Stairway to Heaven
« A contestant at the Finnish air guitar finals in Helsinki before competing in the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu. [do watch the video as one of the winners is a pretty hot looking woman. :)] »
It has often been said that guitars and cars are phallic extensions and, at least with guitars, you can almost picture it as such but air guitar is like clothed public masturbation. :) It's more enjoyable than karaoke for the spectator, at least a sober one, and in the age of MTV who didn't want to play like Eddie Van Halen at one point or another? There was a bit of a judging scandal, too. What in the hell is it with sport scandals this year? If it's not doping or drugs it's a judging fiasco. It takes all the focus off the sport and puts it on the business side. At least no one jumped up on stage and tried to warn the contestants about the impending end of the world.
And, perl people should join me in a moment of silence for the valiant sparc formerly known as chaos.wustl.edu since it gave its last gasp on Friday and will be given to the boneyard for parts. Chaos had been in service for almost ten years and it took 3 years of hard beating when it served as the search.cpan.org host before it was rescued by an E450. I spent a lot of late nights and early morning keeping chaos running when it was getting pummeled and, I think, we bonded. I'm not a very sentimental person but I'm going to miss that poor old box. A special thanks to Alan Reuter and the whole CTS department at Washington University in St. Louis for hosting it for all these years. Chaos also hosted the cpan.org DNS which Ben Hockenhull has fixed for now until I work up the enthusiasm to work with NyetworkSolutions and move things around. So long chaos, I'll miss you. *sniff*
permalink Ω 31 August 2004, Helsinki
You are what you eat
« A predictable and amusing porno spoof on the GIGO Monkey. »
We went to see Supersize Me on Friday night at the Espoo Film Festival which was the Finnish premier and featured an introduction and Q & A session after the movie with the director Morgan Spurlock. It was an interesting movie and I really enjoyed his attention to the medical data from three different medical professionals as well as a dietician. I don't know that anyone would be crazy enough to eat McDonald's for every meal for 30 days but it really was a surprise to see the dramatic degradation of his health in such a short time.
Perhaps the most important message of the film is directed to children and their parents in the US. The budgets for schools in the US has been cut so much in the past decade that they are being forced to allow for commercial advertising and for selling soft drinks, candy and fast food to help raise money for such things as books and, well, education. How sleazy or desperate do you have to be to allow your schools to pimp themselves out to the fast food and candy industries? And, to cut to the chase, the US is overflowing with supersized, fat, morbidly corpulent people. It is. I used to be a teenage fatass or, as they called it back then "husky", but I wasn't as enormous as kids are these days and I was almost a singularity in a whole gradeschool of skinny kids. I remember when I was about 10 when I saw a woman go by in the hospital where my mom worked whose kneecaps, her kneecaps, had folds of fat that flapped as she walked almost to the middle of her shin. She was like a circus freak since I had never in my life seen anyone so incredibly obese, but these days all it takes is a trip to any shopping mall in America to find such a person. It's a serious problem, especially for the children who will have a lifetime of health and weight problems. Of course, people think you're being mean when you point this out and I know firsthand how it feels to be on the wrong end of the stick but, then again, I don't weigh 400 pounds these days either. People feel free to point out that smoking kills and I wonder how long before it's common for people to approach the morbidly obese and start hassling them for the same reasons.
Is McDonald's to blame? No, I still don't think Spurlock explored the connection well enough and it would be far too easy and simplistic to point at them and name them as the cause of obesity in children. Even as a contributing factor I still wouldn't go as far as allowing people to sue the corporation for catering to what people seem to want as it is the American Way, isn't it? I suspect that the answer is complex and is probably far more related to the changes in lifestyle since the 1970s where people are just too busy to cook or share a real meal at home with each other. My mother worked full-time but damn if we didn't have dinner with the family, every night, at 7pm which was usually cooked by one of my sisters or me. I hated it as I got older but perhaps there was an ancient wisdom there that once cast aside has led to the current epidemic of obesity. These days both parents often work and fast food is a quick and easy solution to feeding the family. Portions are enormous. Noone walks anywhere. People get fat. There's a lot going on in this pressing issue and it's not just contained in the US as the UK is quickly catching up. It could happen here, too. It's a good movie but don't eat a Big Mac before watching it as we did as I felt sick as a dog for a day afterwards. :)
And, it's almost September with a bunch of exciting new books coming out in the next month or three.
- The Future Dictionary of America ~ The concept of what a dictionary might look like in 30 years sounds intriguing.
- The Algebraist ~ I hope this book is as good as the synopsis and first chapter sample suggest it will be. I'll forgive Iain for his sad whisky tour book if it is.
- The System of the World ~ The final book in the saga cannot get here soon enough. I'm almost sad to see the end nearing.
- The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers ~ A collection of HCB essays.
