Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Your trans

Дата: 27 марта 2004 г. 1:02

dear zh, here’s my few corrections, you remember our conversation in tomsk about the compromised western science, too few controls, too many results manufactured for funding (corporate/govt) producing quick results science, there is a real poetics of science in russia, and you should be aware of your own skill at translating, precious skills. please, don’t make light of all the work you do. it is important work.

no class tonight, they made a mistake on my schedule. now, if only the other six days of the week could also be mistakes, i might get some writing done. thank you reminder about the bottle of vine. after talking with you tomorrow, i will go to the store and get a good bottle to drink with non-existent meal, maybe i will buy something, i don’t know, some music. do you think that scientists are like poets? they work better when they don’t have any rewards. or status. or govt. contracts. still remembering your “science cannot develop in isolation” remark, my dear cassandra.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: The time did change

Дата: 28 марта 2004 г. 15:46

dear zhen

The time did change here after all, so in addition to losing one more year from my life, I have also lost an hour. Now, is the hour returned the next season, time change? I have never been able to understand this. Or it has mattered less and less before. After your call yesterday I went out and returned home with a not-so-bad bottle of vine and beethoven quartets (not all of them) and listening yesterday to one of them, I was reminded of Shostakovitch and Bartok quartets, which I have listened to a lot in previous what more and more appear to be lifetimes. So, I am listening to music this afternoon, both actual music and remembered music. I hope you did not mind my mentioning the book of letters I am reading as somewhat ridiculous, or hear this comment as a comment itself on this writing or any other writing to you. It is the form of the letter itself in the book that is suspect. Our world is the demand for proof of acquaintance by the border guards.

The philosophy of the everyday is a very solid and certain one. The closer one gives attention to the hours in a day, and the content of those hours, the less capable are extravagant claims of being made. What are extravagant claims? Wouldn’t just about anything anyone had to say beyond, Does it taste good? or More? would be such an example. I liked your remark about the restaurant, meaning, I think, why go to a restaurant with anyone, they will only interrupt your meal. There is a parable about writing in such a remark. Too much concentration on the question of style becomes monologic (one voice only speaking to itself) but the dialogic does not have to be dialogue, as the equal terms on which a conversation depends almost never exist. There is always the play of power between two or more voices speaking. There are times when I cannot almost bear language teaching. We should instead learn and teach how to be silent.

Listening to music reminds one of silence. Never the being able to say why this passage or that pleases, just that it does (and this cannot be what is taught about literature, there has to be some form of making it speak, when too often what is made to speak are standard and general articulations that have nothing to do with the mystery of writing, its music. For me the great difficulty is always how the writing can be unconscious of itself, not aware of itself as writing as such, and there is one line in the book of correspondence that I felt very deeply out of recognition, the person who cannot write says to the one that is writing, “It is something I wrote for myself and then forgot.” The best poetry is written to itself, for itself. The poetry that one writes cannot be forgotten when it exists in the public sphere. One becomes too aware of it, and too aware every time one writes. But this requires a tremendous amount of concentration, to write for the writing only, and sometimes it seems to me that this is what I am trying to recover, regain, this position and attitude towards writing, building slowly and gradually to a quiet power over a period of years.

Do you need a visa to go to Israel? I remember your saying you’ve been there before. The reason I ask is that I was talking to one of my colleagues here several days ago, from Canada, though he’s Jewish, and when I told him about the difficulty of the border guards, whether U.S. or Russia, he asked if we had thought about going to Israel for the legal forms, documents, etc. I had this strange sensation when I was reading the information from the U.S. State Department site that gradually I am no longer qualifying as a citizen of my own country. No job there, no income, no property. This thought does not disturb me, as you know I sometimes appeal to the memory of Russian poets for perspective on my own homelessness, as many poets in most languages do not accrue more extensions in their daily life than a few books, something to write in and with, and perhaps some music to listen to. If I write more about this, I will begin to trouble you. And I don’t feel darkly or moody about this. Not yet (I’ve been awake for less than an hour). In five more minutes it will be one hour that I’ve been awake.

You are very good and kind to call me and to speak for as long as we did yesterday. Did you know that I like you especially for this, your ability to call me, your willingness to speak this way, very practically and positively? One becomes (I become) very moody otherwise. Now I will struggle with the afternoon and whether or not I should prepare for classes, or just read and listen to Beethoven (the symphonies would be unbearable to listen to, and the music for single instruments, like the piano sonatas, is too romantic, but the quartets exist both in the past as a form and reverberate with what future musicians made of them, from them.

So, for now, though perhaps I will write you a little later if this day turns out to be a thoughtful one.

bye

(and thank you once more for your birthday present, your voice)

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: for two without property

Дата: 29 марта 2004 г. 0:09

my dear zhenya

there is always russia. bless v. lenin. i dont mean to irritate you. but “russia” is something special. is there any truth to the say, russians say at the birthday, “more life! more life!” this from the letters I have been reading. please do not be sad. or sadly. work is very good here. patience! I am not a fool. And: I am not a U.S.A. citizen, merely a passport holder. China is a very good dream, for about some years from now. I do not know how many. We are both very young. There is no reason for sadness. But, intense awareness of the Border Guards, yes!

yours with kisses and missing you,

bye

—– Original Message —–

From: “Lukyanova” <lev@tpu.ru>

To: “Kevin Magee” <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 4:53 PM

Subject: Re: The time did change

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Poets and fashion

Дата: 29 марта 2004 г. 10:58

dear zhen

you are very witty. of course the program would recite mayakovsky, and the two big mouths who were very popular in translation during cold war, but they would not, on their program, include the legend of the mandelstam bright yellow coat in the vladivostok prison, reciting his poetry to convicts for tinned cans of food. i am criticizing how society remembers poetry in general (by making it appear harmless, when in fact poetry is quite dangerous). for example, i wrote yesterday afternoon, and by evening my nerves were shot. i stayed up until midnight, and then could only sleep for a few hours, agitated, which is what writing does. today I have classes, for which i have not prepared, though I have some time to prepare this morning, but little energy. writing requires a lot of energy, and when i write, i am reminded of just how much energy i give to teaching, which for me is simply trying to stay alive. yes, yellow leather coat with purple polka dots. whatever is needed to mark someone, designate someone, make them identifiable. usually, it is their nerves which makes poets identifiable (to be avoided).

as for this summer, if the very worst happens, there is always the one-month tourist visa which i can get for 30 days. you could perhaps try to come here for 30 days earlier, though same old problem of fear of not making it past the border, though I have my temporary residence permit now, which i did not have before. we should not worry before we have to?

thank you for your misses and kisses. I began the first day of my private new year with writing, and that is always a good sign, no matter that it interferes with teaching.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Agreement

Дата: 30 марта 2004 г. 0:06

dear zhenya

have you any idea how pleasant it is to come home and receive four emails from you? today has been a long day, 10:00 a.m. to 19:00 (coming home at 19:30) and I have one seminar to prepare for tomorrow, another seminar students are giving reports so I only have to listen, then two classes in the evening (four hours) at the parrot school. All day Wednesday I will be grading papers. I don’t know what I will feel like by Friday. Wednesday is the 30th of March, and that is when I was going to send the paper. I haven’t edited it down to eight pages yet. Maybe I will tonight. I will look at the Cypress urls, though Malta sounds more poetic. You will laugh at this. What is important, I think, is that the documents be in English, for ease of translation, and subjectivity factor, if, as we have talked about, it is travelling that is most important, and your feeling secure outside Russian borders from harassment. Your remark about the irony of taking much care about it is important. What is it possible to do that makes life easier? Travelling easier? Life outside Russia easier? There are many deeper issues to be concerned about, of course, all of which I am sure have influenced your life to this point. I can’t begin to try to imagine all of them, whether they are reasons or suspicions. I should like to add that you probably should be more suspicious of me than you are, though I don’t feel like making myself appear in such a way. Most of the time I am simply troubled and confused by my life, not knowing what to do with it. You know that I am always unhappy unless I am writing, and yet you are kind enough not to dwell on this. You are also very understanding (most of the time!) about my monolingualism. There are many things to take care about, though I hope that I never appear to you to need taking care of. Such weakness would repulse you. Writing is not a friend to weakness, of any kind, but the everyday details of life tend to escape my comprehension, and this problem, my problem, is worth taking care about. Please understand also that it has been a long day and I am tired and tomorrow is an equally long day. I am not very good at working this way, and tend to lose patience with myself. Well,  I will only ask for a little of your understanding right now, and kindness, and patience. Though you have also before insisted that you are none of these. I wish we were eating potatoe pancakes together tonight.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: One question

Дата: 30 марта 2004 г. 18:28

dear zhen

I was just getting ready to send my paper (the one about teaching literature) which you formatted, and noticed there were no page numbers. Are page numbers required (they usually are) and, if so, where should they appear? Should the first page be numbered? If you can answer this question, I’ll send the paper tomorrow, by March 31. Thanks.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Midday

Дата: 31 марта 2004 г. 17:07

dear zhen

I have just finished with a morning lesson (two hours) at the parrot school and I have the rest of the day for grading papers which I should have done on Sunday but wrote instead and not I must pay for it. At least the day itself is beautiful, sunny, bright, warm, springtime. It is here. How are you? You were very kind to answer my short and terse note yesterday about the page numbers, it is just how I felt and feel when having to deal with my own writing, in just about any form. Thank you for formatting it. I sent it to the conference publication email address that you sent me, last night. This afternoon after lunch (do you know that I have not eaten any potato pancakes since Palangas, I wonder whether they would taste as good without sharing the supper with you, I do remember that once you gave me some of your dinner, the Lithuanian national dish, though now I forget what it was called. Strange, to remember how relaxed and rested I felt then, compared to now. Tired, tired, tired, as I imagine you are too. We are being worn down by our work. So, for now, I will dream about potato pancakes. At least, I think, your mother makes them for you once in a while. I have no such consolation here, only the memory. Now, if you will excuse me, I will try to convince myself into the authoritative marking mood for appropriate comments and marks on my students papers. The horror! (And it is, truly). Everyone and anyone who is not too tired to breathe should get a high mark, don’t you think? Wouldn’t that simplify our lives. Still, I think your students are lucky to have you as their teacher. I came across an essay on recent Russian film in a Slavic Studies academic journal, one of which I am going to try to use for my Sokurov article. Have you seen The Siberian Barber and Burnt by the Sun? What did you think of them? Aren’t they rather like Hollywood films? Certainly, The Russian Ark would compare favorable to these. Mikhailov is a well-known nationalist-resortationist, isn’t he? I mean this nostalgia for the 19th century. Well, that’s as much thinking as I’m capable of today. And please, don’t suspect me too much. Of what, I don’t know. Of everything, anything, at all. Suspect me of eating all your potato pancakes. That’s a good place to start. Though I think you already suspect me about that. Suspect me for liking bad pretentious ambitious Russian movies. Suspect me of not reading as much as I should. Suspect me of not know what I should be doing with my life. The list goes on and on. Suspect me of being about to eat pierogi russki for lunch with olive oil and paprika. Suspect me of missing you.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Light of the End

Дата: 1 апреля 2004 г. 10:49

dear zhen

I have a cup of strong coffee, and 45 mins before I absolutely have to take the bus, though I should leave 15 mins earlier, since as always, always, always, I must copy some materials before going to three classes in a row, 8:30-13:00 then one hour break, than 14:15-15:45 at the College Where Students Must Pay Because They Are Stupid. Student marking of papers tonight will require about two hours, and then the end is in sight (we say, There is a light at the end of the tunnel). Only two classes tomorrow morning, one of them a period-long exam, so I don’t need to prepare for it, then only two hours in the evening at the Parrot School, then three hours the next morning at the Parrot School, and then, by noon, on Saturday, I am free. For one-and-a-half days, about 36 hours. What do you recommend me to do? Shall I call you on Saturday? I would prefer to call you late, about 23:00 your time, to see if the call is cheaper after 18:00 here, so that I may get more time during the call. The last call to you was only 50 mins. Was that usual? Or have we spoken longer on this card? Why is it so cheap to call the U.S. and so expensive to call Russia? Is there an answer to these great questions of life? You have good taste in cinema, I can see. I hated Siberian Barber when I saw it. Yesterday I read an academic article about Russian “blockbuster” films (films made to be like Hollywood in circulation, expensive, very expensive films–millions and millions of dollars) by U.S. historian, about Russian nationalist anxiety, and since the writer was feminist, she tried to associate nationalist anxiety with father-son cultural anxiety, seeming to suggest that Russian cultural situation for the masses where all films are import films is actually good for mass society, since Russian mass society is patriarchal and authoritarian. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but I thought you might like to know that somewhere there is someone named Susan Larson writing that the national-patriarchal anxieties is good for the Russian mass society. A helpful word in English is “specious.” And universities tend to produce such profound insights. I shudder at the substancelessness (yes, this is a word) of the essay I sent to the TPU conference publication, I shudder even at the thought that I was capable of writing it. Why? I don’t believe in a single word in it. Not a single word is true. (Expressively true, as the course was actually taught as I described). There is a lesson about writing. You can write as closely to an experience as possible (teaching an anthology of literature, for example) and yet the substance of the experience is so false that the experience will not permit the writing to exist. Writing is very stubborn this way. It only happens (if writing can be said to simply happen to its writer, and I believe this) on its own, by its own needs. I think this is why I like writing so much more than other forms of art, which seem to require greater manipulation, so that by the time one is considering filmmaking, anything except the individual camera seems like an unacceptable hyperbole, and pure and unconscionable manufacturing of representation for consumption. So that is my editorial for the morning. I think I am trying to prove to you that, in your famous words, “I’m still alive.” And you?

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Reprieve!

Дата: 1 апреля 2004 г. 19:08

dear zhen

when i got to the college where students who are stupid must pay the stupid students had taken the day off because of the sunlight and warm, warm weather (this they told me in the secretariat where after true old-russian fashion the keys to the classrooms are distributed) “the students have run away it is such a beautiful day” i was told in lovely broken english, spoken english. so i am home for the afternoon and writing to tell you i miss you and i think i shall read a novel until dark. i hope that you rec’ this message tomorrow and not this evening as it is already after 20:00 in Tomsk. how was your day, dear?

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Just before parroting

Дата: 3 апреля 2004 г. 12:32

dear zhen

isn’t it nice of me? isn’t it good of me? to write you when I have only 10 minutes before going to the Parrot School? 38 hours there last month. Comedy. The book that they use makes me hate the English language. Maybe that is good for learning another language. Do you have a suggestion? Can you tell me if it is Russian kindness for you to call yesterday, or Jenya kindness? You are a very thoughtful person. Even only a few minutes is (as the Parrot school textbook would say) cheering. Seriously, hearing your voice makes me less depressed, and more than anything, I am struggling with the kind of depression which expresses itself in irritation, anger. It becomes more difficult to concentrate on my classes, fortunately there is a break next week. The difficulty is the gap between what I know and what I think and what I am capable of talking about, and the level of perception, language perception, which is quite natural, and which most of the time I adapt to, but which, when I become tired, gets on my nerves (as they say). I seem to remember that you have very fine, sharp nerves, so I think you know what I am talking about. Yesterday I did not write because if I had, I would have only complained, and I don’t think that is very complimentary to my better side (if there is one) or to your patience, though, as you know, you are very kind. On the bright side: the more tired I become now, the more I will enjoy relaxing this summer. Right now, for this afternoon, and tomorrow, I wish I had a long Russian novel to read (do you know that I have never read Anna Karenina?) I have only, from the library, a copy of the first Canadian novel, like Fenimore Cooper (who I’m sure you studied in school, pity). But the arched, 18th century English sounds good to my ears. Still, I would prefer a translation. Neither have I ever read Bulgakov. In such times (tiredness, depression) it is good to pass the hours with reading prose. Even Kafka’s diaries are calling, though I would prefer not to read from the computer. One finds oneself sitting up too much. I am going to lie down for the most part of today and tomorrow. I will try to call you this afternoon, your early evening (I am finished with teaching at noon, though I have to go to the postoffice to get a phone card, and the local one last time didn’t have one, as you remember I tried to call on another card and it did not work) so I may have to go downtown. So, perhaps between 14:00-15:00 here (19:00-20:00 your time). I’m only wondering how late you will be working today. I will check my email before calling you if you do not expect to be home until later. You said yesterday that you expected to be very busy today. I miss you.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Agreement

Дата: 5 апреля 2004 г. 11:45

dear zhen

i am in agreement regarding all your advice. last week i was leaving at the same time as another teacher at the College for Dunces who also, it turned out, teaches at the university, and she advised that for foreigners, native English speaking, they are often put in situation of having to learn how to say no. There are too many requests for teaching assistance, and native speakers often find themselves overworked. Meanwhile, she said, Polish faculty (especially the senior ones) are always trying to find a way to avoid their commitments. Even visiting faculty like myself have the right to cancel classes whenever we want, though I never do, from Yankee habit of industriousness. Soon I will have a long weekend, if I survive the next three days.

About the contract: Is the Foreign Language Institute called a Correspondence School or is what is meant, corresponding (parallel) which seems to be the meaning intended. In this case, the translation appears to be confusing the “ence” noun ending with the “ing” gerund (which is also, as you may recall, a noun, and many translations do not appear to make full use of the gerund, which sounds much more natural in English). Also, I started to change “test” to “examination” then saw at the end of the document a reference to final examinations in the field of study, so I though a distinction was intended between the Russian language test and the final examination, for clarity, so that is why you see some of the references to “test” crossed out. You should also check spelling of syllabi, syllabii? I am 95% sure there is only one “i” at the end (one of the few words in English that still retain Latin plural). Just as hardly anyone uses “datum” for the singular of data. This is the simplifying drive of English, for better or worse.

After your call yesterday, I actually did feel worse and worse, chills and fever which broke late, after midnight last night, or I should say, this morning. I slept for less than five hours. I went to the market earlier in the day, and became quite worried that I was becoming seriously ill (flu), from aching muscles, tiredness, chills that turned into fever, but this morning I feel rather good. I don’t wish to worry you. I lay on the couch all day and tried to read but my eyes hurt too much and headache, so I watch mindless TV most of the day after cleaning and doing laundry (it was a beautiful day and all my clothes now have fresh air smell) and finally, around midnight, a Polish film called “Historia Kina” made in 1998 here, in Lodz, came on, and in quality reminded me of the film about the Gypsies in Polish that we saw in Palangas. Very Tarkovsky-like intersections of 19th century past with mid-20th century present, juxtapositions done by images, without transition, beautiful landscapes, with sentimental story, though there is a child trying to remember the invention of the movie projector by his ancestor, against the wishes of the father. It is the kind of film maybe you are used to in Russia, but in the U.S. I did not see such cinematography until attending the university. They are almost forbidden in the mass commercial culture. So, I went to bed tired, and woke up tired, but my eyes were caressed for two very nice hours. Despite sentimentalizing idealisms of the portraiture, in the film. I hope that I have enough energy to work on Sokurov essay this weekend.

Do you know that I think you are an extremely meticulous companion? Meticulous, thorough. You do not miss many details. And you are very kind to call me when I am experiencing “rough” moments. This is very generous of you. Thank you for thinking of me. I am rather stubborn when it comes to my health, as I am almost always refusing to recognize anything is wrong. Yesterday was a troublesome day though, and I was quite worried that I was becoming ill. The kind of flu that makes one sick for a week would be a disaster for me. Also, I am a stranger, foreigner, and do not feel that I have the right to be sick, or absent from work. This is additional stress added to the foreign language environment. It is as though one overperforms their work, so that there is nothing left. It is not that I forget that teaching is only work, but it overwhelms me sometimes. Your longer letter written about this subject was very welcome. I enjoy your advice, though Japan is an expensive place. I miss Russia sometimes. Boundaries between countries are quite real and substantial. Poland is a very different place than Russia. But this problem of there being really any place, that is the theme for a future letter.

I hope my corrections to the Agreement are helpful.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Genderous?

Дата: 7 апреля 2004 г. 11:21

dear zhen

i am still here. this means, close to the same meaning, as “i am still alive.” i notice, however, that often you use the contraction, “i’m still alive.” do you think there is any difference? is one more or less alive when they use the contraction? on the subject of contractions, of time, space, history, etc. i saw on the news last night (and looked for some information about on the internet yesterday but could not find very much) about “barricades” in Iraq, civil disturbance it is called in polite English, civil war according to more politically nuanced users (of English). But I do not have very much information, just bits and pieces of images, that, again, looked like an insurrection. The news of this is important here, as Poland has troops there, and this is apparently very unpopular here, or, shall we say, more politely, “divisive.” that seems to be the current global trend, divisiveness. feeling rather in the dark, last night i subscribed to two news magazines in English, one from Prague and one from France. the urls for both magazines are

Le monde-diplomatique English edition, http://mondediplo.com

Central Europe Review, http://culture.tol.cz or, http://www.ce-review.org

The Central Europe Review has articles about Russia in Russian as well as English. I remember you liked Oleg Kireev’s nettime article that I showed you in Palangas. I haven’t been reading “the news” for some time, partly from sense that I am aware, theoretically, what is happening, and partly because it only makes me more gloomy. but there is also increased isolation from events so that when one does see (see?) the news, such as the CNN in Palangas, the world appears all the more strange, and one feels all the more estranged from it.

It is not from feeling of estrangement that I have not been writing so much these days, but tiredness which expresses itself by staying in bed until the last minute, moving very slowly (listlessly, we say), to be listless, without energy, motivation, or volition (willpower). Today I write you a longer letter because I have time this morning, except I must go to the doctor. More about this later.

Do you know, that you are not completely mistaken to mistake dangerous for generous? It is quite dangerous to be generous. Though i do not know if this works vice versa, if it is generous to be dangerous. or to live dangerous. to live in condition of danger. or, to live in condition of generous.

Was Bulgakov generous or dangerous? Have you ever read Isaac Babel? He wrote about at the same time, but not so much from an aristocratic/modernist point of view. I imagine Bulgakov to be a little like the Argentine writer, Borges in sensibility. But more important than my imaginings, is having a book that one returns to again and again, like drinking from the native language. Perhaps it is not so much the representation, as the rhythm, the sound, the tangibility of the language that we return again and again to the same book. This is probably, also, unteachable.

