All in all, this is one of the more interesting Wikipedia articles I have ever read:
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Чуковский,_Корней_Иванович
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Show Business
A conversation overheard by my father at the Dunkin Donuts in Frederick:
Geezer 1: I will tell you this, I no more care about the death and burial of Michael Jackson than I did about Elvis's.
Geezer 2: Did Elvis die?
Geezer 1: Now that Farah Fawcett, that’s a different story. She was one nice looking woman. Though of the three of them, it was Kate Jackson who was my favorite. That other one was eminently forgettable.
Geezer 2: That other what?
Geezer 1: Charlie’s Angels, the three Charlie’s Angels. Jaclyn Smith, that was the forgettable one. She was the most beautiful of them all, but she had no personality. None whatsoever.
Geezer 2: I never did see that show.
Geezer 1: Well if you had you’d have forgotten Jaclyn Smith. And another thing: I have never seen any reason to get any kind of tattoo or piercing.
Geezer 1: I will tell you this, I no more care about the death and burial of Michael Jackson than I did about Elvis's.
Geezer 2: Did Elvis die?
Geezer 1: Now that Farah Fawcett, that’s a different story. She was one nice looking woman. Though of the three of them, it was Kate Jackson who was my favorite. That other one was eminently forgettable.
Geezer 2: That other what?
Geezer 1: Charlie’s Angels, the three Charlie’s Angels. Jaclyn Smith, that was the forgettable one. She was the most beautiful of them all, but she had no personality. None whatsoever.
Geezer 2: I never did see that show.
Geezer 1: Well if you had you’d have forgotten Jaclyn Smith. And another thing: I have never seen any reason to get any kind of tattoo or piercing.
Monday, June 22, 2009
My contributions to the illustrious Frederick News Post can be found here:
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/online_exclusives.htm
I may post here too from time to time, if I wish to be more whiny or cheesy than I find acceptable by the high journalistic standards of the FNP. A rant about the Lutheran Church of Tomsk was much curtailed in my latest, as yet unposted column, for instance. I wonder why I think people want to read these things?
Our neighbor at the dacha/village house, Vitya with half his teeth, gave me a flower the other day. I was very pleased.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/online_exclusives.htm
I may post here too from time to time, if I wish to be more whiny or cheesy than I find acceptable by the high journalistic standards of the FNP. A rant about the Lutheran Church of Tomsk was much curtailed in my latest, as yet unposted column, for instance. I wonder why I think people want to read these things?
Our neighbor at the dacha/village house, Vitya with half his teeth, gave me a flower the other day. I was very pleased.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
By Mother's Day request, reposting link to White Winter Hymnal: http://www.subpop.com/assets/audio/4264.mp3
There was a beautiful rainbow here yesterday:
The power went out in a big, dramatic thunderstorm (I watched it through the screen in the common room, and at first I thought it was snowing through the rain, which was ridiculous, and then I decided it must be hail, and then I finally realized that thousands of petals from the apple trees were swirling by the window), and just as I was leaving the dining hall with my paper dishes and non-perishable dinner, I saw this giant rainbow, a whole one, over the campus. I rushed upstairs to get my camera, and by the time I got back it had shrunk back onto the mountains, but it was maybe even prettier there, though the top of it wasn't visible against the clouds. It was very nice seeing all the dozens of people standing on the hill over Battel Beach, watching it silently.
When it got dark outside, I stole Chris' headlamp from his room and went exploring around campus. Half the student body was huddled under emergency lights, studying. The library was a little pitiful, with people peering at notebooks and working on papers on dying laptops, but I really liked walking around in the dark stacks. I found a very amazing book called "Let's Mime!" I read a few pages of The Handmaid's Tale out on the library balcony, with the headlamp-- it was pleasantly humid. Half of the street lamps were out along College Street, and the rest of campus was just pitch black. Eventually I ended up in a Ross suite drinking hard cider and sitting around by candlelight, trying to move conversation away from the college dining policy and towards miming in Women's societies in the 1940s. We all booed when the electricity came back on, and turned the lights back off.
There was a beautiful rainbow here yesterday:
The power went out in a big, dramatic thunderstorm (I watched it through the screen in the common room, and at first I thought it was snowing through the rain, which was ridiculous, and then I decided it must be hail, and then I finally realized that thousands of petals from the apple trees were swirling by the window), and just as I was leaving the dining hall with my paper dishes and non-perishable dinner, I saw this giant rainbow, a whole one, over the campus. I rushed upstairs to get my camera, and by the time I got back it had shrunk back onto the mountains, but it was maybe even prettier there, though the top of it wasn't visible against the clouds. It was very nice seeing all the dozens of people standing on the hill over Battel Beach, watching it silently.
When it got dark outside, I stole Chris' headlamp from his room and went exploring around campus. Half the student body was huddled under emergency lights, studying. The library was a little pitiful, with people peering at notebooks and working on papers on dying laptops, but I really liked walking around in the dark stacks. I found a very amazing book called "Let's Mime!" I read a few pages of The Handmaid's Tale out on the library balcony, with the headlamp-- it was pleasantly humid. Half of the street lamps were out along College Street, and the rest of campus was just pitch black. Eventually I ended up in a Ross suite drinking hard cider and sitting around by candlelight, trying to move conversation away from the college dining policy and towards miming in Women's societies in the 1940s. We all booed when the electricity came back on, and turned the lights back off.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A Declaration of Love
I love books in which the author pretends to interview long-dead people. And how, for some reason, they always take on a lofty, rhetorical tone, as if that is how the famous dead must talk. Oh, ye interviews with the dead, would but that I had words to express my ardor. "My eyes cannot see and my aching ears/ Roar in their labyrinths."
