#if you had plans to say hi to me in Stockholm or Finland

[thisismyobsessionnow]

Trying to come to terms with the fact that I won't be alive by this time in two weeks.

Cause of death? A sem ti povedal live.

[theflyingfeeling]

The Day I Made Joel Hokka Laugh, aka concert report from High 5ive Summer Fest @ Stockholm, 1.7.2022 🖤

By now these are more like diary entries so I'm gonna start by telling how goddamn nervous I was because first of all I had to make my way to the venue all by myself in a foreign city, and when I had done that successfully I had to get nervous AGAIN because holy fucking shit I was gonna meet the boys face-to-face at the signing session? 😵

And like. Where do I even start 😅

..I guess with Niko, as he was the first one in the row to sign the card! As soon as he addressed me I said "MOI" as clearly as I could to indicate I'm Finnish 🤡 Then I, umm, talked about the weather?

mä: Ootteko tarennu

Niko & Aleksi: Ollaan tarettu joo.. (😂)

Niko: Laitetaanko tällane [nimmarikortti]?

mä: Laitapa semmone 😎

(Sorry, my extremely deep and intellectual conversation with Niko doesn't translate to English that well 😇)

And remember how I was low-key planning on printing pictures of our family dachshunds for them to sign? I didn't do that (because my printer wasn’t cooperating 🤣), HOWEVER I did show Aleksi a picture of Osku and Bobby on my phone 😃 ..and proceeded to talk about how old they are and how Osku has had some back issues lately and how Bobby learned to swim last Monday and we just bonded over dachshunds 😭💞

Aleksi: Ai että! Mäyräkoirat on ihan parhaita! / Dachshunds are the best!

mä: Nii onki! mutta välillä vähän itsepäisiä. / They are! But stubborn sometimes.

I don't remember what exactly Aleksi said then but he agreed 🥲

Joonas was also taking a peek at the dog picture on my phone but I didn't say anything to him because I was recovering from the exchange I had had with Aleksi 😆

And then there was Joel <3

mä: Moi :)

Joel: Moi. Oot Suomesta tullu tänne? / You’ve come here from Finland?

mä: Joo!

Joel: M I K S / W H Y

mä: Miksei? / Why not? 😂

Joel: Ei tää ihan mikään Tuska oo mutta... / This ain't quite like the Tuska festival (=a heavy metal music festival theyre perfomong at today)

(😂😂😂😂😂)

Joel was SO talkative and it was such a shame I couldn't hear (or understand 😆) half of what he said 🥺🤲

He was wearing a bun when they arrived but let his hair down once the signing started and then tied it up to a bun again immediately after the signing session was over. An important detail, I know lol you're welcome

Tommi, on the other hand, didn't say a single fucking thing in true Tommi manner and used the opportunity (of Joel's talkativeness) to quickly scribble his signature on the card and pass it on to Olli

And oh my fucking god

Like. You've all seen pictures of Olli? Seen videos of him? You all know he's stunning? Gorgeous? Heavenly?

From, like, one, metre away, though? With the sun lighting up his eyes? Him looking straight into your eyes and smiling at you? He is fucking beautiful

In fact, he is SO beautiful, suddenly just THERE in front of me when I had barely recovered from having Joel talk full sentences to me that I swear I lost my consciousness for a second there. I'm not exaggerating, I felt like I was hit by a truck:

He said "moi" (hi)

I said "kiitos" (thank you)

🤡

Then I was just. Shaking for about five minutes. The first thing I could make myself say (besides "oh my god") was a dumbfounded "Olli smiled at me?!" 😵😂

I've been grinnning at this interaction ever since 😅

After I had recovered from the thrill of getting to interact with them (safe for Tommi "just some dude" Lalli) and seeing the queue to their table sort of die out, I was like "...I'm gonna go there again! :D"

And I did!! 🙈 to get a signed card for "a friend who couldn't make it" (👋) and Niko was like "sure!" 🥰

It was also cute how carefully and concentratedly Niko writes/draws his signature 😭💖

I didn't say anything to Aleksi this time around because I was gathering courage to talk with Joonas: I told him they should play Den Glider In 😅

And Joel heard this and laughed, I repeat JOEL LAUGHED AT SOMETHING FUNNY I SAID NO I'M NOT OKAY GUYS I MADE HIM SMILE AND LAUGH!!!!! 😭

Joonas said that it would be convenient since the venue was right next to Globen (the arena where Team Finland won its first ice hockey world championship title in 1995 against Sweden and proceeded to "steal" their official song made specifically for the tournament, the aforementioned Den Glider In). He added that maybe they should use it as the intro song lol (they didn't 😔)

Then Joel asked me to shout "PERKELE" during the show 😂 (which I did! I don't think they heard me though, but at the end of the show I heard the Finnish dudes standing behind me shout "perkele" as well 💙🤍

Joel went on about some (assumably) Finnish band (didn't hear which one) that managed to have a whole arena of people to chant "perkele" at their concert 😅 Joel baby I would've been up for that, where were you?!

..and again Tommi managed to avoid small talk by signing the card as quickly as he could and passed it on again 😆

..*sigh* to Olli 😩

Like, I had planned to break the ice by joking how the first time around I had said "thank you" instead of "hi"

But like. Olli's method of avoiding awkward small talk is clearly to just. Look into your eyes like you're the only person in the universe, smile that stunning little smile of his, and say "moi"

I managed to say "moi" back this time though, but there was no way I could've stayed to, like, actually have a conversation with him 🙈 he is so beautiful?! 😭

I bet they put him last on purpose because I don't get how anyone could recover from his beauty to be able to perfom any sort of human interaction for the following 5-10 minutes 😅

So I got TWO cards with their signatures, and on my way inside the venue I tried to put them in my backpack but I dropped one on the ground and immediately after a member or staff came from behind me and stepped right on Olli's pretty face 🤣 I started laughing at the comical timing of the situation and so did the stranger next to me who witnessed it 😂

And the concert itself? Let me start by saying that it was so..pleasant? In comparison to all the BC concerts I've been to in Finland, all of which have, safe for the time BC was on stage, been rather UNpleasant due to a LOT of teenagers and little kids screaming and disrespecting your personal space 🙄

There was none of that, not even on the first row?! 😭

So yeah. First fucking row. I could literally see the sweat gleaming on Porko's tits 💦

And speaking of Porko it was SUPER fascinating to get to see his guitar playing so up close 👀 that man sure has skillful fingers...

And on the first row you realise even more how there's SO MUCH STUFF happening on stage ALL THE TIME, it's hard to decide what to focus on :')

I feel like I can't actually remember anything, the whole thing was like a fever dream? 😂

Like, Joonas was RIGHT in front of me in all his shirtless glory 💖

Olli visited our side fairly often (so often thay Joonas had to push him away at some point, as I was told afterwards 🤣 (didn't see this myself sadly but I can imagine)), and I feel like Olli and I sang to each other a couple of times, but that could've been just wishful thinking 😇 He def looked into my camera once while singing along but his face is all dark in the video so I have no proof of this lol but yeah. Was an experience 💖

In Jyväskylä when I made eye-contact with him I started giggling nervously, but this time I was brave and held his gaze 😤

And say what you say, Don't Fix Me slaps live 😤

At some point during Left Outside Alone maybe (after I had just stopped filming) Joel was literally walking backwards towards Aleksi's lap/crotch (who had come down to the stage from behind his table) because that's how much he wants to be the little spoon 🥰

That was some time before the Olli/Joonas butt slap that I caught on camera lol

Sadly no Niko/Joonas kiss 😔

If you need to hear Joel speaking literally 3 words of Swedish, hit me up, I got it on video 😁 (and when I say "literally 3 words" I mean LITERALLY "ett, två, tre" 🤣)

There was a moshpit or something during Over My Dead Body, we just barely avoided it by being on the first row lol

"We" as in @thesupernaturalwhovian (thanks for the water bottle!) and @forehead-knife 🖤 it was so nice meeting you, thanks for hanging out!

It was such a shame their set was only 40 minutes, it went by way too fast :( Perhaps their next gig in Sweden will be at one of the bigger venues 😌🖤

[aaltjelng]

so the lovely @languagessi sent me an ask with the numbers for the ask game but i managed to accidentally delete the ask:)) well, i decided to try to answer anyway, hopefully i remembered the numbers right haha... so here are the answers!

12. Vocab or grammar?

It’s a tough question! I guess it kind of depends on the language... I am utterly in love with Korean grammar! It might sound strange but I just find studying it so fascinating and rewarding. It also feels really nice to finally be learning a language that shares some traits with Finnish (no articles, a lot of suffixes...) I find studying Korean grammar a lot nicer than for example French grammar (although I do like that too!), mostly because I struggle a lot with remembering the genders of nouns and that makes me frustrated, and articles and genders feel kind of unnecessary to me as a Finnish speaker whereas the nuances that can be expressed through Korean grammar are really interesting.

I don’t have such strong opinions on vocab. In the beginning I did find it hard to remember Korean vocab and I still struggle with that a bit, but it’s getting better and better all the time. I think I like learning vocab the most when studying Swedish! I don’t know why, but I guess it just feels like it sticks more easily. I do love some Korean, especially native Korean words with all my heart... And learning vocab can feel super rewarding: that feeling when you spot a word you just learned in a random text and realize you can actually understand what it is saying is really the best feeling.

23. How did you get into languages?

Honestly I have loved languages for as long as I can remember. When my brother started learning English at school at the age of 9 (I was 7), I secretly listened to him and our mom studying. I also stole his English books and secretly read them by myself and tried to study.

After that I did have some time that I was just studying at school, I was always good at it but not as enthusiastic as I am now. It clicked in 2017 when I was 13 years old and I just started studying Swedish on my own. We had it in school too, but I was frustrated with how slow we were going. Somehow I just thought about the idea of studying and speaking this language and languages in general and it just made me really excited and happy. It is really difficult to explain but languages really bring out this certain feeling in me and that feeling has stayed with me since that year.

24. Why are you studying your target language?

So I actually have four target languages right now: French, Swedish, Italian and Korean. English is also a foreign language for me but I am not really interested in improving my English level as of now. 

Out of these four languages, I am now actively trying to improve my Korean, while the other three are more or less on “maintenance mode”. I study those three at school as well so I am still using and studying them, just not with the same intensity as Korean.

Anyway, here’s a little bit about each of these languages and why I am studying them!

French: I started it at school at the age of 9. It was quite a clear decision for me back then, I was really interested in the language, I had been to France many times and the Dutch side of my family actually originates from France (like hundreds of years ago my ancestors fled persecution from France to the Netherlands). I really loved studying French and my interest has only grown over the years. I love speaking French, I love reading French, I love listening to French and writing in French, and I really want to get my French to an advanced level. I will probably work on my French more actively next year and really try to bring it to C1 level before my matriculation exam. Now my French is somewhere between B1 and B2.

Swedish: I started it at school when I was 12 years old. In Finland Swedish is an obligatory subject so I didn’t actually choose starting it haha but I have always loved Swedish so I was motivated from the start. My aunt lives in Stockholm and I have been there for about 20 times. My mom also loves Swedish and I think she has also been a factor in my love for Swedish. As I said earlier, Swedish is actually the language that inspired me to start actively self studying languages. I just felt so frustrated with the pace we were moving at at school and I just thought to myself: “I learned English more or less fluently mostly with my own effort. Why couldn’t I do that with Swedish too?”. English I had learned because of other factors, not really my enthusiasm about the language or language learning but more because I needed to understand English in order to understand fandom things and books and bands I loved. So I thoguht that, well, books were really the thing that brought my English to a new level, so I should probably do that with Swedish. And so I did that and studied hard and got my Swedish to an intermediate level. I studied actively for about 5 months, after that I’ve just been mostly relying on school. This spring & summer I am planning on taking the next step and bringing my Swedish to an advanced level before my matriculation exam.

