Dreamdayproject Sneaks Backstage to Meet Celso Piña

Every dreamday has a different story. Sometimes I have been very humble in my approach when trying to capture another dreamday to my collection. Other times I have decided to withdraw my question to avoid an uncomfortable situation. But there has also been times when I have done the opposite and when I have played my dreamday cards with unforeseen skills and strategy. When nothing could stop me from reaching my goal; To conquer yet another dreamday.


My last story about Leif Elggren made me remember this day in Monterrey, Mexico, almost exactly three years ago. But the story behind it began a few months earlier, on the night of El Grito, the 16th of September 2005. I was sitting in the backseat of a car going to a birthday party with my new found friend and colleague Katy, and her boyfriend Carlos. This was almost a year after I had bought my accordion in Warszaw and I was very excited by any accordion music. I had just arrived to Monterrey about a week earlier and this was my first visit in a long row to the country.

While cruising down the streets of Monterrey this night, looking at all the people that were out celebrating Mexico´s independency, I suddenly heard a song on the radio. And I was immediately thrown into a music video, where the people and the buildings that we passed, were like scenes from this song. Or maybe it was the other way around. But there I was, right in the middle of it all. I was very far away from home, but still everything I saw just made perfect sense in that moment. It almost felt familar. I leant over to the front seat and asked who was singing. He is called Celso Piña and he is from Monterrey, Katy says. "Piña" as in Pineapple, she adds. "Celso Pineapple" I thought, it sounded nice...

And in that moment I knew that Monterrey was filled with many surprises waiting to be discovered.

After that night, Celso Piña´s music was the soundrack to many of my experiences in Monterrey. I listened to him on the subway to work in the mornings and in Katy´s car whenever I could. And through the music and the lyrics I felt I got closer to a culture very different from mine.



I ended up staying in Monterrey for almost five months. And by the time I was about to leave I was happy with everything except for the fact that I neither got to meet, nor see Celso Piña playing. I had to meet him before leaving! But how?



I spent my spare time visiting places like Café Nuevo Brazil, reading short-stories and thinking of a plan. I had almost given up when one day something unbelievable happened. I heard a rumour that Celso Piña was to perform on the main square in Monterrey; the Macro Plaza, just a few days before my departure. Could the timing be better? The circle was to be completed...



I asked my friend Roberto to come with me on the big day. We met up early and spent the day visiting markets and eating tacos, preparing ourselves for the big night. I had my video camera squeezed into my litte bag, just in case a dreamday question would pop up at some point.



In the late afternoon we headed for Macro Plaza. The concert was outdoors with some other bands playing as well, but of course we were mostly interested in Celso Piña. The concert was good, except for a big cowboy hat (of course) that was in my way most of the time. (you can see it in the picture below). But I must also say, without putting any blame on the hat, that the concert was not exceptional in any sense. Celso Piña had filled a much more important purpose in my life through my headphones on my way to work, than he did at Macro Plaza. But I guess I needed to see it myself to discover that.



When the concert was over, or so we thought anyway, we took a short walk around the square. We passed the stage and the tents and were just about to leave. But then an idea came up, as they always do, when you least expect it. Roberto, my dreamday camera man of Monterrey, was there. And so was the film camera, along with my dreamday question and most importantly; Celso Piña, somewhere on the Macro Plaza.

It was obvious what had to be done.

I walked up to one of the guards by the fence to the stage. I did not know exactly what to say but I started asking something about Celso Piña and where he was and if the concert was over yet. I chatted with him for a little bit and then I finally said: Well, you see, I have come all the way from Sweden to interview Celso Piña. I work for a magazine. You have to let me in! The guard shook his head.

But I wasn´t giving up that easily. We continued walking down along the fence and just a few meters later we walked into another guard. I told him the same story, maybe with even a little bit more empathy than the first time. He looked nice and smiled to me. I did not need to persuade him any further.

And a few seconds later he opened the gate to me. But only you, he said, your friend has to stay outside. Roberto told me to go anyway and I ran over to one of the small tents. I walked into a man from Piedras Negras and told him I was going to interview Celso Piña but that my camera man was stuck outside. He went with me to the fence and shortly after Roberto was in there as well.

