Author: Eppu

Quotes: That Is a Strange Country

Eppu

“I would say that [the Russians] are located somewhere near the Baltic Sea. There are old trade routes there, and in our own time it is a territory closed to us. Their installation may be close to the Finnish border. They could disguise their modern station under half a dozen covers; that is a strange country.”

– Andre Norton: The Time Traders

Did Andre Norton just insult Russia? (And yay, Finland was mentioned!)

Norton, Andre. The Time Traders / Galactic Derelicts [omnibus edition]. Riverdale, NY: Baen Books, 2000 [originally published 1958 / 1959].

(This quote comes from my 21 new-to-me SFF authors reading project. Note: A free e-version is available via Baen Books.)

This post has been edited for clarity.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

 

Q&A: Answer Questions with Book Titles

Eppu

Quiz time! We pulled questions from a nifty online quiz (the link to which is of course by now lost) that we modified slightly. You’re supposed to answer the questions only by using book titles from your collection. Here goes:

1) Describe Yourself?

Eppu: Hobitti [The Hobbit in Finnish. Good food, comfy home, good company.]151229Hobitti

Erik: The Hermit of Eyton Forest [I like my woods]

2) What do you feel like right now?

Erik: An Excellent Mystery

Eppu: Bättre och bättre [=better and better; title of a Swedish textbook. ‘Nuff said!]

3) Describe where you live?

Eppu: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking [‘Cause America can’t seem to wrap its head around silence. In Finland, silence is common and normal. For me, silence = sanctuary.]

Erik: Utopia [I love our house and our little patch of woods.]

4) Where would you go if you could go anywhere?

Erik: The Far Side of the World [New Zealand is on my list right now.]

Eppu: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles [And come back from the past, too.]

5) Describe you best friend?

Eppu: History of Ancient Rome [This would be the Mister. As the Germans say, Herr Doctor Professor. :)]

Erik: The Age of Bede [My wife the Anglo-Saxonist]

6) Your favorite color?

Erik: The Frogs [The closest I can get to “green.”]

Eppu: The Virgin Blue

7) What’s the weather like right now?

Eppu: Sundiver151229Sundiver

Erik: Cold Days

8) What’s your favorite time of the day?

Erik: White Night

Eppu: Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi [Not Before Sundown in Finnish. This was a tough one; I don’t really have a favorite, nor books with times of the day in the title.]

9) If your life were a tv show, what would it be called?

Eppu: Quiet Influence [Although not sure how many people would find a show on introverts interesting.]

Erik: Antiquity

10) What’s life for you?

Erik: The Historian’s Craft

Eppu: Sense and Sensibility

11) Your current relationship?

Eppu: Arvaa kuinka paljon sinua rakastan [Guess How Much I Love You in Finnish]

Erik: The Truelove

The Truelove12) What gives?

Erik: The Joy of Cooking

Eppu: Cold Days

13) Your future expectations?

Eppu: Home Improvement Guide [Unfortunately. Then again, when it’s done, it’ll be Bättre och bättre again.]

Erik: The Ascent of Man [Or at least the getting up in the morning of man.]

14) You wouldn’t mind…?

Erik: Looking at Greek and Roman Sculpture in Stone

Eppu: Impossible Things [Certain things just aren’t likely to change very fast.]

15) What are you afraid of?

Eppu: Catching Fire [Don’t happen to have any books involving heights.]

Erik: The Fortune of War

16) Your best piece of advice?

Erik: Caveat Emptor151229Caveat

Eppu: Budget Makeovers [Saving money rocks.]

17) If you’d change your name, it would be…

Erik: Henry II

Eppu: Emma [This was a tough one, too. Jane Austen to the rescue!]

18) Thought of the day?

Eppu: Cut the Scraps! [Quilting is fun. :)]

Erik: Hannibal Crosses the Alps [No one thought he could do it, but…]

19) How would you like to die?

Erik: After the Fact [“I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”]

Eppu: Most Wise and Valiant Ladies

20) Your motto?

Eppu: Simply Scandinavian

Erik: The Barbarians Speak151229Barbarians

21) Your favorite activity?

Erik: Homebrewing

Eppu: Creative Ideas for Organizing Your Home

Images: Hobitti via Wikipedia. Sundiver via Wikipedia. The Truelove via Penguin Random House. Caveat Emptor via Bloomsbury. The Barbarians Speak via Princeton University Press

Q&A is an occasional feature in which we share our responses to quizzes, questions, and quirky ideas for your entertainment.

