whoah.

yes, i've been silent again. and i might be for another week because i have not slept nor have i been able to focus on anything else than work.. and an event of love.

last fall i was faced with a question that demanded a clear answer. i had been wondering aloud why pride week in helsinki was so, ahem, unprofessional and a few weeks later received a call where i was bluntly asked: "well, you said you can do it better, here's your chance. are you in?"

and i was. my responsibilities spanned from negotiating sponsors to organizing a few of events out of the over 80 that we had to booking the main artist for the park. somewhere in between i managed the technical production of the website. needless to say, there were numerous other little tasks that somehow appeared because, as volunteer work seems to go, there's always more you can do and if you don't, no-one will.

all this happened in addition to my regular work schedule as it was with everyone else involved; the entire week was put together by a group of volunteers. i cannot say it was easy and the energy that went into details and keeping things under control, was draining.

nonetheless, it has been a rewarding trip.

we made it through and the event week was a blazing success: the overall attendance went up from 19 000 to 30 000, and there were 7000 people in the parade – an all time high.

gathering at the senate square.

singer martina aitolehti with her gorgeous hairdo by mv and the park party hostess, miss jutta pinkkinen.

view from backstage during pmmp gig.

paula from pmmp.

longchamp awarding the cutest girl couple in the park with their limited edition le pliage bag.

drag race in kallio.

a very lonely truck stop late at night on sunday.

now i shall devote a few days to rest and then, hopefully, i'll have some time for this blog. cheerio!

faits-divers.

if you're a history buff, there's no way you could have avoided the decades worth of discourse around the loss of the great narrative, the significance of micro-historical examinations and the need to address times already passed from various different perspectives. the loss of belief in objective historical depictions both binds and liberates: we need to remain critical and interrogative as readers, but we're also allowed to consider a vast and sometimes unexpected body of works as informative.

although meticulous study still follows criteria that seems unsurpassable, works of fiction can reveal aplenty about the era of the writer (and sometimes even the topic) and, moreover, many of us consider (auto)biographies worthy in providing historical perspectives.

i briefly talked about my relationship with (auto)biographies here.

simultaneously with the ever-increasing demand to develop a critical stance towards everything we read, i have found literary experiences that encourage free imagining more appealing. inventive form goes a long way, but in terms of content it seems poems still provide the most self-evident media for guilt-free subjective interpretation and story building.

nevertheless, it is always impressive to find other kinds of sources for my historical imagination to run wild. having an aide at helping me go half-way is also rather great, and as it happens, joanna neborsky took the frugal current affair reports of félix fénéon and illustrated them to provide the flesh of her imagination around what fénéon's writing reveals of the early c20 france. the result is the illustrated three-line novels.

the pictures are as enigmatic as the original excerpts of information, and together they form a collage worthy of building a story around.

de charme, non? available from here.

it gets better.

very late this october a surprising (to me, that is) group in finland decided to take action. they were not people who were unrelated to the topic at hand nor people who had not taken action before – there were think-tankers, digital marketing professionals, celebrities, corporate leaders, politicians, etc – but many of the members of the group had hardly taken a personal is political stance previously.

in a couple of days they put together a video that premiered at the TEDx helsinki conference on one of the first days of november.

i had read about my friends' facebook statuses that "great things were on the way", but nothing prepared me for the actual viral. i cried, and i wasn't the only one.


(if you cannot see the english subtitles, click on cc.)

the past year in finland has felt abrasive. last summer the pride march was attacked. people interviewed on tv, columnists and bloggers have taken their liberties seriously and uttered hurtful words using both their impressions about religion and their right to free speech as excuses. yesterday a "style consultant" asked the gay couples who dared to dance at the president's independence day reception to "show some respect" and refrain from dancing.

just like everywhere around the world, gay kids are more likely to take their own lives than straight ones – the bullying and marginalization is a reality as much here as it is in where the "it gets better" campaign was started, the us.

curiously all of these people claim to know plenty of lgbti-people and that they have close friends from sexual minorities. i am sure they find nothing religiously, stylistically or veraciously problematic about hurting (intentionally?) their other friends, either.

some even ask why gays are above criticism... although none of them can give any other "critical" argument but that they're grossed out about gays (that is, imagining sex between gay men, let's be honest here) and seeing gay people being treated just like others feels like an insult on normality (i.e. forces them to imagine sex between men).

the video above was shown at schools and on all national tv stations and it created such a wave of applause that the force behind it quickly gathered people to write their stories. today, they are launched as a book. it will be available in bookstores nationwide and online (for example here).

all the proceeds go to the youth help line funded by the mannerheim league for child welfare – about which i have distressed views because of their psychiatrist's inexplicable views about gay parenting. nonetheless, the helpline is the only viable one nationally and their work is without hesitation thoroughly admirable.

the book launch is tonight at jenny woo from 7.30pm onwards. there will be a couple of short speeches, some live music, excerpts read from the book and djs, myself included.

welcome.

independent brand.

i took some time this morning to read the piles of newspapers we have accumulated next to the sofa. i have not had a chance to read the paper for almost a fortnight and i looked forward to spreading the large sheets on the coffee table. a beautiful snowfall, a steaming cup of coffee and, finally, a less congested head capable of understanding written material – it started as the perfect morning.