My very minimal definition of teaching esp. literature and culture is this, the one who is the person teaching, they are teaching because they read and write a lot, so the ones who are students ask the one who is teaching them questions about his or her reading. There is no syllabus, no schedule, no tests, no papers. All of these are obstacles to reading and asking questions about reading. All true reading cannot be monitored. Most true reading cannot happen in an institution, anywhere. The classroom in the university may perhaps only be able to teach a version of order, and esp. authority in relation to the work of literature, and no matter the writer is a right or a left or in between, they participate in a certain disorder, making chaotic, as soon as they begin to write. But this cannot be taught. It is terrible the fate of the literary work when it enters the university. You see what a dilemma I am in. I am in position of imposing order when it is the undoing of all that is the value of the literary, the undoing especially of our illusions, our complacencies, our comfort.

This unsettledness, and feeling that I am slowly being turned into something or someone I do not wish to be, simply by trying not to live dangerous, is (mildly) torturing me. It is a strong word, even just an expression. But I do feel contracted, or contorted. Recent (mild) health problems indicate this. Even not wanting to write just a few hurried polite words to you indicate this. You know i would rather write and write and write and if I began to write and write and write I would miss my bus. My 150 students would come to class and I would not be there. They would come to the door of my flat and the door would be locked. I would be attached to the computer screen, writing and writing. So I can hardly write at all, for fear of beginning to write and being unable to function in the functional role. Writing is fundamentally beyond function, both the object (the resulting work) and the process.

So, I complain. The hours in each day appear to me to be contracting. The horizon is narrowing. History is compressing. There are fewer and fewer choices. There are more and more weapons in the hands of more and more militaries. Even the 1970s, anywhere in the world, seem to have been a time of wider and brighter skies. Now? What is now? How is it possible to know where and what is this now? I think it is the names of the streets here that make me ask these questions. But, then, I used to shop in that street in Tomsk named, Dzerszhinski? This name that does not deserve to be remembered. I actually had read about this one before coming to Russia, already in 1919 he was considered by other “barricadists” to be a killer. Murderer. There are so many. Very quietly and politely going to classes does not simply the awareness of the history of one or another time and place. Maybe literature also tries to understand this process. It gives too much dignity to call it history.

Earlier this week at the parrot school I saw young girl about age 10 trudging (stepping very slowly) up the stairs, as if each step caused her the greatest agony. I was reminded of your saying how you did not care to study English when you were her age, so I imagined for a moment that I was walking behind Zhenya 30 years ago, sent to her English lessons (did you wear your Italian boots? did they help?) Now, all this time later, my dear Zhenya finds herself translating everything for her colleagues whose parents did not send them to English lessons when there was no reason to do so, except there are some precious parents in the world who feel responsible for making sure their child learns another language, and now also having to interpret strange letters from an even stranger foreigner. You are very kind and generous to read such letters as these, though all the time I worry that I do not write dangerous. That is another demand of the literary. Actually it is an equal demand, To be generous and to be dangerous. If the one that is writing cannot do both, then the writing cannot be.

It is helpful to remember these problems on a warm, raining morning. Would you send me the Bulgakov?

p.s. Yesterday I found two phone cards, one for 25 pln. and one for 10 pln. so I bought both. This will give 40 minutes, not 50 minutes, for calling you this Sunday. They do not have any 50 pln. cards yet. And this is the only card I know that will call Russia. So I will call you Sunday, but we will have only 40 minutes to speak. I think you will make fun of my gloominess. You mention that I “mock” you? When? It is no matter. It is difficult to laugh at such distance, and in writing. With writing. By writing.

Bye

Thu, 8 Apr 2004 07:26:25 +0200

Re: hi

dear zhen

the deliciousness of the variation is almost too much. usually at this time 6:45 a.m. I am finished writing you when I am writing you, which is most mornings, yes? then, 7:15 I leave to arrive at univ. at 8:00 for xeroxing of last minute materials, then classes at 8:30 and so on. But this morning, as I do not expect students, though I have not cancelled classes, and there may be one or two students who wish to see me, though I have not prepared any classes, after all, no one knows yet today if it is “Rector’s Day” (no classes only announced at the very last moment) so I will go to the univ. and 99 percent chance there are no classes. This is life in the cross culture. If you ask anyone, which days are the day off, student or faculty, they will greet this question as one of the most profound (and unanswerable) of all the existence. Maybe Thursday, yes, Friday, yes, yes, that is Good Friday, and Monday? Maybe Monday, or Tuesday, the students do not usually come to their classes again until Wednesday, etc., etc. You will laugh if I will say that this would be intolerable in an “anglo-american” place, since people would wish to make plans, but plans, here, apparently, in Poland, are to be open to cancellation at the last minute by the higher authority, who reserves an absolute and arbitrary power of decision. It is quite a paradox: both students and teachers have much, much more day-to-day autonomy (pure freedom) over their workplace, but the larger and for the most part entirely symbolic power functions are left to the administrators. I think this may be reflection of centuries-old co-habitation with imperial bureaucracies, of which the socialist-period bureaucracy was a further but related development. Everyone will be surprised if and when there is ever modernization in monitoring methods (what actually goes on in the institution) and monitoring methods mostly duplicate their own paradigms, models, accounting methods, which is the anglo-american conception of education: skill training. Here there is something more like benign chaos, though quite a few excellent students emerge despite or because of this. It might be that they have more choices, even when it appears they have few or no choices. So much for my morning analysis of education in Poland. I still have 30 minutes before I must catch the bus.

It is raining and raining and raining. Dark grey light steady rain, making everything wet and even the sounds a little softer. The car traffic outside my building does not sound so harsh this morning. Last night, too tired to read, I tried to watch American Playhouse movie of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, and could not help but laugh at how much it resembled (copied) Chekhov. Then turned off TV and went to bed. I don’t like going to bed when I’m not asleep yet, as it means sometimes 15-30 minutes of lying in bed waiting for sleep. I prefer go to bed after I am already fallen asleep reading. These are particular behaviors one develops after many years of living alone. Very often I fall asleep with all lights on, after reading, while reading, without gloominess of those last minutes before sleep when one simply feels too tired, too bored, too despondent, too listless, too lifeless. I felt like that for a moment last night, and then I remembered that I did not have to take the bus this morning until 7:30-7:740 a.m instead of 7:15 as usual, and my heart rejoiced with the expectation of variation and the delight of the little pleasures in life, such as a permutation, no matter how minute, in one’s daily schedule.

For greater variety, that is why I wish to begin reading the “local” news, so to speak. This will last for a while, and then it will sound more and more the same. This is the logic of the journalism, its day-to-day formula for events, though different events, there is a larger pattern, sometimes difficult to perceive. Once one perceives this pattern, all the language for all the events starts to resemble all the accounts, reports, interpretations, and one is reminded that the reading of the “news” is mediated by a form (the journalism) as artificial as a poem or short story. Another genre only, though with an attempted closer relationship to something that is or has actually happened, if anything ever actually happens. Of course it does. The problem is trying to understand what is happening, why what is happening is happening, and what may be the consequences. What, after all, is going to happen? Last night at the parrot school I came across a word in English I didn’t recognized the definition for: Do you know what is “rejoicing”? The reference in the text was to Public Rejoicings, said not to be common now as we live in a time of world peace (yes?!). The word means simply to me, Celebration, but as you know British English much better than me (or is it, I? does it matter?) –the problem is in the comparative–and whether or not the first-person pronoun is an object or subject–maybe you can tell me what is Rejoicing. My mind, the Shiites are Rejoicing this week, though I cannot understand from the news whether or not they have been suppressed yet. Last night there was brief image of dead body of U.S. soldier, very respectful: showing only the legs from the knees to the feet. Very different from Al-Jazeera photographs last year on Russian news where, as in the theater tragedy in Moscow, detailed attention was given to the expression on the faces of the corpses.

Cheerio! my parrot school book last night said that speakers of English say to each other when parting after visiting. Cheerio! Don’t you think I should start signing my letters to you, Cheerio? Is not this proper English, what? Cheerio! But I still have 15 minutes to write improperly to you. I don’t even know if my classes at the Dunce College have been cancelled or not. Everything is a mystery today, including the grey skies. I remember this Party Slogan from my childhood: Fly the Friendly Skies of United. This was commercial for an airplane. It was a great mystery to me as no one in my family had ever flown on an airplane, except once, my grandmother when she came to visit us. Before she arrived, we children would look up at the sky everytime wondering if that was her arriving. At the moment, I cannot remember any more Party Slogans. And you? Who were able to fly to Moscow for a few roubles only in the good-bad old days? All language seems to fall away here, in Lodz, more and more, it is the influence of the place, there is something very somber here, which is a word meaning neither dark nor serious but a little of both. I don’t care what the dictionary says. Well, it is 7:20 now and it will take me five minutes to put on a sweater, coat, shoes, collect my books, and catch the bus. And I refuse to say, Cheerio! So, once more, until you write again, or until I write again, or just until …

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: reading news

Дата: 9 апреля 2004 г. 13:15

dear zhen

have you ever had such a juice made of grapefruit and pineapple? i thought i had made a mistake recently shopping and have been avoiding the carton of such a juice in my refrigerator until this morning and now i realize it is quite good, not as sour as i had expected from the grapefruit which is one that i do not care for. i have also a bag of oranges which remind me of your liking for oranges in palangas. i had almost stopped eating tangerines, though i am quite fond of them, since they were more and more tasteless, and then monday or tuesday i bought some of the first good tangerines, maybe it is the turning of the season. three ripening very red polish tomatoes await their inclusion with cucumbers in a salad today, and since it is good friday, i will cook fish (a very small trout, the earlier fish that i wrote you about could not have been a trout, though it looked and tasted like one, though three or four times the size of the trout i shall have for supper tonight). the cucumber and tomato salad with oil and vinegar i became quite fond of in russia, my first year in russia, though i don’t remember eating very much citrus then. there was an enormous marketplace in chita, though you needed good russian to buy what you wanted, the habit of the venders to tell you about their wares, and bargains, etc., but i remember being impressed from the crates, how many of the crates of apples and oranges, melons, were from china. here there are more products from the middle east, the dates for example which i buy (and which i forgot to buy last night!) are from Iran, and quite good, about two dollars for a kilogram, though now i remember paying 50 rubles for half a kilogram in tomsk, though of course i had no way of asking where they were from, and 50 rubles is almost two dollars now, yes? strange how the prices of food vary very little. yes, that is a play with words, they vary very much. English is full of such ridiculous sounds. Actually, I find quite amusing the variation in sound between the l and the barred l which sounds like a an english w in Polish, so that Russian biely (byelli) sounds like byewi in Polish. The w sound in English in an infantile-like sound, or sound used to sound like children speaking, incorrectly, babyish, and it isn’t pleasant to my ear, here, listening to Polish. But there are many softer sounds it appears in Polish than in Russian, though when I heard what to my mind must have been, may very well have been, quite 19th century Russian being spoken by several of the faculty members at the university in Chita (at a lunch at the dacha of the chair of my faculty, and after some wine, though not a lot of wine, no one had had “too much” to drink, as at a cafe sometimes) but the occasion, the arrival of spring, the company of good friends, even, perhaps, the performance for a foreigner who was (I like to believe) well liked, produced this extraordinary voluble Russian, such as I had never heard, so very expressive and bubbling like stream of a river, perhaps such as are found in Altai, and I have read subsequently about this 19th century Russian language features, very complex grammatically, in the inflections, the word combinations, the sound chamber. One would like to believe that the Russian and Polish languages were closer then, despite or (and language is such a strange element) because of the deportations to Siberia at that same period.

Now everyone says the languages are harshening. You yourself comment on the harshness of your students’ speech, its indifferent brutality, and I think many people who speak English would agree with you, whether they are in Los Angeles, New York or London. People say that about Polish too, here, that it is being emptied, partly by influence of English, which is overwhelming here, everytime I go to the hypermarket all I hear are American rock-and-roll classics, and this is a store where thousands shop. The prestige of the English language is such that people enjoy tremendously these songs. For no other reason, my time and energy at the Parrot School is valuable since I meet Poles from all walks of life, not just students, and get a better impression of the average business person, or aspiring professional, and students who did not do well in school, in addition to those young people who are so fortunate as yourself to have parents who send them to language school in the evening. But I don’t know why the languages are harshening, perhaps because of the contact among languages? The mixture? Perhaps the linguistic richness of the 19th century was the result of the severity of the boundaries around cultures, which is lessening now–our own meeting and being with each other and towards each other, and almost daily communication, is proof of this. so there is no doubt that we live in a world such as could hardly be imagined 100 years ago. i want to believe this, as departure, from even history, and yet i have so many doubts.

I read the news a little yesterday, news interpretations from the last month or so. Apparently there was a letter before the elections written from prison by the Yuccas oligarch, which I am sure you have heard of, and I know you have said you do not like to mention politics in emails, and all that impressed me was that I had worked for about 6 weeks at Yuccas offices in Tomsk, and so the reference was quite concrete. There apparently was also terrorist attack in Tashkent, and travel in and out of Uzbekistan is very difficult now. I am glad that I did not go to Biskek. This is always a good test: read the news one day and see if you can remember what you read the next day. If you cannot, then the news, what is called the news, such as broadcasts by radio and tv in U.S., become simply part of the noise of the enviroment, and sign swirl, the mud of meaninglessness from day to day. Some of the interpretations based on population surveys in Russia about attitudes of Russian citizens towards the past confirm some of the things that I’ve written, most recently in the manuscript, Pacifist, which I wrote my first year in Russia. To try as much as possible to let the writing absorb things that are said around you, to you, as a foreigner, without trying too much to shape them into your own perception. But Russian people in general are very proud of their past, including even (or accepting in different levels of —

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you the following information:

The professor responsible for my teaching at the Dunce College just called to thank me for teaching there (he is also head of the philological faculty there) and to make an appointment with me so that we may meet about the contract, though I did not understand whether or not my salary for March is already waiting for me, since I have signed no contract, but as we have agreed to meet at a certain date at a certain hour in a certain place, I feel reasonable confident that I will be paid for my time at the Dunce College. It would be preferable to continue there than at the Parrot School, as I have completed paperwork and it is an official teaching job, not unoffical as is the Parrot School. The Parrot School is for summer money only, and to be free of worry, so it is worth a little sacrifice now.

Now, as for accepting different levels of –? Who can say. I am not pretending to be able to say. But the comment that I read, that the only news the West hears from Russian is news shaped to conform to and to confirm western liberal pro-globalization policies. The other Russia is very difficult to learn anything about. There is always this mystique of the hidden Russia, the uncommunicable Russia, the Russia that looks familiar but which is very, very different than Europe or America. What else did I read about? I promise not to give you news summaries. One wonders just how much our emotions are inflected by the noise we absorb. I have not been able to find very much news about Poland yet, though I know from my students and from faculty that the participation of Poland in the coalition forces in Iraq is extremely unpopular. It is very likely there will be a change in administration, though the extent of the change is difficult for someone who is a stranger to the environment to be able to guess. Apparently there are fears of a Madrid-like event in Warsaw, though why that is news I don’t know. One article wrote that yellow emergency instructions have appeared in the subways in Warsaw.

If someone had asked me, just theoretically, what is the consequence of one country invading another to depose a ruler, I would have said: civil war. That is basic history. One does not need to know a lot to know this. It is based on the experience of colonialism. The invader tries to set up a friendly (puppet govt) and this govt and its new militia will suppress the resistance. This has happened again and again in Latin America, Guatamala, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, sometimes the U.S. invasions were direct, sometimes indirect, if such indirection is possible. What I mean is not the overt military presence as today in Iraq. But the Middle East is not Central America, and there is the possibility of a significant defeat for the ruling class in the U.S. which will make them even more dangerous regarding civil liberties in their own country, the U.S. society. If the military adventure (and it is an adventure, with all the meaning of this word from 19th century colonialism) intensifes, the conflict will expand, and involve more countries. It is not a positive situation. And it most assuredly is not Chechnya. This is closer to the Central American experience for the U.S. A little war that goes on and on and does great damage to the country conducting the war as to the country at war, but which does not expand. The situation in the Middle East has just this expansive character, and that is why it is worth worrying about, and why it will politicize the younger (international) generation. It is even questionable whether peace could be made if peace were even attempted. The reminder of the exact specificity and even, organicism of democratic processes is sharp. Governments cannot be removed at will from outside intervention. They can only be changed from within. There is nothing worse than one country invading another. There is nothing more threatening to the relationships among nations, whatever the global region, and we are reminded that peace, whatever else it is, is always just temporary, an arrangement of convenience, in a world where war is a concrete alternative.

I write like this to remind myself of just how serious the contemporary moment is, and not to be lulled by the lullaby of teaching, even in the perpetual anxiety of a buffer zone. I hope that I do not sound too serious to you. It is strange to remember just how affected I was by your reaching the title in Zabolotsky, The Suffering of the Animals, and the images of the chicken-destruction in Thailand which has apparently spread to China, you said? In my heightened state, then, in Palangas, where each day was like floating, simply drifting with the current of whatever came my way, even Crocodile! (and this is what writing is like, one is not writing unless one is drifting, floating, spiralling among signs) the profound disturbance of the meeting of the line from the Russian poet and the broadcast image and these next-to-meaningless food objects tossed into graves by the truckloads seemed true, and this so rarely happens. 

Well, you see what happens to me when I have a day off. I will look forward to reading a letter from you tonight.

bye, Zhenya (I mean, Zhenya, bye, not, bye and signing your name, though I did, yesterday, create an email box for you on the server functions attached to my website, so in case you have further troubles with your email in tomsk, we may write to each other only through the one server, and perhaps this would be best anyway, its quite simple and i can show you when i’m in tomsk, the account can be configured through your existing outlook express software in the computer there)

so, bye …

p.s. do you know that i don’t wish to stop writing this letter this morning, but i feel that i should or that i shall try your patience? i will leave it to you to decide whether or not you are kind and the extent of your kindness as to the contents of this or any letter from me …

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: To coincide

Дата: 10 апреля 2004 г. 12:54

dear zhen

suggested changing “coincidentally” to “simultaneously” as “coincide” and “coincidental” do not mean the same things in English, coincidental means accidental, where the sense of the sentence means corresponding, parallel, at the same time, etc.?

you said the you were told that the translation is an important one, so why don’t you send it again after reviewing it once more?

it is strange to read the agreement the same night that I read an article from Le Monde Diplomatique about war planning of Washington shifting from traditional attention to third-world states to potential conflicts with the “peer” nations of Russia (over Caspian oil basin) and China (over diverse points Asian, especially threatening conflict with N. Korea). Of course, this always sounds like doomsday thinking, but I was interested to the extent that I often accuse myself of thinking too darkly, too extremely, over the future, from just basic conceptual framework of recognizing intensifying militarization and arms expansion, then I find my intuitions corroborated. Le Monde Diplomatique is a little to the center compared to sources of news information I have relied on before, but among its occasional contributors are various intelligentsia whose more academic writings I generally respect. So does that make it a trusted news source? News is the epitome of the particular and the interpreted. One cannot read journalism without theory, and it is the theory that my own writing has been suffering the absence of lately. Actually, I feel very far from both journalism and theory, but if my writing is to develop the historical consciousness that I wish for it, then this is my element. The danger, always, is abstraction, and the equivalence of the place-name. Especially since I have very poor since of geography. Strangely, too, journalism reads like fiction, it narrates, though the events are strictly the so-called external, legislation, treaties and agreements, conflicts and threats of conflicts, explosions and the movement of armies. The discourse that attempts to account for this objective-material focus almost seems over-rational at times, and yet it is for a reason (reasoning) beneath the apparent disconnectivity that one searches for. The worst is to give in to the appearance of the disconnection, the irrational, in the accounting for world events, and even worse, to give in to pessimism. Mostly, as regards writing, I feel immobilized, unable to move in one direction or another, without some confidence in the importance of writing anything at all. I refuse to write for the sensation of mere production. There must be something at stake, something crucial, that needs to be thought. I think this is one reason for my return to journalism (reading jounalism, not writing it, though it is possible to conceive of a textuality that is event-driven, conceptually). Also, I find that when not thinking this way, it is easier to glide past this or that political statement even in the writings by artists about making art. The articles about Sokurov reminded me how little I knew about Russia, just in terms of events in the past ten years.

But the event always escapes the conceptual grasp, frame. This is part of the elusiveness of things happening in time. What I distrust greatly is being solely affected by this or that image that flashes across the media. This cannot be an emotive basis for any serious work. It is simply spillage, and deceptive, and if a writer depends upon it for orientation, the writing will become more and more ignorant and emptied of thought. Thought? What do I mean by thought? One always begins with sensation of emptiness, blankness, whiteness. Malevich always claimed it was not a color. Yesterday I was thinking of purple and greys. I don’t know why, and it was for only a moment, so was this a thought? Is the sensation of shape and color, thought? Or, the reading of journalism? It is striking how the form of the writing about the event seeks to contain the event in a strict field of reference, and the formula of the news interpretation actually works against aggravating the material to produce the stubborn, irreducible detail, and if this detail is an image, this image is far more complex than its broadcast equivalent. One imagines a critically poetic writing capable of aggravating the detail. Making that detail unforgettable, even, only, perceptible. We see hardly anything of the events happening around us. Even with, and perhaps especially because, of the intensification of communications.

These are some of my thoughts as I begin a new phase of reading. Only one day off and I am beginning to conceive of writing, working. I am too busy now, and that is a problem. It is an art in itself, to learn how not to be consumed by demands on your time. I don’t know how to teach indifferently, so I over-prepare. I work too hard at doing nothing. Probably I could get by in teaching with half the work, teaching, but then the logic of the system, everywhere, but it seems so especially here, is that the parameters of what is required are so intangible that no one knows exactly what they are expected to do. So, one over-compensates, and one over-performs. And the system wins.

With this cheerful and rueful thought, hardly a thought as we both live its reality day to day, I’ll send this letter written to first coffee and the expectation of a free day, to read and wander (just a little) among unsettlements, disturbances, premonitions.

