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Halme Polvinen Family Collective. You will all be assillymated

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  • EuroPølse

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    Posted by jukkahoo

    So. I went to København and had a great time there, despite the Eurocon being less than stellar event. Don’t get me wrong though. I liked it. Fine. OK. But, not great.

    Why? Well, other attendees have expressed similar thoughts of too much programming, too little organisers/experience of organising, not enough gophers (though I believe all the gophers did extremely wonderful work ie. busted their behinds off) etc. All good valid points, of which I concur.

    But I had good time, I really enjoyed the con. Mainly due to the amazing number of foreigners from gazillion different countries. Like Czech Republik (hello Peter and thanks for the plzener!), Ukraine, Norway, Ireland, Israel, Italy (mustn’t forget Italia!), Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, USA, UK, Lietuva, Poland and so on and so forth. Properly European convention! Me like. This felt like the most international con I’ve been to and that’s due to the fact that this one was warm, friendly and cosy, in a way bally huge cons aren’t. Like Finncon or Worldcon. Both have their places.

    The organiser in charge of the programming, Knud Larn, pointed out at the opening ceremony, that every single problem/mistake with the programming is his. Blame me, he said. I won’t. As someone who has done a rather large programming itinerary (Finncon 2006), I know what it takes to organise something like eight simultaneous threads with interesting and worthwhile programming at the same time for a variably dissimilar audience. Looking at the programming at the site for the first time when arriving and now, I still do think that there was plenty of good programming that should’ve been interesting (even for me). That I actually managed to see fairly little of the blasted thing was mainly due that the large portion of that "intersting to jukkahoo" -programming took place on Saturday, at the same time I was part of the programming. My bad. 🙂

    The Guests of Honours weren’t necessarily bad: a legend, a well-known SF-author, classic SF-artist and a more slipstreamish/newweird/alternative-fantasywriter (who does not write fantasy, or so he says) as well as a local fan-GoH and a truly classic Elder Name, who happens to have a Really Good Ties with the host nation. Unfortunately for me, the only GoH that interested me, performed pretty much exactly opposite everything I did. I could’ve heard him talking about his TV-series, but then again, I was tired, just arrived and thought that Opening Ceremonies are always something to see (and be invariably Really Dissappointed – no letdown there…). I did appreciate the flag ceremony as well as the 501st honour guard. I wasn’t too thrilled about the commemorative three-second silence for recently departed Mr. Phelps (ask Ben). So many other fine, wonderful SF/F-authors had died this year, recently or not. Let’s be more  inclusive next time.

    Although, I don’t know how I would’ve performed at similar circumstances, if one of my heroes would’ve passed over that recently. The audince might have had to bear a long and grief-stricken eulogy instead of short standing up.

    But, I digress. There has to be a Beginning, a Middle and the End. So, I start from the beginning.

    ‘Twas a dark and stormy rainy Friday, like so may times before. I slept badly, as I often do when I’m due to travel.

    There are two things that always happen when I go anywhere from Finland: I sleep badly the night before and I get "travel fever" (matkakuume). After the trip, back home (well, not always, I was Really Sick in Edinburgh a way back when Mekku was still living there) which may sound funny, but really isn’t. Apparently my bacteria doesn’t like any other bacteria in the world.

    This was no exception. I got probably three hours worth of zzz’s, despite taking a sleeping pill well before the recommended "six hours of sleep before waking up". I wasn’t really tired by time I got to the airport, but I sure was later in the evening, when we Finns should’ve partied like… crazy party-animals we are (as Åcon showed). The flight was short with most of the amusement rising from the fact that Pasi had never flown before. I gave him my window-seat during the flight and he seemed to be pretty enthused by the view, especially when we landed. If only he had followed Ben’s advice at the airport…

    I had been to Copenhagen before, but that was aeons ago. I didn’t see that much of the city (I don’t think any of us did) as I mainly slept at our delightful, quaint hotel at the corner of Working Girl Alley and Dope Peddlar’s Street and spent the rest of the day at the Valby Kulturhus. Which was pretty nicely sized for this con. It could’ve had few less floors and better (ie. faster) elevators and more comfy chairs, but all in all, it was a good location. I didn’t actually realise there was an elevator, before I had walked all the way up in order to see all program rooms and saw someone stepping out the damn thing. Well, excercise is good for me.

