within a sea of fog

I've spent some days in the Alps - 

luckily I'm more fond of reading than skiing... 

freezing

Judith Schalansky

I’ve been working on some short stories for a while. They are all set in a very ordinary everyday setting: A day at the beach, a family dinner, a morning walk, etc. 

But then suddenly, to my surprise, one of my stories demanded to take place on an ice raft in the Arctic Ocean somewhere between the North Pole and the Russian tundra.

No wonder then, that I immediately fell in love with Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands. Fifty Islands I have not visited and never will. The title in itself is really enough to make one marvel!

A great review of the book can be found here.

Judith Schalansky’s book is a very fine mix of facts and fiction, as she her self states in the foreword, fact and fiction cannot - if truth be told – ever be separated:

Those who discovered the islands became famous, as if their achievements related to an act of creation, as if they had not merely found new worlds but actually invented them … only that which is written about has really happened.

Of Peter I Island in the Antarctica, she writes:

It was only in 1929 – 108 years after its discovery – that it was landed on, and until the 1990s more people had set foot on the moon than on the island.

 Schalansky’s book truly conveys the world in all its strangeness.

And her drawings -; delicate, precise and mysterious.

Go ahead: read it!

time to tidy up!

 We had a great party for TK last night, so no surprise the house looked ... well; let me put it this way: very well used ... this morning. After tidying living-rooms and kitchen I continued into my study

The main problem in this room is lack of shelves. To give myself some more space I removed all the books I have review this year into a shelf in the hall

As you can see the desk isn't quite cleared yet. I feel like my head is clearing up as I sort out my books and notes - giving room (physical and mentally) for new thoughts

My reading-chair looks ready for new hours with me and my books

To get some peace and quiet I've put a warning sign on my door, it says: Hush! Work in progress. Visiting hour 12:00-13:00. Please do not disturb. The line in the middle says: new brewed coffee welcome at all hours (professor TK has become an excellent barista lately)

On a second note, just underneath my own, my son has written: April fool - hm... (seems like there might be a slight authority issue here???)

celebrating!

someone's turning 50 - and its not me!

happy birthday, TK!

(and no; he doesn't usually go to sleep wearing a bow-tie, not yet ...)

on reading

I'm reading slowly these days, reading Tinker Creek and Walden at the same time, page by page, word by word. Using all kinds of dictionaries and encyclopedias to widen my understanding.

Its like a dream.

"The writer studies literature, not the world. She lives in the world, she cannot miss it. She is careful of what she reads, for that is what she will write. She is careful of what she learns, because that is what she will know."

A.D

But you cant fail to see the close relationship these two both have to nature...

"… I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood."

pure magic

this is what an ordinary day might look like in my part of the world. fantastic, isn't it?!

pure nature - pure magic

the best of friends!

I start every week eating/drinking breakfast at Sandnes with Henriette. (she used to have a lovely blog ...)

Yesterday morning she brought me this - for me to enjoy all the rest of the week ...

Homemade biscuits with lots of different seeds. English marmalade. Vanilla and cinnamon for my oat porridge & English breakfast tea.

early evening at Ogna

going abroad

fisherman's friend

his first self caught lobster - ever!

first frost

Vera gave me a great tips yesterday, and while waiting for Mr. Birkhead's The wisdom of birds to arrive I am studying the first frost.

This morning there was frost on the Dogwood bushes, I hadn't brought my camera so I have to borrow a picture from the net, but this is absolutely what it looked like First frost on dogwood

dogwood |ˈdôgˌwoŏd|

noun

a shrub or small tree of north temperate regions that yields hard timber and is grown for its decorative foliage, red stems, and colorful berries.

ORIGIN so named because the wood was formerly used to make “dogs” (i.e., skewers).

memories of summer

on the beach at Ogna

monday

"I’m tired, and all I want to do now is read"

I enjoy my work more than ever, but must admit that I, in the rush of exhibitions and new books filling my autumn days, long for peaceful hours with my favorite authors, e.g.: Annie Dillard

Pulitzer winner Annie Dillard’s second novel, The Maytrees, came out in 2007. She’s written over ten other books, but she says The Maytrees, her first book in eight years, will probably be her last. “I’m tired,” declared the 62-year-old Dillard, who says that she won’t be doing any more touring, public readings, blurb writing, or letter answering. “I worked so hard all my life, and all I want to do now is read. I’m glad to go out on this book,” she says. (The Maytrees tells the story of two married artists in Provincetown, Massachusetts, after World War II.) She did mention one, possibly tongue-in-cheek idea for further work: “To take all my never-used metaphors and just throw them up in the air for other writers to use.” Grab Bag, by Annie Dillard? “I like the title Free-for-All,” she says.

(Dillard has told Publishers Weekly that the first draft of The Maytrees was 1,400 pages long and that she ruthlessly cut the manuscript down section by section, character by character, syllable by syllable, until only 216 pages - nothing superfluous - remained).

in the sky

The sky over Ogna, seen from bed, early Sunday morning.

still reading Annie Dillard

About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from

the roof-gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous

as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.

The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were

still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not

falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second, through empty air.

Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his

wings with exact deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his

elegant white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass. I had just rounded a

corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight.

The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree

that falls in the forest. The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are

performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be

there.

borrowed from this page

winter preparations

king of the dudes

Evander Berry Wall, a New York socialite, was dubbed "King of the Dudes"

A dude is an individual, typically male, particularly somebody well dressed or who has never lived outside a big city

My dude is a bit more laid back than the king, here he is at Sola Airport with his brand new t-shirt, portraying Walter (John Goodman) from The Big Lebowski; the greatest dude-film ever made!

The t-shirt has an inscription saying: I don't roll on Shabbas (I don't think it's gonna be a problem for my agnostic son) The t-shirt was a totally unexpected & very appreciated gift from his sister

DUDES!