Thank you for missing me and kissing me. You know that I believe in reciprocal actions. So you may imagine my response, following yours. Your responses. You who are very warm and say you are not. You who are very kind and say you are not. Principled negativity?

b y e

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Last reading day

Дата: 12 апреля 2004 г. 13:43

dear zhen

i’m trying a new experiment this morning, weaker coffee. not that i have an argument against strong coffee, but the size of my coffee filter in the machine i bough in oct. only permits enough coffee for one cup, and as i fill it quite full, the effect is to distribute coffee grounds after percolating in the water chamber, which produces something of a film in the chamber, and effects the purity of the water, and is also an annoyance, as i have to clean the chamber every time i make a cup of coffee. i thought you would be glad to hear that my life is so full of complicated problems.

today is the last day for dreaming. i’ve been able to read more for myself in the past few days than in the past two months, and the reading turns me to writing. at this point, one just wants to write in any direction possible, and only after a period of time to notice patterns. i am at least very much aware of the thought that i’m disturbed how few facts, if any at all, i can recall from journalism that i read only the day before, if you asked for me to summarize one news story that i’ve read recently, i couldn’t. and yet i am not an indifferent reader. and i quite well understand the frame of reference for the journalism. so as a kind of negative gesture, i would say that i’m interested in writing a prose that is like trance music, electronic music, which tells no story, has no basis or center in any plot, but something that would give the illusion of progression from many, many perspectives, though i don’t like the word perspective. there’s a touch of this in Bulgakov, the scene where Berlioz loses his head. it’s brilliant the way that the scene is told from the angle of the one about to be guillotined, and the tram that runs over the editor is the French Revolution. Nabokov must have enjoyed Bulgakov immensely.

Many writers still tell stories this way, though the story itself has never interested me as a form. Too many details (too many words!) seem purely arbitrary, part of the form, they function too obviously. Poetry teaches the one that writes it too pay very close attention to the way words shatter at the touch. The language one writes in becomes a precious object. To be able to write a kind of extended, even massive prose surface that would be legible (one could still read it without having to reread) though without reference to external events, this is something i would like to write. at a certain point, to write narrative prose, you have to give in to the voice that tells about something having happened, and it would be to examine very closely this starting point, the very question of something having happened, without the ability to name it, without the ability to say what it was, without any illusion in the writing’s ability to represent the event, that would be a book worth writing.

There is also the sensation of wanting to feel like i am learning to write all over again. It is the worst danger, to write the same way. To succeed in a certain familiarity with figurative processes, whether working from notebooks, or writing, as I did in Tomsk in September, more or less spontaneously, without the meandering river of words that accumulate from one’s reading in one’s notebook, so that the writing becomes terribly disengaged from any self-awareness of how it is coming into being, into the condition of writing, a verbal object. Most writers, of course, do not concern themselves with this, even poets, though such self-awareness of the way the writing takes form is a characteristic of poetics. Perhaps, very simply, I am beginning to write in such a way now that allows me to hear my own language, which I do not hear very often, and towards which I feel more and more mute.

Personally, I also wonder about developing eccentricities on my part, in my daily life, which of course writing also, however obliquely, reflects. More and more I avoid people, as I get more and more in the habit of not talking to anyone except in formal service-delivery contexts, such as the classroom. Nothing leaves me more exhausted than small-talk, aimless conversation, etc. I feel further and further removed from the outside world, insulated almost, and do you know this tendency to self-absorption goes back to my early childhood. I hated playing with other children. They used to make me go outside as a form of punishment (like you, I read very early on, though unlike you, I did not have childhood health problems to use as a defense against being thrown into the faces and voices of other people). What is strange is the survival of this feeling, that I always feel that when someone, anyone, speaks to me, that I am being thrown into their voice and face, and so I feel defenseless. I always talk to people out of politeness, and this politeness exhausts me sometimes. No, it is always exhausting. It is comforting to use a stereotype: people who write are not sociable. Maybe that is true. I know that I do not like being sociable, and I have never been able to tolerate mere sociability, though I tried during the time of my early writing life. As always, if you are not sociable, you are punished severely, for you have to represent your writing in some way, and all writing cultures still make the mistake of associating a personality with the writing.

I have no personality. This seems like a very important thing to say. It is rather like being a chameleon, or something (distant reptile cousin of the crocodile), able to change colors, skins, according to the danger. How do other people represent a danger? Their voices disturb, overwhelm. I always find other people’s voices overwhelming. Like a flood you cannot control. There seems to be a requirement made by most people, a form of demand: they want you to give them something, and I have nothing to give anyone. I have only what little energy I possess to give to writing, and as you know from Kafka’s journals, writing, all writing, whether prose or poetry, is extremely self-obsessive. Even though it has nothing to do with the self. Writing is always about being somewhere else, being someone else. More and more I am never the person writing, however personal my writing sounds, and the poetry has always been extremely private, excavating the private, or rescuing it from meaninglessness. That is my greatest anxiety, that everything that has ever happened to me that I’m aware of had no meaning. None at all. Anything and everything was simply accidental (coincidental). At certain times in my life I have been able to concentrate on writing to such a degree that everything else in the reality of the social world dissolves, and this has tended to make something of a chaos of my life (this word chaos that you were very interested about in Tomsk).

So I write to you on the last day of my holiday, and I don’t think I’ll do anything but read, though reading always sends me to writing, and I have placed a writing table in a corner of my flat that took me sixth months to discover, did you know that corners of flats are like that? You know that I have four rooms, including the kitchen. The writing desk is in none of the four rooms. Somehow, that seems significant. There is a hallway which connects the four rooms, the length of the flat, maybe it is 16 meters long. At the one end is the door to the stairs. At the other end, a recess on which at either side is the door to two rooms, the room where is sleep on the left (to the left of the writing desk) which has a window that faces in the direction of Inflancka Street, a large avenue which is also the old border of the barbed wire of the Jewish ghetto during the war, and to the right, what I have called before the beige room, very nice desk, wardrobe, bookshelf and sofa all the same light color, with a window that faces in the direction of the university, and which also represents the center of the old Jewish ghetto, and in this direction many of the old buildings still stand. What I like about the writing desk is that I can not look out of either window, because of the walls of the recess, so it is a little like writing from a foyer. There is a lamp on the desk, which, at night, or on grey days, throws light against the wall in front of me. There are no pictures on the walls anywhere. I rather like this reductive effect, a kind of purging of extra and trivial details, such as I would like my writing to resemble. If one could write in such a way, when the historical detail did enter, the archival sign, the irreducible atrocity, the very symptom of the collapse of a civilization, for it to have any referential power at all, you have to begin with an erased surface, with a white canvas. With a canvas, a surface, on which there are only gradations, degrees, of whiteness, so that the light has very little to interact with.

You see that I like to think a lot about writing. This to the detriment of other tasks, which, if I do not perform them adequately, can make my life difficult. Teaching is the best example, though even eating from day to day presents a problem sometimes. The greatest difficulty is reminding you of my own difficulty, my own obstinacy, my own fault (if it is a fault) of inability to think about other people. If they are in front of me, and speaking to me, then I try to obey whatever it is that they want from me, and do you know that most people just want to talk about themselves? As if their lives were at all interesting? Worse, most people want to overpower you. It makes me very afraid of others sometimes. Or cautious. You are very funny (with a grain of truth) when you say that which suffering is worse: suffering from your absence or suffering from your presence. Because we do make other people suffer. Often this seems like a negotiation. One cannot finally bear to live entirely alone, and yet I know from my own experience that there is nothing worse than trying to share your life, if there is very little life to share. That is what I mean by having very little personality. Very little presence. Even the thought of taking a walk seems like an exhausting activity, though if you were here we would go for long walks every day. Some writers swear by the act of walking, that it does something to their brains. So maybe there is something of writing in walking. Certainly you see things, very often quite familiar things, that you see in a new way, when walking. But your allusion to your own obstinacy, your own inability to endure the presence of another person, this is encouraging, to me, perhaps as a recognition of just how important is the private life, of keeping to oneself, of having a room to which one can shut the door, and be alone with a book or notebook, and not being obliged (required) to speak, to entertain.

I don’t think that I think enough about writing, and I never feel that I am writing enough, whether I am not writing at all, or whether I am writing all the time. This creates a permanent condition of unhappiness which sometimes approaches misery. I don’t write this for pity, even self-pity. It seems to be a requirement of giving in to writing, of making writing the one important, crucial and necessary activity. For it is extremely difficult to make anything worth reading. I’ll stop here with these somber comments. But I think you agree with most of them. Do you?

It felt very good to call you last night before you fell asleep. This is something I wish I could do more often. It reminds, also, don’t you think, how good it is for there to be someone to say goodnight to?

Which word do you prefer, nice or good? There was an English writer, Dorothy Richardson (you would like her novels very much) who once remarked that the word nice required a twisting of the lips, and it is true if you think about it like a language teacher, which her main character, Miriam, is, at the beginning of a seven or eight novel sequence. When you say nice, your mouth almost bites down, or bites back, in response. There is a meanness in the way the word is formed, compared to a word like good. It would be interesting to explore just how many words in English are like this, simple monosyllable words that disguise great violence. The German philosopher, Theodor Adorno, once wrote about that casual conversation on the train in which one finds oneself an accomplice to murder, and I wonder just how often this occurs in daily conversation in a language that is more and more applied to murder, responsible for such high thresholds of mortality. This is a writer’s thought, hardly scientific. But it is another reason for wanting to write in such a way as would explore words like nice that one simply cannot use any more. More and more there are more and more words in English that someone writing in English cannot use, for fear of the violence they inscribe in their semantic depths. I am surrounded by this violence in the Parrot School textbooks. I have probably never read such linguistically aggressive texts. This disturbs me, troubles me, to say the least. The word nice is written all over those books, manifold.

b

    y

        e

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Familiar woods

Дата: 13 апреля 2004 г. 13:48

dear zhen

do you like this passage from a novel i was reading yesterday?

“Then, early one evening in the middle of September, he decided to go out for a walk. The weather had turned by then, and the air was crisp, infused with the smells of fall. He put on his woolen hunting jacket and tramped up the hill beyond the house, heading north. He figured there was an hour of daylight left, which meant that he could walk for an hour before he had to turn around and start back. Ordinarily, he would have spent that hour shooting baskets, but the change of seasons was in full swing now, and he wanted to have a look at what was happening in the woods: to see the red and yellow leaves, to watch the slant of the setting sun among the birches and maples, to wander in the glow of the pendant colors. So he set off on his little jaunt, with no more on his mind than what he was going to cook for dinner when he got home.

     Once he entered the woods, however, he became distracted. Instead of looking at the leaves and migrating birds, he started thinking about his book. Passages he had written earlier that day came rushing back to him, and before he was conscious of what he was doing, he was already composing new sentences in his head, mapping out the work he wanted to do the next morning. He kept on walking, thrashing through the dead leaves and thorny underbrush, talking out loud to himself, chanting the words of his book, paying no attention to where he was. He could have gone on like that for hours, he said, but at a certain point he noticed that he was having trouble seeing. The sun had already set, and because of the thickness of the woods, night was fast coming on. He looked around him, hoping to get his bearings, but nothing was familiar, and he realized that he had never been in this place before. Feeling like an idiot, he turned around and started running in the direction he had come from. He had just a few minutes before everything disappeared, and he knew he would never make it. He had no flashlight, no matches, no food in his pockets. Sleeping outdoors promised to be an unpleasant experience, but he couldn’t think of any alternative. He sat down on a tree stump and started to laugh. He found himself ridiculous, he said, a comic figure of the first rank. Then night fell in earnest, and he couldnt’ see a thing. He waited for a moon to appear, but the sky clouded over instead. He laughed again. He was safe where he was, and freezing his ass off for one night wasn’t going to kill him. So he did what he could to make himself comfortable. He stretched out on the ground, he covered himself haphazardly with some leaves and twigs, and tried to think about his book. Before long, he even managed to fall asleep.

     He woke up at dawn, bone-cold and shivering, his clothes wet with dew. The situation didn’t seem so funny anymore. He was in a foul temper, and his muscles ached. He was hungry and disheveled, and the only thing he wanted was to get out of there and find his way home. He took what he thought was the same path he had taken the previous evening, but after he had walked for close to an hour, he began to suspect that he was on the wrong path. He considered turning around and heading back to the place where he had started, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to find it again–and even if he did, it was doubtful he would recognize it. The sky was gloomy that morning, with dense swarms of clouds blocking the sun….”

I quote this as an example of narrative transparency. The passage depends entirely on the expectation that something is going to happen in the plot, so the details are descriptive, functional, and operate on the act of reading as signs along a highway telling us how many kilometers until the next village. It is linear, in the sense of one sentence leading directly to the next, point A to point B to point C to point D, etc. I like though, the playfulness with the metaphor with being lost in the woods, and its complete minimalization, or trivialization, into the domain of the familiar and recognizable experience. This is nothing that couldn’t happen to anybody (except perhaps zhenya?) and the transparency also depends on this familiarity. When writing lyrically, one rarely gets past the smell of leaves, or the gap between yellow and red, not to mention the almost oppressive memory of Dante’s famous wood, selva, and all the poems that even only in English work from this, not to mention also all the forests of European fairy tales. None of that is here of course. For it to be there, the writing would have to become denser, thicker, allusive, and the road signs would disappear. The average reader would become impatient. And the story would eventually begin to dissolve. Neither is there a single word in this passage that stands on its own weight, the effect instead is cumulative, and it is instead of the story–in fact, for there to be a story, the material weight of the words themselves must dissolve. So, is it bad writing? Maybe not so much as bad, as typical. This kind of writing always reminds me of the kind of writing I cannot write. One becomes bored after the second sentence, when writing. Even the fact that the scene stays within the same subjectivity would be a problem, for me. The alternative? Dense writing, allusive writing, the kind of language that keeps asking itself what it is and what it is doing, the kind of writing that is always beginning to come to a stop so to start over again, from another direction.

Just a few thoughts about writing this morning, on my last day of reading before having to go back to work. And you?

  b

 y

e

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Counter-clock

Дата: 14 апреля 2004 г. 11:29

dear zhen

this morning my alarm clock went off and though I could hear it, for a moment I could not find it, as Ihad left the clock in the next room, actually on my writing desk, and for that moment, hearing and responding to the sound waking me from sleep (I had actually awakened about half an hour earlier as the light now is rather strong on clear mornings) without being able to find the source of the sound, I had the experience of someone who is dragged from bed not from the surprise of the sound of the alarm, but the problem of finding it. Don’t you think it would be an innovative idea to invent a mobile alarm, one that hides from its sleepers? One might name such an alarm, Sleepers Keepers (if you know the old children’s game, Finders Keepers). If you find something, it’s yours. In this case, if you find the alarm, you don’t have to get up. The obvious paradox, of course, would be that you are already up, and awake, and conscious, torn from sleep, dragged to attention, thrown into the conscious state, which, as we all know, is the domain of illusion, at the very least, mirrors of power and rhetorics of control, so why wake up at all? Why not let the alarm ring? Why try to find it? There has to be a motive for getting out of bed, so, to circumvent the time-honored tradition of the arm reaching from the bed to turn off the clock, the clock should be able to hide (time should be mobile!) and it’s finder, rewarded with a day off. Now that you are awake there is nothing you should do. Such inventions might constitute a reinvented world, where all the coordinates, though they remain, would point in unexpected directions, and nothing–no social process, such as going to work, for example–would function as expected, though the processes themselves would remain. People have to go to work, don’t they, even if they do nothing once they are there, or the work that they do goes nowhere, has no effect on anything other than the completion of a register recording that the assigned task was completed, on which date and at which time?

How quickly the morning cup of coffee disappears.

How suddenly I find myself thrown into the next day. I would resent this more, if I did not feel the eventual progress of the season (again, the light is spectactular this morning, and it is only a quarter past 7) and the arrival of summer, so?

There is nothing to complain about. Do I sound unhappy? Rather than unhappy, and I don’t think that I am, there is this sensation of not quite caring about this task or that, as regardless of my intervention, everything will proceed as before. There is, in fact, no intervention. Would you say this has been already discovered? No one makes the slightest difference. Not in art, not in history. Innovations are permutations, but the system itself remains unaffected.

Systems, processes. Where are we in all this? Parroting! There is much to be learned from Parrots. More than it is comfortable to realize.

Are you comfortable this morning? Did you notice, recently, a certain (or uncertain) gap between our letters? I can sense sometimes in your writing, the writing itself, beyond the direct response, though I don’t think that you care to be reminded of this. Perhaps it makes you uncomfortable. But that is another paradox: writing depends on the discomfiture of its writer, though, as you know, discomfiture means something somewhat different than discomfort. Why, after all, do we seek to be comforted? Of course, I could only ask this question after 7-8 hours of deep sleep, and waking feeling rested, greeting by the strong light of an early spring morning. That, in itself, is comfort. As is the choice, if I want one, of a second cup of coffee. As is, the fact, which you will enjoy (with irony) that I really don’t have to do anything today until about 15:00 (with the discomforting realization that my 17:00-21:00 parrot classes will exhaust me, and then I will return home, and exhausted, prepare tomorrow’s classes.

So, I have about 6 or 7 free hours today. Soon, by Saturday, I will have some more (free hours). What in the world is a free hour? What is free time? This seems very contradictory to me. The very consciousness of time (which begins as soon as we open our eyes in the morning) is the source of our sharpest oppression. So I think I am writing you this morning a letter against time, or at least, giving it the least attention. Thank you very much for the care and wit of your letters lately. It makes me feel (comforted!) when you are able to give a few moments to writing, and that writing is addressed to me.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Divine intervention

Дата: 15 апреля 2004 г. 2:50

dear zhen

i am writing you tonight as tomorrow there will be no time, heavy day. tonight i brought home 1300 pl from the parrot school (about 350 dollars and who knows how many euros) and felt, for a moment, the sacrifice of my sanity was worth it. the tone of your letter is perfect, extremely energetic. you are, after all, very energetic, though you contain your energy, always. how do you do this? my energy is going somewhere i do not know where. tomorrow i have too many classes. in the morning class, first morning class, we will discuss Ice T, the rapper, and his killer cop lyrics. in the second class, american culture, we will discuss the shopping mall and its distant ancestor, disneyland. in the third class (linguists!) the recommended topic is: serial killers! then one hour break, and conversation class at the Dunce College. my life is a weird combo now, like a bad soggy sandwich which no doubt you were served many in Alaska. my head feels like a big soggy sandwich. mayonaisse on a croissant with cheap cheese and even cheaper meat, sliced ham or turkey. synthetic, or polyester. does this sound like complaining? if the visa invitation does not go through, do you know what we should do? we should go to cyprus. there, that will make you wish the invitation is not approved. i would like to go to cyprus. i will have enough money. or, i would like to go to capri, benjamin’s and gorky’s old stomping grounds. malta also sounds nice. somewhere where there is sea, a lot of sea. i need the sea. and you? you? you? do not forget that you are not insane. you are one of the most completely uninsane people i have ever met, and yet, you have every good reason for being insane. so, i think, this is a compliment. tomorrow i will act completely sane, though it is (the situation) completely insane. Rap, shopping malls and serial killers, with “Lost on Mount Everest” as the topper, in conversation class. Not to mention, Karen Silverman, of Radiation Secrets Exposure fame (she died mysteriously in the conversation textbook materials, long before Chernobyl). Pray for me to some Wrathful Hebrew Deity.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: My regards

Дата: 16 апреля 2004 г. 10:48

dear zhen

your report of your dacha very painfully (for me) reflects on a metaphor, roof, consciousness, etc., when as you know I am well aware of just how important this place was and is for you, as a center and focus for well-being, even escape. So you must know that I feel terrible about it, for you. I am very sorry this has happened. It gives the sense of violation, more than the theft itself, that something is fundamentally wrong, everywhere, and with everything. Now there is the practical concern for exposure, the potential for damage to the interior, and the problem of immediate repair and the threat of bad weather. Has anything like this happened to any of your neighbors before?

In comparison, it seems trivial to complain about life here, at least today will not be as bad as yesterday. then interlude. Monday I have 5 classes, the first one at 9:00 in the morning and the last one ending at 9 in the evening. Something is wrong about this also, but is nothing that I cannot solve myself. It does not have the frustration of the arbitrary and violent threat of destruction which the theft at your dacha represents. I am worrying for you, about you, how this must make you feel, knowing that you will pretend to find in this event an irony, but there is potential for deeper, emotional damage. I hope none of my words contribute to this feeling (sometimes it is called despair).

Would you smile if I told you this morning the procedures have been reversed? Instead of shower first and then coffee, I am drinking coffee without having showered, so I am writing you in state of unawakedness. I do not know whether it is the shower or the coffee that wakes me up. And what does it mean to be awake, mechanically obedient to the day’s schedule? Well, I am beginning to complain again. Sometimes my words to you sound like so many sighs, as on a long walk uphill. I wish we were walking somewhere today, together.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Practical words

Дата: 16 апреля 2004 г. 23:51

dear zhen

then I am writing this in the early evening after coming home from the Parrot School and reading your letter. I feel badly for your father and please, remember me to him and say to him that I am very sorry for what has happened, for I have been a visitor there, to this place that he built for his wife and daughter, and I appreciate how beautiful this place is, and how much it must mean to him. Would you please tell your father this? He was once quite kind to me in conversation, saying even that I could speak Russian (maybe this may even become so this summer). May it become so.

Strange words? Shock. I suppose. If I were in Tomsk, I would bring your family a gift. Something for the garden. I feel darker and darker all the time, and such events resonate strangely for me as ominous coincidences. As for theft, it is impossible to inhabit this psychology, though the actual behavior is easy enough to understand. You must feel sometimes that the world around you is growing more and more harsh, and unpredictable. And if I may say so, the defense system is too successful sometimes, when words and angry words, protesting, are good and helpful for the one who is hurting, the one whom someone has hurt.

Especially difficult is the absence of an object at which one may express their anger, frustration, sense of violation. It is wrong to enter someone else’s house. It is a terrible wrong. This, despite the relatively relaxed custom of welcoming strangers, in your part of the world. In the remnants of that village culture. What good are words? What can they do? What can I write that may appease the violation of the very space where you rest, read and dream?

