Going away

We're leaving town pretty soon and head off towards Hämeenlinna where Elina's parents live. I realize I haven't been blogging as much as I would like to have, but these things happen. Maybe later. I still haven't said anything about Ben Benson, but am really going to do that. Maybe something about some pulp magazine stories I've been reading in intervals. And David Thomson's The Whole Equation, which is an essayistic take on the history of Hollywood. If you enjoy my writing (in Finnish), do check out my other blogs: Min Dikt is full of poetry and Jurin Tekstit is ripe with corrected entries from Pulpografia. Check also Julkaisemattomia.

Road to ruin

Kauto demanded earlier today that we go down to the cellar. I don't know where he got the idea (or actually I do, but it's quite a long story - he's two years old, after all), but I did have some stuff to take down there and I agreed. I noticed right away that there was something wrong: a stack of boxes, full of magazines and books, was collapsed. There were some boxes with the Ruudinsavu/Gunsmoke magazines on bottom and I noticed that the boxes felt wet. I opened them and noticed that some of the mags were also damp. They also smelt mildewy. I touched the concrete floor underneath the boxes - it was damp. I don't know why, but as you know, it's no good for books. I'll have to call the maintenance tomorrow.

And they weren't the only boxes that felt and smelt mildewy. Kauto got a bit restless after a while and I took him upstairs and after he'd gone to bed I went back downstairs and tried to save my precious paperbacks. Some of the books were ruined and there were some books I'll have buy again, such as the early seventies translation of W.T. Ballard's Murder Las Vegas Style, which is one of my favourites. I left some books to dry, but some I just had to throw away. I also threw away some 20 or 30 copies of several issues of Ruudinsavu/Gunsmoke.

I'll have to go back in a couple of days to check out the real damage. I noticed that many of my Richard Prathers were also damp, and the hardback copy of K.W. Dwyer's (= Dean Koontz) early thriller (the title escapes me at the moment) was actually ripe with mildew. I couldn't throw it away, I just couldn't.

Now, you ask, why are these books in the cellar, if they are so precious to me? Umm... I really don't know. There's no room for them up in the apartment, which is really no excuse. I guess I just thought that the cellar would be as a good place as any, since it's at least warm. Maybe the books should be in metal boxes or some such.

I tried to put the boxes back so that none would touch the concrete floor (and I threw away the mattresses that had been under the boxes), but we'll see whether the mildew keeps growing and destroying my precious paperbacks.

Ben Benson: later, later. I'm going to a business meeting tomorrow and after that I'll be busy.

New book out

The postman brought today my newest publication: it's the thriller reference work I edited; I've mentioned it here couple times before. The book has been divided in two parts: the American authors and the European authors. I'm not entirely satisfied about the publisher's solution in this, but I just want everyone to be sure that it wasn't my idea.

The thing that really bugs me about this is that I completely forgot - Heaven knows why - that Len Deighton should be in. Also Jack Higgins was left out, but that was due to technical reasons (although I'm the one to blame). There's hope, though, that there will be a sequel as more and more interesting and newer authors are being translated (and some other, less noteworthy veterans and classics were left out from this). Check more here and here.

I tried to blog yesterday about crime writer Ben Benson, but the text vanished and I didn't feel like writing it again. I'll try again one of these days.

A new book in the M series

The same publisher, Pelipeitto, that put out The Fifth Testament I edited, is starting a new line of short story collections and another one is already coming out - it's M.G. Soikkeli's science fiction stories. I had no hand in this, so here's only announcement from the publisher (in Finnish, understandably):

Suomalaisen science fictionin
merkkitapaus Turussa 21.5.07
M.G.Soikkeli ja MARSIN IKÄVÄ

Fil. tri, kirjallisuudentutkija, viime vuonna Turun Yliopiston kotimaisen kirjallisuuden v.a. professorina toiminut, kuluvana vuonna apurahalla omaan kirjoittamiseensa ja kritiikkiin Tampereella keskittyvä Markku Soikkeli on suomalaisessa tieteiskirjallisuudessa eräs tunnetuimmista ja palkituimmista fanzine-novellisteista. Nimellä M. G. Soikkeli alan lehdissä v:sta 1991 alkaen tieteisnovelleja julkaissut kirjailija on mm. voittanut suomalaisen scifin arvostetuimman kisan, Portti-novellikilpailun, jo useita kertoja, ja sijoittunut kaikissa alan kilpailuissa (joihin on osallistunut) aina kärkijoukkoon. Novellien lisäksi Soikkeli on julkaissut runsaasti alan artikkeleita ja kolumneja suomalaisissa scifilehdissä, ja alan kirjallisuuden kritiikkejä muuallakin, mm. Turun Sanomien kulttuurisivuilla. Soikkeli on tehnyt jo mittavan yliopistouran Turun, Helsingin ja Tampereen yliopistoissa, kirjallisuuden tutkijana ja opettajana.
Soikkeli poikkeaa monista suomalaisista alan kirjoittajista. Hän keskittyy aitoon science fictioniin, ja tuo sciencen, tieteen, monitasoisesti novelleihinsa mukaan: sekä kirjallisuudentutkijana, ruotiessaan genren eri suuntausten mahdollisuuksia novelliensa sisällä, että monialaisena yhteiskuntatieteilijänä, tutkiessaan yhteiskuntien kehityslinjoja ja –potentiaaleja novelleissaan, jotka asettavat sekä historian että muiden tieteiden vallitsevat totuudet kyseenalaiseksi. Soikkelin tarinat ovat todellista, aitoa tieteisfiktiota, joskaan hän ei väheksy fantasiankaan elementtejä. Niitäkin hän käsittelee tiedemiehenä ja tutkijana – ja taitavana tarinoitsijana, erinomaisena kielen käyttäjänä.

Soikkeli on vahva tieteiskirjailija, joka luo tarinoissaan paitsi tiede- ja tieteisfiktiota myös huikeita kohtaloita, jännittäviä seikkailuja ja syvällisiä kurkotuksia outoihin tulevaisuuksiin. Soikkeli on Suomessa harvinainen science fiction-kirjailija: hyvin kurinalainen ja lajin traditioita kunnioittava, samalla kuitenkin rönsyäviä ja laaja-alaisia, lajia uudistavia tarinoita luova kokeileva kirjailija, kirjailija joka ei pelkää aiheittensa arkojakaan elementtejä. Politiikkaa, uskoa ja uskontoja, seksuaalisuuden monimuotoisuutta ja muita aiheita tutkiessaan Soikkeli luo tarinoihinsa jännitteitä joita harvoin suomalaisessa scifissä tapaa. Soikkelin novelleissa yhdistyvät science fictionin elementit nautittavasti laaja-alaiseen filosofiseen näkemykseen, ja samaistumispintaa Soikkeli rakentaa joukkojen, ryhmien, kansojen tai ihmiskunnan mittakaavaan, soveltamalla yksilökuvauksessa lähes brechtiläistä etäännyttämisefektimenetelmää.

Soikkelin novellien esikoiskokoelma, turkulaisen turbator-kustantamon m-sarjan järjestyksessä toinen teos: MARSIN IKÄVÄ ja muita kertomuksia, julkistetaan lehdistötilaisuudessa ravintola Puutorin Vessassa Turussa maanantaina 21.5. klo 11.00 alkaen. Tilaisuudessa ovat paikalla kirjailija itse ja kustantaja Harri Kumpulainen, joka scifimaailmassa tunnetaan alalle 40 vuotta novelleja kirjoittaneena Harri Erkkinä. Kirjan uunituoreet lehdistö- ja arvostelukappaleet ovat tilaisuudessa tarjolla. Tervetuloa suomalaisen scifin merkkitapaukseen!

The Turku castle

I forgot to mention that the castle in the cover of The Fifth Testament is the medieval Turku Castle. It's really the place for which everyone knows Turku and it's a cliche, but it works here.

My flash fiction magazine coming out soon

I'll be publishing a small flash fiction magazine, called Ässä/Ace, soon. You can see the contents here (in Finnish, but check it out anyway, you might spot some familiar names in there). There's also an old cover for a Finnish pulpish mag from the late fourties, Ässä. The illustration is by Alexander Lindeberg, who's still active in the age of 90.

Finally the cover of The Fifth Testament

Here's finally the cover of The Fifth Testament, the book of suspense stories by writers of the Turku region that I edited and that was published a month ago. I've mentioned it a couple of times back earlier. The cover is by Jukka Murtosaari, who's an enthusiast of classic pulp and paperback illustrations, which clearly shows. Here is a cover he made for Gryphon Books (in b&w only, sorry) and here and here are some others he's made for my small press publications.

