#Fredrik Sjöberg

[starlene]

Assorted thoughts about Så som i himmelen in Säffleoperan, Säffle, Sweden.

The first act was one of the best I’ve seen in Så som i himmelen so far, directed here by Mattias Palm – but unfortunately, the second act lost me a little. Nothing wrong with it, per se (except maybe for the very end), it just didn’t bring anything especially new or delightful to the table the way the first act did.

The first act had some brilliant character moments and really effective ways of finishing songs/scenes and moving from one scene to the next. It’s hard to put it to words why I liked it, I just think it had a very good flow.

The most hilarious Fråga Arne I’ve seen so far: they took the “Daniel is the only person who understands that they’re in a musical, and it terrifies him” thing they did in the Helsinki production and really ran with it.

Arne’s shop had some real products available. Daniel bought two bags of soup mix and a box of potato powder, I assume to make the soup last longer.

Speaking of Daniel: Andreas Hoff was really good in the role, I think 8/10 or 9/10. Lovely voice. He really emphasised Daniel’s socially awkward side, I think to the point of it becoming slightly parodic – but it’s okay, because as a whole, he understood the assignment and made the character extremely likable.

The problem with this Daniel, though, was his apparent tuberculosis. Sure, I don’t know much about heart diseases – maybe there is some real heart-related condition out there that makes you cough up blood, like Daniel did in this production. But in fiction, that’s so often used as a sign of tuberculosis, I really wish they didn’t do it here.

This Daniel was also very much visibly ill from the get-go, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, yeah, it’s certainly canon that his condition is serious. But on the other... I think we’re supposed to think some of the people in the choir might suspect there’s something wrong with his health, but only Lena figures out how serious it is – but this Daniel was so ill, you’d think everyone would be extremely worried about him. He’s still supposed to be healthy enough that he can genuinely enjoy his months in Ljusåker, and I’m not sure I got that from this production.

The very end was confusing because Big Daniel looked, frankly, terrified and upset when Small Daniel and Medium Daniel arrived to take him to the other side. Instead of the usual vibe, that Daniel is done with his goals in life and feels melancholic but ready to move on, the kids kinda dragged him away backwards and unwilling, or that’s what I got from the scene. The back of the stage being lit up in hellish orange tones didn’t help in the least.

I liked how they did Stig here. Daniel Sjöberg had the right sort of authority for the part, I really enjoyed his subtle way of handling the first scene, and I liked how they underlined him being jealous of the way Inger and Daniel interact with each other. The character is always confusing to me (why on earth is he so upset about having sex with his wife when they’re both into it?) but he had the exact right vibe here – something I always missed in the Helsinki production, so I’m extra glad to see it.

Overall, a very good production, but not without its problems!

Also, here’s a little complaint I have about Så som i himmelen in general:

There are a couple of confusing things about the book of this musical, and this time, I realised I’ve had it with Lena’s surprise pregnancy near the end.

When we interviewed Fredrik Kempe for the podcast, he told us it’s meant to be interpreted like this: Lena and Daniel have sex for the first time after På grund av dig, and immediately afterwards, Lena just gets this feeling that she’s pregnant now. According to Kempe, it’s based on something that happened to someone in the original creative team. And I mean, cool, it must’ve been magical and powerful to experience a feeling like that in real life – but it doesn’t make sense in the musical, since it’s not explained at all. Pregnancy tests exist because the vast majority of people do not ever experience a feeling like that, so it’s not exactly relatable. :P

Instead, as it is, the pregnancy just serves to amplify the tragedy of Daniel dying, which I think is beating a dead horse. The ending would be impactful enough without it, and then some.

What’s more, having a baby on the way kinda messes with Daniel’s arc, since he’s supposed to be able to let go of everything by the end. He knows Lena is strong and will be okay, but having lost his parents young himself, I wonder if he would feel so about the baby.

Oh well! In my personal headcanon of this musical, Lena announcing the pregnancy simply does not happen. Or if it happens, it means either that a) it was not their first time, or b) the baby is not Daniel’s.

Here’s to hoping the next production simply gets rid of this detail.