We looked around for Celso Piña and there he was, just infront of us, coming down from the stage! I went up to him and in my broken Spanish I tell him I came from Sweden to interview him. I have to perform another song,he said, but you just wait here, and I will be with you in a second.

He went up on stage and there we were, me and Roberto, backstage! We looked around and noticed a couple of camera men and journalists looking at us. We waited a bit and then when Celso got off stage for the second time, Dreamdayproject could finally get down to business...



Celso Piña treated us as nicely as any of the other professional journalists. I asked him about the music he listens to and where he gets inspiration to his songs. And after some small talk I could finally ask what I really wanted to know:

-Como seria un dia de un ensueño, un dia perfecto, para usted?

He took the dreamday question as seriously as any other question and replies:

-Un dia perfecto es un dia normal!

After all the hassle, crossing fences and getting past security guards to reach Celso Piña, it was a relief to find out that even for him, a perfect day was just a normal day... Continue Reading

How to be a Dreamday Worker - Part 2 (Featuring Leif Elggren)

My last post ended with the poem Ithaca written by Konstantinos Kavafis. The poem has been a great source of strength in my life as a dreamday worker and can be seen as the first lesson in this introduction on how to become a dreamday worker.


To me Ithaca has been a constant reminder on how to keep my own dreams alive and to let them go when necessary in preference for living and experiencing life. It is about keeping that dream alive in the same time as you also let it go. But it is not about forgetting the dream at all. It is about finding it again, unexpectedly, with a new meaning.

In August, almost six months ago, I got an impuls to write an email to a Swedish artist. His name is Leif Elggren. I hope he doesn´t mind me telling this story. I had interviewed him over the phone a couple of years ago for my thesis in museum studies. My question to him back then was what he, as a living and contemporary artist, would like a contemporary art museum to be like. This time around I had a completely different question and with a different purpose.

This day in August I was about to write an email to my friend Linda. When I wrote the first letter in her email address, the address to Leif came up in the yahoo window instead. In that second I got an impuls and followed it.

Hej Leif!

Jag hade dig i min kontaktlista sedan min uppsats som jag skrev för ett par år sedan.
Jag hoppas jag inte stör dig med det här mejlet, men jag skulle bara vilja fråga om du har lust att medverka i mitt lilla Drömdagsprojekt. Jag har det under uppbyggnad men håller ständigt på att samla in olika människors drömdagar och jag skulle tycka att det vore intressant att höra även din.( det går bra att vara anonym också om du vill...)

Det går bra att läsa mer på www.dreamdayproject.blogspot.com,

eller kolla på fler filmsnuttar på www.youtube.com/dreamdayproject

Med vänliga hälsningar!

Krystallia



It took a few weeks, but then I got a reply...

Hej!
Tack!
Sorry för sent svar!
Vill gärna vara med!
Superprojekt!
Bästa!
L


I was of course thrilled by his reply and the fact that he wanted to participate. In the same time I also got a little worried. How would this actually happen? Would he send his dreamday to me by email? Would he maybe make a video recording of himself and send it to me? I doubted it.

I decided to write a reply and ask him if he would like to meet me for an interview.

Hej igen!

Jag kom på en annan idé! Det skulle vara kul att ses och kanske göra en dreamdayintervju med dig på plats! För när jag tänker på det så varje gång när jag samlat in drömdagar så har det varit personer som jag träffat direkt. Det blir ju mer personligt och roligare!

Om du inte har något emot det så skulle jag gärna träffa dig och få möjlighet att ställa frågan då. Om du har tid och möjlighet så skulle jag kanske kunna möta dig i Stockholm någon gång?

Jag såg att du skulle ställa ut på Mors Mössa i Gbg förresten, kul!

Trevlig helg!

Hälsar,
Krystallia

He was positive and I told him to let him know next time I was going to go Stockholm so that we could set up a "dreamday date".

I went to Stockholm two or three times after that. The first time I got an impuls to write to him the same morning and asked if we could meet up. Unfortunately it was too short notice and we never managed to meet. The second time I did not even write to him. Maybe I was afraid to actually carry through with the plan. After that I wrote an email telling him I keep wanting to interview him but that the timing always seemed to be bad. He replied that I did not have to worry. We should take it as it comes, he said, and that it was a nice project that I was working on.