So, I will write something very practical. You need to erect a tarp of canvas or plastic as soon as possible to protect the floor and the walls on the upstairs, or inclement weather will damage your dacha further. This should be done this weekend. It should be possible to buy rolls of strong plastic used in construction, and this can be stapled with a carpenter’s staple gun to protect the building. Your father may be too upset to do this. Do you think you can ask some of your friends to help you, perhaps Sunday?

Why do I write this way? Because when I was a child, I helped to build my family’s house, and I also one worked in construction, building houses during the summer. Let me know what you are able to do to protect the rest of the building.

bye
От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Thank you for calling

Дата: 18 апреля 2004 г. 14:19

dear zhenya,

i am hoping you check your email before leaving the office, wanting to write to you only to thank you for the pleasure of hearing your voice, and the reassurance that you are quite alright despite the vandalism of your dacha. Your voice does sound very good to me. I will try to call you next Sunday, availability of phone cards permitting. Now, finish your lecture and go home and get something to eat, then read a good novel, like Kafka or Bulgakov. Don’t you wish there were more? Novels worth reading, I mean, not more of my rather predictable advice.

I miss you

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: Thank you for calling

Дата: 19 апреля 2004 г. 0:09

dear Zhenya,

I am writing tonight a short note (we say, dropping a line) as tomorrow I will go to the university early, around 7:00 a.m. for xeroxing before going to Dunce College.

It was a quiet day today, calm, I think from influence of hearing your voice. I read for my own pleasure for awhile, went shopping, returned, prepared conversation classes tomorrow (they are exhausting, as one must have activities planned, since the students do not prepare, so everything must happen according to the moment and their mood, but fortunately, all three classes are the same so I simply have the same class three times) and prepared also for one of my seminars on Tuesday, since I won’t have time tomorrow. My supper was a cold supper, leftover chicken, beets and carrots in marinade. Yesterday I made excellent carrots and onions fried in olive oil with herbs. So, I have eaten well the past two days, and this also, as you know, improves one’s mood and ability to concentrate. Now, at 20:00, all my work is done, and if there is a half-decent movie on tonight, I may watch it (as you also know, my standards are rather low).

The best thing today, other than your call, was the idea which I even made notes towards, for Fall Seminar: Representations of American History in the postwar novel. As I mentioned, for escape, I have been reading novels lately, very many, sometimes almost one a day, about 200-300 pages (I tend to read novels very fast as they present little interest in way of language), and I realized that at the library there are many such novels, which are very good for language teaching, the students like reading them, and it turns out that quite a few address specific historical periods, so I can mix literature with history. The idea was so simply, it bothered me I had not thought of it before. I was too ambitious this year, trying to teach from concepts such as the Vernacular or City Spaces. The trick is to start out simply, and let the students do the work, if they wish. If they don’t want to work, that’s their problem. The greater problem, what will I propose to teach next year, was also solved.

I have no more problems to solves tonight, so I will say goodbye, with also the reminder that it feels very good to be liked by you, dear.

bye

—– Original Message —–

From: “Lukyanova” <lev@tpu.ru>

To: “Kevin Magee” <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2004 12:15 PM

Subject: Re: Thank you for calling

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Before leaving this morning

Дата: 19 апреля 2004 г. 10:28

dear zhen

it is a few minutes after 6:00 this morning, and though I should be reading “Bribes for Tests” for discussion in my 9:00 o’clock class, it is more of a pleasure to write to you, even if there is nothing more than the time allows me to say than that my coffee tastes good this morning. Sometimes that is an important accomplishment. An unusually heavy sleep made it difficult for me to respond to the alarm clock, even though I went to bed before midnight, and lately because of the light I have been waking up between 5:00 and 5:30. Reistance? Not wishing this day to begin? Does it begin when my cup of coffee is empty? When this letter is finished? When I board the bus? I have reconciled myself to leaving the apt. at 6:30. One hour from first stunned reaction: Where am I? Who am I? Why aren’t I sleeping? (Why cannot be said ‘Why am’t I sleeping?). Then shock of shower. Shaving, then stumble to kitchen. Coffee. Than first consciousness. Now I am the person who will work from 9:00 until 21:00 today, with hour long bus from downtown Parrot School to my flat, which means I will get home at 22:00 and still have two hours preparation left for a seminar meeting tomorrow, as the book of essays we are reading from is at the library, which I must remember to get this morning, or I will have nothing to say tomorrow. Yesterday, however, was a pleasant day. Did I tell you that I heard from my friends Dima and Julie in Chita? They are very happy, having moved into a three-room flat. This is a big change, as you know, from two-room flat. Something is amiss. I skipped the intermediary stage. I went from one-room hotel room to three-room flat. Or else, my two-room flat year was in Chita, though I don’t know if in Russia you count the kitchen as one of the rooms. It felt to me like one-room flat. If you sleep and eat and read and watch TV all in the same room, it is a one room flat, yes? At the museum in Chita, there was a show of Stalin-era “homes”: one room, one table, two chairs, one chest of drawers for clothes, forks and knives, not much else. Except for picture of you-know-who. Why am I remembering going to that museum this morning? I think there must be many Russias. At least as many as there are of any other place. I should not try to write on a day when I must teach conversation.

Perhaps you will write to me today so that I will have something pleasant to read when I arrive home tonight?

As for the mysteries of language, in English there is only one letter difference between roof and room but the ending letters _f_ and _m_ make all the difference between the two words. Roof semantically is never ceiling, strange noun that has no root morpheme. Roof is heavy, tonally, and room is lighter. The end of the second word is not so sharp, not so complete closure. The plural of roof is always a problem in English, like hoof of the horse. Roof of the house. Hoof of the horse. But the duration of the vowels, although they look identical, are not the same. Hoof sounds like sound in “enough.” English is a very strange language, don’t you agree?

bye
От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: still alive

Дата: 20 апреля 2004 г. 10:01

dear zhen

yes, it is true, i am still here, among the living, after yesterday. the evening ended with the bus breaking down at 22:00 and my having to walk the last several kilometers home. The second time this week a bus or a tram has broken down while I have been availing myself of such services as public transport can offer. Twice in one week. I will not read into this any more meaning than the utterly random. Everything is random, isn’t that a consolation? The only patterns are those they sew into the rugs. Everything else is pure coincidence, happenstance, chance. Did you know the difference between the expression of probability and supposition in English? Yesterday in the British Council library I found a newer edition of the grammar/vocabulary textbook you brought with you to Palangas, and it looked like an oasis compared to the Parrot School textbook. According to the Parrot School textbook, Winston Churchill was a round little man with a smile like a little boy. It is absolutely bizarre (as in, absurd) to hear students repeating this. When I am not tired, the hours of this rubbish are simply extra money, but when I am tired, as yesterday, and as this morning, more sinister shadows of thoughts prevail, and for the moment I grow hateful of the language in my head, my verbal impulses and reflexes, no matter how pleasant I try to be, the fact remains that I speak English, and I know who Winston Churchill was. What else is new? I am writing to you by now a familiar lament. No thoughts about eating, today. Did you manage to go to the restaurant? Do you know what the four meanings of _keep_ are? Conserve, maintain, hold and continue. Just in case you were wondering. There are other meanings of other words, in case you are interested. Myself, I am less and less interested. Seriously, English appears to be disappearing before my eyes, and this is a strange phenonomenon for a poet. I will try to write you another few lines this evening, again late in the evening, to assure you I have not fallen beneath a tram as the editor whose name I have already forgotten in the novel I have yet to finish.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Simple

Дата: 21 апреля 2004 г. 11:33

dear Zhen

We have a saying in English, The simple pleasures of the poor. In Russian, it is probably, The simple pleasures of the still alive. A day off is one such simple pleasure. Today is not exactly a day off. In 12 hours I must go to the Parrot School for a private lesson (one student). Between the three schools, in the last two days I have taught 16 hours plus one hour faculty meeting and two hours office hours. 19 hours in two days, plus about two hours transportation, so let’s say, two 11-hour days. Yesterday the bus breaks down. Here, when the bus breaks down, the doors open and everyone melts into the surrounding streets. In U.S., the bus driver apologizes to the passengers, and calls a back-up bus. It is assumed, I think, that if a passenger gets off the bus while their ticket is still active, and an accident happens, then the bus (the city transport service) is liable to lawsuit. Just one example of the intense legal environment of the U.S. I only notice this by its absence, which is interesting in itself. Here, the idea is probably, When the bus breaks down, your ticket is cancelled. You no longer have a contract with the city. In the U.S. also, teachers are always told in memorandums that their syllabi are legal contracts, and some students have sued colleges for breach of contract if they are not taught what is stated on the syllabus. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if we could sue our students for failure to prepare. That is the great problem here, and one that is tiring for me. Half the students do not read the material, and they are by custom inclined to only listen to the lecture, so I cannot expect students to ask me questions. Instead, the expectation is that I talk, they listen. It is very boring for me, and tiring. And you know, I am bored rather easily. More than the hours, it is the intense boredom that troubles me now, here. Boredom is not a simple pleasure, it is rather complex feeling, one that evolves and develops, and the more often one is bored, the more intense the boredom, and the greater the expanse of boredom. This you call the Dull, yes? Dull Dunces, Dolts, or, more simply, people just struggling to get by. That is the kinder interpretation, and perhaps today, as it is a day off, I feel more kind. Why should anyone want to read anything that they don’t have to? What will I read today? Yesterday on the email list I subscribe to there was very long first-person account of recent battle in Iraq, in Falluja. The fallen world. The news, and it is news, a report, is terrible. This is the first thing I will read this morning, a very warm, wet and green morning. Then I will feel a moment of anger, and then the anger will subside. I will probably feel hungry, and after eating peanut butter and jam on bread, I will no longer feel either hungry or angry. This is a big joke in the Parrot School textbook. First I ask, What do you do when you’re angry? Then, What do you do when you’re hungry? If, in answer to the first question, the student answers, When I’m angry I eat, the teacher is supposed to laugh and then lower the boom: When I HHHHungry I eat! (Cruel laughter with fist hitting against palm of the hand). When I’m angry I shout: Long live the Lancers of Bengal! Long live the Charge of the Lightbrigade! Long live Winston Churchill! God Bless England! God Bless Racing Pigeons! (There is actually page-long description of pigeon-racing tricks the student must memorize). I do not believe I have ever been exposed to such stupidity, or, it is mass psychosis. Onward, the 600 hundred, etc. That was in Crimea. There were Russians there. Last night, in answer to the question, When did soldiers stop using swords in battle (the answer in the textbook was more than 100 years ago, i.e., the Charge of the Light Brigade) one student answered, 1939, and then explained, the Polish cavalry used swords in 1939 against German tanks. You see the implications of such moments. Another question in the textbook is: Is is possible for a man to kill another man with his bare hands? And the answer the student is given in the textbook is: Yes, it is possible for a man to kill another man with his bare hands by putting his hands around his neck and pressing his throat until he is dead. This must be British humor. Or, one gets a glimpse of the Old Guard British Absurd. And there are Parrot Schools all over Poland. Thousands of Polish citizens having to learn English to survive (or fear of survival) learn how to repeat repeat instructions for killing another human being with bare hands. Do not we live in an absurd universe? Can we go to the Kharms theater production this summer? Even if we must go to Moscow? Well, I think it is high time to read about all the people dying in Falluja. Suddenly I do not feel like writing this letter anymore. Sudden absence of energy. The fingers can barely touch the keys. I want to fall over and fall back to sleep. I want to fall down. In this fallen world. Fall will be in September, though I do not know exactly when Fall arrives. Spring arrives on the 21st of March. Winter arrives on the 21st of December. Of course, in Russia, the dates are different. I have still a few dates from Iran left. Perhaps I will eat them this morning. Last night I drank the rest of my Grape juice (the kind we use to buy in the shop in the dacha village). Today I have only water, and coffee and tea, to drink. I almost never drink tea. I never drink more than two cups of coffee a day. This is not humor. Simply the simple pleasures of the poor. You might add, and rather poorly written! So, now, for now, today,

bye

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: 19:20

Дата: 21 апреля 2004 г. 18:21

Dear Zhen

Just a note to wish you well this evening. I am reading and resting today. After two hour nap, a phone call from the Parrot School informing me my class tonight had been cancelled. One free day! No doubt, you will say, The luxury life. This morning I read the article on the beseiged city in Iraq, Falluja, and was stricken by the fact that the article is one week old, and I have no idea what has happened in the interval. It is like living in dark house, or at the bottom of the sea. But it is a good sign from the world that I come from that such narratives, first-hand reports, are coming out of the horror of the war. In the book I am reading today, about post-war urban architecture, war is called “celebration of markets.” Do you know that growing up in Tomsk, you have been raised among an architecture vastly different from the space in which I was raised? You do not know what is an inner city, as you do not know the vast interiors of corporate office parks. What an atrium is. How does space contribute to the psychic space we carry with us. I like very much my memories of travelling by marshutka in Tomsk, and walking in minutes with you to vast open fields along the river. The custom of the townspeople in Tomsk of gathering at the side of the river on warm evenings, visiting and drinking. Our walk with Olga the last night I was in Tomsk before returning in September. Do you know that you live in a town? That is what has been destroyed in the U.S. during the course of urban expansion. I wonder how much the architectural space of the modern city contributes to the mental vacuum (abyss) (deep or depthless empty space) (void) where the spectacle of the destruction of others lives appears almost fantasmatically. The processes of social control and totalitarian mapping or urban space are the subjects of the book I am reading today. I hope you have already gone home for the day. I will write to you tomorrow morning. Back to my reading …

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Writing

Дата: 22 апреля 2004 г. 10:37

dear zhen

one thing that does not trouble me, is that i don’t often write to you as someone writing, or is this one more thing that does trouble me? so i write to you from the person, the first person, that someone you know very well, and from time to time that you say you like, and so i write to you as that person whose bus breaks down, whose classes irritate (as your classes irritate) and whose sensibility is disturbed by the text of the English which, in one way or another, is my reason for being here, and i should never forget that i am here only, only, as a teacher of English, not for my writing accomplishments, not for professional associations, not even vacation. it helps me that i do not feel that i am here as a tourist, but neither can i ever say that i am anywhere near being integrated into the place where i live and work. yesterday i wrote to you twice, once before and once after the encounter with the report from only one city in the world where people are being killed. something happened in mid-afternoon. the kind of intense empty space that i know so well from writing. also the effect of rest. the problem is that the convention, like literary convention, dialogue or montage, of writing to you from the person’s daily obstacles, and once in a while genuine small pleasures, does not permit me to write from the person writing. there is that person sometimes. no longer a person. writing has a way of effacing the person. also the trouble of the relation to whatever is understood to be reality, social or political, the world, in other words, which, for writing, can never be generalized into an acceptance of suffering. we accept this generalization every day, of course, simply to be able to function. writing is never about function or being able to function. there was a moment yesterday of pure paralysis. brought to the still point. hand tracing letters over pages, repetitions of sounds, trying to hear, trying to listen to the interiority of the one writing never quite a person. to write, perhaps it means to allow oneself to be the disturbance that interrupts the daily rhythm, which we both experience as a dominant and demand, or at least to follow the disturbance. that is all that i can say about writing this morning, except that i almost never write from the person writing, and as compensation, the other person, that other person who gets up, goes to work, comes home, eats and sleeps, the shadow self, exaggerates what happens in a day, so as not to write about what or what is not happening on the page of writing.

i hope you had a nice visit with Natasha. is she recording a new cd soon?

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Abeyance

Дата: 23 апреля 2004 г. 10:50

dear zhen

low energy morning. it must be the increasingly warm mornings. i would like nothing better than to stay home and read (reading for a course proposal that i have to submit in a couple of weeks). the articles i was going to write about regarding Sokurov are assembled, but i haven’t assembled them yet, to begin reading critically, can i ask one small favor? when does Larissa need the abstract? you begin to see, i am helpless with respect to dates and deadlines. difficult to concentrate on anything than immediate demands. already monday’s more and more dreaded conversation classes at the Dunce College are intruding into my thoughts. it is the familiar problem of having to come up with one’s own teaching materials. the concept of a textbook is entirely unknown here, and this places the stress on the person teaching, while removing from the school any responsibility for providing teaching materials. an old problem, in this corner of the gutted world. that time given to reading, though, with the change in the weather, conducive to floating states, even momentary clouds of contentment. passing moments. i won’t however, extend this to advice, that you should stay home at least one day, just to rest. then, does one rest at home? do you? or is there simply another rhythm parallel to the work rhythm, when what is needed is an entirely new rhythm. there is a word i like in English for this idea: abeyance. i am curious as to what is the Russian translation. There are surprisingly (why it is surprising, i don’t know) few details to report on daily life, or at least none that I’ve noted. as i indicated yesterday, lately it feels like looking at life in passing, and from quite a distance. all the senses there are in the word, removed. i have one consolation, in comparison to the sudden and unexpected demands you mention re translations: my work at least is predictable, and no one asks me to do something other than teach the classes i was given. my mistake was taking too many classes. i hope (against hope!) that i do not have to teach at the parrot school tonight.

today i am going to try to find a phone card, and if i am successful i will call you on Sunday. of course i will write again whether or not there is a card available which permits calls to Russia.

have you heard anything more about the Kharms production? i am curious about tne receptivity among general public of this period (absurdist experiments). is there a website for the theater production?

how long has it been since you have been to the theater? are there any music or other arts festivals to take place in Tomsk this summer? of course, one never knows until rather suddenly. it is what we call, almost idle curiosity. i remember that you do not care to go to the cinema. at least as much as I remember your story of watching Solaris when you were a child. maybe after the experience of such a private cinema (in contrast to commercial ones now) there can be hardly any interest. the cinema for faculty in your childhood would have played a film like Sokurov’s.

my mind is wandering this morning. you can see, i don’t wish to do or be anything except inert.

so, inertly and ineptly, yours

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Good news

Дата: 23 апреля 2004 г. 17:43

dear zhen

not even 13:30 and i am home for the afternoon and for the rest of the day. Parrot School tomorrow for three hours, and the rigamorole does not begin again until monday, another monster day, 5 classes, 19 hours scheduled next week mon-sat at parrot school (190 dollars) and i was clever (sometimes i am clever) i went to british council to check out textbooks to use for dunce college classes and found one CAE and one FCE teacher’s books, and this will help to the end of the semester. Monday i am supposed to be paid at the dunce college, i have no idea how much. i am a bit of a dunce myself. at the british council, looking at list of events, i saw that yesterday and today in Crocow one of my old teachers and a published translator of Zabalotsky was part of a panel at the university there on translation. had i known, i could have cancelled my classes and gone there, though it has been almost 20 years, don’t know what i would say. still, i would have gone had i known. it is a reminder that i am living beneath the sea here, without much awareness of where i am or what is possible. i have a lot of novels related to the course for next year i am going to propose and post-war imaginations of American history, it turns out that there’s quite a lot of material available here at the institute’s library, and most of it writing that i have never read, so i am interested (not bored) at least for a while. actually, it is a very old idea, reflection of historical processes through fictive constructions (i am sure you encountered this when at the university, or in russia, probably high school, reading Tolstoy (it is the way Lenin reads Tolstoy–representation of the peasantry, etc.). Well, i am going to try such an old idea on contemporary fiction, and see what happens. i am at the very least interested in talking about the imagination of history, and not formal properties of novels, as i have no interest in novelistic technique. And, it means a lot of reading. That is all i am going to do until midnight. 

“the light is very bright today”

bye

(until speaking with you sunday)

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Half a letter in twice

Дата: 24 апреля 2004 г. 11:05

dear Zhen,

I was just returned to old times. After writing about half an hour, my email program had a glitch, as we say, and I lost the letter. So, I begin over again. Sometime I will try to explain what I mean by old times. I never forget them. It is why I can never live again in the U.S. though that sounds rather dramatic, without the explanation of what old times means. The challenge is not to fall into nation or even people hatred, and this is intensifying here. I try not to teach anti- anything, but last week one of my classes (fifth-year students) indulged in Stereotype theme for discussion, and this gave them full room for expressing how much they hate Americans. Only one or two of the students had either been to England or America, so the emotion is reflection of many factors, I think. It is not hard to imagine what those factors are, but it is a collision, and the immediate older-generation here for many years was extremely pro-American, and now especially with much of the language about EU integration, there is, in the air, I suppose, a lot of country and people hatred which I have to negotiate. Sometimes it is tempting to participate in it, especially when I remember old times.

But there are new times, as this summer. It helps with the problem of having to find energy to teach at Parrot School (this morning, raining morning, dreamy morning) when I would rather read. With all the obstacles (house-cleaning, shopping, laundry, etc) chances are I won’t be able to return to my reading until mid-afternoon, if not later. Then Sunday, for the most part without demands, except that already the classes for the Dunce College will loom, so that there is not a free day this weekend. The thought of this summer softens this demand, almost daily now, to go to work here and there, and though we can talk about it tomorrow, I want to ask about what you think about my taking a flat in downtown area for between 150-200 dollars, at least for July-August. It will be a very good time to write. Even the thought of the landscape makes me feel dreamy (which is not difficult on such a morning as this).

