This is the most disjointed post I have written thus far-- znaio--I am being too cryptic and personal in my messaging. It's just that having so many connections of late with Eastern Europeans, Russians, and their literature, music and culture has really pushed my thinking. It's made me think about the recent past, where we were not allowed communication of any sort. Tell me there weren't Western Mid-century men having fantasies of dangerous liaisons with exotic blonde Soviet spies--the ultimate taboo. Hence the deep id appeal of James Bond that now looks a little silly. That joint space station was a symbol of the end of that forbidden past. Things fall apart:
From the West:
Ivan Meets G.I.Joe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzDpy-EUb1o
Here, this one you can hear the lyrics better, about the Americanskii-Russkiy dance-off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG-bS04fIow
The McCarthy Hearings--Mr. Welch and Joe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po5GlFba5Yg
From the East:
Farewell Letter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE29vH3H6do
Apparently, both sides had been secretly thinking about the other, for decades--and impressed by a lot of falsities. But our identities were wrapped up in La difference--what will we do when we find we want the same thing--M-O-N-E-Y.
I'm not sure why this image keeps coming to me with this topic, but I associate it with that eyeball slicing in Un Chien Andalou--what you've secretly wondered about all your life, and it turns out, inside your own eyeball, as well as the others, is this viscous mess. Because don't tell me, when you watch that scene, that your imagination views it as the OTHER. It's YOUR eyeball that gets sliced. Look it up yourself..don't want to shock you if you've never seen it.
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Interruption Before I Begin:
This is more Cold War than East meets West. I watched about one-fourth of Che with Benicio Del Toro (love him) last night before I started to get too sleepy to finish. (Finished Part 1 the next night.) Castro was also a character in the story. It was in Spanish with English subtitles, and I was pleased that I could hear the Spanish almost, but not quite as well as I can Italian-- The best scene was at the end: it's January 1959 or thereabouts (I am conceived but not yet born). Ernesto and Co. have taken easily the last city prior to riding into Havana--word is Batista is fled.
One of Che's close campaneros comes driving up the road behind Che's Havana-bound jeep--honking the horn wildly in victory---by the way, this entire movie was done in earth tones--green jungle, green and khaki costumes , brown cigars, brown earth, black berets, brown scraggly beards and hair (no wonder the hippies felt kin) wooden and chickee huts, the whole set seemed homemade and from the earth. All that stood out was the Julio 26 Movement red and black armbands some of the freedom fighters (they were not yet communists, remember) were wearing.
And then, this last scene: Behind Che's jeep the honking victors appear: in a flashy, late model cherry red and white two-tone convertible--all shining chrome and whitewalls, yet. It hurt the eyes after all the mellow colors. The campanero had taken it off of one of Batista's flunkies, feeling satisfied and justified. Smoking big cigars. Brilliant cinematic idea for the car color etc. to contrast with the other movie visuals. Che orders him to turn around and take it back to where he got it, then take a bus, a jeep, a train...whatever.. to Havana. Shakes his head at this idiota. What a way for the people's movement to take its capital and place in history, in a Shiny Red Monstrosity. I hope this anecdote is true. Of course the movie paints Che heroically.
It just gets back to that same idea about governments: everything in moderation, including moderation. Left, Right, Communist, Democrat, Monarchist, Loyalist, Royalist, Socialist---just play fair, dude. Only some elements of this writing is on the institutional level. It effects the whole, but I don't wish to talk about the government.
However, what I'm really interested in is the land of Taboos--how we were not supposed to know too much--or have admiration for---the Other. On both sides. I am interested in what happens when worlds collide, that have been forbidden to collide: what the rearrangement of outer shell electrons does to the inner workings of the nuclei..
An interesting view of all this is the documentary My Perestroika, which follows several Russians around that time--so surprised that they talked about us exactly as we talked about them.
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This is why I'm interested in reading Victor Pelevin, who writes about the effects of the USSR becoming Russia, once again. How Pepsi got into the bloodstream of late 20th Century Russians. And also I am interested in how America reacts to this new state. The trouble is, Russia doesn't become Russia again. It becomes a Pantomime America, in track suits and ghetto chains.
I didn't know that Che actually plays a part later in the book I'm just starting: Homo Zapiens in the English translation,( Generation P in the original Russian--I don't get the English name yet). But a weird harmonic that I watched the Che movie and added it to this post--maybe it was a subconscious memory? Dunno--I was just hooking up the communist connection.
Before I get too heavy into it, though, I guess I need to lay out the before, of my thoughts, as I am a child of the Cold War Era--pap worked for the military-industrial-complex, and felt satisfied that he was both doing good deeds for his nation and making more money than he would as a math teacher(his original plan). The Vietnam War ate up my entire childhood; it was ending as I shipped out for college, and I had an "in-country" Vet as a close friend then.
Even though I was of a skeptical nature about the US government's version of things by high school, I have to admit I had a fairly narrow and limited view of Russia and the Soviet Union. Bullwinkle cartoons, (xaxa: the Bullwinkle spy Boris Badinov must be a parody of the Pushkin character, and an historical acting tzar, Boris Godunov!), spy movies like James Bond, were my frame of reference. Our history books hinted that Stalin was more bloodthirsty than Hitler, that the Russians in general were of a sneaky, manipulative,untrustworthy and wily nature (like the Chinese)--much to be anxious about. Their history made them an impoverished and desperate people. Oh, yeah, the average Russian was some sort of communist zombie, unwilling, or unable, to express individual thoughts, forced into groupthink, and we could easily become this--just a shot away, as the Stones said. 1984 and Animal Farm were reference points.
When I was becoming an English major in college, I was briefly impressed with my father when I noticed he had a bunch of Dostoyevski's writings on our family bookshelf--Brothers Karamozov, The Idiot, --thought maybe I'd misjudged him as he
struck me as a nonreader, and here he was with all this heavy lit that I was starting to get into, myself. So I tried to engage him in conversation about the books I'd recently read: how did he find them? what did he think of so-and- so, and this or that plot twist? The books were heavily annotated in the early chapters only. Turns out he took a Russian Lit class in college--I was more impressed.
My solipsistic point of view made me think he would only do this out of love for the lit, but as I questioned him about my favorite books I realized he didn't have much to say. This confounded me. But as I grew older and learned more about his college experiences it dawned on me the true motive. As he was working his way through college, my father had gotten a part time job at McDonnell-Douglas--which among other things made our military planes. He worked in the wind tunnel, and probably at that point abandoned his plan to be a teacher. He was already immersed in that cold war view, then, and probably took the Russian Lit class with the thought maybe of impressing his bosses, of his ability to get into the minds of the "cagey Soviet". I don't think he succeeded.
Maybe he had fantasies of being a spy.
The Soviets (especially the leaders) in western movies were never-smiling, always sneering, strategizing, reptilian, and often with the mark of Cain: a missing eye or mangled ear or limb, scars, limps, useless hands, oversized birthmarks and moles, thin greasy hair, thin lips, either fat or with emaciated, overly disciplined torsos in military gear. Art movies went the other way, portraying the poor oppressed peasant bent and burdened, in shapeless black clothing and depressed, alcoholic and sunken eyes --always lined up in some awful bureaucratic queue surrounded by dirty snow and black skies--always looking older than their years--afraid to look anyone in the eye.
From the American side, it was hard to imagine a happy Russian. All on the verge of suicide. Did their children even have playgrounds? Their cities must look like missile silos, living in garrets, basements, whole families in single rooms. Eating cold porridge and shivering. Did the sun ever shine there, did they have flowers, grass, colors and Christmas? All, except the oppressive lucky leaders, secretly wanted to defect here.
Defect. Funny how naturally, how spontaneously that word springs to mind here. Russians and Eastern Europeans don't immigrate, they defect. Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews, immigrate. What is the origin of that word, that Idea? It's strong enough in my mind that when I first heard Russian music about immigration (Nautilus, Gogol Bordello for example), I think subconsciously I thought, how strange. I was probably thinking, it's just because it was so new, to have Russian and Eastern European immigrants. But, No. It's the defect word that was in my subconscious. What is its origin? It sounds awful...like one is ridding onesself of an infection. Or has a defect? Or the action was defective somehow? What an abnormal idea...definitely has negative connotations.
There was no way to find out if this was accurate, this depressive character of our comrades, because there were almost no Russians (or Modern Chinese, for that matter) to give us any first hand accounts. Any Russians we knew were pre-Soviet immigrants, like my aunt, who seemed to us kinda like Polish or Lithuanian or even German immigrants--modern Russians were a complete mystery. I didn't even think of any as blonde (other than tall girl spies) because the brightness didn't jive with my image of darkness. This image was what kept our hearts in fear of the red menace, not the potential bombs or warfare, but the fact that our sunny, all-American skies could become dark. The only sun a black hole. The Hammer and the Sickle crossed over all our doorways and windows, blocking our view.
