A Roll in the Universe

This is a response to the comments on my Wordless Wednesday post showing a part of Håkonshallen, especially Alice's thoughts that it looks like a prison. Nothing could be further from the truth so I thought I'd give you a whole post about that. First, the pronounciation of Håkonshallen (the hall of Håkon): That funny "a" in the first syllable is a Scandinavian vowel, and pronounced like a very open "o" (approaching an ah). HOH-kohns-hahllenn. The 750-year-old Håkonshallen is beloved by the people of Bergen, and those massive stone walls make an excellent backdrop for outdoor operas. I've seen "Aida" there. The walls would have been painted white in medieval times, as was the custom then. It has occurred to me that many tourists miss this building, because they are distracted by the rather fascinating row that precedes it: In really old days, when the main mode of long-distance transportation was the boat or ship, Norway consisted of to...

Had I known I was going to be writing stories about her paintings, I would have taken notes when Grandma told me about her works. This seascape hangs in my living room above my couch, and I see it whenever I look up from my computer. What I know about this painting, is that it is from the coast of Maine, and it is a copy. Grandma copied another artist's seascape (I don't know who that artist was, except that it was a man), and that's how the painting is signed (barely visible at bottom left): Marion Mundal, copy. I remember when I was younger that that amused me. It made me think of my grandma as a copy. I have always loved this painting. I think it was painted well before I was born because I can't remember this seascape not hanging on Grandma's wall. This painting has so many things about it that keep me fascinated: The movement of the water, the spray of the waves, the contrast between the dark rock and the moonlit sea, the moonlight itself coming from an o...