After so many years of anticipation...

My mother in a photobooth, around 1963-64.

...i've at last laid my hands on a copy of the 1964 swedish comedy "Svenska Bilder" (Swedish Portraits) in which my beautiful mother Katarina, then 23, had a minor part as a housemaid.
It has never been released on either vhs or dvd, only some public screenings and on television. So it was so exciting to finally see her in it, to see her walk and talk -even if all she said was "Yes, yes, madam is waiting" and "Thank you".
She never became an actress and this was the only thing she was in as far as i know, -although she took acting classes as well as dancing and singing lessons. She moved in those circles and at times worked as prompter at a theater.
With her striking looks and charm she probably would have made an excellent actress but, much like me, i guess she was too shy and insecure.
She went on to become a high school teacher and taught history, religion, swedish and drama.

Just those few seconds of seeing her made me incredibly happy, and the whole film is an extraordinarily pretty and witty little creation, i can't see why it was left in obscurity for so long. Here are some screen caps:


with Georg Rydeberg and Hans Alfredsson

A sign of life -and a little talk of death.

Summer just exploded in my face, and now it's almost over. Luckily i am very much of an autumn-person, even though i adore all seasons -even winter if circumstances are right... -and as last winter was so remarkably cold -albeit with many beautiful, perfect Narnia-days -i just longed so badly for summer; and during the spring -which was rather an extension of the winter -if it weren't for the budding trees one might have thought it was mid november. -and now summer is nearly over; a summer that has been unusually warm, sunny and lovely when swedish summers are often known to mostly rain away.

I hope -as i've said a hundred times before -to at last be able to post more frequently here, i hope to finally get my cluttered apartment tidy, -it has become a veritable mayhem of piles of papers, half-filled bin bags full of assorted trash and wobbly towers of books, cds and dvds -even dishes which feels so nasty!-very Grey Gardens; minus cats, raccoons and Jackie O.

Time has -as it usually tends to do- slipped mercilessly through my fingers, and i've been battling slight bouts of depression and haven't had the peace of mind to tend to anything, -i haven't even drawn for months, no, years!

Early in the spring, my dad moved into a nursing home which has been a terrible ordeal. -not to mention watching his alzheimers - or whatever it is, he hasn't been diagnosed - advancing more and more; he used to at least have some moments of clarity. -but at least i'm sort of prepared for it, and it has been a long drawn-out process- not like it was with my mother who, aged 64, went from her old brilliant self to a hapless spectre within just a few days, before she passed away. That was a shock i still haven't quite recovered from, even now, five years later.


I hope you like my new look and my new header -a picture of my mother and her first "mother in law" -probably taken by her then-boyfriend in the spring of 1966 in her little apartment -which was in the attic of a rustic 18th century building with no electricity or running water, where she cooked on a wood-fired iron stove, and might've sat and enjoyed a cup of lapsang souchong in the light of a kerosene-lamp.

She loved it there and lived there for the rest of her life -even though she later moved across the yard -where I was to grow up...



Me with mum, (above). Me, aged 5 (below).

Hope to be back soon. See you!

the Castle of Engsö.

Last tuesday I, my friend K, her "sister in law" L and their respective infants Joni and Ingrid, went out to Engsö castle -one of my favourite places on earth. It's situated on a peninsula a two hour-drive west of Stockholm and so beautiful it almost makes you feel as though you're in a painting by Constable, complete with grazing cows.

The castle was built around the late 15th century, "glammed-up" in the 1620s and again in the 1740s when the fourth floor was added and it got much of the appearance it still has today. The architect was Carl Hårleman (1700-1753) one of swedens leading architects at the time.

In spite of being one of the moste beautiful places in the nation Engsö is best known for it's many ghosts, there has even been a team of american paranormal researchers here, lead by a Dr. Raymond Moody -and with their equipment gotten stronger reactions than at any of the famous haunted places in england... There's the 17th century Lady, Brita Bååth - who died, according to the legend - after mistakenly attending the mass of the dead... the hunchback dwarf Anders Luxemburg, and Cotillion - the dog of Axel Von Fersen's younger Sister Sophie, who died and was buried there -"at the feet of his mistress", as his little tombstone says, located somewhere in the park. There is also Brandklipparen, the last horse of King Charles XII who spent his last years there.






