The Inuit supposedly have 50 different ways to describe snow. Do Swedes have 50 different ways of describing ice? The nearby lake is now completely frozen. It’s actually brackish water, as it partly mixes with water from the sea and so has some salinity content. I thought of going ice-skating one of these days, but…
Month: January 2022
Sweden. Day 3. Ghost Stories.
There are many Scandinavian folktales about ghosts and witches. Mare, for instance, from where the word “nightmare” originates, is a type of evil witch or spirit who sits on people’s chests during the night and gives them bad dreams. Another interesting character is Pesta, a personification of death and pestilence in the shape of an…
Der Impfpass, and an announcement
My satirical short story “Der Impfpass”, based on Kafka and on current events, has been published at the New English Review, here. I’ve been collaborating with them since last year, mostly with fiction. Also, remember that my personal blog with longer non-fiction articles is now found at contrarium.substack.com. Here at the site I will be…
Sweden. Day 2. The Sea.
The Scandinavian sea coast, especially in winter, is quite different from the ones I’m used to. I was born in Argentina. I grew up in Brazil. I lived in California and Sicily. To me, a coast means a beach with sand, sun, high waves, and lots of people including annoying sellers of all kinds of…
Sweden: Day 1. The travel.
Dear Reader, I am right now somewhere in the island of Björkö, in Sweden. It is located to the northeast of Stockholm, about 2h40 min by bus (actually, one metro and two buses). I came from Germany, where I was before, by train. 16 hours. Except for not sleeping very much, and feeling very tired…
And now for something completely different
Ending an obsession I am travelling in Sweden and I won’t be posting so much about the “corona” issue these days. Instead, you will find here mostly a travelogue. In the end, my opinion about the whole “corona” thing didn’t change much since February 2020: just stop with the idea of using a pandemic to…
"Live not by lies"
On vaccine passports, Solzhenitsyn and conspiracy theories Argentina has become the latest country in the world to adopt some kind of mandatory “vaccine passport”. I don’t know or care how it’s called, perhaps it has a different official name, but it is a vaccine passport. Some say I am a “conspiracy theorist” to point it…
Back to the future
I have a strange feeling of dejà vu… Happy New Year! But are we already in 2022, or have we gone back to 2020? Canada is now joining the “Lockdown 2022” club, where most European countries already are. At least in Quebec, from 31 December new strict restrictions were announced, with nightly curfews, prohibition of…
Happy 2022
This is me playing (very badly) “In the Bleak Midwinter”, a wonderful Christmas song with lyrics (actually a poem) by Christina Rossetti, and music by Gustave Holst. However, I am still learning and I play really badly. Check for other versions for a better experience. Hopefully, one day I will learn to play it… Here…