Malmö. Thursday. Afternoon. Sweden’s National Day. 

I’m not a huge consumer of Swedish music, but there are a few exceptions. One of them is Eric Gadd, whom I’ve seen three or four times over the course of his career. My first live experience was at a venue near Visby on the island of Gotland during the time I was attending the art college there. Last night’s concert with Eric Gadd was great and certified that he is one of the most talented singer-songwriters in Sweden.

Before last night’s gig at Malmö’s Folkets Park, the best show with Eric was an unplugged, indoor performance at the seaside resort Nösund with his wife. That dinner and the show took place on my birthday and was a present from my wife, Charlotte.

That evening’s club feeling reminded me of a tiny room concert I saw with Abe Laboriel’s band Koinonia in North Hollywood at The Baked Potato when Al Jarreau showed up and sang a few tunes.

I was also reminded of when Michael Ruff had a gig in Göteborg and Greg Phillinganes and a few other members of Michael Jackson’s band showed up (after their concert earlier that same day) and jammed for an extended second set.

I’m having another book signing today at ICA MAXI, our local supermarket.

Back again in Malmö from what turned out to be a splendid weekend in Stockholm. One of the highlights was a two-hour kayaking tour with buddy Henry around the island where the converted prison we were staying at was located.

During our three-night stay at this nicely refurbished, perfectly located prison, I pondered the history of pain and suffering that must have occurred within its cell rooms and other parts of the correctional facility. It made me consider the ethical implications of repurposing such institutions. In two hundred years, would it be acceptable to transform Auschwitz or any other concentration camp into a resort?

In its heyday, the Colosseum in Rome, aka The Flavian Amphitheatre, was an arena of severe brutality, showcasing among other spectacles, gladiatorial fights for the sheer enjoyment of Roman citizens until the early 5th century AD. Though not currently a hotel or resort, the Colosseum stands as one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions, drawing over 7 million visitors annually.

Spent the better part of yesterday afternoon riding around the old industrial shipyard area now called Varvsstaden. It was too windy for aerial photos but I found a rooftop that sufficed nicely. My main focus was on the new red bridge across one of the harbor inlets. A version of this image will definitely make into the book about this area.

Whenever I’m feeling nostalgic and just need a hit of something comfortingly familiar, I usually end up pulling out an old movie. One of the few perks of getting older is that over the years, I’ve forgotten enough details about films from my youth that rewatching them still offers entertainment value.

The screenshot above is from a recent rewatch – the 1983 film WarGames where actor Matthew Broderick hacks his way into the mainframe of a NORAD computer called “WOPR” from his bedroom. While full of plot holes and a typical over-the-top Hollywood finale, it’s still kind of crazy how a film from the ’80s can capture so much of today’s global tensions, armed conflicts, unprovoked aggression, you name it.

This is from the Li River near the city of Guilin in China’s southern province of Guangxi Zhuang. Several years ago, Charlotte and I spent a couple of weeks in the region to produce a comprehensive travel guide commissioned by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet’s travel section. Interestingly, the guide is still online here.

When domestic tourists visit places in China (and elsewhere in Asia), they often dress up in costumes that reflect local culture and heritage – as well as provide themselves with nice selfie opportunities.

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting China five or six times and enjoyed each visit. It might be time to return.

I wrote the following “creative brief” (prompt) to the artificial intelligence bot ChatGPT4/DALL·E the other day to see what it would come up with:

Create a photorealistic image of a 1950s-style American diner/sandwich shop with hungry guests served by staff in classic waiter/waitress uniforms. Most people are sitting at a bar eating their sandwiches with huge smiles on their faces. There’s a jukebox and several pieces of Americana on the walls. Use Edward Hopper’s classic painting “Nighthawks” as a visual reference.

Despite that I did not specify that the composition should be based on an actual scene from the 1950s, OpenAI’s LLM (Large Language Model) and generative image creator did just that. Hence the lack of ethnic diversity. As an African American friend pointed out, in those days when Jim Crow laws were still widely (and often brutally) enforced, only white people would be allowed in a diner like the one above. My buddy’s comment prompted me to look up when those segregation laws were rescinded. It was as late as 1968 when I was 5 years old. I’m more shocked by that fact than I am impressed by the AI-generated image.

The US certainly has a shameful past and I am not convinced that the country’s future is looking a whole lot brighter.