Funny how the hammer and sickle was perceived as a symbol of oppression, fear, and evil in the West, much like the snake from the Garden of Eden. It was years before I realized it was originally intended to portray the tools of the ordinary working class, who in the theory ran a nation. Americans imagined the Sickle cutting off heads, the Hammer braining the unfortunate. It was our most potent taboo--do not be caught wearing, displaying, even reading about, the hammer and sickle! It seems strange to me now to know people who proudly display it--impervious to Western negative connotations! And me--my reptilian brain still hesitates above the "like" button! It was the same to a lesser extent with Cyrillic letters, probably to the point where I doubt many Americans in the middle of the country would even recognize them if they saw them. I will bet there were paranoid Americans who avoided wearing straight red--always adding in some blue or white--to avoid being teased for being a commie. I will guess few politicians between the 50's and 80's had straight red campaign logos (John Anderson did when he ran for President in 1980.) Punk bands in the 80's could still get a rise out of the authorities by wearing CCCP shirts.
Yeah, I looked at google images of campaign logos and buttons--almost all exclusively red, white and blue, with emphasis on the blue. The more left, the more blue--Adlai Stevenson--pinko-- full blue!
Now finally getting insights of the other side's view, by reading modern Russian writers and listening to their music (when I can get half-way decent translations), it makes me believe our propagandists were more successful than theirs--look at the outcome--who's moving towards capitalism, and who can still yell "Socialist! Communist! Pinko!" --at the president, yet, and still freeze up the whole government works--sad and dura.
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Victor Pelevin's Generation P aka Homo Zapiens is so not what I thought it would be.. More Madmen has a highball with Jonathan Swift, Frank Zappa, and Jean-Paul Sartre than anything else. An extremely interesting book, psychologically insightful, I'd say. The part I am presently reading, about a third of the way through, gets into the effect of mass media, in particular, television, on modern man and his self-image. It has similarities to Bertand Russell's rather clever comment that "Television is chewing gum for the eyes." Only Bertrand makes it seem as if this is merely an empty waste of time, as opposed to Pelevin's more powerful assertion that the effect becomes systemic--literally part of the human organism, "the oranus cell" shortened to the mere intake and expulsion of sensory material, facilitated by money like blood through the cell, which is a rather fascinating idea, and may account for the hypnotized quality of many late 20th and 21st Century folks.I really love how he writes--I feel like we have a copacetic sense of humor.
According to Gen P's concept, my hypnotization by TV(zapped--hence the "Homo Zapien" of the title) has created in me the need to acquire certain identity image-creators, to make me feel good in my empty self. Personally, for me would be the following: Certain high end guitars to satisfy my image of myself as 1) a rebel 2) musical or artistic 3) unique 4) discerning in taste 5) like some of the people I hope to identify myself with--perhaps Jimi, Joe, John, Gleb, David, Johnny, Patti, etc..etc. I have Harley boots to repeat some of those images, plus adding 6) tomboy 7) tuff girl 8) uncompromising 9) lawless 9)eccentric 10) edgy---you get the idea. The point being I don't have to actually behave in these ways--merely project the empty image. The same would go for my music(rebellious and outsider), choice of furniture(antique, retro or seeming so), handbag( black leather backpack/errand boy bag), phone, restaurants (Quirky, indy, or seeming so...Quaker Steak n Lube?)....I have ceased to exist, but a hologramic cypher of myself walks around collecting responses from my fellow cyphers. While I feel so empty I need money like a heroin addict needs China White to stop the ache, to buy more of my self-image. It is a mirror of 21st Century life that is rather painful to look at, unless, like Swift says, you deflect it so you see everyone else's image, and not your own.
Pelevin writes about the moments of cognitive dissonance that occurs when one sees his/her own image reflected back in this lemming-like, negative light. I had a moment of this earlier this year. Ok, to disclose: I have had a 20 year habit of buying my clothes in 2nd hand shops. I would unequivocally state that over 50 percent of my closet contains 2nd hand items (not shoes or underwear--not willing to go that far... ). The habit solidified in college and the immediate years after from a two pronged reason:
1) Defiance. I was fed up with the system, the bourgeois values of my parents: I was punk in attitude and attire. There was a certain thrill to sifting through other's castoffs and finding beautiful little treasures that other people were too sheep-like to value anymore--all for practically nothing! It was almost like stealing. My god, I had full-on 50's style chiffon, taffeta and lace party dresses with crinolines, (wore a pale blue one, with a Grace Kelly like, attached chiffon scarf that flowed from the back straps, to my brother's wedding, and gave a scripture reading in it, much to my mother's embarrassment--I find it interesting that there are no family pictures of me that day, except from the neck up ), vintage madras plaid shirts and shorts from the 50's, an intricately made,black ribbon dress that must have cost a fortune in its day, but I got in an Ybor City thrift for $3 bucks, a WWII Eisenhower jacket for 2L in London, a 1940's felt gray fedora--I think maybe it was my grandfather's I found in closet or the attic of his house. 50s black and white rompers, a Marilyn Monroe-like halter dress with polka-dots. (There was a time when I looked..nevermind.) A black, curled lamb's wool 1950's car coat with no buttons. Real Navy dungarees and a pea coat. Earrings from the 20's and 40's. Old lady house dresses that I wore with black punk belts, black eyeliner, black jewelry, and black converse. 50's era wool sweaters with cigarette burns and out of style (but stylish) collars. Weatherbird hat with various weird pins. All you had to do was be willing to take the critical stares of others, and demeaning offers of money from family members who thought you were acting out some sort of psychological need for attention. That was a bit hard to bear, but doable.
2) My career choice made this a financial necessity. I could only afford clothing in the .25 to $2.00 range, which was a little embarrassing at times. And, I sheepishly accepted my sister's, mother's hand-me-downs, because I needed to. I did the same thing with my furniture and other household items. My mom and sis were appalled that I ate off people's used plates and drank out of glasses that came from some old greasy diner.
Well, slowly , in the early days of the 90's, this all flipped over, and thrifting became a middle-class trend, a new game. The prices started to rise, the odd treasures less easy to find--oh, and, worst of all, I was being congratulated for being a trendsetter..what to do when the bourgeois become you! By 2000 there were trendy little boutiques that dealt strictly in "vintage"--my old Steak 'N' Shake glass went from a quarter to $10.00--and I admit to feeling a little identity lost.
The worst of the cognitive dissonance in this hit me earlier this year--I went to T.J. Maxx because I wanted a red sweater for the colder months--found the perfect one--very different I thought, with a 50's style shawl collar and two oversized buttons on the neckline. A perfect fit. Then I saw the label. Vintage Suzy, it said. A paradox! Right in T.J. Maxx's. I'd been had. The market had zeroed in on my rebel demographic, and sold me my own image. Brand New. And even the name sucked me in...I imagined someone eccentric punk girl my age (4 Suzy's in my graduating class, and Siouxie??), making the stuff that couldn't be easily thrifted anymore. Who's named Suzy anymore? Savannah, maybe.. Then I realized "Suzy" was a team of gay garment district New Yorkers cashing in on a trend. I bought it anyway, but it does creep me out a bit, even if it is my favorite sweater.
In Pelevin's book, Generation P, the 90s Russian media zombies, were manipulated by, among other things, images and concepts that concern their reactions to Soviet and Cold War history and the once-forbidden--some of which seem to imply a recent freeing from chains--a new freedom--look West! Cigarettes signify a great leader, standing up to the oppressive past! (I figure a similar real ad campaign was the inspiration: that's why Russians favor Parliaments over Marlboros, I speculate--although, ask them--they claim they taste different, sharper or harder. I was never a Marlboro fan, myself--Camels, Lucky Strikes for me). American brand motorcycles right on the streets of small Russian villages! Tropical paradises now attainable in myriad forms. Soft drinks that reclaim the lost folkloric past. Hip-hop gangsta (sorry, they call it "bandit") clothing. And then there is the ridiculous economic theory of selling non-products that makes modern Russian business temporarily work. Ridiculous, but with the disturbing ring of truth.
So, an outsider, 21st Century impression of the now Russian Federation? Pure capitalist heaven, my friend, without any of those pesky business laws to interfere with commerce. Well, if they have them, they are not enforced. Russia in its zest for freedom has become more ugly than the ugliest American. Everything there seems shiny with new money--expensive black cars with names I've never even heard of. The drugs! The porn! The bank accounts in no-trace banks ! The tech savvy. Shit, their "Facebook" is cleaner, more user friendly, less ad laden, data-mined ( or it's more subtle?),more media/anti-copy write happy, more rebel, cooler, pirate like , than ours. (Don't get me wrong: I prefer it).
The girls! How do they dress? Tighter, shorter, leather, fur, gaudy colors, more form fitting and sparkily than we do here. They are beautiful girls, naturally, but they seem to mess that up by trying to enhance what nature has given them in abundance --their beauty becomes a garish butterfly, like they let some 10 year old American girl dress them in pink, purple, and French Blue like an overstimulated barbie doll. I know we have our problems here with this as well, but I think the case is more advanced in, say, Moscow. They do have more of a flair for the dramatic, I'd say, one saving grace. And I'm writing all this from an outsider's view..never actually been there--just my impression. I think this may be a typical American reaction. We are smug that they overdid it. We, of course still have morals.... However...
