Autumn, Syksy 08

Hello friends, Hei Ystävät!

( I'll write in Finnish this time and make some kind of summary next time in English, okay?)

Juu, kaikenlaista on tapahtunut sitten viime kerran. Usein näissä blogiposteissa tulee kerrottua lähinnä vaan kouluprojekteista vaikka Elämässä toki tapahtuu paljon muutakin. Koetan kirjoittaa muustakin.

Kalaopetus-video on valmis, meidän pitäisi vaan polttaa siitä muutama dvd. Siitä tuli minusta hyvä. Ja hyvää palautetta ollaan saatu tähän mennessä. Kyllä sen kanssa duunia tehtiinkin. Se lähetetään sitten kouluihin oppilaiden katsottavaksi.

Tällä hetkellä työstän tyylilaji-käsikirjoitusta. Tarkoitus olisi kuvata noin kuukauden päästä. Käsikirjoittaminen on haastavaa, mutta usein myös todella mukavaa puuhaa. Aika erilaista minusta kuitenkin verrattuna tavalliseen fiktiiviseen kirjoittamiseen. Aihe ei ole helpoimmasta päästä, mutta uskon kyllä että onnistutaan.
Mari on mun kanssa työstämässä tätä käsikirjoitusta.

Mulla oli tossa taannoin syntymäpäiväkin. Vietin sitä muutamassa paikassa. Jyväskylässä käytiin syömässä ystävien ja perheenkin kanssaa ja Helsingissä niinikään syömässä ystävien kanssa. Käytiiin Helsingissä mountainissa ja ne tarjosi mulle ison jäätelöannoksen kun kuuli, että oli synttärit. Oi sitä lapseniloa.
Nykyään ei enää lahjat merkkaa paljoa vaan se kun saa kavereita kokoon. On upeaa kun kokee, että 'hei minulla on monta ystävää jotka välittävät minusta paljon.'

Ikäkriisi ei ole vielä iskenyt päälle. Tosin mietin kyllä usein juuri synttäreiden ja uuden vuoden aikaan, että olenko oikealla kurssilla elämässä, teenkö sellaisia asioita joiden parissa voin olla onnellinen ja ylpeä. Itsetarkastelun paikkoja ovat ne, niinsanotusti.
Sen ainakin tiedän, että tahdon tehdä luovia asioista ja kommunikoida työlläni toisille ja toisten kanssa.

Monenlaisia hyviä kirjoja ja elokuvia on tullut luettua ja nähtyä. Ruotsalainen 'Niin kuin Taivaassa' oli upea, samoin Antonionin 'Yö', jonka kävin arkistossa katsomassa.
Kirjoista Toby Youngin 'How To Lose Friends and Alienate People' oli sekä hauska että liikuttava. Stephen Kingin kirjoittamisopas on myös tosi hyvä. Luen myös tällaista Michael Newtonin 'Sielujen Kohtalo' nimistä kirjaa. Se herättää ajatuksia ja tunteita. Siinä kerrotaan elämästä elämien välillä. Kyllä vaan. Mister Newton on hypnologi(vai onko se hypnoterapeutti)ja hän pohjaa kirjoituksensa asiakkaiden kertomuksiin. Tosi kiinnostavaa, mutta välillä myös hämmentävää.

Olen myös ollut mukana sellaisessa näytelmä-projektissa: Woody Allenin 'Jumala' on näytelmä. Esitetään Lahden pikku-teatterilla nyt marras-joulukuussa. Tulkaa katsomaan. Minulla on melko pieni, mutta ei lainkaan merkityksetön rooli siinä :-)

Kuntavaalit meni ja mun äänestämä ehdokas meni läpi. Hyvä homma. Mietin, että voisi mennä mukaan politiikkaan enemmän. Vähän kokeilin jo sitä Yliopistoaikoinani. Olen ollut pari vuotta vaan syventynyt tähän draaman, fiktion ja elokuvan maailmaan. Ei-fiktiivinen todellisuuskin kiinnostaisi. Hehe.

