Capri Seconds

Altre tre.

2009-11-21T21:39:00.001+01:00

Just one more

2009-11-21T21:12:00.001+01:00

Capri fall

2009-11-16T22:33:00.008+01:00

2009-11-14T22:07:00.002+01:00

Covering by coloring

2009-11-13T22:53:00.011+01:00

These book covers kill me.

They are all Edizioni la Conchiglia, a series of books dealing exclusively with Capri matters.

The design is not typographically correct and the layout isn't really well executed but, i colori, when you run into them in any of Capri's (three?) book stores they sort of smile in your face.

Right now I'm reading Le Case raccontano. Storie e passioni nelle dimore del mito a Capri. (”Houses telling stories. Tales and passions from dwellings of myth on Capri”)

Reading is maybe not quite accurate, trying to understand would be more to the point.

Some, a few, of the Conchiglia books are in English, this one isn't and so much the better. These stories are so intriguing I have to force myself to read in Italian with my limited knowledge. That, also, kills me.

Che gioia leggere.

Tasting by looking

2009-11-12T21:23:00.008+01:00

These cookies kill me. They are filled with delicious hazelnut chocolate and I am almost sure they are the original Ballerina. Adding to their appeal is the name: Occhio di bue, bull's eyes.

I need to add this image to my lecture on ”the eye as a motif in art and graphic design”. Can't wait.

Owning by pretending

2009-11-10T23:11:00.002+01:00

This house kills me. It belongs to me without knowing it.

Learning by doing

2009-11-08T23:24:00.007+01:00

This fruit kills me.

It's so Baloo.

On Capri I learned – the hard way – that when pealing it you need to be careful so the microscopic prickles (or are they called thorns?) don't move over to your fingers.

2009-11-06T22:30:00.005+01:00

Here I am pretending I am back in sunny Anacapri and not in gloomy Hudiksvall. Included above also subtle hints to the quizz below.

Win win

2009-11-06T21:09:00.004+01:00

I love this image.

Can anybody, out of my thousands of followers, guess what is taking place?

(The winner gets to post a comment. Don't be rude, get in line!)

2009-11-06T00:07:00.008+01:00

Did I tell you about all the cats around the Villa San Michele?

Axel Munthe was a well-known animal lover who saw to it that the birds on the Barbarossa mountain were protected from hunting, and whose pets lived and bred on the grounds. The cat above may well be a decendant of one of them.

Too bad I can't stand cats. Nor dogs. Munthe wouldn't have approved of that. He found it easier to communicate with animals than with people.

I will never understand animals. Maybe not people either for that matter.

Italian train abstinence

2009-11-04T17:32:00.006+01:00

Suffering from.

Dedication

2009-11-02T23:29:00.023+01:00

Förförare by the way comes with a dedication that has my mind spinning:

To my Danish friends,

the Actors

Albrecht and Robert Schmidt.

Who were THEY?

I definitely need to learn more about Ulla's life in Copenhagen before World War I. (She lived on this street a while. Max and/or Jennie, are you reading this?)

There are some great descriptions of those days in one of Evert Taube's first novels where the character Ella Bjerke is drawn largely from Ulla's personality.

I need to spend a month or so in wonderful Copenhagen, read Evert Taube novels and eat delicious smørrebrød.

That will happen.

Dolce far niente

2009-11-02T17:59:00.039+01:00

Home again in Stockholm I am getting used to the overwhelming presence of ”the people of reality” (verklighetens folk).

This nation is indeed a big fat realm of reality, not always ideal for us dream...sters.

I went to Capri, l'Isola del Sogno, fearing, hoping I would dream awake every hour and not be able to work a minute.

Ulla Bjerne told me as much in the foreword to Förförare (1920):

I want to firmly dissuade anyone from going to Italy to work. During the three months I spent in Rome I made desperate attempts at putting down some of my impressions on paper. Impossible. Doing nothing was in the air. Everything was new, wonderful and soaked with sunshine.

- - -

In addition, according to Suetonius, when the emperor Augustus came to Capri he coined the name Apragopolis – specifically for Anacapri if I remember correctly – meaning city-of-do-nothings.

Well, if this was idle country it had nothing to do with me. The minute I came to the island I had lots of energy. Rarely have I felt so happy to work, writing this blog in particular.

Instead of doing sweet nothing I got even more caught up in my obsession with Ulla Bjerne, this very singular woman, who also happens to be my relative.

My age-old plans for a film or a book about Ulla have been extended. There is now a blog in continous progress. At least this one's happening and will continue to be. We'll see about the rest.

Garibaldi outfit

2009-10-31T12:07:00.035+01:00

I found a lovely little passage in one of Ulla Bjerne's novels in the Förförare (”Seducers”) collection. The novels were written in Swedish, this one is called San Martino and it tells the story of the protagonist – in this case, as it all sounds very autobiographical I could as easily write Ulla – arriving in Naples and being recommended a visit at the Certosa di San Martino, an old and – already 1920 – dusty museum.

Not impressed by the museum she instead describes some people she observes: a threesome also on their way to San Martino. Ulla, ever intrigued by anybody who questions the norm, identifies the group as two female prostitutes and a watchmaker/traveling salesman/waiter on an outing.

The novel is no masterpiece, however, I want to translate a part of it here since it's about one of Ulla's own outfits.

Ulla Bjerne was a notorious cross dresser at a time when notoriety was well established, cross-dressing was not. During the 1910's she would live and travel around Europe wearing pantsuits and pantskirts long before those words were invented and more than a decade before la garçonne entered the fashion scene.

I have known her to systematically dress in menswear, smoke the pipe, wear a monocle and even a tophat. Here I have found a description in her own words of some of her clothing.

Before I left the museum I had a new experience. In a cabinet I discovered a torn, red shirt and a pair of very worn trousers with a hole in the behind. These garments had once clothed the grand hero of freedom Garibaldi. In my memory I made a sketch of the shirt, which I am wearing at this moment, not without success on Capri.

Again, the year was 1920. The same year, incidentally, that the picture above was taken, although I don't think it shows the Garibaldi shirt.

Oh Bologna

2009-10-30T17:23:00.004+01:00

If only I had met you when I was young.

Death

2009-10-27T21:58:00.014+01:00

The main attraction of our last day on Capri was the non Roman Catholic cemetery founded in 1878 ”for all non-catholics irrespective of race or religion”.

At the site – not far from Capri town, but quite a long walk from Anacapri – some of the island's most famous foreign inhabitants are burried; Norman Douglas, Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen and Gracie Fields to name a few.

Leaving Capri tomorrow will be like dying a little. Jumping on the train to Bologna in Naples will most likely revive us.

I had meant to report on the letters from Italo Tavolato to Ulla Bjerne today, and write more about her book Förförare (”Seducers”), among other things, but all that will have to wait until I am back in Stockholm. (Internet access again on Friday pm.)

You see, I have been busy with the sun, buying dried figs (just to lose them an hour later at the lunch restaurant in Marina Picola), having afternoon coffee and chiche (lemon flavored almond paste cookies) near the Piazzetta, and gasping at another sunset from the top of la Foresteria at the Villa San Michele.

Full last day image report here.

Italian Escapades, part 6

2009-10-26T23:53:00.013+01:00

The last part of Ulla Bjerne's story from her youth, read in Swedish by herself on Finnish radio 1957, transcribed and translated by me.

The painting, from 1920, is by Milivoj Uzelac.

