Posteriority

« Plane and a big blimp at Malmi Airport. A few pictures from the Yokoso! visit to Malmi Airport. »

Last weekend, the Malmi Airport hosted the Yokoso! Airship on it's Helsinki stop while waiting for clearance to fly over Russia on its way to Japan. I wasn't all that motivated to go see a blimp from 100 yards away without there being some Hindenburg action, but they aren't filled with hydrogen anymore so that sort of marshmallow roasting excitement wasn't likely to happen. The airfield itself was far more interesting as it was built in the mid-1930s just as air travel was beginning to become popular and was still glamorous. Charles and Anne Lindbergh flew to Helsinki to help choose a location for the airport although the Malmi location was not their first choice. Long before the anal probe security checkpoints and the cattle class flights, there was legroom and an air of the exotic to flying. As we were leaving, we bumped into a bachelor party who were taking the soon-to-be groom on a flight while equipped with girly goggles and bunny ears. If he survived, I hope the wedding goes well. :)

Malmi Airport is apparently under threat of being replaced with something as dull as suburban housing. Considering that it was built on Tattarisuo swamp, it wouldn't seem very smart to build or buy a house in that area. It's extremely curious and likely politically motivated that in spite of the majority of people polled in the neighbouring community who have expressed a strong interest in preserving the airport and the sheer stupidity of building houses on land that has more in common with a sponge than a rock, that 'progress' continues to threaten the continued survival of the Malmi Airport. While I was looking for geologic studies of the Tattarisuo area I found, A reconnaissance flight: is there a shortage of building land in the Finnish capital region, which has a few short, but illustrative, videos of the airport and surrounding areas [one lighthearted note - 'posteriority' should be 'posterity' since the former might be something related to your butt, your posterior. :)]. There is a petition to show support for saving the airport which I hope will continue to gather signatures but, as a cynic, I think it will take a bit more than signatures to save such a beautiful and quaint piece of history even if it's on the World Monuments Fund Top 100 Most Endangered Sites List. The most wise advice ever given in the face of corruption was uttered by the famed Deep Throat [no, not the porn movie :)], "Follow the money." Find out who has the most to profit from building housing on the land and start from there.

In other news, the Hanasaari Vastavalo photos I mentioned earlier are available. There are more photos of Hanasaari than anyone would likely ever want but I suppose they're more interesting than pictures of food and feet. :)

permalink Ω 30 July 2004, Helsinki

Rosemary's Baby at the DNC

You know, it's really difficult for me to tell if Ann Coulter is the 2nd coming of Senator McCarthy or a comic genius. I usually don't bother reading her writing as it has often left me with the same feeling I had after reading Mein Kampf or the Unabomber's manifesto. I was rather amazed to read that USA Today dumped her column reporting on the DNC this week which made me curious enough to read the offending text just to see what could have possibly made her persona non grata with a newspaper that has more colour graphics than actual news since reading is hard for the average American. It's impossible to discern if she's being funny or if she's really as insane as she appears.

Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazened with the "F-word" are my opponents.  Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling. 

[...]

As for the pretty girls, I can only guess that it's because liberal boys never try to make a move on you without the UN Security Council's approval.  Plus, it's no fun riding around in those dinky little hybrid cars. My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call "women" at the Democratic National Convention.

I think I need to make a banner that reads "AA-Cup, corndog eatin', cotton wearin' pie wagons for KERRY!", go round up my fellow small boobed femmes and show up at the GOP convention. Coulter looks like a man and isn't exactly well endowed herself so maybe she's saying that she just hangs around the pretty girls since every pretty girl has an ugly sidekick to make her look good. Voting Republican obviously didn't give her big boobies or improve her looks. Perhaps someone forgot to tell her about plastic surgery to giveth what god hath not.

But, seriously, the thought of even one person reading her shit and thinking it's the gospel makes my skin crawl. The Dems are the "Spawn of Satan" now? That rates right up there with the 'evildoers', 'axis of evil' and 'crusade'. It reminds me that these folks who love this kind of dialogue are those who don't think for themselves much and use the word 'flock' to refer to themselves and their friends. They're registered to vote and they vote in large numbers. Expats and escapees who have not registered for an absentee ballot should do so as soon as possible. Please register. Please vote. It's a slim chance that we'll succeed in removing Bush from office, but hope is all we have.

And, Ann Coulter, wherever you are, thanks for reminding me that I needed to register to vote and for giving me the resolve to vote in spite of my waning hope for change. I don't hate America, but I do hate Americans like you who have been placed in positions of power/influence instead of prison or a mental institution.

permalink Ω 29 July 2004, Helsinki

Of shoes and meat

« Welcome to Missouri, land of meat and shoes! »

One of the most impressive things about Finns is their grasp of geography, well, at least all the ones I know seem to know far more detail about the planet we inhabit than any other people I've ever met, which is a dramatic contrast to Americans who seem to have some difficulty placing their own country on a political map of the world. If you read Finnish, you'll get a good chuckle out of Peter Elk's [Finnish expat living in NYC] look at an old geography book and it's descriptions of US states. If you don't read Finnish, well, the summary is that some of the state descriptions are pretty hilarious.

