favorite trousers!

i have been avoiding sale shopping. truthfully, i haven't had the time or the energy lately. my brief very work-filled visit to turku resulted in a very unusual encounter: a pair of navy chino trousers.

i never shop at gina tricot. in all honesty nothing there ever strikes me as pleasant to the touch although i've seen some amazing looking items on others. and i am a very touchy-feely person.

therefore, to my surprise when i spent the evening flaneuring around the city after an exhausting day of cleaning code (those who cannot create, clean... let's just say my capability to produce fully functional code is limited.) i stumbled into the new (to me) store and found these babies for (freakin' crying out loud!) 9,90€. for real.

they're soft, baggy, work with both heels and flats, casual for a day of lounging and easy enough to boost towards a more preppy look, and just about the greatest pair of summer pants there is.



have you found your comfort zone on sale?

true apple style.

holy ghost! have been known as a creative remix team with only a few original songs, such as the critically acclaimed "hold on". a couple of weeks ago they released a single "i will come back" via green label sound. for free, i might add. the tune has been playing non-stop since then at both my gigs and home, and now that they released a video that celebrates nyc, the city i hold so dear, i shall not hesitate a moment longer to give you this in case you haven't stumbled upon it somewhere already. love it!



the video is a remake of new order's classic "confusion" and the cameo role of producer arthur baker is reenacted by the man himself! how cool is that?

the apple and the tree.

although a thoroughly urban being, i have found myself vacuumed into country life quite unexpectedly. not saying i haven't been aware of getting in the car with the cottage in mind, but my stern resolutions of just spending my time on the terrace reading a book has dissolved into taking part in countryside activities. rather hesitantly i must admit to liking some of it; contrary to my beliefs i have started to find digging dirt somewhat relaxing. just like my mom.

all summer weekends are booked because we share two cottages between my sweetie and i. astonishingly, packing and planning our free time has made me more aware of growing up. since i don't have children and have not needed to assume responsibility for another generation, my realizations of obligations stem from my parents and our changing relationship. part of the discernment that parents are aging is noting that you float into a position of command in unprecedented areas. at some point summer houses become the responsibility of children, both materially and financially. my family still negotiates our responsibilities and i hesitate presenting my improvement ideas to dad: i don't want him to feel i'm stepping on toes or assuming control. my influence is, nevertheless, visible and it has become obvious that spending time "buys" one votes for development ideas.

vacation houses are lots of work. at the garden cottage we grow veggies and berries. at the sea cottage we mostly relax, but there's plenty of basic maintenance work all the time. timber-happily we cut down several large trees last winter which means lots and lots of dragging, chopping, piling and axing. as children you're hardly aware of the amount of time that goes into maintaining a comfortable environment shunning on chores and believing summer goes on forever. i have grown manifestly vexed over the insufficient number of summer weekends. thus, i am beginning to grasp the uneasiness my mother dealt with scarce time.

the growing up process with its additional responsibilities pays off. we divided our time between both cottages last weekend and came home with a hefty pile of different kinds of lettuce, potatoes, spinach and herbs. we planted the leek, fennel, brussels sprout outside, and some chili indoors. the greenhouse looks sparse, but believe me, there is plenty of yummy green coming up. it surprises me how excited i am about that...

are you slowly turning into your mother?

the heat.

i hardly went outside yesterday. although i'm a fan of warmth, enough heat collapses my bodily functions. therefore, i stay indoors and only briefly visit the balcony.

the view from the balcony at midnight was spectacular: muted reds and pinks that blended with our blooming flowers. finally, it seems, we've been able to acquire potted flowers that can resist the heat.

i keep wondering whether it is better for the environment to store water in the fridge, make ice cubes or let the water run from the tap until it's cold in order to get the necessary refreshment. anyone?

thinking outside the box.

[i edited the text below ever so slightly because of logical gaps i ignored in my turmoil of emotion. hopefully it makes more sense now.]

i have been meaning to write about some of the reasons i found academic life implausible. brought to tears today not only because i recently lost my mother to brain cancer but also because a friend of mine lost her husband and became a widower before turning 30 years old next week, i will write about one of the reasons i left my job and nowadays consider an academic career a non-option.

working in academia is all but financially secure. most research is funded with grants that individuals and research groups compete for with applications they take significant time writing. application and evaluation processes vary, but the most common standard is that each academic discipline is evaluated separately by experts in each field. i believe it healthy to assume that most applicants would deserve a grant; the reason some are left out is more often the lack of money rather than an undeserving application. my point being that many who definitely had the potential for brilliant research are left without funding. therefore, applications are written with funding in mind, often compromising intellectual desires.

