Oslo, Norway, September 20th, 2008.  Last day in Norway, and the sun was out to see me off.  Walked with Snorre, Silje, and baby Agnes to the ecological food conference in the city center at around noon, and realized quickly that in Norway “ecological” means “organic.”  When I confirmed that that was in fact what it meant, they said that “organic” has a very broad meaning.  Like “ecological” in the States, I told them.  We agreed and decided to slowly step away from the linguistic mobius loop.

I walked on alone past the King’s palace toward Vigeland Park, one of Oslo’s must-see attractions for the abundance of statues by Mr. Gustav Vigeland.  The statues are all stern of face, but gentle and loving of demeanor, all naked men and women and children in a variety of caring poses.  Embracing, reclinining, playing, hand in hand, cheek to cheek, forehead to forehead.  The statues line the walk leading toward the main attraction, a relatively short monolith, less than fifty feet, of intertwined bodies that resembles either the Naval Academy’s annual year-ending scale of the obelisk, or a big ol’ veiny penis, depending on where you’re standing.

The whole park exudes a feeling of togetherness, of people helping each other, all vaguely socialist in undertones.  And then, of course, amidst the parkgoers’ menagerie of languages and the gorgeous day and the background hiss of the fountain and the ducks quacking I can’t help but think about how the statues’ simultaneous impassive expressions and general comraderie seems not only very European, but so particularly the inverse of America, America where you get a big slap on the back or a high five or a hug or a pound without a thought, and a sincere one at that, but America where when you cut the crap it’s every goddamn man for his goddamn self, America where maybe the obelisks are higher but where the bottoms are that much lower, and where usefulness is therefore the first order of business, and where, by corrollary, the currency still bears the face of no man or woman of literature or music or painting, and where, if ye be a man or woman of industry then the world is yours for the taking, and where, if not, then at least you have the chance to be singularly alone, alone perhaps unlike anywhere in the world.