All's Quiet

« The 'staff only' door to the now vacant office. One detail might give away which staff. :) »

Last night, the city was so quiet that even the local police commented in the paper today that it was half as rowdy as a normal Friday night. It's even rather quiet this morning which makes me nervous that people are gearing up for a 24-hour orgiastic drink-athon. It's like being back home when the sky goes dark and green, the wind dies and you're waiting for the torrential rain and the hail to begin. Happy Vappu/May Day/Walpurgis to all. :)

This week there was an Open Source conference in Moscow where, rather surprisingly, Larry gave a talk about community building with Open Source [.ppt ~3mb]. Old timers will notice it being a classic Larry talk by using a lot of pictures, being very vague and mentioning god at least once. There's really only one person who has put up with all the PITA Perl people over the past decade, including myself, who has actively tried to keep the community going but who has started to drift away from this role and it has begun to show; it's not Larry. Larry is the somewhat mythical god figure who very occasionally says something from the mount, these days usually about the similarly fabled perl6. When so many of the bright older guys who aren't given to personality worship have gone, the void is inadequately filled by starfucker/fanboys who haven't figured out that titles of "The" are only used for the infamous dead or artists whose careers are in a slump. It might have been interesting to talk about how Perl6 caused a schism and how the population surrounding the language has fundamentally changed since then, but that would require something a lot more concrete and insightful than, to summarize Larry's talk, people are people.

permalink Ω 30 April 2005, Helsinki

Order a Bannugaggu Today!

« Otava on the rocks of the southernmost island of Suomenlinna. »

I finally got around to developing, scanning and putting together a small gallery of the "Hanoi Rocks, Stocmann Shakes!" photos and, since Arabella gave me a bonus flickr pro account and made me promise to use it, I'm going to try to put a few completely random photos on my flickr photostream and see if I get bored with it or not.

And the treat of the day was picking up the April issue of Living which had a feature on pancakes that included a mention about pannukakku which is quoted below. What I didn't expect was the last sentence which made me giggle for about 20 minutes as I imagined throngs of American housewives visiting Helsinki on a Baltic cruise and ordering a 'bannugaggu' while trying to impress their friends with their grasp of Finnish food imparted to them by Martha. Walking home I kept trying to say it and figure out how they came to the conclusion that this was the way it was supposed to be pronounced. It's fun to say bannugaggu, but it sounds like a baby talk or someone with a severe head cold. I suppose there are benefits to being so easily entertained. Perhaps someone was just slipping a joke by the unwitting editors. The recipe looked reasonable, though I'm not sure how the pannukakku in the picture achieved the puff without any leavening agents at all.

Pannukakku - From Finland

Unlike most pancakes, this cardamom-scented version (above) hailing from Finland is baked rather than fried or grilled, giving it a soft, puffed-up interior and a delicately crisp crust. It's particularly versatile: For breakfast, it's delectable with lingonberry jam (or cloudberry, if you can find it); for a more savory, late-day meal, try it with the traditional accompaniment of yellow-split-pea soup. By the way, if you happen to be in Finland and want to order this pancake, the name is pronounced "bannugaggu."

Since one gentle reader wrote to me and, much to my amazement, thought that pannukakku could be easily heard as bannugaggu, I had Jarkko pronounce both pannukakku and bannugaggu to perhaps help illustrate the distinct difference. The p and the b are possible to mistake, but the double-g and the double-k are unmistakably distinct.

permalink Ω 29 April 2005, Helsinki

Shoe Me

« Please wear shoes when crossing here. Look at the size of those feet in comparison to the short arms. You know what they say about big feet....:) »

permalink Ω 27 April 2005, Helsinki

Betty Crocker Exposed

« Pilvipaimen by Merja Ranki at a gallery on Uudenmaankatu. The kind of art that looks really cool but would look completely absurd at home. »

