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Documentary “Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson”

Screenshot of Tove Jansson swimming in Finland from the BBC documentary Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson

Screenshot of Tove Jansson swimming from the BBC documentary “Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson”, around 1:20 mark. View the trailer here.

Until I watched the BBC documentary “Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson”, I had never really known about the artist and author Tove Jansson nor the context for her work. I’m so glad to have come across the film. She was an impressive and talented woman that lived through some devastating times. The documentary is enhanced by quite a bit of original footage, images, and quotes from her journals and other writings. It also includes interviews of her friends and family. My only criticism would be that the tilt-shift effect on some of the shots of contemporary Helsinki and the Finnish countryside felt a little heavy-handed.

The scene above was likely filmed by Tove Jansson’s partner and great love Tuulikki Pietilä, a Finnish graphic artist. Her nickname was Tooti. For nearly 30 summers, Tove and Tooti lived and worked in a cottage that they built together on a little remote island called Klovharu. It sounds like they were quite the independent adventurers, and their time on the island seemed idyllic. This moment was rather heart-wrenching.

Last summer something unforgivable happened: I started to fear the sea. The giant waves no longer signified adventure but fear. Fear and worry, for the boat and all the other boats that were sailing around in bad weather. We knew it was time to give the cottage away.

Once they had left, they never wanted to come back. They didn’t even want to talk about it. It was the end, and that was it.

A side note: Sophia Jansson’s comment reminded me of a moment in a recent episode of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me when Peter Sagal asked Norman Lear if he had any tips “for those of us who would like to arrive at 93 as spry and as successful and happy as you are”.

What occurred to me first is two simple words, maybe as simple as any two words in the English language – over and next. We don’t pay enough attention to them. When something is over, it is over, and we are on to next.

I’m looking forward to discovering Tove Jansson’s work. I’ll probably start with the original two Moomins books, then move to The Summer Book and A Winter Book.

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Making tamales

Though it’s become a lot easier to find good Mexican food in London since I moved here in 2010, it’s still pretty hard to find tamales. I was in the mood for them over the weekend so tried making them for the first time.

Edit 14.05.16 — I’ve changed my mind, I’m not really that pleased with how these turned out. They’re too dry, and I definitely didn’t fill them with enough cheese. Also, I don’t know where the heck Sainsbury’s gets their jalapeños from but they were just about the hottest ones I’ve ever had! I think that the main issue was the fine cornmeal, so will definitely wait until I find some masa before making these again. I’ve found a good way of eating too-dry tamales though; they’re really good reheated in the oven with a spicy tomato sauce and plenty of cheese (kind of like enchiladas).

Edit 30.10.18 — A shop in Brixton Village sells masa and corn husks!!! I think it was Faiz Latin & Carribean (corner of 1st and 5th). Time for tamales v2.0.

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David Reinfurt on the beginnings of Dexter Sinister

This idea began as a bit of a joke of course, over whiskey in Nicosia late at night we said “Hey, we should run a book store with this stuff.” And like most things that are worth doing, the jokes are worth following through because they’re fun.

David Reinfurt on the beginnings of Dexter Sinister from his 17 March 2009 talk as part of the Walker’s Insights Design Lecture Series. Quote is a paraphrase, see 33:45 for full comment.