( Tänne nettiin kirjoittaminen on vähän kummallista siinä mielessä kun mulla on ainakin toistaiseksi avoinna tämä blogi kaikille- mitä haluaa kertoa elämästä tämän tyylisessä foorumissa? Kuka avautuu netissä ja kuinka paljon? )

Lopettelen nyt. Rauhassa kaamosajan yli sisäisen tulen voimalla. Jeah!

Spring/Summer of 08

Dear Friends,

It is a rainy day here in Lahti. I hope there will be couple more of those sunny days before the autumn really arrives! The months roll by fast. Summer especially seems to pass qiuckly. Hope Life is going well for you my friend. I am doing allright here. After summer I always seem to be filled with new ideas of what to do and how to organize my life... This year is no exception to that.
Well, back to the blogtrack now...

Last Spring, after finishing the documentary, we started working on our next fiction-pieces. We also had a course on scriptwriting(writing screenplays),which I really enjoyed. It was inspiring. I did not finish any screenplays, but I did work on couple of stories, that I might return to later on.

Everyone in our group wrote a synopsis (core idea, a brief description of essence of the film) for Fiktio3 -fiction3. Then our teacher decided which one he liked best. Well, I protested at this point, because originally we were supposed to have a collective chat about this. Now, the time was running out so we had to make quick decisions. So, our teacher left it in our hands eventually to decide which ideas we'd like to pursue further. It was a tough call, because we had so little time.

Me and Ville (the other director) read everyone's synopsis' and poured some sweat over which ones would be most interesting to do. After scratching our heads for awhile, we decided to go along with the ones that our teacher had also picked. Ville took Mari's synopsis and I took Antti's. Then I started to work with Antti. He would write a version, and I would make comments and suggestions to it. We kept going like this for some time and then had a meeting with the whole group. Everyone (including Erkki, the teacher) could comment on it now. The script got more polished all the time, and I started seeing it coming together. First, the idea of the movie seemed hard to realize, but after awhile I understood it well(in my opinion).

This was the first movie we made with professional actors, so that made it more interesting. And, of course, the quality of acting would be a bit better now. (I like to work with 'amateurs' and other students too, mind you. It's just different.) I found the actors from the City Theatre of Lahti. We did not rehearse much, had one read-through and a chat. That's all. Next time, I want to have a rehearsal.
Actually, this was not the first time we met paid actors and worked with them. We had had a short course on Directing Actors earlier on. But it was short. Plus there were teachers present there. It was good that we got to have that experience before shooting this film. This time we'd be left to our own devices :-/

Before the first shooting day, I still had few questions in my mind about the film that I had not fully resolved. I hoped that once we would start shooting, I would see the direction clearly. Well, I think it happened pretty much like that. The film focused more on drama and less on suspense. We shot for three days in my own flat.
(at that time our cinematographer, Italo, was still living in the same place too.)
We stayed well in our timetable and managed to get all the material we wanted.
Plus, maybe most importantly, I think people had good time doing this film. Well, I know I did. Before the first shooting day I was quite nervous. I wondered if had prepared well enough. I woke up couple of times early in the morning before the alarm stomach filled with butterflies. But once the process started rolling...then I just went with the flow...

During the spring there were other projects too. One was the 'Feeling'(tunne)-video. The task was to make about three-minutes long video that would express a certain feeling/emotion. I pondered for a long time what I would like to do with this one. My first idea was to make somekind of supernatural, paranormal, film. A Ghost comes for a visit or something like that. After that I thought I'd make something abstract. I abandoned that too. Eventually, I made a pretty straight-forward video in my own flat.
Drama, again. Guy is meditating, but he finds it hard to relax. Then an ex-girlfriend /ex-lover shows up for a visit. This stirs up lots of emotion in our main-character.
That inner peace is even more distant now, but by expressing his emotions he finds balance. That kind of simple story. I was satisfied with the result. This time I did not work with professional actors, but I had good time doing this film. We shot most of the material in one day. Afterwards I edited the piece myself.

Our school also offered us a document-project for the summer. We'd get paid for it too. Not much, but still...it was my first paid film-project :-) Our task was to make a film about fishing for teenagers. Well, to be more precise...to make a film that would get young people in high school to become interested in being a fisherman/woman.
I don't go fishing myself, so I had my doubts if this would be a good project for me. I decided to go for it. It would be more experience for me. We are still working on this project, so I won't write more about that now.