[veckorsomgar]

Idag är det två månader sedan vår bokrelease av Jordens tårar. @klingfredrik texter och mina bilder där vi försöker sprida lite kärlek och hopp om vår framtid. Bokförsäljningen rullar på. Tryckkostnaden på runt trettio tusen är betald och överskottet ligger nu på 4258 kr. Många har skänkt extra pengar i samband med bokköp. Överskottet kommer vi skänka till Världens barn och köper du en bok idag för 160 kr så går alltså hela beloppet till Världens barn. Hör av dig till mig eller Fredrik om du vill köpa en bok. För övrigt föreslog stavningskontrollen ”bilkö” när jag skrev ”bokköp”, vilket väl kanske säger en del om samtiden och den väg vi försöker styra bort ifrån med boken. Foto Kjäll-Åke Sjöberg. https://www.instagram.com/p/CnPYrhDMYFT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[maiathebee]

The only thing I can collect at night is my own thoughts.

Fredrik Sjöberg, The Fly Trap

[we-re-floating-in-space]

ghosts in the photograph never lied to me.

(ci sono tre argomenti: l’amore, la morte, le mosche)

[mayolfederico]

trentuno agosto

Helen Levitt, Observing New York streets

  *

Ogni volta che Antigone parla Una freccia precisa mi apre Un meridiano nel cuore, lo spartisce Tra obbedienza e libertà. Non so più chi accompagnare. La parte di me che resta O quella sul punto di andare.

Così sospesi, come in un giorno Di vacanza, in attesa del dolore Che svuota la testa, La calma finta dopo una tempesta.

[dinonfissatoaffetto]

In Fredrik Sjöberg, L'arte di collezionare mosche

[ccohanlon]

