A few days ago, on Thursday, I listened to metal on my way to work (Sweden's excellent Arch Enemy), baroque in the morning hours (Bach's The Goldberg Variations), easy listening during the afternoon (The Carpenters, my not-so-guilty pleasure) and singer-songwriter stuff on the way home (Suzanne Vega's solid Beauty And Crime album).
Now, does this eclecticism make me a dream consumer or a marketing nightmare for the music industry? I would guess the latter. The advertising and brand people in the big corporations try to create brand loyalty and long-lasting ties between their product and a consumer. The only way to connect with mass audiences is to awake the interest of certain predefined target audiences they can then cater to.
Since I'm a bit this and another bit that and find life way too amusing to settle into any particular segment, capturing my attention would be like aiming at a very fast moving target - very frustrating!
And here's what bothers me: I sincerely believe a Renaissance mentality - "nothing human must be alien to me" - is, or it should be, a vital part of our dealings with the world around us as it is the only way we can truly evolve beyond tribal, local and national preconceptions. But instead, our entire business-driven and profit-based reality favors pre-made choices, obedient consumer segments and predictable purchasing behaviors. We talk of freedoms and liberties but settle willingly into Pavlovian patterns.
Gotta go make and make some dinner; I think I'll put on some music from the era of the Crusades. Catch me if you can.
2010-07-25
2010-07-20
A happy childhood among the dead
On a hot summer's day, it's nice to slide into the shadows and cool off. The buzzing noises of heat recede, it's easier to breathe and you can think more clearly.
For a few days, my literary self has been taking it cool in the shadows of a cemetery, where the folks are more on the mellow side, the night time is the right time and no one's in a rush. In other words, I'm reading the wonderful The Graveyard Book by the ever-wonderful Neil Gaiman.
How's this for a premise: a toddler survives a massacre where a mysterious man butchers the boy's entire family. The good dead people of a nearby cemetery shelter and raise the boy as almost one of their own, until the unavoidable time comes when wings must be spread and the past confronted.
Macabre? Morbid? Not at all - not the way the book's written.
With this novel, Gaiman does many things at once. He tells a fable of a different childhood, creates wonderful scenes where the dead from different ages instruct the boy, pays homage to Mr. Dickens' "the education of an orphan boy with possibilities ahead of him" narratives (the old-fashioned English of many of the departed enhances this aspect), and ponders the rights and wrongs of human existence in a way that should please anyone over eight years of age (the book is at places too scary for little kids).
The Graveyard Book is categorized as fantasy, but like all good fantasy, it's all about the human drama, which is really what Neil Gaiman's entire output is about, from Sandman to American Gods to Coraline. The guy takes humanity and what it means to be human seriously, but the has the blessed gift of expressing himself in the most entertaining and enchanting way. Consequently, the life-and-death themes in this novel are not used as a blunt weapon but as a central structure that Gaiman decorates with wit, wisdom, humor and empathy for us all.
There will be a movie version, too, directed by Neil Jordan - a great choice, given his impressive genre work in The Company of Wolves and Interview With the Vampire. But what about the title - will it be The Graveyard Movie?
For a few days, my literary self has been taking it cool in the shadows of a cemetery, where the folks are more on the mellow side, the night time is the right time and no one's in a rush. In other words, I'm reading the wonderful The Graveyard Book by the ever-wonderful Neil Gaiman.
How's this for a premise: a toddler survives a massacre where a mysterious man butchers the boy's entire family. The good dead people of a nearby cemetery shelter and raise the boy as almost one of their own, until the unavoidable time comes when wings must be spread and the past confronted.
Macabre? Morbid? Not at all - not the way the book's written.
The Graveyard Book is categorized as fantasy, but like all good fantasy, it's all about the human drama, which is really what Neil Gaiman's entire output is about, from Sandman to American Gods to Coraline. The guy takes humanity and what it means to be human seriously, but the has the blessed gift of expressing himself in the most entertaining and enchanting way. Consequently, the life-and-death themes in this novel are not used as a blunt weapon but as a central structure that Gaiman decorates with wit, wisdom, humor and empathy for us all.
There will be a movie version, too, directed by Neil Jordan - a great choice, given his impressive genre work in The Company of Wolves and Interview With the Vampire. But what about the title - will it be The Graveyard Movie?
2010-07-16
The making of a bestselling author - maybe
Until about 6-7 years ago, Finland had no international pop culture success. None, zilch, nada. Much of the hit music was (and still is) in Finnish, and exporting the English-language product failed because the state didn't invest enough in it, not realizing there actually is serious money to be made from globally successful media products. And the Finnish culture admittedly has more than its share of local eccentricities that would be hard to communicate to the outside world - or so we've believed.
