Since my hobbies include Getting Nothing Done and Not Finishing What I’ve Already Started I’ve now spent several hours successfully avoiding the tasks I set out to fulfill today. The opened Kalevalas and dictionaries lie ignored on the table as I type away about trivialities and aimlessly browse the internet. The untouched coffee I brewed for breakfast three hours ago now emanates a burnt and unpleasant odour in the kitchen. This clearly is the preparatory phase of Actually Doing Something. It might or might not lead to concrete results. I might start translating the new batch of text for the Amorphis project I received earlier this week , or I might get distracted and go and brush my teeth instead. I might do both. This is called multitasking. A very good example of my multitasking abilities was when yesterday evening I caught myself gradually washing the dishes, hanging the laundry out to dry, shaving and watching “Friends” on TV, basically all at the same time. This modus operandi of mine occasionally causes irritation to arise within the otherwise lovely bosom of The Loved One. I understand her reaction up to a point, although I like to emphasise the fact that even though nothing seemingly gets done, every respective project will eventually reach its’ natural conclusion. As sure as the seasons change, and sometimes over as long a timespan, but conclude they will anyway.



THIS WEEKS’ GLIMPSE INTO VISUAL ARTISTRY:
The most fitting way to start presenting paintings and painters I like would be with Elihu Vedder since his mural called “Government” from the wall of Library Of Congress Washington D.C. is also the pompously chosen emblem of this here blog. I see no reason to cut and paste any information about his works and/or life because this here wikipedia link neatly sums up all the facts one probably needs to know. He was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement I have always found very fascinating. His works are delightful and beautiful to look at. Here’s a gallery of his paintings at ArtMagick, a place of infinite visual delights. This is the text on their front page and very apt an description it is too: “ArtMagick is a virtual gallery dedicated to the continual quest of seeking out obscure 19th century artists and long-forgotten paintings showing a "magic world of romance and pictured poetry". The majority of the content in the archive covers the Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist movements.“

Pictured left we see Elihu himself, assumingly lost in longing thoughts of the time before Raphael took over the world of visual arts, looking very solemn in his cassock and the unreal moustache that must have added a fair amount of challenge to eating soup. I dare not even think about the restrictions his facial hair probably presented to the act of kissing the wife.

THIS WEEKS ALBUM OF CHOICE:
“Passion” by Peter Gabriel. Almost entirely instrumental soundtrack to the film “The Last Temptation of Christ” and my number one choice for music to play in the background while I’m concentrating on other things. I’ve also used this as a soundtrack for napping, for drifting in and out of sleep and receiving irrational visions while doing so. This enhances the experience, as well as being beautiful, calming down and soothing music for all occasions. I also liked the film quite a lot.

On an not-totally-unrelated note, here’s Peter Gabriel performing live the song called “Darkness” from his 2002-released “Up”-album. Looks and sounds very impressing and enchanting.



THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Café Culture Pinotage, red wine from South Africa. First impressions first: oh my god this tastes horrible. I had decanted the wine and let it catch its’ breath a bit before pouring it in the glass. There was no buoquet to speak of and certainly none of the loudly advertised coffee aromas. The taste was all over the place and oppressingly heavy, rolling around in the mouth killing everything in its’ way. It settled down a little when paired with spicy fajitas but still its’ level of full-bodiedness was very near to crushing annihilation. This is not how I like my red wine and I swore never to have another glass of this exotic magma again. A few hours later I had another glass of the exotic magma and found it having developed some nuances missing during the first encounter. Now the bouquet had a strong sense of mocha and the taste had settled down a lot, almost to the point of being fit for drinking. The coffee flavour was beguiling and I quite enjoyed the second glass. This was an experience probably worth experiencing but will not be re-experienced. I’ll stick to lighter old world red wines for a while now.

