Joho the Blog
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June 12, 2005
It has been a long but wonderful day. I woke up in Copenhagen unreasonably early and went for a walk aimlessly and maplessly; since I am so direction-impaired that I can't even read maps, bringing a map doesn't really help. I walked along the river and wandered down large and small streets. Because it was early on a Sunday morning, there wasn't a lot going on. The city was quiet, empty and quite rectangular. And, as Doc pointed out last night, the streets are awfully broad given that they were created long before cars would come along to use up all that bandwidth. By accident, I walked into a park that turned out to be the huge churchyard cemetary for notables. The "You are here" sign listed Soren Kierkegaard as one of the residents ("You are here, but these guys ain't leaving"), so I paid him a visit:
Somehow I don't think Kierkegaard — whose name means "church yard" — would have been tickled pink to find out that he is such a popular dead guy that he gets his own direction sign:
Then it was off to the airport for the 1.5 hour flight to London. Traveling in coach with us normals was a heavy metal band, complete with road managers and handlers. I thought someone said they were Iron Maiden, but the Maiden site says they're traveling from Italy to Switzerland today; Copenhagen would definitely be a wrong turn. It seems not to have been Iron Butterfly either. (Man, in the photos on their site do those guys look old, i.e., my age! Who'd believe that after one hit in 1968 they'd still be touring, especially since that hit is unlistenable unless you are massively stoned.) Metallica is traveling between Austria and Germany today. (My fantasy was that one of the Metalllicans would sit next to me and I'd explain why file-sharing is good for them. Even in my daydream I lost the argument.) Motley Crue seems to be off the road, although their site tempted me to send $40 to join their fan club so I could get my own motley.crue.com email address. Anyway, whoever those folks on the plane were, they seemed to be very nice young men, albeit nice young men who aren't so young and now are doomed to remind people initially of Spinal Tap. (By the way, here are some spare umlauts for you sprinkle appropriately over their names: ............) I got to my hotel in London at 14:00. (Modulo 12 to get the real time.) It's a lovely little hotel, picked by Wired's travel agency because I'm here writing a story on the BBC. But the Internet connection at the hotel has been down for two days and they aren't doing anything to bring it back up. That's like having a hotel room without a telephone or a TV. Or blankets. So I asked them to find me another hotel. As a result, I'm in the Hilton across the street for precisely the same room rate. The Internet works in the Hilton...but it's 15 pounds a day, or almost US$30. Oy veh! I went out for a 3.5 hour walk, up through Picadilly, to Leicester Sq., then beyond, then down a little, and then some curlicues around some statute of someone on a horse, then swoop up past a very large green swath, then catch the end of a demonstration that my first reaction to is "Gosh, I hope it's against us," then some doglegs and a loop around the back 9, up through a really crowded bit, then a cone of soft ice cream that tastes like blackboard eraser, then a zig here and zag there, past Buckingham Palace, head in the wrong direction entirely, cross the big yard in front of the Palace waving all friendly-like to the quaint locals as they make a big show of saving the Queen, and finally back to my hotel. I love walking in London. It's like NYC but with elbow room and history. Before you go bopping me upside my head for hoping the demonstration was against us, let me explain: I'm against us — at least against how we're fighting the "war on terror." I acknowledge, though, that seeing another nation's people denounce the US is painful, even when you agree with them. No, you want to say as they chant, it's more complicated than it seems from the outside. We need more of that nuance that our President so despises. [Technorati tags: copenhagen london] Posted
by D. Weinberger at June 12, 2005 03:08 PM
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Comments
Heeey! Welcome to my city! Hope you enjoy your stay.:)
Posted by: leon | June 12, 2005 05:36 PM
You sure those Metallica dates are right? The header says 2004!
Posted by: leon | June 12, 2005 05:38 PM
"I'm against us". A three words poem.
Posted by: Hanan Cohen | June 12, 2005 06:01 PM
How long are you in London? Time for a meet?
