A Fragmented World?

 A few years ago I hired a guy to fix my Mac. He said he had to “defragment” the disk. So I learned about that. Then I got in my car to drive to LA and as usual KUSC (my favorite classical music station) was on the radio. A radio host asked a composer, “Why don’t modern composers write music we can hum?” I love music and thought that a very pertinent question. The composer answered “Because we live in a fragmented age.”

 Fragmentation has been going on for a long time according to the “big-bang” theorists. The concept of defragmentation, however, is relatively new, as any computer-literate person will tell you.  Personal mental defragmentation is required as surely as with the computer. The effects of the personal problem are often seen as excessive inattentiveness, impulsiveness and hyperactivity and have long medical names and suggested solutions. It is evidenced in lack of reading skills, disinterest in the values of art, music and the usual lessons of constructive life experience.

But, today’s communication technology also heralds positive change. And rather than be overwhelmed and intimidated by it, our challenge is to manage it constructively. We can turn this fear and confused human concept into productive and healing action in our lives. It is our choice. Take the time to read a good book and listen to good music.

Creative Interpretation of Human Motives

When I started seriously writing, the first book I read was “The Art of Dramatic Writing” by Lajos Egri. It still is my favorite. First published in 1946, it is deeply applicable today–for print, stage, screen. The best step into Egri’s experience is the Forward, which contains this story:

During the classic time of Greece a terrible thing happened in one of the temples. One night the statue of Zeus was mys­teriously smashed and desecrated. A tremendous uproar arose among the inhabitants. They feared the vengeance of the gods. The town criers walked the city streets commanding the criminal to appear without delay before the Elders to receive his just punishment. The perpetrator naturally had no desire to give himself up. In fact, a week later another statue of a god was destroyed. Now the people suspected that a madman was loose. Guards were posted and at last their vigilance was rewarded; the cul­prit was caught.

He was asked, “Do you know what fate awaits you?”

“Yes,” he answered, almost cheerfully. “Death.”

“Aren’t you afraid to die?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then why did you commit a crime which you knew was punishable by death?”

The man swallowed hard and then answered, “I am a nobody. All my life I’ve been a nobody. I’ve never done anything to distinguish myself and I knew I never would. I wanted to do something to make people notice me . , . and remember me.”

After a moment’s silence he added, “Only those people die who are forgotten. I feel death is a small price to pay for immortality!”

 Immortality! Yes, we all crave attention. We want to be important, im­mortal. We want to do things that will make people exclaim, “Isn’t he wonderful?” If we can’t create something useful or beautiful … we shall certainly create something else: trouble, for instance.

To buy “The Art of Creative Writing” go to any book store or http://www.amazon.com/Art-Dramatic-Writing-Creative-Interpretation/dp/0671213326

Pushkin was right!

“To the orders of God or muse be obedient.

Don’t be afraid of insult,

don’t demand the laurel wreath.

Slander and praise receive

with equal indifference.

     And never argue with a fool.”

This is from a poem Alexander Pushkin wrote in 1836. The epigraph is from Horace – “Exegi Monumentum”

Maybe if he had taken his own advice, he would not have lost in life in a senseless duel in St. Petersburg not long after he wrote this. Nevertheless the advice is not to be ignored. I gave these words in a calligraphic poem, framed, as a gift to my teenaged grandchildren for their home or college room walls. It is advice we all should follow.

Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

The Spirit of the Siberian Tiger

Alexander Dolitsky is deeply absorbed by the Russian heritage of Alaska and lives in Juneau.  He has written many books on this subject, but the ones I have been so enthralled with are the tales and myths from Siberia, and especially his book, “Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East.” It is a masterpiece of story-telling, of art, poetry, and information. The illustrations are phenomenal. The stories focuses on the cultural significance Siberian tigers have held in the Russian Far East and tells us much about the native people, the Eskimo and Chukchi.

Dolitsky, who heads the “Alaska-Siberia Research Center,” is now beginning a new series of tales from the north country that will be published in the future. It is certainly a pleasure to be on the edge of this and see it growing.

To acquire a copy of “Spirit of the Siberian Tiger…” contact adolitsky@gci.net or write  the Alaska-Siberia Research Center, P.O. Box 34871, Juneau, Alaska 99803.

Review on “Walking on Ice…” from top Russian magazine.

 New Book on Business in Russia – American author brings a fresh and honest look at doing business in today’s Russia

 From Andrei Zolotov, Jr., Editor, Russia Profile, Moscow:

Essentially, it is a collection of essays, although one part of the book is structured in chapters on Russian geography, demography, culture, business and politics, while the other is simply called “An Essay Collection.” These pages bear an openly Chekhovian description of a weekend spent at the dacha with an extended Russian family next to a carefully worded account of the role of crime and corruption in business practices and how they can be worked around; a tribute to Boris Pasternak next to a report about the October 1993 revolt and the shelling of parliament from an unusual perspective of a businessman whose operation was headquartered in the Comecon building at the very center of those dramatic events.

The author analyzes the role of the Orthodox Church in shaping the Russian psyche and identity, and categorizes Russian women in types which would make some of them blush. What brings these essays together is a transpiring love for both the strengths and weaknesses of this country and its people.

Read more »

Where do stories come from?

It has always amazed me how little events, a turn in the road, a glimpse across the street, an angel thought,  so often leads into a story. The British novelist and poet, Vita Sackville-West, said it so well:

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.

