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Häxan & No Clear Mind

There was a screening of a 1922 film called Häxan on 11/09 at LAIS. It’s a silent film and as used to be the tradition, a live band was invited to score the film. Greek post-rock group No Clear Mind were there to do the part.

It was one of the most intense audiovisual experiences of my life, comparable in recent memory only to Baraka and maybe the 21/12/’12 Eugenides Planetarium dome show with gravity says I. Is it a coincidence that the entrance for the Planetarium show and tonight’s screening was in both cases free? The best in things in life are, aren’t they?

The movie itself was a rather bizarre -in this awesome and captivating way- presentation of the story of witchcraft in medieval and more modern Europe. I don’t know if it sounds exciting to you -for me it didn’t really-, but the mere fact that this film was in cinemas (probably having already been banned or censored) around the time period my great-grandma was pregnant with her daughter, just made me lose myself in the implications. I imagined people from the future similarly watching contemporary films and getting a glimpse at today’s society. It was breath-taking: I made the realisation that I had moving pictures in front of me that enabled me to have a look at history. What an amazing thing, old films… Of course, not all old movies have this effect on me. In Häxan though I could somehow feel the creators’ need to tell this story, I could see through the techniques they used, I could imagine them working on the film, editing, acting.

The film really made me travel to the 15th century, it made me imagine life then perfectly: dominated by superstition and the church, anything out of the ordinary (whatever people would deem ordinary 500+ years ago, that is) pinnable on these satanic women. “Those people were my ancestors – it could have also been me!”, I thought. Every single person alive in Europe today most probably has predecessors who were burnt at the stake (8,000,000 million suffered this fate, the film claimed), people who had the same needs as us: the need to believe, the need to know, the need to love and feel loved… It was less a film and more a timeless window through which I had a good time recreating the past in my mind with the help of moving pictures. Mission accomplished, right?

And then there was the music. No Clear Mind is a Greek post-rock band I first found out about through Maria Kozari Mela – the girl to whom I more or less owe my meeting with Dafni, by the way. I liked this group before; you know, I would occassionally listen to this one album Maria sent me back then and I’d think “yes, that’s pretty solid music”, maybe also wondering just how many more Greek true quality bands simply get drowned down in the sea of noise we call popular music in this country. But that night, it was something else entirely. I don’t know exactly what happened, if they had written the score for the film or if they were just improvising while watching the it. Whatever it was, it was something else. I already mentioned that it was one of the most intense film & music experiences I can remember having. Crying is the qualifier for these moments for me. I usually cry when the beauty, not the sadness alone, is too much to bear; tonight it was both seperately and both together. It was sublime.

The biggest problem is that it was also probably something I won’t ever be able to share with anyone, unless No Clear Mind have recorded the concert somehow. The film on its silent own or with a different soundtrack would probably not have evoked the same reaction in me; it’s the staggering combination that made it so special.

I realise there are too many words above trying in vain to describe or convey something that required so few of them to make its impact. Here’s to more unexpected, serendipitous moments of beauty…

Review: Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I discovered Roger Zelazny from Ran Prieur’s recommended books list (scroll all the way to the bottom). Basically, our Earth and reality is one of many, one of countless Shadow worlds. The one true world is Amber, and there are 9 princes who all claim the throne to it. If this smells like Game of Thrones with a hearty dose of The Dark Tower to you, you have an excellent nose.

The story was simple and straightforward, without too many descriptions which would have made me turn the pages in frustration as I had done with The Lord of the Rings. The characters aren’t very well fleshed out, apart from Corwin (the protagoinst), but honestly I didn’t really care: the action and the scope were so grand and the plot development centered around Corwin, with his own very lucid and personalable narration, so engaging from the very first pages to the very last, that I didn’t miss not finding out too much about the rest of the princes. The problem is that the plot isn’t limited to those very last pages. The first book was a good introduction to the world of Amber and Corwin’s story, the internal plot was resolved, a round and bubbly sigh of optimism was left, but the huge events the book basically hints at are barely even put into motion. I suppose that’s a problem with any series in any medium.

