Date: 2008-01-10 16:16 Subject: Still Life with Rust, Pathos Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha

I read somewhere recently that the framing of a good photograph should be like good sex: tight and upright. Then by chance the other day I wandered into a photography exhibit called Shut Down (Stillgelegt): Industrial Ruins in the East that makes unexpectedly poignant use of the arresting verticals afforded by the rusting hulks of communist industry in the Eastern Bloc and the former USSR. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any decent reproductions of the pictures online, and the catalogue of the exhibit gives no hint of the incredible scale and detail of these pictures: the tiny man framed in a glassless window, the laundry strung across a second story open to the sky, the collapsing factory in Albania that could have once been a castle in its grandeur, the tiny Russian church glimpsed just beyond the crumbling walls of a factory. When you walk past the giant photograph that opens the exhibit, the smokestack seems to reproachfully follow you, like the eyes of this icon (though I really didn't sneak into the St. Catherine's sacristy twice on the same ticket; the monk let me back in once all the tour buses had been sent on their way for the night). Somehow, things like the photograph of two GDR locomotives, frozen years ago just shy of a head-on collision on an abandoned track and now covered with bright green vines, give me vague hope for both the future and the remnants of the past.

Also, with regard to the Bible quiz that was creeping me out yesterday, this is an old favorite that never fails to put me in my place, as I've never succeeded in levitating my fakir off the screen and always feel kind of bad when my wrong answers make him get roasted.

Current book: Seneca, Essays and Letters

Date: 2008-01-09 10:53 Subject: If I have what it takes to be a biblical scholar, I'm not sure that's something to aspire to Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Mozart Symphony 41 "Jupiter", David Oistrakh and the Vienna Philharmonic

I'll admit that I'm interested in religion, but if pressed I would probably describe myself as an agnostic (and no, I don't think this amounts to sitting on a dam and fretting about the depth of the water on one side and the height of the fall on the other). But ( this ) is my "how well do you know your Bible?" score. I'm kind of concerned that I must have had divine inspiration, since I've never actually read the Bible straight through from cover to cover.

Current book: The Red Badge of Courage

Date: 2008-01-04 00:18 Subject: This Is Just To Say Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Willie Nelson, Red-Headed Stranger

While in a euphoric haze after three hours at the gym, I wandered into the grocery store and bought a bag of cherries instead of real food for dinner. Then I spat the stones all over the gleaming viennese street on the way home. It just goes to show that you can take the boy out of Russia, but you can't keep him from longing for plump cherries in the Moscow summer sunshine or spitting on the street.
Forgive me
the cherries were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

с Новым 2008 годом!

Date: 2008-01-02 22:46 Subject: Book Quiz Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Otis Taylor, My Soul's in Louisiana

The part about the diplomats is definitely true (with apologies to the Diplomatic Academy): ( book quiz )

Date: 2008-01-02 16:33 Subject: The Adventures of Das Bergschwein Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Keren Ann, Between the Flatland and the Caspian Sea

During the two weekends in the middle of December, I managed to visit no fewer than eight different Christmas markets around Vienna. ( shameless holiday pandering, with a conspicuous lack of serious snowboarding accidents )

Date: 2007-12-02 11:49 Subject: His Dark Materials Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Sun Kil Moon, Ghosts of the Great Highway

A link to a New Yorker article about Philip Pullman: Far From Narnia

Also, everyone should go read Paradise Lost.

Current book: Persepolis

Date: 2007-11-04 23:14 Subject: Marathon Mom Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

As I was doing my incredibly slow recovery run at the gym today, I was treated to an unexpected thrill: the sports channel was showing the last 30 minutes of the NYC marathon, complete with a ferocious finish from Paula Radcliffe after she shook off a third and final challenge from Gete Wami (the Berlin marathon winner this year) in mile 25.

Should I ever get off the damn treadmill and back onto the streets, I have until the end of the year to make it up to 35-40 miles a week, just in advance of the beginning of 16 weeks of training that will take me to the Vienna marathon at the end of April. Or so the plan goes.



Paula kicks ass.

Current Book: God's Funeral: A Biography of Faith and Doubt in Western Civilization

Date: 2007-10-29 19:44 Subject: blut bruder Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: Кино, Звезда по имени Солнце

I gave blood today, and in return I got würste, chocolate, and wine. My cup runneth over. Too bad I'm due at a dancing lesson in an hour and can't just lie around here and feel virtuous.

Current book: Mother Tongue: The English Language

Date: 2007-10-28 18:46 Subject: Wenn du jetzt nicht ruhig bist, fängst du eine. Security: Public Location: Vienna Music: David playing some Faure quartet

Next Wednesday will mark one month here.

I survived Kamchatka, obviously. And went on to Berlin, to LA, and driving through San Francisco and Newport and Portland to Seattle and back down to LA, and finally back to Moscow again. Now I'm in Vienna, but all my warm clothes are in Munich and it's raining. How clever of me to think that I could escape the winter by moving away from Russia.

Current book: Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Work

Date: 2007-07-22 02:35 Subject: geysers, mosquitos, and bears, oh my Security: Public Location: Moscow Music: Dixie Chicks, Wide Open Spaces Tags: intro

I am finally accepting that I will have to post something to feel like I've actually "joined" LiveJournal.

The (old) title of this journal meant, at least according to my readings of Milosz, "a frivolous conversation," since I'm sure that what ever I write here will be the ultimate onanistic conversational experience: me with myself, though accompanied by the subtle, ambiguous thrill of possible exposure. But if I don't write anything, the journal will keep greeting me with the "we're sure you'd like to get started" page, and I will continue to feel oddly guilty.

If you're reading this, you should let me know. I currently don't interact with anyone over the internet except for my fellow nerds at AB's blog, even though I began lurking on AOL at age 13 (admittedly, I stopped at age 14 or so, after a failed internet romance, and since then my web usage has largely been confined to emails, newspapers and dtwof). All of these LJ FTM communities have sucked me in, however, and now I feel like I can't read other people's journals and not at least offer my own profile. Plus, I love those little lists of interests.

As far as the obligatory snippet of my everyday life goes, I leave for Kamchatka on Tuesday. Today I purchased a few (cheap) anti-mosquito and anti-rain gadgets in preparation, but there's nothing to be done about the volcanoes, bears, and pot after revolting pot of fish soup. If anyone writes something and I never answer, it's because I died out there. I tried to get a bright orange poncho so that at least my prone, motionless body will be strikingly visible to helicopter rescue crews, but no dice. In fact, the poncho, like my backpack cover, is olive-drab camouflage, so I'll lie out there until I begin to sprout grass next spring. Alternately, I will survive, return, and leave the next day for Berlin, where I will raise a stein to survival.



Current book: Gulag: A History