{"id":21157,"date":"2025-09-19T20:15:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21157"},"modified":"2025-09-19T20:15:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:15:25","slug":"thinking-of-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21157","title":{"rendered":"Thinking of Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Denmark From Above, Stunning Landscapes &amp; Wildlife in 4K Drone Footage #denmark #dji\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P0LvKLvlREE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Denmark is on my mind<\/strong> tonight. I\u2019m reading a book about Denmark during World War II, but haven\u2019t finished it yet. Above, a gauzy travel video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t write much about Denmark in this space, even though I\u2019m a quarter Danish.\u00a0 I suppose it\u2019s partly because it\u2019s my minority ethnicity, but I think it\u2019s largely because being Danish isn\u2019t as funny as being Norwegian. The Norwegians have a public profile in this country, for better or worse. The stolid, taciturn farmer in overalls, painfully shy, honest, not all that bright. Ole Olsen, the butt of a thousand jokes. Garrison Keillor\u2019s Norwegian Bachelor Farmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m not sure what Americans in general think about Danes, if they do at all. There aren\u2019t that many around \u2013 they didn\u2019t come over here in the numbers they came from Norway and Sweden. There are a few famous Danish Americans \u2013 Victor Borge, the comic pianist. Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. Buddy Ebsen and Leslie Nielsen were Danish. But all in all, the Danes assimilated pretty well. They blended in. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve ever heard a joke about Danes, except among fellow Scandinavians making fun of their pronunciation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My Danish grandfather loved the out of doors and hunting. He liked polka music (someone once told my brothers and me that he played drums in a band, but I never heard of that). He was most notable for his sense of humor, which was exceedingly dry \u2013 people were always complaining that they couldn\u2019t tell whether he was joking or serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have striven to emulate him in this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which is no doubt why so many people don&#8217;t find me funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More on Denmark when I&#8217;m ready to review the book, probably on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Denmark is on my mind tonight. I\u2019m reading a book about Denmark during World War II, but haven\u2019t finished it yet. Above, a gauzy travel video. I don\u2019t write much about Denmark in this space, even though I\u2019m a quarter Danish.\u00a0 I suppose it\u2019s partly because it\u2019s my minority ethnicity, but I think it\u2019s largely &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=21157\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Thinking of Denmark<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[5712,739],"class_list":["post-21157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-danes","tag-denmark"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21158,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21157\/revisions\/21158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}