I've not been baking much lately but I ran across the Pi Pie at some point yesterday and thought that it was really cute. The last time I thought about Pi was during the boom days, I tagged along with a friend to a party in Cambridge hosted by a dude with a lot of VC cash and a boner for someone known to me only as the "Pi Chick" whose claim to fame was that she memorized a large portion of the digits of Pi. Well, that and having a fairly public affair with the boss, a.k.a. the dude with the VC cash, who just promoted her to head of development or somesuch. It was a lavishly catered affair with cookies, cakes, petit fors, sumptuous desserts and food of all kinds, etc. either in the shape of Pi or adorned with its digits. Pi had nothing to do with the start-up, at least as far as I know. The start-up, of course, failed and the guy would eventually get sued by the investors. Maybe I should try doing a Chicken Mole with Avogadro's number or a round cake in the shape of a mole for Mole Day. I might even try to work in the Co-Fe ring chemist gag for extra nerd points.

More interesting books are being released this spring than in the past year or two although I don't know that anyone needs three different books on the life and times of the honeybee. How is it that when there is one book on some obscure historical topic that there's bound to be one or two more on the same topic from different publishers released about the same time? It makes me wonder if publishers think that if we'll buy one book on some boutique subject that we'll buy all three of them so they all get on the bandwagon and try to cash in. Is there some random topic generating program somewhere that claims to be random but spits out the same topics to all the publishers using it? If only I didn't need sleep, the pile of unread books would be so much smaller.

• Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time π Someone finally puts the smackdown on the perpetuated stupidity that is DST. Revolt and sleep in for a change as we're not living in Victorian times anymore! Damn cheerful morning people punishing us night owls. *grumble*
• Leica M: Advanced Photo School π A new edition of a rather expensive classic that's hard to find. Something every Leicaphile will deny wanting, but go out and buy a copy to hide under their pillow for late night reading. :)
• 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos π Aside from the science and the scientists building the bomb, the small city that sprang up around the project is rarely discussed in much detail and is likely as fascinating as the project. A place like this could never happen today which also adds to the curiosity.
• Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food π At some point when I was a kid, I noticed that two Betty Crocker cake mixes my mother had on the shelf had two different pictures of the famed Ur-Martha and I knew right then that I had been duped, that there was no such cheerful baking homemaker that I secretly wished my mother was like instead of a driven career woman putting her patients first. I need to read this if only to have closure on the feelings of childhood violation at the hands of marketing wanks.
• Freddy and Fredericka π Mark Helprin's upcoming novel that is a satire featuring a, but likely the, royal family. Helprin is one of the few brilliant fiction writers left out there.
• A Long Way Down π A new novel from Nick Hornby that will, hopefully, not make me write him off as a hack still coasting on the success of High Fidelity.

permalink Ω 26 April 2005, Helsinki

Ole!

« A cute embellishment with a bit of wordplay on a don't even think about parking here sign. The tow trucks are busy these days. »

My deep thought for the day is that after seeing the Helsinki Marathon yesterday going past our house, the entertainment value of watching people run would be greatly improved by releasing some of the big cats from the zoo to run behind them. No more stragglers, just survivors and lunch.

permalink Ω 25 April 2005, Helsinki

Bollocks

« How the Finns envision Dallas presented in a Stockmann display window. »

So, what is the deal with the apparent Finnish obsession with Texas? American TV and film present only certain small parts of the landscape and so it tends to focus the stereotypes on New York, Texas/Dallas and California with a few other locales thrown in for variety. And all of these shows get exported for reruns to the far corners of the globe so that foreigners everywhere can watch them and build their (mostly false) impressions of the US. Fortunately, I didn't have any such exposure to Finland before moving here so I didn't have any unlearning to do once I arrived, but I do watch with fascination how the everpresent American pop culture tends to form really odd ideas about the US and the people who live there. I'm a Yankee, so I get the urge to run whenever I see a 10-gallon hat and continue to think that not allowing Texas to secede from the Union in 1845 was a big mistake. Granted, Texas does have certain very easily recognizable traits that, say, West Virginia with its barefoot mountain men doesn't. Still, the US is an enormous place and the entire middle of the country gets short shrift when it comes to the media. I think the last time the Midwest was featured in a major movie was Capote's In Cold Blood and, well, that was a gruesome true story. America is so different from state to state that it remains a fascination to me that it hasn't split into a few separate countries. I've given up on the hope that pop culture will reflect a more accurate picture of the US and so when I see the image of the US consistently represented as Texas in Finland, I feel violated in some way as I don't belong here and I don't even belong to the stereotype of the place where I technically do belong. I suspect that Finns in the US would feel similarly if Macy's in NYC always portrayed Finland in the windows as drunken hockey fans pissing on buildings and lying in pools of their own vomit or reindeer herders fawning over Santa Claus.