Well, I am sending you only half of a letter. It is 7:00 and I must leave in an hour for teaching. Would you like to give some time this summer to visiting Novisibirsk? Perhaps going to some galleries and studios there? I remember very well your comment that Novisibirsk was like Moscow, only without the pretentiousness. Again, something to talk about tomorrow. I hope you do not have to work too hard today. Very likely I will return at 1:00 today and do nothing but read.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Saturday postscript

Дата: 24 апреля 2004 г. 17:09

dear zhen

i hardly think you will be in your office at this time now 13:02 though it is not unimaginable, and i also often forget that your childhood was spent in the flat on the next floor above your office, so it is a different space that my word for it. i am home now and I have about 24 hours of freedom before having to begin worry about Monday. today the bus police checked tickets only minutes after i had punched my second one (and it was a debate raging in my head, whether or not to try to make it to the end of the line, my stop, without punching new ticket worth about 70 cents. If i had not, today, it would have cost me 80 zl. on a morning when i made 90 zl. so you can imagine that i feel quite satisfied that i spent 70 cents to save 30 dollars. i was rather upset when both times the tram and the bus broke down last week i still have several minutes time left on my ticket. one longs for the simple system of russian bus conducteresses or conductresses, i don’t know which is the correct form, as there is no such person in English-speaking countries. What are they in Russian? Attendants? That would be the best word i think in English. So now i am returning to my reading, though low air pressure on this warm rainy day has given me a headache, and without even the pleasure of wine the evening before. like bus ticket, it feels a little like having been cheated. if i have a headache, it should at least be in compensation for wine, not weather. i hope your saturday evening is pleasant, and i will call you about 15:00 your time tomorrow at your office? if this is not a good time, write me when.

kisses

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Diasporics

Дата: 25 апреля 2004 г. 22:02

dear zhen

i am writing you late sunday afternoon when you are asleep of should be. Attached is the article i mentioned. the aspect that concerns me about national patrimony is not the abstraction, ie. to which country the art belongs, but the fact, if you compare this article with that from the writer from novosibirsk, writing about art there, is that with the hardship economy and the difficulty of travel young russian artists are deprived by the international art market of tangible contact and communication with an earlier generation of artists. my article for larissa’s conference is beginning to take shape. get the visa first, you will say. do you know that all day i have been having presentiments (intuitions, which i believe in) that if and whether it might be possible to publish a book of poems in English in Russia (the book about the Russian art appear to be in both Russian and English) so the thought, the idea, that I might contact your neighbor from your youth who works in Moscow and who has met V. Shklovsky and likes Prigov’s poetry, and propose a publishing project, a book of poems about 200-250 pages, in English, which I would pay for, and which would be an experiment of publishing poetry in English in Russia. The idea is based on the low cost of books in Russia. They did this in Paris in the 1920s. That is where James Joyce’s Ulysses was first published. Of course we would have to exchange letters, and I would meet him, with the proposal already stated in writing, did I leave any copies of my book Recent Events at your flat? Well, it is only an idea, but it might be possible for the letter of introduction and the arrangement for a short meeting, lunch, for example, during my flight to Tomsk in late June. Sometimes a lot can be communicated in conversation. these are just thoughts. but there is no reason to think that the summer does not need to be active, you will be translating your fathers textbook, and i will help you as i can, as much as i can, and i will be writing, and designing two new websites. also, if you inquire about the repairs to the Macintosh laptop, could you also inquire about the cost of installing a digital video card into an IBM 600E laptop (your friend who is a computer wizard could probably tell you how much this card, called a video card, costs). Here, in Poland, it would be about 200 dollars, though it should be about half that price. I want to make a series of very short digital video films for a 50 megabyte website for publication in October next year.

Do you know that I think sometimes that you prefer me to have ideas about doing things than talking about how I feel on a given day? Today has been very good. All my coursework reading is done, Turkey Breast is cooking in the oven, I will read tonight, and my course for next year is a solid concept. From here, from across the ocean, I can actually think about American Culture more solidly, concretely, often even without rancor. Or bitterness. Your words about forgetting and forgiving are very beautiful, from an earlier letter. but what are you really writing about? there is so much that we don’t know, about the choices there are to make, perhaps this summer our minds will be as clear as the skies above the Thom River. Really I don’t imagine much beyond long walks along the river with you, Salo and Black Bread and Dark Beer, quiet and calm in a flat in the downtown near your flat so that the two flats will seem connect, close to one another, and I hope we may have dinners sometimes with your mother and father. this summer can be very, very beautiful if we wish it to be so.

Kisses

b y e

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Monday night non-news

Дата: 27 апреля 2004 г. 1:52

dear zhen

thank you for mailing the invitation on such an icy day. it is hard to imagine from here. my thoughts about book etc. are long range, not something about near future, but part of thoughts about russia and part of how glad i am to be able to come to russia again (i know, wait till visa, etc). today i learned i am being payed 41 zlotys for 45 minutes teaching at the dunce college, which means about 1 zloty per hour, so you see i have improved from 1 ruble an hour last september. each class i teach is 82 zlotys, so for one hour and 30 minutes i receive the same pay as 3 hours at the parrot school. today i taught in both places, and earned 100 dollars: 4 and one half hours at dunce college, 4 hours at parrot school. i almost forgot i have two seminars to teach tomorrow morning from university which arranged for my being here in the first place. i am also starting to feel like coming down with a cold. headache, nose, sore throat, etc. too much cold, damp rain lately, and i am too much in it all the time, without umbrella. today the tram broke down again. everyone got off, including woman with baby carriage, then tram started, and everyone jumped back on. would you believe i have nothing else to report, except that i am tired, sneezing and sniffling, and i have to read some more tonight before going to sleep. wednesday morning you may expect a longer letter from me, now it is only monday night. tomorrow i have to go to the university early, and 4 more hours in the evening at the parrot school. i miss you.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Cold coffee

Дата: 27 апреля 2004 г. 11:02

dear zhen

what would be a morning without coffee and writing you a few words. we say few to mean not many and a few to mean some, little and a little mean the same, though we do not say littler and littlest as it does not sound pleasant to the ear. we say instead fewer and fewest. so, here a a few words, with the Parrot School textbook introduction on the profundity of the difference between few and little. i have a new name for the Parrot School: Obstacle School. you place obstacles (meaningless information) between the student and the language. like, what are tricks for racing pigeons. like, how can a man murder another man. like, how many special verbs are there in English (i have always read of them in language teaching as modal verbs, very interesting aspect of English, hard to think what English would be like (if it could express any emotion at all, or doubt, or hesitation, without modality) but we only make them memorize the 12 special verbs and their 9 functions. or, perhaps there is military genius or total reduction at work. you see i am already preparing for tonights classes. we have another saying, money in the bank. yesterday i lost my good writing pen, a parker fountain pen, breaking one of my few rules, never take good writing pen out of house. i took my writing pen out of my flat, and promptly lost it. this one was almost 8 months old. i liked it very much. i think i will be in mourning for it the rest of this week. yesterday, for more than an hour, it was all i could think about. where is my pen? where is it? where did i leave it? then the tram broke down, and for a moment, there was another problem: how do i get from here to there if i don’t know where i am, here? so you see, my days are full of events. the good news is that it appears i will have three days off at the end of this week: saturday, sunday and monday. i am making a promise to myself to do absolutely nothing for my classes during these three days. no preparation, no grading. perhaps i will write the essay for larissa’s conference. with the article about the 20s art i sent you yesterday, another article about film in a scholarly journal, Slavic Review, and six-eight review type articles (including one long theoretical one) i have enough background sources to complete a summary and perspective, on the theme of art and national identity, with the idea of patrimony floating somewhere in the background. on the one hand, it is almost an intellectual consensus that national identity promotes ethnic antagonism, and you may remember yourself saying that under the old regime in Russia, communism was nationalism. this is absolutely correct (though you don’t need me telling you this). however, there are less abstract ideas (ideals?) involved: very practically, shouldn’t artists working in the country of their language have access to art made in their language, culture and country. Is the West looting Russia, the Middle East, etc? What about so-called progressive Western representations in contemporary films, are these superior to native films? How much influence do filmic and other visual representations have anyway? All of these are rather vague questions, but tolerance (the sense of the limit, bounday, dividing line) is what i wish to write about. is there a deadline for at least the abstract for larisa’s conference? that, also, i could write this weekend. what is truly exciting for me (and i sense it here sometimes) is that we are today in the middle of a collison of cultures, and there are dominant and minority or perceptions of strength/weakness or even reductively, good/bad operating in notions of cultural products, especially in the markets of film and the visual arts. Western perceptions almost always involve some notion of superiority, or modernity, of progressiveness, and whether or not this is true, what is the cost of being blind to the pre-modern, which tends to be forgotten in the accelerated historical processes in Europe and America.

Enough for now. I must to teach. To go to teach, I must. And you? Are teaching today you also? We today teach both too much.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Our plans

Дата: 27 апреля 2004 г. 18:34

dear zhen

you should be home by now but on the off chance you’re not i’m writing at 14:30 with two hour break before going to Obstacle School formerly known as Parrot School. I received a memo today informing me that i have been appointed to the summer and september examination board, and the dates fit perfectly with our dates, if i recall, for the invitation, June 23 – Sept 20. My presence is requested for the 7-9 of June and the 22 of September. Larisa’s conference is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 17th? Or Saturday, the 18th? Thought you’d be glad to know that so far our planning is well within the range of reason. That sounds like a nice phrase. I wonder what it means. Hope your day went well. Mine is half over.

bye
От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: Your nb plans

Дата: 28 апреля 2004 г. 12:56

dear zhen

it’s great (did you know that great means large in both the physical and spiritual sense – more tidbits of Parrot School wisdom) to have a practical problem: which notebook for Zhenya. Do you know the best thing about notebook – it will pique/peak your interest in all things computer, which i sense in you a natural proclivity for. It is also inviting place to write notes, diaries, odds & ends, subscribe to mailing lists, communicate with others around the world – mobility, mobility, and speed! All those great(?) western attributes. Now, for practical matters, the Macintosh screen is 14.1 inches (this ibm is 12 something and i think the reduced size is compensated by the lightness of the machine, only 2 kilos. But 15 inches is great for eyes, and for multimedia presentations, even powerpoint and spreadsheets which at least in your job you have need for. What is the difference in price? More important, perhaps, is the megaherz – when i bought my macintosh i could have paid 400 dollars extra for 400 megaherz and bought 233 instead, which is almost minimal speed for multimedia, especially digital video, and costs very much to upgrade. I assume almost all laptops nowadays run at 400-500 megaherz, but it is an important attribute. This is literally the speed of your harddrive. Did I tell you that when i was in the u.s. i bought both hi-speed cable modem and router? this is for networking, so (if and when with your notebook) when we are finally in the same space we can run all three notebooks off a network which affords more protection with built-in firewall than dial-in modems such as you use in your office. This use (and speed of access) opens up the internet and research and communications resource, and yet one that is not limited to a single place (time is another problem). but this is the future. as internet is (the cliche you remember from the IELTS materials). Could you ask your friend about video card for IBM600E? They are necessary for multimedia gaming so i am sure there are plenty in Tomsk as through the rest of the world – wherever there are computers, there are video games. But, more and most seriously, from time to time I follow announcements of conferences, events, at universities in europe and u.s. and the virtual on-line dimension is avant-garde, experimental, in all languages, and it is such a new development, so that a good machine becomes a survival tool for an educated person. If you can think of it this way, as a new direction of life development, then it makes the object more important than most other objects which, as i have rid myself of all the objects that once surrounded me (all those conveniences, even books), the notebook is one object – one modality of processes – that i could not function without, neither as a reader (even of journalism) or writer, or even teacher. and yet the past three years have been something of a discipline period for me, as i only use the internet sparingly, conscious of my limited access, the expense, and the self-observation that i am not quite ready to make full use of on-line resources. I could go on and on …

Malevich: Take the road of world technology, the spontaneity of light …

Now for conference dates, this means I will leave Tomsk on Saturday morning, 18 September. Which of course means that I will take bus to Novosibirsk late night of 17 September. This means I will arrive in Warsaw on Sunday, 19 September. This is important to me as it is the same days that i travelled last September and so good luck. It bothers me that i do not have clear conception of flight from Warsaw to Moscow to Novosibirsk. It should not have to take more than one day, as i do not wish to stay overnight in Moscow. Are Sibirsk airlines still the only airlines that operate out of Dom. airport or does Aeroflot fly to Novosibirsk from there also? I only ask as Dom. airport is much nicer place to wait for 8-12 hours than Sher. airport. You see that I like the minor, minor details about travelling. Actually I become more and more obsessive about them, expecting everything to coordinate as planned with minimal waiting. So you see how inconvenient an airplane accident would be. My last act i am convinced would be, anywhere, to look at my watch. This gesture I have learned from you. Am I a good observer? Zhenya, what time is it? (She knows to the second).

It is time to go home! (That is why one looks at the watch – the end of the lesson has finally arrived!)

So has the end of this letter.

Last word about computers, compare compare compare (not prices but attributes, what is the machine made of … you can find descriptions of different hardware components very easily on the web. So, for example, get list of the hardware features between the two or three machines and compare. They are almost always different. This ibm for example is built very differently that the macintosh. I mentioned before that the Macintosh has much better hardware components, though it is slower, heavier, and only 2 gigabytes compared to the ibms 6 megabytes. neither one is better really than the other, they are only built differently, and so they are for different needs. Also, macintosh has built in and very good video card, unlike the ibm.

missing you

bye 

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Another long day

Дата: 29 апреля 2004 г. 10:46

dear zhen

one of several things i have noticed is that i cannot type on the keyboard with my watch on my right wrist. another is that i no longer drink coffee black, using condensed milk which is available here. many varieties (weights) of smetana are sold, though so far i have avoided the temptation, and use yoghurt instead (though not in my coffee). yoghurt for cooking instead of smetana for health reasons. one imagines that the step towards smetana is irreversible, given its popularity in cooking here. however, by now i am rather addicted to tomato paste, in almost every other dish that i cook. perhaps this is one reason why i do not cook much with rice. today i have only pierogis, unless i want to make egg salad. two items left in fridge, without the time to shop, either today or tomorrow. sounds like a good time to go to the restaurant, though at my favorite restaurant they serve too big of helpings (the two of us could eat a single sandwich) and i am too faltering in my polish to ask for bag to take the rest with me. you see that my life is full of crises. today i should be finished by 11:30 with no parrot school, but there is committee meeting and then semi-obligatory special interest meeting, so i will not be home before 21:00 tonight. i have great plans for the weekend, though i am worried that instead i will read for myself the entire weekend having surrounded myself with quite a few pretentious contemporary novels. i do not think you wish me to write any more about computers, though the samsung sounds impressive. the machine will become something you are doing most of the time, processes instead of an object. it is amazing how much text they can produce. there are a lot of theories that remind me of 19th century pseudo-sciences about neural dimension, the writing into the machine space, i think they ran out of things to think about in france. and of course, whatever france writes and thinks about, america is quick to follow. on the other hand, there is a deep social change. when i was in u.s. the market was pushing for multiple terminals in the family home, on a network, with faster and faster cable connection speeds. no one hardly uses a dial-up modem any more. isn’t this curious. it will be years before 56k connection speeds are supported by the communications infrastructure in russia, when the shift in the past several years has been towards dsl/adsl/cable connections. this makes downloading almost immediate. especially for music and video files. for example, if i want to send a file with recorded sound and video to my web server, on a dial-up model it takes an extremely long time, hence the need for much increased speed of transmission. here, adsl costs about 80 dollars a month, so it is mostly used for business. there are probably other options that i am not aware of. very likely a cable connection would be possible in the building where larissa’s flat is, since the same building, the hostel, has cable tv. i don’t think i need such “connectivity” for the summer, and it would probably distract me from writing, as i would spend most of my time looking for materials on the net. but it is a consideration. you might ask about what kinds of on-line connections are available in tomsk. yes, i am positive, there is not a day when i do not write or even read from my notebook, though without the permanent online connection i have overcome the habit of using online for simple purposes. the greatest problem i have discovered in the past is the surplus of information that one has to find a system for organizing, so that you almost feel like you become a librarian of your own computer. there is another possibility, of course, in experiement with randomness, employing searches in your own archives and files just as you would search on the web, so that the notebook becomes always a space whether textual or graphic of more sources and possibilities than you can comprehend at any given moment, much different than a home library. but it is a library, and that is what is most important for me, that i am surrounded by sources, sourcings, other texts, other voices, and so i move among them wandering through one or another site that i have downloaded or text or book, and i am sure it affects how i approach, or re-approach, my own writing. when, that is, i have time to write. now that is the greatest concern for me. last night i was so tired i could hardly keep my eyes open to make comments on student papers, and began misspelling simple english words. i am reaching threshold of saturation with english. sometimes it appears to me as raised and brittle surface from which the background has been washed away so there are only the braille-like surfaces remaining, without any semantic depth. i don’t want to hear any nouns or verbs, only the sound-rhythm staccato of the particles, though even those are rather rigid in their use and order. have you ever heard of an american fiction writer, E.L. Doctorow? my students in Chita were reading passages from a novel, Ragtime. Here i have been reading a book called World’s Fair, and if you could find it translated into Russian, i think you would enjoy it. the story is about a Jewish family in New York in 1930s, narrated by several voices, rather quiet and humorous. sometimes i am curious about which authors are translated into russian. here, the translation culture is intense, and there is something of an economy to support it. perhaps this weekend i will visit some bookstores. already i am making plans that do not include writing. i see that i have filled up my screen with this letter, so if you do not mind i am going to go to the university and earn my keep. missing you.

bye

Kevin Magee” <magee@uni.lodz.pl

Rest day number one

Sat, 1 May 2004 09:11:56 +0200

happy may day zhenya lukyanova at rambler.ru!

yesterday was a day of coincidences which caused you some concern, for which i am very sorry, that you were worried for me (though it is rather nice to be worried about). i wrote you in the morning to your “jewish” address, since you had written that your university account was not working. apparently you did not receive my letter. i left home at 7:00 in the morning and returned at 22:00 in the evening. more and more a typical working day. now i have three days off and a sore throat. i started to lose my voice yesterday, teaching, and for one of the first times, starting experiencing mental blanks where i could not remember what i was talking about. this in the culture classes in the morning, though i had very good class teaching melville story, an early study in urban alienation, called bartleby the scrivener, but which my students read as heroic, they read the character who says to his employer, “i would prefer not to” as protest against work regime, and this felt very polish, or russian, or eastern european (whatever designation one wishes or prefers) and the passivity of the figure was understandable to them. in a meeting the night before my polish colleagues were recalling period of martial law in early 80s when there were only two tv channels – with documentaries on farming and farming methods. this has little to do with melville, though this writer i highly recommend if you can find russian translations.

you do not say, but i imagine, whether wrongly or rightly, that your mother and father, because they are modest and careful (and very gentle) people, may however softly express skepticism about your samsung, and i know that you respect their thoughts. why do i mention this? because i think you should feel rather proud and good about yourself and your decision, that it is a wise use of the money you have earned working so hard and for so many people, much wiser than an automobile. you are one of a very large number of russian intellectuals, though you will immediately deny this, according to your character and your humor, and it is essential to have tools and interface with the global information surface. besides, now you can write to me from your home! i remember very well your recognition and agreement with the text by Oleg Kireev, and he is one of a vast number of russians of your generation (Alexei Shulgin is another to look for work and writings by) who do not conform and who refuse all forms of ignorance – this mentality to me has always signified the russian intellectual, Chaadaev being one of the first. (If these comments seem a bit much to you, I am remembering your mentioning debates about how to control the internet – and this is a debate, though with different terms, everywhere. it is an important space to defend, and defending this space means participating in it. this is what your samsung might mean to you. also, you spend so many hours working at a computer screen, that the experience should be more pleasant, and the machine at which you work should run optimally.

yesterday night coming home on the bus one of my students at the university who is a friend of one of the Parrot School students saw me and spoke to me and since i was in a distant region of the city the subject of my Parrot School came up and she said that her friend said that everyone was talking about the American who made everyone do much more work than their Polish teachers. so there is the accuratne again. i could not tell if it was a positive or negative remark. it was a reminder to me that everything i do i work very hard at, even to the detriment of my own health (sore throat this morning). word of caution: do you know that i am a miserable person to know when i do not feel well. this is a very bad personality flaw. i become extremely irritible. very likely you do as well. i said nothing about your mention of depressive mood lately, though there is a saying “takes one to know one.”

if you call today or tomorrow, i will be home, although i have only one bag of pierogis left and half a jar of yogurt. the stores all appear to be closed. yesterday for the second day i ate in a restaurant and went in to a new restaurant where there was a promocja for gyros for 10 zl (about 3 dollars). i found myself in a very nice restaurant with waiter who served me a large dish of grilled lamb, potatoes, and salad just as you might taste in cypress or greece, but without the pita bread. i thought it was an interesting variation, as it is hard to imagine a gyro without the pita bread. an amusing instance of cultural translation. what is sold for fast food in u.s. for example becomes resemblance to french restaurant in poland. there are very many cafes and restaurants here, and now all the restaurants built outdoor pavillions as in russia for people to eat and drink in the open air.

no more on the warm weather here. i am as sorry for the recent snow as for your worries on my behalf yesterday. always here, and always, yours,

bye

p.s. this email should have at the end a “signature” with my km@hypobololemaioi.com address which, come to think of it, i don’t really need, as all i have to do is write the address as in the line above, but, anyway, since i know you like to answer my emails directly, please answer to this address. for some reason i cannot send emails to you from this address, though i can receive them. okay? thanks. (in polish they say djenki which sounds a little like drastvi (the same abbreviation logic – russian and polish are so close)

