The Copenhagen Report is a great place to start any artistic exploration of the Danish capital. Tim Anderson is one of Denmark's most prolific bloggers, with an archive well worth flicking through - The Guardian
Now that was a party! The Copenhagen Distortion Festival was crazier than ever this year with an estimated 90,000+ participants roaming the streets (and clubs) of Copenhagen from Wednesday to Sunday last week. It really was something to experience.
We did our part which can be seen in Episode #54 of MyDenmarkTV.com - besides lots of party footage from the streets, we actually managed to film a 10+ minute interview with Distortion Festival Founder and Visionary Thomas Fleurquin WHILE CYCLING. You really couldn't have dreamed a better scenario for an interview in literally the middle of the party.
Every year I look forward to the first few days of June when the Copenhagen Distortion Festival hits the streets. This year it's from June 2-6, 2010. If you are living in a hole or a similar dark space in Copenhagen and somehow missed the party in the past few years, understand that in 2009 there were over 60 events attended by nearly 40,000. It really is a hell of a party - though obviously the weather has a big impact on how it all plays out. My personal favourite 2 days are the Nørrebro and Vesterbro street parties, which I never miss if I can help it.
We're filming an episode of MyDenmarkTV.com in during Nørrebro Distortion on Thursday, and we've even lined up an interview Mr. Distortion himself, Thomas Fleurquin, who is the mastermind behind the whole thing - from when it was a tiny little bit of madness attended by a select few party people back in 2001 to now. I'm really looking forward to chatting with him about it.
Do yourself a favour and check out the party at least one of the nights.
June 2 - Center of city
June 3 - Nørrebro
June 4 - Vesterbro
June 5 - Final Party
June 6 - Chill out in the park
This time we check out Rust Nightclub (one of the most consistent clubs in Copenhagen, if you're looking for a non-mainstream good night out) and meet Sven Houlberg the club's Event Manager (and one of the faces behind Villains Club, which happens most Thursdays at Rust - and on special occasions elsewhere in the city as well).
And our new Host, Toi, investigates VerdensKulturHuset in Nørrebro ('The World Culture House'). It really is an amazing place, used by some 250 ethnic organisations in Denmark representing nationalities from all over the world.
Episode #43 of MyDenmarkTV.com is up! It was a lot of fun to make this episode since we filmed on a beautiful sunny day, and it features my good friends Ashkan Nejadi and Bo Vase, who run a small design agency called 'We Live Here' doing very street-level projects, and they've spent a lot of time in Norrebro (Copenhagen) over the past year, which they tell us a bit about. They've had a lot of success considering it is just a side project for them. Hope you enjoy the show!
One of my favourite areas in Copenhagen is, of course, Nørrebro. This video embedded below, produced by Wonderful Copenhagen (the official tourist agency of Copenhagen), is actually an excellent representation of the Inner Nørrebro area.
With my partners at MyDenmarkTV, we recently had a very informative meeting with the film production unit of Wonderful Copenhagen, to see if there were area in which we could co-operate together in the future. Wonderful Copenhagen has an impressive film and production unit, with the capacity to produce the highest-calibre productions. I would say the only limitation they face in terms of film and video production, is that they are obliged to produce infomercial-like productions, rather than personality-driven shows and clips. The problem is when producing in this 'infomercial' manner, it can be tricky to create a nuanced balance between real-life and propaganda, though I have to say that many of the videos I have seen by Wonderful Copenhagen do a pretty good job of striking the fair balance, and end up being fascinating.
This video about Nørrebro provides quite a realistic glimpse into the area.
So episode #40 of MyDenmarkTV.com is up - and I'll let you in on a little secret...a couple of the segments were in fact the very first segments that I filmed when I joined the show, so it was all new for me (and really it still is!). I was also fighting off a case of the flu during some of the filming, which didn't help matters...so we didn't manage to get quite as much humour in this one...but we'll be working hard on that in the future.
