Hans Jürgen Syberberg - kuvainraastaja Saksasta

(A seminar on a German director, Hans Jürgen Syberberg. Very much non-pulp.)

SYBERBERG-SEMINAARI maanantaina 27.8. kello 16-20 elokuvateatteri Orionissa (Eerikinkatu 15).

"Syberberg on ensimmäinen varteenotettava elokuvaohjaaja Godardin jälkeen" (Susan Sontag)

"Uuden saksalaisen elokuvan" omaleimaisin tekijä, elokuvaohjaaja ja multimediataiteilija Hans Jürgen Syberberg syntyi Saksan Nossendorfissa vuonna 1935. Syberberg on yhdistänyt esseemäisissä jättiläisteoksissaan Wagnerin ja Brechtin esteettiset näkemykset. Saksassa Syberberg on herättänyt voimakasta polemiikkia; muualla hänen lähestymistapaansa saksalaiseen historiaan on ylistetty. Yhdysvaltalainen kulttuurintutkija Susan Sontag totesi, että ohjaajan seitsemäntuntinen Hitler, elokuva Saksasta kuuluu 1900-luvun upeimpien taideteosten joukkoon.

Tabujen rikkojana kunnostautuneen ohjaajan retrospektiivi nähdään Helsingin juhlaviikoilla elokuvateatteri Orionissa 24.8.-1.9. (& 8.9.). Elokuvaretrospektiivin yhteydessä järjestetään maanantaina 27.8. kello 16-20 seminaari "Hans Jürgen Syberberg - kuvainraastaja Saksasta".

Hollantilainen mediatutkija Petrus Nouwens saapuu Suomeen kertomaan Syberbergistä Saksan historian poleemisena tulkkina, joka on teoksissaan yhdistänyt Theodor W. Adornon ja Martin Heideggerin esteettisen filosofian. Nouwens viimeistelee parhaillaan väitöskirjaansa Syberbergin tuotannosta.

Seminaarin muina puhujina kuullaan suomalaisia Syberberg-tuntijoita. Taiteentutkija Martti-Tapio Kuuskoski tarkastelee Syberbergin tuotannon kehitystä kokonaisuudessaan ja Wagner-spesialisti Pekka Asikainen analysoi Syberbergin versiota Richard Wagnerin musiikkidraamasta Parsifal.

Orion, maanantai 27.8.2007:
16-17 Martti-Tapio Kuuskoski: Wagner/Brecht/Cyberberg - elokuvasta multimediaan
17-18 Pekka Asikainen: Syvää unta todellisuudesta - Syberbergin Parsifal
18-20 Petrus Nouwens: The representation of German history in the films of Syberberg as a synthesis of the philosophy of Adorno and Heidegger
Taukoja ja keskustelua yleisön toiveiden mukaan. Seminaarin järjestää AVEKin tuella Kulttuuriosuuskunta Kronoptikon. Lisätiedot: Martti-Tapio Kuuskoski, p. 040-00 124 24; martti.kuuskoski@helsinki.fi

HUOM! Helsingin juhlaviikkojen Syberberg-tapahtuman yhteydessä julkaistaan myös kirja"Syberberg - kuvainraastaja Saksasta"Kirjan tekstien kirjoittajat: Hans Jürgen Syberberg, Susan Sontag, Gilles Deleuze,Petrus Nouwens, Pekka Asikainen, Martti-Tapio Kuuskoski, Laura Lindstedt.
Kustantaja: Kronoptikon.
KIRJA JULKAISTAAN TAITEIDEN YÖN DIE NACHT -ESITYKSESSÄ PE 24.8. klo 17

Perustulosta

(About Finnish politics.)

Monet vastustavat perustulon ajatusta, koska kaikille jaettava perustulo, esimerkiksi 400 euroa, maksaisi enemmän kuin mitä Suomen valtion budjettiin tällä hetkellä mahtuu. Kansalaistulon pitäisikin olla vapaaehtoinen: yritysjohtajat ja muut, jotka hiukankin kokevat, etteivät tarvitse valtion auttavaa kättä, voisivat luopua siitä erillisellä ilmoituksella. Nyt tuntuu lähinnä siltä, että tällä perusteella ajatusta vastustavat juuri ne, jotka eivät perustuloa tarvitsisi.

Birth and The Deep End

Peter Rozovsky over at Detectives Beyond Borders said in a comment on my comment on his comment that he really doesn't know my taste in movies. Well, some of my favourite movies are pretty obvious (do I need to point out I'm a film noir buff?). I watch movies pretty regularly, even though Kauto usually goes to sleep so late there's really no time. (And he's not old enough to watch nothing but Bob the Builder and similar stuff. Ottilia's frustrated at this - she's already digging deep into Hayao Miyazaki and they are way too heavy for Kauto.) I'd really like to write more about movies here, but I don't seem find the time to say anything substantial. (And here's a guy who's written an introduction to the history of cinema...)

Recently I watched two films that bear resemblance to each other and have also somewhat noirish tone: The Deep End, based on The Blank Wall, Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's excellent and underrated novel, and Jonathan Glazer's Birth from 2004 that has Nicole Kidman experiencing a rebirth of his dead lover in the form of a ten-year old boy. I didn't see all of it, but the rest seemed intriguing enough to hold my interest (and for me to tape the last 45 minutes). The pace is deliberately slow and nothing is really explained, but I was left wondering what the makers of the movie wanted to say. The film really didn't seem to have much beneath its surface, but I seem to have grown a liking to Nicole Kidman and her frail, yet determinate figure. However, I thought this was a much better film than The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan it resembles.

The Deep End however struck a chord. Holding's novel - which you all really should read - is a clever female noir text, in which Holding handles the theme of a lonely housewife at mercy of a weird and scary world very well. Her prose is so simple that it may fool you to think there's nothing in the book, but there's also hypnotic feel to it. Raymond Chandler held Holding in high regard, and so does Ed Gorman who took care of getting some titles into print recently - the book was first published in 1947.

It was filmed pretty soon, but I haven't seen that film. The one I saw was the new version from 2001, written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel who also made Suture (1993) which I haven't seen. Unfortunately, since The Deep End captures Holding's theme and mood very well and the modernization had been made with style. Everything seems implausible at first, just like in the original book, but then you realize there's nothing these people really can do. The housewife is falling in love with a petty crook, but that's not because of his good looks - it's a matter of intricate play of identities and identification. There's no one else she can cling herself to, her husband is always away (we never hear him even speak). The housewife, played marvellously by Tilda Swinton, seems very powerful and very weak at the same time - which is pretty much true of almost everyone I know. There's only point in the movie I didn't like: Tilda Swinton is great in the lead, but her looks - her feel - are definitely British.

Guess who's writing?

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Tähtifantasia-palkinto VanderMeerille

(This is about a Finnish fantasy award.)

TÄHTIFANTASIA-PALKINTO

LEHDISTÖTIEDOTE - JULKAISUVAPAA TIISTAI 21.8. klo 11.00

Helsingin SF Seuran Tähtifantasia-palkinto
parhaasta vuonna 2006 suomeksi ilmestyneestä
käännösfantasiakirjasta annetaan Loki-Kirjojen
julkaisemalle JEFF VANDERMEERIN romaanille
PYHIMYSTEN JA MIELIPUOLTEN KAUPUNKI.
Teoksen on suomentanut Johanna Vainikainen-Uusitalo.

Pyhimysten ja mielipuolten kaupunki on huikea sukellus fantastisen
Ambergris-kaupungin pimeään puoleen, sen painajaisiin, unohdettuihin
salaisuuksiin ja outoihin elämänkohtaloihin. Jeff VanderMeer on
onnistunut luomaan teoksessaan mosaiikkimaisen runsaan
rinnakkaistodellisuuden. Lumoavan maailman, joka kohoaa eeppisiin
mittoihin kiitos rikkaasti kuvaillun historian, mielenkiintoisten
detaljien sekä moniulotteisten henkilöhahmojen. Leikkisää huumoriakaan
unohtamatta. Pyhimysten ja mielipuolten kaupunki on kaunokirjallisesti
merkittävä, fantasiaa lajityyppinä uudistava teos.

Kun ihmiset ensi kertaa saapuivat Moth-joen rannalla sijaitsevaan
Ambergrisin kaupunkiin, paikalla asui jo salaperäisiä, sienimäisiä
harmaalakkeja. Kohtaaminen päättyi verilöylyyn, jonka vaikutukset
säteilevät pitkälle kaupungin tulevaisuuteen. Maailmassa on tummia
piirteitä, jotka on rapsuteltavissa sivistyksen pintakerroksen alta esille.

