Living in Law and Order; Chatting with P G
Not only is living in New York like living in the middle of an ongoing movie – the last nights I have found myself living in an ongoing TV production.
An episode of Law and Order (one of NBC’s most popular shows) is being recorded in the huge emtpy lot next to my house in Harlem. They have brought lots of police cars and weird trash here – and I wonder what the story is about, because the location really looks strange with all its rubbish!
The team has arranged spotlights from cranes that are as higher than the houses here, and two huge lamps were illuminating the two ruins next to the building where I live tonight. It looks strange to see crowds of white people hanging out in the sidewalks in my block at 4AM in the morning…
Recent activities:
• baby-sitting Noah, 3 years old, in Brooklyn (we read Heffaklumpen)
• walking around in a) Williamsburg b) Harlem with my visiting friends Anders&Maskåll (who were in New York for an extended honey-week!).
(If you didn’t know – I arrange walking tours in Hassidic and Hipster Williamsburg for all interested, particularly for Swedish friends who have read OK, Amen by Nina Solomin.)
• having lunch with a community of Swedish businessmen and -women, through the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce in New York.
Guest speaker: no-one less than P G Gyllenhammar, probably corporate Sweden’s most well-known profile (for those of you who don’t know: he worked for Volvo for 23 years and was its CEO for many years – more info here: Gyllenhammar back in Swedish business and here: Välkommen hem, Gyllenhammar).
I introduced myself to Mr Gyllenhammar and said I was a journalist – and he immediately told me he never gives interviews, so I didn’t even get the chance to ask for one.
I was actually relieved – if he would have wanted to be interviewed, I would have had to act upon it (i e, by trying to pitch the story overnight). If he truly doesn’t give interviews normally, it would have been easy to sell - but the pressure level would have increased, and I would have died trying to come up with smart and unique questions. Mission impossible.
(But I have to add, I once did a pretty good profile for Svenska Dagbladet on Bo Ekman, who was P G’s right hand in the 70’s.)
Even less did I get the chance to suggest they could employ me as his protegée Christina Stenbeck’s personal assistant! Wouldn’t that be the perfect job for me?! 
As everyone else, I am for sale if only the price is right (=very high).
/Gunilla