- - -

Italian Escapades

In March I was back on Capri and after some time Therese joined me. When she heard that I was going back home to Sweden to spend the summer with my parents in Norrland she had me vow to come visit her in Finland. That could probably be arranged, I said and promised to show up.

When, on my way home in May, I stopped in Paris I completely forgot about both Therese and Finland. Already the first evening at Café Rotonde I met the Serbian painter Milivoj Uzelac, a handsome man with sooty black fringe and dark passionate eyes, and a talented artist at that.

Uzelac had already spent a long time in Paris on a state grant but he was now out of money so he could buy neither canvas nor paint. I sent a telegram to my new publisher K O Bonnier and asked for an advance payment of 2 000 kronor. And, in those days, I got it.

Uzelac right away started painting two brilliant portraits of me, one of which is now part of the collection of the national museum of Agram and the other one, which I was given, I later donated to Karl Otto Bonnier, hence it is to be found at Manilla.

During our daily time together it became more and more clear that Serbia was the place to go for me during fall, not Finland. So I wrote a larking letter to Therese and told her that I had met a Serbian painter who very much appealed to me. After my visit to Norrland I would go straight to Serbia.

It appeared my soul was no longer possible to save. The Serb liked wine as much as I did.

Finally I made it home to Norrland. All summer I stayed out at sea on an island where my parents had rented a villa. As i had now switched from the sunny land of the grape to the barren abode of the pine cone I worked diligently on a serious book entitled ”Sinners”.

All the while Milivoj wrote and told me about his coming exhibition and sent me reproductions of his paintings. He was very successful and sold everything. ”So when you come to Agram we can roll around in dinars”, he wrote. It all sounded splendid and I was burning with impatience to transport myself there as soon as possible.

Therese, who seemed upset by my new plans, also wrote to remind me of my vow and said that she counted on my visiting Finland before I disappeared down in Serbia. On thinking it over I came to the conclusion that I might as well take a little jump over the Baltic. However, more then three days I was not going to sacrifice to Finland.

And as soon as I had had my passport settled for the trip to Serbia and money for my ”Sinners” I took a small suitcase and leaped over.

As I mentioned, I had set aside three days for the visit to Finland. This automn it will be 36 years since I came to live in this country.

Therese sure had a remarkable intuition. And the way she, despite certain difficulties, finally managed to bring the two of us together, well, it is all such a peculiar story with its grotesque, subtle and humorous elements that each time I think about it I am taken by the wondrous enigma of life and destiny.

Ciao Frank & Marion

2009-10-26T12:04:00.009+01:00

The other day I got an e-mail from Frank and Marion, the handsome British couple from Cambridge we met on the train to Bologna two weeks ago.

On the train Frank had mentioned some pictures he had taken when he and Marion visited San Michele in the 70's. I am happy to share one of the pictures with you.

Marion is standing, I think, on the pathway right below the pergola of Villa San Michele. She hasn't changed a bit, maybe a bit longer hair back then.

In honor of Frank & Marion and in celebration of chance encounters we have decided to stay one night in Bologna on our way home on Wednesday, instead of going straight to Stockholm.

Everyone says Bologna is a beautiful city so, of course we'll go.

2009-10-25T09:11:00.004+01:00

Wuthering

2009-10-25T09:05:00.007+01:00

Heights.

Anacapri

2009-10-25T08:35:00.004+01:00

Hurra

2009-10-24T08:05:00.006+02:00

Two dear friends from Portland, Oregon arrived yeasterday, and one from Örebro/Paris. The picture is from a parade we set up in the rainy San Michele gardens.

Italian Escapades, part 5

2009-10-23T14:01:00.007+02:00

Part five of six of Ulla Bjerne's story from her youth, as told on Finnish radio 1957. The picture is from Venice, 1920.

- - -

Italian Escapades

At the same trattoria a couple of elderly spinsters also dined and they too were renting rooms from signora Gallina. The first evening we spoke French but it turned out that they were both Finns (Swedish-speaking; translator's note): the painter Ellen Thesleff and her sister Gerda, the ceramist.

An acquiantance of theirs from Helsinki, Therese Wuorenheimo, appeared one evening and showed up every night from then on. She was a 50-year old spinster, slender and lively with kind blue eyes. A tactful creature who with some astonishment observed how fast the wine in my carafe diminished and at the same time she was amused and giggled at all the rubbish I talked about.

I asked the Thesleffs who she really was and they told me about her father, formerly a senator in Finland and that she was doing social work and owned a big orphanage in Sörnäs. These pieces of information didn't say much to me in those days, however they reinforced my assumption that she was a kind soul.

One evening when there happened to be a delightful moonlight and the white crown of Mount Etna shimmered in the far distance we took a long walk and suddenly Therese asked me why I drank so much wine.

Now how do you answer a question like that?

I blamed my need for warmth inside before I crawled into my cold, damp bed. But it wasn't healthy to drink so much wine every evening, Therese said, apart from it causing a stir. In some ways you seem rather lonely, she added worriedly. What I could use was a real man who looked after me a little bit and loved me in the right way.

Of course, I said ironically, and there are so many of those.

Therese stayed quiet, but after a moment she said thoughtfully:

I know one who would suit you.

Where is he, I replied both astounded and amused.

In Finland. He is a chief physician at a hospital in a small town called Lovisa.

For heaven's sake no, some kind of farmer's doctor in a one-horse town!

He is not at all a farmer's doctor, Therese said, but a very well known physician and a skillful and appreciated surgeon. Besides, he's a Frenchman. His father was a senior lecturer at the university in Helsinki. He is a somewhat peculiar and original man. A real he-man, with his own views. I think the two of you would go well together.

Du you know him? I said suspiciously.

She did. During summers when she had spent her spa cures in Lovisa she had met him in several companies. I listened and thought she was moving. I had stumbled upon a good-hearted and naive person who apparently wanted to save my soul as she thought I was in danger. Maybe she was right. But I also knew that in this case, nobody could help me except myself.

Help

2009-10-23T09:43:00.008+02:00

Last night, a thunderstorm passed the Bay of Naples.

I wonder if it was anything extraordinary for this area. To me it was like Zeus, Thor and all the art directors of every single metal band on earth had a JV.

We went up at around 5 and watched the show. Flashes upon flashes. More than an hour's worth.

A wise person close to me concluded: Un vero spettacolo futurista.

J

2009-10-23T00:37:00.001+02:00

Italian Escapades, part 4

2009-10-22T19:27:00.014+02:00

Part four of six of Ulla's radio broadcast account from her youth on Finnish radio, from 1957.

- - -

Italian Escapades

Sardinia back then was a fairly unknown and wild country, rarely visited by tourists. In order to help me with my trip my friend Italo Tavolato on Capri had given me a letter of recommendation, among others to Grazia Deledda. However, now there's no time for my adventures in the Sardinian mountain villages with their primitive and superstitious inhabitants. Because now my Destiny approaches, in November 1920 on Sicily and in Taormina.

I came to Taormina aroundt the end of November and decided to stay over the winter months to write about my Sardinian journey about which I had made notes on the island. While I oriented myself and looked for a room I put up at San Domenico where I right away met Georg and Hanna Pauli in company with Karl-Otto and Lisen Bonnier who were on a trip to Italy. Their old friend F U Wrangel was also present but he stayed at a pension.

This way I got acquianted with my new publisher Bonnier would take over my books since Olle Dahlberg had made a grandiose bankrupty the past year. However, I still knew nothing about these changes.

