Viikki

This was taken in Viikki, a district in northern Helsinki, last week. The residential parts are very modern, I think among the newest in the Helsinki region; also many of the university departments are located there. But it also has a large area of woods and fields, and a nature reserve by the bay which has rich bird life. A perfect place to walk on a late summer's day, with the sun as warm and full and as only late summer's days can have; golden wheat in the fields swaying in the gently-caressing wind; cows grazing in a pasture with birch trees... Wait! This is beginning to sound like the films produced by the Suomi film company in the 1940's which typically were set in the countryside, had never-ending summer and usually involved beautiful, blond young women and muscular, handsome young men making hay in the fields - and then making out in the hay. But it WAS absolutely beautiful that day.

The picture is towards the city. Beyond the reefs there's the bay, and after that Sörnäinen, the chimneys of the Sörnäinen power plant center-right, and still further, to the left of the tall chimney, the city center (the dome of the city cathedral visible there).

The look

This is an absolutely super geeky thing to do, but all the same I wanted to show what my computer looks like now. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment. I am running a Linux distro called Fedora, version 11 (Leonidas), plus KDE desktop environment (in Linux you can choose between several desktop environments that have their own appearance, set of software and controls). I am using the latest version of KDE, 4.3, which allows setting several virtual desktops and connecting different "activities" to each of them. This means I can set a different background for each desktop, but more importantly that I can put different types of program icons, folders etc. on different virtual desktops. So, I have four virtual desktops set up: 1) writing/work programs and folders; 2) audio and video stuff; 3) photo/graphics stuff; and 4) misc things. The pics I used are my own except the one on desktop 4.

Actually, it's not QUITE perfect: I would prefer slightly darker panel and desktop folders for the b&w virtual desktops. But setting a different "plasma" theme (so as to have, for instance, a different-looking panel) for each desktop is the one thing you CAN'T do with KDE, and on the other hand I prefer this transparent theme for desktops 3 and 4.

I suppose you could say: who cares what the computer looks like? But I do! As I work a lot on the laptop I want it to be both good to use and aesthetically pleasing!

DESKTOP 1
DESKTOP 2
DESKTOP 3

DESKTOP 4

Conference

I've been in Tampere from thursday to now, for a conference titled 'Passages from antiquity to middle ages IV', concentrating on the various social aspects of religion, with speakers from Finland, around Europe, the U.S. and New Zealand. My papers was today, I spoke on the subject of the spheres of interaction and cooperation between citizens and foreigners in the religious life of Hellenistic Athens. Went fine, but there were no listeners with knowledge of my field (nor such participants in the whole conference), so it wasn't particularly fruitful in the way of comments. But at least it gave me something new to put in applications. I was glad that my former teacher and PhD supervisor also gave a speech there, so I got a chance to chat with him; also there was an anthropologist who used to study at the uni of Oulu at the same with me and is now in Siena, Italy. Was lovely to see her too. The conference in entirety was very nice. There was a reception at the fancy city hall on thursday (free food, drinks, someone from the city hall gave a speech). Yesterday I took some time to walk around Tampere and take some pictures. The old cotton factory of Finlayson is especially interesting. This was founded by a British gentleman in 1820, and it was central in the industrial development of Finland. These factories are fascinating, because they were their own world: they had housing for workers, their own school, church etc.

Now I'm in the train back to Helsinki. Will have lots to do: a grant application by the end of August; the article on ephebes I mentioned earlier; I'm also going to work this paper into an article if I can come up with a fresh approach (as it is now, one guy had spoken about quite a few things in his book already; but I have some ideas that might lead somewhere). I'm planning to go to Athens for a couple of weeks in October. The current boss of the Finnish institute there was my PhD opponent so I'm going to try and see if he might have some valuable comments.

But first, I'm going to go to the woods of Viikki to look for mushrooms right today! Chantarelles and king boleti are my faves but I'm willing to go for other kinds too).

