Son of a farmer, spent his childhood everywhere - Venezuela, Argentina, Denmark.
In addition to acting, he is also a poet, a photographer and a painter.
After graduating from university in the States, he moved back to Denmark, driven by a need for a defining purpose in life. During this time he worked some odd jobs, including dock worker, truck driver and flower seller.
He speaks English, Danish, Spanish, French, Swedish and Norwegian.
He is a super horseman.
Oh, he is also a jazz musician.
The versatility, the languages, the quality of his work, the films.
I just find him so awesome, so talented and warm.
Viggo. M.
"Life is short... I like to pay attention while I'm going through it. Whatever I see, like anyone else, I'm going to filter it and create my own idea of what it is. - on painting, creating music, writing poetry, and taking photographs in addition to acting."
I mean. Let's face it. I am Nordic Warrior. And therefore this Thor madness just tickles my soul. And Iron Man is a h e r o. I mean, the guy's an engineer. And Robert is so cool.
But this time it's different. A is somewhat buried in academia and I need some time out. What of, I don't quite know. But time out.
So we decided to congregate on her sofa in STHLM, breathe in, breathe out and cook some food. Because I mean, why not, right?
I'm sure I'm gonna take some lush photos and try and upload some as I'm there (I'm not taking my laptop with me, shock horror). I'm back next Wednesday so it's a pretty perfect 4 night-5 day break. Of course I would prefer it to be 5 month than 5 day break (note the habitual running away to another place as soon as possible) but this will do so nicely.
I hope you, guys, have a lush weekend and that wherever you are spring is coming quiccckkkk. Or at least quicker than in TLN. Me and my spotty suitcase wave goodbye for now and I'm off to an adventure!!
Go and see.
With love. M.
And below we have A's shot of STHLM and springtime sun.
Or Friends' Day! As it is known in the Nordic parts of Europe. Cherish your friends and hug them loads.
We had fit breakfast today, and it was fit. I stayed at E's place and we got up at 7am which translates to me as 5am London time. It was so much fun! I do like early mornings once I get up for one. And also, I must say, I'm exhausted right now. The past 3 nights have held no sleep so I'm really deprived. Hopefully I'll shift back into a normal-ish structure with tonight.
Reblogging these because they warm my heart. And because I'm so going to visit STHLM very soon.
The other day, A. mentioned something about her "happy place". And I decided that one of my very prominent happy places was following A. around the globe. Whether it's eating cheese in Zürich, or sitting on her floor in Basel, or sauna time in HEL, or crashing on her sofa, reciting soft porn and building furniture in STHLM. Adventures, man. That's my happy place.
So once again, it's snow-day. An actual snow day, even to a Norseman. Sunday, the Snow Day.
I am declaring today No-sh*t-Sunday. The reason for this is simple - I have some crap with the moving business. But I'm learning from my own mistakes and I'm not going to preempt and go crazy over something that hasn't yet happened, even remotely. So I'm going to wait and see till I hear some more, and then decide how to proceed.
But for now, it's absolutely the super-official No-sh*t-Sunday.
And I really want to dye my hair darker. All in my plan of becoming a Nordic Warrior, you know. Obviously.
So for now I'm drinking coffee, and apple-raspberry juice, watching some Kardashians and staring at the snow. This day still has time to become useful.
But seriously, it's 9:25pm, and I'm not far from being finished. Which is unheard of. So I'm improving and for that I've awarded myself this blog-based break, in which I shall also eat, to then carried on. But point for me, woo!
Today was a great day.
I will, however, write more about all this soon, since it is 2:18am all of a sudden. I'm packed, washed, and dried, and ready to get a few good hours of sleep.
Fly, fly, fly. M.
Also, mega soz for the extreme concentration-face - i was just finding it very hard - apparently - to get the hair into the photo. But yayyy my DIY-bleaching sessions (yes, there were two) paid off, at least I'm really pleased. Ps, microwaved olive oil, rubbed into hair/dry ends does help. Goodnight!
So.
Nordic music is shifting the plains of my heart and soul right now.
Björk's "Bachelorette" is actually the first music video I remember seeing. Then I forgot about it for at least a decade, and then it made a comeback. I still can't put my finger on what was it about this video that literally burnt into my brain like acid. The colours and the cinematography, but something else. Maybe one day I'll figure it out. And Björk as a symbol, and Björk as a creative force. Or just a force of nature.
Sigur Ros just makes me really happy, and really sad (or maybe it's nostalgia?). And it makes me feel like snow. One of my friends once wrote somewhere that their favourite thing, or favourite music (can't remember) was listening to Sigur Ros on untouched snow. Actually it might have been some other band entirely. But that's beside the point. It makes me miss winter. Which is fairly rare, for the simple fact that if there's something I like less than autumn then it's a long, dreary winter. But Sigur Ros for some reason makes me miss all thing wintery.
Their music reminds me of a night when I was 15, going on 16 and it was I think the 20th of January, if I'm not mistaken, or something along those lines. That night I had attended my first rave ever, it was in a big warehouse and the blinded-by-the-first-love-of-my-lifetime-first-boyfriend was organising it with his friends. I was dropped home around 6am. And I walked home, with my mahoosive black winter coat that I still have and it makes me look like a bear-hunter. I was wearing some flamed DCs (?) and neon yellow gloves. And I had crimped hair. And so I walked home, across freshly-fallen icy, shiny snow. It was the clearest night I can remember in my life. The sky was so dark blue, like I was under a huge duvet. And the stars were all there. And my street looked like a Hollywood-set on a Sunday, so desolate, and peaceful. Like it was catching its breath. I used to live on the most beautiful street on earth. It was the smallest little street, so tiny that even taxi-drivers found it hard to locate. No one ever noticed it. A pedestrian and a car didn't fit at the same time. And that street looked good all through the year. I could probably cry human tears thinking of walking home from the bus stop, spring, summer, autumn or winter. It was just so sheltered and so beautiful in its small-small scale. And so I walked home that night, almost 8 years ago. It must have been around -25C, but I took my sweet time, because it was the most perfect walk home. And I was so - happy. There is no other word more fit to explain what I was feeling. Just steady peace and quiet happiness, at the fact that I was warm, I was calm, and I knew I was loved. And the snow. The streetlights were still working. And the air was just frozen in this serenity that only winter holds.
