Month: August 2003

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]

STOCKHOLM

One month ago, Caroline and I got on a bus, then we got on a train, then we got on a plane, and in a few hours we were in Stockholm.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being able to do that. This is one of the reasons New Zealanders travel – from New Zealand, it’s a huge effort to get pretty much anywhere except Australia. Over this side of the world, it’s as simple as logging on to the net and seeing where cheap flights are going and just going there.

As it was a cheap flight, ‘Stockholm’ really meant ‘Skavsta, one hour twenty minutes by bus south of Stockholm’. We landed in a small airport in a forest as dusk was coming on. It was not like any other forest I’ve been in. The trees were hulking and sleepy, and swallows looped above us catching insects.

(Okay, I don’t know if they were swallows. I don’t know from birds. But ‘swallow’ plus ‘loop’ makes you think of ‘swoop’ and that’s also what they were doing. Poetic license, y’see.)

We piled on the bus and rolled on out. The scenery was great – forested banks of hillside, sky-catching lakes, clear blue sky deepening into darkness. It was a young and delicate landscape, a teenager blossoming into adulthood compared to the grumpy ancient mariner of Scotland. Not nearly so
young as Aotearoa New Zealand, of course; my home country’s hills and coasts seem only half-made, fresh from the womb.

It was still light, barely, as we came into Stockholm itself. The city is fascinating, spread out over islands and peninsulae linked by bridges, beautiful. Intriguing, also, because the islands and curves of the harbour put a strange shape to the city, preserve it from singularity. Each curving shoreline of each island instead offers its own individual Stockholm, giving way to the others gracefully as you walk along. We walked everywhere. That first night we walked from the new town across the central island Gamla Stan, the old town. It isn’t a large island – a brisk walk from one side to the other would be an easy five minutes – but it was within these shores that Stockholm grew and was bounded for centuries.

We were staying in an old police station, converted to a hotel a few decades back, on Sodermalm, the southern island which is apparently the hotbed of alternative student culture. I didn’t see much of that to speak of, but it was a nice neighbourhood. It’s a great city to wander at night, so peaceful and safe. Close to midnight we wandered through some parks and women were sitting alone under lamps reading novels. It’s that kind of place. The pace never got near to hectic while we were there. Cyclists were the biggest threat and often the fastest thing around, and there were huge numbers of them. Cal noticed the odd sight of ‘bike cemeteries’, corners of public spaces were cycles were left never to be collected. The ones on the outside looked fine – but away in the centre, at the wall, they were little more than rust skeletons.

A wrecked vehicle is also at the centre of Stockholm’s highlight: the Vasa Museum. (“Whoa, nice transition, morgue!” “That’s why you’re the DJ and I’m the rapper. Word is bond.”) In 1628 the warship Vasa sailed from Stockholm. It didn’t make it very far – a few minutes after launch it keeled over and sank. The Vasa was lost under the waves, not too much further away than a particularly good stone’s throw. And, in time, it was forgotten.

Except by obsessive history buffs and salvage experts. One of these found it and funded an ambition campaign to lift it. It emerged from the water in 1961, and stands now in a museum constructed to hold it. And it’s *astonishing*.

It’s a huge 17th century warship in a room. It’s mounted upright and moodily lit and you can do everything short of walk on board. It’s very well-preserved because the low salt content in the water means the worms that devour the wood of other wrecks can’t survive in this harbour. It has been restored where necessary with great sensitivity, clearly indicating which bits of wood are new restoration and which bits are original (answer: the new-looking ones are new, the old-looking ones aren’t). There are full-size reproductions of much of the carvings painted up in the same gaudy colours of the original, right next to the originals in place on the ship, long-since bleached of colour. There are hundreds of explanatory points. There’s so much information you could drown in it. It’s an amazingly successful museum. It does everything a museum should do and does it with great style.

And it just so happens that this excellent museum houses perhaps the most rawly impressive historical artefact that will ever be discovered.

It’s a winning combination. If you’re nautically inclined, it’s worth the trip just for this.

Stockholm is not just a ship in a museum, of course, but that’s all I’m going to tell you about. (Okay, also a brief plug for the city’s comic library, located in a high-profile city-centre building – Bryan Talbot original art exhibition!) It’s a pretty cool place. It’s very much a city, though. If you love visiting cities this will suit you well, if you hate them this won’t convert you.   However, it’s a small city, with lots of parks and water, and that suits me just fine.

