Sunday, January 14, 2007

Spill Over


jackson 5
Originally uploaded by Donostihot.
Today is a good day. Finished a decent Finnish collection of short stories and finally plunged into Kjell Westö's ode to Helsinki, his Finlandia literature prize winner novel Missä kuljimme kerran. Only read 60 pages by now but loving it already. The way he describes Helsinki in the beginning of 1900s is thrilling as he writes about the district where I used to live. Originally written in Swedish but the translation is also very good.

The biggest reason for joy today is www.pandora.com. It is a product of the Music Genome Project and basically a free on-demand radio. You put in an artist and it plays - FOR FREE - music of similar kind. So you put in an artist you like and you are able to find great new artists you will probably like. My artist of today has been Jackson 5 so it is a Motown day with The Temptations and so forth. The only thing on the site is that you need to register with a US zip code but with some innovativity that can be overcome. Just think of Brandon Walsh, as my friend Bettina kindly advised.

The other reason for joy is that I have discovered great cartoon blogs from Finland. I keep checking Hilloa kansalle and Jupu daily. They are fantastic, especially Hilloa kansalle which is done by a young guy presumably doing his non-military service. It is very straight-forward which I find thrilling.

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