Pyhimysten ja mielipuolten kaupunki koostuu kolmesta toisiinsa
kytkeytyvästä tarinasta, joissa VanderMeer pelaa erilaisilla
kirjallisilla tyylilajeilla. ”Martin Laken muodonmuutos” kertoo
palvotusta taiteilijasta, jonka tuotanto heijastelee Ambergrisia ja sen
synkeitä ominaispiirteitä. VanderMeer kuvaa tarinassaan satiirisesti
taiteen perusluonnetta ja taideteosten tulkintaa. ”Hoegbottonin opas
Ambergrisin varhaishistoriaan” on itseironialla höystetty, monin osin
alaviitteiden kautta etenevä herkullinen kertomus historioitsija Duncan
Shriekin epäluotettavasta menneisyyden tulkinnasta. ”X:n outo tapaus”
ottaa puolestaan kaiken irti todellisuuden perimmäiseen olemukseen
liittyvistä kysymyksistä. Tarinan kertoja on suljettu mielisairaalaan,
koska hän väittää Ambergrisin olevan tarun sijasta totta. Mutta kuinka
sitten käykään?

VanderMeer leikittelee jatkuvasti kirjallisella ilmaisulla ja siihen
liittyvillä ulottuvuuksilla. Epätäydellisyys ja yksiselitteisen
todellisuuden puuttuminen ovat osa kirjailijan rakentamaa kokonaisuutta.
Totuuden etsiminen ja sen muuntuminen erilaisiksi vaihtoehtoisiksi
tarinoiksi on Ambergrisin ja sen asukkaiden ominaisluonne. Teoksen
päähenkilöksi nouseekin itse asiassa juuri tarunhohtoinen Ambergrisin
kaupunki. Se on kuin elävä persoona: hengittävä, sykkivä, juonia ja
kiehtovia salaisuuksia sisällään hautova olento, jolla on sielu.

Pyhimysten ja mielipuolten kaupunki on elämää suurempien tarinoiden
aarreaitta. Fantastinen, älyllinen ja mieleenpainuva mutta samalla
helposti lähestyttävä teos, jonka runollisiin ja pilke silmäkulmassa
kirjoitettuihin teksteihin on vaikea olla rakastumatta.

Suomalainen Pyhimysten ja mielipuolten kaupunki sisältää valikoiman City
of Saints and Madmen -teoksen tarinoista. Kirjasta on julkaistu
englanniksikin lukuisia sisältönsä laajuuden puolesta toisistaan
poikkeavia versioita.

Tähtifantasia-palkinnon myöntää Helsingin SF Seura ry, joka on jakanut
jo yli kahdenkymmenen vuoden ajan arvostettua Tähtivaeltaja-palkintoa
parhaalle Suomessa julkaistulle tieteiskirjalle. Tähtifantasia-palkinto
jaetaan nyt ensimmäistä kertaa.

Tähtifantasia-palkinnon asiantuntijaraatiin kuuluvat
kriitikko Toni Jerrman, kirjailija Anne Leinonen, kriitikko Elli Leppä
ja toimittaja Vesa Sisättö.

My architectural text

I posted some pictures from my hometown, Pori, on my other blog here. The article is about the Functionalist (= funkis in Finnish) buildings in Pori, mainly from the 1930's and 1940's. I really don't know whether the architectural movement is really known in the US. There are some Functionalist buildings in the UK, but the movement was never big there. It may have been known under some other name, I'm not sure. (The Scandinavian Style, perhaps?)

More MySpace

I put two new movies on my MySpace account. They are what all my nine viewers have to come expect from me: short one-shot movies. They are not for everyone's taste. And have nothing to do with pulp or anything like that (even though one of the theories I cherish and sometimes will elaborate on is that the most commercial and the most experimental have something in common, I just don't know what it would be; it was Woody Haut who once said that pulp and poetry both begin from scratch).

Once more, with a feeling

The Bald Brothers on stage, for the last time. I'm having quite a fierce expression on my face. Believe it or not, but I did a day's work on Friday after this.

The Bald Brothers: At the Night of the Arts

More like "farts"... My friend Vesa sent me some photos he took last Thursday night when the book stores of Turku - and other venues - had the Night of the Arts. Here I am on backstage with comic artist Vesa Saarinen and writer and journalist Roope Lipasti. I'm on the right in case you won't recognize me - the same hairdo, you see...

Harri Virtasen pölinät

(About Finnish TV.)

Ylen ohjelmapäällikkö Harri Virtanen kirjoitti uudessa Journalisti-lehdessä aliokirjoituksessa Manne- eli Romano-tv:n aiheuttamasta kiihtyneestä keskustelusta ja puolusteli Yleä, joka oli ottanut Manne-tv:n kesäohjelmistoonsa 30 tarjokkaan seasta. (Kuinkahan huonoja nuo 29 hylättyä ehdokasta muuten oikein olivat?)

Ihan nyt puuttumatta ollenkaan siihen, mitä Manne-tv:stä on sanottu tai mitä siitä itse ajattelen (olen katsonut sitä yhteensä kolme minuuttia enkä usko, että ikinä viitsin vaivautua enempään), niin en voi olla kysymättä, mitä Virtanen tarkoitti sanomalla:

"Jos laatua määritellään sisällön kustannuksella, päädytään väistämättä tylsiin ratkaisuihin."

Käsitykseni Ylestä ja sen johtajista ei ole ollut pariin viimeiseen vuoteen kovin korkea, mutta enpä tiedä, nouseeko sen tämän johdosta montakaan pykälää.

Lending libraries

Lending libraries are a phenomenon that's not generally known in Finland. I don't know for sure, but there may have been some in the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th. Lending libraries flourished in the US and the UK in the 1930's and 1940's and some lasted into the sixties. You had to pay a small fee to lend the books. (At least that's how I gathered the thing worked.) There were also some publishers who put out only books targeted for the lending libraries. In the UK, Robert Hale started out doing these and they still do books mostly for libraries.

Here's a very nice site about American lending library publishers, especially the ones that did crime and mystery novels.

John Gardner

British spy novelist John Gardner passed away recently. Elsewhere I promised to say something about him, but as I don't have time at the moment, I'll just make a link to some posts I've written about Gardner. I didn't like the Oakes books and his James Bonds, but this doesn't mean that I wouldn't like his other, more serious novels. I just haven't tried them.

From Hard Case Crime

Folks,

We've put our next new title up on our Web site: THE MURDERER VINE by Shepard Rifkin. It's a powerful book that fictionalizes the same historical events that inspired the movie "Mississippi Burning," with the addition of a really stunning crime fiction twist. The author has an interesting history himself: now 89, Rifkin served on the S. S. Ben Hecht in 1947 and was imprisoned by the British in Acre Prison (a fortress on the northern coast of what is now Israel) after a failed attempt to run the British blockade of Palestine while transporting hundreds of refugees from the Holocaust. Rifkin and his crewmates were released -- but not before smuggling a camera into the prison, enabling what has been called "one of the most spectacular prison breaks in history." None of which has anything to do with THE MURDERER VINE -- but what a great story!

The cover for THE MURDERER VINE is by an artist new to Hard Case Crime, Ken Laager, and it's a doozy. You can see it and find a sample chapter from the book at www.hardcasecrime.com.

In other news, we have reached an agreement with best-selling suspense and horror author John Farris to bring out a new edition -- for the first time in 50 years, and the first time ever under his real name -- of one of his earliest novels, a tight, tough crime story called BABY MOLL. John wrote the book under the pen name "Steve Brackeen" when he was just 21 (two decades before he won fame and fortune as the author of THE FURY), and the book holds up beautifully after all these years. Robert McGinnis is hard at work on the cover.

And after four years of trying -- tracking down leads, exploring dead ends, putting out feelers, wearing out shoe leather -- we have finally succeeded in tracking down the estate of Steve Fisher. Fisher was a popular pulp writer, best known as the author of I WAKE UP SCREAMING. He also wrote countless hours of film and television, including two films for Humphrey Bogart (he and Bogie were friends). In 1958 he published what I think may be his best book, a novel of Las Vegas titled NO HOUSE LIMIT. And we'll be bringing out a new edition of that book next year.

What else is in the cards? Lots of good stuff, none of which I can tell you about yet -- but as soon as I can, I will. In the meantime, you can find SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas and FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich in stores now, and in just a few weeks you'll be able to get your hands on the very smart and funny KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall, featuring a mouth-watering McGinnis cover. (Why is the girl on the cover undoing her bikini bottom? I couldn't tell you. But far be it for me to tell her not to.)

Then in October it's time for Ken Bruen and Jason Starr's SLIDE, sequel to their very popular first collaboration, BUST...followed a month later by the first new Mickey Spillane novel in years, DEAD STREET. It's going to be a busy fall.But for now, I hope you enjoy the last days of summer. And remember: Nothing goes better with a tall glass of lemonade than a cool, dark crime novel.

I didn't win, but never mind

You may remember that I sent two manuscripts to a small press publisher that was having a crime novel contest. It took so long that I'd almost forgotten about the whole thing, but today I remembered to check their website. It turned out that they had picked the winners. I wasn't included. (The winner, Heikki-Antero Laurila, quite recently sent me stories to use in Isku. Congrats to Heikki, you'll be hearing from me soon!)

