Podcast
What Now with Simo
Hosted by Simo Sakari Aaltonen · EN
A freeform, wide-ranging podcast by writer and composer Simo Sakari Aaltonen on any topics foremost on his mind at the time of recording. The seasons are also collected in book form. Some favourite topics include creativity and all the arts — music, films, screenplays, fiction, poetry, comics, games, comedy, and everything in between. Messages from listeners welcomed for possible inclusion in an episode. Note that sending a recording for inclusion in an episode of this podcast implicitly gives permission to do so.
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
5.17 End, Middle, and Beginning
Jul 2001:04:20Tap to summarize24 March 2025 — Final episode — Café de Halle — Tampere Market Hall — Past, present, future — The decision to end this podcast was made before David Lynch left for the White Lodge — Major Briggs — Timings converging — Five years, seasons, and books — Started on 24 March 2020 in Iceland — The last two transcript books — Modern type of journal — Looking back — Hallituskatu — Lake episodes — Episodes in cafés — Tea with honey and ginger — Finishing things — David Lynch throughout this podcast — Inspiration — Short story “The Scarecrow” — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Fully me — Every human soul — Successes and failures — We fail because… — Life humbles most of us — The edges of your life — Limitations as keys to freedom — True to the roots — Just a private talk — Five years of changes — Accents and spellings — My teenage video diary entries — Proto-podcast — Australian accent — Crocodile Dundee — TV series from Australia and New Zealand — Episodes of The Ray Bradbury Theater filmed over there — Quote from Robin of Sherwood (starring Michael Praed) written by Richard Carpenter — Forced to take a break — Addressing what just happened — Authenticity — Nauseous — 2024 diagnoses — The future — Ambulances — Certain readings — Convergence into a breaking point — Lifelong condition called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) — Further discussion elsewhere — Connections — Putting creativity in context — Disabilities, debilitating conditions — Overlap — Boxes — Bringing everything together — Invisible walls — Creating a new place — My new online home and headquarters — Dialing down social media activity — The sum total of my creativity so far — A private Patreon — No public shares — An extension of my home — Not a public forum — A private space — We need spaces where we can be at ease — Declining to enter into negative exchanges — The Better Patreon — Many meanings — From the abstract to the concrete — $3 tier: every post of every kind — Ten books, five music albums, three singles — All the ebooks in The Better Patreon Shop are in 100% print replica format — MP3s and the original full-quality WAV files — $9 tier: every post + all my creative works so far for no additional cost — Notes on some of the works — The original and Large Print Editions bundled (single purchase) — Tales from the North, Book I book + demonstration album (likewise) — 3-day weekly cycle (Monday to Wednesday) — Ideal to have days off as well as the cycles of activity — Some of the weekly series — A little poetry each day — One short story per week — Art & Love non-fiction chapters — Full Northern Exposure rewatch and creative appreciation — Connecting the various topics — Early thoughts on video and audio content — Invitation — Thanks for all your support in all its forms — On to The Better Patreon — Signing off
Transcribe →5.16 On a Train, Mystery, Love, and the Four Elements
Sep 20, 202401:01:15Tap to summarizeTrain — Substantial — The aims of this podcast — Monty Python’s Flying Circus — Village idiot sketch with John Cleese — Providing a useful service — An effect behind the surface effects — Writing sketches also for or featuring the others — Introducing the next topic — The themes of mystery, hope, and love — “Platitudes” — Shorthand for something less damning? — Troubling — A sickness of thought — Authentic realities — Love or not? — A creator who absolutely believes in love and mystery — David Lynch — Wild at Heart (1990) — Earlier mention of this film in season 4 — The Wikipedia article — Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as Sailor Ripley and Lula — Mystery, love, hope — Barry Gifford’s novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula (1990) — Hope and the ending of the story — Things work out — The love of Sailor and Lula — Their own world — In love, devoted to each other, and into each other — Important in any romantic love — Getting off on each other — Mr. Lynch’s clear belief all along — Twin Peaks (1990–1992) — Blue Velvet (1986) — Film critic Roger Ebert’s comments on Wild at Heart — Misunderstanding — He had taken the film to be parody and satire — No, presented without guile — Eraserhead (1977) — Leaving Dune (1984) out of the discussion — More Frank Herbert’s creation — No interest in seeing