---

What I learn about Munch, as I meander through his museum, is that he wasn’t the happiest of people. The paintings and sketches and woodblock prints suggest as munch (HA! You wondered when I would get that pun in. Sooner better than later, I say. Now we can get on with the serious business of dissecting—if not flailing—the artiste.).

About this I won’t complain, though: admission to the Munch Museum is free(!), which means that it costs nothing to wallow in the man’s self-absorption. And, in case the audience is too daft to catch the drift, there is a placard midway through the serpentine gallery with a quote from the master saying so. It is almost as if the guy was seated at dinner with Shiho and me the night before, answering questions about art. Ultimately he responds: “. . . art grows from joy and sorrow. But mostly sorrow.”

Then Shiho would turn to me (or more likely I to her) and say: “this guy sounds like he grew up with Woody Allen. You don’t know whether you are laughing because he is so damned pessimistic or because he is so darned right!”

Whatever the case, he is definitely earnest in his convictions. For in the feature-length film that plays in an endless loop in the darkened theater (barren, but with capacity to accommodate 200) in the basement, the narration trumpets the same motif. Reading from his diaries, Munch’s voice-over intones: “I inherited two things from my family: tuberculosis and mental illness.”

Not a very promising combination, even under the best of circumstances.

Not to mention that the guy spent most of his winters in Norway.

(continue...)

—tjmHolden

---

“What does one do in Oslo in March?” I asked Shiho, a 34 year-old doctoral student far, far from home. Home, it turns out, is the same place I now hail from, so in the unfolding scheme of things, it turned out that Shiho and I have a number of people and places in common. A lot to talk about, we remark. And although it provides a starting point, it quickly transforms into disingenuousness, as we mutually utter breathy “I can’t believe the luck” sentiments each time the conversation wanes.

The truth of the matter is that in this global age, the “gee wiz, it’s-a-small-world” angle has been worn nearly to the nub. With each passing day, as the networks accrete and the opportunities amass, all those degrees of separation are winnowing.

That said, it is somewhat of a coincidence worthy of comment that Shiho has selected to leave our mutual hometown and come all the way to Oslo to work on an area of research that I also dabble in—gender in sports. It is probably an irony worthy of observation that we’ve never bumped into one another pursuing this common passion before.

Now, in a bustling restaurant in Oslo, where the beers go for 8 bucks a pop, we have.

(continue...)

—tjmHolden

---

Yuko Uchima is a long way from home. Originally from Okinawa, Yuko is now in Oslo – by way of Akita, a medium-sized city in Northern Japan. I bring Yuko up, in association with this trip to Norway, not only because she was one of the first people I spoke with for any prolonged time when I arrived here, but also because of her name. It is rather rare in Japan – virtually unused, according to her – and its kanji work themselves out into the delightfully oxymoronic “inside the in-between”.

I mean, it isn’t quite “inside the outside”, but it is closer than just about any other conjunction of consonants and vowels generally could be. 

(continue...)

—tjmHolden

It’s actually not so cold here. I mean, the sun is out. The sky plays peek-a-boo with the clouds which, for the most part, are white. The thermometer I walk under hangs above the door of a home furnishings shop; it registers 8. I guess that would be Celsius. Not frigid, mind you, but one does have to keep moving or the digits will likely grow numb. I am told that the last snow was a couple of weeks ago, but descending into Oslo airport, the surrounding hinterland is revealed to be thoroughly caked in white. Lots of fir making like plenty of Christmas trees.

Oh, Rudolph?

Oh, yes . . . this is that place; the land of that animal. And, in fact (and I kid you not) at the reception I went to tonight, the platters of meat wraps were, alternately, (according to the staff serving the stuff): “fins” and “Rudolph”. By which I think they meant: salmon and reindeer.

As a matter of fact, I think that shiny thing I ate was . . . 

(continue...)

—tjmHolden

Last year, about this time (give or take), I was heading for Dresden. That was an eventful trip. I had originally dubbed it “the trip out of hell” because of a dirty trick someone pulled on me that led to the cancellation of my ticket (and during the World Cup, to boot!). But faithful readers of this blog know that, to paraphrase the inimitable words of Stealer’s Wheel, “everyone’s agreed that everything turned out just fine”.

In fact, that was one fantastic voyage. Dresden was a great little city, if a bit under-developed and, okay, drab.  Still, roll in Leipzeig and Berlin, Frankfurt and stops inbetween, and Germany was a revelation. The personal growth stemming from that trip, too, wouldn’t be traded for a library of books (well, okay, maybe a stack at B.Dalton). But I changed in palpable, significant ways.

Which is what peripatacity—the restless urge to explore and experience—is all about.

Leaving it up to the next dot on the world map to qualify as “trip out of hell”. And, I may have just found it. On the long, never-ending road to Oslo.

(continue...)

—tjmHolden

There’s a song I have played to death over the years. Still do. One by John Martyn, about “a man in the station/he’s takin’ the next train home”. Actually, Martyn has a couple of versions of it: the original, with his distinctive acoustic six-string, played like it’s a percussive instrument, backed by a slow-burn jazz combo that makes its points with a Gretsch guitar with most of the treble removed, a Fender Rhodes sounding haunting and subdued to start --beginning like the one in John Klemmer’s “Touch”—but then becoming pulsing and insistent—ending like Billy Preston’s work at the close of “Let It Be”. All this held together by a heavy vise of bass and drums. The other version is much more up-beat, Martyn’s voice sounding much less like before, when it seemed to have captured a dude struggling up the back slope of a cocaine ride run its course.

Still, both commendable efforts, worthy of your time.

---

This time ‘round, though . . . this time when I actually am in the station, I actually encounter a man in the station . . .  and this time, it is all quite different.

(continue...)

—tjmHolden