Grit in the Gears

I am the grit in the gears, the missing bolt, I am the poker of sticks into spokes. I like to know how things work, but sometimes when I take them apart and rebuild them, I have a few pieces left over. I am a man, so I tend to leave reading the instructions until after it goes wrong. And like all men I have a comprehensive mental map of the world and never need to ask directions. I never get lost, only sometimes I'm late, or end up in the wrong place entirely. It's what we do.

Tuesday, 25 December 2007

Winter Solstice.

Midvinterblot,
by Carl Larsson (1853-1919)

Happy Christmas, to One and All

By the way. This blog came into existence on the 26th december a year ago. Is it time to quit?
I'm not any more sure of what it's about now than I was on day one.

Saturday, 22 December 2007

mugging

Saturnalia

more humbug

HUMBUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, okay then... a little curtsey to the season on Grit in the Gears. Sigh.

Norad Tracks Santa... GO HERE! (linky thingery)

Oh..
You'll need google earth to see the full mashings.
Yes.
Full Mashings.
Oh well, I can't translate EVERYTHING into universal english.

Thingummies
Gubbinses
y'know?

Friday, 14 December 2007

Surreal........................ Sweet Home Alabama

Sweet Home Alabama
As you never heard it before.......
The Leningrad Cowboys, (from Finland) and the Alexandrov Red Army Choir.......
at the Total Balalaika Show, Helsinki, Finland, June 12th, 1993.

"European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, 239-257 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/136754949800100205
© 1998 SAGE Publications
Shifting spaces, shifting identities
'The Total Balalaika Show'
Timo Cantell

City of Helsinki Urban Facts

The 'Total Balalaika Show', a rock concert of extraordinary proportions, was held in Helsinki in 1993. The audience numbered 80,000. This concert is analysed by reference to Bakhtin's explorations of carnival, highlighting the ambivalent nature of the event. Both the performers and the venue of the concert (the historical Senate Square in the centre of Helsinki) are characterized by the uncertainty of temporal and spatial categories. The concert is also interpreted as constituting an integral part of the new cultural situation in Finland: a situation in which this small country and its comparatively homogenous culture will increasingly have to see questions of identity pushed into the domains of reflexivity and uncertainty. The concert also provided an opportunity to negotiate the history of Finnish—Soviet relations and the problems involved in those relations."