Recent doings

God, it’s almost a month that I haven’t been here! But it’s so hard to find a minute when being torn apart somewhere in between Yar and Moscow. Interviews to follow one another, sometimes up to 3 on one day. And you’re ready to drop right in the Metro carriage after a day of rushing about Moscow in an office suit under +30 C (to be surely hotter on a Metro ring line, especially at peak hours). Finally, it seems now that I’ve found a job, but I haven’t yet sent a confirmation in response to an employment offer letter. The problem to solve now is finding an apartment to rent, and it feels like being a much bigger problem than getting employed. But we’ll make it :-) I returned to Yar for a couple of days to settle a number of other questions, while Lyuba stayed in Moscow. Hope she’ll find a way for us while she is there.

Music-wise, 3 new texts appeared meanwhile, “Rainbow”, “Radically Tuned”, and “Who Sold The Book?” Ox has recently made a ‘useful acquaintance’ through which we found a good studio with moderate fees to record some of my tracks. Need to make them first. I’m buying a midi-keyboard and a special graphic lap top for this purpose (damn it’s hell expensive!). But it’s a question of months, no doubt. I’m quite decided about buying a guitar and learning to play it. I feel like time has come to do the things I’ve always longed for. Life’s too short to wait. I think it was Sergey Lazarev to mention this aphorism in some interview, “Those who patiently wait - get something in the end, but this something is usually what’s left from those who never waited” SUPER! :-)

I’m placing thick dots here, not a point, ‘coz I’m gonna keep on updating you on what’s going on in my life, and sharing new thoughts and stories. But right now I need to go. Mom’s ex-student is visiting us in 2 hours with her groom to invite Mom officially to her wedding which will be held on August 20th. Great girl, and I’m happy for her happiness! She deserves it!!!

Biiig hugs and kisses,
Love ya all,
Me.

About the favourite band

Love is only what you give up -
Life is in what you get
Love won’t always fill your cup,
But life’s when you start to live
Life’s when you learn to give…

It’s generally so hard to formulate why we love this or that thing, since the more we love it the greater spectrum of details about it falls into this love zone. We’re all looking for something that would correspond with what we feel or think, that would explain to us some simple formulae about a difficulty to make the right decision: “Sittin’ on the corner of nowhere road just between “I wish I could” and “I don’t know”; about a loss of a dear person: “I don’t want you to cry and weep whooooa. I want you to go on living your life. I’m not sleeping an endless sleep whooooa. It’s in your heart you’ll have all of our good times. Oh, all of our good times...”; about lack of understanding and loneliness: “Sitting on the side, waiting for a sign, hoping that my luck will change. Reaching for a hand that can understand, someone who feels the same. When you live in a cookie-cutter world being different is a sin. So you don’t stand out, but you don’t fit in. Weird…”; about love: “It doesn’t mean love’s wrong just because you’re feeling low. And it doesn’t mean love’s gone ‘cause you feel that you want to let go. No one wrote in this book of love that you’d always know. I wish someone would have told me before…”; about life and struggle: “Everyone waits on a walk. Some are long and some small, but all of them tall. And everyone must make a choice – will I go for it all, and possibly fall? The tightrope is thin, I could possibly win on the walk…” They’re just the same as they were when they first showed up 10 years ago being merry 12-17 year old kids bombing concert halls with pop/rock’n’roll songs. The same in the sense that they never got false to themselves and yielded to the destructive influences of show biz placing show above music to snatch a large sum. They still write all the songs themselves, the songs in which they describe experience gained, life situations they got in, and conclusions drawn out. Their whole life passes before your eyes in their albums. They grow up, and the songs grow up with them. They become harsher, more serious, more mature. 10 years ago they sang about computer games, comics heroes, favourite toys, friendship, and other things that worry children. Now, they sing about problems of AIDS and poverty in Africa, about family and children (‘coz they all are married by now, and two of them have children), about the ‘many-sidedness’ of life and inability to grasp the whole of it, about music. What am I fascinated at? Someone else’s life? No. Sincerity! Music as a form of expression your inner state, your feelings and emotions – that’s the way it should exist. And it does exist in their songs. Unpretentious lines, with no definite rhyme structure make you imagine them saying the same if you got a chance to talk to them. Real names they often refer to make you deepen more into their world. And you don’t care that this song is dedicated to their friend, or a wife of one of them. It is devoted to a real person, close to them; the lines come out of the heart, that’s why it’s always easy to transfer it on to your friend or lover, ‘coz “we all are human”, and we all feel and suffer the same, although we might live in different countries all-around the world. To say nothing about rock’n’roll and rock/pop rhythms, so dear to my heart! They are masters of arrangement, and their versions of James Brown’s, Chuck Berry’s, Kingsmen’s, U2 songs are a marvel. The more you listen, the more you feel it could not be done better.

