Welcome May and the New EU States!

It's Vappu once again, the national day of drinking which is closely followed by the national day of hangovers sponsored by Burana. It's a day to drink and be merry or hide at home to avoid the drunks peeing and vomiting along the streets. It's also a day to wonder what circus the guys working on our building were hired from as they cut our water due to some mishap with the jackhammers. Well, who needs that fresh feeling on Vappu anyway? ;) Hauskaa Vappua kaikille! May your hangover be light and the weather in Kaivopuisto tomorrow be grand. I believe our new EU states will be celebrating tonight, too. Cheers and welcome to the EU Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia!

permalink Ω 30 April 2004, Helsinki

Bricks and Tits

I'm not much of a morning person, so when I am jarred out of a restful sleep at the bright and early hour of 7am by jackhammers under my bedroom window it takes some effort to dispel the homicidal urges I suddenly feel for the dude with the power tools. Well, and it doesn't do anything good for a hangover as my research would indicate. Yes, the summer will be filled with the sound of jackhammers, falling plaster thunking against the window ledge and construction guys yelling at each other in colourful Finnish. In my early morning sleepy delerium I'd swear I've heard them shouting in English, too. Like a comet on a 10-15 year orbit, the ulkoseinäremontti [house exterior repair] has returned to our house for the next few months.

Especially in the older buildings downtown, people always ask before renting or buying an apartment when the last ulkoseinäremontti or putkiremontti [plumbing] was done as both tend to create a fair amount of inconvenience and financial outlay for the residents. The putkiremontti question is commonly asked in an almost secretive whisper, "Have they done the plumbing yet?", as though saying it loudly enough for the building to hear would invoke the plumbing demons to come forth. Ulkoseinäremontti involves a scaffold being erected around the building and the entire plaster/cement covering being removed all the way back to the bricks. After all the old cruft has been eradicated, they replace the window ledge coverings, replace the gutters, repair the roof and then replaster the walls. I really had to giggle when I noticed the selection of posterboards for our windows as they are classic. During the non-winter months, there are quite a few buildings shrouded in scaffolding for this kind of work. The end result is often rather beautiful, but you can't help but feel a bit of pity for the inhabitants while the remodelling is underway.

HB barked at the workmen as they sealed the windows with thick opaque plastic before boarding them up. Just as the weather warms up and the sun returns north, they have managed to turn our apartment into a dark and airless crypt. It's not going to be a very pleasant summer for the old gimp since it'll be hot, dusty and close inside with the place sealed up tight. I think he'll be permanently parked on the bathroom tile floor for much of the summer. He particularly favours the spot directly in front of the toilet so that you have to step over him and then pretzel yourself in order to sit down without disturbing him. I signed up for the early morning intensive Suomi 3 class in June since I'm up every day at 7am with the jackhammers, so I may as well go torture myself on my own terms. Either way, I think I'll be needing a lot of Burana caps over the next few months. :)

permalink Ω 29 April 2004, Helsinki

ei8ht is enough

The magazine stands carry a sea of digital photography rags these days whose seeming editorial thrust is to jam as many advertisements and articles pushing new kit into them as possible. There are a few photography as art magazines still holding on, but they don't appeal much to me either. I have been very happy with my subscription to LFI and wasn't searching for anything new when I noticed ei8ht Magazine, a quarterly photojournalism magazine that would appear to focus more on the storytelling aspects of photography that I find interesting. It has been in print for a while now, but I've just never noticed it before for some reason and it can't be terrible if Martin Parr is submitting work to them.

permalink Ω 27 April 2004, Helsinki

Non-bestseller books of spring

If you aren't into books about war, corrupt politicians, oil, intelligence [or lack thereof], Iraq, Islam, the Atkin's Diet, the Chicken Soup series or some variation on the theme of horseracing ala Seabiscuit there are precious few new books to interest or excite. One bit of good news is that Tom Wolfe's upcoming novel has finally been given a title and a publication date.

Tom Wolfe has a title for his next novel - "I Am Charlotte Simmons" - and Farrar, Straus & Giroux said it'll publish the book in November.

Wolfe's last novel, "A Man in Full," came out six years ago. There was an 11-year gap between that one and his classic "The Bonfire of the Vanities."

