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Papa’s Got A New Wok & The Praise of Veggies
This shot is from a Pad Thai with marinated tofu and a ton of veggies that I made the other night. While not all the ingredients were grown locally or even organic, the green stuff is winter kale, which grows fervently in the garden here in Vejbystrand.
Whenever I hear about kids that don’t like vegetables, I wonder about what their parents are doing (or, not doing) in the kitchen to create such prejudice. I can’t remember not loving vegetables. Which, considering that during most of my childhood in the US I ate sugary cereals, junk food, and nuked TV dinners, is pretty amazing. Carrots in particular are among my favorite organic chews. But as of this writing, I can’t think of a single vegetable that I don’t like.
Can there be a more versatile ingredient than vegetables? Doubt it. Clearly, the transition from a hardcore carnivore/omnivore menu to a primarily herbivore’s diet, some six years ago, wasn’t all that difficult to make for me. And I am really happy about my new hand-crafted Pasoli steel wok. Pre-fired and ready to go when it got here via Amazon. Waiting for a glass lid to arrive any day now. Read about Oli and Pascal of Pasoli here.
Myanmar Coup: Aung San Suu Kyi Detained
This is the very last photo from our trip to Myanmar nine years ago. We were there on a weeklong assignment to research and photograph for a travel guide. Things had started looking promising for the country and Aung San Suu Kyi was sharing at least (theoretically) some of the power with the military junta. It felt okay to visit. We experienced a half dozen beautiful locations and always felt safe and secure. Well, at least when we weren’t flying on the domestic airline Air KBZ, which at the time was a bit sketchy.
I’m not sure if Charlotte or one of the Buddhist nuns took the above group photo. Nor do I know why one sock is so much higher than the other. What I distinctly recall is that everybody we met throughout the country was friendly and hospitable.
My first visit to Asia was in 1988 when I spent six months in the south of Thailand. Since then I’ve always benchmarked other nations from those experiences. Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos have a lot in common with Thailand, especially culturally and I’ve never been chagrined during any of my visits to those countries either. I really liked Vietnam, but it’s so totally different than the rest of former Indochina.
Some would argue that several of the nations in South East Asia, as well as China, could use a nice big injection of democracy. That it’s time to retire autocracy and totalitarianism. Political oppression and military rule are not fitting for a people who in general are among the kindest and friendliest I’ve had the pleasure of encountering.
So I certainly don’t condone nor justify the Myanmarese regime’s recent power grab and declaration of a state of emergency. But it’s also hard to see beyond how Aung San Suu Kyi’s pseudo-democratic government neglects the persecution of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority.
Whenever I read about Aung San Suu Kyi, I remind myself that she comes from a family of extreme privilege and is one of a number of people in the region who are the sons or daughters or widows of leaders and at least to a degree, ride on the shiny coattails of their fathers or spouses. I’m definitely not saying that Aung San Suu Kyi still couldn’t be a really great leader and lift her country and compatriots to new heights and help Myanmar evolve into a democracy.. But her track record thus far has been lackluster and disappointing. So, perhaps it’s also time for Aung San Suu Kyi to retire her dynastic ambitions.
The Blackbirds
I can for sure appreciate the beauty of all kinds of birds, but I am by no means a birdie. Saw these tracks the other day out on the meadow. No idea what type of bird made them, where it was going or, even if there were more than one. Not much of a tracker, am I.
I do feed two Blackbirds almost every day with organic sunflower seeds imported from Germany (of all places). I want to imagine that I’m helping them survive this year’s unusually cold and snowy winter. It’s gone so far now that all I have to do is crack the kitchen door open a little and gently whistle a few times and at least one of them shows up within seconds, landing a few feet away from me. The short distance is a tell-tale sign that the Blackbirdies don’t see me as a threat. but as a meal ticket.
Here’s one of my favorite takes on Blackbirds.
L.A. vs Writer’s Blockade
Finding it hard to write right now. Not just because of my physical restraints. A paragraph here and then… I drift and allow myself to get distracted. As the Swedish idiom goes, I have far too many strings to play on my creative lyre. Though alternating between them has always been how I get through the “valley of the doldrums”, I am increasingly suspicious that there is a level of procrastination involved. The challenging and also considerably more self-important, self-assigned project of writing episodes from my early history in Los Angeles is hard, hard, hard. I don’t have writer’s block. I have writer’s blockade (to quote New York humorist Fran Liebowitz).
There could be a third explanation.