I didn't work that much this summer. For one week I went to youth-camp and shot some short films with teenagers there. So, I was both a youth-worker and a director. Good combination, I liked doing both. The days were long there...I'd wake up early and finish ten o'clock in the evening. Few youngsters very quite motivated about the project, so that was good. I'm gonna edit the films now and send them a dvd later.

I was a roadie in Celine Dion-concert. We did not get to see the show because it was sold out. That was annoying. I always want to see the show, if I have been building the stage all day.
In early July, I went to a soccer-tournament in eastern Finland. Leka-Cup at Juva. We gathered together with our old junior-soccer team Palokan Riento-81 and took up the challenge. It was great fun. I am glad I went there. I was afraid that I wouldn't be up for it, but it went really well actually. I shot one goal and our team came second in the tournament. It was cool to play with the old buddies again. Maybe we do the same thing again next year. Then only the gold can be our goal.

Now, my work is calling me back to the editing-room. Much love&light to you all. Enjoy the remaining warm days if you read this in Finland. If you are in Australia or somewhere else...well, all the best to you!

Lauri Anssi M

ps. If you are interested in seeing films i've been working on. Contact me and i can make you a dvd. None of them are subtitled yet, but i am working on that right now.

What I've been up to...for last 10 months (Part1)

Hello Friends,

It has been some time since my last update. I don't know if people still come here, but I quess I could write something. It is spring now. Last time I wrote it was summer.

During the summer-time I worked at some concerts... Metallica, Rolling Stones, to name a few. And UMO-jazz festival too. Summer went pretty fast. It was good to see Metallica play. I was a Metallica-fan... when still in highschool. It was cool to see them. The crowd sang with one voice in classic-songs...not only in choruses, but also in guitar-solos! Finns are big on metalmusic.

I made one kind of experimental film last august. It was one weekend with Salla and Ville. It is called Kiirastuli- Purgatory. I was pretty happy about it. Happy about the result, and the process. It was enjoyable to make it. It is about a guy who dies and then angel escorts him to a next level or phase. It can be seen as a sequel to a movie made in October 2006--Suuri Kohtaaminen (the great encounter)-that was my first short fiction movie ( Well, I made few movies as a kid, but they are a little bit different thing.) I think the acting might have developed in Kiirastuli, if compared to movies I made before that. We did not rehearse. Straight into it.

We spent the fall semester doing documentaries. Our group did two documentaries. One was a so-called epic documentary ( directed by Ville) and the other one was a documentary about one person, like a portrait ( that was the project I directed). Perhaps the most difficult thing was to find a topic. First I wanted to do a documentary about Zen-Center in Lahti or Helsinki. We would film one meditation-session, from beginning to an end. Well, that did not happen. Then I thought about doing a movie about Scientologists in Lahti. That did not happen. We went to a huge beer&lemonade-factory...maybe that could be the topic. Nope. I wrote to people who saw themselves as contact-people for UFO's...but could not find a right type of person before the deadline. So...there were many steps in this process. Finally I met Sari.

One guy in our filming crew was working with people who were unusually short- he edited their magazine. So, I contacted a person who (i think)was the editor of the magazine and she recommended that I contact Sari. Sari is a very positive, strong-willed and energetic person. When she was young she wanted to find out the reason for her condition-diastrofia. Her doctor told her to do research on her own roots. That's where she would find a reason. So that's what she started doing. She found out that it was fascinating work (this research)...and that she was good at it too. Soon she realized that she had actually become a researcher: she was getting job-offers. And she did also find a genetic reason for her condition. So, it can be said that her illness led her to a work she loved doing. This was the guiding idea of this documentary for me: When Life gives you lemons, you make lemonade-kind of thing. Showing how one can turn really challenging conditions if one has a strong will to live, a good attitude to life.

Doing a short documentary required more work than what I expected. However, once I had a subject for my documentary it became easier. Plus..Sari was a good subject because she was open and interested to tell us stories from her life. I wanted to have Sari's husband and her parents in the film too. They all agreed. That was really a good thing too. Sari let us film material in her 50th birthday.
We shot lots of material for this movie. Eight cassettes or something like that. Editing the material was a big job. Our editor did fine work there.
I was happy with the result. I think it was a kind of short film that could be shown in Finnish tv. I thought the duration was good too. Maybe it could've been a little longer, but I think it is fine as it is.
I learned a lot doing this documentary. I quess I would do some things differently now...looking backwards to this project. But, in this field of work, the best lessons are often learned through doing.

