Pink Floyd recieving the 2008 Polar Music Prize                                             Photo by Emma Svensson         

Every year, as a kind of supplement to the Nobel Prize ceremony, Swedish awards watchers turn their focus from science, research, literature, economics and peace, and instead open their ears to music and the Polar Music Prize.

While it may have distant pop music roots – the prize was begun in 1992 and funded with some of the megabucks earned by Stig-Erik Andersson, the producer of Abba – the Polar Music Prize has become a big deal in Sweden, and we would like to imagine, an honor for those who receive it. It usually gets divided between a classical musician and a musician whose music is more of a popular style, be it jazz, blues or rock and roll. And like the Nobel prizes, it is handed out by the King of Sweden.

Renee Fleming performing at the 2008 Polar Music Prize                               Photo by Emma Svensson        

I’m not altogether sure how much extra recognition some of the recipients deserve – Paul McCartney (er, I mean Sir Paul) was among the first winners in 1992. But I do pay attention to who wins. And this year, my friend E., who as the daughter of an opera singer and an amateur singer herself, made extra sure I didn’t forget: She got us tickets to go see the winner. No, not Pink Floyd, the other winner. Renee Fleming, the American soprano from Texas. She may be small, but her voice is huge. And ravishing.

The Main Hall                                                                                                   Photo by Jan-Olav Wedin              

And Stockholm Concert Hall (Stockholm Konserthus) is a great setting – with its Art Deco décor, lots of warm wood and elegant detail yet still somehow unpretentious, it’s a lovely place to hear a concert - mostly classical music, of course, but a sprinkling of everything from jazz classics to Tibetan folk music to the Nobel Prize awards themselves.

The Grünewald Hall                                                                                          Photo by Jan-Olav Wedin         

And the conductor of the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert, was great, leading the orchestra in his farewell concert in Stockholm – he’s leaving to become director of the New York Philharmonic, one in a line of conductors who have used Stockholm as a launching point for stellar careers.

Renee didn’t disappoint either.

Stockholm Concert Hall; Hötorget 8; Stockholm
 

Photo by Edi Weissmann

The party out in the Stockholm archipelago was a great success: a weird mix of Swedes and people from further afield. As with all great Swedish parties, copious amounts of alcohol were consumed, people did crazy things, a few sundry items were broken, people stayed up long after it had begun to get light (which, to be fair is only about 2:30 a.m. in the height of the summer) and many ended up sleeping in places they hadn’t expected to. Everyone was appropriately pale and queasy the next morning.

Me, I had wisely paced myself, so I was fresh as a prästkrage – that would be daisy in English.  My Swedish husband, however, was a bit worse for the wear.

Photo by Edi Weissmann

We took the ferry home in the afternoon. For my husband, and the various other guests who left with us, it was probably a good thing that it was a big new ferry, fast and comfortable, and not one of the ancient steamboats – or converted steamboats as many of them are these days – that ply the Baltic year round, hauling Stockholmers from the city out to the thousands of islands that make up the Stockholm archipelago.

Photo by Kriskaer

I love the old ferries best, with the faded elegance of their saloons – some have full-service restaurants even – and all that highly varnished wood, the sloshing of the water, the polished brass. You haven’t really seen Stockholm if you’ve never taken one of the old ferries from the quays outside the Grand Hotel.

By the time we made it back to Slussen, everyone seemed to revive a bit as we stepped off the ferry.

“Should we have dinner?” our friend from France said. “It’s half price at Torget on Sunday evenings, and it’s really good.”

Why not? As long as the music isn’t too loud…

When I was fresh off the boat, making sense of the peculiarities of Stockholm – I was still at the stage where all was new and different, which was soon replaced with the false assumption that Swedes are awfully like Americans, something they absolutely are not – I took the subway to my office, which was one island away from where I lived.

Katarina Hissen

Some three weeks into my job, a co-worker snorted incredulously when I mentioned taking the subway to work. “You don’t walk?” she asked, her voice just this side of being disdainful. I hadn’t really thought of walking to work. I couldn’t really wrap my head around the layout of the city (it took me years and years to get a grasp on the relationship of one neighbourhood to the next, island to island). But I felt shamed into walking, and looking at a map, it was easy enough, basically due north.

Inside Katarina Hissen

The first day I made my way, but when I got to Mosebacke Torg – Moses Hill Square, not that anyone would think of calling it that – I was charmed by the little park, with its fountain in the middle, Södra Theater and Mosebacke Etablissement forming the north side of the square and the beer garden off to the left and not thinking, I went across a high pedestrian bridge that led from past the square to the rooftop of a building lower down the bluff. There, past a terrace empty and cold in spring and then another long pedestrian bridge high above Slussen with a spectacular view of the old town and the towers of Mariaberget to the west, I came to the Katarinahissen.

Slussen seen from the top of Katarina Hissen

Back, 120 years ago, the original Katarina elevator, which took people (and goods no doubt) between the docks of the sluice and the heights of the island of Södermalm, was a sign of how modern a city poor Stockholm was.

Now, it’s a proper antique (the current elevator is from 1935), yours for the taking at ten crowns a ride.

Me, I only made the mistake of accidentally going to the elevator once. After that, I only ever use it when I need to get that feeling you get from seeing the city spread out in all its glory, church steeples and ancient houses, ferries plying the water and trains running between the old town and the rest of Stockholm.

Go Further: Read about Meg's visit to Elevador Santa Justa in Lisbon here.

At the risk of revealing my advanced age, I pose the question: When are those cool sixties styles I loved when I was a boy – Peter Max ceramics, Merimekko bedsheets and avocado or burnt orange stoves and refrigerators – ever going to be in fashion again? Haven’t they become classics at long last?

If, like me, your idea of perfection is the animation of the Beatle’s Yellow Submarine movie, you should get your ass over to Skeppsholmen and the gardens and parks outside of Moderna Museet, Stockholm’s museum of modern art. In an oblong of grass on a hill stands a set of polychrome statues – all breasts and eyes and beaks and trunks and thick legs – outsized and childlike creatures from the imagination of sixties icon Niki de Saint Phalle.

The nine beasts are accompanied by seven rusty constructions of wheels and water spouts (by Saint Phalle’s husband, Yves Tinguely), all living together as if in some kind of symbiotic sixties groovy relationship – the piece is called The Fantastic Paradise. I’ve probably walked past this particular hill fifty times, and each time I have to stop and admire and ponder. Can something this big be considered whimsical? And how come I’m the only one ever looking at these pieces?

If Picasso is more your style, there’s another garden tucked away to the far right of the entrance of the museum. Inside, Pablo’s own larger-than-life sculptural version of Luncheon on the Grass awaits – and in his version, both the women and the men are naked. Yowza! You can even sit on the terrace with a glass of wine from the café if you find yourself in need of sustenance after all that walking and admiring and pondering.

(As long as you’ve made it this far, you also may as well make the extra effort to check out Moderna Museet. It does have, after all, Sweden’s best collection of art. Go ahead, you can do it.)

Don’t you hate it when your nearest and dearest fail to appreciate your finely developed sense of humor? When it comes to funny, I firmly believe that repeating a stupid joke to the point of absurdity makes it so much funnier.

Unfortunately, my husband has other ideas.

“Don’t say that again,” he begs me, and threatens revenge. My favorite stupid joke with him was to point out, every time we walked by it, a not-terribly imposing 17th century mansion behind a gate on upper Drottninggatan.

“Spökslottet,” I’d say to him as if he’d never seen it before.

“Yeah, right,” he’d mutter.

I always rather liked the place. The name is intriguing: Spökslottet literally means the Ghost Manor. But it’s not terribly haunted looking, at least not to my American eyes. It’s a typical Stockholm yellow manor house of its time, although the gate is vaguely spooky. But it has a certain charm, and a nice set of gardens to the side which are perfect for sitting and eating an ice cream cone, gardens which is in fact are where the supposed ghost walks.

Last winter, long after I’d been forced to give up the joke, we walked past Spökslottet and continued down Drottninggatan. To our horror, a block down we saw that one of our favorite restaurants, Grill (Drottninggatan 89), had burned during the night and was a black and charred hole in the building it was in.

“Oh, no!” my husband said. “That’s so sad.”

We continued down the street, wondering who or what had caused the fire, whether it was an accident or arson, and if they would ever open again.

Interior at Grill.                                                                                                   Photo Micael Engström

It wasn’t until the other day, the restaurant now back up and running, all fixed and clean and with even more outrageous décor than ever before, that I thought about who might have caused the fire that burned down grill.

Could it have been the ghost of Spökslottet, trying to sneak something to eat during a late-night binge?