Simo Parviainen

simosimosimo.com

Galley proof — pulled flat, complete

The site at this address is a printed place that moves: rooms of ink, one press, one name, and a visitor falling through them. This page is the place's galley proof — every line of type the rooms carry, pulled flat so it can be read without the press running. Nothing has been left out. These are the same words, without the falling.

The press itself is one step further: run the press. It moves the whole time — that is the only warning it gives. If a stillness setting sent you here, going in is yours to choose; this proof will keep. A browser that cannot run the press will simply hand you this proof again. The address opens in any full browser: simosimosimo.com.

The type, in the order it was set

sheet

Say a name three times and it stops being a name.

Say it three hundred times and it becomes a place.

You are standing in it.

corridor

Repeat yourself long enough and you become a rhythm.

I am mostly rhythm now.

Somewhere down this corridor the word stops meaning me. I keep walking.

dark

There is a number I still know by heart.

The line hums like a held breath.

Some calls are placed years before they are answered. Answer anyway.

plaza

Some shadows have no object. I checked twice.

You learn to navigate by the other landmarks.

There were always enough lights.

mirror

There is a man in my family with my laugh and better sense.

The mirror sometimes shows him instead.

We let it.

family

The wall keeps the only calendar we trust.

Four small marks, climbing. One mark that stopped climbing and started cooking.

We set a place for whoever the day brings.

milli

The smallest rooms in my life have the highest ceilings.

Three of them call me by my only real title.

katajanokka

I live on a peninsula that pretends to be a city.

Icebreakers sleep outside my window like patient dogs.

All winter they wait for the sea to need breaking. I know the feeling.

suomi

I want to sleep under stars.

I sleep under a ceiling I like very much.

The tent knows. It forgives me every summer.

flood

Give me a river I have never met and a boat that folds into a backpack.

Some men collect horsepower.

I collect the ways water bends.

edge

The fastest I ever feel is thin: two tires, one lung of city air.

Four wheels carry cargo. Two carry weather.

Once I owned an engine. A wall explained it to me. We agreed: no more.

funnel

I sell the feeling of wanting. I am very good at it.

The numbers go up when watched. So do I.

Some days the funnel points at me. I climb in willingly.

banquet

I once fed strangers for a living, on a street named after a union.

It was fun. It was not mine. The knives forgave me; the rice never did.

These days I cook for five and eat ice cream like it is a calling.

zoetrope

National champion, 1997. Six teams in the country.

I never hit the ball. I never caught one either.

The medal is real gold. Spin anything fast enough and it looks like winning.

chair-henge

My monuments are chairs.

Every friend who ever stayed past midnight is load-bearing.

kustaa

I do not believe in much.

Wood grain, maybe. Things that hold still while everything else won't.

choir

The records know my name in three voices: gravel, velvet, six strings.

The turntable forgives the podcasts.

orchestra

I build things by asking a machine to dream with me.

This page is one of them.

We disagree about what is beautiful. That is the good part.

slime-hands

Some days I am exactly this:

poured, unhurried, still reaching.

upside

Turn anything over. I always do.

The underside is where the maker signs.

giant-s

From inside, my own name is just architecture.

You never recognize the letter you live in.

lamp

My ambitions, ranked:

sunlight, landing on a sofa, around four o'clock.

Then the rest.

poster

In fourth grade they gave me a statue for smiling.

I have been living up to it ever since.

It is not heavy. Mostly.

registration

I like it when things line up. People, mostly.

I press until everything is in register.

Then I let go. That is also fine.

wardrobe

I own equipment for a wilder life: straps, shells, stoves.

The wardrobe is a base camp.

The expedition is mostly Tuesday.

sword

Everything I own eventually grows eyes.

They watch you back. That is what owning is.

The milk is not explained. Some things I keep.

liar

This room was rejected.

The chair is fine. The error is elsewhere.

I kept every mistake that behaved.

intermission

Between rooms, I am also this.

press

The last room prints a card: a name, and a way to reach it. The card is not set here. The press prints it at the end of the fall, on a sheet it composes from everything you did on the way down. The name on it you already have.

From the same press

polkuopas.fi — a trail guide, by the same hands. Live.

gearmanifest.com — the next sheet, by the same hands. Still being set.