After a few days I found a room which I thought suited me both when it came to price and location. It was at the top of a towerlike house where the owner had a small antiques shop on the ground floor. The room had a lovely view over the sea and a big stove gave a sense of homelike atmosphere considering the approaching rainy season. In addition electric light was included.

A lively old Sicilian woman with a weather-beaten face and bushy hair cleaned for me and every morning as she groaningly had climbed the stairs she greeted me happily: ”Brava signorina, brava!”

That was indeed a refreshing morning greeting but as much as she busied herself with the furnace the smouldering smoke kept breaking in and the window had to be kept open in order not to suffocate. Finally we came up with the splendid idea to let a chimney-sweep examine the flue. It was found to be stuffed with bird nests.

As far as the electric light was concerned it was out of order every half hour in all of Taormina so running rushlights came in use most of the time. And it sure did rain. All the time and every day, so my room was a damp dump.

I had found a small trattoria where I had my meals with signora Gallina who always had cauliflower on the menu. So I mostly had cavolfiore, wine, and gorgonzola to live through the day.

Ricchi et poveri

2009-10-21T20:25:00.011+02:00

Last night I heard myself use the expression
afford (ha råd med in Swedish) when we discussed our remaining time on the island.

We can afford doing that I said when we talked about things yet to see and places to visit during the remainder of our visit, now less than a week.

Villa Lysis, the Blue Grotto, Villa Jovis, still not done.

If time were a currency, what would be its units? A day a dollar and an hour a cent? Or an hour a euro and a minute, bla bla bla.

I need a budget. And a financial adviser.

Asterisk

2009-10-21T20:11:00.011+02:00

I put an asterisk by Hotel Molaro in the text below and I will tell you why. (Isn't the
asterisk a lovely old-fashioned way of cross-referencing btw? I hadn't thought about its meaning, little star in latin: asteriscum).

When I first visited Capri 4-5 years ago I had brought an image of a private palace where Ulla Bjerne had stayed in the 1920's. Some good friends of her, an Italian family, had lent her the place, it was empty so she could use it however long she wanted.

I also had a copy of a postcard with a Hotel Molaro on it, hoping to be able to detect the same on the island. In vain, I thought since I hadn't been able to find a hotel with that name.

When arriving in Anacapri for a two day visit from Sorrento I didn't know where to stay so I used my Naples guide book (Första klass – 1 kl – Reseguider), which had only one hotel to recommend in the village: the Hotel San Michele (as opposed to some ten in Capri town).

Hotel San Michele sounded like a nice place with great views of the sea and close to San Michele, which was an advantage since the museum was my main objective of the Anacapri visit. The guide book said: ”A hotel from the late 19th century with an appealing, old-fashioned atmosphere.”

As I approached the hotel I realized, which you may already have guessed, the Hotel San Michele was formerly called Hotel Molaro and in addition, the Hotel Molaro was identical to the private palace that Ulla stayed in as the only guest.

I like to think that she had the picture above taken right on the terrace that the room I stayed in looked out on.

Now I will add to the fantasy that Italo Tavolato took the picture.

Italian Escapades, part 3

2009-10-21T19:37:00.014+02:00

Here is part three of six of Ulla's radio broadcast account on Finnish radio from 1957.

- - -

Italian Escapades

Doctor Munthe had not yet written the Story of San Michele which led to a horrible invasion of old American ladies and other tourist hordes. Asphalt roads did not yet exist, neither buses or cars, chairlifts or similar arrangements.The Monte Solaro hillsides shimmered proudly and majestically and the walk to Anacapri with ever increasing contour lines all the way up to the old Hotel Molaro* from where there is a view over the Gulf of Naples and where the lights at night from Naples like a string of pearl lights bordered all of Posilippo. Those were unforgettable walks.

Since 1920 I have been to Capri seven times and sometimes stayed half a year. When I went the last time 1954 and saw the whole misery I told myself that this is probably the last time I come here.

”Capri nowadays is a waste bin framed with diamonds” an old cultivated Italian put it lately, saddened by the degradation of the island. Of course nature can't be ruined but God save us from all these elderly foreign women who, wearing shorts and with flabby thighs like accordion bellows loaf around on the piazza and pay for a lover, usually an ex chauffeur or a fishing boy who has climbed in life with the help of the distasteful charity of these ladies. Finito signora. At least for those who have lived on Capri before World War I.

This is where I settled at the beginning of April 1920 and stayed well into August. On the island their were plenty of Italian artists who in those days could rent a villa for a few hundred lire a month. The Germans who formerly flooded Capri were now after World War I completely gone. Mostly Neapolitans lived there, oftentimes in splendid private villas.

During all week the island was peaceful, only on Saturdays some Neapolitans would come to stay over the weekend and on Sunday mornings ordinary people would show up and go home again with the evening ferry.

Early mornings were for swimming among the rocks down at Torre Saracena. After the siesta everybody was working until meeting again around eight on the piazza to look at the evening ferry from Naples make the harbor. Later during dinner one would usually sit at the terrace of Café Morgana in the warm starry sky night of the South, drinking coffee or wine.

This is where I wrote a collection of Italian novels during the summer. I called it ”Seducers” (Förförare) and I had already had a few ideas in Rome. The rest I picked up at Capri, for that was an island where strange things always took place.

When the book was finished I stayed a few weeks in Venice but my real goal, which I had aimed for all summer, was Sardinia.

Last night I dreamt

2009-10-21T15:25:00.003+02:00

that somebody had posted a comment on my blog.

Letters

2009-10-21T10:27:00.010+02:00

Today, having a boring cold, I am reading exciting copies of letters from the futurist Italo Tavolato to Ulla Bjerne. The copies were sent here from (thank you!) Åbo Akademi (the Swedish language university in Turku in Finland).

They were written either in Anacapri (!) or in Positano, between 1920 and 1923. One is from 1948.

This is a lot of fun. From what I've understood Tavolato was ”openly gay” but he seems to have wanted to marry Ulla and have her move to Capri. Maybe he saw the possibility of a marriage of convenience.

When you have a cold, should you really read exciting letters? I fear it won't help the recovery.

Italian Escapades, part 2

2009-10-20T18:01:00.010+02:00

As mentioned below, this story, taking place in 1920, was read by Ulla Bjerne on the Swedish language radio in Finland (YLE) in 1957. She was 67 years old, looking back at her life and she read in a colloquial manner, improvising, I should think, from a written script. (On the picture above, from 1920, she was 30 years.) This is part two out of six. Sorry, some links are in Swedish only.