Wolfe said his new work grew from his poking around several college campuses.

An article on Wolfe's book and his research for the story.

I spent a little while combing through about a dozen publisher's upcoming books and it looks like it's going to be a slow summer for good books.

• New Words ~ New words from the OED.
• Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion ~ Looks interesting since he coined so many new words and new uses for old words.
• Language Death ~ Coming soon to a language near you.
• The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusion ~ But the question is, will the skeptic's believe the definitions? :)
• Freedom Just Around the Corner : A New American History: 1585-1828 ~ Apparently the first of a series, this book is getting rave reviews from even the most snobbish of American History academics.
• Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World ~ An empire revealed as far more civilised than history has previously led us to believe.
• River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West ~ The story of the man who pioneered the moving picture.
• I am Charlotte Simmons ~ The new Tom Wolfe college novel is finally due out in November.
• Window Seat: Reading the Landscape from the Air ~ Now this book looks really interesting as the author attempts to tell you how to identify things on the ground from the air.
• City Walks: Paris: 50 Adventures on Foot ~ This is a brilliantly simple concept since seeing a city on foot is the best way to get to know it and the 50 walks on cards are terrifically portable. A great idea for other cities.
• Underground London: Travels Beneath the City Streets ~ A very entertaining travelogue through the undergound :)
• What's in a Name?: Origins of Station Names on the London Underground ~ Should be full of useless but interesting facts about the underground station names.
• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim ~ A new David Sedaris book of collected essays.
• Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America ~ A history of the modern space age frozen dinner.
• Perfection Salad : Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century ~ Victorian women who revolutionized food preparation but were forgotten by history.
• Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking ~ The author studied at the Sichuan version of the CIA and produced this book from what she learned there. I keep fantasizing that I'll cook more often instead of just getting take-away.
• Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America ~ A man, an addiction, a charleston chew and a typewriter.
• Bicycling Science : third edition ~ A new edition of a classic.
• Position of the Day Postcards ~ Priceless.
• Buzzin' Fly Vol. 1 ~ Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl returns with a new album on a new label.

permalink Ω 27 April 2004, Helsinki

Stuffed Animals

A few pictures from a trip to the Helsinki Hall of Taxidermy, a.k.a. the Finnish Museum of Natural History.

Ok, it's true, we were bored while Jarkko was on 2 weeks of holiday that didn't include a trip somewhere and also featured the 4-5 day Easter holiday. What do you do when you've got a few days to kill, no car, no plane tickets and don't want to sit at home answering email or aimlessly surfing the web from the couch? The Finnish Natural History Museum seemed like a good idea one afternoon. We went, we saw, we were impressed by the taxidermic skill and then we went to dinner. If you're into taxidermy and dioramas, head straight for this museum as it has them both in abundance.

permalink Ω 24 April 2004, Helsinki

Hvitträsk

A few photos from Hvitträsk, the former home of Eliel Saarinen. The description of Hvitträsk from the brochure: Hvitträsk was built between 1901 and 1903 by three architects; Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen. The main building, designed in the National Romantic style, built of logs and natural stone, was both a common studio and a home for Eliel Saarinen and Armas Lindgren.....

Jarkko and I took a bus ride out into the boonies of Kirkkonummi, just west of Espoo, to visit the museum since my hometown is St. Louis where the Gateway Arch is about the only thing people remember about the city and it was likely the only Finnish thing I had encountered, aside from a Nokia mobile, before meeting Jarkko. Eero Saarinen, the son of Eliel, designed the Arch to represent and pay tribute to the role St. Louis played in the settling of lands west of the Mississippi River. As a kid, I rode up to the top of the Arch in the freaky pod elevator cars and promptly got sick from the rocking to and fro. I was content, after that, to play glow-in-the-dark frisbee in the park with some beers instead of making the trip to the top. We have an annual 4th of July VP Fair on the grounds which draws several million people for the impressive fireworks and we often refer to the Arch as a giant croquet wicket with affection. It is a beautiful and sublimely elegant monument that everyone in St. Louis truly admires. A recent issue of Suomen Kuvalehti featured an article about the Arch and the fight to get minority workers on the building crew which was no small task since St. Louis was then, and still remains, one of the most racist cities in the US.

