Monday, January 31, 2005
Shame
The feeling of shame has been overbearing all my life. Always beings clumsy, out of the place. Class reunion: old wounds reopened. Yet it was a situation where I also felt aloof, observing from a distance. Adolescent fantasies of vengeance wiped away. All the passing years hanging heavy like lead. The price of reaching some sort of maturity and stability is the heaviness. In my younger years the feeling of shame was almost daily. School was like an ongoing gauntlet. Other kids mocking my blushing face. I reacted strongly, felt strongly about things. Both excitement and shame swept through my body like fire, burning everything in its way. Now everything has become more lukewarm. Prozac turned the old choleric me to one more phlegmatic. About which I can't be entirely sad.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Cocktail Books in Finnish
Cocktail was a Finnish men's magazine in the late 1960s/early 1970s. They published a series of erotic pulp novels, which were Finnish translations of originals in English. Here is a listing of them, with an image gallery.
Monday, January 10, 2005
I Need A Job
This February I've been registered unemployed for four years now. Therefore, I'm now trying to find a job with the assistance of local employment office, which have a special consultancy service I've been been visiting. And by a "job" I mean something for which they would actually provide wages for me to pay my rents and bills. Not just promo records or free access to a festival or the joy of seeing my name printed in a magazine. Having a "reputation" and occasional back-patters but no actual monthly incomes, as my life is now.
I know it's a strange life that I'm leading, living "in the underground". It's a bit like the life of a monk. My daily activities at the moment consist of waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, taking shower and reading morning papers. Then I head for library's computer room to check out my e-mails, browse the Web for possible news for pHinnWeb's Mailing List, perhaps do some updates for the Website, and so on. Then I head to have an inexpensive lunch at the cafeteria of local university.
On the way back I perhaps visit Vuoltsu's Webcafé if I have some scans to do for the site which I can't do at the library. Sometimes I check out from Voltti Records if Riku has received any new electro 12"s. After that I head home via grocery store, take a little nap, drink tea, watch TV, read a bit, perhaps write something too (my stereo is on nearly all my waking hours). And then it's bedtime.
Saturday nights I usually spend at Yo-Talo to see people and trying to avoid too much cabin fever (I know I have strong hermit-like tendencies so sometimes I just have to force myself being a bit more social). I may visit some other clubs on other nights too if they have something interesting music live or club-wise. And that's how my life goes on month after month.
Of course there are some diversions such as visiting my producer friend Mika in Kaukajärvi for the sessions of our musical project, Kompleksi. So, it's not really too interesting; music and art being a solace for me to save me from total boredom and the feeling of meaninglessness. The general bleakness and blandless of life replaced by the world of fantasy and imagination; that is, living more in one's own head than in outer reality. A typical mindset of a schizoid individual, you might say?
Therefore, a change must come, but sometimes you start to wonder if you have stuck too much in your routines already, so as years go by, it gets harder to disembark from the cosy comfortability and the superficial safety you have so much grown accustomed to. I know my position is problematic since my university studies went nowhere because of certain personal mess-ups in my life at the time (basically problems of a dysfunctional, depressed mind; hopefully corrected now by ten years of therapy and Prozac?), I don't have much experience from working life, and about the only "CV" I can offer are my activities with pHinnWeb and electronic/alternative music scene, all of them more or less "unofficial". Besides that I'm already 30+, which can mean the pariah among the superficial image industry which constantly seeks Moloch-like new young flesh to devour -- but I still don't want accept a role among "the marginalized" of this society. Though I'm well aware of being and leading a sort of life of an "outsider artist"; having a "self-made life" as they call the outsider artist culture here in Finland.
I know my personal shortcomings. I'm somewhat a loner and don't feel comfortable with people unless I know them well. Social situations I still think as something I need a lot more practice with, but I only can do my best now, appear a bit less moody and retiring, and generally a more approachable person, though it's not too easy for me. I think I've got a strong anti-authoritarian tendency and I get heavily defensive if I feel someone wants to boss me around. I hated the army's brainwashing machinery with all those red-faced drill sergeants screaming their lungs out. I despise the idea that I would have to kiss the behind of some little workplace Hitler again. My tendencies might me make a lousy team player, but on the other hand, I know I can work independently, be creative and can be totally dedicated and persistent with what I'm doing.
I know it's a strange life that I'm leading, living "in the underground". It's a bit like the life of a monk. My daily activities at the moment consist of waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, taking shower and reading morning papers. Then I head for library's computer room to check out my e-mails, browse the Web for possible news for pHinnWeb's Mailing List, perhaps do some updates for the Website, and so on. Then I head to have an inexpensive lunch at the cafeteria of local university.
On the way back I perhaps visit Vuoltsu's Webcafé if I have some scans to do for the site which I can't do at the library. Sometimes I check out from Voltti Records if Riku has received any new electro 12"s. After that I head home via grocery store, take a little nap, drink tea, watch TV, read a bit, perhaps write something too (my stereo is on nearly all my waking hours). And then it's bedtime.
Saturday nights I usually spend at Yo-Talo to see people and trying to avoid too much cabin fever (I know I have strong hermit-like tendencies so sometimes I just have to force myself being a bit more social). I may visit some other clubs on other nights too if they have something interesting music live or club-wise. And that's how my life goes on month after month.
Of course there are some diversions such as visiting my producer friend Mika in Kaukajärvi for the sessions of our musical project, Kompleksi. So, it's not really too interesting; music and art being a solace for me to save me from total boredom and the feeling of meaninglessness. The general bleakness and blandless of life replaced by the world of fantasy and imagination; that is, living more in one's own head than in outer reality. A typical mindset of a schizoid individual, you might say?
Therefore, a change must come, but sometimes you start to wonder if you have stuck too much in your routines already, so as years go by, it gets harder to disembark from the cosy comfortability and the superficial safety you have so much grown accustomed to. I know my position is problematic since my university studies went nowhere because of certain personal mess-ups in my life at the time (basically problems of a dysfunctional, depressed mind; hopefully corrected now by ten years of therapy and Prozac?), I don't have much experience from working life, and about the only "CV" I can offer are my activities with pHinnWeb and electronic/alternative music scene, all of them more or less "unofficial". Besides that I'm already 30+, which can mean the pariah among the superficial image industry which constantly seeks Moloch-like new young flesh to devour -- but I still don't want accept a role among "the marginalized" of this society. Though I'm well aware of being and leading a sort of life of an "outsider artist"; having a "self-made life" as they call the outsider artist culture here in Finland.