    Before anything actually happened, our troop needes sustenance and we looked for an eatery, which turned out to be slightly more difficult than we thought of. Apparently only kebab-places are open before 3PM in Danmark. We did find a nice kebab/pizzeria called Barakat where they not only served decent kebabs, but had the best dip ever. Recommended, if you happen to be over there. It’s on Toftegårds Allé, probably.

    The real deal of the day for me (and Eemeli) was the ESFS Meeting, where we presented Finncon 2009 as a Eurocon candidate for the said year. We were against latecomer Rome (or more precisely, Fiuggi). I think we did an OK, if very much improvised presentation. I cannot think that Rome/Fiuggi had really thought of their performace anymore than we, but the moment the pretty lady started to talk about (and this is my personal view) the "Wine and Monastery" -convention with Star Trek -captain and Robert Silverberg and Neil Gaiman as Guests, I thought that our Science Fiction and Fantasy -con was looking less likely to appeal to middle-aged fen who like eat and drink well and bicker about whether Serbia and Montenegro should be two separate entities or not.

    The show was however far from over, no sirree! After we had presented our bids, answered few questions and voted on new laws and regulations, we got down with the jiggy: The European Science Fiction Society Awards! For interminably long time (or more, I think I passed out at some point) every single delegate nation brought forth their candidacy for various categories (Best Author, Artist, Publisher, Magazine, Promoter etc). As Pasi, who was the other official Finnish delegate, I was forced to talk for some of Our candidates, together with Eemeli, the other official delegate. I didn’t realise before the whole shenanigan was over, that other speakers had written notes for their presentations. I did realise early on, that the Swedes weren’t there and now I know why.

    The ESFS Awards is a joke curious bureucratic conundrum, to which there probably is no solution. A lot of 30-40 fen deal out awards to left and right, pretty much the way these things are done at the European Song Contest. Once and a while a worthy winner arises, but lets face it: How the hell do you appraise works in 20+ languages and fields? The Best Artist might possible be voted fairly, but Best Author? C’mon! I’m certain Sándor Szélesi is a fine writer (and a fellow Fenno-Hungarian to boot!), but the Best European SF Author in 2007? Erm… The whole thing is just bureacrazy!

    Following the ESFS Meeting, I headed downstairs for the Free Party, only to realise that there was none. I had to drag myself up to Finnish Party which ere in full swing by the time I got there. And a jolly good party it was too. Cows and all. I spent most of the time at the impromptu arranged cloakroom with Ben as I was dead tired already and really only wanted to get to the hotel room and sleep. As everyone entered the party through our little room, I had several little småprats with various fen. The best of which was when Bellis entered the vestibule and asked from me whether I was "the famous Jukka Halme" he had heard so much good of? I managed to mumble something witty, like "well, yeah?" before the Sheriff rode into new adventures.

    Saturday woke up early as for some curious reason the blaste ESFS vote was due before the rooster had croked. The Absalon hotel had decent breakfast, so I was comfortably numb for our presentation, which, as yesterday, went OK’ish. When Rome/Fiuggi had their turn and talked about free wine, I leaned over to Eemeli and said: "…and here we just lost the bid".

    As we did, rather resoundingly. If my eagle eyes weren’t totally deceived by the vote counters placing ballots in two piles, we lost by 42 to 17. Sound defeat. To wine and monasteries. In March. Dissappointed? Yes, but I’m certain DeepSpaceCon/Italcon will be a great Eurocon for the year 2009. Wish I could afford to go. Who knows, maybe I do?

