Bear's Monthly Mayhem - January 2024!
Archived from BearWiseman.com
I had a really pleasant NYE. My partner and I were torn between the options of go to our friends’ place to drink socially, or to stay home and do something together. While it’s really common to want to spent these events socially, frankly, my partner and I are just so unimpressed by alcohol and what it does to people these days, that we just honestly don’t feel like attending those sorts of parties unless it’s a really special occasion. Ultimately, we had a great night of watching Star Trek and doing body maintenance to music. We ended the night with Child of Kamiari Month because my partner wanted something new, but I think we fell asleep to Spirited Away because the former did not do much to impress us. Around midnight though, we took some fireworks out to the fields out back. We weren’t the only ones in the neighborhood, so we had a bottle of alcohol-free spruce-flavored bubbly (fabulously delicious, by the way) and enjoyed that as we watched everyone’s fireworks in the cold.
This has been an interesting month, because we’re in a bit of a limbo state. We’re trying to make sure we can feed ourselves, while also balancing our mental health and energy. It’s a very delicate act, but I think we’re keeping it together well. There’s something interesting to be said for making the decision to do your own thing, because other people’s stories tend to leave out the purgatorial period wherein you just have to keep doing whatever it is you do—in my case, mostly writing—and hope that the word gets out there eventually. People are so over-saturated with everything, milder people who don’t really like to be online or in-your-face tend to struggle even more. But, that’s where I am, just quietly sitting back and hoping people will give me a chance to make them think by reading one of my stories.
That said, I’ve been working on revamping some folk tales this month, which I’m hoping to use as worldbuilding for when I eventually release some fantasy stories, at long last! I have an aversion to tossing my best (re: longest) things out first, which is why I’ve only been releasing short stories so far, but I am really excited to start getting some of my bigger stories out after all these years!
Another thing worth mentioning is that I have, at least for the time being, decided to stop releasing Gathering of Geeks episodes on a strict schedule. I spent the first year releasing episodes on January 15th, 9:00, religiously, but considering I have so much going on and so many projects that I work on simultaneously, I’ve decided to not have a schedule to help ease my stress, especially considering I don’t have enough of a following to require a regular schedule yet. I already proved to myself that I can do it on a schedule when I need to, but for now, I’ll record my episodes when my guests are available and I’ll aim to release them on the 1st, 10th, 20th, or last day of the month at 9:00, but if I get too busy one month or if all of my potential guests are busy, I don’t want to be having anxiety attacks about it. Plus, I’ll supplement my content hopefully with a few more interviews and the like.
In the music scene, I had really badly wanted to go see Emmy June on the 12th but it turned out that Sonata Arctica’s pre-listening session for “Clear Cold Beyond” and the interview sessions were taking place at the literal exact same time, so I was SoL there, but I was pleasantly surprised by the new Sonata material at least. I did get to see Johanna von Hertzen again, this time with a new act called Fredrika Runebergin Puutarha that were really fun, and on the same night I also hopped over to see Frozen Factory—it was a pleasant surprise to find my friend Vincent there. I had hoped to see him but hadn’t been sure and had forgotten to ask beforehand because I was busy.
Just prior to this, I had been called in to the Women’s Clinic for what I thought was a followup and was actually surprise surgery. Apparently Posti’s services are so bad at the moment that the mail telling me what was up had been sent on the 9th but didn’t show up until the 19th is the reason that I had no idea what this appointment was for. Fortunately it wasn’t a bit deal, but that certainly throws you off when you think you’re just having a meeting for a treatment plan or whatever and instead you get the steel duck and the laser beam visiting your innards.