- Slightly Out of Focus ~ Especially now with all the journalists in Iraq being targeted, noone says much about the photographers who have to get close to their subjects. A memoir by one of the original photojournalists should be a good read.
- Waiting for the End of the World ~ A photoessay of fallout shelters. I always wanted to buy an old decommissioned army shelter and silo in Kansas just for the comfort factor.
- Extreme Measures : The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton ~ Another in the long list of 'forgotten' scientist books on the man to blame for the nature vs. nuture Victorianism.
- Portuguese Irregular Verbs ~ Academic novel/mystery that looks entertaining.
- The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs ~ The sequel to the above.
- Lonely Planet Say What?: Comparing Funny Expressions From... ~ This could be terrific if it's done well.
- The Penguin Book of Facts ~ Reference books filled with all sorts of useful and useless information are wonderful things.
- Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary ~ I looked at this book just for the title and the topic of spulling is a sore point for all those familiar with English. The title is clever not only for making you curious enough to look but it incorporates three often misspelled words, too. :)
- Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry (Jetlag Travel Guide) ~ A spoof of modern travel guides that looks pretty hilarious.
permalink Ω 30 August 2004, Helsinki
EuroFoo
« Lockpicking 101 at EuroFoo Camp. A few photos from the weekend. »
Jarkko and I spent the weekend at EuroFoo Camp which we were invited to and almost didn't go to since we thought it would be something like a blogerati love-in, but we wound up having a really great time. We usually go to a few perl conferences every year but this year we decided not to bother for a variety of reasons and it was great to see a few perl people we haven't seen in a while. It was also really nice to have a large number of people around who weren't involved with perl and who had interesting things to talk about all in a easily doable span of 2 days. OSCON is the neverending conference of 5+ days of non-stop talks, talking and drinking which just leaves you dead tired for about a week afterwards.
It was really weird when we arrived as there were a few perl people around to visit with but we watched all these people trickle in who didn't know each other and there was an awkwardness since everyone was wondering who everyone else was and what made them interesting, perhaps even what made themselves interesting. There was registration, dinner and drinking which seemed to help loosen things up a bit and get people away from clutching their iBooks for a few hours.
The coolest talk was lockpicking which was really fun to try even though I don't think I'll be changing careers to petty theft anytime soon. Barry 'The Key' Wels was a brilliant tutor in the art of opening locks. Tim Pritlove gave a really entertaining talk about project Blinkenlights that I had heard about but hadn't seen the video or the details on how they did it. It's a pity Helsinki doesn't really have any suitable buildings to put a blinkenlights installation in for the festival of light in early December.
A talk titled "Women in Open Source" was on the schedule with a male speaker which I wanted to go to because I was thinking it was going to be the usual guy talking to a crowd of guys wondering why there aren't any women around and I was looking to be amused. I was, in fact, rather pleasantly surprised to find no guys [2 did show up later] and the speaker was an anthropologist/ethnographer doing a study commissioned by the EU to study the dramatically low percentage [~2%] of women in open source. I have a lot of theories, but I'm very encouraged to see someone with the right background and training investigating this problem in a scholarly manner.
O'Reilly is going to do an OSCON in the EU next year so Gnat and Gina had a talk to get feedback and toss around ideas. I put a good word in for Tallinn since it's a nice, cheap venue that is close for all the Nordic countries for a change but the Germans do seem to have a very strong pull. :) They're planning on having a mailing list for people who are interested in the conference and who want to know as soon as they know where it's going to be. It will likely be a little different from the US OSCON, perhaps cheaper and smaller, but I'm very happy to see them finally coming to the EU. Of course, I now have this vision of Gnat as Chevy Chase in the O'Reilly European Vacation movie. :)
What else...geez, it was a whirlwind of 3 days with travelling on two of them which is always a very tiring way to see anything. We saw a lot of people we missed and met a few people who live a few blocks or km away but hadn't yet met as well. It was a really great time and it might spoil me for conferences in the future that are too long with too many people and with fewer interesting talks. Thanks, again, to the ORA folks for hosting such a nice gettogether. :)
permalink Ω 27 August 2004, Helsinki
Rings and Crowns
« Tommi and Adele in an engagement photo I took for them back in June on Suomenlinna. They got married over the weekend in LA. Congratulations to them both! :) »
If ever there was proof that there is no such thing as a kind and benevolent creator, teeth would be the prime example. Anyone who scoffs at this hasn't ever had an abcessed tooth or possibly finds pleasure in such horrific pain. I once had a tooth go south on me late one night when I was working in the herbarium looking up different specimens and chowing down a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream with nuts and chocolate. My tooth hit a nut and I hit the ceiling. I spent the rest of the night in some tragicomic attempts, like trying to bathe the tooth in Anbesol by standing on my head only to nearly swallow it and suffocate, to quell the excrutiating pain until morning arrived when I could call my dentist. In the morning, I looked like a chipmunk who stuffed a large golfball into my cheek when I went into work. I got a quick appointment with the endodontist, a.k.a. Dr. Root Canal, and I don't think I've ever before been so happy to see a needle and a drill in the vicinity of my oral cavity in my life.
