What Now with Simo

Northern Exposure dream — Rich and long — Many scenarios and segments — Dreams are a gift — Places familiar from earlier dreams — Another puzzle piece — Stan Jones song “Riders in the Sky” (1948) — A seed for Ennio Morricone — Great Western music — Finding my own way — Sergio Leone asked him to write in the style of Dimitri Tiomkin’s Western soundtracks — Born in Russia, moved to the United States — “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling” from High Noon (1952) — Later instrumental music — The two influences — Spotify playlist “What Now 1956–1959” — Performance by Nelson Riddle — Music composed by Tiomkin — Two John Wayne movies — Rio Bravo (1959) and The Alamo (1960) — Johnny Puleo & His Harmonica Gang’s “You Are Always in My Heart” — Now in the 1960s — Journey through music — So far listened to 72,268 tracks — Created 3,201 playlists — New: “What Now 1960–1964” — Name and cover art changes — Great freedom — The Scorpions: “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” — The Ventures: “Pipeline” and “Spudnik (Surf Rider)” — Firing the imagination — This freedom never existed before — How elusive it is — Only some very special artists have the key to that freedom always — David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE (2006), Mulholland Dr. (2001), and Twin Peaks season 3 — So much more to do with that freedom — Freedom and fragmentation — With regard to my own work — It comes through you — It’s somewhere out there — Flowing through what you do — Can’t be faked — You know the real thing immediately — Marketing tricks — May take a long time — Finding your way to ever more true and real things — Goes for life as well — Don’t settle if… — Feeling truly loved — “You are the one. I don’t want anyone else.”

Back at the lake — Episode of updates — Water perfect for swimming — One of my very favourite things in the world — Immersing myself in water — Lake, swimming pool, bathtub — When I start to float — Your own private world of blueness — The good type — The fresh smell of the lake — If you could bottle that… — Pierre Estève’s new album Sky Flowers — On Bandcamp — You never know what to expect — All kinds of musical realms — Musical explorer and adventurer — Flowers of Change — Fresh listening — Store selling used books and magazines — The memoirs of Peter Falk: Just One More Thing — Columbo — A book very much after my own heart — Varied and modular style — Kin to David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish, John Cage’s Silence, and my own Art & Love series — Mostly short chapters — Great use of titles and subtitles (subheadings) — Adventurous and fun books — Small chunks — More light on negative space — Thinking and talking became a second-best choice — An illustration of negative space — Negative space defines the work — It opens and frees you up — Book designs I dislike and like — A joy or a chore — Why I do things the opposite way in my own books — My music now on numerous streaming and download sites and social media platforms (e.g. Instagram and TikTok) — Passages Dark and Light — All this is legit — The music remains completely owned by me — Will never give away the copyright to my work — Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music — More than 150 platforms — Royalties — Art full time — Living the dream — A huge plus of Bandcamp — Warm thanks to my first supporters there — Stephen, Roberta, and Michael — You made this possible — Working on new albums — Folk song “The Three Ravens” — Spotify playlist for 1956–1959 — Raveny rendition by Frances Faye — Three crows on the wooden bridge — On the cover of At Dawn: Early Short Stories — When things like this happen — Something I believe

Weather totally amyaazing — Midsummer — Drifting and talking — Quick course correction — Too close to a marker — A whole episode about negative space — Other thoughts — David Lynch film Wild at Heart (1990) — Starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern — Beautiful sequence — Gas station — Drive through a desert — Trying to get good music on the radio — 100 miles to go — Horrible stuff — Violence, death, health issues — Lula — Sailor Ripley — Powermad (band) — Letting go — From heavy metal to a classical song — Richard Strauss’s “Im Abendrot” (“At Sunset”) (1948) from Four Last Songs (Vier letzte Lieder) — “Abendrot”: “evening red” — Different versions of the song — Rowing — Great tempo — Finnish for “world”: “maailma” — “Earth” (“maa”) + “air” (“ilma”) = “earthair” (“maailma”) — Concise way of saying “planet” — Earth surrounded by air (the atmosphere) — Negative space

A short afternoon row from beginning to end without talking, with some quieter parts when filming.