- - -

Italian Escapades

One day I received a letter from Amelie Posse who asked me to pay a visit. I was good friends with her first husband Andreas Bjerre who had written Amelie and told her I was in Rome. In those days Amelie Posse lived in a big villa, or rather a small palace close to the St Peter's church. She had married för the second time with the Chech painter Brazda and they had two small boys who would always run around naked in the large garden.
Visiting Brazda you would enter a grand staircase through a small doorway on a tiny street and climb up several broad flights of stairs leading to another heavy door and not until treading through that one you would find yourself in a grand terrassed garden at the end of which lay the small palace and, further still, from its roof you had a lovely view of Rome. That's an anviable thing, having all of Rome spread out for one's eyes.
Over the years I went there several times and experienced their receptions with tons of small marquises and countesses who wanted to have their portraits painted by Bradzda. He was very fashionable there and in addition a most charming person. The hosts were lively and unaffected, everybody was having a good time and to amuse his guests Brazda would sometimes dance oriental dances swept in veils with clinking bracelets and golden bangles.
One day the Brazdas were going to Venice to look at lace-making and ceramics. Amelie asked if I wanted to stay in their villa in the meantime, to keep an eye on their children. To be sure, they had a sweet and young Swedish nursemaid but I suppose Amelie thought four eyes would be better than two.
I had just about settled in when I had what I myself thought was a brilliant idea. An occasion like this, when I for once had a whole palace to my disposition, had to be taken advantage of. Therefore I wrote an express letter to Gladys and invited her and our Italian gang to a party the following evening, at the Marquise Uljana's.
Brazdas young nursemaid was with me on the plan right away and was looking forward to seeing seven young Italians. But one thing was tricky with this whole operation and that was Amelie's Finnish kitchenmaid. She was a middle aged, grim and ill-tempered person who on the other hand cooked exquisite food. How was I going to make her accommodating and mild? For the party to happen she was simply necessary. Not only considering all the sandwiches that were to be prepared and the coffee that was to be served in the middle of the night, but also for the spirits which naturally were meant to get higher and higher with all the litres of wine I had ordered.
Then I had my second brilliant idea. I invited the kitchenmaid to the party, holding out to her the prospect of dancing with the artist boys. After this she took on the preparations with great promptitude. By nine o'clock in the evening I sat draped in Amelia's purple silk velvet cloak, with powdered hair and a string of pearls on my forehead, in a renaissance chair with a high back, right in the middle of the big lounge and received my guests with dignity.
The boys gazed at me. They didn't know what to believe. Did I really live here and was I maybe a marquise? The questions remained unanswered. And while the litres of wine poured down the throats the atmospere rose to exhilaration. I asked the boys, for heaven's sake, to court la cuoca, the kitchenmaid, and keep her spirits high, dance with her and preferably bring her out in the warm dark night onto the terrasses and kiss her deeply. Then I sat down by Amelia's grand piano and executed the dance music. Inbetween the dances the boys came up to me at the piano and reported laughing, ”Now I've kissed the maid!”
The three ladies, Gladys, the nurse- and the kitchenmaid danced until four in the morning when the night fog started to clear up and the sun anew rose over Rome. It was a succesful party and the kitchenmaid was delighted.
However, by now I thought I had sucked enough honey out of my Rome visit for this time and disappeared a day or so later with a train to Naples where I took a boat straight over to Capri.
And Capri in those days was the isle of bliss.
(To be continued)

Gated

2009-10-20T00:40:00.011+02:00

The Villa San Michele is surely one of the most beautiful places on earth, particularly if you like spectacular views.

It's definitely not the place to catch a cold, which I did the other day (possibly when getting up at 4 am to catch the first ferry to Naples).

We stay at la Foresteria, a secluded area of this complex on Capodimonte, at the foot of Monte Solaro.

Our house is right next to the former home of Axel Munthe, i e the Villa San Michele, parts of which you can see on the image above and which is the museum and the major reason why the alley below us, il Viale Axel Munthe, is cramped with herds of tourists all day, all heading for a tour of the house and the park, dramatically located overlooking Capri town halfway down to the sea level. The Tyrrhenian Sea level.

At la Foresteria guests like us, who have applied to profit from the generosity of Axel Munthe and the San Michele Foundation during three weeks, are housed in several small buildings forming a cluster of groups of different kinds of people from Sweden; mostly scientists, researchers, journalists, artists.

A few guests each year receive the special honorary scholarship and don't pay for their stay. The rest of us pay 250 kronor/person/night.

Everybody is working on something, quite a few on projects connected to either the villa or Italy.

And everybody is enjoying the silence, the walks, the food, the views.

Not many of us know Italian, J being one excellent exception.

Staying here is an exclusive experience no doubt and I can't help but feeling like I'm inside a gated community, the walls in this case however not protecting us from thieves and burglars but from nosy and confused tourists.

Italian Escapades, part 1

2009-10-19T23:39:00.012+02:00

This story, taking place in 1920, was read by Ulla Bjerne on the Swedish language radio in Finland (YLE) in 1957. She was 67 years old, looking back at her life and she read in a colloquial manner, improvising, I should think, from a written script. (On the picture above, from 1920, she was 30 years.)

I did the transcription and translation from Swedish. I have also split the text in six parts so as not to have anybody fall asleep.

- - -

Italian Escapades

I always believed in fate and still believe everything of importance that happened to me in life was predestined.

How could I expect that, when on New Year's Day 1920 I broke up from a stay of many years in Copenhagen och went to Italy, Destiny awaited me there. Please don't believe that it was in a banale way in the shape of some kind of Italian man popping up. No, it was all much more artful than that.

As my books sold well back then my publisher Olle Dahlberg had not been stingy but given me a check of 5 000 kronor. That was a lot of money back then, the krona was highly valued so one got 25 lire for five kronor. I remember it because all summer long I stayed at one of Capri's most distinguished hotels, La Palma, and paid five kronor for a full board. But first and foremost I was, naturally, in Italy to experience Rome, so upon arrival I rented a room in a private villa on Via Cristina, close to Piazza del Popolo on Monte Pincio.

Since I hadn't come to Italy as a tourist but to stay as long as possible I didn't tire myself with unnecessary visits to all kinds of museums, nor did I look at too many ruins. I let everything come to me in due time and as it happened. The main thing for me was to get started right away with my new life in Italy and experience its people. And I knew the language well enough after having taking Italian classes, so I managed, if poorly, to begin with.

Already on the train to Milan I met some young Italian officers who belonged to the Queen's regiment in Rome. They recommended their own restaurant on the via Nazionale. To get a cotoletta alla milanese or a spaghetti I would every day walk through the most busy streets of Rome. The traffic, compared to the noise and roaring lambrettas of today, seemed almost peaceful.

Among the officers there were cheerful and handsome fellows attired in light blue romantic uniforms and gold braid hats. As the only woman in the group I was properly appreciated but I soon learned that as a female type they didn't understand me at all.

When one of them on a daily basis started harassing me with rather base declarations of love I refrained from joining the circle of light blue cloaks and instead I met some Swedish painters who had come to Rome. They were Leander Engström, Einar Jolin and Ewald Dahlskog.

Also, Frank Heller hade found his way to Rome and he was falling in love with Danish Annie Krogh whom he later married. Incessantly, Danes, Norwegians and Swedes arrived who once a week met at the Circolo Scandinavo where they would chat and drink wine.

For a Scandinavian, the warm sunny Roman spring with a profusion of flowers and blue Chinese wistaria clinging over ancient front doors and garden walls was a seductive experience.

We would make excursions to Tivoli and Gianicolo and stroll around the old neighborhood Trastevere with its winding narrow alleys and old dilapitated palaces and churches. However, foremost in my memory live the Sunday outings with Gladys Heyman and a bunch of Italian young artists.

Beautiful Gladys, who later married the composer Gösta Nystroem, had already since long lived in Rome and studied sculpture. Because of this she knew some Italian artists and as I had come to Italy to meet the locals and not Scandinavians I was soon made part of her gang. Besides Gladys the company consisted of seven happy Italian youngsters and one of them I remember specifically, a giant painter, a gladiator type whose name was Del Neri.

Early Sunday mornings we met and wandered out to some village on the Roman campagna, had breakfast there and dozed off during the late hours in the shade of a tree.

Our merry picnics usually ended at some small trattoria close to via Margutta where we had grilled lamb roast with a tasty and inexpensive wine.

They were very childish those Italians, keen on pranks and larks.