    I hadn’t originally been asked to participate anything other than talking about arranging Finncons (with Eemeli again), but as the morning dawned, I was asked to participate in three other program items. And why not? I like to perform somewhat and I think I may occasionally have something to say, too. Cheryl asked me to talk about reviewing and I did. Good talking with Cheryl and Bob Neilson. I managed to get lured into one other Cheryl item, namely the SF-Quiz (the proper, literature quiz, as opposed to the evidently Really Difficult and interesting media-quiz, which stumped Pasi) where I RULED!!! I think my proudest moment was when asked, who is the editor of Electric Velocipede?, I managed to blurt out: "I believe it is John Klima". I did fumble pretty spectacularily with the PKD-movie adaptations and I’m somewhat pertubed by my Shriek-answer… As audience was also encouraged to participate, I had to divert a question to a girl from Estonia, even if it should’ve been Klaus’ turn. Sorry about that, Klaus. 🙂

    The Saturday party was definitely Russian, as there was more vodka than our local sublet has on its premises. And apparently it had some repercussions, as we learned the Sunday morn, when the arrangers asked us to clean up after "last nights vomiting, due to our excessive and liberal offering of vodka". We were stumped for a moment, but managed to point ou, that were actually still Finns and Russia hasn’t annexed us, yet, so… Apologising Dane explained to us that last night (after we had left the party in larger numbers, in order to go to sleep, but end up drinking Timo’s vodka ja some Elephant beer at his room) the Russians had deviced this bet, where you could win a free t-shirt, if you’d drink a whole cup (2 dl?) of vodka. Apparently this had been very popular, as well as projectile, as several toilets were unusable the day after and the opganisers were being held accountable by the Kulturhus-folk, understandably. Funnily enough, I don’t think I saw a single Russian on Sunday.

    After my crowning as the SF-kuismaster, I volunteered to sit behind registration for few hours. After all, how difficult that be? 3PM, last day and less than six hours of programming left? Who buys memeberships for that?

    Quite a few, in fact! Some were so enthusiastic, that they managed to loose their wallets while getting in. And I’ve never met anyone so lackadaisical when asked whether the wallet I had in my hand was theirs, they’d just say: "Well, OK…"  No thanks, no emotion. Danes!

    The return home was probably less eventful than the arrival, other than we managed to eat pretty good sushi at Kastrup with Ben, while Tero and Pasi went to see how sci-fi meals are being served. Evidently cool. Oh, there was actually enterttainment on the plane, when this spitting image of my father-in-law roamed around the aisles, looking up most, if not all compartments and typing furiously his computer while we were landing to Helsinki-Vantaa.

    So, all in all, pretty good con: nice fen, nice food, good beer, decent programming. Well worth the visit. Recommended.

    Like Turku Book Fair, which was fun, too. And not only because I was made into Ye Olde Cavalier. But more of that later.

  • Cosi Fan Tutte

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    Posted by Sari

    I found an USB –drive I had lost almost a year ago, and this was on it. So I thought better late than ever, especially as Jukka is still "collecting his thoughts"…

    “Cosi fan tutte le belle” sings the smarmy music teacher Don Basilio already in Figaro. Later Da Ponte and Mozart turned this idea of the universal infidelity of women to a whole opera. Cosi is probably the least loved of the Mozart operas in standard repertoire. It’s plot is uncomfortably cynical and production notes end up trying to explain what Mozart and Da Ponte really meant with much greater length than at their other collaborations. And they tend to come to much more varied conclusions, too. Nobody even agrees how the opera ends. Productions have ended with original pairings, the new pairings, and even the sisters going off together in sapphian huff and leaving the men to their own devices.

    Lately it has become common to brush aside the misogynism of the opera by saying pointing out that as the men men behave no better than the women, the opera is more misantrophic than misogynist. That cynical Don Alfonso, an enlightement “scientist”, is experimenting on human feelings, both men’s and women’s, and it is his misanthropic view of human nature that triumphs over the overly romantic ideals of the young people in the end.