Missouri, for example, is the "Meat and Shoe State". I mean, Missouri, land of the Ozarks and home of the 'throwed[sic] roll', evokes the image of meat and shoes? Lambert's does have really great rolls if you remember to duck and their iced tea is served in giant mason jars with free refills, too. I kept trying to imagine of a reason why anyone on the planet would think of shoes and meat when describing Missouri. And then it dawned on me....Missouri! The Sho[e]-Me[at] State! Someone in Finland heard Shoe-Meat instead of Show-Me! Of course! :) The slogan has been in use for a long, long time and has a somewhat interesting origin.

The most widely known legend attributes the phrase to Missouri's U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903. While a member of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, Vandiver attended an 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia. In a speech there, he declared, "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." Regardless of whether Vandiver coined the phrase, it is certain that his speech helped to popularize the saying.

Other versions of the "Show-Me" legend place the slogan's origin in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado. There, the phrase was first employed as a term of ridicule and reproach. A miner's strike had been in progress for some time in the mid-1890s, and a number of miners from the lead districts of southwest Missouri had been imported to take the places of the strikers. The Joplin miners were unfamiliar with Colorado mining methods and required frequent instructions. Pit bosses began saying, "That man is from Missouri. You'll have to show him."

However the slogan originated, it has since passed into a different meaning entirely, and is now used to indicate the stalwart, conservative, noncredulous character of Missourians.

Well, in all honesty, Missouri did have the Brown Shoe Company in St. Louis and the enormous stockyards in Kansas City [in Missouri in spite of the name] back before it became better known for Budweiser Beer and John Ashcroft. I think the new state slogan should read, "Missouri! We're real sorry about Ashcroft!" Or, maybe, "Missouri! Getting dumb sports fans drunk since 1906!" Missouri does have a few redeeming qualities like Mark Twain, Chuck Berry and Vincent Price. It's home, but as Mark Twain so wisely quipped, "Familiarity breeds contempt..." I will henceforth refer to it as the "Shoe-Meat State". :)

Because it's July [read everything is closed for summer holiday and I'm bored] and I'm, of course, far more entertained by state slogans than anyone probably should be, I'll offer a more honest selection of state slogans for the easily amused. They're notoriously bad and ridiculed all over the US [65k pdf] for being the product of horrible PR wonks.

• Alabama: Wonder Full ∴ Wonderful? Alabama? "Yes, we have indoor plumbing."
• Alaska: Beyond Your Dreams, Within Your Reach ∴ "Screwing the environment for your SUV"
• Arizona: The Grand Canyon State ∴ "Land of Cheap Smokes and Indian Reservations" Monument Valley is really a lot more stunning than the Grand Canyon.
• Arkansas: The Natural State ∴ Natural? Natural what? "If you can read this, you don't live here."
• California: Find Yourself Here ∴ ...because everyone here is as lost as you are. "California, the fruit and nut state!" or "Our women have more plastic than your car!".
• Colorado: (none) ∴ Colorado, home of the Coalition for the American Family and anti-gay everything. "If you don't ski, don't bother."
• Connecticut: Full of Surprises ∴ Boy, howdy, who wrote that nonsense? "Connecticut, Stepford wives and suburban stupor!" or "Massachussets is thattaway!"
• Delaware: It's Good Being First ∴ The state best known for it's very 'generous' tax structure, S-Corporations and cheap booze/outlet malls that people from adjoining states flock to. I guess they couldn't just say, "Hey! We're small, cheap and available!".
• Florida: (none) ∴ "Ask us about our grandchildren!" or "Watch out for that sinkhole!"
• Georgia: Georgia on My Mind ∴ We banned rum and slaves but not lawyers!
• Hawaii: Aloha ∴ BORING. "Islands of flaming hot magma!"
• Idaho: Potatoes. Tasty Destinations. ∴ Why not just get sponsored by Ore-Ida Corp and go with "When it says Ore-Ida, it's alll-righta."? or, even better, "Land of Tater Tots!".
• Illinois: Right Here. Right Now. ∴ Yeah, it's there alright. What happened to "Land of Lincoln"? "Illinois! Please remember the S is silent!"
• Iowa: Come Be Our Guest ∴ "Iowa! Be our guest as you surely won't stay!"
• Indiana: Enjoy Indiana ∴ It used to be "Wander Indiana" which had TV spots with an empty car toodling around the state which gave you the [realistic] impression that the state put you to sleep. "Indiana! Enjoy our dullness!"
• Kansas: Simply Wonderful ∴ "Kansas! Drive faster, daddy! Faster!" The only thing more boring than driving across Kansas is driving across Wyoming.
• Kentucky: It's That Friendly ∴ "Five Million People; Fifteen Last Names"
• Louisiana: Come as You Are. Leave Different. ∴ "It's not new and it doesn't lean!"
• Maine: It Must Be Maine ∴ "Every visitor gets a free L.L. Bean Boat Tote!"
• Maryland: (none) ∴ "Crab cakes and crabs."
• Massachusetts: Make It Yours ∴ "Taxachusetts! Our Taxes Are Lower Than Finland's (For Most Tax Brackets)"
• Michigan: Great Lakes. Great Times. ∴ "First Line Of Defense From The Canadians" or "All your crap cars are belong to us!"
• Minnesota: Explore Minnesota ∴ "And don't forget the bug spray!" or "10,000 Lakes and 10,000,000,000,000 mosquitoes"
• Mississippi: Feels Like Coming Home ∴ "Come Visit And Feel Better About Where You Live"
• Missouri: Where the Rivers Run ∴ "Your Federal Flood Relief Tax Dollars At Work" or "We're sorry about Ashcroft!"
• Montana: Travel Montana ∴ "Home of the Unabomber and christian militias"
• Nebraska: Possibilities...Endless ∴ "Ask About Our State Motto Contest..."
• Nevada: Wide Open ∴ Gotta wonder what the guy who made that one up was looking at. "Home of the mushroom cloud!"
• New Hampshire: Make Up for Lost Time ∴ "Go Away"
• New Jersey: The Perfect Getaway ∴ What a perfect motto for a state filled with gangsters! "Hey, Guy! Whatchoolookinat?"
• New Mexico: Land of Enchantment ∴ "Atomic bombs and Aliens! Coincidence? We think not!"
• New York: I ♥ NY (I Love New York) ∴ "Give us your wallet!"
• North Carolina: A Better Place to Be ∴ "Come smokem peace pipe!"
• North Dakota: Legendary ∴ "We still have at least 50 residents!"
• Ohio: So Much to Discover ∴ "Ohio! The state next to Indiana!"
• Oklahoma: Native America ∴ "Just like the musical only without the singing!"
• Oregon: We Love Dreamers ∴ "We hate Californians!"
• Pennsylvania: The State of Independence ∴ "Cook With Coal!"
• Rhode Island: (various) ∴ "We aren't really an island!"
• South Carolina: Smiling Faces. Beautiful Places. ∴ "We didn't surrender to those Damn Yankees!"
• South Dakota: Great Faces. Great Places. ∴ "250 miles to the nearest rest stop!"
• Tennessee: (none) ∴ "The edumacation state!"
• Texas: It's Like a Whole Other Country ∴ It sure is y'all. We all wish it were another country, too. "Si! Hablo Ingles!"
• Utah: (none) ∴ "We're on a mission from god" or "Dry in every way imaginable"
• Vermont: (none) ∴ "Come peep and leave"
• Virginia: Virginia is for Lovers ∴ "We have ponies"
• Washington: (none) ∴ "Home of Apples and Microsoft"
• West Virginia: Wild and Wonderful ∴ "Kissin' Cousins!"
• Wisconsin: Stay Just a Little Bit Longer ∴ "Come cut some cheese!"
• Wyoming: (none) ∴ "Why are you here?"

