My eyes! My eyes!

My eyes are sore. I've been layouting the newest issue of Ruudinsavu all day. (Well, not all day, maybe for two hours, but I was working fiercely before that.) It will be a good issue, with a long article on John Wayne's B-pictures, an essay on Budd Boetticher and several shorter pieces on Deadwood. I have yet to write an interview I did with Jim Beaver who plays Ellsworth in the show.

What else is new? I've been reading old newspapers for an article I mentioned earlier: about Tapani Maskula's writings on the American post-film noir new wave, in the late fifties to the early sixties, just before the European New Wave hit the shores and everyone started to make too self-conscious anti-Hollywood films. People like Irving Lerner, Paul Wendkos and Burt Topper get Maskula's praise. No one knows these names anymore. I've picked some other information along the way, too - I started a database for buildings and their designers into which I added stuff from the papers. I've also found quite a batch of new rare first names (new to me, that is).

Tit-bits from today:

I tried to e-mail to a lady whom I knew to be a descendant of a writer whose short story I'd like to reprint, but the e-mail bounced back.

I bought a vintage Hawaiian shirt from UFF's 3-euro day.

I tried to get Aake Jermo's old crime novel from the university library to scan its cover, but they had bound it without the cover! What crime!

I got a request to say something to a local newspaper about the EU attempt to crash the library grant system that works nicely in Finland and helps unpopular writers - such as myself* - to maintain their profession. Have to write it soon, after Shield.

I'm also going to another interview: I'll be in an article about men who like to dress in a personal manner! I'll post the pictures here.

* Unpopular? The name books I've done with Elina have been very popular. I could even benefit from the new system. But I have solidarity towards my fellow workers. And I could do worse and write obscure poetry ladened with allusions to Jacques Derrida and Gerard Manley Hopkins.