Third article for WIRED

This article was going to be a triumph for me, for many different reasons. First, because it was about Sweden, pretty much. Second, because all the instagram/twitter/blog/facebook stalking I’ve done over the years came into handy. No one can say all of that was a waste of time any more. I went from a random Twitter post, to a Twitter account; then hunted up an Instagram account, which was all in Swedish, and figured out what blog I needed to follow, which was also all in Swedish, and found the email to get in contact with the girl on the cargo ship. I could not have been more proud, I could not imagined that I could ever, ever get a chance to write something like this!!

But then, when the story actually came out, I was super upset. I felt this weird sense of loss that I maybe shouldn’t try to explain. And I was also sad because some of my descriptions had been taken out of the story. Like, I had mentioned the Swedish midsummer beckoning for Kajsa to come home. And I had used the description “sunrise-bound” in the paragraph talking about the ship gliding over the Atlantic.

It was a little hard and mournful to see those killed off.

Here’s the article.

I actually have since also written my fourth article, but there was no big to-do about that. It was just a short little thing. I mean, I should have been really excited, because this one was in Greenland, so there was a chance I could talk to a Danish person. But I don’t know, that didn’t appeal too much for some reason.

Maybe I thought I was pushing my luck with too many stories from Scandinavia, even though this Greenland story was assigned to me. It wasn’t me that chased it down.

Well, I regret to say that I didn’t actually fulfill the original purpose of the Greenland story. I was supposed to find out: are big icebergs like the one described going to get stuck by villages and force evacuations from villages frequently from here on out, because of climate change? Or was this just a freak accident, due to some combination of the depth of the water, or the size of that iceberg, or the elevation of that island? No one that I spoke to actually knew. My interview-people were all researchers who have been to Greenland, and know a lot about glaciers and icebergs; but none of them had seen that particular iceberg, and they couldn’t say anything definite merely through looking at the pictures of it.

I contacted people in Denmark and Greenland, but they all got back to me too late. Or, they just told me, “no, can’t help,” and then when I emailed back, “do you know anyone who can help,” the reply was “unfortunately not.” Well.

In other news, I found out today from a lady called Therese Øvergård that my bristlecone pine film was not chosen to be played at the Fredrikstad animation festival. I thought it would because I had an idea that all student films are chosen! But I guess not. I got a similar email from Therese two years ago when I’d entered the film, “Who’s cutting down Yusuf’s trees?”. She always ends the email with, “Thank you for submitting your film!” I think you should leave off the exclamation points at moments like this. I’m going to check the YouTube stats. I give it 50-50 that no one from Norway has watched the film in the first place. Not to say if they’d watched it they would have picked it. But you at least would hope that they’d watch.

And this was the most carefully prepared animation I’d ever made. I was a little sad this morning. Good-bye to the bristlecone pine. It’s sunset-time.