I don't remember if we were ever taught in school that Eero Saarinen was Finnish since, in the US, you don't really think of people with unusual names as being anything other than American when they're living in US, especially when they're famous for designing other buildings like Dulles International Airport and part of JFK Airport. I hadn't ever read that he was born in Finland and lived at Hvitträsk until he was 12, when the family moved to Michigan in 1922. The house at Hvitträsk, his father and the group of talented architects there certainly influenced his architectural style which had a more modern flair while still retaining some of the softness and organic forms. It is interesting to see the house and the contents not only because it is a stunning work of art, but also as a monument to some of the greatest architecture that was ever built and those who designed and built it. Why can't or why don't we have buildings like these anymore?

permalink Ω 23 April 2004, Helsinki

Whither originality?

The movie send-up of the old TV show I grew up with, Starsky and Hutch, finally arrived in Finland and, given the current movies playing in the theatres here, we went to see it in hopes that its solid cast might make for a fun 2 hours. I'll save the spoilers and just sum it up by saying, "Wait for the DVD bargain rental", as my review. The only highlights of the movie are Owen Wilson, who is always nice to look at, and Snoop Dogg as the pimp Huggy Bear. Even so, it's not worth the ticket price to see it in the theatre unless you still wear the Starsky and Hutch underroos or have your room plastered with posters from the original series.

I always feel slightly guilty when I go to see these movies that are shamelessly unoriginal and pandering to the nostalgia of the GenX crowd, who are old enough now to reminisce about "the good old days", since I think it encourages Hollywood to continue to make more of them because they are financially viable. While the soundtracks are often terrific with universally enjoyed classics, who wants to remember what fashion disasters we were back then? I've been noticing the bold geometric shapes and awful colours of the new fashions attempting to evoke the 1960s style and it makes me cringe. Well, given the choice, the 60s fashions are still far better than the 80s fashions. Still, are we doomed to live with recycled TV shows, movies, movie sequels of sequels, music, fashion and art due to an utter lack of creativity and fear of failure? Even computing has largely stagnated in creativity since noone wants to face a financial failure so companies tend to stick to the tried and true. There are small pockets of creativity out there, but they are seemingly unrewarded for their effort to buck the mainstream.

It is particularly disturbing when you discover that Finland did, in fact, air the TV series way back when. No wonder the world thinks the US is totally fucked up and weird. I mean, if TV is the window to US culture, then why aren't foreign syndication companies picking up PBS documentaries or something better than the Anna Nicole Show or The Osbournes? America is a pop culture machine and it does it bigger, better and faster than anyone else in the world and then exports it relentlessly. Inside of the US, most of these shows have context and an appropriate amount of ridicule, but outside of the US I can't imagine what a show like Starsky and Hutch would mean to someone living in Botswana or even Finland since they didn't mean very much to those of us living in the US outside of California. People around the world think that the US looks either like Southern California or NYC since that's where the vast majority of the older series were filmed and I've always been annoyed with that.

I've been trying to get a pulse on Finnish pop culture for over a year now and, aside from Pizza Enrico, a few bands that are really quite good, and the occasional film, it seems like most of it is imported from the US. Perhaps it is because I live in Helsinki, but everywhere I go I hear American music in the pubs and shops, see American movies, and notice a variety of other American products. I suppose that I should feel at home with all of this familiar stuff, but in truth it pisses me off since if I wanted American pop culture I could just hop the next flight home. Finland has plenty of traditions, folklore and identity, but the pop culture seems far less distinct and mingled with an abundance of Yankee imports. Whether or not this has more to do with my being sensitive to the presence of American pop culture and not being fluent in Finnish remains to be seen. But, as a reasonably fresh import myself, it's hard to pin down. Especially now when America is just recycling the golden oldies, I have really been hoping that other countries, including Finland, would seize the opportunity to show the world some dazzling originality.