Final Star Wars: Episode VII Mood

Eppu

In our area, there were Episode VII showings pretty much continuously starting from 7 p.m. last night. I was ever so briefly tempted to go from viewing to viewing straight through the night. But no.

FB The Dark Side of Force 5 More Mins

No, we didn’t go.* Instead, we’re about to head out to a noon showing. It remains to be seen how many others we’ll have to fight for seats decided to wait till daytime on the official release day.

How early did you see The Force Awakens? Do tell!

*) I think we’re both at that stage where, rather than do something right the moment it’s possible, we prefer to take our creature comforts into consideration. (Especially sleep, much like an old cat. Yay for old cats!)

Image via The Dark Side of the Force on Facebook

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Leena Krohn on The New Yorker’s Best of 2015

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Leena Krohn’s Collected Fiction, an anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, made it onto The New Yorker‘s best-of list!

Cheeky Frawg krohn-cover-largeJoshua Rothman writes of his selection of Krohn for The Books We Loved in 2015 like this:

“I also found myself hypnotized by Leena Krohn, a Finnish writer whose collected stories and novels, rendered into English by many different translators, have just been published as a single volume, ‘Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction.’ Broadly speaking, Krohn is a speculative writer; one of the novels in the collection, for example, consists of thirty letters written from an insect city. (‘It is summer and one can look at the flowers face to face.’) Krohn writes like a fantastical Lydia Davis, in short chapters the length of prose poems. Her characters often have a noirish toughness; one, explaining her approach to philosophy, says that when she asks an existential question, ‘life answers. It is generally a long and thorough answer.’”

Just a week ago, Krohn’s anthology appeared on The A.V. Club‘s Best of 2015 list (along with The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen). Again, congratulations!

Found via Helsingin Sanomat.

P.S. Try Krohn’s Lucilia Illustris for free, published in December 2015 by Electric Literature.

Image via Cheeky Frawg Books

Stadi Wars – The Empire Attacks Helsinki

Eppu

Helsingin Sanomat, the largest Finnish daily, celebrates the impending Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens premier with a special piece. Titled Stadi Wars (stadi being a slang name for Helsinki), it shows what the city would look like if the Empire were to attack Helsinki.

Helsingin Sanomat Stadi Wars Senate Square
What if the Senate Square in Helsinki were attacked by the Empire via Helsingin Sanomat

Apart from photos, video, and 3d-renderings of Imperial transports, Helsingin Sanomat interviewed a member of The Finnish Reserve Officers’ Federation and got his opinion on how the Finnish army would fare against stormtroopers.

Even if you don’t read Finnish, the page is worth a visit for the very cool photos of Imperial walkers and ships set against a modern cityscape.

Images, video and graphics by Boris Stefanov, Uolevi Holmberg, and Petri Salmén via Helsingin Sanomat

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

Two Finnish Authors on The A.V. Club’s Best of 2015

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Two Finnish authors made it onto The A.V. Club‘s favorite books of the year. Their Best of 2015 list includes Leena Krohn’s Collected Fiction, a whopper of an anthology (at 800+ pages in hardcover) edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, and The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen.

Jaaskelainen Krohn Covers

Keeping company to Krohn and Jääskeläinen on the Best of 2015 list “[a]fter a stellar year for the written word” are renowned authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Judd Apatow, and Paula Hawkins. Congrats, both!

For a taste of their writing, try Jääskeläinen’s Where the Trains Turn (orig. Missä junat kääntyvät, 2000), published in November 2014 by Tor.com, or Krohn’s Lucilia Illustris, published in December 2015 by Electric Literature.

Found via Helsingin Sanomat.

Images: The Rabbit Back Literature Society via Pushkin Press. Collected Fiction via Cheeky Frawg Books

Ostrich for Breakfast, Ostrich for Lunch, Ostrich for Dinner

Eppu

Or: Some History behind Ostrich Riding, Part 6 of 7

Background: I ran into two historical images from California with ostriches used as transportation. That got me wondering about the history of ostrich riding. And that lead me down quite a rabbit hole.

I’ve divided my findings into separate posts (find them with the ostrich riding tag). Warning: serious early history and language nerdery ahead in Serious Academic Voice.

TL;DR – Tracing ostrich riding to a 3rd century BCE tomb find (a statue of Arsinoe II) from Egypt doesn’t hold up. The use of various ostrich products in human material culture dates back thousands of years. A few ancient depictions involve humans handling ostriches; however, extant sources don’t tell us whether ostriches were merely hunted or whether they were also tamed in the ancient world. The most promising source seems to be a description of a magnificent parade put together by Arsinoe II’s husband-brother Ptolemy II. This Grand Procession included eight chariots drawn by pairs of ostriches, and the ostriches may have been ridden by boys in costumes.