the makings of a great scientist and researcher are few, but essential: the ability to grasp and handle vast amounts of knowledge and the ability to argue a point. meticulousness is also essential. the single trait most often not associated with doing research, but which is the most important, is creativity. to be a brilliant scientist you need the ability to ask questions no-one thought about before, to question accepted realities and to combine acquired knowledge in unprecedented ways. if you're pushed to compromise your ability to question, the entire process of doing research loses its appeal.

sure lots of important research battles ancient questions, but also finding new interpretations of age-old theories is definitely a creative process. it is also a passionate process. all research innovations are made by those who think outside the box. (apologies for the blah terminology...)

the trend of doing interdisciplinary work receives much official support: the future of research is visioned in novel combinations and cross-sections of traditional disciplinary fields. the problem is that researchers are extremely possessive with their fields of expertise. asking questions that are untraditional is sometimes aggravation enough, but when posed by someone trained in an altogether different field, they are received with ridicule or considered almost blasphemous even when a basic knowledge of the field is more than explicit. researchers are very territorial, to put it mildly.

mastering two different fields is obviously demanding, but not at all unheard of. nevertheless, applying for a grant with an multidisciplinary topic is more often than not directed at only one of the fields it concerns leaving the applicant hanging on the graciousness of the evaluators' understanding. fairly often they receive a review saying the research proposal is too vague or not exactly in the target group. not asking the right questions, that is. our funding system is built to support rigid disciplinary boundaries and, thus, does not offer valuable space for the much lauded interdisciplinary work. the same applies to publishing forums and conferences where multidisciplinary ideas are often shunned upon. the politics of science protect the status quo despite claims otherwise.

i am not saying that every unorthodox question is worthy of exploring. i only mean that sometimes it takes someone marginal or a complete outsider to ask the questions that will enable a field of research to take the right direction. to demonstrate i will use an example of research in an area that touches most people including myself: cancer.

finding a cure for cancer must be the epitome of medical aspirations. cancer continues to confuse, confront and convulse us regardless of the vast amount of research time and funding used to understand why our cells all of a sudden start growing uncontrollably and, ultimately, suffocate our organs resulting in death.

finding a cure for cancer surely would diminish the amount of suffering amongst people. unfortunately we're nowhere near a breakthrough big enough to count as a cure. thanks to years of research we have many forms of treatment, but mortality rates have not diminished significantly.

it took an engineer with personal grief to question the balance of cancer research favoring finding a cure over the effort put into early detection methods. i found out about don listwin in an article in wired magazine. he witnessed his mother's fatal journey with cancer. his path was not unlike my own: both our mothers were misdiagnosed until there was fairly little that could be done. his mother was given antibiotics for bladder infections until her ovarian cancer was stage IV; mine visited her neurologist regularly due to a stroke some years ago, but her complaints were not interpreted correctly until she forgot my name and an aggressive tumor the size of a tennis ball was found in her temporal lobe. like all people dealing with cancer loss, i deal the best i can, but listwin, however, a wealthy cisco executive, left the company and a few years later started the canary foundation.

it is a well-established fact that most forms of cancer, if caught early, are treatable and survival rates are high. although many small breakthroughs offer more forms of treatment, the increases in survival rates are fairly insignificantly associated with better treatments. however pre-screenings, for example the pap smear screening women for early signs of cervical cancer, have diminished mortality by over a half.

the primary reason cancer is so fatal comes down to poor detection. when reaching stage III and IV (the scale used on most cancers is I-IV), mortality rates are crushingly high. nevertheless, over 90% of cancer research is targeted at finding late-stage treatments and drug development rather than diagnosis and early detection.

listwin asked the improbable and questioned the rationale of finding more treatments instead of creating methods of screening early signs of cancer in the body. if we were able to locate the proteins cancerous cells release in our bloodstream, the already existing treatments would save many lives. being an outsider in the business of medicine, he raised his voice with the aid of money: by recruiting the best oncologists, geneticists, biochemists and so on, he has created a non-profit research group in search of a pack of screening methods for the most common and deadliest malignancies. the improbable just got more so with the knowledge that listwin encourages results that are efficient and low-cost in order for them to be widely used.

imagine if melanomas, breast, pancreatic, lung and brain tumors could be screened at a relatively low cost from the entire population. what has become a reality with the pap smear and cervical cancer could happen with the most disastrous of cancers. mistaken diagnoses could become obsolete. receiving devastating prognoses talking about months to live could become a part of the sad history of human healthcare. imagine that.

nonetheless, finding a cure is still an important goal to reach. screenings will always fail to locate all people and all tumors. but locating cancer early is almost as good as finding a cure, and we need to ask ourselves: are we chasing the right chalice?

