Trickster Magazine

Amanda: I’m turning on the recorder. 

Taika: Very smart. Because we could get so drunk that we’d forget to hit record. Oh well… 

(Opens the crémant bottle)

A: In that case maybe we can be even funnier and smarter on paper. They’ll never know we messed up. 

T: Our future collaborative book: Smarter on Paper. I’ve been complaining all morning and feeling absolutely terrible, and then suddenly, it feels so good to get to do fun things. If only we could get paid for all the fun things we do and actually feel valued for them. How the fuck is it possible that I’ve been doing this for over ten years and still haven’t received a single longer working grant? I’m almost forty, for God’s sake. Have you ever received a working grant?

A: Just a couple. For writing and performance art. Do you ever feel that, when rejection follows rejection, it starts to feel personal? 

T: Yes, I always feel a little butthurt for a while. My self-esteem is shit to begin with, so every time I get a rejection, I briefly think, right, of course, I’m not even worth giving the opportunity to work. And I think that’s a feeling artists can easily develop. Like, I’m not even worth lunch vouchers or occupational healthcare.

A: Honey, I get it. I always feel like I have no autonomy.  

T: But anyway! It’s so nice to talk to you, bestie. It’s cool that we’re able to ask uncomfortable questions, too. 

A: Yep. I’m just afraid that when the tone of voice disappears in print, everyone will think we’re being passive-aggressive. 

T: “Do they actually hate each other?” 

A: No, we don’t hate each other. We wouldn’t be doing this if we did. 

Pause. Laughter. 

T: Omg, I couldn’t look you in the eye just now. We don’t hate each other! Okay, now for my first official question. Let’s start with the most important thing: your Instagram bio is iconic. I know you’ve been thinking about changing it to reflect your new book and this new beginning, but I want to forbid you from changing it just yet. It says Former Baby, Future Dead Lady. Does that mean you’re somewhere in between? Because it’s so relatable. Where did you come up with it?

A: I must have been about twenty-three when I joined Instagram. That text has been in my profile ever since. I have absolutely no idea where I came up with it. But do you remember how, when we were younger, we always felt we had to sound somehow snappy and witty? 

T: Isn’t that still the case? 

A: Of course, but back then it was like that to the point of being annoying. Never being sincere. Over the years, though, I started thinking that it was actually pretty fucking irritating, but I find it really hard to let go of things. I’m very loyal. That’s why I have long romantic relationships and friendships, and why I don’t really give my clothes away that much. Nothing really changes. Not even my profile picture.  

T:  You might never be allowed to change that picture. Nobody has a profile picture that good. You look like your grandfather. 

A: Lol. But I’m in a phase of letting things go. I just gave away my garter, too. It’s been eleven years since my wedding, and almost as long since the divorce. 

T: You’re the only friend I have who’s a chic divorcee. No, wait, shit, there are a couple of others now. But you were my first. Anyway, new era? 

A: Absolutely. My book launch party date also changed for reasons beyond my control and it’s now 11/11, which is an angel number. New beginnings. 

T: 11:11 is an important number in my book, too. Spoiler: my book ends with the numbers 11:11. 

A: Really? Our books are so in sync. Okay, let me ask you something. You recently deleted a whole lot of pictures from your Instagram, and I’ve been really sad about it because I’ve always enjoyed looking at them and getting inspired by them. I loved how your feed had this slightly chaotic quality. Can you tell me a little about that decision? From now on, are we only going to get to see this private dream girl? 

T: I’ve used Instagram so much that, at certain times, it’s become my main art medium. I’ve created all kinds of art projects directly on there. For a couple of years now, I’ve been practising what it feels like to write in a diary and draw in one. And now I can actually just draw for myself. 

As I’ve been working through my thoughts for my own sake, I think I’ve realised how vulnerable I’ve been when I’ve shared absolutely everything. When I published my first novel this spring, I started feeling that it was time to clean things up. A bit like you. A new era. Through this new project, I can shape my identity as an artist a little. It also lets me protect myself, because the main character in my book is addicted to Instagram and sometimes talks about things that have happened there. I figured some readers and journalists might go looking for evidence on my Instagram. One journalist has already admitted to searching for someone in the book but not finding them.  

