Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part II

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

"Soviet teachers were among the strongest believers in socialist values." (page 94)

From the Young Pioneer manual: "'It will be the best, the most just and the happiest society on earth.'" (page 110)

"influence, connections, and pull -- blat in Russian." (page 118)

Soviet schools: "They instilled in their charges basic human values that would be appreciated in most societies." (page 118)

A Soviet Baby Boomer about living in the 1960s: "'We always had decent food; we went to the theatre, to the movies, to the circus, and to whatever else was of interest. We didn't differ from other average people of our time.'" (p. [120]).

Many Soviet Baby Boomers developed an "identification with a larger global youth culture;" guys in particular tinkered with space-related themes (page 121).

"Many female Baby Boomers loved theatre, ballet, dancing, reading, hanging out with friends . . . Olga Gorelik liked to read, draw, go to the movies, and spend time with her girlfriends." (page 122) 

Many enjoyed sporting events. Pioneer palaces gave people places to hang out. (pages 122-124) Kids loved to play in apartment courtyards (dvor), too. (page 125)

On social relationships, Raleigh notes: "Friendship lacks a definition that works for all times, places, and peoples, because the phenomenon is a cultural and historical one that changes over time: the type of society determines the nature of friendships." (page 126) Soviet friends provided emotional and practical support for each other, and they could counter or at least alter government and family controls (pages 126-127). A fair number of high school friends remain friends for life. (page 127)

"The Soviet Union prided itself in being the 'most reading' nation," and many continue to read heartily long after the collapse of the USSR. Friends traded books and they also utilized libraries, like many sensible people still do wherever they are available. "Reading conferred status" (page 129). During an interlude in the 1960s, Mikhail Bulgakov (Master and Margarita), Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) Kafka and Kierkegaard were published (pages 130-131). Samizdat (underground writings produced in the USSR) and tamizdat (things smuggled into the country from the outside) also made the rounds (page 131) -- and made reading all the more exciting, no doubt. Eventually, photocopy machines sped up the process of underground writing production. (page 132)

Movies opened up portals to other worlds (as T. Bone Burnett, an American Baby Boomer, has put it, after growing up in conservative Fort Worth, Texas). These were real social events: "it was always something you simply had to see. . . not only so that you could take part in conversations but also because they really were worth seeing" (such as Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky films) . Through cultural diffusion, in came American jazz, Western fashion and music, and exotic tastes. (page 135)

"'[B]ut it was difficult to get hold of such things. . . and we need to "get hold of" them. The meaning of the very "get hold of" is probably uniquely Russian' . . . it means acquiring something with great difficulty." (page 136)

Tape recorders became popular when they were made available -- music could be recorded and shared, especially underground material: "'forbidden fruit is always sweet.'" (page 140)

[To be continued.]

Today's Rune: Possessions.

Evald Schorm: 'Návrat ztraceného syna' / 'Return of the Prodigal Son' (1967)

Evald Schorm's Návrat ztraceného syna / Return of the Prodigal Son (1967). Stars Jana Brejchová (who played Princess Bianca in Karel Zeman's Baron Prášil / The Fabulous Baron Munchausen / The Outrageous Baron Munchausen, 1962) and Jan Kacer.

Jan, a sensitive engineer (and architect?), has tried to commit suicide. The film explores the aftermath of his suicide attempt and its impact at his psychiatric facility and on hearth and home. All of the main characters are restless. Jan's wife Jana retains Jiří (Jiří Menzel, director of Academy Award-winning Closely Watched Trains / Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) as a paramour in plain sight, while the therapist's wife has a sweet tooth for Jan. 

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." ~ Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). 

Still from Evald Schorm's Návrat ztraceného syna / Return of the Prodigal Son (1967)

A case of mistaken identity forces Jan to run for his life. This scene reminds me of ones taking place when the tables have been turned, and the oppressors are hunted down by the formerly oppressed. However, Jan is mostly depressed, and now he's come alive -- if only out of a primal response to being pursued by several women with pitchforks. 

The Good Doctor and the Good Wife -- more or less. Kafka meets Jaroslav Hašek. Prague Spring is just around the corner, to be followed by a violent crackdown. 