I think The U. S. has co-opted this economic practice of selling nothing like Pelevin describes. Aren't our handlers existentially brilliant? The music world ---my favourite subject--creates its own constant dilemma upon the phenomenon of Alternative music. As opposed to pop. From Pelevin: He was comparing low end advertisement(like pop music) to the higher end, ironic type (like alternative music) this second type was for and about the oranus "cell" that disdains advertisement. I think I need to explain this better. For the discerning and sophisticated American/Russian consumer, the ads have to become more sophisticated, as we have "caught on" to the mad Adman's tricks. Or have we? The admen maybe a step ahead, making oblique references to cool, alt music, parroting ever so subtly scenes from underground movies--making "art" with commercials, if that is possible. Making commercials that look like little art house movies, even making anti-commercials.
The oldest was probably that VW commercial they featured on Madmen, the "Think Small" campaign with the bug small and in the top corner of a big, empty white ad.
And the one with one word in the copy: "Lemon."
This one has the hip insider's joke:
'Cos as the insiders know, the engine of a Volkswagon is in the back...
Funny how the graphics in this ad make the small bug look artistic, almost like a Rolls, with cool whitewall tires--boy that was hilarious, I remember the crazy dissonance of that--the ultimate low-end car (Under $2000 brand-spanking new in the 1970's!) with Rolls-like white wall tires, like Jay Gatsby. Really a ballsy move on VW's part, when you think of it...
Probably the latest ones you can see throughout Rolling Stone Magazine: Ads that look like cool band interviews, and, I'm looking at one right now for Banana Republic, the Madmen collection--girl with swingin' 60's long hair and bangs, cat eyeliner, an Op-art dress with a peekaboo keyhole at the neck, the guy with slick 50's Don Draper hair, thin lapels and tie--very smart. Also those Absolut Vodka ads--I even know people who collect them???
Using underground music has been a no-brainer for a while--The Cruise Line that featured Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life"--leaving out of course the nastier lines about Johnny doing a striptease, and various "liquor and drug[s]" and nightlife references. Apple did all those IPOD silhouette ads featuring new "punk-garage band " types like The White Stripes and the Black Keys, etc...but here's what Pelevin thinks, yeah...!
"There is a precise definition," said Morkovin didactically,"Alternative music is music the commercial essence of which consists in its extreme anti-commercial ethos. Its anti-pop quality...an alternative musician must first of all be a really shrewd merchant..rare in the music business."
Oh Ho! So that's what its become...that's how it now works. Why it's hard to be truly out of the mainstream.
To me there is more to this than the mere Americanization of 21st Century Russia. And America soaking up the backwash, the way injected heroin backwashes blood into the plunger before the final push---(please, I've seen it in a million cool movies, and so have you...) I should be a copy ad creative...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts0XG6qDIco The old "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV" Vicks Formula 44 (what were the other 43?) commercials....Adult Strength Vick's Formula 44 Cough medicine--more alcohol than the kiddie kind!
My fantasy commercial: "I'm not a heroin addict, but I know how to shoot up ;0 ;0 ;) --you know, Trainspotting? Oh--you ARE cool, you get my reference! Irvine Welsh is raw...like my new product Pills for Hair--relaxes like a weekend at the Chelsea Drugstore....
In the Pelevin book, several of the creatives begin to let the main character into this sorta Mason-like club--well, that's not quite accurate, but it does have the quasi-religious ritual to dress and perform. Very interesting ending. There is the idea that the corporate, capitalist world is a many- tenacled monster--a multi-legged dog...no that's not right because it implies one head. There is no head.
Anyway, they are looking for the ultimate graphic for a campaign. The Russian idea. As if the ad man had the task of making an advert for Russia itself...they are all struggling with this concept.
It made me challenge myself to do the same. And for America as well. At first I thought this was rather simple for America: the cowboy-bay-bee (in its many forms: rocker, punk, hip-hop thug). And for Russia, the bandit. Now I have to pull back from these...maybe that is too easy. It certainly feels thoughtless. Then what? Russia always feels like blood to me. KPOBb... America is corn.
I want America and Russia to meet on their backlots--off- course from the money connection..because they are going to break each other over those deals, greedy cowboy vs. cynical bandit. I think Pelevin wants us to see that money makes very bad cultural wallpaper. The cowboy is stupid with his happy sense of superior arrogance, derived from the present money in his pocket. The bandit's stealth will be his undoing, because he will never believe he deserves happiness--he will keep his potential happiness hidden under a rock covered in blood. Thinking the cowboy's empty pocket is what he really wants. Both should be composting the soil with their dead, intuiting its ability for regeneration from the past. Growing a new clay man. A Golem. Recharging the batteries.
The new Pelevin I am reading is about werewolves. More my type, with very deep roots. That's what I like, literature with deep, intuitive , even historic roots. The old Norse myths about the Wolf Fenhir (sp?) who will kill the gods and end the world, start a new era of Wolf-time. I will maybe write more about it soon.
"What is happiness? It's the moment before you need more happiness."
--Don Draper, Madmen
Now that's a hell of an observation. How does one get around that? I feel it so heavily, and it's definitely a part of this Internet addiction I am growing inside of me. Cigarettes, alcohol, all the excesses of modern life trade on this notion. Take a cigarette--for example. My first was image-making, full of atmosphere that traded on that very thing Pelevin illustrates.
I was in a punk club...had avoided cigarettes for 27 years even though I was surrounded by them with friends. It went with the clothes I was wearing, it filled the sense of loss I was feeling from my recent failed marriage. I was a new person, vero o no? I'm not a druggie type of any kind...I won't get addicted, right? Just here, in the club, where it just feels so right--oh man, how cool to have that stream of smoke singeing my own nostrils like all the romantic anti-heroes I admired.
It was the artistic picture that hooked me more than anything---, the heavy-bottom, bass bumping music, the misty, blue-light, the other people looking at me as if had stepped from the grit of a black gravel rail track, a runaway from ordinariness. I was someone I wanted to be, a friend of Lou Reed's Chelsea girls,, denizen of the bowery, walking dark streets past shot-out streetlights. Buttoning myself into that image made me feel momentarily happy. How much of the world I had been missing, and I can tell, man, in spite of my little girl looks. I look amazing smoking. It suits me. I do it right.
But, of course, that moment of happiness wore off. However, it had left its mark. What was that first cigarette, a Virginia Slim, perhaps? Well, I don't need to repeat that. But, now my friend sitting with me has something that looks better. Lucky Strikes, old-man, hardcore cigarettes. Now that could bring on some cool happiness, much better than those lam-o dainty Virginia Slims--so, May I? Lighting it --heaven. Thicker, more substantial smoke--yeah, this is more like it: glad I did this...
The next time passage--when more happiness was needed. I'm just gonna do this once--walk into a 7-11 and buy a pack of my own--super cheap thrills, man. Ahhhhhh. And then one more time, Camels, instead,and my own lighter instead of a pack of cheap matches. Oooooh. Like the taste of these more. History, too, my grandpa's. But see, I'm not really a smoker...this is just a side-track adventure for me, right now.
But, what's really cool, and will really make me happy, more than the cigarettes, and appeals to my sense of history, love of antiques. I saw it in a little 2nd hand store on Central. A classic Zippo lighter. The thought of that iconic CLICK--yeah, I'm gonna buy it--this happiness moment lasted much longer, I must admit. For one thing, it didn't burn away to nothing and end. It was there, a little secure weight in my pocket, a constant rewarming of my happiness. Which was growing less hot every day, so another pack to reflame everything ....
Three months later I was smoking a pack of Camel Lights ( I switched to lights, at least, because my throat was starting to bother me) per day. Which by the end had gotten as bad a two packs a day.
And I was so happy...not. I needed more happiness.
Until it made me happy by quitting: FREEEEEEDDOOOOMMMM!!!!!
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From the
Book of the Sacred Werewolf: another Pelevin philosophical mind-blower---
First, around two-thirds of the way through the book he shows the true sacrilege in our oil lust, and waste---what it physically, literally is, not in a poetic, metaphoric way.
Literally.
Physically.
It is our ancestors--all the things, plants and people that have come before us--we burn to go buy Pop Tarts. It makes me feel sick that I have never considered this..not fully. Those Pop Tarts better take on the sheen of the sacred--like communion, when you eat them.
A 2nd brilliancy, on Stephen Hawking, and I quote, "if the Albigenses had had a radio telescope, they would have declared the Big Bang a cosmic photograph of Satan's rebellion..." How can anyone top that connection for the confluence of science and religion!!!! But, actually, he is discussing philosophically the limits of perception---we all only see through our own little narrow chink in the fence..not the whole field, or does the field not exist when you can't see it?
I think so. I feel it, the atmosphere of it.
