"A" is for Awesome and ABBA as the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm officially opens this afternoon. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden

Euronews YouTube Channel video: Euronews reporter Valerie Zabriskie speaks with lucky Abba fan club members selected to get a sneak preview of the new museum in Stockholm. Uploaded May 5, 2013. http://youtu.be/xbDW3FdtEgM

"A" is for Awesome and ABBA and the new ABBA Museum in Stockholm, which officially opens today at 1600 Stockholm time/10 a.m. Eastern U.S. Monday night's gala premiere brought Anni-Frid, Benny and Björn together, cheered on by a select group of invitees from across Swedish society and the music industry, who are, in the end, just fans of the band like everyone else, and very excited that this amazing museum is FINALLY a reality; #abba, #AbbaMuseum, #ThankYouForTheMusic, @stockholm, @sweden

I could mention who some of these VIPs are and why they're important and why they're there,

but that's not worth spending the time it would take today to do that, and besides, TMI as I'm sometimes reminded by friends here in Hallandale Beach and elsewhere around the globe.

Plus, I've had a very clear idea of how this particular blog post would look ever since I was there in January, so trying to explain to you all who Carola or Sarah Dawn Finer are and why they are in the video below iis, well, just a losing proposition today.

Aftonbladet TV video: Här invigs ABBA-museet -Jonas Bilberg levererade livebilder från galaöppningen. 
May 6, 2013. http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article11311.ab

Aftonbladet TV video: Här inviger kändiseliten ABBA-museet  
7 maj 2013 00:12
http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article11311.ab

It's enough to know that it's logical that they were there.
Just go with it.

BBC-TV video

Abba museum in Stockholm celebrates Swedish pop group

7 May 2013 Last updated at 04:22 ET 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22431181

BBC-TV video

As the Abba museum prepares to open its doors in Stockholm, the BBC's Russell Trott takes a look inside.

6 May 2013 Last updated at 21:54 ET

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22429172

Aftonbladet TV: Nu öppnar ABBA-museet, Björn Ulvaeus: - "Kan visa det för barnbarnen med stolthet" 6 maj 2013 15:31
http://tv.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/musik/article11284.ab



SVT video: TV Abba-museet öppnades
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/article1203720.svt


NTDTV -ABBA Museum in Stockholm

Tickets for the much-discussed and anticipated museum that's full of innovative technology run about 195 SEK/ just under $30 U.S. for adults, and 50 SEK/$7.63 for children up to age 8, at today's current ratio of about 6.52 Krona to the dollar, more or less.

But fair warning, the museum in the beautiful Djurgården section of Stockholm WON'T take bills or coins, only electronic payments, because as the museum puts it loftily, "Vi har en dröm om ett kontantfritt samhälle, därför går det inte handla med mynt eller sedlar hos oss."
("We have a vision of a cashless society, therefore we don’t handle coins and bills." )

Yes, sorta like in the future as seen in Star Trek, but not quite, since there's a 5% discount with MasterCard.

Björn's explanation on why abba-museet doesn't take bills and coins, largely to prevent crime, has a great introduction that only a real genius like him could get away with saying in his Big Picture way

There was a time when bills and coins served their purpose. They replaced cumbersome barter and made trade between people and nations possible. But do they still serve this purpose? Do we really need cash? Or is it a fixed idea like with Scrooge McDuck? Have we lost the ability to see that coins and bills are mere symbols and that those symbols easily could be exchanged for others? Cards and smartphones today and who knows what in the future.

Read the rest of Björn's comments at http://www.abbathemuseum.com/cashless

Combining innovation, ideals, crime-fighting and Scrooge McDuck! 

Brilliant!!!

Dags för ABBA The Museum 
by Lars Epstein 
15:14, May 6, 2013
http://www.dn.se/blogg/epstein/2013/05/06/dags-for-abba-the-museum/

According to Lars Epstein's post yesterday, above, at his Stockholm-centric Epstein's STHLM blog at Dagens Nyheter, the museum is expecting about 217,000 visitors a year.

Yes, holograms...


