Ten facts about Vikings

1. On the battlefield, a Viking's attack of choice was to cut someone's legs - hence immobilising the ennemy. I'm glad I've never encountered an angry Viking - yet.

2. There is only one remaining complete Viking helmet in the world - it's in the Historical Museum of Oslo. However, contrary to the legend, they didn't wear horned helmets.

3. Important persons were buried with their ship, along with horses, dogs, jewellery and fine linen. The Oseberg ship was found in 1903, and it took 21 years to dry out the wood. It served as a burial ship for two women, whose remains were also found. One was in her seventies, and died of cancer, while the younger was in her fifties.

The Oseberg ship

4. The ship and all the objects found in it are part of the Saving Oseberg project: at the time of their discovery, all the findings were put in alum salts, which slowly deteriorated them.

5. Vikings liked to play music with that (which could equally serve in a religious ritual):

6. In 1960, Norwegian archaeologists Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad found a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows (Canada), now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Norse settlement dates from the 11th century. According to recent research, L'Anse aux Meadows could be part of Vinland.

7. J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by Norse tales such as the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and the Hervarar saga. He also based his Cirth alphabet on the runic alphabets used by Vikings from the 2nd century AD.

8. Brodir of Man was a Danish Viking, settled in the Isle of Man and in Ireland, and said to have killed the last High King of Ireland Brian Boru (whose life is supposed to hit the screen in an €80m blockbuster, according to the Independent last May).

9. Before being cast as the main character of an intellectually charged and eponymous blockbuster, the Norse God Thor also gave his name to the weekday Thursday. In Romance languages, it's Jupiter's Day. One way or another, the fourth day of the week is related to a God of Thunder.

10. The Orion constellation used to be known in Scandinavian folklore as "Frigg's distaff", Frigg being a Goddess, queen of Asgard, and Odin's wife.

So what does the world eat? About Hungry Planet

Do you know what the world eats? or how? The answer lies in an exhibition held at the Nobel Prize Center in Oslo. Hungry Planet (27.09.2013 - 23.02.2014) is the joint work of photographer Peter Menzel and writer Faith D'Aluisio. Together, they travelled the world and asked families from various backgrounds to show them what they ate within a week. As a result, we see each family assembled in their kitchen, dining room, or tent, surrounded by their weekly supplies. The latter widely vary, depending on where in the world the family lives. Unsurprisingly, there are those who live on 1$ a week and those who need as much as 700$ to fill their stomach. However, more money doesn't necessarily mean having access to a better diet. I found that some of the European families pictured could do with a bit more vegetables and fruits instead of tons of carbs and sweets. The reportage also highlights the global importance of sharing meal as part of a social ritual, a way of interacting within a family or a community. By doing so, it shows a variety of cultural and culinary habits. Families from Ecuador, Turkey, Bhutan, France, Norway...all are brought together by a common trait: no matter their social, ethnic, religious origin, people all need food to survive - and acquiring food as well as sharing it convey a form of social interaction. By showing what the world eats, this exhibition raises a number of questions: why do we eat what we eat? Why does it differ from one country, one culture, one family to another? Also, in the age of massive consumption, how are we provided with what we eat and how do we decide what we put in our plates - when given the choice?
This photojournalism reportage has been published (and awarded) under the name of Hungry Planet: What The World Eats (Material World Books, Ten Speed Press, 2005).

Outside the venue, "what the world eats" becomes "how the world gets its food" with a couple of square meters of grass showed the land needed to produce various products such as a hamburger (5m²), a litre of milk (1m²) or a piece of butter (20m²).

A Memory of Lapland - Norwegian encounter

A couple of years ago I backpacked in Lapland with a friend. It was in February, not exactly at the warmest time of the year. We were happily feeling the cold cutting our cheeks and freezing our eyelashes, and often lost our voice to the cold. We walked on the frozen sea in Luleå  saw a beautiful low sun permanently on our way up north, were stalked by a loner in an empty 200 inhabitants town by -30°C, whom we escaped by seeking refuge in an empty youth hostel, used the latter's sauna for most of the night, made some French classes in a secondary school up to the polar circle, dogsledged, ate reindeer's heart and tongue (we were two vegetarians, enough said), and wore necklaces ingenuously made of dried reindeer defecations.We saw the mining town of Kiruna, which made me think of Moria, although I must admit I didn't see any long-bearded dwarves there. We visited an ice hotel, which was interesting as in "why would you pay a fortune to spend a night freezing there - or your honeymoon even - when you can just walk by and visit the chambers before returning to the cosy world of heaters?" We also took a train along a fjord, and encountered several difficulties due to accidents involving drunken reindeers. And though we missed out on the northern lights we did see some beautiful evening skies. All in all, it was a pretty complete and adventurous travel.