There's a section in this book, when the fox and the wolf become "lovers" --I use quotations because theirs is not the human kind of love, but oddly involves sharing (among others--don't ask, read) human- like fantasies---Jesus, this Pelevin guy has an amazing mind. Many of them are based on enacting old movie scenarios, but in twisted ways. But, this has nothing to do with the connection/divergence between Russian and American thinking, except there are ridiculous numbers of allusions to American/Western culture in the Russian? fox/wolf's fantasies: Casablanca, Star Wars robots, The Matrix, Mulholland Drive, Lord of the Rings, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde....so again, in Russia's deep subconscious we find prominent id yearnings for...the West. Mostly because it wasn't allowed.
I think I felt the Taboo strongest in that Russian movie Стиляги or Hipsters, where the young Soviets, dressed in bureaucratic gray, try to bully the Hipsters into giving up their fun and outrageous Western influences,(which were actually more fun than the real thing, of course). That scene, where they play the Nautilus song, "Chained Together" I think is a proper translation (I've seen another translation I like that calls the song "Stiffness of a Single Chain") Here is a clip from the movie--so good:
--it had never really occurred to me that this was what this song was about until I watched that scene--but then, I never lived in a society that insisted on this kind of "common effort".
Someone named Dmitri just added a new English translation of the words to this song that seem stronger to me than others I have read:
Translation by Dmitry Berger
Mutual cover-up smears like soot
I take someone’s hand but find an elbow
I search for the eyes but feel just a stare,
Where above the heads, is established an ass
The red dawn followed by the pink twilight
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
Here the trains are lethargic while the space is enormous
Here the joints were crushed to form the straight rows
Some words are just for the kitchens, some are only for the streets
Here the eagles* were deposed for the sake of the broiler chickens (eagles are a reference to the Russian monarchy)
And even when kissing I still toe the line with
The chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
It’s possible to believe in the lack of belief
It’s possible to be busy with no business at all
The paupers keep on offering prayers
In gratitude that their poverty remains assured.
Here you can play your trumpet to yourself*
But whatever you play sound like a retreat
If there are those who can come to you
There always are those who can come for you
Also chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
Here women seek but find only old age
Here the measure of work is how badly you’re tired
Here there are no scumbags in the leather-clad offices
Here the first ones look like the last ones
And maybe are tired no less than the last ones of being
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
Although god knows we have our own push for conformity--mostly now steeped in that ugly, commercial, keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Moral if attached to religion, and not being a "loser", which essentially means in America not making a fistful of Dollars.
I feel the Russian language being sucked into my body: through movies and music. Can I spit it back out?
On the other hand: way back in 1920, in the throes of the Russian Revolution, there was this man. Vladimir Mayakovsky. I want to read more of his stuff, but I'm having a hard time finding it in English. Here's a difference between us and them...they name some of their important streets (ulitzi, and squares) for their poets. Not us--we have numbers,practical names like Main, Central, State, and stadiums named for corporations, changing every two years depending on who's winning. Tradition, and what the people want be damned! Don't go red...
But Mayakovsky was not only passionate about revolution. He obviously felt some disconnect from unity. Should I still worry these are taboo words? Passion in extremes is always taboo.
Teleport me there...and say these words to me, tavarisch...
ATTITUDE
TO A MISS
That night was to decide
if she and I
were to be lovers.
Under cover
of darkness
no one would see, you see.
I bent over her, it's the truth,
and as I did,
it's the truth, I swear it,
I said
like a kindly parent:
"Passion's a precipice -
so won't you please
move away?
Move away,
please!"
I have a new interest in the ideas of Pushkin,his place in Russian culture.
I have the feeling, were I Russian, I would resist his veneration.
Yes, I understand he was Russia's answer to Lord Byron, the same romantic
strain and ennui --even had similar politics (Greece?) Same mix of
aristocratic and unsavory progeny. Died at almost the same age:37 vs. Byron's 36.
Politically,however, he seemed to be pushing some concept of
Russian exceptionalism. There was a destiny in Russia's separation from
Rome, from Europe. This was (seeming by some?) to preordain the Soviet age,
signifying the evolution of man, of state. I suppose that didn't
actually happen, given the fall. Or is there still another chapter.
Pushkin's Exceptionalism is as annoying to me as America's "Manifest
Destiny". Two Promised Lands of different tincture. Neither reaching
full potency. Stinking of manic indulgence. Wars get fought over
this bullshit idealism.
To Mayakovsky I say: I am not moving. Your Move.
Jun 13: 1:03a.m.--This time of night? If you were here? I would do anything. Anything. Try me.
Jun 18: The message is coming in Zerkalo.
This is my 4th time through this movie, and this time I am watching it more lightly--in flashes, as I do my life, in tandem.
The scenes with the mother/wife are the most mesmerizing. Plus Ignat, the son. He can go out of time; she does not. That is her sadness. She feels unconnected and cut off, even in the very first scene, when she sits on the fence with the traveler. She is never happy because she does not feel the weight of history, of others, their pain and sacrifice. Or, does she feel it too much? She is always stuck in the present, seeing only her own pain, her reflection only, in the mirror. She never reaches out for the Other. She does not feel the layers. As does not that tight-ass little rule follower, the about-facer.
Ignat does: that is why he sets fires in the rain. And sees ghosts of coffee vapors in rings on the table, smiles about his father's old red-headed loves--can imagine them. Book stealer. Interested in Da Vinci, especially his women. His view of the world is larger than his mother/grandmother's. When the son calls his mother on the phone, he is trying desperately to express the overflow of his heart---she instead wants to talk about her most recent pain, the death of a colleague he barely remembers--who apparently insulted her with glee in the past while she was needlessly worrying about a bad word in print.
I don't understand so much the newsreels--not Russian enough, I suppose. They backed the other side against Franco in Spain; this I know, so I assume the Spanish man with Russian connections backed the losing side? The Sino-Russian clips, I have no idea...although Russia of course must have supported the Chinese Communists--not sure where they were on the Cultural Revolution, but that must have been an ugly thing: generations pitted against one another.
We must embrace the pain and joy of those that came before us. For it is like ours, only perhaps even moreso. As Hamlet says...."remember". Feel it. Whatever it is.
Do we ever know why the father leaves in 1935? War? Incompatibility?
He comes back like a divorced dad at one point--for the children. As a soldier. Later as ??? He admits to blending his ex with his mother. RE-enacting scenarios with wives and mothers who blend into the same worrisome entity....
The last scene, with the boy adding to the song of the universe, over the misty morning (Or evening?) fields, reminds me of Walt Whitman and his barbaric Yawp..
I am in true Blue Velvet world...Silver Spring, Maryland. (A DC suburb). Everything here looks uncannily perfect--Trees layered in beautiful colors, flowers that seem to grow naturally and accidentally, in lawns that don't look, in most cases, overly landscaped. Idyllic stone walls that look as if they will never fall. Deer roam freely. Robins. Squirrels, foxes, ravens,creeks tripping over stones and rocks. Rich-looking, loamy dirt. Leaves of every color. America the Perfect. But you know there has to be a dark underbelly--I walked in this beautiful, wooded neighborhood--hardly saw a soul, except those zizzing by in their hybrid cars, off to?? Defilement.
Something feels off here. Each quaint little house seems to be hiding some gorefest of dysfunctionality. It has to be, because this is THE SOURCE. Where America's insecurities are birthed and promoted in slippery back room deals. Johns Hopkins, where insidious experiments take place. The gov'ment. Where most dress in such grey-and-navy bureaucratic clothes they seem the personification of asexuality. Anything good must be underground. That's what I learned in the Spy Museum.
What a crazy thing that spy museum was. There is a very particular person (a person I only officially met once, BTW--in the unlikely place of a biker bar, but whose "former employer", i.e. "The Other Company" was featured prominently throughout) with whom I would have loved to have gone through that labyrinthian place. Just to get his point of view--if we were able, in fact, to communicate with our limited knowledge of each other's native languages. Sigh. All the things life refuses to give you.
I must have seen 30-50 variations on mini-spy cameras and recorders-- briefcase cameras and tape recorders, ring cameras, umbrellas with hollow compartments, cigarette lighter cameras, pen cameras, purse recorders, sewer line recorders, shoe electronics, my favorite---the camera where the lens was disguised as a button on an overcoat.
8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*
I've moved on to Pelevin's The Blue Lantern--some weird stories there, like philosophical chickens who feel alienated from the mainstream. They try to escape into a different world. But, I think I'm ready to try to read Bulgakov po-Russkiy again. Think I have more under my belt now? We'll see how it goes. A friend generously gave me his Russian copy, one of the nicest things anyone has done for me, especially since it was a favorite, and I have an English copy of "Morphine" to correct myself. It will be slow, but I want to try. Soon I will read Dostyovski's The Idiot --many are telling me it's his best. In ENGLISH, my dad's old copy.
I'm trying to decide what to take in from the Erofeev book I read (Moscow to the End of the Line). One way to read it (the shallow way) is to say it reinforces American stereotypes of Russians drinking problems. The section about Vencha's foremanship...the typical Soviet workday that consists largely of playing blackjack and drinking (maybe 90%?) with 10% afforded to actual work, which typically will have to be redone in a very inefficient manner the next day. Of course, he did get fired for his "system". Almost everyone in his story drinks heavily, many to excess, seemingly frequently.
