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Kayaking
Henry Arvidsson captured this shot while we were somewhere between two islands in Stockholm on Saturday evening. After a couple of days of extensive walking around the Swedish capital, it was wonderful to let my fatigued legs rest and use mostly arm power to propel the rickety vessel forward.
Back from Stockholm
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.
Stockholm
Back in a seductively beautiful early summer Stockholm. As usual, when I visit the city this time of year, I want nothing more than to move here. It’s been like this for decades. Not so much during the winter months, though. My masochism doesn’t extend that far anymore.
Yesterday’s 32,100 steps got me from the old prison Långholmen past Slussen to Fotografiska, then across to Skeppsholmen and Moderna (where I took the opportunity to vote in the EU election).
Then through Kungsan and via Söder Mälarstrand back to the prison and after a much-needed shower and change of clothes straight back to Mosebacke before a pitstop at the bar on top of the new Gondola restaurant. Finally, my buddy Henry and I had dinner at Brasserie Süd near Mariatorget. It was an all-around superb Friday in the capital.
Varvsstaden
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.
New Book: Male Aging
So, while I was at this amazing Mediterranean sports hotel again early last fall, eating well, and working out at least three hours a day, I decided to start writing about how I was experiencing the new, strange phase I was going through and in detail describe the various ways it was impacting different aspects of my life, physically, mentally, sexually and emotionally.
Eventually, the project evolved. I realized that I not only wanted to write for myself but also for other men my age who might read the book and feel some comfort in knowing that they aren’t alone in tackling this aging thing.
I’m no stranger to embarking on colossal creative journeys. That’s kinda been my MO: taking on challenges that are way above my pay grade and range of ability is what has kept my career so interesting and invigorating. The “I can do that!” mentality has been my motto for as long as I can remember. That said, this has by far been the toughest project of my career.
I’m extremely competitive with myself and get easily bored when I have too much repetitive work that doesn’t provide me with an adequate amount of “imposter syndrome” and “failure anxiety”.
Earlier today, from the very same spot where I wrote the book’s outline in September 2023, I sent the 250-page, 11-chapter manuscript to David Pahmp, my trusty Swedish book designer, Art Director, and fellow Visual Artist – someone I’ve worked with for more than a decade on at least a dozen book projects.
When the layout and cover art are finalized, hopefully sometime next week, I’m going to self-publish my new book on Amazon’s bookstore. And since a couple of iconic Swedish publishers have shown interest in the project when it’s available in Swedish, my ambition is to have it translated within the next few months.
WarGames
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.
Preseason Greece
Back in Greece again to do a story about how wonderful this island is to visit during preseason – before it gets too hot and too crowded. Charlotte and I are staying at the lovely Levante, a four-star sports hotel in Afandou, Rhodes where I’ve been twice before and adore for its delicious Greek food, friendly staff, and a plethora of group and solo training options.
Mother’s Day with The Blue Angel
This seems like a fitting post for Mother’s Day. Yesterday, while doing some research for a new book project, I found one of the few films my mother, Swedish actress Solveig “Ina Anders” Andersson acted in. She only has a couple of scenes in the 1959 remake of “The Blue Angel” starring fellow Swede May Britt Wilkens, but she plays them rather well, I think.
May Britt was married to Sammy Davis Jr and according to stories my mother told me as a child, back in the day, both were frequent guests at my parent’s parties when we lived on Alfred Street in West Hollywood
For several reasons, some due to really bad choices, some beyond her control, and some genetically embedded within her, my mother was a horrible parent. But as I get older and understand how complicated life often is, I feel less and less angry about how badly she screwed mine and up my brother Tyko’s life.
Long Run with Kevin & Casey
I woke up at 5:00 am this morning, which isn’t unusual per se. If I’m heading to the gym, which opens at 06:00 am (Mon-Fri), I typically get out of bed around then. However, it’s Saturday, so the gym doesn’t open its doors until 09:00 am, so I went for a long jog instead. It was my first 10k jog of the year, so I took it slow and easy. No records were broken, but neither did I break any bones. I’m slightly sore in my sixty-year-old hips, though.
I ran to a beautiful Scandinavian sunrise along the beach, all the while listening to what might have been the simultaneously funniest and most interesting episode of Kevin Roose’s and Casey Newton’s excellent show, Hardfork, since I started listening about a year ago.
The podcast version is here and the YouTube variant is here.
Colorful China
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.
