Herring Prep

Arguments Presented to God on the Behalf of Humanity, No. 34:
The amount of work people put into entirely frivolous, harmless pursuits, just for fun. Making a 1-minute video, for instance, about herring.In the past 24 hours, here's some work people put into prepping for the shoot in 12 days time:
1. John, who is going to play the man disappointed with his Christmas dinner of one measly herring, called to ask if he should start growing a beard for his role. I said yes.
2. The Finnish Friend sent me an audio file of her saying, "Herring is rather small for Christmas dinner" in Finnish. I sent it to John so he could practice.
3. Laura gave me some blue glaze and a tin of aqua-colored paint so I could paint one corner of my room, as ocean background for the herring.
4. I painted said corner.
5. bink brought over a herring-head mask to check against the wave pattern.

Post No. 901 (775 Days)

I've been meaning to write something meaningful about the two-year birthday of this blog, like I did at post no. 438 for L'Astronave's one-year birthday. But my brain's been--and is--distracted by herring and Holland, and now the time's slipped past. I'll let these two jokers show how happy I am to be here. (Thanks for sending the photo, Art Sparker.) And, Happy Monday!

Zombies, Healing Properties Of

You never know how you change people's lives.

A while back, Manfred posted the catchy music video Zombies On Your Lawn, which is a bunch of friends wearing silly costumes and mugging to a silly song (it gave me hope for our upcoming singing herring video). The song is from the online game Plants vs. Zombies, in which plants with powers (e.g. pea plants shoot peas) battle various kinds of zombies--all trying to get into your cozy house.

I don't much like games. But bink checked it out, and soon she was playing the free version of the game every afternoon at tea time. It has the healing powers she needed, having been attacked by zombies all fall, in the form of family horridness of all stripes.
Eventually she bought the full version of the game, and when her niece and nephew came to stay last week, when they got bored, she sent them off to squash zombies. Which they loved.

There's something comforting about battling zombies.
What's the appeal? My friend David suggests we like them because they're totally bad, but we can do something about them.
They're like Viagra for our sense of impotence in the face of global warming, loveless marriages, cancer, the end of oil, etc.

I'd say it's also because there's something inherently silly and endearing about them. Lumbering, dimwitted creatures, they are us gone bad, yes; but they're also a bit pathetic, these poor soulless things.
You actually do them a favor when you kill them, as who would want to be undead? Everybody wins!

How glad I was that I had my camera when I saw a pile of traffic cones downtown yesterday. I quickly set it up and popped a cone on my head, in imitation of the Conehead Zombie from Plants vs. Zombies.
I was surprised: those things are heavy. I wonder if a zombie would really have the neck muscles to support one.So, I've lost track of who changed whose life, but I ended up with a cone on my head downtown, and that's a good thing in a naughty world.

Happy Friday the 13th!

P.S. I highly recommend Calla's hilarious review at Cocktail Party Physics of the upcoming end-of-the-world movie 2012, "The Mayans Warned Us: Don't Trespass in Yellowstone".
Turns out, from a scientific point of view, neutrinos won't destroy the world in 2012, but angry bears and boiling geysers can hurt you bad.

"hopeful and something"

Yesterday, forgetting it was Veterans Day and the post office is closed, I bused downtown to mail a thank-you package to The Finnish Friend, for all her incredibly helpful and amusing insights into Finland.

I stopped at Candy Land to get some treats to top it off. I set the camera on self-timer and placed it on a newspaper box. Of course this never works the first time, and as I took multiple photos, two different people came up and offered to snap my photo for me. I turned them down because I was fulfilling the rule for 365 self-portraits: other people can't take the photo. But each person seemed a little disappointed, and I wish I had accepted their sweet offers of help.
[If I ever need a reminder that humans fundamentally want to help each other (if we're not afraid, or competing for resources, or...) I'm going to go downtown and do this again.]

Downtown anyway, I popped over to the Government Plaza light-rail stop to look more closely at Keith Christensen's installation there. (I mentioned a few posts back that I'd run into Keith for the first time in a dozen years.) He'd asked people how they saw democracy and used their answers as text. My almost-favorite is this one, below: "messy process". But my top-favorite answer was "hopeful and something".

