Something gotten in Denmark

The artist in any medium is the happiest of men (people, if you insist), in one sense – if he/she has wisdom. Because when things go well, that’s great. But anybody can enjoy that. The artist is able to enjoy things that go wrong, too, because it’s grist for the mill. Accidents, inconveniences, and disasters are what works of art are made of.

Which means that Danish Day, this past Sunday at the Danish American Center in Minneapolis, was a good experience in itself, but an artistic wash.

We’ve had passing few nice days this spring in these parts, but Sunday happened to be one of them. The sun shone, but the air was cool enough to make even long periods of sitting in the sun pleasant (except for one of our Vikings who has red hair and had to seek the shade). The crowds were good, swelled by hordes of Minnesotans punchy with extended cabin fever. I sold a satisfactory number of books, and all the people I spoke with were pleasant. Generally the phrase “a good time was had by all” is pro forma, but I think in this case it was substantially true.

The only real disappointment was that – for some reason – the Danish hot dogs (pølser) were not available this year. A Danish hot dog, I’ve learned in festivals past, is a foot long hot dog with mustard and what seems to be shredded onion rings. I don’t care for mustard, but I’ve come to enjoy the Danish pølser. But there were none. They did have a very nice ordinary foot long, though, and I didn’t complain. Also æbelskiver, the delicious spherical pancake (or waffle), and fransk vaffler, an actual waffle sandwich with something like Bavarian cream inside. Compared to Norwegian Day and Swedish Day in Minnehaha Park, the Danes do themselves proud in the food department.

I had a plan to take some good pictures of the combat shows, to placate those among our readers who asked for more gratuitous violence in my reports from the Tivoli Festival in Elk Horn, Iowa (also Danish. I’ve been getting in touch with my inner Jutlander of late). But although I remembered to bring my camera, I forgot that I myself am part of the combat show. So I wasn’t in a position to take pictures, especially while wearing my combat mittens.

Thus you’ll have to take my word for it that I won most of my fights, including a crowd-pleasing dispatch of one opponent at close quarters with my skramasax.

In Sunlight and in Shadow, by Mark Helprin


In the perfection of her song, by the voice that sprang from her, speaking words as he had never heard them spoken, he now loved her as he had never known he could love. He might never see her again, and decades might pass, yet he would love her indelibly, catastrophically, and forever. If half a century later he were alive, he would remember this song as the moment in which all such things were settled and beyond which he could not go.

There’s a rumor about, colluded in by professors of literature, that literary works and plain storytelling exist in separate universes. A book can be one or the other, but not both. Mark Helprin , by means of his new novel In Sunlight and In Shadow, scoffs at this idea (probably with a Bronx cheer). Exquisitely and poetically written, this novel is also a compelling, nail-biting story of transcendent love, danger, and mortality.

The story begins in Manhattan in 1946 when we meet Harry Copeland, late of the 82nd Airborne, back from the war and trying to make peace with his memories and figure out who he wants to be. One day on the Staten Island Ferry he sees a beautiful girl and falls desperately in love with her. He meets her and learns her name is Catherine Hale. She is a singer, in rehearsal for a Broadway musical.

There are complications. She’s engaged to another man. He’s Jewish; she comes from a WASP family. He’s the owner of a failing leather goods company; she’s the heir to some of the oldest money in America.

They overcome these obstacles without compromising their integrity. But their very success brings forces into action opposing them. All their courage and faith will be required in the new, peacetime battle, and not a metaphorical one, that will sweep them up. Continue reading In Sunlight and in Shadow, by Mark Helprin

Original Pronunciation of Shakespeare

Here’s a brief documentary on how performing Shakespeare’s plays using his intended pronunciation works much differently than it does in modern pronunciation. Puns and rhymes appear, and actors say it changes their performances.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties, by Neil Gaiman

I just finished reading How to Talk to Girls at Parties, by Neil Gaiman, which is available absolutely free for Kindle here. It’s actually a short story, presented along with a free preview of Gaiman’s next novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

The title obviously interested me from the git-go (though it didn’t actually help in that department), but the story in itself is a pretty clever one, combining a sensitive portrayal of teenage shyness and angst with a space alien story. I think saying anything more would spoil it. Pretty good, and hey, it’s free.

