Cahill's Black Pirate

I was going to write a review of this book for Pulp, but I couldn't find a copy of the book, even though I know I have seen it several times cheap. I know nothing about the book, except that the translation was published by a Christian house.

Sabatini

An unidentified cover for Sabatini's classic, Captain Blood. (Note that it says Captin.)

Still some pirate stuff

A cover of a British (paperback?) series set in sea. Parts of the Kelso series were translated in Sweden in the Fregattenböcker series that was also transported into Finland.

The pirate issue of Pulp

The long-waited pirate issue of Pulp came today finally from the press. It has articles on such items as Ken Bulmer's Adam Hardy series, Rafael Sabatini, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pirate Blood, the German series called Sea Wolf (at least in Finland, I don't know what it was in Germany), the Treasure Island sequels, Walter Baumhofer, etc. Lots of interesting stuff. This magazine should be published in English. I wanted to have so much more in there - I was planning for example an article about Frank Slaughter's pirate novels, but didn't have time to read them.

For what it's worth, here's some illustrations that I found lying in the web, but were left out.
The Buccaneers thing is for the fifties TV show of which there was a Big Little Book.

The Wheelman, pt. 2

Finished The Wheelman the other night. It is truly a great piece of action. Very nasty ending, I tell you that. They sure won't put that into the film that's supposed to be in the making.

There's one minor glitch, but I won't give it away, since it would spoil everything. In the end everything was saved once again, though.

The book is also making good nominationwise. Good luck to Mr. Swierczynski - and happy birthday to Parker!

Talk about westerns

The latest issue of Ruudinsavu has had almost unanimously great response with its articles on Deadwood, John Wayne's B-movies and Budd Boetticher, but we'll yet have to see what people will think about the sex-themed Ruudinsavu.

My friend Sami has furnished me with well-researched and enthusiastic articles about all kinds of adult westerns, from movies to German and Finnish paperbacks. He even wrote a great short story to go with the issue! Today he brought me some DVDs to scan for the mag. Kate and the Indians, Sweet Savage... I just can't wait.

On the left you can see the classic of the genre, A Dirty Western, from the early seventies. Even the actors sound like it's a real McCoy: Richard O'Neal, Dick Payne, Vern Ross, L.Q. O'Donnel, Taylor Wayne...

Still dada

This is once again quite untranslatable (or actually I'm at the moment too tired to even think of doing anything like that). It's called The List of Trophies and I made it up from various sources, including old print ads and the religious pamphlet I've mentioned here couple of times. It has provided me many moments of hilarious joy. The line "häpeämätön housupuku/the shameless trouser suit" is a classic. (I have a habit of using it in various instances when anyone is talking about clothing.)

It's signed as by Paavo Haavikko who is one of the most revered Finnish poets. I have a friend who had a habit of signing his letters (this was in the late eighties) under false names - this came from one of his letters.

Some of the letters don't show very well. Hope you can see something - enlarge the picture if not.

Duane Swierczynski kicks ass!

After finally getting the pirate issue of Pulp into the printers, I started to read Duane Swierczynski's The Wheelman.

I said in an earlier post (about entirely different matters) that buzz around some new artefacts isn't necessarily enough to attract me. In this case, it's just the opposite. Everything I've heard about Swierczynski's book made me want to read it.

And nothing I heard was wrong. It's one great piece of action.

Elina was watching something related to her work on VHS and I sat beside her reading. At one point I raised my head and said: "I'm on page 29 and this guy who's mute and does criminal jobs as a driver has been stripped naked and pushed upside down to the industrial pipe that is so tight he can't move. He shot the other of the two guys who were harassing him and now he has to climb up from the pipe, still upside down."

I mean, page 29! This is how thrillers should be written. If this was some kind of techno or serial murder thriller stuff, this would happen in page 290 (if it would happen at all), after elaborate details on the background of the mute guy and his girlfriend and the killer's trauma after having been assaulted by his uncle and the football team and everyone would've visited Hong Kong or Brussels at least once. Nothing of that crap here. Here's some seriously hoping that Swierczynski finds his way to the Finnish audience!

My article on Hardluck Stories and Thrilling Detective

Due to some mishap in my own head, I sent to Ruumiin kulttuuri the not-updated version of my article about Dave Zeltserman and Kevin Burton Smith and their great noir sites Hardluck Stories and Thrilling Detective. It was printed of course as such, which I duly apologize. Here's the updated version (in Finnish, of course).