As a freelance artist, where photography, filmmaking, and painting have been my foremost mediums, there has always been a demand to deliver whatever my clients have ordered in a timely fashion. My creative outpouring has, therefore, at least to a degree, been shaped by my ability to not only identify and theorize about a solution to a problem but to also execute and fulfill my client’s expectations by supplying them with something substantive.
I think this is part of why I find writing long-form so challenging. The end is nowhere in sight and so, from time to time, I feel an urge to create something that will see the light of day within a reasonable timeframe. Like this blog post…
Photo: an early morning by a freeway underpass near Los Angeles International Airport.
Travel Lust 2021
It took some time, but here’s a collage of places I’ve had the privilege of visiting in recent years. In my creative calling and line of work, the boundary between work and pleasure is essentially invisible. Most of my days, regardless of where I spend them, in Vejbystrand, on the streets of Tokyo or discovering hidden gems in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, I’m constantly looking for interesting scenes to film or photograph. While the shortcomings of my vision don’t always allow me to clearly perceive what I have in front of me, the camera never, ever lies.
Not being able to travel right now is fine. I have come to terms with it. My body needs the rest. But that’s not stopping my mind from its chronic wanderlust. And so, I felt the need to sift through my travels and put this little film together and publish it online. Watching reminds me of how wonderfully diverse a planet we live on. Which is humbling.
Flower at Jim’s
Though I can surely tell you if a rose is a rose and a sunflower is a sunflower, I’m not a botanist by any stretch of the imagination. The floral world is just too big for me and I’m already spreading myself thinly across several different fields of interest.
From a quick cross-reference of the above flower via Google’s collection of flowers, I’m fairly convinced it’s a lily of some flavor. I shot it about a year ago at Jim Thompson’s House in Bangkok.
Connecting
Saw this small phone booth during a visit to a derelict factory in Malmö called Kockums Industries. They made everything from cast iron stoves to submarines and gigantic cargo ships there. The phone is yet another one of my homages to Duchamp’s still wonderfully provocative “readymade” approach to everyday objects as (meta) art.
Who was the last person to use the phone before it was pulled from the network? What was the final word spoken through it? Who designed it and what was the process like? How long did the cord need to be?
I chose this image as a symbol of connectivity. See, I’ve recently linked with a few choice relatives on my father’s side of the family. Though I’ve heard their names mentioned from time to time, most are entirely new acquaintances. Very exciting to learn more about a part of my family that I’ve ignored/neglected/distanced myself from. Why? Probably to avoid what I assumed would be a lot of emotional wear and tear. But I don’t feel nearly as fraught with gloom or filled with wrath as I had foreseen. Instead, I’ve tried to take a neutral approach.
I’m more of an amateur social anthropologist, piecing together characters, anecdotes, timelines, and plot twists and by doing so, hopefully creating a less fragmented, distorted image of my father; who he was as an individual and why he did so much weird shit.
Ultimately, as usual in my life, I want to see if I can find the silver lining and once and for all shake off the shadow of a man I never knew. This in order to get to know myself better, to learn to accept myself better. To feel better.
Retouching & Fixing: Chamonix Train Station
Nice in Nice
It was here, at the beginning of July of 1983, while on my first European solo backpacking trip, after an uneventful night in Marseille together with my newfound friends from Denmark and Canada, that I slept on the beach Plage Publique des Ponchettes in Nice.
Of all the places I’ve been fortunate to have visited in France (and I sincerely hope to expand that roster in the years ahead), Nice is among my favorites. Elle, Charlotte, and I spent a couple of days in Nice 2016 on our way back from the annual Photo Festival held throughout the ancient city of Arles in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of southern France.
The Eiffel Tower in Paris
Here’s my favorite shot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. My relationship with “P-a-h-r-e-e” is somewhat complicated. The above image is from one of my visits to Paris with Charlotte. I think we were there, at least in part, for Charlotte’s 40th birthday. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, I left the UK for Paris and spent much of my stay there walking to and from all the classic sites and scenes with my thick, orange “Let’s Go Europe” travel guide in hand. I don’t remember where I slept or, how I navigated the city. This was back in 1983, about a decade prior to GPS technology and some 15 years before the Internet started becoming a ubiquitous part of everyday life.
At some point, I must have gotten sick of the intensity of city life and via Gare du Sud, headed down to the south of France. I do recall taking a night train, the TGV to Marseille. When possible, night trains (and night ferries) were the preferred way to travel when on a Eurail pass, as it meant you could sleep on the train (or, on the deck of the ferry) and not have to pay for loggings.
Like many of the great cities of the world, Paris is layered and dotted with distinct neighborhoods of varying interest and allure. My favorite Parisian neighborhoods? Marais and St Germain.
