PROSAIC DEMIURGIC

Back in My Element

I loved Moscow. Loved it. Loved the people. Loved the challenge. Loved the food. (Well, the drink.) (Well, the vodka.) Did NOT love the weather. And I didn't realize until I got home how really vitamin D starved I'd become. Damn near had rickets, I think. And for the first couple of days back I couldn't get much work done because I simply, frequently, had to go out and gawk at the big yellow ball in the sky for long intervals.

Today being Wednesday, I was back at last to my favorite pastime (apart from all my other favorite pastimes): playing Slacker Wednesday ultimate frisbee at (Poison) Oak Grove Park in Pasadena, California. Whoo-ee! 75 degrees at game time. (That's 24 degrees to you Celsius types -- and yes, that feels GREAT in March.)

Just for fun, I brought out my Russian Militia hat. And my camera. The results, I suppose, speak for themselves.

I posed...

Let others pose...

... and even gave the hat some game time.

Not the intended use, I'm sure, and I may have some awkward questions to answer when I next darken Russia's doorstep. In the meantime, I'm happy to be romping in the Southern California Sun again. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, "Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot in Russia in winter."

More later, -jv

Russia in the Rearview

And home on the horizon.

Stay tuned for the next adventure.

More later, -jv

Not My Finest Outing

So it’s Pancake Week – Maslinitsa – in Russia, which commemorates either the end of winter or the beginning of Lent or some odd conflation of the two, with the mass eating of bliny (pancakes, yeah), mass drinking of medovukha (a honey wine of a sort), and, for reasons not immediately at my fingertips, mass fistfights. Today, the last day of Maslinitsa, is also Group Apology Day (my name for it – not the official one), where you apologize to your friends and loved ones for all the horrible things you’ve done to them throughout the year. Sort of like Yom Kippur, but with bliny and fistfights.

On today’s calendar of events was a parade from Triumfalnaya Ploschad (Victory Square, roughly) to Red Square, where every last damn pancake in Moscow was set to be consumed. I was psyched, because the parade route started about two stones’ throw from my apartment. I thought I’d catch the parade, join the procession down to Red Square, and see how many bliny I could eat and fistfights I could avoid. 

The parade? Ah, not such a much. When I say that this is a representative photographic sample…

… I mean you’ve really pretty much seen it all.

And if you’re expecting an onslaught of bliny and fistfight photos, let me tell you now that you can forget it. It’s not that I didn’t try. I followed the procession all the way down to Red Square – but I couldn’t get in! As threadbare as the parade was, that’s how insanely crowded the bliny-fest was. I tried to work and worm my way through the crowd, got claustrophobic and… sad to say… kind of just gave up. Retraced my steps up Tverskaya to my flat. Fortunately, along the way I found a little side-festival featuring this hand-powered Ferris wheel…

… and one tiny, forlorn bliny stand.

So here’s my bliny…

and here’s me about to enjoy it.

Mm-mm, that’s some good eatin’!

Now, according to folklore, the bliny, round and yellow, symbolizes the sun and therefore the end of winter. Declaring winter over on March 1 in Moscow is certainly the very definition of wishful thinking, but by this time of year everyone is pretty much engaged in such as a fulltime activity. You’re just damn tired of gray. You want another color, and golden yellow sounds pretty appealing. So… bring on the pancakes and show winter the door! A useful fiction is a fiction, but useful just the same.

I haven’t been crippled by winter. It’s been such a mild one here, mostly with temps in the 20s and low 30s, only a few days of really “this is cold!” cold, and no days at all of “what the frick am I doing here?!” cold. That said, winter has really worn me down. Every trip down the sidewalk is a flirtation with falling, sunshine is just a dream people have, and exercise is something I vaguely remember. I’m tired of the food I’m eating, tired of my routine, tired of walking around not understanding a word (okay maybe a word) anyone says. Still loving my job – at least part of it, the cool sitcom development project part – but I’m ready to set it aside.

