Posts
Another really fun link to the "nonsensical" books of the Russian Futurists (not to be confused with the Italian Futurists):
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/tango_with_cows/slideshow.html
The books are handwritten and this website provides high quality translation and commentary to the content. But simply clicking through the pages brings joy and happiness :)
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Rainbow Flash
The "Western" news sources picked up the information about police arresting a bunch of people (the numbers are unclear, but I've seen sources quote 40-80 people) at the gay rights rally in Moscow on Saturday. The arrests included some foreigners, which sort of automatically makes the news a big deal in the international media.
This picture taken in front of the Winter Palace (housing the Hermitage) makes me really happy:
More pictures here: http://community.livejournal.com/ru_rainbowflash/17129.html
On May 17th, the gay rights groups organized "flash mobs" (spontaneous gatherings) in several Russian cities, including St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, the women and men marched down the central street to the main square of the city to release their rainbow colored balloons. The messages scribbled on the balloons read "I am gay. And this is also good" (playing off a line of a famous poem), "We don't hide anymore." In St. Petersburg, the Rainbow Flash was peaceful. Neither the police nor the anti-gay groups got involved. These pictures make me happy.
This picture taken in front of the Winter Palace (housing the Hermitage) makes me really happy:
More pictures here: http://community.livejournal.com/ru_rainbowflash/17129.html
On May 17th, the gay rights groups organized "flash mobs" (spontaneous gatherings) in several Russian cities, including St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, the women and men marched down the central street to the main square of the city to release their rainbow colored balloons. The messages scribbled on the balloons read "I am gay. And this is also good" (playing off a line of a famous poem), "We don't hide anymore." In St. Petersburg, the Rainbow Flash was peaceful. Neither the police nor the anti-gay groups got involved. These pictures make me happy.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Kin-dza-dza!
A dream come true! Kin-dza-dza, a classic late Soviet comedy, on google video with English-language subtitles. Few things out there better capture the desperate humor of the 1980s. The task of translation is hopeless (it's a cultural project), but anything is better than nothing.
Part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2251461878127683608&q=kin-dza-dza
Part 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8606387789179029392&hl=en
Part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2251461878127683608&q=kin-dza-dza
Part 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8606387789179029392&hl=en
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tsvetan Todorov Lecture. Memory: A Remedy for Evil?
He spoke this Monday, at Berkeley. The lecture is a bit repetitive and in some ways rather common sense, but nevertheless, from the later discussion with the audience, I realized that a lot of people were angered and disturbed by it. Is this European vs. American narrative conversation?
---
Memory: A Remedy for Evil?
Christian prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven … deliver us from evil.”
This implies that there is evil, from which we can be delivered. And, in God’s name, some humans sometimes engage themselves in the project of delivering the rest of the humanity from evil.
**Key point** Memory is one of the means by which some humans propose the delivery to be accomplished.
Famous dictum: “Those who forget the past are deemed to repeat it.”
=> This assumes two things:
1. Past is BAD.
2. If we do remember, we can avoid doing the same thing in the future.
We often hear the media talk about our DUTY to remember. Repentance, reparation -- this is the constant refrain that we hear; NOT forgiving and forgetting.
This DUTY has also been the prevalent agenda in the arena of Law. Law that punishes those who deny Holocaust, for example, or Armenian Genocide, or Slavery. Lawmakers these days tend to describe these things as Crimes Against Humanity and state that their memory is holy, thus to prosecute those who deny them.
So, the lawmakers are also making an appeal to memory in their fight against evil.
Now, if we look at the events around the globe today, evil stubbornly persists despite our best efforts. No collective moral progress seems to haму been achieved. Appeal to memory seems ineffective. Are we going about it the wrong way?
Let’s examine the structure of the traditional NARRATIVE of good and evil:
I. There’s always a villain.
II. Usually there are two protagonists, one who acts and one who endures. The one who endures helps to identify the villain and provide contrast to the one who acts. The hero is the one who acts and does good, while the passive beneficiary of his acts is held in low esteem. The reader is encouraged to identify with the one who acts, the hero.
