Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
I suppose I’m not alone in this: Sometimes, coming across a political or literary review, I feel helpless rage at the author’s hopeless inability to understand a goddamn bit of what they examine. I may even scream, “This is stupid!”…
An article on the Sakhalin island in the NYT’s Travel section. Overall, it’s good, and valuable as an attention catcher. Just a few notes: Tourism pioneers will most likely fly to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the capital, from Sapporo, Japan, on the 90-minute…
Gary Brecher’s latest piece, The French, vindicates some of my own scribbles, in a way. A short memory is a sin. This eXile article is full of deliberate, wild and profane exaggerations — and therefore effective; this is postmodern (and…
It is the iambic tetrameter, known as the “four-foot iambus” in Russian. The author is Vladislav Khodasevich (Wladyslaw Chodasiewicz in Polish, his father’s mother tongue, with the l’s crossed), whom Nabokov rated the best Russian poet of the 20th century.…
Former Russian PM Chernomyrdin, now ambassador to Ukraine, is said to use profane words so intensely in private conversation that, when he must omit them in a public forum, there are not many left at all. Despite that – and,…
If I were to explain to an American the meaning of marshrutnoye taksi, I would start with a translation, “fixed-route taxi” but have a harder time describing how this means of public transportation actually works. But now that I’ve come…
No Internet connection either from home or office today. They say the rain is to blame. The cables got swamped or something. Sounds like a new urban legend to me. Dialup works, though. [Update: it’s all right now. Connection’s up.…
The Ventilator debates an investment banker’s article on the Chinese economy. I don’t have a password to WSJ Online, so I only have access to the bits that the Ventilator quotes. (Thanks to Cinderella Bloggerfeller for the link.) All of…
Kat — formerly of uberspiffy.com — has moved her blog over to NeoZiggurat. Don’t expect to frighten us with ziggurats, neo or paleo: we have one right in the heart of town, in Red Square. It’s called the Lenin Mausoleum.…
“Soviet reporters manage to lie even when they are telling the truth.” A Soviet maxim. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize now that Soviet foreign correspondents of the dull Brezhnev days seldom if ever resorted to outright lying. They…
O wondrous Psyche! Where are gone the azure wings, The light eyes, And the golden braids? How terrible is the eyes’ incinerated look, Still enamored with pure expanses! Into a dreadful wood your life has entered; Burnt out, you’re doomed to…
Im feeling bluish today — it must be the weather (not really, but it’s an excuse). I’ve sketched a translation of two poems by a Russian author who is among the dearest to me — Konstantin Vaginov (pronunciation hint: it’s…