sometimes someone from the outside is needed to halt our quest for the grail and ask ourselves whether the quest is worth ignoring all else. examples like the canary foundation prove the worthiness of bringing novel viewpoints into an established field. although my own research was nowhere near as essential as cancer research, i had multidisciplinary ambitions similar to colleagues who were regularly left without funding.

the kinds of alterations in thinking that listwin is a prime example of hardly happen with the current style of research funding and promotion. i was lucky for the entire 7 years for having continuous grants and research positions, but i did not see potential for asking the questions i wanted to. i was by no means alone with my concerns but there wasn't a philanthropist like listwin in sight. hence, my choice to leave. the kinds of it is discouraging to note that the doors of academia are not exactly open to creativity.

i wanna be a hippy.

i overall like all strong style statements regardless of their type. present me with a goth, a preppy boy or a drag queen and i'll admire them for creating a look from significant historical references and as an expression of personality.

but i do have a problem with one particular style: the hippie. i'm sure my comments about disliking hippies in anu's, anna's and sugar kane's blogs have caused nausea because of repetition, but the hair on the back of my arms stands up when i see a bonafide hippy style statement. my disgust applies to high street fashion, as well, and every spring i loathe the arrival of "hippie chic" summer fashion that come with the same certainty as the sailor look.

the reasoning behind my attitude is the following. i associate hippies with the narcissistic insouciance expressed by a certain group of people. my stereotypes here are vast and probably very unfair, but i find the characteristics around me too often to my liking.

a hippie is someone who creates a bubble of me-against-the-world around him/herself. they often utter hollow expressions of worry over poor people -- usually acquired as a result of a trip to india where an enlightening hit in the head seems inescapable. i may be too demanding, but if you're unaware of the magnitude of injustice in the world and need to walk amongst to poorest to grasp it, i find it something i'd boast fairly silently about.

because they are pretty much alone against the world, these hippies love to think they're doing tons of good by joining several ngo's and actively take part in meetings. their contribution to these gatherings is usually verbal pondering and a fear of tangible ideas. it may be because of this fear that they enjoy talking about problems far away: concentrating in vague grievances aids in covering up the fact that they aren't really up to more than talk and refuse taking responsibility for local issues. see, i'm a philosopher of action [sic!].

needless to say, a large part of my dislike for hippies comes from personal experience and was acquired during my years as an amnesty international activist: i actually stopped going to meetings because the hippies wanted to moan over the situation in burma for hours but were incapable and scared of planning concrete activity. in the end i showed up once a year and helped organize a fundraising concert which allowed me to do something and avoid the lengthy "discussions".

and yes, they usually wear their henna-dyed hair on dreadlocks (nothing wrong with that, per se), tie-dyed clothes of goa origin (indiska is just fine, if they haven't yet made it to india personally...), enjoy bare feet and colorful scarves. they like to appear sluggish and a little spacey because they associate those characteristics with being deep.

ugh. see, i'm a hater after all... just to add a twist to the story i do have friends, even close ones, who fit into at least some categories of the hippie and i love them dearly. but the style full-blown makes my ear drums pop and my eyes bleed and even a slight suggestion of hippie turns me into alert mode: "am i seeing hippie here, huh?"

i wore this to a presentation on a very hot day. meeting my sister afterwards promoted an instant reaction: "hippie!" which probably clarifies how rare a style choice this is. yes, the shirt is some random indian find from a second hand store, but i tried sharpening it up with a blazer, a briefcase (perfect for a 15" macbook) and ballerinas. i think it looks rather dainty. this is as hippie chic as i will go...

and here's a jam that pretty much sums up my feelings about hippies. technohead and "i want to be a hippy" from 1995.

psycho-babble.

the headline said: "a quarter of finns suffer from depression." the story continued to explain that most finns suffer from mid-severe to severe depression at some time in their lives and that people prone to depressive states are those with a realistic worldview.

set aside the tabloid headline and a short newspaper article with its shortcomings and consider the claim: a realistic worldview now qualifies as an indicator for a diagnosis of a mental disorder?

through the medicalization processes in modern society we've all become increasingly sick. the psychologization of the self has become so commonplace that normal moodswings create suspicion for bipolar syndrome, feeling down is reason enough to pop pills for depression and being happy is regarded as add. an illusion of stability has replaced the feeling and thinking human expression as some utopian ideal of normalcy.

none if this is new: the medicalization and psychologization of society are researched widely (i've done my part some years back..) and we know that an increasing amount of phenomena that used to be labeled under social or everyday variation is nowadays given a medical diagnosis. the idea of medicalization as a complex process is pretty much accepted in social sciences and even by some medical professionals.

