Terror in Oslo!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Temperature: 21C
Length of day: 14h15min
Tuesday was a sad and rainy day. And everyone knows that sad and rainy days are good for two things: Books and museums. And since I'm in a town chalk full of the latter, I thought I'd call up a friend and visit one. If you'll consult the Nobel Institute picture, you will notice a girl behind me and to my right with red hair. She is a very cool girl named Lisa, and we seem to have become fast friends. In fact, my hallmate Blackson calls her "your Lisa," (As in, "Have you been to visit your Lisa?") which I find quite adorable.
We decided to go to the Samtidskunst (Contemporary Art) Museum where we saw a hilarious exhibit of designs by Per Spook, a Norwegian fashion designer who took Paris by storm in the '80s and '90s with his innovative wool sweaters and gowns modelled after Sami (commonly known as Lappland) fashion. There were rhinestone pins shaped like codfish. Need I say more?
We worked our way up to the second floor, which houses the permanent collection of pieces by Scandinavian artists, including a room filled with yarn and coconuts and obscene cartoons. Also, there were scraps of paper with little notes on them all over the place, one of which said, "I want to be the Kylie Minogue of the Norwegian art world."
Finally, we went up to the top floor, which wasn't really a floor at all, just a little landing with entrances to the administrative office, and one door that said it led to an exhibit. Um, it didn't really look so much like you were supposed to go in there, but I think that was the point. It was a room full of garbage. Well, more specifically a room full of well-organized pieces of small trash, systematically labeled by a fictive Russian man (apparently living in Norway?), "the man who never threw away anything." Lisa and I were puzzling our way through the little cases and shelves of odd and sometimes disgusting memorobilia, when suddenly the lights went out. And since the room we were in was essentially a closet, it was impossible to see our hands in front of our own faces. My first thought was that someone had snapped the lights off in preparation for closing, just assuming no one was on the top floor in that silly little exhibit that most visitors probably never even realized was there. My second thought was "How the hell do we get out of here?!" Lisa grabbed on to my shoulders, and I very tentatively started shuffling forward, trying to find a way out while at the same time not touching anything. Because we were, after all, in a room full of garbage, albeit fictive garbage. In retrospect, I think the little bastard who came up with this exhibit would have been close to tears of delight at the predicament we were in, particularly by how effectively we had been creeped out by the whole concept.
Anyway, I led us around a sharp corner, and there in front of me was a sliver of light: the door! Hallelujah! Lisa and I were gasping and laughing as we stumbled out the door, thinking our ordeal was behind us and would fast become an amusing story. We went down the stairs to find the door to the first floor, feeling that we'd seen enough art for one day. But, alas! The door behind which was the actual exit to this crazy place was locked! Now we're thinking "They're closed? They locked everything up without telling us they were closing?" Suddenly, I became furious at that lazy-looking docent dozing off with his ipod earbuds in while watching us walk up the stairs to the third floor and our doom. Isn't it his job to say, hey, don't go up there, we're going to close and lock you in and you're going to starve to death in the empty stairwell of the Samtidskunst museum?!
At that moment, I looked up and saw 1) that the chandelier in the stairwell was also turned off and 2) that a little man was running frantically around with a walkytalky and chattering very worriedly in Norwegian. Suddenly, another little docent burst through the door, looking relieved. "Der er to persjoner her," she says. "Kom med meg. Vi må gå denne vei." So we follow her through the back way and out into the lobby, where we hurriedly retrieve our bags. "Snakker dere norsk?" she asks, and I happy say, "Ja." (I'm so excited that she's not speaking English to me.) "Strømmet er ut så dørene lokket." Ahhhh, now we understand. There's been a power outage. They don't close the museum without warning by turning out the lights on people and locking them in. Well, that's good.
We walk outside into the sunshine which seems to have emerged while we were inside. The streets are crowded and loud because the stoplights have also gone out, and outside the dark convenience stores and restaurants people are lingering with their cigarettes and peering up at the sky, as if that will offer some explanation as to why their afternoon breaks have been interrupted.
By now we are hungry, and since everything looks dead, we decide to take the bus to IKEA and eat waffles. Because the power never goes out at IKEA.