Second rest day

Sun, 2 May 2004 08:42:17 +0200

dear zhen have you noticed when with cold, the mornings are the worst? congestion, cough, the cough progressing deeper into the chest, discovery yesterday that the heat has been turned off, and a moment of anger, what kind of system is this where people cannot control the temperature of their own living spaces? yet i cannot bear to bring myself to wearing sweaters. it is another overcast day after bright sunny day yesterday. i should have done my laundry yesterday. read late into the night last night after afternoon repeated cups of tea, lemon and honey with, surprisingly, very little brandy, enough to put me to sleep until early evening. it is almost like a poem, falling asleep at an unaccustomed time, as this morning and yesterday morning i have awakened to the 5:30 alarm and turned it off and turned back to sleep until 8:00 when usually I am up and at the university if it is monday or tuesday or thursday or friday or saturday. wednesdays are for reading and preparation, so i get up early then too. i keep reminding myself that this is only temporary, though rather typical of most periods of my life – work, working, worked. there is very beautiful music on the classical station this morning. i have a small battery radio which fits in one’s pocket, and it sounds rather nice connected to desk speakers. there have been many live concerts the past two nights to celebrate EU entry. as for other news i am not a reliable source, though several of my students went to anti-globalization mobilization in Warsaw Friday and Saturday. I hope for their sake and for the general sake (what is sake? suddenly the word appears rather strange) that the demonstrations were democratic without violence. there is from the solidarity movement years a strong memory of democratic rights and their expression here, and what happened in genoa several years ago did you follow the news around that event? there was developing a form of theater or performance of confrontation in addition to random groupings with property destruction tendencies (this happened in seattle also) which i feel rather opposed to viscerally, more than merely on principle. historical memory. fascists like to destroy property, especially small businesses and public property. it seemed to me at the time that a kind of fascistic embryo was in evidence, and actually being cheered on by observing intellectuals from their remote terminals, though at the embryo stage fascism never calls itself that, rather it appears under a progressive or anti-capitalism sign. these are complex dynamics and too much for my cough and congested head this morning. but i have some confidence in the historical experience of this country which, according to even those among my colleague who are harshly anti-american, the u.s. was then always looked to as something like a spiritual mentor (there is even a figure from Polish history who participated in the American Revolution). now, with the war in iraq, much of this credibility, or worse, is being lost, and perhaps this is a good thing. sometimes my students are surprised at the criticisms of american culture in the texts i teach, whether social discourse or from american literature (the american writers beginning in the mid-19th century are very much formed in opposition to the commercial culture). but this thought began with a thought for hoping that the demonstrations went as planned, if they were organized, and that none of my students had a bad time of it. there are always riot police, though they do not look as forbidding as in England and U.S. please remember to write me at km@hypobololemaioi.com as this is really your mailbox, and i like checking it for a letter from you several times a day without having to harvest the spam etc. of the other more public mailbox. i am glad you did not think i sounded too badly yesterday, perhaps my cold is more imagined that real, though it is difficult to imagine a cough as it migrates into the chest. have you any folk remedies? i don’t care to take cold pills. there are compounds i am aware of that can be put on the chest, or breathing solutions for clearing congestion. cayenne pepper perhaps, as you remember i have a fondness for these. bye

Re: thank you for calling

Sun, 2 May 2004 09:17:10 +0200

dear zhen, just a note before i forget. it is important to distinguish between the msword program and the computer itself, for example the auto-correct function in msword can be changed under the options tag in the tools column of the msword (i use a very simplified form of msword 2000 without all the visual basic program which is buggy and which you may be able to turn off, or at least some of its functions. the general rule is that the more shortcuts and invisible processes a software program has, the more little warnings are produced – extemely annoying and unnecessay. microsoft in gneral does not allow very much access to the computer processes itself, so i am not sure what can be controlled through it. i have always more difficulty understanding all the files (and there are many invisible files automatically generated) compared to either macintosh or linux. this summer i will encourage you to run a small linux program (it is very easy to install on intel/ibm architectures). the tree system is very simple to see and conceptualize, and gives the user more access to the machine itself. even though i use microsoft (outlook express example, for convenience) it is the linux system which does not make me feel helpless or that i am being used by the machine processes. you might consult with your computer friends about how to minimize warning messages. one notorious one from microsoft is: this machine has performed an illegal function and will be immediately shut down. one nice thing about microsoft though, when you delete (if you delete) you can always restore the files unless you clean out your trash. with 40 gigs, there really isn’t any need to do this. what i like least about microsoft is that it’s rather difficult to work from several screens, so i cannot read and write at the same time, one screen closes as soon as you start working from another. this is another virtue of linux, you can operate multiple functions simultaneously, as well as create different spaces (different identities) for different kinds of writing and thinking, all of which you have access to as the root user. microsoft has none of this. because it does not operate on the design of a tree, though you can use a tree is you know DOS which hardly anyone does anymore, and which i have always found harder to learn than basic unix/linux commands. there is much more documentation on these latter commands. you will find very many sites in Russian about linux, and i remember seeing books about linux in bookstores in Tomsk, in Russian. this approach to the computer looks difficult, but it is comparatively more simple than the invisible architecture of the folder-icon system microsoft developed from early graphic interfaces of apple computer in mid-90s. by now all the linux systems have very nice GUIs (graphic user interface, i.e. the folder-icon system) that respond (were designed for) computers that have the speed and memory capacity of your samsung. linux is simply a faster and cleaner system and does not fill your computer with junk the way microsoft does. it is also fairly virus free. (not susceptible to viruses, though it is susceptible to hacking). but i am not an authority, only that i’ve used macintosh, ibm and linux programs on both and there is a very strong difference, and positive difference. as i said, the advantage of linux is that it empowers the user, whereas microsoft makes the user feel stupid or powerless. i was amused at your telling about staying up until 2:00 a.m. working with the computer. i have sometimes stayed up all night with a web page, or trying to figure something out (successfully sometimes, more often than not, unsuccessfully). it is an interface with processes for text, graphic, sound and image for which there are multiple solutions for multiple problems. the author becomes the producer. i am certain that my relation to language is changed by the keyboard than with writing by pen. so there is a different relation to the inner voice of the one writing. for your translation work, the machine can simply do a lot of your work for you, if you let it. bye bye —– Original Message —– From: “zhenya lukyanova” <zhen_l@rambler.ru> To: <km@hypobololemaioi.com> Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 4:35 PM Subject: thank you for calling it was very unexpected. i wrote you several words when the computer showd me the warning that he was going to re-download. and then a message about a mistake appeared. you like the word “panic” . i think it is the best discription of my feelings towards the reality when i was writing about herd effect i do not approve while people try to senselessly follow the ideas they do not know and understand pretending to smth they are really not. but it is not important. important is smth i do not know the name of it. thank you for your calling. Is your bottle of bredy half empty or half full? i miss you, dear sir with soar throat. bye zh

3 мая 2004 г. 11:25

Third rest day

dear zhen

so begins the third morning. i slept in only for an hour this morning. congestion worse, though my cough seems to be abating, not so deep in the chest. i am miserable when i cannot read, and it is impossible to read, to concentrate, and i am tired of lying down. yesterday i watched a tennis game and a basketball game (women’s league between team in Poznan and Lotos, wherever that is). there were two african-americans on the one polish team, and i was curious as to whether there is possibility for travel for foreign athletes, or whether, if it was a professional team, these players had emigrated to poland. Venus beat Svyetlana in tennis. Then a mindless comedy which did, however, have one of two moments when there was an alligator. then i fell asleep, hardly even 9:00 p.m. i was able to finish a novel in the afternoon, but that kind of reading is almost as bad as no reading at all, barely able to remember or notice the difference from one chapter to the next. usually i read, especially novels, as a kind of physical exercise with language, listening to the language, and i can’t listen when i feel this way. please pardon my complaining. the fish was a catastrophe. though i recommend the scales of the fish for tiles on your dacha’s roof. 30 minutes to scale fish, 15 minutes to fry fish, and 5 minutes to taste fish and realize the fish flesh was mushy, and full of bones and bone-like bits and pieces. maybe it was a sea bass. i have sometimes have them in restaurants before, oven roasted, and they are de-boned at the table, but never fried. i am still picking up scales from the floors and walls. salmon, only salmon from now on. today’s menu is very simple: oven-baked turkey breast with fried eggplant. if i feel better this afternnon i will buy some wine to go with it. that will be the highlight of today, i’m afraid. it is very boring to lie down and wait for oneself to feel better while watching time pass. i feel cheated of my three-day vacation. i was very suspicious on the buses the last two weeks when i heard so many people coughing, and i think that is where i was exposed. contaminated. what you say about travelling sounds true, at least according to my experience. the outside is very solid, like a wall, though the advantage is that you can perceive this outside where in the native language and environment, even though this outside is there, it passes unnoticed. i think travelling has made me more alert and perceptive, and certainly more hesitant, cautious. there is the paradox of sameness and difference. so many things appear to be different, the very spaces people live in, how they move from one place to the next, by bus or tram, movement in stores, shopping, milling, etc., and yet the difference often appears rather superficial. there are greater contrasts sometimes within a country than without it. for me the greatest difference is neither language nor culture, but very personally the living arrangements. both in russia and here in poland the university provides living quarters and this is not done in the u.s. there is very severe boundary between living space and work space there. maybe we have talked about this before. another year or two away from there and when i might return, i am sure to be overwhelmed by the pace and weight and movement of the average large city, the loudness. these are all very subjective comments as you know. i enjoy very much your recent long letters written from home, they remind me of our conversations during long walks. i hesitate to mention this as i do not wish you to feel that i am expecting long letters. but they are very nice to read. i feel absolutely empty this morning, congested, or conjugated, as the case may be, maybe i will go in search of a black radish. these are grown in gardens, yes? i only see the small red ones here. the process makes sense though, using sugar to make a medicinal syrup from a radish. ginger root is also used for this. i need to take greater interest in these things. most of the time i am quite healthy, but the few times i fall ill, it reminds me that i do not like to be ill at all. actually, as i mentioned, i don’t feel at all well, and felt much better at the time of palangas. stress, certainly, is a factor, and more than rest, i feel like a need a regime of exercise, diet, warm weather, and sleep. i am too sedentary here, and the accuratnost tendency does not help. also, i am very tired of eating by myself. but i promise, no fried fish this summer, especially of such fish with scales like shingles.

you know that i miss you, though very likely you would not enjoy my presence or company under the conditions of the past few days, so it is a good thing we are separated by belarus when i am not feeling well

tomorrow i will try to find the post office that has my invitation

bye

km@hypobololemaioi.com

4 мая 2004 г. 2:07

Re: from you

am just now reading your letters from earlier today, it is 22:00 and i am wishing i was tired enough to go to sleep. this afternoon i felt somewhat better, and took your advice about the onion peels. we will see about tomorrow. below is the letter sent to jmail on friday. tomorrow will be a rush, as i will probably stay up late not wishing to end my last day off, but i will try to write you a short note good morning. i am worried about busy schedule tomorrow, there is a guest speaker at 14:00 at the university (which i am more or less expected to attend) and then parrot school at 17:00. so i won’t be able to go to the post office until wednesday.

bye
—– Original Message —–
From: “Kevin Magee” <magee@uni.lodz.pl>
To: “женя” <zhen@jmail.ru>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 7:10 AM
Subject: Re: from You


> dear zhen
>
> and you say nothing about the difference between the old and new computer. what is the difference? the screens should feel smoother, and moving among folders, etc. keyboard? the keyboard on my ibm is very different from the macintosh, etc., etc. i know the feeling of being tired. i should have cancelled my classes today. everyone else did. the famous, fabulous May 1 holiday. brought to you from the labor movement of U.S. what was that? it disappeared. what else is new. i have a sore throat. worse in the mornings, but i am afraid of coming down with a long-term cold, headaches, chills, sore throat, many people are coughing. the spring is wet, and cold. i turned my heaters off then had to turn them back on again. i am still wearing a sweater. this weekend i should like to sleep. it would be very nice to hear your voice. i am sorry about taxes, were they unexpected? i have two classes this morning and two classes this evening and five hours in between and i live too far from either school to come home and rest. do you detect a note of bitterness? the british council library is open until 15:00 but it is a strange place, the jewish ghetto museum is next to it. i am not generally susceptible to coincidences. i should like to read and read. about nothing in particular. about everything. we say, everything and nothing. do you know that it means something different from, all or nothing? how can the difference between everything and all (they are the same) change the meaning of a phrase. this is the genius of language, any language. sometimes i am glad that i write. yesterday i ate in a restaurant penne with salmon in cream sauce with glass of red wine. the sun was very bright in the windows, the street outside, busy with passersby, the music contemporary jazz, and for a moment i did not wish to ever live anywhere else. i was in my fantasy of europe. (you will have great fun with this admission). then i went to meeting and the topic was, zbigniew libera, who works with holocaust themes (he builds leggo replicas, leggos are a children’s toy). it was very strange when my colleagues began trying to remember when leggos first entered the stores here. it is a u.s.a. toy. do not you think it is, well, interesting? to build concentration camp models with u.s.a. toys? something was going on in that idea, and the memory of my lunch in the cafe was, rather, ruined. it must be the architecture.
>
> bye
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: “женя” <zhen@jmail.ru>
> To: <km@hypobololemaioi.com>
> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 2:09 PM
> Subject: from me
>
>
> > hi, my e-mail does not work again. fortunately, the internet connetion appeared. do you want to know what a day i had today? it was very hard one. i bought a notebook. it took some time. then i learnt how to work with the new kind of mouse, and then i received a letter from moscow about the sum of taxes i have to pay for my trip to the us last year. as i could expect, tomorrow will be the last day for paying taxes. as i am physically unable to pay as the pile of papers i have to fill in and to gather is huge, then i will be fined. the system is perfect, you can’t pay taxes until you get the paper, the paper arrives the day before the deadline, the procedure is complex and it is physicall impossible to do everything even in two days, and then you are fined as a criminal.
> > i tried to buy a phone card while wondering between offices collecting papers for taxes, but there were no cards. i shall try to buy it tomorrow. there will be three days off. but on monday i will be allowd to come here. may be i shall call you . if i manage to set internet connection from my notebook, i will be able to write you during these days off. i am going to start (not complete) my translation. if i want to set the internet connection at home, i have to buy a small thing to put the wire in. so, i have to leave the office, but before i will try to send you this message. should i remind you that i miss you? bye zh

4 мая 2004 г. 11:14

Tuesday morning rush

dear zhen

don’t holidays seem to make life more complicated? even with cold, i am glad about having yesterday off, as it saved me from 5 classes. a significant holiday. my morning class is small to begin with, and 5th year students at that, entirely unmotivated, so whether or not they come today will make little difference. i tried to rest as much as yesterday, finished all my unfinished novels (not that many) and felt towards late evening something like fever breaking, though i wasn’t aware that i had a fever. however i feel significantly better this morning, no cough or sore throat. so, i will try to complete the day. the worst is energy, as i simply wish to lie down, period. and today, as yesterday, and the day before, it is difficult to connect one thought to the next. the postoffice is not far from here, though the one with my invitation is a postoffice i have never been to before, so very likely i won’t have time today to try to find it, and so tomorrow will be the big day. i still have to get blood test for the visa application, so it is likely that i won’t go to warsaw to the russian consulate until middle of the month. it is a two-week application, so there is plenty of time. the problem is that is need the passport for buying airplane tickets, so i cannot wait too long. you see i must be feeling better, as i am already beginning to worry.

bye

4 мая 2004 г. 20:26

Invitation success

dear zhen

it is past your work time but not past your bed time so i thought i might write you a few words in the hope that you will check your email before going to sleep.

i have it, the invitation. i have not read your letter yet, just getting home. i took your advice and cancelled my parrot school classes so i can rest tonight, though i didn’t like all the trouble i had to take to find substitutes. the experience confirms me that i don’t wish to teach in this place after this month. it is a headache not worth the extra money.

the walk through a park to get to the post office where the invitation was gave me the thought that my cold is really an attack of hay fever. the pollen everywhere, and enormous tufts on trees not quite as severe as the poplars in tomsk but similar, so it is strange ecology for my system, and even though i have never suffered from hay fever in u.s. all the pollen here may be what is giving me such a hard time. suddenly everything and everywhere is intense green and bursting.

thank you for your picture. it makes me wish to kiss you. may i? soon?

bye

(tomorrow i go for my blood test so maybe next wednesday i will go to warsaw)

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: From school of simple ideas

Дата: 5 мая 2004 г. 11:42

dear zhen

i am writing to you at your university address as it is in the middle of your work day and this is the address you wrote to me from this morning. you see how your new notebook has altered our rhythm of communication. after your work hours, you may expect me to send to you messages at the rambler.ru address, and during the workday, here, for as long as it is working. i seem to remember your mentioning that you can access your university account from home, is this true? i know that i can here. for example, when i write to you from uni.lodz.pl i am writing to you from home, only using the university server to send the message to you. in your accounts tag under the tools in your outlook express you can configure this, if you have not already.

i have not been up as we say, to the toilet and to make coffee, for more than 10 minutes, and already i am sneezing and it is not gentle or casual pressure from my respiratory system to free itself of microbes (most likely pollen). this morning after parrot school lesson (10:15-12:15) i will go to the supermarket and buy some pills for this, if there are some. i notice on tv many commercials for the pollen effect. what is strange is that i have never suffered from this before, unless perhaps the first year that i moved to iowa in the midwest, and in the spring there is notorious hay fever time. still, the sore throat and the cough that developed friday followed all the classical symptom signs of bad cold, so i do not know what it is that i am trying to recover from, except that i slept well last night, and felt rather good upon waking. this was true yesterday morning also, and then by the time i arrived at the university and tried to talk for an hour, i felt like i was losing my voice, and coughing, coughing.

today i have to teach 4 hours at the parrot school, but the classes are divided between morning and evening, so my voice should work okay. tomorrow morning i do not have classes until 10:00 so i will get my blood test for visa done tomorrow at clinic next to the university. the price is 17 zl. about 5 dollars. in u.s. the same test is 50 dollars.

yesterday there was a guest lecture from university professor in American Studies currently on a fullbright from a university in California. then there was a presentation for our faculty later in the afternoon. i attended and participated in both, pleased to see through the superficiality of this professor’s ideas, and pleased as well to be reminded how, for the most part, u.s. university professors are competently specialized, but generally parochial and ignorant. his presentation was on the frontier, and concept of the west in the u.s., and he used a largely discredited early figure from writings about the west and the west as shaping influence on the american national character to criticize Walt Disney Land packaging of the west as entertainment. his big ideas were the importance of geographical place, the local and particular, and writing about what you can see and hear. very anti-theoretical/speculative. the writers he referred to, Joan Didion, Garrison Keilor, William Stafford, Russell Banks, all of them i regard as idiots, or worse than idiots. If one were suspicious, as i am from time to time, it is possible to glimpse the new academicism in the u.s. as one of a return to regionalism and away from the horror of the contemporary, saying something such as gosh, you know, that’s really terrible, what’s happening over there, in that war, but i can’t know anything about it except from my study of Dimebox, Texas. we’re all basically alike, aren’t we?

this professor represented the Nice Simple Folk school of culture in the u.s., terribly sorry about the recent invasions, and unable to do anything about it. this is nostalgia, which is very deadly. Van Wyck Brooks, F.O. Matthiesen, Leo Marx – part of a pantheon of Americanists who wrote in such glowing terms about that certain uncertain country. now when i hear such talk, i am very glad to have escaped a world i was once uncomfortable close to, intellectually.

speaking of one’s mind, i have been upright for 30 minutes now, and already my head is beginning to gel with congestion, discomfort, pressure, irritation. i think i am going to go cook some onion peels.

i am looking forward to a letter from you this afternoon. thank you again for your picture. i know you do not like images of you, but it is pleasant for me to see the candor in your face.

bye

km@hypobololemaioi.com

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Travel plan preliminaries

Дата: 6 мая 2004 г. 2:35

dear zhen

just a quick note before going to bed. tomorrow will be hectic in the morning, but i should be able to write you in the early to late afternoon, so check your rambler.ru in the evening, dear.

now, for a favor, yet another. i did a preliminary glance at airfare prices Warsaw to Novosibirsk and the news is glum: about 500 usd for roundtrip ticket by LOT Polish Airline from Warsaw to Moscow and add another 200 usd for Aeroflot from Moscow to Novosibirsk each way and the total is about 900 usd. This is about the same for roundtrip ticket via Aeroflot from Moscow to Novosibirsk: 882 usd.

I would prefer to fly Aeroflot from Warsaw to Novosibirsk, as this would qualify me for international travel and better luggage restrictions. At your leisure, could you inquire at the travel agent where we consulted before about any other possible options? The dates are quite close, as I need to be here in Lodz by the 22 of September at the latest to sit for exams. My preferred dates of travel are leaving on the 23rd of June and leaving Novosibirsk on the 18th of September.

Does 440 usd sound like a lot to you for each way? The expense seems to be from Warsaw to Moscow. Do you remember if my invitation said I had to fly in to Moscow? Would another airport be an option, as in Samara? Or St. Petersburg (I doubt if that’s cheaper). Obviously I would prefer Moscow, as it’s like a routine by now. But, I don’t know, really. I won’t save money by taking a train to Moscow on the way there unless I take a train from Moscow to Warsaw on the way back, and the dates between Larissa’s conference and the 22 of September don’t seem to permit that.

Any ideas?

bye

km@hypobololemaioi.com

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: One small wish

Дата: 7 мая 2004 г. 11:56

dear zhen

there is still one email from you yesterday that i have not yet read. the subject heading is in russian and there is an attachment. did you send this? there is always possibility of what is called a spoof and it is a popular game among people who communicate a lot online in the u.s. you send somebody an email with the identity of someone who have before sent you email. there are other tricks, but they always bore me to think too much about. i only ask since you usually you tell me if you are sending me an attachment, or if you have forgotten to attach a document. do you need help with recent translations?

today is as grey and rainy as yesterday was full of sunlight and falling blossoms. i have not bothered to buy an umbrella as my umbrellas tend to suffer the same fate as my fountain pens. today i have two classes in the morning at the university, and one class at 17:00 at the parrot school. all classes are over at the university by May 28 then one week of exams, then i am free. i will also stop teaching at the dunce college after the first week of june, and i will stop teaching at the parrot school at the end of may. so, i will have two weeks of rest and reading and sleeping before making easy trip by bus directly to warsaw airport, and flying (more or less) directly to novosibirsk. i was kind of me to suggest that i can find my way to tomsk from novosibirsk, but the unkind (selfish) part of me (very significant part, i am afraid) wishes that you might meet me. it is against all odds that you will have to sit on the floor of the van once again, but i do not think you will let me forget this. besides, the trip to tomsk with you is (was) quite lovely, and this is what i wish for most of all. but these are only wishes, and wishes may be modified by the counter-wishes of the one the one wishing is wishing for.

you will say: get your visa first. i am not confident by nature, but i am more confident actually than last september. i am rather more worried about the paperwork for my work-residency here next year, wondering what regulations have changed with entrance into e.u. especially for foreigners from the u.s. i will not know about these changes until i begin the new paperwork process, which i will do before leaving for russia.

these morning letters sound too perfunctory to my mind, as you may imagine that i am rather restricted by the thought of the day’s demands, and sometimes even a little tired. yesterday afternoon i indulged in a long afternoon nap, waking at nightfall, and then of course had trouble falling asleep until around 2 or 3 a.m. and so, up at 6:30 i both feel rested and unrested, though i don’t think i can say unrested. unrest is a noun, but it won’t turn into a verb. without rest? oh yes, restless. no, that means something slightly different. though most of the times un- and -less and without mean the same thing to the word they are attached to. i am trying to say that i feel tired, or maybe i am too tired to say. we can have tiredness but not tiredless. it has to be tireless. there is no such thing as untired. but you can say untiring. yes, it is a maddening language?

missing you

bye

km@hypobololemaioi.com

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Warmer?