Long Nose Gewürztraminer, white wine from South Africa. First impressions first: there’s an elephant pictured on the label but oh my god this tastes horrible. Clearly my tastebuds are not comfortably compatible with South African wines. I was looking forward to checking out this unpronounceable grape and had prepared a spicy asian wok to go with it. The disappointment was grand. The bouquet was an onslaught of candy-like, syrupy dishwater (probably the “rose petals” the blurb on the label advertised) and the actual taste was like old socks boiled in watered-down perfume with some extra mustiness thrown in. Although I’m not familiar, as such, with the taste of scented boiling water of old socks, I can only imagine it would taste something like this.

It’s amazing how much this was not a good wine at all in my opinion. The Loved One shared my opinion on this so into the kitchen sink went the remaining contents of our glasses once the judgement was sealed. The bottle was re-screwcapped and stealthily placed outside our front door on the street. This might sound like a curious activity at first, but considering the nature of the district we live in and our past experiences with bottle-placing it makes more sense. I checked 15 minutes later and, to my surprise, found the bottle still there, intact, but, it being Friday evening and all, by the time of a recheck an hour later the Long Nose was duly gone and presumably also consumed too, in several long swigs of the kind that pays not much attention to perfumed bouquets or the amount of rose petalness of the beverage in question.

Schloss Schönborn Riesling Trocken, white wine from Germany. After all the tumult and mayhem of the South African wines this failed to make much of an impression, being probably way too subtle and sophisticated to pull the strings that pull out the loudest responses. I need to give dry German Rieslings a fairer chance once I’m in a more responsive mood. This one left the impression of being a subdued and unremarkable wine, with a high level of acidity and not much other qualities. I still prefer well-balanced and harmonious wines like this to the kind of wham-bam one trick ponies like the ones mentioned above.

I’ve been a little at a loss for the past few days. The translation project started so well that I was frustrated to run out of material this quickly. The tracks are getting cold and it’s always hard to pick up the pieces after a longer pause and try to continue in the same vein. I’ve always preferred to write the individual lyrics in as short a period of time as possible, to capture the frame of mind unaltered and have been hesitant to add anything later on because it feels wrong. Of course there are subtle differences between writing a single lyric for your own band in a precise state of mind and spewing out some 15 translations for someone others’ band, trying to keep the same spiritual focus but the main principle is the same. I wind myself up until I see where the text comes from and then I write it down while unwinding.

Since I haven’t been able to do what I’ve racked myself up to do I’ve been forced to look for other pastimes, like updating my data on ancient heavy rock singers.

THIS WEEKS’ SOURCE OF DELIGHT:
Ian Gillan! Seen here in a recent backstage footage, with a saucepan apparently stuck on his head. You can’t help admiring a man with a saucepan stuck on his head. Plus he’s been quite a capable singer at times, although mosly not for the last 20 or so years. I stumbled upon his webpage www.gillan.com and found a lot of interesting and entertaining things to read there. His writing is very witty and I’ve been searching for his autobiography for several years now, without success. I’ve always been a big Deep Purple fan and in my tender years also liked to listen to albums by his later band, called Gillan. I recently checked out some of them and found them to be horrible. I also checked out some of his earlier, more jazz-oriented Ian Gillan Band material and found these albums to be utterly horrible. The Deep Purple stuff is timeless, though. Here’s a decent take on “Child In Time” by the afore-mentioned utterly horrible Ian Gillan Band, filmed in 1977. After the pretentious intro they cease to be utterly horrible for a moment and give the song some new shades.



Here’s the only decent song from Deep Purple’s “House Of Blue Light”-album, the opener “Bad Attitude” with a kind of fat and greasy groove to it that makes me want to listen to it over and over again. I don’t know what is it that appeals to me in that guitar riff but I think it’s bloody great.



THIS WEEKS’ BOOKS OF CHOICE:
“The Last Coin” by James P. Blaylock. I’m two thirds into it now and it starts unveiling after a longish build-up. There exist 30 silver coins that were used to pay off Judas Iscariot. Judas became immortal as a punishment for betraying Jesus, and the coins were scattered around the globe, never to be re-united again. Their combined power is not yet very clearly explained in the book but it’s very distinctly suggested that gathering them together in the same place wouldn’t be a good idea. Then there’s the bad guy, reeking of evil, and the unsure and clumsy good guy, reeking of fish and unpainted wall of the house among other things. The coins are, of course, unstoppably coming together.