=> There is something suspicious in this unanimity of identification with heroes and NOT with passive the passive characters and villains.
Vietnam and Khmer Rouge. Francois Bizot, the only Westerner to have survived the imprisonment with the Khmer Rouge. His book “The Gate” (2003). He writes about the closeness he felt to Duch, the captor, the ruthless Khmer leader. Duch wasn’t a monster -- that was what was disturbing. Later, Duch has converted to Christianity and worked with humanitarian organizations. He’s ‘repented’ his since. Even now, the trial of him and Khmer is continuing in Phnom Penh.
What revolutionaries gone mass murders like Duch report is conviction that one must kill to avoid being killed. They start off believing that the sublime goal justifies all suffering -- and the sublime goal is that old attempt to deliver all humanity from evil.
The common narrative of today is that criminals are beasts. But what makes the Holocaust are these projects of trying to achieve sublime humanity. Turning things into reality by force, is where things go wrong.
Humans are different from animals precisely in their ability of abstract thinking, ability to imagine the thinking of others.
Finding the criminals to be human is the first step. Finding that we’re also able, like them, to become inhuman is the second step.
Bizot writes that to defend his own life he was ready to commit a murder of a child. He could also imagine being able to enjoy torture.
We’re all made of the same stuff, most of us simply have the good fortune not to have to kill.
There’s no DNA specific to murderers.
The individual’s past matters (growing up in social despair vs. having every need met). The present conditions also matter.
Yet, we have a difficult time imagining affinity to Hitler and other dictators. Torturers are not aliens but ordinary boys and girls (that’s what makes Abu Ghraib so disturbing). We have equal potential for good and evil. The hope of attaining state with no evil is unrealistic.
**Key point** The concept of evil within us is difficult to accept, we would rather create barriers within us, pretend that those people are fundamentally different.
Bizot proposes to have another kind of justice, the one where we’re forced to imagine the real danger, to see what we’re capable of being.
So what is the proper treatment to which we should submit traumatic past?
1. Most common today, legal, punitive justice.
2. Todorov considers restorative justice more desirable. Justice that considers the moral well being of individuals. Reconciliation, how to achieve it?
Example of South Africa post-apartheid process.
Nuremberg trial option is a bad option. Victorious allies were judging the defeated enemy. Short term. In South Africa, there was no military victory. Apartheid brought down under the condition there would be no settling of scores. Apartheid lasted much longer, more people involved. Justice (legal) also too costly.
Henry the VIIIth option of amnesty and collective amnesia also is impossible because the conflict of whites and blacks is everywhere and the memory is impossible to suppress.
Desmond Tutu’s option: each of us has capability for the most awful evil. **The crime must not be conflated with the criminal.**
The victims receive compensation from the state. Those criminals who confess and testify receive complete amnesty. Goal: to establish the truth, one that results in agreement between two parties. The state accept the guilt. The black majority alleviate the resentment. (How the goal has been achieved, is another conversation).
Unlike in punitive justice, here, in the South African case: punishment not symmetrical to the crime (no tooth for tooth like model).
1. Punitive justice is bad. Punitive justice is inflicted by the representatives of those who were harmed (the only difference between it and vengeance, tooth for tooth, where justice is done by those who were harmed, not their representatives). Frequently, punitive justice coincides with vengeance. Vengeance -- private justice. Punitive justice -- public vengeance.
2. Restorative justice -- the other means of punishment that pitches the health of the community as the ultimate goal. Restorative justice is concerned with the people, to enable the former perpetrators and victims to live side by side.
Obama speaking in Turkey. Issue: how we deal with the past, with Turkey and Armenian massacre. Obama said, “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed. My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts. The best way to advance that goal right now is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as a part of their efforts to move forward."
=> It’s up to the people to decide to want to live in the world together.
South Africa: no other country has followed their example. Execution of Saddam – the need of vengeance prevailed even though this might have sowed the seeds of conflict for decades to come.