The other documentary our group did ( I was not involved in this one though) was about a horse-race in Lahti. There was no dialogue in this movie. You could hear people talking but they were not narrating to a camera. (unlike in Sari-documentary) This group managed to make this horse-race an interesting and beautiful visual experience.

The Fall-semester went fast. I was happy to go to Christmas-holiday after working quite a bit with the documentary. My parents went to Vietnam for last Christmas. We managed to have an early Christmas-dinner before they left, with my brother Tomi and his girlfriend Hanna being there too. At Cristmas-eve I went to my friend's place. Family Leppänen had invited me to spend the evening with them. I had good time there. I also became the Santa Claus at Olavi's place. That was fun too. I made a little dance when people sang. Santa's Christmas-dance. I had a didjeridoo with me. Santa had just returned from AUstralia.
I received some good gifts: One r'n'b music soapopera, a gift-card to local filmstore, one classic movie, a perfume bottle...just to name a few.
Duting the Christmas-time we got along well with each other, me and Napoleon. Napoleon turned fourteen last December. He is becoming an old dog. I wish and pray that he will live a long, healthy and happy life.

New Year's party was at Tuukka's place. There were some lovely people there. We had some fireworks too. There was not much snow though. But we ignored that and celebrated.
I was pretty satisfied with the year 2007. I made progress both in my studies and in with my personality too. Progress with one's personality is generally slow though.
I hope 2008 will be a good and blessed year for me, my friends and for this whole planet.

I will write a part two soon...we are shooting a movie tomorrow, so i gotta get some sleep now. Oh sweet sleep, sweet dreams. But now I am back on the blogtrack again!

Reflections from Spring 07

Dear friends

It has been couple of months since last time I wrote a lenghty blogentry. Time goes fast. It is now summer.

By the way: I noticed that it has not been possible for you to leave comments earlier to this blog. Or it has been possible only for the registered users. But I have changed that now: You can leave comments whether you have a blog here or not. Hopefully you will leave comments!

School has finished for this spring. Last time I wrote about my life..we had just finished our first short-films as a group. During the spring we made three more movies: Jälkiä-( Traces ), Veljesi Aaron ( Your Brother Aaron ) and Serkku ( Cousin ). Veljesi Aaron was the film I directed. I made the original screenplay for Serkku. They are 3-5 minutes long. Aaron being the longest one.

Little bit about those films....
In these films we were allowed to use some dialogue. This made the projects more challenging but also exciting. In Fiktio-1 we had two days to shoot the film, now we had three full days. It became clear quite early that everyone in our group wanted to improve from our last projects. It is cool to notice this natural progress, everyone learning new ways of doing things and setting the standard somewhat higher.

Aaron is a short story about communication, acceptance and love. I won't tell the plot, because I'd like to show this movie to you someday. Serkku is a story about dysfunctional relationship, violence, use and abuse of personal power. Our movies are done with almost no money, so the settings and effects are not like in "big films". However, many people have been willing to help us without any financial reward. So that has been great.
In these movies our group was still doing the acting-work by ourselves. This will change next year...as there will be drama-students and professionlan actors working with us. This makes me both nervous and excited. In my heart it is more the excitement that I feel.

Next autumn we start making documentaries. I am directing one of them. I am looking for a good idea at the moment.

Last weekend there was a good gig in Jyväskylä. Profeetta ja Uusi Maailmanuskonto released their debut-album and they held a concert to celebrate that. I like their music...and also the memebers of the band are my friends.

This spring went really fast with these film-projects. I really didn't do much more that made films and watched them. I was fun thoug, mostly. Sometimes it was quite stressful. I want to learn to work without stressing out too much. Being flexible but centered in my spirit.

I really like this flat that I am living in. This is on the 9th floor...I've got such a cool bird's eye view from here. It is not cheap for a student like me...but I hope I can still stay here for sometime. It is also a peaceful neighborhood. I like that too. Just few hundred meters from my house there is a lake and a beach. I just swam there couple of days ago. Bliss, bliss, bliss. That was the first time since last summer ( in natural water ).