A: Creeps. My problem is probably that I get so attached to absolutely everything, including photographs. Everything I’ve ever posted to my feed is still there, from 2013 to this day. 

T: It would be lovely if my work didn’t depend on social media at all. But I just admitted in another interview that I wouldn’t be an artist without Instagram. First of all, I’ve found my own role models there, and then I managed to create my first projects that gained enough momentum to open up opportunities for me. 

A: I understand that, even though social media hasn’t really been part of my artistic practice. It has still played a role in why I’ve had certain opportunities. I’ve never had a huge following, but doing activism on social media helped me build this “depressed feminist” brand, and a lot of things started spreading from my Instagram back then. It was a time when the algorithm didn’t punish you for having a certain voice. 

T: I remember your more activist days. I remember how your voice developed and grew into something that reached the public consciousness. It was a bit like: here’s my beautiful face and my hot tits, and here’s the message. And it worked fucking brilliantly for you. Instagram has worked for both of us. We’ve posted pretty pictures, but there’s always been something more to them, too. Which brings us to the next subject: image and perception. Do you remember what you thought of me when we first met? Because I remember very clearly what I thought of you. 

A: Yeah, it must have been at the bar We Got Beef. I vividly remember thinking, wow, how can someone be so nice to everyone and so, so silly? And fucking funny. One of my favourite things you’ve ever said to me is that you like making me laugh. You make me laugh a lot. But it took me a while to realise that you’re a sad girl, because it doesn’t show very easily. 

T: I have an anti-resting bitch face. When we met at Beef, you already looked fucking incredible. You always had these really dramatic, sexy, gorgeous outfits. Feathers or something else theatrical. Like: now the main character has entered the room. 

A: Hehehe, thank you. Has your opinion of me changed much over the fifteen years? We only really became close friends quite a bit later. 

T: My image of you has probably changed, but I still think you’re the same person. You were then, and still are, a dramatic diva with wounds. Maybe it comes from your theatrical family, those diva genes. But we didn’t really talk one-on-one that much in our twenties. 

A: Do you feel like an adult these days? 

T: Absolutely not. When I think about my age, I tend to feel more sad than anything else. Not exactly because of an age crisis, but because I wonder why everything is still so difficult. Money has been weighing on me so much lately that it also gets in the way of feeling like an adult. I can’t really plan my life in the way that many people my age perhaps can. 

Financially, I’ve never been able to focus on just one thing. And at nearly forty, I wonder whether people will take me seriously as a debut novelist.

A: But you’ve been writing your book for a really long time, and I admire that. 

T: Yes, but what if I don’t get good reviews and everyone thinks, “Look at that forty-year-old wannabe Lolita trying to make something of herself”? Do you feel like an adult?

A: Occasionally, when I’m around really young people. Although even when I’ve mentored younger people, I’ve wondered that surely they can see straight through this façade of mine. 

T: But you have a much older soul than I do. I feel like I’m here for the first time. 

A: Maybe you’re here for the second time. The first time, you were a baby bird that flew into a window, which is why you’re so panicked now.

T: That’s true, because I’m absolutely terrible at everything the first time around. I once told my mother I wasn’t sure I knew how to live. She replied, “Yeah, it looks that way.” But if I’m here for the second time, you must be a vampire. Is this Interview with the Vampire, and are you Tom Cruise? 

A: That makes you Kirsten Dunst.  

T: I wish. Okay, tell me more about your dramatic heiress style. I don’t know if it’s an old-money aura, but it’s definitely not a new-money aura. Or maybe it’s so old that it’s vampire money. How would you describe your style? 

A: Something like that. An heiress who has lost everything several times and then clawed her way back into society. Divorced and been in a psychiatric ward — all facts, by the way. There’s another side to me, too. I don’t want to call it “messy”, because the word has lost all meaning. Let’s call it a disgusting rat. The kind of person who wears twelve-year-old underwear and smells like an ashtray. As I said, I very rarely get rid of clothes, so I don’t have to buy much. Fashion is a bit difficult for me these days. It wasn’t always like that. I used to live for fashion, but my relationship with it has changed because of influencer culture. I’m glad I’ve kept my own archive.  

T: I’ve had so many identity crises that I definitely don’t have an archive. My style has changed so many times. 