Over the past week or so I've had similar twinges of pain in another tooth that have been giving me chronic headaches. Of course, being a stranger in a strange land it makes me even less enthused than usual to go visit doctors of any kind, especially the kind that have implements of torture. I haven't been to see a doctor of any kind in 3 or more years and I suppose it is from growing up in a medical household where you had to be coughing up a lung to miss school much less get real medical attention. The cobblers children have no shoes as the old saying goes, but not having the first clue about how to get an appointment or where to go is a real deterrent, not that I went much when I did know who to call. So, Jarkko made a surprise dental appointment this morning that gave me 90 minutes to get there which is likely the only kind I wouldn't wuss out on going to because I didn't have enough time to rationalise an excuse and, after a good poking about and an x-ray, it turned out to be nothing. I'm not sure which is worse; going to the dentist and finding out that you're about to buy him a new Jaguar with the goldmine of cavities he found in your mouth or going to the dentist only to be told that your pain is a mystery. I was happy to skip on out of there in a short time but teeth have a way of getting their revenge come hell or high water. Damn teeth.
permalink Ω 25 August 2004, Helsinki
And we didn't even Disco
« HB, tired from the excitement of a car ride and good food, sleeps soundly. »
A long, fun weekend spent in Enschede, the Netherlands, has made us both as tired as HB looks. *yawn* I noticed a book in the in-flight magazine called point it and think it would be great for when you're too tired to really talk, even in your native tongue, to simply point at what you want. Brilliant idea.
permalink Ω 23 August 2004, Helsinki
Helsinki Moments
« A cute kid at Linnanmäki who wasn't so thrilled to watch the Olympic Torch being carried past him. Perhaps if the torch were made of ice cream.... »
Last year there was a story about Eeva and Simo Rista, a couple of amateur photographers two professional photographers (I stand corrected since I vaguely remember that being the case last year and got caught out for not reading or making Jarkko read the details in Finnish as they are well known in Finland. Mea Culpa. Many thanks to the person who ever so politely corrected me.), who gave a lifetime of photographs to be digitized and shared with the public. The other day we were walking past Lasipalatsi where I noticed a few random pictures in the window and it turns out that Lasipalatsi has started to accept pictures from other people who wish to submit their photos for the collection/archive. The show, Moments in Helsinki is free and open from 12-6p Tuesday through Sunday through the month of August. There are some really great photos and, aside from the Rista's photos, I particularly like the photos of Tapio Mäkiö as his 300 pictures tell a story and he has a good eye. The photo Life returns to normal after the chaos of moving taken in February 1966 is a lovely vignette. There are 10,000 or so more to browse through online (only a tiny fraction of which have been printed for the gallery) which is a really interesting view into life in Finland in photographs taken not by photojournalists but everyday people.
And, note to self...when heading out into the bush in Finland to photograph things that glow in the dark during the warmer months, remember to take a giant stick of bug-off, a can of raid spray, a mosquito net, a citronella candle (or 5), and an extra pint of blood. Damn, I can't wait for the -20C weather with dry wind and snow since at least with frostbite there are no bloodsucking evil vampires on gossamer wings involved. Of course, when it took nearly 2 hours for me to get all the feeling in my fingers back after photographings the Kide in -20C weather I was thinking how wonderful summertime would be. :)
permalink Ω 19 August 2004, Helsinki
Resistance is Futile
« Resistance is futile puny human. You are going to drop that ice cream any moment now. Obey my hypnotic stare. »
I watched this little dog crawl under the bench and gaze lovingly at a German man's ice cream. Sadly, the man was immune to his Jedi mind tricks and he consumed the entire thing without sharing. I almost felt badly enough to go get one and give him some. :) These are supposedly the 'Dog Days' of summer, but if it keeps raining the way it has been we are all going to have to consider buying a boat.
permalink Ω 17 August 2004, Helsinki
Drummer for the Drunk
« This percussionist is frequently downtown during the warmer months and he shuttles his equipment around in a baby carriage inbetween performances. You can see his audience in the lower left corner before the drunk wagon turned up to help him along. »
I received my first absentee ballot from the US today and I had a few questions about it so I called the office in Arlington. It was so weird to talk to someone with a townie accent on the other end of the phone since I've been away from the US long enough now to have some of the familiar details become only vague memories. There's nothing like a thick Boston townie accent to bring all of it back into sharp focus.
Since the ballot I received was for some state primary that I have no interest in I wanted to ask if I should be expecting the Presidential election ballot to arrive in the mail at some point and the woman confirmed that, yes, I should receive it sometime in October. The letter enclosed also instructed me to produce some sort of identification:
Pursuant to a new federal law, the Help America Vote Act of 2002, you must provide a copy of your identification with this ballot if you are voting for the first time in a federal election since registering by mail in 2003.