Length of day: 14h15min
Tuesday was a sad and rainy day. And everyone knows that sad and rainy days are good for two things: Books and museums. And since I'm in a town chalk full of the latter, I thought I'd call up a friend and visit one. If you'll consult the Nobel Institute picture, you will notice a girl behind me and to my right with red hair. She is a very cool girl named Lisa, and we seem to have become fast friends. In fact, my hallmate Blackson calls her "your Lisa," (As in, "Have you been to visit your Lisa?") which I find quite adorable.
We decided to go to the Samtidskunst (Contemporary Art) Museum where we saw a hilarious exhibit of designs by Per Spook, a Norwegian fashion designer who took Paris by storm in the '80s and '90s with his innovative wool sweaters and gowns modelled after Sami (commonly known as Lappland) fashion. There were rhinestone pins shaped like codfish. Need I say more?
We worked our way up to the second floor, which houses the permanent collection of pieces by Scandinavian artists, including a room filled with yarn and coconuts and obscene cartoons. Also, there were scraps of paper with little notes on them all over the place, one of which said, "I want to be the Kylie Minogue of the Norwegian art world."
Finally, we went up to the top floor, which wasn't really a floor at all, just a little landing with entrances to the administrative office, and one door that said it led to an exhibit. Um, it didn't really look so much like you were supposed to go in there, but I think that was the point. It was a room full of garbage. Well, more specifically a room full of well-organized pieces of small trash, systematically labeled by a fictive Russian man (apparently living in Norway?), "the man who never threw away anything." Lisa and I were puzzling our way through the little cases and shelves of odd and sometimes disgusting memorobilia, when suddenly the lights went out. And since the room we were in was essentially a closet, it was impossible to see our hands in front of our own faces. My first thought was that someone had snapped the lights off in preparation for closing, just assuming no one was on the top floor in that silly little exhibit that most visitors probably never even realized was there. My second thought was "How the hell do we get out of here?!" Lisa grabbed on to my shoulders, and I very tentatively started shuffling forward, trying to find a way out while at the same time not touching anything. Because we were, after all, in a room full of garbage, albeit fictive garbage. In retrospect, I think the little bastard who came up with this exhibit would have been close to tears of delight at the predicament we were in, particularly by how effectively we had been creeped out by the whole concept.
Anyway, I led us around a sharp corner, and there in front of me was a sliver of light: the door! Hallelujah! Lisa and I were gasping and laughing as we stumbled out the door, thinking our ordeal was behind us and would fast become an amusing story. We went down the stairs to find the door to the first floor, feeling that we'd seen enough art for one day. But, alas! The door behind which was the actual exit to this crazy place was locked! Now we're thinking "They're closed? They locked everything up without telling us they were closing?" Suddenly, I became furious at that lazy-looking docent dozing off with his ipod earbuds in while watching us walk up the stairs to the third floor and our doom. Isn't it his job to say, hey, don't go up there, we're going to close and lock you in and you're going to starve to death in the empty stairwell of the Samtidskunst museum?!
At that moment, I looked up and saw 1) that the chandelier in the stairwell was also turned off and 2) that a little man was running frantically around with a walkytalky and chattering very worriedly in Norwegian. Suddenly, another little docent burst through the door, looking relieved. "Der er to persjoner her," she says. "Kom med meg. Vi må gå denne vei." So we follow her through the back way and out into the lobby, where we hurriedly retrieve our bags. "Snakker dere norsk?" she asks, and I happy say, "Ja." (I'm so excited that she's not speaking English to me.) "Strømmet er ut så dørene lokket." Ahhhh, now we understand. There's been a power outage. They don't close the museum without warning by turning out the lights on people and locking them in. Well, that's good.
We walk outside into the sunshine which seems to have emerged while we were inside. The streets are crowded and loud because the stoplights have also gone out, and outside the dark convenience stores and restaurants people are lingering with their cigarettes and peering up at the sky, as if that will offer some explanation as to why their afternoon breaks have been interrupted.
By now we are hungry, and since everything looks dead, we decide to take the bus to IKEA and eat waffles. Because the power never goes out at IKEA.
Secondly, Norway is beautiful. Seriously. Oslo is one of the only cities in the world where you can ride the subway directly to our equivalent of a national park. Really there’s not a whole lot more to write about my journey, except to show you some pictures, and mention that, as I came around a bend in the lake on my journey home and saw the bonfires being lit on the other side while the sun went down, I had one of those moments that was so gorgeous I could have cried. Which is what, ultimately, I think, brought me back here despite all the annoying quirks this country also possesses, and about which you can count on me ranting about for months to come, against my better nature. 