Back to HEL

And So We Praised The Lordi

2006-05-27T03:56:00.000-07:00

Young and old, thirsty and curious gathered together last night to meet the monsters. There were over 90,000 of us poor souls.

At the same time, around Mannerheimintie by Vanha Ylioppilastalo, there was another monster and his party bus. Danny, we know you sport a rubber face just like our Eurovision Lordi, why don't ya come on out.

In the husky blue night of Hel, the biggest winners were the beer sellers.

Oh, all that tender joy of urine streams gliding on the streets of Hel.

Jesus tried to compete with our newest Lordi in the form of a party bus.

Dark guy and Jesus Pics by Ari, pics with boy and Danny by Minna.

So How Safe Is Finland Exactly?

2006-05-18T02:20:00.000-07:00

This wise map was published after the horrors took place in London underground.

The land of the pale and the boring is also the least corrupted land on Earth. They also claim Hel to be one of the safest cities in the world.

Hel - the art of uneventfulness.

The Incredibly Fantaaabulous First of May

2006-05-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

There it was, the human sea and the heavenly sun, perfect with picnic tables and popping corks.

And there they were, the vast bins for sparkling wine bottle recycling. Child labour was boldly used with the lure of 'You get us 20 bottles and we give you a movie ticket'.

It worked. 20 000 bottles got recycled, and this was only the sparkling wine department. We Finns are so pro with our alcohol. All hail Wappu, the First of May!

They do it in every position

2006-04-25T03:02:00.000-07:00

It's still taking me some adjusting to see and hear weirdly behaving people in the streets of Hel.

One day while in the tram, I saw a girl outside leaning heavily forward, carrying a cello on her back and covering her ears with her hands wrapped in thick gloves.

Was she showing her existential anxiety like in Munch's painting 'Scream'?

'Stop the noise, I want to get out of this world.'

It took me a moment to realize she was only talking on her cell, covering her other ear to hear better.

Then there are all the people filling the beautiful, solitary, potentially silent moments walking on the shore and in the parks - by talking on the phone. And they do it while riding their bikes. And there's the guy walking around in circles in front of my window, holding a ciggie in one hand and a cell in the other.

I'm only killing the sounds of nature with my iPod headphones.

Unleashing the spring bambies

2006-04-25T02:47:00.000-07:00

Happy red flag, and a new (at least new to me) quirky way to keep those little cycling bambies tied to their parents.

The basket ball field in front of our home was invaded by crowds of other type of bambies once the snow was gone a couple of weeks ago. Now that we have full daylight till 9 pm, jumping and playing gnomes and giants hop around all night long.

With 12 degrees today, I ain't no complainin'.

No more skiing on ice

2006-04-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

It took a bleedin' while to get it started, but when the ice got going, it was completely gone in a few days. Pack yer skis and get ready for swimming with dolphins.

The pic above was taken in mid March, the one below a month later.

Now, we just need a few leaves to go with these birches. Impatience is a noble act. Glue and green paper, anyone?

TV humour

2006-04-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I happened to see a brief interview with Martin Gore of Depeche Mode on tv here in Hel. The young lady interviewing finished the interview by asking Gore what the motto of Depeche Mode is (!). Gore rolled his eyes for a while and then replied: 'We fear change.'

Poor girl stared back with a stern face. The irony of Hel.

They want us so bad

2006-04-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

I should try to remember that before they place the telepathy chip in my brain, no one can read the blog postings I have planned in my head. What a lazy ass I'm with my blog.

Nine months in the application process and unexpectedly back in Hel, we received a luvly letter from the other side of the ocean saying they'd be happy to give us the permanent residenceship. Whooopeeee! If only we'd figure out a way to use it wisely.

April sleet ain't good enough a reason to flee this techy country. Besides, all my fave bands are performing in Hel in April and May. Sorry Canada, you have to wait.

Almost patio weather

2006-03-17T02:17:00.000-08:00

The smell of spring hormones lingers in the air. Fancy a drink outside with kisses from the spring sun? Hear the softly roaring sea?

Took this photo yesterday in our backyard. Yes, the sea is frozen, and yes, it says 'No winter maintenance' on the sign.

I want to cry into my snowy icy champagne.

Hamster wheel Friday

2006-03-17T01:58:00.000-08:00

It's St. Patrick's Day.

Here in Hel, it only shows in the Google logo, and perhaps later in the few Oirish Pubs we have in town.

I'm drinking too strong coffee in stupid quantities, which makes me feel like this:

http://www.kossan.se/hamster_i_hjul.htm

Soon heading out to enjoy the sun.

Nothing to do with saints, but I've been meaning to mention about this fantabulously entertaining blog (completely in Finnish, I'm afraid) taking place in Van:

http://maksuttapuistoon.blogspot.com/

Funny and great with wording, too: our national curling hero's surname Uuspaavalniemi (literally = Newpaulcape) turns into Vanhapietarpoukama (=Oldpeterbay) in his blog.

