SUMMER CELEBRATIONS: THE SHANGRI-LA SUMMER SHOW JUNE 8!

If you want more sparkle in your life, and even if you don't, but just want to have fun and be entertained, come watch our studio's Summer Show Friday June 8th at Sture 21!
Coming to a show is always a win-win -  you have a great time and help put bread on the performers' tables. Plus get your daily/weekly/monhtly dose of sparkle and (biogradable) glitter.

It is already the 5th summer show we organize, and as usual we feature both students and teachers as well as resident Shangri-La performers. And a lot of other fun stuff! It's a bigger show than our regular clubs, and we turn the madness down a little bit (just a little) when hosting.

Find out more on the event page, and get your tickets from our webshop here: Summer Show tickets.

Also, a small reminder that I have created a discount code for my blog readers to our studio which gives -15% off pretty much everything - also summer show tickets! We have several summer classes and courses coming up in June as well so have a look at our studio's webpage (still only in Finnish I am afraid, although we do teach some classes in a multilingual style Finnish-English-Swedish).

The special only-for-you-discount to our webshop is FREELANCERS15

520 SUNDAYS

Considering how rather unstructured my day-to-day life's routines are, as in not-really-there and lets-see-what-happens-next-week-in-life, and supposing it is not the first impression I tend to give, I am actually rather un-enthusiastic about change.  It's not that I am reluctant to change, just lazy about it. Mainly small everyday bits, perhaps as a balance to even out the lack of certain routines and certanties. When the big thing is messy and loose around the edges, keep the smaller things intact.
Like tending to stick to one and the same lipstick or nepalese dish or handbag once noticed that it works. (I'd probably always do the same nails too if I would not force myself to get a bit creative there.) You know - if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

And thus I have been adding to the same playlist for ten years. Ten years folks!
That is some 520 and Sundays! It is weird how time flies, isn't it.

But that is because it is the best playlist for soft and mellow, daydream-filled Sundays there is:
Soft Sunday.
With some 11 hours of music I usually tend to listen only to parts of it; often the latest ones that I felt like adding now, or a section that reminds me of a summer a few years ago for example. Sometimes I think about taking some song from that list away, but then I don't because they all had a reason to be added back when they were. And I just can't make a new similar list, nope, that would be cheating.

Here's the latest addition to the list, a video that I really liked back when it came out, but then forgot about, and that fit the mood and Sunday-test today:

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW - AND SO IT WAS SUMMER

When it gets warm, and like now, when it STAYS warm, I keep on being amazed by how pleasant it feels. And by how light is is. You forget that during the darker months. Every time. The air feels nice and smooth and everything is green and growing and I am hoping it will stay like this until September (instead of waiting trough those short summer months of almost-there disappointments forcing you to pack a jacket with you wherever you go, like the two last summers turned out. Weather - we are at it here again...).

Everything is green and blooming here now.  I think it has never been this warm in May for such a long period here before. Woop!

Even our house is getting naked!

The summer lambs are back on our meadows.


And underneath my window the apple tree is blooming for a few moments still.

DIRT & DIAMONDS

I just drove my husband out to his tractor on the field to work. It is so dry and dusty everything gets coated in a layer of dirt. And I laughed a bit at me driving trough the fields because that was that one thing I never saw myself doing earlier in life.

Never say never and all that.

My nails still look like this though, and that won't change.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Waiting for November then!

Queen was the first band I was an actual fan of! I did my first presentation ever in school about the band. My mom helped me put it together. That was a terribly long time ago already.

Biopics like these can either be a hit or miss (and sometimes going back and forth between either one), but lets hope this one is good! So far I like how the song mix for the trailer is made, so lets make that a god sign.

Ze interwebz told me the movie has a campaign where you can sing Bohemian Rhapsody karaoke-style with your phone and perhaps get your voice in the films (guessing ending credits?) and apart from the looking-for-a-shot-talented-singers I keep thinking of the thousands and thousands of terrible ones that have to, just have to (forbidden karaoke songs: immigrant song by Led Zeppelin or Bohemian Rhapsody) happen. And that somebody has to listen trough. Give me half a bottle of red and a late night and I'm in! (No, please don't).

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: AND SO IT WAS SUMMER

This week I was in Strasbourg with  +27C and I was prepared to come home to boots and jacket-mode still but alas! - I brought the warmth with me and we celebrated  Mother's Day in +25C and sunshine. Weather is always such a factor here.

First outdoor breakfast (mmmm, ok: lunch) of the year! Which I made myself altough offered otherwise; oat-chia pancakes with peanut butter and berries. Not the prettiest, but more yummy than one (me) would think!

The outdoor-summer-renovation-mode for the house has begun. This home is in a state of renovation both inside-and out.

 Flower-mode is also on; in just a few days the leaves have turned green and flowers are blooming!

Flowers were also blooming in the pretty Mother's Day-sugar water painting Dag gave me!  Altough he nonchanalntely said that they were not really flowers "I just dotted some paint there".

SUPERWOOD

Today I am traveling to Strasbourg to perform at a festival (at Elsass Rock & Jive) in warm and sunny weather!

So, logically I thought I’d look back some six months ago to to a very different kind of season, festival and ambience - Paola Suhonen’s SuperWood Festival.

The very first Superwood took place late last October just east of the Helsinki city centre in a now hotel, then 1960’s bank conference building; Hotel Rantapuisto. In all it’s 60’s design glory is a prefect base for the event, which, as one would expect when created by Paola Suhonen / Ivana Helsinki, mixes music, art, design and Finnish nature.

It’s a rather grown up festival, in a good way, with nice dining and movie screenings - forget muddy fields and tents, and enjoy lounge bar concerts with a living room feeling design hotel rooms - with a twist of spooky woodland vibe:
(Photo credits at the end of the post)

I only attended the first night but immediately regretted not booking the whole weekend. I managed to miss my old pal’s Suad’s sunset concert opening the night (Finland, October, it sets early) but got to listen to a truly magical Mikko Joensuu auditorium set, and then join the wood tour, which Paola put together of different musical performances and installations in the woods surrounding the hotel. A super idea although a bit over crowded, but let’s see how they do it this year.

The hotel restaurant had put together a vegetarian buffet of which lots of the ingredients were picked from the backyard -like sugar coated lichen decorating the dessert. And Pekka Haavisto (Finnish presidential candidate) was DJing! I ate so much I had to lounge on a pile of cushions to get over my food coma while watching one of the feature films.

Looking forward to this upcoming autumn to see how the second year of the festival will turn out!

Photos from the Superwood FB page by
1. Aleksi Tikkala - 2 & 5. David Jakob - 3. Tero Kiiski - 4. Mira Lintunen - 6 & 7. Paula Hiipakka

Square instagram photos by me except photo of Pekka Haavisto from @pekka.haavisto