I had hoped to find a nice, neat selection of ancient texts putting the Greek word for ‘ostrich’ in context, but even a cursory look reveals that the history of the word strouthos is complex. At best, we can say that there are no immediate red flags either in the original Greek or modern English translations for Arsinoe II’s statue or Ptolemy II’s Grand Procession. The poem Berenice’s Lock was said to contain further evidence of ostriches as mounts in Ptolemaic Egypt after Arsinoe II’s death. Instead, what we seem to have is a case of poetic ambiguity translated with poetic license and taken uncritically as evidence.

Some centuries after Arsinoe II and Ptolemy II, ostrich riding may appear in the Roman Empire. Claims in some secondary sources turn out unverifiable, however. Researching primary sources helps but a little: on one hand, many of these texts either have problematic histories or their authorship or accuracy may be questionable; on the other, ostriches tend to appear in context of fighting in gladiatorial games, not being ridden or raced. Surviving visual art only confirms the appearance of ostriches in hunting and arena scenes the Roman territories, not riding or chariot-pulling. A description in the life of Emperor Firmus comes closest, but Historia Augusta, the source of his life, is considered unreliable.

Below is the long story.

Continue reading →

New Kaurismäki Film: The Girl King

Eppu4 Comments

The Girl King movie posterI’ve been vaguely aware of the Swedish-Finnish movie production The Girl King (Finnish title Tyttökuningas), which is remarkable for having been largely (according to some sources, almost entirely) filmed in Turku, Finland, including the local castle. It’s one week from opening night now, and reviews and interviews are starting to roll out. Yay!

The movie is about Queen Kristina of Sweden (1626-1689), of the Vasa lineage, directed by Finland’s famous Mika Kaurismäki. In the main roles we’ll see Malin Buska, Sarah Gadon (whom I liked in Belle), and Michael Nyqvist (familiar from the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series). A description from Kaurismäki’s website says:

“Mika Kaurismäki is currently developing a feature film project about the Swedish Queen Kristina, starring Swedish actress Malin Buska. Set in the 17th century, the film paints a portrait of an extravagant and atypical queen, who was the ruler of her country from the age of seven until her startling abdication at 28.

“The film is scripted by Canadian award-winning screenwriter Michel Marc Bouchard and the cinematography will be by renowned Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love, Hero).”

Queen Kristina and René Decartes

At the time of Kristina’s life, Finland was a part of Sweden, and Turku (Åbo in Swedish) was the oldest and largest city in Finland. The Turku Castle dates from late 13th century, but it was still inhabited and garrisoned at the time; in the modern period, it’s been restored to its Renaissance state, so it’s an appropriate location even though Kristina didn’t actually live there. (Tidbit gleaned from a news article in Yle uutiset: Kristina’s parents visited Turku early in 1626, and it’s said that she was conceived at the Turku Castle.) Also, kuningatar Kristiina has a special place in the Finnish memory because of her efforts to end the 30 years’ war which was hard on Finland, and because she at the suggestion of one of her statesmen (and twice Governor General of Finland), Per Brahe, founded the first Finnish university in 1640.

The official trailer (with Finnish subtitles) is out, and looking gorgeous:

Tyttökuningas (The Girl King) -elokuvan virallinen traileri via LeffatByFSFilm

Frock Flicks has a interview with the costume designer, Marjatta Nissinen, and a review that includes insights into the costuming. There’s also a documentary on the costuming, with background information from Kaurismäki and closeups of some of the outfits in the latter half (Finnish with English subtitles):

Dressing The Girl King -documentary by Film City Turku and Länsi-Suomen elokuvakomissio via Scene Turku

As an early history geek who lived in Turku for a number of years, I’m very curious to see The Girl King – for freaking once I get the native advantage in location spotting! 😀

Historical Turku Mashup
Turku historical mashup, clockwise from top: 1700s-1800s houses at Luostarinmäki; bell tower of the cathedral seen from the river Aura; Vanha Suurtori with empire style and neoclassical houses; closeup of the cathedral bell tower. Center: Turku Castle

But seriously, what I can see of the sets and locations, especially the Renaissance floor of the castle, looks fantastic. Here’s hoping that The Girl King will have a reasonably wide release in the U.S.!

Images: Poster via Lark Theater. Queen Kristina & René Decartes via Frock Flicks. Turku historical mashup by Eppu Jensen

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.