Re: Hiatus alert!

1

Lingonberry tart and reindeer. Here was good.

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2

Man, I can't wait till us mice can start playing.

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3

I mean, we'll sure miss you, b-wo!

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4

From Helsinki you can easily make a trip to Talinn (or, anachronistically, Revel). Make sure to check out all the Finns importing alcohol on the ferry ride back in order to get around Scandanavian liquor laws.

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5

If I were going to be in Finland, I would totally head on over to the Art Museum of Tampere to see Tove Jansson's drawings. Though I don't know how far that is from Helsinki. I believe I've also heard that Helsinki's public library has a wing devoted to Moomiana.

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6

Oh and: Have a good time! Learn some languages! Eat good food and fornicate with exotic European women!

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7

On the food front, when my parents came back from Helsinki, they raved about a popular dish involving white asparagus soup ladeled over smoked salmon.

And be sure to bring a sleep mask and earplugs. When they went in the summer, they said they had a hard time adjusting to the sun being up all of the time (and the birds starting to chirp at 3 AM).

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8

Come to think of it, with overnight trains you can get to most of central Europe from Berlin. I will not mention Prague but Krakow is awesome. I found the In Your Pocket guides very helpful a few years ago, though it looks like there are a lot more of them now, and maybe they've gone more heavily towards what big advertisers want them to say.

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9

Cranberry liqueur in Helsinki, too. And saunas every day, whether you need them or not. Nice market hall on the waterside around the corner from the two cathedrals. All the fish you can afford. The incredible twilight at 1am, and again 3-ish. Lordi live, maybe.

As for Berlin, I am told that the done thing is to invade Poland. Though results have been, historically speaking, mixed.

Berlin depends enormously on whether you've been before, what you're into and how long you can hang about. I'm up there for work every couple of months. Mail me if you want more details.

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10

I have no suggestions, having not yet been to either of those places, but have a wonderful trip and etc.

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11

In Helsinki I got the best haircut I've ever had.

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12

I've never been to Finland, but a friend of mine was, and he said he had more fun when he went to Estonia for a few days, because the Finns were unfriendly.

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13

Don't go! Wherever shall we go? Whatever shall we do? However shall we guard ourselves against egregious syntactical errors?

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14

When we went to Berlin we stayed at a hotel a block past Checkpoint Charlie into what was East German Berlin. A block or so the other way on the south-side of the street is an Italian cafe with the best service and friendliest staff we found anywhere outside of Münich.

Additionally, from the Brandenburger Tor you may see the Siegessäule victory column, be aware that this column is nowhere near as close as it looks, however, while tiring, the walk through the Tiergarten was beautiful and worthwhile. In hind-site, we wished we hadn't walked back to Potsdamer Platz. That was a long day with not a whole lot accomplished.

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15

Possible lack of internet access notwithstanding, I fully expect Berlin liveblogging telling us, and particularly me, what the cool stuff there is to do, as I may be going there in a few months.

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16

frankly, my dear, i doesn't give a damn.

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17

Doug, I tried emailing you but it bounced. Got a current address?

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18

That should be, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." I hope you'll do better tomorrow.

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19

Silvana: some stuff.

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20

Never been to either of those places, but I'll give some cheesey advice: do things you wouldn't do at home, even if they were there.

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21

It's not nice to refer to men as "things", w/d.

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22

Have a good time, Ben.

All I really know about Berlin is that West Berlin is pretty boring. The only things I remembering liking on that side of town was the reptile room in the zoo.

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23

"All I know" s/b "The only advice I can offer" and it's not really true. There was a cool little beach area right across the river from that golden-toned Soviet-era government building, and the big national art museum had a kick-ass collection of Dutch and Flemish stuff.

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24

As I mentioned before, Graz in Austria is home to both the residence of the Hapsburgs and the amazing Kunsthaus Graz. Though the last time Austria was considered within Berlin's environs was probably 1938.

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25

If you are even remotely interested in architecture, get a tour in and around Helsinki about that. They have some brilliant architects there!

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26

I have no travelling advice because, unlike Wolfson, I was denied the incredible research fellowship I was up for this summer. So instead of telling you all about Europe and how fucking great it is, I am here, in a cubicle, listening to fluorescent lights buzz for $13 an hour.

Are you sure you'll have no internetting? I don't believe that's possible, Ben. My guess is you'll sniff all that out within minutes and come cyber-running back to us.

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27

I'm sure I'll be able to go online now and again, but I don't anticipate spending a lot of time with my ass planted in front of a monitor.

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28

I find it's very difficult to read in that position.

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29

27: Flicker photos, though, right?

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30

I endorse 6. Possibly in combination with 29.

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31

(Wait, is 6 the most common sex act ATM?)

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32

Wolfson, if you do upload to Flickr, remember to feed the patriarchy. IYKWIM. AITTYD.

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33

How has nobody complained about my recommendation for eating Donder, Blitzen, et al? Are there no bleeding hearts left?

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34

They're much less sympathetic once you realize they're just caribou.