Good morning from the lake — Back to rowing — Future presentations of my books — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems — Hardcover and ebook — Low profile for the moment — The Land of Youth and Beauty — Feeling truly loved — Then you feel young and beautiful — Chronological age — Chris Stevens in Northern Exposure — A kind of companion book — Title, cover design, nature — No assembly line — So many things — Screenplays and stage plays — Poems from a time of searching — From my heart, soul, and secret self — The most special things — Many styles and topics — Now a very clear sense of direction — Markers to my future — The commentary section of At Dawn — Dates and comments — Classical poems — Sonnets — Other rhyming styles — Different rhyme schemes — “Oisín and Niamh” — From the game Serena (2014) — Free verse — Stream of consciousness — Spare poems — Happy, unhappy, absurd, funny… — No dates — Pedantry and lyricism rarely go together — Earliest poem from the year 2000 — Magazine of the Department of English — Only hardcovers and ebooks in the future — The beauty of the hardcovers — “These are now the final versions of these books.” — Royalties about the same — No gouging — Every piece of art is a result of the artist’s whole life — Not only the mechanical action — Avoiding getting killed for thousands of days and night — Great relief — Weight off my shoulders — A local lake monster — Finishing things — Need to update website — Readings and other types of events — Videos — A right time for everything — Forgot to bring a hat — Sun beating down on my head — Looking forward to working on future creations — Backlog project — Many things to do and feel — Great feeling — Bare stage or fresh page — Visual art — Early music — Transcripts — Long intervals between episodes — David Lee Homb — Pierre Estève — Some future episodes — More room to breathe — Episodes on a more regular basis — Need to prioritise — Future presentations — Dedicated episodes — Spontaneity — Thank you for joining me on my little rowboat — Beautiful morning — Take care

Good spot for a picnic — Green grass — Forgot the pillow — Shade — Sandwich — S.Pellegrino sparkling natural mineral water — Shoes — Rainbow-coloured blanket — Helmet — Why haven’t I done this before? — I don’t believe in beating yourself up — Easygoing — A long time ago — Academia — Dry place — Parties and picnics — May Day — That part of the day — In warmth with a breeze — Basic things most important — Fresh air — The smell of grass — Colours — Tastes — Smells — A touch — Senses — Art & Love, Vol. 1 — Next part — Chapter on sensuality — Not hedonism — Indulgence leads to unhappiness — Distorted looking glass versions — What I see right now — Sunglasses — Bottle — Black bag — Shoulder bag from London — Zoom recorder — Lime-coloured helmet — Adjusting mechanism — Cars — Buildings — Hotel — Red brick factory — Caterpillar beer festival tent — Lakeside — Future topics — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Passages Dark and Light — Ambushed — Amusement park — Creepy Carnival — Everything has its own time — Pushing, imposing, forcing — No — Eating the sandwich — Your battery — Eating outside — Perfect picnic moment — Very early summer — Buzz — “It was a picnic kind of a day…” — Mouthful — Taking photos — Thanks for joining me — Moving on — Sun — Find myself a city bike — Packing up — Paper Tiger — You’re on my leather gloves now — For protection — Crumbs for birds — Down the hill, past the dandelions — Take care

