(no subject)
A raznochinets* needs no memory -
it is enough for him to tell of the books he has read,
and his biography is done.
Osip Mandelstam, The Noise of Time
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DIMA AND SUNGLASSES by Yevgeny Mokhorev, from the exhibition UNCERTAIN AGE. St.Petersburg Youth at photographer.ru
I found myself at The Moscow Times today, following a link from LanguageHat about the "small muttered words" Russians use to express various emotions. In case it isn't already obvious, I'm fascinated by these differences between cultures, so I loved learning, for example, that "tsk tsk" in Russian is a wag of the head and the syllables "ai-ai-ai".
From The Moscow Times I went to The St. Petersburg Times, and discovered an avant-garde exhibition of video and audio installations exploring "the dividing line between history and memory" at the Anna Akhmatova Museum:
The aspiration towards catching and depicting the shadows of the past is natural to the museum - the main organizer of both projects - as true and false scents of the past are among the chief motifs of Akhmatova's poetry.
And as if that weren't strange enough, there is a design competition going on for a monument honoring the late poet Joseph Brodsky:
Every monument is already linked to a particular location, with most of them being on Vasilievsky Island. The choice was inspired by the famous line: "I will come to die on Vasilievsky Island," from one of Brodsky's untitled verses. The idea has been widely criticized for its banality and for telling nothing about Brodsky's personality, but no convincing alternative has been proposed, with the exception of Preobrazhenskaya Square, very near to Brodsky's former apartment on Ulitsa Pestelya...
Several members of the jury didn't give their support to any of the projects that reached the final round, on the grounds that they all lacked original ideas. "I was disappointed," said jury member and art critic Arkady Ippolitov. "The poet doesn't deserve to return to St. Petersburg in the shape of an iron-cast doll reminiscent of a turn-of the century policeman. When I look at these works, I want to ask if the authors wanted to create a monument or to win the contest."
One has to wonder what Akhmatova and Brodsky would have thought.
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Peasant with Samovar, from the exhibition St Petersburg: A 300th Birthday Tribute
People and Palaces in Photographs around 1900
Somerset House, London, 14th June - 10th August 2003
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Wordsworth, “Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey”
http://cassandrapages.blogspot.com/2003_07_06_cassandrapages_archive.html
it is enough for him to tell of the books he has read,
and his biography is done.
Osip Mandelstam, The Noise of Time
---------------------------------------------------
DIMA AND SUNGLASSES by Yevgeny Mokhorev, from the exhibition UNCERTAIN AGE. St.Petersburg Youth at photographer.ru
I found myself at The Moscow Times today, following a link from LanguageHat about the "small muttered words" Russians use to express various emotions. In case it isn't already obvious, I'm fascinated by these differences between cultures, so I loved learning, for example, that "tsk tsk" in Russian is a wag of the head and the syllables "ai-ai-ai".
From The Moscow Times I went to The St. Petersburg Times, and discovered an avant-garde exhibition of video and audio installations exploring "the dividing line between history and memory" at the Anna Akhmatova Museum:
The aspiration towards catching and depicting the shadows of the past is natural to the museum - the main organizer of both projects - as true and false scents of the past are among the chief motifs of Akhmatova's poetry.
And as if that weren't strange enough, there is a design competition going on for a monument honoring the late poet Joseph Brodsky:
Every monument is already linked to a particular location, with most of them being on Vasilievsky Island. The choice was inspired by the famous line: "I will come to die on Vasilievsky Island," from one of Brodsky's untitled verses. The idea has been widely criticized for its banality and for telling nothing about Brodsky's personality, but no convincing alternative has been proposed, with the exception of Preobrazhenskaya Square, very near to Brodsky's former apartment on Ulitsa Pestelya...
Several members of the jury didn't give their support to any of the projects that reached the final round, on the grounds that they all lacked original ideas. "I was disappointed," said jury member and art critic Arkady Ippolitov. "The poet doesn't deserve to return to St. Petersburg in the shape of an iron-cast doll reminiscent of a turn-of the century policeman. When I look at these works, I want to ask if the authors wanted to create a monument or to win the contest."
One has to wonder what Akhmatova and Brodsky would have thought.
-----------------------------------------------------
Peasant with Samovar, from the exhibition St Petersburg: A 300th Birthday Tribute
People and Palaces in Photographs around 1900
Somerset House, London, 14th June - 10th August 2003
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
Wordsworth, “Lines Written Above Tintern Abbey”
http://cassandrapages.blogspot.com/2003_07_06_cassandrapages_archive.html