Best web cam in Van

2006-03-15T06:10:00.000-08:00

It's easy to fall in love with Vancouver again by looking at this:

http://www.numinous.ca/Webcam%20Page.htm

Early morning rhythms taste sour

2006-03-15T01:27:00.000-08:00

Bad domestic beer on the train turned into nice white wine after all. Drunk with sunlight and my friend's good news on the train, after lots of babbling we suddenly remembered we needed to eat something and got our food just ten minutes before arriving at Tampere. Salmon soup with the moving snowy scenery was great.

Enjoyed the premiere of the documentary 'Kenen joukoissa seisot', dealing with the popular political singing movement of the seventies. Had no idea how much media interest it would gain. What o' different world it was back then. What o' lovely innocent faith in making the world a better place.

http://www.tamperefilmfestival.fi/2006/fin/kauppa.html

A great day had a stupid end; we waited for Giant Robot to start playing till 1am. There were two rapping idiots wasting everyone's time, performing some bad stuff before the real music came out. Yeah yeah, I have been e-mailing the list of Chuck Norris' fab qualities around, but hearing that it was Chuck Norris' 66th birthday accompanied by some bad jokes didn't make me laugh. http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

In today's Helsingin Sanomat, there's an article of audience and some bands, too, wanting the gigs to start sooner rather than later.

Concerts at large venues usually start nicely around 9pm or 10pm, even earlier, and I think that it's still okay at smaller clubs to get the band on stage anytime before midnight. But at 1am all the anticipation has run dry.

I'm an old lady and need my sleep.

Right tracks to the film town

2006-03-09T13:57:00.000-08:00

Gonna hop on a train to Tampere in a few hours, to see a bunch of films at the film festival. Yippeee! http://www.tamperefilmfestival.fi/2006/eng/index.html

Gonna meet my lovely friend on the train and drink bad Finnish beer out of plastic pint. Yippeee! http://www.koff.fi/en/products/beers/koff3.html

One of my fave bands, Giant Robot, will throw a gig tonight! Yippeee!
http://www.giantrobot.fi/index2.html

At 32, it's all about packing the right amount of warm clothes and dental hygiene device.

'Isn't it great that we have the hotel room for both nights, it means that we can go and have a nap between the films if we like', I said to my partner. And I was serious. Then it got even more serious, when I realized how things are now. Before, eons ago, I could have said: 'Isn't it great that we have the hotel room for both nights, it means that we can go and drink cheap wine/suffer in silence from a hangover between the films .'

Rays of babyboomers' dark light

2006-03-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

Horizon was golden with light around seven a.m. Spring is crawling here, slowly, and with snow, but there's so much more light now you can feel hormones rustling somwhere underneath. Went to interview a professor of history today and walked past our historic downtown core in Hel in a perfect morning sunshine.

With frozen toes, it felt good to step into an old, silent building. The department of history at the Hel Uni is located in a building that was originally a military school for orphan boys, was then turned into a hospital in the mid 1800's and has now functioned as uni premises since 1997.

We discussed different meanings of home and roots and various aspects of European culture. I mentioned my cheerful theory that babyboomers will live well and prosper to be the healthiest generation ever, while us thirty-somethings will die prematurely. She, herself approaching fifty, had the same idea of the babyboomers: 'They will, I'm afraid, drag the rest of us with them, still for a long time.' All social structures have come roaring down with the babyboomers. At first, it was just that there were so many of them. Now, they have most of the power and money. And good teeth.

Just Can't Get Enough...

2006-03-08T01:11:00.000-08:00

... of Depeche Mode, that is. We saw them in Vancouver in November and boy, were they in good shape; energetic, devoted, intense. They weren't bad in 2001 either, but there's clearly a difference on the current 'Touring the Angel' tour.

So we decided we wanted to see them again in Hel. Driving to the concert venue on Monday, there was someone carrying a plastic pint of beer in the snowy -8 celsius night.

Yep, we're in Hel. Just keep your beer frozen and down it thawed.

But the veterans did not let us down. Again, there were deliciously many classics lots of forty-somethings were singing and dancing to and Gahan was trying his best to get people moving. The band has never been this popular in Finland before. We're slow starters.

It's easy to forget concert nuances in four months, but I would still say that the guys were even more intense with their guitars this time, rough around the edges you wouldn't expect from a synth band. There was more freshness in the Van concert, though. Them getting slightly tired of touring or just me seeing them again?

There's something angelic about Martin Gore. He's not quite from this planet. Yay. Love it.

Steamy windows

2006-03-05T06:46:00.000-08:00

There was water all around, the window was steamy, but it wasn't the car scene from 'Titanic'.

It took me 32 years to learn the secret of creating humid enough air in sauna with an electrical stove. Stepping to the sauna at my gym, the whole glass door was steamy. When I said that now we're talking - for once - the lovely lady sitting inside told me that she had poured water all over the place, on the walls, on the benches. It was heavenly humid. Now I know what to do next time. She had such a bubbly laughter, too.