I was feeling more "and something" yesterday because despite how nice several strangers were to me--(for instance, a construction worker, without me asking, helped me navigate the maze of fences at gov't plaza)--I was in an foul mood about human stupidity because it was Armistice Day (11/11) and here my country is, ninety-one years later, still at war.
But it was a gorgeous day, so I took off my shoes and socks to photograph my toes on the platform, and the yellow paint was warm. Lovely and cheering.
I stopped at the downtown library on the way home to get some books for my geography work. I also checked out the first season DVD of The Royle Family, a Britcom I'd never seen.I watched it last night and it was perfect---about a foul family that is, at heart, fundamentally decent. Much like all of us messy humans, it's "hopeful and something."

Veterans Day

This gets my vote for the best, funniest (not much competition in that category), most heartbreaking World War I scene ever: the last 4 minutes of the British comedy Blackadder Goes Forth.


Darling really hits it on the nose:
"I made a note in my diary on the way here [to the trenches]. Simply says, 'bugger'."

365: Reading in Bed

I started this daily self-portrait project on my birthday last year, and I've only done something like 75 of them. That's OK, but now that the end date is less than 4 months away, I want to step it up a bit. Each one isn't necessarily all that interesting, but I like to see them all together, limning the arc of a year in the life...

" Nice, she thought. No, I'm certainly not nice. The best you could say of me is that I'm interested. She extracted a perch [from the net] and bashed its head against a rock."

--The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomin

Well, I think that's nice. I hate it when people leave fish to drown in the air.

Note my wrist-warmers: Poodletail knitted those for me years ago, from supersoft silky wool.
My apartment is not well heated, and I often wear them to read in bed. However, having admired the long-sleeved sweaters the Apocalyptica cello players wore (a few posts back), which covered their knuckles, I'm going to start wearing mine out and about.

Kirk of the Week

Someone told me they don't really notice when I change the Kirk of the Week (on sidebar); but they like them and think I should post them in the body of the blog when they change. So, from now on, that's what I'll do.

[If you want to make your own faux motivational posters, they're easy--the template is here: DIY poster-generator.]

List of Stuff to Do, Redux

I've been wanting to revist this list, which I wrote when I turned 47. Now almost 49 (in four months), I've done a bunch of the things I wanted to do, and I've realized I don't want to do a bunch of the undone things. Realizing what I don't want is about as big as doing what I do want.
The biggest realization is that I care a million times more about stories and individuals than about political action and community.

So...
I boldfaced things I've done.
I struck through things I don't want to do anymore. [The html for that is an s (for "strike through," I guess) inside wedges <> to open, and /s in <> wedges to close.]
I italicized stuff I still want to do, or that's ongoing.

Here's The Original List (March 2008), Annotated November 2009

1. Learn to surf. This is a challenge, living in the center of a huge continent, but I heard there are women's surfing classes somewhere on some coast. At least look into this.

I looked into it, and found Las Olas (The Waves): Surf Safaris for Women. Motto: "We make girls out of women." Cute, but a little too Oprah salon/spa for me---comes complete with yoga. Why? It's expensive too: around $3,000 for a week in Mexico, and that's sharing a room. A better bet might be to go to California, get a board, and ask some surf bum for help. I'd still like to give it a try.

2. Go to a Star Trek convention, before all the classic stars die. (Too late for DeForest Kelly and James Doohan.) Buy badges and gadgets and wear/carry them home on public transportation.

Done! *tribble trill of joy* Star Trek: Las Vegas, August 2008 And surely one of the most heartening things I've ever done: it restored my faith in humanity, even after working on a book about Sudan. I'm not kidding.
I'm so glad I went before Star Trek 2009 came out. The new fans are welcome to it; in 2008 I was with all the die-hard old timers.

3. Mount the pottery tiles my sister brought me from Mexico as a backsplash behind my kitchen sink. Don't hyperventilate.
Naw. Not worth it. I propped the tiles up until I got tired of them, and that was good enough. I'm no home-improver.

4. Go to City Hall; meet my council member. Gold star for asking him out to lunch.

Oh yeah! Remember? my city council member came to my downstairs neighbor's door while I was in the bathtub, so I wrapped up in a towel and went and shook his hand just because I saw a chance to fulfill this clause. Good guy--I just voted for his reelection--but that was enough.

5. Go to the State Capitol; see the State Legislature in session. Gold star for figuring out who my representative is.
Last January I went to a rally for health care reform at the capital. I was more interested in the architecture than the politics.
I did find out who my rep is, but I've forgotten.
I've since come to accept that politics is not my way. Better to put my energy toward stuff I care about enough to remember.