Also, there were lots of mooses, so myself and Miss Moose felt quite at home. (No real mooses, sadly. But then, neither myself nor Miss Moose are real mooses either.)

Last word: if you end up in an underground pizza joint in the Sodermalm where no-one speaks English, get out while you can. The grumpy staff and dire food just ain’t the kinda dining experience you want.

Peace, love and mooses

~`morgan moose

(Dean: we *tried* to find local food, but failed – I still don’t know what local food *is* in Stockholm.)

(Erik: thanks for your email! If we’d had more prep time I would have warned you that we were coming, even though you probably would have been nowhere near Stockholm at the time. You’re most welcome to come over to Edinburgh any time! And I haven’t forgotten the photo…)

(All: read this blog: http://www.stonesoup.co.nz/chinashop/)

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]

EDINBURGH

I see the city through new eyes as Caroline discovers it. It’s beautiful, that old town skyline across Princes St like nothing else on earth. The Museum of Edinburgh has some good maps and models of what the town was once like, and suddenly it snaps into place, the way the old structure of the town lies beneath the new, the simple logic of two parallel streets, one leading up to the castle, one to the market below the castle, and a loch on the other side. It’s a logic that’s still working itself out, an invisible strata woven through a city’s life. Edinburgh’s beating heart is the Castle and the old town beside it, and the new town and other expansions are simply branches reaching out for more sun. Everyone who lives in Edinburgh understands this, and everyone who visits senses it on some level. Part of understanding Edinburgh is seeing how the past silently manifests in the present – it’s no wonder Edinburgh’s famed for its ghosts.

The two best spooky tours in the city are the Mary Kings Close and the City of the Dead. (This is their reputation, anyway – I haven’t been on any others.) Mary Kings Close is an old street that once ran down from the High Street, up towards the Castle, down the hillside to the Loch. The bottom two thirds were demolished at various times, but the top third was built over the top of and remains to this day – an entire street in the cellar of one of Edinburgh’s largest buildings. The tour winds you down into the dark, through reconstructions of the living conditions of Edinburgh’s citizens and featured oddities that have given this Close its sinister reputation – plague-troubled, site of a celebrated murder, and site of at least three significant ghost stories. But it’s walking up the Close at the end of the tour that has the most impact, laundry hung plaintively between the narrow buildings, steep and slippery stone underfoot, and a heavy stone darkness above like a night that has forgotten how to dawn, a street unchanged, an alley that is the opposite of modernity. Then out on to the spine of the city, the Castle waiting just beyond, and the feeling that the city knows its past, even if those who walk across it don’t.

City of the Dead is less worried about imparting knowledge and more about sharing an experience. It’s the only night tour that takes in Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, where Edinburgh has buried tens of thousands of its dead in unmarked graves, where the seeds of the Civil War were sown by signatories to the National Covenant, where a little dog became famous for its loyalty to its dead master.   Greyfriar’s Kirkyard has another claim to renown as well, as the site of one of the better documented hauntings you’re ever going to come across.

The story goes that in 1998 the mausoleum of “Bloody” MacKenzie, vicious persecutor of the Covenanters, was desecrated by a homeless man; since then the kirkyard has been a site of strange supernatural activity, most notably in the Covenanter’s Prison, a long aisle of mausoleums concealed behind the Kirk. Here, in the Black Mausoleum, hundreds of tour parties have experienced inexplicable occurrences, being pinched or pushed or breathed on or even collapsing unconscious.

Sounded cool to me.

The guide led us on a somewhat elaborate route around the Old Town, down narrow wynds and along the cowgate, cheerily telling of the tortures and atrocities in the city’s medieval past. Then into the Kirkyard itself, dark and only a little bit spooky (I had come here to sit in the sun and eat sandwiches many times, so I suppose my defences were strengthened). We heard of those who had died and been buried here, or indeed those who had graverobbed.

Finally, past the Mackenzie tomb and into the Covenanter’s Prison and, finally, the ominous Black Mausoleum…

I don’t believe in ghosts. However, I also don’t *not* believe in ghosts. I’ve heard about, and even experienced, enough strange stuff to at least have an open mind.