what interests me now is the reasoning behind why we go along so eagerly. it appears obvious that scientific explanations are regarded highly by lay(wo)men. medical science, albeit not tension free, still enjoys the status of the highest authority when it comes to human problems. in other words, we trust doctors, medical doctors in particular. we find getting a diagnosis a relief even in situations where there's no cure in sight because it gives us a plausible clarification for the state of affairs we're dealing with. knowledge itself feels valuable.

psychologization, (or psychopathologization) as a form of medicalization, interests me in particular: why do we seem relieved to find out that we're increasingly sick in the head? it's obvious that the stigma of mental disorders has all but vanished and, nevertheless, we are decreasingly preoccupied with having perfect mental health.

part of the explanation might be found in the clever way psycho-babble appeals to our vanity. people who tend to be depressed are described as realistic, intelligent, deep and analytical. people with bipolar syndrome are often superbly smart and creative. people with asperger's, add, ocd's and other such socially debilitating conditions are, well, you get the point already: very smart. having a mental disorder has become associated with intelligence in ways that imply having a well-functioning brain coincides with being sick or abnormal. thus, it seems intelligence has become pathological.

it may have started as an innocent empirical realization: severe mental disorders are quite often associated with people with high forms of intelligence -- but obviously not every time, i.e. children with severe autism are not all idiot savants. after milder disorders were increasingly eagerly diagnosed, the reference to intelligent people tending to have the same condition probably seemed like a reasonable comforting factor. now it is impossible to escape descriptions of support groups and info-sites that do not list intelligence as a common denominator amongst the sufferers of almost every single mental disorder there is. the message seems to be: if you're one of us, it's very likely you're smart!

as a form of intelligence, having a quick wit seems the only kind that is not considered pathological, yet. dwelling on things is fairly close to mild depression. being coldly analytical and detached gives rise to suspicions of asperger's and other forms of autism. enjoying one's job and hating it the next must imply some sort of bipolar syndrome.

sure, you may say. it appears that i'm confusing ordinary people (self-)diagnosing with actual professional work which is far from haphazard insinuations and quick judgments. proper psychological diagnoses are based on thorough evaluation and only conditions that severely damage the capability of the person to function as a part of society are considered illnesses.

i wish it were so. as a person who has received diagnoses for a debated form of mild ocd (because i have a tendency to fidget when i'm stressed out or nervous) and mid-range depression, in addition to a suspicion of bipolar syndrome, all from medical professionals, i consider myself relatively well-functioning even if i say so meself. sure, i've been down and felt my life was going nowhere -- who hasn't? i've suffered under an insane (haha) workload and family problems (such as my mother getting terminally ill) that turned me into an insomniac. all quite self-explanatory, i think. my clarity in explaining my state created suspicions of substance abuse -- oddly when i refused the pills i was offered. moreover, the change that occurred in my mood when i stopped popping sleeping aids and started functioning normally (i.e. quickly) was instantly regarded as a sign of a bipolar mind. needless to say, i don't take the "diagnoses" very seriously and i am quite certain that i am not alone in the receiving end of medical diagnoses that just point out the obvious: sometimes we're happy and sometimes we're not and we react to our different mental states.

every single doctor has comforted me by saying that my reactions and problems are common amongst smart, educated people. why is that, i wonder? if i was conceited i could infer that i must be very smart but that would be poor logic. no doubt that is something they want me to believe -- self-deceptively if nothing else.

why the only way to be labeled normal and sane is to be ditsy and superficial? i mean, when did being worried about one's life's direction and the world become signs of intelligence, because they seem rather basic in a life worth living. yeah, i know not everyone is into wondering, but the aforementioned surely are not issues dwelled on by only the superiorly bright. and if you begin thinking about such issues it's hard not to feel let down or disappointed with a variety of states of affairs.

i still want to think that being sad and happy and everything in between is normal. when sad we're usually incapable of concentrating perfectly and when happy we're sometimes deliriously so. are we really ready to start believing that thinking, analyzing and feeling emotions are all signs of illness? more importantly, are we ready to trade our sanity to illusions of intelligence?

on returning.

lexi asked me a while ago whether i could write about returning home after spending time abroad. since i have always come back home between my visits, my experiences are probably different from those who spend years as expats.

the shortest of the visits i count as "spending time" (rather than just traveling) abroad was a four-month summer job in london. the longest is slightly over a year. my visits have spread over fifteen years and, therefore, my interpretations and experiences are fairly age-bound.

since i'm not exactly sure how to approach the topic, i'll perform a pseudo-interview consisting of questions posed to me by different people when i've returned.

