Nordic Countries

Shout Out Louds

Nordic Express at Aamanns-Copenhagen

The city's only Danish restaurant offers less than a complete dinner

Aquavit. What Is It?

This glass of aquavit, from Danish restaurant Aamanns-Copenhagen, is flavored with toasted rye bread. Aquavit (or akvavit) is a flavored liquor beloved of Scandinavians, and served in funny little glasses. Derived from the Latin aqua vitae, it means "water of life."

Bon! Asian Spice Cafe Opens in Bushwick and IHOP Opens in West Village

Bushwick got an Asian fusion restaurant, Bon! Asian Spice Cafe. The menu features gyoza, yakisoba ramen noodles, pork belly buns, and other dishes that blend ingredients from all over Asia. They also offer Asian style brunch with entrees like bulgogi omelets and waffles with Japanese-style fried chi ... More >>

Nasum

Blackface, Genital Mutilation, and Cake Cutting in Sweden! Do They Add Up to Racism, Sexism, or Art?

Oh, my. We're not sure how we missed this story out of Sweden last week (which makes that country's Girl With The Dragon Tattoo read like Cinderella in comparison), but thanks to Channing Kennedy and Jorge Rivas at Color Lines, it came screaming at us this Monday morning. So here's what appears to ... More >>

Lea DeLaria In Bjork's Swan Dress! Great Photo!

The other day, I told you about actress/singer Lea DeLaria's new project -- playing an imaginary figure of indeterminate gender who sings "Bali Hai" while wearing a facsimile of Björk's famous swan dress, in a play called Out of Iceland.

Imaginary "Troll" Sings "Bali Hai" In Icelandic While Wearing Bjork's Swan Dress!

You remember the famed swan dress that Bjork wore at the Oscars, which caused so much furor and chatter it was like the original Angelina's leg. Well, singer/comic/actor Lea DeLaria is wearing a facsimile of it in a new play called Out of Iceland.

Swedish Man Lives After Being Stuck In His Car For Months

Image Via​New Yorkers lucked out this year with a pretty low-key winter. After last year's horrible mess of a season, mother nature gifted us with a mostly snowless couple of months so far. But you know who got absolutely rocked with snow? Sweden. So much so, that a man was recently discovered ... More >>

Sweden Allows Citizens to Run Its Official Twitter Account

​Sweden has started a new policy of allowing one of its citizens to take over its official Twitter account every week. The policy is basically a marketing move, as expressed by the CEO of the country's tourism agency in The Next Web's writeup: "No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its peo ... More >>

What Swedes Really Do With Their Used Candy Canes

The window display of the Swedish candy canes called polkagrisar I like to keep careful track of what goes on at Sockerbit, the Swedish candy store on Christopher Street. The bins of candy form an anatomy of the northern European sweet tooth, and the stock has been expanded to include other Swedis ... More >>

Moose Learns Valuable Lesson About Moderation

​It's been a while since our last good, old-fashioned adorable animal in trouble post, but we think this charming tale about a moose that got drunk on a few too many fermented apples in Sweden and then became lodged in an apple tree was worth waiting for. The photos are simply precious! Also, ... More >>

IKEA Is Hosting a Nordic Crayfish Party. Put On Those Elastic Pants!

WikipediaGet ready to suck some crayfish head juice!​Summertime eating might mean burgers and Popsicles to us Americans, but over in Sweden, a highlight of summer eating is the kräftskiva, or crayfish party, when the fair Nordic races consume bucketfuls of the bright red crustaceans, swilling ... More >>

Westboro Baptist Church Threatens to Picket Norway Funerals

​The Westboro Baptist Church, the Kansas-based organization which spends its days picketing the funerals of soldiers and insisting that "God Hates Fags," has released a statement saying that it plans to protest the funerals of those killed in the July attacks in Norway.

Rightbloggers Discover the Real Victims of Norway Mass Murderer Breivik: Themselves

As you probably heard, someone bombed downtown Oslo, Norway and shot up kids in nearby Utoya, killing 93 people. it turns out that the suspect is not a jihadist but an anti-jihadist -- Anders Behring Breivik, a real deport-them-all, Norway-for-the-Norwegians type who denounced "multiculturalism," "p ... More >>

Anders Behring Breivik Now Says He Collaborated With Extremist Cells

​Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old man who has confessed to killing at least 94 people, including many young people, in two coordinated attacks in Norway on Friday -- calling the actions "atrocious but necessary," according to his racist, anti-Islam, Christian fundamentalist ideology -- ... More >>

Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Killer: Attacks Were "Atrocious, But Necessary"

​Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right Christian extremist who killed at least 93 people in two coordinated attacks in Norway yesterday, has admitted to his crimes and says he acted alone. He has commented via a lawyer, Geir Lippestad: "He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but ... More >>