By the way

I got 35 yesterday.

Eurovision song contest

Someone might wonder why I haven't been saying anything about the Eurovision song contest that's being held this week in Helsinki, Finland. Well, the main reason is that I just don't care. Couldn't actually care less. Didn't care a bit when Finland and Lordi won, don't care know even if Finland scores one points at this time. So, no Eurovision comments from yours truly.

I'm more content with other kinds of music (really, all that stuff is quite bad!) and I've been listening to Finnish electronic folk band, Paavoharju, instead. Very beautiful and haunting.

A review of Viides testamentti/The Fifth Testament

I haven't been promoting Viides testamentti/The Fifth Testament, the anthology of crime stories by Turku-based writers that I edited, hard enough and I don't have a scan of the cover even now at hand, but here is - in Finnish, alas - a review that Johanna Matero kindly wrote for the Ruumiin kulttuuri/Body Culture magazine of the Finnish Whodunnit Society. This is the original version - she had to cut chunks away for the publication.

M niin kuin missio
Juri Nummelin (toim.): Viides testamentti. Turun seudun kirjoittajienjännitysnovelleja 1939-2007M-novellit 1. Turbator 2007. 199 s.

Minun sukupolvellani on jaettu kollektiivinen kokemus löytöretkistäviihdelukemistoihin. Kesälomat olivat pitkiä. Kesämökkien kirjahyllyistä jaisovanhempien ullakoilta löytyi aarteita lukutaitoiselle alakoululaiselle.Rikosnovellit ovat eläneet uutta kukoistustaan 2000-luvulla. Kukoistus näkyymm. Gummeruksen Intohimosta rikokseen -sarjassa ja Kouvolan Dekkaripäivienyhteyteen järjestetystä dekkarinovellikilpailusta, joka on niin ikäänpoikinut omat kokoelmansa.

Harri Kumpulainen kutsuu kustantajan ominaisuudessa keksimään m-merkityksiäuudelle m-novellien sarjalle. Tehtävä on helppo: M niin kuin missio.Turbatorin tarkoituksena on säilyttää, pitää yllä ja tuottaa uudelleenviihdelukemistoa sen kaikissa, moninaisissa merkityksissä. Kustantajakorostaa viihdelukemistojen kulttuurihistoriallista merkitystä ja viihteenturhaa aliarvostamista saatesanoissaan.

Viides testamentti alkaa tuotteliaan turkulaisen pulp-asiantuntijan, teoksentoimittaja Juri Nummelinin johdannolla. Nummelinin käsittelyssä kokoelmaalöyhästi yhdistävästä turkulaisuudesta tulee (kulttuuri-)historiallinenpulpin kehto. Pulpin ja dekkarin harrastajien kuuluu hankkia teos hyllyynsäjo pelkästään johdannossa esitellyn trivian vuoksi.

Kokoelman kymmenestä dekkarinovellista puolet on arkistojen aarteita, puolet kokoelmaa varten kirjoitettuja uutuuksia. Arkistojen löydöt, Pirkko Arhippa,Harry Etelä, Totti Karpela, Olavi Tuomola ja Aake Jermo, pitävät kutinsa ennen julkaisemattomia vasten. Harry Etelän "Mustaa verta" näyttäytyy lähes kunnianosoituksena lajin goottiselle Poe-perinteelle. Arhipan 1980-luvuntuotos "Välikäsi" puolestaan on esimerkki käänteistä, joita rikosnovellilla on. Ja Karpelan teksti osoittaa, että joskus ratkaisu on niin absurdi - tainiin ilmeinen - ettei siihen voi reagoida kuin nauramalla.

On äärimmäinen klisee todeta, että rikosnovelli on haasteellinen laji. Silti, miten rakentaa arvoitus ja imu lyhyeen tekstiin? Miten motivoida muutamalla viivalla hahmotellun henkilön toiminta? Uskottavasti. Ja mikä merkitys miljööllä ja ajalla on?Kokoelman kirjoittajien tekstien kohdalla Turku on harvoin toiminnan keskipiste. Poikkeuksen tekevät Harri Erkin, kustantajan, "Tunneli" ja Kirsti Ellilän "Pyhän kosketus". Erkin tekstissä miljöö nousee keskeiseksi, kun taas Ellilän kaikin tavoin ansiokkaassa tekstissä nimetty miljöö ei ole välttämätön.

Rikosnovelleissa miljöö on helpompi tuottaa henkilöitä uskottavammaksi yksinkertaisesti nimeämällä se. "Huuhka" kertoo vähemmän kuin "Raisio","Ispoinen" tai "Bessarabia". Silloinkin, kun ne eivät kerro juuri mitään.

Markku Soikkelin "Viides testamentti" on kokoelman kokeellisin novelli. Sekin on omalla tavallaan kiehtova ja mielenkiintoinen, joskin sitä olisi voinut alkupuolelta hieman helpottaa lukijalle. Soikkelin teksti esittelee spefi-dekkarin scifi-dekkarin uudemmaksi vastineeksi. Lajissa ei genren sisällä sinänsä ole mitään uutta. Spefi vain laajentaa scifin spekulatiiviseksi fiktioksi. Ja dekkariksi. Ehkä.

Rikosromaanit ovat jo pitkään olleet höystettyjä huumorilla ja ironialla. Olavi Tuomolan "Hantsungin kultainen buddha" on kokoelman ainoita lukijaa naurattavia tarinoita. Huumori ei ole välttämätöntä, mutta sen olemassaolo kiinnittää huomiota sen poissaoloon. Lyhyt muoto ei anna tilaa irvailla.

Lukijalle rikosnovellikokoelmien haaste on niiden tyylillinen moninaisuus. Perinteiseen arvoitusdekkariin profiloitunut lukija ei ehkä löydä etsimäänsä kuin yhdestä novellista kokoelmassa, jossa ovat edustettuna kaikki genrenalalajit. Tämä selittänee rikosnovellikokoelman pienehkön ostajakunnan.

Viides testamentti -kokoelmasta puuttuu muutamia ilmeisiä turkulaisia kirjoittajia. Reijo Mäeltä ilmestyi juuri oma novellikokoelma. Samalla eräät perikunnat olivat liian riitaisia päästääkseen edesmenneen kirjailijan tekstiä sopuisasti käsistään.

Viidennen testamentin hinta-laatusuhde ei ole kohdallaan. Pehmeäkantiseksi pulpiksi tarkoitetun, J. Murtosaaren hienon monivärikannen omaavan teoksen hinta on "kioskikirjallisuudeksi" liian kova. Toisin sanoen painosmäärä on liian pieni.

Toivon, että tulevilla sukupolvilla olisi tilaisuus tehdä oman sukupolvenikaltaisia löytöjä kesämökeillä ja ullakoilla. Lehtien lukumäärä on liiansuuri ja lehtien käyttöarvo liian pieni. Niitä ei säilytetä. 2000-luvulla julkaistut dekkarinovellikokoelmat ovat säilyttämisen arvoisia. Menneen, nykyisen ja "tulevan" ajan pieninä katsauksina peleihin, blogeihin ja irkkaamiseen kyllästyneille tulevaisuuden teineille. Niille, joiden verkotovat kaatuneet. Ja niille, jotka ovat vaihtaneet kannettavansa lyijykyniin.
Johanna Matero

Life like a Richard Scarry book

Busy busy busy... Every blog post, every blog checked feels like a waste of time. Will be getting back at some point.

Good news etc.

I just heard that a project that seemed doomed for a while has been resurrected: I'll be writing in collaboration with two writer friends of mine a reference book on erotica and pornographical classics, with a very wide range starting from Sappho and ending up in the late seventies wanky paperbacks and the new millennium literary S&M. The book should come out next year.

I've also made arrangements for the sequel of my book that came out earlier this year, about forgotten Finnish authors. That one was about poets, this one will focus on novelists and short story writers. I tried on get some pulpsters in, but the publisher declined.

It's been hectic around here, as I've been trying to get new issues of Ruudinsavu/Gunsmoke, Pulp and Isku/Punch ready and out. I've also another new fictionmag coming, this time focusing on flash fiction. It's called Ässä (= Ace), and I've got some great stories by new talents, such as David Terrenoire and Christa Faust for this, and also some Finnish stories, but I'm lacking in original homegrown stuff. The genre must be weird to Finnish writers, even though there's been lots of science fiction flash fiction, drabbles, as they are called in SF fandom.

But must get back to work now. I'm doing an article on novelizations and slowly getting back to rewrite the YA novel I wrote with Elina.

Oh man

Didn't really know anyone could be so busy. Don't have time for blogging at the moment. And Kauto forced his way between us in the night, and I'm stiff all over. I slept the last three hours on a mattress on the floor.