Noir hengittää netissä

Uusi noir elää hyvin myös netissä. Monet nettijulkaisut ovat ottaneet vanhojen pulp-lehtien paikan ja tarjoavat uusille kirjoittajille tilaisuuden hioa kynsiään ennen romaania. Vanhin edelleen toimivista nettisivuista, joka julkaisee kovaksikeitettyjä dekkarinovelleja, on kanadalainen Kevin Burton Smithin Thrilling Detective, joka ilmoitti toissa vuoden joulukuussa alkavansa maksaa novelleista.
Thrilling Detective on ollut olemassa jo seitsemän vuotta. Nettisivun lanseeraus ei ollut aikoinaan iso juttu.
”Sitä mainostettiin vain alan harrastajien sähköpostilistalla”, kertoo Smith. ”En voinut uskoa, että asia kiinnostaisi ketään muuta.”
On kuitenkin kiinnostanut: sivuilla vierailee vuosittain yli 50 000 kävijää. Sivun koko ja suosio ovat kasvaneet käsi kädessä.
Thrilling Detectiven suosituimmat sivut ovat uutispalstat sekä kirjallisuuden yksityisetsivien listaukset (joukossa myös suomalaisia dekkareita). Sivu on kuitenkin koottu uusien novellien ympärille.
Smith sanoo, että päästäkseen Thrilling Detectiven sivuille novellissa tulee olla yhtenä päähenkilönä yksityisetsivä tai joku muu sellaiseen verrattava – tällainen on esimerkiksi englanninkielisen debyyttinsä viime vuonna tehneen Tapani Baggen ”Kasvot betonissa” –novellin epämääräinen asianajaja Onni Syrjänen.
Smith sanookin, että määritelmä on väljä. Tärkeintä on, että tarina on hyvä.
”Olemme julkaisseet sivulla paljon kirjoittajia, jotka ovat sittemmin päätyneet kirjoihinkin”, Smith kehaisee.
Tällaisia ovat britti Ray Banks (The Big Blind) ja Duane Swierczynski (Secret Dead Men, The Wheelman), jotka aloittivat Point Blank Pressillä. Swierczynski on selvästi upean uran alussa, koska hän vaihtoi kustantajaa amerikkalaisittain keskisuurelle St. Martin’sille, The Wheelman sai upeat arvostelut ja kirjailija kolmen romaanin sopimuksen. Aiemmista Thrilling Detectiven kirjoittajista romaaniseulan läpäisseitä ovat muun muassa Jack Bludis, Victor Gischler ja Dave Zeltserman.
Noirin uuteen suosioon on Smithin mukaan hyviä syitä. ”Monet ovat kyllästyneet valtaapitävien sokeroituihin valheisiin, tavaroihin joita emme tarvitse, sotiin joita emme halua käydä, politiikkaan johon emme usko.”
Kanadalaisen hyvinvointivaltion kansalainen Smith täräyttää: ”Maailmassa on paljon kyynisyyttä ja skeptisyyttä, kun ihmiset ovat huomanneet, että maailmaa hallitsevat poliitikot ja isot yritykset, jotka iskevät liiskaksi ne, jotka nousevat heidän tielleen.”
Smith ei kuitenkaan usko, että noir-kirjallisuus voisi muuttaa maailmaa. ”Se ei taatusti tarjoa minkäänlaisia ratkaisuja maailman parantamiseksi, mutta se tarjoaa tunnistettavan kuvan maailmastamme. Noir tarjoaa lohdutusta: ainakin lukija tietää, ettei hän ole yksin absurdissa ja pelottavassa maailmassa.”