This would definitely go against the Protestant American ethic that presents tea totaling as ideal and would completely frown on drink mixing with work in any way. But, I remember in a Pelevin story that alcohol is served to workers at lunch in a very Soviet -bureaucratic workplace of mind boggling tedium. Drinkers hide more in America--or better yet! Take prescribed pills! Doctor's orders!
Ah, but what a beautiful story, in the end, once you get past the part where he catalogues the amounts he needs to drink to keep his glow going. A sad story of an imaginative mind, snuffed out by the squalidness of the ordinary. A tragedy. Has nothing to do with the difference in East or West. It is also Bukowski's story.
Feb 13: My son for Christmas bought me a book --a shortened history of Russia--much shorter than Infinite Jest! Such a cute, thoughtful present from my boy who pretends he doesn't give a shit about me))). The intro is full of the same stuff I'm discussing here--the odd place Russia has sorting out its Western and Eastern soul patches.
Mar 28: Putin. Worries me. I was trying to be open minded about the Crimea thing, since some of my Russian friends have given me a clearer picture of its historical ties to Russia, the way the population lies, etc. If we had military bases in a territory that just had a change in government, you could be darn tooting the U.S. Would be putting on a show of defense. Some left wing American papers are also downplaying fears of Putin's latest, saying the Ukrainian protesters have Neo-Nazi tendencies, etc.
However, something I read yesterday has me thinking a little differently. It was a HP linked story about journalism in Russia. Apparently, several broad media outlets have recently had rather abrupt changes that have the feel of manipulation from without. Lenta.ru, Ekho Moskvy Radio, and Dosh'd (дождь) are among those feeling pressure, changes of presidents, etc.
Дожд's website presently is having one of those desperate, last chance fundraising drives--according to my sources this is due a lash-back over a poll they put up earlier this year about the USSR's handling of the Nazi invasion of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), which led to mass starvation, over 70 years ago. In February, Ekho Moskvy Radio's general director, Yurii Fedutinov, was dismissed. So was a woman named Svetlana Mironyuk.
All this is starting to have ominous overtones of heavy-handed control by Putin trying to manufacture Soviet-like pride (invoking Puhskin's Exceptionalism again) and perhaps Anti-Americanism. God knows we deserve some of it, but I'm not sure I like this idea too much. And will it even work? The Russians I know do seem proud of their identities on a deep level.
But, young Russians also seem thoroughly invested in American culture to me. I look at the musical databases of the Russians I've encountered, and they are filled with American musicians and movies: everything from Jim Morrison, the Rolling Stones, Nirvana to Eminem and Jay-Z. Breaking Bad to Hot Tub Time Machine. Shoot, when I went looking for Inside Llewen Davis, the new Coen Brothers movie I missed in theaters and couldn't get on Netflix readily, where did I watch it, in English, yet? VK. A Russian-based website--someone put it there. The thing is, I sense that young Russians are much better educated, worldly-wise, and historically savvy than their American counterparts, so I can't see them being fooled. What about the older generation? Some must not be too hip on a new controlling government, but I also get the sense that some are nostalgic for Soviet times.
It will be something to see how this all plays out. I don't want anyone I know to get hurt in the mix, though.
Including me.
January 2, 2016:
So I have a new East-West topic. I've been reading a new book--but first, a little distraction from my trip to San Francisco, Land of the Left, the most red-friendly place in America! Haha, even its famous bridge is red!! Ok, that's a cheap shot.
Of course, most ironically, San Francisco is simultaneously one of the most expensive places to live in America--high capitalist rollers, and has specific neighborhoods that attract the former Communists: I mean Chinatown, (I know, Chinatown is older than Red China), and there is its Russian counterpoint my friend Phillip told me about, I think it's called Richmond, smack in the middle of the gentrifying part of the city.
I'll let that all lay for self- evident irony, but all you have to do is roam around the city by the Bay to see opportunity trying to cash in on love of the old taboo red icons. Especially in the hippest clothing and furniture stores in the Mission. For example, I saw little enamel pins for sale in a store called Aldea, I think, that definitely are a rip-off of Soviet era iconography for Young Pioneer pins, the Komsomol ( Комсомол) which are sort of the Russian version of the American Boy and Girl Scouts , and although our scout organizations had patriotic overtones--learning flag raising and saluting and that sort of quasi-military stuff, I think the Young Pioneers were even more heavily indoctrinated with communist ideology--their pins had images of Lenin, for example.
In fact, these old 30s/40s/50s CCCP graphics are everywhere, on posters and ads--without clear mention of the origins. Then there are the more blatant: actual T-shirts, crockery: things with sickle/hammers. Not as cool. That saturated red 50s color is very popular. Then there are more subtle and high end clothing stores with very expensive shirts , jackets, and coats that look like something a person wore to keep warm in a gulag. Lots of fur, fake or not. Not to mention the tall bolshevik fur hats, the aviator flapped things that maybe aren't strictly Russian inspired--they've been everywhere, even in Florida.
Then there's my daughter's apartment, loaded down with commie pamphlets and books. Mao's Little Red book, about 20 books on Engels and Marx, socialist interpretations of literature...thank god Joe McCarthy is dead.
But, that's all just for show. It's funny, just capitalism cashing in on what WAS taboo, and now merely edgy. That backwash I was talking about earlier. Although, I think my daughter and her boyfriend's politics are sincere.
Now, to my book, that I wish to discuss--another East meets West thing, but in reverse from Pelevin. It is called The Tsar of Love and Techno. I'm 91% finished, and should wait till I'm done to write about it, but, the spirit is moving now, and I have the time. Still don't have a handle on the title.
So, my big red flag I wanna wave here is that in spite of the settings of these stories (they are a series of intertwined short stories--very easy to read!) in 20th/21st Century Chechnya and Moscow and other Russkiy places, the writer is American. Anthony Marra. Not sure about his ethnic roots, which I suspect are some sort of Eastern European, but not necessarily. I do know he lived there for several years, seems to have spoken the language, soaked up the culture pretty well. The other caveat is he is a product of one of those American University MFA writing programs--yet he seems to be one to have escaped with his creativity unscathed.
I think he's a brilliant writer.
I don't think he's trying to write about the East-West connection and divide, but probably his setting just makes it necessary. How much to tell? There is a series of generational connections, going as far back as Stalinist times, up to the present, where some of the characters have come to America. A repeating thread is a painting of a Chechnyan field, the field itself, the deaths and lives that occurred there. There is the erasure of identity in photos, and strange replications of other characters' images. Mysteries that some are trying to solve, a Remarquesque prisoner story that is my favorite part. People are imprisoned for ridiculous reasons, sometimes willingly! The story gets so modern it mentions VK!
The last story I am reading (there may be another, not sure--damned Kindle) has the purest East-West connection. A man named Vladimir is admiring his son Sergei at work in one of those con-artist telemarketing phone centers--actually he's just working from a computer in a wifi cafe, and his present victim is an American woman in Ohio. He's pretending to be the IRS (he learned English just for this task, and other potential career enhancements) and trying to get Mrs. McG to divulge some personal information she shouldn't--which she, unfortunately for her bank and fortunately for Sergei, does.. The father's rather mystified by the whole operation (he doesn't speak English, and has just been released from Kresty, a prison, which explains his lack of any computer savvy--he at one point tries to speak into the mouse as if it were a phone трубку ) . My favorite little comedy of East meets West occurs when the son tries to explain what he is doing to the father--careful to explain it's the BANKS that will lose out. The father asks how the Americans he calls are so stupid as to believe him. The son says, "Forrest Gump." Which the father hasn't seen, and when the son explains the plot, the father says--"This is Soviet propaganda film?"
One more thread.
I finally watched War and Peace: I doubt the book will ever come close to the top of my must read list, so I cheated. I once tried to watch a Russian version, but that was too difficult, especially since it began in some big ballroom scene with a million characters to follow. So I watched a fairly famous American version (actually the cast may have been Western international--Herbert Lom, the crazy boss from the Pink Panther movies, made a great, intense Napoleon). Anyway, it was done in such a way that made it fairly easy to follow the plot, which I would describe as being one part Gone With The Wind and one part Pride and Prejudice. Because, it was mostly showing the Napoleonic Wars through the personal stories of five big families, their love lives, marriage machinations, etc. --that was the part that's like Pride and Prejudice. The war part, and the epic sweep, the before and after of the destruction of Moscow, that was what was like Gone With the Wind. Almost absurdly Audrey Hepburn was cast as one of the central characters, but she was actually a good match, and pretty good!