“Season 4 Theme — 2nd Anniversary Opening Version” (@ 0:00) — Two years from recording the first episode at Hótel Vellir in Iceland — My mother’s passing — My parents — “2nd Anniversary Lyre” (@ 1:52) — New leather couch from Denmark — “Passages Dark and Light — Part 1” (@ 2:40) — Note regarding earlier symphony discussion — At Dawn: Early Short Stories for a later episode — The three first Psycho films — Anthony Perkins — Lasting use of language — David Lynch and Ray Bradbury — Henry Purcell: “What Power Art Thou” from his opera King Arthur (1691) — David Lynch swearing — The music of Ron Jones — Sleeve notes from Film Score Monthly — What Star Trek was originally meant to be — Once upon a time — A person like a dragon — Philip K. Dick quote from his novel VALIS (1981) — Ideas — Intuition — Everything connects — Authentic and right — Don’t fake it until you make it or you may break it — Negative space — A novel can be any length — Freshness from leaving out all the extraneous things — The Hours (2002) — The Elephant Man (1980) — Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) — INLAND EMPIRE (2006) — Healing devastation — Best possible advice for dealing with trauma — Readings of Ray Bradbury — “The April Witch” (1952) — How can we forget beauty? — Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) — The suburb scenes — Roy Neary played by Richard Dreyfuss — Metaphor for creativity — Artists can eat their cake and have it too — Northern Exposure did that often and well — John Williams quoting from “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio (1940) — Happy ending? I think not — Immature vs. mature — Field of Dreams (1989) — Dignity — Actors with dignity often get exploited for undeserving stories — Bryan Cranston — Jonathan Banks — The emotional toll this takes on the makers and viewers — I must speak my own convictions — Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones as examples of immature storytelling — Modularity as a creative principle — Quote about good teachers — Paul Chadwick’s Concrete — Melissa Strangehands — Art commenting on art — Drawing from life itself — Art in your favourite TV series — A rock garden — Fragmentation — More on art in story worlds — Do comedians exist? — Moments that would shatter the psychotic intensity of many series — “C’mon, man. Don’t be stupid.” — Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Seinfeld — Dreams of Norm Macdonald, Philip Glass, and David Lynch — All the things stories are — One thing, two things, three… — A series for the young at heart — Dear listener of the future — Drink cans — H. P. Lovecraft poem: “The Garden” — “Lovecraft’s Garden” (@ 42:41) — “Passages Dark and Light — Part 2” (@ 43:49) — Fake drinking in films and TV series — Imagine a world without potatoes — I had a dream of you today — About half done with the remaining notes — Cheering anecdote — All the music has been composed and performed by me — The future of my music — A video can give the best possible sense of how a book looks and feels — Good wishes to good people — Much love — “Season 4 Theme — 2nd Anniversary Closing Version” (@ 53:20)

Northern Lights, Op. 2 No. 1 for Lap Steel Guitar: “A Beginning Is a Difficult Place to End” (@ 0:00)

© 2022 Simo Sakari Aaltonen. All rights reserved.

“Notes to Self” (@ 0:25) — Backlog — Some individual points — Line by Rod Serling — “What are you, some kind of sadist?” — Nicholas Meyer on specificity and universality — The very picture of a violinist — Sir Yehudi Menuhin — Poster in a café — Tastes in music — Plastic people — A really bad idea — Symphonies were originally not expected to be heard by any single person more than once — What types of music and what pieces of music you can listen to over and over again — Expectations of Beethoven, Mozart, and others — Very different now — Expected relistenings — Theme music for this podcast — Most advertising jingles annoy on purpose — Angelo Badalamenti’s theme for Inside the Actors Studio — Twin Peaks theme by him and David Lynch — Highly relistenable — Sometimes you hit those times in life where the heaviness of what you need to experience is overwhelming — You can’t express love generically — Devalues expressions of love — The companion playlists: “What Now with Simo 1952–1955” and “What Now with Simo 1956–1959” — No longer tweeting about new additions — On Spotify — Sharing beautiful creations with others

Year 2022 — On a train — Warmth — Finland has two great festivals of light and warmth — Midsummer and Christmas — Human warmth is a miracle — The most difficult thing to get across in art — Harder than comedy — Everything needs to be just right — Sense of balance and lightness — The Finnish Christmas song “Varpunen jouluaamuna” (“Sparrow on Christmas Morning”) — Prose translation in the season 4 book — Upcoming books and updates — The season 3 book will be special — Now all episodes play on all devices — A lot of catching up — Several books in the first half of 2022 — Collection of short stories — Hardcovers — Excellent printing — A tremendous change — Avenues of expression — Before the Internet and social media — We used to live in a world of far more limited freedom — Trilingual (Finnish, Swedish, English) announcement (Orivesi) — Algorithms — Editorial process — Nobody was in control of their own words — People have largely forgotten this — The bad old days — Everything was controlled by gatekeepers — The freedom of expression we now have — Struggle of thousands of years — Any threat to this needs to be fought — Always have final cut (David Lynch) — The rest of my backlog — After that, whole new fresh projects — Creations from times of searching — Different and distinct — These times — Blind faith in life working out — Even when it makes no sense to believe that — Light on the horizon