Languor Management

The Mirror

Who’s that on the train
Gaping menacingly like a shark?
Why, that’s the Friendly Reader
Yawning over the boring daily news.

He chews on it in the train,
In apartments, in the bath, and at work,
Gnaws on it in restaurants
And in the branch office.

Each day and morning, he knows
Who dined with Franz Joseph
And what stupidity fat Bobrinsky
Blurted out in the Duma...

Each day that he’s sucked into its lines
He becomes stupid or grows wiser:
If the author is foolish—he becomes stupid,
If clever—he grows wiser.

But sometimes the Friendly Reader
Snarls meanly
And curses the daily news
Like a coachman.

“Damn it all, this Western news
And Spanish papers!”
(Well, it’s stronger in the Spanish--
Like a Spanish bull, as a matter of fact).

Friendly Reader, don’t curse!
Instead, take out your pocket mirror.
In it, don’t you see something dark and ominous,
Someone gloomy and faceless?

Someone gloomy and faceless.
Not a Spaniard--oh, not at all--
But more like a Spanish bull,
Doomed at a bullfight.

Look: In the mirror
Is there much news, laughter, feeling?
So, Friendly Reader,
Don’t curse the daily news.

1908, by Sasha  the Black (translated by me, with a special Thanks! to Alexei)

Weird charm

Northwestern University has announced the publication of OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism, containing poetry, drama and prose by Alexander Vvedensky, Daniil Kharms, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Nikolai Oleinikov, Leonid Lipavsky and Yakov Druskin, as edited by Eugene Ostashevsky and translated by himself, Matvei Yankelevich, Thomas Epstein, Genya Turovskaya, and Ilya Bernstein.

The book launch for OBERIU will be held on Sunday, September 10th, at 6PM at the Russian Samovar, 256 West 52nd Street, between Bway and 8th, New York City.

An odd, "twisted" apartment on Borisoglebsky Pereulok

Michele A. Berdy on the Tsvetaeva Museum for the Moscow Times:

The house was the reflection of the poet. As she wrote in her diaries: "My house is like me. With other people, you can stop by at some times, but not at others. But everyone comes to me -- at any time -- and for anyone -- for anything -- I tear myself away from my poems and chores -- for no good reason, just to be hospitable. The apartment is wide open. Like me."

After a night of passion

The second issue of A Public Space focuses on some Russian writers who "break away from humdrum realism and represent an alternative canon to the last century of Russian literature." Inside, Natasha Randall, translator of Yevgeny Zamatin's dystopian We, talks with poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko about the etymologies of Russian words and how those histories inform contemporary Russian writing. Plus new work by Sergey Zavyalov, Elena Fanailova, Dmitry Kuzmin, Alexander Vvedensky, Sergey Gandlevsky, Daniil Kharms, Olga Zondberg, and Vladimir Arkhipov's gallery of homemade inventions. Visit A Public Space to read a sample of Andrey Platonov's "The Macedonian Officer."

Yum.

The average human type

Richard Lourie on Jochen Hellbeck's Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary Under Stalin:

The principal service of Jochen Hellbeck's "Revolution on My Mind" is that it transports us back to that earlier, impassioned revolutionary Soviet Union, a time of epic hope and energy, when the transformation of man and history seemed imminent. There were no limits to the possibilities. Justice would reign on earth. In time, the state would wither away. And, as Leon Trotsky predicted at the end of his book "Literature and Revolution," the "average human type" would "rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx." Then, as if that were not grandiose enough, he added: "And above this ridge new peaks will rise."

Enter the Shaman

I moved into a new apartment a few months back. I love it; it's large and spacious, and I even get backyard access to a wonderfully landscaped space overgrown in flowers and greeny plants. Contingent upon moving in, however, was the stipulation that I become the foster parent to one of the landlord's cats.

Apparently, Dreamka had been found by my landlord after she had been struck by a car in front of his Greenpoint home. As a result of the accident, she had broken several bones and now suffers from some vision loss. The landlord kindly took the koshka in and his wife and two lovely young daughters cared for her and slowly nursed her back to health. As Dreamka began to heal, however, she became increasingly mistrustful of humans and would lash out at anyone for no apparent reason. One minute, you'd be scratching under her chin and she'd be purring up a storm; next thing you know, you're calling 911 and she's hissing at you like a snake.

Though the family had come to love poor Dreamka, they had also come to the difficult conclusion that she could no longer be allowed in the house. The youngest daughter--about three years old-- was particularly vulnerable to Dreamka's unpredicatable assaults. So they put Dreamka out in the lush backyard. But they continued to put food out for her and try to play with her in the yard. Unfortunately, this being Brooklyn, the neighborhood, particularly this backyard with its overgrowth and shade, is plagued with numerous wild cats. In my yard alone, you can often see three or four enormous males sunning themselves openly on the cobble-stone walkway on any average day. Poor Dreamka was no match for these bullies who dominated her and ate all of her food, and she soon began to lose weight and to show up scratching at my landlord's door with cuts and scratches from her daily brawling.

