Have you guys heard of Moomin? A famous, fairytale family of Finnish trolls who hang out in Moomin valley.
I’ve seen so many Moomin images over the last few years, as I’ve gotten to know many Finns. On this tour, I’ve been staying with my friends IMPPU and Mirva and I was amazed to see how many Moomin cups and bowls they own. Take a look at their cups:
Bear in mind, each cup costs between 18 and 30 euros. Collecting these cups is more than just a hobby. It’s a passion. They told me about friends who have vast collections of cups, bowls, spoons etc. Who knows? Maybe they’re considered collectibles. Much like my friend’s transformer collection. He’s been collecting transformers for years and now he’s selling them at exorbitant prices (enough to live, eat and pay rent – and he lives in super-expensive Vancouver!)
Few facts I found about Moomin:
- The first Moomin to publicly appear was on the cover of an anti-Hitler magazine
- Tove Jansson, the artist, drew her first Moomin on the wall of her parent’s summer cottage during a childhood argument about philosophy (it seems that pretty much every Finn I’ve met has a family summer cottage. And every Finn loves to talk about philosophy, especially the nihilistic variety)
- Moomin was originally published in Swedish (Jansson spoke Swedish fluently)
- In the beginning, Moomin was called Snork (hahaha) and was thin and very depressed-looking
- There’s a theme park called Moomin World in Naantali, Finland (damn, I should check it out!)
- There’s a Japanese-Dutch feature film of the Moomins, a Polish-Austrian puppet-animation version, two Soviet versions… Moomin’s are freakin famous, yo
- The Swedish and Finnish recordings of Moomin Voices, and their respective musical scores, have been used as course material at Berklee College of Music
- There is a band called “Moomin Voices Live Band”. They perform Moomin songs and stories onstage.
- The first image of Moomintroll was of his butt, in the very first cartoon strip
- There’ve been several theatrical interpretations of Moomin. The earliest was in 1949.
Anyway, there’s tons more Moomin material online. Take a gander.
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In non-Moomin news – My four-city Finland Tour is now over. I’m staying in Lahti to record new music with the ever-creative Imppu. Yesterday we went to his family’s cottage, played Monopoli (Finnish spelling) with Mirva’s kids, went to sauna and ate fish. Hopefully I’ll have some new music emerging after this trip.
Thanks for all the love and support, you beautiful people. Yesterday’s blog did exceptionally well… nothing like writing about Police brutality to get some views (I kid. They weren’t brutal. They just took FOREVER… yawn)
OH and I wanted to share this with you. An artist named Danielle Johanson drew me playing in Boxhagenerplatz Park a few weeks ago.
I love fan art. If you ever have any, please share it with me and I’ll post it
stephenpaultaylor 