Interestingly, my father met his second wife Margit in Paris sometime just after WWII. He was stationed there as a reporter for the US Army’s newspaper, Stars & Stripes and Margit was in Paris to attend a fashion school. According to what she told me several years before passing away, the two had met at Café de Flore on the corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain och Rue Saint-Benoît.
In the early days of 2003, my relationship with Paris become fraught with tragedy. In an act of desperation and abysmal sadness, my brother Tyko took his life at a hotel near Arc de Triomphe. Of all the places I’d like to return to, Paris is fairly low on my list. Morbid as it may sound, I may one day return to Paris and visit the hotel where my brother’s life ended.
Missing London
This is one of many streetart captures during my most recent visit to London in 2018. I’ve stayed in about a dozen different areas in the capital, but this was my very first time in Shoreditch, East London. Loved it there! Lots of great curry places and a level of grittiness that tickles me creatively.
I can’t remember last when so much time has passed without visiting London. As an American, the UK is the only country in Europe where, thanks to the combo of a common language and wildly diverse ethnicity, I’ve always felt perfectly at home. The contrasts of HiSo and Lowbrow, new and old, mundane and surprising make almost every visit to London a fun experience.
My first visit was in 1983 during a whirlwind tour of the continent on a Eurail pass. I’d started my train journey from Göteborg, where I was living at the time, through Denmark and Germany and then over to Holland. This was way before the Eurotunnel was available, so I crossed the English Channel with a ferry from Hoek van Holland to Harwich and finally a train headed for Victoria Station.
I’d met a Swedish gal on the ferry who’s father was a pastor at the Swedish Seaman’s Church in London. She convinced me to stay there for a few nights. Restless as always and with only a month of vacation to explore Europe with, I left England after just four of five days and headed to Paris. I had just turned 20 and it was my first solo adventure.
Bjäre Delivers
Bjäre always delivers – regardless of the season. I lit a nice warming fire, sat down, and let the day’s magical walk in the snow slowly sink into body and soul. It’s on days like these that I usually say “everything is forgiven”. A thought born of pure gratitude.
When the weather gods offer their widest smiles, it’s an immeasurable privilege to live in Vejbystrand. Today’s excursion went from Stora Hult to Segelstorp via Lillaro where freshly baked sourdough bread was available. Couldn’t wait to get home and tore off a piece along the way home.
A dwarf sparrow attracted a few dozen birdies this afternoon. Thought it was interesting that the gang was looking for an even smaller variant of an already tiny bird.
At the time of writing, it’s -7C/19F. With a little luck, we’ll get even more sun tomorrow – at least for a while. If nothing else for the little blackbird that greets me every day when I come home from my walks. And the dwarf sparrow, of course.
I ate my dinner in front of the fireplace above.
Avoiding the Doldrums
Shot this curious trio yesterday during a refreshing walk in the village yesterday. I’ve realized a few things these last couple of days. Maybe it’s the huge snowfall. Maybe it’s something else. Whatever.
Here we go.
The pandemic has brought forth three positive perspectives.
One, I feel so much more appreciative of all the traveling we’ve been able to do during the last 25 years. I traveled a lot before meeting Charlotte, but once we connected, the traveling increased exponentially. The only other couple I know of that comes somewhat close to us is the Friberg’s.
Once you contract the “travel bug”, you never really get rid of it. At least I haven’t. And while I tend to be more enthralled and inspired by creative folks in general, if they’ve also traveled extensively, we’ll usually hit it off instantly.
We’re all different, I get that. But not filling your life with as many new experiences as possible (as opposed to those that are repetitive, predictable, and safe) is still a life concept I can’t relate to.
Anyway, I know it’s not exactly brag-worthy from an environmental perspective, but since 1997, I’ve logged about 367 000 kilometers of air travel. That’s not including trips before then and not all the domestic distances I’ve traveled via train, boat, car, and bus. In all, 600k is still not too far off from a round trip voyage to the moon (768k).
So, if I don’t ever get to travel again, I’d certainly be disappointed and deeply saddened, but not devastated as in feeling my life had been hollow and boring. It’s been a privileged life and in retrospect, I’m really happy that I’ve thoroughly documented the vast majority of our adventures around the world.
Secondly, because of the situation in my life and obviously in the world right now, I’ve found that I can still appreciate my new, hamstrung boundaries. Living here in the Vejbystrand is also a privilege and though I keep walking along the same paths, beaches, and trails, so far, I’ve not felt the least bit bored.
And this brings us to my third perspective.