    Still, it must be pointed out that the opera is Cosi Fan Tutte. I don’t think Da Ponte put that “e” in there without thinking it through. Fiordiligi and Dorabella are undoubtably manipulated and duped but it is still they who decide in 24 hours of parting dump their old lovers for the “Albanian” beaus. Furthermore, when the boys have succeeded in their goals and Don Alfonso triumphantly presses them in the unison rendition of the name of the opera, he who has been proven right, strips the womankind responsibility which comes with free will:

    Tutti accusan le donne, ed io le scuso
    Se mille volte al dì cangiano amore;

    Altri un vizio lo chiama ed altri un uso,

    Ed a me par necessità del core.

    L’amante che si trova alfin deluso

    Non condanni l’altrui, ma il proprio errore;

    Già che giovani, vecchie, e belle e brutte,

    Ripetete con me: "Così fan tutte!"

    It is just their nature to be inconstant and flirty, the poor dears, you just have to take them as they come. Bah.

    Musically, Cosi has some spellbinding Mozart moments, especially “soave, si il vento”  which has one of Mozart’s most beautiful melodies and is accompanied with almost impressionistic strings creating the feel light breeze and gentle seas. As a whole however, it has never grabbed me like Figaro or even Don. It is supposed to be the most tightly structured of Mozart’s operas, but I lack the the necessary know-how to appreciate it.

    So not surprisingly I have not been feeling too bad about never seeing Cosi live. But when the Finnish National Opera finally noticed that it is better to have butts on the seats, and started offering discount ticets to students on the day, I decided to take up the offer and see a revival of Cosi from 1999. The production was quite interesting. Director had set the action in a sort of modernish time: a hotel in Naples which looked like it was from 1930’s with modern touches mixing the palette up so that it felt like the sisters and their suitors were harking back to a nostalgic past, maybe mirroring their elevated ideas about love. Sets and costuming was airy and clear – I especially liked the transformation of moustachioed Albanians into Miami Vice wannabees. This particular performance had the air of competence rather than inspiration; there wre no glaring mistakes, but that certain something was perhaps lacking.

    And the ending? The Director thinks Fiordiligi and Ferrando will end up together, but that Gulielmo and Dorabella will go their separate ways. Which I don’t have a problem with, it is as good an interpretation as any. The “middle-roles” mixing buffa and dramma are not serious about their fling where as the hero and heroine are. What does make me cringe a bit is the way Dorabella is left alone on the stage during the last sextett. Giulielmo abandons her to join Fiordiligi and Ferrando on the other side of the stage. The paranoid feminist in me interprets the ending as the sexually active and adventurous woman being shunned by the others. If they would have had Giulielmo standing also alone, that would have been different.

    This production did not manage to change my mind about Cosi. I still think it is too long, too cold and I just can’t manage to twist the libretto into such a shape that it would not make me grind my theeth.

  • Turku

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    Posted by jukkahoo

    I’m heading for Turku on Friday, in order to participate some sekret shindig later that day, followed by few  mandatory Book Fair appearances on Saturday. I’ll be moderating a panel on Small Press Publishing (13.10) and interviewing author J. Pekka Mäkelä (14.40) then. Should be fun. Just read J. Pekka’s new novel Nedut and liked it a lot.

    This is however almost only like a prelude to Helsinki Book Fair in late-October, where I’ll be intervewing Juha-Pekka Koskinen, Anne Leinonen, Eija Lappalainen and Ville Vuorela, not to mention moderating a panel on… Jeezus Kuristus, Definitions of SF and fantasy? Why? Well see.

    I’ve been meaning to report about Eurocon, which all things considered was a resoundingly fun and joyous occasion, but after the matkakuume flu that took better part of the fpollowinf week, I’ve been mostly concentrating on things more mundane. Occasionally one must. But I’ll decypher my notes from the journey next week. Unless something really weird happens. Promise. As Pølse is my wittness.