I know my personal shortcomings. I'm somewhat a loner and don't feel comfortable with people unless I know them well. Social situations I still think as something I need a lot more practice with, but I only can do my best now, appear a bit less moody and retiring, and generally a more approachable person, though it's not too easy for me. I think I've got a strong anti-authoritarian tendency and I get heavily defensive if I feel someone wants to boss me around. I hated the army's brainwashing machinery with all those red-faced drill sergeants screaming their lungs out. I despise the idea that I would have to kiss the behind of some little workplace Hitler again. My tendencies might me make a lousy team player, but on the other hand, I know I can work independently, be creative and can be totally dedicated and persistent with what I'm doing.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Pulpetti Blog And pHinn The Pink Floyd Apologist
My good friend Juri Nummelin, the pulp fiction expert extraordinaire, has opened his own blog at http://pulpetti.blogspot.com/. Expect a lot of Juri-esque rants about crime fiction, music and whatever.
Except I have to digress about Pink Floyd, Juri. Yes, it's true, pHinn is not just a closet Pink Floyd fan any more! Syd Barrett-era is the best for me, of course, but I'd be a big liar, if I didn't say I wouldn't have been listening a lot of their post-Syd albums too. I love their atmospheric cinematic soundscapes (I always get chills listening to those synths on 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'), and their pioneering use of editing and segueing tracks plus sound effects (e.g. on Dark Side of the Moon) I see paving the way for the later electronic music and sampling too.
Some favourite Floyd tracks of mine: 'Careful With That Axe'/'Come Out Number 51, Your Time Is Up' (the version used in the "Apocalypse Scene" of the film Zabriskie Point) -- if you can, listen to those versions following each other: it starts as a slow atmospheric drone and just explodes at the end, blows my mind every time. 'Echoes' and 'One of These Days' -- just hypnotic, with Roger Waters' funky bass. Only with The Wall Waters' egomania got too much for me, but I even like that one half-much (post-Waters albums I don't even rate).
Of course every good punk worth their salt is supposed to hate the Pinkies, thanks to Johnny Rotten's famous "I Hate Pink Floyd" T-shirt (which should have had "Genesis" instead of Floyd, methinks), but I've just been listening to my favourite album from John Lydon's (a.k.a. J. Rotten) post-Pistols project Public Limited Image, Second Edition (a.k.a. Metal Box), and I have to say, with Jah Wobble's immortal liquid basslines, eerie soundscapes with chilly synths and all, even this album has its Floyd-esque moments! There's a little bit of Pink Floyd everywhere, eh? Ha ha, you old punks and wanna-be punks!
Except I have to digress about Pink Floyd, Juri. Yes, it's true, pHinn is not just a closet Pink Floyd fan any more! Syd Barrett-era is the best for me, of course, but I'd be a big liar, if I didn't say I wouldn't have been listening a lot of their post-Syd albums too. I love their atmospheric cinematic soundscapes (I always get chills listening to those synths on 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'), and their pioneering use of editing and segueing tracks plus sound effects (e.g. on Dark Side of the Moon) I see paving the way for the later electronic music and sampling too.
Some favourite Floyd tracks of mine: 'Careful With That Axe'/'Come Out Number 51, Your Time Is Up' (the version used in the "Apocalypse Scene" of the film Zabriskie Point) -- if you can, listen to those versions following each other: it starts as a slow atmospheric drone and just explodes at the end, blows my mind every time. 'Echoes' and 'One of These Days' -- just hypnotic, with Roger Waters' funky bass. Only with The Wall Waters' egomania got too much for me, but I even like that one half-much (post-Waters albums I don't even rate).
Of course every good punk worth their salt is supposed to hate the Pinkies, thanks to Johnny Rotten's famous "I Hate Pink Floyd" T-shirt (which should have had "Genesis" instead of Floyd, methinks), but I've just been listening to my favourite album from John Lydon's (a.k.a. J. Rotten) post-Pistols project Public Limited Image, Second Edition (a.k.a. Metal Box), and I have to say, with Jah Wobble's immortal liquid basslines, eerie soundscapes with chilly synths and all, even this album has its Floyd-esque moments! There's a little bit of Pink Floyd everywhere, eh? Ha ha, you old punks and wanna-be punks!
Thursday, December 30, 2004
R.I.P. Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag, the author, activist and self-defined "zealot of seriousness" whose voracious mind and provocative prose made her a leading intellectual of the past half century, died Tuesday 28 December, 2004. She was 71.
Sontag died at 7:10 a.m. Tuesday, said Esther Carver, a spokeswoman for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.
The hospital declined to release a cause of death. Sontag had been treated for breast cancer in the 1970s.
Sontag called herself a "besotted aesthete," an "obsessed moralist" and a "zealot of seriousness." Tall and commanding, her very presence suggested grand, passionate drama: eyes the richest brown; thick, black hair accented by a bolt of white; the voice deep and assured; her expression a severe stare or a wry smile, as if amused by a joke only she could tell.
She wrote a best-selling historical novel, "The Volcano Lover," and in 2000 won the National Book Award for the historical novel "In America." But her greatest literary impact was as an essayist.
The 1964 piece "Notes on Camp," which established her as a major new writer, popularized the "so bad it's good" attitude toward popular culture, applicable to everything from "Swan Lake" to feather boas. In "Against Interpretation," this most analytical of writers worried that critical analysis interfered with art's "incantatory, magical" power.
She also wrote such influential works as "Illness as Metaphor," in which she examined how disease had been alternately romanticized and demonized, and "On Photography," in which she argued pictures sometimes distance viewers from the subject matter. "On Photography" received a National Book Critics Circle award in 1978. "Regarding the Pain of Others," a partial refutation of "On Photography," was an NBCC finalist in 2004.
She read authors from all over the world and is credited with introducing such European intellectuals as Roland Barthes and Elias Canetti to American readers.
"I know of no other intellectual who is so clear-minded with a capacity to link, to connect, to relate," Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novelist, once said. "She is unique."
Unlike many American writers, she was deeply involved in politics, even after the 1960s. From 1987-89, Sontag served as president of American chapter of the writers organization PEN. When the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Salman Rushdie's death because of the alleged blasphemy of "The Satanic Verses," she helped lead protests in the literary community.
Sontag campaigned relentlessly for human rights and throughout the 1990s traveled to the region of Yugoslavia, calling for international action against the growing civil war. In 1993, she visited Sarajevo and staged a production of "Waiting for Godot."
Reading and writing
The daughter of a fur trader, she was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York in 1933, and also spent her early years in Tucson, Arizona, and Los Angeles. Her mother was an alcoholic; her father died when she was 5. Her mother later married an Army officer, Capt. Nathan Sontag.
Susan Sontag remembered her childhood as "one long prison sentence." She skipped three grades and graduated from high school at 15; the principal told her she was wasting her time there. Her mother, meanwhile, warned if she did not stop reading she would never marry.