my favourite things

sam shepard’s ‘motel chronicles’, glenn gould playing j.s. bach, books, gaff-rigged bristol pilot cutters, nautical charts, the idea of lamu island and zanzibar, ilford 35mm black & white film, expressions of love in spanish, the meaning of saudade, miles davis, john coltrane, conga drums and bongoes, the backstreets of marrakesh, naples and havana, my 20-year-old leather backpack, my leather-bound pocket atlas (a gift from a woman who worked for me), my maori bone hei matau, british ordnance survey maps, african and latina women, dark skin, long legs and firm round asses,‘oil notes’ by rick bass, joseph conrad’s ‘heart of darkness’, ‘the fly trap’ by fredrik sjöberg, bill drummond doing what he calls ‘art’ and his writings about it, malcolm mclaren talking about almost anything, german-made fountain pens, noodler’s inks, 20th century french novelists, analog moog synthesisers, joan didion’s early essays (especially ‘the white album’), the rolling stones’ original versions of ‘gimme shelter’ and ’sympathy for the devil’, ali farka touré’s modal riffs, the western isles and northwest coast of scotland in spring, the b&w photographs robert frank took in the ’50s as he drove across america, richard misrach’s ‘desert cantos’, wim wender’s ‘paris, texas’ and ‘wings of desire’ (i like his diaristic photo book, ‘once’, too), jim jarmusch’s ‘only lovers left alive’, indian ocean sailing dhows, old boat compasses, my vintage flying boat sextant, the cheap but accurate swiss wind-up watch my mother gave me when i first went to sea, that first glimpse of the mojave desert driving east from l.a. on interstate 40, and of morocco’s atlas mountains, at dawn, sailing through the straits of gibraltar from the west, the mediterranean sea, van morrison’s voice, and aretha franklin’s and julie driscoll’s, the ideas of john cage and of jean-luc godard, cornelius cardew’s ‘scratch music’, gorodish and alba in delacorta’s series of novels, ‘haunts of the black masseur’ by charles sprawson, peter beard’s collaged diaries, steve dilworth’s visceral sculpture, the smooth stones i’ve collected from beaches on three oceans, garlic, wasabi, peking duck in pancakes, ice-cold champagne (bollinger, when I can afford it, or louis roederer cristal), baden powell’s guitar-playing, samba, salvador de bahia, standing at the edge of an empty sahara, sailing a felucca up the nile, the writings of william burroughs, barry gifford and charlie smith, the history of zero, the smell of bangkok by the river at dawn, summer nights in tokyo, long periods of silence, hugging my children, playing my solid mahogany tenor ukulele (a 61st birthday gift from my wife), my fender telecaster and gibson lucille guitars, shona sculpture, an etching i have by armodio (‘l’urlatrice’), the songs of tom waits, alan ginsberg’s photos of beat writers – burroughs and paul bowles, especially – in new york and tangier, jack kerouac’s writings (even though i’ve outgrown them), ‘the outsider’ by colin wilson, bowles’ ‘the sheltering sky’, playing blackjack at caesars’, las vegas, in the early hours of a week-day morning, café tacuba’s huevos con molé in mexico city, the garden derek jarman made at prospect cottage in dungeness, jarman’s diaries, da vinci’s notebooks, don mccullin’s photographs and mary ellen mark’s when she was younger (the ones in goa), dancing alone to 60s’ soul music, the scent of frangipani, the white noise of heavy monsoonal rain, my long, old-school powell skateboard with big urethane wheels, early silver surfer comic books, 70s’ ‘avant-garde’ music scores from peters and universal edition, my all-mechanical olympus 35 sp camera and my rolleiflex tlr, cecil taylor on piano, dave holland on bass, ginger baker on drums, the movie version of joseph conrad’s ‘lord jim’, cary grant in ‘father goose’, david lean’s ‘lawrence of arabia’, donald cammell’s ‘perfomance’, snowdonia in mid-wales, taos in new mexico (and the sangre de cristo mountains), sailing close by stromboli on a calm, moonlit night, the smooth skin and skinny bodies of young japanese women, everything about italian women, palm trees, passionfruit, seedless grapes, mandarins, uncooked cherry tomatoes, the oakland raiders (even when they’re losing), swimming alone in a warm pool, the bath tubs at the ritz-carlton in singapore in the 90s, afternoon tea (pg tips) with scones, thick cream and damson jam (preferably tiptree’s), albert ayler on sax, derek bailey’s free-form solos on guitar, ‘colour: a natural history of the palette’ by victoria finlay, tom mccarthy’s ‘satin island’, william gibson’s science fiction, sylvie guillem dancing, van cliburn playing brahms’ second piano concerto, keith richards’ and john lee hooker’s grungy guitar licks, j.j. cale’s muted finger picking, the long solo voyages of bernard moitessier under sail and the writings that came from them, the voyages of david lewis and of bill tilman (aboard ‘mischief’), old tahiti ketches designed by john hanna, thomas colvin’s modern steel sailing junks, target shooting with a high-calibre handgun (like a colt python .357 magnum), watching dark frontal clouds gather ahead of a storm, the grim stillness of tornado weather in northern oklahoma, big hotel rooms, late night room service, landing in los angeles from the west late at night, yakitori at a basement place i know in hiroshima, the gharana of the tabla, welsh male voice choirs, playing scrabble, the lives of sir richard francis burton and t.e. lawrence, thom gunn’s poems, also e.e cummings’ and mira gonzalez’s, gore vidal on american politics, sex and other writers, the stone hanko engraved for me using an old form of katakana in hiroshima, hand-tooled knives, walking through rome early in the morning, rooftop terraces in trastevere, out-of-the-way trattorie in monti, vitello parmigiano, tortellini, stracciatella, and sambuca, the amalfi coast, iain sinclair writing about his walks around london, living in los angeles (when i have money), driving north from santa monica on the pacific coast highway, big sur 30 years ago,’60s american muscle cars, joyce singing ‘agua de março’ or astrud gilberto, or the version marisa monte and david byrne did for ‘red, hot and rio’, ‘sitting’ by cat stevens. ‘dumb things’ by paul kelly, the emotions singing ‘best of my love’, the idea of the congo and the mekong and of rusty tramp steamers sailing to up-river jungle ports, berlin in autumn just before the leaves fall, all the works of anselm kiefer and cy twombly, francesco clemente’s exotic watercolours, ‘the pugilist’ sculpted in iron by robert brennan, marilyn manson’s ‘we’re killing strangers’, smokey robinson’s ’tracks of my tears’, the first whiff of salt air and coconut oil at an australian surf beach, longboarding on a glassy point break at wategos in byron bay, the mexican movie ‘y tu mama tambien’, almodovar’s ‘todo sobre mi madre’ and ‘matador’, cluttered but stylish old parisian apartments, any clapboard boatshed and jetty on a quiet bay or river bank, a stone cottage above a rocky north atlantic shore (in nova scotia, maybe, or shetland), solitude.