Right now reading interview with the Biblical Ruth, in some book about reader-response criticism. Trying to figure out what that is by 7:30 this evening, when I have to give a presentation on my reader-response interpretation of the first three books of Genesis.
Right now reading interview with the Biblical Ruth, in some book about reader-response criticism. Trying to figure out what that is by 7:30 this evening, when I have to give a presentation on my reader-response interpretation of the first three books of Genesis.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Book Review
I got this in an e-mail from a Moscow bookseller:
Армадa [Armada]
by Il'ia Vladimirovich Boiashov
Ilya Boyashov is the 2007 winner of the award, "The National Bestseller". "Armada", is his first novel. Terrorists are on a boat, sailing to the coast of America to destroy it. But during the journey, an event takes place that causes the disappearance of all continents of the world. The world is one big ocean! The terrorists are the last living survivors on the planet.
Also: I'M DONE WITH MY THESIS!!!!!!! Now I just have to give this accursed presentation at the Rohatyn Center symposium on Monday (haven't wrote that talk yet...), and do the defense, and it will be over. It's a little anti-climactic, actually. I never stayed up all night, or raced to the end; one day I was just done writing it, in plenty of time, and I've been leisurely editing since then. I am stressed out about other things, such as some other papers I haven't written and should have by now, and this symposium presentation, but the thesis seems to really be done.
Армадa [Armada]
by Il'ia Vladimirovich Boiashov
Ilya Boyashov is the 2007 winner of the award, "The National Bestseller". "Armada", is his first novel. Terrorists are on a boat, sailing to the coast of America to destroy it. But during the journey, an event takes place that causes the disappearance of all continents of the world. The world is one big ocean! The terrorists are the last living survivors on the planet.
Also: I'M DONE WITH MY THESIS!!!!!!! Now I just have to give this accursed presentation at the Rohatyn Center symposium on Monday (haven't wrote that talk yet...), and do the defense, and it will be over. It's a little anti-climactic, actually. I never stayed up all night, or raced to the end; one day I was just done writing it, in plenty of time, and I've been leisurely editing since then. I am stressed out about other things, such as some other papers I haven't written and should have by now, and this symposium presentation, but the thesis seems to really be done.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Half Marathon
It was so fun. So much more fun that I thought it would be. I hadn't run a race in about two years, and I had forgotten how great it is. Even the feeling, yesterday, of drinking water on a hot day and the cold hitting your stomach in the way it only does when you're nervous the day before a race in hot weather, was familiar and exciting.
It was a cold, wet, windy day, but pretty good for a long race. I wore a long-sleeved shirt for the first five miles, then was fine in a tank-top. Oh, man, it was so, so fun-- I started far back in the pack, as I wanted to, and tried to stay calm the first few miles, but I kept speeding up without meaning to, and I decided to just go with it. I really like the Sheep Farm loop when it's wet-- the colors all seem richer-- and I was having fun, and I figured I might as well have fun while I felt good, and I would deal with dying at the end when the situation arose. But I felt really good the whole time, and gradually passed people, and every time I passed a mile marker I looked at my split and told myself to slow down but didn't. I did end up dying a little around the 11th mile, but I didn't really mind, as it was so much fun racing. And I didn't get passed, so it wasn't that bad, and I can in strong enough.
I really had forgotten how completely different racing is from going for a run, and how the kind of tired you are is completely different. I need to do this more.
My favorite part of that course, which is the Sheep-Farm loop followed by and out-and-back on South Street, is the part running out South Street when you see the horses from Eddy Farm out grazing on the hill sloping down from the barn. They look just like the horses my toy cowboys used to have, and I always expect and Indian raiding party to come riding over the hill.
It was a cold, wet, windy day, but pretty good for a long race. I wore a long-sleeved shirt for the first five miles, then was fine in a tank-top. Oh, man, it was so, so fun-- I started far back in the pack, as I wanted to, and tried to stay calm the first few miles, but I kept speeding up without meaning to, and I decided to just go with it. I really like the Sheep Farm loop when it's wet-- the colors all seem richer-- and I was having fun, and I figured I might as well have fun while I felt good, and I would deal with dying at the end when the situation arose. But I felt really good the whole time, and gradually passed people, and every time I passed a mile marker I looked at my split and told myself to slow down but didn't. I did end up dying a little around the 11th mile, but I didn't really mind, as it was so much fun racing. And I didn't get passed, so it wasn't that bad, and I can in strong enough.
I really had forgotten how completely different racing is from going for a run, and how the kind of tired you are is completely different. I need to do this more.
My favorite part of that course, which is the Sheep-Farm loop followed by and out-and-back on South Street, is the part running out South Street when you see the horses from Eddy Farm out grazing on the hill sloping down from the barn. They look just like the horses my toy cowboys used to have, and I always expect and Indian raiding party to come riding over the hill.
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