But no, we weren't happy enough to whip each other, though.

With the birch twigs, I mean.

There were none round, anyway.

The unbearable lightness of gleeing

2006-03-05T06:30:00.000-08:00

In times of any type of blahs or blues, open this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5619481843152124341

Smile till it hurts

2006-02-20T05:39:00.000-08:00

The silent sea of depressive faces in this country has not gone anywhere. We may be the second happiest nation in Europe, the economy is doing ok and the democracy is still somehow alive, but it doesn't show on our faces. It's still very amusing to walk around, counting all the lips pointing downwards, and all the super cheap vodka bottles happily travelling to unhappy homes. There are people here who look like they are hurting when they smile.

Yep, Finns were stated as happy happy joy joy people in a recent survey, but here someone asks equally happily that 'If Finns are so happy, why is the leading cause of death alcoholism?'

http://www.thelocal.se/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=153

Good call. Now who was it that paid for this survey, again?

As with money and ownership nowadays, happiness is probably less and less equally spread.

Another interesting and somewhat surprising is the statement that we share the same values with the Frenchies ("success, wealth, and prestige are values of very little importance, whereas equal treatment and care for other people and the environment are more significant"):

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/International+study+Finns+and+French+have+similar+values/1076154669520

So there may be some hope.

You can surely feel the continuing concern for the existence of social democracy, equality and nature in the media. One of the strongest differences opposed to Van after we had landed in Hel was noticing that there is lots of discussion and awareness raising. People are interested in the society. It's not all about hockey and the latest tv shows.

At least not every day.

At least not all day every day.

Maybe it's all just smoky delusion and all we care for is the next pint of beer.

Nah.

Almost new in Hel

2006-02-20T04:28:00.000-08:00

It happened for the first time yesterday; upon making my Sunday morning coffee (morning meaning some early afternoon), I was thinking how great it would be to go on a stroll along the Sea Wall. I missed Vancouver. For a flash, and bitterly.

I remembered how, exactly a year ago, we flew back to Van from Hel, and I could smell the spring. Now, I can only smell the neuter that winter is, plus some vaguely Italian odours rising from the pizza boxes people carry around. Goddamn. Greasy cheap wholesale cheese and all.

Back to Hel for a month, and I can feel myself losing the remigrator's virginity. Before I give my smile entirely to the gray February city that Hel is now and lose my sensitivity, I'll try to make up a list of what has changed.

Alternatively, this could be a list of things that I have forgotten were there already when we left three years ago. But hey, I am not too far apart from having to add some memory games to my morning yoga.

What's new in Hel, babe?

1. Some people know how to say thank you, give way and open doors to others. A complete stranger even smiled at me yesterday at the same time he opened the door. I was in a state of shock all night.

To compensate for this overwhelming kindness, the ones who don't know how to move around in a world with other people than just oneself, are ruder than rude. Most of the time outside, I feel like I am participating in a game of 'bump wordlessly into as many moving creatures as you can' Some overdo this and get into bumping game with vehicles.

2. There are flavoured ciders in supermarkets. Blueberry. Black currant. Pineapple. And dozen others. Only the dry varieties work. The rest are yucky. Keep away from them.

3. Every time I open the tv, there's someone who doesn't look like a Finn, but speaks perfect Finnish. Yippeeee, we ARE actually getting international in this God's frozen back yard.

4. Advertising is getting more aggressive. TV programs are "provided by" so-and-so (and I was thinking this was an American trait). Even at my gym, it says on the shower room door that "Your shower is provided by so-and-so".

But I don't mind the so-and-so's luvly shower and hair styling products, because they save me from carrying all the feminine bottles to the gym.

5. There are really cool and over-prized cafés and bars in Hel. I have stopped drinking lattes (who wants to pay for over 4 euros?), but on the other hand our basic coffee tastes so good that I pretend I don't miss the scent of the Seattle-born coffee giant's espresso.

My highly profound list will continue on your screens. Sometime in the future.

New and old circles

2006-02-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

During these three weeks back in Hel I have often found myself realizing how many circles are coming to a close. "Ten years ago" is a typical opening line. On the Hel streets, I run into people I met or used to know ten years ago (like a flat mate, who I last bumped into in Tampere four years ago. We both lived there at the time, and now found each other living here in Hel two kilometres from each other).

Ten years ago, I started a wandering process between Hel and England, leaping back and forth, then spent two years in Tampere and, after that, three in Vancouver. The work I now do, with its visions and missions and core values, brings together all the themes I've studied or otherwise learnt, all the people I've known, all the tiny significant ideas and gut feelings. I feel I've been collecting all that stuff, all those energies and muses and themes to be here now, to do what I do now.

Not that anything's final, thank goodness. Everything has just shifted remarkably. Moved into a new type of restlessness, new questions.

It's somehow sad to notice how we have missed nothing from Vancouver so far. It would be more sad to miss something. Or perhaps it's just too early to say.

