Ulysses and Suburb Vomit

Excerpt from a colleague's obituary six years back (translated): "He was from XXX. The city must have been dear to him, since he ridiculed it continuously."
Those words came back to my mind after I yesterday did a five-hour walking tour by myself in Dublin. Wandered from place to place having only a map and a camera in my hand.
The route in the map was from Ulysses (written by James Joyce). Showing the places where protagonist Leopold Bloom and other characters wandered during that one day novel takes place.
Time has changed. Bloom's house in Eccles Street was demolished to accommodate Mater Hospital. As was the Cabman's shelter, which apparently had been replaced by AIB trading centre. I couldn't find all the places with the plaques that were supposed to be there. But apparently what still exist from 109 years back are the pubs, though with different names. Ruggy O'Donohoe's pub is now International Bar and Barney Kiernan's pub The Capel.
I saw the shady letters 'Finn's Hotel' still in the wall of the old hotel in Nassau Street where Joyce's future wife Nora Barnacle worked as a chambermaid and whom he met first time romantically on that exact day Ulysses takes place on June 16th, 1904.
I also tried to find the place in the corner of Dawson Street and Molesworth Street where Bloom helped a blind man across the street. While I was standing there, a horse carriage passed by. As if I had suddenly jumped 109 years back in time.
It was a nice eye-opening day for me after having lived in Dublin region for over seven years. Seeing the history and today. After reading some pieces from Wikipedia I'd like to jump in the time machine, just to see what Joyce's and Barnacle's first date on that June 16th, 1904 was like. Did it really have that magic to base a full massive novel on that exact date.
And what the city was like. Were people happy? Happier than now? Did they feel like Dubliners now do? Were they then proud of their hometown, then much smaller than it is now?
And was the city comfortable to go for a walk. Spend time. Live. Did it have enough character to really base a novel on. Trying to depict it as Joyce did so people like me would be wandering around it hundred years later.
I'm not sure what Joyce's relationship with Dublin, Dalkey, Dun Laoghaire and other places nearby was. He lived most of his adult life abroad. Was there a reason to depict Dublin again and again deep inside his mind? As well as with other artists, who depict their hometowns.
I started thinking about books I've read, films I've seen, music I've listened to. All the stories in them that have something to do with processing some place. Maybe romanticizing it. Or barking at it. Processing the events, even traumas that happened there. The past. Nostalgic or the opposite. Events and memories that formed these people.
I've been dealing with the same issues through writing. Gathering ideas and memories from past times, mixing it with fiction. I recently noticed a Finnish novel written by Anu Juvonen, who is few years younger than me. The book is titled Lähiöoksennus, translated Suburb Vomit. Events take place in Kannelmäki suburb in Helsinki. Only seven minutes' train trip away from where I grew up in Vantaa.
I read a newspaper story about her memories about the times she wrote about. There were lots of similarities to my memories from that era in a similar suburb. Supposedly million children growing up in that era have the same touching surface. I could feel the angst. See the pictures in my mind. Need to ridicule those certain madnesses in the middle of concrete building blocks.
I admit: I do have a love/hate relationship with my childhood and younghood suburb. I mention it with certain pride or happiness when Formula One drivers coming from there succeed. I share the new videos when progressive metal band Amorphis does something new and interesting. Still, I mock the suburb, especially its past, whenever I have a chance. I joke about Japanese tourists trying desperately to find Mika Häkkinen Square only to realize this has actually happened.
I'm thinking, will the place ever have any aspect that would mean anything to anyone else who hasn't grown up there? I suppose novels like Ulysses and Lähiöoksennus in their own ways immortalize these places. Especially for those who know the places. And through writing and reading to someone else, who can jump in the shoes of a person, who actually lived and experienced it. The time and place then.
Even to the point when they start understanding why someone ridicules the home place instead of maybe trying to forget or live with it.

For Those Not With Us Anymore

When I was young, some sad news came time to time about guys my age. People I knew or had known. In the same neighbourhoods and suburbs where we grew up. Sometimes I wondered what it was about that age. Guys. Sudden growth in mortality rate.
Some of those memories come back as I remember my youth. In flashbacks. I don't know if it's about getting to this age certain things from the past start coming up. Maybe it has something do with my work, which is often about trying to remember significant things. Even own personal history. The interest in trying to map my own past. Places. As they were then. Maybe to be partially used as a fictional setting.
Unfortunately, sometimes the memories come through with sorrow.
The last sad news came yesterday. An old acquaintance my age. We went to the confirmation camp together at the age 15. Heart attack.
A young man. Still. There are no judges giving votes who will be dropped next.
When I look back certain lives could've been predicted early. How vulnerable some were. The friend from the sports team, who had moved away. His death notice was in the newspaper when he was 15. No others were involved in this gun-related incident.
Others where in an accident caused later on by a young man, also from that same sports team. Who had decided to drive his car against another car. Head-on collision. He wasn't the only fatality.
Some stories were sad in different ways. Because of just one impulsive decision. To go grab a burger some kilometers away after a successful sports tournament. Later at night after a little partying. The big tree by the road was the last guard. The headstone of that young man is in the same cemetery where my Dad is buried.
There are slowing down lives as we have lived, have become adults, hopefully gotten smarter, found the peace. Some didn't have that understanding or hope. Or the will to understand.
How fast some of them were living their lives. As if it would run away, if you don't try to catch it as much as possible immediately right there. In that moment. With both hands.
And the ones you could tell didn't appreciate life. Many of them haven't been here anymore in years. You could tell it already very early.
As many experiences can tell, we don't know what's around the corner. Which day or the second will be the last one.
I have no clue if I will live to be 100. Will I have the same destiny as this young man had some weeks ago when he moved from here to eternity.
Still, a bit shocked I've stopped. On Monday I'll phone to reserve an appointment for a proper health check up. We're only here once.