the new film — Plastic and oil — Side track, main track — Icons and iconography vs. living, conscious, evolving, human beings — Mr. Lynch was into all of it — No parody, no satire — It’s a love story — Humour also — No dishonest moments — Trilingual (Finnish, Swedish, English) announcement (Jämsä) — Twin Peaks season 3 (2017) — Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) — Evolving understanding of “mystery”, “mysticism”, “mystic” — Murder mystery — Mystification — Nature mysticism — Direct experience of something — Problem about talking about these things — Anecdote about speech and experience — Being taken out of the moment — Failed communication — Deflated moments — Beyond words — Words and deeper feelings — Language came after — Its limits — Experiences beyond language — Acknowledging my contradictions — Walt Whitman on contradicting oneself — “I contain multitudes.” — A matter of authenticity and of compatibility — Lifelines — Fresh air, water, wood, the sky… — Forgot to mention stone (earth) — Shoulder bag as pillow — Grounding element — My rock collection once upon a time — Eventually let go of it — Who owns rock? — Downsizing — Owning stuff as a mental and physical burden — Hoarders — Back into nature — The hippo stone — Playground sandbox — The four elements as a principle applicable to both art and life — Philip Glass — Koyaanisqatsi — Director Godfrey Reggio — The Qatsi trilogy — Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1988), Naqoyqatsi (2002) — The basis or bases of all matter — Something missing? — Balancing the elements — Applies vastly — Differing ratios — An ideal balance — A matter for intuition — Many works these days try to be all earth and fire — None of the creative arts? — Water, fluidity — This understanding goes back to our earliest art — Prehistoric cave art — Discussions between Pierre Estève (much more knowledgeable than me on this) and me — Monolingual (Finnish) announcement (Orivesi) — Creative record — Already an understanding of the four elements — Elegance a very advanced quality — Pablo Picasso — Panoramas and layouts — Disclaimer about personal ignorance — Later in time — Not an expert — Philip Glass and Samuel Beckett — Letting go of things tiring or even nauseating — Burdens of the past — The elements applied to our own places of living — A tool for troubleshooting daily life — Balcony drenched with fresh air — Phone alarm — Bathing in fresh air — Bath tub — Perfecting the elements — Good sleep — Journey ending — Returning
Transcribe →5.15 Windows of Opportunity, Aims, and Seven Works in Seven Months
Aug 19, 202400:26:07Tap to summarize8 August 2024 (recording date) — Beautiful summer morning — Slice of dream country on the outskirts of Tampere — Rowing service gone — The wooden bridge — The cover of At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Bridge modifications — Lagoon — Esthetics — Windows of opportunity — True also with creative works — This podcast — No song-and-dance person — Leafing through the volumes of the podcast transcript books — Word-for-word transcripts — My favourite type of interview or discussion to read — Interview articles used to be edited to a very high degree — With recitations of facts — Thousands of interviews — Some humility — A journal — A place to reflect on my own and other people’s works — Some autobiography — Goose-stepping — Looking back on episode 4.15 — A new freedom in music in the early 1960s — A few pieces by The Scorpions and The Ventures — Speed — Cars and motorcycles — Being able to go fast and freely — Emerged in the 20th century — Rock music — Expressing new feelings of freedom — Related feelings of exhilaration — In earlier centuries — Trains — Horses — Not the same thing — Creative update — Backlog — So far this year — One full work per month — What Now with Simo, Season 3 transcript book — Discussions with David Lee Homb and Pierre Estève — Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems (Large Print Edition) — Singles “That Dark, Dark Night” and “In the Fog, Deep” — Album Passages Dark and Light II — Sheet music book Tales from the North, Book I (12 piano duets) — The real world premiere of any of the pieces or the full set — Intentionally crude demonstration album — At Dawn: Early Short Stories (Large Print Edition) — Accessible for people with any visual impairment — A dear project to me — 18-point font for the book of poetry — 24-point for the book of short stories — Also for people who simply prefer to read a large font — Different editions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass — Enjoyed the large print edition most — Inspired by the references in Northern Exposure — Certain things happen only when reading physical works — Mind quietens down, goes calmer — Tactile and sensual elements — David Lynch tweet — Emphysema — Smoking can’t be removed from the equation — Otherwise in great health and filled with happiness — Will never retire
Transcribe →5.14 4th Anniversary Special: Passages Dark and Light II
