Hoy

Julio se agosta.


Translation:

Today

July is Augusting.


The Spanish se agosta is a coinage coming from an invented verb agostarse "to become August". This new verb in turn sounds like angosto, an adjective meaning wide or angostarse- "to widen out'. Not to mention the more common verb agotarse which when conjugated is: se agota- "is running out" The 's' in se agosta is often aspirated becoming an 'h' sound or silent which makes it sound almost identical to se agota above. Again this play of words works on many levels. This was posted by a poet and blogger from Southern Spain.

(http://egmaiquez.blogspot.com)

Viy, a story of old Ukraine

Viy (Russian: Вий) is a horror story by the Russian-Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol, first published in the first volume of his collection of tales entitled Mirgorod (1835).

Gogol opens the story asserting that he is retelling it exactly as he heard it. The story concerns three students from the Bratsky Monastery at Kiev. At the seminary, there are four types of students; the grammarians (freshmen), rhetoricians (sophomores), philosophers (juniors) and theologians (seniors). Every summer after classes have ended, there is usually a large procession of all the students moving around the area as they travel home, getting progressively smaller as each student arrives at his home. Eventually the group is reduced to three students, the theologian Khaliava, the philosopher Khoma Brut and the rhetorician Tibery Gorobets.

As the night draws in, the students hope to find a village off the main road where they can find some rest and food. However, they become lost in the wilderness, eventually coming upon two small houses and a farm. An old woman there tells them she has little room and cannot accommodate any more travelers, but eventually agrees to let them stay. The rhetorician is put in the hut, the theologian in an empty closet and the philosopher in an empty sheep’s pen.

At night, the hag comes to Khoma. At first he thinks she is trying to seduce him, but then she draws closer and leaps on his back, and he finds himself galloping with her all over the countryside with a strength he previously never knew. This flight obviously influenced Mikhail Bulgakov's depiction of Margarita's volitation in the novel Master and Margarita. He eventually slows her down by chanting exorcisms out loud, and then rides on her back as punishment. The hag collapses and he finds she has turned into a beautiful girl.

Khoma runs away to Kiev and continues his easy life there, when a rumor reaches his dean that a rich Cossack’s daughter was found crawling home near death, her last wish being for the philosopher to come and read psalms over her corpse for three days after her death.

Although Khoma is uncertain why the girl requested him specifically, the bribed dean orders him to go to the Cossack’s house and comply with her last wish. Several Cossacks bring him by force to the village where the girl lived. When he is shown the corpse, however, he finds it is the witch he overcame earlier in the story. Rumors among the Cossacks are that the daughter was in league with the devil and they tell horror stories about her ways. Therefore, Khoma is reluctant to say prayers over her body at night.

On the first night, when the Cossacks take her body to a ruined church, he is somewhat frightened but calms himself a bit when he lights up more candles in the church to eliminate most of the darkness, other than that above him. As he begins to say prayers, he imagines to himself that the corpse is getting up, but it never does. Suddenly, however, he looks up and finds that the witch is sitting up in her coffin. She begins to walk around, reaching out for someone, and starts to approach to Khoma, but he draws a circle of protection around himself that she cannot cross. She gnashes her teeth at him as he begins to exorcise her, and then she goes into her coffin and flies about the church in it, trying to frighten him out of the circle. Dawn arrives, and he has survived the first night.

The next night similar events occur, but more horrible than before, and the witch calls upon unseen, winged demons and monsters to fly about the church. When the Cossacks find the philosopher in the morning, he is near death, pale and leaning against a wall. He tries to escape the next day but is captured.

On the third night the witch’s corpse is even more terrifying and she calls the demons around her to bring Viy into the church, who can see everything. Khoma realizes that he cannot look at the creature when they draw his long eyelids up from the floor so he can see, but he does anyway and sees a horrible, iron face staring at him. Viy points in his direction and the monsters leap upon him. Khoma is dead from horror. However, they miss the first crowing of the cock and are unable to escape the church when day breaks.

The priest arrives the next day to find the monsters frozen in the windows as they fled the church and the temple is forsaken forever, eventually overgrown by weeds and trees. The story ends with Khoma’s other two friends commenting on his parting and how it was his lot in life to die in such a way, agreeing that he only came to his end because he flinched and showed fear of the demons.

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Mikhail Bulgakov the heir of Gogol

Mikhail Bulgakov 1891-1940






The Heart of a Dog (Russian: Собачье сердце, Sobač'e serdce) is a 1925 story by Mikhail Bulgakov.