Italian: I started studying Italian at school last year with my best friend. She is part Italian and I thought that because I love learning languages and I love her and there is a possibility take Italian, why not take Italian? I also love Italian history and art and Italian is a very significant language in classical music (I am studying to become a classical violinist/violist). So I have been taking Italian for a bit more than a year now and I am around an A2 level. Next year, before the matriculation exam, I’d love to get my Italian to a B2 level or at least a B1 level.

Korean: In the summer 2019 I stumbled across some videos and heard my first songs by BTS. One of them: Paldogangsan or so-called “Satoori rap”. I heard it and just instantly fell in love. It’s a song about Korean dialects, and the way the rap showcased the different sounds of the Korean language... It really inspired me. Well, other things happened in my life, I got depressed, my other psychiatric and neurological issues got worse and so on. Through that time I discovered some truly amazing and touching songs that had lyrics that really moved me to my core, some by BTS but most by Agust D, and I knew I had to learn that language, at least a little bit. At first I just learned hangul to make sure that the lyrics I was scribbling to my diary weren’t complete nonsense. During the following six months I didn’t actively study Korean, I just played with Duolingo here and there, listened to a few beginner TTMIK lessons, acquired some vocabulary I was hearing in songs... 

But in May 2020 something just struck me and I just got this sudden burst of inspiration. I realized that if I really wanted to learn this language, what better time to start than now? I guess I had been feeling kind of intimidated, because I knew that learning a language, any language and especially one like Korean would take a long time. But I still remember this one post that I saw on tumblr. It said something about how usually when we think about how long learning a language will take, we feel weirded out about thinking ourselves being that much older. But the thing is, we will get older anyway. Might as well be older and know this language that you deeply love. That idea has stayed with me since. Let’s take one estimate: getting fluent in Korean will take about 4 years. In 4 years I’ll be 21. So? In 4 years I’ll be 21 anyway, why not be a 21 year old who knows Korean. And I also realized that I am still so young. I have so much time to learn so many languages. Might as well use it.

So I have been actively studying by myself for about 6 months and would place myself somewhere around the A2 level. This October I made this challenge for myself: for 100 days, study as hard as you can. Learn as much as you can and do not give up. I really want to see how far I can come if I give this my all! I’m wishing on getting to a B1 level at the end of this challenge but we’ll see. WIth Korean, and I guess with any language, it’s quite easy to get discouraged by thinking how much you still don’t know, so it’s important to also realize how much you already know. I have come so far already during these past 6 months, and I am really proud of myself. That motivates me to keep going: I learned all that, so I can learn these other things too!

Okay hahaha sorry for my very very long post and making you listen to my ramblings in my incoherent English.  I just love languages so much and I could talk about them for forever!

Thank you if you read this far, I hope you have a wonderful day. <3

Aleijd

[purplesurveys]

1043

survey by egooverdose

Japan: What is one stereotype you associate with Asian countries/people? :/ :/ Uhm...

Jelly Bracelets: Do you have any? In which colors? Have you ever broken one? I seem to have forgotten what these refer to, but I’m sure I had a couple that didn’t last long. I wasn’t much into bracelets as a kid. Joakim Berg: Who is your favorite foreign singer|musician? Do you translate his or her lyrics? Beyoncé, I guess. All Americans are foreigners to me. I don’t translate her lyrics, nor do I do that with any other songs in English.

Josh Todd: Do you have any tattoos? If yes, what made you decide to get them? No, but I’d love a couple that symbolize important things or people, like a bowl of nachos for Nacho and each of my dogs’ pawprints.

kent: Say something in a foreign language? The word ‘kampana’ is Filipino for bell.

Kundera: What is one philosophy you have regarding life|living|purpose? Idk, I’m starting from scratch after the shitstorm that was this year. I have to find one again. I’m not rushing, though, and I want to give myself as long as I need to regather. Fuck knows I need to be kind to myself right now.

Learning: What is something you enjoy learning about? Off the top of my head, anything that doesn’t involve machines tbh. I can read about anything Wikipedia and encyclopedias have to offer, but I draw the line at factories and automobiles and engineering and robots and stuff lmao, it’s just not my thing.

Minimalist Interior Design: How would you design the inside of your own home? You already mentioned it; minimalist. I don’t want a lot of furniture and a lot of color in my space. I’d be happy with a minimal number of items organized in a meaningful way with some pastel shades here and there.

Miserable Weather: What is a weather-type that you like that not many others do? Thunderstorms, I guess? It’s been a hit or miss for me these days though; I’ve found myself crying more when it rains...but for the longest time I’ve enjoyed bleak and rainy weather. I’m not planning to drop it as my favorite just yet.

Morning: Are you friendly in the morning, or are you barely awake? I’m friendly at work from the start to the end of my shift because it’s the nice thing to do, and because I have to be. But I’m almost always anxious and on the brink of breaking down every morning. Since it’s WFH, no one from work has to know that.

Music: How important is music in your life? It’s slowly becoming significant again. I got a Spotify subscription for myself after years of sharing with Gab’s account lol, so I’ve been revisiting the music that I had to set aside for months while I had to grieve on my own. It was brutal the first few days and I cried a lot when I heard my go-to sad songs again, but I soon realized I need releases like that and so I’ve been a little more unafraid to listen to music each day.

Oasis: What is a band you remember liking from your childhood? Paramore? HAHAHAHA they were the first band I ever loved, man. And I’m happy I get to say I still very much love them.

Opinions: Do you ever get mad at people for not having the same opinion as you (i.e. Abortion being wrong|right, Meat-eating being wrong|right)? If it’s the kind of opinion that will step on fundamental human rights, like being vehemently against same-sex marriage, then we will have a problem. Otherwise, I don’t care if someone prefers Android or having pineapples on their pizza unless they’re being an asshole about it.

Orchids: What is your favorite type of flower? Does it grow where you live? Peonies. Idk, I guess so? I don’t speak flowers.

Outerspace: Do you think there's a possibility of life out there? There sure is; the universe is so vast. I wish we’re able to learn more in this lifetime, though; I wouldn’t want to miss out on future discoveries.

Photo-Editing: Do you edit any of your pictures? In what ways? Sometimes I’ll add a cute or flattering filter; that’s the furthest my editing skills go. I don’t use advanced applications like Photoshop and I don’t know how to remove moles or stray hairs or whatever.

Photography: If you like to take pictures, what is your motivation? I’m not into photography per se, like it’s not a hobby of mine or anything; but I do like taking photos of special or funny events. It’s nice to have a memento for a little bit of everything going on in my life.

Poland: Would you ever consider living anywhere cold? Yes. Maybe not Norway or Finland levels of cold, but somewhere considerably cooler than the humid hot mess I currently live in. When I went to Jeju four Aprils ago, they had the p e r f e c t temperature I could ever ask for and it was sooooo perfectly and comfortably cold in that I got to walk around in shorts but I never shivered or got goosebumps.

Potatoes: What is your absolute favorite food? It used to be burgers, but my mom has been making so many cheeseburgers the last few weeks that I need to take a break from them lol. Right now, my favorite would be sushi.

Questions: Do you like to ask questions, or answer them? Answer them, hence this blog.

Quirks: What are some weird things about you? Depends on what you count as weird. By far, people have been weirded out the most by the fact that I don’t eat fruits and will avoid them like the plague. I don’t mind the reactions and it’s actually turned out to be a great icebreaker, so I whip out that factoid pretty often haha.

Quizzes: When was the last time you were tested on something? I had a blood test last May because we needed to know if my fever was dengue or something else. Turned out to be a UTI.

Radiohead: Do you like any depressing bands? After Laughter is sad as shit but I wouldn’t say Paramore is generally known by this image. None of the other bands I listen to would count as ‘depressing.’

Rings: How would you describe the size of your fingers? They’re long and slender, which I love.

Satire: Do you enjoy political satire? It’s a hit or miss. I generally don’t seek it out.

Singing: Who do you know personally that has a nice singing voice? Leigh.

Skinny Jeans: Would you wear them? Or do you hate them? I wear them, but I hate them. 

Smashing Pumpkins: Listen to the band, or take it literally and actually GO smash pumpkins? xD Neither.

Snakes: Would you ever wear snake-skin pants, or other animal clothing? I used to wear leather shoes because it was required for school. I avoid the practice now.

Snow: What, to you, is the best part about snow|snowy weather? You tell me, lol. I’ve never experieinced snow before.

Space: Do you like to have your own space? Are you independent? It’s definitely important to have it every now and then; I’m actually taking this survey from a Starbucks because I needed so baddddd to get out of the house. It’s the first time I’m out on my own without having to do errands since March, and it feels kinda nice.

As for being independent, I’ve been mostly a dependent person and I like having people to lean on, but my breakup has also been pushing me out of my comfort zone and to try out new things just by myself. We’ll see where this takes me in a few months.

Starry Nights: When was the last time you gazed at the night sky? Last Saturday.

Stockholm: What foreign country would you like to go to for a shopping spree? Do I really have to go to another country for this? Hahahahaha idk maybe Shanghai? The people there were dressed so well when I visited.

Studded Belts: Do you own any? What do you think of them? Nope.

Suave Shampoo: What is your favorite shampoo scent? Brand? I don’t have a preference for either. As long as it’s able to clean my hair, it’s fine.

Sunglasses: What kind do you own|wear, if any? Do you like them? I don’t really. I don’t like my vision getting tinted.

Surveys: How many surveys do you think you have taken since you've started? My old survey blog has nearly 1500 while this one has a little over 1000, then add what’s probably a few hundreds that I did in 5th grade but never saved anywhere...so maybe somewhere between 2500 to 2700 in total? Hahaha I honestly thought it would be more.

Sweden: Do you ever feel like you should have been born in another country? I think nearly everyone from the Philippines thinks this.

Swedish Fish: What is a candy you often enjoy? Gummy anything.

Tea: Do you like tea more than coffee, or the other way around? I love coffee; I’m drinking one right now :D I never enjoyed tea.

The Beatles: My brother gets mad if people say they aren't the best band ever; what about you? Then I guess I shouldn’t be talking to him.

Theories: What do you think will happen to you after you die? Sleep.

Thom Yorke: If you met your favorite musician, what would you ask him|her? If we were in a Covid-free society, all I’d ask for is a hug, really. I wouldn’t have anything to ask them.

Thought: What do you spend most of your day thinking about? I’m still grieving about the stuff I’ve already covered.

Thought-Provoking Conversation: What do you consider deep? This would be a little hard to verbalize and I don’t really feel like describing rn. I guess you can say this question in itself is deep, ha.

Tokyo: Where is a busy place you would like to go to? Aw man what an innocent question. I wish I could show this survey-maker what a trainwreck 2020 has been and how ‘busy places’ virtually don’t exist anymore, at least for now.

Unpretentious Gestures: If someone pays you a compliment, do you take it to heart, or do you pass it off as just flattery? I take it to heart, but I’m not always able to receive it well.

Video Games: Do you think they cause people to become violent? No. I spent my childhood going on killing rampages on GTA and I’m still unlikely to resort to violence.

Vocabulary: What was the last word you learned? The term ‘low latency.’ 

Warsaw: What is a funny fact about your heritage? Good question, but I can’t think of any at the moment. I don’t really think ‘funny’ when I look for facts to absorb but now I want to look this up haha.

Web Design: Have you or could you build your own site? My principal requirement for my Online Journalism class was to make my own website/blog, actually. But Covid blew up and we ended up having to cancel the entire semester altogether, so my classmates and I never got to pursue more of that class other than our first few meetings, which were used for lectures.

Winter: How long|cold are winters in your area? It does not even exist.

Words: How many pages of words do you think you type a day? Maybe like 5 or 6. It’s a WFH set-up, so I’m exclusively on the laptop typing away the entire week.

Writing: Do you try to avoid it, or do you embrace it? I embrace it as long as I don’t have to write fiction or prose. I like writing, but only through journals and surveys.

[mrsslrss]

2019.