Unlike the last episode, this one is in the more traditional '5 segment' format that those who have dug into the shows archives are more familiar with. We continue to intensely discuss the format the show should take in the future, but personally I am much more comfortable with a looser more flowing format (like episode #39) that is less tied to segments. Something that is more 'storylike' and tied to a theme. That said, there is also value in having some structure. In future, there will probably be more of a mix of episodes taking one or the other format.
If you're living in Copenhagen and looking for food and entertainment ideas, you'll probably be interested in the last 2 segments in particular Nørrebro segment and Julie's museum tip. I'm a big fan of Ranees, the fantastic Thai restaurant at Blågards Plads (which I have previously reviewed here). Which is not to say the other segments, about joining a car sharing program and Danish Højskole's might not be interesting and useful for you, as well.
Like there was a choice whether to join or not. When your flat lies just around the corner from the heart of the action, as does the flat of yours truly, you may as well embace the action and join in. So last night the Distortion Festival was as loud and rowdy and amusing as was to be expected.
From the 'Obama' Party bus to Christiania Cycle (with build in sound system) that kept the music playing even after it had 'officially' stopped, to the guys with a draft beer tap set up in their ground floor apartment serving beer directly through their window onto the street (now that's entrepreneurial spirit - especially given the outrageous queues at the local kiosks selling beer!) it was an entertaining evening.
As the Distortion Festival proves, when the sun shines so does Copenhagen...and when the sun sets, the fun really begins (even on a Thursday night). Thank goodness for the weekend...and the Distortion Festival in Vesterbro.
On Thursday, the annual Copenhagen Distortion Festival hits Nørrebro. Last year it was a great evening, with the police even cooperating and closing down some streets to traffic until extremely late in the evening (as the music played on...). Tomorrow threatens to be even better - the weather looks to be just perfect, and the Festival gets more and more word of mouth and media attention every year. And it's good. Always. If you're into this sort of thing, at least occasionally.
On Friday the festival hits Vesterbro, and then on Saturday is the Final party. But there's something about a mid-week party that can be a welcome relief, even if only once in a while. And the area around Sankt Hans Torv is just the right size to have an intimately massive little happening.
There isn't really such a thing as a classic Copenhagen flea market ('Loppemarked', in Danish). But if there was, it would certainly not be the one found in from of the yellow wall surrounding Assistens Kirkegaard along Norrebrogade every Saturday morning for the next few months. But there's no mistaking that it is indeed a flea market.
Nørrebro, as an area of colourful characters and great cultural diversity, is hardly representative of what typically is found elsewhere around Copenhagen, not to mention in the rest of Denmark. It is therefore hardly a coincidence that Nørrebro's Saturday morning flea market really pulls out in an amazingly diverse cast of characters - both a sellers and as buyers.
As one of the major veins running outwards from the center of Copenhagen, Nørrebrogade is a prime location for such a market. There are no shortage of those perusing for treasures. From elderly people in electric carts purring along the bike paths, stopping occasionally to haggle for one item or another, to those systematically trolling through the tables, and plenty who just happen to be passing by.
It couldn't be easier to get a table a table for your goods, if you're so inclined. Simply show up at Norrebrogade 92 between 7.30 and 8.30 any Saturday for the next few months, plunk down 200 kroner, and a 4.5 meter space along the wall is all yours for the next few hours - until 15.00 in the afternoon to be precise. It's a surefire way to meet many of these colourful and amusing characters. So this is how your truly spent the first portion of Saturday, with literally a couple hours of sleep and barely staving off a hangover, thanks to a couple of enthusiastic friends who decided some time ago that they would make a day of it (and a pile of unwanted stuff in the corner of our apartment that was otherwise heading for the trash). In truth, we had a lot of fun.
displaying one's (former) personal taste in apparel...
Hidden treasure? An amusing little historical document from the 70's, known and beloved to many, available from a neighbouring stand...
the professional approach to running a flea market stand (though certainly not ours): endless tools and other household items...
...and our little stand - one day only! No reasonable (or unreasonable) offer turned down! (Incidently, the stuffed monkey never did sell, apparently destined for the girlfriend's nephew's giant pile of toys, after all...)