    We did some apartment gazing the other day (Wednesday). The building reached its high point (I have no idea what "harjakaiset" is in English) and the builders had a little soirée, followed by chance to see ones apartment. We ate some silicon carrion and listened to this extremely funny comedian (Sari edit) loathsome bore as well as some accordion music. Yes, that. Really.

    But the apartment is looking nice. Especially the living room, which looks larger than we imagined and maybe even hoped for. The shape of the room is just something we really have think about. A lot. It’s long. Maybe with bookshelf wallpaper and some bold colours, like grey?

  • Science songs!

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    ,

    Posted by Sari

    There should be more science songs. World would be a better place. So here are some of my favorites

    They Might be Giants: Why Does the Sun Shine?
    It is a cover for an old science song for kids from the 1960s.

    Monty Python: Universe Song
    You know this one, right?

    Tom Lehrer: New Math
    Would it not be great if somehow Tomfoolery could be done in Finnish?

    Tom Lehrer: The Elements
    This is a flash animation. Just so as you know.

    Jonathan Coulton: Mandelbrot Set
    Visit also Coulton’s own site, full of funny and geeky songs

    Flanders&Swann: The First and Second Law
    Woe is me! Could not find it online, and it is my favourite science song ever, and wholly responsible for the fact that I actually remember the second law of thermodynamics. Here are at least the lyrics.

  • Being historical

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    Posted by Sari

    Lately, I
    have mostly been reading historicals. Well, Tom Holland’s Rubicon is not a
    novel, but such a well written piece of popular narrative history that it was
    quite as exciting as one. The much lauded book is a story of the downfall of
    the Roman republic. First few chapters outline the birth and rise of the
    Republic into a major player in the Mediterranean and then Holland wittily, excitingly
    and lucidly narrates the events of the last fifty or so years of the republic
    from Marius and Sulla to the triumph of Caesar Divi Filius Augustus. Obviously
    – as Holland     states in the preface – the sources are
    limited and biased and interpretations events and motivations of participants
    can fluctuate widely, and obviously we can’t know what the great men of Rome     thought or felt with any certainty.
    A book geared for more scholarly audience would have had to be more careful,
    more pedantic and would propably have to sacrifice the pace and tension of the
    narrative in order to bring out the evidence and agrument more. But as a piece
    of narrative popular history of the tensions, events and persons that ruled the
    stage during that turbulent period, this is bloody brilliant, even though the exit of Cicero somewhat flattens the  last chapter.

    As a
    companion piece I was reading Saylor’s A Mist of Prophecies which though not one of
    his best works was still an entertaining read. Here we are living year 48 B.C. Caesar is chasing Pompey’s
    numerically superior army in Greece    , and back in Italy Milo and Marcus
    Caelius are fermenting trouble. In Rome    , Gordianus tries to find out who
    has murdered Cassandra, a strange girl from Alexandria     claiming to be a seer. In course of
    his investigations Gordianus visits a number of powerful women in Rome     who had all shown up at Cassandra’s
    funeral and they each reveal a bit of the mystery. The detective story, I
    though, was ok but no better, and the structure of the novel was a bit
    mechanic. Even so, Saylor writes well and at least I had the bacround well in
    hand…

    Third
    historical was Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth, a grail novel which happens partly in
    Modern time and partly in 13th century Pays D’Oc. The modern day
    heroine Alice, a volunteer on an archeological dig, stumbles on a cave with two
    sceletons in it. Suddenly, people start dying, police and mysterious lawyers,
    and other people start chasing her, all because they think she has something
    from the cave. In the historical part Alaïs, daughter of the Castellaan of
    Chateau Comtal becomes a guardian of the grail secret after his father and
    fights to save it from the ravages of Albigensian crusades. This was easy,
    predictable fluff which was saved by the fact that Mosse quite obviously loves
    the landscape and history of Languedoc     and this bleeds through in her
    narrative. Much, much better than the ridiculously and clumsily simplistic
    daVinci Code, but a bit too long and predictable. I loved tha fact that all the
    main protagonists – villains and heroes – were women, though.