A: That’s interesting, because I feel like there’s always been a similar underlying quality to your style. I’d call it Manic Dreamy Party Girl by a Hotel Pool. Do you feel that your Finnish-Swedish background shows in your style at all — but darker? 

T: At some point, for purely financial reasons, I realised I should only buy black clothes. It’s the easiest way to look stylish, and stains don’t show as much. I noticed that I kept gravitating towards pictures of Courtney Love. I’ve been really inspired by her. I love her grungy vibe and messy glam. My dream wardrobe would be that of a rockstar who’s lived a lot.

A: Tell me, if you had to buy a few designer pieces for your wardrobe, who would your favourite designers be? 

T: There are many, but obviously people like Sini Saavala and Linda Kokkonen. When I was younger, I was obsessed with Rodarte’s collections, back when my style was more girly than it is now. Wearing those clothes would probably still blow my mind. Who would your favourite be? 

A: My sense of drama in the way I dress probably comes from my mother, who’s a theatre costume designer. She’s made many of my clothing dreams come true, including when I was young and fell in love with Alexander McQueen. The The Girl Who Lived in a Tree was my favourite era. McQueen would probably still be my answer, because I’m drawn to theatricality. See? I can’t even update my answer. 

T: On a more serious note: how do you feel about the fact that we’re now sort of competing for the same opportunities? Is it a threat to our friendship, an opportunity, or how do you see it? 

A: This feels fairly straightforward to me, because I’ve had to answer these questions a lot because of my older sister. She’s a writer, too. So I’ve already had to work through the idea of competing with someone close to me who works in the same field. Maybe because of Olga, my biggest idol, I’m always a bit of a fangirl around the people closest to me. I don’t know how to think of myself as competing with someone I love. We’re all very different people. Plus, you and I have created all our own jobs, so I don’t think we’ve ever actually competed for an opportunity. 

T: Our ideas are sometimes so similar that people mix them up. You imagine you’re doing something so important that everyone will remember which idea was yours. But when you live in the same era and are surrounded by other creative people, ideas inevitably start to resemble one another. In situations like that, I sometimes feel like I might not dare to tell you certain things first if we’re both working on or applying for the same thing. You might be someone I tell a little later, you know?

A: Oh.  

T: I mean that in a general sense. When we’re both trying to find work and have a lot of ideas, I might not call you first and ask, “Hey, do you think I should do this?” I might think it through a bit more and try it out in practice first. Then I’ll tell you. 

A: Now I’m wondering whether I should think about this differently somehow. I’ve always just been like, “Yay!” It never even occurred to me that there might be competition between us. 

T: Maybe you’ve worked through that feeling better than I have. I may have learned through different relationships that you can’t tell everyone everything right away. Jealousy has also been a feeling that’s shaped all my friendships with women. 

A: This is actually what I wanted to ask you about: do you feel a lot of jealousy? How do you deal with it? 

T: It seems that I do. There’s a lot of jealousy in my book, too. At one point, I was surprised by how much of it emerged between the female protagonists, even though they’re supposed to be best friends. I wrote an exaggerated story, and I definitely wasn’t writing directly about the world I know. Jealousy is also a really interesting emotion, because at its worst, it’s absolutely awful. When it hits you and takes over your entire being, it’s as corrosive as heartbreak.

But I’ve tried to think of it this way: the bigger the emotion, the more interesting it is artistically. You can turn it into art. But maybe I have to admit that jealousy gets the better of me quite often, fortunately only for a little while. Writing about it helps me get rid of it. You realise how ridiculously self-centred you are in that moment, and how small your world becomes when you focus on what you don’t have.

In my book, one character desperately wants a dress by Sini Saavala, but she can’t get it. Her enemy has one, though, and she completely loses it. I first wrote a scene in which she screams, and the scream was eight pages long. My editor then suggested that perhaps it could be a bit shorter. Maybe jealousy has been such an inspiring and powerful emotion for me that I wrote an eight-page scream about someone else getting something I wanted. Don’t you ever have feelings like that? 

A: Not quite in that way. You’ve mentioned these things before when we’ve talked about our friendship, and I’ve noticed that I always get a little startled. I start wondering, oh no, does this mean there’s something between us that I haven’t noticed? You always seem so genuinely happy and encouraging when something good happens to me, when I look good or when I’ve managed to do something even reasonably well. Of course I must feel jealous sometimes, too. If someone has a really lovely home, for example, I mostly think, how wonderful. Maybe I’ll have a home like that one day, too. Or okay, when our friend Veerti got a PR shipment of Jallu today, I just replied, “SO JELLY”, because I was jealous. He said he’d make me a drink, so that’s how it works: good things go around, come around. 

