Personal update: moving and a trip to Switzerland

This past month has been very busy for me. I found a new apartment and had to plan my moving in a bit of a haste.

Slowly, the apartment is starting to look like a home. It has taken this long because straight after the moving I caught some nasty virus and spent a week lying in bed with a fever and a sore throat. 

And naturally it has been rather busy at work too, so that too has been a bit stressful, especially since after the fever I got a nasty cough and it is rather disturbing if you are organizing events and so on. Trying not to cough hysterically while another person is giving a speech is awful!

A grown-up playing games

My vacation started two days ago and this weekend I am off to play in a sci-fi LARP. It is great to go to a game like that but I have to say that the way it has been organized and how the information has been given to us players, it has bee rather stressful too. 

My character is a guard in a futuristic prison, so it will be an interesting and quite probably a very intense game!

A vacation in Switzerland

After the LARP I am off to Switzerland. I've wanted to go and see the HR Giger Museum for a long time and now I an finally getting there! This museum is situated in Gruyères, a medieval city an hour and a half's drive from Geneva. This shall be the first time I am going to drive a car in a foreign country so that shall be very exciting!

Another place I and my travel companion would love to visit is Villa Diodati, the villa that was rented by Lord Byron in 1816. During that summer a woman who would be known as Mary Shelley wrote the first draft of Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus and Byron's doctor friend John Polidori was inspired to write the first modern vampire story The Vampyre. 

In the photo you can see an art book about Giger and my copy of Polidori's short novel. I could not find my copy of Frankenstein for this group photo. Moving sucks!

Health things

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had eye surgery recently. The operation was easy and the recovering has been great so I am very happy and excited. 

Though, due to the operation my eyes are very sensitive for sunlight and at the moment I seem to have misplaced both of my sunglasses. It is rather annoying because I can't go out of my apartment without them. 

Gothic Art in Spotlight: grotesque installations

I haven't posted for a while because this month has been very busy for me. I am going to move to a new apartment by the end of the month and today I am going to get my eyes operated. In the future I shan't be needing glasses to be able to see things around me! Obviously, I am rather excited (and agitated) about it. Hopefully everything goes alright! But now, to art:

A week ago I visited Tampere, my old university city, and spent one afternoon looking art. I encountered the grotesque installations and sculptures at an art gallery called Galleria Saskia. The exhibition is free, open daily and you can see it until the end of this month. 

The exhibition features two Finnish artists, Heli Ryhänen and Anne Meskanen-Barman. These both ladies have made a substantial career and the all the sculptures in the exhibition give the viewer an uncanny feeling.

Regardless of the whole exhibition being intriguing, I shall concentrate on only one installation by Meskanen-Barman: High Tea (2017). The installation consists of a table with food and teacups on it, an armchair and a lamp. When one enters the room, it looks quite harmless. But as one walks nearer, one sees that the high tea is not that delicious-looking.

The interpretation of this work is ambiguous. Therefore, it works as a reflector for the viewer. How do we react when a face is poking out from a sophisticated teacup? 

The faces in the teacups resemble the way one sees one's reflection of a teacup when one is about to have a sip. On the other hand, one seldom looks that agonized when one is enjoying high tea...

And how about those delicious little cakes? If one looks closely, one notices that the surface looks like a human nipple. How to interpret that? Is the installation trying to raise conversation about how in our culture sweet treats and cakes are often used as a metaphor for sexual passion or courting? Or are they there for the sake of shocking people?

What are your interpretations of this work?

Peculiar Easter tradition of witches

In March, Goth Gardener announced a Baskets & Caskets competition. To participate, one needs to make a post according to the theme Goth Easter. Now, I don't believe this post fits the given topic but nevertheless Goth Gardener inspired me to write this post. :)

This post is once again about the odd traits of the Finns. Previously I've featured Nuuttipukki (the creepy Santa Claus) and fortunetelling traditions.

On Easter, we have a tradition that is very similar to the trick-or-treating on Halloween. It's called 'virpominen'. In short, children dress as witches or Easter bunnies and go around the neighborhood in order to get candy. BUT: they are not like evil spirits on Halloween who threat people with tricks.

Instead it is more like a mutually beneficial transaction. The kids collect and decorate sticks of pussy willow and will use them to cast spells of good luck for the neighbors. After the spell the kids will give the decorated willow to the neighbor and as a payment the kids will receive some candy.