Tell me does it move you?
Does it soothe you?
Does it fill your heart and soul
With the roots of rock’n’roll?..

Every rock’n’roll lover has his face and his name of rock’n’roll. My face is called IKE-TAY-AND-ZAC. My name is called HANSON.

A train to childhood

Seeing your classmate 5 years after finishing school evokes indescribable feelings in you. Even though we met each other more than once since then - practically every year at an annual alumni meeting at school - and kept in touch via mobile. But today it was something special. We talked about nothing as usual, and it was not proper talk – it was a chat, one of a kind that two girls are common to produce when they meet up burning with desire to get free from a huge pile of information. Sharing photos, videos and news on the lives of other classmates. Olya does not seem to change over the years, and I constantly used to catch myself at the thought that every time I looked at her I saw…myself – 5,6,7,10 years ago!.. Maths lesson in front of our teacher’s Dutch colleagues. Lyosha and I are standing at the blackboard explaining the solution of some problem, and the teacher praises us for being the most rational in solution team. I have nothing to do with this success, ‘coz it was Lyosha who had solved the problem. He has always been top mathematician of our class. And I’m just an assistant. But I like the idea of being praised in Maths, the lesson at which I’m no way a leader. Make others believe you are clever, and you are on half the way to Gold Medal :) A common strategy of ‘academic survival’ that now carries a proud scientific name of “PR”… A trip to Rostov in the 10th grade. We’re all together, “A” class and our “B”, me, Olya, Zhenya, Lyosha, Seryozha, everyone. Zhenya and I are trying on Russian folk costumes and look like true boyarynias. Kirill and Rodik are not behindhand in similarity. Rodik’s even handed in a balalaika to get his image finished… It’s the times of first real problems with the teaching staff and parents, first real alcohol parties in a nightclub, first skipping lectures, and first love… First poems to appear to express my inner state, mainly melancholic-sounding. HE will never come to know about my feelings due to a number of evident reasons… Those great plays we used to stage with Katya’s Mom – golden days of our drama team!.. Those Farewell Party songs of “Where does our childhood go?” (“Kuda uhodit detstvo?”) type did not give a slightest idea of how important was the moment of parting with school life forever. We were all so smiley, in our beautiful ball dresses with fantastic hair-dos on our heads… Maybe it’s just TODAY that I fully realized that childhood is gone. Finishing school to be followed by university entrance exams, then university life to come next, new discoveries and relations, crazy student parties and still more crazy travels. Childhood seemed to continue. And now nothing more is left.. Nor even student life. Would I like to return to school days? YES, YES! NO!.. So much has been gained afterwards that I now wonder if I ever understood life before I finished school. Then what should we do? Simple. See our classmates, ‘coz seeing classmates is a train to childhood.

Everything IS possible?

5 minutes ago Alice said to me over the phone, “Don’t be that pessimistic about life. Why wouldn’t you join me in putting on rose-colored glasses?” – “You think it can be possible?” – “Of course! Everything is possible!” Is it?? Arkady and Denis lost each other when they were moving back from San Francisco, and Arkady only knew the name of the city where Denis got. But they met up in the street when we were strolling in nightly Yaroslavl!.. And why am I so sure that Alice will find Ruben in Holland?..

How far can a hope-coming-true-to-life go? And what does it depend on – coincidence or steady forwarding towards your goal? And how can I know for sure that this is meant to happen to me, and not to somebody else? And this feeling, like I need to be in another place, in that place – is it fate or just a trick of my imagination? Ah how I want my brain to be used to more than the average 10 per cent! Then I could possibly get the answers that would make my direction more distinct. And now… am I right to choose this way? Who knows…

A hole in the fence

Nothing’s ever done without consequences to follow, although you might not wish it at all. Simple example. I have run into an awful debt on my second mobile account which I use when I go abroad. I was not going to pay that debt, because it would be pretty easier just to buy another sim-card. So I was happily living until yesterday’s call from Katya: “Hey, is it your number xxxxx?” – “Yes.” – “You know that you owe 620 rubles /a little more than 20 baks/?” – “Yes. And whazzup?” – “Your sim-card is registered on me, and they started drawing the money out of my mobile account! So that now my mobile doesn’t function, ‘coz they have drawn out all the money!!!” I had to pay off the debt, no matter how strongly I disliked the idea. And got a reproof from Mom for my ‘unwarranted light-mindedness’… What I’m thinking now is that you may build the most inaccessible fence to hide the truth, but someday a hole will happen to appear where you will not expect it, and the truth will anyway come to light. But this time it will bring much more destruction that it could have, before you built the fence. Then why hiding the truth? Why not admitting your guilt and trying to correct the mistake straight away? Why not being honest?

