New YorkTimes Friedman 23 Feb Now or Never

Thomas Friedman returns to a familiar subject today, a return based on the fact that in the early morning crude oil was up to $95 bbl and as I write this I heard $105 bbl.


His subject. Increase gasoline tax 5 cents a month (I think that was his scale). I support but added in my comment (here tomorrow 24th) that in New England where 50% of all space heating is oil heat (NPR data) it is feasible right now to be installing Ground Source Geothermal everywhere. Why? See my November 24 post and an earlier one in July 2010.

So simple, so feasible. But what is the new governor of Vermont talking about in terms of Energy Policy? Approving a few wind turbines on Lowell Mountain.

With that as an energy policy there is no hope.

Race in the New York Times

I recently experienced ICD 9  s 431 which in Swedish is AC-LEDSLUXATION meaning that my right collarbone flew over the acromion process after a fall on Swedish ice. Result for my blogging is left index finger typing and thus brevity. 

I must in any case call attention to two New York Times series Race Remixed by Susan Saulny and today’s set of six statements in the Times series Room for debate 13 february both easily found at NYT OnLine.

Read the comments to learn that we are many who find the US Census Department’s “race boxes” to be absurd. You can see that at least two of us even in Sweden think this way.

And now on the 14^th of February after reading the Room for Debate essays can I say to Dilsa Demirbag-Sten, Saki Madone, and Per Bauhn “Nu förstår jag varför Saki skrev sin fina essä “Sluta särbehandla” och D D-S och PB “Till frihetens försvar”.

Take a look even at janlotvall.wordpress.com February 11 “Race” and terms such as “African-American” – are they racist?

He and think these are worth discussion? How about you?

Styrsö, Sweden patientstugan

Ground source geothermal

or Why do Americans love oil burners?

Today’s entry arises because I began my dark winter day here in Sweden at 6 AM by reading the New York Times Editorial on Energy. At the point in the editorial where it was time for the NYT writer to use the obligatory words “renewable energy” the writer followed with the only two kinds the Times is acquainted with – solar and wind.

I have submitted 7 Letters to the NYT Editors asking if they just might insert Ground-source geothermal (GSG), and have written the same in every comment that the NYT has dutifully accepted – probably 15 to date.

So here, once again as on July 23d, a primer on GSG. But first a question. Why do Americans still love oil and natural gas furnaces? I lived for 40 years with oil burners in America and I never saw one I liked. The only kind word I can say about them is that unlike the natural gas furnaces in Brighton, New York where I then lived they at least the oil burners did not explode and destroy houses. Small praise.

The NTT's much loved solar and wind are just fine in their place but they do not work 24/7 and they are all too visible for some folks and even too loud (wind turbines) for others. Compare those situations with what you see here in several not very dramatic images. (Images may not all be here in first post, later!)

When you see this sign (here on Nov 11) you will know you are close

Apelgatan 7 silent heat exchanger

Lets’s  start at Apelgatan 7, where I live. It has been snowing hard all day but thanks to this little white box, it is warm here in my living room and there is a plentiful supply of hot water for showers or the like. The little box is a completely silent Heat Exchanger (HE). A few kilometers from here a state of the art Municipal Waste Incinerator burns the trash and supplementary fuel to heat water that flows through a pipe to my heat exchanger 24/7. Imagine! That little box about 3 feet high replaced a gigantic oil tank and an all too large and loud oil burner.

Why wouldn’t you choose the white box in an instant, if you had a choice?

Beats me.

Invisible borehole

Now let’s go next door to Apelgatan 9 or at least to the front yard as it looked this morning. Apelgatan 9 is heated by Ground Source Geothermal (Bergvärme in Swedish). The heat comes from a 120 meter deep drill hole next to the flag pole. Sorry, nothing to see there. As I said, invisible renewable is better. Inside Apelgatan 9 there is also a heat exchanger, more nearly refrigerator size than mine, but still clean and white and working 24/7.

So can some American please stand up and tell me why he or she would prefer to have an oil or natural gas burner rather than one of those white boxes.