Since I was super fascinated by witches as a kid (and still am), I was as excited about Easter as I was about Christmas. I could dress as a witch myself, it was like heaven! To clarify my behavior, I want to point out that during my childhood Halloween was not a big thing (it is still a very minor holiday here in Finland).

Here is a photo from my childhood. Since Finland is so up North, we used to have winter weather on Easter (at least during the 90's, with the climate change it is sort of a spring nowadays). So, us kids used to have to dress our witch garments over our winter coats. Nevertheless, it was always super fun!

In the photo you'll see the most fashionable gear an Easter witch could have: a black paper board hat and a broom. The broom was made by my father and I had tied some scarfs around my waist to get the proper witch look. The witch's familiar is also appearing in the photo (aka my pet dog).

The traditions behind virpominen

This tradition has roots both in the Orthodox traditions and in the old customs Finns had before Christianity arrived. I am not an expert on these traditions and beliefs, but here is how I've understood the historical roots of this tradition.

Pussy willows are not just a Finnish thing, in Eastern European countries many people use pussy willow in their rites on Palm Sunday. Palms do not grow here in the North, so people needed to substitute them with some other plant. I'm not sure if this is something people still do, but in the old days a priest blessed the willow sticks and then children took them home, decorated them, and then used the willows to bless their immediate family.

Willows made by the kids next door.

There is also another Christian belief related to virpominen. In the Nordic countries, people believed that during the days between the Good Friday and Easter Sunday the protecting powers of God were, well, diminished. Therefore people believed that evil witches were roaming around the countryside and causing misfortune to people. To prevent this, people did all sorts of protection spells that resemble the idea behind virpominen.

So, that was the Christian part of the tradition of virpominen. I am guessing that the pagan roots of the Finns twisted it a bit and that is why the kids dress as witches for it. In the old times, witches, witch doctors and shamans were appreciated members of the community. I guess that's why there are also good witches who now cast spells of good luck.

I've not heard that other countries would have this tradition of virpominen. If you have, please comment on this post!

I hope you enjoyed this little piece of information and do check out what people contributed to Goth Gardener's competition!

Goth Tourist in Glasgow

On my little holiday in Glasgow, I indulged myself by visiting various art museums. But, not all darkly inclined people are such art museum freaks as me, so I am going to feature just four sights that are rather gothy and are available all year around. All of these also happen to be free of charge.

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

The Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum are an extensive collection of art, natural science, and history. The exhibit space is filled with paintings, statues, taxidermy animals, armors and what not.

My personal favourite of the artworks was this distressed Harpy by Mary Pownall (1902). The title of the work is The Harpy Celaeno. It was almost impossible to take a photo of the statue, for some reason my phone's camera refused to focus on it. Spooky.

The harpy is groping her chest, her claws bite into her own skin, and her face expression implicates sorrow and pain. Harpies are usually depicted without hands and often in groups, so this is an unusual sculpture. It is much more human than is customary.

From 1st of April till 1st of October 2017 they feature an exhibition of superheros and comics. It looks very interesting but unfortunately I did not get to see it.

Glasgow University & the Hunterian Museum

Magnificent Gothic architecture of the University is worth checking out, and so is the Hunterian Museum inside it. The museum is named after William Hunter (1718–1783), who was a former student of the University and a keen collector of all things marvelous. His collection was the base for the museum. Collection ranges from the artifacts of Ancient Rome to Physics inventions.

The most macabre part of the collection is the Anatomical and Pathological Collection. Many of the samples are human but some are disfigured animals with more heads and feet than is usual.

The Glasgow Botanical Gardens

Glasgow Botanic Gardens are a marvelous place but for goths and other macabre folk the Botanic Gardens offer a whole room dedicated to killer plants. These plants are carnivores and on my visit I learned that there are 5 different method categories for the plants to trap their pray. One of them being 'lobster pot traps which use inward and downward pointing hairs to force pray to move towards a digestive organ'.

I doubt these particular carnivorous plants in the photo use that method of 'lobster pot traps' but they sure are beautiful. The other rooms of the hothouses were very nice too.

Glasgow Necropolis

Last but not least, the Glasgow Necropolis. It is a Victorian garden cemetery and there are many beautiful and ornamental gravestones and memorials. The Friends of Glasgow Necropolis organize guided tours and it is a good idea to participate one if possible. The Friends of Glasgow guides give depth to your visit, because they can tell about the history of the graves and the cemetery.