  • Siis ihan oikeasti…

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    Posted by Sari

    Blogin 1,4 lukijalle on aikaisemmista postauksista varmaan käynyt ilmi että minusta sisustussuunnitelijat ja arkkitehdit elävät jonkinlaisessa rinnakkaistodellisuudessa jolla ei ole mitään tekemistä tavallisen ihmisen asumisviihtyvyyden kassa. Joskus kuitenkin edelleen tartun toivoa täynnä kaupan jonossa johonkin sisustuslehteen katsellakseni josko niistä löytäisin jotain kiinnostavaa. Vaan ei kuulkaa enää, uusin Glorian koti oli sellainen pohjanoteeraus että minä luovutan.

    Yllätysten olohuoneet -sivuilla (oletan tämän oleva jonkinlainen sarja jossa esitellään olohuonetyylejä) esiteltiin sisustusideana "kodikas kirjasto". Esittelyteksti sanoi seuraavaa: "Kirjailijat Beatrix Potter ja Jane Austen ovat syksyn romanttisten ensi-iltojen sankarittaria. Elokuvat inspiroivat olohuoneen englantilaistyylistä, lämminhenkistä sisustusta jonka pääosassa ovat kirjat".

    "No mutta! Vihdoinkin" minä kuulen teidän sanovan. On jo aika että kirjasto jossa on kirjoja on sisustusvinkin kohteena. Onpa kiva nähdä miten kirjojen värikäs sekamelska ja kirjahyllyn massiivisuus saadaan istutettua kodikkaaseen englantilaistyyliseen sisustukseen. Vaan kuinka väärässä ihminen voi olla? Itse kahden aukeaman kuvasarjassa kirjoja on mukana yksi sohvapöydällä teekupinalusena ja  kymmenen kirjan pino tuolilla maljakonalusena. Ne pääosassa olevat kirjat? NE ON TAPETTI! Tämän kirjastovinkin vinkki on harmaa samansävyisistä kirjoista hyllyssä koostuva TAPETTI. Ei voimasana voimasana voimasana… Nyt kyllä tekisi kovasti mieli vedellä Suomen kulttuurihistoria 3:lla toimittaja Aromaata päin näköä.

  • Stentorian silence

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    Posted by jukkahoo

    Yes, yes, yes. Silence. Perhaps not that stentorian, but looming overhead kindasorta.

    I’m heading to Copenhagen this Friday morning, to take part of this year’s Eurocon. Should be fun, interesting and informative. And we’re also hoping to get the eurocon-title for Finncon 2009. Fingers crossed. Over twenty other Finns are also heading that way. Wow! What is this sudden urge to go to conventions outside Finland?

    Last year saw some 15 of us at Swecon, which was like, well, unexpected, but brilliant. We Finns are usually not really active foreign-wise, but recently it seems that there just might be new interest in international fandom. I think that the Glasgow Worldcon helped a lot. And fen saw that is was and is good. And certainly Åcon played a part as well. (Remember, Åcon2 is coming next year, you know you want to be there!)

    My check-ups checked fine. Actually, I didn’t even meet a doctor. They just sent me a letter to home, saying everything is hunky dory. A letter! Am I now supposed to believe black on white, instread of a person sitting in front of a computer, wearing long, white doctors coat. (Well, when I worked at the hospital, I also wore long, white doctors coats...) I guess I’m all right, though. I also got the time of my next appointment: September 8th 2008. Should be the last one.

    Sigh. Not that I don’t think it’s perfectly OK to call those check-ups over and done with, but seeing doctors, taking tests and whatnots, CAT-scans etc. has felt soooooooo safe. Alas, no more.