It’s been entertaining, reading this book, but it hasn’t actually sucked me in and I’m hesitant about reading further books by mr. Blaylock. I like the way he uses the language and find myself regularly reaching for a dictionary to find out what is the meaning of this adjective or that verb. So his sentences are rich, descriptive and sometimes very well built, but the overall storyline is quite silly and there’s no evidence of real warmth and depth in here.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
When I joined Sinisthra on 2001 (still called Nevergreen back then) I was initiated into new drinking habits as well as a new way to express myself musically. I had spent the previous five years in a punk band where the primary choice of alcoholic beverage was beer and anything with fermentation of grapes included in the manufacturing process was greatly frowned upon and loudly mocked at. Because people who drank red wine were scarve-wearing velvet-trousered bullshit-talking sissy no good fuckers who might, unexpectedly and without any warning, go ahead and quote poetry at you if you didn’t keep your vigil at all times.

I embraced this welcome change, swapped my bondage pants and extra large Ramones t-shirts for flared jeans and extra small t-shirts with no band names on them, started to write lyrics occasionally bordering on poesy and took a plunge into the world of red wine. It was always Italian, it was always as cheap as possible, and it was always drunk straight from the bottle until the bottle was empty. Many, if not all of those once-favourites are no longer available in Finland and their names escape me now.

Il Papavero Rosso is a new Italian red wine that got excellent reviews from a finnish wine-magazine so I went out and got a bottle of it, priced 6 euros. I would have loved this to pieces back in 2001 and guzzled it down by bucketloads. Tasting it now, I find nothing much to complain. It’s very easy to drink yet still maintains some character and boldness compared to, for example, some of the bland California reds in the same price range. Not very full-flavoured or heavy, this is a very good choice if you just want to get drunk and probably an ideal partner for pasta or pizza. Highly recommended.

After spending the past 4 hours in a folkloristic stupor of translating these finely crafted Finnish poems of Karelian national epicness into cliché-ridden lines of heavy metal lyrics in English, I’m now very grateful indeed to punch in a full stop to it for the time being and switch on to writing this blog where I can say things I’m in no way allowed to say in the context of heroic verse about skyforging and stuff. Like “fuck”.

So: Fuck. Fucking hell, to be more precise. With maybe an exclamation mark added at the end. My head is swimming with archaic terms and descriptions of deeds more grandiose and large-scale than a person born on the 20^th century could possibly come to grips with. The original plan was to really delve into Kalevala, in both languages, before writing anything down. That plan is now discarded on the grounds of being too much to handle. As I stuffed new information of happenings and goings-on into my memory, older bits of knowledge kept flaking and falling off at an increasing pace. So now I just take a maximum of four verses at a time under careful scrutiny and proceed from there, hoping to maintain some of the original quality of the text. Four songs translated so far, eleven still to go. On top of all the other interesting things I’m now also aware of Various Charms, including a Charm to Calm Down Snakes, a Charm to Prevent Dogs from Barking, and a Charm for Magic Ski Equipment. I’m sure this recent awareness has enriched my life in some as of yet undiscovered way, but I can’t help wondering whether there exists a Charm for Getting Back In Touch With Reality. Cause I could really use that now.

THIS WEEKS ALBUM OF CHOICE:
“Perfect Strangers” by Deep Purple. I don’t know why I dug this album out but I’m moderately glad I did. It’s better than I remembered. I originally waited for it to be released with the kind of feverish anticipation one might wait for the Second Coming and when it finally was released, back in ’84, I took to it like only a 14 year old who loved the Purple albums of 70’s can and who had no idea what a lyric like “Knocking At Your Back Door” actually meant. Later on I found it a bit appalling and not holding up very well against the passing of time. Listening to it now, the overall sound is a bit too 80’s to be called any good, especially the drums sound tinny and powerless, and Ian Gillan’s style of bawling vocal delivery gets too much at times, but all in all the good songs outnumber the not-so-good songs. “Wasted Sunsets” is a genuinely good and beautiful song, one of Purple’s greatest ballads in my opinion, with touching lyrics. Mostly the lyrics on the album are along the lines of embarrassing and/or plain horrible. The present day me, as opposed to a 14-year old me, knows very well what “Knocking At Your Back Door” means and can only admire the nerve of a lyricist who can come up with something like that. It’s a great song though, containing all the elements of a classic Purple sound. The title track is another magnificent one, as is the closer “Hungry Daze”.