It also turned out that it was a good thing that I didn't make it. I heard from a reliable source that the contract they are offering is a vanity press contract. There will be a print run of 200 (which is very small, even in Finland) and the writer has to buy half of the books for himself! (And in cash!) I've pretty much suspected this, since the publisher puts out so many titles a year, but there's no mention of it anywhere on their site. I hope The Union of Finnish Writers (Kirjailijaliitto) makes a case out of this.

I'd also make out a plea that if you really want to pay to become a writer, do it yourself! Haven't made any calculations, but I'm pretty sure that a good old self-published book is cheaper to do than the ones vanity presses do. (And you don't pay anyone else - beside the printers, which is okay.) And it's not difficult, let me tell you that. (Well, okay, it requires a computer and an internet connection and some software.)

It's worrying that vanity presses are really coming to Finland. There are lots of writers who want to have their books published, but the results are so poor or mediocre they never make it. There are of course those who say that the publishers are stupid and that they - the writers - are great. You know, Vincent van Gogh didn't make it either. (I just read someone calling this the Van Gogh Fallacy: because van Gogh didn't make it and I can't make it, it means I'm a great artist too.) The vanity presses are making money on these writers and what's more important, they really don't promote their books. Do you see them in book stores? I don't. Do you ever see any reviews of them in magazines? But they get all the money.

Tähtifantasia-palkinto

(This is an announcement of a new Finnish award given to the best translated fantasy novel.)

*Tähtifantasia-palkinnon jakotilaisuus 21.8.*

Meillä on ilo ja kunnia kutsua teidät ensimmäisen Tähtifantasia-palkinnon jakotilaisuuteen*tiistaina 21.8. klo 11.00 Kolmen sepän kirjakauppaan*.
(Mannerheimintie 5 C, Hansakuja, Kaivopiha, Helsinki - http://www.kolmensepankirjakauppa.fi/)

Nyt ensimmäistä kertaa jaettava Tähtifantasia-palkinto luovutetaan parhaalle vuonna 2006 Suomessa ilmestyneelle käännösfantasiakirjalle.

Palkintoa ovat vastaanottamassa kustantajan edustaja sekä kirjan suomentaja.

Fantasiakirjallisuuden suomennosten kirjo on viime vuosina ottanut aimo harppauksia eteenpäin.Enää tarjolla ei ole vain *J. R. R. Tolkien* ja *Harry Potter *-klooneja, vaan Suomessakin julkaistaan yhä enemmän kirjallisesti ja älyllisesti korkeatasoista, aikuislukijoille suunnattua fantasiakirjallisuutta.

Tule nyt kuulemaan fantasian monimuotoisista ja omintakeisista ilmenemismuodoista, jotka ovat nostaneet genren yhdeksi nykykirjallisuuden kiinnostavimmista ilmiöistä.

Tähtifantasia-palkinnon myöntää Helsingin SF Seura ry, joka on jakanut jo yli kahdenkymmenen vuoden ajan arvostettua Tähtivaeltaja-palkintoa parhaalle Suomessa julkaistulle tieteiskirjalle.

[allekirjoittajina toimivat Sisätön Vesa ja Toni Jerrman - jn.]

Cranky heirs, pt. 2

I received a letter this morning from a widow of a Finnish author whose old story from the late sixties I wanted to reprint in Isku. She said, politely, no, I can't do that. No explanation, just a short note.

The lady must be in her eighties and I was beginning to wonder that maybe she didn't really realize what kind of business I'm running. In short: it's no business. The print runs are somewhere close to 100 and there's no huge publicity. But maybe she declined because there's no money involved for her - I've heard stories of writers' widows who say "no" to reprints, because they wouldn't get enough money out of the contracts. (I think Ed Gorman wrote in one of his late blogs that he tried to get a widow to allow reprint one of Geoffrey Homes's crime novels, but the widow refused saying: "He got better money writing for movies!" Hence, no Homes reprints.)

Or maybe she knew that her late husband wouldn't accept it, maybe thinking that it was something out of his youth and shouldn't see the light of day anymore. But then again, he wrote it with his real name, not under a pseudonym. (And then again, there would be only hundred people reading it, all aficionados and willing to forget that this was written only for the quick money. And then again, they might notice that the piece was really worth the effort, as would've been the case with this particular author.)

Oh well. There's nothing I can do about this. (Except wait for the widow to die and hope that the sons or daughters think different. Which is a bit morbid.)

The title refers to this. As for that case, everything turned out fine. The "evil and greedy brother" phoned me in the end and turned out not to be greedy and evil at all. The two brothers and their sister had made a deal about reprinting and everything was okay. It's just that the book isn't out and it's been delayed for over 1½ years now, and it seems like the publisher wants to cut the curiosities out. If that happens, I'll deal with the heirs again and ask for the reprint rights for Isku. That's at least something.

John Wayne -seminaari Oulussa

JOHN WAYNE -seminaari

Oulussa järjestetään elokuvateatteri Studiossa 28.9.2007 näyttelijä John Waynen elämänvaiheita ja uraa hahmottava seminaari. Sen luennoitsijoina toimivat tutkijat Pekka Tuliara ja Markku Varjola.

John Waynen (1907-1979) syntymästä tulee kuluneeksi 100 vuotta 2007. Yli 140 elokuvassa vuosina 1926-76 näytellyt Wayne kuuluu yhä lännen- ja seikkailuelokuvien tunnetuimpiin tähtiin - käytännössä voi puhua ikonin asemasta.Waynen ura lähti varsinaiseen nousuun vuonna 1939 valmistuneesta lännenelokuvasta Hyökkäys erämaassa jälkeen, vaikka hän oli jo ennen tuota esiintynyt yli 70 työssä. Waynen edustama sankarikuva kehittyi erityisesti 1940-50 -lukujen kuluessa: se säilyi maskuliinisena, mutta sai myös ristiriitaisia, neuroottisia piirteitä.

Muistetuimmat elokuvansa John Wayne teki yhteistyössä sellaisten ohjaajien kuten John Ford ja Howard Hawks kanssa. Välillisesti hänen töissään heijastuvat Yhdysvaltain poliittinen ja kulttuurinen muutos aina 1930-luvulta 1970-luvulle asti. Waynen tähtikuvaa hahmotettaessa päällimmäisenä nousee esiin sen amerikkalaisuus, joka liittyi myös näyttelijän valkokankaan ulkopuoliseen persoonaan.

Seminaari pyrkii luomaan kokonaiskuvan niin Waynestä henkilönä kuin hänen urastaan. Luentojen aiheina ovat "John Wayne: tähtinäyttelijän ura", "Wayne kuumassa ja kylmässä sodassa" sekä "John Waynen lännenelokuvat". Tapahtuman yhteydessä esitetään luentojen lisäksi hänen testamenttityönsä, Don Siegelin 1976 ohjaama western Revolverimies. Seminaariin ja elokuvaesitykseen on vapaa pääsy.

J.D. Rhoades feeling mighty proud

J.D. Rhoades felt so proud of getting the cover story for the Ässä/Ace flash fiction magazine that he posted the cover on his own blog. You're welcome, J.D.! (A cool title for your post!)

Covers like each other?

Do you think there's a resemblance to these two covers, the other being an older book by Wade Miller and the other being a rather recent collection of crime short stories by a Finnish writer, Harri Nykänen? Well, when I first saw the Miller cover, I was reminded of the Nykänen cover and I thought first that a case of plagiarism could be made, but now that I look at them side by side, my reaction seems pretty far-fetched.

Oops!

Here I go bragging about a story by Christa Faust and not linking to it, even though it was first published in the Muzzle Flash's flash site. (I understood it's going to be included in the Out of the Gutter print zine.) Here it is.

Uusi kirjakauppa Turussa

Zum Teufel - underground-ullakko avattu Turussa tänään!

(Just helming the opening of a new indie book store in Turku, Finland.)

Vuoden 2007 suuri vaalikusetus

(This is about Finnish politics.)

En ole aivan varma, olenko ymmärtänyt kaiken enkä pysty keskustelemaan politiikasta ja taloudesta kovinkaan syvällisesti, mutta miten on mahdollista, että kaksi keskeisintä vaaliasetta, hoitohenkilökunnan palkkojen nosto ja ruoan arvolisäveron laskeminen, unohdetaan tuosta noin valtion budjetissa? Eikö tämän tyyppisistä asioista pitäisi jo nousta kansanliike, mielenosoituksia, barrikaadeja?

Stephen Greenleaf

As I mentioned earlier, I read two novels by Stephen Greenleaf recently. Greenleaf was never big in Finland (he may have never been big in the US, either) and the publisher really didn't promote the books enough and he has dropped pretty much out of sight and I don't think anyone here really remembers him. Except for some aficionados of the private eye genre, people like me.