I guess it's just that this business of moving into new surroundings on one go throws us into completely different orbit, leaving no space for comparisons. It's like being committed to one person: you take and accept the whole package in their own terms. There's no mixing and matching. You are either here or there, either with that person or the other.

To avoid any sublime conclusions and to leap back on the hard-ass ground, the word 'circle' always reminds me of Stephen Fry in one of the 'Have I Got News for You' episodes. At the time, there were some rumours of Prince Edward and Fry hanging together in the same social gangs, or even more than that. Fry, well-known for his excellent sense of euphemisms, stated that 'I have not penetrated his intimate circle'.

Good old-fashioned anthropology

2006-02-07T05:41:00.000-08:00

Hooray, our home is back, unwrapped from the cold cardboard boxes. Cooking is suddenly so much easier with more than one pan and one plastic knife.

Now that I've seen four moving company gangs on both sides of Atlantic, I can draw a few highly unbiased conclusions.

They move in groups of three. The tallest is usually the leader, the one who tells the others which way to carry, unveil, tape and rip apart, and who does the least. This is the type that possibly was a bully at school, or, alternatively, now replaces his lack of history as a bully by being a noisy semi-bully. Then there's the virgin-eyed junior, whose pubic hair has hardly reached visibility and who falls on the floor if you speak to him. Then there's the guy who's scared of the somewhat speculative, but still existing chances of McDonalds going bankrupt and who thus devotes lots of loving care into investing his money on burgers.

There's always an unspoken pecking order, lots of cool knitted caps, tattoos and a silent longing for a night at the local.

I didn't get a chance to measure their skulls, which is a pity.

It should be noted that different analysis might follow based on a moving gang that only concentrates on national assigments.

We're not in Kansas anymore

2006-02-07T03:06:00.000-08:00

I needed to finally admit I'm back in the country. Please take me in your arms as another number in this social welfare jungle, you Dostoyevskian social insurance people.

Me: It's so empty and quiet here, I can almost hear the hay balls rolling.
The officer: Excuse me?
Me: I was just saying how surprised I am by how there are no queues.
The officer: No queues. Yes. It's so cold.

I was really the only person besides the empty-eyed chap behind the counter, and we really spoke those words. The officer clearly had no clue where I had grabbed my hay balls from. He wasn't being unkind, he was just too far away from Arizona desert. Or then he had been fingering the gun in the upper drawer of his desk when I stepped in, toying with the idea of ending his miserable life. The sun only shines outside. And it was so cold.

And so were my blood veins.
I decided to walk back home, as it only took 15 minutes to cross the bridge. With half a frozen face in -14 celsius, lots of liquid snot ready to gush out and a clear blue sky in the background, I smiled happily, and hurried home to enjoy some ugly green asparagus soup.

Good Night and Thanks for All The Fish

2006-02-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

We have got rid of jet lag. We don't stink weird on weird times of the day or fall asleep in the middle of sentence - our own or someone else's. But we're still outsiders. I find myself exhausted in my old home town, where I was born and where I have lived for seven years. One sign of sailing through everything new and unfamiliar is that both of us are overloaded with streams of dreams each night. Every night I go to sleep, I glide into a world with lots of people from my past, mixed with new terrains. I guess these private dark hour film festivals could also be a sign of stepping into a completely new phase in life.

It's the second night at our Kaapeli home. I'm delirious of the airy space, the sauna, the simple food. My other hand has an aroma of dill and gravad lax, and the other stinks of tar. So I do stink weird, after all, in a wonderful way though.

We went to our very own local tonight for the first time (well, for the first time as residents indahaus, not as customers). As a vast building providing space for loads of creative people, I spotted a familiar gang from tv, an improvisation theatre group, and one of my all time favourite musicians Tapani Rinne sat next to us to enjoy a drink after another long day with his sax.

Some Rinneradio samples can be found here, the link takes you to a wide selection of Finnish music, also great for us newcomers to learn of all the new bands: http://www.musex.fi/midem2006/

(some of my old favourites include Don Johnson Big Band, Eternal Erection (yes, you read right, and yes, their funk is funking good!), Kemopetrol, Rajaton, Giant Robot, Koneveljet (their 'Welkom' is just fab!), Poets of The Fall and Nightwish.)

I was so tired that I asked the waitress about the 'glasses that come by wine' (instead of wines that come by glass). So to all those I've told about the time I said 'Good night' at the Stockmann Deli @ five in the afternoon (if you do that in Finnish, you sound like someone who needs to get their circuits checked. I was simply in a Canadian mode. Or that's how I try to explain it, anyway): I expect to start blurting out more twisted fun stuff soon. Stay posted.

Our container has hit the Finnish shores, and we get the stuff once the toll bureaucracy has been cleared. We are very hard trying to join the Kallasvuo method:
http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024870,39155846,00.htm

Dog food

2006-01-31T03:49:00.000-08:00

*NZ woman to send dog food to starving children

A New Zealand woman plans to send 6,000 packs of dehydrated dog food powder to starving children in Kenya.

