Photo Thursday - Valokuvatorstai, 117: Many

If you came from Facebook and now look for a meme, "25 Things About Me", please find it two posts downwards, so keep scrolling.

* * * * *

In Photo Thursday the challenge #117 was the word "moni", many.

My response was shot with camera phone. Basic Nokia with 2.0 Megapixel camera, nothing fancy.



Did you realise there are many different magazines on window painting; two of them called Fensterbilder imported from Germany?

Window painting!? My goodness.

Photo Thursday - Valokuvatorstai: Smooth Way

The topic of the Photo Thursday (Valokuvatorstai) of this week was a line written by Vexi Salmi for a late (Finnish) pop musician Irwin Goodman: "Silirimpsis, sileä tie". (Could be something like "Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep, smooth way". But this is a very loose and over-creative translation!)

I have had difficulties to decide on which one of these two ways is smoother, so I have two photos with which I respond to the challenge. The first one being a nail studio:


"Tulevaisuus on kynsissäsi. Silirimpsis, sileä tie."
"The Future's On Your Nails. Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, Smooth Way Ahead."


* * * * *

I had to take this one very quickly, because there was a young man being interviewed and I was being watched from the inside. So excuse me but this one is a bit blurred, please double-click it so it gets bigger. The company in question is headhunting waiters and cooks; mainly staff for restaurants and catering services.


"Yhtä henkeä haetaan, hälle silirimpsis, sileä tie."
"One Person Needed. Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, Smooth Way Ahead."

Camp. Eurovision "music".

This masterpiece was in ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art, in London. The name of the exhibition was THE SECRET PUBLIC. The Last Days of the British Underground 1978-1988. I have a soft spot for 1980's, like I already have revealed. And in this mental-hospital-like atmosphere even Margaret Thatcher seems somewhat cute. (But Maggie looks a bit worried. Perhaps she has just heard about Chernobyl contaminating Scotland. Or that the miners are not going to work tomorrow, either.)



Today's theme in Photo Thursday is camp. Not camping, but camp like kitsch. Or like the Eurovision song contest. I know it might be a bit unfair to call a serious work of art camp and even compare it to the worst kind of so-called music, but can't help it: anything with Maggie is camp!

***

Yesterday TN, EN and I set our bets on who are going to win the Eurovision song contest. Two winners, each bet cost two euros. EN said the winner is either Russia or Latvia, TN is betting for Iceland and Sweden, and I am supporting Estonia and Serbia.

What makes this betting so funny is that TN is the only one of us who has actually listened to any Eurovision songs. I was even terrified when she asked if I would like to hear any of the "music" before betting. "No way", I said. "Listening to any of those would be unbearable suffering for me. And then I would certainly refuse to bet!"

And EN said she would fall asleep.

So, EN and I chose the winner by using our very strange political standards. Very strange: "Russia and Latvia". "Estonia and Serbia"!

The lucky winner will profit eight euros. If there is a winner among us. If not, the money will go to charity. (TN has all the money now. But we will be watching...)

Way to go Estoniandserbia, way to go!

Echoes Of Stalin. (Be careful when you have tea.) Games Part III. Shoes.

(More of the Games theme: see below, parts II and I.)


ECHOES OF STALIN IN TEA PARTY ARRESTS

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Telegraph: 07/02/2007

Russian authorities were accused of turning the clock back to
Stalinist times yesterday after a group of human rights activists was
found guilty of having an "unsanctioned" afternoon tea party with two
Westerners. --

Nine members of Froda, a group that campaigns for ethnic minority
rights, were found guilty of holding an illegal meeting and fined
after they had tea with two German students visiting a friend in the
southern city of Novorossiysk.
The students, involved in similar campaign work in Germany, had
requested a meeting to find out more about a Froda project encouraging
children of different racial backgrounds to play football together.

But as the meeting began, armed officers from the Federal Security
Service, the intelligence agency that succeeded the KGB, burst into
the headmaster's study and detained the group.
"We were told that citizens were forbidden to gather and ordered to
make a written explanation," said Tamara Karastelyova, Froda's
director.
"We were told that, under the new law, any meeting of two or more
people with the purpose of discussing publicly important issues had to
be sanctioned by the local administration three days in advance," Mrs
Karastelyova said.

The verdict, with its echoes of the Stalinist era when Russians were
forbidden from meeting foreigners, has provoked outrage among
non-governmental organisations.
***********

This week's Challenge at Photo Thursday is Shoes.

This is also what I wish, for O.C. and her work.

Why?

The challenge of Photo Thursday of this week is to ask Why? (I kind of did, in my last blogging: why did Anna have to die?)

But now, at the Helsinki Travel Fair, I came by this HUGE pike.

Why, oh why does she wear an apron?

Wide open. In a Sentimental Mood. Rest In Peace, Michael Brecker

The latest challenge of the Photo Thursday was "avara". Wide open, I'd translate. And here is my sad avara photo.

It is the Senate Square in the centre of Helsinki, with some paper scraps. Due to the Climate Change everything is dark, snowless (AGAIN). And you should see the sea, it's right behind those buildings on the left. The sea level is high up, and rising.

And next to the statue of Czar Alexander II, of Russia, there is the Dark Angel, see:



Very sad news have reached the world of music: Michael Brecker has died on Saturday the 13th at age of 57. The cause of death was myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone-marrow disorder, which finally progressed to leukemia.

The New York Times put it beautifully: "Having taken a deep understanding of John Coltrane’s saxophone vocabulary and applied it to music that merged with mainstream culture — particularly jazz fusion and singer-songwriter pop of the 1970s and 80s — Mr. Brecker spread his sound all over the world.

His long list of sideman work from then on wended through hundreds more records, including those by Frank Zappa, Aerosmith, James Brown, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed, Funkadelic, Steely Dan, John Lennon, Elton John, and James Taylor, as well as (on the jazz side) Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Papo Vasquez."

My CD collection exactly.

Before I get to tumble In a Sentimental Mood (do watch and listen to that one!) I have to add something dynamic: DO NOT forget to sign the petition before Jan 22, remember? It's the one I put here the other day, see the title "Sign this".

And: Hey! Let's be careful out there! (<- where was that from, anybody?)

Ligths out, now! Santa's little helpers need some rest.

Dear friends and fans of Miss Funnybunny

In the Photo Thursday of this week, or last, the theme is Story Without Words. So here is mine. (Better later than never.)

Guess where these were taken. The dinos are pretty cool, let alone the pig, eh?

IStori