The Boréales festival is nearing to its end, but tonight I'm going to see one more concert - perhaps the biggest one of this festival version - by a certain Swedish man called Jay-Jay Johanson. Different sites describe his music as being something between jazz, trip hop and dance and the man himself as a crooner, so I think I'm in for an interesting and enjoyable night!
Special thanks to Elise for getting me the ticket - the concert sold out super fast!
Adding a bit of olive oil and salt, roast the slices in the oven for about 30 minutes at 250 C.
Cook chopped onion and garlic and prepare a soup with a vegetable stock cube. When the pumpkin slices are roasted and soft enough, add all ingredients to the soup and let it simmer for about 10 minutes before adding some pepper and puréeing the soup with a stick blender.
Entertain the guests.
Garnish the soup with some thyme and serve it hot!
It was quite strange an experience. Being in all likelihood the only Finnish person in a fully-booked theatre amongst the French-speaking public and watching seven Finnish women do their circus show on Finnish stereotypes and oddities - and almost all of it only in Finnish. Sounds rather mad, right?
Well, that's what it was. And funnily enough, it worked. It was a great show, the Mad in Finland by Galapiat Cirque. Personally, I enjoyed their joy of performing and the way they played with the Finnish clichés (like sisu, vodka and skis) and the French public certainly seemed to adore the
show despite the language barrier - my fellow countrywomen got a
standing ovation at the end. Just before they ran off to - what else but - sauna.
The Boréales festival started officially on Friday. The opening
ceremony took place inside the beautiful Abbaye aux Dames. There were
two interesting photographic exhibitions, Constructing Views and Territory,
the first one about Norwegian architecture and the latter exploring the
boundaries between public and private space in urban landscape in
Latvia (open to the public until 31st December). There are some photos of the opening evening here (FB access needed). If you look closely, you may find some familiar faces...
The highlight of the evening was, however, an open air concert given by a young Norwegian singer-songwriter, Therese Aune, accompanied by a salmon soup and a piece of rye bread. Despite the acoustic conditions that were probably not the easiest and the rather crispy air, Therese's expressive melodies and her warm and quaint voice created a pleasingly dreamy atmosphere. Me like!
Oh and the soup was good, too - maybe just a pinch of more salt next time.
First a word of warning. This post will be pretty Xmassy. I know it's only mid-November and the big winter feast is still more than a month away. I'm also sure that by the time the holiday season is finally upon us, many people will already have had an overdose of Christmas. So if you'd rather keep your Xmas/Noël/jul/joulu exposure to a minimum, be warned, I'm already in mood for Christmas!
I suppose I am what you would call a Christmas person. I love singing carols and baking ginger bread (or piparkakkuja, as we say in Finnish). When the days start getting shorter and evenings darker, I seize the moment and burn loads of candles even before it's time to put the Christmas lights and decorations on. My first year in France, I even bought a Christmas tree several weeks before the actual day, just because I could (yes, here people start selling Xmas trees already at the end of November - a bit weird for a Finn who's used to getting her tree just a couple of days before Christmas)!
It's no wonder then that I've already started planning my Christmas holidays. I've booked my plane tickets and the train tickets and started drafting my travel itinerary through Finland. For as much as I like France, I can't really imagine spending Chrismas anywhere else than Lapland. I suppose one could describe it as a some kind of innate need to be surrounded by snow and -25 degrees of Celcius at least once a year and preferably around the midwinter feast - a couple of weeks will do though, no need for months of extreme cold.
But carols and ginger bread aside, I have another tradition I like to hold on to: a Chrismas ballet. Last year for I managed to get a last-minute ticket to the otherwise fully-booked Finnish Opera's (magnificent!) representation of The Snow Queen - in case you're tempted, it's still on the program until the end of this month and it's absolutely worth seeing.
In December, the Finnish national ballet is redoing a Christmas classic, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King - always a good choice. However, if the Wannabe Ballerinas, a Helsinki-based group of adult ballet dancers who do classical dance with a bit of twist, are also redoing their end-of-the-year show, I just might opt for two Chrismas ballets this year!
in the rain-
darkness, the sunset
being sheathed i sit and
think of you
the holy
city which is your face
your little cheeks the streets
of smiles
your eyes half-
thrush
half-angel and your drowsy
lips where float flowers of kiss
and
there is the sweet shy pirouette
your hair
and then
your dancesong
soul. rarely-beloved
a single star is
uttered,and i
think
of you
- e.e. Cummings
There's a teeny weeny tiny little park just a few blocks away from my home. It's so small that most people probably have bigger gardens than this park. In fact, it's so minuscule that many people are blissfully unaware of its existence and that, of course, is what makes the park so charming - and one of my favourite places here. In the summertime I often grab a book and go there to read in the afternoon sun. Now the leisurely days are over and the sun is less and less available, but I still go there from time to time for a quiet stroll in the fresh air.
Here it is, the first ever album by Portier Dean! I'm the proud owner of their Limited Edition disc number 59. A future collector's item, I'm sure!
If you're anything like me and have a soft spot for melancholic folky stuff, then you might want to check them out. The E.P.'s official release party is tonight at 7 o'clock at Gateau Blaster!
In the night behind the bush
you’re not so wise.
We were driving a car,
but you were blind.
In the headlights of the car
white-eyed badger.
You froze like stone, we couldn’t stop,
you gave your life, you gave your life
In the frosty blades of grass,
you should’ve lain
your blood or fur we couldn’t find
where you gave your life
The Badger - Portier Dean
PS. Gildas, Gwendal and Louis have released only 200 copies of the E.P. and
they're selling out quickly, so in case you're planning to buy one,
you'd be wise to hurry up!
I'm an absolute fan of Bloch's B Morph ballet shoes. I've tried others brands, like Grishko and Sansha, and other models from Bloch, but there's no way around it, the B Morphs suit my feet best. The B Morph ballet shoes feature TMT, ie. thermo morph technology which sounds fancy but simply means that, with the help of a hair dryer and a fridge, you can easily mould the shoes to fit your feet perfectly. There's no need to break in the shoes the usual way and they're practically painless to wear - well, at least with the right pads. Also, the shank is nearly unbreakable and if you need a bit more stiffness, you can just put the shoes back in the fridge!
Unfortunately, although the shank resists rather well, the other parts of the shoe won't be as long-lasting, so I just got myself a new pair of pointe shoes... on Ebay.
There was a perfect pair of my favourite Blochs waiting for me in my size and width and for less than half the retail price, shipping included. Hard to resist such a deal, so I took my chances, contacted the seller and now I'm just waiting for my new shoes to arrive (hopefully next week, as my actual pointe shoes are on the point (ha!) of dying).
PS. The seller, an American woman from Duluth, Minnesota, first took me for a fellow American - funnily enough, it turns out that my oh-so Finnish family name is very common in that part of the States. Seems like some of my ancestors may have sailed off that way back in the 19th century!