Acceptable identification must include your name and the address at which you are registered to vote, for example: a current and valid photo identification, current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check, or other government document showing your name and address. Please note that this identification will not be returned to you.
I've never heard of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) before but how does sending a current utility bill constitute a form of identification? I asked her about this and she asked where I was living and I told her I now live in Finland. She paused for a moment and put me on hold and returned in a few minutes to tell me that I'm exempt from this since I live outside the US. So, I'm wondering who this clause might apply to. The legalese in the document is really difficult to read through so it's hard to determine what it's all about but given the current administration I'm not convinced its aim is to really help people vote.
permalink Ω 16 August 2004, Helsinki
Prague; the melancholy city of the Vltava
« The Charles Bridge, saintly figures and the Prague Castle silhouetted in the fleeting sunset. A gallery of photos from 3 days in Prague. They aren't as lovely as the prints given my dying cheap scanner and different browsers being too 'helpful' in adjusting the colours, but the city still looks beautiful in spite of it all. »
Prague, the legendary city, with over 1000 years of history and home to the original Budweiser. It's the city of golden light and spires and of concrete ghettos from the communist era. Anyone who was anyone throughout history was in or through Prague at least once. It's a charming city in spite of the throngs of tourists and the bohemian flavour giving way to capitalism. Three days wasn't long enough and I hope to return someday in the off-season to see more of the people of Prague.
We arrived in time for sunset over the Charles Bridge and climed the Old Town Bridge Tower to watch the beautiful golden light bathe the city and the bridge in a warm glow. It's funny how it seems strange that it gets dark by 8.30pm when you come from a place where it doesn't until 10p or later. The bridge is constantly crowded with tourists and peddlers selling all sorts of touristy stuff and some reasonably good photographs of the city. Prague is one of those places that make you feel like every photo you even think of taking is a cliché considering how many other people with cameras are around you and how many photos already exist. I don't know that I've ever seen so many camera toting tourists in one place as I even saw another guy with a Leica. It's somewhat discouraging to try to take a photo of something only to have 20 people behind you or next to you with flash cameras who kill your exposure and your creative enthusiasm. I only shot a couple of rolls of film but I got a few nice photos and all of the black and white photography in local galleries made me think that B&W suits the city much better. I still think of Foto Skoda rather longingly as it had everything a photographer could ever want.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the trip was walking across the Most Legii, having a really lovely lunch on the island in the middle [they have a summer movie theatre on this island as well], taking the funicular railway up to the top of Petrin Hill, viewing the city from the top of the 62m tall 5:1 scale model of the Eiffel Tower, wandering through the mirror labyrinth and then making our way down the hill on foot through the giant, but steep, park in the Malá Strana. It's was cool on a hot day with few tourists leaving only the locals to walk their dogs, drink beer in the shade, play frisbee or read a book on the grass.
A curious feature of Prague is the apparent difficulty in finding Czech beer that is not the usual mainstream Budvar, etc. that you can buy in the local Alko. We ventured out one evening to a brewpub in the Nove Mesto called Pivovarsky Dum where it was crowded but well worth the wait. We had 6 beers, 2 aperitifs, 2 appetizers, 2 main courses, and 2 desserts all for a little less than 25 euro. I was disappointed that they were out of the nettle beer but the sour cherry was an interesting change of pace. I also had a near religious experience over the spaetzle which was something I've not had in ages and it was as good as my mother's. :) If you like Bavarian food then you'll love the Czech food in Prague, but there are a lot of other world cuisines available as well. Sadly, there are an abundance of McDonald's, KFC's and even TGI Friday's.
The Old Town Square, which features the astronomical clock that draws crowds of gaping tourists every hour, is a place to walk through, see the tourists, see the throngs of American students affecting a bohemian lifestyle by drinking cheap wine in a circle while one of them plays a guitar and look in the windows of the trinket shops wondering who buys all that crap. I did have some fun with an American guy selling candied almonds, like the ones you can buy in Tallinn, as he was convinced I was from Denmark and when I said "Finland", he replied that he was really good at picking out accents. Oh, the sweet torment of resisting the urge to muster my best Missouri drawl and say, "Really?! I'm originally from St. Louis! Where are you from?" I just left him with the feeling of being a fleamarket Prof. Higgens as his nuts were good. :)
The Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral were, of course, mobbed so we didn't linger too long fighting the crowds of various tour groups and happy snappers who would ask people to get out of their shot from 15m or more away in a square filled with people. I was crushed to find that the Leica Gallery Prague, on the grounds of the Castle, was inbetween shows as we had just missed what looked to be an excellent exhibit of Czech documentary photography and they were still setting up an exhibit of photos of Audrey Hepburn. We escaped the milling throngs by fleeing to the Royal Gardens next to the castle which were well tended and featured a falconer with his charges which included an eagle who looked pretty pissed off for being tethered.