Shame it didn’t last. The follow up album “House Of Blue Light” was a horrible let down. Here’s the video for “Perfect Strangers”.




THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Upon entering the liquor store, I did get distracted by an label showing an elephant, just as I assumed I would, in the last post. So I bought all kinds of other bottles but not the Fillaboa albarino I was after. Later on the existing Fillaboa, lurking in the drinks cabinet, was duly opened and consumed, and although it didn’t turn out to be that remarkable, yesterday I still found myself hunting after the remaining bottles in various Alkos around my vicinity.
In the evening we had a lovely dinner at the Loved One’s brothers’ house and had some Veuve Clicquot vintage champagne among other things. As my opportunities to have genuine champagne are usually somewhat limited this came as a pleasant surprise. We brought them a bottle of Lagar De Cervera albarino as a gift and I hope they will have as nice a time with it as we would have had.

The autumn winds have taken to howling and the darkness has taken to descending with way more determination than is needed at this time of the year. My energy levels are plummeting and my spirits aren’t exactly at an all time high. This is what the onslaught of autumn does to people, both physically and mentally. If only I wasn’t so tired all the time, if only I could sleep one more hour in the mornings, if only my dayjob wouldn’t take so much of my time and most of my energy, if only I could sleep three more hours in the mornings. My work isn’t a problem as such because I like what I do and it’s a reasonably well-paid job, it’s just these early waking hours that are murdering me when it’s not summertime, and also the lack of free time to do whatever I fancy, i.e. to write and to just generally ponder upon things.

There was also a line-up change in Sinisthra, mostly orchestrated by me, and having to tell an old and dear friend that it’s not working out anymore is heartbreaking, especially so since it wasn’t because of flaws in his ability or commitment. Mr.Korkkinen recently moved to another city, far enough to seriously complicate matters that already were complicated enough so the only rational option was to replace him with a bass player who lives much closer. We’ll see how this affects the band once we get things underway again. I can’t help feeling like having stabbed Jari in the back although he seems to have taken this with good-ish grace. I’m aware that certain bands function well enough with members having a lot more distance between them than in our case, some bands even with people living in different countries. I’m also aware that this, somehow, wouldn’t work for Sinisthra.

Today I received the first files of an imminent lyrical project I’m involved in. I did a similar kind of translation-of-verse-in-Finnish-to-lyrics-in-English two years ago (for the “Silent Waters”-album by Amorphis) and am very much looking forward to doing this. If only I wasn’t so tired all the time. I’m sorely in need of, say, a weeks’ holiday, to research and do my groundwork more thoroughly than last time around.Yesterday I received an old translation of Kalevala from Amazon.com and a newer translation should arrive any day now too. Cross-referencing both volumes, as well as my Finnish version (printed on 1910 and originally owned by my great-grandmother, retrieved from the attic of my childhood home where the cats had used it as a makeshift sandbox for years), then delving into the actual text to translate, magnificently written by Pekka Kainulainen , then trying to add my own layer to it while staying true to Pekka’s text.. maybe a weeks’ holiday is a bit too short after all. The tragic part is I don’t even have that free week to spare right now and can only hopelessly dream of a longer period of free time. Yet another fine example of how everyday life gets in the way of Making Art and in the worst case, prevents it from happening altogether.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Cousterac Reserve from France. My efforts at trying to find something to complain about this nice red wine proved futile. It smells good, it tastes good and leaves everything looking a little rosier for a while after having gone down. The label of the bottle doesn’t reveal much in the way of the grapes used so I researched it a little and now know that it’s a blend of four grape varietals already identified in ancient Rome. This trivial piece of information is of the “completely useless”-variety, the kind I’m particularly fond of. I’m also particularly fond of this wine now and will not hesitate to buy another bottle when the stars are in a favourable position for something like that.

