Moi John!

> sounds really good. as saunas are surely part of the mix! the days begin to stretch into the Arctic pre-summer white nights, stars disappear for months, the river ice breaks, and Finns get wild ;-)
... Uranium mine, so something hot anyhow. Yet a sauna every now and then is a must of course. :)
The public sauna around the block at Harjuntori is still going strong.
Compared to earlier times of Pixelache, May is really good.

>
> bwahaha, too bad they haven't the possibility to vote for legalization of pot as here in the US gains momentum. A stoned heroic moose would be something to see! But it sounds like there is still plenty of room for certain kinds of radical play.
yup, that's the question, how to radicalize play.
I think you have to come in person though to work on a stoned moose?
It was widely posted news here with Washington's simultaneous move to legalize gay marriages and legalize recreational dope. It is not a coincidence this happens after and not before the elections?

> Here in the US there are so many layers of s**t over everything that authentic be-ing is tremendously difficult -- like wandering through a mine-field with a blind-fold on. There is always the massive-oppressive media-sphere which reaches down into every momentary human encounter. I now catch myself playing secret performance artist with improv fake mobile telephone calls in public spaces -- *just to avoid attracting attention to myself*! What kind of madness is that?
Control Freedom as Wendy Chun coined it? Paranoia as liberty or vice versa?
>
> They already are talking about the NEXT election in 2016. The desire for power has become an overwhelming source of spectacle that has the power to deeply alter, corrupt, and destroy lives. Debord would be even more prematurely suicidal.
Actually reading more into other less popular situationists lately I came to realize they were not so radically opposed to consumerism as such, but rather against consumption as the only rationale of behaviour. For example with architecture they criticised it for being merely functional and not enabling interpretation and play. I suppose there is a sense of total hegemony one easily gets with Russian and US news, though the latter is not controlled in a similar fashion but favourably produced by the likes of Murdoch. If Newscorp wiretapped in the UK they surely must have been doing the same in the US...?

>
> I have had an uneasy feeling about some DIY as it seems the same as the hobby-techno-obssessed movements that were rife in post-Sputnik Amurika: Heathkit; Popular Mechanics; Popular Science; that all is too surficial, too technocratic, sometimes too limited in that it is avocation and hobby rather than life-(changing)-trajectory. But as you observe, it still has the potential to establish a foothold for other more radical learning encounters -- but we need to be mindful of the risk of doing only for the sake of doing, rather than a more simple-yet-rich doing-for-being.
DIFC=Do it for change? Can it be so Difcult? :)

There is also the question of DIWTNSLM, Doing it with the not so like minded, ie. the not converted (as if there was a path to follow).
Actually, I am not into acronyms but was just playing around.
Maker culture seems to have a bridging aspect to it, a way of engaging beyond the likely bunch of people, but one is so aware of edges if limited by the technological imaginary.


>
>> As for cooking and Helsinki, I have a pretty good sized kitchen + workshop
>> space so can host cooking sessions of 4-6 cooking + 15 max 20 eating. That is
>
> damn, now that sounds GREAT! breaking bread at Tapio's table has always been an enLightening experience as many of you already know! I'd highly recommend it: strangers become friends ;-)
Especially when everyone brings some spices and goodies along. :)
I just came back from Delhi and Bangalore w/ green chillies of four varieties to heat the winter nights here.
Attended a festival put together by Ish Shehrawat www.soundreasons.in and attended Sarai Reader 09: The Exhibition.
I would much recommend looking at two related publications to the Reader exhibition:
http://www.sarai.net/publications/occasional
P.T.O. as well as City as a Studio.
I don't find yet on-line this one:
http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1363&bookId=258&l=en
- has some remarkable fragments by The Cybermohalla Ensemble

> LOL! For those of you who haven't been to Finland and enjoyed the distinctive aura (aurinkoa!) of Finnish hospitality -- check out this doco I made way back when:
>
> http://www.neoscenes.net/aud-vid/video/finland_p.html
Lots of it looks like 70s the way you have captured it... nice time machine clip. :)

cheers,

Tapio