At one point when we were crossing the Old Town Square, we looked north and saw something that I jokingly suggested was a metronome since it was something that had a tick-tock kind of motion. Later I read something that mentioned that a metronome had been installed on a site where a Stalinist statue once stood. Of course, I had to go see that so, before dinner I thought we could walk by there, have a look and maybe take a photo of the city from the hill it sits on. On the way there we were walking along the river and felt a bit of spider web across my face and pawed it off. A little further on I suddenly became aware of the wrought iron metal grates that form the barrier along the river alive with more spiders than I've ever seen in one place. Some of them were big spiders. I'm not fond of spiders so I moved to the far edge of the sidewalk and started walking a little faster. When we arrived at the bridge it was like the set of a horror movie; billions of spiders all over the bridge railings and the lights were encased in cobwebs and spiders, some of them big and furry. I closed my eyes and we hurried across the bridge as fast as possible but there was no refuge from arachnids on the other side as all of the lights leading up to the metronome were encased in webs and spiders. There were enough of them to trap a human in their webs and suck them dry! I lost all interest in the metronome and simply wanted to escape to the non-spidery part of town as fast as possible. I don't know where their predators are but they could be fat and happy in Prague.
A real highlight of the usual tourist attractions is the Municipal House which has been recently renovated and restored to its original splendour and features a room by Alphonse Mucha that made me wish I could move in tomorrow. It is nothing short of a monument to Art Nouveau. Czech independence was declared here as well as hosting many heads of state and diplomatic talks. The Powder Tower, so named because it used to store gunpowder, is adjacent to the Municipal House and, aside from the disconcertingly narrow and vertical spiral staircase, makes for a beautiful view of the Staré Mesto and Prague Castle. There's also a collection of gorgeous photographs by Ladislav Sitensky on the top before you venture out onto the roof.
Wenceslas Square and the high street at the northern end form a large shopping district. We found out after we returned to Helsinki that there was a car bomb on the day we were enjoying Petrin Park which was a bit of a shock considering that we sat and watched people go by for a while not terribly far from where the bomb was detonated in Wenceslas Square. I guess it didn't make the news since it wasn't deemed a terrorist act. In the middle of this shrine to capitalism, next to a McDonald's and above a casino there is a Museum of Communism which is a small, but nicely curated collection of artifacts of communism. There is a video which shows the history of communism in Prague/Czech Republic and has moving footage of the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution. Their gift shop has some retro posters, postcards and Lenin bust candles which I would have bought had the very grumpy lady at the desk not informed me that the gift shop was closed. On our way out, we noticed other people buying postcards so, I dunno, maybe she thought I was a Russian since I had my Lomo camera with me.
So, what can I say, there's too much to go on about with Prague even after having spent only three days there. It's cheap, clean and safe along with some of the most amazing architecture and history in Europe. Believe the warnings about the Taxis since we had one guy at a stand who wanted to charge us 60kr per km for a ride to the airport which we declined only to have the guy behind him quote us a flat 600kr price which was far more reasonable. We accepted and the car lurched and lurched and lurched and once we were across the bridge the driver said that 'das auto ist kaput' and let us out on the side of the road with no other cabs in sight. We managed to hop the metro out to the last stop and get a cab for only 350kr to the airport and made the flight home. It just serves to make you appreciate the Helsinki taxis and public transport even if they are more expensive since they are maintained, they work and they rip everyone off equally. :) Highly recommended, just be prepared for massive crowds during the high season. You don't have to walk too far outside the tourist zone to find the density of tourists dramatically decreasing.
My only regret was not brushing up on my history of Prague a bit more before we arrived. The LP Best of Prague proved to be invaluable for such a short visit and Prague Pictures, by the incomparable John Banville, is an absolutely wonderful little book about his own experiences of the city before and after the fall of communism. Now that I'm even more curious about Prague, Prague in Black and Gold looks like an excellent book on the history of the city. When it's published in November, Time's Magpie, also promises to be a good book. Prague i Guide, and Prague Information Service seem to offer a reasonable amount of useful information as well.
permalink Ω 14 August 2004, Helsinki
Burning Rubber
« The smell of burning rubber. »
Cruising Night was last Friday but it seems I didn't get the memo about them first collecting in the harbour area before meeting in the icehall parking lot soo...it was too dark to really take any photos after 10p when the cars finally started arriving there. I only bothered with a few shots of the cars burning rubber on the lot for spectators and those who love the smell of burning rubber. I was disappointed since I do love classic cars.
