Doll and Toy Museum in Porvoo/Porvoon nukke- ja lelumuseo

I don't remember when I visited a local pearl, Doll and toy museum of Porvoo, first time. But I still remember Evi Söderlund, museum's founder, behind the cashier's desk. It's a place, that you can visit dozens of times and still you find something new every time. It's a place that I always show to...

Joanna Ebenstein (ed.): Frederik Ruysch and his Thesaurus Anatomicus. A Morbid Guide. (The MIT Press, 2022)

The newest book by Joanna Ebenstein was released on 20 September 2022. I attended a Zoom symposium earlier on that month to celebrate this new book. During those four hours I made some quick notes and on the top of the A4 paper I had written “Science meet art”.  This book happened when Ebenstein met...

Tolkkinen Pulp Mill, Part 17/Tolkkisten sellutehdas, osa 17

In this part I show the last pictures from the cookery. I will show here all the decent photos – black and white as well as colour ones – that I have taken in the newest part of the cookery.  Tässä osassa julkaisen viimeiset osat keittämöstä. Näytän kaikki kelvolliset kuvat, niin mustavalkoiset kuin värilliset, jotka...

Revisiting Pink Spider ~ Spider on a Cloud

Exactly 25 years ago – on 13 May 1998 – the single by ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑆𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝐵𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟 called 'Pink Spider' (usually written in katakana as ピンク スパイダー) was released. It was ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒's ninth single during his solo career and the second one under the name ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑆𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝐵𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟. ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 himself was not anymore among...

Cars, Cars, Cars

One sign of the forthcoming summer is that special summer cars, usually old classics, are appearing on the roads, cars that have spent the winter in the garages under the care of their devoted owners. All these photos are taken on 1 May 2023. Helsingin Seudun Automobiiliklubi HAK ry (the site is in Finnish) is...

Drawings Part 5: Let’s Meet Again in the Spring

It is 25 years today – 2 May 2023 – since ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 left this world on 2 May 1998. This time I knew quite early what kind of picture I would draw of him for this special day. If I had a lot of luck, I would have been now in Yokohama at ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ...

Music Archive, Part XXX ~ Sammy Babitzin: Daa-da, daa-da (Columbia, 1972)

Music Archive is a series, where I write about albums or singles that have been released years ago, too long time ago to be enclosed in the “Reviews” category. Music Archive is thus forming its own subcategory under “Reviews”, even though these write-ups are not reviews, maybe not always even presentations.  They are just stories...

Reading, Understanding and Writing Kanji, Part II

In the end of part I, I was pondering if there is (an easy) way to memorize kanji. I was also asking myself, how much I need to learn about writing kanjis? Do I need to memorize the kanjis by heart, or is it enough that I know the word, how it is written in...

Richard Trevithick – Father of the Steam Locomotive – Died on 22 April 1833

Richard Trevithick was a tireless inventor and he constantly developed new ideas. He didn’t feel too bad if things went wrong, but moved forward. The list of his patents is long. Money was a secondary matter to him, and thus it’s not a big surprise that he died as a poor man in 1833. In...