Kovan onnen tarinoita
Thrilling Detectiveä pienimuotoisempi on amerikkalaisen Dave Zeltsermanin Hardluck Stories, joka on ollut olemassa kahden vuoden ajan. Zeltserman on itsekin kirjailija ja hänen esikoisensa Fast Lane ilmestyi toissa syksynä Point Blank Pressiltä. Zeltserman on juuri äskettäin myynyt eri kustantajille novellikokoelman Small Crimes ja romaanin Bad Thoughts.
Nokialla aikoinaan töissä ollut ja firman laskuun Espoossa vuonna 1999 viikon ajan ryypännyt Zeltserman näkee itsensä lähinnä Hardluckin ylläpitäjänä. Varsinaisina fiktiotoimittajina hänellä on ollut useita kirjailijoita, kuten Suomessa harmillisen huonosti tunnettu Jeremiah Healy. Zeltserman on itse toimittanut artikkelit ja haastattelut.
”Olin miettinyt tällaista nettisivua jo vuodesta 1992, jolloin työskentelin it-alan firmassa ja joku esitteli minulle Mosaic-ohjelmaa. Silloin maailmassa oli vain noin kuusi nettisivua. Kymmenen vuotta myöhemmin sain lopullisen innoituksen perustaa Hardluck Stories, koska pystyin siten keksimään tekosyitä omalle kirjoittamiselleni”, Zeltserman kertoo.
Zeltsermanin nettisivu julkaisee vain kovaksikeitettyjä ja noir-novelleja.
”Pidän tarinoista, joissa on vahva juoni ja vahva tunnelataus. Minusta täydellisin rikosnovelli on Jim Thompsonin ’Forever After’, joka on vain kuusi sivua pitkä, mutta siinä on aivan loistava juoni ja vahva lopetus.”
Zeltserman ei kuitenkaan innostu ylettömyydestä. ”Omat juttuni ovat aika väkivaltaisia, mutta en pidä siitä, että lukijaa shokeerataan vain shokeerauksen vuoksi.”
Hardluck Stories on julkaissut kaikentyyppisiä kirjailijoita aloittelijoista nimikirjoittajiin. Joka kuukausi sivulla käy 2000–5000 lukijaa ja jokainen novelli käydään läpi 300–500 kertaa. ”Jotkut novellit ovat saaneet jopa 5000 lukijaa”, Zeltserman sanoo ylpeänä.
Uusin numero ilmestyi juuri helmikuun alussa ja on upea kokoelma alan keskeisiä kirjoittajia, kuten Ed Gorman ja Harry Shannon, ja uudemmista kirjailijoista muun muassa britti Ken Bruen, jonka soisi tulevan tunnetuksi Suomessakin, ja J.A. Konrath.
Hardluck Storiesia luetaan säännöllisesti kustantamoissa ja kirjailija-agentuureissa. Zeltserman sanoo tuntevansa myös arvostelijoita, jotka tarkistavat sivut säännöllisesti.
Joskus nappaa. Zeltsermanin oman esikoisromaanin lisäksi kaksi muutakin Hardluckilla aloitellutta kirjoittajaa on saanut jalan kustantajien oven väliin, kuten aiemmin mainitut Ray Banks ja Allan Guthrie. Guthrien esikoinen, raju Two-Way Split ilmestyi Point Blank Pressiltä ja Kiss Her Goodbye retropokkarifirmalta Hard Case Crimelta. Näiden jälkeen Guthrien ura lähti noususuuntaukseen ja hän teki sopimuksen skottilaisen Polygon-kustantamon kanssa. Kiss Her Goodbyen Edgar-ehdokkuus ei varmasti ollut vähäisin syy Guthrien urakehitykseen.
Zeltserman mainitsee vielä myös Julia Hyzyn, jonka ensimmäisen novellin hän julkaisi. Zeltserman lupaa, että sellaiset Hardluckin kirjoittajat kuin Pat Lambe, Ed Lynskey ja Graham Powell julkaisevat vielä jossain vaiheessa romaanin. ”Siitä ei ole epäilystäkään!”
Hard Luck julkaisee kovempia novelleja kuin yhdysvaltalaisessa kirjamaailmassa yleensä. Zeltserman sanoo, ettei hän halua itsekään kirjoittaa tavanomaista valtavirtakamaa, jota kaikki isot kustantamot julkaisevat.
Mutta hän ei koe olevansa yksin.
”Jos nyt ei ole uutta noir-sukupolvea, olen tehnyt ihan turhaa duunia”, Zeltserman sanoo.

Uutta noiria netissä
Noir Originals: Allan Guthrien ylläpitämä sivu, jossa kaksi alasivua: New Writers esittelee uusia kirjoittajia, lähinnä romaanikatkelmilla, ja Noir Originals, jolla on haastatteluja ja artikkeleita. www.allanguthrie.co.uk
Demolition Mag: Vielä romaania vailla olevan Bryon Quertermousin sivu, jonka ensimmäisessä numerossa kirjoittavat muun muassa Victor Gischler ja Anthony Neil Smith. www.demolitionmag.com
Thuglit: Rajuja juttuja lähinnä aloittelevilta kirjoittajilta, mutta mukana myös romaaneillakin ansioituneita, kuten Tim Wohlforth. Sivu päivitetään joka toinen kuukausi. www.thuglit.com
PlotsWithGuns: Sittemmin debytoineiden Anthony Neil Smithin, Victor Gischlerin ja Sean Doolittlen perustama sivu on lopetettu, mutta arkistot vuosilta 1999—2004 ovat vielä saatavilla. Sivuilla olevista novelleista on koottu samanniminen antologia. Erikoismaininnan saa kesän 2004 valikoima, jossa on mukana mm. Ian Rankin. www.plotswithguns.com

Suddenly too much work

I'm suddenly swamped by work. It's coming from everywhere and I don't even try to push it. Some of it I really don't want to do, but at the moment have to, some of it I don't really know what it's about and what's my part in it. The good news is that the crime paperback line I've mentioned here once or twice is maybe reality in the near future.

It just bugs me that what I'd really like to do most is invent all the stuff myself and just sit here and write about it. Nothing else.

Glossary dada

This came from a Russian text book we were studying at school. I was reading words from the glossary in the back of the book and suddenly realized that there was a story in there.

Roughly it goes a bit like this:

what to
buy to the wife
and kid
after
lunch
outside
it's raining a little
romance
sings
himself
wife
likes
classical
boy of course
rock
birthday
long time ago
has promised
to give
the record
that's why
asked
to write
the notes
in the wallet
searched for
pop
entertainment
(the most)
popular
you
like to
hear
take
this band
listen

Jukka Murtosaari's cover for a Ralph Vaughan book

I received today a letter from my friend and Pulp's regular contributor, Jukka Murtosaari, who tries to make a living as an illustrator in Portugal, of all countries! He's even tried to push his work to the American publishers, Hard Case Crime and such. As a pulp illustration connoisseur, he'd be exactly what they want.

Here's his only - so far only - American cover. It's for Ralph E. Vaughan's Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu pastiche for Gryphon Books. This is only the sketch and it's from a black & white copy Jukka sent me.