RIP, Kate Spade (December 24, 1962-June 5, 2018) and Anthony Bourdain (June 25, 1956-June 8, 2018). 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Jaroslav Hašek, 'The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War,' Part 2A

Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War / Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války / Los destinos del buen soldado Švejk durante la guerra mundial / Les Aventures du brave soldat Švejk pendant la Grande Guerre / aka The Good Soldier Švejk / (1921-1923).

Hašek conveys meaning by contrasting the absurdities of treatment based on rank, social class and ethnicity. The distinctions of rank are well epitomized in this brief passage:

"The silence of the night was reigning over the military camp in Most. In the barracks for the troops the soldiers were shivering from the cold and in the officers' barracks they were opening the windows, because it was overheated in there." 

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, page 122. 

Colonel Schröder is bonkers, but because he's in charge, everyone has to endure his ravings. In this, Colonel Schröder is a stand-in for every madcap, idiotic control-freaking boss anyone has ever had to suffer through. Furthermore, an amazing truth is not the alternating prevalence of SNAFU and FUBAR within any bureaucracy, but that anything functions at all.

"He was making no sense, mixing things five after nine, talking about how two months ago the front down below and in the east too had halted, about the importance of exact connection between individual detachments, about toxic gases, about shooting at the enemy airplanes, about supplying the troops in the field, and then he transitioned to the internal situation in the military . . . The majority of the officers was thinking at the same time, 'when is the old geezer going to stop driveling,' but Colonel Schröder was babbling on about new tasks of new march battalions, about the fallen officers of the regiment, about zeppelins, Spanish riders, the oath . . ."

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, page 186.

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

Jaroslav Hašek, 'The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War,' Part 2

Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War / Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války / Los destinos del buen soldado Švejk durante la guerra mundial / Les Aventures du brave soldat Švejk pendant la Grande Guerre / aka The Good Soldier Švejk / (1921-1923).

Sometimes, even in a morass of bureaucracy, a soldier lucks out. Not everything turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare, right? Take the case of "the hoodlum Marek" at his military sentencing.

"'One-year volunteer Marek is being sentenced to 21 days intensified regimen and, after having served out the sentence, into the kitchen with him, to peel potatoes.'"

"And the hoodlum Marek stood next to Švejk and was wearing a countenance of total satisfaction. It could not have turned out better for him. It is decidedly better to be peeling potatoes in the kitchen, sculpting bilbouny, idiot-size fruit dumplings and picking a rib than to be hollering, with the pants full, under the tornado of enemy's fire: 'Single file! Attach bayonets!'"

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, page 81.

The military train carrying Švejk and comrades arrives in Vienna. War weariness has set in after the initial excitement. Hašek renders a heartbreaking panoramic view of the scene, all the more bittersweet for its satirical flashes. A short sampling of the longer description:

". . . it wasn't like the beginning of the war anymore, when soldiers on the way to the front overstuffed themselves at every railroad station and where they were being welcomed by bridesmaids in stupid white dresses and even dumber faces and . . . an even sillier speech of some dame whose husband now acted the tremendous patriot and republican."

"The welcome in Vienna [now] consisted of three female members of an Austrian Red Cross association and two female members of some war association of Viennese matrons and young ladies, one official representative of the Viennese magistrate, and a military representative."

"In all those faces one could see fatigue. The trains with the troops were running day and night, the ambulances with the wounded were passing through every hour, they were switching cars loaded with prisoners of war . . . It went on one day after another and the original enthusiasm was changing into yawning . . . from the cattle cars were peeking out soldiers with an expression of hopelessness such as seen on those who are going to the gallows."

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, pages 120-121.

Today's Rune: Defense. 

Das Schloß / The Castle

Happily finished Austrian director Michael Haneke's Das Schloß / The Castle, a 1997 movie faithfully based on Franz Kafka's unfinished novel (or extended fragment, ending literally in mid-sentence) of the same name that was first published in 1926. It would make a good companion piece to other Kafka adaptations. 

Anyone dealing with the "health care industry" or, indeed, various other types of large scale organisms, organizations or system-clusters would recognize the truth of Kafka's vision. That is, absurdity prevails. Mistakes. Errors. Oversights. Misunderstandings. Deliberate and -- maybe even sometimes -- accidental.

Das Schloß / The Castle is not really a comedy, but there are elements of satire and dark humor. 

