fröken lila's oslo: Birkelunden

part three of my little oslo series! this time i thought i'd present you the best fleamarket in town, at birkelunden which is very close to that vintage-paradise street markveien in grünerløkka (actually, it lies at its parallel street, thorvald meyers gate, in a little park).

















it is an open air market taking place every sunday from around noon till late in the afternoon, all year round. you can find records, old norwegian books, cool kitchenware, vintage and other used clothing, shoes and loads of nice and expensive vintage porcelain.



































i've been there once until now and am sad that i didn't find out about it any sooner, for even though it is not the cheapest fleamarket in the world it is really cool and absolutely worth visiting. most people selling there know what their stuff is worth, so you really won't make a huge amount of bargains, but you can always haggle a little and find the one or other steal...

apart from this fleamarket, there is one at the other end of town, at vestkanttorvet, but i've never been there. most fleamarkets in oslo are usually organized by schools and you have to check on the internet when there is one to be. i've been to one and was rather disappointed as it was a lot of chaos and not really nicely organized. so if you love fleamarkets, birkelunden is your place to be in oslo!

nuvonova

a few days back my last purchase from before the shopping ban arrived in my mailbox. you know how half the blogosphere is kind of wild about those carrie-style name-necklaces? well, i don't like them too much, though i do like the idea of having jewelry with your initials, so this is what the little package from london contained:


















an adorable vintage heart-necklace with my initial L (for lila, of course =)! i have already worn it on several occasions, and am really quite in love with it. it came in a lovely little cotton canvas-pouch with a matching print, so it can never get lost!

i bought the necklace from nuvonova on etsy, and there are some other initals left, though none of the L-ones, as i got the last one..
apart from those necklaces, nuvonova (coming from a combination of art nuveau and nova, the star, two things that owner and designer clara loves) offers, amongst other things, some other absolute bestsellers:




















handmade and -printed pouches, both customized after your own wishes or with clara's wonderful designs such as those roses in every possible colour, or also - behold, december is approaching quickly! - a set of 24 for your christmas calender.




















and wonderful handmade ribbon bound notebooks, also with clara's wonderful designs (and i think she could do them customized as well, if you wish it) featuring a stilized swan, flamingo, art nuveau doll or even her signature design, the flapper girl (which you can see in the uppermost picture).

apart from etsy-ing, clara works as a fashion design assistant (exciting!), collects art in the form of ACEOs and also writes a blog which is very well worth reading.. i do hope you stop over both at her blog and her etsy-store! clara always has new projects for her store going on, so every now and then there are pleasant surprising new things to be had (the last one were, guess what? - the necklaces..)...

fröken lila's oslo: Skaperverket

here comes part two of my little oslo-series. "Skaperverket" is a very special small store at the lower end of markveien.

























maybe it could be best described as a combination of giftshop and gallery, as most of what you can find in there would be perfect as a gift, both for mothers, best friends, collegues or people you don't know so well. you can be sure to find something nice for everyone!




















"Skaperverket" is a collective of different artists, designers and crafters from norway, who together sell their own works, but also imported things they feel fit into the concept. thus, the store features pretty white pottery, handmade clothing for grown-ups and children, japanese paperwork, handcrafted jewellery, cool toys and enchanting accessoires.
















































one of my favourite picks would have been this really cool elizabethan collar:

























for contact, more information and opening hours, check out skaperverkets homepage!

fröken lila's oslo: Frøken Dianas Salonger

i have had thoughts about doing the one or other series for my blog, related posts which i'd try to do fairly regularly. one idea for those came up during my latest stay in oslo. as some of you know, my favourite person in the world lives there so i visit the city quite often, and i thought that a series about my favourite boutiques and places would be cool, especially if any of you are planning a trip there in the future..

so, here is the first part of the series!

























Frøken Dianas Salonger is, in my opinion, one of the neatest and loveliest little second hand stores in all of oslo. it is situated on markveien, which is norway's mekka for vintage boutiques, and is run by two wonderful ladies who obviously love their store and who sell nothing they wouldn't like to keep for themselves.

























the "parlour's" main focus lies not on clothes, even though there is a nice range of dresses and blouses, but on accessoires for you and your apartment: lampshades in perfect condition, handbags, cooking utensils, chests of drawers, postcards, some kitschy new things such as matchboxes with marilyn on them and everything else nice in the world.
















































the store is only just a year old but the ladies running it have managed both to offer a great range of wonderful selected items and to give it an amazing atmosphere. you feel like you can look about you for hours and see new things all the time, and you almost feel at home. definitely one of the best shopping experiences one can have!

























opening hours (they are open on sundays!! perfect!) and contact information can be found on the shop's website.