don't you hate noticing how small finland is? as much as i could start lamenting on how depressing it is to return to finland and the tiny little circles of people we deal with here, the fact remains that social circles seem to be almost as small everywhere else you go. the universal capability of people to form a significant relationship with only a limited number of people applies in london, new york city and helsinki alike. our yearning to live amongst people we relate to creates small villages and communities of people inside metropolitan areas: i actually think my neighborhood in willyburg felt more like a community than my hood in helsinki. then again, i hardly ever feel annoyed by bumping into the same people regularly; if anonymity is your thing, then a larger city provides more opportunitites to go incognito.

have you noticed problems with language? this was apparent after my year in toronto. it was the first time i spent several months abroad and i had virtually no finnish contacts. a time of no e-mail and expensive global calls, i spoke my native tongue rarely. i returned with deteriorated finnish which i hated because writing was extremely important to me, and i value our rare linguistic background. more frustrating was to note that my english wasn't exactly impressive either. it was the first time i realized it was extremely easy to slide into a state of poor bilingualism. as a partial solution, i bought thesauruses in both languages and still try to use them regularly.

my accent (or actually lack of) has created more trouble. i have always sounded native as an english speaker and am never mistaken for a foreigner. it has created embarrassing situations with slang recognition and in academic situations where i sound "stupid" because of my comparatively limited active vocabulary. as a finn i tend to use more anglicisms than the average person which i find equally embarrassing and a sign of a poor grasp of lexis.

are there characteristics you find incomprehensible in finns after being away? rudeness: the fact that people stop and stare at you when you try to pass them in crowded spaces uttering an apology. the fact that they rarely apologize after bumping or stomping on you. the fact that apologies are often met with rude remarks. incredible, really.

uncompromising law-obedience: after returning from nyc i walked to a zebra crossing in turku. the red light was on, there were people standing waiting and there were absolutely no cars in sight. a fleeting thought passed my mind that perhaps they knew something i didn't, an inconceivable and invisible threat perhaps, but the second passed and i realized that they were just standing there because of the red light. as i crossed there was a disapproving murmur. hilarious.

rigid ageism: finns seem incredibly intolerant when it comes to behavior, looks and interests that are atypical for a certain age group. this observation may come from the fact that the cities i've lived in are metropolitan areas with global immigrant populations and inhabitants from such a variety of backgrounds that individuality is not sneered upon, and it may well be that the same type of intolerance applies in every country's smaller towns. nonetheless, it is too common that i hear people disapprove of someone choosing something because they are "too old". it saddens me.

i think many of the cultural habits that annoy me nowadays come down to the fact that we're just used to an incredible amount of personal space. not having a translation for "excuse me" kinda points out the obvious, but i am looking forward to a more crowded finland and the cultural development that brings.

any things you value more after being back? modesty: there is a perk to our non-boastful egos. although people are exactly as shallow and egocentric as the next person, we make our judgments without the need to act pompous everywhere. i found it almost degrading when i noticed that in order to have colleagues at columbia pay attention to me i had to utter an abstract cv of my career highlights. it could have been the environment of ruthless ivy league competition, but it feels inhuman to begin from an assumption that people should actively prove their worthiness before being allowed any time socially.

equality in healthcare: my worry over the slow vanishing of the social state grows more intense every moment because of my experiences in countries where economic classes are further apart than in finland. i have seen a roommate travel the subway with a cracked skull after being run over by a taxi while riding his bike on manhattan and waking up in the hospital realizing that being unemployed he cannot afford the bills. his irrationality was not odd, but the fact that he was allowed to leave strikes me as unfathomable. moreover, i have witnessed a friend move to another state to have an operation on his knee because california hospitals are too expensive and his medical insurance won't cover it. moving meant having to quit college and spending his savings on rent and hospital bills.

what was the hardest part in adjusting when back? the fact that people's lives go on regardless of whether you're around or not. thus, feelings of being outside after returning are plentiful. sometimes as short a break as a few months can eradicate a friendship although i'm sure it's rare. there is no amount of story-telling that can compensate the lack of social interaction while away: people grow tired of your anecdotes and feel hesitant of repeating their daily activities.

after a while the time away feels like a social burden you carry with you and hide because it can grown into an annoying bubble your friends ultimately cannot relate to. in the end, your time away is insignificant to even the closest of your friends. personally i felt physical pain after i had to return from nyc and realized i was alone with my yearning. the result was an incredible bitch of a person i am glad is (hopefully) gone...

hopefully i dealt with some of the thoughts lexi hoped i'd clarify. if any of you want to know more, feel free to ask and i look forward to hearing your own experiences. as a finishing note, here's a brilliant new single by holy ghost! called "i will come back".

summer shoulders.

hooray for shoulder pads! for someone like myself who hasn't been blessed with neither a sleek constructed shoulder line nor with the muscular phenomena going on around jennifer garner's clothes hanger (hello! i want that curve!), padding works miracles without looking too ott 80's.

