Fishy Solace and other Good Company.

December harvest: This one I call Suitable Activities for Fish.

It is "based on a true story", as they say; the sign is very real. Somewhere at a hotel or two in this world, scaled company is offered instead of the one denied by featherless bipeds.

You may discuss the Platonian definition of Man, Universal Loneliness or different ways to prepare Sushi. It will, as the sign says, only cost you three and a half € a night and will assuredly be considered vastly more moral and above all cheaper than other hired company.
Despite all this I'm not sure that the fish gets paid, though.

Here's some other good company. The people on Insta says that it must be some kind of Iris or See-weed.

It might not be attached to any Union, either. But I'm sure that it votes green.

Frost, Chilly Geometry and Other Eerie Stuff

Half an hour ambling around in the chill totally without a clue. Shooting this and that. This, and 2½ hours worth of Photoshop... et voilà. I have not been too careful, but let the crude lines be. I saw no point in refining them, but preferred to carve away into them as I went on, filling in collage, layering "paint" and distorting in general. It is now available on Saatchi&Saatchi (link).

In an entirely different vein, here's Home for the Geometrically Depressed (also available on Saatchi & Saatchi under that name, you can't miss it).

Last but not least -- obviously i still work with analogue stuff. This is PTSD or You Never Remember Their Faces -- because you never do. Mostly ink and watercolours.

That'll do for November.

Abysmal Puddle, A Premonition.

October ended on such a sour note that I never got around to posting anything. This one I called Abysmal Puddle: I was feeling low already.

Then things got worse. A lost cellphone and general mischief.

I'm just waiting for the next blow.

Watery Things & Salty Seas

This September I've been a little low at times. As long as it creates art, vale.

"Vale", if I remember my fragments of Latin right, means sort of Well, let it be: Sort of, let go of trying to explain. Or how would you explain this?

The month hasn't been entirely joyless though. There's a Leiann in California who adorns my works with colours, such as this little piece called "Paperwork", for short.
I feel blessed. :)

Peacocks and Tormented Souls; the Mood Swings of August

This peacock was the least nasty part of a dream; it told me, Be Brave! -- and I guess that I needed that.

This thing I posted on Insta, with the sweet little caption:

"This has been a beautiful week full of meaningful, hope-inspiring Correspondence, and we approach the weekend feeling very bouncy and healthy."

And here you see how the business part of artistry or other pursuits might enrichen your soul. I had particularily fun designing the pink goo.

Something that might enrichen your soul, however, is writing by hand. It got me going today. Here's the draft for the beginning of this rant:

It saddens me that one does this so little these days.

Summing up July

How time flies. July has been a weird month. And I -- I don't know how -- actually got some Art done. There's for instance this odd thing:

And the apples are growing in the garden..

...and other stuff grows in my mind

That'll do for now.

A Hearty Glass of Wine & Uncomfortable Furniture

Two things from June 2021.
Here's a glass of wine: I serve it largely without comment, a crude ballpoint pen sketch.
But you may have some music with it.

This one is named Floral Vase to Make your Guests feel Uncomfortable. I threw it together digitally, and I guess that the title says it all.

An uncomfy (?) detail.

That's all for June.

Sushi of Desire (Printing Rights Available)

Too late for a trigger warning now...

If you still haven't winced or flinced but, poor soul, actually happen to like dark musings like this and would like printing rights, don't hesitate to send a mail to oj.ceder@gmail.com. The original is in quite high resolution and would still be sharp when up to two feet wide. Here's a close-up of the Salmon Sushi.

Head of the Sushi Roll Fish (so now you know how it's made)!

And, finally, the gory details in the middle. Ink, digital and collage (from my own twisted photos) -- come and get it while the blood is hot.

Creepy-Crawley

This little thing, now for sale, might crawl on your walls to scare other monsters away. It specialises in Thought Goblins, which is the worst kind there is, and eats them whole. Displate.com (<-- Yes, click on that!) has a nice set, you might even get a quadriptych to eat really big goblins with.

And here's...

The central piece, during construction. A badge of sorts.