Her mother was wrong. At the University of Chicago, she attended a lecture by Philip Rieff, a social psychologist and historian. They were married 10 days later. She was 17, he 28. "He was passionate, he was bookish, he was pure," she later said of him.
By the mid-1960s, she and Rieff were divorced (they had a son, David, born in 1952), and Sontag had emerged in New York's literary society. She was known for her essays, but also wrote fiction, although not so successfully at first. "Death Kit" and "The Benefactor" were experimental novels few found worth getting through.
"Unfortunately, Miss Sontag's intelligence is still greater than her talent," Gore Vidal wrote in a 1967 review of "Death Kit."
"Yet ... once she has freed herself of literature, she will have the power to make it, and there are not many American writers one can say that of."
Her fiction became more accessible. She wrote an acclaimed short story about AIDS, "The Way We Live Now," and a best-selling novel, "The Volcano Lover," about Lord Nelson and his mistress Lady Hamilton.
In 2000, her novel "In America," about the 19th-century Polish actress Helena Modjeska, was a commercial disappointment and was criticized for the uncredited use of material from fiction and nonfiction sources. Nonetheless, Sontag won the National Book Award.
Unrestrained
Sontag's work also included making the films "Duet For Cannibals" and "Brother Carl" and writing the play "Alice in Bed," based on the life of Alice James, the ailing sister of Henry and William James. Sontag appeared as herself in Woody Allen's mock documentary, "Zelig."
In 1999 she wrote an essay for "Women," a compilation of portraits by her longtime companion, photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Sontag did not practice the art of restrained discourse. Writing in the 1960s about the Vietnam War she declared "the white race is the cancer of human history." Days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, she criticized U.S. foreign policy and offered backhanded praise for the hijackers.
"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?" she wrote in The New Yorker.
"In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."
Even among sympathetic souls, she found reason to contend. At a 1998 dinner, she was one of three given a Writers For Writers Award for contributions to others in the field. Sontag spoke after fellow guest of honor E.L. Doctorow, who urged writers to treat each other as "colleagues" and worried about the isolation of what he called "print culture."
"I agree with Mr. Doctorow that we are all colleagues, but there are perhaps too many of us," Sontag stated.
"Nobody has to be a writer. Print culture may be under siege, but there has been an enormous inflation in the number of books printed, and very few of these could be considered part of literature. ... Unlike what has been said here before, for me the primary obligation is human solidarity."
Susan Sontag obituary @ BBC
Sontag died at 7:10 a.m. Tuesday, said Esther Carver, a spokeswoman for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.
The hospital declined to release a cause of death. Sontag had been treated for breast cancer in the 1970s.
Sontag called herself a "besotted aesthete," an "obsessed moralist" and a "zealot of seriousness." Tall and commanding, her very presence suggested grand, passionate drama: eyes the richest brown; thick, black hair accented by a bolt of white; the voice deep and assured; her expression a severe stare or a wry smile, as if amused by a joke only she could tell.
She wrote a best-selling historical novel, "The Volcano Lover," and in 2000 won the National Book Award for the historical novel "In America." But her greatest literary impact was as an essayist.
The 1964 piece "Notes on Camp," which established her as a major new writer, popularized the "so bad it's good" attitude toward popular culture, applicable to everything from "Swan Lake" to feather boas. In "Against Interpretation," this most analytical of writers worried that critical analysis interfered with art's "incantatory, magical" power.
She also wrote such influential works as "Illness as Metaphor," in which she examined how disease had been alternately romanticized and demonized, and "On Photography," in which she argued pictures sometimes distance viewers from the subject matter. "On Photography" received a National Book Critics Circle award in 1978. "Regarding the Pain of Others," a partial refutation of "On Photography," was an NBCC finalist in 2004.
She read authors from all over the world and is credited with introducing such European intellectuals as Roland Barthes and Elias Canetti to American readers.
"I know of no other intellectual who is so clear-minded with a capacity to link, to connect, to relate," Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novelist, once said. "She is unique."
Unlike many American writers, she was deeply involved in politics, even after the 1960s. From 1987-89, Sontag served as president of American chapter of the writers organization PEN. When the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Salman Rushdie's death because of the alleged blasphemy of "The Satanic Verses," she helped lead protests in the literary community.
Sontag campaigned relentlessly for human rights and throughout the 1990s traveled to the region of Yugoslavia, calling for international action against the growing civil war. In 1993, she visited Sarajevo and staged a production of "Waiting for Godot."
Reading and writing
The daughter of a fur trader, she was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York in 1933, and also spent her early years in Tucson, Arizona, and Los Angeles. Her mother was an alcoholic; her father died when she was 5. Her mother later married an Army officer, Capt. Nathan Sontag.
Susan Sontag remembered her childhood as "one long prison sentence." She skipped three grades and graduated from high school at 15; the principal told her she was wasting her time there. Her mother, meanwhile, warned if she did not stop reading she would never marry.
Her mother was wrong. At the University of Chicago, she attended a lecture by Philip Rieff, a social psychologist and historian. They were married 10 days later. She was 17, he 28. "He was passionate, he was bookish, he was pure," she later said of him.
By the mid-1960s, she and Rieff were divorced (they had a son, David, born in 1952), and Sontag had emerged in New York's literary society. She was known for her essays, but also wrote fiction, although not so successfully at first. "Death Kit" and "The Benefactor" were experimental novels few found worth getting through.
"Unfortunately, Miss Sontag's intelligence is still greater than her talent," Gore Vidal wrote in a 1967 review of "Death Kit."
"Yet ... once she has freed herself of literature, she will have the power to make it, and there are not many American writers one can say that of."
Her fiction became more accessible. She wrote an acclaimed short story about AIDS, "The Way We Live Now," and a best-selling novel, "The Volcano Lover," about Lord Nelson and his mistress Lady Hamilton.
In 2000, her novel "In America," about the 19th-century Polish actress Helena Modjeska, was a commercial disappointment and was criticized for the uncredited use of material from fiction and nonfiction sources. Nonetheless, Sontag won the National Book Award.
Unrestrained
Sontag's work also included making the films "Duet For Cannibals" and "Brother Carl" and writing the play "Alice in Bed," based on the life of Alice James, the ailing sister of Henry and William James. Sontag appeared as herself in Woody Allen's mock documentary, "Zelig."
In 1999 she wrote an essay for "Women," a compilation of portraits by her longtime companion, photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Sontag did not practice the art of restrained discourse. Writing in the 1960s about the Vietnam War she declared "the white race is the cancer of human history." Days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, she criticized U.S. foreign policy and offered backhanded praise for the hijackers.
"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?" she wrote in The New Yorker.
"In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."