Perhaps the thing I liked the most about Zelazny’s writing was his edge, his cheekiness and willingness to play around with expectations. If the rest of the books set in Amber are in a similar style, I’m in for a treat!

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Review: The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher

The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Above: a photograph of my own copy of The Art of Looking Sideways.

This book is a valuable collection of experiences, quotes, designer-gasms, observations and insights into life, the aesthetic, artistic and general human experience, by late master graphic designer Alan Fletcher.

I got it more than a year ago like new (yes, it took me this long to go through its 1000+ pages reading/enjoying on and off) for around €30. Most of that must have been the shipping costs: when it arrived I really couldn’t believe the sheer mass of it. I tried to scan some of it, once; the results: my current profile picture, and a scanner which since then has been occassionally malfunctioning, the book’s weight having left a permanent scar in its life of digitisation. This is actually the only reason I haven’t been lugging it around more often, showing it to each and every one of my friends — artistically inclined or no.

This book is so thick with inspiration it’s almost impossible to deal with: you can’t open it randomly to catch the creative spark (supposedly Alan Fletcher’s point in making it) without wanting to read it all. Though I suppose this mindless and distracted consumption is a personal demon I have to deal with!

Anyway. I’ll make this short and to the point: this treasure chest of a book is one of my most prized and proud possessions — and believe you me, as a rule I don’t take particular pride anymore in owning things.

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Review: The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way

The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yet another comicbook tome lent to me by my girlfriend Daphne. “This one’s special”, she told me handing it over to me, her words a cross between a teaser and a warning. She was right: superheroes with weird but cool powers, random humour and clever details, awesome panel and page transitions that made me go “woooah, that was brave”, a tongue-in-cheekness in every little thing that sat quite well with me. This is not really my genre of preference, but after The Umbrella Academy I had to ask myself why not. Looking forward to reading Part Two already.

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Review: Koko Be Good by Jen Wang

Koko Be Good by Jen Wang

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another addition to my Daphne-induced comic experiences, one more tasty slice of life from her rich suggestion list. I liked the art, enjoyed the story but I don’t feel as if it left me with something valuable. Koko was annoying and I wasn’t interested in what she was doing at all, apart from giving me some ideas for being more spontaneous myself; I sympathised much more with Jon and the decisions he had to make in life, i.e, whether he would follow what he thought would be a step forward (going with his long-distance girlfriend to Peru for humanitarian work) or do what he had convinced himself was beneath him but deep down (?) would rather be doing.

Enjoyable, quick summer read that took me places; nothing too earthshaking – thank goodness not everything is earthshaking.

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Review: Clover Omnibus

Clover Omnibus by CLAMP

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the other reviews on Goodreads before setting out to write this (as I always do for good or ill) and it seems that we only got 2/3 of what Clover was originally meant to be. Maybe that’s why it’s nonsensical. The “written word” part of it is just that: incoherent. The lyrics from that song, in 110% cliché anime style (i.e generic song that has the words love, happiness, forever, together, alone, tears and heart mixed, sautéed in soy sauce and served on the spot) repeated ad nauseam was quite annoying and the plot in general didn’t exist at all. Yes, I’ve concluded that it can’t be my fault that almost all anime/manga plots fly right over my head. This one in particular… wow. It was so irrelevant or so it seemed, that I think it would have been better if I had “read” it in Japanese (or whatever other verb you can use to describe at least trying to read something that’s in a foreign language and you by default only pay attention to the shapes of the letters/characters/kana).

The reason I’m stressing this of course is that this tome is just beautiful and I can imagine the aesthetics take a hit when the kana and kanji are forced to be replaced by latin characters. The steampunk/clockwork angel & sparrow thing worked well and was pretty to look at on the experimentally laid out pages that flow in lightning speeds. While I enjoyed the visual feast, I must confess that this style in the end is just not for me.