It features a professor Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky (his name is derived from the Russian word for "transfiguration") who implants human testicles and a pituitary gland into a stray dog named Sharik. Sharik then proceeds to become more and more human as time passes, picks himself the name Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, makes himself a career with the Soviet bureaucracy the "Moscow Cleansing Department responsible for eliminating vagrant quadrupeds (cats, etc.)", and turns the life in the professor's house (made up of four apartments) into a nightmare until the professor reverses the procedure.

This is an elaborate satire of Soviet life and more specifically the policies meant to deal with the housing shortage where corrupt practices and micromanagement were legion. Something to consider that in the Communist system no one is different than anyone else. We are all equal, being all the same. Yet if everyone is equal the man of talent such as a scientist or writer finds himself in a strange position. Knowing that he is different from everyone else but having to deny this very fact or deal with policies to this effect. This story illustrates how such concepts when consolidated into systems go against what it means to be human. We have the same problem in the US. If this weren't true about Western Society as a whole and only anti-Communist propaganda then it wouldn't be as funny or tragic as it is.
In essence: we can't all be proletariats. Bulgakov never was able to publish this story in the USSR and shortly afterwards he was barred from ever publishing anything again after a few plays he produced which criticized Stalin's purges in the 30's.
But Stalin liked a play he had written so he didn't have him killed but he couldn't leave the country.





The Master and Margarita (Russian: Мастер и Маргарита) is a novel woven about the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union.

The opening sequence of the book presents a direct confrontation between the unbelieving head of the literary bureaucracy, Berlioz (Берлиоз), and an urbane foreign gentleman who defends belief and reveals his prophetic powers (Woland).

Telling Berlioz about his eminent death: “It is too late Annushka has already spilled the oil.”

Rushing to a meeting Berlioz slips on some sunflower oil which Annushka, a housekeeper has spilled on a street corner, and falls under an oncoming streetcar. As a result of which he is decapitated.

This is witnessed by a young and enthusiastically modern poet, Ivan Bezdomniy (Иван Бездомный - the name means "Homeless"). His futile attempt to chase and capture the "gang" and warn of their evil and mysterious nature lands Ivan in a lunatic asylum. Here we are introduced to The Master, an embittered author, the petty-minded rejection of whose historical novel about Pontius Pilate and Christ has led him to such despair that he burns his manuscript and turns his back on the "real" world, including his devoted lover, Margarita (Маргарита). Major episodes in the first part of the novel include Satan's magic show at the Variety Theatre, satirizing the vanity, greed and gullibility of the new rich; and the capture and occupation of Berlioz's apartment by Woland and his gang.

The gang features Woland the visiting foreign professor, Koroviev an ex-choirmaster, and Behemoth a vodka swirling cat who walks on his hind legs.


(Sources Wikipedia and Antonio449)

Putting things in order . . . . . .

Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)


"Believe me, my dear fellow, that so long as people refuse to give up everything for the sake of which they attack and devour each other on earth, that so long as they refuse to think of putting their spiritual fortune in order, there will be no fair distribution of earthly fortunes, either. A time of famine and poverty will come and the people as a whole as well as every individual in it will suffer... That, my dear sir, is clear enough. Whatever you may say, the body depends on the soul."
-- Murazov to Chichikov, the main character in Gogol's Dead Souls

Real Life

In a commencement speech at Emory University a couple of years ago, Tom Brokaw spoke truly:

You have been hearing all of your life that this occasion is a big step into what is called the real world. "What," you may ask, "is that real world all about?" "What is this new life?" Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2005 at Emory, real life is not college; real life is not high school. Here is a secret that no one has told you: Real life is junior high.

The world that you're about to enter is filled with junior high adolescent pettiness, pubescent rivalries, the insecurities of 13-year-olds, and the false bravado of 14-year-olds.

This is true, and it's maddening.

Color Photos from 100 years ago

About a century ago the last Tsar Nicolas II commissioned the photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prodkun-Gorskii (1863-1944), who had developed an early form of color photography to document Russia at the time. The library of Congress presently has a vast amount his work after his exile during the Russian Revolution.