Midday somewhere in Lapland

But the most gripping moment I remember was when we were walking out of a village, in the quiet cold, as the trees cast long shades on an iced road, and we arrived past a two-storey building just before the forest. On the threshold, a very old man was calling out to us. None of us had the slightest clue about Swedish language, so we weren't quite sure about what he was saying, however we were both very curious. As a history lover, I must admit that I love elderly people: they are full of memories, they lived through so many events, witnessed so many things. In addition to that, many of them are very polite and offer nice tea and cakes when visited. I wasn't going to be disappointed with this one. As he gestured towards a window, we understood that he wanted us to come in. And as the cautious travellers we were, we decided to take him up on his offer and followed him inside. He made us sit at his kitchen table, from where we had a beautiful view on a collection of kitchen knives. But he looked too old to make any dangerous use of them - at least against us.
He placed two tea cups in front of us, and then he started to talk very quickly, in Swedish, with pauses and emphasis every now and then. Sometimes, his eyes would suddenly fill with tears and terror, and at other moments he would vociferate like a devil. We still had no idea what he was talking about. Then, we realised that he was repeating the same couple of sentences. Focusing hard, we understood that he was talking about World War Two. In fact, he never spoke Swedish to us, but Norwegian. He was a Norwegian soldier who had been made prisoner by the German army during one of the battles of Narvik and sent to a labor camp. Since then, he had never returned home and had been allocated this flat in a Swedish town. He went on and on about that particular event, and on the fourth or fifth similar account of his, we were still nodding and trying to show interest. We then realised it wasn't necessary as he never seemed to notice our questions. In fact, he wasn't looking at us. We got up, took our leave, and left the flat. Once out of the building, we could still see him through the window kitchen. He hadn't moved, only now he was facing a wall. And telling his story, over, and over. Alzheimer's disease had locked him into his own memories, and the only thing he seemed to remember was that tragic part of his life.

Walking on the frozen sea - Luleå

Bach and the well-tempered decision

Last week I attended a very nice concert at the Philharmoniker. It was the first time I was able to enter this mythical place, and I wasn't disappointed. The lunch concerts are free events where young musicians meet their audience in the Philharmonie Foyer. There must have been two hundred, maybe three hundred people sitting on the floor, the stairs, and around the stage in the middle of the hall. In fact the setting is in no way as formal as a typical concert, where when you're not a musician or not used to that world, you might feel a little ill at ease with the whole thing. I know a lot of people put off by the amount of snobs attending those events (including me. That is, for the put off part), whereas enjoying classical music doesn't have to imply wearing a black-tie or an expensive evening dress. Especially at lunch time.
Back to the topic, this concert was very special to me, because the three musicians played the Goldberg Variations - arranged for strings - and any piece of Bach as a special resonance to me: a dear friend used to tell me that once you played Bach, you could play anything at the piano. It turned out he was right - he could play anything. At the time, I would leave him to it and turn my hands on Debussy instead, before stopping playing altogether. Twelve years later, I went to that concert. I thought about my friend a lot, and I just bought myself a piano.

A Taste of Chile - "Puro Pueblo" at the Willy Brandt Haus

Another day, another exhibition. My cultural radar is set on a poetic lifestyle these days and I let my mind wander a bit too often and too long. Much to the detriment of other grown-up and boring serious and proper activities...However I couldn't miss mentioning "Puro Pueblo", an exhibition held at the Willy Brandt Haus from the 22nd of August to the 18th of September (I should know better than writing on an event on its last day...), presenting pictures of Chile from 1971 to 1973 - yes, this very interesting time slot during Allende's presidency up until Pinochet's dictatorship.

© John Hall, Chile in den Jahren 1971-73

Say Chile I'll answer Neruda, rather than politics. Say Chile and I'll also think about those archives I read some years ago, about German Christian missions at the time of Pinochet (a fascinating insight into religious history by the way. Note for nerds: you could check them here). That is already something, yet in my opinion it is only a poor fraction from this country's history. All that to say that there are so many ways to understand a country, its people and its politics, and beautiful words and pictures also help.
As I'd rather make room for a poet rather than a dictator, and since Wikipedia makes it useless to write about Chile's history this is my favorite poem by Neruda:

Poema 20

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: “La noche esta estrellada,

y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”.

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.

La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.

Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.

Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.

La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.

Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.

Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.

Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.

Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.

Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.

Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos,

mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,

y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Gates of the Night (1946)

Marcel Carné's Gates of the Night ( Les Portes de la Nuit) is one of the first movies featuring Yves Montand. This poetic drama launched Montand's career and featured the beautiful "Autumn Leaves" song ("Les Feuilles mortes" by Prévert). It is now considered a classic, although at the time the movie didn't achieve great critical or commercial success. Montand plays along Nathalie Nattier, Serge Regianni ("Jo" in "Casque d'Or"), Pierre Brasseur and Jean Vilar. The script was written by poet Jacques Prévert. A young resistant coming back to post-war Paris, Diego (Montand) meets Malou (Nattier), a lonely girl unhappily married to a rich man (Brasseur), and together they wander around Paris' streets. They immediately fall for each other - but encounter several times a tramp called Destiny (played by Jean Vilar, creator of the Avignon theatre festival), who urges them to stay away from each other. They don't take his advice into account and a succession of events follows...