6. Sign up to be an "election judge" (volunteer poll worker) for the 2008 elections. This time, bring snacks that will provide the calm I require to help voters who start screaming. Do not eat the rice krispie treats.
See above. I worked the polls once, and it was cool; but that was enough.

7. Get married. No, wait--all I actually want is a wedding like Julie Andrews' in The Sound of Music, complete with a 50-foot train and nuns in habits. Skip the seven kids.

Moviemaking fulfills this play-acting desire; it's all about getting dressed up but not having to face the morning after.

8. Wear the teeth-guard that stops my teeth grinding in my sleep.(It's a nifty little thing that fits over my upper, front teeth so my jaw can't clench. But I don't wear it.)

I can tell how much distress I'm in by how much I clench my teeth at night. I've learned to judge if I need to wear this thing or not. Recently I learned that clenching your jaw not only breaks your teeth, it can contribute to vertigo, so I'm especially vigilant right now.

9. Repeat my fortieth birthday party in London on my fiftieth birthday, in 2011. (I invited everyone I know to tea in the Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury, in 2001. Eight friends and family came, and it was a blast.) You are invited.

Yep! Still on the slate. I'll be 49 this coming March, so join me the year after.

10. Make documentary movies. Since I was a kid, I've wanted to be a filmmaker, which seemed an impossible dream. Now, I could edit films on this very laptop.

Wow. I did this. I DID this!
Funny that docs were my first choice. I have made one--interviews with my aunt and uncle (both in their 80s), but I haven't edited it yet. Turns out, to my surprise, I prefer made-up-stories movies, at least to start. Anyway, links to my little movies are on the sidebar to the right, if you're new here and haven't heard me trilling over each one.

11. Learn how to be visually creative on the computer. What you see on this blog is about as far as I've gotten in exploring its capabilites. Change that.

I did this too! Weird. Now it seems like I always knew how to use iMovie, but the first time I opened it, I had no clue. It took me two hours just to figure out how to make a still image with text, for my first Star Trek mash up (still a favorite).
I haven't yet learned photoshop and garage band; but those'll follow. The point is, I no longer use my computer only as a typewriter/encyclopedia/post box.

12. Prepare for a good old age, like Maude in Harold and Maude. Key: keep my head open and my joints bendy.
Ongoing. And actually, this is more real and present than ever this year, after some physical distress.

13. Live for a Good Death, while I'm at it. (This is a Catholic concept that deserves a wider audience.)
Ditto. Since I wrote this, I've seen how little I know how to suffer, and how key it is--unless I'm hit by a truck soon, there's going to be more of it, before I'm out of here. There's an art to it--I can see that by looking at different people doing it, or not.

14. Load songs on my new teensy iPod, my first ever. (Maybe Sally will help me on Saturday).
Not only did I realize I don't want to listen to an iPod and got rid of it, but Sally and I are no longer friends. Huh.

15. Ask for help. (This scares me.)
I'm boldfacing this as done, even though it still scares me and I still need practice. But filmmaking was all about asking for help, and I did it. This was a huge breakthrough.

16. Offer help. (This scares me too.)
Ongoing. This has morphed into cultivating sustainable kindness---practicing compassion at the right distance. Lately I've had a hard time with finding this. So it goes.

17. Buy a new microwave. Don't get the crappy brand this time.
I don't really want one.

18. Visit Chile. Check out the surf near Pablo Neruda's last home. Gold star for asking Ariel Dorfman or President Michelle Bachelet out to lunch.
Not a huge desire, but sure, I'd still like to go to Chile. Now I'd also like to go to Berlin... and Helsinki for the annual herring festival. Gold star for asking Finland's woman president Tarja Halonen out for lunch.

19. Get a driver's license.
This was interesting. At some point I realized that I've never gotten a driver's license because I don't want to drive. Ha! Easy. Just took me until middle-age to figure this out.

20. Drive cross-country in a big old bomber. Hmmm... or drive to Chile.
The realization above notwithstanding, this still appeals to me, so I'm leaving it. More a dream image than something I intend to do, but dreams are real too.

