Saturday, June 23, 2007

Is there more to Sven than meets the eye?

Sometimes I wonder if Sven is the surface level through which we experience him: the wholesome, boyish weatherman with a love for running, his family, and his goat, Minnesota to the core and sexually ambiguous. Is this Sven, or are there hidden depths to the man? Does he spend his mornings merely styling his hair, or does he face the mirror daily facing his own mortality? Does he wake ready to follow storms, or does he read Ted Hughes' poetry and quote Nietzsche? Does he struggle with on-camera interactions with rubes but carry an Oscar Wilde like wit off the camera? Is he obsessed with his perfect body and packaged appearance, or are there spiritual desires and Shakespearean complexity driving Sven? Does his blog reveal this simple good-natured fellow, or is that simply one aspect of the large man's complicated soul?

Sven seems to attend a lot of local community events. Is he a small-town fellow that enjoys the simply pleasures of a festival or parade, or does he shrewdly see these appearances as self-promotional work as Kare 11's ambassador to the community? What does it mean that his favorite movie is "Dr. Zhivago," his idols are Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, and that he likes Coldplay (or at least says all these things)? Don't some the photos on his blog not always reveal the constant smile on the pretty face and chiseled body, but a serious edginess and hard stare (or is this just the "I think I'm cool" look of a guy that obviously spends time and money making his hair look like that)?

And it must be hard to be in your mid-20s and already be a Minnesota Icon. Are his co-workers jealous? Do his competing meteorologists hold him in contempt?

If Sven is the sort of fellow to google himself, he may know this blog exists, and he may be embarrassed that a blog devoted to such brief poorly written inaninity as frugal consumerism and daytime TV also devotes energy to understanding him, a weatherman for whom we have clearly expressed mixed feelings.

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