A chronilogical ... wait, logical?

Okay, so since I haven't written in so many days, and I am actually quite far behind in relating the events of the last 11 days, I have to start in a chronilogical manner in order not to lose everyone who reads this (a.k.a. 8 people).

So, let's see. The alst time I wrote, I was in Frerikstad because of the free cake episode.
So, I either wrote that on Friday, and so I will start with Saturday.
Saturday, Seth and I went to Oslo. First we ate a kebab. The first kebab Seth had ever had. It was delicious. Then I got us lost in Ring 2 of Oslo when we were trying to find the Munch Museum. We eventually found it. Seth was so excited, he could hardly stand the awesomeness of all the Munch. I had seen the museum before, so I went to see one of the films, "The Dance of Life", which is one of his paintings. I'll have to write a separate entry about what I think of Munch. I know I did originally back in March. But the film gave me a different understanding of Munch. Why is it that all artists contemplate suicide? I mean, what's the advantage of being slightly, or even measurably mentally unstable to an "artist"? It's a weird occurence that most of the more/most talented artists seem to feel emotions in the extremes. But, anyway... More on this later, maybe.
At 6pm, we went to the National Theatre in Oslo and saw Othello with some people from the Norwegian Theatre Academy. It was in Norwegian, so I really didn't understand what they were saying, although I know the story. So, since I couldn't really enjoy the words, I paid especially close attention to the stage, the blocking, lights, etc.
I was surprised how little action happened on stage. Everything was completely subdued. There was hardly a violent moment in so turbulent a play. However, it gave one the sense of impending doom for two hours, which is difficult to acheive, I think. The set was very abstract, and totally black. The large black pieces moved over the stage almost imperceptibly slowly, which created a lot of tension. I kept expecting it to descend fully onto the stage, but it didn't. It just hovered ominously. The actual stage had a long ramp from front to back which was used as stage entrances. When the actors crossed over the peak of the stage, they were in the "scene". They also used the characters to commentate on what was going on, by having them exit in a horizontal fashion at the back of the stage with lights. The lights were interesting. It was hard to tell if the eyes were adjusting to the lights, or if the lights changed. But they went from colored to white. I learned in lighting class that the eyes will turn colored light white if they look at it for longer than 20 minutes. It was a little painful to look out for long. And gave me a sort of dizziness, like that of a 3D movie. The only white thing on stage (besides the lights) was the handkerchief. Everyone was dressed in black material of different textures, but it was all black. And even though the lights were white, they did not reflect so, but only served to highlight the contrast between the black abyss and the black set pieces, and just show how utterly black everything was.
The acting was very traditional in the sense that the play was acted as if it were meant to be be heard, not seen. There was little action, and a great portion of the play was spent with the actors playing full front to the audience. The actors were arranged in different patterns on the stage, but were not active in the sense of their moving around much. They came, they stood, they said their lines, they left. Once again, the stagnation and subtelty was a little unnerving. Even the smothering scene was simply Othello embracing Desdemona and suffocating her in his shoulder. She didn't struggle much. It took me a few hours to wind down after the show. Another interesting thing was the fact that the only different between Othello and the others is that he had a beard, although they still referred to him as a "moor".

So, after the show, Seth and I marveled in the wonderful weather and twilight sky ("It's still light outside!")for a little while then got on the bus/train back to Fredrikstad. We arrived and walked back to the city centre. A couple of drunk guys were shouting at people and asked if we were Swedish.
We played on a small play ground and I was racing Seth to the "Cactus" restaurant cafe, when I tripped and broke my pinky toe. It hurt, but not quite as bad as I was expecting. At first I thought I had just stubbed it very hard, but when the pain didn't subside after an hour, but instead got worse, I suspected it broke. And it did. It was more funny than anything. Especially since every time I feel impulsive or get a surge of happiness, I end up breaking SOMETHING. Haha, but in any case. We went to the Cactus Restaurant/Bar/Cafe for some late-night sweet thing. I got a pistachio milkshake, which was VERY delicious. Seth got a mocha milkshake which was also very good. We went home.
Sunday we didn't do much all day. I cooked some great eggplant dipped in egg and fried in Olive Oil. YUM. With a little cheese and yogurt on top, it was almost perfection. If I had some garlic and some tatziki sauce, that's the only thing that could make it better.
It's a recipe to save for the future...
In the afternoon, we went the Academy and worked on our sets a little.
Monday, Trond, the opera singer/photographer took us to our new lodgings in the Old town of Fredrikstad. He showed us around the castle and the town. He is from one of the Islands nearby and had his first singing job in the old town. He told us what a good Summer that was. He is such a sweet man. But, he had an alterior motive for showing us everything. The weather was so nice, he was looking for an excuse not to work... but so were we. So we played hookie together, all three and avoided work for the afternoon. He took us to "Mormor" (mother of the mother: Grandmother's) Cafe, which apparently is the best cafe in Fredrikstad. The food was very good. And doubtless the coffee was, too. But I wasn't paying attention and put salt into my coffee instead of sugar (doh...). While we were sitting there, Seth suddenly recognized a friend of his. He sat and debated whether he should say hello or not? He wasn't completely sure it was Mira... maybe it was someone else?
Finally, he decided to run after her. They met again, and set up a rendezvous in Oslo for the next week. Life is pretty incredible like that.
So, eventually, we decided that maybe we should get to work. So, we caught the ferry back to the main-land Fredrikstad. We worked some more on our models... ho-hum. Details, details, details. It was interesting to solve problems while I was building the model, but building the model was time-consuming and a little tedious.
So, Monday night, I sent off some mail and had a nice chat with the Post/Nessaren (convenience store)/ Slot machine/cafe person. She was a little shy at first, but started talking after a little bit. I was there for a while because the post machine was very slow. So, we had to wait. I wasn't in a hurry, and rather was enjoying myself. It was raining, too, so I wasn't exactly in a hurry to go back out in the cold mist.
Tuesday morning, I completed operation Salvation Army, which was fun. It was only taking some clothes to the drop-off station down the street from the Motel/camp/hostel we were now staying. But I still enjoyed it immensely. I'm not sure why.
Anyway, Tuesday, we finished our models (Seth and I only, because we were leaving early), and presented them to the class. Seth made an animation with the features of his set (moving walls). I merely presented the set with my ideas and then later lit it with the facilities they had (a miniature black box lighting system, basically).
We said good-bye. The scenographer teacher said, "Ah, Hannah, you and your spree!"
I'm not exactly sure what this means. But it was funny and nice.

