Daily Slow Chat

4 comments

1. I finished Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (it’s tiny). I had been talking about books or stories where people have vastly different sides of their personality than what they let others see and this falls somewhere between The Shadow (where the person’s darker personality physically separates from him) and No Longer Human (where the person who is putting up a facade is acutely aware of it and never makes peace with himself). Dr Jekyll makes this potion because he has to put up a respectable facade but he has these weird base urges or indecent inclinations or whatever which he can fulfill when he transforms to Mr Hyde and goes on his nightly excursions…. what these indecent base urges are is never explained. Seeing that this is the Victorian Era, I guess he could be cannibalizing orphans or crossdressing or anything in between. No idea.

   There was also a weird detail that I completely forgot about. Jekyll’s potion stops working at one point because he runs out of the first batch of “salt” which seems to have had an impurity which made the reaction work, and the new batch he acquired just doesn’t work the same way anymore… You know, this is something that many organic chemists (especially old school ones) will tell you is true, that their reaction worked with that old batch of whatever and didn’t work with the new one because the impurity in the old one acted as a catalyst or something? Nowadays chemicals are highly purified but back then? Totally plausible. It was a cool little detail to see.

   Anyhow, it’s a nice book. It wraps up with letters of confession to be opened upon the person’s death. Maybe I will also write one some day, if I have a big secret. I wonder if people do these in real life or if they’re just an exposition delivery tool.

2. The 180 degree turn between hype/excitement and disappointment regarding the Audemars Piguet X Swatch collaboration has been hilarious.

   I also lost complete interest once they revealed them.

3. There’s a concert in Porvoo in the summer where they’re performing a piece by Missy Mazzoli and another by Kaija Saariaho, both of which I’d love to go hear. But it’s 200 km away, part of a annual contemporary music festival down there, and there’s really nothing else I want to see there. Plus the pieces are like 5 minutes long each, I’d be going there for 10 minutes of live music, if that.

   Eh, we’ll see. My dad does live in Porvoo, I have friends nearby in Helsinki, maybe I’ll turn it into a visit to somebody.

4. I am currently sitting at the hospital in the emergency ward. Wish me luck.