I took Otava to work yesterday afternoon for a few hours and, while he was quite the charming puppy, I don't think he's a suitable office dog just yet. I'm hoping that by taking him to work, he'll know where I'm going in the morning and not whine when I leave anymore since he seemed to be rather bored with the experience. :) We walked most of the way home through some rather lovely scenic forest which wore him out. When we got to the house we both froze as there was a guy drunk and pissing on the door. It was just before 7p and I thought that it was a bit early for such an encounter until I realised that there were keys in the door and it was one of our neighbours. So, here was a neighbour with his wiener hanging out, pissing a leviathan pool on our front steps, who was so drunk he couldn't speak which gave me thoughts of calling a medic as he must have been drinking for days, not merely a few hours. I was at a loss for words as what do you say to such a person? Even Otava stood unusually still. After about a minute of slack-jawed amazement, I grabbed Otava and ran around to the back door before the guy collapsed into his own pool of urine. I ruminated about this for the rest of the evening wondering why I had been so shocked when I generally see this sort of thing everyday and have become inured to it. I suppose it's just a little discomfiting when it's a neighbour who couldn't hold it in for a few more minutes until he got home to pee in the toilet and so just whipped it out on the front door. There is something so essentially gross and dysfunctional in it's being commonplace. This is supposedly the nice part of town, too. I'd hate to think what drunks do on the bad side of town.

Someone needs to give slacker Alan Burlison a job as he has synergized the Solaris version of /dev/bollocks that he wrote way back when and taken it to the next level by releasing a mobile bollocks version of it for the young and mobile. I used to use /dev/bollocks to generate the tag line for my blog for the first few months. :) One can enjoy it vicariously via a java emulator version [hint: press menu->default phrases if it doesn't work straight off and then menu->next to keep going]. "Coordinate 24/7 infoeconomies." I think Alan needs to go see the movie In Good Company as I think the screen writer had access to /dev/bollocks, too. :)

It snowed every day of this past long week. Snow in late April is a never failing source of amusement since new expats always freak out at the prospect thinking that it surely must be a fluke as, how could it possibly be true that Finland has 9 months of Winter and 3 months of Not Winter which rarely approach temperatures that many of us would consider Summer? We all seem to fall victim to a sort of optimistic delusion that the weather can't possibly be that cold when moving here, that Finns wearing t-shirts in 10C weather exclaiming that it's bloody warm is merely them fucking with us for a laugh. Welcome to Finland. Keep your coat on. :)

permalink Ω 23 April 2005, Helsinki

Trouble

« Found polaroids. »

Sometimes when you find fragments of someone else's life on top of a rubbish bin it can be fun to sort of wonder what it all means outside of any guiding context. I'm a fan and frequent visitor to Found Magazine which offers me vicarious enjoyment of such voyeurism. On Sunday, we found 2 polaroids and a music CD that I've been rather entertained with today.

I dig the bavarian drinking team in the picture on the left and the drinking game based on Kimble which is the Finnish name for the pop-o-matic goodness of Trouble. I suppose that having a drinking game called Trouble, much like Vomit or Hangover, would be too perfect which might explain the name change. Kimble? I wonder who chose that as Trouble's replacement. Don't kids just play quarters or 'Hi,Bob!' anymore? I don't suppose the Bob Newhart Show is on TV these days even if it did make it to Finland, but there's always the DVD. One of my co-workers mentioned that the picture might be from the Norske Kimble Cup, apparently some Pan-Nordic chemistry student drinking competition at HUT as though anyone really needs an excuse to drink vast quantities of cheap(er) booze. The photo on the right features a guy getting dolled up with dangly earrings which makes me wonder what possible situation might prompt a guy into wearing those things but I'll guess that there was some alcohol involved in getting there. :)