On Sampo, one more

I forgot to mention the startling fact that Sampo is still the only feature film made in Finland that is based on Kalevala! I understood that a new film is on the works, but know nothing about it. There's of course The Iron Age, directed by Kalle Holmberg from a script by Paavo Haavikko, but it was a TV mini series.

Russian fantastic cinema

Todd kindly sent me this link in a comment: it's about a minifestival of Russian and Soviet fantastic films. Go see them if you get a chance.

Sampo

I've promised to write something about Sampo, the Soviet-Finnish film of the late fifties, based on Kalevala, but it seems I'm running out of time and should have to get on with my life, so I decided just to direct you to these two links. There's one thing I'd like to know about the American version: do they play Hammond organs in the end, during the final battle with Louhi? I mean, they attack with their kanteles - a traditional Finnish instrument, something between a guitar and a harp - and the soundtrack goes full blazing with muzaky Hammond sounds! No wonder Louhi turns to salt!

The Finnish scriptwriters behind the film (mainly Väinö Kaukonen who was a professor of Fenno-Ugrian languages) wanted to emphasize the folklore aspect of the story, while the Soviets wanted to do a fantasy film, which explains why there's so little resemblance to the actual stories of Kalevala. (There's no one attacking Louhi with kanteles in the epic! Lemminkäinen and Annikki don't get married (which must be the most boring scene in the film). Etc.)

I haven't seen the American version, called The Day the Earth Froze, but the original is always better. It seems that the original version isn't available in DVD, which is a pity.

Finnish electronica

If you're interested at all in either electronic music or Finnish rock scene, check out these post by my friend pHinn:

Regina has fastly become one of my favourite Finnish bands: very nice, beautiful, catchy, haunting, brittle electronic pop (with some acoustic elements). Here's their new video of their single "Paras aika vuodesta/The Best Time of the Year". They should be huge, but apparently the Finnish audience wants their stuff heavy and full of angst.

Minimal dub or whatever by Vladislav Delay here. More traditional electronic dance music by Mesak here. And some other stuff by him here. (Mesak, or Tatu Metsätähti, is actually related to pulp fiction, since his granduncle was Harry Etelä about whom I've been writing about and whose old stories I'm putting together for a collection!)

Reading reports: Pavia, Estleman, Wignall, Cerasini, Manchette

It pays to be sick: I was able to read quite many books during the time I was mainly laying on a sofa. Some reports:

Peter Pavia: Dutch Uncle: as I said earlier, this early Hard Case Crime effort is okay, but sadly nothing more. It drags on quite too long and I'd've omitted some of the scenes with the police.

Marc Cerasini: 24 - Trojan Horse: I haven't been fond of the TV series and haven't watched it regularly (every time I see it, Kiefer Sutherland is driving around in his car and talking to his phone, what action is that?). The tie-in novel by Cerasini - who's done lots of this kind of work - was okay, though, very fast-going and eventful. The characters were stritctly cardboard and there were some deus ex machina type of things in the end which weren't necessary. But, all in all, if you're willing to look away that these guys defend torture, this is quite a good way to spend couple of hours.

Kevin Wignall: Among the Dead (2003): I've understood that Wignall is one of the most revered of the new generation of British noir writers. It's no wonder, since Among the Dead is superb. It's no bang-slam type of noir novel and there's little, if any, violent action in the book - I'm more reminded of Richard Matheson's A Stir of Echoes (1958). Among the Dead seems to be drawing its inspiration from the more quiet noir and has some unnerving horror tones. Maybe there's some Shirley Jackson or Ursula Curtiss in this?

Loren Estleman: Sweet Women Lie (1990): some seem to think of Estleman as an example of bygone days who still insists on writing traditional private eye novels, but I really liked this and Estleman's snappy prose and catchy dialogue. Estleman's hero Amos Walker is a very likable man, even though there's a mean side to him as well.

Jean-Patrick Manchette: 3 to Kill (1975): one of the weirdest crime novels I've read in a long, long time. Very literary, it seems to be drawing its inspirations from the Roman nouveau of the fifties (very precise and detached style with emphasis on descriptions of people's clothes etc.), but also from the American hardboiled and noir crime novels. The story is about a man who finds a body on a highway and takes him to a hospital, only to find out that two killers are at him. He runs away after a violent burst of action at a gas station to find himself somewhere deep in the woods living with an old Stalinist. After the killers find him there, he decides to fight back and get back to his normal life. Manchette doesn't really give much weight to logical behaviour, but that would be beside the point; there are several clues about post-Marxist movements of 1968 and beyond to realize that this is a political novel - but about what, to that I found no answer. The English translation seemed too literary, too British to me.

My friend's doctorate thesis

My friend's doctorate thesis is about the cultural history of computer and media viruses.

Jussi Parikan kulttuurihistorian väitöskirja Digital Contagions: A Media Archaeology of Computer Worms and Viruses tarkastetaan Turun yliopiston Tauno Nurmela -salissa lauantaina 5.5. kello 12. Vastaväittäjänä toimii Reader, PhD Charlie Gere (Lancasterin yliopisto) ja kustoksena professori Hannu Salmi.

Väitöskirja tulee julkiseen jakeluun (Turun yliopiston opiskelijapalvelut) keskiviikkona 25.4. klo 12.00.

Parikan väitöskirja käsittelee tietokonevirusten historiaa. Tietokonevirukset ja muut ”haittaohjelmiksi” leimatut ohjelmatyypit eivät asetu väitöskirjassa ainoastaan osaksi turvallisuushuolien historiaa, vaan paljastavat oleellisia puolia verkostokulttuurin muutoksesta. Nojaten erityisesti yhdysvaltalaiseen aineistoon, Digital Contagions analysoi tietokoneviruksia myös osana 1980-luvulta alkanutta keinoelämätutkimusta, post-fordistisen kapitalismin muutosta sekä muun muassa verkostokulttuurin biopolitiikkaa. Parikan työ sijoittuu teoreettisesti osaksi Gilles Deleuzen ja Félix Guattarin pohjalta hahmoteltua uusmaterialistista kulttuurianalyysia sekä media-arkeologista tutkimusta.

Teos ilmestyy kaupalliseen jakeluun kesäkuussa (Jussi Parikka: Digital Contagions. A Media Archaeology of Computer Viruses. New York: Peter Lang, Digital Formations-series).

The Shooting, Valdez Is Coming

Some of the films I've seen lately, short minireviews:

Monte Hellman: The Shooting (1965, in Finnish Hän ampui ensin). Great minimalistic Western film that manages to be nothing like Hollywood Westerns without resorting to any of the New Wavish fooling around with pastiches and narration. Hellman's film seems to hark back to Absurdist drama of Ionesco and Beckett, giving absolutely no explanations to what is going on the screen. And yet this captivates the viewer like only few films can. Sometimes a bit clumsy, but the photography is great.

Edwin Sherin: Valdez Is Coming (1970). Based on an Elmore Leonard novel, this is a punchy Western that is also quite intellectual but in a way that doesn't resemble the New Wave films at all. The ending is intentionally abrupt, which may leave some viewers puzzled about what happened. You can watch this as an action flick, though. I had some hard time to buy into Burt Lancaster being a Mexican, but maybe he was half-blood.

Robert Altman: Nashville (1975). Saw this actually last night. It's been almost 20 years when I walked out of Nashville - I was 15 at the time and didn't have enough patience for this kind of thing. And I still don't like country music. It doesn't much bother me now, but I can imagine being bored out of my wits while 15 and trying to listen to "Haven Hamilton" and "Connie White". Now I was actually entertained by the film and the 160 minutes didn't feel like almost three hours. There are many things I don't like about Altman - for example his mistreat of female characters -, but I'm willing to admit his skills at this kind of thing (which, to be true, wore out pretty soon; I don't much care for Health! or other later Altmans).

Russell Mulcahy: The Lost Battalion (2001). I caught most of this rather recent TV film on the Finnish tube. It was quite effective - the action and killing scenes were very crude and violent and the actual battles in the World War I must've seemed something like this. Mulcahy, a rock video and ad director, used some of his overdone editing techniques and other gimmicks (such as bullet coming at someone's face having a point of view), but not too many times. There was just one problem I have with many anti-war films: the anti-war sentiments seem to be directed only towards bad leaders and bad generals, not the machinery of war itself (mainly the politicians and the manufacturers). It would be interesting to see a film about industrialists who backed up Hitler before the WWII.

About Sampo/The Day the Earth Froze: next time.

My Space growing

I've already posted three films at my My Space account. One of the films was accidentally shot by Ottilia who thought she was just taking a photo and didn't notice that the camera was on video shoot option.

