8x8

it putteth away dumpishness & sadness, and bringeth mirth: a 1559 recipe for mulled wine

fox and liberty forever: the chaotic General Election of 1790, the polling and purdah lasting from 16 June to 28 July, via Strange Company

the power of youth: the photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva behind the iconic image of Greta Thunberg’s TIME cover—we personally found this honour to be pretty moving as well

link in bio: the insidious nature of Walled Gardens (see previously) and social media’s attempts to corral the free Internet

the land of the asuras: a Buddhist monk leads a solemn ceremony to eulogise untaken time off from work in Japan—hardly done despite legislation that all workers take a minimum of five paid vacation days per year

🙀: this feline face filter underscores how poorly we understand our cats’ cognition

flight and blight: a survey of some of the historic character lost in New York City over the past decade

your branches green delight us: a tour of London’s Christmas trees 

fika

Celebrated in Sweden and Finland on this day since first organised in 1999, Kanelbullens dag (Cinnamon Roll Day) is a way to increase awareness on traditional Scandinavian baking traditions (see also) and has proved to be a popular holiday domestically and for Swedish and Finnish communities abroad. Though we might be comfortably familiar with the above term for “coffee break,” the Kanelbullen that could go with it might also be infiltrating the language.

potut pottuina

Overshadowed by his magnificently telling tantrum, the Trump’s White House did manage to open up a second front in his ongoing trade wars with the US Trade Representative, a Trump appointee, announcing that the World Trade Organisation will grant the US the right to levy tariffs on around seven billion euro (one percent of US-EU trade) on European exports—wine and cheese, in retaliation for the EU’s privileging its domestic Airbus over international competition.
We can’t say that the US has been subsidising its native industries in the same way for the past decade and a half of this squabble or whether it’s quite a fair ruling—though it highlights the asymmetry of government support and interventions and how diverting subsidies from staid business models in transport and agriculture would help drive greener and cleaner innovations. Further implication might be the UK becoming even more willing to crash out of the Union with no deal and into an unequal partnership with the States.  The EU is expected to respond in kind—though direct countermeasures are not allowed, WTO rules have no jurisdiction on boycotts.

essential amino acids

Developed in partnership with a state research centre and a prestigious Finnish university, the protein powder provisionally called solein, brewed by microbes fermenting the gaseous by-products of the simple electrolytic reduction of water—pliable into any form and with magnitudes less of an environmental impact than traditional agricultural, needing no extra irrigation or arable land, certainly sounds intriguing.
What do you think about that?  Considering how much territory is given over to livestock grazing and the ecological pressures that creates, it is time to re-evaluate our priorities. Fortified and chemically flavoured, the start up behind it which aims to scale-up to produce two billion meals per year after its initial debut says that the powder base can be adjusted and improvised to fit any palette.

true grit

Though not to be invoked on those small annoyances that can nonetheless snowball cumulatively and become overwhelming, the Finnish concept of sisu—which does not have a straightforward equivalent in English (see also)—signals an especially tenacious form of bravery and resilience that emerges at one’s most dire moments and boosts courage, energy and resolve from a reserve that one did not realise one had to persevere despite of oneself and past failures.
It’s always a bit tricky and judgmental to say that something in our behavioural quiver is reserved for extraordinary circumstances since sisu gained common-parlance during the 1939 Winter War and invasion by the Soviet Union and its continued cultural resonance surely meant it has been called on during less harrowing times, so try not to assess the threshold of others and yourself too critically. The stoicism of not indulging counter-measures too readily and ordering things in perspective is an internal process that develops naturally and is also a demonstration of the same unimagined strength no matter what crisis one is facing.

kestää käytössä

We enjoyed watching this early 1970s commercial from Finland for the new Lada 1200 (domestically known as the ВАЗ-2101 or as “Kopeyka,” one one-hundredth of a ruble) but take heed as replaying it may summon a demon.

hyppytyynytyydytys

We were delighted to grow our vocabulary, courtesy of Fancy Notions, with the above, highly onomatopoeic Finnish term that literally means “bouncing cushion satisfaction.” Despite having no true vowels and looking quite intimidating, it’s really quite easy and fun to pronounce, if you channel your inner Swedish Chef or alternatively go here for some help from a native speaker.