Russian Vader

Rock, Paper, Scissors around the world

Various things symbolized by hands around the world:


Japan 1 stone, scissors, paper

Japan 2 stone, scissors, wrapping

Japan 3 snake, frog, slug

Japan 4 warrior, tiger, warrior's mother

Japan 5 the chief of a village, tiger, mother of the chief of a village

Japan 6 fire, snake, water

Indonesia elephant, human being, ant

Canada 1 stone, scissors, paper

Canada 2 stone, scissors, paper, dynamite

China 1 stone, scissors, wrapping

China 2 stone, scissors wrapping

Germany 1 stone, scissors, wrapping

Germany 2 stone, scissors, wrapping, well

Korea stone, scissors, wrapping

Myanmar general, gun, raising hands

Tonga stone, scissors, paper

USA 1 stone, scissors, paper

USA 2 eeny-meeny-miney-mo

USA 3 odds and evens

Australia stone, scissors, paper

New Zealand stone, scissors, paper

Russia stone, scissors, paper

France stone, scissors, leaf, well

Malaysia stone, scissors, paper

Vietnam 1 hammer, scissors, wrapping

Vietnam 2 hammer, nail, wrapping

Vietnam 3 well, scissors, leaf

Fiji stones, scissors, paper

Austria well, scissors, paper

Laos stone, scissors, paper

Cambodia stone, scissors, paper

Mongolia stone, scissors, paper


Indonesia
There is something like Rock, Paper, Scissors also in Indonesia. This is an example that I heard from an Indonesian. I assume there must be a lot of variations of the game there too, just as we have many different ways of describing Janken as well as ways of actually doing it. Therefore, please read the following as examples of many forms.One Thumb up out of a clapped hand is Elephant.Showing one index finger is Person.Showing one little finger is Ant.Since the Elephant is big and strong, it beats Person.Person beats the much smaller Ant.However, Ant beats Elephant. Why? "Because if an ant gets into an elephant's ear, the elephant can't stand the itchiness and can't do anything!"I suggest that the readers try the other country's form of Rock, Paper, Scissors with their friends.Translated by M. B-san.


Austria
tudents from Universitaet Wien were kind enough to contribute to this column. They have the same type of Rock, Paper, Scissors as in Japan, except that Goo[gu:] is not Rock but Well. Instead of making a fist, you make a shape like a cylinder, and this is the hole of the well. Paper floats in a well, so Paper beats Well. Scissors sink in the Well, so Well beats Scissors. And of course Scissors cut Paper.Dr. Sepp Linhart of Universitaet Wien has been conducting resarch on "fists," including a serious study of various forms of "fists" in Japan. I was wondering how Austrians knew about Japanese "fists," and now I know the answer. Austria has Janken(Rock, Paper, Scissors) just like ours.The Multiculturalpedia has pages of contributions from students in the Japanese language department of Universitate Wien(Autumn 1998). Our sincere gratitude to a teacher and students of the department. The teacher introduced this site to Dr. Sepp Linhart. She told us that Dr. Linhart had commented positively on this site, saying "It's interesting to collect information from people all over the world." Translated by M. B-san.


France
I didn't know there were so many variations of Rock, Paper, Scissors in Europe. This is typical of "preconception" that makes us "believe" something in a certain way. France also has Rock, Paper, Scissors) somewhat similar to Austria's. I asked a Frenchman what they do when they decide who goes first or when they choose pieces of cake which vary in size, etc.There are many ways, he told us. "You don't have anything like Rock, Paper, Scissors, do you?" I asked casually, expecting nothing. "Oh, sure we do!" was the answer.The French style is as follows.Four hand gestures instead of three.Rock, same as Japanese Goo.Well, not quite, but the same as the Austrian style, like a cylinder.Leaf, same as Japanese Pa[pa:], opening all the fingers, which is different from the Austrian style.Scissors, same as Japanese Choki, showing index finger and middle finger.Who beats who?Well beats Rock and Scissors, because both of them sink in the well.Scissors beats Leaf, because it can cut leaves.Leaf beats Well by covering it, and beats Rock by wrapping it up.Rock beats Scissors by dulling the metal.After explaining this, he suddenly started to talk about scuba diving. Divers have to wait until the tide is right. During that time, especially on cold winter days, they play Rock, Paper, Scissors)to kill time. He did his best to explain all this to me, a person who doesn't understand French, with his fresh acquired Japanese vocabulary. He wanted to emphasize that they use it only to kill time.He had heard that we are making a kind of cultural encyclopedia, in order to encourage cross-cultural understanding and mutual respect by sharing it all over the world. We are trying to introduce aspects of various cultures as much as possible; however, this is not just cold information, but we hope filled with people's goodwill and warmheartedness. We pass on our sincere gratitude to him for sparing multiculturalpedia his time. We consider this a living cultural encyclopedia.Having four shapes for hand instead of three is interesting enough. Please do try it once, when you have a chance. I tried with my children at home, and the younger one didn't change from Rock; but the older one picked up Well in place of Rock.I may have been wrong in thinking that Rock, Paper, Scissors was invented somewhere in Asia, such as China, Korea, Japan or Indonesia. There definitely has been cultural contact between East and West, because there is such similarity everywhere. It's pleasant to imagine that somewhere, sometime a long, long time ago, somebody introduced Rock, Paper, Scissors to the other side. I wish I had been there. Rock, Paper, Scissors has its echoes in time. Translated by M. B-san.


