Why J. takes this sort of pictures????

J. used to surprise me with them long ago, now I get deeply confused when out of 300 photos taken during our family outings 275 are moved, blurry -in the digital age- or simply like the few below: weird. Maybe the interest on the images resides in their very senselessness?

1. Anytown anywhere?
2. !!!???!!!
3. Whose head is this? Who was supposed to be the main character on the picture?
4. The wrong family. Unidentifiable people that we have never-ever seen in our lives, not even during the capture!

A more constructive annotation, from TED(www.ted.com):

Friends are leaving

This time to Brussels. Foreign service. Some friends are also returning from Kiev, after 7 years abroad. This is why I am not that sad, and in any case we have the plan to visit them before next Summer. It is very hard to move around the world with children and forget about home, projects, routines and expectations. It is specially difficult to neglect one´s career. The life of a diplomat´s family is no paradise as it might seem.

My grandmother left her hometown Ovejas, Colombia (below, left) in 1941(?), for entirely different reasons. They made their home in Medellin, Colombia (below, right. The house in the city and a country house they visited sometimes). I think she never overcame loosing her sense of belonging despite the many gains. I can very well relate to that!

Ex-libris, again

I love al of these, in no particular order. Mine should include blue, a monogram of some sort, sea life connotations, and silluetes no matter how complicated combining all of it might seem.

Mas ocupada que nunca

Por las vacaciones de la familia entera y la cantidad de cosas por hacer de este verano. Ha hecho sol por semanas y hemos aprovechado cada momento posible afuera de la casa, cocinamos afuera, comemos afuera, hasta dormimos afuera o con las puertas y ventanas de par en par. En una semana y media cuando volvamos a las rutinas nos ponemos al dia en forma. Como no estoy por el computador con tanta frecuencia, son pocas las paginas que he visitado, pero entre esas vi lo siguiente:

-De poco impacto grafico pero idiomaticamente atractivo, convincente. Nada de que "la margarina para la mesa y para la cocina a todos nos gusta mas..."Algo parecido podrian pensar los que se encargan de los anuncios de jabones y detergentes:

-Una idea simple, una solucion perfecta para un problema de todos los que leemos paperbacks de 500 paginas y apenas logramos mantenerlos abiertos sin despedazarlos:

imagen: "ya no quedan blogs"

-Claro. Lo visual no deja ninguna duda. La web que comercializa esta tiene muchas mas por el estilo o en todo caso originales:

www.threadless.com

- Un capricho de siempre: Un cameo griego. Azulado. Broche.

Revisiting Naantali

Naantali is located in the Southwest of Finland:

This coming week. Just 3 days, Moominworld, Salo, and the Summer markets of Helsinki in the way back home. We look very much forward to it, specially Emil who will stay on his very own for the most part, for the first time. Now, the days before that trip it is the time to collect the blackcurrants and the cherries of our garden.

A movie to watch one more time

The Piano and its great theme song. Among our favourites of both genres. This is a good sample of its photography:

Books by my bedside (no night stand):

-White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Funny, entertaining and very good to improve my rusty English. I have read up to page 77 so far.
-The Pirates of the Digital Millennium by John Gantz and Jack B. Rochester: An avalanche or arguments to support mine, yes, or argument against. Anyway, convincing. Second review, page 46.
-Jerusalem by Selma Lagerlof: Essential guide to the understanding of silent, ceremonial, Nordic cultures. I loved it, it has been compared by my closest friend -J- with Tammsaare, just on the lighter side. Finished my solo and in page 30th of our shared reading experience.
-Elizabeth by Anne Somerset. As much as biographies can be enjoyed if too sympathetic they can`t persuade the reader. I am in page 620, very near its end.
-Del Amor y Otros Demonios "Of Love and Other Demons" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Found by chance while unpacking the remaining boxes from Madrid yesterday morning and only 10 pages are left for me to enjoy tonight. Fantastic, literally.

Mao, la historia desconocida by Jung Chang awaits still, "next in line" from Summer2008!

El graffiti aveces es arte. AVECES

"Tras las Huellas de banski"

Como estos entre muchos otros que el enigmatico Banski deja por ahí. Sobre el se puede leer esto, o ver estas imagenes.

Osmusaar

Con antojo de esparragos verdes

Pero incapaz de comprarlos en Tallinn por 9 EUR la media libra! En ocasiones como esta se me antoja estar en Espana...La paleta de crema sinembargo cuesta 10 centavos de EUR... Compramos una caja de 36 para los ninos, claro esta.

The Lost Tribes of New York City from Carolyn London on Vimeo.
Al mejor estilo de Aardman; Creature Comforts

Wishlist, an update.