permalink Ω 28 July 2004, Helsinki

The Fifth Horseman

You know those dreams that come for you in the middle of the night, the ones that give you the sweats and make you think that the end of the world is nigh after watching Leonard Nimoy's Bilbo Baggins video [google for it at your own peril]? William Shatner, the posterboy for has been TV stars, is reportedly going to be releasing an album with Ben Folds this Autumn. If Common People is any indication of what we can expect to find on the finished album, maybe there's a fifth horseman whose name noone dares speak for fear of losing heaps of cash from sappy 30-50-somethings; Nostalgia. Gotta love the aptly named album: Has Been. What is it about has been b-rate Trek actors who won't die quietly and the gushing over old, bad TV that seems to be all the rage now? It's a sign - a bad one. Bush is gonna win in November, so avast all ye who are still in denial and escape while you still can. I blame pudge for the bad news.

permalink Ω 25 July 2004, Helsinki

Things that go blink in the night

« Dusk over the Hanasaari coal pile and the Vastavalo light installation. »

I have a love of all things that light up at night, like the Kide sculpture. Last month the Sanomat ran a picture of some glowing green things [which remind me of the luminescent esters we used to make in O-chem] next to the big pile 'o coal in Sörnäinen so I cut it out and made a note to make it up there at some point with my camera to take a photo of it.

We had decent weather on a recent evening so Jarkko carried my tripod, I grabbed the camera gear and we headed off for the glowing rods. While walking there we had to go through Merihaka which could only be described as a post-apocalyptic 1970s concrete and aluminum utopia made even creepier by it being devoid of any people anywhere. At some point a healthy looking young guy jumped out of the shadows asking for help which, from my being from US cities, I wasn't going to pay any attention [who doesn't carry a mobile in Helsinki?] to but Jarkko stopped and offered to call the police. It turned out that a really drunk guy was lying in a pool of blood in front of an entrance to one of the concrete blocks. The ambulance eventually arrived and the guy was ok if a bit hammered in the extreme. I was really happy to get out of there, no offense to the Merihaka residents, but to me it was just a really unsettling place at night. Maybe it's better during the daytime.

I set up my kit and waited for the lights to come on and looked at how pretty a city can become at night. The green lights tended to flicker on and off for an hour after dusk which was likely due to an overly sensitive photocell on the switch. I tried both 50mm and 35mm lenses, a variety of exposures and apertures and a few positions along the nearest point of land to the island. I'll probably go back with the pinhole and the 35mm lens and try a few other shots now that I have a better idea of what I want and will put them into a gallery sometime soon. The photo above was taken with the Leica with a 35mm/2.0 ASPH lens at f16 and a 15 sec exposure. The very small aperture is what causes the starlight effect on the sodium lights which is more attractive than the giant blob of light at f2 and a shorter exposure. The 50mm lens just couldn't take it all in. The Helsinki Energy web pages have an explanation about the installation in Finnish that Jarkko translated.

Hanasaari Art Installation Into Use

Coal Storage as part of the city landscape

The art Installation "Vastavalo" (The word can mean 'backlight' or, in this context, 'opposite light' for the lights opposite from Merihaka.), designed by architect Sakari Tilanterä, was unveiled in a ceremony in front of the power station on Sörnaisten rantatie on Friday, the 11th of June with representatives of the neighboring residences and businesses of the Hanasaari B power station in attendance.