21. Acquire a vintage Jaguar car. Alternatively, acquire a lover with a Jaguar.
Now I want that pink DeSoto I filmed in Montana. Big enough to live in.
A lover? Hm. Kind of like a driver's license: I rather suspect I don't have one because I don't want one.

22. Climb down into the Grand Canyon. Spend the night in one of the cabins down there.
I'd still like to do this, but I could die happy without it.

23. Breathe in the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Yes, I very much want to see the giant ferns. Vancouver is probably my top travel destination.

24. Practice non-aggression when I am annoyed. (Ha!) Practice some more.
Oh, baby!

25. Buy new wool sweaters. Turn the ratty old ones into felt (wash in hot water) and make mittens with it.
I am such a nonshopper. I turned a couple old wool sweaters into felt, yeah, but I haven't replaced them, and now it's getting cold. I want to make toys out of the felt, not mittens, but I'm not much of a crafter... We shall see.

26. Keep expanding my capacity for compassion. Keep relaxing my tendencies toward self-defensiveness. Expand. Relax. Repeat.
Stet. Expand, relax, expand, relax, expand, relax...

27. Keep exercising my body, even though, frankly, I'm not that jazzed about it.
Yep. I took half a year off the YW, and that felt great. Then I started to miss it and rejoined. My approach to exercise is starting to change, too, at mid-life. With vertigo recently, I want to learn a different kind of exercise---more about balance and stretch and less of the Rocky type stuff.

28. Enjoy food! First goal: buy steel-cut oats instead of oats chopped into dust. Give myself more time in the morning to cook them.
Cooking 'em right now.

29. Don't forget crusty bread, runny stinky cheeses, red wine. And sauteed dandelion leaves in the spring, dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper.
This stands as a general guide, as I do tend to drift into living off cold cereal.

30. Keep sending my brother birthday cards, even though he more or less hates me.
This has been another tricky one to get in focus. Saint Benedict wrote some advice that I take to heart: If you can't be in a situation and maintain your compassion, he says, then leave.
I realized I was forcing myself to send cards into a cold, hostile void, and I resented doing it more and more. My heart actually feels softer toward my brother if I just leave it alone. Open to revision, but for now, I am not sending him cards.

31. Make a list of the top ten Star Trek episodes. Make a list of the Ten Best Worst Episodes too.
Oh, I went waaaay beyond that. : ) 222 posts labelled Star Trek ... so far.

32. Don't be so embarrassed. As Helen Fielding (author of Bridget Jones) points out: people aren't paying attention anyway. They're thinking about what you're thinking about: themselves.
I never thought I would make headway with this one, but again, moviemaking was the perfect practice--especially going to make a 48-hour film with bink in Montana. There were two of us. I could either get over my embarrassment and act on camera, or I could make a film with one actor. I got over it.

33. Make art!
Of course art-making is ongoing, but I consider this one completed because it was really about a return to making art, coming out of the 3-,4-, 5-year emotional coma that fogged me in after my mother's suicide. Can't make art in a coma.

34. Have a love affair with someone who is is a native speaker of another language, and learn that language. Preferably a person who has to return to their far-away home after a year or so. (In Chile, maybe. Or on Vulcan.)
Honestly, having a love affair and learning another language both look like this to me now: A Lot of Work.
A friend asked me if I'd like to go on a blind date with some wonderful guy she knew, and my spontaneous response was, "Do I have to?"
So, I don't know. Another mid-life acceptance, maybe? I'd far rather have an art partner than a lover. And moviemaking is enough of a foreign language for me.

35. Get bifocals.
Got 'em! They're great!

36. Buy a ticket for a flight into outer space. Or make one.
Blogging L'Astronave ("star ship" in Italian) takes care of this desire. I finally added the L', which symbolically fulfills this step.

37. Try cassava greens.
Not yet.

38. Invite friends and family to collaborate on photo projects, now that we all have these easy-peasy digital cameras.
I would say filmmaking overshoots this step, and I'm going to count it as done.

39. Call the career counselor. Find the perfect job that engages and directs my brain but doesn't cramp it. Something like problem-solving on Star Trek screenplays. Or assisting Bill Moyers with interviews. Or getting paid to ramble in writing. You know what? I'd like to work collaboratively on a magazine. Maybe an online one... Maybe start one.
I did see a wonderful career counselor, and she said just what I needed to hear: start where you are.
The job I was trying to describe turned out to be moviemaking. (And blogging, too.) True, it costs money rather than bringing any in, but it is good work. For pay, I find that having taken a year and a half sabbatical from working geography books, I'm plenty happy to be back doing it. I'm not sure about long-term paid work, but I'm not worried today, either.