Sigur Ros remind me of this night. God knows why.
Sigur Ros remind me of home, and snow, and lots of space, and plains, just wide wide wide.
The sound of Lykke Li's voice does something very dramatic to my insides. It's hard to put a finger on or explain it, so I won't attempt either. But it does something. Literally shifts something. It moves me. Some things that do not usually move are moved, physically. Wounded Rhymes album is just another thing. That's all.
Homeboys. EWERT AND THE TWO DRAGONS. If you're not familiar with them (of course with the chance that you don't like this sort of music at all, but maybe you do), I really do recommend. The levels of musicianship are just crazy. CRAY-Z. I like EVERYTHING about this song. And I mean, EVERYTHING. Even the fact that the lead singer looks so much like one of my friends, which just makes the whole experience so much better.
(I realised I've wanted to post about this for a while now. So this is a post of snippets, all of which have something to do with why I feel Estonians should be regarded more Nordic, rather than Baltic.) not to be confused with Scandinavia/ns, where we have no claim.
"Estonia has applied for membership in the Nordic Council, referring to its cultural heritage and close linguistic links to Finland, although normally Estonia is regarded as one of the Baltic countries. It is similar to the situation of Finland around 1920s as Finland was considered to be one of the Baltic States as well, as it too had emerged from Russian domination along with the otherthree countries under similar circumstances. While Finnish and Estonian are Finnic languages, Latvian and Lithuanian are Baltic languages. The Baltic states have shared many events and situations with Scandinavia over the centuries; today the flags of the three countries can often be seen along-side Nordic flags, paralleling recent friendship and cooperation since the fall of the Soviet Union." "The term Baltic as a concept to group Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia has been criticized, as what the three nations have in common almost wholly derives from shared experiences of occupation, deportation, and oppression; what these countries do not share is a common culture or identity." So. I'm really confused as to why I'm so interested in the "Baltic" status of Estonia. It's always felt a little mismatched and I think the sentence above explains it really well - for all that we have to be proud of as a nation, it seems sad that the pigeon-hole where we belong on the map of Europe is based on suffering and loss.
Culturally and linguistically it doesn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out where we stand in relation to other Nordic countries, or to Latvia and Lithuania. The Baltic states - the brave states, the states that did a great thing, the states which stood shoulder-to-shoulder and helped one another gain independence, and so on. And that of course is a bond that will not vanish. A positive bond. A one-of-a-kind. History is too bloody and brutal for such an anomaly to fade away. But to form an exclusive group, a cell of nations based on this?
Of course this whole argument is two-sided. On one hand, it is easy to see the "Baltic" concept as rising from decades of oppression and occupation. On the other hand, the "Baltic" concept is one of independence, and joy, and freedom. Having said that, could we realistically distance ourselves from the suffering that brought with it this liberation however sweet? Or should we stick to it? Or should we look further back, before the rise of the Soviet Union, and go back to the cultural and linguistic ties and follow where they are so overtly leading? "The Nordic countries are characterised by similar structures of their societies and cultural traits. This results not only from similar environmental realities and thus traditional livelihoods but also from a shared history."The shared history is there. And anyone who has visited Estonia and either one of our Nordic neighbours for example can see or rather sense the similarities.
As right as it feels to honour the events of the last 20-30 years, upholding them to such an extent feels like we're kind of off-track. Of course upholding the Baltic sign is necessary but should it define us? Especially when the rest of our history is calling us home, somewhere else. The reason why this should be looked at now is because of how young we are as a country. We can always go "back to the roots", but would it not be better to do it now that we are still trying to get our feet firmly on the ground? The pace of development throughout Europe and the world is not showing any signs of slowing down so surely knowing and sensing where one is grounded can only be a good thing. Especially nations as small as us.
So.
Who cares?
Well. It seems politics of this kind do and do not matter. It is somewhat like highschool, or even kindergarden. What you do as an individual isn't really in direct coherence with the group you belong to. You can earn your stars and stripes how you wish, get the grades or not, and be either naughty or nice. The "mass" around you doesn't do that for you. However, the perception of you externally is in direct accordance with the cloud in which you hover, whether we like it or not. Obviously modern day politics are more advanced than schoolyard games and hierarchies. But some emphasis needs to be placed on the people. How do Europeans perceive one country or another? Tourism turns many cogs so therefore the "mass" cannot be dicounted for. And so, what is the difference whether the country in question is a Baltic one or a Nordic one?
The Danish flag, Dannebrog, the Nordic cross, fell from the sky during a battle in Tallinn, Estonia, according to Danish legend. Tallinn - the capital of Estonia - has got its name from two words: "taani" and "linn", meaning "Danish town". Estonia was passed back and forth between Denmark and Sweden until 1721 - almost a third into the 18th century.
"Víkingr frá Estland" - my absolute Viking-heritage dream-come-true. Turns out we were pretty hardcore. There's stories of Estonian Vikings in the Icelandic sagas. Estonian Viking sailors - Oeselians - used ships with a high prow shaped like a dragon or a snakehead. The main god of the Oeselians was Tarapita, thought to have strong links with Thor.