T: Okay. Maybe I’ll just have to keep exploring jealousy in my future work, then. Maybe I also need to take a good look at myself. 

I remember how, even in high school, everyone competed for the same ideas and the same boys. Later, I came across similar women whose jealousy was so corrosive that it actually drove people into therapy. 

I don’t mean that jealousy is in any way the defining feature of our friendship, but I admit there’s a little competitive instinct there. Maybe you come from a healthier background! Oh God, this has turned into one of Taika’s therapy sessions. 

A: This is all really interesting, because it’s true that women our age were constantly pitted against one another. “Women are wolves to one another.” You’re not the only person who feels these things. I just get confused by the subject and start to feel afraid. 

T: Yeah, it doesn’t crush me. I write about it. Your third book is about to come out, and I’ve just published my first. Do you have any advice for me on being a writer? On how to survive as a writer?

A: My answer is probably more about what comes next, about continuing to write. I don’t have an answer for how to deal with attention or criticism, because I still haven’t figured that out myself. 

But now that you can see what people like and dislike about your book, you shouldn’t let it influence you too much. You get to read so many opinions these days that you’ll go crazy if you try to be everything to everyone. 

That’s why the second book is often so difficult for people. I’ve had to reinvent myself with each book quite radically. My first book was short prose and prose poetry, so I wanted my second book to be a novel. And now I wrote a genre novel, something driven by plot. Something perhaps more entertaining. Maybe this has been my way of rescuing myself from the swamp of overthinking. Instead of repeating or avoiding what people liked and hated before, I look somewhere else. 

T: Are you afraid that you’ll piss off some fans? 

A: Of course. I’m just trying not to take myself so seriously these days. Even if I’m fucking mortified, I tell myself, fuck it, I want to play. How about you? How does it feel to be read, seen and criticised for the first time? 

T: I’ve already admitted in this interview that my self-esteem is terrible and that I’m addicted to being liked and making people laugh at my jokes. I’m such a people pleaser that I fall apart if someone doesn’t like me. Even now, I’m a little anxious about what if you don’t like me anymore because of what I’ve said... 

A: I know. You tell me a lot of things, don’t worry. I’m a Virgo, so I’m a massive overthinker. But you’re even worse, which I find amazing. 

T: That’s exactly why publishing a book has taught me so much. For the first time, I’ve really had to reckon with criticism and reviews of my work. But I feel privileged because I’ve finally reached this point in my artistic career, after all these years, where I’ve made something that’s being evaluated by both readers and professional critics.

I think I’m better equipped to handle it now than I might have been when I was younger. These days, I know that the worst thing is when nobody says anything, when nobody criticises your work at all, or when your art doesn’t provoke any feelings.

I’ve received some really good, encouraging reviews, as well as a couple of complete takedowns. I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t publicly fight critics, for example on social media. It feels a little undignified. I also admire people who never read reviews of their own work.

In my case, no chance. I absolutely read everything. Even the complete takedowns are entertaining in a way. I often laugh out loud at truly horrible reviews, including one of my own, because it was so mean. It was a strange experience to laugh and then suddenly realise, “Oh fuck, this person is actually writing about my work and my world.”

Right now, I could tell myself that it’s fairly easy to dismiss criticism because I know this is the world I want to explore: the hyper-feminine, contemporary world that many people consider superficial. It’s closely connected to influencer culture and social media, and to a certain kind of superficiality and speed. I often say that I explore feminine survival strategies: how to survive as a woman in our time.

But if a critic focuses on that very femininity, I might just be like, “Jesus Christ.” It gets so under my skin that, even if someone else could separate me from my art, I can’t. 

A: SAME. Absolutely the same. I genuinely always think that if someone doesn’t like my book, they hate me as a person. 

T: What are you most nervous about with your third book? 

A: Whether I’m a complete sell-out for not just painstakingly writing poems and hangover-smelling rants anymore. Or what if I think I’m something I’m not? Do you know that Sydney Sweeney video where she has to name that toy? 