Even like that, I ended up liking it and it’s probably because some parts reminded me very strongly of my girlfriend who’s the one who came to my house one day and out of the blue just left Clover on my desk. If it wasn’t for her, I would have probably never touched it. But, sentimental a critic as I am, my feelings governed these keystrokes. I feel strangely complete writing this.

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Review: Apocalypsopolis by Ran Prieur

Apocalypsopolis by Ran Prieur

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve asked the question before, but can we really consider this a book? If the writer says it’s one, it is one; we’re taking it from there.

I’ve been reading the blog of this crazy person Ran Prieur for the past few weeks and every day I love him more and more. His writing, his style, his way of life is another inspiration for me. He’s quickly finding his way to this exclusive mental resort where all my top favourite people (Douglas Adams, Dan Carlin, Maria Efthimiou, Kyle Cease, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Raymond Smullyan, Steven Wilson, Alan Watts, Edgar Wright and the list goes on) are having the longest cocktail party/cozy discussion in altered states of their (after)lives.

Apocalypsopolis is a post-apocalyptic novela – or should I say while-apocalyptic? It shows what would happen during the apocalypse. Ran Prieur’s version of it isn’t any old end of the world, however. Through his work he clearly shows all of the things that mattered to him 9 years ago and still, to a certain extent, do today: man’s alienation from nature, his interest in “conspiracy theories” and metaphysics, the simplicity, complexity and -at the same time- trivialty of existence, the future of humanity.

You like post-apocalyptic fantasy? Read it. You like (political) philosophy? Read it. You like hippie fiction? Read it. Intrigued by the deconstruction of metaphysics? Read it. Survivalism strike your fancy? You know the drill.

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Creative Photography in the Finnish Wilderness

Sometimes (often) it’s better to let others do the talking first:

Russians, Greeks, Finns and a camera

Written by Юниорский союз Дорога

June 14, a heavy-loaded bus left Petrozavodsk.

The bus was filled with valenki, maracas, kanteles, hats with earflaps, cameras and kids from the Doroga youth union. They were the participants of a project called “Creative photography in the Finnish wilderness”.

Nobody felt like sleeping the first night. So our group organized a music party with wooden spoons, rattles and maracas. The international audience was thrilled! The Greeks and the Finns were awake as well. The next day the camp was launched leaving no time to sleep at all.

Each participant had to make up a story on any topic. Henna and Sanna from the Steering group helped the participants do it.

Henna, a professional photographer, spoke about basic principles of working with a camera and helped writing a storyline for series of pictures.

The most important thing is to convey your own feelings and emotions but make it understandable to the audience – Henna said.

Sanna taught everybody how to observe face expressions and gestures of other people, nature and how to concentrate on own feelings.

The harder the work, the better the fun afterwards. Recreation was planned as well. The National park Koli met us at the third day with 300-meter rocks. The park turned out to be perfect for photo shoots.

For the last days of our stay we canoed to the other side of the Pielinen Lake to a place called Ellu. This journey was the most exciting of all. Both experienced canoe riders and newbies were canoeing together.

When we arrived to Ellu, a delicious lunch was already waiting for us. After that Sanna held a traditional observation training, where participants form couples, one partner closes his eyes and the other one watches him for 5-10 minutes trying to capture the slightest movements and face expressions.

This training is useful for those who take pictures and for the models, it helps them both relax and focus on own feelings. Due to this exercises pictures turn out relaxed and natural – Sanna quoted as saying.

After the training everybody went on with their business: some took pictures, and some just enjoyed beautiful Finnish landscapes. In the evening we went to the sauna and jumped in the lake, we also taught the Greeks how to bathe with sauna switches. They loved it!

The next day we set off back home. We had to finish our stories, chose the music and voice over. Half of participants hadn’t come up with their ideas yet. But then a miracle happened – each of us prepared beautiful short films about our thoughts, feelings and desires. Some were more professional, some – more personal. But most importantly – they were all very different.