suomen kuningaskunta

Declaring and securing its independence on 6 December 1917 as it succeeded from the Russia Empire embroiled in revolution and civil war, Finland had originally proclaimed itself republic but the intervention of monarchists elements and Germany—despite being occupied with World War I itself—who thought the newly minted nation should be a protectorate, a client state, as it did with other territories formerly part of Russian Empire by plying them with surplus royalty, Finland was for a short time a constitutional monarchy.
On 9 October of 1918, Prince Friedrich Karl von Hessen (*1868 - †1940) Landgrave and brother-in-law to the soon to abdicate Wilhelm II was voted by Finnish parliament to the throne. In light of the dissolution of other royal houses with the cessation of fighting, the king-elect judged the situation untenable and Friedrich declined his commission on this day just over two months later—having never set foot in his kingdom much less establishing his court. This decision led to democratic reforms and the re-establishment of a republic by the following summer.

päntsdrunk

Though perhaps not as wholesomely shareable as the Danish concept of hygge and perhaps not as resonant as another word in the language jingfin that has prompted millions of Chinese to declare themselves spiritually Finnish, we appreciate that the Finns also celebrate the concept called kalsarikännit—roughly translated as the state of pants-drunkenness, extolled in a book by journalist Miska Rantanen subtitled the path to relaxation.
The government of Finland (which back in 2015 also created a pair of emojis to convey the concept) offers the definition of “the feeling when you are going to get drunk home alone in your underwear—with no intention of going out.” Anecdotal evidence plus the country’s consistently high global rankings for happiness, openness, equality and egalitarianism suggests that there’s something to the practise and the balance it brings. Read more at Kottke at the link above.

i would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough—that i should have gotten saint petersburg in addition

After reducing relations between the United States and its NATO partners to the worst state since the founding of the alliance (calling the EU a “foe”), Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin convened for a private meeting in neutral Helsinki.
Uncertain about objectives or talking-points, I think that this event was orchestrated not only to inflame Europe but also to disrupt (maybe primarily) Amazon Prime Day—to uncut the press outlet owned by the same entities, which Trump again called the enemy of the people. In his preamble, Trump made no mention of the annexation of Crimea, treatment of dissenting voices, the proxy-wars in Syria and Iran or the broad subterfuge operation directed in order to skew outcomes in the US presidential and other elections as cause for tensions but instead choose to blame “many years of US foolishness and the stupidity, and now the Rigged Witch Hunt!” for strained relations characterised as never worse—eliding over the entire history of the Cold War and dashing hopes that Trump will make any demands of his Russian counterpart or again don the mantle of leadership befitting a super power, rather than stooping to elevate tyrants.

process of bioremediation

Via the ever estimable Kottke, we learn about the enduring landscaping of ecological Finnish artist Agnes Denes, whose Tree Mountain was dedicated in 1996 atop the gravel pits of Pinziö near Ylöjärvi, Finland.
This monumental earthworks is meant to last for four hundred years at minimum or until its artificial nature is forgot and whose eleven thousand trees are carefully planted along an upwards spiral that follows the Golden Ratio will repair the scars left by human mining and restore the habitat for native species. The article on Kottke at the link up top also explains a rather pleasantly incongruous sight that I can remember seeing in the distance when coming into New York City’s Port Authority by bus from points south, a wheat field in Manhattan that Denes also sewed in 1982 and remains undisturbed.

beefcake

Finland became the first country to define its unique national character, treasures, quirks and generally untranslatable customs with its own emoji family, which includes, as Dangerous Minds informs, quite proudly fetish and bondage artist Tom of Finland—plus the baby-in-a-box, the Sàmi people, the kicksled, Finnish fashion and many others, with quite a few relating to sauna culture.

district nine or house in the rock

If it weren’t for the assurances of the intrepid crew of Amusing Planet, I’d also fear that a War of the Worlds’ style tripod was being activated after æons of hibernation in order to conquer the Earth in the Helsinki district of Töölö, but this view from above is the half buried Temppeliaukio Church, excavated directly into solid rock.
From above ground only the copper dome with its skylight of this structure, planned originally during the 1930s (though not inspired by the radio drama that scared a lot of people out of their wits in 1938 since the alien invaders didn’t emerge from under our feet in the originally but rather from Mars) and was finally realised in 1969, alliteratively, by brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen, first consecrated as Taivallahti. In addition to regular church services, the church is also a popular concert venue owing to its excellent acoustic properties.