Things have changed of late, of course. The global metal community's endorsement of several Finnish bands, most notably Nightwish, Children of Bodom and HIM, launched a positive domino effect, and now Finns are major players not only in music but the games industry as well. But both those sectors of pop culture leave little room for local flavor.
But there may be a big exception to that rule happening right now. Estonian-born Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen has turned into a media and culture cause celebre in Finland after only three novels and one play, and her latest novel Purge is being hailed here and there in the English-speaking world as the Next Must-Read Book. The London Times said that "Sofi Oksanen has become a literary phenomenon...Purge is a flawed, brilliant piece of work that does not easily relinquish its grip on reader's imagination", and The Economist noted that ""Purge" has been a huge success in Ms Oksanen's native Finland and has won prizes across continental Europe. It deserves an equal success now that it is available for an English-speaking audience. Anyone reading this blog is presumably interested in the region, and anyone interested in the region should read this book. "
Let me emphasize: this is most unexpected. Not only because she comes from an insignificant Nordic country, but because the themes in her books are about the Baltic region and its 20th century history, the status of women in the Soviet era Estonia, and so on. Not exactly world-gripping subjects, perhaps, but it seems she's done something that usually signifies true art: she has the ability to handle very local, very personal topics in a way that reveals the universal dilemmas and moral challenges beneath. And she does this in a literary voice very much her own.
Things have changed of late, of course. The global metal community's endorsement of several Finnish bands, most notably Nightwish, Children of Bodom and HIM, launched a positive domino effect, and now Finns are major players not only in music but the games industry as well. But both those sectors of pop culture leave little room for local flavor.
Let me emphasize: this is most unexpected. Not only because she comes from an insignificant Nordic country, but because the themes in her books are about the Baltic region and its 20th century history, the status of women in the Soviet era Estonia, and so on. Not exactly world-gripping subjects, perhaps, but it seems she's done something that usually signifies true art: she has the ability to handle very local, very personal topics in a way that reveals the universal dilemmas and moral challenges beneath. And she does this in a literary voice very much her own.
Her young age, over-the-top Goth style, sharply worded opinions and open bisexuality don't make things exactly worse, either, from the media point of view. In any case, it will be very interesting to follow her career and see what the outside world will make of her books. Rumours say that Purge is already taken up by Hollywood; whispers of Meryl Streep in the lead role have been heard. Wait and see.
(Author photo: Toni Härkönen)
(Author photo: Toni Härkönen)
2010-07-14
Back to Back to the Future
Updating my music library, I bumped into the Back to the Future trilogy soundtracks and promptly put them in my mp3 player. Listening to Alan Silvestri's excellent scores is like meeting an old friend; I enjoyed the movies when they first came out (and I was young) and had a great time watching them again with my kids a couple of years ago (they loved 'em, too).
The music brought back scenes and lines from movies, and suddenly it struck me: these movies were actually a lot better than 99% of the stuff that passes as youth entertainment today. Robert Zemeckis was always one of the better blockbuster directors, and his ensemble did a wonderful job. OK, I dig the Caribbean pirates and the hobbits and all that as much as the next idiot. But the BTTF trilogy relied on clever plotting, hip dialogue and slightly weirdo characters (Doc Brown!) instead of effects overkill. And the three movies are not just Movie 1 and its two sequels; both part II and part III have their own personalities. The surprisingly bleak visions of BTTF II and the sweet Wild West fantasy of BTTF III easily survive on their own.
The movies may have been blockbusters aimed at a non-discriminating audience, but at the same time they exhibit wicked intelligence and, well, dignity, for want of a better word, e.g. the moral dilemmas of part II and the delicate love affair in part III.
Deliberately risking that I sound like a granddad: they just don't make 'em like that anymore. Great Scott - that was entertainment! Now did my DVD's have the director's comment track...
The movies may have been blockbusters aimed at a non-discriminating audience, but at the same time they exhibit wicked intelligence and, well, dignity, for want of a better word, e.g. the moral dilemmas of part II and the delicate love affair in part III.
Deliberately risking that I sound like a granddad: they just don't make 'em like that anymore. Great Scott - that was entertainment! Now did my DVD's have the director's comment track...
2010-07-12
Music for a heatwave
Finland is being baked. The may have had chilly nights down in South Africa during the World Cup, but up here by the Polar Circle we're practically melting. This is the first time I remember our weather authorities are issuing health warnings because of the heat.