Punitive justice is only appropriate in very certain cases – perhaps. How should heads of state be punished? Saddam’s execution doesn’t seem satisfying, neither does Milosevic’s trial. Maybe we should’ve put all of them to a desert island, like Helena and let them duke it out. (Laughter in the audience).
Restorative justice can certainly work in a way that complements punitive.
SUMMARY
Memory of the past will serve no purpose if used to build a wall between evil and us.
This, though, is what we usually do.
We hold on to the memory of the crimes that we have endured, not those we have inflicted.
The beast is within.
Novelist Romain Gary writing in the 30s and 50s: “The criminal element in the German is man.”
The inhuman is part of what’s human.
The word “human” is not synonym to generous or merciful.
We need to try to contain and tame ourselves.
Gospel: Christ asks to *keep* us from evil, not deliver (the proper interpretation).
Our adversary is not morality, but certain deeds.
Good and evil flow from the same source and in the good narratives they are not neatly divided.
---
Memory: A Remedy for Evil?
Christian prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven … deliver us from evil.”
This implies that there is evil, from which we can be delivered. And, in God’s name, some humans sometimes engage themselves in the project of delivering the rest of the humanity from evil.
**Key point** Memory is one of the means by which some humans propose the delivery to be accomplished.
Famous dictum: “Those who forget the past are deemed to repeat it.”
=> This assumes two things:
1. Past is BAD.
2. If we do remember, we can avoid doing the same thing in the future.
We often hear the media talk about our DUTY to remember. Repentance, reparation -- this is the constant refrain that we hear; NOT forgiving and forgetting.
This DUTY has also been the prevalent agenda in the arena of Law. Law that punishes those who deny Holocaust, for example, or Armenian Genocide, or Slavery. Lawmakers these days tend to describe these things as Crimes Against Humanity and state that their memory is holy, thus to prosecute those who deny them.
So, the lawmakers are also making an appeal to memory in their fight against evil.
Now, if we look at the events around the globe today, evil stubbornly persists despite our best efforts. No collective moral progress seems to haму been achieved. Appeal to memory seems ineffective. Are we going about it the wrong way?
Let’s examine the structure of the traditional NARRATIVE of good and evil:
I. There’s always a villain.
II. Usually there are two protagonists, one who acts and one who endures. The one who endures helps to identify the villain and provide contrast to the one who acts. The hero is the one who acts and does good, while the passive beneficiary of his acts is held in low esteem. The reader is encouraged to identify with the one who acts, the hero.
=> There is something suspicious in this unanimity of identification with heroes and NOT with passive the passive characters and villains.
Vietnam and Khmer Rouge. Francois Bizot, the only Westerner to have survived the imprisonment with the Khmer Rouge. His book “The Gate” (2003). He writes about the closeness he felt to Duch, the captor, the ruthless Khmer leader. Duch wasn’t a monster -- that was what was disturbing. Later, Duch has converted to Christianity and worked with humanitarian organizations. He’s ‘repented’ his since. Even now, the trial of him and Khmer is continuing in Phnom Penh.
What revolutionaries gone mass murders like Duch report is conviction that one must kill to avoid being killed. They start off believing that the sublime goal justifies all suffering -- and the sublime goal is that old attempt to deliver all humanity from evil.
The common narrative of today is that criminals are beasts. But what makes the Holocaust are these projects of trying to achieve sublime humanity. Turning things into reality by force, is where things go wrong.
Humans are different from animals precisely in their ability of abstract thinking, ability to imagine the thinking of others.
Finding the criminals to be human is the first step. Finding that we’re also able, like them, to become inhuman is the second step.
Bizot writes that to defend his own life he was ready to commit a murder of a child. He could also imagine being able to enjoy torture.
We’re all made of the same stuff, most of us simply have the good fortune not to have to kill.
There’s no DNA specific to murderers.
The individual’s past matters (growing up in social despair vs. having every need met). The present conditions also matter.