We had our road trip to Kitee (it was my first time visiting that town, which was fun) to see Altamullan Road—there’s a whole blog about that—and I did write up the show there and in Hyvinkää on the 26th. Stay tuned for my friend Kathy’s blog in three parts about the journey to Finland, which will end up here as a guest post. I love the idea of having my friends be able to use my website as a platform for their writing too, so this whole concept is making me quite happy. It was truly a joy to get to meet Kathy IRL and spend some time together. Usually we just send messages back and forth on Discord, so this was a lovely change of pace. We even found one of the best people ever, Helena Haaparanta, and spent the afternoon sliding around town on the ice together.
I did, unfortunately, miss my recording day with Metal Pizza, so alas, my podcast guest appearance will have to wait a bit, but at least in that time I did get to take some new pictures with Betty before the IGDA meeting. It was so nice to see some of the people I met the first time, as well as to meet even more people. I look forward to continuing to attend those parties and I also look forward to seeing Betty at least once a month, because she is the Yennefer to my Geralt and I LOVE her!
Also, Metal de Facto’s new album is out next month but I did write it up here! And if you missed the demo review of Break from Bedlam’s upcoming album, you can find it here! Also, if you have any interest in eco/hippy products, you can check out my thoughts on Hairstory’s New Wash shampoo replacement. I also saw a 2009 movie at the end of 2023 that I loved, My Sister’s Keeper, which seemed deals with grief, so I had to write out my thoughts on it too. I also did my second TTRPG system review, this time for The Witch Is Dead, which is very fun and a good intro to RP. I also checked out Break the Beyond, which was made by one of my new IGDA acquaintances. It’s still evolving, so my review might already be out-of-date, but I did really like it, so be sure to give it a try if you like mobile card games.
Towards the end of the month, Joss Cope stopped by to visit. I met him very briefly after his fantastic set at Love Potion Psych Fest last year and was extremely impressed by his energy and I was fascinated by the stories he was telling. Truly, I know the man’s a musician, but he could be a storyteller. He has some really interesting music… one album about songs written to the children he never thought he’d have, and another about the children he ended up having later in life. I promise to do an interview with him ASAP, just because he’s so interesting and has a lot of fun stories to tell!
And then, the last big event of the month was the Battle Beast show at Pakkahuone with Merta. I wasn’t, unfortunately, able to be at the Oulu show because I was at the Altamullan Road show that night, but the Tampere show was a blast. I loved Merta when they were opening for Machinae Supremacy back in October, and since then I’ve been devouring their discography like a maniac, so it was great to hear which of their tracks they play live and how they sound (including the new ones). I loved it. Also, Battle Beast pretty consistently put on a good show and they were extremely nice to me, so that was ultimately a really wonderful evening! Added bonus: I gave Juhis (Merta’s singer) a ride home, who further proved why I liked his vibe right away. He’s good people, so you should go listen to Merta and see them live and buy their merch and all that good stuff!
One new thing on the website is the Song Watch for January 2024, which has my new favorite releases from this month. I opted to do this because I didn’t want to be writing featured singles on this website, because the layout doesn’t really suit it very much. However, this style works for me and still gives these great artists some kick, so you can check out my favorite new tracks from 2024 and a few songs from 2023 I missed last year. Oh, and obviously, the flagship episode of Off the Record featuring Marko Hietala was released this month. Alongside that, I moved almost all of my interview archive from Tuonela back to this site, so you can enjoy nearly 80 interviews that I’ve done from 2012-2021 on that part of the site!
Things to expect in the next month are: two Off the Record interviews, one with Sonata Arctica and one with Altamullan Road; a new episode of Gathering of Geeks featuring Kathy Criswell; also Kathy’s blogs from her time in Finland; a live report from the Metal de Facto, Dreamtale, and Everfrost show; and hopefully a couple more live reports from the indie scene! I’ll also continue with some reviews of more eco/hippy products and let’s see if I have time and interest in reviewing more series and TTRPG systems, as there are a few on my list!
And, of course, as always, here are the links to my published stories! If you have a few bucks to spare, help a poor starving artist out and buy some cheap little heartwarming tales! Have a great February and stay geeky out there!