sonjaohno

[sonjaohno]

Starting a no-news-letter on Substack

Dear readers (yes, all three of you),

someone recently told me that Tumblr became, like, totally lame after it banned nudity and so-called adult content in 2018 (so 3 years ago, but I take a long time catching on). This doesn't really bug me all that much given my non-existent desire to expose myself online, in words or images, but what kinda does bug me is the fact that Tumblr doesn't allow commenting, liking, or subscribing to non-registered users, which is most of my trusty readership. All this and a couple of other factors made me want to transfer to a different platform and after consulting my "internet savvy" friends, Substack seemed like the best option. So, after two unforgettable months of Tumblr, I'm closing shop here and starting my very own no-news-letter at:

https://ohno.substack.com/

Subscribe for weekly discontent and jokes in bad taste. No subscription fee (unlimited time only).

[sonjaohno]

An Unupsettable People

Manhattan is an island roughly half the size of Walt Disney World, the theme park in Orlando, FL, but with a population 1.6 million—a population density of 27,346 per km2. And this is not counting all the people who live in New York City’s other boroughs but work, shop, go out, and generally mingle with people on Manhattan on a daily basis. It also excludes the tourists, whose number was at its pre-pandemic record high in 2019, when 66.6 million people visited the city of New York, which, for most of them, meant Manhattan. To give my lovely readers an idea of what this means, Berlin has a population density of 4,193 per km2, Helsinki 2,986 per km2, and Turku, where I was born, has a population density of 765 people per every km2—a luxurious 1.3 m2 for every person, which is enough for every Turku inhabitant to take to the streets and spin a hula wheel at the same time. Saying that Manhattan is “densely populated” therefore doesn’t quite capture the sheer denseness of this island. If every Manhattanite took to the streets simultaneously—some crawling up from the city’s subterranean dimensions, some descending from its skyscraping heights—there’d be no hula hooping: there’d be 27 people crammed to every square meter. That’s 27 people standing on each other’s shoulders, like this:

Understandably, given this density, the people who live on Manhattan have had to develop a very high tolerance for each other. It is, generally speaking, nearly impossible to behave publicly in a manner that upsets a New Yorker. They are, in a word, unupsettable. This is true to a mind-boggling degree that would be comical, if it wasn’t also so, well, damn upsetting: Every time I take the subway for more than a few stops, eventually a person will appear who is raving about the end of the world, picking up fights with random strangers, shadow boxing, or just threatening to kill everyone and everything in sight. Now, a person with a normal unsettability level will unavoidably be upset, whether because she is worried for her own safety (I’ve never seen a situation escalate to actual violence but the threat of it is palpable—and very upsetting), or because, as a human being, she feels terrible that so many people have nowhere to go but the subway when they feel this desperate, this upset. I’d never go on the subway if I felt like that. I’d probably go to my mum’s. The (mostly homeless) people (of color) who have fits on the subway presumably don’t have mums to go to, or friends with actual homes, or anywhere, really, aside from the street. That they are “upset”—a word that doesn’t quite cover what they must be feeling—is the inevitable consequence of them having nowhere to go in a city this dense. That those of us who do have places to go are not upset, or not more upset—this is the mystery.

The second, much less upsetting but still somewhat upsetting, thing that fails to upset New Yorkers is rats. Interestingly, there are actually fewer rats in New York than I had assumed: The official Rat Information Portal ran by the city health administrator, NYC Health, estimates a population of 2 million rats, across the five boroughs (so not only on Manhattan—if it were, the rats would outnumber people). There’s neighborhoods with more rats and there’s neighborhoods with fewer rats. In my limited experience, Harlem is among those neighborhoods worst afflicted by the rat problem, and the more affluent a neighborhood (and the whiter its human population), the fewer the rats. I was sitting at a bar on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and tried counting the rats climbing in and out of the terrace construction to explore the contents of garbage bags which, unwisely but unavoidably given the density issue described above, are left to the street overnight for collection. Before, I had been sitting on said terrace myself but I found the proximity to the rats just too upsetting—not the sight of them but the smell: Before seeing a rat, I’d start smelling it. I won’t describe the smell to you in detail, but you can count on me that it’s enough to upset anyone’s stomach.