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35

I thought we were all supposed to be mad for the caribou, on behalf of ANWR, or something.

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36

We only care about the White Bears.

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37

We only care about the White Bears.

I told you not to think about them.

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38

Speaking of exotic ungulates, I had yak jerky last weekend. It tasted like you would expect yak to taste.

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39

yakky?

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40

Yup. How meat can taste like dung-matted fur smells, I'll never know.

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41

I've heard that horse meat tastes like horses smell.

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42

Well, if you smoked it over smoldering dung-matted fur, that might do it.

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43

41: Really? B/c horses smell kind of good. Though I have a hard time imagining eating horse meat.

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44

I've heard that architecture in Helsinki is worth checking out.

/groan

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45

IMO Architecture in Helsinki blows.

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46

Expand your horizons, B.

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47

Well, I'd try it if it were offered, I'm just saying, it's hard to imagine.

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48

Riga has great architecture (IMO, the old town and the Art Nouveau stuff), but may be too far out of your way.

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49

48: ensared!

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50

Or "ensnared." Whatever. Ben's leaving, anyway.

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51

go to the top of the Fernsehturm
(built by DDR; hopefully they took down the stupid football that was put on top of it for the world cup)

go to the art galleries in mitte, esp. oranienburgerstr. and augustinerstr.

go to the tadjikische teestube which is googlable

go to the giant former soviet park memorial entity, treptower park

ignore all the people who tell you you should try Currywurst, but do eat french fries with those little plastic forks sometime

that's the best i can do in a rush

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52

Ben, this might be quite useful. Architecture in Helsinki does blow. As for architecture in Helsinki, there is some nice Empire, Jugend and modern stuff here like the Senate Square with the Tuomiokirkko or maybe the hilarious crumbling marble and bad acoustics of the Finlandia Hall. If you are interested in contemporary art, the ARS 06 exhibit is on right now in Kiasma. You can use this to check out clubs, exhibits etc for any given day. That seems to be only in Finnish but shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

Sauna heated by a wood oven (puusauna) or directly by smoke (savusauna) followed by a swim in a lake is a fundamental Finnish experience and shouldn't be missed. I guess this can be arranged in the Helsinki region but many Finns have summer cottages in the countryside for just this kind of stuff. The traditional Finnish way to die, drowning while drunk and standing to take a leak in a rowing boat, is also readily available in the countryside.

Finns might appear surly and insular. Here the cranberry liqueur mentioned by Doug or a teen favorite from the nineties, salmiakkikossu, could be a big help. Just keep the Finns away from the rowing boats while using this strategy.

Away from Helsinki, there might be things worth seeing at least in Turku (the old capital of Finland), Tampere and Porvoo. If you have enough time, Tallinn might also be a good place to visit.

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53

You can get an architectural map of Helsinki in the Academic Bookstore in Keskuskatu/Pohjoisesplanadi. Rent a bike and get yourself away from the city centre to the green suburbs (Käpylä, Kulosaari, Vanhakaupunginlahti, Arabia, Tapiola). The historic Suomenlinna fortress islands in front of Helsinki are well worth a visit on a sunny day. As for food, I'd recommend fish (any kind) and Finnish berries. The northern climate makes berries very tasty. Sleep mask is strongly recommended if you want to sleep in the dark. The "night" (or rather luminous dusk) lasts for about 3 hours in Helsinki at the present.

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54

OT. The New Yorker reports that Uma Thurman's mother's first husband was Timothy Leary.

Winona Ryder's godfather was Timothy Leary.

We're one anecdote short of a trend.

The poor girls are both a bit defensive about this. Probably if Winona had been more willing to get in touch with her inner Leary, she wouldn't have all those problems. She needs my help, though she hasn't sunk quite to my level yet. Maybe another arrest will do it.

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55

IMO Architecture in Helsinki blows.

"blows" is deprecated.

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56

Aaron, harmonica player, at practice last night: "That chorus called for me to suck, but I blew, so it sucked."

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57

When's the actual performance of your live sex show then, Clownæsthesiologist?

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58

Also, I think you and Dr. Oops! would make quite a surgical team, IYKWIM.

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59

"A little song, a little dance, exploding nutsack in your pants."

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60

58 -- sorry, I've pledged my troth to Patch.

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61

"A little song, a little dance, exploding nutsack in your pants."

I hope that's not in your show, CA.

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62

I have been invited to a cat circus this evening.

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63

62: I saw Macbeth at Shakespeare in the Park last night, but I might trade that for a good cat circus.

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64

I can't decide if I'm going to go. 1) I haven't even contemplated packing, and I'm supposed to be moving tomorrow, and 2) it might make me sad.

I'm weird about animals. Overempathetic, I'd say.

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65

I know what you mean, silvana. Cats aren't particularly wired well, compared to say dogs, to perform tricks on demand. They get no joy from it, so everything is at best perfunctory and often very coerced-looking. I was roped into going to a circus with my nephews about a year or so ago and the lion/tiger trainer act was really sad-inducing.

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66

at best perfunctory and often very coerced-looking

Yeah, that's it, M/tch. It just seems like: damn, can't you leave the fucking cats alone?