If your visit doesn't match with the tour program, another thing I can recommend is to buy a book they've published: The Glasgow Necropolis After lives – Tales of Interments by Ruth Johnston. It costs £ 8 plus delivery but it does make your visit way better. Me and my friend had that book with us when we went on our visit and it was marvelous.

We started on the recommended route up the hill and every time we saw an interesting gravestone, we searched its photo from Johnston's book. The book includes 150 most interesting graves and Johnston has collected all sorts of facts about the artwork, the lives of the people who are buried there, and so forth.

I hope these tips will be helpful for another goth tourist in Glasgow!

Goth Tourist in Glasgow and Edinburgh

Soon, I will hop on a plane and fly to Glasgow. A dear friend of mine lives there and I am going to visit her on my holiday. We plan to visit Edinburgh together and go see something goths will find interesting: Surgeons' Hall Museums.

There are two museums and one collection:

• the History of Surgery Museum
• the Dental Collection
• the Wohl Pathology Museum

I am just dying to see them all. Lame pun intended.

Me and my friend are also planning to visit the Necropolis in Glasgow. Sarah from Tales From A Geordie Goth visited it quite recently. Sarah was super nice and gave me some more tips on her post about places to see!

Stay tuned for my travel posts!

Gothic home decor: towels and a hot water bottle

I am currently making two DIY posts and one Creepy Reads Review, but I haven't finished any of them yet (not the doing-myself-part nor reading the novel).

I want to prevent a long hiatus on this blog so I'd like to feature some textiles I bought some time ago.

On a trip to Tallinn, Estonia, I bought these lovely kitchen towels. They are hand printed. They belong to the Kitchen Zoo collection by Anu Kaelussoo Design.

I got those from one of the small designer shops near the old town of Tallinn. It is a lovely city to visit and there is a lot to see!

I've also bought towels for humans, not just for dishes. These are made by Jokipiin pellava, a Finnish company that produces quality linens with the smallest possible ecological footprint they can achieve. In the first photo is actually a kitchen towel but I use it as a hand towel.

I really love that decorative pattern. I bought the completely black version, and it is so dark that you can only see the pattern when the light shines from a certain angle.

These next ones are larger towels (90 x 150 cm or 35 x 59 inches) and I really am pleased with them. They absorb moisture very efficiently and they are tiny when packed. Those qualities are very handy when one goes to the gym.

I myself hate dragging a huge bag, so it is very important for me that my towel doesn't take much room in my gym bag. This roll is about 15 centimeters (7 inches) long. And that pinstripe pattern is goth-y in a subtle way.

That band around it is elastic and is stitched on the towel, so you can never loose it.

Last but not lest, something I got today: a hot water bottle from Day Shop, a cute boutique on the Boulevard in Helsinki.

I adore that cute little skull. Hopefully that fella will keep my feet warm during the remaining winter months.

That's all for now, I hope you liked this little peek into my linen closet!

Personal update and a review of Demeter's perfumes

The "How are you?" -part 

This Autumn was awfully busy for me. I had 4 posts planned but did not have time or energy to actually write them. Is it just me, or do people in general have very hectic lives in October and in November? I feel like every year my Autumn is so busy I do not really have time to enjoy it.

Partly the reason for the recent silence in this blog is that about every Autumn I get an awful flu and one or more sinus infections. It's hard to try to write witty posts if your head is full of snot. :)

The Autumn leaves just before the first snow.

I had a birthday a week ago but did not have time to plan a party to celebrate it. I have this feeling that for the past 7 years I've been so busy in November that I haven't really had time to celebrate my birthday properly. Year 2014 being an exception, because that year I managed to have the werewolf themed party.

Even though I have not written this blog for a while, I did manage to participate into a couple of projects that involved writing. I wrote a scientific article about a French short story L'insecte by Claire Castillon. It was published in a web magazine Metalepsis by the Literature students from University of Tampere. The magazine is in Finnish. I also started to write more fiction myself and I noticed I enjoy it very much.

Demeter Fragrance Review

A couple of months ago I ordered some perfumes and colognes from the Demeter Fragrance Library. I was intrigued by their product called The Funeral Home and the scent series inspired by Elvira. Of the Elviras I decided to order Zombie. They also had Vampire but the description suggested it would be much sweeter than the Zombie, and I do not like to wear very sweet scents myself.