SWEDISH SOUND SYSTEM

Swing, hip-hop, and the kitchen sink

Hear the Mountain Goats' Score to Sir Arne's Treasure

Sir Arne's Treasure still via sixmartinis and the seventh art​When, in December, Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle announced that he'd be doing a live score for a screening of the silent 1919 Swedish film Sir Arne's Treasure at the San Francisco Film Society, he described his plan like so ... More >>

AQ Kafé Now Peddling Lucia Buns for St. Lucy's Day

Lauren Shockey​ Today, December 13, is Saint Lucy's Day, the Church feast day celebrated primarily throughout the Nordic countries, most notably in Sweden. Flaxen haired girls wearing white and perching a crown of candles on their heads might be the most recognizable image of the holiday, bu ... More >>

Has-Beens Lip-synching to "Let It Be" (Video Below)

​Leave it to Norway. They have united every single fame-challenged celebrity whoever lived, and who wasn't busy at the autograph convention I recently went to in Parsippany, and shot them synching to "Let It Be" as a promo for some TV show or the other. Stick with this amazing clip and you'l ... More >>

Wanna Buy a Lung? Making a Mockery of Organ Trafficking in Inhale

Iceland Is a Pretty Awesome Place to Live if You're a Woman; New York Still Up for Debate

​According to the World Economic Forum's latest Global Gender Gap report, which rates things like economic opportunities, education, health and survival, and political empowerment between men and women, the place you really want to live as a woman is...Iceland! Or maybe Norway or Finland.

Sweden's High Court to Worshippers of Orgasm God: "Where Do You Get Off?"

​The Madonna of the Orgasm cannot even get a quickie with Sweden's highest court. Struggling to be recognized as a faith community in Sweden, the organization was rejected again this week by The Man, who said "there were no serious errors in the appeal court's judgement and the case did not in ... More >>

Copenhagen Gets a Cocktail Culture; South Africa Hopes Wine Can Bridge a Racial Divide

​Beer-happy Copenhagen is getting its own cocktail culture, with several serious cocktail bars cropping up in recent years, and the debut of Copenhagen Cocktail Club, a group of bartenders dedicated to "promoting and developing the art of drink and bar and cocktail culture in Denmark and acros ... More >>

The World Wife Carrying Championship Exists, Is Awesome

​Have you heard of this "sport" called wife carrying? Today was the World Championship. Apparently it is a thing! A man runs around carrying a woman, like cave-people, and they measure to see who can make Betty Friedan spin around in her grave fastest. In all super-seriousness, though, it's ju ... More >>

Milk is Good for You, According to New Dairy Council-Backed Study. Lewis Black is not so Sure. (Video NSFW Due to Potty-Mouth)

"I'm so mad I could lactate!"​A new study out of Sweden suggests that eating dairy could benefit heart health by lowering blood pressure and reducing cholesterol levels, thus cutting the risk of having a heart attack. It should be noted, however, that the study was funded in part by the Nation ... More >>

SCANDINAVIANS DO IT SUBTLER

Two folk acts, zero amnesty

'Gowanus Jazz Festival'

Beach House

Eyjafjallajokull Continues to Piss Off Everybody Except Icelanders

​Remember that movie Joe Versus the Volcano? It wasn't very good, but it featured a young(er) Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan before her lips got all Howard-the-Duck, and it was about a guy who thinks he's dying and offers to jump into a live volcano to appease the volcano gods. And even though that mo ... More >>

Introducing ... A Humorous Look at Something Sad

Sad! Happy! Sad. Happy. Oof. ​Sometimes we hear something that's really quite sad--tragic, even--yet instead of making us feel depressed or ache for humanity or get out and do some charity work, it makes us laugh. And we feel bad about that. One time our teacher even yelled at us for laughing ... More >>

SWEDISH DELIGHT

Jazz-electro-pop from a Scandinavian songbird

Hammerfall

Serena Maneesh

SNOW DAY

Get psyched for winter

SONIC BOON

Catch 12 nonstop hours of new music

GLOBE-TROTTER

A palm tree grows in Norway

Doggy-Style

Forget the sidewalk carts; these franks cater to you

Return to Arable Land

Nowhere men from Sweden and Italy daydream of a utopia where nothing new makes sense

Altered State

The late Edward Said weighs ideas and action; neocon Francis Fukuyama blasts Bush

Music

Hellspawn Freeze Over

Swedes Stay Put for Satan

The Stockholm Syndrome

Iceland Cometh

The Summer of Love

The Women's Soccer Team Swept the U.S. Public Off Its Feet. What Happens Now That the Affair Is Over?

Devil's Advocate