Even among sympathetic souls, she found reason to contend. At a 1998 dinner, she was one of three given a Writers For Writers Award for contributions to others in the field. Sontag spoke after fellow guest of honor E.L. Doctorow, who urged writers to treat each other as "colleagues" and worried about the isolation of what he called "print culture."
"I agree with Mr. Doctorow that we are all colleagues, but there are perhaps too many of us," Sontag stated.
"Nobody has to be a writer. Print culture may be under siege, but there has been an enormous inflation in the number of books printed, and very few of these could be considered part of literature. ... Unlike what has been said here before, for me the primary obligation is human solidarity."
Susan Sontag obituary @ BBC
Monday, December 20, 2004
DJing At Swäg & Club Telex, Friday 17 December 2004
As if everyone cared, here are playlists by yours truly from Friday's sets at two different events. Can't tell much anything about Swäg's acts since I had to hurry to Telex after my early-night set, but as said before, it was too bad these two events serving rare quality electronic sounds in Tampere were overlapping. At Telex Putsch '79 was truly excellent live with their discofunk galore (I interviewed Sami Liuski, the other member of Putsch '79 in April 2003). Pavan from Sweden was nice too, made me think of his fellow countrymen Pluxus somehow. (But we could have used more crowd at Telex anyhow: where were all you lazy people, at home dwiddling with your Playstations, bongs and unnamed body parts...? Anyway, thanks
to all who were there.
---
17 December 2004,
Swäg IX
@ Café Valo, Tampere
da eklektik anyding goes set
Lalo Schifrin: Theme from Enter The Dragon
Add N to (X): Revenge of the Black Regent
Wagon Christ: How You Really Feel
Tom Tyler: No Dice
DJ Food: Scratch Your Head (Squarepusher mix)
David Bowie: Sons of the Silent Age
Scott Walker / The Walker Brothers: Orpheus
Manuel Göttsching: E2-E4 - Ruhige Nervosität
Itäväylä: Black Diamond Express
Vainio Väisänen Vega: Medal
Green Velvet: Flash
Autechre: Flutter
Aphex Twin: Children Talking
Nilsson: Everybody's Talking
---
17 December 2004,
Club Telex
@ Yo-Talo, Tampere
da relentless elektro trainspotta fanboy set
Yellow Magic Orchestra: Computer Game
Analog Fingerprints: Taxes For Trash
Mesak: Back To The Future
Carl A. Finlow: Electro Commando
D.I.E.: 313Frequency
Max Durante & Keith Tucker: Digital System
Mojojojo: Krak@tak
Auxmen: We Rock Like This
Drexciya: Depressurization
69: Ladies & Gentlemen
Blastromen: Sexy Droid
Aux 88: I Need To Freak (Microknow Vocal Remix)
VCS-2600: Debug Scan
Imatran Voima: Commando
Club Telex Noise Ensemble: KVY (Legowelt mix)
Dave Clarke: No One's Driving
Dynamix II: Pledge Your Allegiance To Electro Funk
Bass Junkie: Deep Bass Matrix (vocal)
to all who were there.
---
17 December 2004,
Swäg IX
@ Café Valo, Tampere
da eklektik anyding goes set
Lalo Schifrin: Theme from Enter The Dragon
Add N to (X): Revenge of the Black Regent
Wagon Christ: How You Really Feel
Tom Tyler: No Dice
DJ Food: Scratch Your Head (Squarepusher mix)
David Bowie: Sons of the Silent Age
Scott Walker / The Walker Brothers: Orpheus
Manuel Göttsching: E2-E4 - Ruhige Nervosität
Itäväylä: Black Diamond Express
Vainio Väisänen Vega: Medal
Green Velvet: Flash
Autechre: Flutter
Aphex Twin: Children Talking
Nilsson: Everybody's Talking
---
17 December 2004,
Club Telex
@ Yo-Talo, Tampere
da relentless elektro trainspotta fanboy set
Yellow Magic Orchestra: Computer Game
Analog Fingerprints: Taxes For Trash
Mesak: Back To The Future
Carl A. Finlow: Electro Commando
D.I.E.: 313Frequency
Max Durante & Keith Tucker: Digital System
Mojojojo: Krak@tak
Auxmen: We Rock Like This
Drexciya: Depressurization
69: Ladies & Gentlemen
Blastromen: Sexy Droid
Aux 88: I Need To Freak (Microknow Vocal Remix)
VCS-2600: Debug Scan
Imatran Voima: Commando
Club Telex Noise Ensemble: KVY (Legowelt mix)
Dave Clarke: No One's Driving
Dynamix II: Pledge Your Allegiance To Electro Funk
Bass Junkie: Deep Bass Matrix (vocal)
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Reindeer Disko 2 by DJ pHinn
Since our Estonian friends liked so much the Reindeer Disko selection I made for their Net radio Kohviradio.Com last June, they asked me for another selection (not an actual mix), so click "reindeer disko 2 by dj phinn" at:
http://www.kohviradio.com/tunes/requests/index.html
The tracks:
1. Munich Machine: La Nuit Blanche
2. Yello: Daily Disco
3. Propaganda: P-Machinery
4. Blake Baxter: Forever And A Day
5. Unidentified Sound Objects: AAEagle 2
6. Dick Hyman: Give It Up Or Turn It Loose
7. Perrey & Kingsley: One Note Samba - Spanish Flea
8. Prince: Bob George
9. Blastromen: Sexy Droid
10. Kompleksi vs Citizen Omega: Bioluminescence
11. Der Zyklus: Biometric ID
12. Calico Wall: I'm A Living Sickness
13. Coil: Love's Secret Domain
14. Chicks on Speed & The No Heads: Madalyn Albright's Answer
15. Carola & Heikki Sarmanto Trio: The Flame
http://www.kohviradio.com/tunes/requests/index.html
The tracks:
1. Munich Machine: La Nuit Blanche
2. Yello: Daily Disco
3. Propaganda: P-Machinery
4. Blake Baxter: Forever And A Day
5. Unidentified Sound Objects: AAEagle 2
6. Dick Hyman: Give It Up Or Turn It Loose
7. Perrey & Kingsley: One Note Samba - Spanish Flea
8. Prince: Bob George
9. Blastromen: Sexy Droid
10. Kompleksi vs Citizen Omega: Bioluminescence
11. Der Zyklus: Biometric ID
12. Calico Wall: I'm A Living Sickness
13. Coil: Love's Secret Domain
14. Chicks on Speed & The No Heads: Madalyn Albright's Answer
15. Carola & Heikki Sarmanto Trio: The Flame
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Bad Mags!
I just found this brilliant site called Bad Mags. As it says, it features cover art from different sorts of sleazy US magazines from the 1950s onwards. Crime, occult sex, skin flicks, gossips, bikers, rock'n'roll -- the seedy underside of America! Ungawa!
