Affinity is growing

It is with great delight that I announce that rq is joining the blogging team here at Affinity. Many of you are familiar with rq from the comments section of the blog where she has been contributing for many years. She is now ready to step up and do some blogging herself and we couldn’t be happier. She brings a lot to our team and we can expect posts on an interesting mix of subjects ranging from Baltic culture to the arts. Perhaps she’ll even share a peek into the random and interesting things that cross her path. For now there will be no fixed schedule for rq’s posts. Instead, they will come as happy little surprises that surface amidst our already mixed bag.

So now we are four. Four bloggers in four different countries, all with different interests and different points of view, but all wanting to share our worlds with you. We’re also a curious bunch and we want this blog to be a vibrant international community where other people share their worlds with us. That’s one of the best parts of Affinity. It has many voices and you just never know what will pop up. We also hope that one of those voices will be yours. We still invite you to share your favourite recipes, photos, arts and crafts with us. You don’t have to be a great photographer or a master artist to contribute. I’m certainly neither of those things.

I would also like to take a minute to acknowledge the founder of Affinity, Caine. This blog was her vision and she always welcomed contributions from her readers. Her voice was always encouraging and it is because of her support that I even dared to try blogging. Caine expressed a desire for rq to become part of this blog and I know that she would be thrilled by the news.

Affinity just became more interesting. I hope you’ll all help me welcome rq.

Behind the Iron Curtain part 18 – Periodicals for Children

These are my recollections of a life behind the iron curtain. I do not aim to give perfect and objective evaluation of anything, but to share my personal experiences and memories. It will explain why I just cannot get misty eyed over some ideas on the political left and why I loathe many ideas on the right.

From a child’s perspective, this is one of those things again that the regime got at least mostly right, if not outright right. There were at lest five different magazines specifically for children, with target audiences from 6 to 18 years. Unfortunately most of them do not exist anymore, except one and the last issues I have seen of that one do not hold a candle to what it used to be – too many advertisements, too little real content.

The magazine I am talking about is ABC mladých techniků a přírodovědců (ABC of young technicians and natural scientists). I still have a stack of old issues that I have not thrown away and sometimes I still go through them and occasionally learn a new thing or two.

That particular magazine has a unique format – there are articles about science, technology and nature and occasional story of course and I learned a lot about those things from it. But it also featured two regular features that no other magazine in our country at that time had – paper models and comics.

The paper models are what made the magazine extremely popular and famous, and in my opinion also most useful for a young kid. I know people, even in my family, who sneer at that notion, but the truth is that even today I and I am sure my brother as well are using the skills learned while cutting, measuring and gluing paper models together. And by using I mean getting paid, because making models gives one nimble fingers, teaches patience and trains spatial intelligence. It is a pity that since made from paper, those models were not particularly long-lived so none of them survived until today. They required way to much care and collected way too much dust to be kept in a household with three asthmatics.

The comics were, in my non-humble opinion, much better than whatever nonsense Marvel is peddling. There were no superheroes and no mages. Over the years there were multiple series, and they all excelled in the past in one thing – combining education with entertainment. One series was entirely devoted to Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle. One was about a robot uprising. And one particularly long-lived one was about a group of Pionýrs doing the things that kids do – going to school, going outside, camping, fighting etc.

It was full of covert propaganda of course, but even in retrospect it was mostly not propaganda that I particularly mind. Most of it was about the importance of having useful skills and knowledge, about not being an asshole and taking care of other people as well as yourself. Things that I personally think children should learn as a matter of course wherever they live.

Harakka Island – Chapter 10

It’s our last day with Ice Swimmer’s series Harakka an Island and we’re back to the port preparing to leave. I’ve enjoyed this series immensely. It’s been like an old-fashioned travelogue and the moving perspectives helped bring the island to life. It’s been so nice to see things from more than one vantage point. I’m a bit saddened that we’re leaving already, but isn’t that just the way it is with any trip…too short and over too soon.  Thank you Ice Swimmer.  It’s been a great adventure and now I’ll let  you lead the way home.

 

Chapter 10 – Departure

 

1. Crane, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved

Now we’re back on the pier. The signal for the boat has been raised (not in the picture), but we have some time take a look at the crane. The other end of our boat trip is the white pier behind the crane.

 

2. Goodbye Harakka, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved

The boat is almost here, so all we can do is to take a last look, lower the signaling semaphore (again, not in the picture) and get aboard the boat.

This was our tour (mine in person and yours through these photos) of Harakka in July 2018. We saw some things, but there’s more to the island than this, but that is another story of things that have not happened yet. I actually went to Harakka on two different evenings for these pictures, and I haven’t been there since that. Another time of the day or a cloudy day would show the place in a different light.