Convenient way to catch up on Kafka, see a movie and hear what amounts to a German audio book, as well. 

Never ever fear: subtitles do appear.  

Today's Rune: Defense.

Orson Welles: Le Procès / The Trial (Take II)

Orson Welles: Le Procès / The Trial (1962). It feels like many things. Is it Theatre of the Absurd? Existentialism? A cousin to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot?

Is Orson Welles' Le Procès / The Trial a work of Surrealism? A horror film? 

Science fiction? Dreamscape? A parable? 

It feels like all of the above. Le Procès -- "The Process" -- gives a better grok of the story than "The Trial," i.e., the English language title for Kafka's novel and Welles' adaptation. There really is no trial in the sense of "courtroom drama." 

But: Josef K and the "process" of falling into the bizarre clutches of bureaucracy? 

Le Procès / The Trial features several memorable characters, many like "Bond girls" on the astral plane, including Orson Welles' "estranged" wife Paoli Mori as The Archivist; Jeanne Moreau, Elsa Martinelli, Suzanne Flon, Romy Schneider and Naydra Shore. 

To complete the Bond connection, Michael Lonsdale (The Priest) resurfaces as Drax in Moonraker (1979). 

Today's Rune: Joy.    

Orson Welles: Le Procès / The Trial (Take I)

The visuals alone make Orson Welles' Le Procès / The Trial (1962) worth exploring. This cinematic accomplishment, a force of imagination and will, is stunning.  

Based on Franz Kafka's Der Process (first published in 1925 but drafted during the Great War of 1914-1918).

This nightmarish workplace was a real one. Welles found it and filmed it, with Anthony Perkins walking through the middle of an interior field of typing. Happy Labor Day!

Love in the middle of a paper hoard. Leni (Romy Schneider) and Josef K (Anthony Perkins).

Josef K, like many of his fellow countrymen then or now, doesn't seem to know if he's coming or going. . . Here, he finds himself outside the Big Room. The Lady or the Tiger?

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

It's "Gogol Time!" / Гоголь времени

Usually I post something about Francisco Goya on May 3rd, because of his world class painting forever assigned to this date -- El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid.  But Nikolai Gogol popped into mind, and then Franz Kafka, and then back to Gogol. So Gogol it is, though our "times" seem like a mix of the visions of all three of these artists.

"Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all." Nikolai Gogol, "The Nose" / Hoc (1836).

The actual opener of Hoc goes like this:

Марта 25 числа случилось в Петербурге необыкновенно странное происшествие. Цирюльник Иван Яковлевич, живущий на Вознесенском проспекте фамилия его утрачена, и даже на вывеске его -- где изображен господин с запыленною щекою и надписью: "И кровь отворяют" -- не выставлено ничего, цирюльник Иван Яковлевич проснулся довольно рано и услышал запа горячего хлеба. Приподнявшись немного на кровати, он увидел, что супруга его, довольно почтенная дама, очень любившая пить кофей, вынимала из печи только что испеченные хлебы.

May 3rd, 2013: American stocks soar to their "highest level" even as air temperatures in Texas drop to their "lowest level" for this date in human history. There's snow in Kansas City, a fire outbreak in California. Long rifle and snub gun enthusiasts flock to Houston; while people in West, Texas, reel from a chemical storage plant explosion. Bizarre extremes, at least when filtered through the scrim of language. 

Indeed: It's Gogol Time!

Today's Rune: Defense.

Brazil Redux

Brazil (1985), directed by Terry Gilliam (b. November 22, 1940), screenplay by Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, and Charles McKeown, provides a dark, satirical glimpse into now. It shows an unnerving vision of the WW2 Zeitgeist melded into a slightly futuristic present. The results are comical, scary, and odd, which is exactly what one might expect from Gilliam, former Monty Python cartoonist.

Retro meets near future: we see translucent flat screen computers hooked up to manual typewriter keyboards and weird tubing. Ducts and tubes are everywhere, in fact, a testament to our dependency on technology, much of it strange and unreliable. From Nazi Germany, we have the Ministry of Information, men with Hitler-like mustaches, men wearing Fedoras and trench coats or monocles, storm troopers, secret police, pneumonic tubes, Lugers, and 9mm Schmeisser submachine guns. There are propaganda elements tweaked from wartime Britain (“We’re all in this together”), as well.