(To be continued)

Almost there

2009-10-19T19:42:00.003+02:00

This was a very big overcoming-vertigo-moment for J. He also got great pictures of the villa. And wouldn't you know it, my battery gave up right about here. Maybe I'll go back one day.

2009-10-19T19:40:00.001+02:00

Hey, I got my first glimpse. See the rooftop between the trees?

Approaching Casa Malaparte

2009-10-19T19:24:00.004+02:00

This is on a scarry off-beat path that ends up in front of a locked gate. It did not look particularly inviting.

Walking towards Casa Malaparte

2009-10-19T19:18:00.012+02:00

The walkway to Casa Malaparte, passing Grotta di Matermània. How close would we be able to get?

Manifesto for the beauty of Capri

2009-10-18T17:43:00.010+02:00

In Naples I found the book ”Capri Futurista” with this manifesto, written by Italo Tavolato. The manifesto was presented at Il Convegno del Paessagio (The landscape meeting) on Capri in 1922, when building traditions and architecture on the island were discussed.

After this convention it was decided that the traditional ways of building were to remain on the island. The Futurist ways were not approved.

The manifesto doesn't appear particularly futurist in its defending ”of our ancient tradition” ”against the insults of materialistic modernity”. I could use some expert knowledge on this. Anyone..?

Now I would like to know how Tavolato presented his text. Sometimes the futurists would present their arguments in theatrical form.

(I would also like to know more about Tavolato's relation to Ulla Bjerne and what happened when they met on Capri in 1920. I just received a big letter from Åbo Akademi with copies of his letters to her! More soon.)

- - -

MANIFESTO FOR THE BEAUTY OF CAPRI

(Translation from Italian by Johan Kilander)

With graceful easiness, the island rises out of the ancient sea, reaching with agitated plastic forces for the confidential proximities of the sun. Formed out of the poetics of dreams, Capri stages silently on the halcyonic Tyrrhenian. Beauty is the prize of its perfection: on its serene shores birth is given over and over again to the myth of the sun, the pagan soul, the idea of the south.

As love and art, so beauty is sacred while it illuminates the essence of things. In other places, in countries desolated and without grace, the creative forces of nature display themselves in titanic violence or in barbaric individualistic shivers of forms. In the land of the Sirens, though, the formations truthfully portray the essential images and harmonies established by the creator, far away from the transitional, accidental and imperfect, realisations. Here nature doesn’t involve in experiments, but it reveals to us the completed work, the Opus Dei. Favoured by the principle of ingenuous limitation of initiative, the beauty of the south concentrates itself in some typical motives, hence, for instance, the hill of Tuoro replicates the formal aspects of Vesuvio, the mount Solaro those of mount Pellegrino in Palermo, the Faraglioni at Capri the Sicilian Faraglioni. The conformity and the concordance of forms generate a perfect harmony where the occasional particularity serves the dominant effect of the whole.

[…]

The musical harmony of nature’s formations induces serenity in the spirit of the meridional people. Of the same divine substance are both man and things made. Under the meridional sun, all nature’s creations, men and stones and works, share the same somatic sense.

In the architecture of the villages of the island, the thought of the archaic giant Thales, to whom even the stone were alive, becomes visible. Pondering in the dream, although manifest, are these cubic houses, inserted in the sweet movement of vale and hill. Those grew, concrete and together, as the likes of vegetal creations. As the Doric column expresses to perfection the proportions of the human body, these huts turn into organic structures and body parts. Here even architecture has corporality, and it’s a genuine manifestation of the sense of vitality.

With harmony of the substances achieved the senses make themselves organs of the thought: the meridional beauty gives us access to the sensual knowledge of the spirit.

Today more then ever, it’s all about defending this beauty, the core of our ancient tradition and that which makes us susceptible to humanitas, against the insults of materialistic modernity, mechanical and industrial.

Döderhamn

2009-10-18T11:08:00.013+02:00

When Ulla Bjerne died in 1969, her and Léon's home (link in Swedish only) in Lovisa was donated to the Society of Swedish Authors in Finland (Finlands svenska författareförening). Finnish authors or poets who write in Swedish can apply for a grant to stay there with no rent for three years.

On the picture above from 1940 Ulla is standing in her and Léon's home next to a 1918 painting by Einar Jolin. The legendary Danish silent movies actor Nils Asther is knealing at her feet so it's probably painted in Copenhagen. Ulla smokes the pipe like in many other pictures of her.

At Åbo Akademi in Turku (Finland) I have gone through Ulla Bjerne's archives of letters and manuscripts on several occasions, always kindly assisted by the people working there. The collection has been a treasure for me, offering new directions in my research, for instance leading me to Capri to learn more about Ulla's visits here, specifically about her friendship with the Italian author Italo Tavolato, who I just recently learned was part of the Futurist movement.

Oh, and I've been to Söderhamn a number of times. That's where we have our common roots, where my grand grandfather and Ulla's father, who were brothers, lived.

Söderhamn is also where Ulla grew up. She called the small town Döderhamn (pun in Swedish; Söderhamn means ”South harbor” but if you change to Döderhamn the name becomes ”Death harbor”).

La garçonne från Söderhamn

2009-10-18T11:07:00.010+02:00

If the modernist movement in Sweden and Finland during the first two decades of the 20th century were a film, Ulla Bjerne would have been an extra in it. And an important one. She would appear in a good number of scenes as she seems to have known everyone who played a significant role in the arts and letters, particularly within the avantgarde. (But extra is not the right word here, extras are silent. Ulla Bjerne was never silent.)

She was good friends with, and sometimes had romantic relationships with, the following Swedish arts and letters giants. Evert Taube, Nils Dardel, GAN (Gösta Adrian-Nilsson - one of Sweden's most prolific pioneers and most sought after within the gay community; he was an expressionist, a futurist, a cubist and finally a surrealist!), Isaac Grünewald, Einar Jolin,Leander Engström, Frans G Bengtsson.

And many more, also later on in Finland.

”The life and work of Ulla Bjerne” has been my on-again off-again hobby for more than a decade.

One day I will present a film or a book about her fascinating personality. (There is manuscript but there is no time.)

I have, I believe, the largest collection of her books. (Easy, I would imagine nobody else collects them.) Rivaled only by the library in her home in Lovisa by the Gulf of Finland.

I have travelled in Ulla's footsteps in Copenhagen, Paris and elsewhere in France where she spent a good deal of the 1910's and 20's.

Also, I have visited places and people in Finland where she 1921 became Ulla (Bjerne-)Biaudet when she married the Léon Biaudet, a physician of local prominence, and came to be involved in the litterary circles of modernist Swedish-speaking Finland.

Arco Naturale

2009-10-16T19:30:00.003+02:00

Thursday bride

2009-10-16T00:47:00.006+02:00

This is what was left after yesterday's Capri town bride showed up in an alley, right next to where Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Lenin planned the Russian revolution back in the first decade of the 1900's.

The bride was greeted by her friends and family who all threw sugar-coated almonds, rice and, as it appears, plates at her.

I heard the plate break but it was too crowded to see anything. I'm not sure breaking of plates is part of the tradition?

The almonds looked kind of yummy but I couldn't pick them up could I?

Linguistici

2009-10-16T00:22:00.020+02:00

I sometimes think Italian sounds like the ee-language.

Let me try to explain, however I'm not sure this translates.

In Swedish, ”the ee-language” (i-språket, link in Swedish only), is a sort of language game, a play with words. Every vowel in every word is replaced by the letter i, in Swedish always pronounced ”ee”.