Welcome to my annual accounting of things I loved, 2019 edition. 

I’m realizing the pattern here is to start this with a reflection of how I rang in the year but 2019 crept in pretty calmly: no big bugs to kill, no spontaneous sobs to a Sharon Van Etten song. On the first day of this year, I woke up and cleaned the house and, I don’t know, probably went to Big Bear and got a coffee and took a nap. Since it’s nearly the end of the decade, I could start there, but I couldn’t tell you where I was for New Year’s Eve, 2009; if I had to guess, I’d put myself at a friend’s house on the North Shore, drinking PBR with the guys and listening to pop-punk. That winter I was convinced I wouldn’t return to Poughkeepsie, I was so miserable, but when I did things started to fall into place.

I think my goal for this year was roughly something like, Just put your head down and do the work. When you are tempted to get fed up and wither from frustration or have a big ego about not getting what you want, just put your head down and do the work. I don’t know if I did that, exactly, if I really stuck to the goal, but every so often in a particularly challenging moment the goal would come into focus at the front of my mind and I’d sigh and acquiesce and nod at the work ahead of me. I got a lot done, I think; in this way I got a lot done. It was nice to be reminded about how the process can be the goal -- something I thought about a lot this year. Sometimes the goal looks like a result, but it’s really the habit I’m after.

I’d like to keep that up next year. 2019 was a year of cultivating; 2020, maybe, will be a year of action. Or maybe not! Maybe nothing flowers until 2021 or beyond. Or maybe I start tearing things up by the roots in 2020, who knows! 

So anyway. Here’s to 2019, and here’s a list (more or less alphabetized -- why not!) of ten things that helped me make it through.

annie’s homegrown birthday cake bunny grahams

My official snack of the year. Over the summer I was visiting MZ in Brooklyn and we got snacks at their neighborhood grocery store and I bought these, which are meant to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this snack company, taste like funfetti cake, and are definitely meant for/marketed to children. But anyway I ate the whole box and then sought them out at every Whole Foods in my vicinity (because I went online and WH is apparently basically the only place you can find them?) and started preaching the good word to anyone who was looking for a snack. By, like, September I had eaten so many of these that I could no longer stomach them, so I’ve been on a brief hiatus, but still: snack of the year.

keeping lists

I started this year with a big digital spreadsheet called “2019 things” where I intended to keep lists: all the new albums and songs that struck me, all the old albums and songs I got obsessed with, the places I wanted to travel in the year. I kept adding tabs: the books I finished, my financial priorities, stuff I wanted to make sure to read or watch. I was pretty diligent about updating them -- I wrote down every book I read, but definitely forgot to add a couple albums; I never made it to Philly this year. I started keeping gratitude lists (analog) towards the end of year, too, because in college a friend told me it helps rewire the brain away from pessimism, or something. 

meditation

Before this year, I’ve never had a serious relationship with meditation, but it always seemed like the kind of thing I would like. In mid-January I got struck by the urge to try it, so I did, and kept it up for a few days, and then I fell off, and then I got back on, and now, somehow, it’s been three-hundred-something days of it in a row. I have learned to find a quiet moment in a nice corner of my room before work, but also in a tent in the Catskills, in a guest room in Wales, in a hotel in Georgia, on a walk through Brooklyn, in my childhood bedroom. My life and brain don’t feel, like, enormously different or changed, but that’s good; it feels useful to keep showing up to something without expectation.

my siblings

Having a big family means every year is inevitably a big year for someone, but this was, somehow, a big year for all of my siblings. Mostly good things: health and healing, a wedding and a graduation, a license acquired and a course of study started and jobs well done. It doesn’t feel good to get into the hard stuff here, but there was a lot of that, too -- a lot of grueling bullshit overcome. After the wedding I almost texted everyone just to say how proud I was of all of them, but naturally I chickened out. But I really am proud!

navy blue

Longtime readers of, uh, *gestures wildly* whatever this is may recall that last year I claimed I only wore black but might be interested in navy blue? This year I determined that navy blue is so good: the color of the deep ocean, the night sky, my first Catholic school uniform. I bought navy jumpsuits, a sweatshirt, a scrunchie. I wore navy-adjacent eyeliner just in the corners of my eyes most days of July and August and September. I’m wearing a navy blue sweater right now. A good year for navy. 

“not” by big thief

My song of the year, which I knew from the first time I heard it. So much of this year (the news, the planet, global catastrophes, mass violence, etc. not to mention personal failures) felt hopeless and dreadful, but also so constant and exhausting that I wasn’t sure I could keep summoning anger, never mind do it in a useful way. I love this song because it is about abjection in the same way it isn’t about anything, about absence as presence, about not-knowing as knowing. It is desperate without being hopeless, explosive without being violent, or maybe: violent without being harmful. It’s about transcending language and different kinds of language and using whichever tools you have (Words are good enough). It’s about being swallowed whole by the everything-ness, a theme that came up in so much of the work I loved this year, the subject of an essay I’ll never write (lol). Music Twitter™ got into an argument about whether this band is good; I feel so sure of my love for this song (and most of what this band does) that I, for once, didn’t immediately assume I was a fool, or being had, just because someone disagrees with me. Instead it felt delicious and special to resonate with a thing that doesn’t resonate for everyone, a rare and generous experience for me. Imagine that.

pottery

At the beginning of the year I signed up for a ten-week session of pottery classes at a studio in Georgetown, and then when I told M, he wanted to join (by which I felt incredibly endeared). Then it became ten more weeks, then ten more, and since then we’ve gone nearly every Thursday night. Some things that are nice: learning to to make something with my hands, especially after staring at a screen all day; not being able to look at my phone or read the news for several hours (related: so many of the Democratic debates happened on Thursday nights!); having a standing weekly date with my favorite person. Nearly everyone in our lives got lumpy bowls, vases, etc. for Christmas this year, of which we are very proud.

“rooms on fire” by stevie nicks

This year, Stevie Nicks became the first woman be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice and so Rolling Stone interviewed her about her fabulous career. In the interview, Rob Sheffield said his favorite song of hers is “Ooh My Love” from The Other Side of the Mirror, which is an album I had never listened to before, so I started listening and the first song just hooked me. It’s so dramatic and magical and moody! It’s right up there on the Apple Music-generated playlist of my most-played songs of the year.

stockholm

For several years one of my repeated resolutions was “go to Scandinavia.” Sweden has always been the big goal, but Oslo seemed possible for a minute, and in 2013 I did briefly entertain the idea of going to graduate school in Finland. (Imagine!) This year I got really fed up of having not really, you know, taken a proper vacation since starting my job, so I took a full week off after my sister’s wedding and planned a solo trip to Stockholm. Each day of my trip I woke up whenever I woke up and I explored a different island; I went for long runs, drank coffee, ate kardemummabullar, took the subway across town, saw a one-of-a-kind Viking ship. I burst into tears at the Moderna Museet, ate through a vegetarian tasting menu at the Fotografiska, had an extremely lovely spa experience. I read three books in a week. I loved every second of it.

wigs

I bought a big gaudy pink wig this spring in anticipation of seeing Sasha Velour’s one-woman show in New York -- or, I told myself I bought it for that reason, but I think I really just wanted the possibility of wearing a big gaudy pink wig at will. After the Sasha show, I wore it to see Robyn at The Anthem, and was delighted when, after I put a picture on Instagram, a handful of people in my life thought I had a) dyed my hair pastel pink and b) grew my hair ~half a foot over the weekend. (I wish!) I think I’ll wear it for our house’s beach-themed NYE party, too.

everything else 

frequent, long drives with M; songs about solidarity; the #saltypod; custom t-shirts; craving waffles; having an e-reader; the concept of “the archive”; choosing kindness; threatening to move to rural new england to work on a farm; being in love

[kmp78]

I came, I saw, I (little bit) konquered 💪

First of all: apologies for this mega massive post! 😂

But I wanted to fit everything in one, so that´s the way it has to be! 

Big thanks to lovely Stockholm for being a very gracious host and taking such good care of this world-weary traveler! Let´s start off with some general sights before getting down to the nasty business of Mars!

I have to say that seeing those posters for the 1st time in the flesh made me quite giddy indeed...

BUT NOW! On to the main event...

The M&G took place a few hours before the show, and arrangements were top grade, gotta give props when props are due!

These two ladies were really lovely and seemed like PROS at what they do and yet POLITE towards us even tho this was probably the 3000th M&G they were handling. I have no complaints!

We were escorted to a small meeting room type of area right next door to the stage area, and at first I figured I wasn´t even gonna bother fighting the hoards for the 1st row seats, but then I heard Reni saying there was one spot left - and I leaped into action.

At the M&G room Reni explained the rules and game plan for the evening. No personal/private questions, no simple yes/no questions, no groping during the pics, no running to the concert area (there were near-catastrophic incidents in Prague some days ago, some girls ran like cray and tripped and fell and created a domino effect and it was a mess...) and so on. 🙄

Reni asked us who has listened to the album (most raised their hands) and who has not listened to the album (me and few others raised ours... Hihi...), and what people´s fave songs were.

Then we got back to talking about the potential questions again, and she encouraged people to ask about the new album (*COUGH* REMEMBER THIS LATER AS YOU READ ON *COUGH*), or if you want advice etc. 

Not that I cared much anyway, but seeing as she did not seem to touch upon “that topic” at all, I decided to try my luck and asked:

“What about the “elephant in the room”?” 🐘

The room fell silent and there were some dramatic “Oooooooh´s” coming from my fellow VIP peeps.

Reni´s face went serious and she quietly said “No”, as was fully expected.

I pressed on.

“How come?”

Reni: “Because we would rather... It´s a personal matter. Of the band.”

Me: “So we´re never gonna get any explanation?”

Reni: “It´s a personal matter... And until he doesn´t decide... It´s not in our...”

And that was it! That´s the explanation I managed to squeeze out! Sorry, guys! I tried, but... 😞

I´m totally not the only one who reads that to mean that IT WAS TOMO´S OWN DECISION TO WALK AND IT´LL BE HIS DECISION IF/WHEN HE COMES BACK, right?! And that the band has no say in it, and they have no clue if and when the situation gets resolved?! Right?!

UGH! 😠

Then Reni went on to explain that if someone was there specifically to meet TM, they could get a refund but they would have to leave immediately.

Total bs “offer” because there ain´t NO ONE coming to these things just to meet TM, but whatever... I did contemplate if I should ask for a partial refund because I only got partial Mars, but chose to let it slide. Not even worth it.

One guy in the audience commented “Good question”, so I guess I wasn´t alone with my queries! It may have been Gustavo, I dunno.

Before the band came in, people kept busy by asking the crew a few questions. 

And at this point I would like to offer a MEA CULPA and sincere apologies to the person/persons who I battled with some weeks ago when Reni´s home land was a topic. See, as luck would have it, one of the VIPs asked the staff where they were from, and Reni said “I´M ORIGINALLY FROM MEXICO”, so yeah... Haha! I giggled quite a lot... Sorry, anon/anons! I was indeed wrong! Shayla said she´s from NYC, Inaki also from Mexico and Diana (I think that was her name...?) from Brazil.

Shayla mentioned that she is kinda jetlagged. Reni said she´s usually pretty good with it.

Then they plugged Camp Mars (a few people had no idea what Camp Mars even is...) and lured us to buy with big promises of hangings with the band during the most magical weekend of the year.

“The band is also there all day.”

Reni also inquired if people would be interested in attending Camp if they by some miracle happened to arrange it in Europe. Most people were eager, no surprises there.

Someone asked if Camp could be arranged earlier in the summer, and Reni said no because the Malibu Camp site is occupado until August.

Another one asked if Camp is getting bigger, to which Reni replied that “It´s getting better. I would not say it´s getting bigger because the number of people for the past 2 times has been exactly the same, which is 200.”

So there we have it. An official number.

Well, as official as these people are ever gonna admit, anyway... 🤷

Then we voted for our fave songs from the new album. “GWO” won.

