Meandering Through the Morning

Shortly after I became enamored with Scandinavian films and television series, my wife suggested I would enjoy watching Dicte. By that time, though, the Danish television series was no longer readily available; I looked, to no avail. Recently, though, I stumbled upon it again; I discovered it is available on some obscure add-on pay-TV service connected in some fashion to Amazon Prime.  And that obscure add-on pay TV service was available for free for seven days. So I took the bait. Very, very bad decision. I cannot possibly watch the entire three (or is it more?) seasons of Dicte within the seven-day trial period. Yet, after watching three or four episodes, I cannot envision abandoning the series. The bastards who market the obscure add-on pay TV service willfully get people hooked; it’s like offering samples of addictive drugs in the hope of creating a “user” who unwillingly becomes a customer, only this form of criminality is legal.

Dicte Svendsen is a recently-divorced crime reporter who returns to Aarhus and gets involved in what will no-doubt become a never-ending series of adventures involving, what else, crime. Immediately after the series begins, a host of subplots emerge. For example, on her return to her hometown, her parents (both Jehovah’s Witnesses) reject her.  And a cloud of suspicion about the relationship between a very pregnant friend and her soon-to-be-husband arises. And Dicte’s ex-husband shows up, presenting issues that will almost certainly invade the rest of the series (or, at least, the first few episodes), creating tension between Dicte and her daughter and her other friends. In other words, this series is a Danish crime-drama soap opera. And I love it!

This morning, I read a bit about the series. Apparently, certain aspects of the series were panned by critics and the Danish viewing audience. One aspect has to do with characters’ accents; though set in Aarhus, some characters apparently have Copenhagen accents. And some people think the accents of almost all the players are hideous parodies of real Danish accents. Frankly, I’ve never even thought about geographically-specific Danish accents; but it makes sense, doesn’t it? If we can have Brooklyn accents and southern drawls, Danes certainly have every right to have their own linguistic tattoos!

At any rate, I think I’m going to have to subscribe to the obscure add-on pay TV service whose name I cannot remember (and which is damn near impossible to find on Amazon Prime). At least until I watch the entire three-season series.

For the record, some of the Scandinavian television/films I have enjoyed are: Occupied; In Order of Disappearance; Department Q Trilogy; The Wave; and, now, Dicte. Among others.

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I got the unpleasant news by mail yesterday that my car insurance premiums are increasing, due to the fact that the discount for having taken a driver safety course for geezers has expired. So, I signed up online for a four-hour AARP course to reacquaint me with driver safety tips for the elderly. I spent about an  hour and a half watching and listening to the program yesterday. I expect to force myself to continue watching and listening today; I may be able to finish it today or tomorrow. Whenever I finish it, I should be able to print a certificate, which I will then take to my insurance agent and ask that my discount be reinstated.  Despite my annoyance at being forced to take the course, I have to admit that some of the information included in the course is quite useful and very probably helpful in avoiding accidents, etc. That having been said, and despite noticing that parts of the course have been updated since the last time I took it, much of the course content is old and outdated, both in appearance and in presentation style. I think it needs more than a refresher; it needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, I suspect the cost of producing a brand new course would be considerable. And, at only $16+ per person for registration fees, it might take AARP and the insurance companies quite some time to recoup their costs. Oh, well. That’s not my concern; I just have to finish the course, print my certificate, and watch my insurance premiums (obscenely high even with discounts) return to tolerable levels.

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I bought avocados recently. Two of them. They were not ripe, of course, so I stuck them in a kitchen drawer to ripen. And I promptly forgot about them.  Fortunately, I remembered them this morning. They are just now ripe. So, in a while, I will remove the nice, ripe meat from one of them, smash it into a paste with a fork, add some lime juice, salt, and jalapeño paste, and spread it onto a piece of toasted black & white swirled rye bread. And that will be my magnificent breakfast. I don’t mind eating foods that others classify as long-outdated hipster snobbery.

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And, now, here are the first three stanzas of a poem I wrote about five years ago. I read it again this morning and these stanzas stood out to me:

Armature

You and I have lived this life for an eternity,
detritus of our dashed dreams serving as bricks
and the two of us as mortar, cobbling together
this fragile, monumental tower where we reside.

We have scuffed our emotions against sharp
sentimental objects so many times they have
shredded into strings like worn cotton,
as soft and ephemeral as clouds.

The scowls and snarls of daily battles
between us have become so comfortable
I know I could not live without them and
the easy fit between us they concede.

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Sentimentality is both joy and heartache. The tender emotions make one more susceptible to injury than the ones fashioned from leather and stone.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
This entry was posted in Film, Poetry, Scandinavian, Television, Television series. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Meandering Through the Morning

  1. Meg, I have been intrigued by all Scandinavian countries for years! I envy that you spent considerable time in Denmark! If I could figure out a way to go there and blend into the populace, I would.

  2. Meg Koziar says:

    John, I was in Denmark, 60 years ago (gasp!) I can attest to the regional dialects. There were 32 in that small country.. I went to a folk school (college age students, but no degrees) in the small town of Rodding (but o has a line through it) south of Aarhus and 40 miles of so north of the German border. When I traveled throughout Denmark after 6 months at the school, no one asked if I were American, but all thought I was from South Jutland. Of course, I didn’t know I had an “accent” but I obviously did. Meg

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