And so it is with some anticipation that I look forward to March 14, now less than two weeks away, when I’ll board that big-bird-in-sky and head west to the land of eternal sunshine (Los Angeles) and total economic collapse (pretty much all of America). I’ve loved my Moscow experience, and really gotten a lot out of it. I’m culturally smarter than I was. I’ve faced interesting challenges, and met most of them. I’ve played enough poker in Russian card rooms to know that I could kill the game here were it not that the smoke would kill me first. But my batteries badly need a recharge. Winter is over. Pancake Week says so. It’s time to go home.

Will I come back? Who knows? I serve at the pleasure of Uncle Sony. Would I come back? You betcha. The sitcom industry here has hit a serious bump in the road, no doubt about it, but it’s still a growth industry, and a great opportunity for someone with my skill set. I doubt I’ve seen the last of Mother Russia.

I just hope next time I can give winter a miss.

I’ll close this post with a photo of the only Lenin impersonator I’ve personally ever seen…

plus a basis for comparison.

Happy Pancake Week, everyone. Tell your loved ones you’re sorry.

More later, -jv

Writing is Composing

So I’ve started work on my next novel (working title My Next Novel) and I’m amazed at how little I know about the story, yet how little that seems to bother me. Having been down this road a couple of times now, with Under The Gun and Grifter’s Role (final edited MS delivered to the publisher this week), I understand that my approach to novel writing is all about knowing, but not knowing, where the story is headed. I mean, I like to have (and seem to have) a general sense of how things will turn out, but if I know too much, it seems to kill my enthusiasm for writing it. This may be a problem, because I will have to submit both sample chapters and an outline to my publisher before I’ll get the green light for My Next Novel. But if I outline it in too much detail, I risk spoiling the ending for myself. How weird is that?

On the other hand, I was writing yesterday morning in Starbucks (God love Starbucks – a bit of Americana in Moscow) and had a bit of a revelation. I’d written a word – it doesn’t matter which – and paused to think about what it meant and what I intended to do with it. Then, after musing upon it briefly, I composed a few sentences of related thought. Stopped. Found another word. Repeated the process. This, I realized, is exactly how my novels get written. I stumble across some fragment of interesting thought (well, interesting to me, at any rate) and then improvise around it, to see if it will turn into something worth committing to the text. Many drafts later, it might turn into something that makes the final cut. But the important thing is that I seem to give myself the freedom to “riff” on an idea, without particularly worrying whether it’s right, relevant, or even particularly good. Is there such a thing as an improvised novel? You certainly couldn’t get away with that in television or film, but a novel is different. I mean, if the reader expects something to be closely plotted, then of course you have to meet that expectation. However, the reader doesn’t know what other paths you could have taken through a novel. They only see the version you publish. So in this case, “The ocean is blue, but it’s also wet.” There’s not only more than one right answer, there are countless ones.

Now here’s some art.

I’d better hope to be a good writer, because as an artist I’m fairly crap.

More later, -jv

The Definition of Irony

So friends were going ice skating in nearby Hermitage Sad. That’s “sad” as in park, not “sad” as in what I’d be if I joined them, fell down and hurt my crap hip. Since falling down seemed like a certainty, and landing on my crap hip about a 1-in-3 proposition (assuming that landing on my other hip or landing on my ass were equal likelihoods), the smart thing for me to do was, of course, decline to participate. Show of hands – who thinks I did the smart thing?

It was a nice night in Moscow, by Moscow standards, with the temperature right about freezing. This meant that the ice track – it wasn’t a rink, really; more like a series of slick paths through some trees – was frozen but broken, with a good layer of powdered  ice crud crusted on the surface. Precarious conditions, with not a Zamboni in sight. Undaunted, I put on my skates and started out. First thing I did was capture the moment in pictures. Caption this one: “Crap skater, but good at making friends.”

And no, I have no idea who this woman is, but the odds are at least 50/50 that her name is Anna or Elena, for that’s how names run in Russia.