40. Keep on blogging.
Done.
______________________
So, I'll now add #41.
#41. Write a new List of Stuff to Do

Ringing In the Netherlands

This morning I regret giving away all the cinnamon rolls I made yesterday. I feel a little grumbly, too, about starting work on the Netherlands book (I'm updating a twenty-year old text), having become so attached to Finland.
Also I've liked having a couple days to write some personal stuff, which I find hard to do when my brain is full of geography.

But I googled "Star Trek Netherlands" and found this: for the 25th anniversary of the Star Trek club the Flying Dutch, a carillon in Utrecht rang the Star Trek TOS song.

Now I'm in a good mood to start.
Even if it's with cold cereal for breakfast.

Finnish Cinnamon Rolls (recipe with American measurements)

[All photos are from my baking today.]

These rich and yeasty rolls are not gooey soft and supersweet like American ones--and the cardamom gives them a Byzantine flavor. The Finnish Friend says that Finns bake and eat the rolls regularly. "They smell like home to almost every Finn," she says.

I converted the original Finnish recipe's measurements (metric weights) to American measurements (teaspoons, cups, etc.). I tested my conversions by making the rolls--the photo here is the end result. This is not quite how they're supposed to look--see step 9--but they taste fantastic in any shape.

Cinnamon Rolls, from Finland (Korvapuustit, or Pulla)

INGREDIENTS

Dough

1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 packet quick-rise yeast
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon cardamom
4 – 5 cups flour

Filling
¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter, soft
1 tablespoon cinnamon mixed with 2 tablespoons sugar

Topping
1 egg, beaten
1 – 2 tablespoons sugar--coarse, if you have it

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat milk to warm (not hot!--test with your little finger). In a large mixing bowl, stir sugar into milk. Sprinkle yeast into milk. Let sit about 5 minutes, until the yeast softens. It may foam a little.

2. Stir 2 beaten eggs and cool melted butter into milk mix.

3. Add salt and cardamom to 4 cups flour, and mix well. One cup at a time, stir the flour into the bowl of milk and egg mix.

4. Sprinkle flour on a kitchen counter. Place dough on floured surface. With the heels of your hands, gradually knead (push and turn) the remaining 1 c. flour into the dough.
Keep kneading until the dough is no longer sticky—about 8 minutes.


5. Put dough in greased (buttered) bowl, and cover with kitchen towel.
Put in a warm place (for instance, heat the oven for a couple minutes, turn it off, then put the bowl inside).
Let dough rise for about 30- 60 minutes, or until double in size. 



6. Turn dough onto a floured surface.
With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a thin, rectangular sheet, about as thick as pizza dough.
Spread the soft butter onto the sheet, and then evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar on it.

7. Tightly roll the sheet into a log, starting from the longer side.

8. Cut the log on an angle into about 14 triangle-shaped wedges.

9. Finnish rolls are baked on their side, rolled-up side facing out, so don't turn them face up like American rolls.
Turn them so they sit on the fat end of the triangle. Press the pointy centers of the rolls down with your finger, so the swirly edges spread out, like waves, on either side.
[I got this step wrong, but they turned out great anyway.]

10. Place rolls on cookie sheet. Let sit for 30 minutes. Then brush the tops with beaten egg, and sprinkle with sugar.


11. Bake in oven at 425 degrees, for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes about 14 rolls.

365: Korvapuustit, or Pulla/Finnish Cinnamon Roll

.
The recipe is in the post above.

Since the recipe is going in my Finland book, this morning I kitchen-tested my conversions from the original recipe's metric weights (grams, etc.) to American measures (teaspoons, cups).
I shaped them wrong, but I got the measurements right--due more to my baking experience than any math skills.

. . . . Entering the Sneer-Free Zone

Now that I've sent the Finland manuscript off, I can give some love to Fly Off the Wall's next movie. (You may recall, it's going to be a musical version of the Finnish proverb, "Herring are rather small to serve for Christmas dinner.")

Yesterday afternoon, bink and her 9-year-old niece Anya ("Iphigenia" in the Fly movie) and I made herring-head masks.
Here Anya models a mask at an early stage.