Yet, we have a difficult time imagining affinity to Hitler and other dictators. Torturers are not aliens but ordinary boys and girls (that’s what makes Abu Ghraib so disturbing). We have equal potential for good and evil. The hope of attaining state with no evil is unrealistic.
**Key point** The concept of evil within us is difficult to accept, we would rather create barriers within us, pretend that those people are fundamentally different.
Bizot proposes to have another kind of justice, the one where we’re forced to imagine the real danger, to see what we’re capable of being.
So what is the proper treatment to which we should submit traumatic past?
1. Most common today, legal, punitive justice.
2. Todorov considers restorative justice more desirable. Justice that considers the moral well being of individuals. Reconciliation, how to achieve it?
Example of South Africa post-apartheid process.
Nuremberg trial option is a bad option. Victorious allies were judging the defeated enemy. Short term. In South Africa, there was no military victory. Apartheid brought down under the condition there would be no settling of scores. Apartheid lasted much longer, more people involved. Justice (legal) also too costly.
Henry the VIIIth option of amnesty and collective amnesia also is impossible because the conflict of whites and blacks is everywhere and the memory is impossible to suppress.
Desmond Tutu’s option: each of us has capability for the most awful evil. **The crime must not be conflated with the criminal.**
The victims receive compensation from the state. Those criminals who confess and testify receive complete amnesty. Goal: to establish the truth, one that results in agreement between two parties. The state accept the guilt. The black majority alleviate the resentment. (How the goal has been achieved, is another conversation).
Unlike in punitive justice, here, in the South African case: punishment not symmetrical to the crime (no tooth for tooth like model).
1. Punitive justice is bad. Punitive justice is inflicted by the representatives of those who were harmed (the only difference between it and vengeance, tooth for tooth, where justice is done by those who were harmed, not their representatives). Frequently, punitive justice coincides with vengeance. Vengeance -- private justice. Punitive justice -- public vengeance.
2. Restorative justice -- the other means of punishment that pitches the health of the community as the ultimate goal. Restorative justice is concerned with the people, to enable the former perpetrators and victims to live side by side.
Obama speaking in Turkey. Issue: how we deal with the past, with Turkey and Armenian massacre. Obama said, “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed. My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts. The best way to advance that goal right now is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as a part of their efforts to move forward."
=> It’s up to the people to decide to want to live in the world together.
South Africa: no other country has followed their example. Execution of Saddam – the need of vengeance prevailed even though this might have sowed the seeds of conflict for decades to come.
Punitive justice is only appropriate in very certain cases – perhaps. How should heads of state be punished? Saddam’s execution doesn’t seem satisfying, neither does Milosevic’s trial. Maybe we should’ve put all of them to a desert island, like Helena and let them duke it out. (Laughter in the audience).
Restorative justice can certainly work in a way that complements punitive.
SUMMARY
Memory of the past will serve no purpose if used to build a wall between evil and us.
This, though, is what we usually do.
We hold on to the memory of the crimes that we have endured, not those we have inflicted.
The beast is within.
Novelist Romain Gary writing in the 30s and 50s: “The criminal element in the German is man.”
The inhuman is part of what’s human.
The word “human” is not synonym to generous or merciful.
We need to try to contain and tame ourselves.
Gospel: Christ asks to *keep* us from evil, not deliver (the proper interpretation).
Our adversary is not morality, but certain deeds.
Good and evil flow from the same source and in the good narratives they are not neatly divided.
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Old Farmer's Almanac
For 2/3 May, the inscription is: "Floral Etiquette: In Russia, an even number of flowers is given in times of sympathy; for all other occasions, it is proper to give an odd number of flowers."
Which is true -- if "times of sympathy" are commonly understood to mean funerals.
Which is true -- if "times of sympathy" are commonly understood to mean funerals.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Fun quote
"The aim of literature is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart."
From Donald Barthelme, whom I haven't read, but certainly must read. Slowly getting through my pile of the New Yorkers, came across this. The quote was supposedly inspired by a surrealist artwork by Meret Oppenheim, a fur-lined teacup.