Дата: 7 мая 2004 г. 15:51

dear zhen

i am home before noon as it is a beautiful day again and there was a student festival so my second class pleaded to be allowed to enjoy their youth and spring, how could i refuse? No! we must study effects of advertising in u.s.! so i came home. your “no attachments’ reminds me of many select swear words for the sender of the prank email, but it is boring – that is the best word – to dwell on, though a reminder always that the email traffic is – how shall we say – watched in passing? monitored? observed? again, it is not worth dwelling on. there is well-advanced hacker culture (subculture) in u.s. and they resemble (are soul cousins) of the faces of the u.s. soldier-torturers lately in the news. for your sake of evenness, though, i will not make comparison to u.s. in general, though if one is an american, the very first thing they must do is apologize for being one. enough of this though, you will think i am angry.

now, i hope you do not view my requests for help as immediate. i am going to go to the russian consulate on wednesday, so by monday if you could look at the russian consulate website in poland and let me know what they require. i found a phone card today so i will call you on sunday. maybe we can talk about it then. i am going to read for a few hours, then go to parrot school. i think your advice about tourist agency is a good one, and i will try to find one either in lodz or warsaw. it is probably not the best idea to go directly to aeroflot office in the warsaw airport (assuming there is one). i only asked if you could consult the travel agency we have used in the past for comparison of prices, but it is not an urgent demand. obviously, i wont buy tickets until end of may or first week of june.

wishing you a nice May afternoon of warm(er?) weather …

bye

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: zhenya lukyanova <zhen_l@rambler.ru>

Копия: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Russian consulate in Warsaw

Дата: 9 мая 2004 г. 16:47

dear zhen

as there is not an information page in english at the russian consulate website, i would like to ask you again if you have the time today or tomorrow to consult the following url

http://www.poland.mid.ru

so that we may review together (tomorrow when i call?) all the items i should take with me to the consulate wednesday, such as

1) price of visa in zlotys (pl) and whether there is choice of one week or two week processing (i will chose the one week if it is not much more expensive)

2) how many photographs and what size

3) does the Migration Card need to be completed at the embassy or when i arrive in russia? (in sept i filled it out in the airport)

4) how many copies of visa applications (i have downloaded this and can complete it this weekend)

5) my passport and any other documents?

6) and anything else?

you may imagine that i am concerned about getting to warsaw and needing some document or other that i have left in lodz. do not worry about the work arrangements for next year in poland.

i hope you are having not too bad of a day. it is cold here suddenly, and again i did not feel well, feverish, chills, congested, etc.

my mood and my voice will be better tomorrow than last Sunday, however. i promise.

bye

11/05/2004  dear zhen

now it is my turn to write a hibye. not exactly a felicitous neologism, but effective and to the point. i am up later than usual this morning, falling asleep exhausted last night, what would i have done had i had to teach the other two classes? now, this morning at university, several hours break in the afternoon, then four hours at the parrot school. you are getting tired of hearing about this routine.

it is difficult to say what is the danger level here in Lodz or elsewhere in Poland. always, my comparison is to the U.S. and i see and hear far less violence here, and i never hear gunfire, which is not an uncommon sound in cities in the U.S. the news alwasy exaggerates, though hooliganism is a problem everywhere in Europe, even in Moscow. there are some (not many, but some is too many) anti-semitic slogans on walls here, or stars of david superimposed with a cross. that memory has not gone away, nor has its causes: resentment and the need for a scapegoat. if anything, after recent deaths of Poles in Iraq, i feel in danger because i am american, so i feel uncomfortable speaking english in public, which happens sometimes when i meet a student on the bus or tram. as soon as i start speaking english, i feel like a potential target, and this may be a rational or irrational fear.

today i have to teach two specimens of literature, and i feel so far away from literature at the moment, i haven’t the slightest idea what i will say. improvisation i am able to do, but it is like a performance without context, or rewards. more complaints …

i hope you are able to contact the russian consulate in warsaw today. the latest flight price for aeroflot from warsaw to novosibirsk is 551 usd, so maybe it will be easier than we think.

missing you

bye

km@hypobololemaioi.com

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: you may laugh at me

Дата: 15 мая 2004 г. 19:27

dear zhen

to remember is that you are spending the money so you should get what you pay for. unfortunately, there are not odometers on computers, but you can tell if it is used by what’s on the hard drive, but you would have to go into DOS for that, maybe. it wont show on the MSWord loaded onto it. you should be extremely careful when cleaning the screen, laptop screens are more sensitive than PCs. enough advice. i can’t believe that they sell many laptops in tomsk, so maybe that is also the problem.

my day if finished and i feel like saying daragoya, ya domy, only you arent here for me to say it to.

it was an easy day, actually, well worth the 60 dollars. but i don’t feel like i am stealing the money yet as i work very hard, even when there are only two students (for the second class – cold and wind and rain today). i will go out later and buy the groceries i should have bought yesterday. they sell tasty pre-cooked salmon here, quite expensive, but i think i don’t feel like cooking. tonight, reading, and if there’s anything on tv, i’ll probably watch it. lately there’s been a lot of corny westerns from cold war period – allegories of u.s. against communism, which was the old evil, before terrorism.

are you fighting evil today? tomorrow? that’s what they do in america. everyday. all the citizens. because they alone on the earth know the difference. (don’t laugh – most americans really think they know what it is). that’s one thing i really like about being a foreigner. more and more i don’t know what anything is, or what for. sunday, i do know, is a day of rest.

bye

—– Original Message —–

From: “Lukyanova” <lev@tpu.ru>

To: <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 11:28 AM

Subject: you may laugh at me

> yes, you may. my computer adventures are becoming too exhausting. today in

> the morning i went to the firm where my new notebook was peasfully waiting

> for me. a very nice and polite boy downloaded office, packed it, and i

> brought it home. the first i saw on taking away the film from the screen

> were someone’s finger prints on the screen, when i examined the cover i

> found two stratches on it. of course, i immediately called to the boy, he

> told me that i have to discuss it with the head of their service centre on

> monday. i can not say that i am in despair, but i do not feel very

> comfortable with these discoveries. i got tired from everything, and

> thisaustralian is coming on the week when i have 18 hours of teaching, and

> before his coming i have to translate some papers. let me hope that your

> weekend (after the parroting) won’t be as gloomy as mine on very sunny day.

> bye zh

>

>

>

> 

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Done, Fin, Konec

Дата: 18 мая 2004 г. 18:21

dear zhen

i have been to the authorities and they were very efficient. Most of my

time was consumed walking there and back from the Warsaw train station.

It was a good thing that I completed the long form from the NY website

as that is the form they began to give me, in a terribly carbon-smudged

form, but I had my own already filled out. The visa they said will be

ready by the 26th of May though I won’t be able to pick it up until the

31st. I think I shall spend that day in Warsaw. The avenue where the

Russian Consulate is was splendid, botanical gardens, and the

Contemporary Museum of Art nearby. Everything went very well. If there

is any problem, it will be my medical insurance, as I have insurance

here in Poland, but I doubt that it covers me in Russia. Still, the

form is official, with my photograph, and administrative stamps, so it

may pass, if the insurance is questioned at all. Let’s hope for the

best. I miss your long rambles in English when you had the computer at

home.

and i miss you in other ways as well as you well know

bye

> no, i did not wish you to suffer from insomnia. it is better to

oversleep.

> to loose you sense of humor? are you sure that you are able to have

one

> before authorities?

> wish you luck? in russia wi send to the hell, but i can not send you

there.

> bye zh

> there is no need to send you this as you have already left your home.

>

>

>

>

—

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: Gazprombank

Дата: 19 мая 2004 г. 16:41

dear zhen,

i found the agreement i signed when i opened the account at the Gazprombank in Tomsk, though i cannot find an account number, and this is what i would need were i to transfer money from my account here to this account. Do you have any ideas, suggestions?

Walking home just now from a lesson at the Parrot School I realized that i did not fall asleep early last night from nervous exhaustion, but physical exhaustion, as i could hardly put one foot in front of another, and I was too tired to go to the Passport Office for my work permit application for next year. I will try to do it tomorrow or Friday. Apparently, 4 kilometers each way is too much for me to walk in a single morning. Suddenly I feel a little older than it is comfortable to feel, though grey hair does not trouble me, neither mine nor yours.

Missing you and your nest of hair.

bye

—– Original Message —–

From: “Lukyanova” <lev@tpu.ru>

To: <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 5:36 AM

Subject: Re: Done, Fin, Konec

>

> good morning from me at the very beginning of my long day. it is very

> inconvenient to have no computer at home/ Bye zh

>

>

>

>От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: Wednesday May 19 3:26 PM

Дата: 20 мая 2004 г. 11:09

dear zhen

something is up with the servers, yours or mine. i just received your message from yesterday this morning (7:00) and i first looked for mail when i was up at 5:30. so, whatever, whenever, whichever – the old story. today are two classes in the morning, no classes in the evening, a good day to catch up on unfinished details and i have to also design some conversation topics for end-of-the-year exams. busy work. which you know well. i would like to read a book someday just for myself.

i think it was something of a shock – perceptual – to go to warsaw on such a nice day. i work according to a strict routine and my perceptual field – what i see around me, the streets, buildings, even people – is strictly controlled. partly this is habit, partly also method of coping with living in foreign language environment. then, suddenly, the stimuli of the new, modern (postmodern) transnational Warsaw – and i walked for 40 minutes in it – English is everywhere there, it almost felt like New York – and Lodz is not like this at all. the two cities are also mirror opposites of one another. when i return to the russian embassy on 31 May i think i will spend the day in Warsaw. if the museum is open, anyway. or perhaps i will go there some day in june. there are lovely and quite large public parks, gardens, etc.

when are you going to have a day that is not so busy?

missing you, bye

—– Original Message —–

From: “Lukyanova” <lev@tpu.ru>

To: <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 3:26 PM

Subject: Re: Done, Fin, Konec

> hi, i can’t leave office withoou saying good bye to you. this austarlianwith

> my collegues. i have to hurry up to the contin. negotiations. hope to write

> more tomorrow. bye. zh

> i miss you very much esp on such busy days.

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: accompanied to continue

Дата: 20 мая 2004 г. 17:40

dear zhen

writing a few moments before leaving university hoping you haven’t left

yet so you’ll rec this message, though of course i do hope you’re home

and resting, that’s more important than a few words from me. as for me,

i’m undecided whether it is determination or suspicion or pessimism or

all three. I know I am working too much (though probably not as much as

you) and it isn’t good for my writing. If I am not writing, I become

miserable, and really, unpleasant to know. But as the trip to Warsaw

reminded me, I am moving in a new world, even to come to Tomsk this

summer for the summer, for you, for time, for writing, is new, and I

need to remember this. The next two weeks will be overwhelming. Though

I went to the passport office today without problems, and I have plenty

of time to apply for my work permit next year. So life goes on.

When I am tired, the first thing I lose is my sense of humor. Then

comes the grim determination to persist. How do you like that word? To

persist, instead of survive. Kind of sounds like an insect, yes?

What will you do this weekend? Will you go to your dacha?

I miss you. Bye.

—

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: N/A

Дата: 31 мая 2004 г. 18:54

dear zhen, i’m writing from the university where i stopped to pick up

any late essays hpoing maybe you are still at the office and can read

this email at 8:30 in the p.m.

Yes, i have visa and tickets for the 23rd of June.

We should celebrate. I am too tired right now to be more than satisfied

and yes, rather happy. But I have to mark papers all night long.

I’ll write to you tomorrow morning at greater length.

bye

> kevin, you are incredibly fast! it is almost 3 pm your time. where

are you?

> you are responsible for more grey hair on my head! bye zh

—

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Re: N/A

Дата: 2 июня 2004 г. 17:54

dear zh,

the money issue (the bank) is not important, so don’t trouble with it.

You mentioned before that Irina is going to be gone much of the summer,

is she looking for someone to rent the flat from her. September’s flat

was very nice and quiet (probably more quiet than Irina’s) but I have

no internet access there (not even dial-up, because of the phone

connection) and I need at least a dial-up connection (or at least I

think I do). Also I am remembering your reluctance to stay there late

in the evening or for the night, and maybe you will not feel so

uncomfortable in Irina’s flat, since it is like a second home to you.

If that is true, then by all means, Irina’s flat? Yes? My day is almost

over here. And yours?

Bye

—

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Yesterday’s letter you did not receive?

Дата: 10 июня 2004 г. 11:27

dear zh, another exam day. yesterday i bought a kilo of strawberries on my way to the tram from the university and i was walking along the sidewalk quite happily and thinking i would write you about new strawberry life, strawberries in my hair, eyes, nose, ears, everywhere strawberries, when i heard not 50 meters behind me a terrible sound of brakes on a car and when i turned around a young woman had been hit by a small truck on the very crosswalk i had just crossed (one without red-green lights). fortunately, the ambulance came, she appeared alive, and they arrested the driver. this is when something terrible happens: when we are walking across the street with a big bag of strawberries.

i do not comment on your recent massages, except that i do not agree that there is a problem with your head. even in the parrot school book they say: overwork causes bad health. still, you are much healthier than me. i do not think i would survive a massage. lately, my lower legs cramp very badly at night, very painfully, from too much walking, i think. i am starting to keep intellectual hours, which means 9 hours sleep one night, two hours sleep the next night. you would really be surprised by my living habits when i am mentally active. for now, mostly i am bound to try to get my computer fine tuned before leaving in two weeks, because i dont think i will be able to find any software there for the new operating system. i still do not have any sound, but i have the sound program and the drivers, and now i must figure out how to reassign IRQs on the hard drive. very tricky, and a good way to shut your system down. i can also see the limit of the particular brand of the linux i am working with, they were good for several years and became too commercial and the software reflects this by this later version. i am sure you are not very interested in this.

are you interested in why we the _s_ in sure the same as in should? why is it not spelled: shyour? english you know has not so many s, sh, sh, sch, sounds as russian. without sound, i cannot study my russian. i hope i will be able to make it between airports in moscow. you are diplomatically silent about meeting me in novosibirsk. i will understand if you do not wish to make the trip. the problem is the psychology of the getting off the plane, it is very lonely to arrive by oneself.

i cannot think of anything to write that can make you laugh as at the massage. so perhaps i had better go and examine some more students speaking skills.

bye

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: After your call

Дата: 10 июня 2004 г. 11:48

dear zh, you are a woman of few words lately? i dont know what happened to mine yesterday, unless the reference to strawberries in one of your postcards indicates that you thought yesterday’s letter was from the day before. the only difference between today and yesterday is that today is a holiday and i have no more exams to give. yesterday i gave exams with three other colleagues from 9:00 to 18:00. a good day’s work. much better than parrot school, especially with topics about terrorism and iraq. the general consensus from both boys and girls is the u.s. president is a terrorist. you can imagine that i enjoy teaching such students. i think my senior polish colleagues were a bit shocked. Halina thought even that since i was an american, they were trying to provoke me, but those students who have taken my classes know that i am a free thinker (such an idea is important here, as there are many who do not think except very traditionally, like Bogdan Krakovian whom i wrote you about). the feature of the oral exams is that students tend to talk about their world, their outlook, their beliefs. a recent incident here (only weeks ago) when police shot and killed two innocent people during a hooligan raid on a student festival has angered the students, and then when there was a public peace rally, the city officials blamed the students for the deaths in their speeches. they seem to equate the police here with guns and killing into crowd with pictures of u.s. soldiers (and polish soldiers) on the news. there is also i think the youth tradition of being against war, especially aggressive war such as is the period we are in now. most importantly, for the second year, so many of the students are very articulate, even eloquent, in the second language, the English language, and really i hear from them more beautiful expressions than from students in the u.s. so yesterday and monday were very meaningful days for me. i have left only three demands on my time and attention: a letter of support for a student who is entering the graduate school here, a letter of critique for an m.a. thesis, and a party tomorrow for our faculty. after monday i hope to be entirely free – free time – what shall i do? do you have any suggestions. i know you will say not to forget to write to you every morning, though i do not, and i wonder if the connection is not so secure? about exchange rate, i never understand, except i think that lower u.s. dollar means more expensive for me to buy? the last time i looked i think it is about 4 zloty per dollar. when i first arrived in october it was 3.7 (to buy dollars – i think this was the price i paid before meeting you in palangas). it is strange a little for me to have no more dollars, i.e. i must buy them. i wonder if i will learn to live without them. it is not so hard. i hope you receive this letter. strawberries and yogurt await me.

b y e

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Russian keyboard

Дата: 10 июня 2004 г. 11:59

zh, i thought you might enjoy this and i of course always think you should write a journal about your arctic explorations (should is a modal verb which you will grind your teeth at) -might, may?- online tools like blogs and the list talked about below really are an aid to writing, and now you have a powerful machine …

(this posting is from the same discussion list as the article by Oleg Kireev which you liked when you read it in Palangas)

<nettime> Russian LiveJournal: National specifics in the development of a virtual community by Eugene Gorny 

To: “nettime’s on/off connector” <nettime-l AT bbs.thing.net>

Subject: <nettime> Russian LiveJournal: National specifics in the development of a virtual community by Eugene Gorny

From: olia lialina <olia AT profolia.org>

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 17:39:12 +0200

Reply-to: olia lialina <olia AT profolia.org>

——————————————————————————–

There is a very interesting article on Russian online community and its

total removal to Live Journal published now in Russian Cyberspace magazine.

http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/russ-cyb/library/texts/en/gorny_rlj.htm

Eugene Gorny

Russian LiveJournal: National specifics in the development of a virtual

community.

The community of users at LiveJournal.com (LJ) is currently the largest

virtual Russian-speaking community, uniting Russians from all over the

world. In February 2004, it reached 40,000 users and this number is

rapidly growing. In April 2004, according to the statistics of user

distribution by countries, the Russian Federation with its 48,000 users

was in fourth place after the United States, Canada and the United

Kingdom and leaving behind Australia, Germany and Singapore. To gain a

more accurate idea about the population of Russian-speaking users, one

needs to add those living abroad. According to “The LJist Companion: A

Guide to Russian Language LiveJournal”, their number can be roughly

estimated at 2,000, most of them living in Ukraine, United States,

Israel, Estonia, Germany, and Latvia.

Dynamics of RLJ

<…>

1. Conception

The early history of RLJ was highly personalized. Admittedly, “the

father” of RLJ is Roman Lejbov, lecturer at the University of Tartu,

Estonia, an online journalist and one of the pioneers of the Russian

Internet. However, chronologically he was not the first Russian in LJ.

The first user from Russia registered on the LJ site on November 27th,

1999. His username was “linker” and his journal got a notable number 666

[80]. However, he created his account “just in case”, did not write

anything for a long time and has not produced anything noteworthy

afterwards. The fact of his appearance was discovered much later. The

first entry in the Russian language [81] was made in LJ three days

later, on November 30th, 1999 by user “at” [82], in real life Aleksej

Tolkachev, a Russian programmer working in the US. After writing one

more entry, he abandoned his journal and returned to it only two years

after, when LJ became a hit [83]. Both users stayed in prehistory

because just to be the first in time does not create an event, which is

the basic unit of history.

The real history of RLJ began on February 1st, 2000 when Lejbov (who had

opened his account the day before) started his journal with a test entry

that ran as follows: “First attempt at writing [proba pera]. Let’s try

it in Russian… A funny thing!” [84] As he asserted later [85], he knew

about LJ from Misha Verbitsky’s posting of December 22nd, 2000 at the

guestbook at his site “Lenin”, the so-called “Anti-culturological

journal”. Verbitsky, having analysed the referrer log for his site,

found out that two users visited Lenin from LJ, followed the links and

then made a short note about LJ: “It is exactly for such sites the

Internet exists. People sit there day and night and tell about

themselves, in hundreds.” [86] Having become curious, Lejbov followed

the link and decided to play with the new toy.

Unlike his prehistorical predecessors, who content themselves with the

mere fact of becoming users, Lejbov started immediately to explore the

possibilities of LJ for creativity and self-expression. On his first

day, he made 18 entries in various genres including an opinion (about

the qualities of LJ), a pun, a characterization of his psychophysical

state (insomnia), a remembrance of dream, a sketch (about his wife and a

cat), a quotation (from right-wing philosopher and nationalist

politician Dugin) with an ironic commentary, a plan for action, a

reflection (on the idea of the taught course of history as a reverse

narrative), a joke on an actual political event, a critical remark on a

musical group, a description of a fact of life, a rumour, a poem (by

Pushkin) and an extract from the encyclopaedia. He also downloaded an

animated photo of himself. Thus, on the very first day he used LJ in a

variety of ways and sampled most of the genres that would be exploited

later on. He went on writing and experimenting and missed not a single

day that February. Many of his innovations have been widely accepted by

the RLJ community. He coined the word “lytdybr” – the Russian word

dnevnik meaning “diary” mistakenly typed using English keyboard layout –

which become a standard genre designation for entries devoted to

description of events in users’ personal lives. Being a prolific

dreamer, he frequently described his dreams in his journal and inspired

many users to do the same. He also was one of the first who began to

post photographs on the regular basis and introduced other innovations.

Some time Lejbov kept his journal privately but gradually the rumours

about the mysterious thing called “blog” ran through Runet and more

people followed his example. [87] At the first stage, LJ become popular

amidst Internet professionals, many of whom came onto the Internet in

the period of “Sturm und Drang” of the 1990-s and formed the so-called

“Runet elite”. As a rule, they did not use their journals for work but

rather for fun, for personal self-expression and interpersonal play. The

idea of using LJ for collaborative creative work was gradually emerging

from this playful activity but it was fully realized at the later stages

of RLJ evolution.

