became so obsessed by the Norwegian novelist Per Petterson’s “I Curse the River of Time” that he copied it out, word for word—perhaps hoping that his pure replica might unlock the secrets of that mysterious book, with its curling form and drifting sentences. When he told me … Read More
creative infographics
on whether Danes think it’s ethical to wear religious symbols in public professions (click to see more)…
big print
tired of staring at our empty walls, I somewhat impulsively went onto japan photo’s website last night and ordered a 60cm x 90cm print of this photo: if it turns out okay, our apartment may get filled up rather quickly… maybe this is the solution to that needed coat of paint!