Tuesday, October 9

 
 
YEAR:  2018 | Tags:  | | | |
 
 

 
 
 

Lucky Bastard, Itis, 17:12

 
 

I drizzled my way to Puotila on my bike again, trying to remember if I had ever made it to November on my bicycle. I have not noted this in my diary, as far as I can remember. Perhaps I should.

I spent the first part of the morning crafting a podcast from the file that Sophie and I made while we sat in Room 311 at Arcada. I added the theme music that we agreed at the start and end of the discussion, and then listened to it. After a bit of shifting around, and several goes at fading the music in and out, it sounded reasonable. It had a bit of background hiss but I could not remove that. Sophie also sounded quieter than me in some parts.

I had used the shorter version of Renewable Sources of Empathy as the theme, and as I listened back to the recording I found that it felt somehow empty. We paused as we spoke, because we had deliberately decided to talk rather than rehearse or write scripts. Then I suddenly remembered xenochrony and the timestretched and reworked version of Summer Blesses This People I had made last year, and added it behind the talking. It worked just as Zappa had promised it would: in parts it sounded like a specially commissioned soundtrack designed to emphasise the points we made.

I sent a mixed mp3 to Sophie using WeTransfer and hoped that she would feel the same.

At midday I decided to assume that everyone who intended to take part in tomorrow’s Zoom meeting for Nobanet would have replied by now. I set up a room and sent out invitations. Thirteen people had said they would join us, and I decided that we could do that in one Zoom room.

At 16:10 I sent Naa a WhatsApp message because I had wandered around Itis without finding the Tunninkuva shop where I had arranged to meet Naa. In the excitement of building an IMAX cinema in Itis a lot of things have moved including, as I learned in the last five minutes, Tunninkuva. Naa messages back to say that it is next to the book shop and I find it.

Naa appears a couple of minutes later and we go in to get her passport photograph taken. Due to the nature of the modern world she gets copies of them while, at the same time, the shop emails copies to the passport office.

We walk down Itis to Lucky Bastard, which has also moved: from the out-of-the-way alley it used to inhabit to a space right next to the coming-soon cinema. The waiter used to live down the road from us, and says hello in both Finnish and English. We came because I noticed an offer but, of course, that finished a day or so ago.

Naa has a Kevin Bacon and I opt for a Lucky Jack: a vegetarian burger made from jackfruit, avocado and artichoke. I have sweet potato fries and Naa has normal fries. We both agree that I win on fries. We both like the burgers and sit chatting until Naa phones Irma who offers to give us a lift home.

I will leap out at Puotila to get my bike and cycle home.