My love will come,
Will throw open her arms and fold me within them,
Will understand my fears, note my changes.
In from the pouring dark, from the pitch night
Without stopping to slam the taxi door
She’ll run upstairs, across the rotting porch,
Burning with love and love’s happiness,
She’ll run dripping upstairs, she won’t knock,
Will take my head in her hands,
And when she flings her coat on a chair,
It will slip to the floor in a blue heap.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko (translated by me)
Despite my corner office with two large windows facing East and South, respectively, I'm afraid I don't like my job much. But the windows do flood the room with enough light that I can legitimatley wear sunglasses in it, which would seem to make my job seem hipper. Wearing sunglasses with a sportcoat and office shirt, however, only makes one look more like a tool--think Tom Cavanaugh's character in NBC's old show Ed--especially in a bureaucratic environment like the one in which I toil. The sunglasses don't conceal the fact that I have a tie stashed in my desk draw "just in case" or that I have three mindnumbing meetings at 11:00, 2:00, and 4:00, respectively. Nor do the shades suggest that though I'm spending my day writing or developing pieces about rats, lead poisoning, and socially transmitted diseases, I'm actually writing a novel at home. Rather, they suggest that I don't like my job much and that what I had suspected were mere allergies may actually be symptoms of conjunctivitis, a subject I will no doubt have to write about next week, provided, that is, I can still open my eyes.
These government sponsored (and approved) images (most are by Yury Markov) -- via Dark Roast Blend -- were published by Detskaya Literatura Publishing House from 1950s to 1970s - DETGIZ, geared toward Soviet Komsomol Youth - and were recently brought back from oblivion by M. Moshkov's online library.
[Spaceeba, Max!]
A hedgehog wandered into our house!
We found it in the morning.
It sat in the corner near the stove
and sneezed because of all the dust.
We approached it, but it rolled up in a ball.
See how it's covered in overgrown needles?
But in about five minutes, it unrolled,
stuck out its paws, then its nose.
Why it came to us,
We don't have a clue:
Whether it was in a fight
or if it just wanted to live with people.
But it's not bad to live with us.
Here's the arrangement:
From now on you will be called
Thistle!
You must not fight with the cat
Or get into bed with us--
Because you're prickly
and you might scratch our skin...
Each day, you will receive
Three saucers of milk,
But on holidays its cheesecake
and four worms.
During the day, you must play with us,
At night, you must catch mice.
If you get sick, I'll tell mommy
To give you soup and iodine.
That's it. Now think it over.
Take all day if you need it...
If you like, stay--
But if not, leave now!
1909 (a children's poem by Sasha Chernyi, draft translation by me)
From Sovlit:
The Forty-First by Boris Lavrenyov (1924). A female sniper with Red partisans misses her 41st vicitim (a White officer), then winds up stranded with him on a desert island, where they fall in love. However, the White's essentially selfish, bourgeois nature becomes apparent and she shoots him, fulfilling her mission and her class destiny ....
A page on Soviet children's books from a collection at the the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of McGill University Libraries:
Among the many radical changes in the Soviet Union after the 1917 Revolution, the transformation of children's books offers one of the most vivid reminders of the vast ambitions of the new social order. Building simultaneously upon the progressive legacy of the 19th century Russian literature and upon the dazzling tradition of Russian Futurism, a linguistic, literary and artistic movement that galvanized Russian intellectuals in the early decades of this century, post-Revolutionary publishing for children introduced a vast array of new measures that transmogrified this previously undistinguished genre. In addition to the powerful visual impact of the boldly designed books, there were marked increases in the number of titles published annually, a skyrocketing in the size of individual editions and the creation of an entire branch of the publishing industry dedicated solely to children's literature.
[Spaceeba, Amos!]
"We were drinking and what doesn't happen when you're drunk?"
[Spaceeba, Dana!]
I'm marrying one of these clams on Saturday. Actually, I'm marrying the most beautiful dancing clam there ever was. See you in 2 weeks--and some of you sooner!
Construction begins!
Don't laugh, don't even breathe!
Doors from Twos, porches, Threes...