And, barring any loss of motivation, the Prague photos will be available by sometime tomorrow.
permalink Ω 13 August 2004, Helsinki
No Woman No Cry
« Plastic overlay on the sidewalk pedestrian signs that have recently appeared around town that turn the man into a rasta with dreads and chin tuft. I've seen a tiny version applied to smaller round-headed human figures, too. I call it 'No Woman. No Cry' since you never see a male and female stick figure together on one sign and it's only used on the males. They're cute. :) »
I spent the evening grumbling at my scanner and trying to resist the urge to hurl it out into the street just to watch it shatter into thousands of tiny pieces which would then get crushed under passing cars. I got the Prague photos scanned in without casualty though. It's an old, cheap scanner that has developed a haze under the glass and tends to colour the photos rather strangely. Aggravating. I suppose it's time to look around at the newer models and see if there isn't one around that won't leave me walking funny on the way out of the shop.
Oh, and summer left today after a viciously dark cloud blew in, blotted out the sun, and commenced pouring rain and hail in buckets. I'll admit that I wasn't enjoying the 28C weather with 90% humidity, but I'm not ready for October weather just yet. It's still humid only now it's 11C. Well, it was a nice week of warm weather while it lasted. Hrmph.
permalink Ω 12 August 2004, Helsinki
The Finn in 1926
« A 'typical office building' in 1926 at the corner of Lönnrotinkatu and Yrjönkatu. State office building, yes, but typical? It's still there today. »
It's always dangerous to pay a visit to the Hagelstamin Antikvaarinen Kirjakauppa [nice old used bookstore] because it's easy, too easy, to find something of interest. The lastest find is Finland To-day by Frank Fox printed in 1926. I've got a small collection of English travelogues and other writings about Finland but this is the earliest I've found so far. I can't find anything about the author from the non-existent colophon or from the net, but he was likely a post-Imperial Englishman who smoked a pipe and embraced all the things we commonly think of when we imagine such people. His preface is, however, rather amusing and says more about him than about his subject.
The Finns -- what is the key to an understanding of this race, with so much stubborn courage and yet so much cautious prudence; so fertile in imagination and yet with such a gift for methodical organization; so strong in race pride and yet able to come from out a long period of subjection to a foreign power with no painful record of revolts and martyrdoms?
I have sought that key by a visit to their country and by a study of their history and their art and literature, and can offer to my readers perhaps some clues, certainly not a clear explanation, of a people who remain still to me enigmatic. How can one explain a people who suggest at one time the Japanese, at another the Irish, at another the Scots, at another the Americans, at another the citizens of one of the little states of ancient Greece? Certainly they cannot be classified. They are their own genus.
It will be worth while for students of mankind to keep an eye on these Finns (not four millions in number if one leaves out of the count emigrants) who have already made a small mark in the world and who are destined to make a much greater mark. Fate has placed them athwart Russia, whose development from Bolshevism will give the chief interest to the future history of the twentieth century; and this outpost position will keep Finland prominent on the world's stage. By character they are eager to try out all those problems of post-war civilization which have to do with the reconciliation of democracy with authority, of capitalism with the rights of labour, of art with mechanical industry, of woman's claim to civic equality with the institution of the family. Both in issues of foreign politics and social polities, therefore, the world is likely to hear a great deal of Finland in the future.
But I wish to emphasize that this book does not pretend to offer more than a traveller's impressions of the Finns and Finland. Statements in it of historical or economic fact are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. The rest -- criticisms, opinions, surmises-are those of an observer who does not speak the Finnish tongue and had to rely much upon interpreters and Finns who spoke English. Fortunately English is very generally spoken by educated Finns; with others, interpreters helped. To know what "the others"-i.e. the people of merely elementary education-thought was, to my mind, essential.
On which point, a memory from another land. I was seeking once to know what the Arabs in a Near East territory were thinking and saying on a certain subject. An excellent interpreter helped me to get the views of many notables-priests, merchants, officials, journalists. But he made a meek protest when I sought his aid to get bazaar gossip at first hand. It was in the days before Angora had made the wearing of a bowler hat a test of sound nationalism, and every good Moslem wore the fex. The fez, like the silk hat which used to be a badge of British respectability, needs frequent ironing to keep it shaped and comely. The little shops where the fez is ironed are the great gossip centres of the East. My interpreter objected to my plan of haunting these places whilst he translated to me what was said.
"These people are of no importance at all," he pleaded. "They will say nothing valuable."
Nevertheless we listened to the gossip, and there were good gleanings: valuable evidence to check and to explain the statement of more responsible people.
When I first read the paragraph insinuating that most educated Finns spoke English and 'the others' were merely less educated, I had to check the date of publication just to make sure it wasn't written far more recently. Outside of the major cities, even now, you can't expect people to speak English. Perhaps he just hung around at the British embassy having tea and cakes while chatting up the Finnish Anglophiles. At the time, Finland had only recently asserted its independence and, as far as I'm aware, the languages taught in schools were Finnish, Swedish and German with English replacing the German much later. The author's little anecdote about the fez is also pretty funny as it conjures the image of some stuffy old fart in a smoking jacket and fez reclining in his library lined with books and glassy-eyed taxidermy waxing poetic about that last safari he took 20 years prior. Overall, though, his observations about the people and the political stage at the time seem rather prescient.