Still, despite such majorly and minorly upsetting things, Manhattan is turning out to be a pretty magical place. Not least because of its 1.6 million inhabitants, who, despite their unupsettability, are some of the most hilarious, warm-hearted people I’ve ever come across. Yesterday walking through central park, a little girl playing with her friends takes off her top and screams “I’m sweating like a potato in a plastic bag!!!” She’s clearly upset by her body’s failed cooling system—nobody else blinks an eye.

Here's a picture I took when walking out of the park on Fifth Avenue. I wish I was better at taking photos.

[sonjaohno]

On (non-)confessional writing and the difficulty of being sincere online

As most of you already know, I have a somewhat conflicted relationship with confessing. It fascinates me; it terrifies me. Those of you who have not been lucky enough to hear me rant about my dissertation (yet! there is always more time), let me clarify that what I mean by writing “confessionally” is writing about oneself in a way that seeks to reveal aspects of one’s private, intimate experience in a public context, and this in a manner that is thought to be somehow purifying or cathartic either for the one writing or the one reading (nota bene this is not my working definition of confession and should not be cited as such).

Were I writing a confessional blog, I would be telling you about my emotions in the past few weeks, describing that lovely little roller coaster known as one’s mood or state of mind we all know and love so dearly. I’d tell you about the people I’ve met and about how they’ve made me feel. I might mention the dreams I’ve had. I’d be writing in order to know how I feel, to come to a better understanding of who I am and what (the actual hell) I am doing here.

This is not the kind of writing I have much interest in writing and much less publishing online. In fact, I am increasingly in doubt as to whether such writing is helpful in the first place. I used to journal; I don’t anymore. Writing can be a helpful tool for figuring out what’s going on in one’s life but it can also be dangerous, especially for those of us who find it a little too easy to get lost in the labyrinths of language.

On the other hand, I am not a reporter and would make a pretty terrible travel writer (except in the opinion of my dissertation supervisor, who told me that my recent chapter draft resembled a travelogue—this is not a compliment) if only for the reason that I really don’t think my day-to-day makes for very interesting stories. Say yesterday: I walked up to Washington Heights with a friend, had breakfast at a diner (eggs, bacon, potatoes, a mountain of pancakes). Then I walked back down to Morningside. The night before I took a train to Sunset Park in Brooklyn, then went to a pub in the village. Fascinated? Me neither.

What is to be done about this? I came up with four solutions:

I start living a more interesting, or let’s say eventful, life. I could go clubbing. I could go to hip cafés and write long posts about avocado toast or cold brew coffee. I could actually show up to the rooftop parties that some lonely soul advertises in the Columbia University visiting scholars WhatsApp group. Only problem is, I don’t much like going to parties these days, rooftop or -bottom. I like hanging out at the library and then going out for a few beers with people I can actually have a conversation with.

I start lying, or shall we say, fictionalizing, as those in the trade refer to the practice of fabricating reports of things that never happened. While I think this is a better option than the one above (definitely a more interesting way of spending my time than actually going to said events), I have some qualms about this option, as well, which have to do with the blog format, which is generally considered a non-fictive kind of medium.

I stop worrying about the writing and just post photos instead. Unfortunately, taking photos just feels like a chore to me. If I liked it, I would have become a photographer. Instead, I’m a writer. (If you were hoping for cool pictures of rainbow bagels or charcoal ice cream, I’m sorry to disappoint. I heard such things are regularly posted to this cool new website called instagram, you should probably check it out.)

I start writing about whatever I feel like writing about any given week.

As you can maybe tell, I’ve already made up my mind. Turns out, I just like writing and don’t much care for the kind of socialite high life people regularly associate with New York. That said, I am very happy to be here, at least half the time, if not more. New York is a great place for writing. Or for going to rooftop parties. Few people, in my experience, have time to do much of both. That whole Carrie Bradshaw thing only works if someone is willing to pay you several thousand dollars a month for writing a weekly column about the people you sleep with. Which doesn't sound all that realistic to me for a number of reasons—on which I won't elaborate in public.