This links nice to FinnSleaze, my own cover gallery of (mostly) 1970s Finnish men's magazines. (Its mirrorsite has also a bit more images.)
This links nice to FinnSleaze, my own cover gallery of (mostly) 1970s Finnish men's magazines. (Its mirrorsite has also a bit more images.)
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
The Official Truth Of Finland
In his latest Net column, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja (of Finland's Social-Democratic Party) criticizes Finnish media:
"In Finland, there is undergoing a clear and systematic campaign to change the social and foreign policies in Finland. One does not have to argument this view with any conspiracy theories, it is enough to keep following Finnish main media to see how its agenda has become harder, its message more right-wing."
Especially Tuomioja criticizes Helsingin Sanomat, the largest morning newspaper in Finland, for actively propagating these views.
The Helsingin Sanomat chief editor Janne Virkkunen quotes on the paper's head column the German leftist playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht who, while staying as a refugee in Finland during World War II, wrote about the Finns being a people, who "keeps silent in two languages".
Virkkunen claims that Finland is still the country of one official truth, which shuns presenting any alternatives and dissidence, just as in the era of Soviet Union, when Finland's foreign and domestic policy were heavily dictated by our Eastern neighbour; making the Western observers come up with the term "Finlandisierung" about this delicate tightrope-walking type of political balance, where the Finns had to nourish good relations with Russians but also prove their being another Western democracy.
Virkkunen also quotes the recent " Roadmap to Finland's Future Success" report by EVA, Finnish Business and Policy Forum. The report summarizes: "The message is clear: Finnish society must finally create an attractive environment for working, entrepreneurship and ownership –- otherwise Finland’s long term success cannot be guaranteed." In Tuomioja's opinion, it is these sort of views, that represent Finland's "Official Truth" at the moment -- neo-liberalist, right-wing, anti-welfare state -- the type of which Helsingin Sanomat and other head columns in Finland are trying to propagate at the moment.
Erkki Tuomioja quotes another poem by Bertolt Brecht: "Wouldn't it be easier to disintegrate the people and elect someone else in their stead?". Tuomioja thinks this is something that could well be directed to EVA and Finnish employees who represent the current powers that be, their message to the people being: "They should work twice as much with a wage twice as small, so they elite could enjoy their own double income, preferably without the disturbing intervention by taxes", as Tuomioja puts it.
"In Finland, there is undergoing a clear and systematic campaign to change the social and foreign policies in Finland. One does not have to argument this view with any conspiracy theories, it is enough to keep following Finnish main media to see how its agenda has become harder, its message more right-wing."
Especially Tuomioja criticizes Helsingin Sanomat, the largest morning newspaper in Finland, for actively propagating these views.
The Helsingin Sanomat chief editor Janne Virkkunen quotes on the paper's head column the German leftist playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht who, while staying as a refugee in Finland during World War II, wrote about the Finns being a people, who "keeps silent in two languages".
Virkkunen claims that Finland is still the country of one official truth, which shuns presenting any alternatives and dissidence, just as in the era of Soviet Union, when Finland's foreign and domestic policy were heavily dictated by our Eastern neighbour; making the Western observers come up with the term "Finlandisierung" about this delicate tightrope-walking type of political balance, where the Finns had to nourish good relations with Russians but also prove their being another Western democracy.
Virkkunen also quotes the recent " Roadmap to Finland's Future Success" report by EVA, Finnish Business and Policy Forum. The report summarizes: "The message is clear: Finnish society must finally create an attractive environment for working, entrepreneurship and ownership –- otherwise Finland’s long term success cannot be guaranteed." In Tuomioja's opinion, it is these sort of views, that represent Finland's "Official Truth" at the moment -- neo-liberalist, right-wing, anti-welfare state -- the type of which Helsingin Sanomat and other head columns in Finland are trying to propagate at the moment.
Erkki Tuomioja quotes another poem by Bertolt Brecht: "Wouldn't it be easier to disintegrate the people and elect someone else in their stead?". Tuomioja thinks this is something that could well be directed to EVA and Finnish employees who represent the current powers that be, their message to the people being: "They should work twice as much with a wage twice as small, so they elite could enjoy their own double income, preferably without the disturbing intervention by taxes", as Tuomioja puts it.
Monday, November 15, 2004
Who's Got To Flex?
There has been recently a lot of discussion here in Finland that our working life should be more "flexible", but in the end, I think the people who've got to "flex" the most there under these models recommended by the business world are the employees who have to work harder with lower pay, under the uncertainty of possibly being sacked any moment... but we are inflexible welfare state pinkos here, of course. Today's economy mantras are efficiency and productivity, but it seems only a narrow elite is able to enjoy the fruits thereof.
While at the same time, the wages of job-cutters rise handsomely.
While at the same time, the wages of job-cutters rise handsomely.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Pan sonic receives Finnish State Prize for Arts
From Finnish Music Information Centre:
The Arts Council of Finland has announced the annual State Prizes for Arts on November 9. The recipients are film director Klaus Härö, choreographer Marjo Kuusela, and electronic music duo Pan sonic. Each prize is worth 13.000 euros.
Formed by Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen in 1993, Pan sonic has made a durable reputation within the sphere of experimental electronic music, leading the way of the "Northern sound" of international renown.
Pan sonic are among the outpourings of the lively Turku electronic music scene that combined the best aspects of techno, performance and minimalism in the 1990s. Around the same time, Sähkö Recordings was founded, and Pan sonic soon became its most successful artist being equally home at the music festivals as well as art museums and installations.
Since 1995, the British label Mute/Blast First has issued Pan sonic albums Vakio" (1995), Kulma (1997), A (1999) ja Aaltopiiri (2001). This year the ambitious duo released a 4-CD work Kesto, of which title means, literally, length. Their recent live performances include concerts in Berlin Biennale, Tampere Biennale, and Biennale Musica in Venice.
---
And my comments:
Well, this is great that Pan sonic finally get the recognition they deserve in their own home country, but one could ask if this was really so if they hadn't manage to make it internationally. I don't think so.
Finnish people usually are really wary of anything that breaks new ground; without their international recognition Pan sonic (or Jimi Tenor or Vladislav Delay or...) would be still considered some sort of marginal freaks here, probably even laughed at. The Finnish way: jealousy and bitterness -- people who create something different and out of the ordinary crushed either by indifference, silence or direct hostility. Finnish media and music industry usually want stylish and easily consumed copies of currently-fashionable Anglo-American pop products for an artist to get any major media coverage here. The lowest common denominator thinking prevails.
You either have to get yourself international recognition before anyone takes any note here, or then drink yourself to death or commit suicide and become celebrated only posthumously; maybe even decades after your death. Local examples are various; probably someone like Erkki Kurenniemi being finally "discovered" after 40 years he created his major work is a refreshing exception too. But then, grass always being greener behind the fence, I don't think this is exclusively a Finnish phenomenon...