The found CD contained only one track, It's Easy by Prince Vaka Vaka [mp3, ~3.5mb] with a logo that read "The Royal Alpine Ski Team Tuvalu." Alpine Skiing in Tuvalu? What? I think the highest point on the coral atoll is 5 metres above sea level, if that much. I went poking around the net with google and discovered that it's a gimmicky ad campaign for Pohjola and I'm not entirely sure that Prince Vaka Vaka isn't just an elaborate joke with a goofy video [qtime, ~.5mb] and bio.

• According to Tuvaluvan legend, Vaka Vaka can turn into a tiger. (With a beer gut like that?)
• Vaka Vaka was born with two belly buttons. He lost one in a wrestling match against a Samoan prince. (What, was the Samoan prince missing his?)
• Vaka Vaka considers King Kalle of Finland his top opponent in the upcoming season. (King who?)

Judging by the song, they found this guy on Tuvalu's Idols or in a karaoke pub in Kallio. The downside of a campaign that works so hard at being a clever joke is that I still have no idea what 'It's so easy' is selling unless it's a travel agency pushing quiet polynesian holidays on Tuvalu before the Pacific rises and swallows it in a few years. Or maybe they're selling flood insurance for the 19-25 set. Perhaps they should have a policy for accidental loss of drunken party polaroids. :)

permalink Ω 20 April 2005, Helsinki

Billion Dollar Infallible Man

« Sic transit gloria mundi carved into a rock on the southern edge of Lauttasaari. »

This one's for the well fed boys in red deliberating in their multi-million dollar hotel who amongst themselves will be the next infallible man entrusted to dispense admonishments for condom use, to ensure that the role of women stays firmly in the middle ages and to condemn poverty everywhere except Vatican City. Those who think the last pope was so great likely cannot read latin or ever bothered to read his encyclicals. It's a sad time in the world where not starting a war and offering weak words of peace makes you a great pope. Popes used to have armies and kill the dirty unbelievers, but now all they do is ride around in the popemobile and have world leaders over for dinner now and then. The retirement plan sucks, too.

You can't take it with you and you'll be forgotten along with everything else eventually; even a pontiff.

permalink Ω 19 April 2005, Helsinki

Planet of the Anklebiters

« Otava curled up on the couch and looking adorable at six months. »

Since the weather was abnormally lovely over the weekend we spent most of it outdoors with Otava. On Saturday, we were taking a rest on a bench in the woods when a pair of small dogs walked by and, of course, started growling at Otava. After a few hilarious minutes of growling on one side and bewilderment on the other, the micro-dogs trotted on. After they had gone I chuckled for a few minutes as it hit me that George Lucas had seen this dog when he thought, "Aha! That's what an Ewok should look like!" I always wondered why the Ewoks growl in the movies and now I know. The Ewoks are just small dogs who are still short and annoying even on two legs. Gee, talk about a planet best avoided. Planet of the Anklebiters.

Sunday we went down to the rocks, a.k.a 'beach', on Suomenlinna and there were quite a few swans floating around near to the shore. Otava somehow got the bright idea that he should try and catch one of them. He stood watching them from a rock for a while and then dove to the next rock in hopes of getting closer to his desire. When he pulled himself up, the male swan arched his neck and hissed menacingly towards Otava even though it was far enough away to feel safe from this amateur canine. We were very amused but Otava sulked for most of the rest of the afternoon. I'm hoping that the pictures I took of him and the swan turn out well as it really was pretty funny. :)

permalink Ω 18 April 2005, Helsinki

Looking Up

« The very eclectic "Villa Johanna" Jugend home in Eira on Laivurinkatu that I'd like to buy in the very unlikely event that I would ever win the lottery. There is a beautiful coiled dragon on the turret above the front door which I would love to give glowing red eyes and fire-breathing steam for scaring kids at Halloween. »

The HS had an interesting article accompanied by photos on Sunday about Helsinki's turrets and a man who likes to photograph them. Helsinki was expanding at the time that Jugend was popular and so large parts of certain neighbourhoods are full of these gorgeous turreted buildings. The quote about how people never look up is true. I'm always looking up or around and only very occasionally see anyone curious enough to wonder wtf I'm looking at, if they even notice. I presume that it goes hand in hand with the whole numbness to ones own culture phenomenon.