In the meantime, Jukka is doing illustrations for the Finnish publishers.

Work update

Started again rewriting the YA novel we wrote with Elina in 2002. It came back again from a publisher, but we had a bunch of useful critique and try to put that in action.

I figured out how to make The Blood Orgy of the Void God more publishable. (I don't expect anyone to remember this, I've mentioned it once or twice.) Should get into that maybe next week. I'm actually eager to start this.

The mail brought Ville Hänninen's new reference book on comic and graphic novel artists, with my articles on Goscinny, Benoit Sokal, Munoz-Sampayo and Frank Miller in it. Looks good. And congrats to Ville! (We are doing a mutual blog here.)

The pirate issue of Pulp is finally drawing to a close. Maybe later this week I'll get into printers. About friggin' time!

Translating Russell Banks's Rule of the Bone page a day.

Waiting to get back to Pulpografia Britannica and the book on movies for the prepubescent audience.

More dada

This was done by mixing together pieces of a religious pamphlet and some stuff from a school book (if I remember correctly). The headline was probably made with some PR material about the film of the same name. (I was already doing movie reviews at the time I did this. We are talking about something like 1990.)

The Finnish Die Hard

The President, the government,
ministries, the Parliament.
Decision by decision
You'll burn,
Finland.

Cities, organizations, counties,
central and workers' unions.
Business corporations, the economics.
People, who affect
and who are being affected:
the future of the state.

THE PEOPLE OF FINLAND BEWARE
You'll be prisoned,
the cruel war
is at your door.

If you
will not
soon
truly
repent all your sins.
Amen.

Max Phillips's Fade To Blonde

Like your stuff fast and mean? Fancy your dames dangerous, your guys tough and brutal? Then Max Phillips's Fade To Blonde is just a book for you. It was one of the first books that the retro paperback publisher Hard Case Crime put out just about a year ago and I only now got to read it. (I'm way behind in my readings anyway, so don't try any bullshit.)

It's quite an astonishing achievement, Phillips's book, because there's no way you could tell whether it was really written in the late fifties where it's set (or is the very early sixties?) or not. The sex scenes are more explicit than they could've been in the fifties, but then again, some of the original noir paperbacks were pretty explicit to start with. What's funny (to me, at least) is that it's set in the same world as my unpublished Joe Novak novel The Dostoyevsky Reel: the world of Hollywood fringes, B-films, unemployed extras, smut films etc.

What's more entertaining is that Phillips has a sure eye for wisecracks and cynical dialogue. Here's a treat (I'm a lazy ass, so I picked this up from the sample chapter at the Hard Case site):
"In case his friends might not like you."
"Friends?"
"Always got one, two, even three guys along, and never the same ones. He must purely hate to be alone."
"Guys," I said.
"Yeh."
"Bodyguards."
"Okay," he said.
"What would one man need with so many?"
"Beats me. ’Course, if you got three, you can play a game of bridge. How’s that gimlet?"
"Good," I said truthfully. "How’s business?"

So, if you like fifties-style hardboiled stuff that doesn't play too fast with the super guns à la Sin City or doesn't sink into the weary world of pastichedom, Fade To Blonde is just your book.

(I understood that Max Phillips is actually a literary novelist of some merit. His second novel, The Artist's Wife (Fade was his third, if I understood correctly) is about Alma Mahler. His first was called Snakebite Sonnet and it is a love story that lasts for over 20 years, beginning when the protagonist is 10.)

The world's best sandwich

I was starving when I got home today from the university library (where I'd been studying some old men's mags and watching long-haired pussies from the golden seventies and searching for stories of a new acquaintance of mine) and wanted to have something quickly. We were going to have wine later in the evening, and steaks, with Elina after Kauto went to sleep (and I'm drunk now), and didn't want to waste that with the five p.m. supper.

So, I fried two eggs and bacon and heated up a carrot bun in the pan. I spread some French mustard on the bun and put the bacon and some liver pate on the mustard. Then I put the fried eggs on top and placed the other half of the bun on the eggs.

It was the motherfuckingest sandwich I ever did eat! I'd do it anytime again! Instead of memes about the music you loath or the weirdest habits you have we could have one with the best sandwiches you ate. Tosikko, here's a go. And the second one goes to Duane Swierczynski. And then on to Jukkahoo.

Back to dada

After an assortement of various matters, here's again another dada poem from way back. I don't remember any more where I got the stuff from, but you can see it's a cut-up. It's something about the Second World War. I maybe should've used other sources too - it gets a bit repetitive at the end.

Hope it shows bigger now (click on the picture), so you can see better.

I'm sorry, but it's virtually untranslatable. The title goes Telegram to the United States of America of the German Armed Forces. Huh?

By the way, the dada editorial below is now clickable. It was the Ä letter thing, as I surmised.

Ylioppilastehtävät

(Sorry, in Finnish - we'll be getting back to the normal schedule some time soon.)