Mar 24, 202400:45:46Tap to summarize24 March 2024 — Passages Dark and Light II: Passages 1–43
Transcribe →5.13 In the Dream Spa Part Under Construction
Feb 9, 202401:16:11Tap to summarizeFriday, 9 February 2024 — Table of contents not available for personal reasons
Transcribe →5.12 Rendezvous at the Dream Café
Jan 1, 202401:05:59Tap to summarizeA place of the imagination — Bar / café — Still under construction — My music in the background — Albums and singles — The person in charge of the music — Passages Dark and Light — Tales from the North, Book I — Early Music Archive — “Land of Youth & Beauty” — 1 January 2024 — David Lynch’s weather reports — “January one” — Being and becoming yourself — Finding your own things — Patreon plan — Seeking support — Possible future episodes to help people sleep — Sleep issues — Music intended to be calming and soothing — May not work for people with troubled, restless minds — Too easy to tune out — Occupying your attention — Season 3 of Twin Peaks — Freed from anguish for a time — An array of elements arranged in such a way that it alters your state of mind or the way you are feeling — What art can be — We may remember from childhood — Discerning — “Critical thinking” — A lot of my early music — Music system glitch — New stage a few years ago — Directness — “Turtle Morning” — American Indian ponderosa pine flute — Had with me on my travels — Start of the COVID epidemic in 2020 — Dropouts part of this piece (“Stream No. 1”) — Thump — The way I play this flute — Voice out of practice — Plans for this year — Backlog — Started putting out my own creations only in 2019 — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Creation of more than 20 years — The most central things — Fiction, poetry, music, filmed works — Reading of Lovecraft poem “The Garden” — Early work on four games — Started focusing on my own creative works — Everything a result of long, careful work — Documenting — Preserving the magic and surprises — Responsibility of artists — Everything affects us one way or another — Fiction and nonfiction — The core things — Art & Love series — Dreams after a bad day — Dangerous state — 1) Grisly dream — Place of several rooms — Warning — Someone was going to chop up a body — Podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend — Was able to turn and move the “camera” elsewhere — 2) Bicycling around an amalgam of places where I’ve lived — Lake shores — Causeway — Bridges — Rain — 3) Meeting in a tunnel system — Brief exchange — Took off jogging down the long tunnel towards the light — Backpack — Felt light, healthy, fit — An uncommon habit developed a long time ago — Sneakers — Reflected real life — Underpass free of ice and snow — Great things about Conan O’Brien — Jim Downey — Saturday Night Live — Scene from Billy Madison (1995) — Adam Sandler — “Everyone in this room is now dumber…” — Norm Macdonald and crafting perfect writing — “Weekend Update” — Objectively good writing and editing — One word created a little vignette or story — What makes us laugh is separate from what we may “approve of” — Close to closing time — Test crowd — Figuring out the configuration of the place — A creative space — Thanks to certain special people
Transcribe →5.11 Summer Day, Rainy Night
Sep 29, 202300:41:40Tap to summarizePART 1: SUMMER DAY: One last summer day — Boat on the shore — Did go rowing — Times I had the beach to myself — Later realised why — Water just right — Giving thanks for the beautiful day — Phone alarm — Many motivations — Boat drifting — Oh, a fish | PART 2: RAINY NIGHT: Rainy night on the balcony — Most of the lake recording unusable — Something discussed in season 1 — Artist Curt Swan — Known for his work on the superhero Superman — Feels strange to be talking about this again — A later realisation — Swan was pushed aside — Had to happen — Necessary change — Shifted position — This character — So strange I ever said it — Like another person — A personal reason — A brief good period for those comics that coincided with my teens — Intricate continuity — For the first time a sense of evolving into something more — “Mature” — Disastrous results — Wrong turn — Misguided — Not the right place for those kinds of stories — Simply had some fond memories — Sweet ideals — Being a decent, even a really good person — Intentionally misleading covers — Acknowledging my changed views — Another reason to be thinking of change — Too static — Lacking magic — Things that can make you feel good every day — An insidious way for a person’s life to become less beautiful and treasurable — Times of staleness — Even when at the same time creating meaningful things — Why I’m here — Always different levels — Not rejuvenating, revivifying — Being able to wake up refreshed and recovered — Reasons why it may not happen — Sleep deprivation and illnesses — Life becoming more narrow and restricted — Freedom and new possibilities — Change becomes more difficult, if not