---
And here is an interesting sidenote I found, an excerpt from Avanto Festival's info magazine; concerning their forthcoming gig of Germany's Alec Empire...
"In Finland, Alec Empire remains rather unknown, even after much hype from the British media, which is usually devoutly followed by Finnish scenesters. This may encourage some discouraging generalisations about the state of our cultural climate. Or can we imagine Bomfunk MC's become radicalized, should the skinhead MP Tony Halme's demagoguery lead to action? Now seemingly on the wane, the Finnish
electronic music scene was dominated throughout the 90's by mindless hedonism and cursorily post-modernist pseudo-philosophies, with the approval of the media and even some art museums. These sorts of connotations may even have caused the alternative activists' scene to shun experimental electronic music, as well."
The Arts Council of Finland has announced the annual State Prizes for Arts on November 9. The recipients are film director Klaus Härö, choreographer Marjo Kuusela, and electronic music duo Pan sonic. Each prize is worth 13.000 euros.
Formed by Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen in 1993, Pan sonic has made a durable reputation within the sphere of experimental electronic music, leading the way of the "Northern sound" of international renown.
Pan sonic are among the outpourings of the lively Turku electronic music scene that combined the best aspects of techno, performance and minimalism in the 1990s. Around the same time, Sähkö Recordings was founded, and Pan sonic soon became its most successful artist being equally home at the music festivals as well as art museums and installations.
Since 1995, the British label Mute/Blast First has issued Pan sonic albums Vakio" (1995), Kulma (1997), A (1999) ja Aaltopiiri (2001). This year the ambitious duo released a 4-CD work Kesto, of which title means, literally, length. Their recent live performances include concerts in Berlin Biennale, Tampere Biennale, and Biennale Musica in Venice.
---
And my comments:
Well, this is great that Pan sonic finally get the recognition they deserve in their own home country, but one could ask if this was really so if they hadn't manage to make it internationally. I don't think so.
Finnish people usually are really wary of anything that breaks new ground; without their international recognition Pan sonic (or Jimi Tenor or Vladislav Delay or...) would be still considered some sort of marginal freaks here, probably even laughed at. The Finnish way: jealousy and bitterness -- people who create something different and out of the ordinary crushed either by indifference, silence or direct hostility. Finnish media and music industry usually want stylish and easily consumed copies of currently-fashionable Anglo-American pop products for an artist to get any major media coverage here. The lowest common denominator thinking prevails.
You either have to get yourself international recognition before anyone takes any note here, or then drink yourself to death or commit suicide and become celebrated only posthumously; maybe even decades after your death. Local examples are various; probably someone like Erkki Kurenniemi being finally "discovered" after 40 years he created his major work is a refreshing exception too. But then, grass always being greener behind the fence, I don't think this is exclusively a Finnish phenomenon...
---
And here is an interesting sidenote I found, an excerpt from Avanto Festival's info magazine; concerning their forthcoming gig of Germany's Alec Empire...
"In Finland, Alec Empire remains rather unknown, even after much hype from the British media, which is usually devoutly followed by Finnish scenesters. This may encourage some discouraging generalisations about the state of our cultural climate. Or can we imagine Bomfunk MC's become radicalized, should the skinhead MP Tony Halme's demagoguery lead to action? Now seemingly on the wane, the Finnish
electronic music scene was dominated throughout the 90's by mindless hedonism and cursorily post-modernist pseudo-philosophies, with the approval of the media and even some art museums. These sorts of connotations may even have caused the alternative activists' scene to shun experimental electronic music, as well."
Monday, November 08, 2004
A Review of DaDaDa @ BBC Site
Here's a review of London's DaDaDa: Strategies Against Marketecture exhibition where I participate with my pHinnMilk Comics:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A3229292.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A3229292.
Acid Mothers/Circle/Vialka: Live at Klubi, Tampere
Something about last Tuesday night's psychedelic rawk spectacle here at the Klubi club our of little Tahm-peh-reh town...
Vialka from France were a boy-girl duo of a guitarist and drummer (just don't mention White Stripes here), and were quite funny after I got over my first shock. A bespectacled ethnomusicology student-looking girl wearing something that looked like an ethnic regional costume, drumming like a berserk and singing/wailing in the style of Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex. One song was obviously about how shitty everything is. Peaches, eat your heart out. The guitarist having a silly long goatee à la that Queens of the Stone Age guy. In his white shirt he looked like a deranged Amish. The music was a sort of punk-prog combination with folkish overtones, complicated song structures, tempo changes, etc.; like punk but played by music conservatory students who are into prog-rock.
Circle I hadn't seen in ages, but were really worth waiting for, to say the least. Before the gig I had a chance to talk with Circle's jovial bassist Jussi Lehtisalo, one of the nicest guys I know in music scene, and I donated him also Kompleksi's demo. Circle started with a longish ambient-drone mood, then turning to something which sounded at times like Can, at times like Spacemen 3. Not exactly their gargantuan rifforamas of yesteryear, but something more subtle. One guitarist sang blues-like vocals, keyboardist Mika Rättö wailed in Damo Suzuki-style. Another fine gig from Circle, still the best Finnish band of this type (Krautrock/postrock/psychedelia).
Acid Mothers Temple And The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (whatever that ) from Japan I had missed when they visited in Tampere two years ago. And to be honest, I was a bit wary of hearing them live for the first time, since at least the only album I've got from them, New Geocentric World, was a bit too heavy jamming to my own tastes.
But I suppose Acid Mothers are a band actually best heard live, since for me this gig was just spectacular: Kawabata Makoto and his merry (furry) men leading loud monster jams consisting of psychedelia, Krautrock, Hendrix, Black Sabbath, et al.; and lo and behold, it worked fine for me, and what has been rare for me lately, got my old ruined body moving. But then, I guess I've always been just a hippie in disguise. Just hypnotic and physical. I still don't know if I'm going to get more Acid Mothers albums for home listening, but as a live experience they were wonderful. With Circle, this night felt sound-wise like a time machine leap to the early 1970s, but I guess in this case retro is not that bad a word...
Vialka from France were a boy-girl duo of a guitarist and drummer (just don't mention White Stripes here), and were quite funny after I got over my first shock. A bespectacled ethnomusicology student-looking girl wearing something that looked like an ethnic regional costume, drumming like a berserk and singing/wailing in the style of Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex. One song was obviously about how shitty everything is. Peaches, eat your heart out. The guitarist having a silly long goatee à la that Queens of the Stone Age guy. In his white shirt he looked like a deranged Amish. The music was a sort of punk-prog combination with folkish overtones, complicated song structures, tempo changes, etc.; like punk but played by music conservatory students who are into prog-rock.
