Less than three for more than three!

What is that cryptical blog entry title you might wonder. Well, "Less than three = <3 = heart/love for more than three (years)", which is the case with me and Mr Banjodjango. Three years. I can't believe how fast time flies. I love you I love you I love you.

The Great Gatsby Premiere Party

Hellu dearies!

Remember I told you about attending the Great Gatsby Premiere Party here in Sweden? Well, I totally did not manage to take any good photos. But lucky for me the beautiful Jessica Silversaga did! I wore a lovely 20s flapper dress in blue lace that I found at a flea market and it was a ridiculous steal. Some minor tending to a little hole, but apart from that it was in perfect condition. With it I wore my most expensive impulse shopping item ever: my golden Gucci Stilettos. My hair was a mess, but good news for messy curls is: the "invisible" hairnet (aka the hair-colored thin hairnet).

One piece of input to the event coordinators: Why were you so adamant about not mixing in some swing music from the era with the modern thump-thump-thump?! You wanted a 20s themed party with a Gatsby-esque flair. We were basically offering to give you a free dance performance with dancing from the era if only you would have let the (very willing) DJs play something else than main stream disco music. Such a pity.

Anyway, all in all, it was a really good party, and there was plenty of Moët & Chandon to be had. Yum yum yum.

Were any of you there? Did you enjoy yourselves? Wouldn't you have just loved to see some swing dancing as well as the great burlesque performances by the Blackbird Burlesque Cabaret who were there performing and enticing the audience? Sad I got no photos...




Why are you still here? Head on over to peruse Jessicas photos!

On past lives, changing lives and moving your body

Many years ago, in a faraway reality I tended a bloggy-wog called ”Spark-SDFHG – the (mis?)adventures of one trying to live by the rules of ‘hurtigheten’”. It is long-ago taken down and is now only readable by myself as a kind of reminder of the past and the person I was in another chapter in my life. That is not to say that each chapter prompts a reinvention, but let’s face it, we all try to better ourselves from time to time, moving along the road of life with little inkling as to when the next bold turn will come.

The other day I was reading a Swedish blog where the blogger has recently found a sort of holy grail by the means of exercise and some of her readers have had the audacity to criticize her for “not being the same anymore” just because she happens to write a little bit more about how great it feels for her to move her body, and little bit less (but by no means excluding) about vintage thrifting, DIY and cooking. I believe that this is the same response that Fleur got when she found her totally unexpected love for running (which I, by the way, think is RAD and I’m SOOO jealous I never seem to get over that “ough-I-hate-this-so-much-hurdle” and into runner’s high) and shared that aspect of her life on her blog.

Why is it so hard to come to terms about the fact that there are real people behind the words you read? People who are also travelling along the road of life and meeting unexpected twists and turns and interests and holy grails along the way. Are you the same person you were five years ago? I’m certainly not. Why would you expect that of a blogger that you happen to follow? If you want to read something that is static, read an encyclopedia (I’m not bashing down on encyclopedias here, I love them and have been known to read them cover to cover, for the fun of it).

All this talk of exercise and of changing interests made me think of my old blog. About something I named “the Hurtigheten Regime”. Because, I for one, was inspired by UnderbaraClara and her writing about how she found her way back to exercising and how great it makes her feel. And not to mention how much she manages to get done thanks to the great amount of energy and focus that exercise gives. I used to feel that too. Somewhere along the road I dropped off. But I’m willing to stretch myself uncomfortably for a while to get there because it is so worth it; that is really what hurtigheten is all about.

Question is, will you stick around for it?

YOLO (LOL)

I am old. Or at least I feel old when I no longer am up to speed on the lingo the kids are using these days. I only learnt this weekend what YOLO means. I feel like that mother made famous on the interwebs for thinking LOL means “Lots of Love” and thus wrote LOL in text message about a close relative’s death. (LOL, just to be clear, means “Laughing out loud” and is the product of chatty youngsters wanting to express as much as possible in as few letters as possible (because typing out full words is too much of an effort and totally grown-up-boring-like; yes, I was that kid).

Anyway, having learnt now what YOLO means (after having felt totally like a loser for not being able to make it out myself) I am eager to live by it so that I too can allow myself that extra cookie because YOLO! Or buy those super expensive but SO pretty sunglasses because YOLO! Or those Manhattan heel fully fashioned stockings because….you get it right?

Ok, no, that was lies. I haven’t got the money put away for that yet, but I do have a massage appointment at 11, because YOLO!

ps. Yesterday we went donned our best flapper outfits and headed to the Premier Party of The Great Gatsby at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm. I honestly have not had that much Moët & Chandon in one evening, ever. Not even on new years. It was, needless to say, FANTABULISTIC. Were any of you there? Will you go see the movie?

My violin story: Callused fingers and chin-rest marks

Photo: George Chamoun; Taken one drunken evening outside Färgfabriken .
I was playing to earn my cab fare to get home.

I started playing the violin at the tender age of five. My first violin teacher was a rather corpulent lady called Barbara whose house smelled of cats (in the bad way). My second violin teacher was Russian and firm but very loving. I stayed with her all through elementary school and middle school, playing concerts, touring, competing, and practicing, practicing, practicing. Success was partly measured in how hard the calluses on my fingertips were and how prominent the tell-tale permanent mark on my neck from where the chin rest would rub against my skin. Those were beautiful times of simple measurable successes.

Photo: unknown? Playing with my former band
 The Goner

And then…high school came…and suddenly, in my quest for self-expression, contextual art, music theatre, fashion design and independent pop & rock, (and let’s be honest: partying, girls&boys, making out, etc) became more interesting than practicing the violin 3-4 hours a day. And so it was that I meandered off the beaten life path of Professional Violinist and through twists and turns in life ended up as an HR Specialist. How’s that for change of domain?

Photo: Janne Tavares
Rehearsal photo from the stage production
Chockdoktrinen (The Chock Doctrine)
based on the book Naomi Klein. 2010.

Luckily for me, those thousands of hours of practicing made a lot of the stuff stick irrevocably, allowing me to still pick up the violin and make pretty noises with it. And further luck has allowed me to play my violin in all kinds of different, unexpected constellations: in theatre, in performance art, on TV-commercials, with bands, etc. My fingers may be slower and not as callused as they used to be, my neck-mark is almost invisible (but only almost), and truthfully, I’m not always entirely on pitch all of the time. But it is truly a gift, as invaluable as ever, to be able to connect with that extra limb of mine, my violin, and make music.