MM for lumme (waterlily), with a bonus dragonfly on the petals of the flower.
May 202013
May 142013
Hummingbird takes on centuries of sheet music tradition.
And while it is on the aesthetically pleasing side, it’s hard to imagine the establishment suddenly abandoning their set-in-stone ways and embracing the new markup.
May 122013
May 092013
There’s nothing wrong being wrong.
And people should be less worried about that.
But being wrong, bigoted and loud, that’s when Public Shaming comes in to take down the offenders. And there’s some spectacular displays of subhuman behaviour (a lot of it done under real names, so the Penny Arcade Theory does not apply).
May 092013
PO for poliisi (policeman).
Royal Canadian Mounted Police puts on a human face in Ottawa.
May 092013
May 062013
Jeff Hanneman, the lead guitarist of Slayer passed away last week.
Slayer was one of the first thrash bands I became aware of back in early 1986. Hell Awaits had recently been released, and it got quite a lot of air time in Radio City’s Hevitaivas (the only show that played metal). After the rather safer Metallica and Megadeth, Slayer was something rawer, something far more vicious. Something that seemed to exceed the listening norms of my schoolmates. Hence, as I had quite a backlog to acquire, I somehow missed the release of their seminal Reign in Blood album, and lost touch with the band for a while. But got re-acquainted with South of Heaven in 1988 (now loaded with summer job cash, new albums became a weekly thing) – the band had slowed down, but lost none of their intensity. My interest in the band peaked with Seasons in the Abyss and I lost touch with them once again. This time pretty much for good, the newer albums somehow disagreed with me.
Saw Slayer live in 1998. The gig still clocks in as the loudest concert I’ve been to. Tried removing earplugs for a couple of songs towards the end of the concert, and was assailed by such a volume that the plugs went back in quickly indeed.
The bandmembers of Slayer were strangely distant. Apart from Dave Lombardo’s frequent departures and rearrivals, the rest of them were nowhere as vocal as the likes of Hetfield and Mustaine. Jeff Hanneman I knew as one of the most incomprehensible soloists in the metal world and of his interest in wartime Germany. The former gave us plenty of unimitable songs, the latter gave us Angel of Death – a sadly misunderstood true thrash metal classic. The third ascpect that I dimly recalled was his infatuation with Heineken, proven to be common knowledge in the pictures his fans posted in the Drink A Beer In Honor Of Jeff Hanneman event last Saturday.
May 062013
May 062013
Entryway to a Salvador Dali exhibition.
This serves the challenge in two ways: the artist had truly an uncommon amount of imagination and in the exhibit in Wanha Satama quite a few of the items had an imaginary provenance.
Photo Thursday #285: Imagination
May 062013
May 052013
Scott Lynch‘s third volume of the Gentlemen Bastard series has seen many a release date fly by.
The current one, October this year seems to be reliable.
And there was much rejoicing.
May 052013
After all these years.
After all these viewings.
It still reigns. Not as the best of its own franchise, not as the best film of the genre. But as something that will never fade.
May 052013
Nothing compares to Rare Exports. It’s domestic all the way.
Santa Claus is part of a whole another mythos.
The elves are not so nice.
And you really have to do everything yourself.
May 052013
In addition to sporting some of the greatest sci-fi scenery in ages, Fifth Element excels in its costumes. Over the top and very varied.
Movie Monday #84: An outfit to kill for
May 052013
Jessica Rabbit, sadly, is not part of the group.
Compared to her, the selection is pale and thin indeed.
Movie Monday #83:Disney Pricesses.
May 052013
NEN for perhonen (butterfly). This is a small tortoiseshell (nokkosperhonen) photographed on Söderskär.
Alkukirjaimet #029: NEN.
May 052013
Close, but separated by a pane of glass.
Bulldog ants would not be nice close by.
See It Sunday 5.5.2013: Close.
Apr 202013
Vadelmavenepakolainen by Miikka Nousiainen had been on my “todo”-list for a long while. Finally got to reading it while nursing a slight flu back in January, and was quite impressed. After all, it was the author’s debut.
The novel is a tale about a finnish man who is not happy with his nationality – he wants to be a swede, no matter what the cost. Not just a swede by nationality, but a man fully converted into one.
And while such an identity crisis is easily described, it takes a whole book to resolve matters. After all, it is a tremendous change.
And a humorous change, the story of the protagonist veers between absurdism and obsession, and the pages flow fast while reading.
Unavoidably, there’s some repetition, but that only adds to the manic nature of the changing man.
Vadelmavenepakolainen was a pleasant surprise, I aim to tackle the author’s later books with a shorter interval from the publication dates.
Apr 202013
In treading through the old Movie Monday assignments, I draw a complete blank in trying to recall any truly annoying title sequences.
Movie Monday #82: Annoying Title Sequence.
Apr 202013
A leopard in Singapore’s Night Safari, one of the best zoos I’ve visited. This was a rare photograph, the pitch-black conditions were too much for my S3.
See It Sunday 21.4.2013: Darkness.
Apr 182013
Steven Levy’s The Perfect Thing is yet another digital history book from the prolific author. The Perfect Thing chronicles the history of iPod (and leaves off with a short segue to the iPhone).
While the subject is far more common knowledge than that of his earlier “Hackers”, it’s nonetheless an interesting and enlightening book.
Desite its pedigree, The Perfect Thing is less about technology, and more about the people behind the device and its impact on society and habits.
But it’s not all about changes in music consumption – the first steps of the iPod’s history do contain interesting anecdotes about the technologies evaluated and especially about the comparison to competition.
The book has quite a personal perspective, the author talks about his own devices and music collection a lot, and a lot of the comments by industry players have not been gleaned from media, but from the interviews he conducted with them. The author regularly sounds more like a fanboy than an objective observer.
At least from my perspective (skewed very hard to pro-Apple camp) that’s but a minor fault.
The Perfect Thing is entertaining, I was sure of that. But it’s also rather shallow, and I kept expecting more.
Apr 182013
Hollywood is so stuck to tradition that something revolutionary along the lines of best viral advertising campaign would be dead weight.
Hence I would settle for “best individual scene”. Where a good candidate for the lifetime achievement award would be the Walken / Hopper meeting in True Romance.
Movie Monday #81: New Oscar category.
Apr 172013
Apr 172013
More than a little pink. Apr 162013
My favorite East Coast city was subject to a terrorist attack yesterday. At least three bombs were deployed downtown, and two of them exploded with great carnage.
Boston is resilient, it will bounce back.
But I still hope for a swift and merciless justice for the perpetrators.
This is one of my favorite photographs from Boston: the old Massachusetts Customs House – tiny and ancient amongst the skyscrapers.
And this is one of my favorite bands, Dropkick Murphys with For Boston, a very appropriate song for today.