**disclaimer: Don't get your panties in a twist as I'm not on a crusade here. Imagine yourself moving to the US and mostly hearing Finnish music in the pubs and Finnish movies and TV shows in the theatres and on TV, wouldn't that be irritating in the extreme or at least weird? Everywhere I go in the world, it seems like the US has followed me there with McDonald's, Pizza Hut, movies and music. Who needs big brother when the spectre of pop culture haunts you wherever you go? The great homogenizer, that's the US.

permalink Ω 23 April 2004, Helsinki

Dustbowl

I've never been a big fan of springtime with all the, "In like a lion, out like a lamb", quips regarding its variable weather. I like weather that isn't going to change its mind at mid-day that 13C with sunshsine isn't doing it for Mother Nature and decides that snow flurries are much better. If spring were a person, she'd get a free trip to the local nuthouse and be prescribed Zoloft for those mood swings after a few days of that crap. The weather has been gorgeous this year with only one brief winter flashback a few weeks ago so I can't complain. It's warmer now than it was in June last year and I was even sweating today. I don't know that I'll be able to return south during the warm months ever again as I might melt or burst into flames.

Helsinki has an altogether different hazard of spring; grit. Where once stood mounds of snow remain only piles of pea gravel on the sidewalks and streets. After months of being driven and walked over while embedded in the snow and ice, the thick gravel gets ground into the pavement which generates tons of ultra-fine dust and grit awaiting a breeze to set it aloft. Since the weather has been warm and dry, Helsinki is a swirling dustbowl of this grit, especially on days with strong winds. Even a passing car, bus, tram or train can leave you diving for cover from the ensuing gritty backwash that makes it hard to breathe. You feel it cover your hair, your face and, worst of all, your mouth. I watched a grit devil come speeding up the street towards me and even though I turned my back to it and covered my camera, I still felt like I had just been rolling in a sand dune. While the rest of the world worries about the loss of topsoil, Finland replenishes it every spring. HB's fur has a surface area approximately equal to that of Texas, so he loves all the dirt procurement opportunities the grit season has to offer. Perhaps I should just sow some seeds on him and cultivate a chia-chia garden. :)

There are those who say that spring officially begins in Helsinki when the streets and sidewalks are cleaned, the grit removed and the cafés resume outdoor service. Grit removal is a serious and coordinated business with the street cleaners traversing the city in a grid. Signs are placed a week in advance to warn those who park along the street that they will be towed if they park there on the designated day. The crews come with their own tow trucks who stay pretty busy since they tow all the violating cars to the block that they just cleaned. I'd love to see the faces of some of the drivers who come looking for their car only to find it has mysteriously moved one block over. I'm sure the ticket and the tow charge they receive in the mail or under the wiper is far less mysterious. :) I've been hoping for a good Missouri-style gulleywasher to freshen things up, but the street cleaners and the fog of dirt should be over in another week or so, just in time for Vappu to fill the streets with summertime dirt.

permalink Ω 20 April 2004, Helsinki

Geriatric Canine

HB is such a large dog that he frequently draws a crowd when I take him out for a walk. Lately, however, he has been attracting an altogether different sort of attention since he flops down on the sidewalk for a rest rather often during our walks. He is nearly 13 years old which, for a St. Bernard and other giant breeds who age at the rate of 9 years per solar year, makes him positively ancient. His health is admirable with the exception of his arthritis which makes him limpy, gimpy and otherwise unenthusiastic about walking around the block. HB chased a cat down a flight of stairs and injured one of his front legs when he was 7 and that leg has been especially problematic now that arthritis has set in. He has good days and bad days, days he can manage to get to the park and days that he doesn't want to gimp even as far as the corner. I give him aspirin and, more recently, I have begun to give him Rimadyl in the hope that they will ease his chronic aches and pains. All things considered, he's doing pretty damn well for a dog who is getting on towards 117 human years in age.

HB and I have been together since he was a wee and rather adorable puppy so when someone on the sidewalk casts me a dirty look or tells me that I should euthanise him, it's like someone telling you to put a bullet to the head of your old grandmother with the walker since, clearly, she's not getting around so well anymore and in pain. He's family and I don't know how people think that it's ok to tell a complete stranger that you should kill your old dog since he looks tired and gimpy. My parents had an ancient dachshund who was deaf, blind, toothless and diabetic, which required daily insulin shots that my mother administered. I only once hinted that perhaps it would be time to start thinking about putting Gus to sleep as I knew how much they loved that dog. They did eventually when they could see that his quality of life was gone and my father would never speak of that day without crying. My mother mentioned later that my father had, on the sly, arranged to have Gus cremated and his remains placed in an urn which was sent to the house. Ending a pet's life is no easier than pulling a kevorkian for old gran, especially when they have so much life left in them. I keep hoping that HB will expire quietly in his sleep some night and not force me to do the most unpleasant of duties. It's a dark, secret and odious thought that haunts all geriatric pet owners. Until then, I'll keep patiently waiting for him when he flops down on the sidewalk to take a rest or pauses to muster the strength to keep going towards the park so he can smell all the trees and who has been recently watering them.