If he was looking for gossip with the lowly little people of Finland who didn't speak English, he sure as hell wasn't eating with them judging by his description of Finnish food experienced under what he calls "natural conditions."
[breakfast] It begins with the usual "continental" breakfast of coffee and rolls (no alcoholic drink is taken with this!), which discovers some new and delightful forms of bread. There is knackerbrod, for instance, made of rye, unleavened I should say, and, when properly crisp, of delightful taste. There is clean strength in it, too, far more than in the starchy white bread of Britain and of France. One could live a week on knackerbrod and butter and do a hard day's work all the while.
Lunch comes fairly early in the day and is generally the principal meal. It offers a variety of about thirty different snacks and trifles, such as little potatoes, cooked in their jackets and served to be eaten whole with plenty of butter, pepper, and salt; omelette and egg dishes; cheese with knackerbrod; sardines, lake trout, and half a dozen other varieties of fish; caviare; reindeer tongue, hard and smoked; a kind of reindeer biltong; various other dried and preserved meats; and various salads of cooked or of raw vegetables-radishes, onions, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, etc. You choose about half a dozen of these "appetizers," consume them, and then try another half-dozen. A good Finnish appetite is able to encompass about twenty in all. Those who have lived in Russia will recognize that in this one particular at least, of making the little preliminaries the most important part of the midday meal, Finland follows Russian customs. There comes next one of a variety of set dishes-of meat, eggs, or of fish-and then coffee.
I've looked around a bit, but I've not found anything to support the idea that Finnish dining habits were of Russian fashion. The meal sounds like a typical buffet but, at the time, it likely was out of reach for most of the inhabitants of Finland given the post-WWI economy. It's funny how he whines a wee bit over no booze with breakfast since Finland was still enduring a brief and misguided bout of prohibitionism [he goes on at great length in the prohibition chapter on this topic where he descends into a non-sensical analogy of women's lust for draperies and lust for the demon drink]. But, considering I had a grandmother who boiled hamburger, the British were not a people in a position to critique the cuisine of other countries. :) The most fun comes when he tries to describe sauna to the British travelling class;
The tourist will be interested to sample the Finnish national bath. On this point a word of caution. In the capital and in the big towns the chief bath establishments are very good, but they follow the Swedish and not the Finnish mode. You are steamed in a cabinet, rubbed down by vigorous masseuses, put in a hot bath and rubbed down again; then have a cold douche bath. But a Finnish bath-house can be found on inquiry in every big centre, and in the country districts it is the only type of bath-house. Every village, every large farmhouse has one. The typical farm bath-house is a little log building, with no opening save the door. Inside is a rough heap of big stones, so placed that they leave a space beneath for burning wood. A fire is kept alight for some hours to make the stones very hot. Trunks of trees are arranged round the room, providing two or three tiers of rough seats. When the stones are very hot a big pail of water and some thin birch twigs (with the leaves on if possible) are brought in. then enter the bathers, and to give a Finn's own explanation:
"We close the door as we enter, and sit down on seats. Then one of us ladles out water on to the hot stones, and with a great deal of hisssing it turns into steam. We sit on the lowest seat till we get used to the heat, and then, as soon as we can stand it, mount up higher, getting into a great sweat. With the twigs we beat each other to stir up the circulation. Then we go out and roll over two or three times in the snow or plunge into a cold stream."
That is the national bath. You may enjoy it in the towns (with the exception of a roll in a snowdrift!) if you take care to enquire where the Finnish bath-house is.
You think he might have been hanging out with the Swedes of Helsinki for the majority of his time in Finland? Granted, the Finnish sauna, the word he curiously managed to avoid, doesn't have blonde babes named Ingrid giving you an envigorating rubdown, but the roll in the snow/ice cold shower really isn't all that bad. I mean, if you're going to go sweat naked with a bunch of peasants and beat each other with sticks, what's a roll in the snow going to hurt, huh? The chances of the British aristocracy, presumeably the intended audience of this book, taking a sauna out in the Finnish boonies with the locals is so remote as to be curious as to why he bothered to include it.