[sonjaohno]

Democracy in America

Hello dear friends and family,

October is off to a crisp start and I've been busy squirreling away at the library. It's already been one month since I arrived, which makes it high time for some reflection. I've been working hard to come up with clever answers to the question of "what my impressions are" mainly because (and a list of so-called impressions follows):

I thought Finns were insecure, with their country branding workshops and whatnot, perennially worried about what other people (read: the Swedes) think of us, but I can tell you, Americans are worse. In all the years I've lived in Berlin, not once has a German person (nor a Berliner—these are two completely distinct groups of people) asked me to tell them what I "think" about their country, or what my "impressions" are. Maybe they know better than to ask. Maybe they really don't care. Americans, on the other hand (including New Yorkers, though a similar non-equivalence exists here), cannot get enough of foreigners' interpretations of their country. I think it's because they genuinely don't know what to think about their country themselves and are waiting for somebody to tell them what the hell is going on here. So, what are my impressions so far?

America is home to some really great things. So far, my top three list is i) cinnamon-flavored chewing gum ii) hazelnut-flavored filter coffee (a mystery but a delightful one) iii) pecan-pumpkin-spice-flavored filter coffee (again, I don't know who came up with this or what they do to make coffee taste like a Hallmark card but I fuckin love it) iv) ditto, snickerdoodles (both the word and the pastry). Oops, that's four.

There is, however, clearly something wrong with a country that has to keep toothpaste under lock and key at the drugstore. I mean, toothpaste is expensive here—$5.99 for a tube, are you kidding me?—but it's still not exactly a luxury item. I literally have to ring a bell at Duane Reed to get an employee to open the toothpaste safe for a tube of Colgate. I wondered about this out loud to a New Yorker, who told me it's because the Duane Reed I went to is located at a "minor transportation hub," in the corner of W 110th and Broadway, which presumably means that this ludicrously wealthy Upper West Side drugstore frequented mostly by Columbia students and faculty is some kind of a crime hotspot. I should probably start carrying a gun.

Americans are loud. I feel like shushing people all the time, which makes me feel like a bad person. If anyone asked me to, I'd be more than happy to provide instructions for adjusting the volume of one's speech to different situations. It'd go something like follows: i) When outdoors, use what you would consider an "indoors voice." ii) When indoors, use what you would consider a "library voice." iii) When in the library, shut the fuck up. Pretty simple, huh?

The American economy would collapse if people stopped living on takeaway meals and coffees. I have never seen people so comfortable dishing out $20-50 per day for food they don't like and coffee they don't need. I mean, I'm not even able to get out of bed without several cups of coffee in the morning but I'd find it really hard to justify a $10 daily budget for iced-mocha-swirly lattes and another $10 for dumplings, when you can just pack a sandwich. The number of students able to afford this kind of lifestyle is just astounding. (This is Columbia, I am aware that the people without trust funds constitute a minority.) I feel positively frugal with my leftover lunches and thermos bottle of coffee (this week it's Donut Shop Roast, which disappointingly does not taste like donuts).

Americans like to think of themselves as libertarians and are famously opposed to state-imposed regulation—but I've never felt as regulated and rule-bound as I have here. It's just that the rules aren't handed down by government officials but by the various enterprises, including private businesses and universities (the latter is included in the former but deserves a honorary mention of its own), who would rather impose elaborate codes of conduct than leave people to their common senses and be sued when something inevitably happens. As one particularly pointless example, I have to complete an online covid-symptom checklist every morning before I'm allowed to enter campus—a "Daily Attestation," it's called—where I solemnly swear that I did not have a cough or a sore throat that morning, either. The only conceivable purpose of this useless exercise is to ensure that if somebody does show up on campus sneezing and wheezing their viral particles around, Columbia can't sued for not having done everything in its power to prevent the virus from spreading. Airing out rooms, though, is strictly out of the question—presumably because it's against some other rule designed to stop students from committing suicide by jumping out a third-floor window. As a person who is physiologically unable to follow pointless rules, I find this kind of self-serving, counter-logical box ticking absolutely infuriating.