but since i feel fondly about spacey garments and odd shapes, my choice of pads may be more star trek than average. i found this amazing gareth pugh-like cotton dress from h&m divided exclusive line (say what?). stuck in a lonely corner the short rack held a pretty flowery body and a really inviting grey stretch silk dress with ruffles just waiting to be grabbed. but i composed myself and took home only the white space uniform. the sun playing lady gaga on my head just accentuates the ethereal feel i get from wearing this dress.

a little on the short side, i will probably reserve combining it with chunky heels to late at night and stick to flats during the day.

finding the dress reminded me of another little piece i love because of the summery shoulder action: a (play?)jumpsuit from the 80's i bought three years ago from uff. i found it during my rummage through some storage boxes (see, there was color!) and just waited for the heat and some tan to kick in. the fact that i cannot decide whether it is phenomenally ugly or just incredibly cool is probably the reason i love it.

the coral color in combination with curve accentuation looks almost pretty, but the backside definitely reminds one of the downsides of jumpsuits: there isn't one that does not flatten and lengthen the booty. so, call me miss coral longbottom then.
are you fond of shoulder action?

heatwave.

since every day is not an urban beach bum day, i need a respectable look as well. silk is easy and light and as a short dress carries from day till night.

i am not usually a fan of filippa k, but this silk number with ink splashes that resemble a birch camoflage struck me as the perfect dress for both summer and winter. add my office chimera sandal/boots and i'm ready to stroll the streets endlessly.


i also felt like wearing a necklace. not big on accessories and, especially, not exactly excited about pearls, i find this silver and pearl hand by kiwi karen walker beautiful, sensitive and fresh. it's a less rough version of the hand in daniel palillo and lauri johansson collaboration.


enjoy the heat! now i need to get dressed for a wedding...

succexy again.

there is something endearing about the perfect pop song. metric has created a bunch of them, such as "combat baby" on their debut album from 2004. now emily haines (also a member of broken social scene) is back leading her pack with another song that has just the perfect combo of pop sensibility, clear melody and bellowing guitars. it is a simple summer song that will please for years to come. her look of au naturel hair, silver sequins and denim isn't too bad, either.

here's "sick muse". enjoy.

feeling proud?

it is gay pride week in helsinki this week. for those of my readers who fundamentally do not understand why lgbt-people think it is cool to prance around the streets once a year, i could always point out that the rest of the 364 days of the year are reserved for hetero pride. it does not seem to occur to many people that such elementary gestures as holding hands and kissing in public still arouse staring, mockery and violence on our streets if the couple are not of the opposite sex. the basic safety people usually associate with showing affection or communicating with their families is still threatened in non-heterosexual families. it is disturbing.

the origins of gay pride stem from violence. known as the stonewall riots in 1969, the gay community of nyc stood up repeatedly and violently against police persecution after an early morning police raid at stonewall inn in greenwich village. it was almost exactly 40 years ago, and lots of improvements have been made whilst many basic issues remain unsolved. the term 'pride' signifies an opposition to 'gay shame' promoted by many people who wish lgbt-people stayed closeted. the yearly pride weeks are not only carnivals and parties, but also important reminders of a reality not yet a history.

although pride week may seem to some like an in-your-face harassment of hetero-sensibilities, it is not an event the whole lgbt-community embraces. obviously for many the events are just tacky parties with crappy music. also many members of the gay community agree that a closeted or a quiet gay reality is better: keeping private matters private. at the other side is the queer pink block that sees pride as a celebration of gentrification and giving in to heteronormativity. both views are understandable. out'n'proud actions often invite negative consequences -- sometime personal losses. the queer radicals see all of society as distorted and do not want the lgbt-community to start acting "straight" because it would imply an acceptance of hetero-society's norms as just.

i believe everyone has the right to keep their closet door tightly shut if they wish so. the public political debate in finland is still too laden with gay-hatred and ignorance that it is understandable that someone does not want their share of it. then again a mass coming-out event would show quite a different side of our society to those who are drawn to bigotry and hatred.

i also think queer politics have a point: the present social order is everything but pleasant. people are blind to the variety of sexuality even within heterosexuality thinking it gives them a right to marginalize people, and they seem oblivious to the restrictive ideals heteronormativity holds true. the pink block wants to remind people that lgbt-lives are still very much stigmatized and gay shame is very much alive; a viewpoint that sometimes seems born in a privileged theoretical position, since it does not seem that most attendees of gay pride thought their lives were without stigma or shame even nowadays -- gay shame is the reason gay pride happens, right? i just do not quite grasp how detrimental a week of celebration is for a queer future even if the main message of pride was that the gay community is a group of ordinary citizens with ordinary problems in addition to being marginalized in a society that rests on ideals oppressive (albeit not equally) to all.