I remember really liking Greenleaf's books even when I was a teenager. Reading the books again now, I realized that in my own writing during that time I tried to write like Greenleaf. (You can only try to realize just how close I got. What do you expect from a fifteen-year-old?) Greenleaf is very close to Ross Macdonald, another favourite writer of mine, but while Macdonald is more psychological and Freudian, Greenleaf is more openly sociological, even though there are the same psychological themes as with Macdonald. Both even overuse the similes every now and then.

Greenleaf writes with great verve and insight about small towns and their petty political games and the losers who try to hang on to their dignity. His hero, John Marshall Tanner, is a very sympathetic man, even though he tries very hard not to show it.

There are no annoying private eye cliches here, and if done like Greenleaf I really couldn't think of anything that should make the genre obsolete, as some people have been saying (even though there is lots of evidence that the genre is coming to a renaissance, or is actually living it now). Even the opening, with a client coming to a detective's office, is still very intriguing, to me, at least, and it should work for years to come. (I'm referring to a post that Steve Lewis over at his great Mystery*File blog posted a week back.)

The books I read were Greenleaf's first, The Grave Error, and State's Evidence. Between the two, I can't really make any valuation, but maybe The Grave Error was better of the two. Ed Lynskey here, in his very good article and interview with Greenleaf, claims it's one of the best detective novels ever. I might agree with Ed.

In Finnish, there were eight translations (which is quite a good number, but given Greenleaf's total anonymity in Finland now this is quite striking), one of which being his mainstream novel, The Ditto List (Erolista in Finnish).

I published a winner!

As you well remember, I publish a small bunch of fiction fanzines. One of them, perhaps a one-off magazine, was called Ässä/Ace with thirteen flash fiction crime stories in it. One of the authors translated therein was Christa Faust, whose fame is on the rise, since she'll become early next year the first woman writer to have a book in the Hard Case Crime line. Today I realized that she won one of the media tie-in writers' association's Scribe awards, namely the best adapted screenplay (with Snakes on a Plane!). As I said to someone today: don't say I don't know what I'm doing! Faust's story in Ässä is "Hit Me" and it's about the same, hm, cultural institutions as her forth-coming Hard Case novel: porn industry and prostitution. The story hits really hard. (I should also thank my ever-reliable translator and a personal friend, Lotta, who did good job with Faust's story. Thanks, mate!)

PS. Check out also the other contesters.

A Killer Can Die by Brad Cordell; My disappointment in Daniel Woodrell

In the last day of my holiday, I read another Australian western paperback, A Killer Can Die by Brad Cordell (published in 1980 in Finnish with a misleading title Preerian painajainen). Brad Cordell was actually Gordon Clive Bleeck, who was one of the most prominent Australian paperbackers and pulpsters. It shows here: the story moves on swiftly and economically, even though there are no big surprises. Some of the plot points seemed a bit arbitrary, though. Still a pretty enjoyable and unpretentious yarn. Bleeck died already in 1971 and had given up writing in the fifties, so this must be from that era. It seems, though, from the Australian National Library's website, that some of Bleeck's stuff under the Bard Cordell byline was reprinted as late as 1984.

I almost forgot to mention that I tried to read Daniel Woodrell's Give Us a Kiss. Emphasis on "tried": I dropped the book somewhere in the middle. Woodrell's been one of the best reviewed new (or newish) American crime writers and he seemed just like my man. But no. The book was very well written, but there wasn't much plot to attach to and I didn't believe in the main character, a macho prison guy who's written four novels and who reads Carson McCullers and John McGahern. Woodrell's other books have seemed very interesting, but I don't think I'll be trying them very soon.

The autobiography of Dale Cooper

As I mentioned almost a month back, I was going to read another Twin Peaks tie-in novel (well, not exactly a novel), The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes, originally published in 1991. I read it and was glad I did, since it did fill in some questions the original TV series left - even though it also made me want to know more (which means I'm a fan, and I am, even though now that I checked the Wikipedia entry for the series, I learned more than I already knew in just a couple of minutes).

As with Laura Palmer's diary, you get nothing out of this if you haven't seen the series and during the first fifty or so pages you begin to wonder why you're reading this, but then again you have to have some pre-reading information always when you start reading a biography or an autobiography. The book gets more fascinating when Windom Earle makes his first appearance and there are some truly chilling moments regarding the mysterious kidnapping of Earle's wife and her killing. It seems also evident that David Lynch picked something up from this book, since the rip-off movie, Fire Walk With Me, uses some scenes from the book, such as FBI agents disappearing mysteriously. (I was also wondering whether Winston Groom used bits from this book in his Forrest Gump, especially how Dale Cooper moves through the American post-WWII history, but I didn't know at the time (I do now, since I checked) that Groom wrote his novel five years before the Dale Cooper book.)

The writer, Scott Frost, is the Twin Peaks creator Mark Frost's brother and wrote some of the episodes of the series. He seems to have written two thrillers in recent years.

(Okay, this will have to do for my blogging for several days. You have just evidenced me in my maniac mood.)

Finnish used book stores and their demise

The Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, recently published an article about how the Finnish used book trade is going through a crisis. There's no new generation coming along to keep the stores up and running and the costumers aren't buying their books from the used book stores ("divarit" or "antikvariaatit", as they are known in Finland). It was said in the article that people especially don't want to buy their bestsellers used and that the stores won't even take them in.

While there's some truth in this - several used book stores have ceased during the last ten years - you might want to note that it's really been a fault of their own. During the last fifteen or twenty years the used book stores have tried to maintain a level of cultural dignity and have kept a very high-brow attitude and been neglecting the costumers who just want to read something light or popular. Hence there is no generation at the moment who would know to seek latest door-stoppers at the used book stores. It's no wonder no one comes asking for them, because they are used to the fact that there are only some obscure collectibles and dusty piles of books no one's ever heard of.

(Now that I mentioned obscure collectibles and dusty piles of books no one's ever heard of it makes want to to go out to do some book-hunting. Luckily all the shops are closed - it's over nine p.m.)

One might also want to note that there are whole new venues for buying old books: the web (especially Huuto.net, the Finnish equivalent of eBay) and the flea markets where there are usually several traders shopping used books (usually with ridiculously high prices, higher than the used book stores). It's been said that people are getting bored to shopping on-line, but I don't think that's the case with used books.

More power to Esko Hamilo

A man called Esko Hamilo has just been appointed a special assistant to the Prime Minister of Finland. A name struck a memory chord and I had to check: yes, he was the man who translated a good chunk of crime and mystery novels in the sixties, seventies and eighties. He did the Finnish translations of Ross Macdonald's The Galton Case (as Rouva Galtonin perillinen, 1981) and The Chill (as Tappotuomio, 1985). He also did several Mickey Spillanes and The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George Higgins and John Godey's Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three, as well as The Other by Thomas Tryon and a Shell Scott paperback by Richard Prather. All American crime classics.

The best-known of the books Hamilo translated is Bury My Heart in Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Here's hoping he recommends some of those books to the Prime Minister.

Getting back to work

The holiday seems to be over. It's Kauto's last day home before the kindergarten opens again. It's only appropriate that it's raining like hell. Well, we got to swim last Thursday when it was still beautiful and warm, and Kauto liked it so much that it was hard to get him out of the pool.

But it's not very nice to try to start working when you get criticized for the quality of your work. I shouldn't be so hard on myself, since the piece of text I'm referring to was written for another venue and not for the book itself, but still I got angry and frustrated. This has happened before. I remember very well when I got the first referee reviews from the manuscript that was later to become The White Heat. I was angry for three days and couldn't do much. (Now that I look at the book, I think the response from the referees should've been much harder - or better structured and argumented so that I would've better known what to fix.)

Ah well. This goes by. It's always gone. What I'd really like to know is that is there a writer, non-fiction or fiction, who likes to be criticized? Is there someone who really likes the editing process, with someone trying to get in and change the text that is so dear to the writer? Of course the text usually (and I believe that in this case this will happen) gets better, but the actual process?

Since I haven't been blogging for weeks, there are lots of books that I've read and should be blogging about (and over on Mystery*File's blog I made a promise to write about the two John Marshall Tanner books by Stephen Greenleaf I recently read), but we'll see what I'm really going to do about that. I'll be having a hell of Fall ahead of me, with too many deadlines, and I'm afraid I'll have to cut down my blogging. Or at least something needs to be done in order to get the jobs finished.

Ah well. Now I'm gonna go and have the rest of my holiday.

PS. I heard a rumour someone's circulating my interview from a small newspaper in e-mail. Is this true? Please, let me see myself!

Travelling is no excuse for not blogging

At least it shouldn't be. Even grandmothers have laptops now and an unlimited access to the net. However I haven't been writing exactly because of we've been travelling. We were at a christening (is that the right word here?) of a friend's newborn baby and then we were at the museum railroad in Humppila (highly recommended if you're into narrow gauge railways; for Kauto it was a bit of a too exhilarating experience and we'll have to come back for more in two or three years) and then we came to visit Elina's parents in Hämeenlinna.

