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Title: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
Link: http://francisstrand.blogspot.com
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Item: I haven't worked as a waiter in 20 years. But, I s...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110891316347631263>
Date: 2005-02-20 15:12:00 UTC
I haven't worked as a waiter in 20 years. But, I still have waiter 
dreams. Like last night, when I dreamt I was serving three tables full 
of people - girls ordering vodka and frangelico, and a guy ordering some 
strange drink with caraway seeds and eggs - and I couldn't get the 
drinks out fast enough, and then the bowls for the soup were strangely 
shaped like fish with knobs sticking out in

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: The Christian right has it all wrong. The biggest ...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110881460852845422>
Date: 2005-02-19 11:47:00 UTC
The Christian right has it all wrong. The biggest threat to the 
heterosexual lifestyle is not the widespread practice of numberless 
girly-men like myself marrying each other, it's the widespread practice 
of numberless girly-men convincing their straight counterparts that 
depilation is a good thing.

"Doesn't everyone shave their balls? Hairy balls are disgusting!" said 
our badboy boarder, sitting

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: Swedes have an interesting attitude about fame: It...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110866570797106926>
Date: 2005-02-17 17:16:00 UTC
Swedes have an interesting attitude about fame: It's not a good thing, 
more or less. (Not unlike being a boss, which is also nothing to aspire 
to in Sweden. It all has to do with that damn jante-law thing wherein no 
one is better than anyone else, supposedly.)

As an American, it comes as a shock to see popular rockstars, TV 
actresses, duchesses, best-selling novelists or beloved comedians 
walking

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: I'm nothing if not inconsistent as I sigh to mysel...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110857886294587237>
Date: 2005-02-16 18:20:00 UTC
I'm nothing if not inconsistent as I sigh to myself that at last, 
Stockholm has a good thick coating of snow, nearly a foot. Despite my 
whining about spring being far away, I'm quite childish in that I still 
like my winters to be snowy. So much so that I'll even go out of my way 
as I walk home at 6 p.m. just to meander through Humlegården, the park 
that surrounds the royal library, to be cast

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: If you let it, preparing food can be a kind of rit...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110830364436372083>
Date: 2005-02-13 13:32:00 UTC
If you let it, preparing food can be a kind of rite, a connection to all 
the people who ever prepared and ate food before you.

You should start by taking the corn husks from the bag - cutting the 
knotted piece of cornhusk that was used to tie the back shut - then pick 
through them and choose 12 that seem large enough or maybe just please 
you for no particular reason. It seems a bit cruel to have

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: The third Mr. Marilyn Monroe has died. I never car...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110813853022847337>
Date: 2005-02-11 16:01:00 UTC
The third Mr. Marilyn Monroe has died. I never cared much for the few 
plays of his that I've seen. But, he was one the guys who stood up to 
Joe McCarthy, and that counts for a lot. Even more, he was married to 
Norma Jean Baker, and that's really something.

The Swedish phrase for the day is Men pappa, du vet att jag vet att det 
finns ingen jultomte!. Which is what a little boy walking behind me

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: On the train back from Västerås today, the woman s...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110798306689444133>
Date: 2005-02-09 20:57:26 UTC
On the train back from Västerås today, the woman sitting in front of me 
- probably 70 - carefully set herself down and delicately patted her 
hair, as if every strand weren't already carefully shellacked into 
place, instantly bringing back memories of my mother when I was boy, 
when she would go and get her hair set.

Does anyone other than 70-year-old women in purple overcoats get their 
hair set

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: Damn the policeman! He was over here yesterday wit...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110772950120432261>
Date: 2005-02-06 22:02:59 UTC
Damn the policeman! He was over here yesterday with the priest and their 
daughter, Signe, and he played this Jimmy Durante song for me and now I 
can't get it out of my head.

"I'll never forget the day I read a book. It was contagious. Seventy 
pages. There were pictures here and there, so it wasn't hard to bear, 
the day I read a book. It's a shame I don't recall the name of the book.

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: Seen from the No. 42 bus at 6:38 p.m.: two women t...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110754086264840445>
Date: 2005-02-04 18:03:22 UTC
Seen from the No. 42 bus at 6:38 p.m.: two women tanking up their car at 
the gas station on the corner of Kungstensgatan and Birger Jarlsgatan (I 
think I read somewhere that it's the oldest gas station in Stockholm); 
one is dressed in a bathrobe and slippers and appears to be wearing 
nothing underneath as she stands chatting with the other, who is dressed 
in typical parka, jeans and boots.

The

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: Worst Swedish translation of a movie title: Måndag...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110737053062078594>
Date: 2005-02-02 18:44:06 UTC
Worst Swedish translation of a movie title: Måndag Hela Veckan - which 
means Monday the Whole Week - for the movie Groundhog Day.

To be fair, I guess it was hard to come up with something that would 
make sense to the average Swede because oddly enough, groundhog day is 
not mentioned on any Swedish calendars.

Now, off to watch my favorite holiday movie ever.

(Isn't Bill Murray great? Even

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: When travelling to far-flung places, Paul Bowles i...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110729837186269731>
Date: 2005-02-01 22:28:20 UTC
When travelling to far-flung places, Paul Bowles is perhaps not your 
best choice for reading material. It's easy to become suspicious of even 
the generous and trustworthy Thai people or the horrendously poor 
Cambodians if you're spending your evenings reading short stories that 
feature hapless westerners faced with strange cultures that they 
invariably fail to understand or worse, misread so

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: I feel like Sally Field: "You like me!" It's all o...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110729416292608355>
Date: 2005-02-01 21:13:15 UTC
I feel like Sally Field: "You like me!" It's all on account of a Satin 
Pajama Award for best writing, my second blog award since I started this 
whole writing project. Thanks, David Weman and the rest of the folks at 
Fistful of Euros. And kudoses to Mike M., who won two awards, and to 
Torill, who won one, and to those - Mig and Zoe and Des and Mr. H, 
Stefan, for instance - who should've won as

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
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Item: Talking on the phone today with the former punk ro...
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_francisstrand_archive.html#110718583766750698>
Date: 2005-01-31 16:28:39 UTC
Talking on the phone today with the former punk rockstar, who has been 
homebound for over a week suffering with a flu that won't seem to go 
away, she told me that she has had it with television. The only thing on 
anymore are these horrible reality shows, she told me.

"Pretty soon there's going to be a new kind of psychological syndrome 
and a whole group of people suffering from it," she said.

Feed: How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons
<http://francisstrand.blogspot.com>
Author: Francis S.