I went to see the spectacle that was Hanoi Rocks! Stockmann Shakes! at 5p in front of Stockmann yesterday along with a huge throng of kids in glam wear and hundreds of guys toting around giant Canon kit with L lenses. I found out later that there is a contest for the 10 best pictures of the concert which might explain all the mad heavy camera toting guys since there was only one sad little picture of it in today's paper so they couldn't have all been members of the Fourth Estate. Hanoi Rocks is actually pretty good, but I don't know what their cachet is since they are described as a Finnish Guns and Roses. [ arabella and kallu have some fun photos from the concert. :) ] My photos are in the Hanoi Rocks gallery.

The band played on the ledge over the door which made for quite a dangerous situation with the trams as the kids inched closer and closer to get a better view. When the band started playing the trams had no other choice but to stop when the crowd took Alexanderinkatu completely. I had to love the Helsinki Police driving down the tram tracks and greeting everyone politely with a "Good Afternoon" before asking people to get the fuck off the tracks. :) The most hilarious scene was a group of Kelly Osbourne/Helsinki Harajuku girls when one of them pulled out a giant can of hair spray and proceeded to lay on another coat of shellac to her hair helmet. I narrowly missed getting coated and the girls behind them started laughing and saying something about how they couldn't possibly need more of that on their hair. The old ladies coming out of Stockmann with a pained look on their face and fingers in their ears was pretty amusing as well. Damn kids! :)

I'd like to quickly explain how to express days hence for social engagements as it seems to be a frequent source of miscommunication in the Finno-Anglo space-time continuum.

• Today is Saturday.
• The Saturday a week from today is next Saturday.
• Tomorrow is Sunday or this (coming) Sunday.
• The day after tomorrow is Monday, a.k.a. this (coming) Monday.
• The Monday following this Monday is next Monday.
• The Monday after next Monday is the Monday after next.

Summary: Use 'this' to indicate the day of the coming week unless it is the same day 7 days hence whereupon use 'next'. Do not use next for anything less than 7 days away, e.g. on Wednesday say something about a party next Saturday when you mean the Saturday only 3 days away as the English speaker will presume that you mean a week from the Saturday 3 days away. I don't make the rules, I just show up a week late altogether too often or get annoyed with Jarkko when we play the 'but you said next Friday, not this Friday' routine. :)

Whether it is synchronicity or someone from the HS reading this droll backwater on the intarweb, there was a nice story in Friday's paper about the Gaudí-esque building in Arabianranta that I was so curious about over the weekend. Perhaps the power of suggestion could also answer my wonderings about how the Helsinki storm drain system manages to avoid silting shut during the springtime grit season. :)

permalink Ω 16 April 2005, Helsinki

Sick Day

« The Easter tree from Riihimäki, the Easter City of Finland, in the Fredrikintori with the Ruusutalo[?] behind it. »

I still haven't quite gotten used to sick days in Finland since, you know, you can stay home when you feel like shit and you don't have to worry if you have to take personal time to do it since there is no set allotment of days per year that you can take. I stayed at home and slept all day yesterday and I probably should have stayed home today, too, but it's hard to change such deeply ingrained habits like going to work when you're not feeling poorly enough to be hospitalized. Short of having ebola or barfing up a lung, it's just another workday.