Been doing some digging at local driftstores and charity shops, but nothing much has come out of, except a nice pair of vintage Finnish football shoes from the sixties. They are not very good to walk with, but they sure are nice. (I've found that old sneakers and sports shoes appeal to me and I was already drooling over a pair of the new Adidas Pelé shoes at a sports shop. Since I can't really afford a new pair of sneakers every time I see a nice one, I've been shopping around for used vintage ones.)

I managed to blog a great deal at my other blog: it's an entry for Gil Brewer from my first book, Pulpografia, with a foreword and corrections. Here.

The Clay Anthony book

In an earlier post I mentioned an Australian paperback western by Clay Anthony, also known as Don Haring. Here's the quite garish Finnish cover. The original title for the book is The Good and the Evil and the publishing year is 1977.

I've been thinking about compiling a reference work about Australian pulp fiction, but there are tons of Australian westerns in the market... Everytime I take a look at these Colt and other Finnish western series, I'm exhausted by the idea of having to read hundred stories by Cord McCabe, two hundred by Emerson Dodge, three hundred by Brad Cordell... Maybe dozen by each would just about cut it. Later, later. I'd just have to get my Pulpografia Britannica ready. Do you think the book on Australian pulp could be called "Pulpografia Australiensis"?

Pistol Valve

From Todd Mason comes this suggestion to check out Pistol Valve, a Japanese hard-rocking band with full brass section.

They remind me of Dino Lee who was a special favourite in the late eighties. I still have two of his LP's on vinyl. Here's he on YouTube. (Bill and James may remember him, too, him being a Texan.)

Better reading

I had a chance to read some other books as well during our cabin trip. They were all better than Paul Malmont's Chinatown book.

I had two short Australian paperback westerns with me. I don't have Clay Anthony's book with me right now and I already forgot the original title, but the Finnish title for it was Oman köyden oikeus (meaning Rope Justice). Clay Anthony was really Don Haring whom someone might recognize as the writer of the Larry Kent series and even though there seems to be a consensus that Larry Kent was bottom of the barrel, I actually enjoyed Don Haring's western quite a bit. It's a fast-moving story of two young men who end up in the both sides of the law and have to duel to death in the end.

The other I read only when we got back from the trip - Cord McCabe's Kostajan ase ei kylmene/Trail to Eternity (the Finnish year is 1974; I don't know when the original was published, but it must've been by Cleveland). It wasn't as good as Anthony's - the plotline was too thin and the narrative too loose. Cord McCabe is (was?) really an Australian writer called R.J. Fittock who also wrote as Walt Beaumont and Lou Donovan. The Finnish title means The Revenger's Gun Won't Get Cold. The McCabe book was published in the Arizona series, Anthony's book in the Colt series. Both were long-lived digest-sized paperback series.

I started Paul Hamill's The Deadly Piece (1979) and finished it when we got back to Turku. Hamill's hero is Sam Briscoe, a tough newspaperman who seems to get into trouble and resolves them with his fists and wit. There's a melancholy feel to the book even though it's strictly hardboiled. I liked this quite a bit and could read more of Hamill's Sam Briscoe novels. Hard Case Crime reprinted recently one of Hamill's other Briscoes, The Guns of Heaven. I haven't really seen any reports on the book, but I remember stepping upon a negative comment. Wouldn't really be so harsh based on The Deadly Piece.

I also read Jennifer Lynch's Twin Peaks tie-in, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. You may remember (I mentioned this only in passing, though) that I watched the reruns of Twin Peaks on the Finnish television couple months back and was captivated once again. I remembered that I'd never read the two Twin Peaks novelizations (well, they are not really novelizations). Lynch's book on Laura Palmer's life doesn't really work as an independent work of art (I find it difficult to fathom what a reader who hasn't seen any episode of Twin Peaks would get out of the book), but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I forgot to bring the biography of Dale Cooper with me, but I intend to read it nevertheless in the near future.

It's Kauto again

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A major disappointment

I've given out misleading information. I thought Paul Malmont's The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril would be great, just what I wanted to read - but no. Hell, not indeed! I had to drop it even though I'd managed to make over the first half. The idea of writing a book about a couple of thirties' pulp writers (namely Walter Gibson, the creator of The Shadow, Lester Dent, the creator Doc Savage, and L. Ron Hubbard, the creator of, well, Dianetics; if you didn't know, he was a very prolific pulp writer in the thirties) is thrilling and intriguing, but Malmont can't get much out of it.

The book would've been better if Malmont would've written a mainstream novel about these authors and dropped the pulpish action bits which he couldn't handle interestingly enough. He has to resort to subplots and such which make the book slow down. Even the beginning, which should set the tone and put forth the mystery, didn't really grab my attention. The best scenes are with L. Ron Hubbard, who is clearly a liar and an opportunist, but it seems that Malmont holds the man in high regard based on what he says in his afterword.

What troubled me most is that Malmont felt necessary to drop authors' names and histories of publishing houses, such as Street & Smith. Some of these are absolutely unnecessary, such as mentioning Norman A. Daniels in one paragraph. And Malmont has a very annoying habit to make people talk about these matters in length in dialogue (one of the most boring scenes is the one in which L. Ron Hubbard talks about writing science fiction to a guy called Robert Heinlein who, in the book, hasn't as yet started his career as a novelist). It reminded me of goddamned The Da Vinci Code!

Isku and Ässä out

Two of my fiction fanzines are out. Ässä came out just before we headed off to the cabin (more about that later) and Isku is, well, not actually out, but just leaving off to the printers. Ässä (= Ace) contains thirteen flash stories by such authors as CJ Henderson, Duane Swierczynski and Sean Chercover. Stephen Rogers wrote one especially for Ässä (so if there are any Stephen Rogers completists, they'd better ask me for a copy). I have a Joe Novak story in (well, naturally, since I'm the publisher) and there are also two archive finds: a story by Otso Kantokorpi from the Like Uutiset magazine in 1994 (published under the pseudonym Sam Tanner) and a story by Jussi Kylätasku from the Koti-Posti magazine in 1968. Apart from that, there's only one Finnish story, by Petri Laine. If there will be another issue of Ässä, I'll try to get more original Finnish stories.

Isku, the hardboiled crime mag, contains a translation of a story by Bill Crider (to whom warmest greetings) and two flash stories by James Reasoner and David Terrenoire (thanks, guys!) and several Finnish stories one of which is a reprint of the first crime short story the Tampere-based Seppo Jokinen wrote in 1990 (written at that time, but published only in 1994 in a small press magazine) . It's never been reprinted before. There are also new stories by other Finnish writers, such as Tapani Bagge and myself. I have also two lady debutantes, Laura Apell and Elina Mäenpää who both delivered great stories. Elina's story is more a horror story than hardboiled crime, but I don't really care for rigid genre rules.

The cover illos are by Henri Joela (Ässä) and Timo Ronkainen (Isku). They really delivered, too! The Ässä cover is for the story by J.D. Rhoades called "Hundred".

(For some reason I can't seem to make proper headlines. The problem seems to be with Blogger.)

Kauto wanted to blog, too

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Neo-noir or neo-nah...?

Kevin Burton Smith puts quite a load on new neo-noir lit here. An interesting point and I can agree with some of what Kevin says, but I'd really like to hear some names.

Because I'll have to start packing (we'll be leaving in four hours' time and I'll have to go pick up Ottilia before that), I won't be talking about this more. Maybe when we'll get back. Before that: Happy Week to y'all!

Please note: Ed Gorman talks sense too about neo-noir.

Off for a week

Our Summer holiday just begun. I'll be at the Vammala Book Fair tomorrow (that's Saturday) and then we'll be leaving for the cabin in the Turku peninsula (actually Dragsfjärd, but I don't know what peninsula that belongs to) and I'll be off for a week. Don't post any comments while I'm away, I'm not sure I'll be able to reply to them. (It's not as this blog would demand a lot of comments from the readers.) I'm really waiting for the week off: I'll be finally reading Paul Malmont's The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril!

Please note

A shortish text on my career as a non-fiction writer here. (In Finnish.)

Almost finished a short story

I've been writing a pulpish short story for a contest. It should be there by tomorrow and I'm still coming up with new ideas and revising and rewriting! Argh! I'd give anything to be able to be a real pulp writer and come up with a publishable story with just one draft! Just how did they do that??

(Well, Louis L'Amour did that and from what I've read by him I've decided that his books are poorly plotted and his characters are pretty flat and unsuccesfully contradictory. His battle and fight scenes are quite well-written though.)

Peter Winston was...

I was finally able to check Pat Hawk's pseudonyms catalogue (a valuable tool, if you ask me) for Peter Winston. It seems that Peter Winston was a house pseudonym that was used by Paul Eiden and James/Jim Bowser. Eiden wrote also some war paperbacks as by Delano Stagg (two of which have been translated in Finnish) and some crime novels under various house names. According to Hawk's, Eiden wrote The ABC Affair and Assignment to Bahrain. Bowser wrote The Glass Cipher and Doomsday Vendetta. (And, then, two years after the last book in the series Jack Laflin was called in to write yet another one.) It also seems that Bowser wrote a hardback mystery novel for St. Martin's in 1987, called No Sanctuary. In the mean time, he did two Nick Carters (Death of the Falcon, 1974; A High Yield in Death, 1976).