Santa Julia Viognier from Argentina. Bleak, watery, thin of both colour and taste. Forgettable to the point of already having forgotten whatever feelings and impressions this white wine stirred in me three days ago when I sampled it. Didn’t go very well with pasta containing tomato and tunafish, and wasn’t exactly supposed to as I found out later. Maybe it would have prospered coupled with a spicy oriental wok. Won’t buy this again and won’t probably bother with viogniers for a while. I’m clearly not able to enjoy them as much as I’d like to. Or maybe I’m just grumpy because I’m feeling tired with some additional wretchedness thrown in and the weather forecast promises heavy rain for tomorrow.

Pazo Senorans Albarino from Spain is not available in Finland, probably because it’s way too lovely and wonderful. Me and the Loved One had a magnificent Saturday evening a few weeks ago, involving a bottle of this with an excellent dinner. One of the very few white wines I’ve tasted that can maintain it’s magnificence even after having warmed up in a glass for quite some time. This article may shed some light on why I’m so fond of albarinos (“it tastes like no other dry white wine from anywhere”) but find it hard to come across similar experiences with other white wines. Fillaboa, the only albarino available in Finland is a delisted product in Alko, meaning the price has plummeted some 5 euros and is now a reasonable 11,30 euros but there’s not many bottles left. There’s one in my drinks cabinet at the moment, to be consumed at the first suitable opportunity, and the most sensible thing to do would be to purchase several bottles of it before it’s completely sold out. Probably I’ll end up getting distracted by an etiquette with an elephant on it and buy something else entirely.

Writing a blog is a curious business. It’s intricate and direct at the same time and a writer can be painstakingly open and brutally honest if the readers can be guaranteed to be total strangers. Then again, if half the relatives, friends and friends’ relatives read it too the writer may sometimes feel the need to be a bit more vague and considerate in what is revealed and in what way are these revelations presented. I occasionally read, with great interest and delight, the blogs of people I know nothing about and will never knowingly meet. I like to see what a random stranger has to say and sometimes I check back later on to catch up on the possible updates. Of course some mutual points of interest is needed between me and the writer and usually it’s related to literature, music or maybe wines.

Reading the blog of someone you know is not as straightforward. The feeling of uneasiness is not that easily eased and voyeuristic guilt tends to raise its’ head pretty fast if people close to you start opening up about personal or perhaps even intimate things in public. None of my closest people have started a blog so far, or if someone has I’m not aware of it. I’m not sure how frequently I would read what they had to say if someone decided to start writing. Written text is always so easy to misinterpret and find (often nonexistent) meanings from. I should know this, after having bashed at or longed for my previous lovers and entensively whined about how miserable my life generally was, for years at Sinisthra.com under the title “Pressure Valve”. Numerous were the times when I was confronted in a bar with questions like “how can you write things like that about me?”. There, of course, is no valid answer to something like that. Sometimes I felt more justified and and sometimes I felt less justified about distilling fiction from grains of truth. Poetic licence is a very feeble excuse indeed but it was all I had to offer as a way of explanation.

That’s all firmly in the past tense now but although I’m more at peace with myself now than I was back then, I still like to just start writing and see what comes out. And I like to publicly contradict myself. Keeping this blog is the best way I could think of to satisfy that need. It didn’t feel right to flood the Sinisthra forum with all kinds of nonsense posts about what books I’m reading or whatever things might irrationally catch my fancy. And I really wanted to keep track of nice things I experienced, whether it was music, wine or something else. Basically this is my private diary, hopefully with enough vagueness added to keep it from becoming embarrassingly detailed so others can read it too. The comments are disabled because I’m not interested in people commenting on what I write. Whatever is written is not written to be commented upon, it’s written because I felt like writing it.