Techniques for Judging Art

Professor Jerram Barrs’ book, Echoes of Eden, has 11 beginning criteria for judging the arts. For example: “Is giftedness from God evident in the work of a particular composer or performer of music, poet or novelist, painter, sculptor, or filmmaker? We should ask this question about the presence of giftedness for all artists, whether Christian or not.”

Creative Habits

Mason Curry talks about the habits of artists in a three week series on the work routines of famous creatives. Frank Lloyd Wright started getting up at 4:00 a.m. and working until 7:00. Curry writes:

Indeed, many artists are early risers because they have little other choice; working early in the morning is a tried and true method of fitting creative work into busy schedules. The 19th-century novelist Frances Trollope is a good example. She did not begin writing until the age of 53, and then only because she desperately needed money to support her six children and ailing husband. In order to squeeze the necessary writing time out of the day while still acting as the primary caregiver to her family, Trollope sat down at her desk each day at 4 a.m. and completed her writing in time to serve breakfast. Her son Anthony Trollope later adopted a similar schedule, getting up at 5:30 a.m. and writing for two hours before going to his job at the post office. (Later in this series, I’ll be looking closely at artists who also held down full-time day jobs.)

Curry has just released a book on this topic: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

How to Discourage Christian Artists

I suspect there are many followers of Christ who are called to the arts (they may not believe they are qualified to be labeled Christian artists) who feel out of place in the church or maybe at home or maybe everywhere. In this post, Philip Ryken lists many reasons artists feel uneasy in their churches. He says, “…Christians called to draw, paint, sculpt, sing, act, dance, and play music have extraordinary opportunities to honor God in their daily work and to bear witness to the grace, beauty, and truth of the gospel.”

We may be discouraged by other believers who commodify all art or praise cheap or bad art regularly. Some never offer to pay for the artistic work they want, but they also praise successful artists as if material success validates their artistic call. I’ve felt the tension of thinking of art only in terms of evangelism or pre-evangelism. But to requote N.T. Wright, artists “have a vocation to re-imagine and re-express the beauty of God, to lift our sights and change our vision of reality.” I want to climb that ladder, but I fear I will never leave the ground.

Tivoli report 2013



John Chadwell of Skjaldborg lectures on Viking combat.

I’m happy to report that, to the best of my knowledge, I made it to Elk Horn, Iowa for the Tivoli Fest and returned undamaged. That also goes for Mrs. Hermanson, my Chevy Tracker. The town of Elk Horn is located in southwest Iowa, and hasn’t moved any closer since the last time I was there (I checked), but I made it.

The Tivoli Fest, like so many celebrations this past weekend, was marred by the Bergen-like weather we’ve been having on the Great Plains. But the rain held off most of Saturday, which is the main day. I sold and signed books in the Danish Windmill Museum gift shop for about an hour and a half, and then retired to the Viking encampment (pretty small this year, alas) where most of the other Vikings (the Skjaldborg group) put on a combat show (pictured above).

Friday and Saturday nights I stayed in a nearby town with Ian and Buffy Barrs and their family. The Barrs are L’Abri people, and we sat up until 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning having one of those long, discursive conversations one associates with one’s college years (considerably more recent for them than for me). It was an experience of discovering sudden good friends of the sort that happens all too rarely in life. I’m richer for it. Saturday night we cut it off merely at midnight.

Saturday brought more rain and fewer visitors, but I actually sold more books, putting in all my time at the museum gift shop.

On the way home I spent Sunday night at my brother’s house in northeast Iowa.

Thanks to everyone who invited me and extended themselves for me (particularly Lisa Steen Riggs of the Windmill Museum). And to anyone who prayed for Mrs. Hermanson to hold up.