Sedis kehotti kirjoittamaan oman ylioppilasaineen. En millään viitsisi, vaikka hänen oma kirjoitelmansa oli hauska. Katsoin kyllä aiheet - ja mitä helvettiä! tehtävälautakunnan omissa kysymyksissä on kielioppivirhe! Ja vielä yksi säälittävimmistä mitä voi tehdä! Jonkun "sitä ei oltu vielä syöty" -tyyppisen voi jotenkuten ymmärtää, mutta ei tätä:

Vastaa esitettyjen väitteiden ja oman harkintasi pohjalta sen kysymykseen "Kumpi voittaa?".

Siis sanokaapa nyt, mistä helvetistä tuo piste tuonne tuli. Suomen kielessä ei tule enää pistettä sen jälkeen, jos lainattu lause sisältää jo kysymys- tai huutomerkin. Sehän on verrannollinen pisteeseen. Kirjoittaisiko joku näin:

..kysymykseen "Kumpi voittaa.".

Ei jumalauta. Nyt pitää ruveta hommiin. Suomen kieltä ei saa kohdella näin kaltoin. (Vaimolle sanoin: "Nyt saatana tapan kaikki!" Mutta ehkä se on hiukan liioiteltu reaktio. Ruton tavoin leviävä ylimääräinen piste saa minut toisaalta raivon partaalle. Älkää sitten ihmetelkö, jos luette otsikon: Tietokirjailija raivostui kielioppivirheestä. Satoja kuolleita.)

Edit: No nyt kyllä putoilee päitä. Katsoin tehtävää uudestaan. Siellähän lukee myös näin:

Sivuilla 12-13 on osa lehtiartikkelista Kirjoittamisen viimeinen vuosisata?.

Jos olisin abiturientti, kävelisin rauhallisesti valvojan luokse ja sanoisin, että en voi osallistua tähän ylioppilaskirjoitukseen.

Flea market trip - again!

We got to spend lots of money today when we decided to take a day off and head off to Loimaa, which I've been telling here over and over again is the best flea market town in whole Finland. We had six bags full of all kinds of stuff when we got back. The best find was the full translation of Marx's Das Kapital for six euros. I also liked the early fifties fedora, almost intact, that I found for five euros.

It wasn't only vacation all day. We held a job meeting in the train with Elina and talked about future plans and all. In the bus on the way back I read a short western story by Totti Karpela that he had respectfully submitted to the all-story issue of the Ruudinsavu magazine that should be appearing next Summer. It was very much okay. I even sent it to the illustrator when we got back home.

The Tampere Short Film Festival

As I promised, I'd give a report on the annual Tampere Short Film Festival. Nothing much pulp-wise, but interesting films nevertheless, even though I've been largely disappointed by the lack of good, solid classics in the screenings. The festival is nowadays mostly about new films which for some reason or another leave me cold. I'd want to see them 20 years from now only to see if they still hold up or have become classics in their own right. The fuzz isn't enough to attract me.

What I saw:

Two screenings of Robert Drew's films; unluckily I couldn't get into one with two of his old documentaries. Primary from 1960 is deservedly a classic and it must've seemed very radical in its directness. There are only two scenes with a voice-over narration which had been essential to every documentary before that. John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey are both portrayed objectively and sympathetically. (For some reason, I thought Humphrey was looked at closer than JFK. Drew himself said that the pro-Humphrey folks saw it was pro-Humphrey and the pro-Kennedy people as pro-Kennedy.) Drew is now 84 years old and it's no wonder his most recent film, From Two Men and a War, about his own adventures in WWII as a pilot fighter, was tired at times. The dramatizations showed that as a young man he knew very well he shouldn't do them. They were clumsy. Yet the film packed quite a punch, and I'd raise my hat to anyone who makes a 55-minute film at 84!

The Brazilian documentary/city symphony São Paulo, Sinfonia de Metrópole from 1929, that was backed up by the Finnish funk/electro/indie band Giant Robot. The show left me cold. I like the city symphony subgenre, but I thought this was pretty unimaginative compared to Ruttmann's Berlin or Vertov's A Man and a Movie Camera (and even to the lesser known films of the same genre) and the music didn't bring enough new information to it. There were moments in which the film sprang to life, but then again some bits of abstract animation were unmotivated. It felt like they were just copying the European formula. (In fact it's an American formula. The first city symphony is thought to be the American Paul Strand's Mannahatta from 1920 or 1921 (the sources differ).

Two screenings of animations by Bill Plympton. I liked his stuff quite a lot, even though it wasn't perfect. I liked his early stuff best - it had striking violence and totally uncorrect attitudes, but I thought his latter films lacked the energy and the charming nonchalance they still had. The newer films seemed to me somewhat opportunistic, even though the violence was still there. His feature film Hair High (2004) was a tad too long, but fun nevertheless. I'd say Plympton has brought the influence of the classic American crazy animated comedy à la Tex Avery and Chuck Jones to the recent day without just making a pastiche, just like the guys like John Lasseter do. Plympton has a sense of timing (I think this is the most imporant aspect in any cinematic comedy) and he is unscrupulous. At times it was like watching Tex Avery in amphetamine. Plympton was also present at the festival, giving away sketches and autographs. He was the perfect embodiment of the American energy and openness. My jaw dropped when I saw that he's sixty this year! He looked like 45!

