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Fiona

I have started to feel a need to further analyze my relationship to Fiona Apple's music, since I have listened to it a lot this Autumn, so much that it is nearly starting to really worry me :). Lately, I have been dreaming about taking singing lessons in order to learn to interpret some of her songs. I wonder if that would work out.

At first I figured I like it since the lyrics are something very original, but I'm not that sure about that anymore: most of her older production seems to discuss a girl's relationships to men, which is a topic pretty damn popular elsewhere, too. I guess I could find a clue by searching the web, but somehow I want to find this by myself: there is some kind of an angst there, a mood, an atmosphere in these songs I have not come across elsewhere. Having now gotten to know three records worth of her songs, it feels like really having an idea of the landscape of her mind - whether or how much that idea actually has to do with her is not mine to evaluate, of course, but it says something about her music having a personality.

This one has been relieving me from stress lately: Waltz (Better Than Fine). In many songs, there are just some short phrases or rhymes which stick on me, often by being clever in a rather simple and straightforward way, such as "You're all I need - and maybe some faith would do me good" or "Nothing I do don't do nothing but bring me more to do" in On the Bound. There was an impression that her lyrics are somehow extraordinarily profound, but I guess most of them really aren't. They just have something to say that I feel is contemporary for me. I do have to admit though that there are many of her songs, the actual message of which I feel I do not really understand.

Strangely, I woke up after 6 AM today. I'm at my mom's place, returning to Tampere today. Time for breakfast -->.

Fri 2006-12-29 07:52 in diary 1 comment #link

Candles, darkness of me

It has been a rough Christmas holiday. It doesn't happen too often that the entire family is together so there are conflicts and all sorts of unspoken expectations. There have been many beautiful moments, too, but I have stressed too much about small things. I guess I am having some sort of a new puberty, just chatting with someone can, at times, be a rough ride - I take people too seriously at times. Last week we took a small trip to Stockholm. I'm not sure if I have had a chance to walk around the city completely alone before, I sure had fun. 

As always, I am having too many things on my mind again. Managed to not think about work or studies for a couple of days, but now I have started to feel the pressure to get something done again. On the other hand I am excited about my job since it is a great opportunity to really really learn what user-centered design is in practice. However, I am a master at building pressure on myself. Every time that happens, I would need to realize that now I need to talk things through with somebody. My parents are great people to talk with about such matters, and I'm happy about that. Yesterday and today I have been studying subversion usage (it is a great book BTW), a sufficiently lightweight way to keep my mind busy, but still interesting. Can't wait to import this site into a subversion repository once my ISP sets up the repository for me.

This holiday I have had a chance to play with my lil' bro emil a lot. It has really been heart-warming to notice how he's grown up to be a real young gentleman, now seven years old. On the other hand he seems to often know exactly what he wants, but he does also have a very soft side to him. I do love that little guy,  and it is always a shame that I seem to have too many other things on my mind when there would be time to play with him (he's very keen on dinosaurs).

Cool, Nucleus CMS wysiwyg plugin for tinymce finally works. This is the first entry I wrote with it. It's a long story, but I just wasted my evening to create a one-time PHP/MySQL script to add <p></p>'s to the beginnings and endings of entries which didn't have them, so now the journal is at least a bit more valid HTML, though I can't be bothered to fix all the invalidities old entries have, caused by writing HTML with bare hands until now.

Tue 2006-12-26 18:15 in diary 2 comments #link

wet roads

My holiday started yesterday. It is hard to let go of all the stress I've had at the workplace, I guess I have had it easy compared to some others at the office. Next week, since it is holiday, I shall study. Right now I was exhausted wondering whether to attach myself in some new worries, to find a worthwhile plan on which I could focus. The other choice might be to really live, figuring out how to be myself instead of some human doing.

The day started with an active mind but since then I've just found presets for my mom's radio and dugg some links. I might start using digg since abandoning stumbleupon, but I have no energy to think about that possibility right now. Bought my third Fiona Apple CD, Extraordinary Machine on Thursday, it ain't as good as When the Pawn, one of her earlier records.

• Learn 10 good UNIX usage habits
• Top Linux photo managers side-by-side
• John William Waterhouse: The Lady of Shalott, 1888

Oh yeah, and a bit of special food for thought: Excellent parodies of the Mac/PC commericals, from Community Christian Church.

Sat 2006-12-16 13:26 in diary No comments #link

tämän hetken virrat

olen värisevä lehti, minä
toisinaan elän
kaipaan vasta-aaltoja
koskiessa

olen puutunut pinta
ei lähde liikettä
saatan kaatua


töniessä

Tue 2006-12-12 18:59 in runot No comments #link