Bear's Monthly Mayhem - October 2024!

Here's me being a broken record, saying that you're great!

Nov 05, 2024

The leaves have changed and largely left us behind now as autumn claims the land! Thanks once more for reading this Monthly Mayhem catch-up email. As per usual, I can’t express how much I appreciate all of you who read this!

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!

Dual-wielding cats while trying to work. Very productive business…

LIVE REPORTS

October was a quiet month on the gig front, as I managed to convince myself to pass up a few events for the sake of giving myself some peace. On October 3rd, I treated myself to a pre-birthday show from Nestruction and Crimson Sun, who are some local favorites that did not disappoint! The latter were celebrating their newest album’s release, so I had to go and show my support, of course.

After that, my next show was on October 16th at Rekolan Kino: the Smalltime Players, too, were in the midst of a tour for their debut album. In fact, we had such a fun time at this show that we snuck out again to Sellosali in Espoo on October 19th to see them a second time. They were really fun, warm shows and I look forward to seeing the Iivanainen duo again this winter in December!

Smalltime Players @ Sellosali, photo by Joanna Orchide (@joannaorchidephoto)

One slightly more unusual event that I attended was the Mystinen Muusa Kabaree [The Mystical Muse Cabaret] on October 23rd. I went because both my whirling lifedance teacher Safa Solati and my bellydance teacher, Jasmine Oriental Dance, were performing. It was a really fun show overall though — I enjoyed everything thoroughly except falling down the stairs (it’s fine, I only had some bumps and scrapes, nothing serious).

Safa Solati, whirling lifedance; photo by Auvo Takkinen (@atp_kuvat)

MUSIC REVIEWS

There were a few new albums to be reviewed in October, the first being Andy Gillion’s surprisingly heavy metal“Exilium,” which was out on the 11th. Definitely recommended for melodeath fans!

Next was Ensiferum’s newest album, “Winter Storm,” which came out on the 18th. I still haven’t completely made up my mind about it, but it’s a very competent release that’s nicely in keeping with their sound, so I don’t have any complaints up front.

Lastly, is the sophomore release from heavy country artist Cory Marks. “Sorry for Nothing” isn’t actually out until December 1st, but my information had told me it was incoming on November 6th, so I was way earlier than I needed to be with that one. Oops, but at least he didn’t mind!

NON-MUSIC REVIEWS

I finally finished up Baten Kaitos, but I haven’t finished my review yet. Perhaps I’ll get that done in November. There’s a lot to talk about in that game. I don’t actually have any reviews from outside of music this month. I suppose that means my efforts to not overdo it and waste all my creativity on critical analysis have succeeded. I do hope to release one or two in November though.

PROJECTS

I’ve finally finished my first readthrough of “Aphrodite Rising,” so I’m not afraid to tell you that Kathy Criswell’s book has so far made me cry three times during the peak moments. For someone who claims to not have a lot of experience with grief, she certainly captures it beautifully. Stay tuned in March for that one! I’m overall quite impressed with it!

The group project for the Luova Lämpiö group has finally been handed in, which means I can finally say what it was! We worked with a company called Arivin to make a short animation for them to use for their company. Their goal is to combat antimicrobial resistance, so our idea was to create a fun video that explains how antimicrobial resistance works in a way that’s easy for the layman to understand. I should be able to share the final project by next month, I hope. I was in charge of finalizing the script, communications, and voice acting, which was overall really fun for me! I love doing a narrator voice, though I was admittedly bummed out that the version of the script where I did more voice acting didn’t get used. Oh well, that’s how it goes with art and businesses.

Me working in my chaos space

I also finalized my first article for the print version of Fabled Magazine. So far I’ve only handed in a blog post for the website, which, incidentally, is now live! You can visit and check out the site, as well as read a bit about how fairytales have inspired the editor, Natasa Xerri. You should also check out her book, “A Stranger’s Tale,” if you like things like folklore, the four winds, autumn, and that sort of vibe!

I also have a new project coming up but I’m not going to talk about it just yet, so wait until a wee bit later, yes? Just know that it’s something I’m extremely excited about! I’ve handed in my first drafts already and was pleased to get some positive feedback, so there’s some more work to do but it’s sounding cool as hell!

ISLANDS OF NIGHTSEA

Hiatus continues…

THE VITMAR CHRONICLES

So, everyone remembers this new section, yes? I promised last month, out of nowhere, that I was going to start publishing “The Vitmar Chronicles” on my birthday, and publish it I did! “Volume I: An Ending & A Beginning” is available on Amazon, Google, Kobo, and the Draft2Digital network, which includes places like Barnes & Noble, so if you look it up, you’ll surely find it. You can also get it directly from me, if you’re so inclined!

You can read the first ten pages of the story for free here on my website!

You can also watch a video I made about the series here on my home page, in which I discuss the origin of the series, how it’s changed over the years, the philosophies that go into my writing, my inspirations, and how to get the first volume.

Cover largely done by Kathy Criswell, because she is awesome

Now, getting this done was a weird sideshow act, but fortunately, I function very well when I have deadlines, so giving myself a release date put a little fire under me. I procrastinated a bit for the first two weeks, and then did a mad assault the two weeks before release, hoping to make it sensible enough to put out there. In the end, I’m quite satisfied with where it ended up. I managed to catch and remove a few silly things that were completely unnecessary, tidied it up, and put some more emphasis on things that needed it. I’ll be curious to see if it catches anyone’s eye at any point. All of the feedback I’ve gotten so far has been extremely positive, so I’m feeling pretty good, even if I really did this on a whim and didn’t plan any sort of marketing for it at all. Seems I’ll need to just get to work on the second installment, which may be my November’s endeavor!

