Daily Slow Chat

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1. Nice morning in Palermo,all of the jacaranda trees are blooming so we have some beautiful purple streets nearby!

2. All right! Here is the next episode of “Nice and Obscure Book Reviews with Tereyağlı Kedi”. In this episode I will be talking about the book “Finland: The Land of the White Lilies” by Grigori Petrov.

   Grigori Petrov was a Russian intellectual and clergyman who did not get along with the Bolsheviks and had to flee to Turkey and then Serbia. There he became a well-loved author and lecturer who travelled all over Yugoslavia and gave talks. His works seem to be especially popular in Bulgaria and this particular book is very well-loved in Turkey, mostly because Atatürk was fond of it and it was in the curriculum of officer schools for many years.

   The foreword of the book is written by the person who translated it into Bulgarian (the version I have was translated from Bulgarian, not Russian. I think the translator also gave it this opulent title). This Bulgarian dude briefly visited Finland in 1910, and was absolutely enchanted by how honest, clean, and tidy the Finns are, and how they’re just so gosh darn perfect in everything they do (this is a direct translation from the foreword: “Today, the Finns have succeeded in cultivating a region once consisting of swamps, rocky terrain, and forests, transforming it into a paradise. In these paradise gardens, they live a life that is pure, unblemished, and innocent, like the White Lilies mentioned in the Bible.” I don’t know how Finland looked in 1910. If Finns who happen upon this can confirm if it was like paradise, that’d be great). I think it was just such a new experience for him. He also has this description of a train station restaurant, which is beautiful: “…In Finland, at least from what I have seen, there are no sales in train stations and city restaurants. In the middle of the buffet or restaurant, there is a perfect table set up with food arranged around it. Plates, forks, spoons, and knives are neatly lined up on the shelves. Everything is out in the open on the table. There are no waiters or other staff to serve the food or handle payments. A hungry traveler approaches the table, takes a plate from the shelf, serves themselves as much as they like from the dishes they prefer, and pours their own drink. After enjoying their meal, they go to the cashier to pay for the food. The prices are also quite cheap, usually 1 or 1.5 Marks depending on the location.” Imagine being a traveller in 1910, hungry, cold, and tired, and you find such a place where you can eat and warm up. I wonder what dishes they had.

3. What’s your favorite time of day? I have to say the evening is growing on me. There’s something about the atmosphere of the liminal time between daylight and nighttime. The natural light peters out and is replaced by the glow of fluorescent lights.