Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner

Aur Pyar Ho Gaya

Posted by Sari

Jukka, being just unbelievably busy with Finncon and editing the short-story collection, called dibs on Gordo (the new computer is called Gordo in "honor" of both El Gordito And Buffy's soft-toy) for Saturday. Unsurprsingly I ended up with a nice cup of hard tea and a Bolly-movie. This time I went with Aur Pyar Ho Gaya. It is a pretty typical 1990s romance-drama-comedy: Aashi's dad wants her to marry Rohit who owns a clothing business in - you guessed it - Switzerland. Aashi wants to check out the potential groom before committing to anything and flies to Switzerland to meet him. On the airport he meets with Bobby Oberoi who falls for her and pretends to be Rohit in order to spend time with her. By the intermission Bobby and Aashi are in love, Bobby has confessed his deception, has been forgiven for it and are flying back to India to ask the blessing of their parents.

Aashi's dad makes everything very difficult however, mainly because first Bobby makes fun of his hair and later because Bobbys mom who by a strange coincidence just happens to be Aashi's dad's banker, does not cover for him in a shady stock deal. Aashi and dad are just flying off to meet the real Rohit when Bobby manages to stop the aeroplane just before takeoff and manages to convince Aashi's dad of his undying love. The end.

Um. The interesting thing about the movie is that it is Aishwaraya Rai's hindi movie debute. Thus lots of Aish from every angle and endless dance numbers to prove that the Miss World can can-can. And she undoubtably can. This is of course helped by the fact that she is teamed up with Bobby Deol who as undoubtably can't. Watching him dance is actually painful. The other interesting thing is that the movie has Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's music, he even performs one of the songs in Aashi's and Bobby's engagement party. And the other other interesting thing is Shammi Kapoor as Aashi's grandfather who is excellent especially towards the end.

The rest is really meh. DVD-transfer is from an inferior copy, the plot, dialogue and pacing is off, and the exotic Switzerland was getting on my nerves for a bit. As was Bobby Deol, big time. And the ending: you really can't take the "rushes to the airport to stop the love of his/her life from going" -cliche any further than this. Bobby chases Aashi's jumbo with the staircase-car and Aashi in her turn slides down the emergency slide to the waiting arms of her love. Only in India, I tell ya.

Books, for a change

Posted by Sari

I have been a really lazy reader lately, staying at the core of my comfort zone and mainly re-reading old favourites. Such a one is Kipling’s Captains Corageous (or in this case in Swedish Havet’s Hjältar – I have been annoying Jukka by trying to find out what kind of wish is a “helgeflundra” . Along with Sienkiewicz's In Desert and Wilderness (Erämaan halki) and Verne’s A Long Vacation (Kahden vuoden loma-aika), this was my absolutely favourite adventure novel as a kid. None of the other Kipling’s stories made any impression, but this story of a spoiled teenage son of a millionaire falling off of a luxury liner and being picked up by fishing vessel just captured my imagination. Kipling’s vivid characters and milieu combined with the the rite of passage of Harvey into responsible manhood has withstood the time much better than many other childhood favourites, and I still can’t understand why Kim or Jungle Book is supposed to be better books than this gem.

Other comfort reading has been Diana Wynne Jones’ lighter books, Especially Howl’s Moving Castle, which Anttila was giving out as package with the Miyasaki movie. It is still one of my favourite Jones books, I have always thought it very shrewd writing that Sophie finds being turned into an old woman at least partly a liberating experience.

I have also been reading disaster science fiction, another perennial favourite sub-genre. You know, the kind of books where a natural disaster of some sort threatens to wipe out all life on earth as we know it. This time I chose John Barnes “Mother of Storms” and Jack McDevitt’s “Moonfall”. In the former a large deposit of methane is released into oceans in the northern hemisphere which rises the water temperature just enough to create conditions for unpredictable super-hurricanes, in the latter an interstellar comet crashes to the moon and threatens the Earth with meteorite showers and nuclear winter and loss of tides and whatnot. The Skiffy element in the former is the development of the Singularity concurrent with the crises, in the latter there is a privatly funded Moonbase and a mission to Mars gearing up to go. Both were sort of entertaining, Mother of Storms had little too much going on with cyberpunky plugging in to other people’s thoughts and feelings and the whole Singularity thing. Moonfall, on the other hand somehow just  fell a part at the end without achieving the large scale drama and human-size tragedy it was obviously after.

