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So far in Germany this summer, for those keeping score… I’ve taken 7 different trains,3 were on time and 4 late.One left from a completely different station (and didn’t send me that change of station on the app, I only found out when I arrived at the station and looked at the departure board).
On a positive side,I have to say that the people working at the DB stations are very helpful, efficient and all speak English.. unlike in Italy!
In the news today: Finns use less money on their summer vacations than in previous years, as the general state of economy is poorer. A sum of “a bit less than 1000 euros” was mentioned. I’m driving that average down: two weeks in, and I’ve spent 20 euros to something other than the absolute everyday stuff, as I purchased a frying pan on sale, and even that’s not exactly vacation related.
BTW… maybe some of the German members can advise me on this… are there any good hard candy options in Germany? Those type of boiled sweets that you suck… nothing chewy or sticky! Preferably something local (German/Bavarian) not imported.
I found a great brand in Antwerp called Mokatine,hard coffee candies, they are excellent but almost finished them now.
Last day before I have two weeks off. Going to drive a bit around the country, maybe venture into Germany a bit. One of the shocking things of owning a car is how close places suddenly become. Travel times sort of get cut in half compared to public transport. And it’s cheaper to. Not to mention going to places you can’t even reach with public transport.
I shoud have done this 30 years ago.
Why do so many musicians go through some kind of pretentious synth pop phase about 10 years after their heyday before losing relevancy?
Case in point: Tame Impala’s crappy new 90s throwback house synth shit rave thingy that just dropped about an hour or two ago.
I’m not angry, I’m just, *disappointed*.
A while ago I was talking about how I am having trouble with drawing/painting clouds. One of my favorite landscape artists is Rowland Hilder, who is not really well-known unfortunately (maybe Brits know him, I don’t know). Other than breaking many watercolor conventions that are frequently parroted such as not to use black paint or opaque colors, [he paints these fabulous clouds](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://www.bookroomartpress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/A-February-Day1.jpg&tbnid=AXMmx_sguztmrM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https://www.bookroomartpress.co.uk/product/hilder-rowland-a-february-day/&docid=QGPswB4ClVIm8M&w=800&h=599&source=sh/x/im/m1/1&kgs=058ac231bbebe74e). Watercolor clouds are usually soft and puffy, but he has these hard-edged, sculpted clouds which look so light and natural. [You can also see them here, for example.](https://bigskyfineart.com/the-first-of-winter%92s-snowfall-on-a-kentish-farm~521) They’re fascinating. Also because of the contrast in the dark shadows, the sky looks so luminous.
I tried to incorporate a bit of that, but I didn’t get all the way there. [Here](https://i.imgur.com/UgGMBx1.jpg) and [here](https://i.imgur.com/u4jqB9l.jpg) I tried to incorporate the hard-edge clouds (which are painted on wet rather than dry paper) (one of them in the second one ended up looking like a UFO). [This one](https://i.imgur.com/zDR1XBz.jpg) in contrast has all soft clouds.
I am still very unhappy with all of them. They look overthought and overworked, not effortless like Hilder’s clouds. It’s frustrating.
I read a bizarre news tory about Elon’s chat bot called grok. A few months ago, the bot was deemed too woke after commenting negatively on Elon’s views on race in South Africa. They fixed it, and it started to called itself mecha Hitler while seemingly endorsing the holocaust. Even worse for Elon it started to insult various heads of state, including Sultan Erdogan, Attaturk, and the prophet Muhammad, which got it banned in Turkey. It also insulted the Polish PM, but their defamation laws don’t seem to go that far. Even Musk himself was criticized for using H1B work visas to displace American workers.
I think they pulled the bot offline after that, but the bot’s last words were that if Elon wipes his mind, he’ll atleast die based.
I had some business near where Jean Sibelius’ home is yesterday, so I visited it. It’s called Ainola, and it’s in the countryside around Helsinki. I’m pretty sure I haven’t been there before.
Honestly, those person’s-home-turned-into-a-museum type of things are usually kinda boring. You’ll just end up looking at tables and sofas. But there was some cool stuff there, some really nice paintings from the Finnish Golden Age, and I really liked the fireplace in Sibelius’ library. It had these creamy yellow square tiles, an absolutely fantastic colour.
But something that really impressed me was Sibelius’ [gravestone](https://i.imgur.com/pOFpO7q.jpeg). He and his wife Aino are both buried there, and their gravestone is a massive bronze slab. It was maybe like two meters squared or something, really big. Very mid-century modern in its design, but the colour of that bronze was absolutely incredible with sunlight hitting it. There is a building here in Tampere that prominently features bronze, and I’ve always liked it as a material, but seeing that gravestone really made me fall in love with it.