On quavering feet I resumed my circumnavigation of the park. This took quite some time, for I skated at a pace just north of glacial, and paused to grab every available tree or post just to confirm that I was still standing and hadn’t, yet, fallen down. Finally, an eternity later, I finished my lap – and quit. I got off the ice, out of the skates and back into my sure-footed shoes. I felt like a sailor returning to dry land. I felt proud, too, proud for doing the rational thing of, for once: quitting while I was ahead. Because the fact is, I’m a crap skater, doomed to fall, and who needs that kind of aggravation? JV gets sensible. Yay, me.

It was colder by the time I walked home, and everything that had melted during the day had frozen up again. So it was that – not more than 30 yards from my apartment – I felt my “sure” feet go out from under me, and unceremoniously landed on my ass. I smacked the point of my left elbow, drawing blood through three layers of clothing. And it hurt. Really hurt. But I just had to laugh. How ironic that I’d done the smart thing, the sensible thing, and gotten off those skates before they could betray me, only to find myself flat on my back on the sidewalk, looking up at the starless sky.

Ah, friends, truly it is that the universe doesn’t owe us anything but an education, and it gives us lessons every day. Today’s lesson is: gravity rules.

This was my second spill on a Moscow sidewalk, and the fact is I just have to resign myself to more. This time of year, the streets and sidewalks are plain treacherous. Either it’s warm, and the snow becomes slippery slush or it’s cold and everything turns to glare ice. And no matter how carefully you walk, no matter how small and mincing steps you take, eventually you’ll go down. It’s only a matter of time. Nor is it like I’m under-equipped. I have excellent boots with excellent treads. They’re just useless in these conditions, that’s all. My boots need snow tires.

Not to generalize, but… fricking Russia.

Still, ah, it’s all good. I’m cranking through my vigorous six day weeks, still making Russia safe for current and future sitcom production. My victories are small, for I’m swimming against a certain tide of Russian inertia and intransigence, best captured by the phrase (I’m paraphrasing), “Don’t bring your rules to my cloister.” I keep trying to bring my rules to this cloister because I think they’re good rules, humanist rules, rules that bring benefit to everyone. But they’re not the local rules, and you know what they say: “Locals rule.” Yet I keep fighting the good fight, and every now and then I see that something I’m trying to convey – whether it’s a better way to break a story, or how to be a good creative partner – is actually getting through. Then I feel good. And that good feeling lasts…

Right up until the next time I land on my ass.

Because locals rule locally, but gravity rules all.

Closing now with this item from the Department of Found Art.

“Doktor Mom.” I don’t know why I find that funny, but I do.

More later, -jv

Woof! The Dog Days of Winter

We traditionally think of “the dog days of summer” – for what reason I do not know; perhaps that’s when Sirius, the Dog Star, is on its closest approach to earth. But since I have no more respect for consensus tradition than for any other form of consensus reality, I now dub this Moscow morning the first of the dog days of winter. Can I get a woof? Amen. It’s finally gotten cold here, really cold, all the way down on the bottom of my personal scale of cold that goes something like this:

Cold

Really Cold

Stupid Cold

Incredibly Miserably Cold

Are You Fricking Kidding Me?!

We’re right down there at AYFKM, and this is when I especially like centigrade best, because something that sounds only ridiculously cold in Fahrenheit (0 degrees, say) sounds off-the-charts insane at –18 in centigrade. Really underscores your suffering, yeah?

Nah. I’m not suffering. Not really. I work indoors. As noted before, since I have a car and driver I never have to get into a cold car. The only time I’m really cold is when I choose to be by going outside, and while, yeah, your life can get a little claustrophobic if you mostly stay indoors, it’s still your choice. You don’t have to be cold.

I think about those recent ice storm victims in Kentucky, without power for days, or residents of this place during the many, many bad years of the past (Crisis of ‘92, Soviet Times, Tsarist Era, take your pick). For an hour, a day, or a whole winter, it’s so easy to suffer with the cold. Be thankful you’re not if you’re not. I’m thankful. Not “romping in the California sunshine” thankful, but thankful.