Former Yugoslavia
It is not easy to solve a conflict between nations. Also it is not easy to respect each other when two parties are fighting. However, we have to overcome that for the sake of mankind.My Yugoslavian student, who was busy with all kinds of preparations for her return home, helped me by sparing some time from her busy schedule. She and I will share the following with you, in hopes you will feel closer to the people there, and someday if you meet them, you will something to share.Do you have Rock, Paper, Scissors in Yugoslavia?Yes, we do. But it's different from the Japanese one. We play it when we have more than three people.She started to demonstrate: turning the Goo shape fist around with the words "Zimi, zami, zum!" you show either Goo or Pa (clasped fist or open hand).It is the opposite of the idea of the majority rule, because single Goo or Pa wins.For example, if five people are there and four show Pa and one person shows Goo, Goo wins.Then, when there are a lot of people, it will take a long time!" was my first reaction. The answer was "We divide into smaller groups.""When do you use it?""We often use it to devide into teams.""What would you do when there is only one piece of cake and there are five people who want it?""I think we'll divide the cake."I remember one episode by Ryotaro Shiba, a famous Japanese author who wrote many historical novels. In Mongolia, he found five children gathered around one piece of chewing gum. A girl divided it."When we choose one person [bringing her hand to her chest], I have, for example, five toothpick-type sticks between my index finger and the middle finger, since there are five people here. One of the sticks has a red mark on it."The participants each pick a stick, and the person who picks the one with the red marak is the winner. It's a kind of lottery.Listening to my Yugoslavian friend's voice saying "Zimi, zami, zum!" I had a strange sensation of feeling close to Yugoslavia, visualizing children shouting "Zimi, zami, zum!""What does it mean?"". . . I don't know. I don't think there's any meaning."Whatever it meant, it had a fascinating sound.Here, we have to add our usual reminder that this does not necessary mean this type of Rock, Paper, Scissors is common all over Yugoslavia. Maybe it's limited to area she's from.After that I talked with her about our vision of this Multicultural-Pedia. We are hoping that children all over the world see this site and feel closer to other countries, by providing descriptions of these customs and games, such as Rock, Paper, Scissors, and getting feedback through the Internet.Translated by M.B-san.


Germany
Very insightful site. In Germany we called this game "ching chang chong". It's the German interpretation of the sound of any Asian language, and in fact it somewhat sounds like "Janken Pon" (The Japanese version), don't you think? So apparently to Germans this game originated in Asia. We have both versions, the rock-paper-scissors and the one including the well. (Paper wraps around well, rock & scissors sink.) Christian-sanSan Francisco, CA USA - Sunday, June 24, 2001(JST)

For more information see the original site.

Pigs in Space

Remember the muppets?

Well the damn commies did it first:

First Russian Pig in Space

From Russia with Weirdness

The blog Englishrussia.com details contemporary events in the Russian Federation and some former Soviet Republics. The following are some recent internet obsessions in Russia which ring with Gogolesque weirdness.

Here is a weird looking guy at a press conference with Putin now nicknamed Glazastik (Big-Eyed Guy):




Here is a video with another weirdo with a dirty face called Chumazik (Dirty-Faced Fellow), a drunken factory worker in the background:

Samuel Johnson on the New Atheists and the search for truth

Extracts from Sermon 20

On Mores-

We not only do what we approve, but there is danger lest in time we come to approve what we do, though for no other reason but that we do it. . . . . . .

On the New Atheists-

But these men have discovered, it seems, a more compendious way to knowledge. They decided the most momentous questions amidst the jollity of feasts, and the excesses of riot. They have found that an adversary is more easily silenced than confuted. They insult, instead of vanquishing, their antagonists, and decline the battle to hasten the triumph.