profoundly fitting for the day of finnish independence were the already old news of the finished work of the country brand committee. i had browsed through the book mission for finland! – how finland will solve the world's most wicked problems and clicked their flash filled website. i found the work thoroughly finnish and optimistic – a paradox, as i was to find out this morning.

i had read some reactions to the publication from online journals, but while they were carefully positive or only slightly snickering, i was not prepared for the loathing that hit me in the face from the newspapers' opinions and editorials.

my problem with the entire project was that i do not recognize the sort of nationalistic sentiments in myself that seem prerequisite for partaking in something like this. for me, feeling proud about being a finn seems alien. it is my cultural heritage, heterogeneous as such, but my process of an identity is too multifaceted to support such statements as national pride in all honesty. still i can grasp the objective at hand. or so i thought.

the thing is, it seems many finns found the project with the objective of defining features of finnish society that could be our strengths lacking because the end result wasn't a state of the nation report. the most common source of whining was that the problems we face – longtime unemployment, terrible mental health care, youth marginalization – were not discussed. that the perspective was not that of an average or disadvantaged member of society.

i am sorry but at what point did a listing of strengths need to include the problems? the country branding report was not meant to tell the world (or ourselves) what was wrong with finland, but what was great and unique about it and its people.

moreover, anyone with culturally sensitive reading glasses can infer from many of the tasks where our problems lay: lack of communication, lack of personal social support (in lieu of institutional support) and lack of intergenerational connections. there are suggestions for improvement and change but their focus is on the positive, not the negative.

and that's where the report fails to reach (some) finns.

i guess they got that much right.

happy independence day!

their opinions are meaningless to me. i really like skating and i won't stop.

the imagery of war and upheaval feels so banal these days that newscasts hardly reach me with their clips. distancing oneself from political turmoil has become such a survival tendency that it's sometimes shocking to one's core to realize how elusive human struggles can be even in an age where global messages move at the speed of light.

projects like diesel's new voices in collaboration with dazed digital offer glimpses that remind us of persons carrying on with their lives in areas of which we are usually offered a flattened view of disintegration. to watch skateistan is to enter a microlevel of survival in a hostile environment that no-one wants to preserve.

menmade music.

continuing the theme of my last post, i want to share some music. men is the project started by le tigre members jd samson and johanna fateman that nowadays also includes members from hirsute. following the explicitly political and performance arty footsteps of the riot grrrl electroclash of le tigre, men create danceable queercore sometimes in your face, like in song "credit card babies"...



...and sometimes resorting to more metaphorical finger-pointing, like "off our backs".



for those of you missing le tigre, this may act as some consolation.

guerillart.

one item on my wishlist is definitely this forthcoming book from taschen called trespass. a history of uncommissioned urban art.



although i am a sucker for graffiti books and urban art in general, most publications i have come across have left most of the world out of their descriptions. as if street art was only happening in nyc, london, paris, etc.

in addition to expanding the urban landscape, the book exhibits guerilla art ranging from your classic graffiti to guerilla gardening, performance art and protests. what you receive is a variety of political and societal commentary that redefines, at least for me, the global nature of art as a form of insurgency – even when in forms as cute as graffiti knits.

this was parked just outside our hotel in nyc.

among many others, i was quite impressed by the works of filippo minelli whose contradictions collection had me smirking while feeling rather disturbed.



here's the video introduction (but of course!) to the book:



available in october.

duel of cyborgs.

i would not exaggerate one bit if i said that my livelihood and my life itself was dependent on my computer. i am on my fourth macbook pro and have gone through numerous traveling vessels of the digital highway before them.

i am very much a gadget freak: i had to have an ipod when there wasn't even a click wheel, yet (anyone remember? there were buttons above the wheel...) and naturally i've had an ipad since june although they're still not available in finland and getting apps is a slight hassle. i tap on my iphone constantly and have a habit of clicking and twirling any other phones or players my friends might be carrying.

gadgets are my toys, but also my way to enter and activate reality; my online being is deeply intertwined with my irl (sic!) being and i have trouble grasping people who consider online life somehow distinct, less real or more artificial than physical interaction. "real", for me, does not mean outside digital...

i am, very much, a harawayan cyborg: a being whose sense of the world cannot be explained without machines nor can my sense of reality be understood without digital realities. in other words, a bonafide nerd who rejects dichotomous binaries and boundaries between natural and artificial.

therefore, sometimes it is extremely healthy to pick the bubble of exclusivity – which the ability to be a cyborg in the previously mentioned sense undoubtedly is – and take a look at the cost of my transcendence.

despite never owning a car – and feeling some sense of satisfaction over it – i contribute to a waste problem of a gigantic sort. i sometimes wonder where the tools of my trade and my escapism have ended up once they've been deemed useless.



pieter hugo's permanent error is a collection of photos taken at agbogbloshie market, ghana. as one of the largest wastelands of the digital revolution, it is a toxic environment full of the corpses our freeriding on the information highway produces.

of the 50 million tons of digital waste western countries produce each year, only a fraction is handled here and recycled. the rest of the old hardware is shipped from europe and the us to developing countries supposedly as "digital aid", but ends up burned for its metal contents producing corrosive fumes and polluting the soil.

all pics from here.

