Fours

Posted on February 19, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

Good grief! I hardly blog at all, and here I’ve been tagged. I’m it. And not the it from the eBay ads, just “it.”

Okay, what the heck. Four of this and four of that—petits fours … pour vous et vous seulement (and you know who vous are).

Four jobs I’ve had:

  • Visa gofer (the travel document, not the credit card sapsucker)
  • Road crew technician (i.e., repaired berms)
  • Managing editor (Quantum magazine)
  • Webslave (“Webmaster” is such a misnomer …)

Four movies I can watch over and over:

  • Midnight Run (“I’ve got two words for you …”)
  • Major League (“Hats for bats …”)
  • Adaptation (“Craaaaaaazy white man …”)
  • Manhattan Murder Mystery (“Never bluff a bluffer …”)

Four TV shows I love:

  • The Office (UK version)
  • Scrubs
  • The Daily Show (makes me almost wish I had cable …)
  • Boston Legal

Four highly regarded and recommended TV shows I haven’t seen:

  • The Office (US version)
  • Desperate Housewives
  • I’m Stuck [not the name of a show — Ed.]
  • Really Out of It [id.]

Four places I’ve vacationed:

  • Cape Cod, Massachusetts
  • Outer Banks, North Carolina
  • Rehobeth, Delaware
  • Cleveland, Ohio (ha, ha!)

Four of my favorite dishes:

  • Spaghetti with meatballs à la Mama Weber
  • Spaghetti with meatballs the next day
  • Memories of spaghetti with meatballs
  • Anticipation of you-know-what

Four sites I visit daily:

Four places I’d rather be right now:

  • Under a tin overhang during a downpour
  • In front of a Pollock, Remedios Varo, Magritte, or Vermeer
  • Next to a badger (or a newt, in a pinch)
  • Inside a quark (that just can’t be the smallest bit there is—as the little old lady might have said, “It’s energy all the way down”)

Four bloggers I’m tagging:

Posted in Random | Tagged | Leave a comment

Hamas

Posted on February 13, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

Vladimir Putin has invited Hamas leaders to Moscow, and the world press has dutifully reported the yowling from certain quarters of Israel and from their amen corner abroad (most particularly, in the US government and mainstream American media). As usual, there are voices in Israel that undermine the party line, but one rarely hears them. At the end of an Agence France-Presse report the reader finally stumbles upon this:

“Even if Israel is officially against it, it is not so catastrophic,” Amnon Sella, a professor of international relations at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told AFP. “It could provide certain benefits for Israel.”

Yossi Beilin, the chairman and veteran dove of the left-wing party Meretz, said there should be no obstacle to talking with Hamas, whether or not it had renounced violence.

“We have no terms for dialogue, but we do have terms for negotiations,” said Beilin, one of the chief architects of the now largely defunct 1993 Oslo autonomy accords.

Justin Raimondo notes the irony in Putin’s Middle East pragmatism:

Putin’s challenge to the U.S. in the Middle East is given strength and credibility by his latest intervention. As the Russians mediate between the Iranians and the West and sell arms to Syria, Putin is emerging as the principal counterweight to American supremacism in the international arena — an ironic and historic reversal of roles. Whereas once it was the Russians who spouted ideological bromides and exported their “revolution” and the West united in resistance, today it is the Russians who are the center of opposition to a self-avowedly “revolutionary” nation with global aspirations.

Posted in Russia | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Olympics

Posted on February 11, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

I’ll know this country has finally grown up when its TV announcers and commentators no longer refer to the US Olympic contingent as Team USA.

Posted in Random | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Hazing

Posted on February 10, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

A particularly vicious form of hazing had existed in the Soviet army for years. I remember friends in Moscow in the late ’80s desperately trying to get their draft-age son into an American university. It was the dedovshchina (дедовщина) they were worried about, which apparently was getting worse as the Soviet Union devolved into senescence.

I had assumed the problem had abated once the USSR collapsed and a new Russia struggled into existence. Not so. Recently I had begun to see headlines in the Russian press about hazing, but before I had a chance to read the stories, the Los Angeles Times came out with coverage of a particularly horrific incident in Chelyabinsk. The fate of Andrey Sychev has sparked a broad self-examination and calls for deep reform in the armed forces.

Amid the press reports, one can find this letter in Izvestia from a retired US general:

At one time I thought that dedovshchina in the Russian army was a deviation from the norm, that it would disappear after conditions of service improved and the service personnel were better provided for materially. But now I think it’s a problem that’s much more sinister and severe, as confirmed by the recent brutal beating of the soldier Andrey Sychev. I’ll allow myself to break a longstanding rule not to give advice to my Russian colleagues and offer three possible paths to solving the problem.

