2002-04-25 Torsdag

• Put down some information on my upcoming trip to Israel.
• Seminar
• Spex

Today was the seminar for SAS 106 where we discussed the papers. Now, probably because I turned it in last, my paper was first in the collection, which means that we discussed it the longest. The teacher actually referred to it (offhandedly) as ``brilliantly written''! He had a number of interesting comments. Apparently Kosher/Halal slaughter was the subject of an important referendum in Switzerland. Lars Gustafsson is apparently famous, as the voice (``metaphorical megaphone'') of the Swedish Employers' Association. Apparently France has some `extreme' integration policy. Also noted was the issue of availability of housing for large families — existing apartments in Sweden assume a typical (small) Swedish family. The subject of inflating `multiculturalism' statistics in Sweden by inclusion of other nordic peoples came up — I had a paragraph about that (Finland, uniculturalism) but instead of expanding upon it, I had taken it out. Also I should have included comments about the Swedish presidency of the EU — while EU membership is on one hand affecting domestic Swedish policy, Sweden also used its presidency of the EU to contribute a Swedish influence to the EU policies. Finally, the teacher seemed to agree with my general thesis that the announcement in 1975 was an observation of the times ("we are multicultural!") rather than really a call for multiculturalism. He expressed this by quoting the philosopher Hegel, ``the owl of history flies at dusk,'' meaning, ``only at the end of a political epoch can we look back and see what it really meant.''

In the evening I went to the open dress rehersal of Nero Spex, to which Christina Dege had invited me. It was really neat. When I walked in at a little before 10 I thought I'd have the whole place to myself; there was only a semicircle of maybe six chairs set up, and the orchestra was practicing. I met a very nice girl named Charlette who was there because her boyfriend was playing the trumpet in the orchestra. But suddently a bunch more people came (mostly girlfriends of the guys in the all-male cast?) and Christina appeared and the Spex got under way. It was a pretty nice Spex, although the spexes are all sorting to seem the same. The main thing for me was the impression of being in a working theatre again, with people running around with duct tape and paint, securing scenery and making everything work. It gave me an intense longing feeling to be part of a theatre again.