Four days of music

Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been sort of busy - with music! I've just had four days of wonderful music in a row, namely the Flow festival which is held every August at the location of the old power plant in Suvilahti, in one of the districts of the heart of the city of Helsinki, just next to the city center. Usually the festival lasts three days but this time music began on thursday already, with the concert of the legendary electro pioneers Kraftwerk. From friday to sunday there were dozens of indie rock, folk, electro, soul, jazz etc etc artists; lots of very fresh talent and some old talent too. There were some I missed due to the performances being so late and due to my running out of energy; such as the grand old lady of disco, Grace Jones, or Lily Allen. But a huge amount of fantastic music I did hear.

One of the absolute highlights was this:

I don't know if anyone reading my blog is familiar with afrobeat, in particular afrobeat as it was created by Fela Kuti. His youngest son Seun Kuti - now 27 I believe - has now taken up his father's band Egypt 80, and they gave a concert at Flow. I've never listened to Fela Kuti, but seems the word is Seun Kuti is more than up to taking up his position. And I can very well believe that after witnessing the show. This band OWNS rhythm. It's as if they hadn't only got the outer form of rhythm right but actually got under its skin and inhabited it. So powerful, heady, tight, feverish. And Seun Kuti has quite a presence on stage. "Young lion" is a completely ridiculous expression but I'm going to use it of him anyway. If Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 are performing in your town, DO NOT MISS IT.

So many other, absolutely fantastic performances (note, the links are to myspace). I was surprised how much I liked Kraftwerk on thursday. I haven't listened to them much, and only can recognize a few songs like Autobahn, The Robots or Tour de France. They didn't move me the way best rock concerts do (i.e. catharsis) but it was quite an audio-visual feat.

Then I might mention Tuuli Inari, mysterious, fascinating experimental electro (or actually the live set had a bass player and a guitarist too).

Or Le Corps Mince de Francoise, a group of three Finnish girls, whose music really got into the brain and the body and the dancing feet and put the entire audience in a feverish state.

Then again there was Röyhkä and Rättö and Lehtisalo. Kauko Röyhkä is a legend in Finnish rock, and he recently hooked up with two other major Finnish musicians and released a record. They were just brilliant and they ROCKED. The show ended in a tremendous, magnificent fall of feedback/noise. One thing about that is that when you really listen, you notice it's not just noise - there's a huge amount of modulations and levels and tones there.

One act I was really surprised of liking: Eero Johannes, one man electro/dance. It's the sort of music I wouldn't necessarily listen to on a CD, but live I really dug it - hard to say why, sometimes the music just clicks.

The best day was saturday. Sunday was a bit of a disappointment, the performers being more the sort that is good to listen to on a summer day but that doesn't necessarily touch in any deep level. Still, I did enjoy tremendously the jazz of the artists of a Finnish jazz label Ricky-Tic Records, with Five Corners Quintet. Immensely talented, tight playing by the band, and of the solo artists especially trumpetist Jukka Eskola was fantastic.

I'm afraid I presently only have the pictures on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/maria.niku).

3 am

I tend to sleep with the balcony door open. Last night, around 3 am, I was awakened by loud, drunken shouting down in the yard. Not fighting, just the sort of shouting that drunkards do after drinking so much as to have lost all concept of their surroundings. I guess they might have been at the pubs in the mall across the big road, and were not in a hurry to get indoors after the pubs closed, it being a warm night. There was a woman who seemed convinced that on some bridge somewhere - I didn't quite catch what bridge - there was or had been a group of men (or youths?) who had shot somebody at the back. Being only half-awake I didn't quite catch the details of it. A drunken man's voice was telling her she was talking nonsense, but she seemed convinced of it, repeating "I'm telling the truth". Strange what alcohol can do. Maybe the woman was confusing in her booze-hazy mind reality with something she'd seen in a film or a tv show. These people sounded not so much like occasional excessive drinkers but alcoholics who've drunk so much for such a long time that the alcohol has caused permanent damage to their brain. Or perhaps they had just lost it with the drinking in the summer. After a while someone shouted down from a balcony, telling them to shut up and go home to sleep, and a bit later they either quietened down or left, or then I fell asleep again despite their voices.