The Carte Blanche of the Finnish animation maker Katariina Lillqvist. The show was combined of two films, the Czech surrealist glove animation Zaniklý svet rukavic (1982; a bit strained, but funny at times and the animation of the gloves was strikingly good) and Luis Buñuel's L'Âge d'Or or The Golden Age. I've loved the film since I first saw it in 1987 or so and I've tried to see it every time possible. I watched with a grin on my face all the time. It still packs quite a punch: Gaston Modot dreaming of his mistress sitting on a toilet and then flushing, Modot kicking every animal he sees and pushing an old blind man to the ground, the cow sitting in a bed, Jesus Christ being one of the murderous sadists in a pastiche of de Sade's 120 Days in Sodoma... What a film! Gaston Modot is one of the heroes of the 20th century, hardboiled, cynical, full of hatred, and on a mysterious mission from the ministry of internal affairs (this could be the pulp stuff you're seeking here: it's clearly meant to be a nod to the early 2oth century French thrillers, à la Fantomas and Arsene Lupin). I just love the scene in which his hatred comes to the climax. It's one of the most beautiful scenes in the annals of cinema.

Who I saw:

This kind of weekend is of course a good place to meet people. I couldn't get a chance to meet all the people I wanted to, but here goes "hi!" to Sami and Markku (thanks for the bunks!), Manu (send me the cassettes, will you?), Jenni (we couldn't get in the Tullikamari after three o'clock and rushed off to Doris instead, where I drank someone else's Bloody Mary), Satu, Ovaskainen (better luck next time!), Reijo (thanks again for the positive review of White Heat!), Jari Sedergren (whom I saw only while he was leaving the restaurant and I just coming in)... I'm forgetting lots of people. Jussi Karjalainen heard me talking on the phone with my father about Buñuel and he commented: "Sounds like you have an educated dad." I didn't get a chance to see dad - he was coming to the festival, but we had different schedules and I had to come back to Turku Saturday night.

All in all, it was as fun as usual, even though the films could've been better. I miss the early nineties festivals with lots of classics, such as the short films of Georges Franju... Oh, the power of Blood of the Beasts! And Jean Painlevé's Le Vampire (1945) tucked away in the midst of some mediocre vampire animations! What a waste! Markku was dreaming about the time when he had a chance to see Yuri Norshtein's Tale of Tales twice during the same festival!

I'm back

Wow man, am I tired! In two days I've slept something close to eight hours. Add to that couple of five-minute naps at movie theaters. I'll be reporting here about the film festival soon.

Quick note

Heading off tomorrow to Tampere for the International Short Film Festival. Hope to catch some of Robert Drew's early direct cinema efforts. And of course to see some friends. So won't be blogging for at least four days. (Just how can you live without me all this time?)

I think I caught the error in the scans that won't show bigger. They have letters ä in their file names - that may cause them not showing. Will have to repost them with another title.

Olen suositumpi kuin Oras Tynkkynen

I'm more popular than MP Oras Tynkkynen. Pulpetti is higher up on the blog list. Well, my number is 1207 or something to that effect. My other blogs don't even show. I can't scroll the list fast enough to really care.

Olen Blogilistan luetuimpien listalla jossain 1200:nnen tienoilla. Onnellinen olen siitä, että ystäväni pHinn on minua ylempänä, itse asiassa hän voittaa minut monella sadalla ollen jossain 680:nnen tienoilla. Olemme tosin kummatkin menossa alas. Johtunee ainakin minun kohdallani siitä, että kukaan, kaikkein vähiten minä, ei tiedä mistä Pulpetissa on kyse. Näkyvätköhän tosin listoissa ulkomaalaisten kävijöiden määrät?

I was just saying here that I think that Pulpetti spreads its imaginary wings too far. No one knows what the blog is all about. It should be about pulp fiction, but instead it's about real littichoor and my old dada poems and struggling with work and what not. And a friend of mine confessed that she never cares to read the stuff around the old pulp and other covers. And I thought that was the most interesting part here! C'mon, show some respect to the old masters!

Perustin muuten uuden blogin, tällä kertaa ystäväni Ville Hännisen kanssa: Kaksi isää on kertomus nuorista isistä, joista toinen voi katsoa melkein olevansa jo veteraani.

I have a new blog (in Finnish, alas). It's about fatherhood and kept by me and my buddy, Ville Hänninen, the comic connoisseur extraordinaire.

The Dada editorial

Now we move on to the editorial of Blinkity Blank's Greater Dada Issue.

The text goes:

good day

I

an old dream has come true: blinkity blank's greater dada issue is out. it has of course a limited print run, so that i can say: this will be a wanted collector's item in 50 years. a used book store has promised to pay 10,000 marks of a self-published book by mika waltari. so, i'd advise you to take this.

II

what i just wrote is of course an opposite of dada.