Posted by: Julian Bond | June 13, 2005 03:23 AM
Was thinking the same thing.;)
Posted by: leon | June 13, 2005 06:34 AM
Hey Dave!
It was great meeting you in Copenhagen. Hope you are enjoying your time here. If the Hilton Wifi also goes down, join as at our office in Notting Hill!
-- Max
Posted by: Max Niederhofer | June 13, 2005 02:25 PM
Hey Dave!
It was great meeting you in Copenhagen. Hope you are enjoying your time here. If the Hilton Wifi also goes down, join as at our office in Notting Hill!
-- Max
Posted by: Max Niederhofer | June 13, 2005 02:25 PM
Oh no! I've fallen prey to the Movable Type double-comment-trap!
Posted by: Max Niederhofer | June 13, 2005 02:26 PM
It's worth remembering that Metallica's file-sharing stance didn't start out with the bogus RIAA "we're losing revenues" argument. Rather, they were in a studio, recording a song that would later end up on the Mission Impossible: 2 soundtrack ("I Disappear"), and it leaked out of the studio on to the internet. So for them, it started out as ostenisbly a creative control agrument -- how could they get approval/veto over which of their works actually got public release.
That may have changed over time... But as a starting point, I can certainly see their concern.
Posted by: Hal O'Brien | June 14, 2005 12:22 AM
Indeed. I read interviews with band members where they expressed their utter shock about the incident. I can't help but think that if they'd been introduced to the whole thing in a different way they would of taken a more constructive approach (as they're finally doing now)...
Posted by: leon | June 14, 2005 05:59 AM
Quick note: While Kierkegaard literally indeed means church yard, it is in fact Danish for graveyard (in Denmark at least the two are often the same)
Posted by: Claus | June 14, 2005 09:05 AM
Any chance for you to visit
Cambridge University while
you are in the UK?
Posted by: Jo Ann | June 14, 2005 01:31 PM
Hey I know where that sign is. How odd we were just speaking about it the other day...while climbing on the other side of the wall. I live very near that sign, glad someone knows how to enjoy copenhagen.
Posted by: M | June 17, 2005 05:55 PM
I mean, you can’t fight for democracy and torture your own prisoners and even refuse them their democratic rights as prisoners like in Guantanamo or Iraq. And you can’t "fight" terror and seeding with your ignorance about other Nation’s demands and cultures more terror, than there has been before you began to fight.
This is one important side of the medal.
But on the other side of the medal there are millions of people killed and gassed and tortured and hunted by their political leaders and Governments especially in Africa and we in the western world feel so damned peaceful for simply watching away. A man in my hometown wrote around Christmas our local newpaper: "what does the German Bundeswehr have to do with people in Sudan or in Somalia or in Congo?" And let us be honest. We are proud to watch away that millions of people have to face this, because we can feel so peaceful then, by doing nothing. Now, what is a human community for? What are human rights still for, if we are all watching away?
Don't get me wrong. I don't think that the Iraqi war did have anything to do with a "war on terror". This phrase of "war on terror" is a vehicle such as "patriotism" or "fight for democry" are first class means of the current US government to eliminate every opposition in the country, like the media, the parliament, like the law courts. I mean all those institions didn't work when it came to "democratic" forming of a public opinion the last few years in the US.
And this is one of the big challenges, the Americans are facing these days. What is with the American Democracy in those moments of forming a public opinion. All the control institions have been completely out of order because phrases like "war on whatever" and "fihgt for whatever" and "patriotism" worked so pretty well.
Posted by: Carsten Boettjer | June 20, 2005 06:52 AM
How small is Denmark that you accidentally stumbled upon SK's grave?
His own wish before the gods was to always have the laugh by his side, so I'm sure the sign pointing to his rotting corpse gets the thumbs up.
"Shouldn't you people be reading instead of gawking?"
Posted by: J.D. | May 27, 2007 03:16 PM