Solo Oslo

I posted photos on Flickr of Copenhagen and Vienna. Lots of photos of palaces and churches, but hopefully some more interesting ones from Hundertwasser and other random bits and pieces I found interesting. My account is full up right now, so photos of Prague may have to wait unless I go through a bit of trouble with Yahoo! Accounts.

I am back in Oslo, got in at 6 this morning. It was cold!
It is beautiful here today, but I've spent most of the day inside. Napping for a few hours, becoming reacquainted with my laptop.

I had a solid 10 hours in Copenhagen yesterday. I walked Stroget, but mostly hung out in Norrebro. Norrebro is this awesome neighborhood full of youth activists and immigrants. My kinda place, its got a great diverse vibrancy to it. I hung out on this pedestrian mall in the hood a chunk of the day, sipping a cafe or beer. I finished the Chomsky, thankfully. It was a great book to understand U.S. foreign policy, but kinda depressing.
Last night I picked up the Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, that I had bought on Wenceslas Square. I am LOVING this book. It is totally addressing some of those things I was thinking about the other day about the need for a creative and democratic society.

Here he describes the crisis caused by the world becoming super organizned, whether through the communism of the U.S.S.R. or the capitalism of the U.S.A.
"The reasons for the crisis in which the world now finds itself are lodged in something deeper than a particular way of organizing the economy or a particular political system. The West and the East, though different in so many ways, are going through a single, common crisis... This late period [is] one of conflict between an impersonal, anonymous, irresponsible, and uncontrollable juggernaut of power (the power of "megamachinery"), and the elemental and original interests of man [sic] as a concrete individual."

This is part of his description of his "personal 'utopia'"
"I would tend to favor an economic system based on the maximum possible plurality of many decentralized, structurally varied, and preferably small enterprises that respect the specific nature of different localities and different traditions and that resist the pressures of uniformity by maintaining a plurality of modes of ownership and economic decision-making, from private (indispensable in the area of crafts, trades, services, small business, and retail enterprises and areas of agriculture and, of course, in culture as well) through various types of cooperative and shareholding ventures, collective ownerships (connected with self-management schemes), right up to state ownership."
That is awesome!


He also stress the importance of relationships, however he focuses on relationships between individuals. Added to this, I think, should be further attention to relationship with the rest of the natural environment.



Also to continue in super blogging mode which you have been privy to lately, right before I left on this trip I made a mix. I did not have time to share it with you. Now I do.

Happy Travels/Happy Feet:

1. Prince and the Revolution - Let's Go Crazy
2. Kanye West - Stronger
3. Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, and the Furious Five - White Lines
4. Mark Ronson - God Put a Smile Upon Your Face
5. Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up
6. Jamie Cullum - Get Your Way
7. Aceyalone - All for U
8. Tom Waits - Step Right Up
9. Ike Reilly Assassination - The Boat Song (We're Getting Loaded)
10. The Hold Steady - Massive Nights
11. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
12. The Go! Team - Feel Good by Numbers
13. Jens Lekman - The Opposite of Hallelujah
14. Belle & Sebastian - Electronic Renaissance
15. Paul Simon - Kodachrome
16. Heiruspecs - 5ives
17. Paul Westerburg - Angels Walk

Hard to describe the theme. Mostly playful, uplifting, danceable songs that bring me joy. I needed it.