The art installation consists of 56 apple green poles which form a fence circling the Hanasaari coal storage. The poles are lit with LED lights, the light reaches the eye of the viewer indirectly. The installation is lit in the evenings and nights and, during daylight hours, the green poles are visible against the black coal. The installation is implemented with energy saving LED lights representing the most modern lighting technology.

Architect Sakari Tilanterä says that the starting point for the design of the installation was urban landscaping. "I was asked to design an art installation that would enliven the coal storage of the power station in the eyes of the neighbors. The installation has been designed so that it is easily visible from Merihaka and its neighboring areas. This is exactly why a peaceful, natural light has been chosen; the installation must not disturb the night scenery, but instead enliven it in a good way."

The coal storage has inspired artists

The power station manager Hannu Kekkonen said in his dedication speech that the Hanasaari coal storage and art have previously had a lot in common. For example, in 1993 the artists Ritva Harle, Hanna Vainio, and Jukka Kuuranne designed and built an art installation called "Tulivuori" ("Volcano") into the coal storage using stripes of grass.

"Sakari Tilanterä, an architect who has been effecting the Hanasaari area architecture since the seventies has, at our behest, implemented an art installation that, without disturbing the operation of the power station, joins the power station in a new way as a part of the urban landscape and enlivens the coal storage for the enjoyment of our neighbors", said the Hanasaari power station manager Hannu Kekkonen.

permalink Ω 23 July 2004, Helsinki

Lingo for leavers

« Mari and Arabella check their look in the funhouse mirrors at Linnanmäki. »

A week or so ago, Vera mentioned the curious difference in usage between expat and immigrant which I thought was very interesting since it's one of those things you don't really notice happening until you do and then you can't really explain why. So, I turned to the OED and a few other dictionaries of authority, none of which proved to be very helpful on determining the current connotation or usage. I asked a few of my linguist friends who also thought it was interesting but couldn't really offer an answer. So, I turned to the perl using editor of the American OED for help while hoping I wasn't asking a really tired question. Writing email to linguists, especially dictionary folks, tends to be fairly stressful since I obsessively check my spelling and punctuation lest my message be dismissed on technicalities. Fortunately, he thought it was an interesting question as well.

It's an interesting question. My first reaction, and that of several people I asked, was that an expat is someone who might be living somewhere else, but is "aligned" with his or her native country--an American in Paris who is American and considers himself so, regardless of whether he plans to return. The intentionality was also prominent in my mind: an expatriate leaves because she wants to, an immigrant because he is forced to.

Historically, this is not that case: expatriates are people who have formally renounced citizenship in their native country.

There's also the point-of-reference distinction: writing in English, most accounts of American or British transplants will be from an American or British perspective, where "immigrant" wouldn't really work (i.e. the scene would have to be so strongly framed in the other country that "immigrant" wouldn't seem jarring).

In the end, I think the First vs. Third World distinction might just be the simplest.

Language is important as it says as much about who we are as a culture and individuals as nearly everything else combined. It is our identity. Why do I refer to myself as an expat instead of emigré or immigrant? Emigré has a taint of the political about it so it falls somewhere between expat and immigrant. It seems strange, even to me, that a country that was created by and populated by immigrants from all over the world would have such disdain for the word immigrant in less than 100 years. Nancy Mitford would be proud to see that U and non-U language lives still.

• emigré
  Orig., a French emigrant, esp. one from the Revolution of 1789-99. Now, any emigrant, esp. a political exile.
• expat(riate)
  Orig., an exile. Now, a person who lives from choice in a foreign country.
• immigrant
  A person who settles as a permanent resident in a different country. Also (esp. in Britain), a descendant of such a person.
  An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another. [Ambrose Bierce]

So, according to the OED, they are all very close in meaning yet the usage distinguishes them. I rarely, if ever, hear or read emigré anymore, probably because few Americans would know the word and, well, you know how popular anything French is nowadays. Anyone leaving the US due to the current political situation could technically refer to themselves as an emigré. I like it as it has a lot more cachet and style than expat. American Emigré of Mystery. Yeah baby! Yeah! I need a tux and a shaguar, too. But I digress.

Expat, our tried and trusty label for those of us who got the hell out of the US and are the envy of all we know back home who are unable to escape. It conjures pictures of embassy row cocktail parties and the international jet set which, I can assure you, is not at all what 99.9% of expats might experience. I'm not even sure if I have a dress and a pair of pumps for cocktails at Fortress America in Kaivopuisto [US Embassy] if they had parties. Even the British Embassy has ceased all social functions here in Finland so the quaint idea of expatriate life being a high society affair has been replaced with armed guards, barbed wire and a grimace. Expat is also an odd sounding word and usually involves a lot of spit since the ex brings up the juice and the p pushes it outward. It's definitely non-U to use words that involve spraying instead of saying. It could even be a slang word for expectorate. I'll guess that expat, given the grim reality vs. the lofty image, will gradually change towards a less romantic notion when used to describe someone who relocates to another country. Besides, I even checked with the U lexicon and there are no words to describe Brits who moved to one of the colonies since people of that class were always British even though noone bothered telling them that no country would have wanted them anyway, even the colonies. [In 1955 Nancy Mitford wrote a famous scathing essay on how the upper classes "are neither cleaner, richer, nor better educated than anybody else," who only distinguish themselves through language and usage. Ironically, U and non-U was first discussed in a paper by Professor Alan Ross in a Finnish philological journal in 1954 which reportedly was received with a big *yawn*. :)]