III

what is dada? at least it is

W. ROSENLEW & CO., LTD.*

and

2200 columns

2000 pictures

1110 pages

1000 biographies

700 symphonies and other orchestra works

500 pieces of orchestration

400 assistants

100 opera librettos

4000 music records catalogued

100 music films

58 corpses

and it's also non-dada.

tristan tzara (1896-1963) is the guest poet.

* A big Finnish manufacturer.

Edit: for some reason the picture won't show bigger. I don't know why. Is it too big or something? Hope you can see something from the thumbnail image.

Edit 2: I changed the title, now you should be able to click it.

Seppo Jokisen vanha rikosnovelli

(This is about a crime story contest that was held in early 1990 just before I started out in the university. I found a small news item on it in my archives. The stories were going to be published in Legenda, the student magazine, but nothing came of it. One of the winners, namely Seppo Jokinen, is now one of the most revered Finnish crime novelists and I could have some use for the story if it were found and Jokinen gave his permission to print it.)

Vanhasta ainejärjestölehdestäni Legendasta (3/1990) uutinen:

Tampereen yliopiston kirjallisuuden opiskelijoiden ainejärjestö Teema ry julisti keväällä avoimen kirjoituskilpailun, lajina enintään kahdeksan liuskan pituinen dekkarinovelli. Veristä satoa -nimellä varustetun kilvan ylevänä perusajatuksena oli, paitsi tietenkin jälleen yhden kannustavan mahdollisuuden tarjoaminen harrastakirjoittajille, myös parantavan, kaikensilpovan kiinnostuksen lisääminen nykyisin melko vähän julkaistuun ja siten vähälle huomiolle jääneeseen kirjallisuudenlajiin.

Palkintoraatiin kuuluivat tutkijat Kai Ekholm ja Juhani Niemi, kirjailija Taisto Harra sekä teemalaiset Päivi Heikkilä [ilmeisesti lastenkirjallisuuden tutkija P. Heikkilä-Halttunen] ja Jukka Raitio.

Kilpailuun osallistui vain 20 novellia, mikä osaltaan kertoo sen, ettei onnistuneen rikostarinan rakentaminen ole helppoa. Sama on luettavissa kilpailutöistä. Kertomuksissa tulee ruumiita, mutta samalla lakkaa tekstikin hengittämästä ja sen sydän pysähtyy.

Henkiinjääneet palkittiin, jaetun toisen palkinnon saivat Seppo Jokinen novellista Rotantappokengät, Eero-Veikko Niemi novellista Yön ainoa valopilkku ja kolmannen palkinnon M.G. Soikkeli novellista Viides Evankeliumi.

Mainittakoon vielä, että nämä palkitut työt ovat tallessa Legendan kassakaapissa ja ne tullaan vielä julkaisemaan lehtemme sivuilla.

***

Luettuani tuon arkistojen kätköistä löytyneen uutisen rupesin metsästämään novelleja. Niitä ei nimittäin ikinä julkaistu Legendassa (siinä julkaistiin vain yksi kisan tulos, nimettömäksi jääneen tekijän sarjakuva "My name is Kallt... Serveras Kallt"), vaikka toista lupailtiin. Ainejärjestössä ei tiedetty mitään, tuolloinen päätoimittaja ei tiennyt mitään... professori Niemi tosin lupasi katsella työhuoneessaan, hän oli sitä mieltä, että novellit ovat hänellä vielä tallessa.

Seppo Jokinen tässä kiinnostaa eniten - novelli edeltää hänen romaanejaan ainakin viidellä vuodella (vaikka Fennican mukaan hän oli -91 mukana harrastajakirjoittaja-antologiassa; saattaa toki olla sama novellikin). Eero-Veikko Niemestä ei ole mitään käsitystä - Fennica tuntee yhden Eero Niemen, joka on viime vuonna julkaisuttanut Pilotilla jonkin kirjoituskokoelman ja saattaa sikäli olla sama tyyppi. M.G. Soikkeli tietysti on tämä Suomen kirjallisuuden professori, blogiveteraani ja scifi-kirjoittaja monen vuoden takaa.

Blinkity Blank's Greater Dada Issue

I've recently posted here some of my early dada/concrete poetry. I decided now to scan the whole (well, the most) of the first dada issue of my deceased poetry mag, Blinkity Blank. (Which, by the way, got its name from the famous and delightful experimental animated film by the Canadian Norman McLaren. In case you didn't know. (I think knowing at least some of McLaren's oeuvre is part of general knowledge.))

This is the cover. I don't remember anymore where the illustration is from, but I suspect that it's from a Western juvenile from the fifties. (I do remember I cut it out from a photocopy, not the original book! Heavens!) The logo that I sliced was made by my mother who had a small printer's shop* in the late eighties. The text "Suuri Dada-numero/The Greater Dada Issue" was made by Letraset adhesive letters which I still miss.

This is from 1989 or so. As I said earlier, I didn't date the mags. (I have the BB timeline somewhere and will post it here, if I find it. It's in the old IBM SXI2000 in the basement...)