the apocalyptic images of melted plastic and recognizable parts are hard enough to grasp, but when people appear as parts of the equation, i see a cyborg of a different type, of a kind whose world has not been enlarged or enhanced by endless improvements of technology. there's no transcendence here, only immanence and restriction.

it seems powerful images are sometimes needed as a reminder of the dystopic side our utopia is built on.

warriors of weeds.

unlike many of my fellow urbanites i do not desire a lot of green around me. for me, the urban landscape is not a compromise of having everything but the nature around me. it is exactly what i like and i do not entertain any wishes of moving closer to lush forests or flowing meadows. i'm just dandy with a few parks close by.

in nyc, i could see the value of central park as the lungs of manhattan and marvel at the silence within the trees, but i felt it was too big to feel like a proper park. parks, to me, are essentially urban islands of green and central park was an australia of an island that could only be distinguished from a continent by looking up at the vertical aspirations of nyc architects.

when i seek nature, i do not wish to forget the urban – the opposite of what i often hear other people say. i deal with staying at the cottage for a while, but detaching myself from the city does not feel like enclosing my being in a sanctuary. my favorite parks are surrounded by concrete, streets and people who do not even intend to visit the park. being part of the hustle and bustle is what creates the bubble of tranquility i need when taking my brief moment on a bench or in the middle of grassy areas.

to me, the essence of urban greenery is in the relationship with people living in a city. naturally occurring fields or woods can wow me once, but it is the coexistence of active limitations that apply to all living beings sharing urban space that appeals to me most. thus, i find great beauty in both perfectly tended flowerbeds and a brave little weed trying to make it through a crack in the asphalt.

although i don't need to see more green around me, the thoroughly urban phenomenon of guerilla gardening appeals to me. the term was coined in nyc in the 70's to describe taking action in derelict spaces and turning them into gardens of decorative or edible plants, but there have been notable guerilla gardeners since the 1600's onwards.

urban gardening efforts are enjoying growth (haha!) everywhere and the fruits of rooftop labor increasingly end up in the bellies of ecological proximity preferring consumers (like these anarchy in a jar preserves from brooklyn), but the notion of guerilla gardens is based on taking over public or neglected private areas and utilizing them to beautify or provide nutrition.

the guerilla gardening site linked above lists pics of projects all over the world from minimal to stupendously ambitious. they also provide instructions for revolutionary action of yer own, such as making your own seed bombs, i.e. little cocktails of seeds and fertilizer that can be tossed to places you'd like to see vegetation taking over but where you cannot work the soil for some reason or another.



there are also readymade bombs available, for example here, but i'd suggest using locally typical vegetation – unless your imagined reality is a fantasy garden which, of course, is great as well.

thus, spreading your seed just got a significance a tiny bit less evolutionary and just a tad more revolutionary. do you have a spot in mind you'd like to see blooming?

pics from here and here.

wait for me.

the increasing popularity of crowdsourcing – term coined by jeff howe in wired in 2006 – follows the tremendous force of DIT; do-it-together. it essentially means combining an open call for amateur (or not so amateur) efforts to reach a common goal whether a movie, a party or, as i've heard as the latest, an opera.

the basis of crowdsourcing is in the expansion of professional or semi-pro tools in the hands of amateurs because of their reasonable price and the growing number of freeware. anyone with a computer and a set of software can become a graphic artist, make movies, produce music, etc. as long as the talent and willingness to develop one's skills is there. it is a revolution of a sort, but not entirely unproblematic.

while the cynics claim that crowdsourcing is only a way to employ amateurs instead of trained professionals for work that is of lower but doable quality, those in favor celebrate the possibility of the web-based collaboration to have your talent known and utilized without diplomas or enviable agency jobs. taking part in a collaboration is a more efficient cv of your talent than linkedin or a personal website could ever be.

nonetheless, the downside is that the cynics have a point: it is a slippery slope down the collaboration slide towards exploiting talented people. why pay anyone for a great job if you can get similar quality for free? the phenomenon is more than apparent in interning (especially in the usa) that is a despicable field of abuse of graduate workforce – especially in fields of art, design and marketing. graduates must land internships in order to find a job – to gain practical knowledge of their field – but are increasingly finding it impossible to find start level jobs because agencies use interns for everything imaginable. interns are a free workforce, so why bother actually paying anyone...

the spirit of crowdsourcing echoes elitism, the idea that people can and are willing to work for free or for a minuscule compensation. the underlying assumption is that amateurs, the lovers of their chosen hobbies, are busybees who have a steady income supporting them while they take part in collaborations they feel a calling for. at another level there is a promise of future fame and possible work – as is with interning – which may or may not actualize. the problem is that the more eager to collaborate we become, the less likely it is that those promises will be bought and paid for.

i do, nevertheless, want to believe that crowdsourcing projects are not a way to create an underclass of creatives who depend on other means of making a living – already a familiar status quo for artists. nor do i want to believe the undercurrent that screams for the kinds of feminist critique towards describing some work as "a calling" and, thus, not requiring decent pay.

with results as great as these, i am more than happy to enjoy crowdsourcing projects. moby's competition for a video for his single "wait for me" produced hundreds of entries. what strikes me as odd is that the winner below by nimrod shapira – a cute, naive little flick – is posted on moby's site without any info on the maker or even a link.



another entry by jessica dimmock and mark jackson that moves at a level so fundamental it is impossible to ignore the human suffering. point being: these are great videos that moby did not pay a dime for...