I look forward to unfamiliar/original/genuine lines of reassurance and confort, inspiration, enlightment, the upcoming short vacation we will have in Finland, the begining of a sucessful academic year, healthy, kind and loving adolescents (compatible if they really try hard!), the wooden terrace J. has been planning to build, visits from family, relatives and friends, and spare cash to visit home asap. I know I can´t ever own a katsushita Hokusai painting but can get an iMac if I just wait a while longer. I have given up the idea of living in a huge hacienda or a Medieval castle (for practical reasons, mainly but not only) but still ponder over the possibilities to find a suitable manor house, better yet if with a patio in the middle.

Katsushita Hokusai

Donegal castle. Ireland.

Palmse Manor House, Estonia

Ahhh, and I would love to find Persepolis, the movie in Spanish!

VERY HAPPY

I just received a call from someone I was looking forward to contact for a long time! I have not seen Laura Cordoba in 17 or 18 years approximately and still talking to this old friend made my day. She is in Norway, well, satisfied with her life and very successful. I will put my energy now that we are in touch in convincing her to come and visit me in Estonia! I hope I do not have to wait that long this time!

Whatever happens this weekend

Raining or shining, the Estonian song festival will take place, and this family will attend.

Picture taken by OLIW: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliver1/685995331/

This is a picture of the choir that performed in 2007. This year, the general festival is held and during two consecutive days thousands of Estonians sing and dance in traditional dresses. It is difficult to calculate how many people are singing in here at the time, 30.000, maybe?

Mas de lo mismo

Afiches de propaganda política sovietica y fotos de contraste
(Free copyright)

Solo hace falta que la imagen tenga otra cara. La egolatría, el populismo, la tiranía, la paranoia, lo rojo y las masas que ignorantes o hipócritas celebran a esta personalidad parecen las mismas...También la pose de amigarse con lideres del mismo tipo o en todo caso que estén "en contra".

Restatement

What to do with an old laptop? How to reuse it or recycle it in a crafty way? I still keep it somewhere handy just in case a good idea comes by.
I wish I could revive it at all for the kids to be resourceful with it, actually the best scenario would be that Emil figured something like this, or this and turn the device into a running equipment.

These pictures are the remainings of the legacy of a socialist, popular, devastating revolution, followed by the occupation by the Soviets to Eastern European countries. Most are still trying to rebuild and repair the damages after 50 years of "everything belonging to everybody," or rather to NONE, so why to care? The heroes of many Latin American current leaders (or so they say) turned a dozen of countries into trash receptacles (just to mention the most visible, almost trivial part of the tragedy of a totalitarian socialist regime). Is that what the population of Latin America is really looking forward to experience? We would be much better with the Socialist propaganda off these outdated politicians´ repertoire for good.

Below: A typical Soviet poster and few images of an apartment building in the Easternmost part of Estonia, very near to the Russian border, occupied mainly by labourers living just as they have been used to even before coming into this country (Soviet colonization policies). The building is not abandoned and it is in the very centre of the a town. Mostly Russian families/ordinary people live in!

Detalles

El fin de semana lo pasamos en Ida Virumaa, ayudando a Kersti con el jardín de la finca(Nada que ver u oír desde que radios y televisión por todo el mundo rinden interminables tributos a Michael Jackson). En verano Estonia parece el país mas lindo del mundo. Todo se ve y huele bien. Esta semana contrasta estruendosamente con el invierno: +29 grados centígrados a la sombra!

En mi casa, una planta que creíamos muerta de repente floreció y esta así hace 2 semanas!

Emil y Juulia, cada uno en los suyo. Purtse, finca de Kersti, Ida Virumaa, Estonia.

Las plantas se tomaron el patio de la finca!

Detalles: Flores silvestres, malezas y cebollas!

Que encarte para los que decidieron en Honduras manifestarse en contra del coletazo del huracán populista que cree liderar Hugo. Lo correcto por parte de otros países es rechazar la violencia, lo esperado, que la mayoría del pueblo Hondureño se pronuncie a favor de lo que creen que les conviene, pero que es lo que puede pasar? Restaurar el gobierno para que el circo Latinoamericano continué su esperpentica marcha quasi- socialista y de paso encarcelar a unos cuantos "valientes" (tolerando intervencionismo venezolano a la criolla, y perpetuándolo, claro esta!), o legitimar la violencia de un golpe de estado militar? La vía mas eficiente era la de educar a la población, para que nunca, nunca, se crea los cuentos de estos caudillos contemporáneos a expensas del progreso...ERA. Ya paso la hora y Latinoamerica esta en la situación mas precaria que yo pueda recordar. Ahora si que después de quejarse del imperialismo y el colonialismo ya no nos manipulan ni nos explotan los países mas grandes, mas desarrollados, mas fortalecidos, seria impensable desde el punto de vista del derecho internacional vigente, sino que nos manipulamos y nos explotamos entre nosotros mismos, sobretodo por que que diablos le importa a Hugo, o a cualquiera de sus secuaces el sistema jurídico internacional? Ellos si se dan el lujo de acabar con el continente de todas las formas imaginables y todos indolentes lo vamos dejando pasar.