Circle I hadn't seen in ages, but were really worth waiting for, to say the least. Before the gig I had a chance to talk with Circle's jovial bassist Jussi Lehtisalo, one of the nicest guys I know in music scene, and I donated him also Kompleksi's demo. Circle started with a longish ambient-drone mood, then turning to something which sounded at times like Can, at times like Spacemen 3. Not exactly their gargantuan rifforamas of yesteryear, but something more subtle. One guitarist sang blues-like vocals, keyboardist Mika Rättö wailed in Damo Suzuki-style. Another fine gig from Circle, still the best Finnish band of this type (Krautrock/postrock/psychedelia).
Acid Mothers Temple And The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (whatever that ) from Japan I had missed when they visited in Tampere two years ago. And to be honest, I was a bit wary of hearing them live for the first time, since at least the only album I've got from them, New Geocentric World, was a bit too heavy jamming to my own tastes.
But I suppose Acid Mothers are a band actually best heard live, since for me this gig was just spectacular: Kawabata Makoto and his merry (furry) men leading loud monster jams consisting of psychedelia, Krautrock, Hendrix, Black Sabbath, et al.; and lo and behold, it worked fine for me, and what has been rare for me lately, got my old ruined body moving. But then, I guess I've always been just a hippie in disguise. Just hypnotic and physical. I still don't know if I'm going to get more Acid Mothers albums for home listening, but as a live experience they were wonderful. With Circle, this night felt sound-wise like a time machine leap to the early 1970s, but I guess in this case retro is not that bad a word...
Monday, November 01, 2004
Transhumanism - One Of The Most Dangerous Ideas In The World?
Francis Fukuyama calls at the September 2004 edition of Foreign Policy Transhumanism one of the "most dangerous ideas in the world". Fukuyama criticizes transhumanists that they're, through biotechnology, trying to create a Nietzschean superhuman far exceeding those qualities created by natural evolution. Here Nick Bostrom of transhumanists answers to Fukuyama.
I think transhumanists are typical utopia builders living in their high spheres but not exactly having a touchpoint with actual every-day reality. If we become physical and mental superhumans, will that also solve the economical and environmental problems of our current culture; not to speak about wars, terrorism and so on?
I think transhumanists are typical utopia builders living in their high spheres but not exactly having a touchpoint with actual every-day reality. If we become physical and mental superhumans, will that also solve the economical and environmental problems of our current culture; not to speak about wars, terrorism and so on?
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
pHinnWeb Politics - A New Mailing List Starts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phinnwebpolitics/
This new group is meant for the discussion of political issues that would be off-topic for the pHinnWeb's mailing list. Differing political opinions are tolerated (bar extreme right-wing, chauvinistic-nationalist, racist, sexist, homophobic, religious bigot, etc. views) but all members are advised to follow netiquette. The discussion on this list is mostly in English.
This new group is meant for the discussion of political issues that would be off-topic for the pHinnWeb's mailing list. Differing political opinions are tolerated (bar extreme right-wing, chauvinistic-nationalist, racist, sexist, homophobic, religious bigot, etc. views) but all members are advised to follow netiquette. The discussion on this list is mostly in English.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Jori Hulkkonen On The Sad State Of Finnish Music Journalism
Here's a quickie translation of this column by Jori Hulkkonen which appears today at the Nyt weekend supplement of Helsingin Sanomat and can be read in Finnish here.
The Electronic Bubble
- pop journalism without electricity
[Jori Hulkkonen, 22.10.2004]
Finnish pop journalism has returned, after a few more hopeful years, to the state that has always been taken for granted -- the Helsinki-based rock journalism.
Obviously the new writer generation, when writing for Finnish music magazines, has to legitimate their own place there by continuing along the conservative style of those mags. It is the outcome of either a conscious process, or then the starting journalists only try to be faithful to the assumed agenda of their employer or their perceived cultural Zeitgeist.
This trend that started a couple of years ago, has gone so far during this year that you haven't been able to find articles on electronic music or reviews even from those magazines specialized in pop music -- not taking into account some domestic exceptions or electronic rockers like Prodigy.
What has been most characteristic to these articles, though, has been their division in two. On the other hand, there's the naive lack of criticism towards electronic music coming from Finland. For some peculiar reason, domestic media has taken on the image of Finland being some sort of a New Mecca for electronic music, and that the last glimmer of hope for the dying genre is here amidst the Arctic
darkness.
On the other hand, it is not uncommon that all genres of electronic music are just made up into bundles, and it is all overlooked as a phenomenon that already had its heyday in the 90s.
It has to be admitted that this is quite understandable concerning Finnish marketplace that holds an emphasis with rock music. Local radio stations seem to have already lost the more alternative electronic music, and its future without open and critical press only seems hopeless.
The Electronic Bubble
- pop journalism without electricity
[Jori Hulkkonen, 22.10.2004]
Finnish pop journalism has returned, after a few more hopeful years, to the state that has always been taken for granted -- the Helsinki-based rock journalism.
Obviously the new writer generation, when writing for Finnish music magazines, has to legitimate their own place there by continuing along the conservative style of those mags. It is the outcome of either a conscious process, or then the starting journalists only try to be faithful to the assumed agenda of their employer or their perceived cultural Zeitgeist.
This trend that started a couple of years ago, has gone so far during this year that you haven't been able to find articles on electronic music or reviews even from those magazines specialized in pop music -- not taking into account some domestic exceptions or electronic rockers like Prodigy.
What has been most characteristic to these articles, though, has been their division in two. On the other hand, there's the naive lack of criticism towards electronic music coming from Finland. For some peculiar reason, domestic media has taken on the image of Finland being some sort of a New Mecca for electronic music, and that the last glimmer of hope for the dying genre is here amidst the Arctic
darkness.
On the other hand, it is not uncommon that all genres of electronic music are just made up into bundles, and it is all overlooked as a phenomenon that already had its heyday in the 90s.
It has to be admitted that this is quite understandable concerning Finnish marketplace that holds an emphasis with rock music. Local radio stations seem to have already lost the more alternative electronic music, and its future without open and critical press only seems hopeless.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
The Limits To Growth
The Club of Rome published in 1972 a book called The Limits to Growth, which gained a huge success. The book predicted, based on computer calculations, how the population growth, industrialisation, the increase in food production and pollution are going to expand in such an increasing volume that a total collapse is expected in only a hundred years' time.
Using a technique known as systems dynamics, developed by Professor Jay Forrester at MIT, a large-scale computer model was constructed to simulate likely future outcomes of the world economy. The most prominent feature of systems dynamics is the use of feedback loops to explain behaviour. The feedback loop is a closed path that connects an action to its effect on the surrounding conditions which, in turn, can influence further action.