If Eey treeyd tee eempleey this reele in English it widd be keempletely inceempreheensible.

It's hard, maybe not possible to do this in a language like English with lots of diphthongs. I believe most languages have diphthongs, Swedish has none (almost).

I saw a sign today in Capri town, it said ”Intimissimi” (a boutique for underwear, ”the most intimate”).

Also the headline above, Linguistici (=”linguistically” in plural) sound like the ee-language (even though, ok all linguists reading this, there is a diphthong in gui).

Another example, instructions on our toiletseat: ”non gettare gli absorbenti igienici nei W.C.”.

I love that word, igienici. It's completely ee-language.

The other night we were invited, like all guests at the Villa San Michele, to join the director Peter Cottino to the regular Wednesday meeting, where new guests are introduced to the ways of this impressive institution, the San Michele Foundation.

If you're a newcomer, you are to present yourself in a few words.

At situations like this, when you're new and uncertain how things work, who isn't a little bit nervous? I couldn't help but toy with the idea of introducing myself in the ee-language.

- - -

Sorry, in Swedish only:

Hij, jig hitir Lirs Fihri ich jig ir grifisk firmgiviri ich liriri pi Bickmins Disignhigskili. Jig irbitir mid in idig ginski birtglimd firfittiri, Illi Bjirni sim livdi millin 1890 ich 1969.”

- - -

It may not surprise you that I didn't. (I think that had I done it, it would possibly have amused Ulla Bjerne, who was a bit of a prankster.)

Every Wednesday one guest has offered to present his or her work. This time, Anders Fahlbeck, a former assistent to Josef Oliv's, a legendary director of the institution, talked about his research on guests at the villa during the 1950's and 60's.

It was a very interesting talk and afterwards some of us had dinner at da Gemma, an institution in itself in Capri town.

Beautiful detail, Anders met his wife Åsa, also present, on Capri 1960, when she was working at the Swedish solar station then run by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Monter et descendre

2009-10-15T23:42:00.008+02:00

We climbed mountains today.

Walking up Monte Solaro in Anacapri in the early morning was easy, it was going down on the other side, through Il Passetiello towards Capri that presented some difficulties.

I could have used some gotes hooves when descending the Passo del Passetielo. I kept thinking to myself, I should continue, it can't be that bad, people have walked here for thousands of years.

Well, it was bad and I may not be able to move out of bed tomorrow.

The problem with us 40somethings is we don't understand we're not young anymore.

I love it!

Faraglioni

2009-10-15T23:17:00.007+02:00

There is another lookout spot some 100 meters from the Belvedere. Here you can see Capri's famous Faraglioni on the southeast corner of the island.

The Lighthouse at Punto di Carena

2009-10-15T22:44:00.001+02:00

Belvedere di Migliera

2009-10-15T22:43:00.000+02:00

Dwarfs and Gnomes

2009-10-15T22:34:00.004+02:00

At the far end of La Migliera, only a few hundred meters before the Belvedere, there is a curious open-air-installation - il parco filosofico, Capri Philosophical Park - an outdoor exhibition displaying handpainted quotes on tiles from the foremost western world philosophers of all times. The park, initiated and run by Swedish philosopher Gunnar Adler-Karlsson (sorry link only in Swedish and - Portuguese!) is not so attractive I'm afraid, it could use some looking after.

The image above is not from the philosophical park, I just wish it was.

However, this group of Snow White and the dwarfs are also found right next to La Milgiera.

Views

2009-10-15T22:14:00.007+02:00

La Migliera runs where the ancient Roman road went, from Capodimonte, where ”our dear home” San Michele is, and the Phoenician stairway ends (or starts, depending on where you begin. By the way, Phoenician is not correct, the Greeks or the Romans built it).

Walking towards Belvedere, in love, at dusk, is ideal for romantic sunsets in front of you, views of Ischia to your right.

Mille grazie

2009-10-15T21:49:00.005+02:00

A good start to get to know Anacapri is to walk the narrow pathway - La Migliera - leading all the way from the town square, right where the chair lift starts, to a magnificent viewpoint, Belvedere di Migliera, from where you can see the lighthouse, il faro, at Punta Carena, the southwestern tip of the island.

Work/play

2009-10-14T16:35:00.001+02:00

What should be my focus on this island?

Befores and afters

2009-10-14T12:27:00.027+02:00

When the grated chocolate from Gay Odin in Naples was magically removed from our fruit sallad of last night - oh just a simple thing made from one peach, one banana, one plum and a handful of grapes - I had the same feeling American artist Charles Caryl Coleman must have had when his favourite motif was, literally, blown away.

Coleman built the Villa Narcissus and was one of many eccentrics on this island at the beginning of last century. (Apparently the eccentrics have been replaced by people rich with money, not talent, nor folly.)

On his 81st birthday he was dancing the tarantella in a ”blue velvet dinner jacket with his snowy curls and beard shining in the candle-light ... his long thin legs flying.” That must have been 1921. I'll try to do the same thing 2046.

Now almost completely forgotten in the US and Europe, Coleman's work was once sought after. His paintings appealed to various tastes: classical, romantic, commercial, and popular. He seems to have done it all.

When his classical work fell out of popular demand he discovered his grand motif, looking out on the Bay of Naples from his narcissistic villa. There it was: Vesuvius.

Coleman was again prosperous and sold paintings of the furious volcano en masse.

Until April 7, 1906.

That day Vesuvius erupted, and, apart from destroying substantial parts of Naples, ruined Coleman's motif.

The volcano had lost its famous cap, and the attration of the image was gone for Charles Caryl and most of his costumers. Coleman stopped painting.

So now you know how I feel about chocolate being removed from my fruit sallad.

2009-10-14T10:30:00.005+02:00

The Villa San Michele is on top of the island of Capri, just outside Anacapri, at the end of the impossibly vertiginous 777-step Phoenician stairs, the ancient walk from the Marina grande.

We are here now, enjoying the views and the hospitality of the San Michele Foundation.

One of us suffers from vertigo.

La messa è finita, andate in pace.

2009-10-13T13:53:00.014+02:00

Spending ”a few hours” in a city can present the most cherished moments. Walking on Spaccanapoli, one of the oldest streets in Naples, on a sunny Sunday morning I would suppose is lovely during any season.

The masses were being finished when we entered Santa Chiara and Il Gesù Nuovo after climbing narrow alleys from around Corso Umberto. A group of priests hurried by in the New Jesus, one of them, the youngest, wearing jeans and sneakers under his robe.

Confessions were taking place left and right, the sinners sitting outside the booths, priest inside.

We bought wild strawberry eclairs at Scaturchio on Piazza San Domenico Maggiore before checking out from the hotel to finally take the boat to Capri.

Just reading those words makes my day: Piazza San Domenico Maggiore.

Hotel Nobody

2009-10-13T11:18:00.010+02:00

Naples train station and the Piazza Garibaldi have bad reputations for ripping off and mugging tourists. I wouldn't recommend anyone inclined to listen to warnings about the dangers of this city to arrive by train on a Saturday night. It is a l i t t l e bit scary (I could hardly breathe), but we made it safely to the dark alley of Hotel Nessuno, sorry Nettuno.

Yes, we even tipped the cab driver in spite of his overcharging. ”Thank you so much for not stabbing us” I wanted so say in Italian, but I need to brush up the language better first.

