Landscape of the Mundane

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Thursday night was Taiteiden yö, a.k.a. Night of the Arts, which is something like First Night on New Year's Eve in the US only you don't have to freeze your ass off to enjoy the variety of events around town. I mustered the energy to participate in the Fotomaraton again this year which was more of a challenge since it was shortened by two hours with the same number of clues. They mete out 12 clues, four every two hours which you have to return to the office to collect, that you then think of something to take a photo of that might represent the clue and you must take the photos in the order that the clues are given. It's a lot more difficult than it appears since six hours of running around town racking your brain for ideas of what to take pictures of requires a lot of stamina to finish. I was at a loss for inspiration for a number of clues so it's unlikely any of my photos will be selected, but it was a fun game nonetheless.

One of the students in the office who was handing out the clues fondled the Leica and mentioned that he he has an upcoming show in Lasipalatsi of his street photography. I'll have to go and check it out since it seems like the vast majority of Finns are either nature photographers or prefer nature photography in the extreme. I enjoy nature photography in small doses, but after a while the entire genre becomes a cliche of itself since you see the same subjects over and over only with different seasons and light. Finland has a lot of nature, true, but it also has a lot of blight from humans just like everywhere else. The EU has cited Finland for abandoned cars on the sides of the roadways, which I can confirm from my limited driving through the Finnish countryside that there are a curiously high number of derelict cars, but I've yet to see a series of photos of these cars challenging the Finnish vision of a bucolic pastoral. In the mundane lie many uncomfortable truths. Finland could use more photojournalists with a critical eye and a willingness to expose the things we all like to pretend don't exist.

It has been a long summer of not so many great new books, but as September approaches there are a few to be excited about.

• Anansi Boys ≈ Neil Gaiman's new novel, in the same vein as the last, about ancient gods living as ordinary mortals in modern times. I'm not sure why, but I find this strangely apocalyptic.
• The Diviners ≈ Rick Moody turns his sharp observation of people to the media and the navel-gazing society that goes with it. He's one of the few authors that can pull off social commentary cloaked in the humourously absurd.
• Oh Pure and Radiant Heart ≈ I collect most books on the history of the bomb and a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, but this is an interesting twist by merging the two.
• Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and Stifling of Democracy ≈ Depressing reading from Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's, the best US magazine that doesn't make it this far East. It's even more deeply distressing now that the stupid debate over scientific evidence vs. divine magic as the origin of life has returned.
• Landscape And Images ≈ John Stilgoe makes me regret not taking a course of his at Harvard while I lived in Boston as he challenges those who don't observe and reflect, those who have been consumed by modern hustle and bustle. I once wrote to him, he doesn't do email which I find very praiseworthy, inviting him to talk at a Boston perl monger meeting since programmers could learn a lot from him. Photographers, too.
• The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World ≈ I thought this book was a parody until I read the introduction which mentioned how the author was popularly read and, though she had a fixation for describing the poor and non-protestant countries as vile, didn't even travel as far as Ireland. The sentences are short and simple suggesting she wrote for children or the not terribly literate who likely would never travel and dispute her outlandish writings. Funny, yet sad in a Victorian-with-a-poker-up-her-arse kind of way.
• Field Guide To Meat and Field Guide to Produce ≈ Both books look like they're full of random bits of knowledge and trivia about produce and meat in handy rounded-corner volumes.
• The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century ≈ Food fads and classics likely tell more about a culture than all the usual history books combined.
• Rare Bits: Unusual Origins Of Popular Recipes ≈ This is an interesting book filled with some very unusual recipes and the stories behind them.
• The Good Cookie: Over 250 Delicious Recipes from Simple to Sublime ≈ Since the Cookie Sutra was a massive disappointment due to it being nothing more than a few tame illustrations of cookies fucking with only one recipe, I need another book for cookies. The ginger fortune cookies in particular sound great. We don't get fortune cookies with chinese food in Helsinki which is a bit of a letdown so I'll just have to make my own. :)
• Another Day In Paradise: Postcards ≈ Hilarious postcards in a continuing series from Anne Taintor.
• Acts of Charity ≈ A photographer goes into the NY charity scene and highlights the ludicrous and the ghoulish aspects of the people therein. Been there, seen that. He is disturbingly spot-on and almost cruel. A few sample images from the book.
• Fuck This Book ≈ An entire photobook containing only images of public signage that has been embellished with the word 'fuck'. :)
• Expletive Deleted : A Good Look at Bad Language ≈ One can never have too many books discussing 'bad' words.
• Doggy Days Journal: The Story of My Puppy ≈ Finally, someone has published a nice looking, non-cutesy, non-cloying puppy scrap book.