There are two feedback loops, negative and positive, the total outcome of which would create pessimist or optimist models depicted in the book. Using some over-simplified examples here, pollution and damage to the biosphere caused by industry would be a negative feedback loop; on the other hand, the jobs and prosperity created by that same industry would be a positive feedback loop. The different combinations of these feedback loops would have an effect on whether the future developments would be benevolent or not.
The basic message of the Club of Rome in 1972 was that there will be a collapse if the population increase and industry growth go on without any limitations. The turning point was to be in twenty years. Dennis L. Meadows, one of the writers of Limits to Growth, tells that the calculations of 1972 were just checked for the third edition of the book, and that the predictions had become true within the accuracy of a few per cent units.
Dennis L. Meadows says that the limits were exceeded in 1980; now we are twenty per cent above those limits, and have to turn back. According to Meadows the modern world differs from the state of sustained development as much as the ancient Mesopotamia would differ from the world of industrial era.
During its recent summit in Helsinki the Club of Rome didn't speak about the limits to growth any more but the "limits of ignorance". Their concern is that the risks are well known, but in spite of that, no changes are put through. (One recent example of this would be USA's reluctance to accept the proposed Kyoto Protocol.)
The real problem here is that almost religion-like current economic thinking, which emphasizes the idea of ongoing and continuing growth. Unfortunately, it only seems that this growth can be gained at the expense of natural resources and people's mental well-being. We can't buy happiness.
More info @ DieOff.Org
Fair Warning? The Club of Rome Revisited
Beyond The Limits To Growth
Using a technique known as systems dynamics, developed by Professor Jay Forrester at MIT, a large-scale computer model was constructed to simulate likely future outcomes of the world economy. The most prominent feature of systems dynamics is the use of feedback loops to explain behaviour. The feedback loop is a closed path that connects an action to its effect on the surrounding conditions which, in turn, can influence further action.
There are two feedback loops, negative and positive, the total outcome of which would create pessimist or optimist models depicted in the book. Using some over-simplified examples here, pollution and damage to the biosphere caused by industry would be a negative feedback loop; on the other hand, the jobs and prosperity created by that same industry would be a positive feedback loop. The different combinations of these feedback loops would have an effect on whether the future developments would be benevolent or not.
The basic message of the Club of Rome in 1972 was that there will be a collapse if the population increase and industry growth go on without any limitations. The turning point was to be in twenty years. Dennis L. Meadows, one of the writers of Limits to Growth, tells that the calculations of 1972 were just checked for the third edition of the book, and that the predictions had become true within the accuracy of a few per cent units.
Dennis L. Meadows says that the limits were exceeded in 1980; now we are twenty per cent above those limits, and have to turn back. According to Meadows the modern world differs from the state of sustained development as much as the ancient Mesopotamia would differ from the world of industrial era.
During its recent summit in Helsinki the Club of Rome didn't speak about the limits to growth any more but the "limits of ignorance". Their concern is that the risks are well known, but in spite of that, no changes are put through. (One recent example of this would be USA's reluctance to accept the proposed Kyoto Protocol.)
The real problem here is that almost religion-like current economic thinking, which emphasizes the idea of ongoing and continuing growth. Unfortunately, it only seems that this growth can be gained at the expense of natural resources and people's mental well-being. We can't buy happiness.
More info @ DieOff.Org
Fair Warning? The Club of Rome Revisited
Beyond The Limits To Growth
Monday, October 11, 2004
Without Conscience
Dr. Robert D. Hare, considered one of the world's foremost experts in the area of psychopathy, is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. His book Without Conscience is now translated also in Finnish.
The pioneer of the research of psychopathy was Dr. Hervey Cleckley who released in 1941 a book called The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality. Later on, Dr. Robert D. Hare came up with his Psychopathology Checklist to assess the main characteristics of psychopathic behaviour.
The psychopathic (or sociopathic) syndrome consists of many different symptoms. In every-day use of this term people normally consider psychopaths as dangerous and hardened criminals they have learned to know from media, but reality is far more complex. A psychopath has a good self-esteem, he is self-centered and dominating. A psychopath can be a person with short attention span, of impulsive and unpredictable behaviour; with no real emotional ties to other people, a parasite taking from others but never giving anything back. He feels no empathy nor love; neither guilt, remorse or shame. A psychopath may be great in pretending these emotions, but not able to really feel them.
Psychopathy is characterised as a narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissism and psychopathy are not exactly the same thing, even though they are close to each other. Robert D. Hare says that what is common to a narcissist and psychopath is that they both love themselves, but only a psychopath takes advantage of other people.
Hare emphasizes that there are psychopaths in any communities and social classes. He estimates there are two per cent of them in populace. Psychopaths are often those well off in society; great manipulators with fluent verbal output and charming appearance. A psychopath loves power and considers himself intelligent and bright, but mostly only has an average IQ.
What is problematic considering his environment is that it is really hard to recognize a psychotic there. These modern times favour those values that are characteristic for psychopaths: selfishness, greed, superficial human relations and elbow tactics.
Excerpt from Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity
Antisocial Personality, Sociopathy, and Psychopathy
See also:
Psychopathological Cult Leaders
The pioneer of the research of psychopathy was Dr. Hervey Cleckley who released in 1941 a book called The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality. Later on, Dr. Robert D. Hare came up with his Psychopathology Checklist to assess the main characteristics of psychopathic behaviour.
The psychopathic (or sociopathic) syndrome consists of many different symptoms. In every-day use of this term people normally consider psychopaths as dangerous and hardened criminals they have learned to know from media, but reality is far more complex. A psychopath has a good self-esteem, he is self-centered and dominating. A psychopath can be a person with short attention span, of impulsive and unpredictable behaviour; with no real emotional ties to other people, a parasite taking from others but never giving anything back. He feels no empathy nor love; neither guilt, remorse or shame. A psychopath may be great in pretending these emotions, but not able to really feel them.
Psychopathy is characterised as a narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissism and psychopathy are not exactly the same thing, even though they are close to each other. Robert D. Hare says that what is common to a narcissist and psychopath is that they both love themselves, but only a psychopath takes advantage of other people.
Hare emphasizes that there are psychopaths in any communities and social classes. He estimates there are two per cent of them in populace. Psychopaths are often those well off in society; great manipulators with fluent verbal output and charming appearance. A psychopath loves power and considers himself intelligent and bright, but mostly only has an average IQ.
What is problematic considering his environment is that it is really hard to recognize a psychotic there. These modern times favour those values that are characteristic for psychopaths: selfishness, greed, superficial human relations and elbow tactics.
Excerpt from Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity
Antisocial Personality, Sociopathy, and Psychopathy
See also:
Psychopathological Cult Leaders
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