Claire has arrived for a visit and luckily the annual Helsinki Festival is still going on. She missed the French company Les Plasticiens Volants and their balloon procession through Helsinki but Gerald and I saw it. Here are some pictures and I suggest you look them up the web too, to see moving images - really spectacular in person though. We also saw a Russian clown troop last night, Teatr Licedei, performing "Semianyki", a hilarious mostly pantomime show of family life - they too have some online footage - and as Claire studied 'clown' this last year, she was very happy to catch this comedia performance. We'll also see the Belarus Free Theatre Sunday, so she'll get quite a dose of far away art this visit. Gerald and I saw Kraftwerk (German) and Buika (Spanish/flamenco) and so we've been getting around this festival all while staying in town, and all of it has been really inspired. Even the canoe exhibition in my neighborhood! Art everywhere to bring summer to a close.