During the soccer finals weekend I put aside my usual prog & metal & classic records and settled on an old-fashioned vocal jazz and lounge diet: the only genre that really fits the weather. The fantastic Holly Cole's Shade is practically a theme album filled with summer songs spiced up with a Latino pulse here, a drowsy lizard-in-the-sun languidity there. And Jamie Cullum's Pointless Nostalgic, with its more traditional club/crooner stylings, helped me to imagine I was in some old-time class joint in Vegas, surrounded by all that... well, Vegas-ness, you know.
Sometimes music doesn't have to offer anything mindblowing or excitingly new. In slow-moving heathaze days such as these, it's enough to have good music work as a high-class, feel-good mood soundtrack
During the soccer finals weekend I put aside my usual prog & metal & classic records and settled on an old-fashioned vocal jazz and lounge diet: the only genre that really fits the weather. The fantastic Holly Cole's Shade is practically a theme album filled with summer songs spiced up with a Latino pulse here, a drowsy lizard-in-the-sun languidity there. And Jamie Cullum's Pointless Nostalgic, with its more traditional club/crooner stylings, helped me to imagine I was in some old-time class joint in Vegas, surrounded by all that... well, Vegas-ness, you know.
Sometimes music doesn't have to offer anything mindblowing or excitingly new. In slow-moving heathaze days such as these, it's enough to have good music work as a high-class, feel-good mood soundtrack
2010-07-06
The Sacred Sweat of the South
The heat wave finally hit Finland. The days feel like winter will never come again, not to this baked and sweltering land. And even if we know how the story ends, it's nice to pretend for a little while that one will never again need all that protective armor against the freeze. Oh well...
Incidentally, I'm just reading Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, a bestseller from a few years ago. With its setting in the scorching equal rights summer of 1964 in South Carolina, the current weather fits the experience perfectly. I'm about 3/4 through the book, but I can already say it's been a good ride. Not only does it do well in the "entertaining summer reading with Big Themes woven in" genre, it also evoked in my mind a whole subgenre of literary and cinematic works where the human drama unfolds beneath the Southern sun and the paradox-filled culture and history of Dixie. Tennessee Williams, of course, but the slightly Hollywood-ized version of the South even more: To Kill a Mockingbird, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Color Purple, Steel Magnolias, Driving Miss Daisy, Mississippi Burning, Cool Hand Luke, Body Heat, True Blood and Wise Blood and so on and on; stories of passionate people, both good and bad, white and black, whose endeavors and fates are given a somehow deeper, mythical sheen with all that sweating, the hazy golden sun, the warm nights alive with the endless song of the cicadas, the droopy trees, the old houses with peeling paint, and always a faint threat of violence in the air.
It's as if there was something in the South's atmosphere that makes the characters in these fables larger than life, their wisdom deep, their anger terrifying, morals all Old Testament and catharses all Greek tragedy.
North Carolina is as far South as I have ever travelled in the USA, so I can't comment on the fact and fiction side of things on the issue. But I'm grateful for the narrative traditions the Mythical South has generated. Especially in deep winter it's comforting to transport to a place where the heat does go on and all finales are grande.
Incidentally, I'm just reading Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, a bestseller from a few years ago. With its setting in the scorching equal rights summer of 1964 in South Carolina, the current weather fits the experience perfectly. I'm about 3/4 through the book, but I can already say it's been a good ride. Not only does it do well in the "entertaining summer reading with Big Themes woven in" genre, it also evoked in my mind a whole subgenre of literary and cinematic works where the human drama unfolds beneath the Southern sun and the paradox-filled culture and history of Dixie. Tennessee Williams, of course, but the slightly Hollywood-ized version of the South even more: To Kill a Mockingbird, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Color Purple, Steel Magnolias, Driving Miss Daisy, Mississippi Burning, Cool Hand Luke, Body Heat, True Blood and Wise Blood and so on and on; stories of passionate people, both good and bad, white and black, whose endeavors and fates are given a somehow deeper, mythical sheen with all that sweating, the hazy golden sun, the warm nights alive with the endless song of the cicadas, the droopy trees, the old houses with peeling paint, and always a faint threat of violence in the air.
It's as if there was something in the South's atmosphere that makes the characters in these fables larger than life, their wisdom deep, their anger terrifying, morals all Old Testament and catharses all Greek tragedy.
North Carolina is as far South as I have ever travelled in the USA, so I can't comment on the fact and fiction side of things on the issue. But I'm grateful for the narrative traditions the Mythical South has generated. Especially in deep winter it's comforting to transport to a place where the heat does go on and all finales are grande.
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