The pandemic has provided me with time for reflection. I’m working on a retrospective-introspective exhibition of sorts. Essentially, I’ve embarked on a journey without an outlined goal or even a decent map. More like a reckoning and inventory of my 57-year-old life. The idea being that this will eventually clue me into how to move forward, stay fluid, creative, and, continue to suck up as much as possible out of life. Most importantly, I need to be mindful of “The Valley of Doldrums” which many old folks tend to not realize they’ve fallen into until it’s kept them, hostage, for so long, they succumb to Stockholm Syndrome.
Injecting Chemo
This is what I use to shoot up methotrexate once a week. Its chemical name is 4-amino-10-methyl folic acid and its chemical formula is C20H22N8O5.
I picked up a new batch of six syringes at the local store yesterday. They come in a tidy box complete with multilingual instructions and antiseptic pads to clean my choice of injection location. I try to alternate between the left and right thigh and the left and right side of my belly.
Since I’ve not felt any improvement since reluctantly beginning this chemotherapy seven weeks ago, my kind rheumatologist has decided to increase the dosage by about thirty percent.
There was a sharp pain today as I injected the thick, yellow fluid. Clearly from the larger volume. I really felt like a heroin addict…minus the rush and euphoria they are said to feel. I made a cup of tea and have since noticed nothing from the shot.
Hopefully, within the next six weeks, I’ll see some improvement with my arthritis. Or, start shooting heroin. Kidding.
Pandemic Indulgence, Winter Kale & A Greek Salad
Like for many people, January means embarking on a voyage to try to recapture the health one had before the annual holiday indulgences began. The problem with this is that many, including myself, have been indulging way too much for way too long.
Pandemic indulgence is a pandemic in itself.
Since Tuesday, I’ve been coffee-free, alcohol-free, and cut down my meals to one per day. I’ll snack on fruits and nuts and then eat a healthy, tasty dinner. The abstinence from coffee is the most painful. Caffeine withdrawals give me a nagging headache that lasts for two to three days. Today I feel fine.
Tonight I’ll be eating pea soup – made from scratch – with some of the above Greek salad with homegrown winter kale that was leftover from last night’s dinner. Swedish pea soup with sweet mustard tastes a lot better than it sounds.
Trust me.
It Will Be Alright (in 2021)
Here’s the English version of my short film shot along some of my favorite walks by the coast here in Vejbystrand. In it, I share a few thoughts about how this tiny village in the Swedish hinterland turned out to be the perfect sanctuary for me.
I’ve been visiting Vejbystrand for about 22 years and the timeless milieu here is unequivocally worthy of veritable reverence and vehement admiration. What makes Vejbystrand so unique? The amalgamation of meadows, forests, coastal trails, free-roaming farm creatures, an infinite flow of fresh air, limitless skies, magnificent sunsets, and relentless storms. But I also appreciate not being surrounded by ugly, artificial environments, traffic, and a bombardment of sounds and noises.
Being able to live in such a natural environment as that which Vejbystrand provides has been nothing short of a privilege. I realize this every time I visit a city these days and see how absurd it is that so many people, myself included, live most of our lives in these concrete boxes with only tiny windows to provide us with a hint of a life on the outside. Is urbanism really a measure of worthy progress? Have humans actually evolved since our days as simple farmers? Are we so much happier, healthier, and more caring towards each other compared with our seemingly primitive, cave-dwelling, hunter-gatherer ancestors? I wonder…
My year in Vejbystrand has answered a few key questions on how I want to define happiness going forward. Like the importance of having plenty of breathing space and how identifying situations and interactions that either add or subtract emotional value to my life, is crucial to my well-being.
I should really consider producing a book about Vejbystrnad. Wait! I did that already!
Happy New Year!
End of 2020
When I look back through a year, I tend to think of it in terms of an exhibition at a gallery or a museum. I call the piece above “End of 2020” and it consists of a dozen or so of my images from this remarkable year.
Closing in on 2020. Up until the very end, a year full of surprises – one of which is really great and will be unveiled sometime relatively soon. Like most years, there been both positive and negative challenges. I continue to refuse to use the word problem as it implies the possibility of being unsolvable.
I’ve had plenty of interesting work throughout 2020, including an almost sold-out niche photo book focused on the ancient village of Vejbystrand, an invitation to exhibit new work during the annual Gallery Night in Malmö, and a dozen or so film projects. The last of which will be published here tomorrow.
Physically, life could obviously be much better. I can only hope that sometime in 2021 I will be able to enjoy life more fluidly than what’s currently possible. In the meantime, I am recuperating.
