Rottin' in Denmark

Nordick

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 07:40:54 -0700

Me, ordering coffee in Danish: [blah blah blah Danish]
Barista-dude: OK, I'll bring that out to you when it's ready.
Me, really sick of people switching to English when I speak Danish to them: ... Why are you speaking English? My Danish is fine.
Barista-dude: I'm Brazilian, I don't speak Danish. Nothing personal.
Me: [Feeling like an asshole for the rest of the day]

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Nationalistic? Who, Europeans?

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:11:04 -0700

It's one of the better-kept secrets of Denmark that people are actually quite nationalistic here. Or not. Anyway, these motherfuckers put their flag on everything.

Denmark could teach you, but it would have to charge

All the buses here have Danish flags on all four corners, fluttering like the tails of angry tigers. Jysk, the Roy Cohn of Scandinavian furniture retailers, sells Danish flag sheets. Birthdays in Denmark are marked by making your house look like you filled a shotgun with little Danish flags and shot at all the furniture. The families who eat dinner outside in our courtyard put two Danish flags in a flower vase as a centerpiece.

Not that I give a particular shit about the flag thing, but I enjoy pointing out that if I rocked the stars and bars ever, I would hear '[snort] ... typical' from every nearby Scand-quaintance. When I asked a friend what would happen if I camped at a music festival in a fucking American flag tent, his instant reaction was, 'Oh, they'd slash it and set it on fire. Eight minutes, tops.' This is mad incontrovertible, and I kinda want to try it. Buy the biggest American flag I can find, fashion a teepee, prop it up with a replica of the Empire State Building, weigh down the corners with Big Macs and sit in front of it with a shotgun like a store owner during the LA riots: 'Come fuck with my flaggot, punk, I dare you.'

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The amazing racist

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Fri, 23 May 2008 02:31:35 -0700

Charming

I saw a woman in full blackface on the way to work today.

I have to admit, when I saw her from across the street, my first thought was, ‘wow, that’s a weird-looking black lady’. It was only when I got closer, and I saw that she was wearing a wig and brown facepaint, fraying around the jawline and lips like an old toothbrush, that I figured out what was going on.

This is actually not that uncommon here, to dress up as A Black Person for a costume or theme party. I’ve always thought of blackface as one of those things that is offensive mainly for how it originated, and everything that symbolizes, but biking past this woman this morning, I think I finally get why it’s so repugnant, even without the American context.

This woman wasn’t dressed up as a ‘70s pimp, or a rapper, or a particular celebrity, or any other group that is usually associated with black people. She was simply dressed up as a black person. That’s it. Black people are so utterly comical to her that it’s appropriate to just put on a kinky wig and paint her face black. No further costume required.

It’s like going to a party dressed as Jew or something. ‘Oh, are you supposed to be a particular Jewish person? Is this a Jerry Seinfeld impression?’ ‘Nope, I’m just a random Jew. That’s enough, right? A demographic group I don’t belong to?’

It’s particularly offensive in the context of Denmark, where most black people are incredibly marginalized, not to mention refugees, meaning they don’t exactly need the extra insult of being openly mocked by a tactless member of the majority. You would only attempt a costume like that if you were absolutely certain there would be no black people at the party. Or, for that matter, anyone who would be offended.

Denmark needs to establish a task force of black people to be dispatched to costume parties, so they can stand in front of Danes wearing blackface and raise their eyebrows, just a little. The ensuing silence would be miles more educational than any speech or billboard campaign.

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Bike ride to Dyrehaven

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Sun, 11 May 2008 07:33:08 -0700

We look like the medal ceremony for the Awkward Olympics

The gas crisis isn't so serious under an Arne Jacobsen awning

In Denmark, this counts as an Alp

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L'unch

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:24:28 -0700

My French friend Clement is staying in my spare room for the next two weeks while he's between apartments. In lieu of rent, I told him he should just make me nonstop French food while he's here.

Today I woke up to the sound of duck crackling on the stove. Duck. All, like, l'orange and shit. And this was 10 in the morning.

On a normal holiday, hangover Thursday, I would be eating a Danish from the chain-smoking baker down the street, drinking microwaved day-old coffee to mask the Lucky Strike frosting. I could get used to this...