OFF THE RECORD

No new interviews this month! I was busy getting that novel out. I do have a request in with Cory Marks though, so let’s see if his management still wants to have me despite me dropping my medias. I’m also planning to release the Rabbit Cult interview next month! That was a really good one!

GATHERING OF GEEKS

Nothing new this month as well, since I was busy with the whole novella thing. Don’t forget to check out last month’s episode with Crimson Sun’s Miikka Hujanen. We used to play the Curse of Strahd DnD campaign together for a while, so we had a lot to talk about!

ENSLAIN METAL MERCH

October’s merch was Merta! They played at Semifinal on October 31st, so I tagged along as I always do. I love them, so I always have fun at their shows. You can tell that they’re having a good time every time they play and that makes a huge difference to the audience! This show had changed up the set a bit from the last time I’d seen them, which was awesome — I don’t think I’ve heard “Saarna” live before.

Semifinal does not have the best setup for merch — all of those shirts were taped to the wall

GENERAL BEARSNESS

Releasing my novella was the biggest deal, but I did have a super nice game night for my birthday, which mostly involved playing Werewolf but that was great — it’s a really good group game that I didn’t have a lot of experience with. Also my friends made me a bunch of cakes and cookies, one of which I dressed up with candles to be French-moustache smoking bear but it ended up looking a bit more like a cat, heh.

I was hit with an unexpected wash of grief this month, as I finally learned (over a year after the fact) how my adoptive son died. I’m wrangling new feelings of guilt and loss over how preventable it feels, all while trying to understand that the poor kid was so damaged that there was nothing I could do. I just find it hard to feel any particular spark of joy in anything, after losing something so meaningful.

Other than that, the month was relatively relaxed. Okay, the beginning was chaotic because I was trying to push my book out, but otherwise, it was pretty nice. Belly-dance classes continue to push my bones in useful ways, as well as push me beyond my limits.

After my last trip to the osteopath, I was left in quite a bit of pain again. I’m such a weird mess on the inside… you poke one part of me back into place and three more parts pop back out. Fortunately for me, my more “normal” osteopath, Sari Hakasaari, has moved her practice back to my town, which happens to be where she’s from (funnily enough, her old practice was just a few blocks from my old place). This meant that her clientele hadn’t fully followed her to her new location yet, so it was easy to get an urgent appointment. She said two of my ribs under my right shoulder-blade had popped out (I didn’t know that was possible but it sure as hell feels like it). It took a few days to feel normal again but after some recent body mobility work, I’m not convinced that they haven’t popped out again. Well, back to osteo next month! Incidentally, I mentioned last month how my regular osteo keeps harping on about my left ankle and now I finally can feel what he’s talking about. How does he always know more about my body than I do? Wild…

I visited the pool for the first time in ages with my friend May. I love going water jogging with friends because it’s such a boring activity that it really promotes chatting and catching up. Plus it’s just really good for you. It’s certainly easy on my bones. I wish I went more regularly.

The other fun event from October was the Ensiferum pre-listening party for “Winter Storm.” I normally wouldn’t go all the way out to an over-crowded bar in Espoo for such a thing, but because Lady Enslain wanted to go check it out, I allowed her (haha) to take me out for dinner for my birthday and we went afterward. I had a surprisingly good time, largely because I ran into a ton of people that I knew — more than I certainly expected! It’s always nice to bump into friends at these things.

A belated image of me and Sami Hinkka to go with last month’s interview; photo by Sofia Douska (@dvsk.photography)

The only other thing of note that we did this month was go up to Hyvinkää to check out the Taikametsä or magic forest, where a group that included a few of my friends, it seems, had put some light decorations on an approximately 1km trail, so we went to check that out. Obviously, the bear was my favorite. Predictable…

Taikametsän karhu // Magicforest’s bear

“To grieve deeply is to have loved fully. Open your heart to the world, as you have opened it to me, and you will find every reason to keep living in it.”

— Laufey “Faye” The Just, God of War (2018)

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Coming Next Month…

I spent a good while stewing over whether I should drop social media completely in November, but since I’m in the middle of promoting my book with these reels (cut from the video on my homepage), I decided instead to limit my use to before noon, at least for the first week. After that, I’ll see if my usage feels more under control, or if I need to continue or go a little bit harder into it.

One of the first events that we’ll have is Day of the Dead. One of my friends shares my distaste for consumerist Western holidays, so she’s been doing a lot of reading about the Mexican holiday and I have to say that I love everything about it. There’s so much symbolism and love associated with making the ofrenda and celebrating the lives of those who have passed on. As someone who is still grieving a loss quite heavily, I look forward to dedicating an afternoon/evening to my cub, my kitten, my cousin, and those who my friends also honor on the altar.

I have very little planned for November, except perhaps some friend dates with Lady Enslain, some whirling classes and a meeting regarding that, a game day at Oodi (the new(ish) Helsinki library), some Kaunis Kuolematon shows that I might attend just for the company, and I’ll be wrapping up the month with a game of Zweihänder. So hopefully this will leave me with plenty of time to work on “TVC Volume II.” I figured, since my month doesn’t have so much in it, I might do NaNoWriMo… ultimately, I am not really a huge fan of National Novel Writing Month, because they claim that everyone can be a writer… yes, everyone can also be a surgeon or a teacher or an astronaut, but it doesn’t mean everyone will. Beyond that little marketing annoyance, it is a nice way to get into writing and keep up with it, so I hope to do more creative writing this month, if nothing else.

That’s it for now! I’ll catch you all again next month!

Below is my Best of 2024 playlist, which has been recently updated but requires a sprucing up and surely is missing some new music! Welcome to follow along!

Bear's Book of Balance