A couple of days ago I got an impuls (again!). This time I thought I would be able to catch up with him during a two hours stop over at Bromma Airport that I have next week on the 22nd of December. I thought I could probably make it by taking the bus from the airport to the central station, meeting him for like 10 min and then take the bus back to catch my flight. I wrote to him and suggested the time and date...

Hej Leif!

Hoppas allt är bra med dig!
Jag gör långsamt små framsteg med mina drömdagar och har fått ett par nya från lite olika kollegor här på Gotland. Det bästa med att jobba på andra jobb än med egna drömdagsjobb, är att man hamnar i så många lustiga situationer och möter en massa olika personligheter som man sedan kan kasta över en drömdags-fråga till....

Men nu har jag ändå bestämt mig för att sluta jobba med kulturadministration och bara göra egna små projekt och kanske ta lite olika ströjobb, så det ska jag göra i Mexico:-)

Jag flyttar dit i januari, till en stad som heter Puebla, ca 2 timmar från Mexico city. Jag hoppas det ger nya drömdagar och tid för att förverkliga många planer.

Men i alla roliga planer sitter en liten tagg i mitt drömdagshjärta och det är att jag inte fått möjlighet att fråga dig om din drömdag ännu, trots många mejl fram och tillbaka...

Jag har en kanske lite galen tanke och det är om man kanske skulle hinna ses mellan mina två flyg den 22 dececmber. Jag landar 16.35 på bromma och flyger till Gbg igen kl 18.40. Kanske skulle jag hinna in till typ centralen så skulle vi kunna ses där och ta en kaffe ihop? Jag måste kolla flygbussar och så, så det verkligen funkar, men skulle du ha tid att ses då en sväng? Eller har du kanske rest bort över julen då?

Annars har jag kanske kanske möjlighet att åka till Stockholm innan Mexico någon gång i början på januari. Eller så får du helt enkelt kasta dig på ett plan till Mexico;-)

Ha en bra dag!

Med vänliga hälsningar,
Krystallia


A few days later I got a reply saying the 22nd of December was fine with him.

Hej Krystallia!
Tack!
Mexico låter super!
Hade lite planer på att åka dit nu i januari tillsammans med ett gäng kollegor men det funkade tyvärr inte, så där fanns en chans tidigare faktiskt att vi skulle kunna ha mötts där :)
Kul!
22 december låter bra, om du verkligen hinner, men ingen stress!
Om inte detta funkar så blir där andra tillfällen.
Allt gott!
L


At first I was very excited. After all these emails back and forward over the last couple of months it was now time to meet at last! But then I started to hesitate...

Were all these emails that we had been writing to eachother going to lead to a 10 min chat in a rush at the central station in Stockholm? Was this it?

I went through the old emails that we had written to each other and realized how happy they had made me. That someone who was established in the art world would be encouraging to me and willing to participate in this little dreamday project. I realized that was what had really mattered to me.

And by now I was also pretty sure that Leif had already given the dreamday question some thought. Maybe one day in his life had been slightly different thanks to the question. Maybe he woke up one morning and did something he really wanted to do. Or maybe not. Nevertheless, I wrote a reply to Leif to cancel our meeting on the 22nd.

Hej Leif!

Gud så märkligt livet är!
Jag tror att det blir ett projekt i sig faktiskt att få en drömdag av dig:-)
Kanske ska jag skriva om det också:-)

Och kanske var det inte meningen att jag skulle få din drömdag heller, för det har varit en mening i sig självt och ett nöje bara att få skriva till dig så här fram och tillbaka... Kanske räckte det så här med just jakten på den här drömdagen. Kanske har du redan hunnit tänka på din drömdag också, och det är ju halva meningen med projektet, inte att jag nödvändigtvis måste få veta den heller...