that said, i am happy to say that i'm participating in the pride week at the wedding of two friends: tomorrow a dear couple of boys are saying their vows and we'll party till early morning. no matter how i twist it i cannot see their act as something they ought to hide or as a sign of submission to requirements of normalcy. knowing their history and the troubles they've suffered, i can only interpret their promise to each other as a single act of bravery, courageous and deserving of great pride.

here's lily allen having her say at homophobics all over the world. not the subtlest of lyrical expressions, but at least her point is loud and clear...

urban beach bum.

finally the heat has reached the city. i am not necessarily a worshipper of ra, but, boi, do i enjoy the warmth.

i moved my office outside to our balcony/terrace and have been squinting away at the screen. we have sun from early morning till early afternoon and i've been immersing the rays every morning. yeah, tanning is hugely detrimental to your health, but my oily skin loves some drying heat. i'm being safe, i assure you and my proneness to sun strokes adds the requirement of headgear.

since i don't frequent a regular office, my daily outfits are dictated by my whims. and whimsical i have been trying out old new things and feeling faint after just putting something on. yeah, i lurve me some heat.

the hot sun brings out the beach bum that out of necessity translates to an office bum with glasses and all. nevertheless, i find dressing in hot weather a nuisance because i feel uneasy with most summer looks: girly dresses easily appear drag-like on me, hippie chic is out of the question and denim is just too blah. i want combinations that spell out "holiday!" and are fit for city streets. again from my "archives" i found these ensembles: only the monki top and the camper sandals are new, everything else is several years old.

in my little world, it is officially summer when i begin wearing bikini tops as bras. although i don't usually wear anything sheer, the bald head feels like an allowance for transparency i'd otherwise consider too tarty; therefore the soft, sheer tee. the pale pink and soft pouchy bag feminize the ensemble that would require a constructed jacket or bottom to look appropriate for anything less leisurely. it's my softie look for a very laidback home office...


today i'm running errands in the city, but since it is my day off, i'm sticking to the beach bum softness. the monki top was a curiosity buy: i usually steer clear of loosely falling tops because they easily make me look top heavy and droopy chested. tying it to the side helps ever so slightly, but it is the neckline detailing that compels me to ignore the boob effect: i absolutely fell in love with the fabric rope. it could be my serious horatio caine face or something else, but i am battling with the little boy effect this urban sailor-stranded-on-a-beach look insinuates. see, the bald is still creating trouble...


how do you create your city suave unofficial looks?

femme fatale.

both anna and anu have considered what it means to be feminine and womanly. my style selves may be multiple, but the primary axis my style ponderings revolve around is femininity. since the notions of feminine versus masculine and womanhood have been and are being analyzed by more scholars than i can count as i write this, i will say very little of generalizable ideas, but will concentrate on my subjective experience and thoughts.

as someone who takes her pomo seriously, i do not believe in a biological basis of womanhood. (and no, i do not mean that we are not bodily beings and that i don't have ovaries; i just do not think it has much to do with how we understand what a woman is or should be.) what we understand as feminine is a culturally produced performative, an active partaking in the repetition of actions and styles categorized as feminine and masculine. and, yes, we do perform the masculine as well to create an intelligible feminine, because a binary is not comprehensible without it's negation.

my upbringing was not traditional although it probably wasn't atypical for mid-seventies: my mother steered clear of creating pressure for traditional expressions of femininity and made sure i never felt certain things were out of my reach because i was a girl. i was a tomboy princess with a vivid imagination.

from very early on, i was aware that i wasn't a pretty girl. i was the kid with a thin angular face who was congratulated because of her wits or talent, but was never the object of cooing or admiring pinches on cheeks. i claim that being pretty or ugly is both a culturally objective state but also a subjective way of being, and i've never associated myself with being pretty. it does not mean that someone might not think i was pretty or beautiful or that i had never heard of such a thing. neither does it imply that i didn't want to be considered pretty. to put it bluntly: being pretty does not imply feeling it and vice versa, and part of our identity is a reference to a level of prettiness, i think.

physically i grew into a gawky teen. i was extremely thin, myopic and had bad skin. lack of body fat translated into a late bloomer and i think i got boobs around my 18th bday. luckily i wasn't teased (at least to my face) so my feelings of not fitting in were the result of self-observation rather than being cast out.

my subjective experience of being a teenage girl was based on being recognized as one by men (on which i congratulated myself) and comparing myself with the confessions my friends made about their experiences. i grew into a woman who bases a fairly insignificant part of her self-esteem on looks and, simultaneously, takes a relatively large amount of time and effort to think about the exterior.

