Swedish gloom
[Soundtrack]
M. Ward — Undertaker.mp3
More Swedish significance today. Last Saturday I attended a wedding at San Francisco’s Swedish American Hall, a bizarre little auditorium over Café Du Nord constructed after the 1906 earthquake with many Scandinavian touches. I’d only been there one other time, to see M. Ward touring behind “Transfiguration Of Vincent,” a loose song cycle about the wasting death of a close friend dieing young. So here were these young people joyously celebrating their past & future life together with close friends and family, but the whole reception I had reminders of songs about life’s fragility running through my head. The only thing linking it together was the room itself.
The Swedish American Hall web site offers a brief history of the building. The original 1875 bylaws for the club behind its construction, The San Francisco Swedish Society, intriguingly ranks illness death above celebrations and entertainment: "It shall be the purpose and object of this society to assist the sick and bury its deceased members, to work for the maintenance of a choir, and to give literary and social entertainments.” Why was this? Was there a plague at the time? Or was there just something preternaturally gloomy about the founders of the SF Swedish Society?
I love it when halls provide histories of themselves — who played there, whose life was celebrated there, how was this space used for before it became what it is, why did the architects think it was a good idea to build what they did. I have no idea, for example, who lived in my 104-year old house. Shouldn’t it be a societal requirement for every building to keep a log?
The wedding — originally planned as an outside affair but moved inside to avoid the rain — was great fun. For another day, life triumphed over gloom despite gloom’s best efforts.