First, the fact that dedovshchina exists and that other crimes are committed in the military environment must be taken as a lapse in military supervision. All military supervisors, regardless of their official responsibilities, must bear personal responsibility for this.

Second, a special department in the Ministry of Defense must be created whose sole purpose is to investigate possible cases of dedovshchina. Service personnel would be able to turn to specialists in this department if they feel they cannot trust their commanders.

Third, the struggle against dedovshchina would be facilitated by the creation of a professional sergeant rank: instituting such a post would be an investment that would repay itself many times over.

But the main thing is this: eradicating dedovshchina must not be the prerogative of the Ministry of Defense. Dedovshchina is not merely a problem for commanders; it’s a problem for government, for the nation. Parents, teachers, business people—all must understand what becomes of an army weakened by abuse of its soldiers.

—Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan (ret.),
former military attaché at the US embassy in Russia

It would seem reformers have their work cut out for them. From the LA Times story: 

“One should understand one very simple thing: Hazing is wild, barbaric, and also the only system of keeping discipline within barrack rooms,” Moscow military analyst Alexander Golts said. “The Russian army simply doesn’t know another system of keeping discipline.

“This hazing at the end of the day is the result of the entire attitude of the army, and the way it fights,” Golts said. “The attitude is that if a soldier is only needed [to live through] one battle, you don’t need a well-educated and well-trained soldier.”

A small sampling of the ongoing coverage (in Russian):

Posted in Russia | Tagged | Leave a comment

Blasphemy

Posted on February 7, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

Muslims in many locales are protesting and burning things because of some cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper. Wikipedia describes the origin of the controversy:

The drawings, including a depiction of Muhammad with a bomb inside or under his turban, accompanied an article on self-censorship and freedom of speech. Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, commissioned twelve cartoonists for the project and published the cartoons to highlight the difficulty experienced by Danish writer Kåre Bluitgen in finding artists to illustrate his children’s book about Muhammad. Cartoonists previously approached by Bluitgen were reportedly unwilling to work with him for fear of violent attacks by extremist Muslims.

The question arises: why can’t non-Muslims depict Muhammad visually? It’s not against their religion (if they have one) to draw pictures of this self-proclaimed prophet (or any self-proclaimed [or even proclaimed] prophet). Blasphemy is reserved for the believer. Nonbelievers may irritate the believer; they may undermine the believer’s beliefs; they may even be rude (though one would prefer, of course, they not be). But they cannot, by definition, blaspheme. If a Muslim blasphemes, other Muslims are perfectly within their rights to rip that person’s eyes out. If a Dane, however, does the same thing—sorry, Muslim law doesn’t apply in Denmark.

Okay, but what about depictions of the prophet that are unflattering? In my view, the best course for the believer is to ignore those who criticize or even mock their religious beliefs, since the alternative—addressing the “attack” head-on (and we must always put the word “attack” in quotes when we’re talking about words or pictures)—will almost certainly mar the exquisite psychological nimbus that believers desire so deeply. The idea of violent protests against those who print images of Muhammad as a violent prophet—irony doesn’t come any richer.

That old pain-in-the-ass Christopher Hitchens has argued, in effect, for equal-opportunity mockery of religion. Makes sense to me. Maybe the Danes should’ve run some parodies of Jesus and Moses alongside the Muhammad cartoons: Jesus dressed as a magician, pulling loaves and fishes out of a hat; Moses dropping one tablet of the Fifteen Commandments, looking around and, seeing no one, brushing the shards under a rock; that kind of thing (or worse!). But given the origins of the controversy (see above), one can see why that didn’t happen. Jokes and even slanders about Jesus and other Bible folk have been published for years in the West. My Lord, look at The Life of Brian! I don’t think Eric Idle has suffered a fate like Salman Rushdie’s.

I’m not saying Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to prohibit depictions of Muhammad among themselves. (“Allowed to prohibit”—lovely!) Let everyone construct the society they prefer—if it works for them, God love ’em. I’m just saying: keep your society to yourself, please. (And that goes for us, too.)

Posted in Agora | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Zvuki Mu

Posted on February 5, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

This morning I had a simple, nostalgic little thought: What ever happened to Звуки Му?

Well, with the internet at my fingertips, it didn’t take long to discover that, far from going up in smoke as a flash in the perestroika pan some time in the nineties, Звуки Му is alive and kicking. That is to say, Pyotr Mamonov is, because that’s what Звуки Му is. (I should have listened to my Moscow friend Petya B., who claimed to know Mamonov personally and declared that ЗМ = ПМ.)