i'm just not fully sold on the idea... what do you think?

projections.

dystopian imagery is more common these days than optimism about progress towards utopia. we're one cynical lot judging by our popular culture and contemporary art. sometimes i wonder whether lethargy is the only serious alternative to despair...

amongst all this negativity and fear a project like itvs's futurestates, where 11 renowned and up-and-coming filmmakers were asked to describe in film their view of the prospects of us society, is welcome and fresh. their efforts created amazing short films of various themes, speculative and complex, and, depending on their personal attitude, either pessimistic or optimistic.

the film below, by ramin bahrani with the voice of werner herzog and music by sigur rós, deals with the immortality struggles of a plastic bag. the outcome is thought-provoking and beautiful.

choices.

as a pesco-vegetarian i am aware that my choice of diet rubs many people the wrong way. i am not going to elaborate the multitude of reasons i prefer vegetarianism, but will talk about how my choice has been met during the years. as background, i'll tell you i was vegan for some years and went through a strenuous internal battle of several years before i was able to begin eating fish again. i was well aware that my choice to go towards a carnivorous lifestyle was justified mostly by convenience.

during my vegan years in the mid to late 90's my lifestyle was obvious to anyone who sat down at a table with me. at home i baked my own bread and there were beans soaking in the kitchen. ordering at a restaurant was not easy and, thus, there was no way of hiding that i lived a life of decided deprivation. such a marginal lifestyle choice raised questions and i was more than willing to answer them. i gave people facts and figures when asked, and i was asked quite often.

at that point already i figured out how people respond to difficult ethical dilemmas: my sin at that point was taking photos (betcha many of you had no idea that film photography is not vegan) and after i, myself, brought it up as something to ease the pain of my fellow diners for acting too saintly in front of them, it was used against me ruthlessly. "hah, you're not perfect after all! you cannot judge us!"

when i gave up the vegan lifestyle and added eggs and milk to my diet, i became less of a threat to my carnivorous friends. it did not mean an end to the need to hear my justification for doing something "different" and discussions around my choice were still instigated by others than myself – i hardly had the need to point out the obvious to anyone. my presence created a discomfort especially among the most devout carnivores who claimed they had solid bases for their diets. they were most aggressively after my other flaws as if finding that i had imperfections was a justification for their own ignorance and negligence.

after the addition of fish to my diet i almost blend in. in many situations it is a relief: i can order at most restaurants and not cause any questions amongst my fellow diners. i've felt heart palpitations seeing the lunch menu fish option being crossed out and the only choices remaining consisting of beef and chicken – the knowledge that a need for possibly lengthy explanations will follow can sometimes feel devastating. despite vegetarians' relatively common existence these days, it's still not a natural choice among others but needs clarification.

the current debate over vegetarian school meals has stirred the views on vegetarianism the masses hold to the surface, and it isn't pretty. what bothers me most is that people seem to find the argument that no-one has the right to tell them what to do plausible – no matter what the facts are. some even go as far as saying that they'd be willing to eat vegetarian meals if they were offered, but because they are forced, they will object strenuously out of principle. because the people who suggested that a vegetarian day would be beneficial at schools irritate these individuals, they will oppose their ideas – an ad hominem, if i ever heard one.

the point is that carnivores know they are at fault. there are ethically better – even close to acceptable – ways to consume meat, but most finns do not belong to the elite niche who can choose free-range and organic. most buy whatever is cheapest even when they do not have to, and that is what bothers me. reminding them of their ethical shortcomings in any way – in my case by just acting differently – creates a turmoil that hardly counts as rational.

despite of my ability to keep my mouth shut and even going as far as concealing my diet in certain company, i cannot help but feel superior. after following the discussions of late, my pomposity has justifiably multiplied. as a former vegetarian who makes terrible consumer choices all the time i still know that predominantly my choices are better than those of people in general. tough, but it is the truth, and the truth seems to hurt. as much as some people will find me intolerably obnoxious for saying this, the lowest creature i can imagine is the person who chooses industry grown and produced chicken at the supermarket. there isn't a single justification for it. even poverty cannot justify eating those poor creatures that suffer their entire modest lives – there is always another option.

the ultimate test of your own diet is very, very simple. instead of going defensive and pointing the finger at the flaws of the many people who choose to be vegan, vegetarian or ethically aware carnivores (those snobs!), i suggest that every single person takes a critical look at the contents of their own plate. if knowing (and i mean really knowing) the production history of any part of your meal makes you uneasy, i suggest you do something about it. i already have, can you say the same about yourself?

science talk.

today i want to talk about a peculiar discourse. i have only encountered it in finland, and the strangest thing is that even people equipped with some pretty astute minds fall prey to this particular stupidity.

let me start from an analogy. you walk into a bar and join a table of random people talking vividly. you ask what they're going on about:

-what you all talking about?
-well, about the plausibility of m-theory.
-uh, what's that about?
-we're just debating whether it really is necessary to add the 11th dimension or not.
-um, i'm not following... what's the m-theory?
-oh, do you know quantum mechanics?
-i've heard of it.
-have you studied physics?
-in high school.
-oh, well, our topic is a little complicated, really...
-no, no, explain.
-it's about relativity, not really all that easy to put in simple terms... let's just leave it at that.
-bummer.