So when I moved in, he asked me if I didn't mind taking Dreamka in. He explained how much his daughters were fond of the troubled little soul. Since, I had been considering getting a cat at the time, I readily--perhaps too hastily--agreed to take Dreamka on. So we moved in together in May. It took some weeks of getting used to and learning to trust each other, but Dreamka now sleeps in my bed and even greets me impatiently at the front door after work, like any normal cat from a loving home. Each morning, at about 6 a.m., she nuzzles and licks any exposed flesh until I wake up and start petting and scratching her. Her purring alone can wake you up. She gives you about three minutes of serious petting to build up your confidence before she starts hissing, scratching, and biting. On more than one occassion, I have thrown her off of the bed with no regard for her safety--seeing as her claws were so deep in the flesh of my thigh or arm that I was only thinking of saving myself.

While she's generally quite sweet, she can turn on a dime, especially if I try to groom her. Her pelvis was severely damanged in the car accident so she won't let anyone brush her out or clean the long hur on her hind quarters. I've tried and given up. I value my life too much.

Enter the Shaman.

It was Queenie who called me into the equine world, and I will forever be grateful to her for opening my eyes to the special needs of horses, as well as the very special gifts that they give to mankind. Prior to meeting Queenie my healing gifts and therapeutic training were intended for the two legged world. Now I am deeply aware of the huge void of healers in the equine population and I have committed my healing work to horses.

I recently received an e-mail from my landlord's wife, telling me of the success that she has experienced with her other cat, Gustav. Gussy, she explained, was a bit too energetic and feisty. But a few sessions with a friend of hers who is an Animal Shaman--particularly a Horse Shaman--has chilled him out considerably. She was asking for my permission to let the Shaman work with Dreamka. Since my landlady said she was going to pay for it, I agreed. Why not?

So my landlady approached her Horse Shaman who agreed to take on the case, provided, of course, that Dreamka agrees to the pursue therapy. At this point, I have been informed that the Shaman has reached out to Dreamka from Naples, Florida, and if she--the cat from Brooklyn--agrees to pursue therapy, then it will commence post haste.

So We're all waiting on the edges of our seats to see what Dreamka wants to do! I'll keep you posted.

Dreamka?

There is only hope with us, the dead

Vladimir Kozlov on Yury Arabov's new novel Flagellants:

Until recently, Yury Arabov was primarily known to the general public as the screenwriter of several notable films by art-house director Alexander Sokurov, and, to a rather smaller audience, as a poet. In the past year, though, he gained visibility when NTV television broadcast two high-profile miniseries for which he wrote the scripts: adaptations of Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls" and Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago."

Now, Arabov has published a novel, "Flagellants," which is a lament for the death of the Russian intelligentsia -- and, according to the author, a reflection of his own conflicted feelings about being an artist in present-day Russia.

Orgies in return for new cars

Former television host Mila Micheva has written a novel based on a Russian reality show. :/

Anti/Fabrika Flirt-Time is a slim novel about a fictional reality show that has a lot in common with "Dom-2." And it doesn't exactly paint a flattering portrait.

The book has a bit of a frisson of insider gossip, since its cover promises that the author, former television host Mila Micheva, is "well-acquainted, and not just by hearsay, with the workings of media factories." In case you didn't catch it, that's a reference to "Star Factory," the hugely popular talent-contest show that used to run on Channel One.

A loyal cipher

Short notice, but Leonard Lopate will be interviewing Yevgeny Zamyatin translator Natasha Randall on the book, We, a groundbreaking piece of dystopian literature, as part of the show's Underappreciated Literature series.

[Spaceeba, Max!]

Another of Russia's treasures

The Moscow Times has an item on A. Tolstoi's old apartment and Word Riot has an old one on mine.

When the so-called "red count" returned from exile, he filled his apartments with antique furniture and paintings found in commission shops, at what the museum curators call "palace sales" (imagine a garage sale at the palace of the Grand Duke) and in warehouses full of expropriated imperial booty. As the museum guides point out, "He was a count -- he had exquisite taste." The result of his scavenging is an elegant, eclectic mix of art and furnishings that will delight antique lovers, such as Wedgwood china decorated in unusual orange-red and electric blue designs that Tolstoy bought to match an 18th-century silk paisley tablecloth; chairs that once belonged to Tsar Paul I from the Engineer's Castle in St. Petersburg; and extraordinary art dating from the 16th century, including a painting of the temptation of St. Anthony, believed to be by Hieronymus Bosch, that once -- as legend has it -- graced the walls of Pushkin's family home in Mikhailovskoye.

Tolstoy lived here from 1941 until his death in 1945, but the thread from the past held fast for decades: His widow lived in the apartment until 1982, and another relative lived in the apartment next door until just a few months ago. Perhaps because of the family's continued presence, the apartment still feels lived in, despite the current clutter of furniture and objects from Tolstoy's study, which is under reconstruction.