However, RLJ could not gain popularity in the masses and would stay a

toy for a few if the pioneers had not propagandized it and recruit new

members.

…

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#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets

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От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: zhenya lukyanova <zhen_l@rambler.ru>

Копия: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Sleeping late

Дата: 11 июня 2004 г. 13:43

dear zh, it was a strange and nice feeling this morning to lie in bed after waking to the alarm and neither sleep nor not sleep, drifting once again in and out of consciousness as i have almost forgotten to know how to do after these past few months of nearly daily demands on my time and subjectivity. strawberries are a small comfort, though they would not keep me from writing to you in the morning. which is more likely? my not writing (and saying especially that i did?) or server mix-ups? mail has been delayed and lost before between us, though it is not an argument that i feel worthy of attention. i was concerned though that you were concerned enough about me to call, so that gives more importance to writing than you indicated in writing. though email is a convenience, i never take it for granted, and this attitude is helped by the difficulty of access my first two years in russia. so it doesnt surprise me when letters don’t arrive, etc. i keep a send file which keeps track of the messages that leave my computer (very helpful for student correspondence) and also there should be a function in your Outlook Express program which lets you save my km@hypobololemaioi.com address so that you can click on that for an automatic completion of the address. whichever is most convenient for you. are you getting a little nervous about 23 June?

at least you have heard me read, once, my poetry, so you know that i write, as from time to time i write about writing, always like writing about a friend one both has and does not have. i don’t know my writing as a habit, or practice, or job, and i have made many conscious (and sometimes accidental) and abrupt and definite actions to protect this being, this way of being in the world, which by now has almost no external reference, which i know only as a special demand on the being towards language, as i recognize the fragility and vulnerability of my will and motive and being toward language, so i dont know this as a public life, for protection, we are surrounded by such powerful and absolutist definition forces, at least as i know it in the u.s., and there are so many reasons why i look to russia as a place, even if only a place for the next three months, but for me now it is like a sanctuary, a place of peace, and you should know that is how i think of Tomsk, and the flat, the September flat, seems like such good fortune, that i am worried about writing about it too much. but do you know that all my life whenever i have tried to be close to someone, they tell me that they always feel that i am not there?

i have mentioned it before, but during the three months i would like to try to arrange some visits with artists, especially multimedia artists, living in novosibirsk. i have one contact email for a writer there whose article i sent you published in artmargins. i would like to visit several artists, take some digital camera footage, and write about their what they say about their lives and work, using as a root declaration: artists are more sincere in russia (alexei shulgin) because there is no support whatever, and this ground zero of difficulty, well, i dont wish to romanticize it, which, by the way, is how i interpret Sokurov’s russian ark. so in some way this real-life documentary would complement the writing about the views on this film (and we should try to find a video copy of it somewhere? if you can find one on the russian net, i will buy it). this could be a project that we work together on, myself as writer and camerawork, you as translator and interlocutor, and a work that we make together, either for the web (this is what i prefer, as i know have the webspace at the hypobololemaioi.com website. basically, i want to put art in novosibirsk online, visiting the workspaces, and listening to the artists. if i do this project well, it may lead to future web-based projects where i visit and speak with and document the lives and representations of others. but i cannot do this without you, and so i would like to ask for you to think about it for a while, and if yes, i will draft a letter to send to the author of the ArtMargins article and perhaps we can send it in both Russian and English – depending on whether you wish to translate it or not.

this is a serious proposal for collaboration, and also one which suggests a possible future direction for my work.

emotionally, you know the best is always unsaid, so i will not try playing with words about the 23 january, though do you remember the strange moment in the train station in vilnius? why should not the same strangeness return on 23 june in novosibirsk. i think this strangeness is very positive. your existence is solid and material and concrete for me. you call me and worry about me and joke with me. and yet, i do not take your existence as an assumption, your real being and person, and i know of myself that i am becoming increasingly removed and remote from being able to assert my presence in three-dimensional space, so the meeting, the seeing one another again after 5 months, why should it not be strange and awkward and comical? still, i remember in the bus on the way to tomsk (how i love the landscape – the forests and fields and villages between these two cities) you very gently placed your head on my shoulder and we held hands. even this i do not keep in memory as an expectation, only as the so important natural gestures, which overcome the artificiality of our psyche constructions and projections.

finally, for the laugh, do you know that i have been struggling with tuning my computer to the new operating system, and finally i decided that the old operating system was better? simpler? the new one is made for the market and makes the user feel more stupid, just like microsoft! so i reinstalled the old system. now i think you are smiling a little at me, and i welcome it.

and i hope this letter reaches you, so i am sending it to both addresses. do you wish to look at my send file when i get to tomsk to confirm the letters i have sent you and when?

by

e

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: zhenya lukyanova <zhen_l@rambler.ru>

Копия: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: The periphery flat

Дата: 12 июня 2004 г. 12:05

dear zh, why do i have the feeling i have overslept again? to bed at 2:00 a.m. after the party and now after six hours i am awake and writing to you but it is probably already too late, you are of the mind that i wont write to you today?

i am beginning to notice an alarming trend: everything here is slightly defective. the cd player, the coffee pot (my morning coffee has just erupted again like a volcano with coffee grounds all over the outside of the pot and in my cup) and the cds containing the new operating system which, when i ran a verification tool, reported defective, though this did not prevent me from installing them one more time even after i decided that i liked the earlier operating system better. i paid 99 zlotys for the book with the cds, so i could not not use them, that is how stubborn i am about expenses.

perhaps i write such long letters to you since it is my custom to write during the first cup of coffee. i write a sentence, take a sip, write a sentence, take a sip. this reminds me, i think i will experiment with a new coffee machine at the Tomsk flat – can we call it the flat at the edge of the town? why edge? why not border? no, the periphery. The periphery flat.

i do not know what to advise you about your laptop. perhaps you enjoy the ambivalence, what to do with this machine, now that the basic uncertainties have been settled (sound of the motor, the shaking screen, strange lights on the console). remember that it, the machine, is in no hurry to do anything. sometimes i feel like mine is something of a crocodile, at least it consumes my time and energy. late nights trying to get this to work with that.

about my wish to make a project interviewing artists in novosibirsk, why do you feel cynical? i am not an australian meeting with bankers. what is there to feel cynical about? more important to me is trying to conceptualize and complete what is called a web project. i will try to find an early example, i think called Siberian Town, done some years ago by two women visiting Siberia.

i have finished my coffee rather quickly this morning, perhaps because of slight hangover. now what will i do for the rest of the day? how many hours are unaccountable in the time of one’s reading.

when are your correspondence classes finished? when does your summer begin? it is just now beginning to occur to me that i have no commitments, no job, no responsibilities, between now and the last week of September. really this is rather extraordinary. i think i am going to write a book. as always, my book will be about the impossibility of the book. this way, i always have something to write about, which is the problem of writing itself.

b    ye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Siberian Town

Дата: 14 июня 2004 г. 13:10

dear zh, i am resending this to your tpu address in case you dont receive the rambler.ru mail (my mail has been lost there before!) funny that when i searched for this website i looked under Siberian Town (one of the titles of one of the digital films) and i dont think i like the connotation of _Deal_ though it is used in so many ways colloquially. (the rest of the letter is the same and also, if you wrote to me at the uni.lodz address, could you resend to km@hypobololemaioi.com please?

 www.t0.or.at/~siberian/vrteil.htm

 if you have the time while at the university connection to download the two movies, they are good early examples of what can be done with digital video, at least to my mind, very sparse, minimal. i remember these videos before going to russia for the first time, and how important they were to me to see however momently and confined, an “image” of that strange and new world.

 here, same old same old. last night at about 22:00 a neighbor came to my door with the news that an upstairs apt. had been broken into. in my flat is most of my summer money and my laptop, so today and tomorrow when i go to the univ. i will carry my laptop and my money with me.

 today, i wouldn’t need to go to the university except that one of the worst students from the dunce college needs my signature, so i agreed to meet him at the univ. when he called. this is familiar to you but very funny to me: the students will find you no matter where when they need a signature. the worst ones would probably even come to siberia for the 3.

 you would be amused at my failures with my computer: still no modem connection nor audio for the new operating system. the modem i can live without, but the audio problem bothers me. in a positive sense, i am learning a lot about the relationship of the hardware to the ports and how the ports provide access to the programs, which run on principle of devices and modules. all problems seem to be solved by hotplugging, i.e., using usb and firewire cards, and reading the documentation for the older mid-90s machines, one understands what an advance this technology represented for expanding the power of the computer to render sound and video.

 the two problems i have spent the last two or three days on could be solved by one, the purchase of a usb soundcard and two, using ethernet connection with DSL or ADSL. in poland as in russia this is still rather expensive, though it almost standard now in u.s. with permanent DSL connection costing only 35 dollars a month, not even twice what a dial-up connection costs (usually 20-25 dollars a month). probably this is what i will arrange in the fall. and if one is online all the time, what is there?

 certainly it is a print environment, but i think more than anything i miss the visual and sound stimulus and the ability to visit many sites for though keeping track of them is always a problem. what is possible is the assembly of one’s own textual and visual environment, the virtual library, and of course this all important sensation of speed. i also dream of having a really good printer someday and printing out texts of more thing, making of them my own objects, again, this wish for a library.

 a library is in the three-dimensions also a place the mind moves around in, very different from using an external library for one’s reading. there’s something of a limitation no matter how many books i check out they are never the ones i am looking for. reading for writing is restless this way. this kind of reading is a very circular reading. browsing, really, though there’s more to it. the sensation of movement at the level of the word, maybe it feels sometimes like looking for words, though it is more like the reading mind, the ear for the language one is writing in, is constantly trying to find ports into the echo chamber, nodes where the language is still alive. that is one work anyway for the reading that is part of writing. still living the way that i do, it is something the absence of which i feel acutely.

 my coffee cup is empty and it is high time i turned my attention to the dissertation that i have to write a letter about today. two letters today and two signatures and i will be finished with university work for the summer. and you?

 by    e

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: zhenya lukyanova <zhen_l@rambler.ru>

Копия: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Present dangers

Дата: 15 июня 2004 г. 11:20

dear zh, i had a burst of energy yesterday, or concentration, or determination, and revised my

For the Future City by the Inland Sea

website, if you care to take a look. not a lot will be immediately apparent. the design change was to use many, many files of shorter pages, which takes shorter time to load in the browser, and perhaps gives greater effect of attention to the page that is loaded. i am not sure that all the links work, as i will have to check them at the university connection today (it takes too much time on my connection at home).

i started at about 16:00 and finished at midnight. strange, but all the (as yet unsuccessful) work on trying to get my modem and sound software on the linux side to talk to the hardware settings on the dos side seemed to make the website program simple in comparison, and what before has been to me an arduous task (though i have done it many times) proceeded very smoothly. another summer project is to redesign my ebooks. at present they load in the download as manuscript pages (A4 size printable) and i should reduce the pages to more of a book dimension, slightly smaller, and perhaps using some graphics, at least for the cover pages.

how did the visit of the australian businessman go? have you finished interpreting?

i have had several offers to take care of any valuables this summer, and this is a strange concept, valuable, but with the recent break-in i cannot take it for granted that anything i leave behind will still be here when i return, so i will pack up my big green intl. suitcase with my printer, a few expensive books (worth about 30 rubles on the paperback blackmarket) and actually, since it is summer, i wont be bringing my two leather jackets, and these are the two most valuable items that i own, even more valuable than my computer. if i had to replace them, and i guess that is how one determines whether something is valuable or not.

today it is overcast and very cool so i will wear one of them, which means if my flat is robbed today they will only get the one jacket. yesterday (as today) i took with me to the univ. my computer, my dv camera, and my money. i am a very good target for a mugging. do you think the gang (as they are coming to be called) is reading my email? speculations abound. it is obvious to some that the building is being watched, so that when someone goes away they rob their flat. should i leave milk and cookies when i leave next week? so far i have been lucky. the only thing i have lost was due to my own absent-mindedness when i was setting a plastic container of yoghurt on the refrigerator shelf the shelf was a little unstable due to readjustment for day’s earlier large container of fresh strawberries (though i prefer them at room temperature, but there is a limit as to how many strawberries one can eat, and mine is about half a kilo a day – i have never lived anywhere where the strawberries are so cheap – they sell them by the wheelbarrow – everywhere i see people walking with kilo size bags of strawberries) and back to my yoghurt, it fell on the floor and broke, and i lost about half a cup, though the container was broken, so i lay the container back in the refrigerator on its side, thinking that i would eat it later, the contents that hadnt spilled, but now i am thinking i will leave it for the gang.

everything else, will go in my large suitcase and to a colleagues flat for safekeeping. even the chair of my dept yesterday offered to safekeep them. there is also the humor of having so few valuables, though this i rather enjoy. one begins to think strangely. yesterday i included in my bag my hotplug cards for usb and firewire, worth about 60 dollars each, and a real inconvenience if someone stole them. perhaps today i will carry with me various transformers and electrical cords, and my router worth 49 dollars. or should i just put price tags on everything and ask the gang for a donation?

i have decided to also leave them my 99 zloty elta cd player – which they would not bother to take, i am sure, as the brand name must be a well-known joke in poland – one of those companies that nothing works that they make. by the way, the big effect of european union status is now when i go to the supermarket i see many brands of german and swiss coffee, as expensive as the american brands. big changes, yes? actually, there is increased competition between the big economies, even if we only see it in the coffee. that is what is visible (all too visible according to my defective polish-made coffee pot) and one only wonders at the forms of economic competition that are not visible day to day to the average person. in the past this competition has led to war. i dont see any reason why this shouldnt happen again, though it will take some time, maybe about 20 years.

maybe ive mentioned this, but at the parrot school, from the textbook written in the 50s-60s, the question, do you think there will be another world war? was always taken very seriously by especially the adult students, and some of the expressions on their faces – because they understood the question – and so many answered yes. i give a special wisdom to inhabitants of the buffer zones. but today the problem is the unsafe flat. later i will worry about the world.

and you, dear zhen, you do not write or our emails are evaborating in the virtual sphere? if i can locate a card i will try calling you today or tomorrow (i dont know when the masters dissertation defense will be over, yesterday i got home rather late in the afternoon). i have been asked to read and comment on one more dissertation, and did not refuse. this is good experience, and i am glad to have the chance to write a few words that will go into the dissertation filed in the library.

bye for now

do you still miss me

or are you in condition of irritation?

( i know you a little, though just a little)

are you standing in the ravine?

km@hypobololemaioi.com

От: Kevin Magee <magee@uni.lodz.pl>

Кому: zhenya lukyanova <zhen_l@rambler.ru>

Копия: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: Early morning words

Дата: 16 июня 2004 г. 8:06

dear zh, i am writing you at an unusual time, half past three in the morning, and yes, you guessed, i have been doing this and that with/on my computer. more work on my website, and as i have been having some time what are called bugs in my microsoft explorer browser, i downloaded what is called a mozilla browser, which i highly recommend. i know it from using it on the linux platform, and it is based on the netscape browser, but is an open source project (non proprietary) and the development has really come a long way. in a few days i may even have the temerity to uninstall my microsoft explorer, though that would probably be unwise, since it is the most common browser on the internet, and one has to design for it as for netscape/mozilla (at least among the graphic browsers). but you probably dont want to hear too much about computers. give your own some time, though, or, if you really dont like it (apart from the expressions of your bad character – remember mine is just as bad -) you should return it while it is still under warranty. i should have done that a number of times, and actually i did once when i needed a scanner, i would buy one, take it home, try it out, and if it didn’t work well or if the software was funky, i would return it. finally i bought one for 300 dollars on which i scanned the summer before i left for russia the first time all the important documents (notebooks, etc) which are in the storage disk in your flat. the originals i destroyed. you see, i have taken ‘going digital’ to heart.

now, about my printer, neither do i have of did i have any intention of bringing it anywhere, as neither do i have any intention of bringing my international suitcase – flying from poland to tomsk is hardly international? i am travelling very light, intending to buy clothes in tomsk. what i meant though it probably wasn’t clear, was that i was going to put everything that would fit into the big suitcase and take it the house of one of my colleagues for safekeeping. no worries about my losing the baggage ticket this time, i should be able to carry everything on the plane. another advantage of my little laptop, which, incidentally, and despite sound and modem problems, i am quite fond of, and really think highly of the ibm model. that is probably not what you want to hear me say. among the little contradictions in life is the fact that for my american culture class i teach an essay which accuses ibm corp. of revising history from their use of a charlie chaplin motif in one of their advertising campaigns, and yet, had i the money, and i were going to buy a newer model, ibm would be my choice. but two laptops are enough for now, though eventually when i get going on digital image work i will need a high speed and larger disk space. but that is a long time away.

the masters defense went very well, and i was given a bouquet of roses (tradition). i asked one not very hard question about the writers of the american renaissance. the letter i wrote though i think was the more important task, and i have one more such letter to write, probably this weekend. my words and signatures are entering the university library here. which brings to mind other thoughts about one’s life in writing which i wont bore you with now.

working on my website, i reread the poem i wrote last september and it gave me the very pleasant sense of anticipation of writing this summer. the poem is better than anything i wrote this year, more tendentious and and disciplined poems, affected by the fact that i am publishing them on a discussion list dominated by the brahmins of the u.s. poetry scene. one is more self-conscious in such a context than writing privately, and that’s how i felt last september.

my big project for tomorrow is cleaning the kitchen and polishing my shoes black. do you remember the new shoes in september? they are now very old shoes, but i will try to get three more months life out of them. turning them from brown to black is my idea of new shoes. i still remember buy the leather soap/polish at the store for 1000 things on lenina prospekt with you.

by the way, do you have or could you find that website in russian where my work at Zabaikalsky is mentioned favorably? i tried to find it tonight, and perhaps did, an article or part of an article by the dean of the faculty where i taught. of course i could not read it very well in russian, and saw only a reference to my name, and i thought i remember you writing that Tatiana Sukhanova had written something rather complimentary. If you can find it, could you forward me the url?

when do you start translating your father’s textbook. it would be very nice if we could work together this summer, in the same space, i will be writing and you will be translating. which ever room you prefer, i remember (and this is in the september poem) moving between both rooms. the kitchen has more light, though the fridge is rather loud, but i like being within reach of the fridge, unfortunately. the front room is more quiet, but colder. maybe we will try to keep flowers on the sill. it is nice having roses in the room here.

i tried to call you about 17:00 your time and maybe your cell phone will show that i did try. i will try again tomorrow afternoon, later, more in your evening, unless you write me that you will be out and about.

i am sorry to hear that you hate english, as that is all i am capable of right now. hatred i understand, though for me there is something of suspicion mixed with contempt, but most of all, profound distrust of the words, maybe that is it, distrust, instead of dislike, though it helps hearing how people use this language here, even in the dissertation defense today, than if i had to listen to it every day, which would be too much. it’s impossible to objectify, but i had this impression of overwhelming verbal assault my last two times in the u.s., just listening to people speaking and hearing the language on the broadcasts.

until tomorrow (oh no, i just noticed it is getting daylight outside the window, at 4:00 in the morning!

bye

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: The day before

Дата: 22 июня 2004 г. 12:52

dear zh,

i left early to write letter in support of a student applying to grad

program here and the last master’s thesis response. both letters

accomplished and i am now officially finished for the summer except the

defense is at 10:00 a.m. my pesel number came yesterday so today i will

try to retrieve my salary at the dunce college, about 500 dollars. then

i will go to the bank to retrieve euros. then i will go home and stare

at my now empty apartment. i have really cleared it out, and i am only

beinging a few changes of clothes, and my computer. which i really

knocked out, the windows part, still there, all the files, but

unbootable, as by pressing a single key i added more than 1024 kilobyte

restriction on the boot map of the hard drive, so now windows won’t

boot, though i can read it all i want from linux. there’s also an

emulation program designed to operate all the windows programs, so

maybe i will go that route this summer, and never again stare at

Microsoft Windows coming up on my screen. really, though, i feel quite

disoriented, kind of post-lodz, at the moment, though i am wishing i

had gotten rid of my flat, as it feels strange to leave it empty for

three months, and i hope it is not vandalized. i am sorry to cause you

any concern, you would laugh if you could see the mundane details of my

trip preparation. i expect it to go quite easily, and i should arrive

thursday morning almost refreshed. don’t forget about dinner thursday

at your favorite chinese restaurant. don’t be surprised if i am a

little shy, or whatever, as i really feel what we call “out of it”

lately, rather remote from myself, and feeling rather thick in the

head. it doesn’t help that it has been so cold here lately. enough

complaining. i am sorry i wasn’t home this morning. i took the 7:00

a.m. bus to the university.

missing you, bye

> hi, where are you? you always disappear so unexpectedly. i tried to

call you

> today at about 7 of your time. are you ok? bye zh

>

>

>

>

—

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: How many hours

Дата: 22 июня 2004 г. 12:53

and i miss you

i am reading my email from the past several days from you this morning

at the univ. thank you for writing. it sounds very nice to be able to

say that i will see you the day after tomorrow. how many hours? less

than 48 i think.

bye

> hi, today in the evening i will have your keys.

> yesterday i was invited to the cafe by one of my numerous

aqcuaintances. we

> were sitting in the cafe and i realised that next sunday we will be

able to

> spend together.

> i miss your letters, most probably i miss you. bye zh

—

От: Kevin Magee <km@hypobololemaioi.com>

Кому: Lukyanova <lev@tpu.ru>

Тема: What can go wrong

Дата: 22 июня 2004 г. 12:57

dear zh, i think i know by now that if i ever open my computer that

will be the end of it. the problem is not so serious, though i am

prevented from sending email, which i would not be doing anyway after

today.

have you any ideas as to what can go wrong on this trip? everything

seems too easy and simple.

i shouldn’t ask after bad luck, though, do you think?

bye again! see you soon!

(and with kisses if you wish)

> hi, i think it is not your level zny more only to re-download and re-

install

> everything you have in your poor computer, sir. it is high time to

take a

> screwdriver and to peep into the hard drive of your beloved computer.

good

> luck. see you with a small sack of details from your computer in the

> airport. bye zh