since i was a little girl i was fond of fashion. i left school one day on the third grade because i felt nausea over socks that didn't match my outfit. ever since then i knew not to leave the house unless properly dressed; if it didn't feel right, i knew my day would be ruined. it still applies to a certain extent. this, by no means, meant that my taste or desire for expression was anywhere near conservative.

as a person who keenly observes i soon became aware of how looks could be utilized: i taught myself the rules of seduction and coarseness, and was capable of changing a look from approachable to hostile with a few carefully chosen accessories. i have probably tried almost every single look and made it work. the chameleon is everything but extinct from my being, but has become subtler with time.

the last ten years or so i've hovered around similar styles of expression. my personal look has become a careful balancing of feminine and masculine, usually pushing it slightly towards überfemme by utilizing masculine codes. because what is the ultimate femininity if not a combination of both binary elements with an added strength often associated with masculinity? sure, creating femininity with feminine signifiers works and is often recognized as safe and comforting. but a play of opposites can fortify the intended effect to an extent that reveals the artificiality of the performative. in my case i've never felt the need to push the boundaries away from a recognizable woman, though, but have been seen as a little boy more than once in my life.

to sum it up, i don't do obvious femininity or cute. i am not girly nor am i very soft. on a more subjective level i have felt uneasy with a traditionally feminine or classic style. perhaps it comes down to my face: if everything else in my appearance is feminine and balanced, my face which isn't exactly feminine becomes exaggeratedly not so. in plain english, i look like the ugly girl i am. i also realized that the most conservative (and boring) of men are drawn towards the safely unattractive but feminine girl. sorry boys, you're predictable...

my interpretation of my uneasiness with my looks is most prominent in my longing for androgyny: with long hair i've felt the need to cover up my body which is recognizably womanly and curvy these days. an integral part of me wants to deny an obvious femininity by disturbing the whole. by cutting of my mane, i can deal with my physical womanly features better. a bald head challenges the ideals of womanhood in ways that reflect the edge i require to face the world. as a choice it invites responses that are sometimes hostile (especially from older women) although positive feedback is probably more common. bravery comes up quite a bit, and it may be a bold move because the locks of a lady are one of the most prominent signifiers of femme.

but because i am not a self-sufficient being, i must reflect briefly on the most important aspect of what it means to be a feminine me. as a woman i am, and want to be, an object of desire and admiration -- and i am not saying this is a gender specific need. in my case this does not mean trying to get as many compliments from random people as i can -- quite the opposite, because i am rather selective on whose feedback i take seriously -- but having the acceptance of my nearest and dearest. before cutting my hair i shed a few tears only because my sweetie would not give a straightforward answer on my decision: my greatest fear looks-wise was that i ceased being beautiful for my loved one. it was a relief to realize that my own posture grew straighter and i saw admiration in the eyes of my sweetheart...

how we feel about ourselves as gendered beings is a reflective state of interaction with the people around us who all take part in the performative and act according to the matrix of gendered codes. ideals of beauty, motherhood, sensuality and such do not merely float in the air, but create integrally what is meaningful and intelligible about being a woman. challenging expectations in your own way force everyone around to reconsider their categories of naturalness, beauty, etc. to reveal the instability of our boxes for people.

looks do matter: essentially, politically and personally. however subtle one's reinterpretation of the matrix of gendered meanings is, i think we're quite often moving towards a less restrictive web of ideals. me thinks it's güt.

shed it, sailor!

well, the vote was clear and so was my decision: off came the hair.
after a rather radical hair alteration it is easy to get startled with your own image. i, nevertheless, instantly "recognized" the face from years ago and felt comfy right away.

i'm sure you can relate to the feeling of novelty you get when stepping out with a new haircut for the first time. you're just that bit more self-conscious and aware of your presence. a nervous tick flicking a piece of hair to its proper place. glancing at your image in shop windows. checking that everything is all right. at home you pucker in front of the mirror and take a good critical look, you try out outfits to find which suit the new you the best. check the angles of your face. smooth and puff, scrunch and sleek. it is a very tactile process in addition to visual stimulation.

the first time out feels like homecoming. i had to dj at beatroot, so i chose something comfy and unfrilly. without actually going for it, the tattooed sailor reflected my mood perfectly: a recycled cotton tee from h&m men's department, vintage brooches on both sleeves, cheap monday jeans and a pair of zara heels i bought over a year ago but never wore before. (and, yeah, i had some trouble focusing my eyes on anything else than my camera operating hand...)

i'm definitely liking it and feel, contrary to my fears, prettier (or something like that, dunno really) than in a long while. now i just have to get used to the (positive and negative) attention again...