If Kauto weren't demanding we go out, I'd check further. I can only advise you to go to Google and Amazon and Abebooks.

Finished a book

Just sent a book to the publisher. I finished typing Harry Etelä's horror short stories and also wrote the introduction. We'll be asking a longer foreword from someone (mainly Tapani Maskula) who knows Etelä's song-writing career better than I do.

I'll put my foreword here. Check it out. I may yet write more about Etelä here.

Ki-Gor in Finland

Boy oh boy, was I lucky today! I was on the flea market at the Turku open marketplace where people sell their own stuff during Summers and spotted couple old Viikonloppu/Weekend fiction magazines from the late fifties. Normally they hold no interest for me, as there usually are no authors' names and the stuff that was published in the mag was almost exclusively women's romance. But then I thought, what the heck, you never know, there might be something. I asked what they cost and an old lady said "fifty cents a piece" (which is, if I remember my currencies correctly, 40 American cents).

The first one I flipped through yielded nothing, but then - then, in the issue 28/1958, I noticed a familiar name in a story: Ki-Gor. The story was called "The Gods of Atlantis/Atlantiksen jumalat".

Then I noticed the writer's name: John Peter Drummond. Then I realized that I'd found something I didn't earlier know to have been published in Finnish: a translation of a Ki-Gor story from the Jungle Stories pulp magazine. I'd written about the Ki-Gor stories in Pulp, my fanzine that deals with all things pulp, as part of my longer article of Tarzan copycats. But I sure didn't know that the Finnish audience had been in access to read the genuine article themselves!

Now, for those who don't know: Ki-Gor appeared in a pulp magazine called Jungle Stories from 1939 to 1954. It was one of the most popular Tarzan copycats that was seen also in comic books, only with his name changed into Kaanga. (Don't really know why this was.) The first of the stories was written by John M. Reynolds, but the rest of the adventures were written by John Peter Drummond that was a house pseudonym. Ki-Gor is Robert Kilgour who's orphaned when his parents die - they are missionaries working in Africa. Ki-Gor is rescued by a bunch of animals and he develops into an athlete. He finds a young lady called Helene Vaughn whose plane is wrecked and they fall in love. Ki-Gor's best friends are Timbu George, who's a black African, and N'Geeso, a pygmy chief. Ki-Gor has a pet ape and an elephant on which he rides. So, basically he's Tarzan with another name.

Some of the Ki-Gor stories have been recently reprinted (details here). Here's also some stuff on Ki-Gor, and it reveals that the Finnish translation was originally called "The Beast Gods of Atlantis" and it was originally published in the Winter 1949 issue of Jungle Stories (and reprinted in High Adventure, #71, 2003). On the left you can see the cover of the issue of Pulp that has my article on the Tarzan copycats; the cover boasts a Ki-Gor issue of Jungle Stories. (I think I still have some copies left of the issue if you're interested.)

MonoJunk: Finnish electro act

I've really liked the tracks the Finnish electro band MonoJunk has put up on their MySpace site. Check them out - if you're into electronica. My favourite track is "Fantasy".

A "spam" poem

Here's a experimental poem I just made up from a post that I read on an e-mail list I'm on (so it's not really spam). I won't mention the actual author and I sure won't tell what it's about, it just struck me as pure genius. I edited the thing a bit and inserted couple line breaks.

Yes, I see the one
between "my posts." and "Gremlins."?
I do not see one
following the period
after "Gremlins."

The line below
that is 1 2 4 C 4 1 +.?
Do I need
a new prescription
for my glasses?

Origins of Batman and Manly Wade Wellman

No, they don't have anything to do with each other, I just thought I'd put them together. Here's a bunch of articles and stuff on Manly Wade Wellman that Jeremiah Rickert edited for the Oregon Literature Review, and here's an article about the origins of Batman and The Shadow's influence on the character. Both interesting stuff.

It's also interesting that both of these, Wellman and The Shadow, are relatively little known in Finland. I know only of couple short story translations from Wellman and I've never seen any Shadow story translated in Finnish, even though both are quite big cult figures in the USA. Yes, we saw the horrendous film with Alec Baldwin and in the backpages of the Thriller magazine there were some Shadow stories in the early nineties, but that's about it.

Kari Valkama ja Veikko Viima

(This is about a pseudonymous crime novel that was published in Finland 20 years back.)

Lueskelin eilen uusinta Sarjainfoa ja huomasin P.A. Mannisen hauskasta Pajatso-lehteä käsittelevästä jutusta, että minulle entuudestaan täysin tuntemattomassa lehdessä seikkaili Veikko Viima -niminen sankari. Nimi resonoi välittömästi ja Simo Sjöblomin dekkaribibliografian tarkistaminen vahvisti muistikuvan: Veikko Viima -nimellä ilmestyi kirja vuonna 1987, nimeltään Psykoanalyytikon psalmi. Kustantaja oli uskonnollinen Herättäjä-Yhdistys; kirjoittajan oikeaa henkilöllisyyttä ei Sjöblom tiedä. (Kansallisbibliografia Fennica on remontissa enkä pysty tarkistamaan, onko siellä mitään mainintaa Viiman oikeasta nimestä tai hakusanaa Valkamalle.)

Kuinka todennäköistä on, että kyseessä olisivat täysin eri henkilöt, varsinkin kun Viima on aika harvinainen sukunimi? Itse väittäisin, että Kari Valkama on laajentanut repertuaarinsa myös dekkarin puolelle. Tietääkö joku jotain Kari Valkamasta, enempää kuin että hän kustansi yhden numeron Pajatso-lehteä (ja ilmeisesti teki ainakin osan lehden sarjakuvista)?

Tässä sivu, jossa joku arvioi romaanin ja spekuloi kirjoittajan henkilöllisyydellä: http://www.netlife.fi/users/msiivola/krit/kristillista_homeopatiaa.html

Edit: Kvaak.fissä Timo Ronkainen tiesi kertoa, että Kari Valkama -niminen taiteilija asuu Teuvalla. Herättäjä-Yhdistys taas toimii Lapualla, joten samoilla suunnilla ollaan. (En olekaan ennen ratkaissut salanimikirjoittajan henkilöllisyyttä! Jippijaijee!)

Edit no. 2: Väärillä jäljillä ollaan. Timo Kokkila löysi guuglaamalla ihmisen, joka vapaaehtoisesti ilmoittautui teoksen kirjoittajaksi.

The cover for the 2nd issue of Adventure Stories

The second issue of Adventure Stories/Seikkailukertomuksia that I edit and publish will feature a novella-length story "Devil Wings Over France" by James Reasoner. I just received the cover illustration for the story - it's by Jukka Murtosaari who's done other great illos for my fanzines and mags. The story is great, too - pitch-perfect World War I aviation adventure with just a pepper of horror. (It was originally published in an anthology called Retro Pulp that came out last year. It was edited by none other than Joe Lansdale.)

(Check out the contents of the first issue of Seikkailukertomuksia here. The first issue's cover here.)

An excerpt of Harry Etelä's short story

I've been editing and typing a collection of Harry Etelä's pulp horror stories from the late thirties and late fourties, as I've mentioned some times before. I've got only one to go (I've been typing these for the last two or three months, a page or two before actual work) and it's one of the feircest stories ever published in Finnish language. It's a story about a village blacksmith who kidnaps young boys and grills them over fire and eats them! This was in 1939, in Finland, where decorum, a sense of decency, was pretty much ruling. Bad taste was something so despicable you can't even begin to describe it. (And bear in mind that Etelä also wrote some of the most revered and loved schlager tunes in Finland, such as Katri Helena's "Puhelinlangat laulaa" (which was first recorded by his big brother, Pentti Viherluoto).)

Here's an excerpt of the story "Kauhujen salakammio/The Secret Chamber of Horrors" that I've been thinking about would be the titular story of the collection. I'll translate the relevant bits after the Finnish part:

Ennen kuin poika käsittikään oli häneen tartuttu kourin, joitten hirmuinen voima oli rusentaa murskaksi hänen jäsenensä, ja hän tunsi sinkoutuvansa kammion toiseen päähän. Pudottuaan lattialle hän jäi makaamaan siihen liikkumattomana ja katseli salavihkaa käsivartensa yli, kuinka seppä hiipi lähemmäksi. Kun hän oli tullut yli keskilattian, poika nousi nopeasti ja juoksi kaartaen ovelle, jonka raskasta salpaa hän yritti kohottaa...
Mutta samassa seppä oli jo hänen kimpussaan paljastettuine puukkoineen.
- Älä rimpuile, tai pistän sinut heti! hän huusi, ja teräs välähti liekkien punertavassa loimossa. - Minun on nähtävästi sidottava sinut, kirottu penikka, kunnes kaikki on valmista.
Nurkassa oli köyttä, eikä kestänyt kauan kun seppä oli sitonut pojan kovakouraisesti.
Taas kuului heikko napsaus jostain.
Tuomela kuunteli tarkasti ja katsoi ympärilleen. Se oli jo neljäs napsaus lyhyessä ajassa. Mikä ne aiheutti? Hän katsoi kattoon ja nurkkiin, mutta unohti sitten koko asian ja meni lisäämään halkoja rovioon.
- Täytyy olla hyvä tuli, tappelukukko, hän sanoi. - On niin hauska nähdä, kun käperryt ja muutut suloisen ruskeaksi. Parhaat paikat syön sinusta tänään, loput vien jääkellariini. Tiedätkö, että kämmenpohjista nautin kaikkein eniten?
Poika kuuli ketjujen ja rautojen kalinaa. Nyt hän ymmärsi renkaitten tarkoituksen.. hänet ripustettaisiin tuleen...