Christine Drummond, founder of Mighty Mix dog food, told The Press of Christchurch today that her mixture, called NZ's Raw Dry Nourish, would be shipped in March to Rusinga Island on Kenya's Lake Victoria.

She said it was made of freeze-dried beef, mutton, pork, chicken, deer velvet, green lip mussels, kelp, garlic, eggs, whole grain cereals and flax-seed flour - the same ingredients she puts into her company's dog biscuits.

Drummond said she was working with Kenya's Mercy Mission charity, which would add water to the powder to create a "nutritional supplement."

"The dogs thrive on it," Gaynor Siviter, an agent for Mighty Mix dog food, told the paper.

"They have energy, put on weight. It's bizarre, but if it's edible and it works for these people, then it's a brilliant idea. It beats eating rice."*

I mean... honestly! She has claimed that the 42 k amount of this food would feed as many as 160 children for two months, which leads to each child eating 4,3 kilos of this loveliness per day. Great thinking.

I read this quality newspiece while I was enjoying a highly sophisticated lunch of meat & cabbage casserole, which very much looks like dog food: brown and green mush of something you'd have no idea what it is about.

But I am a Finn returning back to Hel and this is my first lunch in my new home. Saying no to all fascinating, imaginative and sensual take-outs and Hel restaurants and opting for a dog food lunch is my priviledge. But I also had some feta cheese salad with my pile of mush, so maybe I'm just half a puppy.

Another Finnish specialty in the horror chamber of ready-made meals is liver casserole, brown mush of something you'd have no idea what it is about. There are different schools. First, there's the raisin debate, whether to have raisins in your liver casserole or not. In shops, you find two kinds. Some media hype personality was just asked this crucial question of whether he prefers his with or without raisins, and he replied that he prefers his liver casserole without liver.

So it isn't everyone's, ummm, cup of tea. But for those who enjoy this liver cup of tea, there are more debates - whether to have it with ketchup or not, and further on, heated or cold. The most interesting preference I've heard so far is to have liver casserole with ketchup, and cold, "Because warming up just destroys that lovely mega size industrial food taste of the casserole." I can't remember whether this guy was a raisin man or not, but he surely likes his convenience food. I've also seen him dip fridge cold wieners in a jar of hot mustard. Yummy.

Blinfully happy

2006-01-30T02:47:00.000-08:00

Sigh of relief. There's such a huge symbolic value of Tarja Halonen having been re-elected as our president, and, who knows, it might also have some practical bearings, at least with the NATO question.

Just before I came back to Hel, I met someone who was born in Vancouver (one of those three people who actually have!). She described how she misses all the cultural buzz in Europe when she's away, but also feels how it is imposed on her while she stays in Europe, visiting Finland on a regular basis. That is so true: in the case of Vancouver, it isn't too vibrant a city, but then again, that lack of Overloaded Buzz typical of European culture gives a great opportunity and freedom to do your own thing. In the detached bubble that Vancouver is, it is easy to build yourself a life of your own liking, construct yourself anew. The Vancouver spirit is made for entrepreneurs. I feel grateful; in an indirect way, Vancouver helped me give the motivation and insights that my work is now based on.

Our Siberian exhilaration is over, at least for now, and Hel has descended into its normal hovering-around-zero winter blues.

There were some absolute soul-food moments last week.

While driving through a snowy landscape with Coldplay's sweet and melancholy 'Talk' on the radio (what a U2 guitar that song has!), I realized how much has changed. While gazing at the silhouette of silent woods and fields and frozen waters I suddenly remembered how we were driving on the same road from our trip to London in February 2001. I was terrified. Having moved from England six months before, Finland felt like such a depressing hellhole, a country where nothing happens and a country that makes anyone prematurely dead. Now, I was simply happy and cozy and nostalgic with the exact same landscape. And I'm even ready to admit how there is so much happening here that I feel overwhelmed. I must be prematurely dying.

A staring nation, that's what we Finns are. Two weeks in, and we still wonder everytime someone stares at us if there's a spot of coal on our noses or spinach in our grins. But oh no, in this blessed country, the further apart you are from someone, the longer and harder you need to stare. And you need to look strangers in the eye as much as possible, with as much terror in your eyes as possible. That should suffice and scare away any outsiders. Or make them go and study how owls behave.

Yay, there's nothing better you can eat in Hel in winter than blins. These thick pancakes made with buckwheat are served with fish roe or caviar, chopped onions, sour cream, gherkins, forest mushroom salad, smoked salmon and pickled beets. Blins offer another reason to down some ice cold vodka, but I had mine with a glass of South African white wine which worked perfectly.

Documentary festival hit the spot. 'The Campaign' ('Vaalitaisto'), by Pasi Riiali & Mikko Peltonen, a tragicomic story of two young chaps and their local election campaign in a small Finnish village is sure to give good laughs, and will be on tv next week, Feb 8 (TV2 in Finland). Another gem I spotted was 'Down and Out' ('Ihan pihalla'), by Virva Guttorm, a story of a young woman searching for her Sami identity (she has a Finnish mother and a Sami father), also with comic elements.