So here's my take-away. This is not the first century where Russian culture has been under threat from Western influence. In fact, the threat was much more serious in the early 19th Century. However, then it was the French influence, not American. Besides the fact that Moscow was almost entirely destroyed by either Napoleon's troops' or Moscow's own strategic fire then (must be partially why it's so modern/steel and glass now--unlike Peterburg) --there was all that French culture creep. Of course much of that was the influence of the Tzar's family, but besides the change in language, etc., there is one very telling detail. Several of the Russian characters in the story had French names (not just Napoleon, who's not exactly French, but never mind): Pierre, Hélène, Joseph, Barclay, Elizabeth, Gervais, Julie. I'm not counting the obvious European characters in the story of which there are many. Also, many Russian characters use French titles, such as Madame, or Mademoiselle. I'm assuming these are the names Tolstoy gave them. So, I suppose Russia has been en guard for this for a while, and may explain its fierce adherence/schizophrenic identity.
January 17, 2016--- Bowie(West) vs. Mitka (East):
Last night I read about some really interesting East meets West stuff that I never knew.
It all has to do with David Bowie dying, sorta. Just because, journalists, writers, media-folks are smelling the emotion, the almost hysteria of people mourning Bowie.
Dude, I admit, me too. It hit me today again: I'm spouting Bowie lyrics on every corner, amazed at his gift like I haven't been since I first noticed him. In fact, I've learnt and/or perfected at least six Bowie songs on guitar in the last week: from my old "Rebel,Rebel" riff I learned years ago (aw, man, it sounds ssoooooo much better on my Telecaster run through the "Metal Dust" setting on my Yamaha Magicstomp pedal. I am realizing, all the years I was dissatisfied with my sound on that song had nothing to do with my skill and everything to do with my equipment and lack of effects--you just can't make that one sound right on an acoustic--at least not trying to do the opening riff.) To, the very preeatty-"Win".
So, I'm so pumped, I get up on a Sunday at 8:30 am when I could have slept in for the first time in 10 days!! And go turn on my amp, plug in the pedal--bet the neighbors, and my hub, love me. He was trying to listen to Sunday Baroque for the umpteenth time--he's not much of a Bowie fan, probably for the same reason he's not a Morrissey/Smiths fan.....
Actually, the stripper chick on the corner waved to me from her car today when I was on the street. Maybe she recognized my Bowie. I've heard what music she plays out her windows---
So, what's the East connection??? Stay on Task, Трэйси!!
Well, I've run across some great articles about Bowie. A blog from a guy, probably my age, who ran a fansite, and had some pretty good convincing evidence that he was regularly chatting with Bowie himself (the old ego--you can feel it in him, especially in those early, fascist, Superman days). An old Playboy article circa 1976, one of those long interviews Playboy was famous for (some apparently do read the articles!) The interviewer was none other than the old Rolling Stone, Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe, who dammit, is actually older than me!! But he was 19 then--exposing the truly deceptive, media hunger of then coke and Hitler addled Bowie (he hated wasting time sleeping, he said in the article, implied Hitler would've made it big as a choreographer in Hollywood: Adolf and Busby Berkeley! Haha, funny idea!)
Several of the articles I read said Bowie snuck into the Soviet Union, in 1973. And again, with Iggy Pop in 1976. His album Station to Station is supposedly based on that trip. There's a rather infamous picture of him in mod/glam gear with with pre-Cheap Trick checkered scarf, in front of St. Basil's, (you know St. Basil's--the famous Moscow church with all the whirling top spinning towers) with Soviet tavarishi throwing daggers out of their eyes at him. One with suspiciously long sideburns--
hmm. There is another picture of Bowie with his Ziggy Stardust orange shag, in front of the beautifully, cunningly wrought logo, with metallic sickle and hammer, of the CCCP tagged train.
So, this helped to spawn an underground Soviet movement that was in part dedicated to desecrating the name of David Bowie. Bowie, apparently, had come to represent for this group everything decadent in Western Culture. The movement seemed to exist , одновременно, with the beginnings of the Soviet rock hero movement. The Leningrad Rock Club. In fact, the main force of the anti-Bowie thing, guys named Vladimir Shinkarev and Dmitri Shagina, started this subculture called Mitka or in Russian, Митьки. I was delighted to find they had a connection to Boris Grebenschikov --for whom, through an obsessed friend, I am developing an appreciation.
They were a group of artists dedicated to a mix of many contradictions: worship of both Imperial Russia and communism's supposed devotion to "the people"--the simple life, particularly of country folk. Artists of the group were devoted to depicting this simple life. One of there signatures was to sport and promote the wearing of the Russian Navy's classic shirt--that great, boat-necked navy or black and white, vertically striped, long sleeved cotton shirt. I want one!
The thing I noticed though, was a peculiar practice of the Mitka--a form of extreme ironic humor called, I believe, stiob. (With a friend's spelling help: стёб--ridicule, banter) It is, in essence, Irony So Deep, it is difficult to detect from sincerity. In other words, you parody something to such a degree, it is difficult to tell if you are practicing satire or worship. I suspect this is a feature of Russian humor in general, perhaps done partly for safety reasons in the old days--to avoid real confrontation yet feel true to one's own soul. Stephen Colbert may be doing an Americanized version of Stiob, if that helps. But perhaps the Mitki took it to a higher level. And thus some sort of parody/worship of David Bowie, that I'm sure, in its confusing presentation of mock parody/worship, was quite convenient for messing with the heads of Soviet authority --still banning rock records, and especially ones like Bowie's--Major Tom be damned.
There is a video I found, and posted on VK, BTW, of Boris Grebenschikov, looking thin, young, and vaguely Bowie-like, doing really weird dissonant music, that, could it be Bowie inspired?? Yet it has that strange Nautilus untuned victorian piano sequence throughout. What should I think--parody or homage? Doesn't matter--both were outlaw music.
June 28: This is probably old, but I just saw it for the first time today-very east meets west, without judgment. 'Xept Tony can dance...
http://societyofrock.com/a-mashup-of-pink-floyd-and-the-bee-gees-surfaces-and-its-the-funkiest-thing-youll-ever-hear/
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From the Book of the Sacred Werewolf: another Pelevin philosophical mind-blower---
First, around two-thirds of the way through the book he shows the true sacrilege in our oil lust, and waste---what it physically, literally is, not in a poetic, metaphoric way.
Literally.
Physically.
It is our ancestors--all the things, plants and people that have come before us--we burn to go buy Pop Tarts. It makes me feel sick that I have never considered this..not fully. Those Pop Tarts better take on the sheen of the sacred--like communion, when you eat them.
A 2nd brilliancy, on Stephen Hawking, and I quote, "if the Albigenses had had a radio telescope, they would have declared the Big Bang a cosmic photograph of Satan's rebellion..." How can anyone top that connection for the confluence of science and religion!!!! But, actually, he is discussing philosophically the limits of perception---we all only see through our own little narrow chink in the fence..not the whole field, or does the field not exist when you can't see it?
I think so. I feel it, the atmosphere of it.
There's a section in this book, when the fox and the wolf become "lovers" --I use quotations because theirs is not the human kind of love, but oddly involves sharing (among others--don't ask, read) human- like fantasies---Jesus, this Pelevin guy has an amazing mind. Many of them are based on enacting old movie scenarios, but in twisted ways. But, this has nothing to do with the connection/divergence between Russian and American thinking, except there are ridiculous numbers of allusions to American/Western culture in the Russian? fox/wolf's fantasies: Casablanca, Star Wars robots, The Matrix, Mulholland Drive, Lord of the Rings, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde....so again, in Russia's deep subconscious we find prominent id yearnings for...the West. Mostly because it wasn't allowed.
I think I felt the Taboo strongest in that Russian movie Стиляги or Hipsters, where the young Soviets, dressed in bureaucratic gray, try to bully the Hipsters into giving up their fun and outrageous Western influences,(which were actually more fun than the real thing, of course). That scene, where they play the Nautilus song, "Chained Together" I think is a proper translation (I've seen another translation I like that calls the song "Stiffness of a Single Chain") Here is a clip from the movie--so good:
--it had never really occurred to me that this was what this song was about until I watched that scene--but then, I never lived in a society that insisted on this kind of "common effort".
Someone named Dmitri just added a new English translation of the words to this song that seem stronger to me than others I have read:
Translation by Dmitry Berger
Mutual cover-up smears like soot
I take someone’s hand but find an elbow
I search for the eyes but feel just a stare,
Where above the heads, is established an ass
The red dawn followed by the pink twilight
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
Here the trains are lethargic while the space is enormous
Here the joints were crushed to form the straight rows
Some words are just for the kitchens, some are only for the streets
Here the eagles* were deposed for the sake of the broiler chickens (eagles are a reference to the Russian monarchy)
And even when kissing I still toe the line with
The chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
It’s possible to believe in the lack of belief
It’s possible to be busy with no business at all
The paupers keep on offering prayers
In gratitude that their poverty remains assured.
Here you can play your trumpet to yourself*
But whatever you play sound like a retreat
If there are those who can come to you
There always are those who can come for you
Also chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
Here women seek but find only old age
Here the measure of work is how badly you’re tired
Here there are no scumbags in the leather-clad offices
Here the first ones look like the last ones
And maybe are tired no less than the last ones of being
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one common aim
Chained by the one common chain
Tied by the one…
Although god knows we have our own push for conformity--mostly now steeped in that ugly, commercial, keeping up with the Jones' mentality. Moral if attached to religion, and not being a "loser", which essentially means in America not making a fistful of Dollars.