From Donald Barthelme, whom I haven't read, but certainly must read. Slowly getting through my pile of the New Yorkers, came across this. The quote was supposedly inspired by a surrealist artwork by Meret Oppenheim, a fur-lined teacup.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Silent Signs
A story I finished exactly a year ago was just published in Faraway journal. (PDF and website). This story was very loosely inspired by the first time I saw the Squirrel Nut Zippers at the Independent -- although I doubt that today I could trace a single word in the story back to the source. The most pleasant surprise of my writing career: the publication is accompanied by an original artwork by Gay Degani, inspired by my own story! It goes together perfectly with the world I was envisioning. So cool.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Writing Workshop
A fellow SF Writer's Workshop participant, Peg, is offering her own writing workshop starting May 20th: northbaywriters.wordpress.com. Peg is a wonderful writer and offers very perceptive and helpful comments on other people's stories, I can see her being a great teacher. Unlike me, she doesn't rush in and start rewriting other people's stories from scratch.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
An excuse
The excuse this month is that I'm writing a poem a day: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/
The exercise fills me with a certain dread and a sense of futility and the notion that I really need to start reading English-language poetry. The language is not an issue any longer, now it's just about the time and the methods of reading. Of course, also about my deeply buried belief that poetry has to do with the sublime, the kind of sublime that by definition is denied to me.
The exercise fills me with a certain dread and a sense of futility and the notion that I really need to start reading English-language poetry. The language is not an issue any longer, now it's just about the time and the methods of reading. Of course, also about my deeply buried belief that poetry has to do with the sublime, the kind of sublime that by definition is denied to me.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Max Frei is coming!
Max Frei's book The Stranger is getting published in English by Overlook Press! Maybe one day her anthologies will also get translated and sell :) I just got word that 78 is going in for a second printing, and I've earned another 1800 rubles. That's between $50 and $60! Depending on when my brother chooses to pick up the cash.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Translation
Mine is a brilliant one, no less!
http://www.ezratranslation.com/Fall_2008.html
I'm inspired to write more :)
http://www.ezratranslation.com/Fall_2008.html
I'm inspired to write more :)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Books and Books
I'm doing alright. If I'm lucky, I might finish two, even three books tonight. Plus, visit a gallery and another bookstore in Miami. I went to one yesterday, Books and Books in Coral Gables. It was a busy place with a lovely cafe in the courtyard. When I was leaving, they had two reading groups starting at the same time in two wings of the building, one in English, one in Spanish. There's a university nearby, that must help things.
Also, the South Beach. I drove into South Beach yesterday. It took me an hour to find parking: apparently, the city owns garage buildings that charge a dollar an hour. The city obviously tries to keep them a secret from tourists, because there are no signs whatsoever. When I walked out on Ocean Drive, I felt homesick for San Francisco. But then I drove to Books and Books and that was perfectly lovely. I've been looking for Mary Gaitskill's stories everywhere, but so far no luck.
Also, the South Beach. I drove into South Beach yesterday. It took me an hour to find parking: apparently, the city owns garage buildings that charge a dollar an hour. The city obviously tries to keep them a secret from tourists, because there are no signs whatsoever. When I walked out on Ocean Drive, I felt homesick for San Francisco. But then I drove to Books and Books and that was perfectly lovely. I've been looking for Mary Gaitskill's stories everywhere, but so far no luck.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Driving in Miami
I rented a car to get around Miami -- and I am slightly regretting that decision. I passed six pile ups in ten miles on my way from the airport to the hotel last night. I'm not a confident driver to start with, and didn't receive a surge in confidence from the sight. I don't feel the slightest temptation to make fun of Florida drivers. The hotel charges $30 to keep the car overnight, as I found out at the registration desk. My mistake for not thinking of that sooner. And now it's already 2 pm local time and I'm still at the hotel, having accomplished maybe 5% of the planned reading for the day. I should stay here and keep reading, but instead I feel obligated to take the car out for a ride. I can already imagine the parking charges I'm going to pay in the tourist hot spots.