I'm constantly wondering what home, roots and living abroad mean for different people and so I interviewed Guttorm, who is a true cosmopolitan (I mean neither the cocktail nor the magazine - damn this terminology deflation!), hoping to build bridges between different cultures. She just flew to live in the States, after a life so far spent in Utsjoki, Austria, Germany, Norway and several Finnish towns.

Found: Cool art, warm wine and a fab home

2006-01-22T06:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.kiasma.fi/ars06_html/index.php?lang=en

Got generously taken to a pre-tour of Ars 06 exhibition at Kiasma on Friday. Opposed to the previous Ars I saw in 1995 with its “Hey, I mixed my sperm and blood and urine in a blender and I want you to see my juices flow” type pieces (I'm not joking; there was a Danish artist Henrik Plenge Jakobsen who did exactly that. Chap's juices were also shaken in a washing machine) there was an atmosphere of sensuous contemplation instead of pure bodily intention to shock. Having been back in Hel for three days, still with jet lag, the timing was perfect.

Together with the stimulating works of art, we could peak at the beautiful slices of snowy white Hel through huge windows. Great shock treatment and a warm welcome at the same time. Gonna buy the go-as-much-as-u-like ticket at 15 euros; there are quite a few pieces that require more time (video installations, photographs). And just the pure joy of hanging around in the ingeniously designed space is good for anyone's soul.

I just wrote some lines, trying to describe our favourites works at the exhibition, but it's futile. They have to be experienced at the spot. This is what they say on the website:

"The subtitle of the exhibition is Sense of the Real. The human experiences like joy and sorrow are never far apart, but dependent on the perspective and on who experiences them. One person’s Paradise may be another’s Hell. Sometimes the first impression may be misleading. The works in ARS 06 are approachable and yet very complex. They also open up vistas to horrifying and hurtful things."

After the exhibition, went to have a glass of wine, which turned out to be warm – thanks to the obscure placing of the wine bottles near hot lamps. When our friend went to take his glass of red back, they simply remarked the bottles cannot be kept anywhere else (?!) and poured another warm glass to him.

Scrubbed and cleaned our new home this weekend, the place is fab but was also fabulously dusty when we first stepped in. Now that those black fingerprints are off the doors and there is a sweet scent of tar in the sauna, we can't wait to get our stuff and move in! We found ourselves gazing out the windows all the time. It is as if we have never seen pure white snow before. I'm tempted to grab my laptop and do my work from there already. Some lamps and a few other things needed, ahem, from IKEA I'm afraid.

Were supposed to go and vote today but it turned out the main post office reserved for the purpose had closed at two, when we were happily having lunch in an Indian restaurant. I have to say that watching the two exhausted, irritated presidential candidates who try to pretend they love and support everything does not exactly make you want to vote at all. So we went for a drink instead. We still have two days to miss the presidential gesture.

Friends tried to lure us to do some tobogganing yesterday, but people have been known to die in this weather (okay, it's just the hobos in Russia, but still). It should get “warmer” tomorrow, with only -4. Whoopee.

Our faces are all red and terrified from just 10-minute-maximum walks outside today. Five days in Hel, and I haven't been to sauna yet. Will go to the hotel sauna tonight. These extreme temperature variations (from -20 celsius to +80 celsius) during the Finnish winter are the biting spice of life.

All hail Siberia

2006-01-18T23:11:00.000-08:00

Already at the smoky, smelly, stuffy, over-crowded, over-heated and under-airconditioned Heathrow I was thinking, I'm home. The lovely, old, rugged Europe.

Lesson of the day 1 in Hel was: don't try speaking outside with the North-East wind of 19 km/hr, it will grab and bite your lungs. The recommended policy is to speak as little as possible here, anyway. Just spare those vocal cords. Speaking and laughing are for foreigners and obscure-looking mammals that reside in Gobi desert.

It's five in the morning and I have been awake all night. Controlled transfer into another time zone, my ass. Will I ever learn to do it? I missed the Madonna documentary on the telly, steadily sleeping when it was on. Oh, the misery of life.

- 22, wind chill -32, broken clouds. I'm not sure whether this is a compliment or an insult: a friend of ours remarked that we have brought winter in town (they've basically had plus degrees here in Helsinki earlier this winter). It's clear that the weather fairies accompanying us must be high on something. I have had several welcoming e-mails with a reference to our very own domestic Siberia.

But it was still a heartwarming sight to see a bit of snow amidst all the silent spruce trees at the airport. Standing by the luggage merry-go-round, I could see all the solemn night owl gazes from behind glasses, and all men with ponytails, one of them wearing a borsalino, too. What's this, a spy movie?

So few cars on the roads.