To many, Temple Bar on Nørrebrogade in Copenhagen is surely a dependable 'standby' kind of place, pretty much any night of the week (and especially on weekends). A place that is very much like an old - very old - comfortable (and rather ugly) sofa that you just can't bring yourself to throw out. In fact, Temple Bar is filled with ratty sofas and chairs upstairs that they really should bring themselves to throw out.
It is perhaps for this reason that year after year living here in Copenhagen, I have resisted the urge to frequent the place. In fact, until last week, I had never even set foot there. This was not because I doubted that it was a dependable place for having a drink and a chat with a friend or two. Rather, whenever it has come to finding a place to grab a beer in Norrebro, there was just always some place else that always pulled us in. Temple Bar just seemed like it would always be there when, eventually, it was needed. And so the years went by.
So I stumbled in there the other night (late afternoon, actually) with a friend. It's about what you'd expect. Smoking upstairs, along with a lot of ratty furniture and seriously neglected toilets - one with a partially kicked-in door allowing no privacy and a sink missing part of the sink. Yes, you read that right.
But it's cosy and if you went there enough, it is the kind of place where everybody might know your name. Or come to know it, in time.
Or not. To follow up the last post, this was the scene in the heart of Nørrebro last evening. The same place that continues to take a whacking in the media owing to all the so-called rioting, protesting and such.
On the ice rink at Blågårds Plads last night as I cycled by, I was attracted by the sound of reggae music, and the sight of families and children skating and playing on the ice. A DJ was playing at a small stage set up on one end of the rink, and bright spotlights illuminated the ice. It was a great atmosphere.
Of course, this was a stark contrast to the portrayal of an unsafe area of the city, out of control and in the grip of violent and out of control gangs and 'rioters' and the like.
Unsafe? Dangerous? Yeah, if you slip on the ice and manage to crack your head open, perhaps.
Don't believe a word about Nørrebro being out of control these past few days - anyone talking such talk is talking from their ass. Nothing more, nothing less (as I mentioned in the previous post).
Central Nørrebro is probably the most vibrant, lively, diverse and generally amusing area of the city to hang out, and a great place to live (even if Vesterbro remains my personal favourite...). The worst part is that around Denmark, those who rarely, if ever, have set foot in the area have been fed such a nonsensically different view over the past days and months from the media. But what can you do?
There has been a lot of talk about the violence around Nørrebro lately. It can be heard on the streets, behind closed doors and not least of all from the talking heads in the media. It is essentially nonsense.
There has been something of an 'uprising' in Nørrebro over the past days, though the reality is it's the same old crowd generally found hanging out somewhere around Stengade and Griffenfeldtsgade (and sometimes around Blågards Plads later in the night). The police have a pretty good beat on the area (it's like 3 small streets) since there's always always a few people lurking around looking 'unsavory' - though I would prefer to use the term 'bored'. It's a feature of every city of any size.
Speaking of bored, that is a fair description for the media in Copenhagen as well. It's forgivable - they've got a lot of print space and air time to fill, and some weeks there's just not a lot going on. So when something happens, like a loud protest in Nørrebro, packs of hungry journalists and photographers are quickly dispatched (sometimes they arrive even before the events have begun, in anticipation) and producers and editors greedily lick their lips knowing there will be plenty of tasty morsels with which to fill airwaves and column inches.
The latest round started a little over a week ago when a car was torched and a couple garbage containers were lit on fire. This may sound a bit disturbing, but seriously it was pretty tame - I happened to be cycling by the incident when the garbage container was on fire. I wasn't alone - plenty of pedestrians and cyclists were in the area. And as (unintentional) proof of how innocuous it was (and overblown in the media) - even in one of the photo published by one of the major newspapers in Denmark, Politiken, intended to show how crazy the situation, a young couple could be seen sauntering by theburning overturned garbage bin holding hands (apparently passing by on a evening walk). Yet if you heard or read the media coverage you'd imagine the street was ablaze half the night, and the situation out of control.
There is precisely one purpose that these fires are started (and cars are torched) - and that is to get the police to show up. It's basically the equivalent of seeing a frog and poking it with a stick to make it jump. The fun is knowing there will be reaction, and having the power to provoke it. Nothing more, nothing less - it's not about theft and violence, and it's not about the Muhammad cartoons though it is always easy to mention those in the same breath as the fires.