10+

On a scale of 1 to 10 my beach day was 10+. I went there around 10 am and just returned. Blazing sun but not TOO hot. I had +30 sunscreen which applied regularly so I didn't get burned. I drank enough water so I didn't get dehydrated and start feeling bad. The water was JUST perfect, +21 C. I did at least five longer swimming rounds. All in all it left a delightful, pleasurable, languid tiredness.
And I had a fantastic book which I finished on the beach: Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago (originally published in 2005). One day in an unnamed country, people stop dying. Those who should die keep hanging on, not getting better or worse. This puts the country in quite a disorder, having unprecedented results to instances such as hospitals, insurance companies and undertakes. Families begin to carry their dying relatives to die beyond the border, where this still happens normally - and the maphia (with 'ph' to differentiate from the other organisation) takes it over and makes it a productive business. This goes on for seven months until a purple letter arrives at the desk of the chairman of the national television company; in the letter, Death announces that people will die again but this time those about to die will be notified a week in advance with a similar purple letter. So far so good, but one letter refuses to be delivered. However many times Death tries to send it, it always appears back on her desk. And so, she has to set about to investigate what exactly is going on.

Dum dee dum

A real indian summer earlier today, I walked some way towards the city. The scent of these late-summer flowers so wonderful, too bad it can't be blogged. Now it has changed: cloudy-sometimes-rainy.

I started on a new article today, typed the introduction stating the premise and the method. Shouldn't be too troublesome as I did the groundwork earlier. Was only later that I saw there was substance for another article there. Broadly speaking it's about immigrant groups, foreign ephebes (youths who participated in a 12 month training program of military skills and other stuff) and their ethnics (e.g. Demetrios Milesios, 'Milesios' the ethnic = Demetrios the Milesian, or of Miletos).

All sorts of things

My younger nephew visited me yesterday. He thinks it would be great if there was a tree that grows ice cream cones. It would have to be in winter of course so the ice creams won't melt. I think it's a wonderful idea. Come spring, you could gather the ice cream crop to your freezer.

Today, the Antiquitas library opened again so I went there in the morning. I confessed right away the loss of the key card. Nothing to it: I didn't even have to pay anything, and I got a new card right away. I really like the library - it's quite small, with only one librarian who is a down-to-earth and friendly person. I had missed the library.

In the early evening I, my father (who had been visiting since saturday), my sister and her bf went out for dinner in a restaurant in the district where they live - a really traditional place called Kolme Kruunua, or Three Crowns. It was originally founded in 1928, then refounded as a restaurant proper in 1952, the year when the summer Olympic games were held in Helsinki. They have retained the original appearance, only the bar counter has been counted. I really loved the mood, it reminded me of the restaurant in Aki Kaurismäki film Kauas pilvet karkaavat (Drifting Clouds), the one where the lead female character works at the start of the movie. The restaurant in the film was called Dubrovnik. I know it doesn't say much about the mood to those who haven't seen the film, but it was as if time had stopped - in the 1950's. Fantastic food too. Honest, good food with good-sized portions.

On leaving the restaurant, and while waiting for the bus at the bus stop close by I thought: it's good to live in the city. The streets feel like home. Though on the other hand I am glad to have the greenery and the woods here in the suburb where I live.

The Tallinn photos

Alright, here they are finally, my Tallinn photos. It's a round that starts and ends at the megalomaniacal Soviet cultural palace. This is because the catamaran harbour is located behind the cultural palace.

The photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/mr.wisty/TallinnEstonia#

A slideshow, if you prefer: click here.