A photo of me without any real reason. 

Demeter has a vast scent library and the idea is that the user will make their own cocktail of two or more scents. The scents are layered on the skin and thus one can create a unique personal cologne/perfume. Unlike most of the products, the Elvira perfumes are ready-made and they include several ingredients.

I did not order just two products. I also got several ingredients from the scent library. They were: mahogany, licorice, snow, thunderstorm, sunshine and riding crop. I also got another ready-made cologne that was inspired by New Zealand.

Testing perfumes and l'eau de toilettes is tricky because
a) a scent will smell a bit different on different people and
b) one gets used to the smell of perfume on their skin and will not necessarily notice it after a couple of hours. Hence it is not easy to actually know, what the final scent will be.

For me another problem was that I've had a common cold for almost two months now, and that effects the way I can smell things.

My first impressions of the Elvira's Zombie

It smells nice but not as earthy as I thought it would be. I imagined a zombie fragrance to be a bit more edgy. It is sweeter than I imagined but not too sweet for me. It has lovely, slightly spicy undertones and I use it on casual events and at work.

My first impression of the Funeral Home

It smells exactly like the name suggests: white flowers like lilies and a hint of mahogany and oriental carpet. In that sense, it is a great product. Unfortunately it is a tad too floral for me on its own so I have to try to mix some heavier undertones to it. It already has some mahogany in it, so I just add some more when I use it.

Final conclusions

In general, the scents are lovely and/or intriguing and none of them were a disappointment to me. I feel that the scents do not change radically nor disappear after an hour, which is great.

What I really like is that when one sprays the perfume, it gives just a small doze. This way it is easier to use the correct amount. It's awful when people have huge clouds of smell surrounding them. You are not supposed to smell another persons perfume from the distance of 2 meters!

All in all, I can happily recommend the products of Demeter Fragrance Library. 

Identity crisis of a former literature student

Warning: This is going to be more of a personal post.

I graduated last June (I'm a Master of Arts, baby!) and have been super lucky to find a job matching  my education, at least for the end of the year.

This whole thing is rather odd because for the past six years, a big and important part of my identity has been 'a literature student' and now I no longer am a literature student. I still read a lot of literature and scientific research on literature but I no longer live in the city of my former University and no longer participate to any courses.

Me on a very physical wooden elephant, symbolically looking to the future.

In a way I am excited and happy of my new life and all the things that have filled it but in a way I really miss the academic life. The courses and the intense discussions among staff and students, the sensation when I understood something vital or groundbreaking, the butterflies in the stomach when I handed in my Thesis. But I also miss the small and often quite physical things, like the stairs at the University's Main Library. The smell in the corridors of our Department. The voice of my French teacher.

I guess writing this is a sort of a rite of moving on.

Goth Gardener recently wrote a post about how she is going back to graduate school in order to get another degree. When I read it my heart filled with excitement for my friend but also with longing for the academic atmosphere. Goth Gardener's description of the campus area is great, by the way! My University was not that goth-y or romantic. Goth Gardener's post made me think, how much I really miss being a student. I pondered about it and came to the conclusion that I do not yearn to be a student again but I yearn to learn new things and to have intellectual discussions about literature. I'm pretty confident those things can be arranged even in my current life situation.

Me and my Uni friends in a mirror hall.

Even though student life is now part of the past, the friends from those times will stay. Just last weekend me and some of my closest friends from the Uni went to the amusement park Linnanmäki (name means roughly 'a hill with a castle on top of it'). No-one knows where all of us end up in the future but it does feel like we shall remain good friends for the rest of our lives.

Gothic Art in Spotlight: Ghosts and creepy sculptures

The road trip in July took me to the city of Joutsa in Central Finland. There resides the Art Center Haihatus (could be translated as a daydream or a fanciful idea). It is an artist run art center and they hold every summer a grand exhibition. Artists can also apply for residency in Haihatus.

The exhibition area consists of three buildings and their garden, and a field area next to them. The place was filled with all kinds of works but mostly installations or statues, like this dragon like creature:

The three buildings have names, Haihatus, Utopia, and Fantasia. In Utopia was the main exhibition, or at least I felt like it. This skeleton is a small detail (it is the size of a two-year-old) of an installation that filled one room. I'm not sure if it is done with papier-mâché or is it some sort of clay.