The current Crisis continues to rock Russian society. Lots of layoffs, or as they charmingly call them here, “optimizations.” The ruble is sinking against the dollar and euro, which is good for me but bad for almost everybody else. Television production lies fallow, and even shows that continue to get shot, like the one I’m working on, seem to lurch from week to week with their continued funding ever in doubt and their productions ever at risk for going dark. Word is that it’ll all turn around sometime in the spring, but is that thoughtful analysis, wishful thinking, or just the sound of happy sailors dancing on a sinking ship? I don’t know. I just know it’s cold. But trust me, I don’t feel sorry for myself. I still have a job. It’s still an interesting and challenging one. I’m still learning and growing and facing new challenges. (Though some of these can be difficult, like trying to inspire the sailors to keep dancing as the ship goes down.) If the price I have to pay is a little mind-numbing cold (and a whole lot of of loneliness), still I willingly pay.

I played poker last night at Le Poker Club, the poker joint around the corner from my flat. The game was 1 and 2 blind pot-limit Texas hold’em, and if you’re wondering 1 and 2 what… well, so was I. Dollars? Rubles? Euros? It turns out that the betting units are the equivalent of 30 rubles each. That was about $1.25 when I first got to Moscow, but less than $1 each now. So… not a very expensive game. Still, it was poker, and any poker is better than no poker, right?

Not necessarily. Oh, the game was okay. Of course I won. I always (say I) win. Trouble was, I had no one to yack with. It’s isolating and alienating to play poker when everyone can talk to each other and no one can talk to you. You’re literally left out of the joke. I wasn’t worried about people discussing my play or colluding against me – it wasn’t that kind of game. But after a while I just had to leave, because it wasn’t all that interesting to be there.

Plus the smoke, of course. Gack.

Anyway, it’s Sunday in Moscow. My day off (my two current projects require that I work 6-day weeks just now). It’s like having birthday money to spend. dog day of winter, to spend as I choose. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going to spend a single second more on this 

The View from Here

My office has a window.

Of a sort.

More later, -jv

Record Highs, Record Lows

Well, I snuck home to beautiful and scenic Monrovia, California, for about ten days, where I reveled in the record high (80+ Fahrenheit) temperatures and thought, “Oh, this brutal Los Angeles winter, will it never end?” I played ultimate three times in seven days and learned the nature of tradeoffs – once again. In the space of that week, I managed to tweak my left thigh muscle, left knee and left Achilles tendon, but on the other hand all the running made my right (replaced) hip feel better than it’s felt since June. So there you go: my left leg must be sacrificed on the altar of my right.

Picked up another cold – my third of the winter, which I ascribe to living in Moscow, even though I suffered this one in LA. All the weird sleep schedules (jet lag induced), low temperatures, lack of sunlight, exposure to others in close quarters… it’s definitely taking a toll on me. Most winters I skate through with nary a sniffle. But then again, most winters I’m working at home… sleeping in my own bed… soaking up that good California sunshine. So, I go back to Moscow poised to set a personal best (worst) number of colds in a season. That’s what I call a record low.

I broke up the trip back with a couple of days in Boston, visiting with my charming granddaughter, for whom I cannot seem to stop buying stuffed things. I had hoped that  Boston would ease my transition back to winter weather – it can be fairly mild there this time of year – sort of like going through a decompression chamber so that I could return to Moscow without getting the bends. Alas, Old Man Winter had other ideas, and I found myself in Boston during their coldest days so far this winter. Brrrr…. I note with interest that it’s been much warmer (relatively speaking) in Moscow. Ah, well. I don’t recall seeing the words “life is fair” printed on the contract.

