Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway

I love Edvard Munch's work and have for a long time. The first time was an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City--I saw it spring break of my sophomore year of college in 1979, and my then boyfirend and I took advantage of exended evening hours and went at the end of a psychedelic trip, which was pretty mind bending. We returned a couple days later, and were impressed by the art in a different way--he is an intense painter. Then I saw a collection of his work at the Thiel Gallery in Stockholm in the early 1990's. The gallery itself is pretty amazing. First there is the building--it was designed by Ferdinand Boberg specifically to house the banker and art patron Ernest Thiel’s magnificent art collection and was completed in 1907. The Thiel Gallery also served as Ernest Thiel's home from 1907 to 1924 and has remained largely unaltered ever since. In addition to a unique collection of works of art from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by leading artists, the museum also has the largest collection of Edvard Munch's art outside of Norway. Finally, in 2017 we saw the Edvard Munch exhibit at San Francisco Museum of ModernArt, which was the largest collection of Munch's work ever seen outside of Norway. So I have been a dedicated fan over decades.

So no, I was not disappointed by this museum and would highly recommend it. Apparently it is a bit controversial, some people thinking a 12 story building should have more, but it was just right for us. We started at the top and worked out way down, and the top floor has works by Munch and his contemporaries--this was my favorite exhibit, and I am so glad I saw it first because I might have been too tired to really appreciate it if I saved it for last. My second favorite room held 12 murals he did for an Oslo chocolatier--which still exists, our hotel was around the corner from the original factory. Munch is an artist who leans heavily into anxiety and grief, which he captures in so many different ways and for me, quite effectively.

Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez

This is a Fault In Your Stars kind of vibe with more romance and less crying. At least for me--I cried through the back end of the previous book and not even close to tears with this one. Vanessa is a woman approaching her thirtieth birthday. She has always lived each day as though it was her last – which is an eyes wide open approach given the fact that she has lost her mother, sister and aunt to Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) before they reached the age of 30 and she has a 50% chance of having the gene for the disease. Vanessa has travelled extensively and documented her life’s story along the way on YouTube. She has amassed a large following telling her truth and what she faces, and this has provided enough revenue to keep her financially well-off. All that travel has suddenly come to a screeching halt when her half-sister left Vanessa to care for her baby girl. Adrian, the buttoned down, unadventurous lawyer next door, becomes her greatest support in Vanessa’s challenge on suddenly having to cope with her new housebound lifestyle. He makes Vanessa questions her decision not to get romantically involved with someone she’s likely going to have to leave behind--when it does happen she and everyone else in his life is under the impression that he knows what he is getting in to and that is he brave to do so--turns out it is something else. This is enjoyable, although not my favorite of this author's work--she is a reliably not sappy romance writer.

Oslo: Practically Perfect?

The most astounding thing for me about my recent trip to Norway is how effortless it is to be in it's capital city. There is a lot to be said for Norway and the way they have built infrastructure in sparsely populated areas that tunnels through mountains, has accessible and well run ferries for places where water must be crossed, public bathrooms galore, rivaled only by the presense of charging stations for your electric cars. This is a well oiled machine--pun intended--this is a country where they took the money from natural resources and pumped it back in to country's infrastructure for the greater good. I am sure people got rich, no doubt, but the way they have prepared for the future of all Norwegians is impressive. Oslo is home to 1 in 5 Norwegians and yet it feels wide open. There is barely any traffic. The evidence of publicly funded services and green spaces is everywhere. It might be the most livable city I have been in--it is expensive for us to be there, but that is not on them.

The Big Book of the Dead by Marion Winik

This is a Parnassus Bookstore recommendation that if you haven't read it, it is new to you. The author is a poet by trade, and this is a compilation of all the summaries she has written about the various people she had been touched by in some way throughout her life, from various places that she has lived and who she has lived with. This is not so much a memoir, but a picture of the author herself does emerge as you read through these short pieces. They are written about people who have died, and her reflections on them after their death. Some of them she has not met but who influenced her. These are not eulogies. Funeral eulogies tend to focus solely on the praiseworthy elements of a life, but the things that make us unique, truly human, are more often our foibles, the mistakes we’ve made and learned from, and the ways we make atonement to those we have hurt . These are undeniably eloquent but they are sometimes quite sparse when it comes to praise. They are poems about the people who have died, summing them up in her eyes in the sparsest and most huorous of ways.

A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim by Walt Whitman (1862)

Veteran's Day is on the historic day that World War I ended. The 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour and the 11th minute. It was thought to be the war to end all wars, but that was soon proven wrong. As someone who has provided health care to veterans of WWI and all American conflicts and wars since, I remember the consequences of waroften, if not daily, and today I choose a Walt Whitman poem about veterans of the Civil War, inspired by visiting a hospital with casualties in Virginia. A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying, Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket, Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all. Curious I halt and silent stand, Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the blanket; Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes? Who are you my dear comrade? Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and darling? Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming? Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory; Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel

I am not into dystopian fiction, but this author is so good that I make an exception for her. She has predicted the future state before, and here's hoping that is not what is happening here, but we shall see, and sadly, what she writes is all too believable. This is set in the near future, beginning in 2031 and going forward from there. There are two parallel worlds, neither of them particularly lovely. The first is one where when the United States collapses it devolves into individual city-states, with armed militias in charge. It is not broken down along the political lines that exist and persist now interestingly, but more chaotic than that. The other world is authoritarian surveillance state and while it is less chaotic it is no more appealing. So there is a lot to think about here, and the story is so engaging, so well told, and so unexpected that it propelled me through it. I listened to it, and the audiobook version is well done.

Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway

On our return drive to Oslo we took a slight detour and stopped at this unique museum. Why so far from Oslo. Because it is built on the site of an old wood pulp mill over 130 years ago. A/S Kistefos Træsliberi was established by consul Anders Sveaas in 1889, a company that produced wood pulp at the site from 1889 to the mid-1950s. The production at Kistefos stopped in 1955, but the buildings and machines have been set in motion once again, creating a living factory for Kistefos´ visitors. Kistefos, as we know it today, was established in 1996 by Norwegian businessman and art collector Christen Sveaas, grandson of Anders Sveaas. The mill itself has been left intact with some displays of how it used to work. The industrial history is a running theme throughout the park and is inextricably linked to Kistefos´ history. The river Randselva runs through the entire area and was in the early days the very foundation for the industry at the site. Today, it materializes as a beautiful and soothing signature.

Every year, Kistefos presents new art exhibitions by highly recognized national and international artists in our two galleries, The Twist and Nybruket Gallery. The architectural masterpiece The Twist is both a gallery, a bridge, and a sculpture, all in one. The 1.000 square meters building takes a sculptural form, twisting at the midway point as it crosses the Randselva river to connect the north and south sides - turning the journey through the park into a loop. The Twist is designed by BIG - Bjarke Ingels and is a unique exhibition space with varied light sources and view over the river. Nybruket Gallery is located in one of the old factory buildings of A/S Kistefos Træsliberi. The factory heritage has been preserved, creating a beautiful framework for art. Finally, there is a large sculpture garden that for me was the best part. Many of the sculptures are playful and the setting is absolutely gorgeous.

King of Kings by Scott Anderson

It is all right here, why Iran should never ever be underestimate. Even the subtitle--A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation--could be used to describe when the US decided to declare war on Iran and it blew up in their faces. The other book this reminds me of is Stanley Karnow's book on what led us into the war in Vietnam. There and in the case of the Iran Revolution, we had opportunity after opportunity to figure it out and not make a collosal mistake, and each and every time we made the clearly wrong choice. The last Shahahshah (King of Kings) was a narcisisst--outwardly haughty and magnificent, inwardly insecure and indecisive. Not many of the people close to him really loved the shah. He let his friends down, he dithered, he habitually took the advice of the last person he spoke to. The dominos that fell at the end, which in a lot of ways are the least interesting part of the story, are told in great detail, but the lead up to the fall are what interested me most. The US undervalued things about Iran that made it different from the rest of the Middle East. It was the most progressive Muslim nation in the region, and if there had been less support for a weak dictator and more focus on what was worth savin, maybe it would have gone another way. As it turned out, the Shah became bloated with himself--again--after Carter visited (the last American president to set foot on Iranian soil) in 1973, and he made the wrong choice each and every time. While demonstrations were a regular and growing occurrence, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the absentee leader of the demonstrations, had long been a virtual prisoner in the Shia religious centre of Najaf, in neighbouring Iraq, then ruled by Saddam Hussein. It was impossible for outsiders to get to Najaf and speak to Khomeini; but the shah put immense pressure on Hussein to get rid of him. Khomeini’s more worldly-wise advisers persuaded him to take shelter near Paris, in the village of Neauphle-le-Château, where the world’s press could visit him and interview him whenever they wanted, and every word was beamed back to Iran. By November 1978 the shah’s downfall was inescapable. End of story.

Hydroelectric Power Generation, Norway

We only saw one hydroelectric power plant in Norway, but they must be everywhere. With hydropower and other renewables accounting for over 98 per cent of all electricity produced in Norway, the country delivers stable, affordable and low-emission energy to industries that depend on a reliable power supply. This has helped Norwegian heavy industry to operate with one of the world’s smallest carbon footprints--that and the fact that water abounds in Norway, and it is often moving. Hydropower is unique among renewable energy sources. It can be produced on demand, providing balancing power for intermittent wind and solar when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. It can off gas methane, but in Norway hydropower plants are located at high altitudes, where there is little vegetation and a cold climate. The data confirms that there is very little extra methane production. Hydropower also offers non-power-related benefits in the form of multipurpose reservoirs, flood control, increased availability of fresh water, and much more. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), hydropower will remain the world’s most important source of renewable energy in the foreseeable future.

The Palm House by Gwendolyn Riley

I read this book because it was ling listed for the 2026 Booker Prize, and was previously unaware of this author, who has a number of previous books that are well regarded. This is not so much plot driven as it is the development of characters and a fires in Spain. Putnam has just quit his job as an editor at a magazine called Sequence. He and Laura have been friends for years, allied by what each of them wanted most to become, and are now joined together less by shared hopes than by the disappointments and frustrations that having become entails. As with so many magazines, Sequence’s board has no sense of what the magazine is, and when its editor-in-chief dies he’s replaced by a cad—he insists on being called Shove—whom everyone, but especially Putnam, hates. Putnam is forty-nine, and has been at Sequence more than half his life. His father has just died. He is unfailingly committed to the fact of his pain. Laura, long-suffering friend, tries again and again to take him out, cheer him up; she hreflection on what was happening (and how we might have avoided where we are today perhaps--that is not an overt assertion but rather me reading between the lines with the benefit of hindsight). It’s 2017. Laura and a friend, Putnam, sit and drink at a bar on the Thames. A hurricane offshore whips up ash and sand from wildelps clean out his father’s house and suggests other jobs. But Putnam is dogged, digging his heels in--he was a thinker and jobs for thinkers were waning. So that is the wave that was being rode in this story, but might there be a place for creative thinking in the remarkably inflexible world of AI? If in fact we survive it?