Bear's Monthly Mayhem - June 2024!

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Jul 02, 2024

Summer is now well underway! Thanks again for checking out my Monthly Mayhem newsletter! I appreciate you!

If you’re a new subscriber, I hope you enjoy this monthly write-up of my most recent reviews, projects, services, and merch gigs, as well as a general catch-up (and a cat picture or two)! The purple links will take you directly to the articles!

LIVE REPORTS

I only attended two shows this month, which is a rarity. The first was Vies Vignette, which was a great opportunity to do an interview with them, as well as to see them live again at Love Potion Club! The second was Bruce Dickinson…

Now, here’s the thing about the Bruce Dickinson show. I’ve been wanting to see his solo material live since I was a teenager. When I was a geeky Canadian high schooler, spending all my spare time listening to metal and writing fantasy, I was listening to a lot of solo Bruce, so you can imagine how happy I was to find both two tickets for sale and a date for the night. You can also imagine the impact that was left with me when I realized that, despite it being a great show, I didn’t feel anything. You know, I was happy to be there and I enjoyed it, but live music has become so commonplace for me that it didn’t feel special, even though it should have.

As such, I think I’m going to be taking an indefinite hiatus from live music, with some very select exceptions (like Tuska Festival, Kosmos Festival, and Dark River Festival), until I feel like music has some meaning for me again.

MUSIC REVIEWS

There wasn’t a single new album review that I did in June, though I did squeeze out an anniversary review of Nightwish’s “Once” at the last minute over at Tuonela Magazine! Album reviews are also going on indefinite hiatus, with extremely select exceptions as well, though I’m sure I’ll keep writing some anniversary reviews over at Tuonela. Next up is Helloween’s “Master of the Rings” in early July.

NON-MUSIC REVIEWS

I promised more non-music reviews in lieu of music reviews, so this month I tried to get to work on that. The first thing on the list was a re-review of The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss, which I loved when I first read it and loved again this time.

The second was the review that I promised last month of a game called Minute of Islands, which is a really honest and heartbreaking look at depression and how depressed people martyr themselves by not reaching out. It’s a fast playthrough, about 5 hours, so I do recommend it for those who have depression or feel like an island, or if you’re looking for some empathy towards people who do.

The next is a review of an indie film that I crowdfunded sometime in the last year or two called The Disruptors. It has some actors that I know from Dropout.tv (formerly College Humor) and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, even if it came far from reinventing the wheel story-wise.

I’ve also been wanting to write a review of Hollow Knight (one of my favorite modern games) for a while and, as such, it was fortunate that I saw it on sale on the Nintendo Switch for next to nothing, so I was able to replay it while writing the review. Gosh do I love that game, even if traveling is tedious.

And, I also wrote up a short, cute romance that I found on Netflix called Love at First Sight. I’m not generally a fan of rom(/-com) stories, so I was pleased that this was pretty cute and inoffensive.

PROJECTS

Kathy Criswell and I are still plugging away at her novel, Aphrodite Rising, and now I’ve had a chance to look at some earlier drafts of it and I find that sort of thing fascinating, to see how stories change over time before they’re published. This has been a really fun project.

I have a few new writing projects in mind as well, which I’m not going to mention until they’re more properly underway, but suffice to say that I’ve got ideas finding room in my brain again… some creative juices are starting to flow!

ISLANDS OF NIGHTSEA

Islands of Nightsea is currently still on hiatus, but again, I have a few ideas that want to come out…

OFF THE RECORD

For personal reasons that I won’t disclose, my interview with Rabbit Cult has been postponed, but I’m hoping that whenever we do reschedule it, we’ll do a little something extra/fun at the same time, so stay tuned for that!

I also have quite a few interviews now pending release, so the two that came out in June were the aforementioned interview with Vies Vignette, which was a really cool get-to-know-the-artists interview. Then I had the pleasure of having a long chat with Timo Kurkela about his time with Altamullan Road, his musical origins, and the struggles we creative types have when we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to fulfill our dreams. It’s one of my current favorites, but perhaps I just really loved talking to him because it validated a lot of my own frustrations about my creative work. I left that interview feeling considerably less alone in the world.

