"Love and Anarchy": A prank war at a Stockholm publishing house, with gay teases and Bjorn Mosten's penis

 

 Love and Anarchy appeared on my Netflix recommendations.  I clicked to see what it was about, forgetting that on Netflix, "click" means "start."  And since I was eating a bowl of Cheerios, I let it continue.

Scene 1: A harried middle-aged man and woman in a fancy house coordinating their calendars and telling their preteen son "No gaming at the breakfast table."  Dad is played by Johannes Bah Kuhnke, sweating below.

The woman chugs some espresso, talking about how this is her first day on the job. Teenage daughter comes in, not wearing the coat Dad bought for her.  This causes a crisis. Nuclear family squabbles.  Yawn. 

The woman goes upstairs, locks herself in the bathroom, and masturbates to porn on her cell phone.  Are we supposed to be titilated or judgmental, or are we to assume that she's having marital problems?  Everybody masturbates, but nobody admits that they do.

Scene 2: She is walking through a square in downtown Stockholm, at dusk or pre-dawn, checking her cell phone.  An older guy welcomes her to his publishing house.   He shows her to her new office, which is a disaster-area of books and manuscripts: the former senior editor was a bit of a hoarder.  

The older guy may be Ronni, the Publishing Company CEO, played by Bjorn Kjellman. He didn't have much of a physique in the 1990s, but he was rather well hung.

Scene 3: The woman -- Sofie -- giving a speech to the staff.  She's an independent consultant who saves publishing companies from bankruptcy by pushing them into the digital age, whether they like it or not. As she is ignoring a question about layoffs, a hot young guy comes in late and accidentally spills his drink over his crotch.  While he is dabbing at his bulge with a napkin, Sofie stares, mesmerized.

Scene 4: Sofie in her office, grimacing at the clutter.  Books --- ugh -- they might as well be stone tablets! As someone with a library of about 4,000 books, I am not amused.

 She piles some armloads of the relics outside her door to be trashed, and sees the hot young guy (Bjorn Mosten, top photo, left, and below) on a ladder drilling (and drilling...and drilling).  Receptionist tells her that he's Max, the IT Guy.  

"He doesn't usually do much drilling." 

 "Well, tell him to drill quietly!"

Max scoffs.  "How am I supposed to do my job?"  Receptionist doesn't answer; she's staring at his butt.  He storms out.

Max nude after the break

Melvin Mellblom: Sad Swedish-Thai model with muscles, a constantly changing hair color, and a backside. With Peebles and Algerian d*cks

 

I was drawn to Melvin Mellblom on the teen idol website because he posts a blurry muscle photo.  Who would do that?  

And because of his name.  When I was in high school, bullies used "Melvin" to disparage kids that they considered clumsy, awkward, or book-smart. And God help you if that was really your name!  

Most actors saddled with the name Melvin change it to Mel.  Google lists only three who didn't: Melvin van Peebles (left), Bonez Estivez, and Gregg. So why didn't this Mellblom fellow avoid the giggling and change it to Mel?

Melvin (really?  not Mel?) was born in Sweden, but moved to Thailand at age three, so he speaks Swedish, Thai, and English.   His Instagram and Facebook pages say that he is an actor, model, and social media influencer, but there are no acting roles listed on the IMDB, and only two on his professional resume:

The music video Without You (2016), by Marcus & Martinus, a Norwegian dance pop duo.  A boy wanders around some temples and historic sites in Thailand, being sad, crying, screaming, and looking at photos of his ex-girlfriend. 

Is it over? I just gotta know
Cause I'm reaching, but where did you go?
Tears are falling, while I'm calling
Can't make it alone, no

I don't like where this research is heading.

And a short, The Gold Star Kid (2017): A boy living in Thailand finds a 20 Euro note, and uses it to pay the restaurant bill of a soldier who reminds him of his dead father  (Algerian actor Rachid Oumakhlouf, nude after the break).

The IMDB says that the boy is played by Nils Bento Connault.

Melvin's Instagram and Facebook pages begin in 2017, with a lot of modeling photos.  He looks sad in most of them.  No girl-hugging, but he posts "Sorry boys, I like girls," to clear up any misconceptions.

Bummer. 

In February 2020, he posts to fans from bed.  Some guys comment on his hotness.  So, did you change your mind about liking boys, Mel Baby?

In April 2020, he poses wearing a Sylvester Stallone t-shirt, and gets purple hair.  A pride color?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit

Dad buys me a naked man for Christmas

 

Not a real naked man, of course.

When I was a kid in Rock Island, three local celebrities were praised in the media, advertized in bookstores, and assigned by teachers: 

1. Jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke

2. Poet Carl Sandburg

3. Sculptor Isabel Bloom.

Born Isabel Scherer in 1908, she grew up in Davenport, across the river in Iowa, and studied at Grant Wood's Stone City Art Colony, where she met and married fellow artist John Bloom.  In the 1950s, she began producing distinctive sculptures carved out of Mississippi River stone or molded of mud mixed with concrete.  