At the underground station, I ran into a friend, who's getting married in a few weeks. The gorgeous plan is to do it on a frozen lake, in an ice castle. So to all those I have told virtually none of my friends get married and/or has kids, here we go: an exception. And this was my first day back in Hel. Who knows what lies around the corner?

Love the pure, wholesome food, the tangy black ryebread and fish and cheese. Love love love it.

Next week, will head to see a few films at the Docu festival, at least the successful documentary of not so successful Enron.

www.docpoint.info/eng/index.html

Almost happy songs

2006-01-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

Another shade of rainy gray, the last one for us in Vancouver, has revealed its fugly face. Half a day of downtown downpour left.

Just to soak in another type of cheerfulness, I have been listening to 'Helsinki-Vantaa', a song of our beloved Hel airport, by the Finnish a cappella choir Semmarit (who we, curiously enough, last saw here in Vancouver. These guys mix stand-up comedy and slapstick humour with singing in a way that even when the lyrics are mostly in Finnish the audiences abroad totally enjoy the show. Plus they're cute. 'Nuf said).

A sample of Helsinki-Vantaa can be found at

http://www.semmarit.fi/www/english/hakkaan_helsinki.htm

HELSINKI - VANTAA

kotimaan naama on tylsä ja väritön
pilvien alla on lentokin tärinätön
vettä ja vilua viidessä polvessa
hämäriä ääniä hei herää
tää on helsinki-vantaa

kotimaan kamara on harmaa ja vakava
lasku on tukeva ja juhla on takana
matalasta portista katsetta kumaraan
kaulusta pystyyn ja hymy pois
tää on helsinki-vantaa

antaa muiden jäädä aurinkoon
me laskeudumme pitkään ahdinkoon

here's my quick translation, just to give the idea:

HELSINKI-VANTAA

face of homeland, boring and pale
not even flying beneath the clouds has vibe
rainy and frosty, already for five generations
curious sounds, hey it's time to wake up
this is helsinki-vantaa

soil of homeland, gray and grim
landing is sturdy and party is over
shallow gate makes the gaze go down
lift your collar and drown that smile
this is helsinki-vantaa

let others bathe in the sun
we are landing into deep desperation

Talking about the thrills of transportation, even better yet a song can be listened to here:

http://www.amateurtransplants.com/

- go to 'listen', click on 'London underground', lean back and enjoy!

Wet entertainment

2006-01-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

Umbrellas drying in the bathtub seems to be the all too familiar and all too depressing sight just right now. It's curious how, now that we are about to leave this town, it keeps raining like no before; we have had a three-week drizzle galore. They say that Vancouverites would be no good in hell because they would simply not catch fire thanks to all the meteorological wetness.

Our three years in Vancouver have mostly been spectacularly beautiful, with lots of crisp and sunny summer and winter mornings. I have especially enjoyed the slow and mellow autumns. Luckily, this gray January rain won't pave any way for nostalgia.

Another curious 'n wet thing to have experienced upon leaving was a couple of days ago, when we travelled to Tofino on Vancouver Island. We went to see how the Pacific rages over in the storm season and got to relax in one of the best saunas - probably anywhere. Built by Finnish-born Sulo (whose name translates literally to 'Grace', being one of those cutey cute men's names we have in Finland, another example being Aarre, which translates to 'Treasure'), who lead his parents to Canada when he was just one year old, the design of this sauna was ingenously good.

The sufficient ventilation and humidity and softness were all there. And it was hot enough! Sulo had also incorporated an outdoor shower next to the sauna. Splashing ooozingly cold water all over in the pitch black January night while the Pacific waves were roaring in the background was definitely one of the best experiences of this new year.

Spring is here

2006-01-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

The new year has hardly begun and the cherry trees are blossoming here already! Went for a walk today in Coal Harbour and in Stanley Park, where we had to look twice to believe what really was there. No, it wasn't a prank. Three cherry trees had really gone hormone crazy and were wearing pale pink costumes. I don't even have to dream of spring.

The horrible truth will of course uncover itself sooner than I think; spring in Helsinki is a long game of hide-and-seek and an event of getting anyone's faith tested. All doubting Thomases unite, you will have what you desire when Hel and spring collide.

Roo(s)ted Cosmos

2006-01-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

Two weeks to go before I descend in Hel. What is it that I now suspect I'm going to miss from Vancouver? Landscape; mountains above all. Inexpensive, great sushi. A few exceptional people. Mild climate. Leisurely pace of life. Multiculturalism. Urban Fare and Capers (the nicest grocery stores!). The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – although it's an American telly show... Being surrounded by so much English language every day. Having everything virtually round the corner in Yaletown. Gym in my building. It remains to be seen what other things I may miss.

Quite a few people describe living in Vancouver by saying it's like being on a holiday. The outdoorsy, eating-out lifestyle and relaxed rhythm of life add to that feeling of being on a vacation, but so does the sense of being detached from the rest of the world, and the rest of Canada. This detachment is both physical and psychological. You need to make an effort to keep yourself involved and in the know, whereas elsewhere things like news and politics are pretty much thrown on your face whether you want them in your life or not.

