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National Scandinavian Heritage Day!!!!

Spyder Todd 2008

12:23 / 09.10.03

Greetings barbelithers! If ye be an American (and by that I mean the southern of the two British colonies on that continent) and of Scandinavian decent, then celebrate! For today is national Scandinavian day! Oofda!

12:46 / 09.10.03

Fab!

For some hoppin' Scandinavian tunes for you NSHD party, go hither and grab yourself some MP3s! All the things you like about Irish music, played sideways! Hardanger fiddles! Nyckelharpas! Kanteles! Shrieking girlie choirs! Odd meters!

Listen, for instance, to this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or this.

Or...

I could go on.

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:08 / 09.10.03

TURBOfuckingNEGRO.

14:20 / 09.10.03

Bah! Keep your flashy Anglo-American cultural-colonialist rockandroll, Rothkoid! There's a wealth of authentically Scandinavian music out there that will thrill even your jaded ears! Be it known that all the artists listed above, though nominally "folk" acts, could kick Turbonegro's wannabe-Yanqui asses aross the fjords!

14:39 / 09.10.03

Let us now praise famous Scandinavians:
King Canute, Leif Erikson, Kirk Douglas and all the other VIKINGS!
Abba, Morten Harket (A-ha), Roxette, Ace of Base, Whigfield, Björk, the Sugarcubes, the Cardigans.
Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, Edvard Grieg, Peer Gynt and those nasty Trolls, Pippi Longstocking.
Hans Christian Andersen, Tove Jansson, Karen Blixen, Mazarine's friend: Henrik Ibsen.
Edvard Munch, the screamer.
Greta Garbo, Ingrid and Ingmar Bergman, Britt Ekland, Anita Ekberg, the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show, Ulrika Jonson, Helena Christensen, Lars von Trier, Aki Kaurismäki, Viggo Mortensen, Magnus Magnusson, the Norwegian Blue (ex-)Parrot.
Sven-Göran Eriksson, Freddy Ljungberg, Björn Borg (underwear magnate).
Alfred Nobel, Raoul Wallenberg, Ingvar (Ikea Führer) Kamprad, Roald Amundsen, Thor Heyerdahl, Vidkun Quisling, Niels Bohr, Sören Kierkegaard, Tycho Brahe (cosmologist and father of cosmetic enhancement), Santa Claus,
and honorary Scandinavian: Slartibartfast (Magrathen designer of the award-winning fjords).

Scandinavia is a such good thing. Wish I could find the old link with the viking kittens conquering America to the strains of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song.

Spyder Todd 2008

15:32 / 09.10.03

Agreed. And to add to Xoc's list:

Erik the Red, William the Conqueror, Hagar the Horrible, Spyder (shameless self-advertising), and of course, honourary Viking Buggs Bunny for his performance in "What's Opera Doc?"

Haven’t gotten a chance to listen to your tunes, Jack. I’ll get to that soon, though.

15:55 / 09.10.03

Xoc: the "Immigrant Song" kittens originally appeared on rathergood.com, but were pulled for some reason: ome enterprising soul saved the file and has put it up hither. Enjoy!

(By the way, I slapped "Immigrant Song" into a home-burned CD that otherwise consisted entirely of Scandinavian neo-folk stuff, and it sounded completely at home.)

19:53 / 09.10.03

Sir Jack, come here and let me kiss you and run all thoise years of working on the Norman Mailer-tough guy image. *MWAH*

Oh, such music was made in the 70's! By kittens.

I went to Denmark once and spent a month walking around at crotch level. Such height, such blondness, such good sensible people. I would recommend it heartily.

21:25 / 09.10.03

Norman Mailer wouldn't last a day in the holds of a longboat. The true Viking fears not the manly love of comrades!

And I assume you've seen this bit of loveliness, from the twisted mind and wicked pen of our own Nelson Evergreen?

wembley can change in 28 days

08:37 / 10.10.03

Can I nitpick and mention that Finland is not part of Scandinavia? And certainly not in times like these, when efforts are being made to draw attention to its great art and artists! We prefer only to be part of Scandinavia when the herring stocks are low on Oxygen due to Eastern Baltic pollution, thanks very much.

You're not allowed to celebrate Sibelius, the Kaurismäki brothers, or Santa Claus. Or Nokia! Or olympic ski jumpers! Bwah!

08:58 / 10.10.03

How could anyone not want to be part of Scandinavia? I would swear allegiance to a Scandinavian monarch in a trice and build a raft of balsa wood to sail straight there, were it not for the impossibility of speaking any of the languages prevalent around the Kattegat and Skagerrak.

Can't add The Seven Deadly Finns (who inspired Brian Eno's only 7" single in c. 1973), then? Damn.

And Nelson Evergreen's cartoons were indeed splendid, JF. No, I hadn't seen them before.

I expect the Scandinavian celebrants will all be nursing sore heads today after all the acquavit yesterday and upset stomachs after all the disgusting syld.

14:36 / 10.10.03

Yesterday, I made a great discovery on wikipedia.

The Norse, they have a pretty decent pantheon. Fighters, tricksters, the whole deal -- except one dude. One of the only ones who will survive Ragnarok.

Honir. The god of indecision.

Apparently he was useful for making truces. Other than that, he relied on a giant, disembodied head for all his guidance.

14:51 / 10.10.03

I'm shocked that nobody has so far mentioned one of Scandinavia's most enduring contributions to world culture, Black Metal!