impossible, the longer the static circumstances continue — Consciously shaking things up — Realising the need for change — Amassing more and more — Then started getting rid of things — Oppressed by all the stuff — Not giving me anything anymore — Seller’s tables at Finncon — Long time ago — Sold most of what I had — Happier afterwards — The horror of hoarding — A psychological problem — Mental health issue — Can be extremely damaging — Becoming encased in your collection of belongings — “Will I really miss something that I’m now getting rid of?” — No — That voice should be ignored — Life became lighter — Collecting as a form of hoarding — Seeking security by owning physical things — I love having room rather than stuff — Not enough life for any human being to keep returning to thousands of things — Dust — Mould — The feeling of being normally healthy — Feeling good about being alive and able to breathe easily — Not something to take for granted — Some inner journeys are delusions — Good health is luxurious — Young people’s beliefs that they’ll always find meaning in the things they currently do — Happiness not in things themselves — No reason to keep a thing anymore — A lighter life — In the here and now — The future is not guaranteed — Wishes for insight and ability to make changes
Transcribe →5.10 Danger of Triviality, Creative Practicalities, and New Music
Aug 28, 202300:30:15Tap to summarize“Season 5 Opening” (@ 0:00) — Second episode of the day — Recorded on different dates — Closer to the mic again — Nicer listening experience — Lake episodes — Drifting ever so slowly — Without larger goals, danger of falling into triviality — Dreams, aspirations — Not selfish things — Couples bickering in grocery stores over trivial things — Triviality has taken over their lives — Many different forms — Obsessions — Hypochondria — Can be learned from others — Empathy for people with this problem — Be careful — Preoccupation with quirks — Irritability, pettiness — Policing other people’s behaviour — Bike example — Rageful people — Eliminating ways of wasting time — One way to avoid this fate — Lost human potential — Being creative — Numerous ways — My mother’s creativity — She made our whole yard bloom — Kamikaze motorboat — Album Early Music Archive — 50 early tracks — Wide variety of styles — American Indian ponderosa pine flute — My way of playing it — Lovely mellow quality — On Bandcamp, streaming, and for download — Praise for Bandcamp — Great way to support artists — Ways to help artists create more — More income from creative work equals more creative work possible — And faster — Reacting, sharing, word of mouth — Adding tracks to playlists — One thing leading to another — Chains of events — Simply doing my work and putting out information about it — Limits of what artists themselves can do — The rest depends on others — Not becoming an advertising agency — The people I hope to reach — My first single — “Land of Youth & Beauty” — “Lake Presentation” video (2022) for the book Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems — Vision of a book in a lake — Recap of the creation story — The vision happened again with the book with me — Sunlight shimmering — No special effects — The life of an independent creator — Thousands of small steps building towards larger goals and dreams — Albums and a single — Further along on the path — The books of short stories and poems — Cornerstones — Following natural schedules — Pierre Estève: “Time is on our side.” — Faith in time — Drifting and talking — Beach all to myself for swimming — Water the perfect temperature — PayPal donations possible via my site — Calling millionaires and billionaires — Everything helps — The bottom line of how much one can do in a lifetime — Updating my site — New functionality — Picture of all my works so far — Always up to date — More sheet music — Interpretations always different — The way lakes and seas and waves are — No indications of dynamics — Tales from the North, Book I — Same for tempi — Apology for not having yet continued the serialised discussion of Andrew Mellor’s The Northern Silence — Peter Falk’s memoirs — Reminder to myself — “Season 5 Closing” (@ 30:06)
Transcribe →5.9 Programmed Addictions, Wasted Life, and Alternatives