(I voted Tabasco. 🤗)

Someone wanted to know if they were gonna play “GWO”, and Shayla said nope because they have not rehearsed it.

Of course not! 🤷

Then we swiftly moved on to the “Kumbaya” moment of the evening where Reni asked if someone knows how to sing, and some dude said yeah, so he came up front and started singing WoW.

Now this is just my opinion, but sitting there listening to an almost Sunday church-like hysterical pathos... Worshipers partying and yelling out the lyrics as if God himself was within hearing distance...

I did not know I needed that in my life. 😱

Then Reni we needed to “make some noise so they´ll come faster”.

Is... is that what VK does too? 🤔

I dunno, but we did. 

It did not help. 😴

To kill even more time, we did the obligatory “Where is everyone from?” round. I stayed silent. Surprisingly it seemed like almost half of the peeps were non-Swedes! The woman next to me was also from Finland. Wooooop!

Someone asked if the band is gonna do festivals, and Reni listed some upcoming dates. I don´t know why people don´t GO ONLINE to find out this stuff, but... 🤷

The crew also mentioned they have days off on occasion, Helsinki was mentioned as one of their days off, which kinda maybe means that the band will be arriving tomorrow and hanging for a whole day before the gig on Wednesday... Uuuuuuh!

Then all of a sudden...

DOORS FLUNG OPEN AND ANGELS SANG PRAISES!  🎺

Well no, it was just echies screaming and clapping. 🙏

JL and SL sneaked in from the stage area and the masses of course went bananas. 

I still sat in silence and watched. 👀

The bros had a table and chairs, but never sat down. Instead they stood and placed one foot ON THE CHAIR, as all civilized peeps do.

JL asked if anyone was at the previous gig, and mentioned that it has been a really small show, but this one would be the smallest (arena holds max 3500 people). Last night apparently was “INCREDIBLE”, one of the better shows on the tour.

For some reason (pffft...) he spotted some German chicks who I guess were twins or smthg, I wasn´t really paying attention. Anyway, he mentioned “We always need more twins in our lives”.

Echies naturally giggled because OMGGGGGGGG HILAAAARIOUS, and JL went on to explain that “Hey our grandfather had a twin”.

SL quipped that maybe he or JL will have twins, and JL mentioned that he and JR argued about the twin gene skipping a generation or smthg like that.  🙄🙄

Then he spotted some chick in the front row who had big muscles (no she did not btw) and asked her if she´s a trainer or smthg. JL mentioned that he just recently started working out again so he keeps looking at muscles.

Uh huh. 🙄🙄🙄

On/off SL gave looks around the room, and I got some too. He did not smile, not even a crack. Meh.

THEN IT WAS FINALLY Q AND A TIME!!! 🙏 😈

Some dude asked how hard it is to get a workout on the road.

SL said the recovery is the most challenging part. I guess he meant recovery from the shows.

JL says the 2 hours on stage are the hardest, and then the rest of the time should be spent by doing nothing.

That last part might be more familiar to some in the band than others... 🤔

Some woman from Ohio, USA was picked and I guess she yammered on about herself a bit too long because JL interrupted her speech with a very stern “QUESTION!” (we all know that tone... Hihi!), and she asked if there were any “Aha!” moments when making the album.

I suppose she did not mean “Aha! We totes should wrap this whole shit in Americana even tho it has fuck all to do with it!”...

SL said the 1st thing that comes to mind is “Rescue Me”. Apparently they´ve had that song for 10 years and have had people help them work on it (WHOOOO?!), and the last person they worked on it with caused them to have an “Aha!” moment when they realized they were actually going to finish it.

I´m sure we all share that amazement...

JL said he remembered sitting down during TIW in his home in Fredonia (his old home) with a synthesizer and the verse and the chorus are still the same. Lyrics have changed. The chorus used to just be “Rescue me, rescue me” without anything else, and 5 years later he was sitting on a plane and the current chorus started forming in his head. The song used to have a “pre-chorus” too. “He said” or “She said” (I could not make out which, or maybe both) before the main chorus. 

He said the lesson in that is to never give up because you never know what can happen. Sometimes songs happen quickly, like “A Modern Myth” which he said he wrote in 5 minutes, and SL wrote “Remedy” fairly quickly. Finishing songs usually takes him longer than coming up with a song.

Next guy asked about creative differences between Album 1 and Album 5.

JL said you can still hear the same band on both albums.

(GIVE OR TAKE A FEW BAND MEMBERS, MAYBE... 🙄)

He listed all the elements the new album features. He said he thinks a song like “Echelon” could totally be on the new album.

Next up a woman who said she was studying to be in the music business asked what she could do to make sure no other artist has to deal with what Mars had to deal with (lawsuit etc.).

JL´s advise: Don´t sign a record deal unless you absolutely have to. Spread your music via social media and other platforms.

(I know he was talking about EMI specifically, but I could not help thinking there might have been some Interscope crumbs in there too...)

The woman clarified that she meant more from the music label/business side and not the artist side. Jl responded “Go work for Spotify”. He went on to say that record companies and people can be great too, but the deals are the problem. They should be transparent and available online. It´s the last kind of “gangsta business” where you can really take advantage of people.

Some dude mentioned that he saw Mars 11 years ago when they opened for Linkin Park in Europe. JL remembered that tour, SL did not.

I guess he asked what it feels like to go from there to here (I wasn´t really listening because meeeeeh), and SL tried to come up with smthg intellectual and deep but it just sounded so ridiculously pathetic it´s not even worth mentioning. Smthg about just living and maturing and evolving as human beings.  💤

He also said they are really fortunate to still be together as a band (*SNORT*) because lots of bands from back then don´t exist anymore.

JL said this feels like a new and fresh chapter. Like his inner child. Like a reboot. Like they just got a facelift (HOLD YOUR LAUGHS, PLEASE). The new songs live are apparently “pretty INCREDIBLE”.

“I know some people are like “Where´s the guitar?” and “Where the heavy music?” but I think it´s still pure 30 StM.”

He also called the new album very dark and “lyrically on point”.

His point might be somewhere waaaaaay off the playing field tho, but...

Some chick with pink hair was up next and JL said he was gonna dye his hair pink but now he can´t.

SL said dyeing wrecks your hair and JL said his hair can´t take another bleaching.

And yes, you guessed it, folks. Fangirl giggles and swoons galore! 

Her actual question was about Mars music feeling ancient or smthg, again I was totally not even paying attention because I DON´T CAAAAARE. Sorry but these questions were fucking USELESS. 👎

Anyway, SL blabbered on about them being from an “old place”. JL said everyone has missed the point that they made the album by using modern American sounds like Hip Hop and Pop etc. and that WoW is a giant political FUCK YOU. 

Except not too long ago he gave that interview to a Finnish journo and specifically banned political questions, but okay... 👌

He said it´s exciting to see people from different countries singing that song with so much passion that sometimes he almost feels like they need to escape through the back door (he was kidding).

Next that same guy who sang during the pre-M&G stood up and congratulated the band on the new album. JL in return congratulated the guy on his hair (= a poofed up semi-mullet kinda thing) and they chatted a bit about his hair. Soooo riveting... 😫

The dude said one of his fave songs is “Convergence” and he asked about spirituality or smthg. Again, not interested...

JL said the last album was only 7 songs and the rest were fillers (well he didn´t say fillers but I´m saying it), and this new one is 11 songs and only 1 filler.

While JL was still yammering on his response to the mullet dude, I made my move and raised my hand HIIIIIGH - and when he finally finished his looooong sermon JL turned my way and...

Oh uh! It's Go time! 😱

⚠️ Little background info first! ⚠️ 

I obviously had thought of a few questions before coming to the M&G, just to prepare for the off-chance an opportunity might present itself. My options ranged from "Why did you call us Screaming Fat Girls?" to "Why did I have to pay 400 for this when 20 yo models get it for free?" and beyond. Yes I even toyed with the idea of sneakily slipping VK into the mix... 🙃

But sitting there as the M&G went on and listening to the other questions and studying the room's vibe, I started feeling my questions were all... wrong. They started feeling like I would just be purposely asking for trouble and causing a stink and potentially ruining the event, which was not my intention at all.

I started feeling like I needed to ask smthg current, smthg that has relevance in this day and age, smthg that hopefully gave us some answers to the questions we have been pondering about on the blog, smthg that would make you peeps proud, smthg that would not be a waste of a question - and yes, smthg that maybe poked a little hole into his massive ego at the same time! 🤔

So with all that criteria in mind, I went into battle...

Me: "Hi, speaking of the album, have you read or heard the reviews? Because some of them were... not very kind...?

JL: "This newest album?"

(NO DUMMY I WANNA KNOW IF YOU READ THE REVIEWS FOR THE ALBUM YOU RELEASED IN 2002!!! 🙄🤦‍♀️)

Me: "Yeah."

JL, staring right at me, with the snarkiest and bitchiest voice and most passivest aggressivest demeanor:

"Well thanks for bringing that up."

😱😱😱

His reaction both in words and in vibe (and the reaction from the room aka loud gasps, few hisses and cheers after he "lashed out" at me) was worth all the money I paid for that M&G, I don't even mind telling you!

SL also chimed in with “Yeah, thanks for bringing that up” but at that moment I was so focused on JL´s face that I completely ignored SL´s whining and existence - not to mention that every single molecule inside me screamed “HALLELUJAAAAAAAAH!”

So yeah basically I just sat there going...

While he stared at me throughout that little exchange, he most def could sense the snark in my question, and I most def could sense the snark in his reply. Naaaw... Just a couple of petty snarks sharing a moment... 🤣🙊😍

#BucketList ✔

I guess that is what an orgasm of the mind feels like. ☺

And btw...

"Thanks for bringing that up"?

Honey, with the amount of shit we have on you, you should be very #Grateful I only brought THAT up! 🤨

Anyway, the room kinda “erupted” with little gasps and hollers and whatnot, and after that initial "explosion" SL took over and started "grilling me" about my choice of question.

"That's your question? You wanna know if we read and what´s our response to the bad reviews?"

I replied “Yeah, I wanna know”.

SL said he had not read any.

Okay, but... Why did you just jump on my throat about that topic then...? 

He continued that everyone has opinions and tastes and attitudes and personalities and colors (???) and stuff... He said he can´t pay attention to it, he can only focus on what he did and the band did, and he feels great about it. He said he is secure in himself and his “bro”, as he called JL.

Then JL took over and in a very explanatory manner (calm voice this time) said that these days everyone is a critic. He said on social media any person´s opinion is as important as a reviewer´s. He also said he thinks a lot of the criticism revolves around the “Where is the rock?” argument, and that they are probably right. 

“It´s not a rock album.” 

Followed by a LOOOOONG silence. 

A silence which was only interrupted by SL going “Well, there you go!” in a triumphant manner. Echies of course applauded, and then suddenly JL picked up again:

“Don´t be fooled, we knew EXACTLY what we were doing. But let me just tell you something: we have NEVER gotten good reviews. Even when we made rock albums. So... Nothing really changes...”

At this point it again felt like he was getting ready to move on, but NO! He still kept going!

“I have a feeling lot of it has to do with me...”

That Gustavo dude piped up with “Jealousy...”, but JL ignored that comment and continued: 

“It just has to do with me being in the band... I don´t think people wanna let that slide...”

SL commented “Fucking weird...” and then after a short silence went “Great” in the most “NON GREAT” way imaginable. Kinda like when you spill juice all over yourself and go “Great”.

So with that “NON GREAT” “GREAT”, this topic was now finished and my time in the spotlight was over.

I will point out that while pretty much everyone who asked a question before me got a “Thanks for the question” comment, I did not...