Raporttia suomalaisen elokuvan festivaalilta

A week ago I was at the festival of Finnish cinema. It focuses mainly on older films. Here are some capsule reviews - in Finnish. I'll have to write about Soviet-Finnish Sampo (1959) later on and in English, since there's an American connection: Roger Corman made his The Day The Earth Froze (or something to that effect) on that.

Mikko Niskasen Sissit: sotakohtaukset olivat hyviä, mutta psykologisoivat kohtaukset olivat aika kankeita eikä kuvaus lottien kanssa vehtaamisesta tuntunut jostain syystä kovin uskottavalta. Hopeaa rajan takaa taas oli hiukan liian lepsu - jos se olisi ollut amerikkalainen elokuva, Speden roolihahmo olisi joutunut venäläisten vangiksi ja muut olisivat pelastaneet tämän. Nyt ei missään vaiheessa ollut tunne, että pojat olisivat olleet todellisessa vaarassa. Uusiaaltomaiset kohtaukset vanhensivat muuten ihan sympaattista elokuvaa. Pankkiaiheinen Syksyllä kaikki on toisin taas oli pirun kankea ja liian pitkä, eikä Niskanen ollut löytänyt siihen oikeata tyylilajia.

Asfalttilampaat oli parempi, mutta siinäkin oli omat ongelmansa: missään vaiheessa ei kerrottu kunnolla, mikä Eero Melasniemen näyttelemää päähenkilöä oikein vaivasi. Katsoja ei päässyt kiinni vainoon, joka häneen Naantalin pikkukaupunkimiljöössä kohdistui. Lisäksi elokuva oli homovihamielinen, ja ehkä monien muidenkin Niskasen tavoin myös naisvihamielinen (mistä juhlittu Pojat on yksi räikeimpiä esimerkkejä ollessaan jopa äitivihamielinen). Tuottajana hääränneen Donnerin näyttäytyminen raiskauksia harrastavana gynekologina oli täysin käsittämätön kohtaus. Mutta paljon oli valmis antamaan anteeksi, kun lopussa soi Oksasen ja Chydeniuksen Sinua, sinua rakastan - biisi on tehty elokuvaa varten.

Valentin Vaalan Loviisa - Niskavuoren nuori emäntä sen sijaan oli rikkeetön mestariteos näihin verrattuna, upeasti kuvattu, hienosti näytelty ja mahtavalla draivilla eteenpäin kulkeva tragedia. Sen oli hetkittäin pilata se, että yksi henkilöistä oli nimeltään Roope-setä.

Teuvo Puron Vaihdokas (1927) oli sekavahko mykkäelokuva, mutta kyllähän näin vanhoja elokuvia aina katsoo, kuriositeettinakin. Sen kanssa nähtiin pätkiä kadonneista elokuvista, kuten Puron Sylvistä (1913) ja turkulaisesta äänielokuvasta Sano se suomeksi - jälkimmäisissä pätkissä Rafu Ramstedt teki vaikutuksen hiukan gay-henkisellä esityksellään.

En nähnyt Olavi Kallaksen muutama vuosi sitten löydettyä Miehen vankina -elokuvaa 40-luvulta, mutta juttelin paikalla olleen Tapani Maskulan kanssa ja hän oli sitä mieltä, että turkulaisten Kivimäen veljesten (Huijarien huvittavat huiputtajat) tuottaman elokuvan käsikirjoitti ja ilmeisesti myös ohjasi Harry Etelä eli Aimo Viherluoto, suosikkini kaikkien kotimaisten pulp-senttarien joukossa. Pentti Viherluoto on kuulemma muistellut, että Aimo-veli olisi kirjoittanut elokuvan käsikirjoituksen. On toivoa, että käsikirjoitus löytyisi Viherluotojen kotiarkistoista.

The first film at MySpace

I just posted my first film at MySpace. It's called Shoot Out, but it's no Western. It takes nine seconds.

Kids' book shelves

See below. This is also turned sideways, but you can see what's in there.

More kids' shelves

Sorry, this is upside down and I don't have a program in our laptop to be able to turn it.

The kids' book shelves

Lurker challenged people to a meme about their kids' book shelves. Couldn't resist.

At first, here's the first two floors. As our desktop is at the other side, there are some reference books on the same shelf, with their backs turned away.

Back in business

As you can see from three posts below, I'm on top of my form and will be posting again with some regularity. And I even created a MySpace account!

My Space dot com slash jurinen

I've created a My Space account here. In due time, you'll find very short documentaries of sort of our everyday life. I don't know why I'll be doing this and I'm quite sure the result won't be interesting, but nevertheless.

Ralph Bakshi's Wizards

I saw Ralph Bakshi's animated feature Wizards from 1977 couple of weeks ago, but haven't had time to write about it. It was more interesting than good, and most of the time it was pretty boring.

It wasn't bad - the animation was good throughout and there were some striking scenes in which the animators brought together wholly different styles. My main concern was that there was too much of that interplay with different styles - it seemed that Bakshi never really knew what he was doing. He never quite manages to bring his characters alive and they are too different from each other. You never believe they are characters in a fantasy story, reminiscent of Lord of the Rings or some such. And they are too much in the vein of Terrytoons of Bakshi's early career. The same thing with the gags in the film - they are never good enough, only getting somewhere close. The idea of wizards of the future using Nazi propaganda films may have been a good idea to begin with, but it gets pretty abrasive in the end.

It's been said that this is closer Lord of the Rings than Bakshi's dreadful attempt to animate it in 1979. Well, maybe - nevertheless, Bakshi used some of the footage of Wizards in his LoTR. The latter film suffered from financial troubles and Bakshi's visions never come truly alive, but even in here, his better-liked film, he has to resort to voice-over and stills. (Some of the stills must've gained the attention of the Winis and influenced the outlook of their Elfquest graphic novels.)

One thing I really liked in the film were some of the drawings by one Ian Miller who did similar drawings for A Tolkien Bestiary which David Day edited in 1979. He must've gotten the job via Wizards.

A Mammoth Book of Legal Thrillers

One of the books I've been reading is The Mammoth Book of Legal Thrillers (2001). Now, I'm not big on legal thrillers and I've never read a John Grisham or a Scott Turow. I was quite bored with two or three Perry Masons I've tried. The court-room scenery holds no appeal to me, for whatever reasons. I picked this up at the library mainly because of some interesting authors in the table of contents and because the book was compiled with both new and old stories, an approach that does hold an appeal for me, for whatever reasons. I haven't had - and won't have - a time to read the whole book and I'll have to take this back to the library and get on to other things in life (and book shelves), but I managed to read some dozen of the stories. Here are some brief reviews:


Francis M. Nevins jr: Night of Silken Snow: well written, but the end comes from a bit far
Joe Lansdale & Andrew Vachss: Veil's Visit: quite funny tall-talish story with Hap and Leonard
Michael A. Black: Reasonable Doubts: pretty okay story, but would've hoped for more action; James Reasoner liked Black's one-off crime novel very much, details here
Irwin Shaw: Triumph of Justice: quite good as a story, but I thought Shaw was using some racial stereotypes in here, as late as 1978
John Lutz: Dogs and Fleas: sorry, don't remember much about this, even though I know I read it
Brian Hodge: Speedball: a very good and original story about a hunt for the last days of John Belushi, from a known horror writer
Morris Hershman: Bail Hearing: about this I remember only that it was written as a letter and there was a surprise twist, expertly handed, I'm sure
Henry Slesar: Thicker Than Water: a good court-room story, with a nice twist in the end; some of the forensics was a bit dated, though
James Powell: A Murder Coming: from 1972, a pretty tough one to follow, but actually quite good
C.J. Henderson: The First Thing We Do...: clever ending, but I don't really know if it was satisfactory
Mat Coward: Tomorrow's Villain: otherwise very good, but I didn't believe in the revelation about how and why the crime was committed
Mike Wiecek: The New Lawyer: funny short-short whose end I had to read twice to get a grasp of what really happened; I've published one short-short by Wiecek in Isku, "A Brother's Gift" from Hardluck Stories

Still sick

It seems that I'm being sick all the time. The flu developed into sinutisis (poskiontelon tulehdus, that is). I went to a doctor and had a prescription of antibiotics. The first pill made me sick and I almost vomited - probably the thing you really wanted to read when you came here.

I'm editing the last pages of the drafts for the thriller book. When I get the book out of my hands, I'll lie down for a couple of days and let the antibiotics work their way. I'll maybe read some books during my sofa time. I'm fully aware that I'm way behind my reading and viewing reports, but I'll get to those eventually.

A quicker update

Much better today. Result: didn't get any reading done.