I feel the Russian language being sucked into my body: through movies and music. Can I spit it back out?
On the other hand: way back in 1920, in the throes of the Russian Revolution, there was this man. Vladimir Mayakovsky. I want to read more of his stuff, but I'm having a hard time finding it in English. Here's a difference between us and them...they name some of their important streets (ulitzi, and squares) for their poets. Not us--we have numbers,practical names like Main, Central, State, and stadiums named for corporations, changing every two years depending on who's winning. Tradition, and what the people want be damned! Don't go red...
But Mayakovsky was not only passionate about revolution. He obviously felt some disconnect from unity. Should I still worry these are taboo words? Passion in extremes is always taboo.
Teleport me there...and say these words to me, tavarisch...
ATTITUDE
TO A MISS
That night was to decide
if she and I
were to be lovers.
Under cover
of darkness
no one would see, you see.
I bent over her, it's the truth,
and as I did,
it's the truth, I swear it,
I said
like a kindly parent:
"Passion's a precipice -
so won't you please
move away?
Move away,
please!"
I have a new interest in the ideas of Pushkin,his place in Russian culture.
I have the feeling, were I Russian, I would resist his veneration.
Yes, I understand he was Russia's answer to Lord Byron, the same romantic
strain and ennui --even had similar politics (Greece?) Same mix of
aristocratic and unsavory progeny. Died at almost the same age:37 vs. Byron's 36.
Politically,however, he seemed to be pushing some concept of
Russian exceptionalism. There was a destiny in Russia's separation from
Rome, from Europe. This was (seeming by some?) to preordain the Soviet age,
signifying the evolution of man, of state. I suppose that didn't
actually happen, given the fall. Or is there still another chapter.
Pushkin's Exceptionalism is as annoying to me as America's "Manifest
Destiny". Two Promised Lands of different tincture. Neither reaching
full potency. Stinking of manic indulgence. Wars get fought over
this bullshit idealism.
I have the feeling, were I Russian, I would resist his veneration.
Yes, I understand he was Russia's answer to Lord Byron, the same romantic
strain and ennui --even had similar politics (Greece?) Same mix of
aristocratic and unsavory progeny. Died at almost the same age:37 vs. Byron's 36.
Politically,however, he seemed to be pushing some concept of
Russian exceptionalism. There was a destiny in Russia's separation from
Rome, from Europe. This was (seeming by some?) to preordain the Soviet age,
signifying the evolution of man, of state. I suppose that didn't
actually happen, given the fall. Or is there still another chapter.
Pushkin's Exceptionalism is as annoying to me as America's "Manifest
Destiny". Two Promised Lands of different tincture. Neither reaching
full potency. Stinking of manic indulgence. Wars get fought over
this bullshit idealism.
To Mayakovsky I say: I am not moving. Your Move.
Jun 13: 1:03a.m.--This time of night? If you were here? I would do anything. Anything. Try me.
Jun 18: The message is coming in Zerkalo.
This is my 4th time through this movie, and this time I am watching it more lightly--in flashes, as I do my life, in tandem.
The scenes with the mother/wife are the most mesmerizing. Plus Ignat, the son. He can go out of time; she does not. That is her sadness. She feels unconnected and cut off, even in the very first scene, when she sits on the fence with the traveler. She is never happy because she does not feel the weight of history, of others, their pain and sacrifice. Or, does she feel it too much? She is always stuck in the present, seeing only her own pain, her reflection only, in the mirror. She never reaches out for the Other. She does not feel the layers. As does not that tight-ass little rule follower, the about-facer.
Ignat does: that is why he sets fires in the rain. And sees ghosts of coffee vapors in rings on the table, smiles about his father's old red-headed loves--can imagine them. Book stealer. Interested in Da Vinci, especially his women. His view of the world is larger than his mother/grandmother's. When the son calls his mother on the phone, he is trying desperately to express the overflow of his heart---she instead wants to talk about her most recent pain, the death of a colleague he barely remembers--who apparently insulted her with glee in the past while she was needlessly worrying about a bad word in print.
I don't understand so much the newsreels--not Russian enough, I suppose. They backed the other side against Franco in Spain; this I know, so I assume the Spanish man with Russian connections backed the losing side? The Sino-Russian clips, I have no idea...although Russia of course must have supported the Chinese Communists--not sure where they were on the Cultural Revolution, but that must have been an ugly thing: generations pitted against one another.
We must embrace the pain and joy of those that came before us. For it is like ours, only perhaps even moreso. As Hamlet says...."remember". Feel it. Whatever it is.
Do we ever know why the father leaves in 1935? War? Incompatibility?
He comes back like a divorced dad at one point--for the children. As a soldier. Later as ??? He admits to blending his ex with his mother. RE-enacting scenarios with wives and mothers who blend into the same worrisome entity....
The last scene, with the boy adding to the song of the universe, over the misty morning (Or evening?) fields, reminds me of Walt Whitman and his barbaric Yawp..
I am in true Blue Velvet world...Silver Spring, Maryland. (A DC suburb). Everything here looks uncannily perfect--Trees layered in beautiful colors, flowers that seem to grow naturally and accidentally, in lawns that don't look, in most cases, overly landscaped. Idyllic stone walls that look as if they will never fall. Deer roam freely. Robins. Squirrels, foxes, ravens,creeks tripping over stones and rocks. Rich-looking, loamy dirt. Leaves of every color. America the Perfect. But you know there has to be a dark underbelly--I walked in this beautiful, wooded neighborhood--hardly saw a soul, except those zizzing by in their hybrid cars, off to?? Defilement.
Something feels off here. Each quaint little house seems to be hiding some gorefest of dysfunctionality. It has to be, because this is THE SOURCE. Where America's insecurities are birthed and promoted in slippery back room deals. Johns Hopkins, where insidious experiments take place. The gov'ment. Where most dress in such grey-and-navy bureaucratic clothes they seem the personification of asexuality. Anything good must be underground. That's what I learned in the Spy Museum.
What a crazy thing that spy museum was. There is a very particular person (a person I only officially met once, BTW--in the unlikely place of a biker bar, but whose "former employer", i.e. "The Other Company" was featured prominently throughout) with whom I would have loved to have gone through that labyrinthian place. Just to get his point of view--if we were able, in fact, to communicate with our limited knowledge of each other's native languages. Sigh. All the things life refuses to give you.
I must have seen 30-50 variations on mini-spy cameras and recorders-- briefcase cameras and tape recorders, ring cameras, umbrellas with hollow compartments, cigarette lighter cameras, pen cameras, purse recorders, sewer line recorders, shoe electronics, my favorite---the camera where the lens was disguised as a button on an overcoat.
8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*
I've moved on to Pelevin's The Blue Lantern--some weird stories there, like philosophical chickens who feel alienated from the mainstream. They try to escape into a different world. But, I think I'm ready to try to read Bulgakov po-Russkiy again. Think I have more under my belt now? We'll see how it goes. A friend generously gave me his Russian copy, one of the nicest things anyone has done for me, especially since it was a favorite, and I have an English copy of "Morphine" to correct myself. It will be slow, but I want to try. Soon I will read Dostyovski's The Idiot --many are telling me it's his best. In ENGLISH, my dad's old copy.
I'm trying to decide what to take in from the Erofeev book I read (Moscow to the End of the Line). One way to read it (the shallow way) is to say it reinforces American stereotypes of Russians drinking problems. The section about Vencha's foremanship...the typical Soviet workday that consists largely of playing blackjack and drinking (maybe 90%?) with 10% afforded to actual work, which typically will have to be redone in a very inefficient manner the next day. Of course, he did get fired for his "system". Almost everyone in his story drinks heavily, many to excess, seemingly frequently.
This would definitely go against the Protestant American ethic that presents tea totaling as ideal and would completely frown on drink mixing with work in any way. But, I remember in a Pelevin story that alcohol is served to workers at lunch in a very Soviet -bureaucratic workplace of mind boggling tedium. Drinkers hide more in America--or better yet! Take prescribed pills! Doctor's orders!
Ah, but what a beautiful story, in the end, once you get past the part where he catalogues the amounts he needs to drink to keep his glow going. A sad story of an imaginative mind, snuffed out by the squalidness of the ordinary. A tragedy. Has nothing to do with the difference in East or West. It is also Bukowski's story.
Feb 13: My son for Christmas bought me a book --a shortened history of Russia--much shorter than Infinite Jest! Such a cute, thoughtful present from my boy who pretends he doesn't give a shit about me))). The intro is full of the same stuff I'm discussing here--the odd place Russia has sorting out its Western and Eastern soul patches.