Hospital Unhospitality

This little study of abuse and neglect, complete with this warm and humane nurse and her happy patient, can be bought from Saatchi and Saatchi Online. It is explained more thoroughly there. Let it suffice to say that it is based on a true story, as told to me by a chocked medical student: This is what happens when nurses get too tecnnical.
(It all somehow reminded me of Chaplin's "feeding machine" in Modern Times.)

A closer look!

I've packed this thing with all sorts of loving medical details for the viewers' enjoyment, and I hope that it will be regarded as a carefully crafted piece of dark humour, full of the cheerful attitude that you find among pills and syringes:
"It won't hurt, I promise."
"It won't have any side effects, I swear."
Etc.

Furry Doesn't Get Any Rest

Poor thing. Forever strained, forever involuntarily vigilant, third eye always open.

Nor do I. And since I drew this, things have got worse. We'll see about March.

The Swedish Corona Dance (and how we learned the steps)

(Digital work, anno horribilis 2020 -- click to enlarge. Note the virus flowing, a small price to pay for the factories that make our owners rich...
Tap to enlarge. Details below.)

I want to thank two souls from Spain and one American who, without knowing it, forced me into writing this essay at last. The expats fervently wondered why the Swedish government (lead on by “State Epidemologist” A. Tegnell) doesn’t care to keep the people safe from the Corona Virus. How, they wonder, can a democracy care so little about its people? Dissuade from masking up, avoiding every true precaution in the name of Herd Immunity, as if we wanted to say,
“Perhaps the virus gets tired when it has killed enough of us?” ...but that's insanity! One question led to another, and I’ve taken the liberty to collect my attempts at answering them here.

One of them wondered how such a murderous regime could have such popular support.
Why doesn’t anybody say anything, for God's sake?
What fresh Hell of a place is this?

I finally answered that we might very well have a unique thing here.
We have the only totalitarian state without the usual “strong leader”. A fascistic democracy; bravo Sweden! Groupthink takes care of all the oppression. I could tell about the “Law of Jante”, satirist Aksel Sandemose’s famous “rules” that Scandinavian societies obey:
“Thou shalt not think that you are something special!” --- goes §1, and the rest of them are just as humiliating and belittling. Everything is forbidden, everything that might make you stand out also makes you an outcast.

I also suggested looking on Sweden like a bucketful of crabs:
The concept of “Crab Mentality” stems from the fact that you may safely keep all the crabs that you can catch in a bucket, and they’ll stay there. For every time that one of them makes a dash for freedom, the others will invariably pull it down back to the others. And soon they all become dinner! How much for equality.

Yet, if we weren’t dying in the Corona Bucket there would be something else. It disturbs me to no end that people react to Sweden now. But well, why earlier? If you’re a square on 9-5, Sweden coddles you 24/7 with welfare and unbelievable benefits. But try to make a living on unsolicited culture or other outside stuff! --- and you lose all this and all security. So unlike those who play it safe, I am very used to the thought of a country that’s wholly indifferent to your death.
(Sudden loss of welfare might actually happen to anyone with a bit of bad luck, but it’s one of those things that “happens to others” until you’re there and realise what a caring country this really is. And then it’s too late.)

This can’t be true, said one of our Spanish friends. How can a culture become like this?
“We avoid conflict”, they say, “we like the silence...” --- such trite answers won’t do. For now I had to explain how we still can remain so silent and passive even in matters of life and death.

It’s impossible, so let us try!

So, how did this mortally apathic mentality come about? I believe that it’s a real “vicious circle”, that kind of f.u.b.a.r. situation where things get worse because they get worse: The government, which slithers and sneaks away from all kinds of responsibility, is after all chosen from the people. They don’t have different genes, they’re Swedes too. So --- how did people become like this? What have we suffered from these slithery overlords so that we had to become like them, and vice versa ad infinitum? And happily, I’m not only a fretting, bitterly fuming dissident but also a humble BA of History, so that one I could answer.