We'll film on Thanksgiving weekend (fingers crossed). I'm hoping to squeeze about 20 herring into my teeny studio. If you're in town and want to be a herring, you're welcome! No musical talent or knowledge of Finnish required. (People 6 feet and over will be pike.)

Walking home last night, I ran into a really nice guy I hadn't seen in a dozen years, an artist from my library-job days at the art college. He asked me what I've been up to, and started to guess high-end Art World jobs. Designing for Artforum magazine? Running a gallery in New York?

I was startled, having always fancied myself invisible behind the library counter. Had I seemed like the sort of person who would go on to Big Things?
I was about to disclaim any such thing, but then I realized, in fact I was doing something worth mentioning: I was making films. So I said so.
When I asked him, he said he wasn't doing anything very interesting, "just" teaching design...

I googled him this morning and he wins the Honorary Finn Award for Poo-Poohing One's Own Achievements. (Though really, being Minnesotan, one is as good at this as any Finn.)
Among other things, he was commissioned to do a permanent installation at the Government Center.
Right, detail, The Way We Do: "how do you see democracy?/made from visions". That's an Ojibwe pair of gloves and phrase. (The Ojibwe is the main Native American nation around here).

Clicking through his links--many to people I used to know--I felt a constriction of spirit I used to feel around the hyper-competitive Art World and academia in general.
Not that I ever felt this guy was like that. On the contrary.

Obviously some people flourish in that culture, but I was never able to work in it. I couldn't keep my shields up. (Probably didn't help that my dad was an academic.) I was always taking on--or, worse, self-generating--judgements like, "Making herring heads out of tag board? How quaint." [sneer]
And then I wouldn't do it.
Visions wilt under sneers, like lettuce in the heat. Mine do, anyway.

I see in Anya something I used to have: a direct line to creativity, not clogged up with unhelpful neurotic judgment. Of course, kids haven't yet developed much of the helpful kind of judgment either. It's great to bring the two together---enthusiasm + discernment--which, I hope, I am starting to do.
Feeling that old constriction reminded me why it's taken so long to get back to my nine-year-old creative self: I'd learned to sneer at myself.

A couple things helped me get over being paralyzed at the idea of being unsmart or uncool.
One was cranking out geography books for a children's book publisher. At first, the work drove me crazy. The lack of footnotes! The "good enough" definitions of nation-state.
I still find too much words-per-dollar writing cramps the imagination; but the work liberated me from being afraid to say anything at all without a ton of back-up source notes.

The other thing was the world of fandom--in my case, Star Trek fandom. If there's ever a place where sincerity is valued, it is here. And sincerity is the opposite of cool. Academic posturing is a bit suspect in fandom, like old-time Klingons in neutral space.

The do-it-yourself world of fandom has been a balm. Here is a place where people love making costumes out of cardboard. At first I did struggle with how uncool it is, and looking at the cool artists I used to know reminds me why. But I love this world. If you want to put on Star Trek in the Park--for real, no wink-and-a-nod parody--more power to you.

From Atomic Arts' Trek in the Park presentation of Amok Time, Portland Oregon, July 11, 2009


Which all reminds me, I need help designing a set of samurai armor out of Star Trek cereal boxes.
Any ideas?

My Mother's Hands, and the Art of Suffering

My mother, Lyttona V. Davis (1934-2002), about 1950. Today would have been my mother's 75th birthday.

The photographer arranged my mother's hands thusly to show them off, because she played the piano with the pretty things. She went on to study music at college. But later she gave it up.
Slowly, in her long decline, my mother turned away from, or could no longer reach out for life-giving things. At some point, she sold her piano. At the end, she died by her own hand, as they say.

Last night I visited a friend's daughter who's in the hospital, for the nth time, pulled under by severe depression. Her suffering is, of course, atrocious. It has hollowed her out.
Biking home after, I though about how much her family suffers with her. I was always tuned in to my mother's suffering. I didn't pay much attention to mine. I don't think that helped either of us. I can see that in this family--my friend is in pain too, but that doesn't get much attention.So the wheel wobbles, out of true.
Now, seven years after my mother's death, I wonder if the time has come to talk to others who've lost people to suicide.

