road-trip around Denmark (part two)

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art, Öresund bridge, Denmark, Humelbaek, Karen Blixen, literature, Louisiana, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Malmo, Museum of Modern Art, photography, photos, road trip, sculpture, Smørrebrød, travel

After spending the day in Copenhagen my Godmother and I took the Öresund bridge to Malmo. This 8km long bridge links Denmark with Sweden and is quite amazing, sadly the grey skies and murky air didn’t allow a great view but it was an experience none the less.

I may not be a beer drinker but I couldn’t resist this licorice beer in the lovely gastro pub “Peas &Honey”, Malmo

still raining in Malmo but the old town center was very pretty

City Hall Malmo

fountain outside City Hall

After a wet morning in Sweden we returned back to Denmark and traveled up the coast of Zealand, the largest of the Danish islands, to the tiny town of Rungstedlund. This is where the Danish author Karen Blixen (pen name Isak Dinesen) was born, lived and died. She wrote the world renowned autobiographical-novel Out Of Africa and many other stories and books.

I may not have known much about her before I went but I was fascinated by her life story and really enjoyed my visit to her home, now a museum.

Karen Blixen’s house, view from the road

this was her home for most of her life, her only time somewhere else were the 17 years spent on her farm in Kenya

too wet to sit outdoors

little colourful birdhouses hanging on many trees

tranquil bridge

there are benches scattered all over the grounds, each with their own name – this one is called bench of praises (I hope I got the translation right1)

this door leads to the room where Karen Blixen wrote – it is still the way she left it

Karen Blixen’s life mask

After we had our Smørrebrød and a cup of tea/coffee we headed further up the coast to Humelbaek and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. This incredible museum has not only got a beautiful view but unique underground galleries. My Godmother and I spent a few hours wandering around and enjoying sculptures, paintings and photography – and of course another Smørrebrød before we left.

wood sculpture waiting for the next big exhibition

more preparations for the upcoming exhibition

A Henry Moore sculpture with a view

I loved this modern sculpture of a diving board

some moving sculpture

view from above

some more art

KUSAMA INSTALLATION – amazing in real life – not so good in photo

a detail from the famous ALEXANDER CALDER sculpture

even the seagulls like to hang out here

some boat passing by

an indoor lamp

As it was getting late my Godmother and I decided it was time to  find a place for the night so we drove back towards Germany and found a lovely hotel in Kerteminde, on the island Funen.

 

To read about how this trip began, and ended click on the links below:

road-trip around Denmark (part one)

road-trip around Denmark (part three)

wrong words

Tags

first word, literature, Mark Twain, samuel langhorne clemens, words, writing, wrong words

Writing is easy. All you have to o is cross out the wrong words.

This quote by Mark Twain hangs over my desk and every time my eyes flit over it I can’t help but smile. If only it were as simple as Mr Twain claims in these two little sentences.

Over the last few days I have been thinking more than typing, trying to figure out what it is I actually want to write. After all there are so many different forms, from fiction over fact. And with all the ideas in my head turning somersaults and competing for attention it is hard to figure out where to start.

So instead of crossing out wrong words my time is spent trying to figure out the first word, how to start, where to begin. But thankfully I still have few weeks left and hopefully some time in between class preparations and typing up module guides to try and figure out what the right words are.

And even if I don’t end up being as successful and revered as Mark Twain, or Samuel Langhorne Clemens as his mama called him, I may, at the very least, be happy with what I write, if I’m very lucky maybe others may enjoy it too. And if the stars align and I get the timing write, who knows I may still be published yet.

But for now I will be satisfied when I find a beginning and know which wrong words to cross out., not those of my students but the one my fingers find on my keyboard.

art-icipation

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architecture, art, arts, crafting, creat, creativity, literature, Pablo Picasso, Picasso, quotes, random, thoughts

Tomorrow I am going to grab my pad and pencils and brave the word of art. I am going to create, if good bad or absolutely ugly is yet to be seen. But I am still excited, an art-icipation flowing through my veins, hopefully getting those proverbial creative juices flowing.

So as I sharpen my pencils and dust off my sketch-book, I can’t help but wonder about what role art plays in our lives, not just for those who make, but for those who take as well.

Art seems to be what is left, when all else is gone, and it doesn’t matter if it’s words, images, sounds, crafts or architecture. The Colosseum in Rome or the Pyramids in Cairo, the pots left over from Pompeii or Faberge’s golden eggs, melodies composed by  Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Bach, sonnets and stories written by Shakespeare, Wilde and Austen, are all mementos from the past, yet they still find a home in our world of today.

I read somewhere that many see creativity as the source of meaning in our lives. This doesn’t mean that if you are not creative you have no meaning, but when we create, we experience a surge of energy, a sense of purpose, fulfillment and contentment when we achieve what we set out to do. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s crafting with the family, knitting a sock or painting a masterpiece.