From now, we have the internet, online banking, cosmetic plastic surgery and its attendant disasters, ubiquitous but always interrupted, malfunctioning, or failing technology, electricity outages, an inept but sinister government and corporate “bureaucrazy” that rarely accepts blame for its many mistakes, and a shadowy terrorist/freedom fighter conflict with bombs going off randomly. Those who populate this world are mad as hatters, for the most part, almost as if they are under mass hypnosis, with occasional flashes of clarity. Set during the Christmas season, gifts and body image are the rage. Jim Broadbent does a subtle good job as a deranged plastic surgeon exploiting women who are as anxious about their looks as anyone living in contemporary America.















The terror campaign is ignored by “regular people” as much as possible. Few people question the bizarre status quo. The government’s campaign against terror includes surprise shock assault tactics -- battering doors in, blasting through ceilings and swooping in to round up people for torture, covering them with frightening sacks exactly like images from Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. The thirteen-year terror war is off-handedly dismissed as “beginner’s luck.”

Brazil is a work of weird genius! The only thing I don’t like is the character Jill Layton as played by Kim Greist. Jonathan Pryce is serviceable as Sam Lowry, an everyman/nobody; Robert De Niro has an odd role as rogue repairman and apparent terrorist/freedom fighter. Katherine Helmond is good as image-obsessed Ida Lowry (Sam’s mother). Michael Palin is perfect as a compartmentalized family man, Dad, and government torturer. Ian Holme and Bob Hoskins are good, too, in lesser roles.
























The Criterion Collection includes a lot of extras. The version I saw at the theater has been slightly expanded for the primary DVD, called the ultimate cut. Also included are the notoriously recut for TV “love conquers all” version, documentaries on the making of and battle over Brazil's "final" cut and release, and commentary.

Brazil includes elements of: 1984, Brave New World, You Only Live Twice, The Lathe of Heaven, Blade Runner, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Myth of Icarus, The Myth of Sisyphus, Batman, Kafka, Dada, Surrealism, and a whole lot more.

Redux note: This is a slightly condensed version of a post originally published in 2006.

Today's rune: Flow.

The Woodmans: Take Two

I. In The Woodmans, we see a family system, partly through artifacts and partly through remembrances of things past. Francesca Woodman jumped to her death in New York City in 1981, just as Diary of a Mad Housewife and Falling Bodies author Sue Kaufman had done in 1977. In The Woodmans, George, Betty and Charlie are interviewed decades later, while Francesca remains a ghostly figure throughout.

The Woodman family story reminds me a little of Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung / The Metamorphosis (1915), which also revolves around a nuclear family composed of two parents and two siblings. In the Kafka tale, once Gregor Samsa is out of circulation, the rest of the Samsa family kicks into high gear. They live on without him. Likewise, once Francesca is gone, the other three Woodmans continue to lurch forward. Charlie continues with his electronic art projects, but the parents actually change up their approaches to art. Betty switches from functional ceramics into decorative mode. Even more strikingly, George, after reading all of Emily Dickinson's poetry, changes from abstract painting to form photography, often in a way strongly reminiscent of Francesca's work.   

II. The David Lang soundtrack, performed by Sō Percussion, is strange, cool and memorable. At first, it instantly reminded me of the soundtrack that accompanies Allan Mindel's film Milwaukee Minnesota (2003), which will make for another post on another day. 

Today's Rune: Wholeness.      

K

In Praise of K Names and Words. Take a sack full and run!  Or, add some . . .  

