Friday, July 15, 2005

Eclectro Lounge #16: A Search for a Missing Stylus



The beginning of this night was marked by bad luck. Someone had broken again the stylus of the other SL-1200. Since the truth, even at its best, is a flexible entity, we don't go as far as to speculate about the identity of the guilty member, who did not even have the decency to report of this misdeed to the Iranian management of Bar Apadana -- only state that it was certainly not us behind this act of corruption, cross my heart and hope to die, goddammit; additionally wishing the karmic fist will hit this mysterious delinquent back at some stage in the future. What ensued was a frantic search around the town for a replacement stylus. Mika had had a bad day earlier on, and I decided to embark on this quest before Mr. Not was going to arrange a mass murder at Apadana, or at least, redecorate the venue with a sledgehammer or some other instrument of demolishing nature.

During my walk I had good time to think, and I decided that it is obvious that there is nothing we can do to avoid chaos in this life but we can do our best to minimise its effects, whichever way we only can. Perhaps it's our reactions to chaos that differ. It's easy to become desensitised when enough bad luck continually befalls you. Personally, I've noticed that I either start to panic under stress situations, or then my mind starts to work in a cold and calculating way, like a machine. Is there a danger that one starts to gradually lose one's earlier sensitivity -- and as a consequence, even humanity -- the more one becomes faced with situations creating great emotional stress (for example loss, grief, personal failures in work and personal life, such as unrequited love, humiliation in social situations, shame)?

The stages of my trek were, to say the least, tragicomical (now when writing this, more comical, but in the time more of a tragic nature).

Since Mr. pHinn is probably the last Finn who does not yet own a mobile phone, he had to make another walk back home to make a call to Mr. Riku "Rufus" Järvinen of Voltti Records , and inquire if Mr. Järvinen could perhaps provide with the missing stylus. This usually kind and helpful gentleman of record retail sales regretted to inform me that unfortunately he could not be of assistance in this case, but suggested that perhaps Mr. Sami Koivikko, a local recording artist who he was visiting at the moment, might be able to help.

After another long and sweaty walk from my home at Näsilinnankatu to Yliopistonkatu where Mr. Koivikko's residence was located, I finally received a small crimson-coloured case containing that long-mourned-for stylus from the artist himself -- God bless his heart, or whatever metaphysical higher entity might or might not be out there. After I had finally sojourned back to the premises of the Iranian Kitchen Apadana, I found out to my bemusement, after the fashion of best theatre of absurd, that my personal quest had been ultimately futile. Namely, Mr. Sakari "Sakke" Karipuro had meanwhile managed to receive the missing stylus from a local DJ called Maurice...

After that, there is not much to report about this event. A million different things still crossed my mind, the less said about them, the better. In any case, DJ Art Barf-Uncle played another weirdo set consisting of cosmic Krautrock/avant/noise stuff combined with cheese disco and old FinnHits. You can see the tracklist of Mike Not and yours truly here. Sakke also took some photographs which you can see here.

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