There's an art to this stuff--to living with physical and mental suffering. This year I've faced real physical problems--gallbladder surgery and now vertigo-- for the first time in my adult life. Luckily my suffering has been low-level beginner's stuff, not like my mother's or the girl I visisted last night, who got hit with PhD level suffering at a young age.
Especially vertigo, which doesn't just go away, shows me that suffering is something to pay attention to, to practice--even in some way, to love.
I don't mean I love suffering! Hardly.
I mean, it seems to me that it helps to give love to suffering, to love it like one's child or mother.
Maybe suffering is like a piano that's not going to go away. If we are among the ones whose hands can play it, we are lucky. May as well practice the damn thing.

365: The Triffid Arrives

The U.S. postal service sent this triffid I'd bought online (in early October) from Ginga Squid in New Zealand all the way back to NZ, stamped "No Such Address." Ginga sent it again--same address--and yesterday the P.O. found my house. It was just where it's been for the last seven years they've been delivering mail here.
I'd wanted to wear this (lapel corsage?) to the Fly premieres, but as it was, it feels like a prize for finishing Finland.

The Last of Finland

I just sent the manuscript off for its edit! I am glad to be done but sorry to see it go.
I have become very fond of this nation, with its inscrutable proverbs. And besides, Finland has some of the quirkiest fun facts. Here's a favorite:
Some experts estimate that there are 77 billion--give or take a few million--trees in Finland that are at least 4 feet (1.3 m) tall.
So...
77 billion trees
5.3 million people
2.8 million saunas
24 pounds (11 kilograms) of coffee drunk per person every year (about 5 cups a day)
6 world champion rally race car drivers
1 Heavy Metal Eurovision Song Winner

Also, did you know that in Finland you have the right to pick wild berries? Yes. And wild mushrooms too.

And now, the Netherlands.

The Finnish Frank Sinatra: Olavi Virta

Who knows where the publishing industry is going, but there's a lot to be said for e-formats. I wish I could embed links into the Finland book. There's only room to mention briefly some of Finland's top musicians. If only I could connect the kids directly to youTube!

Olavi Virta sang tango and schlager, or "iskelmä", music. It reminds me of all those Italian crooner's stuff, and he really was called the Finnish Frank Sinatra.
Here's the music video for "Sinun silmiesi tähden" (1953). Frankly, it's better if you close your eyes.

365: The Good Citizen

I didn't want to go vote. It was raining. It was dark. It's just a primary election for dog catcher. But I remembered those Finns on skis and I thought, Come on! Even a Moomin could do this. So I grabbed my umbrella and I did it.

Neo-Classical Metal on Cello, from Finland

I've never listened to metal music, but I am smitten with these beautiful cellos. Listen to a few seconds of this. It's nice.
The musicians-- who, disappointingly, here barely flick the long hair they usually toss in the air like rock gods--studied classical cello at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland.
Plus, knitting alert: I want one of their sweaters with the long cuffs!



This video looks as if it could have been filmed in an ice-fishing house in Minnesota. But this is the Finnish metal band, Apocalyptica, doing a cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters."

They also do an awesome cover of Edvard Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King.
So I was hoping they had covered Sibelius, but no. Here's why:
From an interview with Dark Romance:

Q: Has Apocalyptica ever considered doing a piece of music by Sibelius?

Eicca Toppinen: It's not possible, because of the people who own the rights for Sibelius. They are very strict. They are still owned, because it's less than 75 years since the death of Sibelius. We are not allowed to touch that stuff. I know some of the people who own the rights, and they are too much old people. (laughs) They would never let us do any version of that.
_________________
I like their instrumental stuff best, but also worth a look:
I'm Not Jesus, a song in which the singer confronts a priest who'd abused him: "Do you remember me, the child I used to be...?"

One More Ski Patrol Troop

Just cause they're so pretty.
Help! From Poodletail. (Thanks!)

The Inner Teeny-Tiny Ski Patrol, Part 2

As for me, my inner teeny-tiny ski patrol is the Moomin family.

The Inner Teeny-Tiny Ski Patrol

My research leads me to suspect that inside every Silent Finn there is a teeny-tiny ski squad. There's even a Finnish word for this quality [of having an inner teeny-tiny ski patrol]: sisu. It comes from the word for inward, but it's more like "gutsy" than "inner child."

The Greek word for gutsy, which is all I remember from translating bits of the Iliad, is thumos. (Being Greek, thumos is warmer than a ski patrol. Maybe more like an inner teeny-tiny cliff diver, bronzed and covered in olive oil.)