    After Eurocon, it’s time for the Book Festivals. Turku is the first weekend of October and Helsinki the last. Talking about Oktober, this is a rather nice version of Sekret Oktober. But I digress. I’m actually doing quite a few gigs at both Festivals: moderating panels as well as interviewing authors. Be sure to check out Juha-Pekka Koskinen‘s new historical novel Seitsemäs Temppeliherra (Seventh Templar) and Anne Lainonen & Eija Lappalainen duo’s new YA-novel Devoted Souls, gaming and apparently some fannish stuff: Finncon and mafia-meetings! You could be in a novel! And then there’s Päivi Honkapää‘s Viides tuuli (Fifth Wind), which is personally something I feel somewhat proud of as it is a book I read quite a few years ago for the first time for the publisher and it is finally coming out! It’s a very good YA-fantasy that will hopefully find an audience it deserves.

    I’ve been listening a lot of Talk Talk recently and I’m exceedingly leaning toward the proposition that it may well be the Best band that ever came out of the 1980’s popmusic circles. (Adam and the Ants, Japan and David Sylvian are of course 1970’s product, ahem…) Perfect pop band, which later turned into very ambitious and interesting experimental group. The lead singer/songwriter Mark Hollis managed to put out one solo before retriting to the English coutryside, never to be seen again in the limelights. Sigh. Great music.

    Better get some zzzzzzz’s now. I hope to be able to write a report of the con afterwards, but one never knows these things. Good intentions and so forth.

  • Bollyposting

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    Tarja who
    is almost worringly head-over-heels with East-Asian TV has not wholly abandoned
    the subcontinent, so during the year we have managed to fit in few Bollywood
    evenings. So here is some of my backlog: 

    First is
    Bunty aur Babli, a buddy-movie with Abhishek and Rani, where the former is
    dreaming of get-rich-quick schemes at home and latter wants to be Miss India. Instead they end up as grifters dreaming up stings to fool undeserving rich. All goes well until a police inspector played by Amitabh starts closing in. B&B was fun. The music was catchy, the plot could have been tighter and the
    ending less blah. Amitabh was campier than a row of tents with his shades and
    leather jacket, and Kajira Re, the number father and son performed with Aish (doing an item number) is one of my favourites ever. Both Abhishek and Amitabh are hilariously goofy and adorable. 

    Fanaa of which I have been waiting mainly because Kajol, was a bit of a disapointment.
    The story is that of a blind girl falling in love with a tourist guide in New
    Delhi. The guide, Aamir, is really a terrorist preparing to do a job. Kajol
    melts Aamir’s heart, they marry and he pays for an operation to restore her
    sight. Before Kajol gets to see him, Aamir goes off to blow Rashtrapati Bhavan
    and is assumed dead. Years later on another job he stumbles wounded to a log
    cabin in Kashmir (Poland…) where Kajol and his son are now living. It takes awhile for
    Kajol to realize this is her husband, the army is closing in, and the movie
    ends with Kajol calling the cops and Aamir getting shot. Blood on snow. Kajol was
    as beautiful as ever, here is the tongue-twister song to prove it, but
    otherwise the film could have been better. Now it is not a “serious” take on
    conflicting loyalties, but neiter is it a true masala entertaiment, it falls somewhere in between and does not
    really work. 

    Omkara, a
    remake of Othello with Ajay Devgan and Kareena Kapoor was better than I
    expected. I liked Kareena, thought Shaif Ali Khan was excellent as Langda (Iago)
    and even with his Bollywood moustache, Ajay was menacingly sexy Omkara (Othello).
    The problem of the production for me is the transfer. In this version, Omkara
    is enforcer for a political party in notoriously corrupt Uttar Pradesh,
    basically a goonda. Thus, at least in these western eyes, he is a bad guy from
    the beginning. The tension between a noble general and a madly jealous husband
    is missing. Omkara is just a sad tale of a violent man acting violently towards
    his love, not the grand drama of Shakespeare’s play. Also, only in Bollywood you would make a musical scene out of this.

