Midsummer musings: Taking command of one's voice

We spent midsummer in the traditional way at my parents' summer cottage at the seaside, on the island of Kemiö. Four generations were represented, from the children of mine and my brother's to my grandmother. A hectic and satisfying holiday, with my family learning to manage with the more relaxed time resource, which has been available since the completion of Outi's thesis.

As the picture intends to show, summertime in Finland is a fragile and lyrical time; time to spend time with the family and friends and connect with "the national identity" by observing time-honored traditions (drinking beer, barbecuing sausages and jumping into the lake fresh from the sauna).

I tested a recipe of barbecued lamb chops which worked well: soak the meat in red wine, fresh rosemary and thyme overnight, season with salt and pepper and barbecue it. Works wonders with good red wine, salad and new potations. The dish found relative favor with the audience and I decided to use the recipe at a gentlemen's reception to be held at our place next week (I also had 3 liters of cognac).

After spending the night, we relocated to a friend's midsummer reception in Hanko, the southern tip of Finland. It is a windswept, ruggedly pittoresque small town, and the guests included a few of my old friends from my days as a student union president. The host, Kristian, is maybe the best amateur jazz sax player I know. Indeed, he is the spitting image of the sax player Zoot from the Muppet Show, an incarnation of sax player cool (Kristian has better hair, though).

As I was pushing Iivari in his carriage on the windswept Hanko coastline to put him to sleep, the landscape covered with sand, rock, small, windswept pines, and the sea, I listened to a couple of Steely Dan songs from my iPod: the epic Aja, and a live version of Reeling in the Years. Both songs are characterized by a guitar solo, followed by a sax solo, with both guitarists being totally humiliated by the sax player. In Aja, Wayne Shorter's majestic tone and phrasing just make everybody else stop and gape. He just glides through the abstract rhythm and difficult chords, in my view totally embarrassing the previous guitar solo. In Reeling in the Years, Chris Potter takes an idea from Walter Becker's hesitant solo, playing with them like a killer whale would play with a clumsy seal pup (prior to digesting it), and moving on like a monster.

Kristian also has this sax player confident in his phrasing, which I have always admired. We were able to play a couple of jazz standards (Coltrane's Mr. Pc and Rollins's St. Thomas) at our shared friends' wedding and I can just hope that my solos did not sound as ackward in comparison to Kristians as those poor guitarists.

A final picture of the midsummer mood on the seaside...

Vampire love songs

I was browsing through the iPod again this morning on the bus. After a strange chain of leaps from Rainbow's "Stargazer" to Kenny Wheeler's "Nicolette", I ended up repeating the song "Forsaken" from Dream Theater's new album three times. It is unashamedly traditional prog metal, with a Tubular Bells -type 7/8 piano riff followed by some Rainbowish guitar riffing.

The best of all, the song is about vampires.

Vampire songs are an extremely valuable sub-genre in music, I think. The first song that comes to mind is "Moon over Bourbon Street" by Sting with phrases such as:

"It was many years ago that I became what I am
I was trapped in this life like an innocent lamb
Now I can only show my face at noon
And you'll only see me walking by the light of the moon
The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast
I've the face of a sinner but the hands of a priest
Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there's a moon over Bourbon Street"

Forsaken follows the same proud tradition. For some reason, I guess because people have the tendency to associate love with death, vampire songs are often love songs. John Petrucci, the guitarist from Dream Theater does not use Shakespeare language to make his point but assumes a more direct route:

"I waited faithfully
For night to fall again
Trying to silence the fear within me

Out of the night and mist
I felt a stinging kiss
And saw a crimson sting on her lips

I have to know your name
Where have I seen your face before
My dear why don't you be afraid

Forsaken
I have come for you tonight
Awaken
Look in my eyes and take my hand
Give yourself up to me"

With these rather trivial musings I would like to wish all friends and strangers a good midsummer.

Celebration

Outi's PhD examination was yesterday. I was proud of my beautiful wife who defended her work confidently.

At the PhD dinner in the evening, we were celebrating in a restaurant with a panorama view. Evening sun was shining from a cloudless sky. As a lucky accident, there was a regatta on the bay below. This is the only picture I will post as evidence from that wonderful evening. 'nuff said.

EGOS frenzy

In a frenzied state again, hammering out the final details of a paper I'm co-writing with Richard Whittington, for the European Group of Organization Studies conference, due on Sunday. The paper is about how managers become strategists and how this revolutionizes or adapts their fundamental views on strategy. I find this topic utterly fascinating, and am impressed by the data which we are using (produced by Richard). This is also a very important time for the family as my wife is defending her PhD the day after tomorrow. So, no time for an extended entry.

Music has a remarkable capability of granting strength in stressful times. Right now I am listening to Bach's Musical Offering. The piece has a nice story, which illustrates the mastery of the composer. The Prussian king Fredrick II had "composed" a short theme which he wanted Bach to develop and that he did. The theme itself sounds rather clumsy but Bach turns it into something wonderful.

Incidentally, the Musical Offering plays a part in a detective story called The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, probably best known for his novel The Club Dumas, which Polansky transfomed into movie The Ninth Gate. The Flanders Panel was a kind gift from a PhD student and was a part of my last holiday experience.

Two other great pieces of music I need to sneak in before I get back to work:

- Timeline by Ralph Towner. A sublime offering of solo guitar, bordering between jazz and classical, played on nylon string and 12-string acoustics. Towner does his thing, and that's it.


- The Ultra Zone by Steve Vai. I have never been one to appreciate guitar pyrotechnics over song content, and there is no fear of that on this album. The playing is fiery and inventive but it's the songs that capture your attention. A wonderful mix of influences ranging from Indian to metal.

Ps. Those intrigued by the previous post might want to check out the comments. Fuze himself commented on the problem I posed! I am looking forward of using that example to explore the text/context issue in organizational aesthetics as soon as I have the time and placid state of mind.