Where were you when...?

I remember exactly when I heard that two planes had hit the Twin Towers. I remember where I was when I heard US president Ronald Reagan had been shot, as well as Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.
I remember late September night in 1994. I was studying in a small college outside Turku in Southwestern Finland. Hearing heavy helicopters going over the dorm towards the sea middle of the night. The next morning news told by my college room mate. He had heard from the radio that a ferry had sunk at the sea. I didn't believe it then and I still hear about it. Nowadays as a joke.
The ship was named MS Estonia. 852 people went down in one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. That explained the helicopters.
Immortalized the  memory of us students gathering in the college lobby stunned silent watching the morning TV news. Looking at those shocking TV pictures from the sea. And recovered people being brought from the sea to Turku University Hospital just 20+ kilometers away. To that same hospital where my son would one day be born. Personal history in context of a larger historical picture.
September 11th, 2001 was probably one of the strangest days in my life. I was working as an Editor-in-chief in a local newspaper in Southwestern Finland. In that morning my boss collected me from my home. Me, him and our caricaturist drove to Helsinki. Spent nearly an hour strolling around the city center of Helsinki before moving on to Government Palace by the Senate Square, Prime Minister's office. We were there to hand him the caricaturist's newest book. I was there to take pictures, to write an interview of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen. How he felt about political satire in books and on television. He had been depicted in one weekly TV satire as a caricature character.
Some hours later me and the caricaturist stayed in Helsinki as the boss left back. We met a colleague. Spent some time. Suddenly the colleague's mobile phone started beeping messages from news agencies. After the second message about the second plane hitting the tower we had to find a TV somewhere. Ended up in a lobby of a city center hotel where people were gathering together. Apparently security level had been raised also in Helsinki since the police cars were going around.
In the evening I took a bus back to Turku. Spent the time on the phone discussing with different people how the world wouldn't be the same after that day.
I remember that day. Those moments. Getting the messages. The feeling. I cannot imagine how the world changed to those people who were really involved in those events some way or living nearby where they happened.
Few days ago, my son started remembering similar events in his life. The big news. Where he had been when he had heard about Osama Bin Laden being killed among other events. It had apparently been at home, through morning news on TV.
The next generation might have different events staying in their minds. But I have a feeling the echo will be the same, no matter if the news will eventually be splashed on their face through social media or through an iPod. Real life story is a story no matter which way you get it.

Magical Soccer Summer 1982

The summer I turned 10, I spent a lot of time at our summer home in the countryside. It was the summer of 1982. The first month filled with soccer fever. The World Cup taking place in Spain was everywhere.

And suddenly our small portable TV broke down. We had to listen to some of the matches from the radio. Some of the best ones. Luckily most of the commentators were great. They really made it all come alive as pictures, even shaking feeling.

Especially the greatest match ever. The semifinal West Germany vs. France. West German goalie Harald Schumacher knocking out French defender Patrick Battiston. The match going to extra time. Two French goals, West Germans getting even with their two goals. The penalties until the seventh pair. West Germans finally taking it all and going to the final. The full drama.

1982 World Cup was the biggest and most magical for me. My favourite team was Brazil. The squad that is probably one of my top 3 all time favourite national teams along Hagi-led Romania (World Cup 1994) and "Danish Dynamite" Denmark (Euro1984). Zico, Socrates, Eder, Falcao and the guys had that great creative rhythm of samba in their play. It looked so easy as if the ball was obeying their magical touches just from their thoughts.

During those years in early 1980's, I was mad about soccer. Played in a team myself. Bought or subscribed to some magazines and read the sports comic Buster, which consisted mostly of soccer series.

I suppose kids have a tendency to suck all the information in the world when there's still capacity in the hard drive. My soccer fever has calmed down from those days. 

But now I can see the same thing that happened to me 30 years ago happening to my son. He's buying and reading all the weekly soccer magazines. Browsing internet to see which player is moving from one club to another and what kind of money figures are involved. How the world of soccer is turning around.

Generation has changed. Things are the same, technology more developed to get all that information in real time. There are more possibilities to keep up.

I wonder how much faster the hard drive fills up. Will this information coming from everywhere overload the senses as well. And if any of these today's events will be as magical for my son thirty years from now as the Soccer World Cup in the summer of '82 is for me.