I have been the nightwatchman for the Circo Aereo tent on the Aurora Field since Monday. The field is perfect. It is in the conceptual center of Helsinki; one can turn around and see, in turn, the Olympics Stadion, the New Opera House, Finlandia-House, the National Museum, House of Parliament, the VR Magazines, Kiasma, Sanoma-House, the Post House, the Railway Station and Paasitorni.

The tent itself has makes everything sound closer. From the inside, it might seem that a bunch of drunken teenagers were vandalizing the tent itself, but when I go outside to check, it turns out that they are 300 meters away, pissing in the bushes. The wind tends to hit the walls of the tent so that it sounds like people.

I spent the first night in claustrophobic conditions, doors closed, jumping at every sound, trying to minimize the impression that the tent was occupied to deter dunks from coming to make contact.

That was no good at all. Recently, I’ve taken to keeping the main doors open, so I can see outside. It makes the tent less disconnected, and me less paranoid. Aurora Field seems to be out of the usual migration routes of drunk people, because usually there’s nobody around. At times somebody walks past, usually young people or middle-aged upper middle class partiers, and sometimes even stops by to peek into the tent. Since the front door is open, they always come that way. Usually they ask what’s this about and leave after I explain.

Tuesday morning a group of middle-aged culture vulture ladies put up a camp outside the tent. After a while I got curious and went to see what they were doing. They were taking photoes of a young Latin girl in timidly fashionable clothes against the tent wall. It turned out that they were fashion photographers from Iltalehti (or sanomat).

A couple of times now the tent has attracted beautiful young girls. The first time it was a group of four cute hippie girls who timidly asked if they could stand awhile inside the tent, to get their bearings and have some respite from the cold.

The second case was three thirty last night, a beautiful and sexy black girl in her twenties, dressed to go out. She asked if she could stay awhile, and said that she was scared to walk alone this time of the night. She had a sad little stone she had picked up to hit would-be rapists with.
We talked a while, and it turned out that she had done some acting for YLE, in Studio Julmahuvi among others, and also had been a model. I told her a bit about myself. She said that she also liked photographing, especially nude photos.

She managed finally to call her boyfriend, who was a taxi driver. He came to pick her up and drive her home.