Right: "Finnish soldiers patrolling on skis, December 1, 1939," Photographer: Carl Mydans/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

It's stupid to glamorize war. So lets pretend that these ski patrollers aren't actually soldiers from a country with 32 tanks (that would be Finland) taking on Stalin's 2,514 tanks during the winter of 1939-40, when temperatures fell to a record -45 degrees.
Let's say they are a metaphor for calling up our inner courage and stick-to-itiveness when caught between a rock and a hard place.

I'm sure that's what appealed to Americans when they read about The Plucky Finn in the Winter War:

"The Finns have something they call sisu. It is a compound of bravado and bravery, of ferocity and tenacity, of the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit, and to fight with the will to win. The Finns translate sisu as "the Finnish spirit," but it is a much more gutful word than that. Last week the Finns gave the world a good example of sisu by carrying the war into Russian territory on one front while on another they withstood merciless attacks by a reinforced Russian Army. In the wilderness that forms most of the Russo-Finnish frontier between Lake Laatokka and the Arctic Ocean, the Finns definitely gained the upper hand."
—Time Magazine, January 8, 1940

They lost, of course, eventually, though that's a relative term. I mean, compared to Estonia, Finland won--after World War II, they still had their independence.

Happy Birthday, Scorpios!

Turns out, you have your own Star Trek star ship:
U.S.S. Scorpio NCC-1683

Well, not quite yet. It will be built by Biraktes Shipyards in 2244, " on the outer reaches of Federation space."

Star Trek, the Méliès Way

Steam Trek: The Moving Picture
by Dennis Sisterson

And here's the reference: Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon/Le Voyage dans la lune (France, 1902)

how to write good geography

Here I am, disguised as Mooninpapa, writing away all weekend trying to finish Finland by Monday.

At this point, I'm glueing statistics together, using the words and phrases below, so they resemble prose.
I put this list together a while ago, inspired by Michael O'Donoghue's list of "The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism" from his funny article
How to Write Good. (Highly recommended.)

Mix and Match Terms to Fit Your Assigned Country

Chapter 1: The Land
use freely: third-largest, concerns, devastating, poisonous; snow-, forest-, sand-covered; seeks to protect
the equator
the North/South Pole
glaciers carved...
drought/floods
the movement of tectonic plates
the power of rushing water
home to...
vast/towering [fill in landform]
world's largest [rodent/stinky flower/salt flat]
endangered
deforestation/desertification

Chapter 2: The Past
use freely: historians believe; settled, waves of, struggle, flared, sparked, raged, conflict, desperation, in response, met with, crushed, oversee, overcome, hope that in the future...
[never, ever say: murdering bastard]

stone tools
rock art
wheat/corn/rice
invasions (horseback, sail, foot)
superior (resources, technology, aim)
dictatorships (Latin America)
under foreign rule (everywhere but Britain)
"-ization"
long shadows
forced labor
independence
civil war
worldwide depression
harsh rule
self-rule
neighbors

Chapter 3: The People
use freely: inadequate, concern, struggle to supply, seeks to improve, proud of, government budget, hope that in the future...
[avoid: "tragically, alas, unluckily, I want to puke"]

ethnic groups
mostly peaceful
malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, dysentery, schistosomiasis (don't look)--or---cancer, heart attacks, bad stress management, unhealthy lifestyles
before their fifth birthday
less available in rural areas
traditional healers
colorful folk dances
hearty dishes
soccer

Chapter 4: The Economy and the Future
use freely: plummeted, rose, increased, fell, predominant, declined, attracted, lost

farming (slash-and-burn, subsistence, cooperative, corporate)
factories (lungs, water, GDP)
tourism (eco-)
human trafficking
interest rates
women and children
hard work
bright future (United States & Co.)
brighter future (sub-Saharan Africa, et al.)

Those Whacky Finnish Proverbs

Many of the countries I've worked on have easily recognizable proverbs and sayings that were great for filling my quota of side bar "fun facts." Finland does not. Yeah, they have proverbs, but ...WTF? Some of them even baffle The Finnish Friend.
I found these at Finland for Thought. The blogger is an American living in Finland.
I followed the link at the bottom to naurunappula.com, but I couldn't quite figure out what that site is. I felt like a shopper in a knitted cap looking for a nice axe handle at a cooperative retail society. I think.