whale of a tale (10. 779)

A highly sociable beluga whale, a local celebrity nicknamed Hvaldimir, a portmanteau of the Norwegian word for whale plus the first name of Russian president Putin—long suspected as being used for espionage, trained and outfitted with a harness believed to gather intelligence and telemetry on Nordic waters, has been sighted off the coast of the Sweden. Activists and onlookers, considered for the whale’s safety and well-being, possibly retired from spying already although that is not clear, are aiming to re-socialise with others of his pod and rehabilitate him. More from NPR at the link above.

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the great bøyg of etnedal (10. 569)

Accompanied by an original score by Edvard Grieg that includes two of the most recognisable pieces of classical music, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and “Morning Mood,” Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, chronicling the journey of the titular protagonist from his home in Norway to Egypt and back again, premiered on this day in Oslo (then known as Christiania) in 1876. A social satire struggling with modernism with both pastoral and surreal portrayals of characters and calamities as our dissolute anti-hero comes to understand the consequences of his actions and the nature of responsibility—regardless whether or not accepted, its underlying message is echoed succinctly in the line: “If you lie; are you real?”

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6x6 (10. 288)

elektrisk kjøretøy: a retrospective look at how A-ha inspired and informed Norway’s early adoption of electric vehicles—via Things Magazine  

taposiris magna: archaeologists discover a nearly mile long tunnel deep under a temple near Alexandria on the search for Cleopatra’s lost tomb—via Damn Interesting’s Curated Links  

market cap: major online retailer first company to lose one trillion dollars in stock value—see also

stenography: more on shorthand (see previously) in ancient Greek and Roman texts  

nit-picking: oldest inscription bearing a full sentence found on a Canaanite comb 

terrain de stationnement: France to require all existing and new parking lots to be covered with solar panels

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hunting high and low (10. 238)

The first Norwegian group to do so, A-Ha's signature single—see previously—topped the US Billboard’s Hot 100 first on this day in 1985, remaining in the rankings for a total of twenty-seven weeks, following success in the UK charts and the release of the accompanying music video the most prior. This second, more recognisable rotoscoped music video (the first from 1984 only features the band performing in front of a blue background) illustrates the romantic, plaintive narrative of a comic book hero coming to life and was directed by Steve Barron, whose other credits include “Billie Jean,” “Money for Nothing,” “Africa,” and “Don’t You Want Me Baby,” winning multiple awards.

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7x7 (10. 232)

cheesewrights and turophiles: Noëlle Janaczewska on the culinary and artistic history of cheese 

causal observer: a teenager in Trondhjem called Christian Charlotte Elster captured various scenes of Regency-Era Norway in the early nineteenth century–via Messy Nessy Chic  

perhaps more like edison than tesla: friends, family and enemies discuss Elon Musk

putinversteher: Russian leadership enlisting influential mouthpieces to convince Western governments to accede to their narratives–see previously

kukla, fran & ollie: a Youtube channel working to conserve and put on-line over seven hundred episodes of the 1950s puppet theatre–via r/ObscureMedia   

parlement technologies: the rapper formerly known as Kanye West announces plans to purchase rightwing friendly social media site  

la pyramide des saveurs: France’s reigning and unrivaled Queen of Cheeses, Nathalie Quartrehomme

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nansen-pass

First issued on this day in 1922 under sanction of the League of Nations—and officially designated as passports for stateless persons but quickly became popularly known for their chief champion, polar explorer, polymath and statesman Fridtjof Nansen (previously)—these travel documents were a way of mitigating the turmoil in Europe after World War I which lead to a crisis of displaced persons, refugees resulting from the overthrow of governments, redrawn national boundaries, and advanced ultimately by the announcement by the newly constituted Soviet Union that it would be revoking the citizenship of Russians residing abroad—applying also to the nearly one-million individuals who fled during the civil war. Two years later, Nansen in his role at the League of Nations as High Commissioner for Refugees (earning him a Nobel Peace Prize), expanded the arrangement tto include former areas of the Ottoman Empire and help Armenian and Turkish migrants. While issuance halted in 1938, under the auspices of the United Nations certificates of identity and refugee travel documents continue to be a necessity. Notable bearers of Nansen passports include Igor Stravinsky, Elvis Presley’s agent Colonel Tom Parker, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, Marc Chagall and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

