Today I had a revelation, a manifestation, an apparition. (Yes, atheists get them too.) I was nosing around the library, looking for intresting books in the movies section. Thus far I’d only browsed through the sort of skimpy section 77 but today I happened to take a peek two meters to the right.

My god! There’s a proper class for all things celluloid! Why didn’t anyone tell me about before? What sort of conspiracy is this? The orgastic joy of finding new books rapidly reached its apex as I realized I’d once again hoarded way too many books to actually a) fit into my bag or b) have time to read.

This finally brings me into my true subject today. Now in case you want to read a general, introductoryish book on modern Finnish cinema, you can choose (at least) between Levottomat sukupolvet and Lyhyttä ja pitkää. Here’s a friendly word of advice: don’t touch the second one. It’s a collection of mini-bios, written by various authors, so there’s no coherence, no style and almost no substance, either. The first one, on the other hand, is an enjoyable romp that’s been organized thematically rather than chronologically. It’s written by the editor-in-chief of Finland’s national filmography, which is the kind of merit that qualifies one for writing these sort of books. I recommend the book highly, but others have had differing views.

In completely unrelated news, here’s my contribution to the old tech beats new tech discussion: I used our old-school timeshifter to record a telly program on Asterix. The show was broadcast on FST, was made by Germans and the interviewees all spoke French. Unfortunately there was no subtitling because of the binary wonders of DVB-C and Yle, so the program was a no-go.