T: Just sports?

A: Lol, no, not that one. The video where she names some kind of spinning toy or something and giggles at the camera, saying, “I'm calling it Bob. It's just Bob. I don't know why I'm calling it Bob”. And then she just keeps laughing at her own, boring ass joke. You know, that popular white girl in high school humor type of way. That’s what I’m afraid of. That I have a completely wrong idea of myself, when in reality everyone just wants to crawl out of their skin whenever I do anything. 

T: That’s fucking hilarious. I’m afraid that when people read my book, they’ll see how crazy I am. Maybe it’s some kind of debut novel problem. 

At one point, I was afraid my book would be like Francis Ford Coppola’s film Megalopolis. I mean... what a mess. But, in a way, it’s also pretty iconic. Maybe you can be semi-messy-iconic. 

I was constantly afraid that everyone would see how crazy I’d become. That this semi-influencer would produce this maximalist, incredibly extravagant outpouring of work, and everyone could see how messed up she was. Luckily, that kind of criticism hasn’t come in. Yet. 

A: I can write that. Do you already know what you want to write next, and how does starting the next book feel? 

T: The thing is, when I finally did dare to send my work to my current editor, I sent her two different ideas, with about twenty pages of each.

I then had a burnout, because I’d been crazy enough to work on both manuscripts throughout the spring. In the end, I spent a couple of weeks working on them practically night and day, just to gather the courage to send them.

The other one, though, was much more of an autofictional trauma dump, and that’s the story I’m going to tell next. I’m still trying to figure out whether it should be a confessional nonfiction book or a novel. We’ll see where the world even is in a few years...

A: I know right! Things have just started going better for me. How fucking dare you, world? It’s about me! I need to be allowed to write my important books.  

T: So rude, Putin. Once I’ve written so many books that they’ve been translated into several languages and I’ve achieved international success, I’ll be able to move wherever I want and write from there.  

Do you have an ideal image of the perfect writer? This is partly about a writer’s brand. You can also answer what you think the perfect writer is like, or what kind of writer you’d like to be yourself. Is it about building a brand? 

A: This is perhaps a difficult question, because my first instinct is to describe what makes a writer effective. But when I think about how writing is perhaps more than anything else a fucking miserable experience — miserable in a very particular way — I feel that it requires a certain kind of person. Someone who feels compelled to do it and who also has the stamina to keep doing it. 

I hate romanticising brokenness. It isn’t very sustainable. I absolutely believe that an artist can be whole and mentally healthy. But perhaps there has sometimes needed to be a crack somewhere inside your head for you to be able to make art. That inner need to process the world and by writing already suggests, in my opinion, that something has happened. Something you can’t get out of your system by, say, going for a run. 

T: You’re answering this in such a profound and empathetically intelligent way. I was thinking about the question more in terms of the ideal writer’s image. Someone who’s good-looking! Someone who doesn’t have to update their social media, or who posts just a few beautiful, mysterious pictures on Instagram. Someone who reveals almost nothing about their personal life except through their writing. Someone who only goes to select parties...

A: ...and stays too late. Because you need good stories, and people need to start gossiping about you a little. 

T: Right! You can’t be iconic unless people talk a little shit about you. I think that’s good advice for me and everyone else. You have to stay at a party long enough for people to start gossiping about you.

A: I think that’s absolutely essential.  

T:  With that in mind, I have a decadent proposal: shall we move on to cognac? 

A: Absolutely! While you’re pouring, I want to ask you something. I struggle a lot with the feeling that I don’t really belong anywhere, or that I might not be wanted in the places I long to be. I don’t mean parties or dinner invitations, because I’m at all of them, but more like the feeling of belonging. Feeling somewhat a weird loner has always been a very strong part of my life. Do you have similar experiences? 

T: Perhaps not quite in the same way anymore, but when I was younger, I definitely longed to be embraced by some kind of community. But I think I’ve more or less ended up where I wanted to be in recent years. I finally feel like I’m part of the scene I actually want to belong to. 

A: Maybe I meant belonging on a more emotional level. Even if I’m at any party, being hugged by anyone, I often feel completely disconnected. My partner always says that, deep down, I’m an alien. I think I’ve been one since childhood. 