😭😭😭

*

BEFORE WE MOVE ON - QUICK ANALYSIS ON MY Q AND HIS A:

I think what we learned here are 3 things:

1. Poor SL really thinks he contributed to this album and has reason to be proud. 🤷‍♀️

2. JL is indeed VERY aware of the bad reviews and backlash his latest offering brought him. 😭

3. JL is also aware of the "bad rep" he has. Not just for the "Oh he's an actor trying to be a singer" thing which he has battled since Day 1 (which I'm sure he was mostly alluding to), but also that currently (= after SS) he gets ridiculed and judged on a whole new level.

I mean, the way he almost dragged the topic on and felt like he had to add “just one more thing”... Kinda felt like he was trying to convince not just us but himself as well... 🤨

Anyway, feel free to send feedback and thoughts on this! Did I do good?! 😜

*

Okay back to the M&G!

The next person asked what would they say to their younger selves.

JL wouldn’t wanna say anything because “We’re in a pretty good place right now in life and career… I guess I’d say "Take a deep breath… It’s gonna be alright. Don’t pay attention to the reviews.”“

Ooooooh... Still feeling butt-hurt from the previous Q, are we… ? 😏🤭

The next Q was asked with such a heavy-accented English I had NO IDEA what he asked, but apparently JL did because he managed an answer. It was smthg about the Mars symbols (the triad). 🤷🏼‍♀️

The next chick started off my saying "I just wanna say I love you and adore you” and I almost yelped out “MR. KAUFMAN IS ALREADY TAKEN!” but managed to keep my emotions in check.

Her question was a pretty good one: “Why did you come up with the name "Monolith” for the tour", she said she (like all of us!) did not get it.

JL said the name comes from the giant screen on stage and the giant box thing as well, which of course for this tour they could not fit through the doors.

Next question was “Why did you call the album "America” when it talks about universal issues?“

JL: "I think the idea of America is universal (FUCK OFF ALREADY DICK IT SO IS NOT) and everyone has an opinion (WANNA KNOW MINE?) and the songs are universal. I think what’s going on in our country is probably going on in other countries. I don’t think we’re the only country thinking about things like immigration, the right and the left, what kind of a world we want to live in, what kind of a future we want. I just thought it was an interesting time and an interesting word. It really isn’t political title, it’s more of a concept (🙄🙄🙄), that’s why I liked all the lists that we came up with because they were so bizarre and funny and provocative. They do give you a sense of the time we’re living in.”

He went on to say that in 100 years people will be able to look at them and go “Oh, that was that crazy group if people that was alive between this time and that time and that fucking guy was president in America!”

Oh my! Look who’s getting all feisty again! Dare you to say that publicly tho!

During this question the noise from the soundcheck taking place in the next room went up a few notches and Stevie´s high-pitched screams almost overpowered the Letos... They made some jokes about SA´s screams. 😂

And of course he kept with the “The name “America” inspired the film that we made that´s coming out later this year, the trip across the country... Did anybody follow it on social media? (I MAY HAVE...) The Museum of America in LA and many other things that we´ve done. I dunno, I just thought it was an interesting container.”

In relation to the previous question, JL also mentioned that he had an alternative title for "America" which he admitted (?) he sometimes thinks he should have used:

“ERA”.

As in this era we are now living in.

YOU GOD DAMN DILL!!!!! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN 40 GAZILLION TIMES BETTER THAN "AMERICA"!!!!!

🤬🤬🤬

I seriously almost screamed out loud when he said that... I can't even deal with him! 😠

He said that title would have been “a little more global but a little more boring”.

NO, DILL! YOU AND YOUR BEDWARMERS ARE GLOBAL AND BORING! THAT TITLE WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT!

😠

The last question came from a woman next to me (fellow Finn btw! 😃🇫🇮) who told us that she's a teacher and she asked what inspires them etc.

JL said that “sometimes I´m not inspired” (REALLY? Never would have guessed...) and that “at that point you just have to rely on muscle memory and to just put one foot in front of the other and keep marching forward... Someone asks a question you don´t like (WHO?! WHO ASKED A QUESTION YOU DID NOT LIKE?! 🙊), you deal with it... You have to do some part of your job that´s tedious (like... the actual working part?), you push past it... I think a lot of times it´s just showing up... You can surprise yourself. You start a conversation, you start a concert, and before you know it you´re lost in the concert and you´re enjoying your time.”

SL said what helps is “getting rid of the fucking trash in the head. If I feel distracted or there´s a lot of stuff going on in my head that doesn´t have anything to do with what I wanna do, I have to get rid of it. Meditation helps, hanging out with cool people (LOOOOOOOOL), yoga, taking a walk...”

And that was it! Show over! JL thanked us for coming and then...

Picture time! 📷

We lined up in the hallway and practically RAN through the stage they had set up for the pic.

Seriously it was RIDICULOUS! Felt even faster and more North Korean than in Getafe! We all legit had no more than 2 seconds to pose and then we were pushed out! 😑

Total bs. No other way to put it. Treated like actual cattle. 🐄

Anyway, I had a plan ready again and as I stepped up to SL who kinda "yanked me" between him and JL (not in a bad way but just kinda like "let's just get this over with FAST"), I said to them:

"Okay guys, let's smile like I'm a model."

🤭🤭🤭

Now, I don't know if they heard me or bothered listening (or in "someone's" case even understood what I was hinting at), but it def made me feel giggly... 😜

Anyway, end result is this:

I think JL may have gotten what I was implying, or perhaps he was still salty about my earlier question, but he def pushed my back to get me to leave the area after the pic. 🤷🏼‍♀️👉🚪

Altho he probs does that to everyone, especially those who are not 20-smthg Russian models, but… Oh well. Kinda made me smirk even more! 🤣

Or perhaps it was my shirt which ruffled his feathers? 🤔

Wanna see a close-up?

BOOM.

Tell you this much: online T-shirt printing businesses and 20€ sure provide a lot of satisfaction. 😏👕💳

And even tho I once again got only 20 Secs (Jfc… 😂), I still managed to sneak TM into my pic, sooo… 😎💁🏼‍♀️

More closeups:

Thanks GOD he looks more than decent in mine!

And c´mon now, Jarry. I think we all know you can go bigger than that.

Jaw seems to work a-ok...

And yes, I watermarked them because that´s how I roll, homies!

After the pics we were given our VIP merch: black beanie (not bad! I might actually wear that…), plastic badge (who the fuck needs these?!), a canvas tote bag (meh ok) and a signed poster.

TRY TELLING ME BOTH THOSE SIGNATURES ARE NOT FROM THE SAME DAMN ALMOST-WORN-OUT PEN… 😂😒🖋

We were also allowed to stay in the M&G room and check out the official merch stand (pffffft! Did not buy a fucking thing as everything looked so uggo).

This tho...

After about an hour of waiting, we were finally led into the actual concert area. As some of you saw from my IG posts, this was not a regular MonolOth tour gig, but more a club gig. The set was completely different, no monolOth anywhere, and stage was not in the middle of the room.

I noticed there was a balcony area too and I marched up to a security guy to ask if it was ok to go up. He said yeah but only 100 people are allowed up so I needed a special ticket, which he then handed me and told me I needed to give it back if/when I came down again so someone else could use my place up there. Very smart security move!

Being as tiny as I am and as claustrophobic as I am, I knew standing in a sea of people and not even seeing a fucking thing was not a viable option, so I chose to wander up to the balcony - and oh man, that was the best decision I could have made! I scored a prime spot right up front and had full “skyview” of the whole room! Lucky move also because without the balcony spot, that IG Live would have been quite difficult to pull off…😏😄

JR’s DJ set was about as useful as sledgehammer when washing windows, so there’s no need to even discuss it. Literally maybe 7 people actually listened and cheered him. 😴

At around 8:40 pm the lights FINALLY dimmed and the show started.

Now, seeing as I did an IG Live for the whole show which means I did not take any pics or clips (I´ll try posting some of the clips I saved from the IG Live a little later on tho), I’m going to utilize a few fellow concert goers offerings here for vibe and atmosphere reasons! 😉

And of course we can NEVER forget the true star of the night...

A post shared by Jared Leto ∆ Echelon page (@dy.jovi) on Apr 24, 2018 at 1:18am PDT

A post shared by Jared Leto ∆ Echelon page (@dy.jovi) on Apr 22, 2018 at 1:11pm PDT

NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES.  OR SHIRTS. 🤣 🕺

As far as overall grade for the show goes…

Well, the people who came on my Live on/off and witnessed the gig with me can probably kinda agree that… eh… It wasn’t very awesomely great. 😣

The stage looked stupid with just SL’s drums, SA was once again shoved to the side where we could barely see him (but could hear him plenty!), the sound overall was kinda off (or maybe it was because of my location, but the drums sounded REALLY loud at times, almost drowned out rest of the instruments. Altho… what instruments? 🤔)…

But the biggest problem of all: Jared’s voice.

It’s fucking DESTROYED, guys. GONE.

Yes on some songs he sounded ok, even quite good on occasion. But overall, he cannot do a full show like a proper rock singer should.

And true to form, he skipped out on a lot of the lyrics (either he let SA sing, or the audience had to sing), and when he did sing (“sing”) he sounded BAD. Multiple times extremely off key and basically just shouted/screamed his way through the songs. There is no way on earth that anyone with ears could claim he sounded good!

Sheep would try no doubt, but lemme tell ya: Lies! Lies, lies, lies!

I think the only song which sounded at least half decent was “Stay”. It’s not a very challenging song anyway, so that one he still manages ok. Everything else… uh. 🙉

But it is what it is, I guess... Can´t turn back the clock and undo years of damage! 

And that yelling is not helping what little he has left...

I did enjoy JL calling me and my fellow upstairs residents “BALCONY MONKEY MOTHERFUCKERS” tho. 🐒

Been called worse before! HA! 😂

Overall I would say that had I not had the IG Live peeps keeping me company throughout the show, I would have been majorly bored. There really was nothing even remotely interesting happening on stage (not counting Naked Dancing Dude!), and traveling across an actual ocean just for that show... 

Not really worth it, gotta say.

If someone asks me if I would recommend buying a ticket, I would have to say no - based on the actual show, I mean. it just really does not offer any great “WOW” moments.

But on a personal level and by taking into account the WHOLE experience, counting the entire weekend etc., I will rank this as one of my better vacays for sure! And a big part of that is thanks to ALL YOU who joined and shared it with me, so THANK YOU! 💗

Report over and out!

[splashrollstumble]

My Second Year Working as a Digital Nomad

Some of you might remember an article of mine from a year ago in which I praised the incredible freedom afforded to me by working as a digital nomad? The article was overly-positive and well received so I decided to do a more sobering follow-up. 

In my second year of digital nomading, I was exposed to the darker side of this largely unregulated, risky and often confusing lifestyle choice. Looking back on my first year I can see now just how lucky I actually was and how, as a result, I became overconfident. Throughout my second year on this journey, I often found myself recalling a lyric from the Cypress Hill song (Rock) Superstar: “Save your money, man, save your money…”

We left off last time just as I was ready to embark on my first real test as a traveling digital nomad. Yes, admittedly I had just cycled through Africa while still working online almost daily but Africa is cheap. Heading into the expensive countries of northwestern Europe while earning a meager digital nomad salary proved to be an entirely different challenge.

Scandanavia, May 2019.

My first port of call was Stockholm, one of the most expensive cities in Europe. Fortunately, it was part of a cruise package that I had already paid for, so I had a smooth introduction.

The cruise went well and I had a great time visiting Finland, Russia, and Estonia. Despite having no wifi on board, I was able to get all my work done over mobile data because we docked each night at a city port. I would wake up early every morning, stumble hungover to the breakfast area and work tethered to my mobile phone. 

Working from the cruise ship

After the cruise, I began a two-week cycle trip from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Accommodation in Sweden is very expensive so I knew that I would be camping all the way. Fortunately, due to the ‘Allesmansvretten’ law, Sweden is one of the best countries in the world for free camping. However, I immediately faced some issues: the temperature dropped to near zero at night and since I had been out of the UK for too long, my free EU-roaming had been disconnected. Fortunately, purchasing a Swedish simcard was simple enough and there was always a McDonalds with free wifi that I could use for the cost of a €1 coffee.