I remember having a job where the HR drone explained to me in the first few days that I was the lucky recipient of one week of paid holiday time that could be taken after I had completed a full year of employment as well as 3 whole sick days that I could use after my 6-month probationary period. She said this very cheerfully as though I must be excited at the prospect of a whole week away from work after putting in a year of countless hours of unpaid overtime. I tried very hard not to roll my eyes and mention that I had 6 weeks of holiday time every year at my previous job. Of course, that should have been my first big clue that leaving the lower paying womb of academia was a bad idea. That was the stingy end of the spectrum but on the whole it wasn't terribly uncommon and still isn't. This is why most people in the US drag their ass to work when sick so that they can infect their coworkers and save their sad allotment of sick days as 'mental health days' to augment their holiday time instead.

permalink Ω 14 April 2005, Helsinki

Pipeline

« The view of Helsinki and Töölö Bay from the Pallokaruselli at Lintsi. In spite of the rain and the ice cream hand prints from the kiddies on the plexiglass, it looks like a (sur)realistic miniature of the city. The entire month of June was grey and rainy last year and the rest of the summer wasn't all that great either. I'm craving sunny warm weather, roller coasters and ice cream cones. I'd also like to wear something other than a turtleneck this summer. »

There are plans to finally build a pipeline from Humallahti (on the far right) to Töölönlahti (in the center) [HS article in English and full graphic with map] to help improve the fetid, stagnant water whose quality is often very poor, especially during summertime. It's a good idea that has been in the works for many years but it's a large bay with little circulation that will likely require more than pumping water from another less stagnant bay into it to address the problem, especially when the algae blooms arrive at the beaches and coastlines in the warm weather. I can't think of a single city in the US with a population over 1 or 2 million people that has a large lake/bay of this size in the city center since they're expensive to maintain and often just breeding grounds for diseases and bugs.

permalink Ω 12 April 2005, Helsinki

End of the Line

« In the fog, at the Arabia terminus of tram 6, is Light X by Kazushi Nakada which was unveiled on 25 January 2005. »

There is no X in Light X and there is precious little light as well. I was lured to the end of tram 6 just to see something glow in the dark by a blurb I saw in a neighbourhood paper and I was sorely disappointed. Why bother spending some outrageous amount of money on a bit of public artwork that involves light if you place it in an area where street lights drown out any light it might actually be emitting which, in this case, was scant? The fog and the black and white film make it look a lot more interesting than it actually is. [Apparently there is quite a lot more public art in store for Arabianranta. The site is a bit stale, but it's nice to wander around in. There's even a project blog. It seems strange that neither of the sites mention the Light X project (#8).] And anyone with a camera in the area might consider giving the Arabianranta photo album some love. :)

The apartment building next to the big flickering fluorescent tube of Arabia was a nice surprise. On two sides of the building there were some lights that vaguely suggested a caduceus, but the roof had a really funky, brightly coloured, spinning air vent that could have been designed by Gaudí. I didn't take any pictures of it as I was on my way somewhere and didn't take my tripod with me, but its uniqueness in a sea of boring modern glass and brick featureless buildings certainly made me very curious to know more about it.

And, a few new books of interest. I'm going to be very sad when shipping costs make it just too expensive to bother ordering books from Amazon at 25%-50% less than Akateeminen prices with the exchange factored in. I think that will be very soon.

• Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin ∞ More comedy goodness from the guy who wrote Freaks and Geeks which has such stunning realistic detail from the era of my own childhood that even if it sucks it'll be a lovely bit of nostalgia.
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything ∞ Me and George Carlin ask goofy questions like this all the time so maybe there's a new career waiting for me as a brilliant economist.
• Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping ∞ Everything you always knew about Eschelon but didn't feel like asking the NSA about.
• Assassination Vacation ∞ Sarah Vowell, I love you. I miss crazy road trips to random US destinations like carhenge. I wish I would have thought of something as morbid as this. :)
• Culture Smart! Finland ∞ A natural progression from the Culture Shock! series, the Culture Smart! guides look to be cashing in on the business traveller market. It'll probably be great comedy, like reading Virtual Finland's website after living here for a while, since it has sections titled 'Sex and the City' and 'High Culture'. Maybe because it's written by a Finn the hyperbole won't be quite so thick. I'm an optimist actively seeking disappointment.
• Black and White Photography, Third Revised Edition ∞ Finally, after a year of waiting....
• Edward Teller: The Real Dr. Strangelove ∞ Teller was a very strange and interesting man.