permalink Ω 18 April 2004, Helsinki

A Winter Garden in Spring

A few photos from a trip to the Helsinki Winter Garden just before Easter. The garden is enclosed in a Victorian era greenhouse and hosts quite a nice succulent room, palm room and room for various seasonal plants. Easter brings little baby chicks to the Winter Garden that little kids press their faces up to the glass to watch intently as they cheep and hop around. Tulips and daffodils also add a splash of colour to the landscape inside the green canopy. It's free to visit during its rather limited hours of operation and the outdoor garden is beautiful during the summer when the flowers are in bloom. It reminds me a lot of the Jewel Box, an art deco conservatory, and Tower Grove Park, a Victorian walking park, in St. Louis quite a bit since they were all built during a time that building public gardens for all people to enjoy was popular. I still miss living next to Tower Grove Park as it was one of the most beautiful spots in the city.

permalink Ω 18 April 2004, Helsinki

Beer is good food

An evening of beer, more beer, talking with friends and pictures at the Helsinki Beer Festival.

We went to the Helsinki Beer Festival and it seemed a lot more subdued this year as compared to last year. There didn't seem to be a band and you could actually move around the hall without feeling squished. The selection of beer was also much smaller this year and all of the good Belgian beers had run out by Saturday evening, too. I suppose the trick of getting the good beers is to go on the first evening. The beer expert Michael Jackson was reportedly at the festival this year as well, but noone seems to have seen him or known his whereabouts. It's a big hall, but not quite so big as to not bump into someone like that all evening.

The Russian beer Baltika was something new and was reasonably tasty. Sahti was a nice treat as well. The Estonian beers from last year weren't there this time around much to my dismay as they were memorably good. I managed to avoid the Lapin Kulta and Koff booths on the principle that had I wanted either of them, I could have saved myself 7 euro for the cover charge and bought a 6-pack of them for less money at the corner grocery. A group of us expats congregated, drank and talked for much of the evening and, when we had exhausted all the good beer choices, headed into the center for drunken disco to entertain the more sober people at Baarikärpänen. The highlight of the evening was getting to see Arabella's tattoo of the international power switch icon which caused an instantaneous "more geekier than thou" reverence from us all. She could go to any of the programmer cons and be enshrined. It would be even more amazing if tattoo inks were luminescent. :)

permalink Ω 15 April 2004, Helsinki

I, I Aku Ankka

"I, Donald Duck - 70 years in the life of a duck" is an exhibit at the Päivälehti Museum between now and 31 December 2004. Jarkko and I visited it last week and I took a few pictures. Donald Duck, a.k.a. Aku Ankka, is incredibly popular in Finland and it's charming when I see an older man sitting on a plane caressing the pages of the latest Aku Ankka magazine. I had never heard of this national addiction until Jarkko took me aside one afternoon to break the news to me that he had 30 years of Aku Ankka comic book serials in storage at his parent's house and that they would really like their garage space back. It took a moment for it to sink in that I had married a grown man who reads Disney comic books. I could understand a porn collection or a few boat anchors masquerading as old computers, but a fetish for a duck who doesn't wear pants? Donald Duck was quite possibly the last secret vice I would have imagined. :)

The exhibit had a brochure with a brief description of the history of Aku Ankka in Finland, the items on display and why Finns have a special fondness for the half-naked quacker. It doesn't mention, however, that Aku Ankka has been given awards for its outstanding use of the Finnish language. Jarkko has often pointed out some clever passages or regional dialects and encouraged me to start reading the comics to help my Finnish language lessons along. I'm going to have to give it a try and buy some of my own since I suspect Jarkko wouldn't like me mussing his copies.