GATHERING OF GEEKS

While GoG is still running casually/rarely, I did want to try to squeeze Vincent Lilium of SulfuriS in before Tuska Festival, since they played there this year. It was a bit of a crunch since I was having some technical difficulties with my video editing software, but I made it with a couple days to go. If you were at the festival and enjoyed the set, do check it out!

ENSLAIN METAL MERCH

I had a really fun opportunity this month to sell merch for Postmodern Jukebox! I had been interested in going to see the show but, considering that I need a break from music journalism, I ended up deciding not to ask for accreditation. And then, lo and behold, they needed a merch rep and Lady Enslain didn’t feel like going because she had just gotten back from a month-long tour in the US, so I was able to go and listen from afar. I didn’t actually watch the show but I did meet one of the singers, Emma Smith, who was selling her solo albums next to me. I gave the most recent one a spin and if you like jazz and/or great vocalists, you should definitely check her out!

GENERAL BEARSNESS

Very early on in the month, I met with a friend who just moved to Finland and we went out to Alppiruusupuisto (Rhododendron Park) and Seurasaari for an afternoon. This was awesome just because I’ve never been to that park before and the flowers were all in bloom, so it was absolutely gorgeous. Then, I just haven’t been to Seurasaari for a long time and the water was wonderfully warm and two pigeons tried to take us on a side-quest (to a bench, to feed them). It was a nice reminder that I should explore new places and revisit old favorite spots as well.

Alppiruusupuisto

View from Seurasaari

As my friend swam away, forever…

Quick, follow us! Over here! To the bench! Then give us snacks!

The summer herbalism is well underway right now and it’s becoming something tranquil and organic for me to do when I wake up that gets my day off to a peaceful start and connects me with nature. Since most things are optimally harvested in the early morning, I try to go out first thing when I wake up to do the rounds in my yard for things like nettles (nokkonen), yarrow (siankärsämö), self-heal (niittyhumala), and rose petals (villiruusu), and then occasionally I go on longer trips for red clover (puna-apila), meadowsweet (mesiangervo), St. John’s wort (mäkikuisma), and wild strawberries (metsämansikka) if I’m lucky. I lost a hefty harvest of thistle buds (which wasn’t the end of the world because I don’t know what they’re good for), but I have an abundance of sheep sorrel (ahosuolaheinä) leaves & roots, and violet (orvokki) flowers, as well as something cute called the dwarf’s pincushion (scabious/törmäkukka). This is going to be my best harvest yet, simply because now I know when to harvest and what to harvest, which has been a learning process over the last two years. I still need to find myself some burdock (takiainen) though…

Clockwise: Strawberries, thistles, St. John’s wort, red clover, yarrow

I also made tea-stained labels for my new jars, which is a small thing but makes me really happy. I haven’t tea-stained paper/labels in forever, so it was a nice little nostalgic arts & crafts moment.

I’m also feeling generally a little bit more balanced after last month’s osteo sessions, so while I was intimidated by a very big 3-day festival, I was sure I would survive it, and survive it I did. The sore feet (blisters galore!) and inability to stand after standing for so long is a constant thing, especially when your bones aren’t quite right, but luckily the rest of my summer festivals will be more easygoing on the old bod.

I’ve had at least one pool date with a friend, a few more people over to visit, a long catch-up call with one of my American besties, and a peaceful midsummer by myself just taking it easy. Slowly and surely, I’m recovering a bit.

“It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true. To be so lovely and so lost. To be all answerful with all that knowing trapped inside. To be beautiful and broken.”

— Patrick Rothfuss, The Slow Regard of Silent Things

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Coming Next Month…

Of course, since Tuska Festival just ended, that report will likely be up tomorrow or the day after. Then, my favorite festival of the year takes place in July, which is Kosmos Festival, because yes, I am indeed rather a hippy and I love the atmosphere there more than any other festival ever. I’m also considering going to check out Puistoblues at the beginning of the month just because it’s local, and I’m hoping to check out Happoradio closer to the end of the month, because it’s been about 13+ years since I’ve seen them last, so why not?

Then, July is going to be dedicated to some creative projects, so hopefully I’ll have something to show off next month! The plan is to do as little as possible in July so that there’s space in my brain for other things.

Thanks again for reading along this month!

And below is my Best of 2024 playlist! Welcome to follow along!

Bear's Book of Balance