How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

Do you ever wake up in the morning and everything looks like a stage set? Those heavy black floor to ceiling curtains that cover the entire bedroom wall look like they're about to open up to a vast audience, ready to applaud at the sight of the artfully unmade bed, as if Nora or the Countess Almaviva or Prior Walter were about to enter stage right, from the doors of the study?

Actually, I didn't wake up feeling this way, it was probably the fact that I got up and started reading a book about illustrations and stage sets that got me thinking this way, that the bathroom at the end of the dim hall, the door ajar and the light on, looked so very carefully lit when I got up to take a piss.

And then sitting down at the piano, it felt like a performance and I played reasonably well to the imaginary public, because really the Goldberg Varations, well maybe two-thirds of them, aren't nearly as hard as you think they are. And my favorite, the final quodlibet, is positively easy.

Isn't that a great word, quodlibet? According to my dictionary, a quodlibet is "1. a subtle or elaborate argument or point of debate, usually on a theological or scholastic subject. 2. Music. a humorous composition consisting of two or more independent and harmonically complementary melodies, usually quotations of well-known tunes, played or sung together in a polyphonic arrangement."

And now, to leave you with some food for thought, a little Bush Administration slash fiction, courtesy of Anthony. I hope it doesn't upset your stomach.

The Swedish word for the day is scenen. It means the stage.

- by Francis S.