But that doesn’t even matter, because visiting the Black Mausoleum didn’t have anything to do with whether or not I thought ghosts were a real phenomenon. Really, I just wanted to have a bit of a scare. I like watching scary movies and I particularly like it when they scare me.

We’re herded into the Black Mausoleum. It’s basically a big stone chamber, featureless. I end up right at the back. Right in the corner at the back. It’s a bit cold. And dark – it’s dark. The only light comes from the
entrance – from the tour leader in the doorway. He has us all packed in and he starts to explain about poltergeists, how they work, what it feels like when you’re in a cold spot… he keeps things moving, but there’s a lot to get through, and I’m stuck in there at the back in the darkness, the wall is right behind me… and I’m reminded by one of the testimonies I’d read before coming, from the guy who was standing right at the back when he heard scratching on the stone right behind him…

The infamous Todman Street flat was haunted, of course, and not just by the ghost of decades of parties. At least, that was its reputation. Sometimes, when I’d walk up the stairs late at night, the place where the ghost was supposed to appear, I’d be chilled, and I’d hurry up to my room as fast as I could. Because it’s fun to be spooked.

When I signed Cal and I up for the tour, I wanted the same kind of spooky. And I got it. In spades. Stuck at the back, in the dark… my legs kept feeling extremely cold, which is how a supernatural ‘cold spot’ starts, so I hopped from one to the other and tried not to look over my shoulder…

I had spent all day hoping that someone would faint (over 100 have done so on the tour so far), that scratches would be found on someone’s arms, that *something* weird would happen in the Black Mausoleum. But when I was in there at midnight, stuck at the back in the corner, I feel no shame in
telling you I was desperately hoping the opposite. I was spooked. And that’s the name of the game.

It’s a good piece of fun. The guys taking the tour know how to work human suggestibility to their advantage and are good at drawing out moments to set your nerves on edge – but don’t worry, they’re not in the business of giving heart attacks and they crack a lot of jokes to break the tension. The
nerves end up on edge anyway, because the place has a reputation, and maybe all those faintings and scratches aren’t just co-incidences or accidental self-hypnosis or hysteria… maybe…

Curious ghosthunters can read more at http://www.blackhart.uk.com/cod_old/eyewitness.html

NOSTALGIALICIOUS

Before leaving Edinburgh for London to pick up Cal, I hooked up briefly with Maryanne Garry, a Psychology professor from my student days who was in town for a conference with students in tow. In one of those typical every-Kiwi-is-only-two-degrees from-any-other-Kiwi things, friend Alastair was in town and catching up with one of his friends who was one of Maryanne’s students and in town with her. Anyway, I turned up and we caught up. I got to update her on the whereabouts of many of her ‘98 class, some of whom are reading this. (You know who you are. How could you forget?) And all was sweetness and light and utterly nostalgialicious. Snappy.

Take care everyone.
morgue

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]

LONDON

Sun in blue sky, a lonely admiral. Isle of Dogs, dead hot. Sitting on grass in a park watching the Thames, top arc of the eye of London imperceptibly shifting in the distance, Caroline appears before my eyes for the first time in ten months. It really does feel like no time was lost.

On Tottenham Court Road is snappy hotel the Grafton, Edwardian apparently, forced windows open to fight back the heat. Walkable to everywhere. Two days walking London, no buses, no tube, sewing streets and sights together as we go. Nothing sorts out your geography of a city like walking it, not even buses. (Of course, bus and tube everywhere on the last two days – we’re not stupid.)

Hard bustle of Oxford Street. That beautiful curve of Regent St, my personal symbol of London. Eros and McDonald’s billboards in Piccadilly Circus.   Settled moments in Leicester Square. Cleopatra’s Needle beside a mucky, thrilling Thames. Covent Garden bursting with music and shade. Westminster, St Pauls, Fleet Street, Soho, Trafalgar Square.

The Brit Museum, my second time, still didn’t manage more than a fraction of it. A show – The Madness of George Dubya, Kubrick’s Strangelove reworked into musical contemporary satire. Ride the Eye, surprised to find it underwhelming, an uncommon sentiment it seems but there you go. Drinking in a London pub, 11pm closing time and homeward stagger, traditional.

