LAST MANGO IN PARIS

This weekend, I was in Oslo, courtesy of a lovely birthday present from my dear friend, Iram Quraishi. Two events on the trip were fascinating.

Firstly, I found myself in Vigeland Park, Oslo’s famous landmark which features the sculptures of Gustav Vigeland. I had been here before, on a trip when I dj’ed in Oslo over ten years ago. It’s funny how much we change. A decade ago, I saw nothing sinister in Vigeland’s sculptures. I found them moving and beautiful, to the point of tears. Then again, I was looking at them with the eyes of a fresh faced young boy who had been seduced by two Norwegian beauties the night before, but that’s another story. On this visit, it was difficult not to see fascism in Vigeland’s sculptures, which almost presciently predicted events like Auschwitz. It was hard not to see Hitler’s Aryan master race in these sculptures. Iram’s sister-in-law Claudia and I pondered on the Masonic symbolism of Vigeland’s park, and discussed a potential worldview where all of us are puppets, pulled by the strings of a hidden minority of power-brokers. The poet Paradox, who is recovering from a bout of gangrene contracted in a fall in South America, expresses these theories well here.

My time in Vigeland park somehow made the second thing I experienced more poignant.

Iram’s family and I were standing on a street corner. Down the road, we observed the spectacle of a paralytic man struggle down the street, bedecked in a flowery dress – and wearing skis. He was accompanied by friends, and all of them laughed. The man was incredibly drunk, and probably would have found it difficult enough to walk, let alone walk with skis. Slowly he shuffled towards as.

As he passed me, he said something to me. He appeared quite friendly, and offered me his hand to shake, which I did. Iram’s niece Sophia appeared shocked. “Do you know what he just said to you?” she asked. “He said, ‘Ah, look. We have a nigger here!’”