A short look back on the first month of 2006. Good music, good movies, good books - lots of travelling and visiting family and friends. The mole (birthmark) over my right eyebrow was removed, I sprained my ankle badly (thank you Andi for bringing me home) and now I am happy to be back in Helsinki for the next two weeks.

Forgive me, that I mostly list the good things below - there is just not time enough time, to review the not-so-good artworks.

• Michel Houellebecq - Die Möglichkeit einer Insel / The Possiblility of an Island
  Misanthropic, sad and haunted by sex - that's Michels style in Die Ausweitung der Kampfzone / Whatever and Elementarteilchen / The Elementary Particles. In this new book his view on mankind has become a bit more negative and he really makes the reader blieve that everything that happens between North- and South-Pole is disgusting and the only advantage is anyhow that it makes no sense. At the very end he seems to leave a little light of hope burning. Weather it's a hope that you like, you'll have to find out on your own. A good book, but Elementarteilichen / The Elementary Particles was better. (7/10)

• Juli Zeh - Spieltrieb
  On over 560 pages Juli Zeh ist not capable of writing a single wrong sentence. Every word, every metaphor fits - and many of them hurt. Her talent in using the German language is for sure unique. Already Adler und Engel / Eagles and Angels was a crime and a love story. In Spieltrieb she changes the scenario from drug addicted grown ups to a German grammar school. We meet Ada, a fourteen year old girl, whose mind is one of a fully grown-up and disillusioned person. We meet Smutek, her teacher who tries to find happyness, or at least hope, together with his wife. And we meet Alev, one of Adas classmates - a player of games. And as all games between people, also this becomes serious and ends in something that might look like a catastrophe at first glance. (8/10)

• Match Point
  Woody Allen leaves the comedy (not for the first time) and New York (must have been for the first time), goes to London and directs a love-crime-tragedy that sucks you in, shakes your emotions and leaves you waiting for more. But the end is as cruel as justice is. One might not like the moral implications this movie transports, but it is a perfectly constructed, directed and acted story, that will not let you think of anything else until it is finished. (9/10)

• Southpark - Bigger, Longer and Uncut
  I said it already - it is great! (9/10)

• Bob Dylan - No Direction Home
  Martin Scorsese makes a movie about the early Bob Dylan and the man himself talks about himself and it is all wonderful. This documentary made me listen to Dylans song in a different way - with much more background knowledge. I even took out the one and only Woody Guthrie record I have and listend to it. Don't watch this if you do not like Dylan. (9/10)

• Ronin
  I saw this in 98 when it was released and now again on TV, but I did not like it too much. It is a good thriller, but the streets of Nice and Paris are too empty and just waiting for the cars that chase each other through them. (5/10)

• Mary Broadcast Band
  Now, after coming back home again, I am able to listen to their first album, which is unfortunately not available in stores. The three songs on their web page are good, but the album is just perfect. I saw them live, but I do not know them personally, so don't think I would make advertisement for friends here. They simply play the blues and Marys voice has a power rarely heared these days. Be there at their next concert, get a CD. (10/10)

• Juliette and the Licks - You're Speaking my Lanuage
  This is the little Juliette Lewis, who played in Natural Born Killers. Somebody must have told her to make music and this somebody should get a special bonus. This is very well made Rock'n'Roll - loud, aggressive, sometimes sad and always good. (8/10)

• Carla Bruni - Quelqu'un M'a Dit
  Yes yes yes, I like to listen to female voices. I know that. And Mrs. Bruni is not only good to listen too - we also know that. But still her songs are so easy and so much Cote d'Azur, that even a 42 square meter room in Helsinki in Winter becomes a cozy place for forgetting everything that is anyhow not worth the trouble. (9/10)

• CocoRosie - Noah's Ark
  I heared them on Zündfunk on German Radio Bayern 2 and their sound and song was so different, that I had to hear more of them. Their music is organic and does not go into cateogries of loud or soft, happy or sad. Sigur Ros is maybe in a way similar, but then again - only hardly similar. Don't listen to this as background music - it gives you a severe headache. (7/10)

• Tarock
  A big "Thank You" to Alice, Christian and Johannes, who not only took time with me in Vienna, but also taught me this great game. I got addicted to it and play it on the my computer all the time.

• Wien
• Budapest
• Miesbach
• Nürnberg