Copenhagen Journal: The Philosopher's Last Walk

Kierkegaard’s birthplace is now a bank. Money and power were not what he traded in though his father, who felt continually in danger of being struck down, due to his own guilt, was a wealthy man whose success allowed his son to think and ultimately exist in a state of perpetual dread. Fear and Trembling sounds like the title of a book both father and son could have written. Death was Kierkegaard's patrimony and walking his medicine. He said "I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” Significantly, Kierkegaard didn't like Berlin since it afforded so few toilets where he could relieve himself during a stroll. He also said “no observation will ever reveal what is worth investigating” and famously “subjectivity is truth."  Socrates, an ironist and gadfly was his model. Needless to say, "The Philosopher's Last Walk," which traces the signposts of Kierkegaard's life, is self-guided tour you won't want to miss. BTW, Elsinore was Kierkegaard's backyard.

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and also read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

Denmark Journal: Elsinore

Elsinore Castle (photo by Francis Levy)

Jonas Vingegaard won the Tour de France for the second year in a row and Copenhagen ironically came to a standstill due to the mass celebrations. Such powerful identification with an athlete or country may feel inimical to Americans who now live in a country at war with itself. Copenhagen was the home of Kierkegaard, who lived in a state of dread, but exuberance seems to be the lingua franca of this society. The town of Elsinore is famous for Hamlet’s castle. You see its spires and majestic structure crossing the Baltic on the ferry from Sweden. Shakespeare’s famously gloomy and doubting character whose “to be or not to be” is mirrored in another famous work of the great Danish existentialist philosopher, Either/Or. But the darkness famously  ascribed to the “melancholy Dane” is belied by the local populace who have eagerly marketed his name. Indeed Hamlet draws tourists. There is even a Hamlet hotel. On the day of Vingegaard’s victory a family of Danes was celebrating in Elsinore’s local food court. Their cheeks were covered with patriotic stickers. Spirited and effervescent, they exuded none of their land’s trademark doubt.

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and also read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

Sweden Journal: Wanas Konst

"Upside Down Studio" by Charlotte Glyllenhamer

Faro was the Island off the Swedish coast where Bergman conjured his magic. But who would have expected to find a Maecenus of the arts in the middle of the farm country of Southern Sweden? If you are lucky enough to visit the Wanas Hotel in Skane, on the grounds of a medieval castle. you will wake up to several serendipitous finds. Besides a sculpture garden (really a vast sculpture reservation containing amongst other things, Yoko Ono's "Wish Tree") there's Charlotte Glyllenhammar’s “Upside Down Studio.” The theme of the artist’s studio has been explored by Velasquez and Matisse, but this installation features an artist's work table hanging from the ceiling. Even more dramatic is Ann Hamilton’s creation on five floors of a barn built in 1823. The artist equates the structure with the body and each of these majestic creations, which one would more expect to come upon in Chelsea or at the Whitney, lives its own world. In fact, this seems to be the point—to discover modernism in an elegant, yet unassuming location in the middle of what might called "nowhere," rather than in sone bustling metropolis. Advanced art is always contextualized, particularly with respect to urbanity and sophistication. The Wanas Foundation is responsible for bringing these and other artists like Robert Wilson to such an improbable and unexpected locale. Or to put it more crassly, you can have your cake and eat it too—at this art resort.

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and also read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

Falun

watercolor by Hallie Cohen

Matisse famously painted "The Red Studio,” which was a watershed in the history of modernism. Falun, in the south of Sweden, is the site of a famous copper mine which is also the source of the color, Falun red. For associationists, the Falun Gong, Red China, and the movie Reds may come to mind. However, the copper mine goes back to the 10th century and has archeological interest due to the pagan peoples who considered it to possess a spirit life. Readers of James George Frazer’s discredited The Golden Bough may unearth significances here. But what's most dramatic is the ubiquity of Falun on exteriors of houses. You can only wonder how the history of art would have been changed had Matisse discovered Falun.

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and also read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

Denmark Journal: City of the Sun God

photograph by Hallie Cohen

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Memphis was in the South and Thebes to the North. The ghost of David O. Seltznick is calling but what is the relationship between monotheism and autocracy? In the fifth year of his rule Akhenaten built Amarna-City of the Sun God (with the rays of the solar sun as its symbol). Now it's the subject of an exhibit at Copenhagen’s Glyptotek. Declaring only one God is a simple sounding step, mirroring of course the centrality of the ruler and his Nefertfiti--whose proud image would be iconically emblazoned on history. Though the City of the Sun God would only last 20 years, a historical drop in the bucket, its legacy would one day echo through the halls of both museums--and power.

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and also read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

Denmark Journal: How the Danish Came to Be

How did Danish pastry come to be? Ordering a Danish was one of the first urban legends, the assumption being that the name originated with Denmark. It’s an example of the linguistic fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc. Because one thing follows another does not mean that it has been caused by it. Long ago during the Mesozoic era, early ancestors of man came across two pastries sitting on a raised plate with a plastic covering. One was filled with cheese and the other let’s say apricot jam. NB: and this is true: Denmark is the only country which has done away with euphemisms like coffee and Diet Soda. When you walk into grocery stories, you find refrigerated cabinets marked simply “caffeine” (Not). Denmark became a country when the ancestors of the Danes sought a geographic identification for their newfound food. Mourning Becomes Electra is the title of the O’Neill play. Denmark was created to account for the Danish.

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and also read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department

Inside CNN

Someone should produce a sitcom using CNN reporters like Manu Raju and Evan Perez and anchors John Berman, Kate Bolduan, and Sara Sidner.The idea would be to have them talking in the mechanical way they do with all the accented phrases, but off set. Imagine Dana Bash talking to her former husband, John King who she recently upstaged by taking over the coveted 12 noon Inside Politics slot. King has a severe case of CNNititis which is a "progressive" disease. You have only to look to Wolf Blitzer. BTW, King was reputedly let go due to the fact that he failed to check the box asking "are you a robot?" Jake Tapper is the one anchor who doesn't have his Orwellian Newspeak down pat. He might suffer from what's also known in the business as Lord of the Flies syndrome—when all the other anchors gang up on someone who refuses to stick with the “program” as it were. But firstly what is all the walking on and off the set about?These walk-ons are reminiscent of the scene in Long days Journey when Mary Tyrone enters with her husband James uttering “ enter Ophelia, the mad scene." But coming back to sitcoms, what shall this new at home version of CNN be called, The Kaitlan Collins Story?

read the Kirkus review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy

and also read Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department