One also must understand that in the area of Nørrebro in which this typically happens (as is the situation in the rest of Copenhagen), the nature of the urban layout means it is a relatively simple exercise for the police to patrol and control - and maintain a heavy-handed handle on the situation (which also tends to provoke things further, it must be openly acknowledged).
They just place their vehicles along all the side streets, follow the herd of demonstrators ('rioters'), both in front and behind and that's about it. Yes, windows can potentially get smashed and garbage containers can be set alight, but nonetheless there's not really any place for the protester to run - anyone trying anything stupid tends to get picked up by police almost instantly. Being in the area when something is going down isn't much of an issue either - a short detour of about one street will generally allow you to steer clear around the whole situation, even at its worst. It's certainly not a war-zone.
And one last point about those 'torched' cars: if you ever park your car on Stengade, you're an idiot anyway - no sympathy from this quarter if it gets damaged or worse torched one day. Seriously, find a smarter place to park - choose another of the hundreds of other streets in the city, plenty of which are extremely close by...
Slightly sunken into one of the (opposing) corners of Sankt Hans Torv in Norrebro, KaffePlantagen (meaning 'the coffee plantation'...) is one of those place one hesitates to publicise - a place that is best when busy, but not too busy. Then again, it's a not exactly a hidden gem and that its not exactly unknown (at least to locals).
Aside from consistently producing a fine cup of coffee, what's special about Kaffe Plantagen is the comfortable efficiency of the interior design that has gotten it just about right - great for grabbing a quick java before perusing the fantastic little clothes shops of Elmegade or having a little pseudo-intellectual conversation with a friend or two, but also as a fine premises for those hoping to productively wile away a few solo study hours with a few books and a laptop, be it mid-week and mid-weekend. It's this last point that sets the place apart - and keeps it busy. It's not every cafe that one can enjoy hanging out on their own, whether to read, study, or just gaze out the window watching the often colourful passers-by.
"Excellent! No, more than excellent - the best coffee place in Copenhagen!", as my girlfriend, perhaps one of the biggest fans of the place, succinctly sums up the overall experience.
In all my years living in Copenhagen, until today I never noticed there was a Christmas tree market set up at Sankt Hans Torv at this time of year. The main streets of Vesterbro may be a little more festively decorated for December than Nørrebro, but it's nice to see a small sign of Christmas in this part of town...
Saturday night's Thai food experience took the prize. Ranees at Blågårdsplads in Nørrebro. If you're a fan of Thai food, write that name down. Then go there. Even while travelling in Thailand did I rarely manage to taste such deliciously picante Thai food. Naturally, being something of an amateur Phad Thai aficionado, I had to try Ranees take on that one. My dinner companions for the evening went for a couple of equally delicious curries. The Phad Thai was a plate of steaming fresh noodles, sprouts and spices along with five or six giant tiger shrimp, a pile of crush nuts and a wedge of lime - the last two items being necessary to even be considered as a serious Phad Thai. And indeed, it had just the right taste and texture on the tongue. I've previously raved about the deserving Phad Thai at Sweet Basil, but this one managed to top it. Not an easy feat, but it was the freshness of the ingredients that did it.
But the highlight of the night was actually the starter (pictured above, photo courtesy of aok.dk). Thankfully the waiter was not afraid to push us to order it (not that we were hard to convince...). Eight little bowls filled with nuts, dried shrimp, coconut flakes, fresh chili, ginger, onion and tiny chunks of chopped lime and a pile of leaves (I can't remember their name). It look strangely like nothing as it arrived, like some kind of 'inside' Thai joke being played on the unsuspecting. It was not. After taking a leaf and forming into a bowl-like shape, putting a bit of each ingredient inside, topping it off with a bit of the chutney-like sauce (if chutney was Thai...I know, I know, more detail would be nice but I'm not getting paid to write this, so I didn't figure out precisely what this sauce was) it's "ind i munden!", as our waiter helpfully explained ('into the mouth').
