What Now with Simo

14 October 2020, 4:39 p.m. — A long, almost baroque autumn dream — This time of year — Halloween on the horizon — 21 October — Libra — Proud of my mother — Eye surgery — Back to the dream — Gusty winds — Possibility of falling branches — Storm approaching — Seaside town, autumnal — Huge old house with creaking wooden floors — The home of a friend — Housesitting — Old-time things — Flea markets — Remains of lives — Lace, wood, porcelain, vases, curtains, carpets, armchairs, ornaments — Fresh — Good, fresh air — Wooden spiral staircases — The depths of the basement — Others moving about — The scariest adventure game ever made — Horrible things could happen — Frustrating timed sequence — Laboratory storage room — A fully formed place — Hewn stones on the embankment fronting the sea — A square at the edge of the sea — Tall trees — Theatre, old wooden floors, music boxes, leaves scraping along cobblestones — My dream landscape — My stories — 4:56 p.m. — Alice in Wonderland — What was the magic? — Wistful — The song “Alice in Wonderland” (1951) — Disney adaptation theme tune — Audiobook on cassette — Preparations for season 3 — An intuitive concern — Small-hearted people — Derailing dreams — Nothing as precious as potential for bringing warmth to others’ lives — DC and Marvel comics from the early 20th century — Very few worthwhile stories — Layouts — Alexander Toth — Will Eisner — Mr. Toth’s uncompromising quality — Take care

An episode of diary entries — Sunday, 20 September 2020 — 12:05 p.m. — “The Song of the Volga Boatmen” — The emotional arc of waking up on some days — A feature of art — Emotional underpinnings — 12:22 p.m. — Norm Macdonald video of Letterman appearances — “Calypso Blues” by Nat King Cole (music) & Don George (lyrics) — A song that can bring a smile — Version by Mona Baptiste (early 1950s) — Sultry, interesting, relaxed — 23 September, 12:31 a.m. — Rod Serling talking to a group of young writers — Norm Macdonald’s comment on The Twilight Zone — Probably the best TV series of all time — If only one TV series could survive — Only the original series — A series that gives you something — Alienation, loneliness, times of feeling lost in life, etc. — Dark in a healthy, helpful way — Northern Exposure — Anyone who watches it will benefit from the experience — The opposite of heavy — Back to The Twilight Zone — The dark gem — Should play in all countries at odd hours — Always swimming in our collective electrical subconscious — A pure, clarifying anger — Rod Serling cared — Genuine mystery and imagination — A sense of theatre — Virtually all science fiction series try to be multimillion-dollar films — The real gold of the future — The virtues of theatre — Most creators of science fiction, horror, or fantasy have no sense of imagination and mystery — David Lynch was right — Mystery is no longer appreciated — It can bring any type of story alive — Things that won’t — Mystery, imagination, heart, and magic — 7 October 2020, 8:31 p.m. — Long pause — Even one great song — Songwriting — There had never been a song like “Riders in the Sky” — The kernel from which Ennio Morricone unfolded his western music — A reminder about life — Now is the only time — Quote from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Pacific Edge (1988, from the Three Californias Trilogy) — “What do you talk about when you’re falling in love?” — When the apocalypse comes — Its own paradise — We don’t get everything — Fate is a strange thing

Newfound freedom — Fresh air — The 1st movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight) — Pieces I never get tired of — Changing pianists, changing tempi — In Season 3 of Twin Peaks — The most remarkable use of this movement — Time slows down — David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti — The gift of simplicity — “Slower” — Music is a set of simple things in combinations of varying complexity — Simple questions, simple choices — The idea tells you everything — The answers already embedded in the idea — Creating a story — Many ways of writing — The main thing is to remain open and be ready — 1:29 p.m. — Wildfires in the United States — National Geographic — 85–90% of wildfires result from human causes (ignorance, negligence, or malice) — 8:19 p.m. — Fragmentation and Season 3 — Matches lived reality — Life has both discontinuity and continuity — Every discontinuity opens up a space — Stories and imagination — Connecting the dots — Leaving audiences with ever less and less — A TV film called House of Secrets starring Bruce Boxleitner and Melissa Gilbert and featuring the music of Anthony Marinelli — Set in New Orleans — “If Ever I Cease to Love” (song of Mardi Gras) — Lyrics by George Leybourne — Several days later, 3:04 a.m. — Canadian pianist and writer Glenn Gould — The Aria (da capo) from Bach’s Goldberg Variations — A special person — Nothing done for show — Ahead of his time — Created a lasting legacy — VHS era — “Amarilli” by Caccini — “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” by Stan Jones — Country (hillbilly) music — Bob Dylan — Norm Macdonald — 3:21 a.m. — Two kinds of people — Experiences that change you irrevocably — Disappointments — Norm is special — All I can do — A set of diary entries

We are going to gym — Recording on a headset with a microphone — Testing — No time, but doing it anyway — Cardio day — 3-day cycle — No 45 minutes of heavy breathing — Exercise makes drinking a huge pleasure — Stretching — All done — Now food — Last night a good night creatively — A theory about music — The time problem — Also a good writing day — Finished a solid scene for a stage play — Back from getting food and some liquids — Started watching Curb Your Enthusiasm — S.Pellegrino mineral water — Tastes like health — Only three TV series in the 2000s absorbing enough to help me get through tough times — Battlestar Galactica — Twin Peaks: Season 3 — Curb Your Enthusiasm — Larry David — Differences from other situation comedies — Nothing tiresome — Not every line, scene, or character tries to make you laugh — Jeff — Better as a soap opera than any soap opera — Bright, healthy, sunny places — Enjoyable petty fights — Richard Lewis — Larry David and David Lynch emotionally intelligent — Italian mineral water in green bottles with blue etiquettes — Larry David doesn’t drink, smoke, or use drugs — A model human in most areas of life — Unfortunately Hildur Kristín isn’t going to kill me — Shower time — Welcoming messages — Rainbow on the floor