Poems in Russian

To put a logical end to the set of poems/songs posted today I can’t exclude something done in Russian. Here are three of my recent poems.

***
Словно вдруг диск Земли открутился назад,
Временная завеса упала,
Дождь затих, а снаружи опять снегопад,
Сея хлопья над крышею зала.
И стою, как во сне, позабыв обо всем,
Замерев от колесного стука,
Словно вдруг из Метро выйдет он на перрон,
Как всегда не роняя ни звука.
Но проходят мгновенья, и калейдоскоп
Разных судеб и лиц заполняет
Эту призрачно-дымную залу Метро,
Где его я уже не узнаю.
Вновь неистовый вихрь незаконченных дел
И текущих событий закружит,
Меж теплом моих грез оформляя раздел
И безмолвной реальности стужей.
Мне осталось топтать боль в душе и печаль,
И, как изгнанный стаей на годы
Волк, что с грустью взирает в туманную даль,
Все смотреть в пустоту перехода.

***
Что правит чувством –
Марка? Деньги? Престиж? Или позыв природы?
И как назвать любовь искусством,
Когда она в плену у моды?

Где место сердцу –
В ржавой банке? На дне подвала среди смрада?
Сверкнувшую на долю терций
Любовь корысть поглотит жадно.

Жизнь без ответа,
В вечной фальши, а душу жжет гламур-отрава.
И как найти нам выход к свету,
Когда сердца в сетях PRа?

***
Почему я вновь открыла ящик,
Где хранятся все твои стихи?
Ведь средь блеска жизни настоящей
Прошлого померкли огоньки.

Почему я вновь смотрю на фото,
Где детьми мы кормим верблюжат?
Жизнь тогда казалась беззаботной.
Жаль, что нет для нас пути назад.

Почему я в мыслях возвращаюсь
Вновь и вновь в ту ссору во дворе,
И слова мои: «Я не раскаюсь!» -
Не дают никак покоя мне?

Почему тебя я вспоминаю?
Может, это просто потому,
Что хотя с тобой давно другая,
Я тебя по-прежнему люблю?..

German quatrains

It was the last semester at uni. German class. Or rather 2 German classes following each other. Brains started to roll up already closer to the end of the 1st class. Victoria Vladimirovna was desperately trying to teach us to use Partizip II, but we were absolutely learning-disabled. We were entreating to let us go home, but she was steadfast as usual. She spread the copies with some statements about environmental protection and made us comment upon those statements. It was real torture, ‘coz none of us is ever able to make a huge serious comment in German without making a 1,2,3..hundred mistakes. She starts to correct them, and insists that you should repeat the comment without mistakes, then she wants to ask you a question on your comment, and you answer it with another 1,2,3..hundred mistakes, she starts to correct them etc. The average comment takes at least 15 min. And before you’re allowed to comment upon the next statement you need to listen to the comments of your groupmates, i.e. another 9 15-min long answers… I was the first to comment, and during the next hour I did not know what to do and how to entertain myself. I even started composing short primitive poems in German in the form of a comment upon the next 5 statements. They may sound too silly and lack proper rhythm, but it’s just what I created in my poor German during that hour of waiting. Just take it as a joke :)

***
Das Wissen prüft
Wir brauchen Luft
Alle Fabriken sollen Luftfilter benutzen
Und wir alle müssen unsere Umwelt schützen

***
Um leben zu können, muss der Mensch die Umwelt bewahren
Die Leute sollten nicht soviel Auto fahren
Wir brauchen Luft mehr als tägliches Brot
Keine Abgase! Keine Luftverschmutzung! Leben oder Tod!

***
Man muss den Treibhauseffekt nicht zulassen
Dafür sollen wir überall in unserem Leben besser aufpassen
Der Treibhauseffekt führt zur Erwärmung, das ist die Erhöhung der Temperatur
Und das bringt Zerstörung und beeinflüsst sehr schlecht die Natur

***
Die Regierung muss die Propaganda auf die Massen einstellen,
Die Städte unseres Landes mit dem Müll nicht überzuquellen
Niemand will den ganzen Tag im Müll leben
Keinen Müll zu werfen, muss man sein Wort geben

***
Wir haben heute komplizierte ökologische Situation
Aber es gibt “Greenpeace”, eine Umweltschutzorganisation
Ihre Mitglieder werden für Weldverbesserung eintreten
Und natürlich werden diese Aktionen die Natur retten

P.S German guys, sorry for the mistakes you will find in these lines, I’m no way a good German speaker :)