had to finish watching movies,” he said. “Jurgen is a film censor,” said his dinner companion, also sincerely. Jurgen reassured me. “We’re only looking for violence,” he said. So Showgirls was okay, but Hamlet was out? “No, no, I don’t believe anything should be censored,” said the censor. “I’m looking for real violence—porno films where women are actually injured. And child pornography.” Wasn’t that more a matter for the police? And it was. But for some reason these moviemakers needed to be censored as well as arrested. I’m sure I received a logical explanation. And I’m sure I don’t remember it. This is, after all, a country that maintains an entire national state-supported religion, complete with bishops, a synod, and pastors in every parish, and only 5 percent of the population goes to church. There are huge, splendid, empty, idle houses of worship everywhere. I went to the Storkyrka (Great Church) behind the royal palace. The Storkyrka was consecrated in 1306. It was the site of coronations until 1907, when the Swedish monarchy decided that formal coronations were too la-di-da. Inside is a very big statue of St. George killing the dragon. This was carved from oak by Bernt Notke in 1489 in a manner extremely lifelike, right down to a well-whittled horse anus. (One can only speculate about the shoptalk among the apprentice sculptors to whom this task no doubt fell.) The dragon is rather more lifelike than necessary: a scale-armored, talon-freighted, fang-brandishing spiny reptoid frozen in midslither. It is a fine reminder of the high artistic skills of the Nordic Renaissance and also of Sweden’s strict attitude about drugs. Only 4 percent of Swedish high-school students have tried drugs even once, although the percentage may have been higher in 1489. The only indication that the Storkyrka was used, other than by us tourists, was a little red table and six or eight wee plastic chairs. A day-care center had been set up right beneath the place where St. George’s lance was popping dragon slime, and you can hardly blame the tots if they never set foot in a church again. But the dragon isn’t real. It isn’t consequential. It isn’t in earnest, and Sweden is an earnest country. A new storm sewer was being dug in Stockholm’s Kungstradgarden. Posters had been mounted around the site showing the engineer’s drawings and giving details of the costs, building technique, and future benefits of this large drain. At Stockholm’s tourist-information center, a main feature is the Swedish Institute, “a government-financed foundation established to disseminate information about Sweden.” Picture a tourist-info
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