As for the rest of the family, things are looking pretty damn good. Charlotte’s new business idea has been approved and at least partially funded and daughter Elle was just awarded Employee of the Year at the supermarket where she’s been working since February. Elle’s plan is still to begin studying at the university next fall, but in the meantime, she’s making decent money, learning a bunch of new stuff about the food and retail industries, and honing her social work skills.
If we cut away all the bull, the objective of life is essentially procreation and to thereafter support your kids through love, affection, wisdom, and role modeling, so that their ability to succeed on their own is maximized. For all my shortcomings, the one thing – the only thing – I feel a long-lasting sense of pride about is and always will be how wonderful a person Elle grew up to be. She’s still finding her footing on this strange planet, but she’s doing it with stable, righteous steps.
Ira Glass, the founder of one of my favorite podcast shows, This American Life, shares his thoughts in this super-short video about challenges.
Christmas Trap Door
This collage is from images captured during a short visit to Göteborg over Christmas. Towards the end of this post I’ll explain why I made it.
Well, the awfully strange Christmas 2020 is officially over now. While Covid-19 still lingers in the shadows, morphing into new variants all over the place, an armada of vaccines is certainly closing in. But it seems as if the virus knows this and is shape-shifting – almost playing with us.
From what I’ve understood, the new vaccines represent the next-level in immunology tech.
But what if this breed of virus is even smarter and capable of mutating beyond what all the involved pharmaceuticals can provide protection against? What if this is just the first installment in an endless cat-and-mouse game where, for example, BioNTech’s synthesized mRNA therapeutical vaccine has to constantly be tweaked to cope with new virus versions?
Listen to Kara Swisher’s straight forward interview with the two head scientists at BioNTech here. Or, better yet, read the transcript from the interview here. Kara’s podcast “Sway” is a new NYTimes.com favorite. Not quite up there with Michael Barbaro’s show, The Daily, at least not yet.
In Sweden, we have this old tradition where children open up “hidden” doors in a cardboard Christmas Calendar until it’s either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, I forget which.
While driving back to Vejbystrand earlier today in torrential rain and then a snow blizzard, we listened to a few podcasts, including the aforementioned interview with BioNTech. It was while listening to that episode that I came up with the idea for the collage above. Smart scientists have found a door and located a handle to open it with. They’ve even picked the lock. But we don’t know for sure what awaits behind it…
More of my collages here: www.raboff.com/art
The Elephant Hug
Our daughter Elle shot this during lunch at an elephant sanctuary in Botswana’s sprawling Okavango Delta a while back.
Whenever I’ve shown this image, the first reaction people have is that it’s photoshopped. Once I’ve convinced them that it’s not, they then ask how we dared let such an incredibly large and potentially dangerous animal get so close to us.
While definitely one of my life’s most humbling experience, up there with diving with great white sharks outside of Cape Town, we were never frightened or worried. The sanctuary’s three elephants were orphans and at least partially brought up by humans. So beautiful. So friendly.
I’ve been fortunate to have met dozens of elephants over the years in Asia and Africa, none as close as during this amazing bush lunch, though. A few days after this lunch, we saw a herd of elephants that our guide estimated to have about 100 members. That too was a surreal experience. I feel like I need to hug an elephant again.
Ending The Pity Party
Understandably, at least from my vantage point, I’ve been having serious tribulations about how the disease arthritis is going to dictate my future professionally and ability to function frictionless socially. And if I extrapolate, what will its impact look like in a year, two years, a decade?
My hesitation to begin taking Methotrexate is based on the fact that it’s an immune-suppressing drug with potential life-threatening side-effects. Considering that this is a time of human history when having a strong immune system is crucially important, my worries aren’t exactly unfounded. Also, once you start with chemotherapy, you’re on a slippery slope that doesn’t lead to anywhere pretty.
And if it wasn’t enough to be on chemo, easier this week I found out that my already shitty vision has gotten a lot worse. So, worse case scenario, I might be both blind and bedridden before retirement.
So, as you can probably tell, dear reader, I’ve been having a pathetic “Pity Party” for a few days. I don’t enjoy feeling sorry for myself, but hey, no one is better at it than oneself. And as long as it doesn’t become a pathetic pity orgy, I think it’s perfectly okay to shed a few tears of despair in the face of what at times feels like a grim future.
Fortunately, I’ve had plenty of experience over the years dealing with all kinds of crap thrown my way. I’ll survive. Or, as the legendary Lebowski so aptly put it, the dude abides. There’s too much fun stuff to look forward to. Can’t just allow life to cave in on me. I will need to make some adjustments and learn how to say no more often, though. But then again, that’s something I’ve needed to do anyway.
So, fuck it. Time to move on. The Pity Party is over.
(Created the above collage from several utility boxes I recently shot in Malmö).