CAR WASH NOSTALGIA
I preferred taking the shorter route home via the Bowling Alley on Santa Monica and La Cienega, but once in a while, I’d walk by the Santa Palm Car Wash on Santa Monica Boulevard.While two guys polished the car’s headlights and cleaned its windshield and rearview mirrors, two others vacuumed the car’s floor and then used large blue rags to clean the interior windows, seats, side panels, dashboard, and steering wheel
There was always a radio playing loudly and the men working there seemed synchronized. I’m sure the physically exhausting work was made just a little bit easier to endure with some good tunes.
This short video is from a fully automated but still visually intriguing car wash we visited just a few days ago here in Malmö.
The Hopper Prompt
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.
Book Signing Yesterday
This is from yesterday’s book signing. The event went well and it was nice meeting so many people who follow my work on I Love Västra Hamnen and then signing a book or two for them.
Thank you to all the wonderful people who came by yesterday and bought my new book, “Västra Hamnen, Mosaic of Memories: Moments to Remember, to Love.”. Thanks also to Kent Haglund and his great team at ICA Maxi Västra Hamnen for another fun collaboration. The book is available in the store and feel free to contact me if you would like to have it signed!
Wishing everyone a beautiful May Day!
Photo: Charlotte Raboff & Anders Hallbeck.
New Book: Västra Hamnen 2004-2024
So this new book has been on my mind for nearly a decade. My last book about the area where we live in Malmö, Västra Hamnen, was published way back in 2015. While we were in Asia last fall, and even more so once we got back, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Lightroom catalog called Västra Hamnen where over 4000 RAW images are stored.
Hope you enjoy the short video above. Want to watch the Swedish language version? Check it out here.
You can order the new book from these two online stores:
BOKUS
ADLIBRIS
AKADEMIBOKHANDELN
Dead Moose & Grandma Agnes
I don’t think much of it, but once in a while, when I have time to take a deep dive into my photo archive, I realize that I do have a fairly well-rounded body of work. Not even sure if I can call it a career, but if I did, I’d say that the best part of it has been that I’ve been able to visit and experience so many places and meet and get to know so many interesting people.
But I’ve also been privileged to encounter some truly magnificent animals. Like this majestic moose that I saw chilling somewhere in a thick forest of southeast Sweden.
My grandfather Eskil was an avid hunter and spent much of his autumns hunting in the mountains of Halleberg and Hunneberg near Vänersborg in southwestern Sweden. I remember one afternoon in the late fall of 1973 or 1974 during a prolonged visit to Sweden, when I saw the bloody carcass of an enormous moose lying on old newspapers on my grandparents’ cold, cellar floor.
The dead moose was cut in half, and my Grandmother Agnes was bent over the front end of the animal’s body, cutting and slicing it with surprising precision and strength. She was like a master butcher, and her enthusiasm was a little scary. Agnes was wearing an old fur hat, yellow gloves, grey, knee-high boots, and an old wool coat. The coat was buttoned down, but its lapels stood upright and probably provided some protection from all the blood and fluids from the cuts and tears she was accomplishing with Grandpa’s sharp hunting knife.
Now and then, the knife’s blade would sparkle in the bright light from the cellar’s naked lightbulb.
Even though I was completely captivated by my grandmother’s remarkable strength and determination, I just had to leave the basement and the smell of death that stifled the room.
I ran upstairs where I opened a window and breathed in the crisp autumn air coming in from Örtagårdsvägen, the peaceful suburban street where my grandparents lived just outside of Trollhättan.
None of my friends on the street below knew what was happening right then in Grandpa and Grandma’s basement, and even though I had made it up to the second floor, I could still clearly hear Grandma’s chopping and puffing as she worked her way through the dead moose.
That the half-corpse in the cellar was Grandpa’s share of the moose he and his hunting buddies had shot was obvious to me. But I wondered if it was my Grandpa who had fired the fatal bullet(s) that killed the moose.
I’m guessing that there’s considerably more meat on the back half of a moose, so maybe Grandpa Eskil wanted the head as a trophy and let his pals take the rest.A few days later, my Grandmother asked me to fetch a bucket of ice cream from their giant freezer in the cellar. The smell of death was almost gone by then. When I pried open the freezer’s wide lid, I saw several neatly wrapped white packages of what I assumed were meat cuts from the dead moose.
As that winter transitioned into spring, there were fewer and fewer packages in the freezer. I checked almost daily, even when ice cream wasn’t on Grandmother’s mind or menu.
I don’t remember that we ate a whole lot of meat that winter. Then again, maybe I’ve just suppressed the memories of too many moose meals. But I’ll never forget the slaughter in the celler and my grandmother Agnes unmistakable carnivorous demeanor.