Saturday October 10. Bologna - Naples: 4.25 pm – 8.46 pm

2009-10-12T22:28:00.017+02:00

The track hosts, or should I say the train stewards, of the Eurostar Italia, were ridculously arrogant on our route, half sleepingly handing out half empty glasses of water.

Everything about this modern train, at first sight similar to the Shinkansen trains in Japan, is annoying, except maybe for the Space: 1999 inspired sliding doors. (The series was called Månbas Alpha in Swedish).

Holding your hands under the super modern faucets in the pee and poo area (that's bathroom for Americans) was a joke. When hands were put in place to get the water running, the water stopped; hands removed, the water began pouring again, ever so irritatingly.

Try that exercise ten times and you are about to use extra foul Italian language.

No paper towels, no hand dryer working. Toiletpaper (would that be bathroom paper in American English?) the impossibly thin kind (favoured by Americans and, I'm sure, many other nationalities) that tears to pieces of moist dust as soon as you touch them with wet hands.

More inspiring was looking out the window, spotting Guiseppe Tornatore children playing soccer in the continous flow of cities and towns so unlike the Swedish countryside.

Next to us a tourist family with the Top 10 Florence & Tuscany guide book. I have nothing against handy tourist guides per se, but the woman looks so miserable I fear that she is suffering from a facial paralysis if not a very severe case of cultural shock.

This train is frequented by heaps of tourists, primarily Western nationalitites. The restaurant has a full menu and we went for primi piatti (pasta etc), secondi piatti (vitello tonato), contorni (the tomatoes!) and dolci (torta di albicocca; apricots are in season). Too bad the Swedish krona is so weak: almost 11 to the Euro.

Saturday October 10. Munich - Bologna: 9.31 am – 4.11 pm

2009-10-12T13:29:00.014+02:00

But then who needs fancy?

The six seat compartment taking us from Munich to Bologna brings back memories of the beauty of temporary and casual train acquaintances. How often do you lean over and strike up a conversation with your next seat passenger in a modern train?

We are instantly thrown into a six hour chat with a lovely and handsome couple: Frank and Marion Abbott from Cambridge in England, on their way to Bologna for a four day vacation.

We all appreciate the walls of mountains, the Alps on display through the train windows.

As always when I talk to British people I am self conscious because of my American accent which sometimes sounds banal and sloppy.

I mean, I love American English, I also love quite a few Americans!, it's just that the accent can be too much of everything every now and then, as I will show in a fresh exampel here soon.

2009-10-12T13:00:00.005+02:00

Well, we made it in time to Munich without losing neither bags nor wits.

And this fancy Trenitalia train brought us from Germany to Italy. (The one to the right.)

Friday - Saturday October 9 – 10. Copenhagen - Munich: 6.53 pm – 8.57 am

2009-10-12T12:56:00.009+02:00

How bizarr to ride the night train. You walk into a room on wheels, for instance in your home town, sleep one night and then wake up and walk out into another country.

At least that's how it should be.

Our sleeper from Copenhagen was delayed one hour because of two incidents. An accident on the tracks, supposedly involving a person, first stops it outside Odense. Then at 2.30 am everybody on the train is woken up by the conductor announcing in the loudspeakers, with the voice of an official who doesn't know what to do, that there is a passenger with an epileptic seizure on board and could somebody, preferably a physician please help?

As we won't make it in time to catch our connecting train from Munich we are woken up again, kindly this time, a few hours later and asked to get off the train in Nürnberg and catch a fast regional train from there.

Do you know the feeling of severe panic that strikes when you travel with too many pieces of luggage and you need to count them continously? I know that feeling, it often returns right when I have stepped off a train and the train sets off again.

Four bags is not to be recommended. If one is on your back, where are the other three? And is the one on your back really on your back?

The Glyptotek in Copenhagen

2009-10-12T00:15:00.010+02:00

If you ever have three hours in Copenhagen (and you've seen Tivoli before) may I suggest you go to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and look at 2000 year old dudes and chicks?

Malmö-Copenhagen

2009-10-12T00:03:00.003+02:00

Friday October 9. Stockholm - Copenhagen: 10.21 am – 3.31 pm

2009-10-09T14:03:00.013+02:00

Well hello euphoria.

This may well be the most beautiful departure I've ever had from a train station. The sun was shining, the departure platform at Stockholm Central was number 10 (no running in stairs), the Espresso House coffee was decently brewed - not too strong - and, all of a sudden and most beautifully, the subject of my blog changed from I to we.

It may well be an offense to our dearly beloved Scandinavian Jantelag to mention that we are traveling with the InterRail (Eurail) Première Classe but this whole venture is meant to be a celebration so, so be it.

Was it Andy Warhol - or maybe more likely Bob Colacello - who claimed something like ”if you need to put it down on a paper, it's not worth remembering”?

I am (oops, back to myself again) constantly scribbling notes so this will end up a big pile of trivia, just the way I like it.

And speaking of which, did you notice that, apart from the horrible nausea caused by the X2000 trains, the conductors of SJ have quite an undignified way of checking your ticket? All they do is make a blue ball pen check on it. So boring and unconductorlike.

Where's the special ticket clipper? Hopefully still down in Europe.

But who uses paper tickets anymore? Forse only nostalgic InterRail travellers.

Disclaimer

2009-10-08T14:36:00.008+02:00

Much inspired by Hjärta Smärta, Carl Fredrik Holtermann, and Emi Gunér I am writing this blog for several reasons:

As a decennial celebration of running my own business.

For show and inspiration.

Because it's darn fun to write and translate.

WARNING!

I'll be using Wikipedia a lot. Even though as a source it's not flawless, it sure is fast.

Like all social media, my blog, as any other, is a sort of cry for help, but then isn't all communication?

Debut

2009-10-08T13:39:00.008+02:00

Ulla Bjerne's debut novel from 1916 was, significantly, called My Other Self (Mitt andra jag).

The main character, the sculptress Nora, is hosting the wildest and most bizarre gang in Montparnasse when she is not traveling listlessly around Europe's metropole's during World War I, trying to find meaning and a place for her split (sexual) identity.

The book opens (my translation):

I had a letter from Uncle Jacob today. It was short but to the point. I am hereby sending money for your return trip. You have no reason to stay in France during the war.

During this same period Ulla Bjerne was herself sent home to Sweden from Barcelona by the Swedish counsellor of legation. Her unescorted visits to cafés and bullfights were simply not acceptable.

She was fictionalizing her own life when she wrote:

-No, a Spanish woman mustn't sit alone in a café, the old senora tells her smiling. And she adds:

-Aren't you being stared at?

-You bet! the other day there was a long line out on the street, all of them gaping at me so that the waiter had to wave his handkerchief to pass the crowd.

In Ulla Bjerne's writing it's easy to find gay themes and characters, but never explicit ones. My conviction nonetheless is that she was bisexual (and that she would find it extremely tacky to have anybody comment on that or use that word.)

Obviously, like any other true bohemian in those days, Ulla Bjerne went to Capri. This, among other things, I will try to learn more about in the coming weeks.

Ulla Bjerne

2009-10-05T22:49:00.013+02:00

The author Ulla Bjerne was an eccentric in her own right, less extravagantly so than Luisa Casati Stampa (below), however visually striking and controversial as she would favour men's clothing, smoke a pipe and look like a garçonne a decade before the style was popularized in the 20's.