Art is what separates us from monkeys, the way we use language to tell a tale, how we combine colour and fabrics, how we decorate our homes, own things we love but have no purpose other than just being beautiful. We value  the result of an individuals creativity, a four-year-olds painting holding pride of place on the fridge, a crooked vase holding a bouquet of flowers reminding of a ten-year-olds attempt at pottery, photographs decorating our homes taken for their beauty or the memories they hold, music a constant friend (or foe) to our ears, films and plays while away our hours,  gallerys, museums, monuments are places we visit, talk about and remember.

We may not always realise it, but we are surrounded by art, in one form of the other, our world filled with the results of creative thought. And it is what makes the trudge of every day life bearable, cushioning us from reality and showing us the true beauty of living. As the master Pablo Picasso said so well:

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life of our souls

reading into it

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atmosphere, c.s.lewis, friends, literature, mental-health, miscellaneous, quotes, reaing, thinking, writing

I came across a question the other day that made me stop and think. It was just five words and a question mark, but it opened up a whole world of ideas.

But what is actually reading? The answer may seem simple and straight forward, reading is the skill of seeing, understanding and interpreting written words. But is that really all it is?

The more I thought about it the more I realised that reading is so much more and doesn’t actually need the written word at all. We don’t just read words, we read people and their actions, situations, atmospheres, pictures and sometimes even clouds.

So while I enjoy the written word as a form of communication, a tool to learn and understand and as pathways into my imagination with it’s endless stream of stories I think I may possibly read a lot more unwritten things then I am aware of.

I read the the weather before I get dressed, I read my students and the atmosphere in the class room, I read strangers behaviours around me, I read between the lines of what my friends tell me, I read their feelings and even read my own moods, wants and needs.

Of course I get it wrong sometimes, just like little spelling mistakes in a word can change it’s whole meaning, so can little signs, feeling and ideas change how you view what is right i font of you. But most of the time, like that sentence in a book you misunderstood, you don’t notice your error till further down in the book or situation.

However no matter how often I misread something the lure of reading always pulls me back in, no matter if it’s books or the world around me. Like C.S. Lewis once said:

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me

stirring sick-lit

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literature, online debate, reading, sick-lit, teenagers, the Dail Mail, The Guradian, writing, yound adults

Reading is something that plays a big role in my life, there is always a book in my pocket, on my bedside table or in my hand. As an avid reader from the age of about seven or eight I have discovered I am not a genre-ist, if such a thing exists, but enjoy exploring all kinds of stories, in all sorts of places, eras and realities.

In November I read a term I hadn’t heard before “sick-lit” and unwittingly I had even read books belonging to the genre (Before I Die, Lonely Bones, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). “Sick-lit” is the term used to describe books aimed at young adults and deal with real life issues such as death, illness and depression.

What baffles me however is the current online argument between the Guardian and the Daily Mail on the topic which seems to have created a whole online debate.

The Daily Mail started the whole debate by publishing an alarmist article about the “disturbing phenomenon”. Describing the sick-lit books as “mawkish” and claiming that by presenting young readers with reality the books doing psychological damage, in the worst case possibly even leading to physical harm.  The Daily Mail argues that books like Twilight Saga are safe as they are obviously fantasy. They end the article by quoting child psychologist Emma Citron saying “Let’s hope publishers do have young people’s interests at heart – and they are not selling books by sensationalising children’s suffering.”, basically accusing book publishers of using pain to make money, a low blow considering their own front pages.

The Guardian defends “sick-lit”, arguing that not every young adult wanted to flee into the world of trolls, vampires and wizards but prefers to read about real life issues, no matter how difficult. And if sick-lit leads to tears and emotions it is actually a good thing as it teaches young readers about pain, broken hearts and death, situations they will inevitably encounter in life.

But honestly the term sick-lit may be new but the genre isn’t . My first thought when I read the Daily Mail was how I loved reading “Heidi”, “What Kathy Did”, “Little Women”, “The little House on the Prairie”  and “The Secret Garden”, even the whole “Chalet School Series”. Each of those books deals with death, war, illnesses, abandonment, loneliness, not fitting in and love. And what about “The Dairy of Anna Frank” or “Christiane F” and all the other books that deal with horrible and often graphic real life issues?

Which, if you read the Guardian article to the very end, is exactly the point the Guardian makes too.  So like the sick-lit author John Green (The Fault in our Stars), I just say the last word truly does lie with

goodbye Maeve

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author, light a penny candle, literature, Maeve Binchy, miscellaneous, quotes, random, university college dublin, women, writer, writing

16 Novels, more than 30 years of writing and endless fans is the legacy that Maeve Binchy leaves behind. The wonderful and much loved Irish author died on Monday after struggling with illness throughout most of her adult life. But even at 72 she had a  much younger spirit and loved life, saying that after a brush with death in 2002 she lived every day as if it were her last.

