Raumdeuter Radio: Göteborg

Translation: Equal Temperament

1. INTRO

Mum, dad, and child enters with a pushchair and run in to someone with a dog. They know each other and pretend to be happy with the coincidental meet-up. “Long time no see”, we’re well thank you for asking. The mum says, “What a cutie”, “Yes” says the owner, “It is quite a versatile dog as well”. It is so versatile. The dad pretends to muck about with stoving away the pushchair, a versatile pushchair thank goodness. It keeps him occupied for a few more stops. The conversation does not seem to interest any outsiders, but I listen with keen ears. After spending an eternity of time among you, I am not complaining, I nonetheless suspect being hit by a curse by sitting here amongst you between two final stops, forever journeying. Forever journeying. I am the worst for never actually getting off wholeheartedly. I continue on in some sort of movement, even though the air here stands still.

2. Limbo

Same wardrobe
The Zegerid of sour faces/The Samarin of sour faces
Everybody freezing on the veranda
A chill concealed by laughter
Clean bodies holding their breath
Holding their breath
Same wardrobe
The Zegerid of sour faces/The Samarin of sour faces

Nordic noir is no longer enough to raise the pulse on this side, now true crime as well, they read about the gangs on the other side of the line, same line, but at a comfortable distance so far. It goes from fetish to reprehensive, the regular commute. Here are bushes decorated with drawings of birds of a feather that stick together and broken cow feet. Their windows are decorated with stickers that say Avarn and Cubsec, I peer inside and see, for example, pillows with starts, red, white, blue, USA. I do not get off here. Anglophiles, Francophiles, Italophiles, it is plain to see, what is considered delicacy. The customer knows best. The journey that can take several lifetimes, if you ever get there, but is this where we were headed? That is a private beach, they answer me, when I asked for directions.

Same wardrobe
The Zegerid of sour faces/The Samarin of sour faces
Everybody freezing on the veranda
A chill concealed by laughter
Clean bodies holding their breath
Holding their breath
Same wardrobe
The Zegerid of sour faces/The Samarin of sour faces

I am the worst for never actually getting off wholeheartedly, but I have tried several times. Most times the doors close before I am sure. I have put my foot on the platform many times, but the weight has always stayed in the back leg that from the very beginning forces the body into an angle back into the journey. There is nothing wrong with my balance, it is just a reflex of free-will. You do not need to raise your voice, it was just a reflex of free-will. I am well, thank you, I am doing it out of free-will.

Same wardrobe
T he Zegerid of sour faces/The Samarin of sour faces
Everybody freezing on the veranda
A chill concealed by laughter
Clean bodies holding their breath
Holding their breath
Same wardrobe
The Zegerid of sour faces/The Samarin of sour faces

Things are always just fine, thanks, as in an adjusted temper and not balanced. From high end grocery stores to corner shops, the wide-open chasm, wine leaf for cabbage rolls, before and after, a suburb and a super-suburb, everything so neatly organised. I tell a lie when I call it “a journey” because it is more like going around in a circle. I suspect a curse, but if I get off, I might fall down to the number nine straight away, but I have a feeling I am already there.
After the journey we say, “Look at our children, if they only knew how good they have it”. But at the same time, we get a feeling of them missing out on something. That we are missing something. Groups who never have had to journey will sneer at our newfound luxury, disgusted. After we have tucked ourselves away enough to dance the limbo in underneath the door chink. This is not where I get off anyway, they sit with their backs towards the best view looking out over the river, I would get tired of it too.

3. Only ghosts remain

They tell blatant lies about modernisation, and amongst the creative children at the pool they answer nostalgically. The small is authentic, the authentic is acoustic, an amusement park themed old avantgarde and working-class. A yearning for a time of radical solidarity, a time of colour blindness and superior moral. Now, a scalpel drawing a line (towards the unethical, unequal, that is, the un-Swedish) creating an island diversely illustrated in sold-out posters. I am the worst, a betrayer, because I never get off!

Owl in granite, covered in bird shit, so white
Summer break, only the ghosts remain in town
Only good taste, alternative, only white friends
Summer break, only the ghosts remain in town

I want to come along but not to the pool, they know that, they loll about in the pool everybody does it made lukewarm from the piss of drug addicts and families with small children, everybody does it. They look so similar and they are in love with their own reflection, but it is starting to become a miserable kind of love. It is starting to get melancholic in The Noisy Village.
Across the street are housing cooperatives now, on the other side of the street were no red flags swaying on the 1st of May only blue and yellow during the European Championship. It looks nice but the air is still in the landshövdingehusen. The customer knows best but they might not have noticed what the price of mint is here? I am getting off at the next stop, not this one, is what I will say if anyone asks if I am coming along.

Owl in granite, covered in bird shit, so white
Summer break, only the ghosts remain in town
Only good taste, alternative, only white friends
Summer break, only the ghosts remain in town

You make yourself so small, you are not small my friend, the world is shaped around you.