So far I haven’t felt like putting on display any more essential trivia I was so keen on digging up some years ago. I honestly thought I would but since I haven’t there’s not much point in forcing the silliness. Seems I veer towards tediousness these days. I also like to steer clear of personal puns as much as I can, although not mentioning this would be utter madness: Mr. Mäkinen and his family moved to a bigger apartment in a building next door last weekend and in the heated activity generated by large number of people, some of them presumably at various stages of inebriation, carrying bags and boxes, extremely eager to help, someone set forth a set of events that culminated today in people receiving text messages from him telling that generally it all went very well thank you, except for the minor detail of a sack containing all his clothes having been unretrievably disposed to the garbage compressor.

What’s the meaning of this posts’ title then? How should I know. I woke up with it in my head this morning. Putting it on display here is probably a prime example of unneeded usage of poetic licence.

THIS WEEKS’ BOOKS OF CHOICE:
I’m ever so slowly wading through “The Encyclopedia Of Stupidity”. It consists of very short essays portraying stupidity in different forms and I suspect it tries to shed some light on the anatomy of stupidity and how it has affected everything during the course of recorded history. I only read it at bed, a few pages every evening before going to sleep so it all feels very surreal and I’m not likely to remember anything about it once the book is finished.

The Literature Map is a great device for finding new authors you might like. Just type in the name of an author whos’ books you’ve enjoyed and it displays an animated cloud of other authors around the name you typed, the closer the location of the name, the more resemblances between the authors. And just now as I tried it out it seems to be out of order. But I’ve used it for over a year without any fusses. The latest name it’s given me is James Blaylock and I’ve just started reading one of his books. More of this later.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
I like Portugal. They have Moonspell, vinho verde, presumably a very nice weather and lovely landscapes if you know where to look for them, and they produce some amazing red wines. Like Fonte do Beco. It’s made of a grape I’ve never heard of before and described to be lithe, full-bodied, with hints of vanilla and coffee. The strongish, unusual dominant taste of it was probably vanilla then. The bouquet persistently reminded me of a sauna near a lake although that must have been the “coffee”-part. The taste was wonderful and it strangely made me and the Loved One separately both long for some cheese. Which we are not usually in the habit of having while enjoying wine. The only cheese available was mild emmental and that didn’t exactly do the trick but once the wine was decanted it opened up and didn't ask for some cheese to go anymore. The next day it tasted even better but on the third day the remnants of it had lost a lot of whatever made it great, according to the Loved One. I wasn’t sure if I spotted any difference or not, with my blocked nostril and goldfish memory. Still, a most lovely wine indeed and very likely to be bought again.

I thought it was time find out whatever I might think of Sauvignon Blanc so I looked around a little and instead of a French wine went for Marichal from Uruguay. Wasn’t very impressed at all. There was too much evidence of the pungent qualities I can’t describe more closely and am not looking forward to finding in white wine. I was also a bit surprised to see the year 2008 on the label. It’s been pressed from grapes only a few months ago. Also from the label I found out that “Uruguay” means in native language “River of the painted birds” and wondered for a while why on earth would anyone want to paint a bird and what are the benefits of a painted bird compared to a non-painted one? Cultural differences probably prevent me from understanding this. Incidentally later on the same day I was offered a glass of Frech Sauvignon Blanc, called Les Fumées Blanches and I found it just as not to my taste as Marichal so I guess I can safely say Sauvignon Blancs are not for me. Sometime ago, when I was asked to choose wines for an after-wedding party I ended up deciding between Les Fumees and South African Chenin Blanc KWV and fortunately chose KWV. It was delicious and perfect for a sunny afternoon on a pier by the seaside but regrettably only available in 3 litre boxes. I can't post a pictorial proof of how delicious the wine was by the seaside because the photos contain more male nudity than is absolutely necessary, but I’m sure Sauvignon Blanc wouldn’t have been able to conjure up such light-mindedness.