They were absolutely atrocious. Angels, fairies, hugging children, mothers hugging babies, cats, doves, bridal couples, snowmen, Santa Clauses, the most maudlin, sentimental, and heteronormative dreck ever imagined.

But everyone in the Quad Cities loved them.  My parents loved them.There were two or three in every room.  Dozens more crossed the state with us to give to our Indiana relatives for Christmas presents.  When an out-of-town friend visited, they always went home with a Isabel Bloom fairy or hugging child.

So I should have anticipated what would happen.

I had just discovered Greek art -- rather, statues of muscular Greek gods, so for Christmas in ninth grade, I  asked for "a statue."  

I meant a desk-sized statue of a naked god, like the Belvedere Apollo, but Dad said, "Sure -- let's go down to Isabel Bloom's, and you can pick out the one you want."

I couldn't tell him "No, no...I wanted a naked Greek god, not some stupid boy holding a frog!", so my boyfriend Dan and I had to fake-grin our way through a mid-December visit to the crowded studio in the Village of West Davenport, as we sorted through Angel with Wreath, Unconditional Love, Lovebirds, Boy with Flag...

Eventually Dan wandered off, but my torture continued: Girl with Pumpkin, Newlyweds, Boy Offering Girl Flowers, Baby in Crib, Sleeping Cat...  

Left: The grown-up Dan, hopefully.

Then Dan came running excitedly from a side studio.  "Hey, what about this one?"  It was a nude male figure, seated, his arms around his knees.   Stylized, not muscular, but a heck of a lot better than the other stuff.

"John's Thinker, " he read from the bottom. 

"Must be a statue of her husband," I said, carefully taking it from his hands.  It felt warm to the touch.  It was thrilling to think that I might be holding an exact likeness of a real naked man.

"No, she didn't do this statue, her husband did," Dad said, frowning.  "John Bloom.  It's not a real Isabel Bloom."

"That's ok.  It's different from the others.  I'll take it." 

He looked at me oddly.  "The others are lots nicer ones.  How about First Kiss?"  He held out a statue of a little boy kissing an embarrassed little girl on the cheek.

"I don't want any statues of girls."

"It's a boy and a girl.  That's like two statues for the price of one!"

Was he objecting to the price of John's Thinker?  No, First Kiss cost twice as much.  "This one's cheaper."  

Left: John and Isabel

"But..you could use it as a kind of model, you know.  When you want a girl to let you kiss her, just show her the statue."

"Gross!" Dan exclaimed.

"After you discover girls, I mean."

"John's Thinker, please," I said firmly.

Dad shrugged.  "Well, if you're sure that's the one you want.  But I don't know what you're going to do with it, Skeezix." 

 Later I figured out that he always called me Skeezix, after a character in the old Gasoline Alley comic strip, when I expressed same-sex desire, something bizarre and beyond imagining at the time.

I still have the statue.  And someone put an Isabel Bloom angel and cat on my father's grave.

More after the break

Jake Rory: The Shropshire Lad plays gay-vague on EastEnders, falls in love with Mercutio, gets naked in a third of his on-screen roles.

 

The media calls Jake Rory  a Shropshire Lad, reflecting the book of poetry by A.E. Housman, who was terrified of acknowledging his love for men:

Look not in my eyes, for fear
  They mirror true the sight I see,
And there you find your face too clear
  And love it and be lost like me.

He grew up in Maesbury, Shropshire, near the Welsh border; his Mum ran the Talbot Pub across the border in Welshpool.  After secondary school at The Hammond, he attended ArtsEd, a "world-renowned" drama school in London:

There he appeared in:

The Cherry Orchard (who hasn't?)

 Orpheus Descending, by Tennessee Williams.  Bi actor Marlon Brando starred in the movie version.

Macbeth

And The Voysey Inheritance: Desire and social obligation, by the heavily closeted Harley Granville-Barker.

He also had a minor role in the short Renters (2024): a lesbian couple in Auckland are looking for a flat.  One seems too good to be true, until... 

Jake graduated with a B.A. in Acting in 2024, and was immediately cast in a modernized version of Oedipus on the West End (October 2024-January 2025).  Mark Strong played Oedipus. Jake was in the ensemble, and understudied the roles of Eteocles, Polyneices, and Lichas (Oedipus' son, brother, and assistant).

In 2025, Jake and Connor Monroe wrote and performed in Mercutio,  a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet, at the Camden Fringe Festival.  A review mentions an "unexpected romantic subtext," but of course the gay-subtext romance betwween Mercutio and Romeo is well known.  

Connor Monroe is apparently gay.  A woman posts on "Love Is All That Matters" about her "gay brother Connor Monroe," and someone by that name mentions having a husband. 

Jake also began television work in 2025.  In Episode 1.8 of The Agency, Martian (Michael Fassbinder), a CIA agent working undercover, walks in on his daughter  Poppy and her boyfriend Daniel (Jake), both naked.  Danny Boy strikes a pose, planning to fight the "intruder"; but upon realizing that it's just Dad, he settles for covering up.

Martian is nonchalant about his daughter getting busy.  Later he praises her for growing into a "cool person."

More after the break