In addition to reading, I have been listening Half Blood Prince audiobook. It takes ages – 17 CD’s – but is worth the time just for Stephen Fry who is excellent reader, doing the voices just right. He does a mean charicature when necessary, but does not overdo the main characters. Otherwise, this round of Harry’s adventures just reminded me how much I hate him. Harry, that is. I think it is fair to have assumed the series to be a bildnungsroman of sorts what with a young protagonist growing to adulthood, but there has been no character growth whatsoever. Character regression perhaps. If you ask me, the self-righteous empathy-impaired little snot ought to get burned by Voldemort. Gah!

I'm sitting on the Pope

Posted by Sari

No, really. I am visiting my aunt who, on her computer chair, has a cushion with a picture of Pope Benedict on it. The legend on the cushion says Habemus Papam, and there is even a little sigil with the colours of German flag on it. Also,  it is that infamous Pope Palpatine picture. Catholic church so has the better souveniers.

iPodille kotelo

Posted by Sari

Kysymys neuleblogien ystäville: onko kellään tiedossa kivaa ohjetta iPod-kotelolle? Mieluiten virkattuna? Googlettaminen antoi niin paljon hittejä että rupesi ahdistamaan. Hmmm. Jos kokeilisi säätää  jotain virkatun laukun mallia puuvillaiselle pitsivirkkauslangalle... 

Pitäisiköhän muuten ihan vain kirjailija Jääskeläistä kiusatakseen tekemään muffinseihinkin lisää käsityölastuja ;-)

Un'altro bacio

Posted by Sari

As I am a frequent customer of academic libraries, I tend to forget just how much interesting stuff there is in the public libraries. Like music. My bus takes me every day next to Kirjasto 10 the multi-media library with lots of computers, WiFi and an extensive music collection, and it is only recently I have taken to making use of its services. Silly me.

Today on my way back from work I picked up DG's Otello from 1994, the (so far) last big studio recording of this work, which is maybe the the greatest tragic opera of all time. My vinyl is Karajan-Vickers from 1970s, with which I have been very satisfied. Vickers' all-out mad with jealousy and grief Otello has incredible raw power, Freni is a reliable Desdemona, and Glossop one of the most underappreciated Iagos ever. Even so I am really taken with this  one. Chung has a great grasp of the score, Studer is a shimmering Desdemona and Leiferkus a really evil Iago.

But all that is really secondary to Domingo¹, who dominates the set. It is his third studio recording of a role he has sung over 200 times and made his signature part. His first Otello was in 1975 and he continued to perform the part even in the new millenium. (Trivia: he sang Cassio in the early 1960s.) And, though de gustibus... and though it might well be a generational thing, you can keep Martinelli and Vinay and del Monaco and even Vickers, this psychologically astute and vocally magnificent Otello is the one for me. This is a mature artist totally in control of his instrument and interpretation and the result is nothing short of magnificent.

I could list endless number of scenes were Domingo just shines, but just listen the duetto in the third act where Desdemona pleads for Cassio and Otello keeps asking about the handkerchief. Domingo pitches the pain, jealousy and cunning of Otello perfectly and absolutely nails the scene at the end (when Otello pretends to ask Desdemona's forgiveness only to accuse her of being a whore) with bitter irony exploding to wrath. Just brilliant.

1. In the interests of full disclosure I better own up that I grew up listening the three tenors before they became "The Three Tenors", I have seen all of them live (separately) and had a huge schoolgirl crush on Domingo when I was about thirteen.

Back to normal...

Posted by Sari

So, Bronze. Not really that bad, definitely better than I dared to hope before the tournament. Germany has a bunch of  young players (Schweinsteiger, Podolski, Mertesacker, Odonkor, Lahm...)  who will hopefully be around for quite a while, so future is looking interesting too. As for the trophy, rather Italy than France, if for nothing else than Fabio Cannavaro who is and was phenomenal.

In other news, the traditional Science Fiction pick-nick at Suomenlinna was a great success. The Day was sunny and there were lots of people around, both old and new faces. Tarja and I even met another poor soul who has caught the bolly-fever.

Speaking of which, boy do I want to se Fanaa. I mean: Aamir! Kajol! Jatin-Lalit Score! The Prettiness! Poland doubling for Kashmir! Also, a love story between a blind girl and a terrorist. It just can't be bad. More seriously, even though Fanaa has been a huge hit all over the world, there has been a political controversy surrounding the film in Gujarat.

And then there is Krrish (a flash intro) which sounds just... I mean.... It's... The mind just boggles.

Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak...

Posted by a very pissed person wearing silly yellow headgear

Ou faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak.

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*sigh*

Is this year just sodding riddled with constant failures of my various favourite teams? What sort of intercession is needed? A ritual of some sort? Do I need to sacrifice nubile virgins? Pay off some Italian judges?

 

OK, Portugal, make some magic. It's all up to you now, Scolari.