Catch up with many wonderful Londonites. Big party out at Frank and Sam’s, backyard barbecue no less. Regent’s Park, James Park, Russell Square, Embankment Gardens, other greens. The Diana hubcap. Tower Hill and the shortest Jack the Ripper tour ever. Dinner in Brick Lane, new heartthrob locale for the BritLit scene, where eager and sincere young men fiercely pimp their eating establishment, throwing in free drinks and discounts to tempt you inside.

Wander the shoulders-back grid of Bloomsbury, absorbing the scene, randomly stumble into an enormous book traders fair full of squinting hobbyists evaluating first editions.   Later trip to Spitalfield’s market, the market is empty except for a rather good organic café. The Tate Modern, as full of stunning work as the last time I was there, enormous black Pinocchio riff outside.

London. Absolute magic.

(I bored all the Londoners with my muttering on about it, not to mention Cal who heard it about eight thousand times, but I’m going to say it again – the congestion charge in central London has reduced traffic on the streets to about a third of what it was. It’s amazing the change – it’s like a totally different city. It’s easy to cross the road, the buses rattle along at a healthy pace instead of being just the sitting-down version of walking, noise is down to a healthy shout, the air is cleaner, and the pressure isn’t so intense. It’s a happier place. Give that man what done this a Knighthood already.)

———

JUDITH

I don’t exactly know what to say about this but it’d feel false to leave it out. This was never really a travel journal so much as a bunch of rants about what is on my mind. I’m just going to type and see what comes out.

My friend Judith O’Sullivan died on Wednesday of cancer. She was at home in Upper Hutt with family.

On my third day in London, back in September, I spent a wonderful day wandering Greenwich with Elizabeth and Roland (who were, you will recall, my exceedingly kind and generous hosts). As we walked I received a phone call from Judith, to make contact, welcome me to London, and invite me to a party that very evening. I was pleased she rang, because it gave me a chance to tell Elizabeth and Roland one of my favourite stories.

In New Zealand there’s a film festival each year devoted to showing unusual, non-mainstream cinema from around the globe. One year on the bill was the infamous live-action manga ‘The Story of Ricky’, a martial arts flick so stupid, ridiculous and disgustingly extreme that it attained instant classic status among odd-movie aficionados around the world. I went with a small group of people including my friend Billy, who brought along his old friend Judith who I’d never met before. Not only did Judith enjoy the film, but at its conclusion, she ran out into the street and stood there in the rain, stopping traffic, doing kung-fu kicks.

Naturally, we all fell instantly in love with her. (Except Billy, who was used to it.)

I love that story. (That’s the short version, but the longer one just has more description in it.)   It’s just so… random and cool. It’s actually important to me, I’ve told it so many times it’s become something of a symbol to me. Symbolic of what exactly I’m not sure. I’m not even sure any more how much of it is true. Not that that matters, because the spirit of it is absolutely right, as all who knew Judith would agree. She was mad in the best possible sense.

She ended up in Auckland and we didn’t see each other often (although she did turn up at one of those infamous Todman Street parties) but we did stay in sporadic touch, even after she moved to London. Really, I was only a minor figure in her life, and she was only a minor figure in mine, but she was a friend. More importantly, she was an incredibly good friend to Billy, who is still pretty much the other me. It’s deeply strange that she is gone.

I didn’t go to the party that day in September. Can’t even remember why not, some lame excuse whose details I’ve forgotten. I figured I’d drop in on her at the Bodyworks exhibition before I left to Rome. Didn’t manage that either – disorganised and short of time. And by the time I got back to London the cancer had been diagnosed and she’d gone back to New Zealand.

Billy, and everyone else close to Judith, I don’t really know what to say. All the usual sentiments I guess, sincerely meant. Peace, and love.

(Don’t get too gloomy, all you readers, that’s the last thing she’d want. Just think how cool it would be to see a girl stopping traffic doing kung fu in the middle of the road in the rain. And however cool you think it’d be – trust me, it was way, way cooler than that.)

———

Take care out there everyone.

~`morgan

What I’m reading:
The Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

Just finished:
The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard
Amaryllis Night and Day by Russell Hoban