Once upon a time there was a wild species known as Vikings. They were quite good tradesmen and their swift ships went everywhere from Constantinople to Iceland. But at times they also liked looting, burning houses, capturing thralls and listening to the sweet sound of heads flying freely. So to this cold country of hot people they sent Christian preachers to tame them. And during the rest of the Middle Ages they went berserk at home instead, which was an improvement, but not quite enough.

Enter Early Modern Times and King Gustav I. He brought the Reformation and the beginning of a system that would be refined --- I would say sharpened --- endlessly over the years. The church was soon but a tool for the Power. And what power!
Every aspect of your life was controlled from cradle to grave:
Where you lived, every time you moved (if allowed to), income, status (general, legal, and juridical), health, mental abilities and education i.e. how well you knew your catechesis (you had to, or else you weren’t allowed to get married) if you came to church on Sundays (strictly mandatory) suitability for conscription, or anything at all
--- in short, thanks to notorious clergymen there were papers on everyone and everything, and if you’re Swedish and into genealogy you’re in a very happy position. My family has been traced back to 1750 or so, and those who did it weren’t any professionals either. I suppose that with my training I could go further back to the 1600’s when they begun to record all this systematically.

It goes without saying that such an inquisitive rule also made the most out of its prisoners, imposing social control strict as a straightjacket. (We were thus also experts at cramming cannon fodder out of the people, far beyond what Sweden’s enemies thought were possible. Surprise on them.) So now you can guess: How does a people become after four hundred years of this?

I make a short little break in my story for now it’s c. 1880, and quite a few people quite didn’t cope anymore. And on the other side of the vast Atlantic, there was a wonderful land known as America, and for whatever hardships it might offer, it Was Not Sweden. Sweden lost more than population in numbers. For every remaining instinct of liberty, independence, everything intelligent and thus everything that gives a soul the wish and the reason to be reliable went away with them. The effects were soon to be seen.
Why a few of my ancestors went back to Sweden again (how could you?) while their cousins stayed is a long story, but I blame them for growing up as the most un-Swedish Swede there is.

So, we’re there! In 1920-30 the “Social Democrats” inherited a heavily regulated country of meek, slow-minded and tamed citizens. They never do revolutions. They are bred not to bark loudly. But therefore, just therefore, they’re sure to bite anybody else who might. --- And so the baton was passed on. The successors, the capitalists of the 1990’s, never cared to do anything about this (why would they? Human robots are practical) and here the modern Swede stands in all her spineless glory.

- - - *** - - -

(In paranthesis: Space doesn't allow me to go fully into the economical side of our servitude. But for instance --- there's no minimum wage in Sweden. (Not to mention Basic Income!) The State prefers you to be addicted to alms instead. So not very much has happened since the State Church and its ecclesial prison guards: Labour unions, a myriad of goverment agencies and Capitalism Almighty all help out in keeping the Swede under constant control; silent and dependent.)

- - - *** - - -

As I write this, scared teachers are being sent out to teach live in schools while being actually forbidden to mask up despite the risks that come with crowds of pupils in enclosed areas (as if young pupils were the cleanliest things even in normal circumstances). And said Mr. Tegnell’s dream of herd immunity obviously lives on, now ushered in through the backdoors of those schools to infect our young. (We’ve done our share with the old already.) The government cheats, it sneaks and it slithers. It will take no actual responsibility for the outcome. And people sneak, cheat and slither too, naturally feeling equally responsible, avoiding Tegnell’s (intentionally) feeble “recommendations” and go on as usual --- just like their ancestors did when priestly watchdogs (and those Swedes that might tell on you) weren’t there. So it goes:

Power wanted a herd instead of adult, independent individuals.
They got rid of Vikings.
But now they’ll have to herd cats.

I'd rather end there. As I write this, I am listening to sweeter tones from the past: Corelli’s Twelve Trio Sonatas (Op.1) the boquet of a dozen beautiful pieces dedicated to Queen Christina --- that intelligent person who put her precious Swedish crown down so that she could go abroad and be a soul.
The saying goes that someone asked her:
“Your Majesty, why have you surrendered your kingdom?”
The answer came like a flash:
“Because they are Stupid!”
And perhaps the answer it still as simple as that. If not simpler, after all those years.