4. Swedifications

Four adolescents in a seat for four, in expensive clothes, discussing condominiums. “It is situated so well, close to work – God, I love your balcony – plenty of sun in the evening and free from outside observation”. Even pairs, traces of a voice change shadow, in a seat for four. Plenty of sun in the evening and free from outside observation. Plenty of sun in the evening and free from outside observation. Four adolescents discussing condominiums, I do not want to be included. I do not want to be included. I am just listening, but I do not want to be included thank you, is what I would say if they asked. I do not want to be included I am just listening. I have been traveling for quite some time, but this it not where I get off. I mutter my swedifications and songs at a distance.

In for a penny in for a pound, that is the name of the game. But most people are like me: Allergic, fragile, and vulnerable, and used to the unusuality of coming along.

I want to enter the museum but you misunderstood, I was not going to use your kindness I came to rip the still heart of your cultural centre out of place, not give it a pulse. What a temperament, it is all talk. And now so short-spoken only talk, I will spare the air. I diverge when things are getting heated, I aim it inwards and mutter my swedifications and songs at a safe distance.

5. Breaking barriers

“Breaking Barriers” has gotten a fresh coat of paint and now the fast-track travels through music and sports, occasional stars, the formula for breaking barriers translated from American English.

What will you be up to during summer break dadash? Are you going to stay in town dadash?

Everybody is sweating and there is no AC and the intoxicated man thought to himself out loud: “yeah, sounds great, sounds great”. He had been wondering for a while, out loud, and had now decided to offer the guy next to him a beer, the guy says no thank you. “Are these your girls?” he asks, “they are good-looking”.
“Do you know how old they are? She is from Angered where abouts are you from? Finland. She can speak Finnish say something in Finnish”. The young girl exchanges a few words in Finnish with the intoxicated man while her boyfriend starts to worry: “what are you saying what are you saying?? I fell yesterday and knocked out my front teeth. So stop drinking then, for fuck’s sake”. The kids at the back of the carriage are making fun of the man with no front teeth, he is in a good mood. There is no AC, the air here stands still.

Everything is on purpose but the purpose does not always come first
Memory says, memory says that which I already know, who the fuck is he?

Seldomly do people know if someone is coming, just say we are on our way
Just say we are on our way

The air here stands still. The kids are taking about cars and money, they want fresh air. But I cannot get off here anymore, I do not want to be excluded together anymore. I am a betrayer, I can never get off anywhere, I have tried several times. A pride that has lost its conviction.

“Breaking Barriers” has gotten a fresh coat of paint and now the fast-track travels through music and sports, occasional stars, the formula for breaking barriers translated from American English.

6. Svensson burns you out

The edge of patience
Svensson waits you out, anyway
A voice ringing false
Svensson burns you out, anyway
What are your plans for the summer dadash? Are you going to stay in town?

I want to go back home as a stranger and then to my new home in between, not in the middle, my new home is a journey. I lie when I say “a travel” I know that it is a carousel, because the track bends at both ends and sends me back to where I came from every time I arrive.

The edge of patience
Svensson waits you out, anyway
A voice ringing false
Svensson burns you out, anyway

I sit amongst the shells from sunflower seeds. Swedes call it bird food. I use expressions like a parrot, hear myself, I am not ashamed: “that will be great, I feel right at home”. But I borrow certain glances quite often, certain ears, from home and get lightening quick resumés, a pulse sweeping over my body, overheated, then cold again.

You have to betray yourself thoroughly, in order to be embraced by the tolerant ones. I have now taken a step back into the journey, to come home again, even though it turned out to be more like a wheel of misfortune, it is wrong to call it a journey.

A pulse blocking ears like a tunnel. It ages me every time I think. I grow more sensitive with as the years pass, they said it would be the other way around. You have to betray yourself thoroughly, in order to be embraced by the tolerant ones. I have now taken a step back into the journey, to come home again, even though it turned out to be more like a wheel of misfortune, it is wrong to call it a journey.

The edge of patience
Svensson waits you out, anyway
A voice ringing false
Svensson burns you out, anyway

7. After the journey

A before and after, a suburb and a super-suburb, everything so neatly organised. I lie when I call it a “travel”, because I am going around in a circle. I suspect a curse. After the journey we say, “Look at our children, if they only knew how good they have it”. But at the same time, we get a feeling of them missing out on something. That we are missing something.

9. Wholeheartedly

The air does not change here, it stands still and lowers my pulse. I stand up during a brief moment of alertness and grabs the emergency hammer. It is dawn or dusk, the light is right at the middle of it. The rhythmic sweep of the posts has got me in a slightly hypnotic state. We go through the tunnel and the light disappears, my ears are blocked and I pull the emergency break.

The sound is muted. Everything is dark outside and it smells a bit like burnt plastic, I think it is summer. The darkness has transformed the windows to mirrors, three parallel tracks. I turn to my window and knock decidedly with the hammer on the upper part of the glass. I feel light on my feet, my pulse is quite low, the air rushes in and I breathe in. Hold your breath, breathe out. I slowly step out into the darkness, my pulse is low but wholeheartedly so.



[translation by Hanna Skoglar]