permalink Ω 11 April 2005, Helsinki

Bad Ideas

« Hung between the squeaky piggies and nylon chew bones were an altogether different kind of squeaky chew bone. I wondered if they were beef flavoured and if they were a hot item with women who want to have their dog chew on them in front of an annoying boyfriend as a way to run them off. :) »

Another product of a bad idea: the new Fizz Lime Cider. It tastes like someone poured cider into your G&T. There's a reason why it's the "World's first lime cider".

permalink Ω 9 April 2005, Helsinki

Coup de main

« A tribute in snow to the Swedish King Gustav III on Suomenlinna. Gustav staged a coup de main to retake the fortress in 1772. The walls of the fortress were nicely done and the bust of Gustav looked as though it were rising out of the sea which the exposed grass and the distortion of the 15mm lens seem to exaggerate a bit. »

permalink Ω 7 April 2005, Helsinki

Scene from Brazil

« A full moon hangs over the power tower in Töölö. I've always thought this building has a striking visual effect since the signs are all the same colour, which is unusual, and they converge on adjacent sides of the building. Maybe it's only because I usually see the building when I'm drunk and snarfing food from the Jaskan Grilli across the street. »

Otava kept us up most of the night as his itchy-scratchy condition reached critical mass. The HU Vet Clinic couldn't give him an appointment for two weeks so we had to find someone who would see him ASAP. I spent my afternoon at the vet and dragging my ass to the pet store for a new giant bag of food and to the pharmacy for some medications. First we try a medicated shampoo and topical pesticide in case it is caused by microscopic mites, otherwise we will have to start hunting down the allergen which could be a long, tedious process. But, for now, he's sleeping comfortably without itching and whining which is a major improvement for us all.

While I was waiting in the pharmacy, I was looking at the cute doggie lunchbox that the pet shop gave to me for buying the giant bag of food which opens into two bowls with a water bottle and a food compartment when some nice old guy sat down next to me and started chatting me up about how a metal one would be better and such. I was so tired that I just smiled and nodded since I don't think I could have made conversation even in English. The pharmacy downtown is straight out of a scene from the movie Brazil with the cascades of pneumatic tubes that transport fresh drugs from the basement up to the awaiting customers.

Sean Burke made my evening last night when he pointed out one of the best reads I've had in a while: Dabblers and Blowhards. Even if you're not a geek or one of the incestuous digerati who will find this cutting a little too close to the bone if they read carefully it's a fun read. I remember distinctly when my bullshit-o-meter pegged on 11 when Tim O'Reilly and bunch of others at OSCON one year were starting to go on about how programmers were really artists and could be funded by patrons of the art of programming, etc. I imagine we were drunk, possibly stoned, and still it seemed like an incredibly pretentious way to put a good face on dot.bomb unemployment. The downside of the essay is that we are reminded of ESR's treatise on oral sex for geeks at the end. Hurrr.

permalink Ω 6 April 2005, Helsinki

Blue Shoes

« One of the five bright blue towers of the 110 kV Salmisaari-Meilahti power line that was installed in 2003 which crosses the seurasaarenselkä that are collectively known as "Antti's Footsteps" in honor of their designer, Antti Nurmesniemi. Look at the tiny little people on the right for a sense of scale. [They were named from a HE contest with 1,496 entries and the winner receiving 5000 kWh of electricity for a year. The finalists were: Sinijätit (blue giants), Johtokurki (guiding cranes), Hattiwatit (Moomin characters), Meritoverit (sea friends), Seireenit (sirens), Stadin Eiffelit (Eiffels of the city), Sinilinja (blue line), Sinimastot (blue masts), Virtaviivat (currents?) and Antin askeleet (Antti's footsteps).] Hattiwatit should have won as it sounds cooler, it has the 'watti' wordplay, the characters look a lot like them and epoynymy is terribly boring. It's no wonder nobody remembers the name. »

