Is Bobby the Bird Dead or Alive?
It happened on Sunday. Bobby, an African grey parrot who lived with my friend Anne, flew away. Now, I lived with Bobby and Anne for about six months, and fondly remember his mimicking of ringtones, cats, dogs, fireworks, and the way he found human language boring by comparison. We were friends! The tragedy occurred when Anne went to visit her brother in a remote country area. His small children had left a door open while Bobby was out of his cage. Curious, Bobby flew outside, and up, up into the blue sky above the forest, where other birds were also on the wing. Anne searched the area for hours (I'll spare you the details because it's all unbearably sad) and she has now started a poster campaign to inform all the locals about this. Being a parrot, he couldn't have flown very far, and might have just dropped from the...
My Parents from Dublin
Sorry again for the tardiness in bloggery, I know this entry is 3 days late but I was exhausted from constant activity on top of a regular working week. This is a picture of my father's feet. My parents visited me for the first time since I left Ireland over four and a half years ago, and spent 6 days here. When we took a day trip out to Høvedøya, an island in the Oslofjord, Dad decided to stick his feet in the water saying, "imagine having to travel for three hours to put your feet in the North Sea!" - whatever that meant. For people who had absolutely no expectations about Norway, I'm glad they liked it. They certainly seemed to find some places peaceful enough, but were limited in some things by the ageing process. Going to Holmenkollen was fine, but ascending Holmenkollen was out of the question....
Our Band from Dublin
Sorry if I'm a day late with this blog! Yesterday I was still deeply occupied in organizing Oslo concerts for the very original Irish alternative pop/rock act Si Schroeder. Although Si is one man, he plays with a band, and here you can see his companions in sound, Kevin the keyboard player and Bryan the flame-haired drummer, having breakfast in my yard like the merry men they are. Following a formula I've used before, I put the Schroeders on at Mir with Norwegian instrumental rock gods Salvatore on Saturday night, and teamed them up with a magical folk/electronic Metronomicon act called Ergo at Sound of Mu on Sunday night, performing under the Egil Martin Kurdøl installation. Introducing a band that's unknown to Norway can be a little like fixing up a blind date, but there was so much mutual charm it was fantastic. Seeing young people enthusing about Schroeder's music...
Our Band from Beirut
Following the successful live performance I did last week, the days just seemed so empty and purposeless, so I signed up for more Mu duty. Luckily, this week at Mu we put on a very special little concert, and had some very interesting guests staying in our building: we were visited by the Middle East's ONLY improvised/experimental band, the Moukhtabar Ensemble, from Beirut. This was booked before the war broke out, and we had no idea whether it would take place or whether the band would get blown up or what would happen. To say that they're "from Beirut" is a little inexact, as at least three of the seven musicians live in Paris. Be that as it may, at least one of those chose to spend the duration of the recent war living in Beirut, so this seems to be a close-knit group, very happy to be united. The...
Backstage
Here's a picture of a drumkit. It's downstairs in the bar and is part of the Dacianos setup for tonight. I'm upstairs in my apartment, "backstage" if you like. In just over an hour I will be doing the first Dacianos live show in 9 months, the first show as a 3-piece with Marius Kolbenstvedt and Håkon Larsen, and the first time playing in my own bar - a "living room concert", in a way. So how does it feel? Pretty weird. What are these feelings? Fear? Angelic love? It's not easy when you're not performing all the time. I'm listening to something completely inappropriate (Pere Ubu's "30 Seconds Over Tokyo") and trying to eat some eggs. Hang on, I have to go downstairs to find out who is doing the door. We're handing out a sheet of "background information" on the songs, because we're doing some pieces with a...
Love !
Our guest writer has departed and I, Barry, have returned to my own blog.Thank you to all the people who send me comments via the contact form. I get very interesting feedback from this blog, and the private nature of this correspondence gives it a very personal touch. This week I want to let you know about one particularly touching response. Without revealing the correspondent's name or email address, here is the message I received: topic: Love ! comments: Dear Madam, I love you and if you have got someone already please get me one. Am aged 29 and in Oslo. Takecare, Cheers Now, I am a little perplexed to be called "Madam" as I am without a shadow of a doubt a male of the species. I strongly suspect that this person has been reading my entry about Norwegian women and has confused me with one of the ladies...
When West Goes North (Part 2)
This week's entry is also written by blather.net's editor Dave, as a followup to last week's. Where is Barry? I'm jolted awake by a roaring in my head. I desperately try to take in my surroundings. I appear to be on a passenger aircraft. None of the other passengers look alarmed. I try to act inconspicuous, then realise I'm wearing headphones, and follow the cable into the seat pocket in front of me. I find my Ipod inside. The noise in my head is the intro to Understraum, from the album Straum by Norwegian fiddle player Nils Økland. I must be on the return flight from Norway. I had my Ipod on shuffle, so it's just coincidence - or synchronicity - that I'm woken up by a Norwegian musician. I glance across the aisle. The Drunk Irishman is slumped forward, his nose mashed against the folded-up tray table, a collection...
When West Goes North
This week's entry is written by blather.net's editor Dave I’m sitting in the waiting area of Dublin airport's Pier C, waiting to board a flight to Oslo. It's a busy Friday afternoon - across the water, in Heathrow and other UK airports, chaos reigns, thanks to the arrests of suspect bombers. I'm people watching. Today's game is figuring out who at Gate C44 is Irish, who is Norwegian, and who is neither. Some travellers are obvious Scandinavians - tanned, blonde hair, tall. I mark a few Irish people off my list, smug in my pigeonholing. As I join the queue for the flight, I realise I've got it wrong - overhearing some people talking I realise that some of my borderline Nordics are actually Irish, and vice versa. The vikings, after all, did make themselves comfortable in Ireland. On board the SAS flight, I drift off to sleep somewhere over...
Norwegian Women
If ever there was a title to a blog entry that was going to bring in traffic from search engines, this is the one. I have received requests from readers to write upon this subject and now I have decided that IT IS TIME. I write this with some reticence, however, because no statement on this matter could ever be considered final. What do I know about this subject? You may think that as a certain type of man, I am bound to have met only one type of Norwegian woman. Not so. I am many types in one, and have encountered many kinds of females. Based on the company I keep, it is as often asked "Why isn't Barry happily married living in the suburbs with 2.4 children?" as "Why isn't Barry lying justifiably murdered in a ditch?" I am sure that if I was gay, what follows would...
Nordre gate
Nordre gate A rain in hot summer is welcome - No-one changes clothes Droplets sit on skin - They seem not to move Daddy-long-legs on the wooden floor Stunned and baffled by pools of water People see him - No-one helps I'm out on Nordre gate when the rain stops