The Disney character Donald Duck - Aku Ankka in Finnish - made his debut in the movie "A Wise Little Hen" on June 9, 1934. Subsequent research puts the official date of his birth at March 13, when his egg was laid. Donald Duck first appeared in cartoon strips on September 16, 1934.

It is no surprise that Donald Duck should be the Finnish favourite among the various Disney characters as he somewhat resembles the soldier Sven Dufva and the farmer Paavo, two epic characters of Finnish national poet J.L. Runeberg. Life is tough but one gets by. At work, for instance, Donald often finds himself in a desperate situation but he is always ready to meet any new challenge.

The Donald Duck 70th Anniversary Exhibition at the Päivälehti Museum introduces the house where Donald lives with his three nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. The exhibition assembles the furniture usually found in Donald's home: the armchair, round rug, book case, TV set and the nephews' three-layer bed. Over the years Donald Duck has introduced the Finns to several interesting details in the American way of life and American culture. [from the brochure in Finnish these 'interesting details' are: Santa Claus, apple pie, round metal garbage cans, round door handles and Television.]

Aku Ankka, the Finnish Donald Duck cartoon strip, first appeared in the daily Helsingin Sanomat in May 1936 and in the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat in February 1941. The definitive breakthrough came in 1951 when the publisher, the Sanoma Corporation, began to issue the comic book Aku Ankka. It so happened that the first issue appeared on Walt Disney's birthday, December 5th. The first edition printed 34,017 copies. In 1951-1952 it was printed at the press on Ludviginkatu Street - the building that now houses the Päivälehti Museum. In 2003, Aku Ankka was Finland's largest magazine, with a circulation of 294,500.

Films occupy a leading role in the world of Donald Duck and so he has a movie theatre of his own in the exhibition. Donald has appeared as the principal character in a total of 128 Disney movies of which eight have been nominated for Oscars. He got an Oscar for the propaganda film "Der Führer's Face" in 1943.

The birthday celebrations at the Päivälehti Museum continue through the year. The exhibition provides a substantial program with a variety of themes and events. Welcome to the World of Donald Duck!

permalink Ω 13 April 2004, Helsinki

Crazy Daze

Hullut Päivät is the bi-annual sale at Stockmann's Department Store in Helsinki which comes just before Easter in the Spring and and at the end of October in the Autumn. The sale lasts three days and most sane people avoid going near the store until after the madness has subsided. I had the Leica and so I thought I'd try to capture a little bit of the insanity on film by walking around while trying not to be noticed.

Everywhere you look there are yellow banners and menacing looking ghosts. I am guessing that the ghosts are the motif for the sale since the "Huu" sound a ghosts makes rhymes with the first syllable of "Hullut"...but I could be wrong. In the US, parents would probably be suing the store for such scary ghosts being displayed when it's not even Halloween. The mannequins get draped in yellow cloth with eyes taped on to look like a flock of really tall trick-or-treaters. Mylar balloon ghosts, employees in costume, people pawing over tables piled with stuff and announcers saying something into a microphone which sounds like you're at the drive-thru window make the whole scene pretty chaotic. I had fun lurking around with the camera and trying to take photos of the better costumes until one rather irate cashier started yelling at me in English and then switched to Finnish because I must have looked so startled she probably thought I didn't understand English. :)

Lots of people claim that there really aren't any deals or good sales during the 3 days of mayhem but I don't think that's really the purpose of the whole show. Shoppers flock to Stockmann's as a good excuse to head into the city, look at some of the random new items the store buys just for the sale and then go to a movie or the theatre. Some shoppers take the event really seriously though, so when you see yellow ghost Stockmann bags downtown, walk away from the store unless you enjoy watching a piranha feeding frenzy. :)

permalink Ω 12 April 2004, Helsinki

A Dremel in the hand...

When I was a bartender, I learned to believe in the power of the full moon. I never bought into the whole idea of celestial bodies determining behaviour such as horoscopes, but I overcame my scepticism after too many nights of full moon freaks. It isn't a full moon and I don't know if there is a celestial convergence, but there are an awful lot of people lately who either need a good trepanning by a qualified mental dentist in possession of a good quality Dremel or a fleet enema.