sparrow

the constellation: four men. pickpockets in hongkong. one young beautiful woman. her passport in an old man's safe. the result: pure cinematic beauty.

























johnnie to's new movie "sparrow" is perfect. yesterday i went to see it in the original version with subtitles. i wouldn't even have needed the subtitles, there is so little dialogue in the movie, and all that is important is told visually, and through the jazzy chinese music.

four pickpockets in hong kong. their work is more a performance of art than an act of criminality. it's all about movement and elegance: two quick steps, a little tumble and turn and somebody's purse is a few notes lighter. they meet a woman. or rather, she meets them. they are to be her rescuers, though they don't know it yet, her way to her passport and thus to a new life. the story twists and turns every now and then, suddenly their life is a little more dangerous and also a little more exciting. a noir fairytale with a happy ending. though not at all what one would expect. hitchcock meets hongkong, film noir meets jim jarmusch. i'm still in awe.

if you have the chance, go see it.
(picture through google picture search)

pale horses

moby's new single. perfect melancholy for a rainy sunday afternoon.

the limits of control

yesterday was a good day. i went to the fleamarket (will show later what i found), did grocery shopping, began an elderflower-lemon liqueur, made my own pesto for the first time (had to kill basil because of lice) and went to the movies with a friend. both of us are great fans of jim jarmusch and his work, so we went to see his new film "the limits of control":



i loved it. i loved it so much that i got angry about all those people around us in the cinema who couldn't keep their mouths shut for two minutes, and who couldn't sit still for one. it was so disturbing. why can't people just silently enjoy a calm movie? why do they have to comment each and everything that happens aloud? and why do they have to laugh out loud when a situation is actually more amusing and making you smile for yourself than burst out with laughter? but i loved it so much i couldn't even get myself to ask all of them to shut up. which i otherwise always do.

it is a masterpiece. it bears remembrance of "dead man" (which is my alltime favourite movie), though in a very unconnected way, there are elements of "ghost dog", though even more scaled down. and i would say that in its own way it might be called jarmusch's hommage to alfred hitchcock. it is about cinema, and about the essence of great cinematic experiences, it is about our limits as viewers, and it is in a few very short moments deeply political in its commentary on the cultural industries and how they function. it is a statement for the importance of independence in all areas of cultural production, and it is a statement for the necessity of people working outside the established structures.

please. go see it. and please: enjoy in silence.

i still need that jim jarmusch dvd-box. it is essential for my dvd collection, which otherwise is not too large.

2001

yesterday i finally took the chance to see kubrick's 2001- A Space Odyssey, which i have wanted to see for quite some time and never really got around doing. actually, ever since i knew that our introduction music to the university cinema group is part of 2001, namely zarathustra. now yesterday they screened it in our small local artsy cinema and i went.



















what a movie! i was well prepared by the opinions of others who warned me that it was very slow, and rather weird, and most of them said that it was normal not to like it the first time. i did like it. it was weird and slow and i liked it. the psychedelic part towards the end was a bit too long in my opinion, but other than that it was an amazing experience.

what i find most interesting with the movie is the motif of the circle. the planets, the sun and moon, the spaceships, even the space-helmets, and in the end, the baby, they are all circles on the screen. within the spaceships, the travellers and crew walk in circles. hal, the computer, is sumbolized by a red dot, also a circleform.




















then, i felt like there were two metaphorical circles embedded in what happens, and both are somehow intertwined. the first circle starts with the first step towards mankind, which is triggered by this almost biblical stone plate, enabling, in essence, one tribe of apes to kill another tribe which is not as smart. so one could say that the first step towards mankind is being taken by a killing of someone of your own race (this does sound familiar, doesn't it? wasn't there something of that kind in the bible, cain and abel?). this circle closes when the computer develops human emotions and kills one of the two space travellers on their mission to jupiter, though it is broken when the hal is disconnected by dave, the second astronaut.













the other circle is a smaller one and could be called a circle of life, which dave is sent upon after his reaching jupiter. in the end of very psychedelic race he lands in a romm in pale colours and 19th century furniture. as he looks into a mirror he sees he has aged. when he enters the next room, he sees and old man sitting at a table, eating. it is dave himself, even more aged, and a few moments later we see him lying in bed in the same room, dying. the film closes with a baby which, in a bubble looking a bit like a planet, floats through space.

apparently, especially this last scene with the baby has been widely discussed, but i haven't really bothered to read anything about the movie. so these are my own thoughts about it, and i just hope that others are as fascinated by the movie as i am.



oh, and in case i ever get married and in case i ever want to dance a wedding waltz in that case, it would have to be the blue danube. and no, not just from a tape or cd or a band, but from film. with 2001 being screened on a wall behind the dancefloor. the scene of the dancing spaceships. perfect.

pictures from somewhere on the internet. not mine, of course.