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6x6

dandelion wine: slow drinks made with our favourite noxious weed—see also  

give that wolf a banana and before that wolf eats my grandma: Norway’s Eurovision entry—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links  

stablecoin: the collapse of NFT and crypto markets 

 for every bear that ever there was: 1984 reportage of Keanu Reeves covering a teddy bear convention for the CBC—via Everlasting Blört  

homeostatic awakening: new developments in the Fermi paradox—see previously here and here  

quattro bianchi: Italy’s answer to the Long Island Iced Tea packs a wallop

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7x7

w / n / p / a/: the beauty and brutality of the natural world—via Web Curios   

fly around: a happy tune from Bill Wurtz—via Waxy 

skramm-ellegepladser: what Scandi culture can teach the world about fun and playfulness 

 theatrum orbis terrarum: the first modern world atlas, created and published in Antwerp in 1571 by Abraham Ortelius 

llên gwerin: illustrated Welsh cats from 1910  

grand tour: visit the great cities of Europe all within the confines of Ohio—see also  

best in show: a selection of the superlative entries for the 2022 Sony World Photography Awards—some are quite accidentally like a Renaissance painting

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7x7

1:12: a 1983 architectural magazine’s call for dollhouses  

way-finder: a friendly reminder about the most important app ever made 

i can’t hear you—i’m wearing a towel: dated New Yorker cartoons whose punchline has become a depiction of the everyday—via Waxy  

fisheye lens: a floating exhibit platform showcases Norwegian aquaculture practises 

philately: a brilliant abecedarium (see previously) of vintage postage stamps from around the world  

tensor strength: researchers engineer new material that can absorb and release enormous amounts of energy—like super-charged rubber band, via Slashdot  

the vault of contemporary art: a collection of architectural sketches and schematics from a Things Magazine omnibus post on the subject

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rogue waves

Distinct from tsunamis, killer waves—defined as reaching twice the height of waves in a wave record—occur in open-water as a convergence of constructive interference and other conditions but were considered at best anecdotal, tall-tales and the stuff of maritime myth until quite recently when one was detected on New Year’s Day in 1995 and measured by instruments housed on the Draupner gas pipeline support platform in the North Sea. Subsequent research has shown the phenomenon to be a common one, occurring in multiple media, including finance and has been retroactively used to account for shipping accidents, including the 1975 sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald and the iconic titular wave portrayed in The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.

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when harry met santa

Fair warning—I thought it was too early for holiday commercials but this is a tear-jerker worth watching and it’s advisable to have some tissues handy—via World of Wonder, we are directed towards Posten Norge’s annual holiday greeting, which this year ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of Norway’s decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1972, featuring a multi-year courtship, whose brief annual encounters are finally extended a bit with the help of the Norwegian postal service. From all of us to all of you God jul!

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the saga of the viking women and their voyage to the waters of the great sea serpent

The 1958 Roger Corman film with the ridiculously long title (see previously) about a group of women from a land called Stannjøld embark on an adventure in search of their lost men, are shipwrecked by a sea monster and are imprisoned by the Grimaults and made to toil in their mines, reunited with themishing male companions in captivity was revived as a cult cult classic when it was lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000, first broadcast on this day in 1991. Starring Abby Dalton as Desír and June Kenney as Asmild, the film was apparently cheap-looking even by Corman’s standards, reviews were mixed and the director wasn’t enough studio-time in Paradise Cove for such an ambitious epic, going against his instincts and letting special effects carry the story forward. The feature is preceded by the educational short The Home Economics Story.

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newfoundland

The clue possibly lying in the name of the province, researchers, using new dating techniques and studying the remnant of an ancient solar storm, have pinpointed the first transatlantic crossing and settlement of Viking explorers to exactly a millennium hence, nearly five hundred years prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus, marking the first encounter and reunion with inhabitants of the New and Old World, the aboriginal population having migrated the long way around. A known flare event in the year 992 unleashed a burst of high-energy cosmic rays that left a marker in the growth rings of trees, felled twenty-nine years after the storm whose timber was used for construction of shelters, sod longhouses (reconstruction pictured in L’Anse aux Meadows), demonstrating that the encampment was set up in 1021. The Viking chronology suggested their journey took place in the eleventh century (see also) but before there was no corroborating evidence—which makes one wonder what other truths might be in the epic sagas.

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you think that i could muster up a little soft shoe gentle sway

Written and composed by Scott Hoffman, Jason Sellards and Elton John (on piano) and released as a single from their second studio album Ta-Dah in July of that year, this week in 2006 saw the Scissor Sisters’ signature track “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’” top the charts in the UK, later reaching the same heights in Germany, Norway, Switzerland and Croatia. The Nu-disco song performed by Jakes Shears and Ana Matronic crosses elements of The Four Seasons’ “December, 1963” and Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing—Want to Dance the Night Away.”