How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?

for the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.

That is where the writer scores over his fellows:

he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.

Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming.

Growth of the soul, growth of the mind.  

Vita Sackville-West Twelve Days, ch. 1 (1928).

  Read more »

Immortal Words

To the orders of God or muse be obedient.                                                     
Don’t be afraid of insult,
don’t demand the laurel wreath.
Slander and praise receive with equal indifference.

And never argue with a fool.

Alexander Pushkin 1836

From a poem Pushkin wrote in 1836.
The epigraph is from Horace –
“Exegi Monumentum”

Tolstoy on Assurance

Leo Tolstoy left this earth a hundred years ago, but he certainly left with us his great writing and his keen insight into the human psyche of his day. And many see that day is still with us. His “Confessions” and short stories written after his two great novels reveal a pretty clear picture of his own thoughts and observations, not only of the pre-revolutionary world around him, but of civilization’s historic institutions, such as the hierarchal church. I highly recommend the film about his last year, ”The Last Station,” with Helen Mirren. There are so many examples of his thought, often humorous in a typical Russian ironic way. Here  is one about Tolstoy’s view of the European, and the Russian man.

“A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), Russian novelist philosopher. War and Peace, bk. 9, ch. 10 (1868–69).

Russian Art ~ As I see it.

A few words about Russian art which is too little known in the West and was pretty well unknown to me on my first trip in 1991. But, I was an avid learner.

Everyone knows about The Hermitage. That is not Russian art. It is one of the world’s most important collections of Western art in the most elegant surroundings. Real Russian art is to be found in The State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, and in The Tretyakov (the old and the new museums) in Moscow.  It can also be found in many other smaller museums about the country. Under communism, the state owned everything and private collections were confiscated.

 When I first arrived, I was totally astonished to find a world of art in Russia that, in my unlettered opinion, was the equal of anything seen in the museums of the Western world. The Iron Curtain had kept it all a secret. I thought all Russian art was either religious icons, or Socialist Realism (and that being propagandistic). Indeed, religious art existed as the Russian church dominated society until the 18^th century. The next phase reflected the growing Western influences after Peter the Great,  and along classical lines (mainly portraiture, court painting, epic and religious scenes).

In the mid 19^th century things started changing—concurrent with growing unrest and change in all of Russian society. There began a breaking away from the Imperial school in St. Petersburg and a migration to a study of common people and of Russia as it really was— impressionism. Near Moscow there is an estate called Abramtsevo, the home of the rich merchant Savva Mamontov. Mamontov turned his estate over entirely to the new wave of artists who wanted to show the real Russians in real-life situations. Out of this came the art and artists I most admire. The artists would travel the land and rivers and capture the essence of the common man. They would follow the Czar’s army fighting the Turks and study in Italy, the Holy Land, and Asia. Among these was a group was called the Peredvizhniki or The Wanderers. The industrial revolution brought the train to Europe and in France the Impressionists became a movement and a style, as the artist could travel and record his impressions of the country and life. Although Russia was 10-20 years behind Europe, these Russian Wanderers did the same thing–without the train.

Read more »

“Instead of a Preface” Anna Akhmatova

The Los Angeles/St. Petersburg Sister City Committee raised money to help an archivist in that great Russian city begin a conservation and digitization of the works of the famous poet during Stalin times, Anna Akhmatova. The story of that brave woman is heartrending and her writing under such deathly circumstances is incredible. That such feelings could be put into words is so powerful. The following is a universal favorite and says so much with so little.

“In the awful years of Yezhovian horror, I spent seventeen months standing in line in front of various prisons in Leningrad. One day someone “recognized “me. Then a woman with blue lips, who was standing behind me, and who, of course, had never heard my name, came out of the stupor which typified all of us, and whispered into my ear (everyone there spoke only in whispers):

 “Can you describe this?

And I said, “I can.”

Then something like a fleeting smile passed over what once had been her face.”

April 1, 1957

Leningrad

Akhmatova suffered much, yet in the indirect Soviet style of effecting the desired intimidation of popular people, by imprisoning or killing their loved ones and relatives. N. I. Yezhov: head of the NKVD, the Soviet Secret Police from 1936 to 1938, was noted for his ferocity. He presided over the great purges, and this period is therefore known as “Yezhovshchina.” The poet lost two husbands and a son was imprisoned for eighteen years. Her greatest poem, “Requiem,” recounts the suffering of the Russian people under Stalinism─specifically, the tribulations of those women with whom Akhmatova stood in line outside the prison walls, women who like her waited patiently, but with a sense of grief and powerlessness, for the chance to send a loaf of bread or a small message to their husbands, sons, lovers. The poem was not published in Russia in its entirety until 1987, though the poem itself was begun about 1938, the time of her son’s arrest.  It was his arrest and imprisonment, and the later arrest of her husband Punin, that provided the occasion for the specific content of the poem, which is a sequence of lyric poems about imprisonment and  its affect on those whose loved ones are arrested, sentenced, and incarcerated behind prison walls.. Akhmatova was awarded and honorary doctorate by Oxford University in 1965.  She died in 1966 in Leningrad.

We, at the Los Angeles/St. Petersburg Sister City Committee have contributed funds for the conservation and preservation of Akhmatova’s work, an ongoing task.