First published in Sick Lit magazine, USA, 2015.

[leggendolibri]

Mamma è matta, papà è ubriaco, Fredrik Sjöberg - Una divertente occasione perduta

Mamma è matta, papà è ubriaco, Fredrik Sjöberg - Una divertente occasione perduta...

Quello di oggi è un libro grigio, uno di quelli che ha grandi motivi per essere bocciato e altrettanti per essere promosso e cos��, galleggia, nei miei pensieri da un po’, ovvero da quando è finito il gruppo di lettura con cui lo abbiamo scelto. Se da un lato ha una scrittura piacevole e scorrevole, il tema trattato non solo non è svolto ma è anche sinceramente difficile da individuare in un mare…

[redazionecultura]

Torino Spiritualità 2018, XIV edizione: “Preferisco di no”

Torino Spiritualità 2018, XIV edizione: “Preferisco di no”

“Preferisco di no”. Un’obiezione ferma e concisa, gentile ma irriducibile, per esprimere il proprio dissenso contro l’opacità dei tempi. Un rifiuto che non si nutre di ostilità, paura o individualismo, ma da uno scrupolo interiore che impone di proteggere la propria umanità e quella degli altri. Anche quando il prezzo della scelta è alto. Al no che punge le coscienze, che apre invece di chiudere,…

[caterinafrida]

Quasi qualsiasi intervento umano può creare un ambiente che corrisponde alle esigenze di sussistenza, a volte piuttosto complesse, di un’insignificante mosca. Può bastare per esempio banalmente che un giovane architetto del paesaggio si innamori di una ragazza che gli confessa di avere un debole per l’intenso profumo del pioppo balsamico. Lui naturalmente fa piantare tutto un bosco di pioppi balsamici, magari nelle vicinanze di una università che, proprio nel periodo in cui si è innamorato, l’ha incaricato di progettare i suoi spazi aperti. Il bosco, diciamo, viene poi frequentato nottetempo dai membri della semiclandestina Associazione Studentesca per la Liberazione della Bielorussia, attiva presso quell’università. Gli studenti attaccano ai lucidi tronchi dei pioppi – che crescono molto rapidamente – i loro illeggibili manifestini sulla loro lotta senza speranza con puntine da disegno bielorusse (l’unico strumento di cui l’associazione dispone in abbondanza), e uno dei non meglio identificati componenti della lega metallica di cui sono fatte dà origine, nella corteccia interna dell’albero, proprio a quella rara forma di decomposizione che è una delle condizioni indispensabili perché un (se possibile) ancor più raro tipo di mosca possa depositarvi le sue larve che si nutrono della linfa. L’unica cosa misteriosa è come facciano le mosche a trovare il boschetto all’inizio, ma si sospetta che abbiano esploratori ovunque. Voglio sottolineare particolarmente l’importanza dell’amore in tutta questa faccenda. È un fattore di cui si tiene conto troppo di rado nello sviluppo dell’attuale ecosistema, fortemente determinato da aspetti culturali, che ospita la più ricca fauna di sirfidi.

L’arte di collezionare mosche - Fredrik Sjöberg

[litteredwithbooks]

“Stories just begin. We rarely know where and almost never why. It doesn’t matter. Nothing is certain any longer. I just want to shut my eyes, point at random and say, as a sort of experiment, that once, when I was sixteen years old, I spent a whole night singing romantic songs in the top of a pine tree. That’s where it may have started.”

[maiathebee]

We stand in openmouthed wonder at other insects so bizarrely designed that not even a surrealist on drugs could have made them up. Perhaps they are merely imitating something that no longer exists.

Fredrik Sjöberg, in The Fly Trap, writing on the Northern European eristalis oestracea’s continued plagiarism of the gadfly, despite the gadfly’s disappearance from Northern Europe.

[myborderland]

Il motivo per cui si dice o si scrive qualcosa, le ragioni profonde, mi interessano più del contenuto concreto. Il perché vince sempre sul cosa, e certi giorni rivolgo questa curiosità verso l'interno. Dunque:perchè lo facciamo? Perché ci ostiniamo?