    Kabhi
    Alvida Na Kehna    , the long a waited new film from Karan was very karan-like, as
    Tumhi Dekho Naa sort of proves. Expensive melodrama with lots of violins and
    the exotic New York    .
    The plot is a story of two couples, Sharhrukh and Preity, and Abishek and Rani,
    and what happens when Rani and Shahrukh fall in love and have an affair. This
    is heavy stuff for a blockbuster film in India, and Rani and Sharukh have to
    suffer a lot to get to the inevitable happy ending. I was sort of meh about it
    all.

    Next up: Don, Jaaneman and Krrish

  • Why Muffins?

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    Posted by Sari

    Most excellent author and translator J. Pekka Mäkelä threw a  meme at us asking why the blog is called "Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner".

    In the last years of the last millenium Jukka and I played around with an idea of a web journal of sorts, something that would have essays and reviews and whatnot, but never got around doing anything about it. What made us take the leap was Jukka’s cancer. We had lots of friends both in Finland and abroad, so a blog seemed like a good way of keeping everybody updated on his condition. So four years ago August 2003, we started this thing.

    Naming it was surprisingly easy. Wilde’s "The Importance of being Earnest" has always been one of my favourite plays, I have a habit of quoting from it almost as much as from Asterix. We were watching the new movie adaptation (With Rupert Everett and Colin Firth), when Jukka suggested that we might coin a name for the blog from one of my favorite scenes: Jack and Algy have been jilted by their sweethearts for pretending to be Ernest, and take the rejection in very different manner. Here is the scene from the classic 1952 version (beginning at 00.30).

    We liked the symbolism of the name, of muffins representing life and the manner of eating the manner of living. We liked the juxtaposition of frivolous and serious, it resonated both to our own situation and to the fact that Wilde’s most sparkling, shining play was written at a time his life was turning into a nightmare. And we liked the mental image of stuffing your face with muffins in agitation, so very unlike Algy. So that is why we have long unwieldy and silly name for our blog 🙂

  • Andaaz (2003)

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    Posted by Sari

    Andaaz on ihan puhdasta melodraamaa alusta loppuun – tietysti laululla, tanssilla ja aina ah niin hauskan Johnny Leverin komiikalla höystettynä. Sukslaasilmäinen Akshay Kumar on rakastunut lapsuudenystäväänsä Lara Duttaan (Miss Universumi 2000). Akshaylla on aikataulu: hän kosii kun on valmistunut ilmavoimien lentokoulusta. Valitettavasti vaan kukaan ei kertonut tätä Laralle ja tämä suostuu helikopteria lentävän liikemies Aman Verman kosintaan. Kyyneleet silmissään Akshay laulaa ja tanssii häissä, ja lähtee ahdistumaan Etelä-Afrikkaan. Siellä hän tapaa länsimaistuneen Priyanka Chopran (Miss Maailma 2000), joka alkaa jahdata komeaa pilottia.

    Priyanka seuraa Akshayta kotiin, puhuu Akshayn ympäri kihlaukseen ja osoittautuu Laran miehen sisareksi. Mikä sattuma! Ja mikä tragedia! Sillä Laran helikopteripilottipisnesmies on tällä välin kuollut kauheassa onnettomuudessa ja leski on surusta sekaisin koettanut itsemurhaa useampaan otteeseen. Akshay saa Laran houkuteltua takaisin elävien ja henkisesti vähän tasapainoisempien kirjoihin ja Priyanka hääpäivänään jalosti luovuttaa paikkansa Laralle jotta alun rakastavaiset saisivat lopulta toisensa.

    Mitä tästä nyt sitten sanoisi, kovin keskinkertainen ison budjetin masalamelodraamaksi. Musiikki ei kolahtanut lainkaan, lesken ylenmääräinen ahdistus oli melodraamagenreen ja intialaiseen kulttuurin yhdistetynä ymmärrettävää mutta länsimaiselle katsojalle kovin luotaantyöntävää. Lisäksi minusta nyt triangeli meni ihan väärin, Priyanka olisi ollut paljon parempi vaimo Akshaylle.