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IN MEMORY OF LARS (part III)
Shot this yesterday morning near our local winery, Vejby Vingård. I’m keeping busy but thoughts of Lars Fransson’s recent passing linger on my mind from time to time. As if there wasn’t already enough to think about.
I can only imagine how complicated life has become for Lars’s family. From experience, I know that the practicalities that inevitably follow death, at least in the beginning, are intertwined with an emotional maelstrom. Which can be a blessing in disguise, as having to deal with both significant and mundane interruptions can help distribute the sorrow over time.
I managed to run 4.3k today. It was a sloooow run, but an energizing accomplishment nonetheless. I hope to someday be back up to my regular 10k runs sometime this summer. Running along the beach and pathways here in Vejbystrand has a soothing effect on body and mind.
I’ve been making organic fruit salad bowls for our breakfasts these past couple of weeks. To add a little protein, I’ll sling the salad with organic peanut butter and a generous pinch of organic coconut flakes.
I’ll be digging into the artisan gelato project now.
IN MEMORY OF LARS (part II)
Though Lars was Swedish, I always experienced his persona to embody the American spirit. The outgoingness, self-confidence, and competitive attitude – regardless of genre – felt somehow akin to my own approach to life. We also shared a love for cooking and would make delicious meals for our families whenever and wherever we got together.
Though Charlotte and Lars’s fiancé Åsa are childhood friends and in touch regularly, Lars and I didn’t see each other that often. Up until Elle’s graduation party early last June, we hadn’t met in a few years. Yet the two of us still maintained some kind of connection through our respective partners.
In the early days, before Elle arrived and their son Oscar was born, the four of us got together all the more often – at least 4 or 5 times a year. Either on the island of Styrsjö near Göteborg where Åsa’s mother lives, or, somewhere else in Sweden. Together with another good friend, Lars Olemyr, we had an amazing week on Ibiza. And Lars and Åsa visited us twice while we were living in Thailand, once in Karon Beach on Phuket and then again on Lamai Beach on Koh Samui. I also remember a fantastic New Year’s celebration with them at the makeshift night club at Triple Two Hotel in Bangkok.
In recent years, Lars and Åsa made several efforts to get together with us and for whatever reasons, it didn’t happen – which now makes me feel an equal measure of regret and guilt. And the worse kind of guilt is that which you can never wipe completely clean.
While the loss of Lars to Covid-19 is tragic, the abiding sorrow his teenage son Oscar will now have to carry in his heart is, well, unfathomable.
Even if the circumstances were entirely different, I can still after 42 years vividly recall when my mother died and how devastated I was. Not so much because of her death per ce, after three weeks in a coma, I was prepared by her doctor that it was only a matter of time before her lungs and heart gave up. No, it was the ensuing abysmal emptiness and emotional confusion that made it so hard to realize what had happened. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to fairly soon distance myself – at least geographically – from the trauma and drama on Croft Avenue in Los Angeles, by moving to Björcksgatan in Göteborg, Sweden where I eventually started a whole new life.
It’s been harder than I expected to process Lars’s passing. At first, I thought it was my own mortality and the lingering threat of the virus that made it so difficult to accept. But no, it’s the emotional distress that Oscar must be going through right now that I can both relate to and feel somehow. I want to hug him and tell him it will be okay. Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday. Someday.
IN MEMORY OF LARS (part 1)
A friend passed away yesterday. I don’t know if it’s too early to write about it. Maybe it is. But since Lars died from complications related to Covid-19, at least part of my inclination to post about this today is to remind you, dear reader, that we still need to be careful and accept that the pandemic is still lingering and is still a threat. Please be careful.
This is the view from my room (1401) at Quality Hotel View in Hyllie, Malmö.
Above and Beyond Vejbystrand
Much of drone flying, at least technically, resides in my muscle memory. I don’t actively think about what controls do what. I just decide on a manoeuver and my fingers instantly execute the thought. Though perhaps unremarkable because it’s so obvious and natural, I still find it interesting how easily and nimbly we humans interface with machines. How adaptable we are and how fast we take things for granted.
Anyhow… I shot this over Vejbystrand last night at about 9 pm. In the center of the photo, you should be able to see a herd of tiny cows.
Cows of Vejbystrand
I haven’t eaten beef, pork, bird, or any other kind of meat or land animal for five years – and I’m now warming up to the idea of going full-on vegetarian. I shot this Saturday night at about 09:00 pm on my way home from Strandhugget, the village’s local seaside restaurant. I love cows and don’t see how I can ever enjoy eating veal or beef again.
Looting & Protesting in L.A.
The current demonstrations, protests, looting and civil unrest spreading across the US are both tragic and symptomatic for an unwell society. George Floyd’s brutal murder is just another example of the rampant racism that still prevails in America.
It saddens me to see so many police and National Guards on the streets of Santa Monica and Los Angeles. There is absolutely no justifying the looting going on in L.A. or anyplace else. These people should no doubt be thrown in jail and left there for a decade. But the fact that the looters are so many and that they even exist is no less interesting from a sociological perspective.