The disconnectedness can be a huge advantage. Vancouver is a perfect place to be if you have your own thing to do, if you are an entrepreneur at heart or if you feel like hatching some ideas in peace and quiet. It's a comfortable, easy place to be – just like an ideal holiday destination. But the detachment has its downsides, too. Lack of career opportunities keeps the brain-drain going. There are no big employers and no international institutions, no robust finances. Quite a few people move to Vancouver expecting it to give them fab lives, but turn back after a while: they may love the great lifestyle, but are left with thin job opportunities. This is probably one of the factors keeping the headcount the same: there's just as much traffic in as there's out.

An interesting concept also to do with this detachment of Vancouver is “Rooted Cosmopolitans” (by Robert Kaplan): a group of people who have their physical homes in one place, but who move around a lot professionally and intellectually. Journalist Jennifer Brown described this phenomenon in the July 2005 issue of Vancouver magazine. Many of these new type of internationalists keep returning to Vancouver because they think it's the greatest place on Earth, only to flee again after professional projects.

So much of the work in the knowledge society of today happens on the virtual spheres that the amount of these Rooted Cosmopolitans must be growing globally. It's all about laptops and wireless connections, baby.

South Park wisdom rules, again

2005-12-29T20:35:00.000-08:00

I wanted to include Canada in the subtitle of my blog, but the truth is I feel that I've lived in Vancouver for three years, not in Canada. I don't know Canada, but I know (something of) Vancouver. Of the people, phenomena and views I have come to know about here, I have no idea whether they represent something specifically Canadian or Vancouverite. Canada is continually questioning its own identity and existence. While other nations hardly address these “Canada, to be or not to be” issues, one of the best cases has probably been developed in The South Park film, where South Park mothers get hot and bothered with Canadians being a threat to their children, establish an association called MAC – Mothers Against Canada – and the infamous song gets sung: “Blame Canada, blame Canada, cause it's not a real country anyway”.

Why oh why did I include South Park in my blog note again? I guess that South Park provides one of the best references available for anything cultural, medical, political or regarding how to get Xmas presents in the first place (by eating enough fibre). In South Park, everyone gets their fare share of mockery. Reverse equality?

A week ago, I was in a room full of Europeans, and, listening to their bubbling away loud and clear it suddenly dawned on me that aaah, yeah, this is what they do in Europe: express their religious and political and sexual and other politically very incorrect views openly and fiercely. I had somehow forgotten about that. Engaging into passionate discussions is probably another feature that I now associate with Europe or being a European. Argumentation as a pastime. - Waiting for the dinner start with Frenchies around 11pm, when the invitation was originally for 8 pm, and participants are happily shouting their opinions out before any food can be seen. Who says dinner is about food?

When living abroad, you tend to pick up whatever accents you are surrounded with, and with the accent come not only the pronunciation and the rhythm, but also idioms and local sayings including attitudes and manners. If there is such a thing as a Canadian accent, I wonder how much it has to do with not clearly leaning onto one view or another. Then again, I could be entirely wrong about this, but I just remembered a joke I heard before I came to Canada: it went something like “What did a Canadian do when crossing a road? - He stayed in the middle of it.” Or, better yet, what is the Canadian Fear Factor: when waiter comes to inquire whether you are enjoying your meal, you gather all your courage and make a complaint.

In Hel, the waiter does not come around to ask about your dining experience. In fact, you're lucky if the waiter comes around for anything at all.

Books as umbrellas

2005-12-28T21:12:00.000-08:00

Urban planning comes, literally, handy sometimes. It's been hellishly rainy lately and one day I had to walk around when it was pouring and had no umbrella. I happened to be carrying the wonderful book called “The Dream City” by Lance Berelowitz (the book just got the “Book of the year” (in Vancouver) award and it's a great read; despite the lasvicious title it also has got critical views of the city) so I wrapped the book into a plastic bag, using the passionate narrative of Vancouver as an urban umbrella.

I've been to HEL and back - and I'm at it again

2005-12-27T22:57:00.000-08:00

So. It is true, then. Our stuff has been packed into 136 cardboard units, which are probably still lying somewhere in Delta, British Columbia, in an anonymous, damp and relatively warm (around 10 degrees) loading area, to start their journey to Europe in the ... near... future.

This is my third time going back to HEL after having lived abroad. This time, I feel it's not only about returning to Helsinki, Finland, but also returning to Europe. Before moving to Canada, I wasn't really aware of all the things in common to Europeans. Now I know we European aliens like to argue with half strangers and argue even more with our friends and read papers and sit in cafes and cook on narrow stoves.

So it's about time to go back so that I'm able to continue the above list.

I'm typing this as I'm watching a Southpark episode with the guys building a ladder to heaven to fetch back their dead friend Kenny. But all I wanna do is go back to HEL. Three weeks to go.