These candy portraits were a Kiasma exhibit last fall. From left: cold war leader Urho Kekkonen in licorice and sugarcubes, punk rock star Andy McCoy in brown and white sugarcubes, Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila in yellow and black licorice, skiing champion and serial headcase Matti Nykänen in red and white licorice. Very postmodern and biodegradable.

This was a banner quote at Tomato Nation recently and after reading the weekend weather forecast I just wanted to see it again:

The cold of space smote the unprotected tip of the planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of the blow.

From Jack London, To Build A Fire.

In the book version of The Billion Dollar Brain, Len Deighton gets Helsinki right:

Helsinki is a well-ordered provincial town where it never ceases to be winter. It smells of wood sap and oil heating like a village shop. Fancy restaurants put smoked reindeer tongue on the menu next to the tournedos Rossini and pretend that they have come to terms with the endless lakes and forests that are buried silent and deep out there under the snow and ice. But Helsinki is just the appendix of Finland, an urban afterthought where half a million people try to forget that thousands upon thousands of square miles of desolation and arctic wasteland begin only a bus stop away.

These days Helsinki puts on a good show as an EU capital, but after a while it begins to hit you just how much nothingness is, indeed, only a bus stop away.

Alumni news: Maria (Jaramillo) Uther has moved to a permanent lectureship in psychology at the University of Portsmouth, UK.

Artur Bykowski completed his PhD in Lyon, visited Helsinki (where there was a celebratory Mafia game), and will shortly move to the Hague where he will be working on software patents.

Construction watch: The language departments that used to be in Porthania have completed their move to Metsätalo and the new library and cafeteria are open there. It is now almost possible to walk down Aleksanterinkatu again, and the street will supposedly be open for trams and traffic again in mid-November. The Academic Bookstore, finally realizing how many sales they were losing to Amazon, has remodeled and added reading chairs and a third floor. The Pravda restaurant, designed by the same firm that did Nokia House, has closed.

One sign of a newcomer to Helsinki is a habit of paying attention to City-lehti as if it actually has something to do with the city in which you are living. The current issue is the annual Best of Helsinki, which is every bit as provincial and advertiser-driven as Boston Magazine's Best of Boston and similar features.

Among the blurbs on Best Bus Driver, Best Building Super, Best Hockey-Watching Seat, and Best Place To Meet Your Mistress, there are a few judgments that might be useful to students: the best snack bar is Namskaar (Indian) at Bulevardi 4, the best dumpster diving is at Hakaniemi Maxi where they throw out loads of still-fresh fruits and vegetables every day; the best bike repair place is Fillarikellari at Lönröttinpuistikko 5 (8:30-5 weekdays), and the best public bathrooms are on the second floor of Tennispalatsi.

Okay, those Mary Quant-meets-Andy Warhol flowers were cute back in May, but enough already.


This summer was brought to you by Marimekko.

Movies shot in Helsinki, #2: The Billion Dollar Brain, a highly competent spy spoof starring Michael Caine as retired agent Harry Palmer and featuring almost all of Helsinki's best-known landmarks: the Cathedral, Havis Amanda, the Baltic shore and so on. The brain in question is a supercomputer, played in the film by quality Honeywell equipment. Karl Malden appears as the Finnish secret service chief Leo Newbigen, and Ed Begley is General Midwinter, a Texan white supremacist with overtones of Ross Perot. Francoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve's older sister who died soon afterwards, plays a Russian spy who tries to stab Palmer in bed with what appears to be an ice pick, anticipating the similar scenes Basic Instinct. Donald Sutherland has a bit part as a computer programmer. The film was directed by Ken Russell and based on a Len Deighton series novel, and I'd happily see it again.