It's not all bad, though. Yesterday I went to a Japanese jazz speakeasy around Midtown. We had to stand in line for about an hour, between a group of 17-year-old musical theater majors and 27-year-old jazz enthusiasts. The former were bursting out in spontaneous, perfectly synchronized song every few minutes, the latter were debating scales or keys or some such—I'm telling you, it was like walking into a badly-written scene of Glee. It was worth it though. At one point, during a several-minute-long drum solo, I experienced what can only be described as a moment of pure transcendence. People were all around me were yelling over the music and gesticulating wildly and, for a few seconds, time compressed to something graspable; a thing crackling with energy. An oceanic feeling is, in the words of turn-of-the-century mystic Romain Rolland, “a spontaneous … feeling of the ‘eternal’ (which can very well not be eternal, but simply without perceptible limits, and like oceanic, as it were).” If eternity can be found in a midtown basement, Manhattan can’t be all bad. (Below a video clip I took discreetly when entering.)

P.s. A friend of mine said that I should write an Alexis de Tocqueville -type report about my time in America, which explains the title of this post. For the literary agents and non-fiction editors reading this blog (jk, apparently it's my mum and three of her friends who read these entries—hi!!!), you can email me at sonjaohno at gmail dot com for a book deal.

[sonjaohno]

Squirrelogue

Dear friends and family,

I made you this possibly nausea-inducing video recording—a little dispatch from an alien planet:

While exploring this most unusual planet, I came across a curious life form: a strange, shaky-handed, squirrel-voiced creature that appears to be an invasive species in this harsh environment. Sightings are relatively rare—if you want to catch one in the wild, you have to be willing to stake out, sometimes for hours on end, close to one of these large, brick caves that you see at the end of the recording. These massive cave complexes are filled with countless littler caves, each of which contains thousands of multilayered cellulose objects. It is these mysterious cellulose objects that the little squirrel appears to be after, although it is at this time unclear whether it considers them food, or whether the objects serve some other, as of yet unknown purpose.

In the early morning hours, the squirrel can be seen entering the cave complex in obviously high spirits. It sometimes re-emerges when the sun is at its highest and blinks at the blinding light while munching on something. Some days it has company from other squirrel-type species which also seem drawn to the cellulose-object-filled cave complexes. Following these brief intermissions, the little squirrel scutters back into the caves, clearly relieved about its reunification with the cellulose objects.

At nightfall, the creature makes the same voyage in reverse. Scientists have so far been unable to determine what the creature does at night, if it indeed does anything. The most likely explanation is that the little squirrel is what biologists call a "nocturnal hibernator," colloquially referred to as a "daywalker," which is to say that when the squirrel is done consuming multilayered cellulose objects in these great hulking brick cave complexes, it might just fall asleep. More research is needed.

You need not worry. I have not lost my mind, or not recently anyway. My mind is as lost as it ever was.

Yours lovingly,

Little Squirrel

[sonjaohno]

Hello dear friends and family,

I was just on my way to the Whitney Museum of American Art this beautiful Monday afternoon but got the subway to the wrong direction. When I realised my mistake, I was almost in the Bronx and now have some time to kill while I make my way back downtown. Here’s a picture I took last night on Fifth Avenue, close to Times Square.

This last week has been busy, folks. I moved to the International House, was quarantined in a one bedroom apartment in the north building, got tested, was released from quarantine, moved to my tiny dorm room in the south building. Add to that the digital logistics of editing a chapter and a half of the dissertation so that I could send it to my supervisors and emailing what feels like half the Columbia English department about auditing courses/joining colloquia, gaining library privileges, et cetera et cetera.

Here are some pictures that I took of International House, from top left, the Grant Memorial, the dome of which I can see from my room window, here in full frontal; view of the façade from Sakura Park; a sign; and a lovely quiet nook on a possibly restricted floor, where I naturally set up a workstation immediately.

And then a few pictures of my (much more modest) dorm room and the (not at all modest) view over the Hudson River from my 8th floor window.

