Now no more of winters biting

River 1

River 2

River 3

River 4

River 5

The photographs were taken on November 28th in Luukki. Today I walked for 2 h 50 minutes, starting from Paratiisi ("paradise"), which in the northwest corner of Nuuksio, at Salmi. It was quiet. I saw only one other person. He was preparing to light a fire at a cooking shelter. It was so warm, +8 °C, that there was really no need for a fire except for cooking purposes.

I went to see the new Star Wars movie with the children. Earlier I didn't remember that I had seen all the six previous movies, but when I realized this I thought that I should see the seventh one as well. But it was a disappointment. I guess my tolerance for inconsistencies has lowered a lot.

(Posting title is from the poem “Soldier from the wars returning” by A. E. Housman.)

I know for now you only look ahead

Helogale parvulta

Horses

Gull

I'm still posting photographs taken at Korkeasaari Zoo.

I don't know why but I have been reading zombie-themed books recently. Some of the books are rather thought-provoking, painting visions of the world ending as we know it, civilization collapsing and each and everyone needing to fight to stay alive. And some of the books seem to have a humorous streak in them, offering tongue-in-cheek commentary on various survivalist strategies.

One of the more interesting books is World War Z by Max Brooks, which has been made into a movie with the same name. But there is nothing else common with the movie and the book, as illustrated at The Oatmeal. Which in itself is rather revealing. All the social commentary in the book is left out, resulting in a movie in which Brad Pitt shoots a lot of stuff. We have a brain-dead movie culture.

(Posting title is from the poem Cabezón by Amy Beeder.)

She compliments me on my Bachelard pad

Blue

Leaf

Colors

Construct

Crossing

Today I went with the children to the movies, to see From Up on Poppy Hill (original name Kokuriko-zaka Kara) directed by Gorō Miyazaki. It was quite a realistic movie, rather different that for example Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki, but the quality of the animation was excellent, and the pictures had an incredible amount of detail of life in Japan in 1963.

Some parts of the movie were perhaps not so well done in Finnish, but mostly the dubbing was good. (A sidenote: movies intended for older audiences are typically not dubbed in Finnish but subtitles are used instead.) The final song of the film was in Japanese, and that was perhaps the best thing about the movie, excellent singing whoever it was performing the song.

Today I caved in and booked the replacement of the old and worn gear hub of my bicycle. However, it will take until November when the needed parts arrive, so I need to survive until then somehow.

Today I got the new iPad and have been trying it out. Writing text on the thing almost drives me mad, I need to tweak the automatic correction stuff or whatever it is that always suggests the wrong words. On the other hand, the retina display is excellent, and photographs look really good.

The first web page (and the first photograph) I looked at on the iPad was this posting by Markus, and it looked excellent. And then I looked at my posting from yesterday, and I did like those photographs as well. I'm hooked. What I need to learn is how to cope with the other stuff, organizing things, working with documents, writing, ...

(Posting title is from the poem Platonic Love by Curt Anderson.)

And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves

Movies

Fallen

Forest

Fireweed

Leaf

I went with the children to the movies today, to see Brave. I didn't expect much, but was pleasantly surprised. The story is not very original, and much of the movie was rather calculated to raise emotional responses, but below all this was a sense of truth even if fairy-tale. And that is not bad at all.

Late, just before sunset, I went for a walk and took some photographs. Autumn is advancing, slowly but surely. We are having cold nights, and that will probably help with the leaf colors.

(Posting title is from Sonnet XII: "When I do count the clock that tells the time" by William Shakespeare.)