His first album (at least, I think it was his first — it’s listed that way at his website) was godfathered by Brian Eno. It started off in quintessential Mamonov style:

Муха источник заразы
Сказал мне один чувак
Муха источник заразы
Не верь—это не так
Источник заразы—это ты

That is to say:

The fly is the source of infection
Some guy told me a while ago
The fly is the source of infection
Don’t believe it—it just ain’t so
The source of infection is you

The album count is currently at 23, so clearly Звуки Му/Петр Мамонов has been up to something since our first acquaintance (via vinyl) in 1989.* In addition to his CDs (where the number of accompanists has apparently dwindled past minimalist), Mamonov has done theater and film work (I guess I’ll have to see Anna Karamazova).** This review from a Russian online music magazine makes one want to catch up with this wonderful maniac (maybe I’ll translate some of it if I get a chance).

So the question isn’t: what happened to Zvuki Mu? It’s: where the hell have I been?
__________
*Some local Russophiles and I were lucky enough to see ЗМ/ПМ at the 9:30 club in Washington—must’ve been 1990 or ’91.
**And he had a major role in Taxi Blues—how could I have forgotten that?

Posted in Russia | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Konchalovsky

Posted on February 4, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

Last year the acclaimed Polish actor Daniel Olbrichsky turned sixty, and the mayor of Warsaw gave him a present he still hasn’t gotten over: he could pick any theater, any play, any actors, any director, Olbrichsky would play the lead, and the city would cover all expenses.

Olbrichsky asked Andrey Konchalovsky to direct, and together they chose King Lear.

What follows is a translation of an interview with Konchalovsky that appeared in Московские новости on 2 February 2006.

The Moscow News correspondent [Valery Masterov] asked how long Konchalovsky mulled over the offer from Olbrichsky.

Andrey Konchalovsky—I agreed immediately. First of all, Daniel is a huge actor on stage and screen. I hadn’t had a chance to work with him, and I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. Second, right now I’m drawn more to theater, especially the classics.

—So you took the commission without any doubts?

—There were some doubts about which play to choose. We thought about Chekhov, Strindberg, Ibsen. But we preferred Shakespeare, who was the first I’d ever directed. King Lear is a very difficult piece, and I thought: If not now, when?

—You’ve said many times that traditional culture is dying and that, in this context, the classics look absurd. And yet you chose a classic.

—When I speak of the assault of postmodernism, it’s Europe I primarily have in mind.

Nowadays they present the classics in abundance, but transfer the action to different places and times. Fashionable directors want to attract attention to themselves — the author of the play is, for them, a pretext for self-expression.

—In the Polish press they wrote that the leitmotif of this Shakespeare play—the rejection of absolute power and the collapse of the monarchy—can be seen as the disintegration of the Soviet empire.

—People can write whatever they like. You want hints? Look for them. It’s people living under totalitarian regimes who go to the theater to find hidden political references.

What my Lear is about I’ll venture to say after the tenth performance, at the earliest. I tried to understand what the author was trying to say. Shakespeare wasn’t answering questions, he was asking them. And so the viewers will ask themselves questions, which, after a good performance, basically reduce to a question about life: What does it all mean?

—How much time did you spend preparing for this production?

—I started preparing for it forty-five years ago. Work on any production consists of everything you’ve done previously. And the experience of King Lear will undoubtedly enter into preparation for the next production.

—What was your working relationship with the Polish actors? You’ve said there’s a curtain between Russia and Poland, dividing our culture, mentality, religion …

—And the curtain will always be there. Just as between, say, Russian and Estonia. In Moscow there are loads of theaters, one and the same culture, but the rancor is indescribable.

It’s possible for people to belong to the same culture and detest one another, but it’s possible to present different cultures and love one another if you work together on the same task.

—You weren’t bothered by the fact that the actors were taken from popular Polish television series?

—Daniel handled the casting. The actor must be good, first and foremost. And good actors earn money, unfortunately, in various ways. You can’t make a living in the theater, even playing Shakespeare.

—But people who are used to TV shows will come to see familiar actors, not Shakespeare.

—The main thing is that they come and that they think.

Posted in Russia | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Ratings

Posted on February 4, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

Two Soviet-era literary giants went head-to-head on Russian television and battled to a draw. The miniseries based on Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s The First Circle drew about the same number of viewers as The Golden Calf, based on a work by the humorists Ilf and Petrov. However, both were beaten handily by Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, which ran a while back.

It seems history has overtaken Solzhenitsyn. He was the calf who butted an oak (see the title of his nonfiction account Бодался теленок с дубом), but it turned out the tree was rotten and went down too easily.

As Igor Mitin wrote in Literaturnaya Gazeta,* after noting that В круге первом was begun in 1955, was distributed in a “distorted” version in 1964, and found its final form in 1968:

One needs to know these dates in order to realize that the novel was conceived and written at a time when the Soviet system and the Soviet state seemed absolutely powerful and unshakeable. As the director of the film, Gleb Panfilov, admitted, when he read the novel for the first time he thought it might be possible to transfer it to the screen in 300 years, perhaps … That is, in dealing with such an invincible and hopeless hulk, it was possible in one’s unmasking hatred to not match its power and reach, not think of the consequences, since it would take a hundred years for them to appear.