10 August 2020 — Icelandic artist Hildur Kristín Thorstensen — My imperfect pronunciation — Summer of 2016 — Singer, writer, performer, dancer, director, actor, and more — Schools in Iceland, Finland, France, and the UK — Natural born artist — Early years — Collage — First book of poetry in 2017 — Bilingual — Poetry that comes naturally — To create a perfect poem — Directness and beauty — Elegance — The most beautiful voice I’ve heard — Mezzo-soprano — “Amarilli” by Caccini (c. 1601) — Her rendition vs. others — Clarity, strength, sensitivity — Written at the dawn of opera — More composers could’ve taken pointers from it — Want to recommend people and works I feel in my heart deserve it — A unique and special person — Out of anyone I know, she has the most creative potential — Her plans are her own — Often the ones with most potential get the least encouragement — Hint to book publishers and music companies and such — A warning — On the same level as Ray Bradbury — If she learns of this, she may kill me — The state of my voice — Exercise — One-month mirror strike — Starting now

Many new developments — Joined the Senscape team to work under Agustín Cordes on writing and revisions for the horror adventure game Asylum — Worked previously together on the free horror adventure game Serena (available on Steam) — Fertile and enjoyable creative collaboration — That game was made from beginning to end in two months — A feeling of exhilaration — The Holodeck in the early episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation — My first game writing in quite some years — Adventure games close to my heart — Let my voice get out of practice — Back to more regular podcasting — Freshness — This year’s virtual Finncon — “Froggering” — Frogger — Featured with my three books (so far) in the Artist Alley — Those eccentric cartoon books I made last year — Current pursuits very different — Symphony, book series, screenplays — Visited my parents in Kangasniemi — The sun comes up at 4 a.m. — A lot of driving practice — My first intercity drive — Explored by car some forest roads with my parents — How much forest there really is — Lakes and forests — Getting lost in those woods would be a serious matter — The Finnish forest god Tapio — Jean Sibelius’s Tapiola — Cursing at bears in Finnish — My father took a 14-kilometre walk through those woods — I have cool parents — Getting my dream creative set-up — Rented a van — Sturdy white desk — Ergonomic chair — MacGyver-style solution — Minimalistic style — David Lynch and the importance of having your set-up ready — The best and most beautiful computer I’ve ever had — iMac Pro — Pro Tools — A real necessity to avoid a lethal creative bottleneck — Very happy with Apple’s products — Not tied to a desk — My various tools — Working on the road — More light

4 a.m. drive — Good time and place for a driving podcast — Attempt #2 — Done talking about some things — Focusing on the present and the future — I like driving — Mic talk and fair warning — Used to go rollerblading at this time of morning — Now driving — You never know what thoughts will occur when out and about — Avoiding stagnation — Keep developing — Driving past my first school — Cemetery on the other side of the road — The Vast of Night — A genuinely thrilling and involving film — Not a single misstep — The storytelling potential of film — Pierre Estève’s Atlantis Evolution album — Abrupt cut — The Atlantis series of games (Cryo) — First-person and third-person adventure games — Things it takes a certain level of life experience to appreciate — Thoughts — The break from podcasting — Recording check — A milestone in my musical endeavours — Long-term dedication and now ready to make finished pieces — Backing into the garage — Outro and good wishes

Scooters — Reckless riders — Running, walking, biking — An outing to pick up copies of my paperback — Beautiful summer day — City bikes out of circulation for now — Visiting Tampere in the summer — Nature places and gardens — The time I walked 12 kilometres most days for a month — Scooting along — Tier — One euro per trip plus 20 cents per minute — Half an hour of walking both ways — Really enjoyed it — Many good things about scooting — One element of the future we saw in fiction — 50s science fiction comics from EC Comics — The elemental joy of moving around in the world — Way more fun than sitting in a bus — Left copies of my book at a crafts store and the city library — Scooting on a beautiful day — Glorious summer days — Good ways to get around — Look forward to driving — Important never to outgrow the enjoyment of simple pleasures — Enjoying colours, smells, sensual feelings, fresh air, moving around… — The wind on your face and in your hair or on your scalp — Life-enhancing headphones — Not taking things for granted — Best wishes from a very beautiful Finland — Scooting by the riverside — Health-enhancing rays of sunlight — Beautiful summer days and moments to you

Being on the same wavelength or not — Possible or impossible to connect — The real communication happens under the surface — Looking into each other’s eyes — Other factors involved — Happens naturally — Your people — Those with whom no connection is possible — Seekers — A creative need — Pursuing goals related to creativity — Taking steps to make them happen — Imagination is super incredibly important — Raising your eyes from little things — Meaningful experiences with art — People who are not going for something better — Bringing others down to their own level — A horrifying thought — Death in life — The opposite of what life should be — Imagination and art matter — A driving force — Strong words — Midsummer approaching

Excerpts from Chapter 1 of the first book in my upcoming 6-volume series on the TV series Northern Exposure (1990–1995). Chapter 1 covers the pilot episode.