Med detta tror jag vi gör bäst i att avstå från den 22 december, det blir för stressigt som du säger, jag hade bara hunnit fram och tillbaka med bussen i princip. Och på ett sätt så är jag faktiskt nöjd så här. Möts vi kanske i Mexico längre fram så är det nog meningen. Rätt tillfälle kommer nog, eller så gör det inte det.

Dessutom har jag startat både ett skoprojekt och ett "Huvva för en jul"-musikprojekt som du också kanske vill vara med i... Det tar kanske aldrig slut det här!

Jag önskar dig en riktigt God Jul och Ett Gott 2009!

Och tack för att du tagit dig till att svara på min mejl, det har betytt mycket!

Många hälsningar,
Krystallia


Meeting Leif Elggren or not was in the end not so important anymore. I got to talk to a stranger and sneak a question into his life. It could have a life changing effect for him, or maybe not. I guess I will never know. But my mission was once again completed. Continue Reading

How to be a Dreamday Worker - Part 1

It´s not easy to be a dreamday worker. So I´ve discovered throughout the years. At first my dreamday work was never even meant to be a project at all. It wasn´t until years later that I noticed I was actually working on something that could be called a "project". Maybe a documentary project, maybe an art project, it did not really matter, at least it was a "project" of some kind...


It was a bit of a relief I think to discover that. All those small "ticks" that I have had for many years, like asking everyone around me about their dreamday for example, were not just a silly side of my personality to be ashamed of and to be polished away as I grew older. Instead they were the fundamental key stones in a project that was existing even before I knew it myself.

Parallel to this I was buying one colourful notebook after the other, even started a blog a couple of times. But the problem was I had absolutely nothing to write about. Then one day I just realised the most obvious of all. I was going to write about my dreamday project. I was going to write about the process and let the project grow into something new and undefined. I am somewhere on that journey now.


Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.


Written by
Konstantinos P. Kavafis Continue Reading

Rock Star Goes to Cadaqués and Liza Minnelli Does not Like Planning!

A couple of days ago I went with my colleagues on a study trip to Stockholm to visit a couple of museums. After a long day with many interesting exhibits we went to Wasahof where we ended up having a nice and tasty dinner.


After a series of conversations with the waiter who in the end asked us if we don´t usually go out to restaurants very often, we finally got to order both a three course meny and wine to go with it. Lisa and I went for this one after another long discussion about Bearnaise sauce:

Teater Meny

Örtgratinerade ostron med citron,
Biff Minute med Bearnaisesås och pommes frites,
Vaniljglass med bärsås



During the dinner I was sitting next to my boss Göran ( to the left in the picture). We have worked together for a few months now but I hadn´t gotten close enough to him to ask him my dreamday question yet. Not untill now. However I must admit I had been curious to ask him since I secretly imagined him dreaming of being a full time rock star.

Before the first course was served and after half a glass of wine I took up my mobile phone and turned to Göran...



Göran did not seem to be at all bothered about the question. He answered directly with a dreamday that was well thought of and described into detail. To my surprise he did not mention anything about being a rock star in Nashville. Instead his dreamday would be spent in Cadaqués, Spain. He would start his day by taking a swim in the sea. On his way home he passes a bakery. After that he spends a pleasant day built up through nice and calm activities such as strolling the streets, people watching, wine drinking as well as a nice dinner in the evening.

After receiving this new contribution for my project I was once again struck by the different answers I had received from men and women during the building of this project. Or more specifically, the lack of answers that I have received from women. Lisa realized she was one of those women.

Do women need to think more before responding? Are we less aware of our dreams? Or are we not used to putting our own wishes first? I don´t want to generalize but it is an interesting coincidence. At least it explains the lack of women participating in the project.

Nevertheless, as the conversation continues, Lisa uses her alter ego, Liza Minnelli, to finally express her dreamday:



It turns out to be unpredictable and short. Liza (Lisa) would like to wake up to a long and unplanned Sunday. That is all.

That gave me another conclusion. Maybe it is not the dreams that separate us, but the way we express or strive for them? Maybe Lisa ends up in Cadaqués without even planning for it...

I went back to my hotel room. In bed I looked at the short video clips while throwing an eye on an old movie shown on TV. I felt happy and content. Another day had come to an end and another mission completed for a dreamday worker.

Continue Reading