In the attic was a grand installation by Jouko Korkeasaari. The name of the work is "Ett spök, spöket, spök" which is oddly almost Swedish. It almost says "A ghost, the ghost, ghosts", like in a dictionary but it is spelled wrong. I am pretty sure that is the point, because these creatures looming between hanging sheets are almost like ghosts, but there is something wrong in them.

I think the one above seems to be afraid of the viewer. Usually ghosts are supposed to be the scary ones.

This too seems like it is reserved. In the back of the room was a window open, so the sheets moved a bit in the breeze. Very spooky!

In the building called Fantasia we found the most bleak or grim works. The rooms were very dark, there were practically no lights and I guess I missed some information board or something because I could not find information about who made these works. Nor have I any idea what the titles of the artworks are.

This here is some sort of a mummified troll. Not real, of course. The text says "Please do not feed the trolls". Underneath was placed a typewriter, perhaps as a symbol for making up stories and fairy tales.

This here is a very old basin for bathing little children. The legs are from an old table and the basin is filled with bones. Clearly bones of a quite large creature.

No idea what is the point of this but it is cute in some very odd way. The feet have little paws so it sort of looks like a very abstract version of a pet.

I hope you found these works interesting! Next time I'll be back with another Creepy Reads Review.

Gothic Art in Spotlight: The Black Paintings of Goya and a trip to Madrid

I spent the last full week of May in Madrid, as a sort of a summer holiday because I am going to be working the whole summer (of which I am glad!). In my previous blog post I already mentioned that this spring would be very busy for me and I was not wrong. I have finished my studies and before I traveled to Madrid, the capital of Spain, I had emptied and cleaned my apartment in Tampere, the city where my (soon to be ex-)University is. I returned from Madrid  two days before my new work began and for the past week I've been still very busy, learning the new job.

The view from the hotel room in Madrid

In Madrid I visited many amazing art museums and saw many great paintings and statues by famous and not so famous artists. The works were beautiful or thought-provoking but not something that was hitting that "goth spot", if you know what I mean. :) The most goth paintings I saw on my trip would be Francisco de Goya's "Black Paintings". I saw most of them at the Museo del Prado, the distinguished art museum with the largest collections in Madrid. They had a whole room full of Goya's grim and ominous paintings.

The Black Paintings are paintings Goya (1746–1828) made between 1819 and 1823. He used much darker colors and shades compared to his earlier works and most importantly, the paintings depicted sinister and horrifying things. This is a painting called "Saturn eating his son" and the name is quite explicit. Saturn, the father of Zeus and other gods of Ancient Greece, is devouring his own son because there was a prophecy that one of Saturn's own children would kill him. So he would eat them all. This is a striking and obscene painting.

Source

I must admit that I've never been a fan of Goya and the Black Paintings do not make my heart shiver nor do they put me into awe. The subjects of the Black Paintings are interesting but something in Goya's style just isn't suitable for me. Goya also made some paintings of witches and their grim rites in the end of the 18th century. Their colors are lighter but subjects are not. In this painting a group of witches are having a feast with the incarnation of the devil or another demon and they are offering dead or ghoulish children to him. Or at least that is how I interpret this scene.

Source

These paintings could easily delight and interest goths. The macabre and twisted elements are fairly visible and they have a sort of a timeless vibe in them, with the mythical themes and folklore-ish subjects.

As a side note: Museo del Prado is now having an exhibition of Hieronymous Bosch and his works and it looks like it is amazing. Alas, I could not see it because I had to return to Finland before the exhibition opened. The exhibition is the biggest exhibition of Bosch this year. If you happen to be in Madrid in near future, that Bosch exhibition is definitely worth checking out!

Personal update and some uncanny art

Once again a month has passed by. I have been working on my thesis relentlessly and I am happy to say that in two weeks it shall be finished and I will graduate this semester! That will mean that I have more time to write this blog. ^__^ Another thing that has been preoccupying my free time for the past couple of months is the search for an apartment. In the beginning of June I start working in a different city and need to find a place to live. I am really excited because a new chapter is beginning in my life.

For the past couple of months I have visited several art exhibitions but they have not often suited the themes of this blog a.k.a. the artworks I've seen have not been extremely "goth" nor have they represented darker aesthetics. This installation is something I would like to feature. I think it is rather uncanny.