- You gotta have a good fire, young hero, he [the blacksmith] said. - It is so nice to see, when you crumble in and get so sweet and brown. I'll eat the best parts of you today, the rest I will take down to the cellar. You know that I like the palms most?
The boy heard the chains and iron bars rattle. Now he understood the meaning of the rings... he would be hung over the fire...

Good Midsummer's Eve!

I haven't been blogging much lately - you guess the reason: I've been busy. I'll get back to normal schedule at least for the next week, then we'll take a vacation for a month. (We just have to - Kauto's daycare is closed for July.)

Peter von Baghin törttöilyt

(This is about movie politics in Finland.)

Peter von Bagh sanoi Sodankylän filmijuhlilla Ylen kulttuuriuutisten mukaan, että Rovaniemen yliopistolle ei kannata perustaa elokuvatutkimuksen professuuria. Baghin perustelu oli vastaansanomaton: aiemmat esimerkit akateemisesta elokuvatutkimuksesta Turussa ja Helsingissä eivät vakuuta häntä.

Perustelu on mahtava ja on vain sääli, että esimerkiksi Hesari ei kirjoittanut tästä mitään - tämänhän olisi tullut olla valtakunnan uutinen ja Kulttuuriuutisten sijasta se olisi pitänyt olla puoli yhdeksän uutisissa ykkösjuttuna.

Onneksi Baghin ja kumppanien harrastama impressionististen oivallusten heittely on tuottanut loistavia tuloksia jo kohta 40 vuotta ja yhä jatkuu.

Ihan tosissaan: miksi Kulttuuriuutiset uutisoi tämmöisen ankan? Varsinkin kun sanottiin, että Bagh on elokuvahistorian professori taideteollisessa - siitä syntyi mielikuva, että Baghilla on oikeasti jotain sanottavaa tähän asiaan ja että hän pystyy veto-oikeudella kumoamaan suunnitellut hankkeet (joista uutinen ei muuten kertonut mitään, kuka suunnittelee, minkälaisia näkökulmia tutkimuksessa on ja niin edelleen?).

Ja vielä tosissaan: Baghin teoksissa on hyviä oivalluksia, mutta vaikka niistä kuinka nauttisi, en ymmärrä, millä älyllisellä epärehellisyydellä oikein pystyy olemaan sitä mieltä, että hänen koulukuntansa lähestymistapa on ainoa oikea? (Varsinkaan Baghin viimeisimmän "suur"-teoksen, Tähtien kirjan, jälkeen. Elokuvan historiankaan käyttö hakuteoksena on vähän niin ja näin - esimerkiksi kohdat Aleksandr Dovzhenkosta, joita Bagh ei ole kummemmin kirjoittanut uudestaan 90-luvun uuteen laitokseen, ovat vähintäänkin outoja.)

Myönnän auliisti, että oman teokseni, Valkoisen hehkun, saama vastaanotto Baghin leirissä on yksi syy tähän kirjoitukseen.

My winner story up

The story with which I was one of the winners of the short story contest is now up at the Usvazine website. Check it out here. For the foreigners reading this, there's a special international issue in English here. (It seems that there might be some trouble loading the PDF's, but you never know what works for you.)

There are some things about my story that I should've thought about more, but here goes nevertheless.

Edit: now the PDF of the international issue is loadable. Sorry for the mess. Grab the stories, maybe you'll like some of them. Most of the stories are in the speculative fiction class, some are maybe new weird.

Edit: do you think it was classy to point out my pulp fanzines in the afterword to my own story? I'm getting confused about it myself.

Two books coming

Today was good today at work, even thought I didn't get that much actual work done. But we started working again on the 69 book (the one that's about classical erotica and pornography and smut and that I'm writing with two other writer friends of mine), and we also heard today from a publisher that they'll take our book on the cultural history of babies and baby related stuff. I'm doing the baby book with Elina and a writer friend of ours. The 69 book (there will be 69 articles about 69 books or something to that effect) will come out in the Fall '08, the baby book - about that I don't know. The publisher said he'd call next week.

From copulation to babies! Isn't that something?

Where do we get our opium?

A sample from a Finnish schoolbook from 1945 - a questionnaire for students. The highlightened question goes: "Where is opium obtained from?" (Or you can put it like in the subject header.) Other questions are quite, hmm, how should I say, normal and prestigious, like in "What does the word 'realistic' mean?"

The Adjusters

I checked further: The Adjusters series seems to be one of those men's adventure series that filled the paperback racks in the late sixties and early seventies. It was first written by Peter Winston (about whom I know nothing, and Abebooks seems no other books by him). The final entry in the series was written by Jack Laflin. The cover of the last book says: "The Adjusters: an organization unique in the annals of counter-espionage". It also seems that Peter Winston was the hero in the books - so why was Laflin's name used in the last novel (and why the two-year hiatus between the fourth and the five books?)?

Here's the list, from Abebooks:

Assignment to Bahrein, Award 1967
The ABC Affair, Award 1967
Doomsday Vendetta, Award 1968 ("Dispatched to solve a murder in Tangier, A-2 is trapped in an espionage network bent on destroying America's most strategic missile bases.")
The Glass Cipher, Award 1968 ("Agent A-2 on a brutal spy hunt that begins with the biggest sellout in international espionage.")
The Temple at Ilumquh, Award 1970 (written by Jack Laflin)

Jack Laflin?

I once mentioned Jack Laflin in a comment of an older post, but he came up again recently when Lurker at Populaari mentioned him and scanned the cover of his only novel in Finnish translation. Lurker didn't dare to read the book (which was originally called The Spy in White Gloves) and I wrote in a comment that it's a pretty bad novel, even considering that it was a spy paperback from a small publisher and from an author no one knows anything about.

Does anyone reading this know who Jack Laflin is? Any educated guesses? It sounds a bit like house name, but has anyone ever confirmed having written as by Laflin?

For what it's worth, here's the list of Laflin's novels:

The Flaw, Belmont 1964

The Reluctant Spy, Belmont 1966

A Silent Kind of War, Belmont 1965

The Spy in White Gloves, Belmont 1965

The Spy Who Didn't, Belmont 1966

The Spy Who Loved America, Belmont 1964

The Temple at Ilumquh, Award 1970 (seems to be the fifth part of a series called The Adjusters)

The Bees, Ace 1970 ("No one expected a miracle - but that was the only hope for a nation, a world, ravaged by a deadly swarm.")

Throw the Long Bomb, Whitman 1967 (a juvenile football book)

(There's also a Vantage hardback from 1992, called Serpent in Paradise, but I have no way of knowing if it's the same author or not.)

An interesting tidbit is that the cover of the Finnish edition of the Laflin book was drawn by Teuvo Koskinen who later on his career made on to create one of the success stories of Finnish children's literature: Miina and Manu, two cats who live in a fifties-like small town world.

Tapani Bagge's new book out

My friend Tapani Bagge has a new book out. It's a collection of criminous short stories, many of which have been previously published (and one of them also in English, at Thrilling Detective; see here). I'm very proud to be able to say that two of the stories, "Takakontti" and "Vain pikku viilto" came first out in Isku. Kasvot betonissa/Face in the Concrete has these stories (and there's also an afterword):

PIENI KERAVA-SARJA
Kasvot betonissa
Onni yksillä
Maanantai
Kevyt lomakupru

MATKALLA JONNEKIN
Vainajan veli
Ajopuu
John Lee Hooker on kuollut

PIENI HÄMEENLINNA-SARJA
Mahdoton tehtävä
Eka kerta
Vain pikku viilto
Takakontti

MATKALLA MENNEESSÄ
Musta maanantai
Etelän uni

Here's a fresh review by Kimmo Miettinen. In Finnish, understandably. If you want translations of the stories' names, don't hesitate to ask.

Jaws and Freud

Here's my Freudian take on Jaws - it's in English, take a look. I did this for a university course and I intended the thing to be taken lightly.