* Well, actually she did only texts for the printers who didn't have their own machines; this was pre-PC time and what mom did was done digitally, but then she printed the texts out on film and then the printers reproed the film. Mom got some small press and self-publication work too. I remember typesetting a book for her in '88 or '89. It was a war memoir and pretty badly written at that! I remember that I wanted to make corrections all the time, but mom wouldn't let me. "He pays for it!"

A Conan Doyle pirate cover

Here's a scan of a B&W copy of the cover of the Finnish translation of Conan Doyle's pirate short story collection, Tales of Pirates and Blue Water (1922). The Finnish edition is from 1925. The story from the book, "Blighting of Sharkey" was recently retranslated and published in Isku, my self-published pulp magazine.

The Proud Independence

One of my lesser concrete efforts. The title means "The Proud Independence" and the list was taken from a railroad timetable.
I don't really remember where the title comes from, but I suspect it was some kind of religious tract. Edit: I'll try to do a better scan in the near future. Oh, and the list in the poem consists mainly of Finnish cities, mostly of the bigger ones.

Walking

We went for a long walk today. We had been planning it for days - the Aura River has been frozen for some weeks now and we decided to walk up the river and a small creek (called Vähäjoki, Wee River or something to that effect) that separates from it soon after the church. We did a similar walk two or three years ago, but I guess it had been much colder then, because the creek wasn't frozen through! We had at times to walk on the bench of the creek.

Yet, it was very nice. It was very quiet on the bottom of the creek and the sun began to shine when we were drinking the chocolate coffee mixed with Galliano up on the bench. (We got headache, though, from the shining, because we didn't have sunglasses. We are pure amateurs at this kind of thing.) It got almost exotic at times - they were places that no man had gone before. (Mainly because there is no reason to go there. You could find those places behind a mall.)

We were going to walk much longer than we now did, but we decided that we were not fit enough and got up from the bottom. We visited an abandoned railroad station at Räntämäki and then dropped by the Lidl mall (which I hate, but they have this very fruity and nutty muesli there...) and the Salvation Army charity store in Raunistula and then went for a cup of coffee and tea and then to get Kauto from daycare. Boy, were we tired!

It was nice alright, but it's just that my knees are both bad and they ached quite badly when we finally got back. The right one has been fixed - or so they say -, but it seems now that the left one too will go to an operation. Maybe I'll have them changed to artificial ones already by 40. "You're a cripple's wife", I said to Elina at one tough point.

Unfortunately we didn't take a camera with us. You'll just have to picture it: lots of snow, a quiet creek, an abandoned electric station by the bank...

Dropping Lost

It's Thursday night and we should be watching Lost. But we decided to drop it from the weekly schedule. Too little time to read or to do anything else worthwhile.

And now I'm here blogging.

Vuosi 1918 Somerolla

Olen selannut ihan toisesta syystä vanhoja Uusi Päivä -lehtiä 60-luvulta. Tässä kertomus, joka on päivätty lehdessä 22.5.1963. Somerolainen punavanki muistelee - sattuneesta syystä nimettömänä.

Suojeluskunnat ottivat kiinni kaikki, joita vähänkin epäiltiin punakaartin jäseniksi, vaikka suuri osa ei ollut kaartiin kuulunut. Ensiksi heidät juoksutettiin Somerosta Forssaan pitkin maantietä pelkät paidat päällä. Forssassa heidät sullottiin tehtaan kutomon varastoon. Tila loppui kesken, mutta porukkaa vain sullottiin kiväärin perillä niin että lopulta kaikki joutuivat seisomaan. Joukossa oli naisia ja lapsia. Naiset alkoivat pyörtyillä. Ruokaa ei saanut, ulosteet putosivat suoraan lattialle. Myöhemmin kutomo tyhjennettiin ja vangeille annettiin ruokaa, jossa oli niin paljon soodaa, että kaikilla meni maha sekaisin.

Tämän jälkeen miehet patistettiin metsään. Ensimmäiset laitettiin kaivamaan syvä hauta. Sitten heidät ammuttiin siihen. Uudet miehet lapioivat hiekan näiden päälle. Sitten heidät ammuttiin. Uudet miehet lapioivat hiekan näiden päälle ja heidätkin ammuttiin. Näin jatkettiin, kunnes lopulta paikalla oli iso kumpu. Loput miehet vietiin takaisin vangeiksi. Hautakumpu alkoi pian haista niin paljon, että suojeluskuntalaiset joutuivat kaivamaan ruumiit esiin ja hautaamaan uudestaan.

Our brittle pain

More concrete poetry! This was originally published in Blinkity Blank's Smaller Dada Issue in, what, 1995 or so. (I didn't date the mags, for some reason or another.)

It was an A6-sized issue, with eight pages in all, covers included.

The text goes something like this:

OUR BRITTLE PAIN

LIFE

UNDER OUR FEET

CULTIVATE

OUR SCREAM

THE EARTH OUR DEMISE

THE WHOLE

KILL IS

THE OIL OF OUR WORLD

HEAR?

HEAR?

So, it's something like a political commentary. If I remember right, I cut the words from a leaflet that some religious nut gave to me on a street. Edit: The translation was inaccurate at first. Now it's correct.