I. Proper K: People, Places, Products, Texts.

Kabbalah/Kabala
Kabul
Kaddish
Kafka
Kahn
Kahlil
Kahlua
Kaiser
Kalahari
Kalamazoo
Kalashnikov
Kali
Kaluga
Kamchatka
Kanawha
Kandahar
Kandinsky
Kansas
Kant
Kaplan
Karachi
Karbala/Kerbala
Karen
Karl
Karloff
Karnak
Karpov
Kashi
Kashmir
Kaspar
Kasparov
Kassite
Katari
Kate
Katherine
Kathleen
Katmandu
Kaufman
Kava Coffee ("Kava-Kava!")
Keitel
Kay(e)
Kazakhstan
Kean(e)
Keaton
Keats
Keebler
Keech
Kegel
Keith
Kellogg
Keller
Kelly
Kelvin
Kemal
Kemp
Kendall
Kennedy
Kennebunkport
Kenny
Kenosha
Kensington
Kent
Kentucky
Kenya
Keokuk
Kepler
Kerensky
Kern
Kerouac
Kerr
Kerry
Kesey
Keurig/K-Cups
Kevlar
Kevorkian
Kew
Key(e)
Keynes
KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti)
Khartoum
Khmer
Khomeini
Kibbles 'n Bits
Kindle
Kierkegaard
Kiev
Kilimanjaro
Kirchner
Kitchener
Krebs
Kruschev
Khyber Pass
Kickapoo
Kikkoman
Kilkenny
Kilroy
Kimmel
Kinks
Kir
Kirgizstan
Kirk
Kikuk
Kirlian (photography)
Kiwanis
Klamath
Klaus
Klee
Kleenex
Kleopatra
Klimt
Klinefelter
Klingon
Klink
Klondike
Knesset
Knicker
Knickerbock(er)
Knicks
Knoxville
Koala
Kobe
Kobenhavn
Koch
Kodak
Kodiak
Koestler
Kohl's
Koinonia
Komodo
Kong
Konrad
Konstantin
Kon-Tiki
Kookaburra
Kool-Aid
Koran
Korda
Korea
Korinthos
Korsakov
Kosciuszko
Kosovo
Kotex
Kraft
Kraftwerk
Krakatoa
Krakow
Krasner
Kremlin
Krishna
Kris
Kris(s) Kringle
Kristen (and variants)
Kuala Lumpur
Kübelwagen
Kublai Kahn
Kubrick
Kuhn
Kurd
Kurdistan
Kursk
Kurt
Kush
Kutuzov
Kuwait
Kwai
Kwame
Kyle
Kyoto
Kyrgyzstan
K-Ration
Special K

II. K in General Terms.

Kabob/Kebob
Kabuki
Kakistocracy
Kale
Kaleidoscope
Kalian
Kaliph
Kamikaze
Kangaroo
Kanzu
Kappa
Kaput
Karaoke
Karate
Karma/Kharma
Kasbah
Katabolic
Katana
Katydid
Katzenjammer
Kava
Kayak
Kazoo
Keckling
Kecklish
Keel over
Keelboat
Keen
Keep
Keister
Keg
Keloid
Kelp
Kemp
Ken
Keno
Kepi
Kerb
Kerchief
Kernel
Kerosene
Ketchup
Kettle
Kettledrum
Key
Keynote (key + etc.)
Khaki
Khalif
Khedive
Kibbeh/kibbe
Kibbutz
Kibitzer
Kibosh
Kick
Kickback (kick + etc.)
Kid
Kidney
Kielbasa
Kilo
Kilowatt (kilo + etc.)
Killjoy
Kiln
Kilt
Kimbo (arms akimbo)
Kimono
Kind
Kindergarten
Kindle
Kindred
Kinematic
Kinescope
Kinetic
King
Kingpin (king + etc.)
Kink/kinky
Kiosk
Kip
Kipper
Kirk
Kirsch
Kirtle
Kismet
Kiss
Kit & Kaboodle
Kite
Kitchen
Kitsch
Kith & Kin
Kitten
Kiva
Kiwi
Klatch/Klatsch
Klavier
Klaxon
Kleptocracy
Kleptomaniac
Klick
Klieg light
Kludge
Klutz
Knack
Knackered
Knackwurst
Knap
Knapsack
Knave
Knead
Knee
Kneel
Knell
Knicker
Knicknack
Knife/dirk/kirpan
Knight
Knish
Knit
Knob
Knock
Knoll
Knot/Knotty
Know
Knowledge
Knuckle
Knurl
KO/knockout
Kommissar
Koan
Kola
Kook
Kopeck/Kopek
Korma
Koruna
Kosher
Kraal
Kraken
Kremlin (generic)
Krieg
Krill
Kroner
Kryptonite
Kudos
Kudzu
Kulak
Kumara
Kvetch

III. "Uncool K" list.

Khmer Rouge
Kidnap
Kill
Ku Klux Klan

Today's Rune: Strength.