At the final presentation of videos we all felt united due to overwhelming amount of emotions. It didn’t matter whether you were Greek, Russian or Finnish. Each told about the most important and personal things.

In the evening before departure we gave our new friends pins of the Doroga union to remember us by, and of course, we invited them to Karelia. The Greeks already promised to come.

Besides beautiful pictures, we gained experience of organizing international camps. The Doroga youth union is a participant of Matka.ru project. According to the action plan, in a year a new youth center will be constructed in Matkachi. And it will be our turn to organize camps. Lessons learned from the Hyvarila will come in handy.

Many thanks to all participants and especially to the volunteer Steering group – Henna Middeke, Sanna Valkepaa, Magdalena Wollhofen, Karina Sitnik.

Special thanks to the Youth in action EU program that funded the project “Creative photography in the Finnish wilderness” and to the international secretary of the Hyvarila Maija Eskanen who contributed significantly to the project application.

Natalya Yalovitsyna

Not feeling very prosaic at the moment so I’ll keep it short, sweet and interesting:

You must absolutely try going into a sauna and then jumping in semi-cold water. I’d done it once before, that is when I was in Denmark. Don’t be afraid of revealing your junk, breasts and/or “imperfect” body to others. First, they don’t care about your body as they’re too busy being embarassed of their own one and second, it’s just not worth it worrying too much about it compared to the feeling of freedom you are left with.

Who would have thought that eating ants may not be that bad after all? Have a look at this video I made. I wish I could show you the rest of the videos everyone made back in Finland, but neither do I have them nor is this the best place to do so.
Imagine meeting someone who looks like he could be a member of the Russian mafia and then, on the last day, he makes a video for his girlfriend back in Russia, in which he has pictures of the crocodile plushie she gave him in all the places he visited while he was in Finland. Yeah. Stereotypes you say?
The sun set at 11pm and came up around 3am. In the meantime it never went completely dark. It was awesome.
Most participants took more and better photographs than I did, but I don’t really care; as long as I have them next to mine, to look at, remember and smile, .
At the end of the day, it’s all about the people. This trip had that part covered. I’m thankful to everyone who made this experience special and another episode in space and time I’m happy to have with me. Daphne and I agree: Karelia will see our faces again.
Special thanks go to Εμείς και ο Κόσμος for making this, as well as I SEE GREEN, a reality.

Review: We All Need Heroes: Stories of the Brave and Foolish by Simon Zingerman

We All Need Heroes: Stories of the Brave and Foolish by Simon Zingerman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One day, maybe a month or so ago, Simon Zingerman contacted me here on Goodreads and asked me to review a .pdf edition of his new book in exchange for a paperback copy of it. I had a look at it and it seemed interesting so I accepted.

In hindsight, his sending the book to me for free was a purposeful move: We All Need Heroes is basically a very optimistic collection of around 120 stories of people who made it or became famous either through extreme luck, fantastic ideas, dedication to their beliefs or pure, simple “stupidity” (quoting because their supposed stupidity ultimately worked to their advantage). Some of these accounts are exactly about how you can create buzz about your work in the very same “guerilla” way the author contacted me and many other users of Goodreads also. Apart from that, the stories themselves were in general quite interesting and my picks -the ones I felt could be significant for me personally- made up a good chunk of the book. That said, I can see how the next time I read it my favourites will have changed along with me, just like Simon Zingerman predicts -and even hopes- will happen in his introduction to the book.

The work unfortunately has its little problems. I didn’t particularly care for the “happy ending”, “risky/illegal”, “disturbed/crazy” etc. 0-100% statistics at the bottom of every story. By what standard is one story a 50% and another an 80%? The assessment would make sense if there was a “Top 10 happiest endings” chart at the end of the book or something similar, but there was nothing of the sort. After the first few pages, I started hungrily devouring one story after another, skipping these gauges entirely. The keywords under the title of each story were met with the same fate. Zingerman’s graphic design touches seem to have worked well in many aspects but not so much in others.