So then there's immigrant. It evokes the image of the Titanic with Irish peasants jumping around in the hold or a group of Mexicans sneaking across the border into a country where they can get paid $1 an hour so people can buy cheap produce. The romantic age of immigrants in America, or anywhere for that matter, has long since past. When Americans speak of their ancestors, they don't say that Grandpa from Austria was an expat, they say Grandpa was an immigrant. I don't think that people are forced to be immigrants as that would make them refugees. It may just come down to the 1st vs. 3rd world distinction which, ultimately, means having money/means vs. not having money and this is where the real dividing line in the usage lies I suspect which, by American standards, is U vs. non-U.

I don't know that any of them really suit me and my current condition so I may give myself a new label that may catch on by November in the US when the tide of people leaving the US may swell; I am an American escapee. :)

permalink Ω 22 July 2004, Helsinki

Polaroids from the Edge

« Snapshot from Mark Maher's American Polaroids. »

I've been noticing that Polaroid SX-70 cameras and snapshots are really making a comeback. I'm not really sure why as I had one of those cameras back in the 70s and the photos were either totally weird from inappropriate colours or they would disintegrate within a few years. So I'm a little surprised to see them becoming a new retro-hip item, especially since the film is even more expensive now than it was in the 70s.

One particularly good use of the polaroid medium I've seen is American Polaroids by Mark Maher. The monologues are worth watching as the polaroid slide show is synchronized to his talking which makes for an interesting guided tour of sorts. He's an American who, if I read correctly, lives here in Helsinki and shares a lot of the same inner conflicts about the country we both used to inhabit. The snapshot of Ronald McDonald is as creepy as it is revealing. He's also thinking about what will be considered folk art in 20 or 30 years which is interesting since I usually look around and wonder what will be dug up by archaeologists far into the future and it is likely the very mundane that will survive us all. We live in the mundane and pass by the same things every day without looking at the subtle changes in it or the details it tries to convey. A photo of a grocery store aisle from the 70s is far, far more interesting than yet another artsy picture of some building somewhere. Maher does a fine job of documenting some of the more random, bizarre and utterly banal bits of America.

I also stumbled across PolaroiDiary somewhere while wandering around the web. An American expat living in Hamburg who posts, usually, a picture every day. I should write to him and explain that his passport number may be visible on the legal alien polaroid as the format requires that it be on the machine readable lines on the bottom.

And, lastly, I just found a fabulous reason to buy Kodachrome for the Lomo, a really cool lampshade! I subscribed to the first issues of ReadyMade and wasn't all that excited since its market seemed to be all the kids too young for Martha Stewart and not technical enough for Popular Mechanics with most of the projects being really impractical. This isn't very practical but it's simple and creative without being gaudy. It sure beats slide shows. :)

permalink Ω 20 July 2004, Helsinki

Greasers

« Greasers without a ride wait for a taxi at the Rock 'n Roll McDonald's. The pompadours, the upturned collar and the boots are perfect. »

Some friends of ours live up by the Rock 'n Roll McDonald's in Helsinki. I suppose I had noticed it before but it just didn't register until I was staring at it and wondering what in the hell such a thing was doing here. I have been in the original one in Chicago before and found it excrutiatingly lame and I'm not surprised to read that they're renovating it next month.

We just happened to go in there after the Brian Setzer concert had finished so it was incredibly surreal to sit down in a cloyingly 50s kitsch dineresque McDonald's filled with greaser dudes in leather jackets and girls in poodle skirts. Even in the US this would seem really odd as it's more American than America itself. It was pretty cool to watch all the people, whom I must say have good taste in music since I love Brian Setzer, dressed up for the concert right down to the vintage cars. I don't know what started the 50s craze in the US in the 70s with Grease, Welcome Back Kotter and Happy Days but I thought that such nostalgia would have jumped the shark by now.

The parking lot was also packed with vintage 50s cruisers with tailfins and no rust anywhere. I've seen more beautiful classic automobiles in Helsinki than I ever did in the US outside of a classic car show. I suppose it's because the winter roads are salted so much back home that most of the cars have just dissolved over the years. On the first Friday of the non-winter months, the classic car people apparently gather at the Rock 'n Roll or the Ice Hall parking lot and proceed to cruise around downtown which certainly confused the hell out of me the first time I saw them. I'm in love with a powder pink Cadillac with giant tailfins but I'd be scared to try to park it within 10km of the city. Before the end of the summer I hope to get there in time to take some pictures and lust after a few of their cars. :)

permalink Ω 18 July 2004, Helsinki

Fanit

When the olympic flame came through Helsinki, a few of us took it as a good excuse to go up to Linnanmäki to have some fun. In some silly nostalgic sense, I also wanted to see it since it went through St. Louis as this year is the centennial for the 1904 Olympics which were held at the World's Fair. It's a really goofy idea to think there was a shred of connection between me and my home town there but, well, noone ever said emotions had to be rational or non-goofy. I've been away from home so many times and for so long that I'm onto that con job where you think you're homesick, go home and, as soon as you arrive, are ready to leave. I prefer to think of it as missing the familiar since Finland could import all the yankee pop culture it could get its hands on and still be a mostly unfamiliar place.