Right now I am doing my work-practice in one production-company. Filmiteollisuus it is called. I have enjoyed it. We are making a comedy-miniseries for tv. Ten episodes. We are doing it in a fast rhytm.
I have been doing all sorts of things there. Helping the producer and screenwriter. Running errands. Acting a little bit ( Yes, it is true. ). Helping the cameraman/cinematograper. Being an assistant director ( in this instance that meeans that I am taking orders from director and passing them on to actors. The director is not always able to be physically next to the actors. )

Favourite films this spring....
April: Shortbus, Inland Empire ( that new Lynch-movie. Inspiring. ) and Three Extremes ( Asian horror-movie. THree stories in one. Not for the weak stomach. ),
May: The squid and the whale ( good dialogue. good acting. ) Wicker Man ( Classic. Really original. Disturbing. Provokes emotions. ) Science of Sleep ( Visually pretty amazing. Beautiful. Directed by Michel Gondry who is among my favourites. )

In april I went to see Nine Inch Nails concert in Helsinki. They were one of my favourites in High School. Enjoyed the gig.

I did short documentary about a pizza-place near my flat ( Three minutes in length ). People who work there have migrated here from Iraq. To escape the war. I felt sorry for them. One of them said that people who are setting up bombs there and creating chaos are really not from Iraq. Many of them just use this chaotic situation of Iraq to fight their battles there. I haven't studied the situation that much lately so I don't really know. It does not look good at all, that is something I do know.

It seems to me that we ought to co-operate much more on this planet to resolve this kind of conflicts. We are eager to go to other countries if there is some profit to be made or some exotic experiences to be experienced...but when other countries are in real trouble we don't want to dirty our hands.
It is not that we all ought to go to hotspots of this planet and sacrifice our lives...but that we shouldn't say that it is none of our business. It is our business. We are all interconnected. Not only because we live on a same planet and thus share the natural resources etc. But because we are brothers and sisters spiritually. If we don't care about our brothers and sisters...we are doing harm to our soul. We are connected on a level of our Heart/ Soul.

This is why racism and all other prejudices are so off the mark- If we put those 'blinders' on, we are forgetting who we truly are. Cutting ourselves from our Home, this Soul-space, where we are all connected to each other. That is not a nice space to be in. AND it is especially inappropriate attitude to take in this time...when LOTS of co-operation is required to save our ass! From what? Global warming, pollution, terrorism, clash of cultures/ethnic groups/political groups, corporate corruption etc.

But let us enjoy the summer here in northern hemisphere.. and lovely winter-days for my friends in Australia. I wish to hear from you soon.
Send comments now. It is easy. I might create a myspace-site for myself soon too. Maybe I can add some films and pictures there.

Much love. I think of you all often and that makes me feel warm and good.

Peace, Lauri Anssi M

36 questions

I usually enjoy these little questionnaires. I found these questions from one blog.

1. Full Name: Lauri Anssi Moilanen

2. Age: I was born 1981

3. Eyeglasses? Yes.

4. Piercings? No, I considered getting one once. But that was long time ago.

5. Tattoos? No, and I probably won't get one either.

6. Birthplace? Jyväskylä, central Finland.

7. Current location? Lahti, southern Finland.

8. Languages? Finnish is my mother-tongue. English is my second language. I also speak some Swedish.

9. Bad habits? Oh, many. Procrastination. Hedonism. General nervousness. To name a few. I try to be honest with myself about myself...and about Life. Patience and self-forgiveness are needed.

10. Can you drive a car? I am learning right now! Today I had my 3rd driving lesson. It is intense.

11. Pencil or a brush? Pencil, but I'd like to learn more about the brush too.

12. Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars. Great characters and story. Fascinating world. Star Trek is not bad either. Use the force and do not underestimate the power of dark side.

FAVOURITE...

