31st October - The Times They Are A'Changin' (Again)

 

In my opinion, we really need to put a stop to this nonsense of turning time back and forth twice a year. I think the EU actually did make some sort of decision about it a couple of years ago. But they (or I suppose I should say "we") still didn't manage to get countries to decide whether to stop the clock on 'winter' time or 'summer' time. And at least here in Sweden, so far, we're still carrying on as usual. Which means that this weekend, it was That Time of Year again.

So yesterday evening, I decided to change my clocks before going to bed, so that they would all show the right time when I woke up today. In spite of all the WiFi clocks on various modern devices nowadays changing themselves, I still have quite a few clocks that need to be set manually - because at home, I don't like wearing my wrist watch, but prefer to have at least one wall or table clock in each room that will quickly tell me what time of day (or night) it is. 

So I made my clock-turning tour last night, and put all the clocks forward one hour. But when I'd finished that job, somehow something did not feel quite right about it...

Oops!

I realized my mistake, which meant I had to make another round, putting all the clocks back - and this time two hours... 

After I'd done that, I thought to myself that tomorrow (i.e. today) I'd probably still discover at least one that I forgot about, or got it wrong with. (That nearly always happens.) 

And of course I was right! 😂 (Do you spot it? I didn't notice until I decided to take my camera with me on a check-up round this afternoon...)

(The image at the top of the post is borrowed from somewhere on the Web. The ones in the collage at the bottom are all mine.)

 

Visiting the Textile Museum

 

 

Last Saturday I walked to the Textile Fashion Center / Museum for the opening of a new exhibition, and also a sort of re-opening of the whole place after some refurbishments made to the entrance hall during the summer (while they were still half-closed due to the pandemic anyway). 

Jaume Plensa's gigantic sculpture House of Knowledge is still sitting in front of the building, looking across the street towards the University.

On the ground floor there was an exhibition of Young Swedish Design (Ung Svensk Form). I think one recurring theme there as well as in the other exhibitions was recycling.

 

 

 

Upstairs, the new exhibition opening that day was Material World by British artist Ian Berry. I was really impressed with his work and hopefully I'll be able to go back and see this exhibition again (as it will be going on through April next year). 

"Worn jeans are the medium that British artist Ian Berry uses in his artwork. At first glance, it’s easy to mistake his works for blue toned photographs or indigo coloured oil paintings. Up close you realize that they are carefully put together by layer upon layer of denim."

The third exhibition, Craft Rituals, has been going on over summer I think (although I never got round to go and see it until now).

"Craft Rituals is a colourful fairy tale world and an experimental multifaceted work of art in the borderland between the tactile, analogue and digital. Specially composed music, a 50-metre-long film projection, ritual handicraft installations and interactive instruments create an extraordinary, playful and meditative experience."

"Inspired by Norse mythology and legends of the Norns - the three goddesses Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, who sit and spin threads at the foot of the world tree - we tell a hypervisual tale of wool, the power of women, sustainability and craftsmanship as a superpower. -  Craft Rituals is created by artist Aia Jüdes."

 
As I didn't take the time to stick around for the whole full half hour that this ... show? ... takes, I might go back and give that another go as well. It also involves some interactive parts - there were things you could touch to make sounds and images change. I never quite got the hang of it, but the general atmosphere was sort of dreamy/magical.

If you like, you can read a bit more about the exhibitions here (hoping the link works).

The 'One and Only' Kindle

 Back in October 2012, I bought my first Kindle e-book reader: A 'Kindle Touch', which has kept  serving me faithfully for 11 years by now. But one day last week, I think it was on Thursday, it was suddenly behaving very sluggishly - it took forever just to turn a page, and every now and then it went on auto-restart, but seemed unable to finish the job properly. I also tried to restart it manually a few times, but that did not seem to help either.

As I'd been thinking for a while about perhaps buying a new one anyway - just to get a brighter, 'paper white' display -  I decided that it was probably time to go ahead and do so. 

Since a year or so, I know Amazon has also established themselves in Sweden, so I went to the .se website to  check what was on offer there. It turned out they did not have the one called Paperwhite, but they had one just called Kindle (I think "10th generation") - a little simpler (like lower resolution), but otherwise similar, and looking paper white enough to me. It also seemed to be the only kind in stock. So I ordered it, I think this was on Thursday - and got prompt response that it would be delivered on Monday, to my nearest parcel delivery service (= my nearest neighbourhood convenience store).

