Re: More than enough about Sweden

[Philip Rush <philip_rush@ye...fsnet.co.uk>]

<x-tad-smaller>The event
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>The event is taking place all over town.
Every viking who can play an instrument
has been roped in.  As one band fades out
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>another fades in, like an amateur DJ
has seized control of the soundtrack of the city.
At the harbour quay, there is a camp
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>destroyer, with miniskirted visitors
and its gun barrels done up in pink
cling-film so they’re the ultimate
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>dildo.  Other weird vessels, too,
including a flat one I really can’t read.
A monitor.  And playing on the harbour quay,
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>making their own contribution to the event,
the summer festival of Göteborg (pronounced Yortiborg):
the Schytts.  A tour bus and everything.  
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>And the vikings do their unique viking dance
on the specially constructed viking dance floor,
though an inexpert eye might confuse
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>original viking ethnic ballet
for jiving and straight-up rock and roll,
which is where the Schytts come in.
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>One drunk viking in a white vest
and a cloud of lager-on-tap breath
persuades a woman in her fifties to dance with him: 
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>they bop and canoodle like they’re twenty-three again.  
Like it’s nineteen sixty-one.  
You do the math.
We sit with our beers on the long benching
at the long tables under the long canopy
at the end of the long summer’s long day,
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>making sure we make it home before Grendel
is due in from the boggy moors along the Jönköping road. 
And on the way back to our elegant Swedish 

apartment, every bench has its own Abba.
Honest.  No messing.  No question about it.
When I get back, all being well,

I’m starting a tribute band to the Schytts.
I just have to think of a name which really works,
capturing the spirit of the music but
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>with that little touch of irony.

</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>Guidebooks

</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>Under the huge sky, 
the Swedes were invisible. 
Just their farms, their toy farms,

their little collections of plastic buildings
spray-painted with dark rust paint.
And their churches,

every one a backdrop to Ibsen
or Strindberg.  With its rigid
spire in its dutiful white.

You could tell just how hypocritical
the Pastor must be, just by driving
past.  You’ve seen the film,

read all the plays, after all.
At the Swedish Connemara seaside,
following our picnic,

of course we looked out for the willowy
blondes we’d read about.  
100% nude.

We found forty-seven fat old women
with varicose veins and complicated swimsuits
which combined modesty with built in prostheses

and life-support systems.  And there were big, floppy
jellyfish in the water ballooning
and puffing as if they were out of breath.

They splashed to the edge of the shallows,
the fat women,
and watched the chemical works on the horizon from there.

In the cities, the streets were filthy
as a docker’s Y-fronts.
There were four rats running round

the Cathedral precinct.

</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>A glimpse of eastern Europe

</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>By the iron gates to the park,
for which the town council
makes a small admission charge,
this elegant café, nestling under the trees, 

roped off, is where the agents meet,
where contact is made over chocolate,
where the jackdaws busy themselves
with the left-overs and the pastry crumbs.

And this is where the lovers wait.
He wears his best brown suit.
The trouser legs conceal his one pair
of leather shoes.  She wears lipstick.

They talk in code.  They have made
themselves sad by remembering
the future and anticipating the past.
One day he will spell it out

in that sad pause between asking
for the reckoning and paying up.
‘It’s for the best,’ he will say, and her eyes
will turn towards the rose garden.

She will be able to see the palm house
and the warden’s villa;
the brown paint of the Lagerhuset
will contain this moment.

</x-tad-smaller>
On 24 Aug 2004, at 18:35, Paul Vearncombe wrote:

> More.
> <x-tad-bigger>----- Original Message -----</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>From:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>Philip Rush</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>To:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>blueplanes@st...net</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> </x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Sent:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> Tuesday, August 24, 2004 8:08 AM</x-tad-bigger>
> <x-tad-bigger>Subject:</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> Re: [Blueplanes] (no subject)</x-tad-bigger>
>
> Went to Sweden.
>
> Nice.
>
> Enough?
>
>
> On 23 Aug 2004, at 19:18, Paul Vearncombe wrote:
>
>
> In?  I might as well be.
>  
> News, of a sort, everybody.  Had a message from Ann Sheldon.  She says:
>  
> G working on another LIT while The album has been properly mastered and will be sent to record cos shortly...
>
> there may be some gigs in Norway!
>  
> So there you have it, straight from the proverbial.  So...who's been on holiday?  Anyone?
>  
> PV2
>
>
>
>  
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: gordon
> To: blueplanes@st...net
> Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 11:27 PM
> Subject: [Blueplanes] (no subject)
>
>
> knock knock !
> Is anyone in ?
>
>
> <promodll.gif>