13. TV-show? Seinfeld, The Office ( Extras is good one too! ), Twin Peaks, Lost.

14. Movie? Too many to mention. Movies that inspire.. visually, emotionally and spiritually.

15. Magazine? Hesari, Keskisuomalainen, Time, Sight&Sound, MinäOlen-lehti, Image.... to name a few.

16. Shoes? Sneakers. Sandals when it is hot.

17. Candy? Chocolate and Ice-cream.

18. Ice-cream flavour? Mmm. Chocolate. Mango. That is niiice.

19. Scent? Nature. Forest. Fresh air in the nature. And water... lakes. Certain fruits.

20. Season? Late-summer. Everything is ripe and blooming. But really, all seasons are beautiful.

21. Vacation? Summer-vacation and christmas.

22. Rapper? This is a tough one. Tupac is wonderful. So I mention him at least.

23. Style of music? I like music that evokes emotions. Usually I listen to music with strong vocals and melodies. But I also like ambient music...peaceful music. I mostly listen to current music.

24. Place in your room? Near the window. I like to gaze outside. Somewhere where I can see the sky. I've got a really nice view from my window in my home currently.

25. Game? Football games, if we are talking about video-games. Scrabbles.

26. Place to be? Heaven. Being right here and right now. This moment.

27. Places you have visited? Too many. I loved Australia. Melbourne. South-Australia. The outback. Italy. Venice, Rome. Los Angeles was fascinating. Little places in Germany were beautiful. And of course Finland. Lapland. Hankasalmi. Jyväskylä.

YES or NO questions...

28. Are you a vegetarian? Yes. Have been for a long time.

29. Are you an artist? Yes, I am. Artist is a person who lives creatively and expresses one's self with creativity.

30. Do you write poems? Yeah, but not that regularly.

31. Are you a fast runner? I used to be in school. But I don't run that much nowadays.

32. Do you hear voices? Yes. I try to focus on the positive voices. LOL.

33. Do you own a pink shirt? No, I don't.

Could you ever...

34. Do bungee-jumping? I could. But probably I won't.

35. Steal your friends boyfriend/girlfriend? No.

36. Walk out of a restaurant without paying? I have actually done this. It happened in Estonia. We went back there to pay the bill next day. Embarassing. It was this philosophy-course/camp. I quess we got too deep into our thoughts.

Recommendations: Books

Here are some of my favourite books:

Neale Donald Walsch: Converstations With God Books 1-3
I have read pretty much everything NDW has written and it has changed the way I look at Life. They helped me to come closer to Divinity. I read the first one when I was still in Australia back in 1999. All the books are good, but if you read the first three you already get into the spirit. Some of the ideas you might have heard before, but I bet there are some things that are fresh to you too.

Joshua David Stone: Soul Psychology
I've read many books from Joshua Stone and they have all been great. Another teacher who has really been a big influence for me. Some of the books go deep into area of metaphysics, this one deals especially with psychological issues. It is practical book, and the core ideas are very clear and uplifting. I love the chapter on personal power. You read this book and some other books of his at www.iamuniversity.org . It is Joshua's site so you are not ripping off the author.

Teachings of Ramana Maharshi ( Edited by Arthur Osborne )
One of the clearest and simplest teachings on non-duality one can find. Maharshi was an amazing teacher...his teachings might appeat quite extreme for many, but I was definitely very impressed by them. Osborne's comments are not really necessary, so if you can find another edition it might be better. I think Shambhala has published his works too. Ask the question: Who am I? Do not let the mind answer to this one (with concepts and thoughts). Let me know how it goes...

Sanaya Roman: Spiritual Growth
This book contains teachings from a spiritual teacher called Orin. Great stuff. Have had a big influence on me. They helped me to reconnect with my Soul. Also the book Soul Love is a great one from this author. Book has many helpful exercises and meditations in the end of each chapter. Teachings are clear, relevant and communicated with love.

Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now
If Ramana did not do the great trick for you, you could try Eckhart. Eckhart is a modern-day spiritual teacher. His big mission is to bring people back to present moment and free them from compulsive thinking and anxiety-filled existence. Tolle looks a bit like a peacefull hobbit. Joking. Lots of exercises included. If you do them..I'd be surprised if it wouldn't bring you more peace.