It is an establish maxim among them, that he who ridicules an opinion confutes it. For this reason they make no scruple of violating every rule of decency, and treating with utmost contempt whatever is accounted venerable or sacred.

For this conduct they admire themselves, and go on applauding their won abilities, celebrating the victories they gain over their grave opponents, and loudly boasting their superiority to the advocates of religion.

As humility is a very necessary qualification for an examiner into religion, it may not be improper to depress the arrogance fo these haughty champions, by shewing with how little justice they lay claim to victory, and how much less they deserve to be applauded than despised. . . . . . . .

On Truth-

Let it be remembered, the nature of things is not alterable by our conduct. We cannot make truth; it is our business only to find it.

Nikolai Gogol

"For the moon is usually made in Hamburg and made quite poorly. I'm surprised England doesn't pay attention to this. It's made by a lame cooper, and you can see the idiot has no idea about moons at all. He used tarred rope and a quantity of cheap olive oil; and this has led to such a terrible stink all over the earth that you have to hold your nose. And that's why the moon itself is such a delicate sphere that people can't live on it, and now only noses live there. And for the same reason we cannot see our own noses - because they're all on the moon." (from Diary of a Madman, 1835)

19th century view of St. Petersburg

PUSHKIN AND GOGOL

by Daniil Kharms


GOGOL: (Falls onto stage from the wings and lies quietly.)

PUSHKIN: (Enters, stumbles over Gogol and falls.) The Devil! It seems I've stumbled over Gogol!

GOGOL: (Rises.) How disgusting! You can't even rest. (Walks, stumbles over Pushkin and falls.) It seems I've stumbled over Pushkin!

PUSHKIN: (Rising) Not a minute of peace! (Walks, stumbles over Gogol and falls.) The Devil! It seems I've stumbled over Gogol again!

GOGOL: (Rising) Always drunk! (Walks, stumbles over Pushkin and falls.) How disgusting! Again it's Pushkin!

PUSHKIN: (Rising) Hooliganism! Sheer hooliganism! (Walks, stumbles over Gogol and falls.) The Devil! Again it's Gogol!

GOGOL: (Rising) This is sheer mockery! (Walks, stumbles over Pushkin and falls.) Again it's Pushkin!

PUSHKIN: (Rising) The Devil! Really, the Devil! (Walks, stumbles over Gogol and falls.) Gogol!

GOGOL: (Rises.) Disgusting! (Walks, stumbles over Pushkin and falls.) Pushkin!

PUSHKIN: (Rising) The Devil! (Walks, stumbles over Gogol and falls off stage.) Gogol!

GOGOL: (Rising) Disgusting! (Exits.)

(From off stage is heard Gogol's voice: "Pushkin!")

CURTAIN

Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin- (1799-1837) Poet of poets.

I loved you

I loved you; and perhaps I love you still,
The flame, perhaps, is not extinguished; yet
It burns so quietly within my soul,
No longer should you feel distressed by it.
Silently and hopelessly I loved you,
At times too jealous and at times too shy.
God grant you find another who will love you
As tenderly and truthfully as I.



The Coach

Though often somewhat heavy-freighted,
The coach rolls at an easy pace;
And Time, the coachman, grizzly-pated,
But smart, alert---is in his place.

We board it lightly in the morning
And on our way at once proceed.
Repose and slothful comfort scorning,
We shout: "Hey, there! Get on! Full speed!"

Noon finds us done with reckless daring,
And shaken up. Now care's the rule.
Down hills, through gulleys roughly faring,
We sulk, and cry: "Hey, easy fool!"

The coach rolls on, no pitfalls dodging.
At dusk, to pains more wonted grown,
We drowse, while to the night's dark lodging
Old coachman Time drives on, drives on.


Verses, composed during a night of insomnia...

I can't sleep, the light is out;
Chasing senseless dreams in gloom.
Clocks at once, inside my room,
Somewhere next to me, resound.
Parcae's soft and mild chatter,
Sleeping twilight's noisy flutter,
Life's commotion -- so insane..
Why am I to feel this pain?
What's your meaning, boring mumble?
Disapproving, do you grumble
Of the day I spent in vain?
What has made you so compelling?
Are you calling or foretelling?
I just want to understand,
Thus I'm seeking your intent...

( © Copyright 2000 translated by Mikhail Kneller)

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