Posted a short essay on my ex libris here. It's in Finnish. And I've forgotten to mention that I've been posting entries from my first book, Pulpografia, here, with some additions and corrections. In Finnish.

A quick update

Sick again, with a flu. My head feels like it's filled with oat meal. Some work had to be done, though: been checking the drafts of the thriller book. The publisher wanted to cut the book in half and put the American authors in one book and the European ones in the other. Now, Lee Child is with the Europeans - is that correct? He lives in the US nowadays, but was born in the UK. What should I do?

Finished last night Max Allan Collins's CSI novelization the name of which escapes me. Pretty boring workman stuff, which was surprising to me, even though the merchandise behind this holds no interest for me. The plot simply wasn't intriguing enough. I haven't read much Collins, but his reputation has been pretty high. Maybe he just lacked real interest in this. I still have another tie-in to go (I'm writing a review), a 24 novel by Marc Cerasini (who I think is a Lovecraft aficionado, am I right?).

Today I started to read one of the first Hard Case novels, Peter Pavia's Dutch Uncle, which seems pretty okay so far, with Leonardish characters and snappy dialogue. Will report back. Watched Monte Hellman's slow motion Spaghetti western, China 9, Liberty 37 (1978), last night and pretty much enjoyed it, but it wasn't nearly as intriguing as Hellman's earlier westerns, The Shooting and Ride the Whirlwind. I'm going to watch The Shooting tonight or tomorrow.

Have to write more about books and films later on, and I'm too lazy now to make any links. Hope everyone had a good Easter!

I won!

I just received an e-mail saying that I was one of the winners in the short story contest of the Usva magazine. The theme of the contest was "everyday weird" and my contribution was a small story of 1,700 words about some strange shit going down on a gym. I talked about it a bit here.

Now I can quit my day job and pronounce myself a writer. Yii-haa! (As if I had a day job.)

Reed Farrel Coleman and others

Realized after writing about Dibdin that I've forgotten to write about books I read during our trip to Cyprus. I ran out of time and didn't get to Matheson's The Shrinking Man, but I'll read it eventually.

Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1957). Didn't like this, even though it's been described as a noirish science fiction novel. The style was too literary and I never felt easy with it. I was also left wondering why the heroes went to the mysterious place on the Moon only in the end of the book. If this had been translated in Finnish, I know I'd've gotten more out of it.

Reed Farrel Coleman: The James Deans (2006). Winner of the paperback Edgar last year and it sure is a winner. A very thoughtful private eye novel, in which almost everything seems to be in the right place. (My only grudge is that it wasn't solved who sent those small limerick notes to Moe Prager, Coleman's private eye hero. Or if it was, it went completely past me.) Nothing pulpish here, more like something by Ross Macdonald or Laura Lippman. (But I know that if I were to recommend this to Finnish readers, they would think it's just some pulp: everything I touch turns into pulp.)

Leigh Brackett: Eric John Stark: The Outlaw of Mars (1964, containing novellas "The Secret of Sinharat" and "People of the Talisman"). I'd be really interested to hear how these compare to Brackett's other space adventures. I thought these were tightly written and fast-paced, without any empty moments. Really close to hardboiled westerns of the fifties and early sixties. It's just that I'd left some 50 pages to read on a plane and I didn't really manage to get on with it, with Kauto jumping around and all that.

Michael Dibdin dead

Just read in today's paper that crime writer Michael Dibdin has died, aged 60. Here's more about him at The Rap Sheet.

I read two or three Dibdin's crime novels about Aurelio Zen, Italian crime detective, in the mid-to-late nineties and liked all of them. Can't point a favourite, though - maybe it should be Cabal (1992, translated in Finnish as Salaseura, 1996), about Vatican's power in the Italian politics. Dibdin's novels are a good example of how one can get past the genre boundaries (meaning hardboiled vs. cozies, or even police procedural vs. psychological) and talk about the society and its effects on people. I was rather dismayed, though, that Dibdin saw it important to babble about Zen's private life and his love affairs and cooking delicious meals. (I'm not one of those who think it's essential to cook in a crime novel. I just can't figure out the connection.) That put aside, Dibdin was easily one of the best crime novelists of the nineties. Maybe I should go back and reread some of his stuff and start out some new ones. (I just know I won't have time for that in, say, 20 years from now. I'll have to check the drafts of the thriller book. Bye now. Check out these covers, though.)

Again: trouble at work

After having felt pretty good about work for a couple of days, I received yesterday and earlier today several drawbacks:

1. We didn't get a grant from a publisher that was interested in a lightweight reference work on erotica classics I proposed with two writer friends of mine. Not knowing if anything will come out of this.

2. Just read a review of the latest issue of Isku from Body Culture, the magazine of Finnish Whodunnit Society. I tried to evade this as long as possible, as I'm very touchy about reviews of my own work, but simply couldn't hold myself longer. The writer was polite and said it was nice of someone to do this kind of a non-profit, small press magazine, but the stories clearly didn't appeal to him. Almost none of them. Mediocre and disposable, he seemed to say. I know that the latest issue of Isku wasn't as strong as some of the earlier ones, but these things happen.

3. A writer friend and I have been trying to scratch together a collection of essays on Outsider, the most prominent Finnish pulp writer from the thirties to the fifties, but today I received two e-mails from proposed contributors that they won't have the time do their essays. They sure have other, more important work, and I can't blame them for anything, but after other drawbacks it just adds to the depression. We already have three of the articles and I don't really know how to tell the authors that they won't be used, if we decide not to waste our time anymore with this project.

A spam classic

I've been posting some spam e-mails I've received. I know that at least my friend Jussi saves them on his hard disk. Here's a very Joycean one I got today.

barryhavecarlinwongsockeyegogoflounderwainscotvineyardabrahamhoffman galtmainhimselfairfareincursionspatefreedmuzzlesacrale'ertrim coalesceaffiliategroupcytosinearchangelclothesmenlilianblewappertaingarlic goofmarseillesfastidiousresumptionpyroxenecurtainpropellermarionmansfieldheadwallcarey sisterpullmanchallengecommutatedieselleapratepayerbeginhurrayyoghurtbiceps peasanthoodofleetversatileineluctablearticulatoryirreparableaerobicreligioushodgepodgequantico claudepigeonberrybarnetspecialcadaveroussystematicappletonresistivebreakoffstuart randomhecubanosesaloonkeeperlimerickhydrothermalptolemytrouncedruggingsubsumed exudationloadcommuniquerectitudeinceptionafflictfifebaptistegraciousyiddishadmit o'dellextractumberderivaterudolfdrearybouquetnonchalantbreathsaudsyllabus gymnospermwheresoeverjuragrillworkfirminequitablepurviewcontortgoldstinedeclarator distributorimpiousfreyamicronesiahydrocarbonsimperreliantbludgeonrequisitedaphnealgenib 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Donald Hamilton dead

Spy writer Donald Hamilton has died - and already in last November! You would think that the death of a writer of Hamilton's caliber would've been noticed by media, but no. He hadn't published anything new for 15 years - if my memory serves me right -, but he was a best-selling author in the sixties and seventies with his Matt Helm books. Hard Case Crime reprinted recently his standalone thriller from the fifties called The Night Walker, which should at least have merited more obits.

I've never been much of a spy thriller fan, but Hamilton's Matt Helms are so fast-paced and tough that I'm willing to forget that, at least when it comes to the very first books in the series, especially the first, Death of a Citizen (1960), and the second, The Removers (1961). The books have had a lasting influence on me: Matt Helm says in one of the books (maybe he says it in all of them) that if you come into a room and catch the enemy by surprise, shoot him. Don't talk, just shoot. I remember this everytime whenever there's a scene in a movie or a book in which someone surprises an enemy and even though they have guns in their hands and they aim to kill the enemy, they start talking and telling about how they are going to kill the guy.

Aside from his spy thrillers, Hamilton wrote top-notch westerns. The best to me was The Man from Santa Clara (1960). His westerns are tough, fast-paced and intelligent.

Here's an overview of his works and here's Wikipedia. Here's a Finnish site, in English. John Fraser on Hamilton at Mystery*File. Has anyone ever seen the sole film Hamilton scripted in 1957? I seem to remember that Matt Helm talks about his short tenure in Hollywood in the beginning of Death of a Citizen. Imdb.com also says that the film version of Death of a Citizen is at works.

By the way, the cover above (presumably by Barye Phillips) was used in Finland to accompany a Shell Scott novel by Richard S. Prather, another paperback legend died recently.

