As originally posted on ndreas.eu. Now also in its full here for the WA community.
We’ve had a very good time. Seven days in the sun of Crete with a lovely apartment in Kalamaki run by a friendly guy named Giannis as our base camp. We’ve had good meals together at different restaurants almost every night and the kids have gone to sleep tired and happy. One week was perfect, one more would have acquired more activities. And the heat, oh my, I’m not built for that. It’s making me tired. But the kids loved it.
It feels good to make notes, write small stories from everyday life or whatever. I like doing it here at Write.as, a neat corner of the Internet.
I’m also here:
Tiden går så fort numera. Det går att överblicka ett år i taget. Hösten kommer snart och till en början kommer den att vara helger på landet och sedan mörk och stressig inför julen som plötsligt är nu. Vintern lång, kanske med några helgen med skidåkning och en evig slaskperiod med TV-serier och läxor och svåra saker på jobbet. Sedan kommer våren. Först smyger den sig på. Sedan ska semester önskas och så blir det maj och sjukt mycket att göra på alla fronter och så är det skolavslutning och midsommar och så är vi här de sista dagarna i juli och allt går mot slutet igen.
Dagdrömmarna var mindre intensiva den här sommaren.
Some years ago a friend lend me a copy of the novel The last good kiss by James Crumley. It came out the same year I was born, 1978, and I had never heard of it before. The copy was in Swedish and quite new, published by Modernista, a company known for translating American classics or more niched hits.
I really like The last good kiss. It’s what you could call a hard boiled crime novel, but unordinary and well written. Dark and funny.
I recently found out, hadn’t bother to look it up before, that Crumley wrote a couple of other novels. I’ve gotten hold of one them: Dancing Bear. It was published in 1983 and the paper back copy I bought online from a second hand bookstore called Bokbörsen.
It’s a thriller too. A middle aged man who fought in the Korean War is working as a security guy. He’s bored and poor and is trying to stay out of trouble, but one day he gets an odd offer he can’t refuse. An old lady, who used to date his now dead father, wants to hire him to find out why a man and a woman are having a rendezvous in the park next to her house once a week, the one of them driving different cars every time. She just wants to know what that’s all about. Then all turns hell.
I like it so far. Crumley is fun reading. He’s got style.
Lagade snabb middag och läste ett reportage om tv-serien Upp till kamp i Filter. Satt kvar vid köksbordet efter att tonårssonen hade gått och fann att jag faktiskt öppnat pappersmagasinet som kommit med posten och därefter läst en lång text från början till slut. Jag gillade ingressen särskilt.
Och starten på brödtexten är genialisk i sin enkelhet. Ingen upprepning här inte, bara pang på.
Manusförfattaren Peter Birro:
Sedan kommer ett citat om Francis Ford Coppola och sedan är vi igång.
Det är måndag morgon i slutet av juli och jag promenerar längs vattnet till jobbet. Det är inte många ute. Det var ovanligt få på gymmet också. Men en av varjedagkillarna var där. Vi noterade varandra.
Försöker komma i nyhetsläge genom att lyssna på P4 Stockholm men nej, jag tycker inte att det är bra. Efter en låt jag kunde varit utan kom ett inslag med intervjuer med folk ute stan som fick prata om hur det var att se Duplantis ta världsrekord.
Have you read Karl-Ove Knausgård? He is the Norwegian author behind the series My struggle📕 in six parts. I am now on part five and I love every piece of it. He’s writing autobiographical about his own life from young boy to a grown man. It’s honest and utterly personal.
Like a personal blog you may think.
Well, when he does it it’s literature.
I wish I could write like that.
The latest two days has been an exposé over February as it's worst. Damp, cold and colorless.
The snow can come back. It can make a comeback as late as in March/April but I prefer snow now. In January and February my mind is set to winter. In March and April all senses are longing for the spring, when the grass, the leaves and the flowers are coming back to life and give us all joy with their scent and colors.
Writing this I'm at home in my little office corner in the bedroom. I have an online course to take, it's more like a conference actually, and therefore I skipped coming in to the office at work. Wish you a pleasant Tuesday.
Life’s returning, coming back to normal. I’ve been working at the office all week and yesterday the most of my team was in too. Our office is undergoing a remake. As so many employers and companies are doing right now, desks are being taken away giving room for other kinds of work spaces.
A new thing in our office. Silent hubs for two people.
After work yesterday me and my wife went to a restaurant. We didn’t have a reservation (hate that you need to make reservations for almost everything) but we were out early and got lucky. We went to Urban Deli and had good beer but not that good food. They’ve changed their deal and are now doing that small dishes concept were you have to order four or five different ones to get satisfied. I like tapas. This I didn’t like. But the place is nice.
We had our table for just one hour so we went to another place after that. My wife took me to a new restaurant built in an old library. The book shelves were still there. We had a negroni and had a good time. Back home our kids were watching movies and hanging around with a friend.
Late February Swedish school children have a week off. It’s called sportlov, sports holiday, and was established in the 40’s as a way of saving heating oil in schools. That purpose was combined with different kinds of outdoor activities.
Sportlov today is not a week when most kids play outside. On the contrary, it’s a week when many kids stay inside hanging around with phones. I wish I could take a week off and go to a ski resort in the north. But doing that during the sportlov is not cheap. I also have to work. My wife also. So what is the kids supposed to do? Well, trying to figure that out is a tradition as mush as sportlov itself.
A new thing in our office. Silent hubs for two people.