I took the opportunity to take a few photographs of the stage and the flame cauldron before the crowds arrived and some girls sitting on the benches started shouting at me in Finnish to take their picture, which I didn't pay much attention to. Then the girls started shouting, "Do you speak Finnish?!", in English which I purposefully ignored :) They switched back to Finnish again so, as I was leaving I turned around and took their picture. Apparently, they were all there to see Antti Tuisku, the Finnish Idols champion[?], whom I'm completely unfamiliar with but he looks like pure teenage crush material. :) The t-shirt on the left, the "Antti sä oot niin WOW!" [Antti, you are so WOW!], continues to crack me up. I can't remember if I had any teenage crushboy, but I did have an odd lust for Spock.

I had to crop the photo a bit since I was in too much of a hurry to switch rolls for a paying gig I had and managed to forget to rewind the roll before I tried to reload. The Leica has a sub-optimal spool for this sort of mishap since it has 3 prongs instead of a toothed barrel so this is why there are streaks on the top. I'm not much with photoshop and I rarely do any photoshopping or cropping, but I think this one required it. I gave the girls my email address since they asked if they could have a copy, but maybe they lost it in all the excitment or the laundry so...if anyone recognizes these very cute girls, tell them to come see their photo with my apologies that it's a little wonky.

permalink Ω 16 July 2004, Helsinki

More Mixed Bag

« A typical summer afternoon in Hakaniemi. »

More mixed bag photos from April, May and June to help stave off the boredom of being one of the few people stuck in the office during July.

There is another Leicaphile in Helsinki with a new blog, Mustavalkoista, that looks interesting [atom feed at http://studiox.blogspot.com/atom.xml]. Also, Niklas Sjöblom's Photo of the Month has been blogified and, even though there's no link for it on any of the pages, there is an atom feed [http://taivasalla.net/atom.xml] and a regular rss feed [http://taivasalla.net/index.rdf] available. It's handy since the non-rss-ified pages tend to get visited a lot less frequently than those that are and he has some really nice shots.

permalink Ω 14 July 2004, Helsinki

Mixed Bag

« A late afternoon shadow. »

I've been saving up a lot of random photos over the past few months that don't quite belong in any particular collection. It's a mixed bag of photos, some better than others, but still somewhat interesting. I have enough for 1 or 2 more of these so I hope you enjoy them. :)

permalink Ω 11 July 2004, Helsinki

Less hyperbole. More vomit.

« A more honest and satirical postcard featured in Nyt this week. »

Postcards tend to portray their subjects in the most appealing light and circumstances with sunshine, flowers, smiling people, beautiful scenery and gorgeous architecture. This is intrinsic to the medium and one of the reasons I particularly enjoy collecting them since they say a lot in a small amount of space primarily by what they don't say. In the latest issue of Nyt Magazine, the weekly magazine of the Helsingin Sanomat that I love so much that I save them in a pile in the office, they ran a feature with some not-so-typical postcards of Helsinki which border on satire, but I think the author was hitting only the easy targets rather than some of the more serious and rarely discussed issues that aren't in the tourism and expat brochures.

We moved here during a rather cold January and within a few days I saw a drunk guy stumbling down the middle of the street while I was out walking HB late one night. I used to be a bartender and you can just tell by looking at someone in that state that they're not just on a one night bender. HB and I just stood there for a while and watched the guy vomit, pee and then stagger over to the sidewalk and grab on to a light pole for support. Had I known any Finnish at the time, I'd have yelled to him, "Hey, don't lick the pole!"

By now I'm pretty immune to the sidewalk decorations and the occasional drunks who want to chat me up. Given the choice between drive-by shootings and drunks blowing chunks on the sidewalk, I'll live with the drunks and chunks. What I want to know is why bartenders don't refuse selling beers to obviously drunk people. In the US, you'll get fined or arrested for selling drinks to someone who is visibly intoxicated and you can reserve the right to refuse service to anyone you think has had enough. I couldn't even buy a round of drinks for friends in Boston without having them all come to the bar with me so the bartender could check everyone out. The drunks in downtown Helsinki are pretty harmless and if public intoxication is the worst thing anyone can say about Finns or their culture, well, they probably aren't paying attention. :) I'd bet that refusing service to folks who have clearly had more Lapin Kulta than they really need would cut down on the more obvious examples of public intoxication, but I don't know what the legal side of bartending is like here as, perhaps, that's already a law only rarely enforced. However, I doubt that I will ever get used to watching Finns working on their 3rd beer at 8am on the boats to Talinn.

On the upside, Nyt mentions a collection of old club flyers from Helsinki archived online which is pretty interesting to wade through. It'd be more interesting if the archivist sorted them by year so that you could view them in chronological order and really see the progression of design and style.

permalink Ω 10 July 2004, Helsinki

Screw my neighbour

« Grotesques on the Pohjola buidling on Aleksanderinkatu. I call them Grimace and Chuckles though I'm sure they have proper names. People like to mess with them and you'll often see cigarette butts stuck in their mouths or, as in the photo, adorned with ice cream and gum. »

One of the most incredibly frustrating things about trying to learn Finnish, aside from the folks who refuse to understand my Finnish and then gleefully exclaim how they can now practise their English on me, are the "Kysy naapurilta!" excercises in the classes. Ask my neighbour?! Ask my neighbour precisely what, motherfucker?! My neighbour could be anything from a clueless Brit whose pronunciation pains even me or some Karelian dude who is just slumming for easy credit and grammar. "Mikä on Helsingin paras disco?" the handout in class instructs my neighbour to ask me. Well, fuck, how in the hell am I supposed to know that? I haven't been to a disco since 1979! I get to ask, "Mikä on mielestäsi paras kirja, jonka olet lukenut?", to a guy who guy who tells me he doesn't read. At all. I'm starting to believe that it's a cruel torture device to whittle away at our resolve to learn the language. It does amuse me to think of going through Latin back in grade school with the nuns and forcing us to do these sorts of exercises in class. "Morituri te salutamus! Ausculta mihi! Tibi dico! Bene, cum  Latine nescias, nolo manus meas in te maculare."