So I bought some warmer clothes, enjoyed some awesome cycling, and met up with several old friends. Things were going great until the last day of my cycling trip when my biggest client suddenly canceled all work because of a Google update. Due to a change in a GoogleAds algorithm, certain websites no longer showed up well in search results and the company lost tons of traffic. They couldn’t afford to keep the sites going.

Working from McDonald’s, Sweden. June 2019

London summer

I had some savings, of course, but it was a huge loss of income and a complete surprise. It made me suddenly very aware of the fragility of both my business model and my clients. What made it even worse was that I had to go to London in a few days to renew my documents and I knew saving money there would be impossible.

Fortunately, my old hometown provided a wealth of free accommodation from family and friends. I soldiered on, struggling to find new work while going out often and spending far too much. Several times I contemplated throwing in the towel and applying for a real job but thankfully I persevered. Shortly before I was scheduled to leave London, Bitcoin did that thing where it suddenly goes up for no reason and I managed to cash out enough money to keep traveling.

Eastern Europe, July 2019

In late July, I returned to Sweden to collect my bike and continued south through eastern Germany, briefly visiting friends in Berlin before hitting Hungary. I had managed to scrape together enough work by now that I was just about breaking even each day. Hungary is cheap as chips so I had an amazing time in Budapest before continuing on to Romania.

My cycle trip in Romania was interrupted when I made some friends in Brasov and decided to stick around for a few weeks. I loved Brasov so much that I even began investigating the possibility of living there with the aim to return once I had completed my trip. It was now almost August and I had secured enough work that I was making decent money. However, I clearly hadn’t budgeted properly for the road ahead.

A cafe in Sighisoara, Romania. July 2019

Croatia, Greece, and Burning Man, August 2019

Due to bad planning on my part, I had tried to squeeze way too many things into August. First I would go to Modem Festival in Croatia then immediately onto an expensive week in Greece before flying to California for Burning Man. It was all too much, too close together, and not only did it cost too much but it meant I did very little work in August.

By early September I was nearly broke and crashing on a couch in San Francisco. The accommodation was kindly gifted to me by a friendly burner, his phone number still scrawled in permanent marker on my forearm since day one of the Burn. With the last of my cash, I managed to make my way back to Paris and then on to Berlin where I spent a month bouncing between friend’s sofas.

As I turned 38 that month, sleeping on a single mattress on the floor of my friend’s kitchen, I realized that digital nomading is not all beaches and cocktails.

“Save your money, man, save your money…”

My view from the kitchen floor, Berlin. September 2019

Travel, interrupted.

Naturally, I did find more work, saved money, and continued on my travels. After completing the rest of my cycle trip through Serbia and Bulgaria, I went to visit my parents in Cyprus. Initially, the plan from there was to continue south from Egypt through East Africa and complete the second leg of my Cairo to Cape Town cycle route.

However, the experience in Europe had jarred me and I no longer had the reckless abandon which previously would have sent me unprepared into Africa. With a weakened spirit and my first self-employed tax deadline looming, I threw in the towel and returned to South Africa to figure out my future.

It was fortunate that I did because soon after returning another client of mine went bust, leaving me with two weeks of unpaid work for which I’ve never been compensated.

Tax hell

Just before Christmas, I decided to save money by completing my first ever tax return all by myself. DON’T DO THIS. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NO TRY TO DO THIS!

Needless to say, I got so many things wrong the tax office probably thought I was attempting tax evasion before speaking to me on the phone and realizing I was far too stupid for such advanced trickery. In the end, it all worked out okay but I wasted about two weeks fixing it and the stress probably took a few years off my life. Trust me, just get yourself an accountant.

All in all, it worked out for the best because if I hadn’t returned home I would be quarantined somewhere in Sudan right now. I still love my digital nomad lifestyle more than ever and couldn’t possibly consider returning to a desk job – I just need to figure out how to make it more secure, streamlined, and profitable. 

Luckily, mother nature has forced me into a position to do just that.

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[ciathyzareposts]

Command : Modern Operations – Birth of a Scenario Part 1

CMO offers a host of new and exciting features that I’ve been eager to tear into. Except life had other plans and I’ve had to sit on the sidelines since launch. Now though I’m getting back into it and am going to walk through a scenario I’ve had in mind for awhile. The Soviet invasion of Sweden.

I know, stop the music, the Soviet Invasion of Sweden? Yup!

Sweden was neutral in the Cold War. A big empty spot on the map between Norway and the Soviet Union. Sweden managed a pseudo neutrality in WW2 but provided Germany with a good deal of iron ore. So what would they do, what could they do, in a Cold War gone Hot?

Luckily a good poster elaborated.

The strategic reality of Sweden in the Cold War revolves around The Great Naval Invasion. The Warsaw Pact was expected to only care about Sweden as a minor speed bump on the way to their strategic objectives – the Sound and the Norwegian North Sea harbors. Possibly they could be interested in Gotland (which was fundamentally indefensible, but the attempt had to be made) and in a decapitation strike on Stockholm as well, but that was pretty much it. Reaching the Norwegian coast was a matter of crossing many hundred kilometers of frozen taiga and sub-arctic mountains with incredibly poor infrastructure, and that war was expected to become the Winter War 2.0. The Sound and the decapitation strike though were a different matter. To accomplish either objective, a naval invasion was needed.

When people look at Cold War Sweden they kind of assume that NATO support must’ve been expected, because of course the idea of Sweden winning a war against the Soviet Union is absurd. However, Swedish operational planning did not actually expect or plan for any military NATO help. The NATO cooperation was on a subtler level and more political than anything else. If you’re thinking that, well, in that case the Swedish operational planning was pretty much a very complicated way to say dulce et decorum est pro patria mori and delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, then, well, you’d be wrong. The Swedish plan was to win the war, to win it alone, to win it quickly and decisively. Not winning in the sense of dictating terms from the ruins of Moskva, but winning in the sense of eliminating the military threat to Sweden for the immediate future. The planners saw one way to do that and then they bet on that horse with almost everything they had.

The way you win a land war in Asia is by not fighting it. Everyone knows this. Sweden attempting to delay the Soviet Union would be idiotic. There is nothing good that could ever come from that. Instead, the Swedish military focused with laser-like intensity on the Great Naval Invasion. It was the Soviet Achilles heel, the only point at which there was a fighting chance, the one moment where the war could be won. Push the landing force back into the sea, destroy the specialized landing craft (a scarce strategic resource for the Soviets) and there you go – you can sit back and stare at the Russians over the Baltic Sea in relative safety. If they establish a beachhead and start shipping in Guards tank armies, might as well throw in the towel immediately, because there is no winning that game.

This is what the S-tank was built for and why half of all the tanks in the country were stationed so stupidly close to the Iron Curtain (seriously, you could reach their tank garages with rocket artillery from across the Sound). East Germany and Poland were too close, the sea too narrow and the travel time too short for the navy and the air force (the Swedish air force was and to some extent still is specialized on anti-ship strikes) to take much of a bite out of the landing craft, so the army had to shoulder more of the burden. The plan in the 60’s and 70’s was to take every tank and APC that could be scrounged up and start rolling towards the sea as fast as the tracks would carry them. As soon as the brigades were concentrated and rolling on the open roads, they were expected to take horrifying losses from air strikes, but that was part of the calculation. Go for the beachhead, establish close contact as soon as possible to make it unpalatable for the enemy to use tactical nukes (since they’d be hitting their own guys too), and either you reach the sea or you run out of tanks. That’s it, that’s the plan, the one chance to win the war. If it doesn’t work, then the infantry brigades get to fill the entire southern half of the country with mines and it’s time for the delaying tactics while waiting for an unlikely bailout from NATO, but that doesn’t involve much tanking.

TheFluff

This stuck with me for a long time. Could Sweden have defeated the Soviets? They could swing through Finland and come from the north but it’s a loooong way with mediocre infrastructure.

But why would they risk an angry porcupine of S-Tanks? Soviet doctrine intended to capture from Shetlands north to Iceland and use it to harass incoming units from the US such as REFORGER showed. Without locking down Norway the US now had an unsinkable aircraft carrier that could hit at the North Flank of the Soviet advance.

There is actually Soviet planning along these lines but it is from the 1950’s-1960’s. Stalin really didn’t care if his forces got nuked, things changed post Kruschev. As I don’t want scenario bloat, I’m going to just focus on Sweden.

Originally I wanted to focus on 1970 but I miss out on an iconic Swedish aircraft.

The Viggen.

On top of that I ran into an oddity of the CMO databases that proved frustrating. In a nutshell there is two databases. One for the Cold War, another for everything post Cold War. CMO uses database ID’s (DBID) to define if something is a pier or a missile battery.

Using the Import/Export Units function I can easily draw in a huge variety of Swedish installations. One problem though, they are all tied in to the DB3000 (Modern Database). So if I try to use the Cold War DB the DBID’s don’t match up.

I tried to get fancy and write a Python script to convert the installation files to a version with the proper DB3000 ID’s. It became an exercise in coding that I didn’t feel like getting into. (Note, let me know if you’re into Python…)

On the up side I just bumped it to 1990 and can easily use the DB3000 without any issues and still get a very wide variety of Cold War aircraft. Plus we get the Viggen at the peak.

We’re lucky as Sweden has a really great selection of installations available. Now this is just facilities, but it’s a great start.

With a couple of clicks I can load in all of the Swedish Air Wing bases. Note that I had to de-select some doubles and select the earlier option.

There! But we’ve got no planes. Or radar. Or surface units or…

Now things get a bit more interesting as I’ll have to research what was available and place it in likely positions. I’m using a Google Sheet to build my research. For starters I’m working off of a Rand research paper from 2005 that describes the state of the Swedish Air Force in 1990 very well.

Rand – https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2007/R4007.pdf

This gives us a great start, and for the moment all I’m focusing on is building the force allocation. I may use some lua scripting to populate the air bases as the generic unit names that CMO creates are US centric. I’ll probably use a Swedish Name Generator to give the scenario some flair.

I’m testing out Github for some version control. It’s not really designed for something like this as I can’t see my changes in the actual code (which is OK) so I just have to comment my versions accordingly. Hopefully this will help once the scenario gets larger. It really works well on code…

I’m working on storing all of my lua externally so as to make it easier for future reference. As you can see on the above generic lua script all of my changes are tracked.

Once I’ve got some bones on the scenario we’ll take another look.

The post Command : Modern Operations – Birth of a Scenario Part 1 appeared first on The Strategy Gamer.

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[awanderingscribbler]

New Post has been published on A Wandering Scribbler & Co.

New Post has been published on https://awanderingscribbler.com/2018/05/25/my-favorite-things-about-helsinki/

My Favorite Things About Helsinki

Helsinki.  What do you think of?  Maybe the cold? Well, yeah it’s cold.  What else?  Well I’m here to tell you what else.  On our recent trip to Scandinavia we stayed in Helsinki and explored the city with my local-ish sister while she was living there.  I had been to Helsinki a few years ago and really enjoyed my time.  Now that I brought my son back with me, I wanted to put together a post about some of my favorite things.

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My Favorite Things in Helsinki

1. The Coffee

I love coffee.  I think any parent, especially one of an infant, and one traveling would agree that caffeine equals happiness.  In Helsinki, that happiness is everywhere.  When I say Finns love their coffee, I’m not joking.  Coffee comes in different strengths for consumption throughout the day, flavors, and brands, making buying coffee for our apartment a much more thoughtful process that when I usually grab whatever can from the shelf.

2. The Sea

I love being on the water.  We took a ferry to Tallinn for the day and got to see all of the crazy boats carving their way through the icy water.  We took a ferry to Stockholm as well and spent the night on board and watched all of the little islands float past us.  We also, and I couldn’t recommend this more, took a dip in the Sea Pools in Helsinki.  The Sea Pools are like the tourist version of what I’m sure happens most places around Scandinavia.  Basically there is a warm pool, and then a pool made from the water in the harbor, and is about that same temperature.  You alternate between the two pools as well as taking a break in the Sauna.