Jarkko was on holiday last week and we did a few fun touristy things that I took my camera along with us to take pictures. I have been scanning the photos over the last day or three. So, there are a number of photos coming up soon. Tomorrow, we need to go shopping for a decent photo scanner since negative/photo scanners are a lot cheaper than the last time I looked five years ago and this old one is slow going with lots of prints.

And, if you live in Finland and understand English, Meng Weng Wong was nice enough to set me up with a mailing list since I have near epileptic fits over excessive use of animated smileys on the wailing wall and mailing lists are a lot easier to manage, thread and organize than a flat web page. It's unmoderated and should be a fun list for the local expats to share news articles, URLs, local events and the usual mailing list kind of stuff. Meng is the guy behind SPF so spam shouldn't be a problem, either. If interested, the subscription page and the subscription address, subscribe-iesaf@v2.listbox.com, should be self-explanatory.

permalink Ω 12 April 2004, Helsinki

Lust for Hats

My eyewear fetish is something I've always thought of as a compensatory tactic for my inability to have the more traditional shoe fetish due to my titanic 10-10 1/2[US] feet which could never look dainty no matter how stylish the footwear. My secret fetish is hats. I adore hats, but aside from the more practical winter coverings for my cranium I usually look, but don't buy. I always envied the Queen Mum for her abiility to wear the ugliest of hats without the slightest sign of self-consciousness. All those awful hats with matching ensembles paired with the royal smile and wave saying, "Fuck all the little people, I love my hat! I am a sexy beast!" I would have paid good money to see her wear a fuzzy, fringed pimpdaddy hat with gold capped teeth. I wonder what family did with all those hats she left behind and didn't get buried wearing.

This Easter peep hat [Hope Hat, Uudenmankatu] caught my eye and I had to stare at it for a brief while with lust. My usual internal dialogue is, "Would I wear that hat? Yes. Would I wear that hat outside the house? Hmmm....no." It's always the same unless the hat is black and doesn't attract attention. I used to wear a black bowler, but I got way too many smartass jerks asking me if it was Clockwork Orange day. Clearly they were uncivilised cretins who hadn't ever seen Emma Peel in The Avengers. But hats like this make me wish I had what the Queen Mum had in the hat hutzpah department. Of course, with a 7 3/4 hat size, the cute Easter peep hat wouldn't likely fit me any more than a cute pair of fashionable shoes would fit my Cunard sized feet, but we always desire most that which we cannot have or look good in...don't we?

And, for anyone who has ever enjoyed the marshmallowy goodness that are marshmallow peeps, it's Peeps Week time again with Dr. Fun. :)

permalink Ω 7 April 2004, Helsinki

Tropical Gardenia

A visit to Gardenia Tropical Garden and back.

I happened to notice a brochure for the Gardenia Tropical Garden by accident and was curious about it since I hadn't ever seen or heard anything mentioning it before. The garden opened in April 2001 and is situated in Viikki next to the Viikki-Vanhankaupunki bay nature reserve.

The garden is small, as the map will show, but it has a lot of lovely specimens packed into it. As soon as you enter the house you know you are in the tropics with mist raining down from above. It's warm, moist and green which is a welcome change of scenery after a long grey winter. It's quiet except for the hiss of misting systems overhead. Just beyond the courtyard of potted mimosa trees, there's an even more humid enclosed section housing a koi pond, bananas, some exotic ferns, vanilla and other tropicals. They also host classes in gardening and other horticultural topics for hobbyists and children. It's a lovely little garden, but having worked in research at the Missouri Botanical Garden with the Climatron, it loses some of the grandeur. It's funny how the US makes everything so big, so large and so grand most of the time that it tends to spoil anything less elsewhere. The Climatron is a truly amazing building that I used to walk through fairly often at lunchtime. It always looked like a spaceship nestled in a grove of trees and, in winter, it would be glowing late into the night making it look even more out of this world. I'd guess that Gardenia has the same look to it in the depths of the November darkness.

permalink Ω 4 April 2004, Helsinki

Don't forget the makkara!

Dogs parked at the local market always stare intensely at the doors which their owners disappeared through as though they're expecting a kilo of fresh sausage for dinner to be on their master's shopping list.

permalink Ω 3 April 2004, Helsinki

Truth in Advertising?

