On books and music

I have been reading, writing, and translating books quite a bit lately.

I finished Aarne Kinnunen’s biography on Friedrich Nietzsche recently. It was interesting to read such a work from 1960 CE. Some decades have brought interesting touch of time to the work, although it is was a pretty regular view on Nietzsche, his life and works.

Another book that I finished recently was Aino Kontula’s Rexi on homo ja opettajat hullui. This diary of a teacher did cause some pretty heated discussion among Finnish teachers soon after it was published earlier this year. I need to say that I was somewhat disappointed with the book. It was supposed to be sort of an expose on how tough it can be to be a teacher, a brutally fresh and honest look at the job. I do not have as long experience on the field as the writer of the book does, but my general impressions of the book were that if the writer really sees her job the way she wrote about it, she should consider some other job. The book was a bit too much whining in tone for me, and I think it didn’t bring much any fresh light on the subject. I found the book to be also surprisingly boringly written. As such the theme of a teacher’s diary sounds good, but I think it could be done better than here. All in all, this was ok reading, nevertheless.

My first book’s English translation is in the hands of my proof-readers now. I guess there is going to be some editing of the text (there always is more than I think) before the book gets printed. I met my publisher today and created covers to the book at the headquarters of Voimasana. The art I used in the covers is created by Roland Winkhart. The cover of The Left Hand Path is presented here for the first time to the public.

I am still also translating The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage into Finnish (plus preparing a foreword to it) and writing Aletheia: In search of Self-Remembering. The latter of these projects has been in a very dynamic phase lately. After being inspired by the daemon in Ruissalo yesterday, I penned a Manifesto of Aletheia. It might end up into this blog too sooner or later.

Due to these writing projects and some other factors, my next creative steps in the world of music has needed to wait. Things take their time. Meanwhile, I heard that Cosine Nomine used samples from my CD Terra Hyperborea in his recent gig in Helsinki. There has also been some talk with a friend from Texas about his possible remixes of some of my Terra Hyperborea stuff. Knowing that he does killer stuff, the idea alone sounds goods.

Lastly a confession. I mentioned a little time ago that I would start to read J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Ring Trilogy in the beginning of June. Well, I started to read it already.