But life, as usual, delivered a surprise to all the prophets, and now we live in completely different times. The Soviet totalitarian machine, created and fine-tuned by Stalin, has been ancient history for some time now. And this invariably alters and corrects the way we now perceive both the book and film.

Here’s just one citation from the novel:

“And so I’m sick of both Ostrovsky and Gorky because I’m sick of how they expose the power of capital, family oppression, the old marrying the young. I’m sick of these battles with ghosts. Fifty years have gone by, a hundred, and we’re still flapping our arms, still exposing what’s long gone. And as for what actually exists—you won’t see any plays about that.”

The mole of history roars continuously. And now the power of capital is no longer the distant past but the harsh present, and Solzhenitsyn himself speaks of it with dread and pain. So how do we now assess the behavior of Innokenty Volodin, who decided to try and impede the development of the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union? That is, impede the creation of the parity in the world that helped preserve peace for years and years? Today we know very well what the self-confident and self-satisfied superpower America has turned into—bombing Serbia, occupying Afghanistan, making war in Iraq …

Likewise, you won’t surprise us nowadays with the standard, caricatured protrayal of Stalin and his henchmen, the details of zek life and manners that pounded at our brains and our imagination when we read the novel for the first time. Today, when every film has heroes that talk like they’ve been in prison [когда у нас что ни фильм, то зона, когда все герои только и делают, что «ботают по фене»*], the stuff has lost its effect.

So the film’s creators and, especially, the director faced some serious dangers: to be gripped by what is widely known, has been said many times. But Panfilov being Panfilov, he knows that no ideology, trend, tendentiousness, no details of the time can save you without great artistry. Only art is capable of breaking the circle of problems of that time and expose what is necessary and important in them for those living today.

And only then will the contemporary audience understand that what they’re seeing is not a battle with ghosts, not the exposure of what disappeared long ago, but of that which is. The first installments of The First Circle lead one to hope that this is the case.

__________
*Broken links replaced 2007.07.30. Links broken again as of 2018.05.25—cannot track down Mitin’s review at LitGazeta.

Posted in Russia | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Cold

Posted on February 4, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

While much of North America basks in unseasonably warm temperatures, Russia is enduring one of the coldest winters on record.

As usual, Russians are doing more than coping. In Moscow, snowmen appeared in the Arbat and thousands protested against nationalism.

Snowmen in the Arbat

Photo by Nicholas Danilov, MosNews.com

Meanwhile, Boris Yeltsin says he has no regrets in naming Vladimir Putin to succeed him. But this little exchange seemed to come from left field:

By the way, what do you think about Lenin’s body remaining in the Mausoleum on Red Square?

I did not have the time to finish the whole story with Lenin’s reburial. We should have buried his body long ago, like good Christians.

In honor of Yeltsin’s 75th birthday (Feb. 1), Московские новости is running excerpts from a new biography by Vitaly Tretyakov.

Posted in Russia | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Basement

Posted on February 4, 2006 by WorldWideWeber

It suddenly dawned on me that WorldWideWeber is not an appropriate name for this blog. After tossing around a few alternatives, I’ve settled on Notes from the Basement.

It should be apparent that this is an homage à Dostoïevski,* a nod to his Записки из подполья, usually rendered in English as Notes from Underground (or even less faithfully as Notes from the Underground). Some commentators have offered alternative renderings of подполье, without going to far as to recommend its use in the translated title. For instance, some have noted that the word literally means “under the floor,” and have suggested that Dostoevsky meant to conjure the image “beneath the floorboards” (especially since his “hero” likens himself to a mouse at one point).

Naturally at moments like this one turns to V.I. Dahl [Даль], the great Russian lexicographer. He defines подполье as “простор или яма под полом; у крест. это род чулана или погребка, либо с западней, либо с ходом через голбец” [a space or hole under the floor; among peasants it is a sort of larder or cellar with either a trapdoor or an entry through a storeroom].

So it seems “cellar” would be the most accurate translation. However, for my purposes it sounds too rustic. (I think of Dorothy struggling to get the door to the cellar open as the tornado bears down on her.) It also makes me think of “notes from the seller.” (Doesn’t everyone think homonymically?)

So “basement” it is, connoting dim light, cobwebs, and perhaps even a mouse or two; a place where a guy can retreat and type a few words into the æther.

This new title should also signal a desire on my part to open a new area of the blog and begin tracking contemporary Russian life.

_____________
*Isn’t that exquisitely pretentious? I couldn’t help myself—I find Dostoevsky’s name such a stitch in French.

Posted in Random | Tagged , | 1 Comment