Last night, shaken up from the drive to the hotel, I took a walk to the nearest walkable destination: the mall. A mall is a mall is mall, but this had Argentine grill at the food court and five different ice cream shops. Everyone seems a little confused around here, as if they were all me, not sure what they are doing here and severely shaken up on the way. I talked to a woman at the checkout line at Publix, the local supermarket, who had blueberry muffins on her shopping list, but didn't know what they were. I tried to explain, but she just waved her hand, "Oh, it's too complicated." I said, "But they are right there!" and tried to point her to the bakery section, but she just folded her list and stuffed it in her pocket. "I'll just let it go," she said. I bought a bag of organic Gala apples for $4.95 and a chocolate chip cookie for 72 cents. The apples are very watery and not quite ripe, but I am not complaining.
Last night, shaken up from the drive to the hotel, I took a walk to the nearest walkable destination: the mall. A mall is a mall is mall, but this had Argentine grill at the food court and five different ice cream shops. Everyone seems a little confused around here, as if they were all me, not sure what they are doing here and severely shaken up on the way. I talked to a woman at the checkout line at Publix, the local supermarket, who had blueberry muffins on her shopping list, but didn't know what they were. I tried to explain, but she just waved her hand, "Oh, it's too complicated." I said, "But they are right there!" and tried to point her to the bakery section, but she just folded her list and stuffed it in her pocket. "I'll just let it go," she said. I bought a bag of organic Gala apples for $4.95 and a chocolate chip cookie for 72 cents. The apples are very watery and not quite ripe, but I am not complaining.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Keys to the Lost House
Or "Key Moments," my story in The Writer's Eye magazine:
"I FEEL NOTHING," Aisha thought, letting go of the ropes as her swing approached its maximum height. “I touch nothing.”
But she didn’t launch into flight. She didn’t even fall to the ground. Instead, she remained firmly attached to the wooden board as it swung backwards between the two pine trees and over the patch of wildflowers, dandelions and forget-me-nots. Holding her arms straight into the air outside of the ropes, her legs tightly tucked underneath the board and bare feet touching the rough wood, Aisha closed her eyes until she swung upwards again.
(continue)
"I FEEL NOTHING," Aisha thought, letting go of the ropes as her swing approached its maximum height. “I touch nothing.”
But she didn’t launch into flight. She didn’t even fall to the ground. Instead, she remained firmly attached to the wooden board as it swung backwards between the two pine trees and over the patch of wildflowers, dandelions and forget-me-nots. Holding her arms straight into the air outside of the ropes, her legs tightly tucked underneath the board and bare feet touching the rough wood, Aisha closed her eyes until she swung upwards again.
(continue)
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Names
Another great place to get good character names is spam. Just this morning I got messages from Asha and Abbott and Erwin Blount. This is a gold mine!
Salted ramson stems are delicious, especially when my father brings them home fresh from the farmers' market. I've tried the bottled marinated variety lately, and it's absolutely not the same, but still edible, I suppose. Also, Ramson or Ramsons is a great name for a character. I'm going to use it after I've exhausted Clove and Amber.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The blogs turned up a list of must-read Austro-Hungarian literature. Must-read in the next life, that is. Still, Olga-2009 cannot calmly pass this by.