T: Right, I was thinking about it in a much more concrete way. For example, when I was in Sweden, I felt as though I’d started at a new school. I was a nerd, and everyone else belonged except me. I knew who the cool people were, but I wasn’t part of their group. 

A: Maybe that’s exactly why jealousy feels like a somewhat unfamiliar emotion to me. When other people look at each other and think, why does she get to have that, I think, well, maybe one day I might have it, if I still want it.  

T: That’s a good way of thinking about it. Maybe I should try to do the same. When I was younger, I learned to think in that more corrosive way in my group of friends. I’ve tried to move away from it, and I’m really happy and grateful for all my friends who are doing well. 

But the dynamics of that group from my youth were important and formative in many ways. I learned an enormous amount from them. Female friendships were just so thoroughly fucked up. Maybe that’s also why I’m like, “I want everybody to love me.” Sorry, sorry. 

A: Why are you apologising? 

T: It’s my love language. What does the perfect martini look like to you? 

A: A martini has to be cold. A Dry Martini can be vodka-based but a Dirty Martini has to have gin: six centilitres of gin, one centilitre of vermouth and technically one centilitre of olive brine, but I always put in twice as much. 

I’ve tried all kinds of different versions, like brine from garlic pickles and blue cheese, but I think I’m a bit too much of a purist.  

T: You’re such a pro. You cook good food and make perfect martinis. Honestly, in addition to sometimes being jealous of you, I’m also a little bit in love with you. You’re the whole package. 

A: I think you’re just drunk. But yeah, our thing is that you’re a Dry Martini and I’m a Dirty Martini. 

T: Exactly! Basically the same drink, but still really different! 

A: What would your dream party night look like? 

T: As we’ve already established, unfortunately I’m such a wimp that I never even have the energy to go to the afterparty. I’m a terrible party girl. So it would be lovely to have eaten properly, to be surrounded by good people, to feel beautiful and to have enough energy that even I could make it to the afterparty.  

A: Charli XCX once said, “I know it’s not chic to be the last one at the party but I hate going home”. That’s me. 

T: You really do have good stamina in your genes. Hey, I want to ask you one more thing! My grant applications always talk about “feminine survival strategies”, so what do yours say? 

A: The performance of one’s own life and the experience of being an outsider are always present in everything I do. People find it surprising, because I have lots of friends and I’m always out. But the protagonists in my books always feel somewhat odd and lonely. That’s what I explore in all my work. I’m interested in faking it and in secrets.  

Ok, my last question for you. I know we both have a bit of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz in us. Which one do you identify with more and how? I think I know the answer, but I still want to hear it.  

T: I found a kind of safe haven in Eve Babitz a long time ago. I’ve been so inspired by her. She’s a Messy Girl Legend, someone who parties and is herself something to write about. Like you said, you have to go out partying to have stories. You have to be a legend worth gossiping about. 

But there’s something about Joan Didion that makes for a pretty good brand, especially when you look at her photographs. 

A: Those sunglasses, ah. 

T: Exactly. She’s got it under control. I can see it. Eve Babitz was destroyed by her own life, whereas Joan Didion managed to live a very long and productive literary life. 

A: Joan had a very Virgo energy for a Sagittarious.  

T: It would be wonderful to combine Babitz’s spontaneity and party-girl sex appeal with Didion’s ability to plan and strategise. 

Joan Didion was also highly respected in her own time, whereas Eve Babitz only received her greatest recognition later. I hope I can build my career in such a way that I’m appreciated during my lifetime. 

A: Yeah, I feel you. Balance. If only I could manage it myself. My Joan Didion side definitely shows in the way I want everyone to follow my system so that I can then be Eve Babitz and destroy it myself. I’m so much of a Virgo that it easily tips over into chaos. 

T: And you love lists. 

A: I FUCKING LOVE LISTS. 

T: I need Joan Didion friends in my life: really meticulous people who can help make my texts a thousand times better. Luckily, you’re the perfect mix, 50/50. 

A: Did you know that Pisces and Virgo are a really good match as friends? One dreams, and the other wants to make those dreams happen in practice. 

T&A: Cheers!

Credits:
Photography by Eva-Liisa Orupõld
Text by Amanda Palo & Taika Mannila
Glam by Veerti Koski
Location Riviera Cinemas, Punavuori, Helsinki