She wrote some 30 books between 1916 and 1958, all of them dealing with the same theme: a woman's (or a man's) right to choose her (or his) own way of living. There is a constant stream of gender playfulness and provocation in her texts

Above is her portrait painted by Swedish artist Isaac Grünewald 1916. This painting was the first modernist acquisition by the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and caused an uproar among conservative art lovers. (The painting is now part of the Moderna museet collection.)

Luisa Casati Stampa

2009-10-05T21:43:00.011+02:00

A portrait by Man Ray of La Marchesa Luisa Casati Stampa, taken at the Hotel Ritz in Paris and said to be one of the most important surrealist images.

La Marchesa rented Munthe's Villa San Michele between 1912 and 1927, much to his annoyance and wonder it seems.

Sometimes referred to as the only female futurist - even though the futurists were overtly antifeminist - the Duchess was perfectly eccentric, walking pet leopards and monkeys at dinner parties all over Europe, possibly once sporting a tiny snake as a necklace.

I love the idea that her paths may have been crossed by my grandmother's cousin Ulla Bjerne (1890–1969) at the Capri town square around 1920.

Here is my kind of poetry.

2009-10-05T10:31:00.009+02:00

Friday Oct 9

Stockholm - Copenhagen: 10.21 am – 3.31 pm

Copenhagen - Munich: 6.53 pm – 8.57 am

Saturday Oct 10

Munich - Bologna: 9.31 am – 4.11 pm

Bologna - Naples: 4.25 pm – 8.46 pm

Sunday Oct 11

Naples - Capri: around noon. I think.

What is this thing called blog?

2009-10-05T00:33:00.008+02:00

Blog is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment.

Also, it demands quite a lot of editing.

The Fuhre Design office in Gothenburg

2009-09-28T10:13:00.003+02:00

has now closed.

Fuhre Design is setting up office in Gothenburg.

2009-09-26T12:30:00.015+02:00

If you walk past the food market on Kungstorget in Gothenburg today, which I expect a good number of my English speaking friends will, be sure to take a look at the big Hotel Avalon window opposite the yellow brick building ((the Saluhall). Inside, in a comfortable jean blue armchair, I have found a perfect space for the Gothenburg branch of Fuhre Design.

Today I'm wearing my dreamy look, sipping Thé vert à la menthe Nanah, watching people minding their Saturday shopping business. (Oh, The Marching Show Band of Göteborg just waddled by.)

I was born to stay at hotels. My father, grandfater and grand grandfather all ran stadshotell along the Norrland coast.

For sure I will miss the waterfall shower and the Kusmi tea bags of this place. I won't miss the ambient music or the over designed decoration. (Isn't good old muzak grossly underrated these days?)

2009-09-26T11:06:00.007+02:00

I never would have guessed this was in Gothenburg. Very handsome building, on Avenyn at that.

2009-09-25T18:11:00.015+02:00

Four highlights in Gothenburg today:

1. Mikael Olsson's exhibition Södrakull Frösakull at the Hasselblad Foundation. Mikael gave a guided tour for a small group and it's a fine show. I am very much looking forward to the book.

2. Delicious lunch with generous printers Fälth & Hässler at the book fair.

3. Listening to Martina Lowden (above) interviewing Annelie Jordahl about the book telling the story of Ellen Key's love affairs. Lowden, of course, is the greatest genious of the three.

4. Buying the new Swedish Academy dictionnary of the Swedish language in two volumes.

I should possibly reverse the order here, placing #4 as #1 because of the much appreciated etymology included in the book of words..

2009-09-25T17:50:00.007+02:00

Göteborg really makes me happy though. It's always refreshing, being from the Swedish eastcoast, to come to the westcoast and see all the different kinds of brick. Too few brick buildings in Stockholm if you ask me.

Eerie design hotels.

2009-09-25T10:35:00.015+02:00

Here I am, a graphic designer at a design hotel, hating design.

Why is it that every time I walk down the corridor on my floor, at a certain spot, this ”sprinkling” kind of music is heard? The sound is triggered by people passing and it's like the sort of jingle that would be used inbetween the different entries of the Swedish heats of the Eurovision Song Contest, about when the artists stop and make funny faces to the camera, saying we-don't-really-take-this-so-seriously.

Also, for the first time ever I could use a desk in my room but it's been designed away and replaced by an unsteady round design table with three silly legs.

Ouverture

2009-09-24T12:27:00.006+02:00

An enchanting soundtrack for walking the streets of Gothenburg towards the International Book Fair today would be the Ouverture to Leonard Bernstein's Candide. In fact, this should be the theme for my upcoming Italian adventure.

Drink me.

2009-09-22T16:48:00.026+02:00

I am curious to see what coffee culture will be like in Italy where, I've been told, it's absolutely verboten to have a cappucino after morning hours.

Only recently I started drinking coffee regularly, at the advice of my good American (but not Oregonian) friend Douglas who a few years ago suggested I try latte macchiato. I have since been addicted to this sorry excuse for a regular coffee.

I realize I jumped on the coffee train very late and caffeine culture was way beyond its peak.

All the same, a latte macchiato, as we all know, is a bland version of a regular latte, already considered bland among coffee aficionados. Most cafés (in Stockholm) prepare it with a single shot of espresso and I'm ok with that even though quite often it gets way too strong for my delicate palate.

I like it bland. In Swedish we have a word for it: mescafé. (I'm afraid I would have to translate that one with pussy coffee.)

And in Sweden there is still big confusion concerning the definition of latte macchiato (as opposed to caffè macchiato or espresso macchiato). Quite a few times I've met the response "there is no such thing" or, worse, I've been offered the regular macchiato, strong as hell. Inferno.

Well it so happens the origin of this kind of coffee, of course, is Italian. It literally means maculate(d) milk. A few drops of coffee stains the innocent white milk.

Immaculate milk would be fun to order instead of a regular glass in a restaurant. That would be latte immacolato in Italian I suppose. Per favore.

Last time I visited Italy I wasn't really a coffee drinker. I am not expecting the Italian coffee culture to have changed one bit. Things you eat and drink seem, luckily, to stay the same in Italy.

However, I am not expecting good coffee - my style - either.

My favourite kind of coffee would be found at Stumptown in Portland, Oregon. (Incidentally, the main reason why I am writing this blog in English, is so that my Oregonian friends will be able to read it, bless their hearts if they do.)

Power, corruption and veline.

2009-09-17T00:08:00.022+02:00

Only a few minutes into Videocracy by Erik Gandini I had the same feeling as I had a few minutes into Gomorra: I don't want to go to Italy anymore.

Why would anyone want to visit and support such a silly nation?

However, just like after leaving Gomorra, the sad feeling was soon gone. My romantic notion of ancient as well as contemporary Italy is too strong to seriously question my own going there.

Yet these films present a new image of what only a few decades ago was considered a much more innocent and sympathetic nation, albeit corrupt.

Even more disturbing than the corruption however is the poor choreography of the veline.

Why do so many Italian women covet the position as dancing hostesses in the tv-show Striscia la notizia? (I suppose any day now the new pair is to be announced, as this is done in September every year.)

Italian tv culture: puzzling.

Curiously, when watching Videocracy I kept thinking about a very different kind of movie: Brüno. They are both sad comedies, Videocracy less intentionally so. Gomorra doesn't make you laugh.

Leaving in less than a month.

2009-09-14T17:53:00.011+02:00

Two pictures from my last (first) visit to the Sorrento peninsula and Capri in 2005. This was in November. The marble sculptures at the Villa Cimbrone were wrapped in plastic and the Mediterranean was completely swimmable still. I expect October to be even more of everything.