liiketoimintaryhmät

Going postal has a quite different meaning for the letter-carriers in Finland, where for the traditionally low-volume summer months—and fearing their jobs might be in danger of redundancy with fewer people bothering with mail-service—Posti, for a modest fee, will offer to mow the lawns of customers on their beat.
Utilizing existing knowledge and a neighbourly familiarity hard to reproduce, the Finnish government has more pilot projects for the postal-service in community outreach, including detailing mail men and women to check on the elderly and to conduct security patrols. I think that this is fantastic, and an example for other struggling postal networks—which generally only partner with their commercial-competitors, and starkly opposed to the endangered rural outposts in America that can no longer even provide basic financial services where there’s a need and a banking vacuum because of the influence of predatory lending agencies.

5x5

ration card: the wartime UK version of Monopoly had to make concessions to the fighting effort

cosmopolitan: beautiful overhead views of world cities

pet sounds: Cornell University digitised their huge library of animal calls and bird-song

sakoku or ttp: nineteenth century Japanese woodcuts of exotic, visiting Americans after America insisted on diplomatic ties

isobar: Stockholm airport invites passengers to experience the weather at their destination before departing

talvisota tai finmark

The young country of Finland found itself in a very unenviable position just after the start of WWII. Until 1809, Finland had been a part of the Kingdom of Sweden, until Imperial Russia conquered the territory to provide a buffer-region (a march) to protect Saint Petersburg during the Napoleonic Wars. This freshly created Duchy of Finland, however, took the chance to break free during the chaos of successive revolutions and civil wars that visited Russia and was able to declare independence in 1918, just before the peace was brokered for WWI.

The non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union also defined the respective powers’ spheres of influence, and Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries were ceded to the Stalin regime—Germany’s violation of the agreement with invading Poland of course was the catalyst for starting the fighting—and though Finland had made strong connections with the other neutral Nordic nations, the Soviet Union tugged on Finland, expecting it to assimilate as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had done. During the Winter War (Talvisota in Finnish) of 1939 the Finns rebuffed the Red Army, using among other conventional weapons, an improvised incendiary device, called the Molotov cocktail, named after the Soviet foreign minister whose negotiations had sacrificed Finland in the first place. The advance on the part of Moscow had given the League of Nations (precursor to the United Nations) cause to reject Soviet membership. Germany did not hesitate in making overtures to the precarious Finnish government after the Soviet withdrawal, which I think to everyone’s surprise, the Finns entertained. Ostensibly, the arrangement could be seen as an opportunistic quid-pro-quo—giving Germany the staging ground for its invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa)—though whether that was already in the making is unclear—and the chance for Finland to reclaim resource-rich territory lost, but I suspect that the damning, besmirching decision was recognised as the only alternative available and the vanities of legacy and repute were quickly cast away. The Finnish foreign minister, Rudolf Holsti, chose what he felt was the lesser of two evils by committing his “government” and not his country to support the Nazi regime—worded carefully so that the decision could be overturned by the next government, as it was, and would hopefully preserve Finland as an independent state, which it did. The Soviets attacked Finland for this treachery, but it avoided annexation. Though the definition of what a democracy is a very subjective one, the UK and the Allies’ attack on Finland, who’s since reformed its reputation and I think this chapter of history goes unknown outside of Scandinavia, in what’s called the Continuation War (Jatkosota) marks by some estimates the only war-time hostility between two democratic powers.

sampo

Finland's tourism bureau has some pretty keen diversions—priming oneself for the immersive experience in a land where the naming-convention harkens back to Nature and mythology, aside from promoting the typical vacation. I like how their Finngenerator dubbed me Sampo—a lucky artefact forged by Seppo Ilmarinen (the eternal blacksmith, like the Greek analogue Hephaestus—Vulcan) that could grant its owner any wish, like the concept of Cornucopia or the Holy Grail, while the configuration remains a speculative mystery. What would your Finnish monicker be?