This last one is the 125th Street station. I have nothing to say about that, except that I’ll try to mind which side of the tracks I stand next time I get on a train.

That’s it for now, story time has to wait until my brain replenishes the words I’ve just poured out and into the dissertation.

Ciao my loves,

Sonja

[sonjaohno]

Saturday in the Village

Hello dear friends and family,

it feels like I've been here for weeks but it has, in fact, been three, going on four, days. I spent the first few days taking care of administrative duties on and around campus, which effectively limited my range to a few blocks in the Upper West Side. Morningside Heights is a wonderfully leafy (and obnoxiously wealthy) neighbourhood north-west of Central Park. For the geographically-minded, it's bordered by the Hudson River in the west, by Bloomindale, and beyond that, the dip of Manhattan Valley, in the south, and by Harlem in the northern and eastern sides. I'm only staying here on W 111th St temporarily until I can move in the International House, which, luckily, is only a short walk north from here, and just as close to campus. My move-in date depends on when I'll be able to get a Covid-test but should be no later than next week. That's it for the official updates: Now for the fun stuff. I had a proper NYC adventure on Saturday and took some pics for my trusty readership.

The day was off to a great start: It was my mum's 60th birthday party, in which I participated through FaceTime (this is becoming standard procedure in our family gatherings). After that, I walked down to Central Park, where my host, guide & NYC BF (or “OF,” as in “only friend”) Bob was just finishing his weekly softball game. These guys have been playing softball in the Park every Saturday since the mid-80s, when members of the Columbia English department put together a team and invited Bob—then editor the University Review, a now-defunct journal—to join. After the game, the team heads out to lunch at an Irish pub on W 81st St, where I joined them. Taking pictures didn't seem appropriate but I can tell you the conversation was... wonderfully lively. When I was ready to head off, I got about a dozen competing sets of directions on how to get to my next destination: Greenwich Village (or the West Village, or just the Village, depending on whom you ask).

It was a gloriously sunny day, so I decided to walk down to the brand-new Hudson River Park, then through West End and Chelsea until I came to the Village. This is a good 10-mile walk but I like walking. It gives me a sense of purpose and I needed time to sort out my thoughts. Upper West Side is mostly brownstones and apartment blocks no more than 10 floors high, so West End was my first venture into the glass-and-concrete jungle of lower Manhattan. I stopped by a small bookstore on 10th Avenue in Chelsea, resisted the urge to buy another novel to lug around, and finally landed in the Village. The Village is known as the birthplace of the gay rights movement: the Stonewall Riots of June 1969 are often cited as the kickoff point to much of today's queer and LGBTQI+ activism, and the first-ever Pride March (which in Berlin is known as Christopher Street Day, after the street on which Stonewall Inn was located), was organised as commemoration in the following year. (I am neither a historian nor a queer activist—@thehappysatan, please correct me if I'm wrong.)

The Village has gorgeous architecture—mostly small, English-style townhouses and narrow, canopied streets. This, combined with the history, explains why it's such a popular tourist attraction these days. As I walked from Chelsea Market all the way to Washington Square, things were getting exceedingly crowded. Whatever "local flair" survives seems to have been ruthlessly commodified, creating almost a kind of queer theme park. This is more than a little ironic, given the history of counterculture and oftentimes violent protesting for civil rights which the neighbourhood owes its fame to. Anyway, I can't beat capitalism any more than I can stop gentrification, so I might as well enjoy it, right? JK. I felt conflicted and a little disconnected and wished I would have come with Bob, who lived in the area and wrote for the original Village Voice in the sixties (he's seen it all, friends, and likes to talk).

After a beer and a ponder, I walked to Washington Square Park, which was a little less glossy. I got free spiritual advice from a guy who had a cardboard sign announcing him to be either "a geniuß or an idiot savant." It was more a lecture on various prophets in Christian, Muslim, and Hindu traditions, but he meant well. "God only wants faith from you, not deeds or sacrifices," he finally advised me, which is a shame, cause goats are a lot easier to come by than faith. By early evening, I was bone tired and ready to head home with the no 1 subway line, but decided to heed the softball team's final piece of advice and stop by to see Times Square in the dusk. It was just as full of flashing lights and confused humans as I expected. Here is a final picture to sum everything up:

That's all for now folks. You will hear from me again next week, after I've moved into the lofty rooms of the International House (the irony of this description will become apparent when you see the "small room with sink" they've apparently decided to house me in). Until then xxx

[sonjaohno]

Just a quick note to say that I’m okay! I made it in a few hours before the storm hit the city.