I braved the icy water a few times but definitely enjoyed getting back into that warm water.  This isn’t something for little kids though, and luckily I had some people to watch Andrew while me and my sisters tested our nerves.

3. The Market

The market down by the harbor is what I love about markets.  There was tons of food, tons of little bits to look at, and tons of weird things to oogle.  Especially after being out the in the cold, to come in, yes, have a cup of coffee, and warm up was a more than welcome relief.

4. The Weather

I did just say it was cold, but, as someone who now lives in Texas, and hates the feeling of sweating by just existing, I enjoy being cold, rather than hot.  I like bundling up in jackets and boots and hats.  Andrew didn’t even mind being in his little stroller cozy.  When we went in March it wasn’t too snowy (except for a few dustings), and we were able to explore and have the excuse to go into shops to warm up (look around).

5. The Price

So Helsinki isn’t cheap like you would find in Eastern Europe or (better yet) Southeast Asia. BUT, compared to the rest of Scandinavia, it’s a welcome respite from the very expensive meals and hotels.  We spent the longest amount of time on our trip in Helsinki which was partially planned that way for cost, and because my sister was living there.  Taking a hop over to Estonia gives an even better value for your money.  And while Finland isn’t technically Scandinavia, there are a lot of the same esthetics you’ll see elsewhere and plenty of unique finds that make Helsinki a must-see on your list.

6. The Convenience for Baby

For anyone looking to take your baby or even toddler on a trip for the first time, Helsinki (and Scandinavia) is a great place to start.  I’ve found that many other countries in Europe don’t have all of the conveniences in place that Helsinki had for baby.  I always found a changing table (and a clean one) when I needed it.  The public transportation was easy to use with a stroller, and there were always high chairs or play areas when we needed them.  They also had plenty of selections for baby food, formula, and diapers.  Now, that’s not to say that other cities around the world aren’t baby friendly.  I just found that I had a great experience with my son in Helsinki and know that it would be a great choice for other families with young children.

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If you ever find yourself going to Scandinavia, definitely check out Helsinki.  With a great atmosphere, friendly culture, and overall baby-friendliness, it’s a must-visit for families.

Have you ever been to Helsinki?

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[workingontravel]

It’s ok being in the same place for a while

(A Swedish translation of this text can be found here.)

I got to know Aino Ihanainen and Alexander Weibel Weibel a couple of years ago. Every time I met them, they had always just arrived or were just leaving. I was curious about their perspective on travelling for work, both because they have worked and travelled so much, and because they have worked and travelled so much as a couple. They also come from circus, which gives yet another perspective on how work travel can be organised. I asked them about all this. They gave me many answers, as well as stories from life on the road.

Aino Ihanainen and Alexander Weibel Weibel:

Alex: A big part of the job for everyone in the circus field is travel. Only if you are teaching in a school, you might be more stable in one spot. We usually travel to perform, to create a show or to give workshops. We go everywhere. In general, we travel in Europe, but we work all over the world. I was in Australia twice last year and in the US once this year. Soon we are going to China. Aino: We travel to different contexts where we know people and where we are invited: festivals or stages or educations. There are many in our field who travel like that. It’s the same for all our friends: Now they are here, then they are going there, and someone else comes to stay for some days. There is always this change in who is around. Alex: Because circus is so small – a much smaller circuit than for example dance – you quickly get to know people from all over the world. In general, circus artists are specialised in one thing that only they do. Also because of that, they tour a lot.

Aino: For me, the travelling started when I did my first solo after circus school in Finland. I got residencies around Europe and working opportunities. And then I got to work with the company Cirkör and travelled around Europe, the States and South America. The first time we were touring with Cirkör, it was such a change compared to the life I had before. It changed the meaning of home into life in a suitcase.

Alex: I did circus educations in Madrid, Russia and then Sweden. After that, I’ve been based here, and I met Aino when we were working in the same production for Cirkör six years ago. Touring gets you very close to people. It was actually one of the times when we were touring that Aino and I started to get to know each other more intimately. Aino: We had all kinds of ways of sneaking into hotel rooms. By the roof outside the window, for example. Alex: Yes, Aino climbed out the window and came to mine. We weren’t thinking of what we did as something serious from the beginning, so we wanted to keep a low profile. But then it grew. It became like that through working and spending so much time together.

Aino: After that we started to work together with our own things. Alex did his Master’s project and I was helping, but it ended up so that I was also in the performance. It worked well enough so we wanted to continue working together.

Alex: A lot of things are clearer now. Now we are together, before we weren’t. And now we do work together. We’re making a new show. We’re going to different residencies to rehearse: some in Sweden and then Spain, Prague and Riga. After that, we’re performing in China and Spain and Saint Petersburg and Finland with the previous piece we did. That show fits into the van. Aino: We won’t go to China with the van, though. Alex: And we travel quite a lot by plane in Europe, too.

Aino: Too much. Alex: If there were less flying, there would be less travel. We wouldn’t go to China to do three shows and come back. It would very much change how the circus world works.

Aino: Then the structures would need to change so that you could take the train or the bus all the way to China, having different stops along the route. But it’s also a question of time and money. Who has the time and money to travel for months? Alex: I think everything would have to change if we couldn’t fly. But it has canged before. Both with cheap flights and with YouTube. That’s been something very remote and exotic, and at some point it didn’t exist. One thing that has changed already in travel since we started working is that they are a lot stricter about luggage now. The violin is a bigger problem than before to take on board.

Aino: It’s crazy that it’s cheaper to fly than to take the train. Even within countries: flying from here to Gothenburg.

Alex: But we take the train if we’re in Sweden. To Finland we go by boat.

Aino: We often fly to Finland, as well. Alex: It depends on the gig and what we have to bring.

Aino: And the time frame. It takes so much longer to go by car or train.

Alex: We also go camping with the van for our own entertainment. Like this year, we have some months when we don’t know what we will do; so we will probably be… travelling. We like to be on the road. But there were a lot more shows before, with Cirkör. They always try to book as many shows as possible in a month. We try to do the opposite. We do the minimum, so that we can be free. We also try to get the gigs in nice places and stay there longer. Places where we haven’t been, warm places, or even cold places if it’s a bit out of the ordinary: something that is not this. Aino: Before, we travelled a lot with a group. Now it’s been more just the two of us, which is nice and sometimes horrible because we are very different. When we travel together in this small space that the van is, we get confronted with that. Then it’s good to have some time to do your own thing. We have these days or weeks when we have breaks from travelling and from being together all the time.

Alex: You also learn how the other person is and what provokes difficulties: You learn to make sure people have food, people have slept or whatever it is that triggers these issues. When to say stop, take a step back, or push. I remember before we even had the van. We had a car and we slept in a trailer behind it. We had been driving for a million hours and were in the middle of who knows what country. It was two in the morning. I was parking and I was not very good at backing up so we got stuck. That was horrible, but it was our own fault for driving so long and being so tired.

Aino: I think it’s good that we don’t live in the same place in Stockholm, though, that we both have our own space. I’ve also been staying at his place, or kept my things at his place. Now I have a place of my own, but I’ve had all sorts of living situations over these five-six years. I’ve moved like twenty times. I have stayed on everyone’s sofa.    I was more of a home person back in Finland, but I don’t feel I ever had a home in Sweden. It’s always been for some weeks or months but it’s not my home. I guess I’ve got used to it. If I had a place that felt like home, I would put things up and make it my space. I think I have that kind of need somewhere, because I’m a very visual person and I like some things that I carry with me. But I’ve been too lazy to start that kind of project.

Alex: I’ve been the one who had a place. One reason I’ve stayed here in Stockholm for so long is I’ve been lucky with the apartment. I’ve been happy to be there. For me, it has always been very important to have a physical base. Aino: Because he’s a hoarder.

Alex: I have a lot of instruments, equipment: stuff. But finding the van changed the way I saw things. It’s such freedom to just drive, park wherever we want, sleep there, cook. That made me think that I don’t need much. And then I had to leave the previous apartment because the owner needed it. And I was, like: “Well, maybe I don’t want an apartment.”    Now I’m staying at this apartment where I just moved in, and I can stay here for long, and it’s nice, but I’m not sure I will. I’ve always been good at making an effort: painting, fixing things, hanging all my instruments, whatever I need to feel that it’s my place and that I can do whatever I want. Now I don’t think I’m as interested in doing that. I’d rather make something in the van and go. The only thing is that it’s too cold to live in the van in the winter here.

Aino: I think you never wanted to stay in Stockholm, in a way. And I haven’t liked Stockholm either, so I’ve been trying to tell myself that I’m not going to stay here, that I’ll go somewhere else. That’s another reason why I haven’t made something here. But there are so many good things here. Everything works. There’s a good training space.

Alex: There’s a lot of funding.

Aino: All the structures are there and they work.

Alex: There’s good education. You can do a Master in circus. You can even do a PhD in circus. These are things that don’t exist in the rest of the world. But then, the more you travel, the more you want to spend time in these other places. It’s hard to decide where to live.

Aino: Where and why.

Alex: With the kind of work we have, the important thing is to travel to wherever the shows are. In a way, it doesn't matter from where you’re travelling. So you end up living where there are enough reasons to keep you. Maybe I have started to lose my reasons to stay in Stockholm. The biggest problem is that it’s an extremely boring city. You can find good people and contexts if you plan in advance, but I’ve tried a lot to find things spontaneously – social life, people talking, a little concert. I’ve been walking around alone in the cold and the dark. If I found something, it was closing and expensive. When I travel to all these other places where it’s different and then come back I’m like: “Why was I here again?”

Aino: I could imagine moving to central Europe or even Southern Europe. It would be nice to be in a Spanish-speaking place, because I’m slowly learning Spanish.

Alex: It’s ok being in the same place for a while as long as I know I’m going to leave. Even if that place would be a perfect place, I think I would still want to travel, but then go back to the perfect place in-between. I love to travel. Like the first trips we did with the van. We worked in Spain, then went to Berlin, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and took the boat to Stockholm from there. It was great to have that freedom: seeing, exploring, stopping, taking pictures, whatever.    Me and Aino are very different when we travel. I’m in contact with a lot of people online or on the phone every day and talk about what is happening. If I’m not there physically, I still feel very connected.

Aino: I don’t have a need to write every day. Also when he’s away, I’m not writing to him. My family and friends back home are more used to it now, but he gets angry. It might take days for me to answer messages. I always try to be better at that, but then I never manage. I don’t feel much need for messages unless something special has happened. Maybe I care less about daily things. It’s nicer for me to have that kind of conversation with the person directly, not via messenger. Also, I’m not good at writing. It takes forever and I get frustrated. It just doesn’t feel like the best way of communicating.    If someone is having changes in life, I like to be in contact even if I’m not there. But it’s not the same as being there. I have missed so many things back in Finland while working far away: family gatherings, friends’ weddings, school class reunions, important concerts or shows. The most difficult thing to miss so far was when I was in a residency in Norway and learning that my grandfather had passed away. It was hard to be far from the family at that time.    Apart from this thing of missing out, getting from point A to point B is the part of travelling that I like the least. Basically, if you could just skip the travelling part in the travelling, it would be perfect. Layovers are the worst, and sitting on your seat for hours isn’t so nice either. But I also kind of enjoy watching movies on long-distance flights and having nothing else to do.

Alex: If you do several long trips in a short period, you get used to it. But it also depends on how much stuff you’re travelling with. I think I never travelled with just a backpack in my whole life. Always a violin and a suitcase. If you’re going to fly, getting to and from the airport is always a pain in the ass because you have to carry all the suitcases and at the same time figure out where you’re going. It’s uncomfortable, it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s raining, it’s snowing. I prefer the van. If I could just always be transported from home in whatever vehicle I’d be travelling with, I’d be fine.    I want my future travels to be smooth. Apart from that, I hope that we can keep this lifestyle until we feel we’ve had enough.