Wow!!
Snap, crackle, pop, that's a lot of flavour! An explosion of sweet, spicy, salty, and sour - especially spicy, be warned.
Don't be deceived by the ambiance at Ranees, which is admittedly basic (but something far more original than the typical Thai restaurant). Wooden tables, some nice pics and almost funky florescent lights on the walls. Yes, florescent lights. Because the food is so damn good, it really doesn't matter.
Ranees at Blågårdsplads. Go there. You won't be disappointed.
Cafe Tjili Pop (Ranzenzgade 28 in Nørrebro) is one of those place just off the radar that shouldn't be though it's probably a good thing that it is. It's located in a rather unlikely location, one not known for it's cafe's and nightlife. As a friend of mine remarked as we wandered in on Wednesday evening, "I hadn't even considered that there could be an interesting place in this part of town". Indeed, there very much is.
Actually,, its not an entirely fair charge to make against the area - given that it's within walking distance or a very short bike ride from the central part of Nørrebro (Blågårdsgade and Sankt Hans Torv), an area very well known for its numerous cafes.
I must confess it's been at least a couple years, perhaps even longer, since I've dropped by. That is going to change. Finding these sorts of independent places with a kind of underground feel is both a worthwhile and a challenging pursuit. Frankly, there isn't a whole lot of them in Copenhagen - but there are a few around.
If you're going to check the place out, I suggest dropping by on Wednesday when it's singer/songwriter night, or on Friday or Saturday when the place is open late. Of course, with a decent selection of beers, really any evening will do just fine. Just tuck yourself into one of the cozy corners, be open to chatting with others - there isn't a load of space - and enjoy.
It's not only Denmark. Headscarves have become quite a political issue around Europe. In France, they're banned in public schools.
Yet the idea of passing such laws, in Denmark and elsewhere, just don't quite seem right. It smacks of intolerance and ignorance, and issues like censorship come to mind as not exactly unrelated ones.
A few points.
First, a bit about the comment, contributed helpfully by the leader of the Danish Racist Party Dansk Folkeparti, that Muslim headscarves should be banned in Denmark.
Um, why?
Yes, we all understand that in many Muslim countries the rights of women have been thoroughly and appallingly trampled on. However in Denmark, this is quite simply not the case.
It's like banning pink button shirts because somewhere in the world pink button shirts are worn by oppressed people. In short, it's a pretty unprogressive viewpoint to take.
This is a far more sensitive issue then the previous one, and I'm going to take a qualified position on this one that many will probably disagree with. Though I intensely dislike the idea of a woman feeling there is a need for them to cover her face for any religious or cultural reasons, I haven't seen the evidence to demonstrate that such a covered woman couldn't nonetheless be a successful and competent childcare worker. I'm doubtful that it exists.
Still, this has been the conclusion of Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has clearly stated that children should be able to see the faces of those who take care of them, and thus childcare workers in Denmark should not wear burqas.
As I said, I'm not entirely sure about the merits of that one, though there may well be something to it.
Because I can't help but think that having young children in contact with such a person is a clear acknowledgment that every person in the world is different, and in countless ways. It might just help them as they grow older and are truly confronted by just what this really means.
This seems more progressive then simply trying to create an environment as neutral, though entirely unrepresentative, as possible. And given that a fair number of burqa-wearing women can be seen walking the streets of Denmark everyday, for example around Nørrebro in Copenhagen, well, it really is a reality that is pretty close to home.
Still, I acknowledge that I may have to revisit my views on this one in the future.
And in the meantime, I'd just love to see someone like Kate Moss popularise some sort of muslim-inspired headscarf or burqa for all occasions that suddenly became the rage for young western women everywhere to wear anytime they felt like it. She could be just the one to do it, judging by the current success of her TopShop line of fashion.
Never been to Copenhagen and wondering what it's like? Or maybe you're from here, and occasionally have to explain how it is to friends who aren't? Sometimes a picture (or a mural, in this case) really is worth a thousand words. Note the (real-life) not exactly blue sky above the building...yes, this is indeed Copenhagen!
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