You may think that Americans do not know that GSG and Municipal Waste Incineration systems have so much to offer. True, for the majority and especially for the NYT. Yet there is a ray of light as may be seen at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.

Consider this building Perry Hall Large, recently renovated, and heated (now) and cooled (then in July) by GSG. 

Perry Hall heated and cooled by what you see below - GSG

If you look very carefully on either side of the walkway you will see two well heads. Here is one of them close up. Ground water comes up through this well.

Well head

Heat exchanger

This water passes through this heat exchanger (to the right) in the basement, and is returned to the ground through the other well. Simple, right? Works 24/7 right? And as close to invisible as you can get without being completely invisible.

 Imagine the oil burner system this heat exchanger replaced. Why would you want that?

The State of Vermont is using this technology in Bennington and some day maybe Vermonters will decide that it is time to change. Maybe even you will consider it is time to change. Here’s hoping.

And as the song from my long-ago childhood told us  

"The weather outside is frightful, but the fire inside's delightful, 

so since there's no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow." 

Even if the "fire" is without flame!

Corren, Linköping och Burlington, Vermont -Till min förvåning

Preface for you who do not read Swedish. This post was triggered by an Email from a Swedish musician in the group Vindra (find them on MySpace etc) who was replying to a Letter to the Editor of Corren, the local newspaper here in Linköping, Sweden. That Letter refers readers to my blog where, they are told, they can learn about the music scene in Burlington, Vermont.

Välkommna, Ni som kanske har läst Corren i dag 14/8 2010. Först tack till fotografen Ola Axman som tog en fotograf av en ensam människa med laptop (kunde varit mig) som sitter ensam vid ett av Linköpings tomma torg.

Nu eftersom jag just upptäckt till min förvåning att Corren publicerat insändare som jag skickade för kanske 3 veckor sedan, ville jag skapa post utan att vänta. Ni kan se bilder av Linköping i min post 7/8 och av Burlingtons musik scen med det senaste The 4th of July (Independence Day) och andra om Ni klickar på Older Posts.

Church Street (till höger) är världens bästa gågata. Färgrik, tusentals gående från tidigt på morgonen till sent på kvällen. Restauranger som Red Square här erbjuder Live Music för alla, inte bara för kunderna.


Från den ena änden av Church Street till den andra finns gatumusiker som visat Church Street Committee vad de är för musiker och vad de kan.

Här två tjejer (nedan till höger) som spelar dragspel och gitarr och sjunger med mycket bra harmoni. (Mina äldre inlägg visar ett litet urval av andra sorters musiker.)

Men det finns även rappare som den här killen till höger

Och till slut för i dag en bild av en Burlington Breakdance Group som gör breakdance till musik som får hela publiken att klappa för att uppmuntra dessa "wild and crazy" dansare.

Varje dag, flera gånger, det bästa som finns

  

Det var Burlington, Vermont under ett par timmar på

The 4th of July

Magda's aria - So ends kammarmusik festivalen

Outside Styrsö kyrkan on the First Day of August in the Year of Our Lord 2010 the scene is serene leading perhaps to thoughts of Elegy in A Country Church Yard.

Within the church, the full orchestra has gathered to carry us and Susanna through to the end of these three evenings of sheer delight.


Here a small sample of orchestra and soloist on this concluding evening.

We who filled the church this last evening need just one more song, the encore or "extra nummer" from soloist and orchestra. Our applause and foot stamping - a Swedish custom - brings results and Susanna explains to us that she is going to sing an aria that we perhaps have not heard so often, "åtminstone inte på Styrsö"


The aria is "Chi il bel sogno di Doretto"
"Who can interpret Doretta's dream?" and it is Magda (Susanna) who tells those around her that in the dream Doretta remembers a student who kissed her and, in this remembrance, Doretta realizes that "love is the key to happiness". The music alone opens the floodgates for many listeners, and now, "Even On Styrsö" we know Magda's aria. Act 1 of the opera, La Rondine, ends with Magda disguised and leaving alone, perhaps hoping to find true love now that she is in disguise.

