F,
It would have been nice to have you show me around your city, but I never thought of asking.
Really, it was strange I stayed in a hotel in the vicinity of your apartment in Copenhagen. My original choice was a place by the harbor, but my arrangements were changed last minute. Actually, when I got lost, the SAS building and Tivoli amusement towers were my “beacons” back. I also walked by the Hard Rock Café and swam in the pool at the public bathhouse, DGI-Byen, across the street from the train station; I thought then you might live in the area since you mentioned these places in our conversations.
Let me just add your indoor pools were amazing, like water playgrounds for all ages. Every afternoon, and some nights, I did hours of laps around that monstrous round pool, dived off the board, sat and chatted in your steaming hot whirlpool, and took heat and showers with your Danish women. What a thrill! I was also very impressed by the great selection of American and Danish movies playing at the cinemas in your area. Once, I was tempted to see a movie and purchased a ticket, but I simply lost track of time in my wanderings around Copenhagen (by the way, Nyhaven was very historical and pretty, but way too many tourists hang out there; it reminded me of the horrible touristy traps on South Beach in Miami. I preferred walking your cobbled stoned streets and drinking coffee or beer at the pubs/shops on the side streets behind walkways or old buildings).
Anyway, I went to your great country because you once made me curious about it. I felt I had to know it. In any event, I prepared for my trip by listening to Ben Webster (my favorite black American jazz saxophonist is buried in Assistens Kierkegaard); reading Kierkegaard (I admire him for saying “love is the great equalizer.” What‘s funny is that he had groupie of young Danish kids hanging out at his gravesite); and by re-reading Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales from my childhood. I was prepared and Copenhagen delivered.
Yet, I thought your city would be unlike any European city I had ever been to. And, to some degree it was. But, I hate to say it, all Europeans, including the Danes, are in a battle to prove themselves superior to one another. And, yes, I can see how your people might be whiter, prettier, smarter and more hard-working than the rest, but I don’t think that is the battle the Vikings had in mind, even though Danes seem to be at the forefront of the environmental one with all those amazing windmills stretched across the sea and its horizon. By the way, I took a long walk at the Langliere seaport and saw those austere-looking apartments that cost millions. I also thought of you and your desire to right the world's wrongs when I read a biography of Lincoln’s presidency before and during the Civil War and the writer made it clear that great men such as Lincoln were defined by Mann as “human beings liv[ing] out not only personal lives, but also, consciously and subconsciously, the lives of his epoch and his contemporaries…if the times themselves [did] not provide opportunities the situation [would] have a crippling effect.”
Also, in Copenhagen I was looking for Thoreau’s sense of “universal innocence,” (I don't why our conversations led me to believe that such existed in Denmark. Maybe it is was your hopeful tone I tapped into) the one I have seen in my travels to the East where people are genuinely authentic, real, simple and happy regardless of their station in life. I have to say, though, that the minorities I spoke to--taxi drivers, hotel porters, servers etc.-- were very respectful and deferential to the Danes for the opportunities they were given to make a life in Denmark. Maybe, I have too many “books on the brain.” Maybe, I have the luxury of talking and thinking this way because I don’t suffer the way people in the world really suffer. Maybe, with too much security and stability come fear and distrust. And, maybe we are all too smug to even try to achieve any semblance of “innocence” anymore. But, now, I am rambling…
Another observation I made was that the clean lines, windows, and industrial design of your downtown office buildings and the streets with so few billboards - and all this, so nicely juxtaposed against churches, palaces... reminded me of Moscow.
I had so many wonderful impressions of Copenhagen. Once when I was sitting on a bench by the Cirkus building (by the way, I saw a wonderful performance there and danced the night away at a show put on by a very hot Danish “Rat Pack”), I saw a white middle-aged Dane, who looked like you, i.e., parsons nose, thin lips, blue eyes, with his young black son, who must have been around 4 years old. And, this boy was dressed like his father, with jeans, belt and a short-sleeved plaid shirt.He had his hands in his pant pockets, and he was standing with his legs apart--real “cool-looking” like his dad--while they both waited for the city bus to arrive, and this gave the smiling man endless delight to see a smaller “replica” of him.
Another time, I saw a magnificent public spectacle of a beautiful Danish girl throwing her bicycle at her ethnic boyfriend while screaming, crying, and calling him an “asshole,” in that throaty, sexy voice all Danes have when speaking English (On a side note: your blondes are not at all "like other blondes": they have fire and passion. Recently, I discovered your Danish actress, Trine Dyrholm, and your magnificent director, Susanne Bier, and I can’t get enough of their movies as they always seem to work together).
I will never forget all of those amazing images, including your Little Mermaid, who, incidentally, does not face the sea, even though she dreams of a prince from across the waters, and, of course, the statute of your goddess Gefjon who with her four sons/oxen fooled the Swedish king out of some land (my god, you Danes hate the Swedes; I don’t yet know the whole story behind that one). I also liked that you kept the statuary in your city to a minimum, "need to know the most important stories of Danish origin" basis. And I watched the changing of the guard at the palace with the “toy” soldiers and wondered whether their rifles were really loaded. I was glad to hear your collection was saved from the fire at the Resistance Museum.
I also loved learning that the Swedes have a church in your city so they can marry, celebrate and drink on weekends since it is too expensive to do so in their country (I know you once mentioned the high cost of living there, but I simply can’t imagine how much more expensive Sweden and Norway can be since Denmark is so outrageously overpriced; I was told that Iceland is the most expensive Scandinavian country… Wow!)
In any case, I understand now why Denmark is your first love. I see you defending her honor and “slaying her dragons,”even to the death, if that is what it takes. I think your lands, clean air, which felt like breathing in pure oxygen crystals, women, ice cream, chocolate, beer, and open-faced shrimp sandwiches are worth your blood and life.
And, thanks for clearing things up about your poor: It was upsetting to see people looking through garbage for cans they could recycle because one man told me “he needed to eat”; I also think I gave your Gypsies over 200 dollars in my confusion over the conversion of the American dollars to Kronos and/or Euros.
One last point: your night is a contender (4th place after Bali's surreal and phantasmagoric one; Amsterdam's dark chocolate nights of love, pot and whores; and Florida' blue and tropical twinkling stars one). Like a woman, it took its time making an appearance but it was lovely and languid nonetheless. As a matter of fact, I thought the whole of Denmark like a woman, or, at least, what a woman should be: temperamental, demanding, lovely, smart, fun and two-faced.
Sorry for all this writing. But, I did have a wonderful time in your country. Maybe it was because of all the conversations we had about it. In any case, I hope I expressed it all in this email.
I miss you too.
No comments:
Post a Comment