Wednesday morning we woke up very early to catch the ferry, to catch a bus, to catch the plane, to catch another bus to get to Tromso. We arrived around noon. I had a quick shower, then we went to the theatre, discovered there wasn't much to do, so we had lunch. Then we worked and had rehearsal until 7pm. We had dinner, went to the hotel and crashed.

Thursday, work started at 10am to focus the lights, but we were done by one. So, we ate lunch and then I went to the art museum near the hotel. It was a modern art museum. There were two Munchs there, several rooms of traditional Norwegian painters and themes, some modern ones. On the top floor, there was a new exhibit from 2011. It wasn't very interesting. It was pornographic and was just the kind of art I despise. Mainly because it was sickeningly seeped in it's own magnificence or irony, or concept, or whatever other "idea" the artist was trying to convey. Maybe I'm being too harsh. But I feel, if an artist is trying to comment on something so cliche and over-done as phallic symbols, he should at least try to incorporate some sort of new idea into the mix. As it was, it was basically the same exhibit I have seen repeatedly. It was well-done, technically. Although, to me, it was not art. It was just an elaborate, self-absorbed doodle.

This is what gets me most about "modern art". Not all of it, mind, because there's plenty of modern art I admire.
But one thing I particularly don't understand is why they take such simple themes and either 1) try to make some great big deal out of it
2) obscure the original idea by simplisitic representation and poor reasoning.

There was a quote from Calvin and Hobbes that once said, "The purpose to writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"
'Writing', I feel can be substituted with 'modern art', and the explanation is just as accurate. I don't mind a little mystery every now and then with art, but when poor ideas are justified with poor reasoning, it annoys me that anyone could satisfactorily prescribe their name to the work.

Maybe this is really harsh. And I realize that artists and museums exhibit these things with the knowledge they are showing something publicly, and therefore, others are to react publicly. So, I don't feel so bad. And it's not for an offended sense of dignitiy that I write these things. When an entire room in a museum is filled with poor quality digital prints of a man in a storm-trooper helmet, holding a blue "light saber", exposing his genitalia, I suppose all one can do is laugh at how absurd it is. But the joke is old. So old. And just because it's being exhibited in a museum doesn't make it a smart commentary on anything. It just makes a bad joke...
But, on the flip side, art like that does have it's good points as it sets a marker for what is popular in the art world. And, of course, there is always a reaction against any type of art. So, this art will have a reaction, and maybe from that reaction will come something entirely the opposite. Not out of spite for the other art, but just to expose that it's not the only thing. And it's not. Something is already happening, I'm sure, we just don't see it, yet.
I just find it slightly depressing they couldn't find anything better to exhibit at this paticular museum. But it was free and there were many other more worthy paintings.
One that I found amusing was a small painting of a few men in a dinghy fighting off several ravenous polar bears. But my favorite was this painting of a preacher talking to some Sami people. He was warm, and obviously wealthy and well-fed, while they were trudging through the snow trying to survive. Their facial expressions were terrific. They distrusted him completely, and yet were suffering his presence with a sort of contempt. I liked it too, because much of it was white and grey, but it was still interesting.


Anyway, I must pause here and finish the next post with another leg of rambling. I will continue the next post with more on Tromso and the end of the production.