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I've got sol, I'm superbad

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:04:23 -0700

The arrival of warmth and sun in Copenhagen always completely re-introduces the city. I was biking the other day around sunset (8 pm now, and only latening until July), and I realized how pretty this place is. I haven’t been struck by the loveliness of my foster-city in eons, and I think it’s simply because I haven't seen it in six months. It’s been dark, or raining, or cloudy most days, and I’ve been walking around in my Gore-Tex burrito, trying to keep the climate out. The definitive image of winter for me is always the top of my front bike tire, because it’s often too cold or too windy to look straight ahead when I’m on my way somewhere.

It turns out, though, that Copenhagen exists above the first story. And I own clothes that perform more than heat-trapping mummification. And there are colors in this city beyond the gray and sepia. These things only strike me when we finally get all full-spectrumy in the spring.

I’ve been reading ‘Gilead’ by Marilynne Robinson the last few weeks. It’s a slow, dusty kind of book, one that should be read to you by your grandpa in a rocking chair. It starts out

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old. And you put your hand in my hand and you said, You aren’t very old, as if that settled it. I told you you might have a very different life from mine, and from the life you’ve had with me, and that would be a wonderful thing, there are many ways to live a good life. And you said, Mama already told me that. And then you said, Don’t laugh! because you thought I was laughing at you. You reached up and put your fingers on my lips and gave me that look I never in my life saw on any other face besides your mother’s. It’s a kind of furious pride, very passionate and stern. I’m always a little surprised to find my eyebrows unsinged after I’ve suffered one of those looks. I will miss them.

I know, right!?

The book continues in this vein, a dying father writing to his adolescent son, through a few decades of the postwar Christian midwest. I’m not quite finished with it, but I feel a ‘Dancer in the Dark’ caliber moan-and-cry is waiting for me on the last page.

So this has been my spring so far. Long bike rides in the low-watt sun and droning geriat-lit. By the time summer rolls around, the only thing heavier than my mood will be my quadriceps.

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Out-of-context faces from my birthday party

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:48:29 -0700

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In like a lion, out like the tit of a tundra-witch

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:16:21 -0700

This is what my apartment courtyard looked like at 4 pm this afternoon, four days before spring:

Winter goddamn wonderland

The wind down there was like a hornet in an upside-down jar

Now it's 10 pm, and everything's all soft and cocainey outside. The plow has been past twice (once for the sidewalks, once for the bike lanes), and the dandruff seems to have stopped, at least for now. This beslushing happens at least once a year, and in spite of their two-horned reputation, the Danes are America-grade wusses when it comes to driving, biking, walking and public-transporting through this stuff. Work will be a graveyard tomorrow, I swear.

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Say what you want about America...

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:54:00 -0800

... But name me one European country where a half-Kenyan dude who spent his childhood in a Muslim country would even have a chance of becoming president.

In Denmark, Obama would be referred to as a 'second-generation immigrant.'

I'm just sayin'.

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Return of the things

nobody@vox.com(Rottin' in Denmark) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:11:08 -0800

It appears that the world's longest round of 'Are You Smarter Than a Suburban Danish Policeman?' is finally over. I got a buzz and a knock this morning, accompanied by a grocery bag heavy with my laptop and a Medusa of router, modem and power cords.

'We hope you're telling the truth,' the Grande cop said.

'You really should secure your wireless connection,' said Venti.

I wholeheartedly agree, and plan to spend the afternoon reconnecting the various bands, broad and otherwise, to my Criminal Command Center. I'm making sure my network is teenager-proof from now on, and I'll set my password to something like 'Electric Light Orchestra' to make sure they can never crack it.

Lessons Learned:

Secure Your Wireless: Naming your network 'Oi! Unhand my shit!' is apparently not enough.

Push The Cops to Do Your Bidding: On Monday, a friend told me, 'In Scandinavia, the police won't do anything unless you make them do it.' Since then, I've called the Hvidovre Police every morning, serving up a jumbalaya of pleas, righteous half-truths ('I work from home!)' and requests for managers in an attempt to kick-start their IT department. I was always nice during these calls, but the whole world knows that there is nothing more obnoxious than a 1.5-lingual American calling you all the time. Even invoking the spectre of our customer-servicely wrath tends to get things moving.

It's Not All Bad: Yes, the Danish police de-Internetted me for 10 days. But they also found my stolen wallet last week, sans cash, and sent it back to me. And once helped me up when I drunkenly Howard Hughes'd into a wall on my bike. And let me off the hook sometimes. This whole incident was the universe correcting my cop-karma.

Seriously, Secure Your Frapping Wireless: For Hell, I'm not gonna forget this one anytime soon.

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