Also, the fact that people will likely be laughing hysterically (I imagine it is meant to be funny) at the harrassment of the cats is additionally sad-making. I still might go though.

Once I saw a cat in a cat carrier on the bus, and it was meowing a lot, and no one was really standing by it so I couldn't tell who its owner was, and I (mistakenly) thought that it had no owner and was just left there and I started to fucking cry on the bus.

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67

damn, can't you leave the fucking cats alone?

But they make so much noise.

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68

With big cats, or little cats? I'm trying to imagine a circus with my cat, and the only events it would have would be:

1) Sleep
2) Purr
3) Destroy all humans.

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69

How did you like it, w/d? I saw it on Wednesday and was underwhelmed. Some good bits--but I wanted to throw things at the woman who played Lady M.

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70

In light of 65, I renounce 63. Also, I can't find any reviews of the show I saw, which I thought would have been reviewed by now. My review is: very interesting staging, the guy playing Banquo was good, Lady Macbeth wasn't as strong a presence on stage as I remember her being from when I read the play in high school, Liev Schrieber was good.

I've had this question since I read the play, but never pursued it: Would a reasonable contemporaneous Englishman really not think of a c-section as being "born," because the actual act of birthing is the baby coming through the birth canal and out the woman's hoo-hoo doesn't take place?

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71

I'm trying to imagine a circus with my cat

It isn't your cat's fault that you haven't taught it crowd-pleasing feats of derring-do. Get cracking, Cala.

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72

I hadn't seen 69, but I think I mostly answered it.

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73

I'm not sure, w/d, but I don't think so. I always read it as being a sort of hiding-in-plain sight pun or Delphic prophecy trading on an ambiguity. If you're careful about prophecies and read it completely literally, then you should think there's something up with 'born.' If you're Macbeth, you'll read it as confirmation of your own invincibility. (Kind of like the Witch King in LoTR.)

So my guess is that the audience would read it something like Macbeth did, and then when what's-his-face announces he was a C-section baby, they'd all groan appreciatively.

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74

the lion/tiger trainer act was really sad-inducing.

Oh man, the last time I went to the circus, the saddest thing of all was the elephant act. Deep down, I was kinda rooting for one of them to snap and go on a rampage.

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75

Not a strong presence? She murdered the scansion--plucked it from her lips and dashed its brains on the ground--and her flappy socialite reaction to Macbeth's seeing Banquo's ghost made the audience laugh, which I didn't even possible for that scene. Her femminess was a kind of interesting take on Lady M's gender trouble, but her performance was so craptacular that my vague interest in that aspect was overwhelmed by my desire to, well, throw things at her.

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76

I love Liev Schreiber. And I love Shakespeare in the Park. I'm psyched to see this production.

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77

But I won't be there until September! Waaah. (My understanding of what the weather will be like in Sept. also makes it extremely unlikely that I'll be biking anywhere.)

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78

Actually n/m, this puts it at not nearly as cold as I thought.

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79

There were a couple of times, not just then, where laughs came unexpectedly.

By not a strong presence, I guess I mean both that and the rather different point that I didn't enjoy her scenes nearly as much as I did others.

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80

Er, 77 was supposed to include this: "The tours are available from 23 June to 18 August in 2006." from here.

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81

Relentlessly positive, eh, Drymala?

Okay, I'll cop to loving Shakespeare in the Park. And smiling babies. And soapbubbles and ponies and apple pie. Shreiber is pretty great, too.

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82

Wolfson, September in New York is wonderful, weather-wise. You'll be able to bicycle much more comfortably then than you'd be able to do now.

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83

68: It's a cat circus with regular domestic cats. If it were big cats, I definitely wouldn't go see it. This is it.

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84

Wolfson, September in New York is wonderful, weather-wise.

And you're saying that Helsinki and New York are on the same latitude, or what? I don't even think that's true.

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85

Last point: the "Is this a dagger I see before me?" soliloquy was great. I just googled to make sure I wasn't getting this wrong, there's properly a "which" there, but I don't think he said that.

84: Or jokingly misunderstanding which comment you are replying to,

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86

Oh yeah, the elephants just break my heart. Although the saddest ones I've ever seen were the driven-insane-by-being-chained-to-a-wall-all-the-time ones in Shanghai's horrible zoo.

But speaking of circuses, have all the NY Mineshaft dwellers seen Calder's Circus at the Whitney? Man I love that thing.

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87

I so heart Calder in a bad way.

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88

Surprisingly, New York City's on about the same latitude as Rome.

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89

While you're here, wolfson, was some change recently made with the site to make comments windows jump to the front when they finish loading? 'Cause that's what they do now, and I hates it something fierce.

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90

Yeah, w/d, that was very cool. In general, the director's decision to use the weird sisters for stage business through the play resulted in interesting juxtapositions and effects. My puritanical side objected to the fatalism that decision invokes, but that's a question of preference and interpretation and my being a moralizing twerp.

And Wolfson, you should be bicycling in NY in September.

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