the point being, hardly any lay(wo)man would feel insulted if they did not understand a group of physicists discussing a theory. nor would they think it was rude if they were reluctant in explaining it to them because the process, quite honestly, takes a significant amount of time and effort.

moreover, the same applies to any field of science: if you barely know the basics, it is considered natural that you may not understand the highly theoretical questions and discussions. the same applies to scientific papers and books: take a scientific journal of a foreign field and i bet you have a hard time understanding what the abstracts are about, let alone the articles.

there's a particular field of research that is an exception to the rule in finland, namely gender studies. for some reason it is incredibly common to dismiss the entire field because theoretical discussions seem incomprehensible for lay(wo)men. moreover, nowhere else will you find students and researchers claiming that another field is "useless babble" because they find the theory complicated.

it is often claimed that gender studies should be graspable because it deals with topics that are part of our everyday lives. well, as far as i can tell existing is pretty everyday, but i dare you to show me a person not trained in philosophy who understands theoretical discussions on ontology. my material body follows me every day, but i, again, dare you to read theoretical postulations on cell biology and understand them without prior training in the field. and yes, gravity affects me all the time, but immersion into the fundamentals behind planck's constant does require some basic knowledge. i read several works of fiction a year, but still i do not expect to understand a complicated literary analysis of any given novel without expertise. to me, that's the beauty of theoretical work: i goes deeper into the realms of our world than ordinary speech.

for some reason the finnish discourse on gender studies seems to ignore some fundamentals of scientific research. for example, a popular claim is that there's plenty of shoddy research in gender studies. well show me a field of research where there isn't, please. yet another is that there are extremely bad theories just begging to be destroyed. well, i'm glad we did not toss psychology with freud's notoriously circular theory because somehow i think we can use a field of analysis that deals with human behavior. not to mention that this particular theory actually hurt numerous individuals when applied.

the most typical attack directs towards the jargon used, and, yes, i dare you to show me a field of research where jargon is not quintessential once the discussion is elevated from the most basic level.

what i mean is that science is an ongoing communicative process where ideas are presented, evaluated, accepted or rejected and novel ideas are developed further. some fields use empirical tests, but most do not. theory guides everything and they are presented and rejected as they come along. most ideas and topics within a field are hardly self-explanatory or common-sensical, because they are raised from the internal discourse.

the bashing gender studies is subjected to repeatedly would not bother me if it wasn't so intellectually cheap. i am well aware of the many problematic aspects of gender theories and theorists. it may come down to the official finnish name: 'women's studies' does rub many egalitarian finns the wrong way – especially in this age of conservative backlash. i dunno.

generally speaking, nowhere else does it seem to come as a presupposition that theoretical works should come simply translatable to lay(wo)men terms but with theories of gender. you don't hear people demanding that departments of psychology should be shut down because they just cannot understand the latest contributions in psychological review. moreover, nowhere else do you hear people who have not spent one moment inside the walls of a university claim that they actually know whether something is theoretically solid or not.

i find it all quite sad, really. what do you think?

on admiration.

people often refer to themselves as fans of someone or something. part of being a fan is to be informed about the object in question, be it a person, a movement or what not, and (auto)biographies are popular methods of self-education. generally true admiration seems to require extensive knowledge of the subject.

i never liked (auto)biographies. many of them are poorly written and the writers motivation, be it praise or bashing, is often badly concealed. whether my object of fancy is a band, an artist or a thinker, i hardly ever wish to know anything beyond their work. it might be telling to explain that i usually do not recognize the singers of my favorite bands until i see them play live and, moreover, i find the personal lives of artists and authors uninteresting. therefore, it might be more accurate to say i am a fan of music, artworks or thought systems rather than the people who produce them.

in addition to lack of interest, my foremost reason for avoiding biographies is rather simple: i try to steer clear of the sort of psychological lure they inspire in people, including myself. although i can grasp the pleasure of "really understanding someone" after knowing their history and am just as prone as anyone to conduct analyses of random people over a hot cup of coffee, i knowingly try to avoid creating a sense of certainty over the motives and "true" rationales of other persons. as all biographies are already interpretations, the multiplication of internal logics are a sure method for creating incredible fables. and yet, somehow, people actually seem to think they know significantly more about a person after reading a biography. i find it somewhat self-delusional.

however, i do appreciate the potential personal narratives have for understanding human beings in general, and i do see how personal histories may explain certain actions or patterns. i just approach all non-fictional narratives very carefully and with suspicion because as often as we claim fiction ends, true fairytales seem to begin...

moreover, lately i have pondered how easily people are appalled by claims of admiring someone you disagree completely with. the small turmoil created by a finnish bb star when he stated he admired the sad, charismatic man who was responsible for the devastation we refer to as the second world war, made me realize that while people love creating categories by separation, they are hardly ever very subtle or original with them. if someone is deemed the evilest of all, then everything associated with him must be evil and, thus, not admirable. period. naturally, the bb star's blurt was dismissed as the brain fart of a simpleton, but it failed to conceal the fact that we find it hard to understand that veneration does not necessarily include agreement.

it may be that admiration strives predominantly from likemindedness; we revere people we wish we were like or consider kin. but there exist varieties of respect that require disassociation from the object and that reveal the fact that agreement is not in any way necessary for esteeming something or someone.