(link to previous post, Harakka an Island: Chapter 9)

 

The Worst Horror of Hunger Games

I know I am very behind the curve here, but the phenomenon of Hunger Games has completely missed me, both the books and the movies. I learned about them through social osmosis, probably in comments and articles around FtB, but I never paid it much attention and I never knew what it is about, except a vague feeling that it should be good and that there is some girl shooting a bow.

So because I needed a pause from listening to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series over and over again, and I also needed a rest, I bought an audio book of the first in the trilogy and listened to it these last few days, whilst trying to get rid of some damn virus trying to cook me in my skin.

The book is an excellent piece of storytelling, there is no doubt about it, I will not be able to resist and I will buy the rest of the trilogy as well. But had I known in advance what it is about, I probably would not have bought it, definitively not now. It shook me to the core. I was, and I still am, absolutely horrified.

That might seem odd, because I have read my share of books of all genres, from horrors to comedies, but I do not remember being moved this much by a book for quite a long time. It was not the deaths what has got to me. It was not the quite excellently portrayed psychology of an individual caught in a string of apparently lose-lose situations. It was not the story, that was pretty straightforward and to someone well read slightly predictable at times. It was the believability of it all what really got me.

There are simply too many parallels to societies like that one portrayed in the book throughout human history and even today.

Of people living in distinct caste-system that is impossible to escape from.

Of entire populations being worked to death and held on the brink of starvation for the benefit of an elite few.

Of totalitarian regimes where everyone is a subject to the whims of the powers that be.

Of people jeering and laughing at the suffering of those they perceive as lesser, as other, as subservient.

And we still are not in the clear. We might be heading towards societies just like that, again. The book might very well be an accurate prediction of a future mere hundred years from now. And that there was no suspense of disbelief needed makes everything in it much worse than it would be in an ordinary horror with magical or inhuman monsters. People can be the worst monsters, it seems to me.

 

Slavic Saturday

OK, I’ll bite. Last week Rob Grigjanis mentioned Antonín Dvořák and he indeed is one of Czech composers whose work is dear to my heart. I particularly like his Slavonic Dances, Opus 46. I was looking for a video that I like and unfortunately the only one that I do cannot be embedded, so you would have to head over to Czech TV Website. I hope it works for out-of state too. Other recordings that I have found on YouTube I did not like – right at the first dance “Furiant” seemed either too fast or too bland.

That I make such judgement is slightly ironic and possibly unfair to the musicians. I do not dance at all and I hate it, particularly polka. Surely everyone knows polka, although not everyone knows that it is originally Czech dance. My experience with it is however rather unpleasant – I was always a bad dancer, but it was seen as somewhat required to take dance lessons in highschool, so I did, being awkward and clumsy all the time despite my best effort. And polka was for me the last straw in this string of tortures – at the end of the lesson my disgruntled dance partner has lifted her skirt and has shown me her feet that were kicked and stomped bloody. That put a final crimp in my (non-existent as it was) desire to dance that dance ever again, since I try not to hurt people on principle.

It is not that I do not have a sense of rhythm, but everyone tells me polka has two and a half step (hence the name půlka(half)-polka), however I simply hear three steps and that daft little half-skip just tangles both my brain and my feet. Not that other dances are much better with their inane jumping and turning and all that nonsense. I do not see the point of dancing, really.

But the music can be beautiful and can move me to tap my feet or nod my head a little. That much I admit.

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

The weather has cooled down and it has Jack feeling frisky. He’s been boing-boinging around the house like a puppy and he’s full of mischief and energy. Well, as full of energy as a lazy 10 year old dog can be.  A good walk was definitely called for so we took ourselves to Terracotta Park for a frolic in the woods. A good time was had by all and now Jack is peacefully asleep.

Tummy Thursday Special: Dreaming Unicorn Cake

As promised, this Tummy Thursday will be a big one.

#1 finally decided to celebrate her birthday and wanted a unicorn cake. I’m always happy to oblige. One of the nicer aspects of having kids is having an excuse for fancy caks.

This time I’ll actually walk you through all the steps and recipes, which means a ton of pics, so be warned when you click below the fold.

Finished cake

Dreaming Unicorn Cake
©Giliell, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

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Harakka Island – Chapter 9

We’re back to  Arakka an Island and in this chapter Ice Swimmer takes us to see views east. Off we go…

 

Chapter 9 – Views East

 

1. Birches and Särkkä, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved

From the front yard of Vellamo, we take another look at Särkkä, also seeing a few birches and the tower of the church in Suomenlinna. The church tower has a dual role as a lighthouse.

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Having a Snack

Fall is coming near and spiders are starting to gather in the house. I do not mind certain amount of spiders in the house, but the webs have to be cleaned up occasionally. So when there is too much webs (that is, when they start to be easily visible – I do not wait for them to hang so low that I have to wade through them) I collect as many spiders as I can into a glass and carry them outside, and then take a broom to the webs.

Bellow the fold you can see why I tolerate spiders in the house to a certain extent.

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