Black Horse Westerns on crime/western authors

I've forgotten to link to this: Keith Chapman alias Chap O'Keefe talks in lenght about British and American crime authors who've also written westerns (or vice versa). It's very interesting and gives background on British paperback and pulp authors. There are also other articles of interest after Chapman's piece.

Utterly fascinated by Mystery*File blog

Everyone blogs about Finnish politics and other important matters, but I'm most fascinated by articles, essays and reminiscences about largely forgotten mystery and other authors on Mystery*File: just take a look at these two long posts about H. Beam Piper, M.E. Knerr and Elliot Chaze.

Pictures from Cyprus

Don't have time to write a full travelogue, but here are some shots from our trip to Cyprus. Captions explain at least something, hopefully.

There are some other pictures at the Daddy Blog here. The texts there are in Finnish.

Here's Kauto and me playing minigolf in front of the hotel.

Haunting pictures

Here are two misfortunate shots from somewhere in Cyprus. Don't know what they are, but they seem like stills of an experimental film, don't they?

At the airport

We had to wait for two hours at the Pafos airport on Sunday. Kauto was able to entertain himself playing zoo with his plastic animals and empty strawberry packages.

At the old castle

On the last day on Cyprus, we visited the medieval castle in the centre of Limassol. It was very impressive spatial experience. Here Kauto and Elina are at the roof of the castle. Elina was afraid all the time that Kauto would fall off.

At the zoo

We are so poor photographers that we when we visit the zoo, we don't take pictures of animals.

Too much wine?

Kauto and Elina at the delightful meze meal somewhere in the mountains. Kauto has had too many glasses of wine (which was excellent, by the way - and cheap!). Meze, for those who don't know, is a large festive meal with some dozen plates of different courses. This one was the better of the two we had during our trip and everything was self-made, even the excellent halloumi cheese. Kauto enjoyed his bulgur, cooked with tomatoes and onions. Elina has fond memories of potatoes cooked with white wine and then fried in oil.

Afrodite and I

We climbed to a

hill on top of which had been a temple dedicated to the worship of Afrodite. The large urn had been found intact among the ruins. It was very impressive.

Kauto and I at an old church

Here we are at an old church in the little village of Lania (or Laneia).

Ellroy's Blood On the Moon

I mentioned James Ellroy and my admiration for his LA Quartet in a previous post and that reminded me that I completely forgot to make a mention that I read his Blood On the Moon (1984) just recently. I didn't like it at all. In this, for some reason, Ellroy's characters are not believable in any sense, they are just walking symptoms and manias, especially the hero Lloyd Hopkins. The plot is pretty thin and doesn't have the depth of which Ellroy's better novels are known. The serial killer angle doesn't feel much nowadays, after dozens and dozens of serial killers have stomped crime literature to death (well, boredom, at least!).

The Finnish publisher of the recent translation claims that this was the first serial killer novel. Please!

True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne

Ed Gorman posted a list of ten forgotten crime novels that should be read and reread over and over:

Odds Against Tomorrow William P. McGivern

The 31st of February Julian Symons

How Like An Angel Margaret Millar

The Blank Wall Elizabeth Sanxay Holding

Night and The City Gerald Kersh

The Far Cry Fredric Brown

Cocaine and Blue Eyes Fred Zackel

True Confessions John Gregory Dunne

On The Yard Malcolm Braly

Something in The Shadows Vin Packer

I've read, I think, three books out of the list (wanna guess what they are?) and I have Zackel's Cocaine and Blue Eyes on my TBR pile (which must be a mile long).

I'm getting to the climax of John Gregory Dunne's True Confessions (1972) and I must say that it's a very good crime novel that approaches literary novel without being pompous or "deep", like some books by someone like Dennis Lehane. There's a bit too much of inner monologue in here, too, but it's always connected to a greater scheme of politics and corruption in the Catholic church. And the book is very funny - Dunne writes great dialogue and especially the scene with the detectives in a radio show people can call their clues to is hilarious. Compared to Ellroy's The Black Dahlia, well, I'm a fan of Ellroy's LA Quartet, but the books are so different from one another that they don't compare very well, even though both are about the Black Dahlia case.

I haven't seen the film with Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro, but I remember that my dad used to like it - and he's not someone to recommend films too easily.

Borowczyk's Dr Jekyll et les femmes

Last night I saw Walerian Borowczyk's weird erotic horror film Docteur Jekyll et les femmes. The film is from 1981 and very weird indeed. It takes Stevenson's novel (Borowczyk claimed that he had found the original manuscript Stevenson's wife is said to have burned because of its erotic content) and takes the erotic aspects of Edward Hyde's behaviour to the extreme: he rapes and kills with his 35 cm long penis.

The film is very disturbing, because it celebrates the beauty of destruction at the same time it shows there's nothing glamorous in it. I was reminded of Luis Buñuel's The Golden Age: they both tell the same story of a man and woman who try to make love, but are always stopped by stupid rules and regulations or tepid discussions on metaphysics, religion and science. In the end, they both reach transcendence - but only through giving themselves up to lust, killing and raping. Very beautifully photographed, the film sure is one to stick to mind.

The film also reminds me of Guido Crepax's rendering of Stevenson's novel, but it lacks the political undertones of Borowczyk's film in which the world of bourgeoisie deserves nothing but the destruction.

A book out

I just saw the first drafts of the Turku crime story anthology I've edited. It looks good, with the cover by Jukka Murtosaari. I'll post the scan and other stuff later on. The book will be out Tuesday, third of April.

Viides testamentti, Turun alueen kirjoittajien jännitystarinoiden kokoelma, julkistetaan tiistaina 3.4. klo 15 Turun Akateemisessa. Paikalla on kirjan kustantaja Harri Kumpulainen, kirjan toimittaja (c'est moi), kirjoittajia sekä haastattelijana Kari J. Kettula. Kaikki Pulpetin seuraajat ovat tervetulleita!

Kirjan sisältö on seuraava. Mikäli toisin ei mainita, novellit ovat alkuperäisiä:

Pirkko Arhippa: Välikäsi, ilmestynyt alun perin RikosPaloissa 1/1987
Boris Hurtta: Ikonipuinen arkku
Harri Erkki: Tunneli
Harry Etelä: Mustaa verta, ilmestynyt alun perin Seikkailujen Maailmassa 11/1939
Totti Karpela: Perin inhimillinen tekijä, ilmestynyt alun perin Suomen Kuvalehdessä /1974
Olavi Tuomola: Hantšungin kultainen buddha, ilmestynyt alun perin Mustassa Kuussa 1/1945
Markku Soikkeli: Viides testamentti
Sami Myllymäki: [uups, tästähän puuttui novellin nimi, pitänee kaivaa se sitten esille kun kirja ilmestyy]
Aake Jermo: Hiljainen yö, ilmestynyt alun perin teoksessa Outsider (toim.): Hiljainen yö, Lehtiyhtymä 1944
Kirsti Ellilä: Pyhän kosketus

Lisäksi mukana on toimittajan alkusanat ja kustantajan jälkisanat.

Vastakkainasettelun aika on jälleen

(This is about Finnish politics.)

Sunnuntain Hesarissa kirjoitettiin kokoomuksen vaalivoitosta. Jutun kärkenä oli Sanna Perkiö, jonka boheemius kuulemma auttoi häntä ja puoluetta vaalivoitossa. Perkiön boheemius on sitä, että hänen firmansa sijaitsee Kaapelitehtaalla ja hän keräilee kotimaista nykytaidetta. Heikoissa kantimissa on boheemius nykyään. Näin ajatellen mekin olemme vaimon kanssa boheemeja, jopa varsin hurjia sellaisia.

Jutussa puhuttiin myös kokoomuksen onnistuneesta vastakkainasettelun aika on ohi -sloganista. Sanottiin, että se oli erinomainen idea, jonka suomalaiset ottivat vastaan tyytyväisinä ja innostuneina. Jutusta kävi kuitenkin ilmi, että maassa vallitsee edelleen toinen vastakkainasettelu, vasemmisto-oikeisto/duunari-porvari -vastakkainsettelua julmempi ja häikäilemättömämpi: siinä nimittäin sanottiin, että moni äänesti kokoomusta, koska tuntuu paremmalta samaistua voittajiin kuin häviäjiin.

Paljon on puhuttu myös SAK:n vaalimainoksesta ja sen aiheuttamasta äänten kadosta. Olisi ollut kiinnostavaa nähdä, mitä olisi tapahtunut, jos mainosta olisi käytetty aiottuun tapaan eikä media olisi ruvennut kohkaamaan siitä, miten ikävä, vanhanaikainen ja syyttelevä se on. Monet niistä, jotka omaksuivat median näkökulman, eivät ole mainosta YouTubesta tai vastaavista jaksaneet kaivaa eivätkä ole siis nähneet sitä. Mietin myös, miksei kukaan ottanut kantaa kokoomuksen järkyttäviin nami nami -mainoksiin, joihin oli isketty reivien flaierityyppisesti kaikkea kivaa sälää. Olen itse sarjakuvien ystävä, mutta silti mielessä käy, että vaalit voitti sarjakuvapuolue.