ABBA Museum website:

In Swedish: http://www.abbathemuseum.com/

In English: http://www.abbathemuseum.com/en/

Here's the website of the ABBA Museum exhibit at Stockholm Arlanda Airport that I saw back in mid-January when I arrived for my nine-day trip in Stockholm, where I snapped some photos while waiting around for my luggage at the arrival carousel at Terminal 5, which was festooned with photos of... who else?
http://www.swedavia.se/arlanda/om-stockholm-arlanda-airport/om-flygplatsen/official-airport-of-abba-the-museum/

All original photos on this page by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved. Right-click photos to enlarge them.

For someone like me who has been a huge ABBA fan for more than two-thirds of my life, the  biggest ABBA fan that most people I've known have ever met, as small as this exhibit at the airport was, in looking at it and reflecting back on everything, it was hard to get over the fact that for so long, like millions of other fans, we fervently hoped that there'd be a museum some day that would be shaped along the lines of,,, well, just what they seem to have actually done: music plus heart -musik plus hjärta.

Like those other fans of the band, over the past 20 years I've given up counting how many interviews I'd seen with the band members, especially Benny and Bjorn, discussing the idea
of it, but quite naturally, being somewhat unsure of how to answer such a question without seeming pretentious.
But it IS a weird question, isn't it, when you really think about it?
Should there be a museum that people pay to get into that's all about you and three other people you've known for most of your life?
How do you answer that?

TheSpringOf74 YouTube Channel video: ABBA - Dancing Queen - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976, at the gala tribute to Sweden's King Carl XV1 Gustaf and future wife and Queen, Silvia Sommerlath, the night before their wedding. If I remember my ABBA history correctly, this was the first time the song had ever been performed in public in Sweden. http://youtu.be/33Yj5pbsXAs

Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this iconic song ever recorded on film.

Here are those January 10, 2013 photos I snapped at Arlanda before and after grabbing my luggage:
 

All original photos on this page by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Here's how they appear on the airport's official exhibit web page:
http://www.swedavia.se/arlanda/om-stockholm-arlanda-airport/om-flygplatsen/official-airport-of-abba-the-museum/

You can see more photos of this exhibit by going to Google Images using these words as your search terms: "Terminal 5, Arlanda, ABBA"

Here's the link to the ABBA Museum-related news videos that have run on TV4, most recent first, obviously, in Swedish, but many with lots of great video of the musem: http://www.tv4play.se/s%C3%B6k?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Abba

Obviously, there's a lot to see and watch!

Young Swedish school kids prance about in Halmstad in Easter costumes, while U.S. adults wait for the next great YouTube video sensation

TV4 -Nyheterna Halland: Påskfirande på Trollberget i Halmstad, April 21, 2011

http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyheterna_halland?title=paskfirande_pa_trollberget_i_halmstad&videoid=1607328&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se

This past week, in anticipation of Easter, TV4 News in Sweden's Halland bureau -not Hallandale Beach!- sent a crew to the town of Halmstad to watch a bunch of cute kids at school dressed up for Easter -the Superman outfit confuses me, I'll admit, but it's better than a Chade Henne Dolphins jersey.

As if on cue, the kids acted genuinely amusing, precious and droll the way that little kids can do for years before they get older, harder and bitter about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
But for now, they're just proving that the only thing cuter on TV than a bunny is a cute kid dressed up as a bunny, with or without floppy ears.

(Given the current state of corruption here, I'm going to guess that those smallish school buildings depicted in the video at the top would cost about $5 million a piece if built in Broward County!
You have to charge a lot for everyone to get their share of the payoffs!

BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
The Daily Pulp blog
School Board Construction Chief Tried to Give Contractor $100,000 Break
By Bob Norman, Thu., Apr. 21 2011 @ 3:54PM
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/04/school_board_tom_lindner.php)

I discovered this otherwise obscure video late Saturday night while perusing the TV4 Play website and watching some TV4 news segments while waiting for the videotape of last night's episode of Körslaget to be uploaded so I could watch it.
More on that infectious singing competition show later in the day.

Speaking of music, I expect to have some musical surprises here on the blog later in the day, including a triple dose of some video of Robyn performing that I know with certainty that most of you living outside of Sweden the past six months have NEVER seen.
In it, she is -shocker- AMAZING and AMUSING!
You will be very pleased!

Happy Easter/Glad påsk to the thoughtful and well-informed readers of the Hallandale Beach Blog all around the world!

-----

http://www.nyheterna.se/

http://www.tv4.se/

http://www.tv4play.se/

http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyheterna_halland

Photos of Halmstad, Halland's largest town, where this video was shot:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=172084