I’m excited to be going back to Moscow for another one or possibly two months. There’s still a lot of interesting, challenging work to be finished there, and still some room on my learning curve. I’m not psyched to be facing another stretch of winter, especially when, in some existential sense, I don’t “have” to. But then again, maybe in some existential sense I do “have” to. I’ve been making jokes in recent weeks about how, “In these troubled economic times, you don’t leave money lying on the table, even if you have to go 6,000 miles to collect it.” But behind the joke lies the reality that, economic times (and winter) notwithstanding, I wouldn’t turn my back on this challenge anyhow. I told myself going into this thing that I didn’t want to see myself (even at grandfather age) as someone who has stopped embracing a challenge. Now, returning to the worst of Russian winter, I have to say I still feel that way.

A little insane, too, yeah, but what’re you gonna do?

I soaked up as much California sunshine and vitamin D as my bald head could absorb. I coughed up half a lung over the north Atlantic. I’m in Frankfurt now, awaiting the flight back to Moscow. The adventure continues. Really, you can’t ask more from an adventure than that.

More later, -jv

Red Square Dance

Well, hey, we ushered in 2009 in Red Square. Okay, not exactly in Red Square -- more like in a fancy hotel overlooking Red Square. That's what adventure is when you get to be my age. Still, it was a trip and a half, and the photos don't do it justice.

Here's Ded Moroz... Father Frost to you and me.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this is not the original Ded Moroz, but just a reasonable facsimile. But you know how it is: Santa is Santa wherever you go, and the kids don't mind so long as he brings the goods.

Here's a tower of the Kremlin in the waning daylight of New Year's Eve day (and yes, that is daylight, or at least what passes for it in Moscow in December.)

Speaking of the Kremlin, would you like to know how bad my Russian accent is? Yesterday I asked some passers-by for directions to the Kremlin, and couldn't even make them understand the word "Kremlin." Sad. So sad. Four months in country, I can't even say Kremlin correctly. Or maybe they were just having me on -- I could live here forever and never not be a tourist.

So here's some guy on a horse assaulting a Christmas tree.

Okay, it's really not an assault, but then again, it's really not a Christmas tree. Rather, it's a New Year's tree, a useful fiction left over from Soviet times, when Christmas was taboo. Kind of reminds me of when I was young, and my Jewish family called its Christmas tree a Chanukah bush.

And then fireworks.

 

And fireworks reflected off the roofs of two cars.

And finally the happy revelers, who managed to stay up past midnight, yay us.

Hey, for the record, I think 2009 is going to beat dour expectations. After all, we've got this groovy new president, and the world economy really has nowhere to go but up. So let's all put on our upper-lip stiffeners and dream of (and work for) pleasant days. I'm off to the States on Saturday, hooray, and then back to Moscow on January 19. The weather will be better by then, won't it?

Won't it?

More later, -jv 

Winter Whateverland

Winter arrived for real this week, with enough snow to take the normally insane Moscow traffic and ratchet it up to new heights of gridlock. It doesn't help that everyone's country cousin has come to town to do their New Year gift shopping -- though why anyone would voluntarily shop in (officially, not subjectively) the World's Priciest City is beyond me. But the influx is here, and it has the effect of reducing traffic from a crawl to a standstill. Throw in daily snowfall, and you have a recipe for going nowhere fast, any time of the day or night. 

But walking still works. Yesterday Maxx and I did some of that.

Into crap like this.

It helps to bundle up...

make common cause with the season...

 

find art where you can find it...

absorb available color...

salute ol' Mayakovsky...

and take refuge in familiar haunts.

When all else fails, remember, things could be worse.

A propos of nothing, here's another "no photos" photo for my collection.

We're flying home on Saturday -- me for a short stay, Maxx for the duration. It'll be good to see the yellow ball in sky again. My supply of vitamin D is running very short.

But you know what? I can cope with winter. I can. Actually, I have it about as easy as one can have it. I work indoors, which is huge. I don't even have to go into work if I don't want to -- much of what needs to be done I can accomplish from my desk in my flat. And when I do go out, I have a car and driver waiting for me. All winter long, I will never have to get into a cold car once. Again, huge. And if things ever get really grim, I can always apply the local anti-freeze. 

Around here they call it vodka.

More later, -jv

PS: As far as I can tell, no two snowflakes are the same. At least I haven't been able to make a match so far.