This installation was made by Finnish artist Mia Hamari. Another work of hers was featured in this post in January. The name of this work is "Manual, Siberia, Jester, Party". It is made of two figures. A more human-like creature and an animal with a human face. Hamari draws inspiration from dreams and the subconscious. Her works often feature a human-animal metamorphosis. In this work there are also mechanical/clockwork aspects to them, since the other one has wheels instead of back limbs.

This work was exhibited at the Gallen-Kallela Museum. Gallen-Kallela is one of our national artists and the museum is his old home turned into an exhibition place. There are changing exhibitions and this work of Mia Hamari can be seen till the end of May 2016.

As you can see, this artwork is made of mixed materials, among them bronze, wood and parts of animals. The animals Hamari uses in her art have died in accidents. She has also used human parts like hair and eyelashes. Presumably they are of her own or donated to her.

This smaller statue is the size of a small terrier or another dog. What I really like about this installation is that the expressions on both the creatures' faces are a bit ambiguous, one can easily interpret several different feelings. This way the work can express different feelings and atmospheres, depending of the viewer. The small one is looking up and the taller one has closed its eyes. Though the small one has no pupils in its eyes so nobody knows if it can even see. Very uncanny.

I hope you liked this installation of Mia Hamari!

Creepy Reads Review: Textual demons and unnatural grotesqueness

Hello there!

I was not suppose to go a whole month without writing anything but unfortunately for the last month I've been extremely busy with my studies. So, I decided to feature two books I've been reading lately, that are related to my Master's Thesis. It's not as if I have any other life these days.

The other one of the books is the doctoral thesis of Ilkka Mäyrä named Demonic texts and textual demons: the demonic tradition, the self, and popular fiction (1999), and the other one is a collection of scientific papers, The grotesque and the unnatural (2011), edited by Markku Salmela and Jarkko Toikkanen.

As I've mentioned before, I am writing my thesis about grotesque in 21st century, in a French collection of short stories. In my thesis I construct a theory about what grotesque is nowadays and apply my hypothesis on the mentioned collection of short stories. Demonic texts and textual demons and The grotesque and the unnatural have been useful building blocks for me while I've pondered about the essence of contemporary grotesque.

The contributors of the collection of papers are researchers of literature and cultural studies who all find grotesque intriguing. Many of them emphasize how the way something is narrated or viewed creates the grotesque effect. This means that a human presence and participation is vital for something to be grotesque.

The papers of The grotesque and the unnatural are not purely about theory but instead many of them combine theories with analyses on novels or other products of culture and civilization. For instance, Mathilde Régent, who studied at Université Paris Diderot, contributed a paper about the grotesque in French medical discourse in the 16th century.

I of course have read this collection from the viewpoint of my own thesis but I believe for others too this could be an interesting read.

Ilkka Mäyrä's doctoral thesis is about demons in Western culture. It can be read online here, if my short introduction of it gets you interested.

In his thesis Mäyrä investigates what different roles demons have had and what things we consider demonic. He constructs theories and then applies them in case studies: among them The Exorcist and Ira Levin's novel Rosemary's baby. Mäyrä's work is both informative and entertaining. His writing flows easily and you do not have to be a literature student to understand it.

A great portion of Mäyrä's thesis is about how demonic features are linked to the self. He points out how in Ancient Greece people would explain the odd behavior of a human with daemons possessing him/her, and how in Freud's psychoanalysis the id (the unconscious part of the individual) has many demonic qualities. Needless to say that the way Mäyrä contemplates on the whole relation between "demon" and "human" has an essential role in my own thesis.

I can sincerely recommend both these books. I hope you too found this post of mine entertaining / interesting! :)

Short announcement: This spring will be very busy for me, I plan to finish my master's thesis in the beginning of May, so I shall be writing it 24/7 for the next two months. I do try to update my blog and read other people's blogs but I am not going to take any stress about it. Have a lovely March, and thank you for reading!

Creepy Reads Review: Addams Family - an Evilution

This volume has sat on my bookshelf for about two years and for some odd reason I have not featured it here on my blog. The Addams Family - an Evilution is a kind of an entertaining research on Chad Addams' creation, the Addams Family and how its characters evolved over time.