Malou & Diego, Les Portes de la Nuit, 1946.

My favourite lines:

Diego: Ce serait bien, si tous les jours étaient comme aujourd'hui, et toutes les nuits comme celle-ci.
Malou: Vous n'avez pas peur de la monotonie?
Diego: Mais le bonheur n'est pas monotone, puisque c'est le bonheur!
Malou: Vous croyez donc au bonheur?
Diego: Oui, quand je vous regarde!

in English that is:

Diego: It would be nice, if every day was like today, and every night like tonight.
Malou: Aren't you afraid of monotony?
Diego: But happiness isn't monotonous, since it's happiness!
Malou: So you do believe in happiness?
Diego: I do, when I look at you!

Looking at the world - World Press Photo Exhibition at Ostbahnhof

Today was the first real autumn day in Berlin. A light drizzle was falling this morning, and I thought this would be the best time to go and see the Word Press Photo Exhibition at Ostbahnhof.
My friend the worldwide famous and critically acclaimed Berliniquais has already written an extensive and witty account in French of this beautiful mobile exhibition. As he is an excellent writer, I was rather put off by the idea of writing my own testimonial but then I remembered that each perception is different, no matter how much one can recognize oneself it someone else's words.
Back to my point, I went to Ostbahnhof today - on a grey Sunday morning. For those who don't live in that city, Berlin on a Sunday morning probably looks pretty much like a city under curfew. I usually go out at that specific moment in the week because it is the only time I can drive without having to worry about a dense traffic. However, a couple of fall-outs with the car led me to use public transports, which is by far much nicer - and safer for me. Apart from a couple of prams pushed by dishevelled and/or sleep-deprived mothers here and there, everyone is still asleep. I'm talking 8am. By then the S-Bahn looks quite similar to what it was on the night before - some tourists looking at a map, a handful of party goers heading home or to the next party, a beggar mumbling some words, passing through the carriage while most people try their best to ignore him. All that in a surprisingly eery silence.
I love going to exhibitions, I love pictures, I read the news. So there should have been no surprises in what I saw. But sometimes something - or someone - touches you at exactly the right moment in your life. And despite having read loads about Syria, loads about poverty, and loads about the big bad world, somehow the images presented there really moved me.
I might be an adult, I will never get used to the sight of a dead body, and more so to that of people provoking a death and rejoicing at it. I can only imagine the feelings the photographers who captured those moments went through. I would have liked to write a post on a single picture, but I'm not the best critic, and so many of them where mindblowing that it would be unfair to pick out just the one. Also, sometimes I find something so striking that even as a word-lover I find the use of words superficial. So I thought about talking about the photo-journalists who risk their lives every day in order to bring you informations. I decided not to post the pictures I'm talking about and, instead, to insert links towards these photographer's websites, because if anything, their works deserve to be looked at. I'm so grateful to those talented persons who can keep their cool while doing such a dangerous job - that of showing the world's most shameful sights to a handful of powerful privileged who could make a difference.
Emin Ozmen witnessed torture, and realised a reportage on it called "Interrogations" on the proceedings of the militia in Syria. Through his photographer's eye, I wondered how a group of men could willingly use violence against a defenceless being, regardless of age, political belief, or sex. Is it despaire that triggers violence? I got the same impression while looking at the work of Dominique Nahr, whose investigation "Sudan Borders War" shows the uncompromising situation in that country forgotten by the news. Felipe Dana sets his eyes on the "Crack War" in Rio de Janeiro, and follows a couple of drug addicts through their routine, while Paolo Patrizi shows the daily life of African prostitutes in Italia.
Amongst these pictures of misery, a photographer brightened the panels: Altaf Qadri, whose reportage "School for the less fortunate" shows how a man who was never able to afford education for himself, now devotes two hours of his time every day to school poor children, aiming at inserting them in the regular school system, in order to secure them a better future.
Speaking of the young ones, while I was looking at images of torture in Syria - wondering how this inhumanity could still happen in this day and age, I realised someone was standing next to me. When I looked, an 8 years old boy was staring at a picture of a dead body- his eyes wide with disbelief. Not fear, just incomprehension. I looked around and was even more sorry at the lack of parental supervision than at what this boy saw. Because I know he had probably seen much worse at home - through a TV or computer screen. I left that exhibition very much aware of a number of wrong doings everywhere in the world. Yet as long as there are people out there to inform on that, with pictures or with words, there is still some hope that, even in the darkest times, reason will prevail.