When I first emerged from the subway on 110th and Broadway (and then walked one block down, hence 109th ^), the air was heavy with humidity but the streets were dry. My host gave me a tour of Morningside Heights, the neighbourhood where the Columbia University campus is located. This guy has lived in the same building since the sixties (yes) when he was an undergraduate at Columbia.

When it started raining, we headed back and ordered Indian for dinner. The last thing I heard before crashing at 8 pm was sirens going off all around the city—an eerie chorus yowling into the night. (Imagine hundreds of huskies or house cats heavily distorted and completely out of sync.) I put in my ear plugs and fell asleep.

[sonjaohno]

En route (BER-FRA-JFK)

Welcome, dear friends and family, to this humble travelogue. I am so glad you are here. Here are a few selected moments—a best of, if you will—of my trip so far.

Monday 30 August: I packed like the anxious bookworm that I am. Some of these beauties eventually came out of the bag, others stayed in. My own analogue scale has a pretty hefty margin of error (several kilos, in fact) but in the end, I had guesstimated the weight TO THE GRAM: 20,00 kg, ladies and gentlemen, what an achievement. This trip is off to a promising start. (Or so I thought.)

Tuesday 31 August: After I had finished packing and was dissolving into an emotional wreck, I hung out with two of my best mates. Aren't they gorgeous? Wearing pink, we have the artist formerly known as W.D.L.B. ("Will"), who now goes by either I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, or, simply, the Neonliberal, depending on the day. In her customary white and black, we have Miss Bucket (pronounced bouquet, naturally), aka Dinner Pig, aka the Baby. I'll miss you both.

Wednesday 1 September: I thought that I had planned the whole thing really well. I'd arrive in the airport late Tuesday evening, swing through empty bag drop and security control, get a proper night's sleep at the gate, and board the plane well rested and full of youthful vigour. Not so. Contrary to information given on the website, all of the operations at the brand new BER airport close around 8 p.m.. There are exactly five couches in the main lobby, all of them at the second floor Starbucks (which also closes around 8 p.m.).

Here's a billion dollar tip to weary travellers who find themselves, at three in the morning, caught in a bit of a rumpus with the airport security guards (totally out of character, I know), whose sacred duty it is to keep the benches outside the airport chapel empty of marooned travellers at any cost: Seek shelter in the chapel itself. The Securitas goons dare not enter the chapel, but this a mere bonus compared to what awaits inside. I don't know why I hadn't realised this before (possibly because I am only recently not-vehemently-atheist and also fly so infrequently that I have no earthly reason to know such things), but the chapel is actually the one pleasant room in the whole airport. Unlike the rest of every airport everywhere, the chapel doesn't try to sell you shit, nor does it blast you with fluorescent lighting, or incessant reminders about wearing a medical-grade face mask at all times. The chapel is a perfectly quiet, dimly lit, and, most importantly, completely abandoned oasis of solitude in an otherwise uninhabitable environment. A couple of hours of meditative staring at a wall later, I'm ready to embark on the next leg of my journey.

Wednesday 1 September (still): I have now been awake for 24 hours straight, which may explain the somewhat restless tone of my post so far, and am currently residing in the humongous Terminal 1 of Frankfurt Airport. It has little booths selling sausages and beer along each of its endless corridors. It might even have a chapel, but I am too scared of falling asleep and missing my next flight to seek out its comforting brick buxom. So I sat down by my gate to pass an hour by writing down this little update. Below, a portrait of the weary traveller herself, caught mid-transit, at an airport loo. Glamorous business this air travel, isn't it?

Next up: NYC. Stay tuned for more updates. (I'll try to keep them shorter. I just had so much to tell you!)