for example, i share with many of my friends the fascination for the slightly (or more) eccentric characters. as i watched grey gardens – the original documentary and the new hbo film – on new year's day, it was more than clear that my admiration for the beale women was detached from my own sense of self. in fact, the lunatic characters are incredible on many levels, but to think i share values or ideals with them is rather farfetched. admiration requires certain characteristics to develop from mere intrigue, but not an entirety of association. in regards to grey gardens, i admire their ability to sustain a sense of self-worth in the middle of chaotic circumstances.



after saying all of the above, i was surprised to find myself intrigued by a biography. described as probably the most wholesome of the many written so far, none other than a new biography of ayn rand created a desire to read about her background. familiar to me from my interest in women in philosophy, but better known as a fiction author, rand inspired ronald reagan among others and was the founder of objectivism, a realistic line of egoism in ethics, and, essentially, a true libertarian – although she would disagree. everything she taught and believed in i pretty much disagree with and think her objectivist credo is a bubble that already burst, but i find her compelling as a character with all the fanatic followers and discussion she still arouses and her sharp logic. thus, to say i admire her is not entirely wrong.

here she explains her political thought on television in 1959; part one.

part two and three of the interview.

since i can conduct analyses of myself without creating too much of logic buildup (although i may go haywire otherwise), i do suspect the reason behind my interest is trying to understand and, ultimately, explain away a belief system that contradicts my own so radically. i want to find trauma that could annihilate the reasoning behind rand's thinking – essentially an ad hominem against her – and, hence, seem to be lured into exactly what i have explicitly tried to avoid. therefore, it seems safer to continue debunking her theories with logic and leave her personal life alone.

since biographies are incredibly popular and if my worries are correct, there must be a vast amount of people out there who play the analyst on a regular basis. nevertheless, it is entirely possible – or even probable – that i am taking the common fascination way too seriously.

if you admire someone's work do you tend to find out as much as you can about them? if you are a fan of biographies, do you ever ponder the motives behind your interest? have you found your preconceptions strengthened or explained by biographies?

mythbusting.

today i shall talk about the mythical gilded ox we have come to know as "finnish quality of days past". it comes in many forms in conversation: cheers such as "let's bring back the finnish clothing industry!", complaints such as "domestically produced used to be quality compared to this..." and factual statements such as "the loss of jobs to asia has diminished quality." i am referring to the often cited idea that finnish industry used to provide us with high-caliber products which is often uttered in combination with 1) the lament that after work was exported quality has diminished and 2) the desire to perk up the industry in order to regain quality.

after less than careful thought i suggest that there never existed such a phenomenon as "finnish quality", so entertain me: fact or myth?

let me start by stating some obvious points: first, i am writing this wearing a dress from samu-jussi koski's early line for marimekko produced in china. the weave came undone at the shoulder during the first wear, but otherwise the dress has been alright. you've got to take my word for it – there isn't a place for shooting pics in our pre-move apartment hell of boxes. second, i own a comparable vintage marimekko dress from my mother's collection from the late 60's, still in immaculate condition and obviously made in finland. thus, i could state that finnish manufacturing quality is better than chinese. but that would make me a simpleton with a preference for bubbles and i choose not to be one.

another point is the question of unemployment which i will not deal with here. on a personal level, i, as much as anyone, want my friends to have work they enjoy. on a larger scale, i cannot find a solid ethical reason why we should prefer a finnish laborer over a chinese one: call me an unpatriotic nomad (and i'll take it as a compliment), but if it was either marja-terttu or xiu ling facing unemployment, i could not decide between them. (if you can, i'd be incredibly interested in your chain of reasoning. feel free to elaborate in the comments section below.)

i would not feel this aggravated if the discussion revolved around claims such as the overall disappearance of quality products. the addition of nationalism that echoes at the level of "negros [sic!!] are great dancers because of their natural sense of rhythm" is what irks me – especially because i find the area of fashion a place of sanctuary from such irresponsible prejudice. at the most basic level the idea is that "made in finland" equals "good quality" as if domestic production by finns was essentially inherent in the latter.

so let's get on with it, now shall we. myths? right.

artisans vs factory labor? first of all, we must differentiate between artisans and skilled factory labor. artisan manual workers are a steadily diminishing breed since industrialization: there are a rare few who nowadays can create by hand. on the other side are skilled factory laborers who are responsible for industrial production. they are a very different and varied kind of a bunch whose efforts are directed towards providing standardized results. the first group has been overtaken by the latter and the phenomenon itself is not domestic, but global.

together with the decrease in artisan labor we have witnessed the emergence of romanticized appreciation of handmade products. the trend has accumulated to an extent where all sorts of crap is sold to finns who – in addition to some tourists – are hoofs enough to buy into the "handmade in finland" sales pitch. i sometimes wonder whether it is because we're sadists who take pleasure knowing that someone wasted precious time in producing something meticulous by hand and will never be compensated accordingly... and then we glee under the halo of supporting yet another "young designer". my point being that handmade does not equal artisanship. my point is not that all (young) finnish designers produce substandard handmade creations.

which brings us to the next point...

quality vs trash? the quality of items comes down to a set of limited basic requirements: design, material, skilled work and, most importantly, selective control according to accepted standards. product inspection takes time, time costs money, and spending money diminishes profit unless the price is increased. simple.