Mar 28: Putin. Worries me. I was trying to be open minded about the Crimea thing, since some of my Russian friends have given me a clearer picture of its historical ties to Russia, the way the population lies, etc. If we had military bases in a territory that just had a change in government, you could be darn tooting the U.S. Would be putting on a show of defense. Some left wing American papers are also downplaying fears of Putin's latest, saying the Ukrainian protesters have Neo-Nazi tendencies, etc.
However, something I read yesterday has me thinking a little differently. It was a HP linked story about journalism in Russia. Apparently, several broad media outlets have recently had rather abrupt changes that have the feel of manipulation from without. Lenta.ru, Ekho Moskvy Radio, and Dosh'd (дождь) are among those feeling pressure, changes of presidents, etc.
Дожд's website presently is having one of those desperate, last chance fundraising drives--according to my sources this is due a lash-back over a poll they put up earlier this year about the USSR's handling of the Nazi invasion of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), which led to mass starvation, over 70 years ago. In February, Ekho Moskvy Radio's general director, Yurii Fedutinov, was dismissed. So was a woman named Svetlana Mironyuk.
All this is starting to have ominous overtones of heavy-handed control by Putin trying to manufacture Soviet-like pride (invoking Puhskin's Exceptionalism again) and perhaps Anti-Americanism. God knows we deserve some of it, but I'm not sure I like this idea too much. And will it even work? The Russians I know do seem proud of their identities on a deep level.
But, young Russians also seem thoroughly invested in American culture to me. I look at the musical databases of the Russians I've encountered, and they are filled with American musicians and movies: everything from Jim Morrison, the Rolling Stones, Nirvana to Eminem and Jay-Z. Breaking Bad to Hot Tub Time Machine. Shoot, when I went looking for Inside Llewen Davis, the new Coen Brothers movie I missed in theaters and couldn't get on Netflix readily, where did I watch it, in English, yet? VK. A Russian-based website--someone put it there. The thing is, I sense that young Russians are much better educated, worldly-wise, and historically savvy than their American counterparts, so I can't see them being fooled. What about the older generation? Some must not be too hip on a new controlling government, but I also get the sense that some are nostalgic for Soviet times.
It will be something to see how this all plays out. I don't want anyone I know to get hurt in the mix, though.
Including me.
I finally watched War and Peace: I doubt the book will ever come close to the top of my must read list, so I cheated. I once tried to watch a Russian version, but that was too difficult, especially since it began in some big ballroom scene with a million characters to follow. So I watched a fairly famous American version (actually the cast may have been Western international--Herbert Lom, the crazy boss from the Pink Panther movies, made a great, intense Napoleon). Anyway, it was done in such a way that made it fairly easy to follow the plot, which I would describe as being one part Gone With The Wind and one part Pride and Prejudice. Because, it was mostly showing the Napoleonic Wars through the personal stories of five big families, their love lives, marriage machinations, etc. --that was the part that's like Pride and Prejudice. The war part, and the epic sweep, the before and after of the destruction of Moscow, that was what was like Gone With the Wind. Almost absurdly Audrey Hepburn was cast as one of the central characters, but she was actually a good match, and pretty good!
So here's my take-away. This is not the first century where Russian culture has been under threat from Western influence. In fact, the threat was much more serious in the early 19th Century. However, then it was the French influence, not American. Besides the fact that Moscow was almost entirely destroyed by either Napoleon's troops' or Moscow's own strategic fire then (must be partially why it's so modern/steel and glass now--unlike Peterburg) --there was all that French culture creep. Of course much of that was the influence of the Tzar's family, but besides the change in language, etc., there is one very telling detail. Several of the Russian characters in the story had French names (not just Napoleon, who's not exactly French, but never mind): Pierre, Hélène, Joseph, Barclay, Elizabeth, Gervais, Julie. I'm not counting the obvious European characters in the story of which there are many. Also, many Russian characters use French titles, such as Madame, or Mademoiselle. I'm assuming these are the names Tolstoy gave them. So, I suppose Russia has been en guard for this for a while, and may explain its fierce adherence/schizophrenic identity.
January 17, 2016--- Bowie(West) vs. Mitka (East):
Last night I read about some really interesting East meets West stuff that I never knew.
It all has to do with David Bowie dying, sorta. Just because, journalists, writers, media-folks are smelling the emotion, the almost hysteria of people mourning Bowie.
Dude, I admit, me too. It hit me today again: I'm spouting Bowie lyrics on every corner, amazed at his gift like I haven't been since I first noticed him. In fact, I've learnt and/or perfected at least six Bowie songs on guitar in the last week: from my old "Rebel,Rebel" riff I learned years ago (aw, man, it sounds ssoooooo much better on my Telecaster run through the "Metal Dust" setting on my Yamaha Magicstomp pedal. I am realizing, all the years I was dissatisfied with my sound on that song had nothing to do with my skill and everything to do with my equipment and lack of effects--you just can't make that one sound right on an acoustic--at least not trying to do the opening riff.) To, the very preeatty-"Win".
So, I'm so pumped, I get up on a Sunday at 8:30 am when I could have slept in for the first time in 10 days!! And go turn on my amp, plug in the pedal--bet the neighbors, and my hub, love me. He was trying to listen to Sunday Baroque for the umpteenth time--he's not much of a Bowie fan, probably for the same reason he's not a Morrissey/Smiths fan.....
Actually, the stripper chick on the corner waved to me from her car today when I was on the street. Maybe she recognized my Bowie. I've heard what music she plays out her windows---
So, what's the East connection??? Stay on Task, Трэйси!!
Well, I've run across some great articles about Bowie. A blog from a guy, probably my age, who ran a fansite, and had some pretty good convincing evidence that he was regularly chatting with Bowie himself (the old ego--you can feel it in him, especially in those early, fascist, Superman days). An old Playboy article circa 1976, one of those long interviews Playboy was famous for (some apparently do read the articles!) The interviewer was none other than the old Rolling Stone, Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe, who dammit, is actually older than me!! But he was 19 then--exposing the truly deceptive, media hunger of then coke and Hitler addled Bowie (he hated wasting time sleeping, he said in the article, implied Hitler would've made it big as a choreographer in Hollywood: Adolf and Busby Berkeley! Haha, funny idea!)
Several of the articles I read said Bowie snuck into the Soviet Union, in 1973. And again, with Iggy Pop in 1976. His album Station to Station is supposedly based on that trip. There's a rather infamous picture of him in mod/glam gear with with pre-Cheap Trick checkered scarf, in front of St. Basil's, (you know St. Basil's--the famous Moscow church with all the whirling top spinning towers) with Soviet tavarishi throwing daggers out of their eyes at him. One with suspiciously long sideburns--
hmm. There is another picture of Bowie with his Ziggy Stardust orange shag, in front of the beautifully, cunningly wrought logo, with metallic sickle and hammer, of the CCCP tagged train.
So, this helped to spawn an underground Soviet movement that was in part dedicated to desecrating the name of David Bowie. Bowie, apparently, had come to represent for this group everything decadent in Western Culture. The movement seemed to exist , одновременно, with the beginnings of the Soviet rock hero movement. The Leningrad Rock Club. In fact, the main force of the anti-Bowie thing, guys named Vladimir Shinkarev and Dmitri Shagina, started this subculture called Mitka or in Russian, Митьки. I was delighted to find they had a connection to Boris Grebenschikov --for whom, through an obsessed friend, I am developing an appreciation.
They were a group of artists dedicated to a mix of many contradictions: worship of both Imperial Russia and communism's supposed devotion to "the people"--the simple life, particularly of country folk. Artists of the group were devoted to depicting this simple life. One of there signatures was to sport and promote the wearing of the Russian Navy's classic shirt--that great, boat-necked navy or black and white, vertically striped, long sleeved cotton shirt. I want one!
The thing I noticed though, was a peculiar practice of the Mitka--a form of extreme ironic humor called, I believe, stiob. (With a friend's spelling help: стёб--ridicule, banter) It is, in essence, Irony So Deep, it is difficult to detect from sincerity. In other words, you parody something to such a degree, it is difficult to tell if you are practicing satire or worship. I suspect this is a feature of Russian humor in general, perhaps done partly for safety reasons in the old days--to avoid real confrontation yet feel true to one's own soul. Stephen Colbert may be doing an Americanized version of Stiob, if that helps. But perhaps the Mitki took it to a higher level. And thus some sort of parody/worship of David Bowie, that I'm sure, in its confusing presentation of mock parody/worship, was quite convenient for messing with the heads of Soviet authority --still banning rock records, and especially ones like Bowie's--Major Tom be damned.
There is a video I found, and posted on VK, BTW, of Boris Grebenschikov, looking thin, young, and vaguely Bowie-like, doing really weird dissonant music, that, could it be Bowie inspired?? Yet it has that strange Nautilus untuned victorian piano sequence throughout. What should I think--parody or homage? Doesn't matter--both were outlaw music.
June 28: This is probably old, but I just saw it for the first time today-very east meets west, without judgment. 'Xept Tony can dance...
http://societyofrock.com/a-mashup-of-pink-floyd-and-the-bee-gees-surfaces-and-its-the-funkiest-thing-youll-ever-hear/