Lukekaa myös Kari Kosmoksen hieno analyysi Jyrki Kataisen työaiheisesta retoriikasta. Kari ei voisi olla enempää oikeassa.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and other flicks

In lieu of a travel report, here are some bits of films seen lately:

John Cassavetes: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1974): a great, underrated attempt to deconstruct a small crime flick, Ben Gazzara's night club owner is clearly a precursor to many loser characters in the neo noir of the 1990's and 2000's (say, Jason Starr's novels). The film has a loose new-wavish narrative, but it's not really new wave and there's none of the trickstery the new wave films used. It's a bit close to some of Altman's films, but the looseness seems more improvised. The night club scenes with a weird stand up comedian and his girls are quite odd, but entertaining in a way.

Herman Shumlin: Confidential Agent (1945): I don't really recall if I've read the Graham Greene novel this is based on, but the film itself is very good, atmospheric and adventurous political film noir about a Spanish freedom fighter on a desperate journey to buy coal from British industrialists. Lauren Bacall should be a British lady, but she just doesn't have the right flair. That notwithstanding, she's a treat.

Joe Novak

I've mentioned my private eye hero Joe Novak here so often that I thought the thing could need some explaining. Here's an entry I wrote for Kevin Burton Smith's extraordinary Thrilling Detective site:

Joe Novak
by Juri Nummelin

Joe Novak is a private eye working in Los Angeles, getting mixed up in sleazy swindles, but usually looking at things happening as an outsider.

Joe Novak stories are somewhere between parody and pastiche, and some of them are not really stories about a P.I. solving cases, but they can also be about a P.I. getting out of the troubles in his own personal life. Novak is a WWII veteran and he has horrible memories from the Ardennes. Novak delights in reading hardboiled paperbacks, but he has also studied philosophy at university under the G.I. bill. He dates several women and has trouble finding a suitable one.

The series of short stories is written by Juri Nummelin, who is normally a non-fiction writer. The Joe Novak stories have been published in the Isku magazine, a Finnish small press zine specializing in hardboiled crime fiction.

The stories:

Änkyttävän naapurin tapaus/The Case of the Stuttering Neighbour, Isku # 5 (2006).
Eripuraisten naapurien tapaus/The Case of the Quarreling Neighbours, Isku # 4 (2006).
Merirosvoaarteen tapaus/The Case of the Pirate Treasure, Isku # 3 (2005)
Kävelykeppien tapaus/The Case of the Walking Sticks, Isku # 2 (2005).
Ikkunattoman monadin tapaus/The Case of the Windowless Monad, Isku # 1 (2004).

Another fictionmag coming - soon?

Here's a cover by Jukka Murtosaari for another fictionmag that's coming out some time later this year: it's called Mälli/Spunk, with the subtitle (do magazines have subtitles?) Tosi Miesten Toimintakertomuksia/Action Stories For Real Men. (Joo, tiedän, että kuvassa lukee "seikkailukertomuksia", mutta pitää pitää palaveria kuvittajan kanssa vielä.) It's supposed to be a pastiche of a early sixties' men's mag à la Argosy, Rogue or Man's Story or Male, etc. My story is about Joe Novak and it's called "The Case of the Sleazy P.I." I mentioned having started the story some time back and I think I managed to sneak in all the references I mentioned in the earlier post.

The logo is made alongside the old logo of Jermu, a Finnish men's mag from the seventies.

A new fictionmag

A new fictionmag came out today: it's called Seikkailukertomuksia/Adventure Stories and it contains mostly new stories by Finnish writers, but also one reprint from Heikki Jylhä from 1940 and translations of stories by Stanley G. Weyman and Molly Brown. The mag is meant to resemble a general pulp magazine à la Short Stories or Argosy and the stories have great variety: there's swashbuckling adventure, a crime story set in the late 1800's, a story about ancient Egypt, a weird Western short story, and so forth. So it should be a treat.

Published by me, of course. For the Finnish readers (and for others, too, since there's a cover), go to the Isku magazine's own blog here.

Bill Clinton in a Finnish pulp story

Here's a snippet from a Finnish horror story from 1939 that I'm editing for a collection of short horror stories of Harry Etelä (about whom I'll have to write more in a near future):

At first I couldn't remember who the boy resembled, but when he got nearer to us and I could see his pale face clearly, I felt like my brain had turned upwards and a freezing cold filled my body. Bill Clinton.. Bill Clinton.. kept pounding in my head. The boy dressed up in work overalls was Bill Clinton... without a doubt.

(From Kauhun kahleissa/Frozen In Terror, Seikkailujen Maailma/The World of Adventures, 4/1939. Transl. by JN.)

A quick follow-up

Sorry, I must've seemed quite pissed off and grumpy in my posts lately. So I duly apologize for any incovenient use of language and all that.

Nevertheless, I finished the book on Tuesday. There were some minor glitches that needed working out on Wednesday, but nothing serious. I don't remember the last time when I did two full eight-hour workdays back to back. I'm quite washed out and I think I'll go lie down on a sofa.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that the cover illo that was supposed to be waiting in the mail arrived on Monday morning, so I got it in time. I would post it, but you'll have to wait till the book comes out - it's the book with old and new crime stories by writers from the Turku region where I live. It'll start a new series of short story collections, but I'll have to write about some other time.

Thanks, guys

Thanks to pHinn, Bill and Peter for their happy holiday wishes!

The Just Got Back Blues

Just got back home. Um, well, two hours ago. It's fucking 11 p.m.! Go to sleep, you moron! We travelled 12 goddamn hours, with four hours on a plane, which is never nice. And I'm exhausted in a way I didn't think was possible.

But nevertheless, great time was had by all, but I'll report back later, maybe with pictures. Now, only bad news:

1. A publisher turned down my crime novel.

2. I haven't as yet received all the entries for the thriller reference work and the goddamn latest fucking final deadline was today, on March 18!

3. I was told that I've got a cover illo for the Turku region crime short story anthology in the mail. But, well, no, I haven't got it. There's nothing of the sort in my mail. It should've been in the printers a week ago.

4. Do I sound like I've been on a holiday?

Heading off

We are soon leaving to Cyprus and I won't be blogging for a week. Take care!

(I didn't finish Dunne's True Confessions and won't be taking it with me, even though it's very good, sentiments ranging from grotesque to dark noir and gritty politics. The publishing year, by the way, was 1972, not 1982, as I wrote earlier. The plot is quite familiar, but that's because of the James Ellroy film and the De Palma movie, The Black Dahlia.)

Tired of slackers

As I've mentioned couple times before, I've been editing a reference book on thriller writers. I ordered some 15 articles from guys I know are good and capable writers. Little did I know. The deadline for the entries was 15.2., and I'm still waiting for the majority of the entries. The publisher sent me a note saying that all the entries that come after 15.3. just won't get in the book. Luckily that day I'll be away and I was able to negotiate that I'll deliver the finished manuscript by 20.3.

Now, what really bugs me is that we are going off to a holiday. We'll be at Cyprus for a week and immediately after that I'll have to edit the late entries and patch up the book - in a day! And I can't relax fully knowing that I'll be with my hands full of work that other people knew they had to do a month before! Christ! (I'd like to say worse things, but this is a fuckin' family blog after all.)

Okay, another bad news concerning work: a publisher phoned me yesterday and told me that the big compilation of Finnish pulp fiction crime and adventure stories that I've put together won't be out until next Spring! In 2008, that is. Aw Christ... Lord knows I need money next year, too, but still... I compiled the stuff in the Fall of 2005, one and a half years ago.

And the said publisher had some bright ideas about splitting the book in two, putting out first a book with only old stories and then, if that one sells enough copies, putting out a book with newer stories. I don't think a book with only stories from the 1930's to, say, the 1950's will interest anyone but some collectors and some veteran readers who may remember some of that stuff from their own youths. Here I was thinking that I could grasp the whole phenomenon of Finnish pulp fiction with one sweep, putting together stories from the early thirties to the present day. But no such luck.

Okay, calm down, calm down, these things happen. Worse things have happened to writers. (They shouldn't, though.)

The good news was that the said publisher will bring out a paperback-size biannual anthology of crime fiction short stories. I'll wish him luck (in the country where even the best known names won't sell even one thousand copies of short story anthologies).

