Luck and/or Happiness

Every Tuesday morning I wake up fat and ugly in the everyday way, and hungover. I usually take a bath.

"My husband has bought himself a Porsche for Christmas. We drove it to a supermarket and as we were leaving the parking lot the police stopped us. 'What?! What did I do?!' says my husband. 'Sorry, we just have to check if the car is not stolen.' From that I conclude that not many people go shopping with a Porsche." There was a long drive ahead of us and I tried to get the navigation going. It kept finding us two hundred kilometres to the East. We had a radio interview arranged in one city in the North and Z. was driving.

We sat in the bar, the two of us, the two Monday people who - this week, at least - upheld the motto of Tradition, Honour, Discipline. We talk about films, as we always do with K., and have trouble recalling just about any actor's name. We send text messages and make phone calls. "Stephen Fry!" "Adrian Brody!" The place is full of old men, I watch their receding hairlines. About half of them have more hair than I do. They drink beer, Czech potato rum from tiny cups, and smoke. A white dog and a black dog run around in small circles trying to sniff each other's buts. Blurred vision makes them look like jin and jang. "What do they think they are doing? How can Sparta do such a thing?" His voice is coarse, he is sturdy with a boxer's face. Not the guy anyone would want to argue with. In the past. Here everybody is old. "Five nul! This will hardly take them to the finals. But you are all fucking Slavia fans anyway." He gently touches the back of the hand of a fifty-year old belle with his crooked nose and kisses it. "Keira Knightley!" shouts out K., pronouncing Knightley as 'knittley'. Yes. Absolutely. It is the play off season and we all know that.

"When we were in Florida at Christmas and drove down to Key West - such a beautiful ride, nothing but the ocean! - we chanced upon a street carnival that was so relaxed even by the American standards." Finally the satellite located us and a male voice interrupted Z., saying "toll" rather gravely. Arrival time was the latest possible. It was raining and trucks were carrying large amounts of bricks for somebody to live in. "The theme was 'pirates'. There were topless women in pirate costumes driving around and one man was completely naked except for a parrot fixed to his genitals!" We were about to do an interview about clowning and I realised I forgot my nose.

Floating around me in the bath tub are a hippo, a frog, a duck and an octopuss. Little J. put them in for me and insists I stop writing and play with them. The duck has a black beak. "Why?" asks J. "From a candle," I explain. We used the animals at one of our crazy waiters gigs. People lit their candles in nutshells and sent them afloat in a big bowel of water - who stays home, who travels far. We added to this Christmas tradition the four animals. The duck was luck, the frog was money, the hippo was sex and the octopuss was the economic crisis. At that time people found it funny. Now it was me sitting in the big bowl filled with water, with the four animals swimming around me like derailed planets.

We arrived on time. "I try to model my psychological profile on cars," says Z. "When I drive my husband's car, it is fast but it is not me, only a part of me. This car is much more like me." She goes off to pay for the parking and I stuff the navigation into the glove compartment. It is so small I bearly manage to close it. As soon as we leave it will probably burst open and release all its valuables into full view. I make sure that I take the hand puppet of a duck with realistic duck sounds with me. It will be the third guest in the studio, ready to respond to the most difficult questions.

I climb out of the bath tub - still fat and ugly in the everyday way, but no hangover any more. J. looks at me and laughs. "You know why I am laughing?" she asks in her baby voice. The hippo, the duck, the frog and the octopuss quickly take the emptied space. "Because you have such a big one." "No, I don't." "Yes you do. You have a huge belly button."

Small Diktonius translation

Here is a sample of Finnish poet Elmer Diktonius(1896-1961). He was part Finland´s Swedish speaking minority. Well, Swedish is our second official language but still its minority.

One of Diktonius´s most interesting books is his first. It is called Min dikt(1921); my poetry, written when he was only 25. It´s an collection of aforisms and short verses, mostly about art which is considered to by crucial organ of life by Elmer Diktonius.

Min dikt, Runoni in Finnish, is not very famous book among fins. I don’t know many people who have read it. It was written shortly after civil war which was won by whites. This time is kind of a blurry in Finnish history and not much mentioned. Or that’s how I feel about it. It is called a war of brother against brother. Elmer Diktonius was more to the red side and like mentioned Swedish speaking and writing. So he was definitely in marginal. Min dikt is tough and demanding words about how art should and could be. In 1920´s Finland was farming/forester country. Not the best crowd for Diktonius I suppouse. Worst part was that he co-wrote Min Dikt with one notorious Otto-Wille Kuusinen(1881-1964), Finnish red/leftist person who is not much mentioned among the great men of Finnish history.

But I love Diktonius´s thoughts. They are like fists. As an exercise I try to translate randomly opened page in to English. This can also be taken as a Finnish language lesson!

Page 82 from Elmer Diktonius: Runoni, Translated from Swedish by Arvo Turtiainen and to English by yours truly

Kukaan ei pysty luomaan

uudestiluominen on sitä mitä me teemme.

Ei ole olemassa mitään mitä ei voida lyödä maahan

ei mitään mitä ei voi uudesti luoda – se on suurta

Onko taiteilijan odotettava aikaansa?

Eikö ole oikeampaa sanoa että hänen on odotettava oman

aikansa ihmisiä.

Taiteilijat, jotka elävät niin pitkällä aikaansa edellä

etteivät kuule läheistensä ja miljoonien muiden

ihmisolentojen huutoa tästä helvetistä, eivät ole

ansainneet elämäänsä.

/

Nobody can create.

Re-creation is what we do.

There is nothing that cannot be struck down

there is nothing that cannot be re-created – That is great.

Must artist wait for his time?

Isn´t it more right to put it this way, that he has to wait for

people of his time.

Artists, who live so far ahead from their time

that they cannot hear the scream of their closest ones and of millions of other

human beings from this hell,

have not deserved their lives

Page 83

Uusi taideteoksessa ei estä sen ymmärtämistä vaan vanha

ihmisissä.

Ostamme taidetta elämällä niin että ymmärrämme sitä

Mutta onhan persoonallisuuksia joita on kutsuttava

suuriksi vaikka heiltä puuttuukin taiteen taju.

On toki.

Samaten kuin suurmiehiä jotka ovat mykkiä, sokeita tai

kuuroja.

Haava joka kirveltää:

että useimmat radikaaleista taiteilijoista ovat

konservatiiveja suhteessa ajan suuriin kysymyksiin;

että useimmat ajan suurissa kysymyksissä radikaalit

ovat konservatiiveja suhteessa taiteeseen.

/

New in artwork does not prevent its understanding but the old in

people.

We buy art by living so that we understand it.

But there are personalities who are to be called

great even if they lack the sense of art.

Yes, indeed there is.

In the same sense there are great men who are mute, blind or

deaf.

The wound that smarts:

that most of the radical artists are

conservatives in relation to the big questions of our times;

that most of those who are radical to big questions of our times

are conservatives in relation to art.