update on photo contest

on this monday evening, the blogmistress reports that none of the many answers that have been submitted in the contest are entirely correct. this is much to her surprise.

in response to several requests for further information, she can assure competitants that both photos were taken by her personally and in the past two years. both sites are closely associated with the lives of major figures in history and neither of them is in europe. one was designed by an architect whose name will surely be familiar to some readers (especially M in a large northern city).

in appreciation for the lively interest in this contest, a new category of competition is here introduced:

***an award for the most imaginative answer describing the significance of both buildings. award to be determined by mutual agreement. however, no cash prizes will be offered for either the most imaginative answer or the correct answer.

an extension on the deadline is now granted, in part due to the fact that the blogmistress will be in california and unable to give her full attention to the difficult decision process to determine the winner(s?). new deadline: tuesday, april 1, by midnight est.

don't forget to email your answer; do not include it in a comment on the blog.

thank you for your participation and good luck!

here come the easter witches

Saturday is the main day for celebrating Easter in Sweden, though the festive and largely secular spring holiday gets off to a start with an eat-drink-and-be-merry affair on Thursday, in preparation for what used to be a solemn day of fasting on Good Friday. A big family meal takes place on Saturday afternoon. We were invited to join the Strands, our friendly Swedish/American family: Lenart, a Swede on the faculty who has been our main contact at the university, his American wife Jay-Jay, and their two daughters Emma, just turned twelve, and Mimmi, ten.
They told us to come to their house around 2 p.m., when the girls would go out in their “good witch” disguises to knock on their neighbors’ doors, asking for candy in exchange for little home-made Easter cards. The look for these witches is to wear a kerchief and odd colorful old clothes, have freckles painted on their noses and red painted cheeks. The hags traditionally carry a basket, a coffee pot, and are accompanied by a black cat. Here a few birch branches with yellow feathers wired on serve as a sort of symbolic broom. The yellow feathers also remind of chickens and eggs, a big feature at Easter, as hens begin laying eggs in earnest once the days lengthen after the long dark winter. The Easter Bunny doesn’t enter the scene at all.
The Easter Witch custom goes back to the Witches’ Sabbath, when they flew off on brooms—or on pigs--for an orgy with the devil on the night before Easter. There’s a rich folklore associated with this. Obviously it has been much transformed.
Off the girls went, while we adults took a walk out to the nearby woods to look for blåsippor, the early intensely blue wild flower (a hepatica), which had bloomed the previous week. But the weather had turned very cold, almost freezing with a stiff wind, and the blåsippor had closed up.
The girls returned with baskets full of various candies and even some cash. Mimmi laid hers out very methodically, grouping like candies together, the candy-coated almonds here, the foil-wrapped small chocolate eggs there, the licorice fish and bears here, and counting them. Emma collapsed in a beanbag chair and went back to reading her new Nancy Drew mystery, idly popping the odd piece of candy in her mouth.
The adults enjoyed aperitifs of vanilla rum, a Delicato chardonnay from California, and an Alsatian risling. Jay-Jay, an accomplished cook whose recipes are regularly published in a Swedish magazine, had broiled an enormous Norwegian salmon and garnished it with small shrimp, dill, lemon, and lime, and we contributed an American potato salad. The witches had made cream puffs, filled with real whipped cream and strawberries they’d picked last summer, drizzled with dark chocolate.
Just before dark, JM and I walked back to our apartment, about 20 minutes along the river. Besides the appeal of some exercise after all the eating and drinking, walking home means that everyone can enjoy the wine, guests and hosts alike, as Swedes are very scrupulous about not drinking and driving.
As Sweden is a very secular country, most people spend Sunday relaxing with their families and Monday is also a holiday.
Glad Påsk!

a sign of spring

gentle friends: it's been raining/sleeting/snowing again here at the bog in michigan and the human animals are really, really getting tired of winter. so here's a comforting photo to lift the spirits, courtesy of a family of non-human animals over at the the kensington farm center.

skål!

photo identification contest: don't miss it!

thank you, dear friends. the blog is 6 weeks old and has had readers aged from 12 to 83 in 3 countries and comments in 2 languages on the blog itself, with others coming in by email and even, charmingly, by old-fashioned postcard. thank you all for taking the time to read these odds and ends.

as a reward for your attention, here's a little contest. can you identify the two structures pictured here? and further, what features might they have in common?


JM first suggested several points of comparison between these two places. you may want to send your answers by email, since "comments" on the blog are public and you could give away the correct identifications. (i have, i think, made it easier for anyone to post a comment.)

the prize: a blog entry written on the subject of your choice for all individuals giving correct answers and/or thoughtful comments, with photos if available. winners will be notified by email and may choose to remain anonymous.

contest closes at midnight edt, friday march 28th. as all our blog readers are well-traveled, i expect the competition to be keen. thanks again and good luck to you all.

overheard in ann arbor #2

an unlikely mix of academikish adults have gathered at the ann arbor public library. we are volunteers for a special project on women's history month, involving 120 4th and 5th grade kids. they haven't come yet. several of us express a certain level of anxiety about working with kids this age, but at the moment we are engaged in distributing sheets of colored paper, crayons, and scissors on tables in the large "all-purpose" room.

i pick up on a conversation in progress.

earnest english professor, long hair, black skirt: "Of course Lacan is a terrible sexist pig, but it's interesting that his theories can be turned around to explain some aspects of women's creativity."

hip social work grad student, shaved head: "Have you read Slavoj Zizek?"

she: "No, who is that?"

he: "A Slovenian philosopher. Very interesting on Lacan."

beautifully made-up young african-american woman: "I'm Slovenian."

me: "How do you spell his name?"

he: "S-l-a-v-o-j Z-i-z-e-k, with some accents."

i wrote it down with a purple crayon on a scrap of orange construction paper. i like names with two 'z's' in them.

at home i emailed my philosophy professor friend: "What about Slavoj Zizek?"

her speedy reply: "He is a very famous philosopher, who is fairly important for philosophers working in particular continental contexts. He's pretty radical -- you'd probably like him!"

indeed, Slavoj Zizek is all over the internet. i can't work out how to produce the correct accents.

my superficial knowledge of philosophy is growing every day.

too cute (for maya and jm2)

this is for maya (thanks for your comment) and jm2 (hooray, you found the blog).

sometimes you just have to go for cute. when he/she saw me, this young 'un fled up a small tree next to the garage. i guess he/she hasn't learned to play possum yet.

the friendly corner yak

see those three red hangul characters that appear many times on this building in seoul? they say "yak" and yak means "pharmacy" in korean. this establishment was on the corner, just down the street from the slightly sleazy hotel where judy and i stayed for jeremy's wedding in 1997 and donna and i stayed on our visit to korea in 2002. we became very familiar with the yak and its friendly proprietor who over several days dispensed a series of medicines for donna's sore throat and cold ("i think i'm going to die; just cremate me here and call dan"). he had others for my stomach upset. we had no idea what we were taking--mostly little black pellets for either ailment--but the pharmacist was very reassuring and we both eventually got better.

penny obligingly took this photo for us--we were there in that prehistoric age before we had digital cameras. donna pointed out the sign in the window above the yak. we never noticed the drinks possibilities at the time but we did notice the log cabin facade right across the street adorning the Cowboy Bar. and we enjoyed its country and western music blasting onto the street.

i miss korea.

btw, if you click on any of the photos in the blog, they enlarge to alarming proportions.