one of the popular arguments against pricing differences between brands is the observation that the same factories produce brand-name and no-name products, and therefore, the claim goes, brand-name items differ only by profit margin. well, it ain't quite that simple, really. if we ignore material selection, there is another important issue. before a pair of sneakers makes it into a nike box, it is inspected several times. compared to the nondescript pair the time consumed in quality control makes a huge difference. obviously it does not explain the entire price difference (or even the majority), but it is naive to say we're sold the same products and are just paying for the swoosh; the selection process does differentiate between products in regards to quality stability.

nevertheless, standards of quality have lowered overall, and we're each to blame, both consumers and producers. at the most fundamental level, we're not willing to pay for the time it takes to produce a high caliber garment. nevertheless, there is still careful production in addition to haphazard production but the latter seems to be taking over. again, this is a global phenomenon.

which brings me to the next point...

national vs global? was finnish industrial production before better than production abroad is nowadays? sure it was, but it hardly comes down to locale, but the fact that industrial production in general was better globally. actually, to put it more accurately, the slice of superior industrial products from the whole was larger than presently.

the diminishing quality has created distorted beliefs in people's minds: we associate chinese merchandise with low caliber. are we really trying to claim that the company that orders the product does not provide standards for the products they agree to receive? the reason we receive crap from china is solely due to the fact that we order and accept crap from china. if we were to order the items from finland, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the outcome was any better unless we adjust the standards.

my argument being, when factory labor is considered there aren't differences between nationalities: marja-terttu in lahti near helsinki and xiu ling in a small town of 18 million near beijing can produce garments of the same grade. the fact that nowadays xiu ling seems to get the job of marja-terttu comes down to such socialist fantasies (oh, the irony!) as strong union laws that prevent marja-terttu from being exploited to the extent of her colleague in the communist workers' paradise of china.

i may be going towards blasphemy here, but despite the fact that finns love to cherish the memory of good olden finnish factories producing amazing domestic quality, the reality is that our primary business partner was notoriously uninterested in quality and after the fall of the soviet, the crap we created could not be sold anywhere else. naturally, this does not mean that there wasn't quality production in addition to the spew.

which leads me to my final point...

re-establishing finnish clothing industry? would the effort to rebuild our factories improve the products we receive? hardly, unless we're changing the standards of impressiveness we demand and are willing to pay for. finnish production by itself does not equal quality work, materials, design or control – they are universals of quality and can only be achieved if strenuously demanded. the time of a finnish seamstress is more expensive than the time of her chinese colleague from which we can deduce that for the same input we are bound to get less – the uneasy result of global exploitation.

i am not denying that having factories available would not be beneficial for many people in addition to those who find work there. i understand that the endeavor of creating a line of clothing comes down to finding people for the execution, and because our domestic industry is nonexistent, only those with lots of funding or artisanal skills can succeed. a talented designer, like my friend jaakko and the nationally famous antti asplund, whose personal manufacturing skills are not up to the standards they wish their final products were, suffer from the fact that it is difficult to find laborers. moreover, a desire to expand and grow is hindered by the lack of makers. but would the reopening of local factories improve anything else except the availability of work force, i.e. would it mean better quality than they'd receive from china (provided there was funding)? i hardly believe so because whatever financial potential they had for investing into the production, the turnout would be relative and quality comes down to investing into time and control.

my points in short are that quality comes down to universal standards and inspection, the downfall of quality is a global phenomenon, the history of finnish industry is not as evidently superior as one might be lead to believe, and the general rules of industrial production apply here as they do everywhere else. if we do not demand quality and show intent to pay for it, it makes no difference qualitywise where the production takes place. therefore, the idea that domestic production could save us from inferior products seems to be a romanticized idea derived from a myth, rather than a fact.

the myth of finnish quality of days past – busted?

fleeting.

guerilla stores are old news already, but the trend of temporariness seems to be expanding. after i expressed my annoyance about the acceleration of trend cycles as the instigator of stuff accumulation – and provoked excellent additions to the topic from anna, anu and sugar kane – i wanted to return to the topic of transience. although i remain critical of trend quickening, not all haste is something i detest.

i have a soft spot for nostalgic old stores and grieve the loss of regular nooks i have learned to visit. mourning small specialty grocery stores is an often brought up subject, but i also feel for other businesses facing extinction. the realization that, for example, traditional small finnish clothing boutiques for ordinary men's and ladieswear will disappear as their owners retire only to be taken over by chain stores, concept stores and expensive, specialty boutiques, makes me incredibly sad. i will miss the tacky sale signs scribbled with magic markers on fluorescent roll paper and the names like te-ra vaate (te-ra clothing, the name supposedly originates from the names of the owners terttu and raija) and housumies (i.e. pantsman, way cooler than dressmann although occurring next to each other the latter sounds positively queer...). they are as much a part of urban historical landscape as snobby literati cafes and drunk infested parks.

the recession created spatial vacancy in every city: many small establishments and unnecessarily expansive franchises took their last breaths in the past year liberating plenty of prime retail space. the hesitant manner new businesses emerged and were willing to sign long-term leases created an opportunity for impermanent operations. it is guerilla time like never before and the increase in fast-forward retail is tremendous. opening, selling and leaving in a matter of a fortnight could seem odd from the point of view of traditional business planning. lacking the intention of securing a customer base and continuity, these pop-up stores seek to feed the variety seeking nomad.