Helsinki Energy seems to go out of it's way to make power plants look good as though people might notice, and perhaps blame them, that the Baltic is still so polluted that it's not recommended to eat Baltic fish more than once a week or the layer of smoggy gritty haze over the city today if they didn't sex them up a bit. As though they might be saying, "Yes, this is a coal fired power plant but, hey, aren't these lovely blue power lines beautiful?" Sure, they say the plants are ultra clean but the people they're saying that to probably don't live next to the strip mine somewhere with cheap labour and no pretty blue pylons. Energy production is with rare exception a dirty, ugly business that we'd all like to pretend that we don't participate in and depend on utterly each and every day. I look at those blue giants daily and I'm reminded of the lengths we will go in our own self-deceptions and how we are so willing to be fooled. We are energy junkies.

permalink Ω 4 April 2005, Helsinki

Tenebrae

« Lumen Valo perform in the Swedish Methodist church in Töölö. »

One of the few things we actually managed to do over the long Easter weekend was to attend a Lumen Valo performance of Tomás Luis de Victoria's Tenebrae responsoriot in a local church. I've listened to their music for a few years and was pretty excited to see them perform live in such an appropriate setting. It's the kind of music that is so quiet and reverent that you're almost afraid to breathe lest you make too much noise. The Leica is supposedly the most quiet camera in the world but even it seemed like an imposing amount of noise when I took a couple pictures while lurking behind a pillar. The only light in the church were the lectern lamps, the spot on the crucifix and six candles.

Judging by the age of the small crowd that came to the performance and that I've had to enter the CDDB information for all of the albums of theirs I own, I'm guessing that the music isn't very popular with the young wired crowd in Finland. It's a pity as their voices are so beautifully harmonic and the music so ethereal. The following liner notes from Gimmel Records explains the Tenebrae in more detail.

The publication which contains these eighteen Responsories first appeared in Rome in 1585 under the official title, as it then was, of Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae. It consists of considerably more than the Responsories, since Victoria set not only the nine Lessons from the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet but hymns, motets, the Reproaches, the two sets of Passion choruses and other music from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday. Taken together, these pieces represent the most complete cycle of music for Holy Week by any leading Renaissance composer. Gesualdo set all the Responsories (at considerably greater length than Victoria), but none of the Lamentations. Lassus set the same Responsories and the nine Lamentations, and Palestrina composed five sets of Lamentations but no Responsories. It is interesting to observe that settings of the Lamentations have received more concert performances than have settings of the Responsory texts. This must have something to do with the strict liturgical structure of the latter and the resulting impression that a concert is not quite the right place for them. They are well represented in recordings, however, where one may listen to them as they were intended to be heard, in three separate groups, one each for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week.

Originally, on these seminal days of the Church's year, the Responsories were sung early in the morning during Matins which was followed by Lauds. Later, these Offices together became called Tenebrae and were performed during the evening of the preceding day. In this service, the only light in the church came from a triangular stand holding fifteen candles (representing the eleven faithful apostles, the three Marys, and Christ), and from six candles on the altar. As each psalm was chanted, a candle was extinguished, so that after the fourteenth psalm only the highest candle (which represented Christ) was still burning. During the concluding recitation (the Canticle of Zachary) the six candles on the altar were also put out one by one until, as the Office of Lauds drew to a close, the only candle which was still burning was concealed behind the altar; thus the church was left in tenebris - in darkness. The rite symbolised both the darkness which covered the earth as Christ was crucified (2), and his burial. After the closing prayers the worshippers made a certain amount of noise to represent nature in turmoil at the death of Christ. Once the noise had died away, the remaining candle was brought out from behind the altar (a sign of the resurrection), returned to the stand and extinguished.

permalink Ω 2 April 2005, Helsinki

Foggy Recollection

« A bit of street art in Hakaniemi that looks how I feel today. »

It is on days like today that I wonder why a breathalyzer for bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages has not been invented yet. I suppose that such an object would remove all the fun of getting bombed out of your gourd. I need one of those things to be smarter than I am when drinking. I woke up with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, a bump on my head and a foggy recollection of the night before. Yes, we had an office party last night and I ignored my better judgement. Good party, what I can remember of it. Bad Hangover.

Reminder: Pinhole Day, 24 April 2005.

permalink Ω 1 April 2005, Helsinki