When I lived in Paris, nobody ever said “Paris? Why Paris?” But now they invariably ask, “Sweden? But why?” I am called on to describe Sweden and the Swedes, and explain what I’m doing among them. To that end, here goes:
If you’re from Topeka, you can go to Kansas City. If you’re from Kansas City, you can go to Chicago. If you’re from Chicago, you can go to New York. If you’re vapid, showbizzy, or good-looking, Los Angeles. But if you’re from Manhattan, where can you go?
By the time I was 30, I had to go to Sweden just to calm down. There’s been some confusion. These are not a fondue people, nor do they yodel. Their trains are occasionally late, their mountains are unimpressive and their chocolate is adequate at best. No. These are the people who brought you The Nobel Prize, free daycare, rampant suicide, and full frontal nudity. They brought you your Karlstad sofa and your H&M leggings. These are the blondes. Enormous Blonde Herring-scented Nauseatingly Fair-minded Nymphomaniacs in Clogs.
In New York, I have marvelous friends, but unfortunately, many of them like to make lunch dates for three weeks from next month and things like that. They then have to cancel, reschedule and cancel again. Everybody’s just “crazed” all the time.
Or possibly, I am wildly unpopular.
Crazed! What does this even mean? Don’t email. Don’t text. Just walk right in and say “Hey, did you eat yet?” I probably did, and I’ll still go with you. Life is too short not to waste it. When asked why I love Gothenburg, I’ve been known to reply, “Because nobody there has anything better to do than to chat with me!”
I’m an artist. There, I said it. For the arts, New York is just so … obvious. New York is for exposition, but Gothenburg is well known as the “arbetarstad,” a worker’s city. It’s a good place to produce. Volvos, Hasselblads, and, in my case, paintings, animations, books. To work. In laughable obscurity. My Stockholm friends are shaking their heads, rolling their eyes, (which are mostly blue, but not always!) When I declare my love for Gothenburg, it sounds to them like I’m saying to a New Yorker, “Trenton! Trenton, New Jersey is the place for me! It’s the best! Behold, Trenton! Glorious epicenter of urban culture, romance and sophistication!”
In Sweden everyone works, nearly all have kids, but they still seem to have time. Compared with New York, rents are low, though taxes are high. But education and health care are free. Many of the painters I know there earn their living exclusively by selling paintings.
How many in New York can say that?
—laurie rosenwald
Flommist Laurie Rosenwald is an American illustrator, author, artist, and designer. Copyright © 2018–20 Laurie Rosenwald.
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