It's like the blind leading the blind when we ask each other the questions and then try to answer them in any reasonably close to correct fashion. The people who are advanced stick together in the front of the class and the slackers tend to hang in the back, hoping not to be noticed. Even among those who struggle there are castes since noone wants to get stuck with someone who knows less than you do and so when the "Kysy naapurilta!" directive comes, and it will each and every day, the classroom turns into a country square dance hall before beer has been served to help make everyone look attractive enough to dance with. I usually just want to hide in the corner at that point and hope that noone notices me. In fact, of the few times I skipped class over the past year, each and every time it was the horrific thought of having to converse with my neighbour that drove me away. I'd almost rather go to the dentist or maybe get my skull trepanned since, clearly, I need another hole in my head.

There is a Finnish conversation class that is supposed to be on the schedule for the Fall term, but if it's just going to be a bunch of students and only one teacher/native speaker, fuck that as I can practise bad Finnish for free with my expat friends. I have met Finns whose English sucks, really sucks [albeit likely better than my sucky Finnish], and I've managed to patiently let them try since they're so enthusiastic and I somehow always get to be the target for English practise, but in spite of the fact that I love my native tongue, why is it so hard to find Finns who are willing to suffer our bumbling attempts to speak the language without fear that we're going to look like idiots and who will answer our questions of verity without a blank stare? Just about everywhere else in Europe, as I recall, speak English only if you're a tourist or if there's no other option and sometimes not even then. In Germany, I never had the recipient of my rusty German switch to English because they either thought it was rude or because, like anyone, they preferred their mother tongue. Perhaps the internet is to blame for this change to English as the bottom line for non-native speakers which is, of course, great for me since it is my native language after all, but it's a real handicap for those who aren't adept in the local language since so much depends on communication skills. We don't live inside the internet.

permalink Ω 8 July 2004, Helsinki

Juhannus by the Lake

« Sunset on Lake Saimaa on Juhannus and other photos from Juhannus. »

Juhannus was spent along the shores of Lake Saimaa this year with Mari's fabulous family and I fully understand now why most Finns either have a mökki [summer cottage] or are saving up to purchase one. We drank, ate some excellent traditional foods, and mostly just relaxed by the lake. Mari took us into town since I hadn't ever seen Olavinlinna and we walked around the tori. The water in the lakes is so clear that it makes you realise just how polluted most of the US is, even the parts that are supposedly protected. It was so quiet around the lake, too, that I'd swear I heard someone fart on the far, far end of the lake. :) Savo, the lake district of Finland, is a lot less inhabited than the Tampere-Turku-Helsinki triangle in western Finland which makes for a quiet, serene and beautiful spot for a cottage. Lupines in pink, purple and white line the roads for as far as you can see. HB had such a good time that he didn't want to get out of the car when we returned so maybe we need to look into getting him a cottage for next year. :)

permalink Ω 6 July 2004, Helsinki

Meet Irene

« A picture of a sentraalisantra [telephone operator] from Lapijoki, a small town in western Finland just north of Rauma, in the late 1930s or so. You can just feel the telephone wires burning with gossip. The deckled edge of the photo is especially nice since such touches aren't offered in modern photo prints. »

We went to Vammala with Jarkko's parents on Saturday for a big book sale, the Vanhan Kirjallisuuden Päivät. It was possibly the most crowded old book sale, outside of the Hay Festival, that I've ever been to as it was pretty mobbed which wasn't helped by the crappy rainy weather that kept everyone indoors. It's an annual event so I'm looking forward to next year's sale as we had a great time pawing through the tables of books when we could get close enough to them.

I think there must be a healthy number of postcard collectors in Finland judging by the number of booksellers who had a rather large selection of vintage postcards and paper ephemera to choose from, including the picture of Irene, the sentraalisantra in the center of Lapijoki, above for a euro. I picked up 2 interesting collections of postcards from Czechoslovakia and Pärnu, Estonia for just under 2 euro and a number of other Finnish postcards from the early 1900s. A particular series of postcards printed by Suomen Kuvataide Oy in the 1950s has consistently caught my eye but I can't seem to find much out about the company or the postcards from that era. I added to my collection a postcard of the Rautatieasema which still looks much the same today.

permalink Ω 5 July 2004, Helsinki

Nyet Boris

Helsinki City Museum has an exhibition of Soviet knickers called Memory of the Body which conjures images of Boris Yeltsin's boxer shorts and implements of female torture through the ages. The banner (above) outside is adorable since it's a pair of long underwear, but this is where the cleverness ends. The press release is hyperbole at its finest:

Helsinki City Museum is to open an exhibition, "Memory of the Body", on 4 February 2004 in Hakasalmi Villa. Produced by St Petersburg City Museum, the exhibition closes at the end of July and examines the relationship of Soviet citizens and Soviet society to the body and corporality through underwear, dating from the 1920s to the 1980s.

