Separating the perennials from non-perennials

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, home garden 2015a

Working with Lovage (known in Swedish as libbsticka). Lovage is a perennial herb with anti-inflammation properties, used in Sweden since the Medieval times by monks in apothecary concoctions. It also makes an excellent flavour enhancer to soups and stews, if not just tossed fresh into salads.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

It’s finally starting to get warmer outdoors. Spring will officially turn into summer in two weeks, so there is a lot to be done by nature in order to make that materialize in a convincing manner.

Outside of research in academia, I spend my time reading literature of various interests, these days interspersed with planting out some vegetables and flowers, that now seem grown up enough to have their feet plunked down in proper soil, from the plant nursery in which we have kept them the past few months. Continue reading “Separating the perennials from non-perennials” →

The Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg III

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The Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg III, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

The Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg III, at Eriksberg, awaiting her European Tour 2015.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

It is one of those days with low dark clouds, heavy with water, framed against azure skies. At dockside, the rigging of the Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg III stood sturdy against the winds. The jests and laughter of the crew onboard that were working towards preparing the Ship for her European Tour 2015, sounded a contrasting more upbeat tone compared to the darkened, more sombre oak of the Ship. Continue reading “The Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg III” →

Tea house and temple, Chengdu

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Served in the tea house, across the road from the Manjushri Monastery, Chengdu.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

The grounds of the Zhaojue Temple and the Manjushri Monastery are vast. In both temple grounds, one could easily make a small pilgrimage, pit stopping at the numerous separate buildings housing separate halls for different prayer or contemplation purposes. Continue reading “Tea house and temple, Chengdu” →

Calligraphy of Chengdu

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At Tianfu Square, the Sichuan Science and Technology Museum.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

As I walk along the street, my arms laden with books, a woman with a child in tow stop me to ask for directions, “Do you know how to get to Tianfu Square?” she said in Mandarin, without hint of any regional accent. “Yes, you go straight and then take a left up ahead. Just follow this road.” I replied. As soon as I turned my attention from her to continue walking back to the hotel, the realization hit me that I, having spent less than a week in Chengdu city, China, was giving directions to a native of the land. I smiled and hoped that Tianfu Square was really where she was headed. I might have heard wrong. Continue reading “Calligraphy of Chengdu” →

Swan Lake, Chengdu

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Swan Lake, at the Chengdu research base for giant panda breeding.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

The landscape of Chengdu, China, are said to have inspired poets from as far back as the Tang dynasty.

At Swan Lake, located within the compounds of the Chengdu panda research base, visitors will find more than pandas to sit and contemplate their hours. Some very hungry koi, a couple of black swans, and ducks, send ripples through the otherwise perfectly still cane coloured water reservoir. Continue reading “Swan Lake, Chengdu” →

Goya geosemiotics in Singapore

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The geosemiotics of Singapore. Towering plastic sculptures in the city’s heartland. Freud, Goya – or both? I would beg to differ on the perspective that Singaporeans have no sense of humour.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

They walked as a pair in complete synchrony in rhythm and sway. Finding a seat in the train, they sat comfortably, next to each other. After contemplating the signs hovering above the bright coloured plastic seats of the train for all of three seconds, the older of the two decided to take the seat marked for the disabled. She was after all in the elderly range in the context where she now found herself. The pair gestured animatedly as they talked while they sat for their journey. The younger of the two had at all times in hand a mobile phone where utmost attention was paid. If there was any sort of hierarchy between the pair, it was not much noticeable except that the older seemed to speak much more than the younger. And when the younger was too engrossed with the phone, the older of the two would peer over the younger’s shoulder, inquiring in expression of what it was that made the small screen so interesting to the younger. The younger did not seem to mind this intrusion of space, a normalized behaviour that had by now become an expectation. Continue reading “Goya geosemiotics in Singapore” →

In belle époque, the eve of 2015.

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In belle époque Dorsia, Gothenburg.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2015

“The conception of nature as fundamentally semiotic is certainly not new; what is new, rather, is the nearly unanimous repression of this conception by learned society.” [1]

Language fills in when semethic interaction fails. But here, I would say that language tries to fill in what human cognition fails to connect and decode in nature. Because language is more often metaphor for living than living in itself, what is described is at best, approximate. Continue reading “In belle époque, the eve of 2015.” →

Tjolöholm Christmas 2014

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By the Christmas tree in Tjolöholms Billiard Room.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, W Rose, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2014

It was a long, quiet walk up from among the large barns and horse carriage sheds where the guests parking lot was located, up the gravelled carriage way. With the rain and winds of Swedish west coast autumn, the weather felt as much Tudor as what greeted us up ahead the road, the Tjolöholm Slott. Except now, the short bushes around the garden were decked in the prettiest of Christmas lights, casting a dancing play of gold shadows on the building’s facade.

Up at the manor were two entrances. A front garden entrance, and a back garden / seafront facing entrance. Guests this evening were to enter through the doors facing the seafront, and for that, you needed to go around the manor. As we rounded the left corner to make a soon right, we were greeted with the view of the back garden, and framed as backdrop, the dark hues of a dramatic silvery sea. Continue reading “Tjolöholm Christmas 2014” →

Uppsala, Sweden

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Domkyrkan, Uppsala, Sweden.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro, Sweden 2014

$1: Uppsala is a beautiful city isn’t it? It’s the first time that I’m here. I’ve always heard about it being a university-city, because of its history and how it’s really the true capital of Sweden, housing the first of the Swedish universities, where Roman Catholicism had a role to play in it being so educationally forward. Continue reading “Uppsala, Sweden” →