Tolkien's Túrin

I finished the Finnish translation of Tolkien's "new" book late last night. The Children of Húrin was quite gripping and the fleshing out of the short story that was originally published in Silmarillion was quite successful, minus some clumsy shifts ("Now the story goes back to Túrin"). If you like Tolkien, don't hesitate to grab this.

Reading the book reminded me of the fact that I've last read Silmarillion 20 years ago (appr.), even though I've read The Lord of the Rings six or seven times, and it could be the time to reread it. I should also tackle The Unfinished Tales, which I found boring during my intellectual days. I just don't know whether I'll have the time even during this Summer.

Tsekatkaa alempana

Sattuneesta syystä - enkä jaksanut siirtää sitä ylemmäksi - Jukka Halmeen arvio Viidennestä testamentista on pari postausta alempana.

Women's romance; Sydney J. Bounds

Finnish novelist and short story writer Kirsti Ellilä and another writer, who goes by the name of Tuima, have just started a blog that concentrates on commemmorating many forms of women's entertainment in books. There's already a lengthy memoir of Tuija Lehtinen who's been writing women's romances for at least two decades now. Check the blog here (it's in Finnish).

Veteran SF and western author Sydney J. Bounds's last interview here. Lots of interesting material about writing - Bounds started out in the paperback boom of the early fifties, the so-called "mushroom jungle" era - and publishing and other writers. As for Finnish interest in this, I'm sorry to say that I've never found anything of his translated in Finnish. Bounds died quite recently, say, six months ago. (Don't quote me on this, I'm going strictly by memory.)

Digital Contagions on sale

My friend Jussi Parikka's dissertation about the cultural history of computer viruses (or viri?) is out from Peter Lang and on sale here (and on Amazon, if you prefer that one).

Don't do it!

Quite nice, quite shocking French anti-AIDS posters (what other kind of AIDS posters could there possibly be?) here. (Thanks to Todd for the heads-up!)

Viidennen testamentin arvio

(A new review of The Fifth Testament.)

Tässä Jukka Halmeen arvio Viidennestä testamentista Tähtivaeltajaan - ilmestyessään sitä varmaankin lyhennellään.

Juri Nummelin (toim.): Viides testamentti
Turun seudun kirjoittajien jännitysnovelleja 1939-2007-. M-novellit 1. Turbator

Viides testamentti kuuluu sarjaan kirjoja, joiden lukemiseen ei käytetä liikaa aikaa, koska se on hyvä juuri niin. Se on nopealukuinen teos, jonka yksinkertainen tarkoitus on viihdyttää hetkellisesti, ilman sen suurempia mystisiä tarkoitusperiä. Tässä tehtävässä Viides testamentti onnistuukin hyvin.
Sisällysluettelosta käy ilmi, että kirja on koottu puoliksi vanhemmista arkistojen aarteista, toisen puolen ollessa tuoreempaa, julkaisematonta tavaraa. Kumpikin puoli pitää pulpin lippua kohtalaisen korkealla. Harry Etelän "Mustaa verta" on liki Poe-mainen jännityspala, joka yhdessä Markku Soikkelin kokoelman kokeellisen niminovellin ohella aika lailla ainoana edustaa selkeämmin spekulatiivista fiktiota. Soikkelin kertomuksessa kerronta lähtee omiin sfääreihin jo heti alkulauseestaan: "Sillan kaiteella istuva poika oli puettu pelkkään metaforaan". Kieli kantaa tarinaa loppuun saakka, vaan mikä itse asiassa onkaan loppu?
Tähtivaeltajan lukijoille tuttu Boris Hurtta suoriutuu omasta osuudestaan hyvinkin Wanha Herra -maisesti. "Ikonipuinen arkku" on perus-Hurttaa, remakka seikkailukertomus, jossa maisema vaihtuu ja informaatio vyöryy lukijalle sopivissa annospaloissa.
Viides testamentti on hieman epätasainen, mutta erittäin miellyttävä kokonaisuus jännitystä useammalta vuosikymmeneltä. Siinä missä Pirkko Arhippa tai Kirsti Ellilä luovat tarinaa hieman rauhallisemmilla, mutta erittäin intensiivisillä kertomuksilla, Aake Jermon ja Olavi Tuomolan klassikkotarinat etenevät kuin höyryjuna. Jälkimmäisen "Hantsungin kultainen buddha" on vanhakantaisuudessaan lähes hellyttävän naiivi, jos kohta myös kokoelman hauskin yksittäinen kertomus. Totti Karpelan "Perin inhimillinen tekijä" on hyvä osoitus kirjailijan iskevästä kerronnasta, jossa kaikki pulpin yksittäiset osat ovat kohdallaan. Samoilla linjoilla etenee Sami Myllymäen "Isku vyön alla", jossa perisuomalaisen kesäidyllin puitteet kohtaavat maaseudun vähemmän idyllisen realismin.
Novellien lisäksi kirjasta löytyy Juri Nummelinin mukavasti kirjailema esipuhe, jossa hän pienillä viitteillä ja yksityiskohdilla antaa lukijalle kiehtovan paljon pientä mielen makusteltavaa pidemmäksikin aikaa. Kustantajan loppupuhe käsittelee osittain samaa asiaa, esittäen myös muutaman vastauksen siihen, miksi uuden kirjasarjan nimi on m-novellit. Minusta vastaus on yksinkertaisesti, m niin kuin mukava.
Viides testamentti on anteeksipyytelemättömän häpeilemätön genre-uskollinen pläjäys pulpia, jonka soisi löytävän lukijakuntansa. Kioskipokkarien kulta-aika tuskin koskaan palaa takaisin, mutta pienimuotoisen kioskikirjallisuuden ystäville tämä kirja on mukava kesälomalahja. Pehmeät kannet ja kaikkea!

Jukka Halme

Same old same old

Been busy. Didn't want to blog during the weekend. Spent time with the kids. Been writing a short story. Finally getting around to getting some inspiration for it. Doing some magazine articles one of which requires lots of work. Working on a book. Been watching Twin Peaks reruns from the Finnish TV. (May write about this in a later date.)

Oh man

We went back to the cellar with Kauto and I took a closer look at the Dean Koontz book that I noticed was growing mildew on its back. It was Dragonfly and the copy I have is the first hardback edition. I notice from Abebooks that it's not very common. The cheapest copy goes for 17 dollars and that copy is jacketless and only in acceptable condition. The highest is 295 dollars! And my copy is growing mildew! Do you know those days you want to kill yourself..? Well, my copy is also jacketless and it was maybe only acceptable to begin with, but still... (I paid 50 cents for it, so the actual loss of money isn't great, but still...)

A Finnish review of Plunder of the Sun

Lurker at Populaari noted the quite negative review of Plunder of the Sun that's screening today on Finnish TV. The reviewer, Timo Peltonen, wrote that the plot behind the film is stupid, and he said it was the fault of the book that's basis for the film: David Dodge's hardback novel of the same name, from 1949.

Now, I've read several novels by David Dodge and can tell that they are of pretty high quality, of funny and wise-cracking hardboiled adventure variety. His novel To Catch a Thief (which peculiarly has never been translated in Finnish, despite being filmed by Hitchcock) is also outstanding, a very good adventure novel. And what's more interesting is that Plunder of the Sun came out rather recently as a paperback, by the deservedly famous Hard Case Crime, with a nice cover. At least Timo should've Googled for the book and found out about this pretty good review by Bill Crider - or this, also a very positive one. Here's also a nice site that David Dodge's daughter keeps.

Of course Timo is entitled to his opinion, but it seems there's a lack of cultural knowledge behind the negative review. Another reviewer, Tapani Maskula of the Turun Sanomat, gave the film three stars (out of five) - he knows the classical Hollywood cinema from A to Z and knew how to put the film into context.

PS. Oh my God! Christa Faust's Money Shot already has a cover. Check it out! Awesome!

Peter Cave

I've forgotten to write about Peter Cave, whose one novel I tried to read some months back - he'll be included in my forthcoming book Pulpografia Britannica (if I ever get it done and find a publisher for it - well, if not, I'll put it out myself, with a limited edition). The book, originally called The Crime Commandos and published by Everest as a paperback in 1976, is about a commando force that the British police puts up to really get the criminals published, no matter how.

The book is however slow and boring and it doesn't live up to its expectations about an ultraviolent action novel. I say "sadly", even though I'm very much against the vigilancy the book supports.

Cave isn't a very interesting author either: he started writing some short stories for the Tit-Bits fictionmag in the late sixties and then switched to paperbacks, writing some porn and novelizations, including books on the Avengers and Taggart TV series. He knew Christopher Priest in the sixties and Priest is said to have commented that the quality of Tit-Bits began to decline when Cave started writing for them.

The Finnish translation was published in 1980 by Vaasa in their Manhattan paperback series. The cover is presumably Spanish in origin.

Tarzan in a Finnish mag

Here's another example of a comic strip published in a Finnish fictionmag in the bygone days: the cover of Seikkailukertomuksia/Adventure Stories noting the beginning of the Tarzan strip in the mag. This is from 1957.