Printing a new Book
If all goes as planned and promised, 500 copies of my latest book will arrive from a Latvian printing company later this week. For several previous book projects, I’ve flown to Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius to approve the first pages that come off the Heidelberg printing presses prior to the main print run. Not this time.
Though I took a semester of “printshop,” an elective at Bancroft Jr High in 1977, I have next to zero knowledge about offset printing.
About the above photo:
One afternoon, while serendipitously walking along Calle Neptuno, a busy, non-tourist street in the historic neighborhood of Havana, I came across a wonderful print shop.
Sadly, I wasn’t mindful enough to capture footage of this place, so you’ll just have to imagine the cacophonous sounds coming from all the old printing presses, street traffic, and chatter between the men and women working the shop’s antiquated machines.
Gothenburg
Back in Göteborg for a short visit, mostly helping Charlotte’s parents but also spending some time with friends. This is our third visit in almost as many months and I’m sure we’ll be back soon again. It’s a bit of a cliché, but there is definitely a uniquely tangible upbeat vibe and positive attitude in Göteborg that I don’t know exists anywhere else in Sweden.
Shot the above view from on top of my old neighborhood “Johanneberg”, a couple of years ago.
Sunset Season
Sunset season is definitely upon us and hopefully, we’ll also get to enjoy some warmer temperatures soon. In about a week, my new book covering Västra Hamnen 2004-2024 is arriving from the printer in Lithuania. Looking forward to seeing how it turned out.
Love of Italy
Monday. Evening. Random Italy.
I first fell in love with Italy way back in 1983 when I traveled like a hobo from north to south courtesy of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, the then famously unreliable, state-owned railway system. Even though very few Italians I interacted with in those days spoke English, communicating wasn’t that hard. Hand gestures, some stick drawings, and a lot of smiling were yesteryear’s translation apps. They worked slowly but flawlessly.
Some thirty years later I have yet to visit a country that offers as much to life’s great delights as Italy. Food, wine, art, music, design, architecture, fashion, geography, history – Italy really has it all. Yet this wonderful country of Medici, Caravaggio, Galilei, Bocelli, Armani, Fellini, and Ferrari, not to mention Modigliani, DaVinci, or Rocco Siffredi, the country’s notorious erotic star stud, is still ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the Eurozone. A haven of nepotism, bribery, and ties between public officials and Cosa Nostra, the mafia, the mob, the made men.
But maybe that’s just it. Maybe it’s the country’s rebellious character and unwillingness to trust or be subservient to authority that brings forth these amazing creative talents and extraordinary passions they so fully embody. Even some of the men and at least one woman who captained the vaporettos we took between Venetian islands had larger-than-life personalities. Watching how restaurant hierarchies work, even at simple trattorias, could be like having front-row seats at an opera. Drama queens everywhere.
Within almost every Italian man lives a Berlusconi and a Mario Andretti. In every woman resides a Maria Montessori and a Gina Lollobrigida.
Since my very first visit at the beginning of the 1980s, Italy has had 30 governments. Thirty. Yet the country is also one of the continent’s largest economies and produces some of the world’s most well-respected brands and goods. Go figure.
As relatively slow-paced and laid-back as Italian life is in places like Pienza, Cortina, Capri, Siena, and the villages of Cinque Terra, I’ve found that it’s in the cities where the full-throttled Italian experience is best observed, absorbed and enjoyed. Naples, Milan, Rome, and to a lesser degree Florence all offer a level of edginess that keeps the blood flowing and pulse beating.
Staying on the Venetian island of Giudecca, right across Canale della Giudecca from Dorsoduro, turned out to be another one of Charlotte’s brilliant location strategies. Giudecca is as calm and local as San Marco is bustling and touristy. But you got to have a little of both.
The last time we visited Venice, about 15 years ago, was also in April but not nearly as hot and crowded as this time around.
The days when a delicious meal cost 5000 ($4) lire are long gone. A pizza in Venice (or Cortina) is on par with what they charge in Malmö. But then there’s the taste factor…
Venice: La Giudecca
Our Italian spring-themed travel story culminates in La Giudecca, the quiet island located just across the Venetian Lagoon with spectacular views of Old Town and where mostly locals live. The combo Cortina-Venice is really quite unbeatable. Coincidentally, the very last episode of the brilliant new Netflix black and white mini-series “Ripley” which is based on the author Patricia Highsmith’s book series, is played out right here in Venice. And though there is no footage from Cortina, the exquisite resort town has a fairly important role among the show’s many locations.