Aug 28, 202300:24:41Tap to summarize“Season 5 Opening” (@ 0:11) — Programming of people — Behaviour patterns — Part of the control group — TV, films, games, stories in every medium — More and more inhuman — Even subhuman — Since 9/11 — Torture — Non-critical depictions — Troubling — Many went along with it — The time torture was made legal — Antarctica — Arctic polar region — No justification ever — No free advertising from me — Crept quickly also into science fiction — Past critical depictions of torture and other types of physical, emotional, mental, and psychological abuse — The belief that we can separate fiction from reality — Media literacy — Stopped following broadcast TV about 20 years ago — Stupid stories — Very easy for the writers — Sexual assaults as motivation in stories — Told from the perpetrator’s point of view — Not the victim’s — Unlike with David Lynch’s and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks — Events shown for the horrors they are — Not trivialised — What Alan Moore called “a pornography of violence” — Now common and mainstream in TV series and films — Chemical addiction to this type of content — Leading to withdrawal symptoms — Needing another “hit” — Most of these depictions don’t help people process things — The need was created — Few people born with it — Picking you up again — Friends or something else — Not what we should be doing with our lives — Sad waste of human potential and art and creativity — Long process — Is this really what we are here for? — Is this a good use of our time? — Is this the best we can do? — Is this what we are looking for? — One thing addicts can’t stand — What I am and am not in a position to do — Wouldn’t want a child to grow watching thousands of scenes of torture and rape — Exploitative — Offering nothing to victims of such experiences — Keeping wounds open — Creating and maintaining the addiction — Many forget what beautiful and worthwhile things can be done with art and creativity — People actually pay money to watch rapes and torture — Is this really human? — Can only answer for myself — Everyone free to make their own choices — Tobacco addiction — Scientific facts — Ray Bradbury — The Ray Bradbury Theater — His short stories — How is it possible we often stay away from such beautiful and healthy things? — Time forever lost — The precious gift of being alive — Freedom — “Season 5 Closing” (@ 24:32)
Transcribe →5.8 Early Music Archive, Lou Doillon, and Room to Imagine
Jul 31, 202300:44:45Tap to summarize“Season 5 Opening” (@ 0:12) — Heavy heart — Talk it out — Reconsidering last episode — A little knoll — Past discarded recordings — Attempt to have a little fun — Reasoning behind the collage — “I like messes.” — Not letting myself off the hook — Moving on — Possible problem for creators — The best I can — By the time I publish a book — Able to justify everything included and excluded — We could do an experiment — Negative space — Heaviness of heart and spirit — Something very positive — Lou Doillon — French — Discovered her first as an actress in a film — Outshone everyone else — Multitalented artist — Music — Writing, playing, and singing songs — YouTube playlist — How natural she is — Things she doesn’t do — Like seeing and hearing a kindred spirit — Links between these various things — My past music — Final stages for my music album Early Music Archive — My 10th year of making music — 50 tracks on this album — Music from up until about two years ago — Newer music of a different stage — Bandcamp and CD Baby — Music can be a hyperlink — All kinds of moments — Getting fully up to date — Backlog — Reminders of things past — Someone I knew in another lifetime — Past, present, and future mix together — The books of early short stories and poems — Not an excusing label — More on art as a circle — The artist, the creation, someone who experiences the creation, and the circle returning to the artist — That final part of the circle of art — It matters — Motives that don’t apply to me — Motives that do — Meaningful to hear reactions — A common misunderstanding — Theatre example — With an audience or without? — Alan Moore / BBC Maestro videos — My past regarding him — His pieces of advice on writing — Can no longer get into his works — Because he does everything — Not leaving room for the audience or imagination — Paraphrasing — The opposite of what works for me — Too much detail already filled in — No room to imagine — The original Star Trek (1960s) gave just enough detail to spark the imagination — Kirk, Spock, McCoy — Not too much information — No longer part of my mental landscape — At that point, I’m out — Why am I even there? — Both fun parts already done — Fan fiction — I only want to know a certain amount — Portable black-and-white TV — Playing outside — Snow labyrinths — There was still room for imagination — Few props needed — The limited interest of biographical detail — Trademarked names — Simplistic motivations — Life can’t be reduced to single incidents — David Lynch proved with Twin Peaks season 3 that continuing series don’t have to end up giving too much information — Season 2 — Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) — The Double R diner — Ed — Shelly — Already enough — Not making it less than what it was — Knowing when to stop — The value can be in the lack of that more — Agent Cooper — Sheriff Truman — Just enough — Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me — Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (91 min.) — Deleted and extended scenes — Edited by David Lynch himself — Norma’s moment of quiet desperation — No unnecessary explaining — Drawing our own conclusions — “Season 5 Closing” (@ 44:35)
Transcribe →