But I won’t be too critical of the details. This book has given me food for thought and inspiration and I will be sure to read it again, this time taking notes.

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Review: The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t Be Jammed

The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t Be Jammed by Joseph Heath

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one is a toughy. Few other times have I been this undecided on a book before reviewing it.

While reading The Rebel Sell, I was nodding in agreement with many of the arguments Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter posed, such as the proposition that mass consumerism is unavoidable because it is recognition, distinction and status that people find when they consume, and while on the whole if theoretically no-one bought anything all would be well and good, everyone has to keep consuming just because everyone else keeps doing so. It is an instance of the prisoner’s dilemma, a central part of their point, used many times in the book and presented convincingly. It’s an interesting concept applicable to politics, sociology and other topics.

Furthermore, their analysis of taste in art and culture and how it is another form of projecting one’s own social class was also profound, as well as their take on what it means to be cool and how, in their view, that is the very thing that drives consumerism: someone has to be the Joneses, after all, and it is the cool people who become the Joneses, whether they realise/like it or not. There are many other such bits and pieces I found agreeable and fun to read, such as the distinction between dissent and deviance, something with which I can completely relate. If you wouldn’t like a society in which everyone acts a certain way and not just you, it’s probably deviance and not dissent, like the stupid graffiti tags, not paying taxes or avoiding standing in queue. It’s a healthy observation.

But. As convincing as I found the points above, as well as many others which did, at times, make the book a bit chaotic in its argumentation, I couldn’t help but feel the smugness of Mr. Heath and Mr. Potter seep through the pages. They ridicule the counterculture, often repeating themselves and failing to spot the benefits society has gained from it in the 50 years since it first emerged, at least in the form they describe. They cannot find any merit in any kind of fringe social movement. It’s like they’re trying to “get over” their own countercultural past by dissecting it, as if they’re trying to prove how wrong and misled their own mocking peers had been -as my friend who lent me the book accurately commented. It’s like they’re saying “look how grown up and rational we are now! Just try and grow up like we did, you pathetic self-important tree huggers/hipsters/anarchists/punks/Naomi Klein.”

Nevertheless, I realise that the implications of what is presented within the book are vast and indeed might be playing an important political role in the fragmentation of the left and its members trying to “out-radicalise” oneanother. The sad result is that it is a weaker force which is left to oppose the all-consuming capitalist market. When all has to do with individuality and how different everyone can and should be in order to “stick it to The Man”, there can of course be very little emphasis on how people can cooperate and find the similarities and common goals between them. The problem is that the same market which the writers are defending -at least in principle- and its state today, 10 years after the writing of the book, has only made itself horrifyingly stronger against legislative and institutional reform. The writers greatly underestimate the current relationship between corporations and governments and how difficult it is to change from within. The world is practically ruled by corporations and to question that rivals the counterculture in its supposed naiveté.

Comfortably, the above declaration would be enough for the writers to smirk at me and include me in the already-accounted-for group of wannabe radical counterculturals who can’t face reality. The whole point of the book is putting cases such as me, if just a hint less self-conscious, in their rightful place; just another individualistic rebel who lazily rejects all small reforms in favour of a total paradigm shift which will most probably never come, at least not in the form anybody expects. Maybe I am such a naive, sentimental being as to fall right into this argumentative trap, but I feel, like so many others ridiculed in the book, that there just is something wrong at a much deeper level with the world than what can be merely altered through laws and regulations.

Enough. I could go on. As someone whose rough ideology is directly challenged by the book, I feel I have to excuse myself and prove how “they don’t get it” in quite a thorough and wordy manner. I’m not sure I like this reacion of mine but I acknowledge it. Suffice it to say that this shows that the book is at least worth reading. For good or bad, it has intensified my great ideological confusion and has made me think and question myself – a favourite hobby of mine, that last part. I recognise its value and its propositions even if -I suppose I should say ‘thankfully’- at a sentimental level I just can’t agree. I suggest that you read it and see what impact it has on you too.

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