Thom Hartmann: Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
I wish everyone would read this one. Thom is the man! This book is a wake-up call. It deals with the energy-crises we are facing soon... and actually we are already in it. The oil is running out, we can't rely on fossil-fuels no more. We need to deal with the climate-crises. This book looks at how we got into this mess, whatkind mess it is and gives solutions of how we can get out of it. Many fresh perspectives and well-written. Not only for "spiritual folk". There is important stuff for everyone.

Erlend Loe: Naiv. Super
In finnish this is called Supernaiivi. It has been many years since I read this. But I still remember the warm and honest tone of this book. Loe is norvegian writer. This book is about young person's existential anxiety. But it is dealt with in a humorous way. Some big issues like Love and nature of time are being explored. His writing style is fresh, clear and easy to digest.

Life in February 2007

Hello everyone,

How are you doing? Very well I hope. Month has passed again I notice. Not great changes, but still it has been an unique month.

Mostly it has been about school. We had the critique-session for Fiktio-1, first fiction-movies made by our group that is. Fiktio-2 means the second fiction movies made by our group and so on. These are short-films of course, not full-length movies. We don't get to do full length feature-films in this school. You gotta wait till you are pro I quess.

The short-film Tahdon, the one I directed, got both positive feedback and critique. On the whole the feedback was constructive I thought. I felt better after this session than I had felt in the previous critique-sessions we've had. Maybe I am getting used to this.

Some hightlights for this month: One weekend in Jyväskylä...Seeing and hearing Profeetta at Lutakko. ( Check out Profeetta's myspace profile.) There was also a great norwegian DJ who threw us a good party. Electro-stuff. My friend Soila left to Italy. We had a party at her parents place. Afterwards we went to a nightclub. That was a very good evening too. I hope Soila enjoys Italy.

Olavi and Emma won Emma-awards ( Finnish music-awards). Olavi for best jazz-release.. Oddarrang: Music Illustrated ( Check out Oddarrang's myspace-site). And Emma for female-singer/artist of the year. Olavi and Emma rules ok.

Nice party at our school too. The Studio-party, Last wednesday. Band called Silvio played there. I knew the guys in Silvio. We played football in same club when I was still living in Helsinki. I bought their album Amass all you can. Original stuff.

I've been trying to look up some summer-work. So far, no luck. I need to make a proper CV and spend more time with this.
I hope I will get to do something that is meaningful for me.

Best movies I saw in February: Lady Vengeance and Tristram Shandy. Also Ingmar Bergman's Saraband was good one.

Last weekend I went to Tampere film festival. I saw some brilliant documents there. French, Polish, American and documents made by Sami people from Lapland. Sami's are the indigenous people of Lappland. They are the only indigenous people in European Union. There are about 100.000 Sami people. They live mostly in northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. I liked the Sami-documentaries. They had warmth and presence in them. Some very lovely people were interviewed.

Last month I told you about this Home With God book. Here are few quotes from the book:

"YOu are always immersed in the Divine. You are immersed in it right now. Indeed, you are it. YOu are divinity, immersed in Divinity, expressing Itself as the Individuated Aspect of Divinity know as YOu." p.35

" There is nowhere to go, nothing you have to do, and nothing you have to be, except exactly what you are being right now., in order to experience the bliss of the Divine. YOu ARE the bliss of the Divine, and you simply do not know it." p.185

And here is one poem I wrote awhile ago....
it is called
256 lives.

After 3 lives I had gained some consciousness

After 9 lives I had learned something about cause and effect

After 15 lives I knew something about lust and affection

After 30 lives I knew something about hate

After 33 lives I knew about revenge

After 40 lives I knew about betrayal

After 49 lives I knew much more about pain and depression

After 57 lives I knew more about sickness

After 64 lives I knew something about compassion

After 71 lives I knew something about Holiness

After 79 lives I knew something about humbleness

After 85 lives I knew more about friendship

After 89 lives I knew about disappointment

After 94 lives I knew much more about perseverance and determination

After 102 lives I knew about power

After 107 lives I knew about sex

After 111 lives I knew about passion

After 119 lives I knew about art

( I will finish this poem in my next mail. Something for you guys to keep you coming back, eh? )

Have an enjoyable month. Let us try to remain joyfull and count all the good things in our lives.

Much love to you , Lauri Anssi Write to me. I love to hear from you.

ps. If you have not seen it watch Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. Everyone on this planet should see that movie.
Peace.