Connective Visions

"The Scream," by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch

The past month, it seemed every time I logged onto the Internet I faced a barrage of U.S. news reports that opened with irritating questions (ranging from “Was teen’s round-the-world sail a stunt?” to “Could ‘toxic storm’ make beach towns uninhabitable?”). These sort of headlines annoy me because they try to engage the reader personally in issues either no one can answer or whose basis lies solely in opinion. In short, they are filler. I had had enough of them.

Truth be told, I had had enough of the sort of things that preoccupy the U.S. media generally. Amid a slew of problems ranging from the economy to the oil spill, we seem to have lost our ability to laugh at ourselves and not to take personally every item that spews forth from Washington (or into Washington, for that matter). If I previously lamented a tiresome focus on entertainment figures and television programs, I was being paid back in spades by an even more tedious nitpicking through every word by or about our politicians. It was not making for edifying reading.

Since it’s not the news media’s job to please me personally – only if I’m part of a large, united collective that starts rejecting them en masse – I considered what I might do to better the situation. I chose to address the issue by rearranging my homepage. Norwegian and Swedish RSS feeds now appear at the top, and I have to hunt for U.S. ones below the currency calculator. If I’m inclined to do so.

This has had a remarkably good effect on my temper. Aftenposten, Views and News from Norway, and The Local have their sour moments, to be sure, but they do not generally assume the reader should start her day with  speculation and anxiety attacks.

Astonishing output from "a bear of very little brain"!

Following on this procedure, to better the general tone on Facebook I shifted most of my status postings to quotes from the Winnie-the-Pooh books. Now, I am not naïve enough to believe that one cannot find in A. A. Milne’s works something to argue about, create ideology from, or use to terrorize others. From The Pooh Perplex and Postmodern Pooh to The Tao of Pooh and Winnie-the-Pooh on Success, the silly old bear whose replica I wore out as an infant has been employed by writers as an example of abounding eternal wisdom or (less frequently) of the deleterious effects of children’s literature on the contemporary mind. It has taken some careful selection of quotations to leave little room for eruptions in the volatile world of social networking.

On the whole, the experiment has gone well. Over 18-20 June, I followed the royal wedding of Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel (Westling) in the news from both countries: from Norwegian pondering over what kind of speech Daniel would give and how it would compare to Ari Behn’s, to Swedish awe (and relief?) at the end product, which included the revolutionary act of Daniel telling his wife he loved her. This sort of fairy-tale opening softened my response to yet another story about stereotypes along the Mexico-Arizona border. I learned it is a lot easier to approach your political news thoughtfully when you don’t start out wanting to punch someone.

Now, by the time I get to our nation’s usual battles (“Obama wants ‘price’ on carbon emissions. Republicans see ‘tax.’”), I have been entertained by the glum acknowledgment of Norway’s slow summer (“Må til Sverige for  få sommer“) and by Sweden’s peculiar takes on history (“Pew ‘poop’ stains declared cultural artefact” – and no, I’m not going to explain it, you’ll have to read it for yourselves). It puts Washington, D.C., into a nice sort of perspective. Our capital and our politicians are not the only foci of global concern. There are also southern and eastern Norway’s temperatures and bat guano in churches to consider.

On the Facebook front, things have largely gone well too. A surprising number of people seem happy to hear from Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends – certainly, more than are happy to have news articles recommended to them. Pooh has brought forth fond memories, identifications, agreements, and book discussions.

The experiment has served to shift my own focus, which I’m very pleased to have it do. Discussion of current events can be enlightening, to be sure. But when the atmosphere becomes less about sharing opinion and more about “being right,” as politics in particular are prone to do, creative thinking tends to be stifled. Prodding the mind with Pooh and Piglet or with peculiar accounts from the Scandinavian landscape may function along the lines Jonah Lerner described in his blog “Childish Creativity,” by deactivating the always-correct dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and allowing the imagination to expand.

Whatever the case, I am content with the developments thus far. So I end with an ode to Norway and childhood, combining today’s Views and News account of how the “Crown Prince fell overboard” with one of my favorite childhood poems by Alfred Noyes: “Daddy Fell into the Pond.”

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.

We had nothing to do and nothing to say.

We were nearing the end of a dismal day,

And there seemed to be nothing beyond,

THEN

Crown Prince Håkon of Norway - out of the water. Photo by Kjetil Ree. CC-by-SA 3.0 License.

Daddy fell into the pond!

And everyone’s face grew merry and bright,

And Timothy danced for sheer delight.

“Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!

He’s crawling out of the duckweed.”

Click!

Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,

And doubled up, shaking silently,

And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft

And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.

O, there wasn’t a thing that didn’t respond

WHEN

Daddy fell into the pond!

(Sorry, Your Highness, but it was extremely funny!)

*************************************************************************************

I would be remiss not to provide American readers a glimpse of the Swedish royal wedding, which received scant coverage here – partly because of a boycott by the AP, AFP, and Reuters, though mostly just because Saturday television is reserved for sports in the United States, and it takes a disaster of epic proportions to disrupt golf.

Enjoy.