As soon as I'd got that confirmed, I discovered that my old Kindle had managed to cure itself from whatever it was it had been struggling with, and was back to functioning as well as ever again. I suppose it had  been spying on me and did not like the idea of getting replaced...

I told the Oldie not to worry - as I have almost my whole Kindle library (with hundreds of titles) downloaded and sorted on it, I'll not abandon it but keep it on as 1st Archivist (as long as it's feeling up for that job) while the Newbie's job will be primarily to deal with what I'm currently reading...

Over the weekend, while waiting for my delivery, I visited amazon.com for some comparative research. To my surprise, I found that there, every kind of Kindle e-reader was marked as either "currently unavailable" or "temporarily out of stock"! Wow. I was beginning to feel very lucky that I had managed to order one at all!

The package arrived yesterday as promised. I had also ordered a special cover for it, and that arrived as well, in a separate package. Also no problems downloading the software and connecting to my account etc - I've just had to spend some time to figure out where to find things etc, as they've made some changes (and hidden some things in different places compared to my old one).

  

 

The main difference is the possibility to change the brightness of the display though, and that was what I wanted. (My old one has a grey display, which works comfortably enough in the right light, but can't be adjusted to varying light conditions.)

 

My new Kindle to the left, the old one to the right:

(The book I've recently started reading is Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan Novels (boxed set), which I recently found as a cheap deal for Kindle.)

The Oldie has a pink leather cover which flips upward/back (so that it can stand by itself on a table, for example). The Newbie has a grey cloth cover that flips open like a book, but on the other hand it has the ability to automatically turn off the Kindle when you close the cover - and when you next open it, the Kindle also opens automatically to the last thing you were reading. (Again, this was the only cover available for that model, so I just bought it...)

What's giving me the most headache at the moment is trying to sync my book "collections" between different devices (also including my computer, my phone and my tablet). That's a total mess, because when I tried to do that, old collections that I thought were long ago deleted and replaced, also turned up again... Ah well. It's mostly a problem with all the free titles by unknown authors that I never yet found time to read. I now have no idea in what category some of those belong... (My old Kindle, the Archivist, is probably still the one who knows best.)

Today, I went back to the Swedish Amazon website to check something... Guess what? Now they too seem to have no Kindle e-readers at all in stock. Did I manage to get the last one in the world??

Weekend Trees & Reflections

After a rather rainy week, today (Saturday) we were blessed with yet another gorgeous, colourful autumn day. I took advantage of it for a walk across town to the Textile Fashion Center and Museum, which was having an Open House day - the first grand event of that kind since the pandemic. 

More about the indoors stuff in a later post; today I'll just show some of Nature's own Autumn Trees & Reflections exhibition from my walks there and back (hoping that visitors from Weekend Street/Reflections will excuse my slight twist of the theme...)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(From a footbridge along the river, under the motorway.)

 Weekend Street/Reflections #39

Keep Walkin', Part 2 - Street Views

 Continued from Part 1, last week

From the woodland park that was not showing off quite as much autumn colour as I had hoped, I turned into a street leading towards the Culture Center (library, art museum and theatre). There are some impressive big old houses in that part of town.

I've always liked old houses with towers and odd angles etc. I remember thinking when I was younger that I'd like to live in a house with a tower... Now I'm not so sure I'd really like climbing all the inevitable stairs, though!

 

This entrance door caught my attention - especially with the rag rug in front!

I like the bay window, too. Never had one of those either!

Nice autumn colours in the trees along this street.

 

This is (part of) a upper secondary school (senior high school). Although I did not live here back in my school years, I actually did go to this school for six months later in life, attending a medical secretary training course. 

The biggest church in town is nearby, built ~1906. It has been on this blog before.

Ryttaren - The Rider
Sculpture by Sven-Erik Johansson

 Not one of my favourite sculptures (too odd for my taste). But the artist (1925-2020, born in Borås) is quite famous for his rather eerie paintings and sculptures.

The Culture Center. I went inside for a bit, but the Art museum turned out to be currently closed, preparing for a new exhibition.

A mural revisited on the way back.
I don't remember its title or artist.