Okay, enough of complaints. I hope I'll have enough time to read unread books during our stay at Cyprus. I've packed these books:

Leigh Brackett: (um.. what was the title.. one of her Mars story collections, with Eric John Stark)
Richard Matheson: The Shrinking Man
Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon
Reed Farrel Coleman: The James Deans

And I hope I'll be able to finish John Gregory Dunne's True Confessions (1982) before we leave.

James Reasoner's private eye stories

James Reasoner has been reminiscing his career from the seventies on and written two lengthy posts about his private eye heroes. It's an interesting piece of history of hardboiled literature and fictionmag publishing - the story goes from the last of the hardboiled fictionmags to small press magazines and to theme-edited anthologies.

It's sad, though, that I've never seen any of these stories and I've never seen a single issue of the Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine James wrote for! I've read his sole private eye novel, Texas Wind (1980), and it's a very good piece of writing.

Bill Crider's blog project story

Here's Bill Crider's great blog project story that's meant for the Quertermous-White blog project. Bill didn't just want to write a crime story about blogging, but instead he put up a blog to tell the story in the form of blog posts. It works, even though I have my doubts about whether anyone would really post something starting with "Frank was killed today". (The same problem is with all the letter and diary novels. "Oh, here he comes, he bangs on the door, now he opens it, now he grabs my hand, oh, what cruel fate this is!")

A music video by my pals of Kompleksi

Well, actually I know only one of the guys of the duo... Nevertheless, here's the first music video by pHinn and Mike Not, also known as Kompleksi. The video was made with the artistic cooperation with Australian experimental filmmaker Tina Ulavik, and there's sure nice artistic touches. The track is great too, check it out - if you're at all into electronica.

Films seen recently

I've been forgetting to write about films I've seen lately:

Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo from 1961 is one of the most hardboiled films I've ever seen. Toshiro Mifune in the lead (not "as the hero", since he's quite far from a regular hero) could beat the shit out of any other hardboiled hero. I mean, anybody. The film is effectively edited and photographed and the fight scenes are expertly staged. I seem to remember that the sequel (it was called The Samurai Sword in Finnish, was it so in the English-speaking countries as well?) is even more hardboiled and Mifune cooler than ever before or later. (Well, he doesn't exactly look cool in that picture.)

Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers: one of my all-time favourites. I said to Elina watching this: "You need to remember that when I die you print these words in my obit: "I'm dead today, shutting out all beautiful tomorrows"." That's what Groucho says when he mimicks Eugene O'Neill ("Why, you couple of baboons, do you think I would marry either one of you? How strange the wind howls tonight. It reminds me of poor old Marsden.") The film itself is very, very poor, poorly staged and photographed and clumsily edited. Yet, one of the very best. I haven't been as fond of Duck Soup as many others and I should nominate Monkey Business the best of the Marx films. "If a nightingale could sing like you..."

Aleksandr Dovzhenko's Zvenigora from 1927 was a very pleasant surprise after his abysmal last fiction film, Under the Red Flag (1939), a disjointed narrative that was filled with Bolshevik propaganda. Zvenigora was cryptic, poetic, delightfully and surrealistically stupid, with some great dream sequences. I detected that many people in the audience didn't understand all of what was going on - especially the scenes with Russian emigrées in Paris (or in Prague?) were a puzzle. I'd like to know whether the contemporary audiences knew what was happening.

My newest book

I think I mentioned this earlier. I wrote once, some ten years ago, a series of articles about little known Finnish poets to the Kulttuurivihkot magazine. Now, the editor at the time, Tuomas Kilpi, was recently nominated editor-in-chief of the BTJ publishing house. He e-mailed me and asked whether the articles could be reprinted as a book. What do you say to an offer like that? "Umm, yeah, I'll have to think about that, let me get back to you next year, I'm a bit busy at the moment..."

I received my author's copies today and it seems to be up on the publisher's website. Check out the contents here.

And, um, yes, it's in Finnish.

What we've got

Haven't done a meme in ages. Well, I may have taken part in three memes altogether, but this seems fun. Via Urpo, who's an old friend reblogging. Sooooorry, this is in Finnish. I was first thinking I could translate the terms, but then I said to myself: is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life? It's a list of things we've got. I'm sorry it didn't ask how many ties I've got - it seems I've got some sixty or seventy of them. 90 % of them came from flea markets and other such places.

[ ] akvaario
[x] arabian astioita
[ ] arkkupakastin
[ ] astianpesukone
[ ] autotalli
[ ] digiboxi
[x] digikamera
[ ] digitaalivaaka
[x] dvd-soitin
[ ] epilaattori
[ ] farmariauto
[ ] henkilöauto
[x] hiirimatto
[x] hiustenkuivain
[ ] höyrysauna
[x] iittalan astioita
[ ] ilmakiharrin
[x] ilmakitara (soittelen useammin kyllä mitä tahansa käteen osuvaa, kuten peffaliukuria)
[ ] ilmankostutin
[x] jenkkisänky
[x] kahvinkeitin
[x ] kahvipannu
[ ] kannettava dvd
[x] kannettava tietokone
[ ] keittiövaaka
[x] kenkäteline
[ ] kerrossänky
[ ] keskuspölynimuri
[ ] kirkasvalolaite
[ ] kopiokone
[ ] kotiparturi
[ ] kotiteatteri
[x] kottikärryt (lasten muoviset!)
[ ] kuisti
[ ] kuivausrumpu
[x] kultaisia koruja
[x] kuntolaitteita
[x] kylpytakki
[x] laajakaista
[x] lankapuhelin
[x] langaton hiiri
[ ] leipäkone
[x] leivänpaahdin
[ ] lemmikkieläin
[ ] litteä tietokonenäyttö
[x] luistimet
[ ] maasturi
[x] matkapuhelin
[x] mikroaaltouuni
[ ] moottorikelkka
[ ] moottoripyörä
[x] mp3-soitin (mää en oo vaan kertaakaan käyttänyt sitä!)
[x] musiikkisoitin (vinyylisoitin, cd-soitin, kasettimankka)
[ ] navigaattori
[ ] oma ranta
[ ] omakotitalo
[x] ompelukone
[ ] pakettiauto
[x] partakone
[x] parisänky
[ ] parveke
[ ] pelikone
[x] polkupyörä
[x] polttava cd-asema (ei toimi kannettavassa)
[x] porakone
[ ] poreallas
[x] pyykinpesukone
[x] pölynimuri
[x] pöytätietokone
[ ] rappuset
[x] rikkaimuri
[ ] rullaluistimet
[ ] salarakas
[ ] sauna
[x] sauvasekoitin
[x] silitysrauta
[x] skanneri
[ ] suihkulähde
[ ] sukset
[ ] suoristusrauta hiuksille
[ ] sykemittari
[ ] sähköhammasharja
[x] sähkövatkain
[ ] sälekaihtimet
[ ] takka
[ ] taulutelevisio
[ ] tauti (ellei neurooseja lasketa)
[x] teepannu
[ ] tekohampaat
[ ] tietokonepöytä
[ ] traktori
[x] tulostin
[ ] uima-allas
[ ] ulkorakennus
[ ] ulkosauna
[ ] useampi televisio käytössä
[ ] vapaa-ajan asunto
[x] vedenkeitin
[ ] vene
[ ] verenpainemittari
[x] vhs-videonauhuri
[ ] videokamera
[x] viinaa
[x] villamatto
[ ] vohvelirauta
[ ] voileipägrilli
[x] vuodesohva
[ ] web-kamera
[ ] wokkipannu
[x] yleiskone
[x] yläkerta (siellä on metelöiviä naapureita)

Everything's settled

I wrote once here about trying to acquire rights for a reprint from a writer's heirs who seemed to be in constant fight. Now, a grandson of the said writer phoned me and told that it's been settled and I can move on with the reprint! Yii-haa!

A healthy break from Ridley Pearson and Sidney Sheldon

I decided to let my own entries in the thriller reference book rest and took Lawrence Block's Tanner's Twelve Swingers (1967, a No Exit reprint from the nineties) from the shelf. It is indeed much better than anything I've read by the said writers. I'm no big fan of Block, but I've liked his early work.

Nothing much else here, except work. I was yesterday at the university library studying old Finnish pulp and other fiction mags and came up with quite a bunch of photocopies of old stories for possible reprints. It seems nowadays that typing is my most recent profession. I said to Elina that if someone asks about my hobbies, say, in an interview, I say: "I collect photocopies of stories from old fictionmags." (Now, what label should I have for this post? I say nothing substantial about Block and I don't really know what category the latter paragraph should belong to. I'll put up here a new ephemera label. My life is just a big piece of ephemera, so it's fitting.)