The "Memory of the Body" exhibition integrates contemporary art techniques with museum objects. It highlights everyday underwear and shows how a totalitarian society extended its control right down to people's skin. The exhibition introduces a new perspective of Soviet object culture. The Soviet era is not viewed from the elevated echelons of power, ideology or politics, but from the grass roots level, the perspective of ordinary people.

I was filled with disappointment when Yeltsin's shorts, the ones he was wearing while bombed and dancing on the news way back when, were not included in the exhibit. There are a lot of bras, various nighties, archive photos of Russians in bathing costumes and Lomo-esque pictures of people in their undies but, for an exhibition that had so much promise I found it lacking in creativity. An underwear exhibit could be so much fun to assemble, but this has all the fun of white cotton underwear, the ones where the waist comes up to your boobs, just like your mother used to wear. All of the tags were only in Finnish or Swedish, too, which is odd for a Museum which should expect a large number of tourists and people who don't happen to speak either of them.

I did learn that Triumph makes more than automobiles that require a live-in mechanic, they also make lingerie. I haven't shopped for a bra since the fitting clerk at Victoria's Secret yelled across the store, "Hey, Julia, do you have the wonderbra in a 34A or 34AA? In black? Do they even bother with them that small?!", when every woman in the store turned to look at me with a pity-filled smirk. So...I'm not real up on the lingerie brands. If you've got an underwear fetish, especially a Russian fetish, nirvana awaits you at the Hakasalmi Villa just north of Kiasma.

permalink Ω 4 July 2004, Helsinki

Renaissance Man

« The studio-castle Tarvaspää. »

On our way around the solar system, we paid a visit to Akseli Gallen-Kallela's studio-castle in Tarvaspää which is now a museum. [There is also Kaleva, Gallen-Kallela's summer cottage and studio in Ruovesi, which is a little north of Tampere. ] The house was completed in 1913 and is another lovely example of the Jugend architecture of the period. Gallen-Kallela was a particularly talented artist and illustrator who unfortunately died before finishing his seminal work, an illuminated edition of the Kalevala. The castle/museum contains much of his artwork and depicts his openness to new things such as a tiled bath inside the house, a novelty which he came to know in the US when he was visiting there. His artwork was also influenced by his travels and the difference in styles make it easy to see which period of his life each work is from. Cosmopolitan yet one of those most closely associated with the rise of Finnish nationalism and identity.

I must admit that I've not read the entire Kalevala or the lesser known Kanteletar from cover to cover as, like any national epic, it's long and full of references to things that you have to go hunt down the meanings of if you are to fully understand it. I've noticed that the Oxford translation is awfully dry and lacks any of the poetic metre, which might also be a contributing factor, so I'll be giving the Otava edition from 1989 a try since it is regarded as the best English translation. I have been thinking about doing a serial sort of kalevala-a-day blog, in a similar style to the Pepys Diary online, as a way to get me to really read it and annotate it. I managed to register kalevala.info and kanteletar.net so if I don't become totally bored with the idea in the next few weeks I'll do something with it. And the photos from Juhannus may have to wait another day or two as the weather is gorgeous today for a change and I'm going out into the bright light instead of sitting in the dark cave scanning photos. :)

permalink Ω 2 July 2004, Helsinki

The Weird Als of Finland

Finland has a dance called the humppa, but it's spoken of with the same disdain that disco gets in the US these days. It's for the geezers. I have been told it is something like the German polka only without the lederhosen, which is good since I'm half German and, after a few Straßenfests where people jump around in lederhosen with buckets of beer in their hands barely able to stand up, much less dance, the costumes just don't really add much to the overall aesthetic. I had a biology professor, a Bavarian who was really into opera singing, show up for a lecture in lederhosen and dance a polka for us while we sat there speechless. Everyone thought he was nuts, but I just thought he was hopelessly homesick and I couldn't imagine him doing that dance without the full costume in his usually disheveled professor uniform. I have been spared, so far, the spectacle of drunk Finns hopping around much like drunk Germans to goofy music. So far.

While we were off at the lake for Juhannus, my ear picked up something that sounded a lot like Viva Las Vegas but....not. I was informed that it was a group called Eläkeläiset [the pensioners] who are the humppa song gods in Finland and, well, everywhere else people like to humppa. I fried a few neurons just thinking about an Elvis tune done in humpaa/polka time. I can't describe their music except to say that they are the Weird Al Yankovics of Finland. Sample the Peljätty Humppa [2.2mb] and try to guess the song they are covering and be very, very afraid. It's like Ethyl Merman singing a disco version of No Business like Show Business [yes, she really did...], as it's so bad that it transcends the badness and is irresistibly brilliant. I must have more of their music. The guys actually have a regular band, Kumikameli, but I can't really tell the difference between the samples on that web site and the humppa music so it may be just a nuance only a Finn can hear. :) The lyrics are very clever and, unsurprisingly, the music is popular with the polka loving Germans. There even seems to be an OpenBSD-Humppa connection which does help explain a few things about OpenBSD. Weird Al has done a polka album so perhaps it is time he teamed up with Eläkeläiset and did a humppa album. Disturbing thought. *zot* There went another neuron.

permalink Ω 1 July 2004, Helsinki