Overall, though, if you can ignore his using "The Finn" in every other sentence, his aristocratic gloss and pomposity and curious biases, it's reasonably accurate and insightful for the time it was written. Finland To-day is 182 pages long and has an intact fold-out map of Finland before the loss of Karelia and other parts after WWII. The table of contents list quite an interesting selection of chapter topics; "Where the Finns come from", "Finland, A Grand Duchy", "The Finn in His Capitol", "The Finn as Farmer", "The Finn as Forester", "The Finn as Manufacturer", "Art in Finland', "How Finland is Goverened", "Finland's Foreign Policy and Defence System", "Finland's Social Conditions", "Prohibition in Finland", "Finland's Financial and Economic System", and "Finland for the Tourist." It seems like a rather wide mix of topics given that it's a travel book for the British aristocracy with details on the best routes to Finland from England. Fortunately, Finland already had their own flag. :)
permalink Ω 10 August 2004, Helsinki
Crumpler
I think I've tried just about every bag to carry stuff around in and there's always something that fails me in the end; too small, too big, too soft, too hard, etc. The last bag I fell in love with, the Timbuk2 Commuter v.2 bag, is a great bag but seemingly no matter how light it is my back begins to ache after about 2km of walking. I walk a lot and having my back being enraged too often isn't something I can live with. So, I began looking for another bag that might be kinder to my back.
While we were in Prague, I dragged Jarkko to Fotoskoda, a candyland for photographers the likes of which Helsinki only wishes it had when compared to the Leica shop here which is small and seemingly only open during certain phases of the moon and the last day of February during odd-numbered leap years [when it is open though, the gentleman who runs the shop is absolutely excellent]. I noticed they had a camera bag department on one of the three floors and asked to look at a backpack they had on display. I didn't really want a camera bag since I travel light and don't carry that much kit and I've not liked backpacks since university where the weight of the bag stuffed with chemistry textbooks would crush against my vertebrae. The bag I found myself looking at and eventually buying was the Crumpler Formal Lounge. Its lower half is a padded camera bag and the top half is for a laptop/whatever else. Most importantly it has a gullet for your spine on the back between the padding much like a saddle does. It's easy to get into without being so easy that you have to worry about getting ripped-off in a crowd. The camera compartment isn't really large enough for someone with a large SLR and giant lenses, but it's perfect for someone with something of the Leica form factor who carries the camera [intact and ready to shoot], an extra lens, flash, a filter or three and extra film. It's also nice to have all the kit conveniently located, yet in a padded compartment where it won't rattle around like it did in the commuter bag. I still don't really love backpacks all that much, but this bag is the most comfortable thing I've worn in years. My back is very appreciative, too. :)
permalink Ω 7 August 2004, Helsinki
Celsius 488.333
« The Fahrenheit 9/11 banners and Spiderman at Tennispalatsi a few weeks ago. »
I have been patiently awaiting the release of F9/11 since I just can't be bothered to download movies at 6kbps from the usual places on the net. Given the choice of wading through my inbox or going to see the afternoon matinee of F9/11 there was no contest. Michael Moore is a difficult person to love given the sort of smug unctuosity he exudes at times. He infuses his movies with so much of his own personality that it's a challenge to love his movies if you don't have much fondness for the man behind the camera. However, this movie is bigger than him and bigger than his personality. I want to see it again and maybe even buy the DVD when it's released. It's more of an editorial movie than a documentary, but I found it a bit overwhelming and I'm unable to summarize it. He did a good job and I would have loved to drive the ice cream truck around Capitol Hill while he read the Patriot Act to Congress.
James Bamford's book, A Pretext for War : 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies, also discusses similar and, perhaps, even more damaging evidence pointing to the premeditated corruption of the Bush administration. I am not optimistic that Kerry will win in November and I'm not encouraged that a mere change of president will solve some of the most troubling problems in the US, but I'm glad that at least some people are willing to break from the ranks of those who cling to their safe silence to voice their opinions, to challenge the status quo, no matter what the risk may be. I have noticed a trend of Americans abroad wearing Kerry buttons as if to suggest that they're not one of those Americans, yet I wonder if they wear them back home.
permalink Ω 7 August 2004, Helsinki
Death: The Decisive Moment
« Henri Cartier-Bresson behind his Leica. »
I heard the news that Henri Cartier-Bresson died while we were in Prague. His style was distinctive and his aloof intimacy with those he captured on film are a precious record of the passage of life where he happened to chance upon it. Documentary photography has always produced the most interesting photos because they tell a story and he wasn't just a photographer, he was a brilliant storyteller. The Guardian has a story about his life and Magnum has a retrospective in photos. May he rest in peace and his immortality be assured in his photographic stories for generations to come. n.b. Leica has finally posted a tribute to the man who defined their camera., Leicaslacker's Ernest and Henri and a tribute from the Smithsonian.
I'm worn out from 4 days in Prague where it was warm and mobbed by tourists and tourist traps. Note to self: next time, visit in the winter when it will still be warmer than Helsinki and have far fewer tourists. It was good to see the familiar Finnish landscape below the wing as we were landing, but I want to know why Finns seem to have this rather odd habit of applauding the piot upon touchdown since the pilot can't hear them and, well, I'd prefer no encores. Judging by the sea of lost baggage at Vantaa, it's good we didn't return yesterday when there was a baggage handlers 1-day strike. I'll have the photos developed and will write more detail on Prague in a few days.
permalink Ω 5 August 2004, Helsinki