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5x5

fallout boy: the legacy of Albania’s seven-hundred-thousand bunkers  

al forno: Barilla (previously) sponsors an annual contest to solicit for innovative designs for its 3D pasta printer  

mathmos: how lava lamps are manufactured—see also 

stowaways: butterfly researches in the Åland islands accidentally introduce a parasitic wasp that relies on the caterpillars as well as a hyperparasitoid that the wasps host 

 île flottante: a boat camouflaged as a rock tours the coastline of Marseille—via Everlasting Blört

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ultima thule

Though settled by the Paleo-Inuit Saqqaq peoples over thirty-five hundred years earlier and interacting with visiting Vikings until the fiftieth century, the traditional founding date of the Greenlandic capital is given as this day in 1728 when the Danish-Norwegian governor called Claus Paarss established Fort Godthåb (Good Hope) to relocate a group of colonists (primarily ex-convicts, mutinous sailors and soldiers and prostitutes) on the mainland from their former island dwelling. Five years later, a Moravian mission received clearance to establish Neu-Herrnhut to convert residents to the Lutheran Church of Denmark. The indigenous population endured generations of suffering and slights, but they persevered and eventually regaining cultural territory as well as an autonomous form of devolved government in 1979, officially changing the name to the Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) Nuuk, meaning cape.

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tgif

Twin brother and complementary to the Norse goddess Freyja (‘Lady’ and name-giver to Friday) the fertility deity Freyr (‘Lord’) is the patron of virility, sacral rule—in other words theocratic kingship whereby the monarch is also priest and judge—as well as fair weather, a good harvest, peace and prosperity.  Granted domain by the gods over Álfheimr, realm of the light elves as an infant as a teething gift, Freyr’s steed is a mechanical boar called Gullinbursti, a tribute from the dwarves and from the magic of Odin the fine ship Skíðblaðnir that can be folded up and kept in a pouch when not in use plus arms including an enchanted sword that fights on its own.  Having little truck with man, Freyr seems a mythological figure belonging to the other legendary races and perhaps signals the weekend for elven kind.  In one of the better attested sagas, Freyr is besotted with a giantess named Gerðr (Old Norse for Fenced-In). His advances rebuffed, Freyr grows despondent and lovesick and recruits one of his footmen, Skínir, to go to Jötunheimr (the Realm of the Giants) to woo Gerðr on his behalf. Even though as a Vanr is gifted, cursed with foresight and knows bereft of his magic sword his fate is to be vanquished at Ragnarök, Freyr promises it to his surrogate as a reward.

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olaf ii haraldsson

Posthumously proclaimed eternal king and rapidly acclaimed as patron for Føroyar (the Faroe Islands) and a popular saint for greater Scandinavia, Norwegian realms extending over most of the region, the Vestfold ruler is venerated on this day, the anniversary of his death on the battlefield of Stiklestad in 1030, elevating his younger, half-brother Harald Hardrada to the throne. Olaf’s sainthood, saga and symbolism (attributed with qualities of Thor and Freyr) encouraged the widespread adoption of Christianity in the territory—though in his lifetime, after his own baptism in Rouen, wintering there with Duke Richard II of Normandy (see previously), was given the epithet “the Lawbreaker” for the forceful and exploitative means he used to win converts amongst the population.

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bohus fästning

Crossing again the large island of Orust to travel inland on the outskirts of Göteborg, we came to the convergence of the Göte Älv (the River of the Geats and basis of the Göte Canal) to Kungälv to visit the ruined bastion once a stronghold of Håkon V. Magnusson to protect trade and defend from incursions at the former Norwegian-Swedish border, guarding the region from 1308 until the peace and territorial re-allotment of 1658.  Besieged no less than fourteen times, the fortress was never taken but allowed to fall into disrepair after it lost its strategic importance. The grounds held a variety of activities for those whose attention is not satisfied with history alone. Afterwards we toured the old town centre with its wooden structures. On the way back to the campsite for one last night’s stay, we stopped at an archeological site called Nedre Hoga—a settlement occupied for the past six millennia but with artefacts, a rune stone (locally referred to as Raimund’s Häll) and Thingstatte or Domarringar—a stone circle once believed to be a seat of justice but now believed to be the setting for funerary rituals that date to the ninth century and the transitional period between the Vikings and the Vandals.  The inscription reads, “I, Haur of Stream, raise this stone for Raimund—the name preceding the translation by hundreds of years just as Hoga’s farm refers to the proto-Nordic term for the mounds of the Iron Age grave-field. We also encountered a few current residents along the way, including a horse masquerading as a zebra, to thwart flies and hooded, I’m given to understand, to let him acclimate to new surroundings.

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noordzee

The always intriguing and enlightening Maps Mania refers us to a suite of tools and tracers to help us visualise the huge among of marine traffic that passes in and out of the North Sea bordered by the Low Countries and Scandinavia, the waters off Belgium far exceeding the throughput of either of the shipping industry’s great corridors and potential bottlenecks, the Panama and Suez canals. Especially interesting is the data-driven scrollytelling from the financial daily De Tidj (pictured) which shows the activity and congestion of navigable routes along with the dredgers that keep the trade routes open to traffic.

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