Aino: Maybe we will find our next base through the travel.

Alex: The van breaks down in the middle of the trip: Voilà, that’s our new base. Aino: Could happen.

Alex: Actually, I think our home, as well as our relationship, is wherever we are. I think it’s more about us, not our place.

[asylumseekernet-blog]

We are from every color, every country, every nation. Hundreds of Swedish Institute (SI) scholarship holders from tens of countries came together in Stockholm on 30 September 2017 so as to meet, share, change and transform. Each scholarship holder, who studies at the level of master, doctorate and post-doctorate in various fields such as public health, engineering, women’s studies and immigration at different universities in different cities of Sweden, is a global leader candidate in his or her field. For not ruining but building this time or for correcting and maintaining the correct one. For social equality, for environmental sustainability, for a world without hunger.

The day-long event started early in the morning with the arrival of the scholarship holders to the meeting hotel and taking their badges after their registration. In the event presented by Madeleine Mattsson, the welcome speech was followed by the promotion of the Swedish Institute News Service, and the scholarship holders were told that they could share a wide variety of contents from personal to general on the platform.

Kurt Bratteby karşılama konuşmasını yaparken.

Linnéa Lindgren (solda) ve Madeleine Mattsson (sağda) günün programını paylaşıyor.

İsveç Enstitüsü Haber Servisi’nden David Landes (solda) ve Sophie (sağda).

Tartışma gruplarından bir kare.

Başarılı öykücü John Alexander.

Subsequently, the presentation of Liridona Sopjani from Kosovo, who came to Sweden for a master study as an SI scholarship holder a few years ago, and then, was accepted as a doctoral student here, was motivating and encouraging. Liridona Sopjani, who shared her experiences before and after her visit to Sweden, underlined that Sweden is a country of great opportunities for a scientist and shared the details of her ‘Grandma Knows Best’ initiative with scholarship holders. Liridona Sopjani aims to take the knowledge and skills she has gained here to her own country, Kosovo, in the near future.

And, fika! Did you know that Sweden is the country that consumes the most coffee in the world after Finland? And did you know that it is one of the countries with the greatest number of scientists in the world compared to the population? It is not known how much it is related to it, but fika, which means ‘coffee break’, is one of Sweden’s indispensabilities. They even say that if you want to flirt with a Swedish girl or boy, invite her to a fika and do not attempt to drink lemonade instead of coffee; otherwise, you may lose it from the very beginning!

And, certainly, one of the most fascinating sessions of the day was the presentation of the lecturer and ‘storyteller’ John Alexander. The successful storyteller John Alexander, who shared with us what sort of cultural shocks he had as an Australian in Sweden in which he arrived years ago, and how he adapted to them, made all of us laugh throughout his presentation, and we actually felt that there is a very entertaining side of the adaptation to the new people and the relevant new culture in a new country. In Sweden, sometimes, it snows so much in the winter months that your car becomes invisible under that snow. And, one morning, (well, even in the morning, indeed, the weather is totally dark; because in winter it is only 3-5 hours daylight in Sweden, which is actually a twilight), you try to get your car out of the snow. But what is it! You realize that the car, you have been trying to get out of the snow for hours, is not yours but your neighbor’s!

Kosovalı doktora öğrencisi ve eski bursiyer Liridona Sopjani.

Yerel ağlar sunumu. Soldan sağa: Madeleine Mattsson, Kanaan Manasrah, Anup Banerjee, Myroslava Zaiets ve Marcela Miranda Francisco.

After a delightful lunch, this time, the SI scholarship holders, who created their own local networks at different universities in different cities of Sweden and developed new projects through these new networks, took to the stage, and each of them shared their experiences, knowledge, and of course, the challenges as well as the beauties regarding their projects. The SI is a little different from other scholarship sources in the world. It does not just give scholarships to its students but also encourages them to socialize with each other, just like the Stockholm meeting, to develop new local networks, and to create new projects together in these networks. Moreover, it also funds them in themselves. Last year, 16 different projects were realized in this framework. Each project involving study visits, seminars or events with different contents is supported by the SI with up to a total amount of 20,000 SEK (approximately 2,000 Euros) in two installments, fall and spring.

At the end of the day, two parallel sessions were held. Mia Crawford, Deputy Director Global Agenda of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, gave a presentation on Agenda 2030, which included information on what Sweden is doing and will do on the relevant Agenda. At this point, it is useful to underline that the environmentalist Sweden has a feminist Foreign Ministry. In this country, where women and women’s work are appreciated, almost half of the parliament is made up of women. Additionally, the presentation titled ‘Swedish Language Introduction’ by Peter Lundkvist from Stockholm University showed us what a harmonious and musical language this Scandinavian country actually has. Swedish language is like a song, like a poem. If you wish to learn this language one day, I suggest that you start with Swedish songs and poems.

Buluşmada bir başka kaynaşma anı.

Bangladeşli katılımcılar.

Endonezyalı katılımcılar.

Öğle yemeğinden bir kare.

I have to admit that Stockholm is a very beautiful city. But my city, Norrköping, is much more beautiful. In the evening, on my return from Stockholm, my dear Norrköping welcomed me with the Cultural Night events. On any streets, there were concert areas set up in open areas or under tents, tens and sometimes hundreds of crowd were singing and dancing in company with different music bands. Then, you would enter the indoor spaces, and this time, you would encounter the photograph and painting exhibitions. And, even in the personal room (kitchen) of my institute, REMESO, nice people would wait for you to accompany you at the events outside, to say “the night is not over yet!” and to introduce you to new people: a former scholarship holder Edyta who said that she could join us in the local network project we plan to prepare within the SI; Marietta who gave tips on the places and spaces to photograph the most beautiful landscapes in Norrkköping; and, Sofia who is another doctorate student using critical discourse analysis in her academic studies just like me. Norrköping is beautiful, and beautiful are the people.

Norrköping Kültür Gecesi’nde bir fotoğraf ve resim sergisi.

Sergiden sanatsal bir kare: Sofia.

Kültür Gecesi Norrköping.

Stockholm Meeting of Future Global Leaders - Sweden, Europe We are from every color, every country, every nation. Hundreds of Swedish Institute (SI) scholarship holders from tens of countries came together in Stockholm on 30 September 2017 so as to meet, share, change and transform.

[buttonpusherdiy]

EXCLUSIVE - NYOS Interview

NYOS are an instrumental duo from Finland, they release their third album “Navigation” on the 29th September. We caught up with guitarist Tom Brooke ahead of the release.... 

Hi Tom, Please can you introduce the band?

Hey Marty! Nice to to talk to you... we're NYOS, a noisy instrumental duo based in Jyväskylä, Finland!

Where does the name come from and what does it mean?

NYOS is actually a lake in Cameroon which is located in the crater of an inactive volcano... the lake is saturated with carbon dioxide due to the layers of magma below the surface and has been known to have dramatic and unpredictable eruptions of carbon dioxide... there are only three known lakes like this in the world, and it can be really dangerous. We wanted a name for the band somehow associated with nature, and its power and unpredictablity, so when we read about lake NYOS, it really hit the spot and just stuck with us...

Who are your biggest influences?

That's always a super hard question, as we listen to all sorts of stuff and we've always had a pretty free approach to writing music for NYOS. Both of us are lucky enough to have jobs where we're around music all of the time (Tuomas, the drummer works in a record store, and I'm a recording engineer), Tuomas is a big rap and pop fan but comes from the Jyväsklä punk rock scene, and I kinda tend to just immerse myself in whatever I'm recording at the time these days... So I guess in someway the variety music we come across in our daily lives is probably the biggest influencer for how we go about things.

In terms of somewhat relevant bands to NYOS, for me at least, as a reluctant guitarist, the biggest influences would be bands like Don Caballero and Battles who have kinda led the way with the possibilities of looping (a total life saver for me, musically)...

You're releasing your third album "Navigation" in September, how was the recording process for you?

Navigation was an equally fun and painstaking album to record for us! We recorded, as with the previous albums, at my studio here in the Finnish countryside, but this time we made a real effort to be a lot more strict with both our playing, and also the sounds. We made a point to have a little more variety to the soundscapes, as the last record, Nature was intentionally recorded in quite a flowy, consistent way. We spent a lot of time tuning or even changing the drum kit to suit each song (and sometimes even half way through the track) and I spent a lot more time playing around with different effects and guitar tones than ever before!

We also decided to treat ourselves by hiring Mandy Parnell, who is an amazing engineer to master the record. She has mastered a bunch of our collective favourite albums (Björk, Go Go Penguin etc) so it was a real pleasure to have the final polish on the record done by such a pro!

Is it much different being in charge or recording your own album compared to working with a producer?

Yeah, I guess so... at least with NYOS, I've recorded everything we've done to date, so we don't really have a comparison, but for me personally, I like the simplicity of doing things myself, these songs all have relatively weird structures, and really high track counts, due to the amount of layers and loops involved, so to not have to spend time explaining this stuff to an outsider definitely makes things easier! That being said, I don't think we're ruling out ever recording elsewhere, that would be a good experience too!!

Have you guys any plans to tour the record in the UK?

We have a busy Autumn/Winter ahead touring the new album! We'll do a large European tour from late September through to mid November, and yeah as part of that we're actually coming to the UK (my country of birth!) for the first time! We're really looking forward to that one!

Any crazy tour stories you'd like to share?

No comment... :)

Where can people find out more about you guys?

You can find us on the usual internet sites, facebook, bandcamp & Instagram

Or alternatively, come say hello on one of our coming tour dates:

27.09 - Oulu, FI @ Tukikohta 28.09 - Tampere, FI @ Vastavirta 29.09 - Turku, FI @ TVO 30.09 - Seinajoki, FI @ Bar15 04.10 - Jyväskylä, FI @ Lutakko 05.10 - Helsinki, FI @ Bar Loose 06.10 - Lappeenranta, FI @ Galleria HOI SIE 07.10 - St Petersburg, RU @ Fish Fabrique Nouvelle 08.10 - Tallinn, EE @ Helikopter 09.10 - Riga, LV @ DEPO 10.10 - Vilnius, LT @ XI20   11.10 - Budapest, HU @ Robot w/Melt Banana 12.10 - Linz, AT @ Secret Location 13.10 - Leipzig, DE @ Ex-Black Hammer 14.10 - Berlin, DE @ Schokoladen 15.10 - Nurnberg, DE @ Kunstverein 16.10 - Zurich, CH @ Boschbar 17.10 - Geneva, CH @ Urgence Disk Records 19.10 - Munich, DE @ Container Collective 20.10 - Ybbsitz, AT @ Kiwi 21.10 - Murska Soboda, SI @ MIKK 22.10 - Szeged, HU @ Grand Café 24.10 - Brno, CZ @ Bajkazyl 25.10 - Pilsen, CZ @ Pod Lampou 26.10 - Bamberg, DE @ Pizzini 27.10 - Mannheim, DE @ Wir Sind Die Toten Fest 29.10 - Norwich, UK @ The Rumsey Wells 30.10 - London, UK @ The Unicorn 31.10 - Glasgow, UK @ Bloc 01.11 - Leeds, UK @ CHUNK 02.11 - Rouen, FR @ Le 3 Pièces 03.11 - Strasbourg, FR @ Le Diamant D’or 04.11 - Karlsruhe, DE @ P8 05.11 - Frankfurt, DE @ Klapperfeld 06.11 - Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang 07.11 - Aalborg, DK @ 1000fryd 08.11 - Oldenburg, DE @ MTS LP’s & CD’s 09.11 - Siegen, DE @ Vortex 10.11 - Rostock, DE @ Subset Fest 12.11 - Stockholm, SE @ Cyklopen

Navigation is released on Meta Matter Records on the 29th September and is available to pre-order here now - http://bit.ly/1T6EuF3