Perché ci ostiniamo di Fredrik Sjöberg,

[esterarmanino]

Non ho intenzione di parlare di tutti i ceppi e le sedie su cui mi sono seduto. Sarebbe senza dubbio una rassegna insopportabile. Solo due, non di più, un ceppo e una sedia, e tra i due mezza vita.

Fredrik Sjöberg, Perché ci ostiniamo

[superfuji]

Lenin in Stockholm (l’unico con l’ombrello, neanche fosse inglese)

[...]In una fredda ma bella mattina di primavera dell’aprile 1917, Vladimir Il’ič Ul’janov, detto Lenin, arrivò alla Stazione centrale di Stoccolma. Finalmente tornava a casa. L’esilio in Svizzera era finito, la rivoluzione russa lo attendeva. Il futuro!

Era un variopinto gruppo di bolscevichi, quello che si riversò fuori dal treno e venne calorosamente accolto al binario da una delegazione dei circoli radicali della capitale. Colazione, compagni! La colazione era già pronta e li aspettava nella sala da pranzo dell’Hotel Regina, in fondo alla Drottninggatan. Avevano fretta. Quella sera stessa tutta la compagnia avrebbe ripreso il viaggio verso Haparanda, Helsinki e la Storia mondiale. Un solo giorno a Stoccolma, nient’altro. Eppure le leggende su quella breve visita sono più di quante ne possa contenere un grosso libro.

Un misto di aneddoti, mezze verità e bugie propagandistiche. Cosa sia esattamente accaduto è impossibile dirlo. Chi c’era davvero al seguito di Lenin? Di cosa si è parlato in quelle conversazioni segrete all’hotel? Ed è vero che si comprò un vestito marrone ai grandi magazzini PUB, in Hötorget? Anche quest’ultima domanda ha appassionato i socialisti di sinistra svedesi, come se quel vestito (qualcuno sostiene che fosse un soprabito) avesse qualche significato per la rivoluzione – almeno inizialmente – riuscita[...]

[...]sono rimasto affascinato dalla storia di Anna Lindhagen. Quella che racconta di come, in quel magico giorno, riuscì a sequestrare Lenin e a convincerlo, in un attimo di distrazione, ad accompagnarla a Södermalm, dove poté mostrargli con fierezza gli appezzamenti di Barnängen, coltivati a giardino. Ecco, gli disse Anna, di questo hanno bisogno i proletari. A ognuno il suo pezzetto di terra, per quanto piccolo, e una vanga. L’uomo vestito di marrone si mostrò perplesso, scettico.

Purtroppo non si conoscono dettagli di questo avvenimento, per cui per ora dobbiamo supporre che sia tutta un’invenzione, disinformazione finalizzata a qualche obiettivo ormai dimenticato della grande politica. Ma anche il verosimile, come si sa, è degno di rispetto. A volte è addirittura più rivelatore della verità stessa. E del tutto inverosimile non lo è affatto, questo incontro tra la scilla e il croco sotto il sole di Södermalm.

Anna Lindhagen (1870-1941) fu tra i fondatori della Svenska Naturskyddsförening (Associazione svedese per la protezione della natura). Partecipò alla riunione costituente all’Accademia delle scienze nel maggio 1909, e già in quell’occasione fece sentire la sua voce. Come quasi tutti gli altri presenti in sala, non era una persona qualunque, ma una figura ben nota nei circoli intellettuali dove la questione della protezione e della conservazione della natura trovò, per la prima volta, ascolto. Ma a differenza della maggior parte dei fondatori, che si erano distinti in ambito accademico, lei si era fatta un nome in politica[...]

Interessante aneddoto, interessante personaggio la Lindhagen. E bel libro questo di Fredrik Sjöberg

mega.nz/#!yHonGbZR!RL-67zAXeDO7zqHEe4-gj0HH2x-DBx8vyS4Gl6lAPFw

[solosepensi]

Le storie, semplicemente, cominciano. Raramente si sa dove, e quasi mai perché. Non ha nessuna importanza. Non c’è più niente di sicuro, ormai.

L’arte della fuga- Fredrik Sjöberg