I first fell in love with her work as a teenager, I was maybe 13 or 14  and an Irish friend sent me the book Echoes. Already an avid reader I loved the way she interwove ordinary peoples stories and lives into a tale that gripped you and forced you to keep reading, always just that one more page, that next chapter till in no time the book had come to an end, leaving you wanting more.

Her best known works are possibly Tara Road and Circle of Friends as Hollywood turned them into films, but all of her stories, no matter if in short form or packed up into the parcel of a novel, are about real life, no hyped up glam or only beautiful people fill her pages, but the struggle of everyday life, joy, love and friendship overflow from her work into the readers minds and heart.

She didn’t start out as a writer but graduated UCD (University College Dublin) and became a teacher. But Maeve wanted to see the world and in her long summer holidays she would travel, her shipping guide always at hand telling her which ship was going where. Wanting a change she gave up her secure teachers job and pension to become a free-lance writer and soon was called to be a woman’s editor at the Irish Times. With a steady flow of work coming in from London Maeve moved there in the mid seventies to the Irish Times office in Fleet Street and started working on her first novel Light a Penny Candle. Setting herself strict deadlines and word-counts she would get up at 5am every morning to write before work and her discipline and structure paid off when in 1982 her first book was published.

At the age of 37 she married children book author Gorden Snell and with the invention of fax and emails they both moved from London to Dalkey, where Maeve had grown up, and would sit side by side in their upstairs office and write for several hours every day. Very disciplined her motto was “if you want to write just do it” and shelves filled with her work all around the world prove her right.

Inspired by Scarlett O’Hara form “Gone with the Wind” by Margret Mitchell, Maeve Binchy created a whole new form of literature. One filled with women who learn to be strong and independent, who begin to trust in themselves, be who they want to be and love life, friends, family, home and most importantly themselves.

Outselling other great Irish writers like James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Roddy Doyle, Samuel Beckett, W.B Yeats, Maeve was quietly proud always encouraging others to write as well. She paved a beautiful path for other female writers to follow and was always generous in sharing her experience with her colleagues.

Maeve Binchy will be missed, not only by the Irish nation but by her fans across the world, but she has one final gift to her readers, her last book has just been finished and will be published later this year.

I don’t have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.

Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy with one of her two beloved cats in her home in Dalkey

surreal smarts

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Albert Camus, art, becoming smarter, books, Camus, David Lynch, favorite book, Franz Kafka, hell is other people, James Joyce, Jean Paul Sartre, Kafka, literature, Metamorphoses, microcosm, No Exit, quotes, random, reading, Salvador Dali, Sartre, surreal, surrealism, The Plague, Ulysses

I love to read and I always have a book on my bedside table, handbag or in my hand. Unlike many avid readers I don’t indulge in more than one book at a time and I always finish any story I have started, the one exception is James Joyce’s “Ulysses“. But anyone who has tried or even succeeded at reading this universal masterpiece will, I believe, concede that it is not that easy to get into let alone understand. However it is on my bucket list and one day I will read it from start to finish, like it or not.

I rarely read a book more than once as I have a good memory and  find I get easily bored when I know how the story ends, and since there are more books in the world than I will ever be able to read I think it is a good investment of my time to read as many new books as possible. I average at a book a week but there was a time when every two or three days I would be in the book store, buying fodder for my passion.

I was 18 or 19 when I discovered Albert Camus, Franz Kafka and Jean Paul Sartre and fell in love. I devoured their books and developed a readers-crush on Sartre literally gorged on everything he had written, even got my boyfriend infected. My favorite book of his was and is “No Exit” , a surreal tale about death and the source of the famous and often overused quote “Hell is other people”. But Camus’s “The Plague” was another firm favourite as was Kafka’s “Metamorphoses”. I loved the way these writers and thinkers didn’t stick to the rules of this world and created new ones that applied to the microcosm and universes they imagined, even if they were a little disturbing.

Now, I know that reading is meant to be good for you, helps you practices your imagination, increases your vocabulary and communication skills but I was surprised to recently read that surreal stories could help you become smarter. I stumbled upon an old article from 2009 saying that because our mind wants to understand how things work, tries to find the logic and structure in our environment that reading surreal tales challenges our brains. By forcing the cognitive mechanisms in our brains to search for patterns and try to understand what does not make sense we tap into our creative potential and enhance our learning ability.  But not only reading these surreal tales does this, watching David Lynch films or looking at Salvador Dali’s art can have the same effect.

I am not sure if dipping into the world of surrealism has really made me smarter but I do think that by reading about unexplainable worlds, I look out for the unusual, quirky and a little weird. Finding happiness in those moments that are not the norm and loving those truly wacky experiences.

I believe that Kafka said it best:

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

 

Kafka makes you smarter