Here is our Styrsö Magda, alone and waiting for the true love that Doretta's dream holds before her. And, yes, this is a fairy tale, so our Magda's true love soon appears to the left on the steps.


Our Styrsö Magda then spreads her wings taking flight - like the swallow (Forse, como la rondine) that fortune teller Prunier has told her she can become - and she is last seen high over the island where all this magic - hers and others - has taken place.

Footnote: I tried to enter the YouTube URL that would take you to Leontyne Price's version of Magda's aria but blogspot would not let me do that. You can find it and other versions.







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Kammarmusik 31 juli Lennie mm

 

What I love to hear

Here in the video clip you see my good friend, Lennie, who, like I, landed in Sweden as a result of marrying "en göteborska". He gets to start this clip laying out one of the themes for you to hear. After awhile, konsermästaren Josef is given his place in the sun playing this theme - and then, what I love most is Lennie taking off in rush and, at the right moment, known only to the others, they come in and we are off on the chase. So since this is all very personal and my chance to thank people, "tack Eva", I have been endlessly happy that Lennie is on this side of the Atlantic.

 And here, to my surprise (uploading and placement are two blog processes that have minds of their own, so although my good intentions were that Susanna and violinist (Josef, I think) would appear at the end, here they are in the middle.Click and you shall see - and hear!

Here yet another gem, violinist Ingrid with the Keith Jarrett of classical piano, Terése, directing at the piano. (A footnote that is inserted here because I do not think blogger allows for footnote - If I have named someone incorrectly, if you wish to correct or delete anything I have written or shown, just let me know at lwlundgren@gmail.com and I will correct  - edit - the post.        

So all you wonderful people out there, I hope you were as happy on this Friday evening as Ingrid and Terése were when you showed them what you thought of their performance. I am having, as usual on Friday night, a ball!

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bara på Styrsö-Only in Styrsö kyrkan

Som sagt tidigare, efter Burlington, Vermont, saknade Linköping något. Live music perhaps. Yet a solution was at hand. Go west "young man", go west to västkusten Göteborg och vidare ut till Anns ö, Styrsö. There all one had to do on Friday evening to solve the music withdrawal problem was to take a walk.

The first song I learned in Swedish when in Oulu Finland in 1968 was Vi skall gå hand i hand, genom skogen du och jag (We will go hand in hand, through the forest you and I), and here is the forest called Arbores skog (a "lund" actually from which you learn the meaning of the first part of my last name, Lundgren). But I digress.

At the end of the trail, we have "gotten to the church on time" where we open the iron gate and enter Styrsö kyrkan under the 1752 telling us that the church is more than 250 years old.


Well inside, we are welcomed by Minister Agneta with the same words "...Ni är varmt välkommna..." with which she has welcomed her flock - and more - during the preceding eight years and this time to Styrsö kammar musik dagar 30, 31juli och 1 augusti 2010.

Here in this first post you see small samples of what Prästen Agneta, herself a trained vocalist, has brought to us Only in Sweden, Only in Styrsö kyrkan, with the support of who knows how many others. Fråga inte mig.

Terés and Johan

Charlotte

All I can do here is show you what you have missed. For the most part you must use your imagination to hear the music, all of it at the highest level, making every moment a Magic Moment (an LWL - that's me - coinage)

And to close this first effort, only a picture of soloist Susanna Andersson

Det skulle ha blivit video här men jag kunde inte upload. ADDED 5 AUGUST - I WAS ABLE TO DOWNLOAD VIDEO TO MY FACEBOOK SO IF YOU ARE A FACEBOOK FRIEND YOU CAN LOOK THERE. OR SEND ME EMAIL AND I WILL LINK YOU TO THAT VIDEO IN WHICH SHE IS SINGING PUCCINIS Oh mio babbino caro.

Eat your heart out, her singing of this well known song was gorgeous and since she is looking in Sture's direction I am reminded as always of an American Standard, They're writing songs of love, but not for me, she's singing songs of love but not for me. Jag återkommer. Just a simple country boy.

To be continued, förhoppningsviss

Med ett stort tack till Ann på Styrsö, kvinnan som bodde alldeles ensam i ett ensamt hus på en öde ö