Stop! It fell--so build it again.
The doorman's cot goes in the corner--
He'll sleep on a Seven.
Great job, wonderful... Don't fall!
Jacks are in the first room--
My…and so well dressed!
Hats tilted upward and hats tilted down
Along the walls--the eaves
Are made from Fours and Fives.
Don't shake! I'm warning you!
Further along--behind that screen of Sixes--
There's a bathroom for the Queens.
Let the Kings sleep in the dining room.
There's no space anywhere else.
The Queen of Spades and Ace of Diamonds
Are drinking coffee on the veranda.
Children? They don't have any children,
Neither children, nor birds, nor cats...
These holes here are for windows
And that's a guest room.
Post and beam--It's a new home!
The house is almost done.
The chimneys just need to be taller.
Don't tremble, be careful, friend!
For God's sake, don't shake...
No, no, no! There's still more...
Oh no!
The sides begin to wobble,
They bend and stagger
Then tumble and spill onto the table cloth--
And there goes the house...
1921, a children's poem by Sasha Chernyi, translated from Russian by me.
Thanks, everyone for coming out to Polish-occupied Greenpoint last night! It was fun to gather in a basement to talk about the dead...
Darn. I would really love to see Walking with Brodsky, Russian Muse of the French Resistance, and Shalamov: Several of my Lives (especially Sahalamov!), but it would mean missing my wedding and then my honeymoon, and then finding a new place to live...
The Russian Documentary Film Festival--a joint venture presented by the New Review Magazine (New York), the Library Fund for Russians Abroad (Moscow) and the Russian Cultural Foundation (Moscow)--will take place in New York, April 11-13th, 2008.The festival features documentary films produced in Russia over the last 15 years.
I'm reading from my translation of Osip Mandelshtam's Tristia with Anya Ulinich at Word bookstore in Greenpoint tonight at 7:30pm. Anya will be signing her terrific novel Petropolis, which is being reissued in paperback.
Word
126 Franklin Street
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718-383-0096
Drink-drunk! Red eggs.
Drunk-drink! Red noses.
Beat-bash! Happy faces.
Bash-beat! Heaps of sausage.
Give-gave! Holiday bribes.
Gave-give! This and that.
Trim-tree! Gloved visits.
Tree-trim! Vodka and cream.
Drink-Drunk! Syrups and jellies.
Drunk-Drink! Belly aches.
Beat-bash! Back to work.
Bash-beat! Dream is over.
1909
--Sasha the Black (Translated from Russian by me.)
From How to Make a Living as a Poet:
On Monday, March 24 2008, 7:00pm - 9:00pm The Poetry Society of America and Bowery Arts and Science present: A Celebration of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Featuring Martha Plimpton, Ron Padgett, Francine du Plessix Gray, Rachel Cohen, Matvei Yankelevich and Val Vinokur, and Michael Almereyda in a reading of the essential Russian futurist poet’s works, plus selections from the new anthology, Night Wraps the Sky, Writings by and about Mayakovsky, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Event takes place at the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, New York.
[Spaceeba, Kirill!]
A transcript of a telephone call that I received at work this morning...
KJK: "This is Kevin"
Woman: "Hello, I'm confirming a meeting today for 2pm"
KJK: "Excuse me, who is this?"
Woman (impatiently): "I was told that you would arrange a meeting with me today."
KJK: "OK, but who are you?"
Woman: "Ms. L-- advised me that you would set up a meeting with me for today at 2"
KJK: "I need to know who you are."
Woman (mounting impatience): "Ms. L-- didn't tell you about this?"
KJK: "I'm sorry but I can't help you unless I know who I'm speaking to."
Woman: "Well, Ms. L-- said that we were going to meet today. I need to know where.
KJK: "WHO IS THIS???"
Woman: "My name is Ms. B--. Didn't Ms. L-- tell you?"
KJK: "Why don't you tell me what the meeting is supposed to be about and I'll see if I can help you."
Woman (exasperated): "It is frustrating that you don't seem to understand what I'm talking about."
You don't even want to know what that meeting was about...