I get the cynical side of taking advantage of an unruly, confusing time in history and that these lawless assholes, at least theoretically, think they have much better odds at getting away with stealing than if they tried shoplifting or burgling a store. But who are these people? What’s their story? Are they all criminally minded, past felons, and recently released convicts? Or, is it in actuality also more normal folks – hypnotized by the group or mob mentality that the protests inadvertently propagate? Can these people be otherwise civilized citizens that just feel hopeless and somehow entitled to do what they want, now when there’s very little to lose?
I hope I am wrong, but the current turmoil could worsen tenfold once we get into the election season. I can envision how regardless of whoever wins the presidential race, that there will be even more protests and civil unrest. And with the overhanging threat of a second wave of virus infections en mass, the fall could prove to be even more disastrous than the first outbreak – immunologically, and financially.
Shot the above photo from somewhere along Mullholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills.
Fred Nicholas’ Centennial Celebration
This is Fred Nicholas, by far the Raboff family’s oldest friend. When I took that photo, early last year, Fred was 99. And yesterday he turned 100. Think about that for a moment. Think about what it would be like to have been born 1920, just a few years after WWI and so close to the last global pandemic (Spanish Flu). To have experienced the Great Depression, WWII, the escalation of the Cold War – and so much else – and still be around to remember it all vividly. So many historic milestones.
While turning 100 is in itself an incredible achievement, the fact that Fred is still sharp as a knife has a great sense of humor and a memory that blows me away makes his centennial celebration all the more noteworthy and inspiring.
My father, Ernest Raboff, and Fred met as soldiers sometime during World War II and with a few gaps thereafter, maintained their friendship until my dad passed away in the fall of 1986.
We visit Fred and his family every time we’ve been back to L.A. and no trip feels complete without a long lunch or dinner with him and his son Tony or with Joan before she passed. Due to the pandemic, we couldn’t make it to what was going to be a huge birthday bash for Fred at the Hillcrest Country Club. But I did get to speak with him today, just after he’d swam his morning laps in the pool!
The mayor of Los Angeles was among the many of Fred’s friends to congratulate and thank him for all his tremendous work for the cultural scene in Los Angeles. His achievements are far too many to list here, so I highly recommend visiting this website dedicated to Fred and produced by his son, Anthony Nicholas of Lapis Press.
Old School Mowing
From earlier today. Charlotte and I usually divide mowing the lawn here in Vejbystrand. Our neighbors insist on using an old huffing and puffing, carbon fuel emitting machine called “Stig”. But we both prefer getting a little extra cardio exercise from pushing and pulling our old school, manual mower. It’s a Husqvarna and brand new, so the blades are still sharp and as long as we don’t let the grass grow too high, mowing is a breeze.
Birds of Vejbystrand
So this morning I woke up at an ungodly hour to pee. After struggling out of bed (my back is out of whack), I realized that it wasn’t my bladder that woke me. It was the cacophony of chirping birds in the garden and adjacent meadow. There was no wind whatsoever. I put on my shoes, strolled over to the studio, found my Zoom H6 recorder and dialed in the highest possible fidelity settings (96kHz/24bit), and began recording with the x/y capsule multidirectional microphones. I know nothing about birds, but have a decent collection of them here – including the one above. This is only a minute of a 3-hour long recording. For a hour’s immersive experience (with some distant cows to boot), feel free to click right here.
Bang! Bang!
After living with so many months under the shadows of big, bold headlines conveying disaster, tragedy, and destitution related to the pandemic, you end up expecting nothing less when you log on to NYT, SVD, or LAT. Classic conditioning. Our unconscious friend is still unconscious and we are still hoping for a miraculous turnaround – but preparing, mostly subconsciously, for sadness.
Resurfaced in Vietnam
Keeping a lookout for exteriors to “resurface” has certainly added an investigative dimension to daily life. Not that I still don’t constantly compose scenes, that’s a hard habit to quit. But looking for interesting combinations of weathered and decayed surfaces to resurface makes even mundane strolls and chores a bit more purposeful and interesting. This wall is from Vietnam.
Artist Statement
I’ve been crafting my artist’s statement for a while now. Not actually writing anything. More thinking and pondering what it is I want to say and why I want to say it. The purpose of an artist’s statement is to clarify a vision and the reasoning behind a particular project or collection of themed work.
My ongoing series, “Resurfaced” is both a counter-reaction to my diminishing interest in the easily attainable – aesthetically pleasing but boring images – and a growing delight in what most regard as deterioration, decay, and disrepair. When I see an old wall, I don’t just see an old wall. I look at it with imaginative interest to see if it somehow speaks to me and has a story to tell. As most surfaces that I document are located outdoors – mostly in a public space – I know that over time the composition’s original elements will consequentially change; paint fades, concrete cracks, posters tear, and so on.
Read my statement here. View the Resurfaced series here.