I would start with these:
The Road into the Open by Arthur Schnitzler
Wedekind, "Spring Awakening"
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, The Lord Chandos Letter
Elias Canetti's three-volume memoir
I would start with these:
The Road into the Open by Arthur Schnitzler
Wedekind, "Spring Awakening"
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, The Lord Chandos Letter
Elias Canetti's three-volume memoir
Monday, February 2, 2009
Yogurt
Every week in the summer my grandmother made a fresh batch of yogurt in the little glass jars leftover from the time when the store-bought mayonnaise used to come in the little glass jars. She slopped a teaspoon of sour cream at the bottom of each jar and filled the rest with fresh, unpasteurized milk--in the years when fresh, unpasteurized milk was available. Later it became Parmalat, a white-colored liquid that could last three months without refrigeration. She placed the jars on the middle shelf in the small cabinet underneath the eastward-looking window in our stand-alone kitchennette. Or maybe it was the lowest shelf. Whatever it was, it was always the same, and the jars were always arranged in the exact same order, last week's yogurts migrating up to the front and the newest taking their place in line at the back. Her favorite jars--those with no chips--to the left, others to the right. She consumed the yogurt religiously, one jar every day, after supper. I knew she didn't like it because sometimes if my brother and I begged enough we were allowed to skip the dish altogether. Not often, but once in a while, she'd let us eat just the top creamy layer of it, and leave the rest for her to finish up. As a way of encouraging our consumption, she'd let us mix in plenty of sugar. When we grew older and the age of the plastic tubs of foreign-made yogurt descended, we were excused altogether. She frequently procrastinated on eating the home-made yogurt herself. She'd put a little jar in the pocket of her apron--I suppose, the jars were loosely closed with metal caps--and take it up to the house with her at the end of the day. She also brought a teaspoon along. In the house, she'd put the little jar on the table in front of the television, and eat it bit by bit as she watched the evening programming or read the paper.
Lately--long after I've reached adulthood and learned somethings about somethings--I've began to wonder if my grandmother's yogurt routine was maybe a way of prevention or cure for yeast infection. Isn't yogurt the primary home remedy women used to use in the world before the anti-fungal medicine? I remember when my parents first discovered anti-fungal creme to cure my grandfather's crippling case of athelete's foot. That was a big deal, and even though we were not supposed to know anything about it to maintain our childlike innocence, they had difficulty holding back their excitement. I suppose I could ask my mother about this yogurt-yeast infection theory, and maybe I will one day, but somehow, right now, blogging about it in English seems easier than phrasing a direct question in Russian. In fact, I don't even know the name of the condition in Russian, and Wikipidia returns an entirely unfamiliar word. Either they used euphemisms or I was a martian child.
Lately--long after I've reached adulthood and learned somethings about somethings--I've began to wonder if my grandmother's yogurt routine was maybe a way of prevention or cure for yeast infection. Isn't yogurt the primary home remedy women used to use in the world before the anti-fungal medicine? I remember when my parents first discovered anti-fungal creme to cure my grandfather's crippling case of athelete's foot. That was a big deal, and even though we were not supposed to know anything about it to maintain our childlike innocence, they had difficulty holding back their excitement. I suppose I could ask my mother about this yogurt-yeast infection theory, and maybe I will one day, but somehow, right now, blogging about it in English seems easier than phrasing a direct question in Russian. In fact, I don't even know the name of the condition in Russian, and Wikipidia returns an entirely unfamiliar word. Either they used euphemisms or I was a martian child.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
A conversation
how I won't tell Pandora that I like Erasure's Breath of Life
Is it Era-[cer] or Era-[sher]?
are an English synth pop duo
Erasure poetry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasure_poetry)
back to meatloaf
Is it Era-[cer] or Era-[sher]?
are an English synth pop duo
Erasure poetry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasure_poetry)
back to meatloaf
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Narrative Magazine on Kindle
"Narrative is proud to join Time, Newsweek, Forbes, and a select group of other major national magazines now available on Amazon's increasingly popular electronic reading device, Kindle.
Kindle, with its free, global, wireless means of downloading material directly to the handheld device, offers Narrative for an inexpensive monthly subscription of $3.49.
Each month, Narrative publishes new works not only by celebrated authors but also by the best new and emerging writers on the horizon. Many famous writers, such as Annie Proulx, Maud Newton, Alexi Zentner, and Min Jin Lee, have been launched by the editors at Narrative, who continue to discover and promote tomorrow's writers.
For travelers, business and entertainment leaders, commuters, aesthetes, technophiles, and all other readers who enjoy Kindle, Narrative adds great storytelling and literary art to the news and information already provided by the other major magazines on Kindle."
(this is the literary magazine for which I'm volunteering these days)
Kindle, with its free, global, wireless means of downloading material directly to the handheld device, offers Narrative for an inexpensive monthly subscription of $3.49.