Perhaps it is because I come from a culture where advertising pervades every aspect of waking life and which wouldn't surprise me if paid product placements would start appearing in our dreams, but I give some extra attention and curiosity to the advertising in Finland. I've noticed that Finnish advertising tends to lean towards a more straightforward and clean style than much of the aggressive in your face advertisements in the US. This is not to say that both countries don't have their own respective loads of crap, but overall I think the softer sell and elegant design is more attractive. However, I wasn't prepared for a new trend of blatant truth in advertising lately. It's refreshing, yet disturbing since it goes against all the usual rules of the advertising grift.

The ad above is from last weeks Nyt Magazine which is attempting to recruit young engineering students with "Sex can wait...". Never mind that the guy is dressed like a 1970s fashion disaster complete with afro and seriously tragic rainbow shades, is telling young nerds the truth that their chances of getting laid are so slim that years of toiling for an engineering degree is a far better option a successful sales ploy? I mean, I've spent my life around these sorts of guys who at the mere mention of the word boobies go completely quiet. Sure, sex can wait, but getting an engineering degree isn't going to make you dress better, bathe regularly or get you laid, ever. Well, unless you come into some serious cash which, in Finland at least, probably isn't going to happen. So, I think the slogan needs a little tweaking to something more like, "Those who can get laid get MBAs. Those who can't, become engineers. Enroll in our engineering program now!" Sex can sell anything as even the most casual observation of modern advertising will show, but not getting sex as a marketing tactic? It's hilarious, brutally honest and I'd love to see if their enrollment increases. :)

[update: Ignatz sent me the American version of the sex can wait advertising ploy. The billboard is sponsored by the Kansas City Missouri Department of Health. Did I miss the memo that engineering is the new priesthood? Does sex make you stupid? What? The unwritten subtext to this billboard is that KC is much like St. Louis in that the black population live in the post-apocalyptic downtown with an educational system handicap. So, the real message here is something like "We already have enough black crackhead single mothers so dream that you can get into and afford a college education and, while you're at it, keep your dick in your pants." Of course, studies show that kids who participate in these 'just say no to sex until marriage' campaigns still have sex and often unprotected sex. Maybe the government will start offering scholarships for abstainers through their churches as soon as Dumbya gets a second term.]

The Finnish Army also has a new campaign which has a poster that shows a doctor's Porsche, an engineer's BMW [which still won't get them laid], and a soldier's car that makes a Boston beater Yugo held together with duct tape look good. In the US this ad would be amusing, yet deadly. As the North St. Louis wise old saying goes, "You can sleep in yo' car, but you can't drive yo' house." A more pure or elegant distillation of the American love affair with the automobile would be hard to come by. The US TV commercials for the Marines always show an attractive, beefcake white guy wrestling with some demonic enemy in a video game style of unreality. Honesty is refreshing but reality has not been a traditional tactic in military recruitment. The classic "Uncle Sam Wants You" poster is brief for a reason since finishing the sentence would leave less to the imagination and the power of your mind to see what it wants to see. I wonder what happens to the engineering student who graduates and goes into the Army. Well, I guess if they're not getting laid, a sexy car won't seem so important.

[update: Jarkko has informed me that I have been had. :) I did wonder about the kil.fi domainname but considering Helsinki is hel.fi and Finland hasn't deployed armed forces outside of Finland, I didn't give it more than a passing thought. It is, apparently, a parody of mil.fi attempting to dissuade people from joining up. I suppose I should feel a bit better that it took him a little while to catch on to the joke. :) So much for my optimisim about truth in advertising.]

I'll hope to see this trend continue into the fashion and cosmetics industries where reality is in cryogenic suspension. And what about those foods that advertise themselves as 100% "organic"? :) That always cracks me up, but maybe that's because I'm a chemist. I don't know that advertising culture could survive a trend towards honesty, but it certainly would be entertaining to see more of it since it is charming and compelling in a field of carefully crafted manipulations of varying levels of integrity.

permalink Ω 3 April 2004, Helsinki

Random winter photos

I had a bunch of photos that didn't really have a theme or a home so I put them together in a random winter 2004 photo collection.

There is also a new craneporn gallery since I can't seem to stop taking pictures of cranes now that Paul craneporn Mison got me hooked. :)

permalink Ω 1 April 2004, Helsinki