Belly up. That’s all for today, folks.
(Helsinki, Finland; February 2017)
Monthly Archives: April 2017
The end of me
English bookstores will be the end of me. I think it runs in the family. Once my sister and I spent a week in London and lugged home 10 kilos of books. Another time she spent 3 hours in Heffers in Cambridge. I was not bored, either.
This time we spent a week in Oxford and London and I managed to come home with only 5 books (yes, one missing from the photo). But where else can one find an entire book about nightly walks of artists and literary figures in historical, sometimes dangerous nocturnal London? Or a book on quantum mechanics in biology? Or books and books about trees, the ocean, and naturalism?
Help. I may need help. If not for any other purpose, then to expand the entire wall of books I have at home. Just as soon as I’ve finished this book I am reading.
(Helsinki, Finland; January 2017)
Somewhere between poetry and insanity
“Occupation is essential. And now with some pleasure I find that it’s seven; and I must cook dinner. Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down”
(Virginia Woolf’s last diary entry before her suicide)
Somewhere between poetry and insanity tonight. Alice Coote sang Virginia Woolf’s diary entries, and letters from 19th century patients locked up at a mental illness asylum. “Strange Productions” was the aptly named title of the insanely poetic letters, commissioned by Wigmore Hall from Nico Muhly.
Wigmore Hall is a constant favorite. Not because of the (also insanely) beautiful venue, but because of the director and his creative team who commission modern classical pieces with a flair. Never bored here, although sometimes mindlessly enthralled.
(London, United Kingdom; January 2017)
Old English pubs
Business lunch at Eagle and Child with a quantum physicist, discussing medical sciences. Dinner at the Bear Inn, a pub from 1242, among 4,500 club ties (including one tiny panel in the ceiling for women’s ties). Instead of rowdy drunk people, there were ladies dining and students playing chess with glass pieces.
Only in Oxford. 
(Oxford, United Kingdom; January 2017)
Misty morning in Oxford
“The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad!”(Kenneth Grahame, from Wind in the Willows)
Perhaps Mr Toad and his friends live down there, underneath that willow tree? It sure does look like a peaceful home for a toad.
(Oxford, United Kingdom; January 2017)
Detour in the Other Place
“I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all—the colleges I mean—like an opera.”
(William Butler Yeats)
One freezing January week I made a detour to The Other Place, as those who went to Cambridge call Oxford (and vice versa). Fortunately I was able to break the news over Facebook, otherwise some of my Cantabrigian classmates would have probably made multiple attempts at lynching me.
But during that week there was no time to dream and remember. There were studies, 8 hours a day, with smart people from all around the world. There were too many age-old pubs. There was afternoon tea with champagne. There were colleges to discover.
And there was even a futile attempt at fencing. Apparently, women wear a madonna bustier – hence the busty look. Another mystery solved. It also turns out well-mannered fencing men have serious trouble fighting a woman – not because of chivalry but because they must shamelessly attack the bustier.
(No photographic evidence but trust me, I did wear the sour-smelling sweaty old gear including mask).
(Oxford, United Kingdom; January 2017)
Long day
It has been a long day. For me and for Cassandra. No more words today.
(Helsinki, Finland; January 2016)
Interlude: from the Land of Snows
Lama Patrul Rinpoche says many wise things. But he also says that the reader should get rid of all his/her belongings, move into a cave, and eat leaves. That warm clothes will be found, and that no saddhu has ever died of starvation. Maybe so, but this is hardly an egalitarian view, as it does not promise everybody the possibility to follow the right path in this lifetime. Otherwise we had nobody to rely on food or clothes. Tibetan Buddhism is tough stuff.
According to Patrul Rinpoche, living a good life and striving for good deeds is not sufficient. Instead, one must actively choose (every day) to strive to leave this level of existence, not for a higher level of existence but for an exit from samsara (the cycle of life) altogether. One’s most heartfelt wish must be to check out and to fuse one’s individual soul with the world-soul. Tough stuff, indeed.
I got the Words Of My Perfect Teacher because I walked into Pilgrim’s in Kathmandu and asked for a book that would help explain why so many people are attracted to Buddhism. I was told this one was popular. I can understand why, as it is full of little pearls of wisdom. But it is also a demanding teacher. Patrul Rinpoche tells a story of an enlightened being who, without knowing it, stepped on a little bug. He went to hell in afterlife.
I am still not sure I understand why Buddhism feels right to so many. But I am not giving up yet (to be continued).
(Helsinki, Finland; January 2017)
Longevity
Nothing can beat the jokes between those who grew up together. And if laughter extends lifespan I can expect at least 10 years more after this night.
(Helsinki, Finland; January 2017)
About freezing mist and change
Freezing water needs a surface to form ice crystals. Trapped in the still, cold air, it remains liquid, supercooled, even if the temperature is below zero degrees Celsius. Contact with a surface helps the water droplet organize into a new shape, one that is right for the current weather.
Most often, we people also need contact to form our thoughts and feelings. When the environment changes, our minds are often trapped into bubbles, knowing we should take a different shape but not being able to change. Contact helps crystallize our minds just like it helps crystallize water.
It was a freezing night in Bruges, with supercooled mist hanging over the canals. The water droplets did not have contact to help them change and grow, but I did.
(Bruges, Belgium; December 2016)
This blue marble 