Each month, Narrative publishes new works not only by celebrated authors but also by the best new and emerging writers on the horizon. Many famous writers, such as Annie Proulx, Maud Newton, Alexi Zentner, and Min Jin Lee, have been launched by the editors at Narrative, who continue to discover and promote tomorrow's writers.
For travelers, business and entertainment leaders, commuters, aesthetes, technophiles, and all other readers who enjoy Kindle, Narrative adds great storytelling and literary art to the news and information already provided by the other major magazines on Kindle."
(this is the literary magazine for which I'm volunteering these days)
Sunday, January 11, 2009
My flash story "Between you and me" has been published by an online journal CRIT (Crossing Rivers into Twilight) -- it's been up online for a few weeks already, but I've never been sure that the issue is officially released and the link stable. I'll assume so right now.
I also checked in with Drollerie Press this week -- back in July they wanted to publish my story "June's Flowers" in a book called Trick the Object: An Anthology of the Literary Weird. In September that project fell apart, but now they are planning to include my text in another spookily titled anthology Things that go Bump in the Night. Deena the editor promises that it'll be out as an ebook by the end of the month.
I finished both pieces at least 2 years ago -- and while I learned a lot while writing them, I learned even more since. To look at them now is almost embarrassing -- and yet I know I should be proud -- but really they have no relationship to me any longer. Maybe the idea I had when I was 12 of signing each new story I wrote with a different pen name was a brilliant one and should be carried on. Maybe I should even reuse those names, heavy on vowels and elfish spirit: Aolin Faoly, Elian Daily, Velly Berg. Maybe I should also type up those stories, edit and translate them, and attempt to get them published: after all, even then I was writing about separation and space. My most recent accomplishments pale in comparison.
I also checked in with Drollerie Press this week -- back in July they wanted to publish my story "June's Flowers" in a book called Trick the Object: An Anthology of the Literary Weird. In September that project fell apart, but now they are planning to include my text in another spookily titled anthology Things that go Bump in the Night. Deena the editor promises that it'll be out as an ebook by the end of the month.
I finished both pieces at least 2 years ago -- and while I learned a lot while writing them, I learned even more since. To look at them now is almost embarrassing -- and yet I know I should be proud -- but really they have no relationship to me any longer. Maybe the idea I had when I was 12 of signing each new story I wrote with a different pen name was a brilliant one and should be carried on. Maybe I should even reuse those names, heavy on vowels and elfish spirit: Aolin Faoly, Elian Daily, Velly Berg. Maybe I should also type up those stories, edit and translate them, and attempt to get them published: after all, even then I was writing about separation and space. My most recent accomplishments pale in comparison.
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Poetry Society of London
They start their meetings on time. Latecomers need to wait between the acts to climb down a creaky staircase to the meeting room behind the red velvet curtain. The event (American writers in European exile) is popular and the room is full: a few people are even sitting on stage with the performers. The cafe upstairs is selling wine and tea and very sweet chocolate chip muffins, but good luck navigating the small room with a glass of wine and a plate of muffin in your hands. The members generally know each other at least by their first names. They clap with discrimination: only after pieces they like (music or a humorous line will do). After three American women and one Congolese man read their pieces, the members plunged into the discussion of the topics involved. Are or should Americans living in Europe be ashamed of America? Why did you say that you "escaped" from Texas? What are the differences between the Tube and the Subway? I just want to make a comment about cowboys, that they only existed for a short period of time between 1880s and 1890s. Is running away from prosecution and coming to a place where you're not necessarily welcome better than staying in Congo and suffering? That last one generated a lot of discussion. Things are very bad in Congo, you have no idea. And Zimbabwe. Escaping to South Africa is a poor option. In the UK people are actually quite friendly and make you feel welcome. The English have a strange culture, but they are generally awesome. Awesome is an American word that became generally used after I left, but I'd like to include it into my vocabulary. They charge 4 pounds entry fee and give out some magazines.
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