sure, it might be suspected that guerilla fashion stores propagate impulse shopping like no other; the apprehension of disappearance before coming to a reasoned decision whether to buy or not is a real motivating factor without a doubt. nevertheless, the emergence of a guerilla space means an experience beyond shopping even as we understand it today – a recreational way to regard a space and fill it with fleeting social interaction.

the more intriguing temporary phenomena are guerilla restaurants. usually in the form of food-trucks (because of legal (i.e. health and sanitary) reasons and the difficulty of finding proper cooking facilities other than designated restaurant spaces) they sell quality grub instead of the shady, greasy goo we're used to watch landing on our expecting hands at fairs and such. they come and go at will, but come with a newly added culinary pride.

although many guerilla retail trucks sell foods uncommon to restauranteurs on the move, there are traditionalists, as well, such as ice-cream trucks. some come with additional quirks, such as the big gay ice-cream truck. despite raising the expected controversy amongst some americans, their fave slogan is the positively political "winning over homophobes one bacon/chocolate sandwich at a time", and they offer olive oil and sea salt toppings in addition to their famous caramelized bacon. the guerilla politics just took one step further.

the element of surprise cannot rely on just landing somewhere, because random passers-bys do not a happening create. the traditional commercialization has caught up and there is already at least one permanent pop-up space in nyc, called openhouse gallery that informs through a blog and, naturally, twitter. tweets provide the perfect tools for communicating locations, and following the feeds of volatile entrepeneurs, you can treat yourself to an experience that thrives on temporariness.

does the vagabond element of surprise appeal to you?

pink.

the international breast cancer awareness month runs through october, but finns are wearing pink today as the national awareness day takes place. as the second most common form of cancer and the fifth on the lethality scale, breast cancer is responsible for 1% of deaths in the world. it may sound insignificant, but means hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. i lost my maternal grandmother to the disease and the devastating condition has touched many of my near and dear ones.

therefore, i among many others am wearing pink today. true to my fall somber self, i will add just a hint during the day and go slightly more extravagant [sic!] towards night. for the day look i will add pink boots i have named "steak" because they resemble slabs of meat. an old 2004 acquisition from nyc, these argentinean ankle boots are as comfortable as shoes can be. tonight i'll meet some friends at a bar, go racy and flash some bra under a sheer pink tee (har har, that's about as racy as i go...). both outfits have some interesting pocket action going on – the first on the jacket, the second on the skirt – to draw attention away from the chest. quite fitting for the theme, me thinks, since part of the reason breast cancer creates such suffering is the importance we place on the chest of a woman as the signifier of her femininity.


black blazer, silk tee and coated jeans by cos, pink boots by de maria. pink tee by h&m, skirt with zipper by rodebjer, tights by wolford, suede booties by zara. pink cross pendant by antti asplund, leather bracelet by fifth avenue shoe repair.

are you wearing pink?

sign your name.

i read in the news today that according to a survey 90% of finns would be willing to donate their organs postmortem. as someone as secular as possible but who simultaneously has firm faith in the sanctity of cognizant and emotive life, the news feel reassuring to me. no matter how difficult it is to let go of a loved one after they pass on – including their physical remains–, there are lives that can continue because of a simple act of kindness that neither harms nor burdens absolutely anyone. news like these make me proud of my fellow citizens who generally try my patience more often than not when it comes to solidarity.

unfortunately, the survey revealed an additional fact: only 20% have signed a donation card officially declaring their willingness to relinquish their corporeal components for the benefit of others. there is absolutely nothing incredible in the incommensurability of the figures: people's moral declarations or even the most fundamental and innermost beliefs do not necessarily motivate action. when it comes down to doing good, we love to think about it. after thinking long enough we tend to believe we've done our part. sound familiar? to me it definitely does.

the saddest part of essential moral deeds and nondoings is that we're often prompted to act instead of imagining after we're personally touched by a tragedy. that is, when it is already too late.

let's prove statistics and motivational theories wrong. if you haven't already, do it now. the cards are available in the next weeks nationally. sign your name. time is of essence, life is unpredictable.

save rudeboy.

single acts of random kindness become more beautiful by the minute. fashion design collaboration with ngo's and ethical causes are excellent examples of consumerism harnessed as positive action, but despite their undoubtedly altruistic and generous basis, they sometimes echo emptiness. the creative growth campaign purses and tees by marc jacobs are perfect examples of collaboration feeling hasty, greedy and hollow despite a cause that is definitely worthwhile. the mj store was crammed with stuff feeling like a chinatown souvenir shop: cheap trinkets and the above mentioned purses were piled on top each other almost falling off the racks. the respectable cause lost its dignity in the hands of fashion people.

there are other kinds of fundraisers, deeply personal ones that succeed in originality and the essential beauty expected from a collaboration. antti asplund's project is a perfect example of what can happen when creative people are touched by tragedy: this time a cat that jumped from an open window and landed six floors down on the street. all the funds collected from the t-shirts will go towards paying the medical bills of rudeboy, the cat who believed he could fly.

get yours for a mere 50€ by emailing anttiasplund@gmail.com.



pic from saverudeboy2009.

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.