For me, the first Addams Family experience was the movies made in the 90's. After that, the old black and white TV-show. And finally I saw this book in an online shop and had the change to really read some of the original comics. This reversed order is quite understandable when regarding the fact that not the comics nor the old TV series were available at the period of time and the geographical place of my childhood. The point of this personal rambling is that the movies had shaped the way I saw the characters of Addams Family and I was surprised how different some of them are in the comics.

The Thing has changed completely from the comics and it is not even sure if the lurking little humanoid of the comics was the Thing. The old TV series made it to be a hand and I must say it is a delightful character. The Thing of the comics is seen on the photo of the front cover, it is spying the family from the window. In many of the comics there is this small creature lurking and watching, always outside of the family. In one single comic the Thing is something else than an observer: it is seen as a mere hand changing a vinyl on the family's gramophone. It is most likely this comic that inspired the character for the TV show.

The children too are relatively different and their way of interacting with each other has changed a lot in different media. In the comics Wednesday Addams is a sorrowful, quite timid child who is more like a sidekick for her brother in many pranks. This is the most astonishing difference for me and I must say I do think it is in a way improvement that Wednesday is much more livelier in the TV show and the character of the movies was a strong female role model for many a young girl.

"Well, don't come whining to me. Go tell him you'll poison him right back."

I believe though, that if Wednesday had been more livelier and stronger character in the comics, it would not have worked as well. The dynamics of the family members would have changed and it would have required alterations to the other characters too.

Morticia Addams of the movies is much more similar with the comics' Morticia. Her character in the TV series is much more warm and kooky. I do not think this is a bad thing, it is merely an observation. I love all the incarnations of Morticia.

What I really like about The Addams Family - an Evilution is that it has the comics in it but also a culture and literature analysis on the comics and it ties them to the social environment and the historical era they were created in. I can warmly recommend reading the old comics of Chad Addams and also reading this particular collection with cultural analysis on it too.

Picturesque city of Tampere

Lady Nancy from Retro Electric mentioned in a comment, that I should show more photos of the aesthetic sides of my hometown. I live in Tampere, Finland, the population is about 300 000 and it is the largest inland city in the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland). Tampere is an old manufacturing town and sometimes people call it the Manchester of Finland.

These two photos are from the older area of the city center of Tampere.

The houses next door to my flat. Unfortunately the building I live in is not this photogenic.

The eastern orthodox church. I walk past it every time I go to the university. Slightly off-topic: I have made progress with my master's thesis and things are looking good!

I would probably kill for getting to live in that green house, preferably in the tower.

This red and white building is a theater. In the upper window you can just see the huge chandelier they have.

A couple of days ago we had our first snow. Alas, it did not stay long but it made everything much prettier. The city of Tampere is divided by a river. It is beautiful with a park area on both sides.

The final photo is from the old factory, which nowadays has a shopping center, bars and bistros, museums and other facilities for culture, and a cinema.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked the photos!

A tiny bit late Halloween post

It seems like many bloggers had a lovely Halloween and I too had a relatively good one. I've been buried under my studies (no change there) but I did manage to go to my student association's Halloween party. Since the common stereotype is that every day is Halloween for goths, it is not a big deal that I am a bit late with my post.

Me and my friend decided to dress with a mutual theme and we chose this old computer game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Nobody recognized us, of course, but we had a really good time.  We dressed as the two personalities of a one vampire: Therese / Jeanette Voerman.

We bought some fangs from the local costume shop and the fangs were no good at all. They were cheap but unusable. The shop did not have more expensive ones, so we had to take what was available because we were horribly late with the whole costume idea. We decided it about 48 hours before the actual party. In the end we did not even use the fangs but that did not matter. :)

I used that metal nail file in the photo to make those fangs a bit smaller but they were still really impractically big. The glue thingy did not work or I did not have the patience to wait it to work. The instruction was a bit vague about how long one was supposed to wait with it.

Here is an original photo of the character Therese Voerman, as you can see, she has decided to wear glasses, though I'm pretty sure her eyesight as a vampire is exquisite. Easy to dress as, so I am not complaining!

Source

The much more useful product was moonlight white make-up, which worked really well, expect it dried up my face even though I had put a lot of moisturizer underneath. It looked good and that's what matters, right? :) Unfortunately the lighting was not good and hence it does not show well in the photos. Life's small annoyances, eh?

This beautiful scenery is from the centre of my home town. The city councilor or some other entity has decided to install lights above the river. The Autumn here is so beautiful.

Have a lovely November!