The castle doesn't look like any other, not really an architectural masterpiece, but still wonderful, rising tall above the green, lush landscape. The whole site is almost phenomenally beautiful, especially on a bright summers day, as you can imagine. Sadly the castle was closed this day, but we enjoyed a nice picnic in the park and took a look at the church nearby.


When you walk up the stairs to the first floor you'll encounter an eerie portrait of an austere-looking lady, dressed in grey. -it's the ill fated Brita Bååth who, according to the legend, was a "cruel and rigid woman who was said to have driven her two husbands into an early grave..."

-one early christmas day-morning, she was to attend the christmas service. Anxious to miss it she'd instructed the servants to wake her early, but toward the morning she woke up by herself and saw the light in the church windows, annoyed she thought that the service had already begun and that they'd simply forgotten to wake her, so she dressed hastily and got out. Half way to the church she saw an apparition, uncannily resembling her old wet nurse who'd been dead for many years, and the old woman almost seeemd as if she was trying to warn her from continuing, but as she was already late she ignored the vision and scuttled on.

And as she approached the church she noticed that the light in the windows had a cold, pale-green glow to it, with none of the usual warmth of the christmas candles, but this didn't stop her either. But upon entering the church she stood petrified, for in the benches sat skeletons with devoutly clasped hands and grinning faces. She realised she was much to early and that she'd come to the mass of the dead. -and as if that weren't enough the ghosts of her two late husbands came rushing toward her - one swung his rapier at her, but only got a piece of her veil and the other threw a large stone, which struck her to the ground, outside where the servants found her the following morning, and she retold the horrific tale before she died, three days later.

The rapier with the piece of her veil still hangs in the church, hung across her funeral coat of arms, and nobody knows how it got there.


I hope to be able to get back later this summer, when the castle's open, to see it's beautiful interiors again, (not to mention posting more pictures for you to see!) -before last tuestay i hadn't been there in more than six years. A couple of years before my mother's death five years ago, we made it a tradition to go there on my birthdays. So it was so nice getting back there again, for it's too gorgeous a place not to go to at least once a year!

The Piper family arriving at the newly rebuilt Engsö, oil on canvas by unknown artist.

Monsigny.

I never thought i'd say this; but i so wish i was in Washington, DC. -now...or in a fiew weeks - January 29th. When those who are lucky enough to be thereabouts can see - given that it's not sold out - William Sharp and Dominique Labelle in Monsigny's lyric drama "Le Désérteur" (1769) at the Kennedy Center with Ryan Brown and Opera Lafayette; a conductor and an orchestra i discovered a couple of years ago when they made an excellent recording of Antonio Sacchini's 1786 opera "Oedipe à Colone" for Naxos...

Monsigny by Carmontelle

The composer Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (1729-1817) was -along with Grétry and Gossec that i mentioned in a recent post - a giant in his own time, but virtually forgotten and rarely performed today and recordings are nonexistent, and "Le Déserteur" was a huge success - it's about "the resourceful heroine Louise who wins a pardon from the king for her fiancé Alexis who is accused of desertion from the army after he was tricked into believing she had married another..." (excerpt of text from the Kennedy Center) Here's a clip i found on youtube with bits from a performance at the Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne in 1994:



Needless to say how much i love this music - it makes me nostalgic somehow - reminds me of performances at Drottningholm in my childhood - and everything else i love about the 18th century, though Monsigny hasn't been performed there in modern times - but was in the 18th century - for example, in honour of Queen Sophia-Magdalena on Magdalene's day, July 22 in 1779 when Monsigny's "La Belle Arsène" was performed.

Ingmar Bergman filmed his "Magic flute" at Drottningholm, and i watched it constantly as a child, -that, along with Scola's "La Nuit de Varennes" and Carné's "Les enfants du Paradis" -i still have the tapes, and they always transport me back...even though it wasn't a very happy childhood...but that had more to do with the world around me - just as it does now...
I will be going on an on about Drottningholm and it's environs, in many, many future posts...

All illustrations courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux.