HELLO THERE. We have photos of teeming masses in Norway, with whom Berit shared elbow space during a giant food festival a few weeks ago, alongside a report from the operative herself. Dig in:
“Happy Food”:
a report by Berit Ellingsen
I had the pleasure of wearing Chad Patton’s story at a local food festival named “Gladmat,” which means “happy food” in English.
The festival sees mainly adults from the age of 18 to 50, many couples and groups of friends. We therefore decided that a story about unhappy or unrequited love would suit the food well. Simon selected Chad Patton’s little tale about domestic disharmony and sent the story with a bag o’ pins well ahead of time.
In case of really bad weather, which one always has to take into account in Norway, we decided that I’d wear the story at the local IKEA, for the sardonic flavor.
On the Friday of the festival, the weather was grey and overcast, but not too cold. People didn’t seem to mind the less than perfect weather and turned up in large numbers to sample the baked goods, cakes, smoothies, juices, vegetables, sea food, meat dishes, liquor and food related presentations and events on offer. While walking in the crowds between two lines of food tents, beer tents and restaurant tables along the pier, I learned that
1: In a dense crowd people have to watch their step more than the people and the stories around them.
2: In a dense crowd near water, one should not go too close to the edge, in case someone has an episode of poor balance.
I therefore decided to avoid the densest crowds and sought out more open parts of the festival crowds. I also walked further up into the city streets, where there were quite a few cruise-ship tourists sightseeing and shopping.
Saturday was sunny and warm, which brought even denser crowds to the festival. I heard several different Norwegian dialects, from the north, south, east and west of the country, plus Swedish, British English, American English, Scottish English, Spanish, Italian and German, so the story was potentially seen by people from all over the world.
Every year the food festival draws tens of thousands of people over the long weekend it lasts. It has not yet been announced how many people were at this year’s festival, but it didn’t seem any less than in previous years.
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See you soon. There may be exciting announcements next week if things go our way (we sometimes try to force things to go our way; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t). We hope we will.