Italian Gelato Made In Sweden
I shot this about 10 years ago in northern Italy. We were there to research a story about Bergamo for a Swedish travel magazine (Allt om Resor) and relished in great food and drink during the entire week. Best of all was the abundance of gelato shops and best of the gelato shops gelato was – and still my favorite – pistachio flavored gelato. I mention this since I’ve just been hired to produce an inspiring short film about a brand new gelato brand, made in Sweden with Italian ingredients and an old school, traditional recipe. I was provided with a sample after meeting with the client and can vouch for that their gelato would compete extremely well amongst the best gelato made in Bergamo or elsewhere in Italy.
Canola Fields Vejbystrand
Shot earlier today during an excursion around the village. We had to drive around a bit before finding a few adjacent fields. They seem to be fewer and further between here – when compared to deeper south and southeast in Skåne. Love how the flowers smell and on a nice warm day like this, with barely no wind, the rich yellow color is almost hypnotic.
Infected Friend & Chaos
A composition I located yesterday on yet another anonymous, interesting surface somewhere in Lund, Sweden. The layered, cluttered chaos intrigues me. I suppose pieces like this attract me as I live – elastically – between a reasonable amount of structure and uncontrollable chaos. Creatively, that is.
Mere days after pointing out here that I have yet to personally know of anyone that had been infected by Covid-19, did we learn that a friend is now hospitalized, unconscious, and breathing through a respirator.
We haven’t seen him or his wife since last spring, when Elle graduated High School, but this very sad news obviously shoved Charlotte and myself into a state of shock – just as I assumed it would. Our hopes and thoughts are with him and his family. Everybody, please be safe out there.
Fleeing the Fields
Shot this yesterday afternoon during a 10k walk along the sea and through a couple of farms. Fleeing the fields for a couple of days. Work calls me back to Lund for yet another podcast episode. I am hosting/moderating yet another discussion between three distinguished gentlemen and automotive experts.
2020 Vejby Baby Tees
Here’s our new Vejby Baby t-shirts. Until further notice, these Fruit of the Loom cotton tees can be purchased exclusively at Sandgårdens Skafferi in Vejbystrand. I delivered 27 t-shirts in various sizes and hues to Therese yesterday afternoon. So if you’re a fan of Vejbystrand and want share the love, get ‘em while they’re hot!
NEW PODCAST
In this episode, the participants are Robert Falk, CEO of Einride, Peter Janevik, CEO of Asta Zero and until recently a member of the Board of Directors of Terranet, as well as Christian Larsson, an expert in autonomous and advanced driver support systems at AFRY and Product Manager at Terranet.
The episode’s guests provide insightful thoughts on some of the challenges facing today’s and future autonomous vehicle systems. A topic that has become extremely relevant considering the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The conversation is in Swedish.
Aquatically Reinvigorated in Lund
Back in Lund again to shoot an elevator pitch. Also hosting a podcast about the current state and future of autonomous vehicles with three expert guests, Robert Falk, CEO för Einride, Peter Janevik, CEO för Asta Zero and until recently board member of Terranet and Christian Larsson, expert på advanced driver assistance technology at AFRY and SVP Product Management at Terranet. You can enjoy the podcast here (in Swedish).
I’m fairly sure 154 is my fifth room here at Grand. Once I’ve experienced one I like, I tend to stay put for a while before moving on to the next. While 154 is smaller than the others, I appreciate the front-facing view, blue tapestry, and the full-length bathtub. The bathroom in 154 is tiny, much smaller than in any of the other rooms. The small size reminded of the bathroom in my old bachelor pad in Göteborg at Vidblicksgatan 5. Though small, it too had a full-size tub in which I spent many hours.
We haven’t lived in an apartment equipped with a tub in just shy of 20 years. So I make sure to book a room with one whenever and wherever I can. Tonight, after dinner and before bed, I slid into the warm bathtub, got comfy, and listened to the latest episode of The Daily from the New York Times with excellent host Michael Barbaro. I’m fully aware that the “Times” is a liberal-leaning outlet, but their quality of journalism, especially in the human-interest genre, is nonetheless top-notch.
Tonight I’ll be re-watching Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in the brilliant adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption. Spread over 25 years, this is probably the fifth or sixth time I’ve seen it. One of the few advantages of growing older is that I tend to forget bits and pieces of some of my favorite movies. They’re not totally unpredictable – heck, I’m not that old yet. But rewatching them, even after just a few years, is usually long enough for me to have forgotten some of the story’s details and plot twists. It’s kinda comforting when none of the stuff on Netflix, HBO, SVT intrigues me.
Morning Qigong
From earlier this morning after a long walk. Charlotte filmed me doing one of my favorite morning Qigong exercises in our small enchanted forest aka Trollskogen. The “Connecting Sky & Ground” is a simple enough move to learn, yet it’s also wonderfully effective at activating key muscles and ligaments in the knees and thighs as well as throughout the torso. I use it primarily in the morning as part of an hour-long session. By the way…Qi means energy and Gong means movement or moving. Qi-Gong is therefore loosely defined as moving energy. In this case, the energy you have stored in your body and should release in order to feel less stiff and more fluid.