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moderndayruth

~ Tarot inspired essays and more

moderndayruth

Monthly Archives: September 2012

Nostalgia of the Six of Cups

25 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Poetry

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Bedding, Dither, Home and Garden, Mattress, Pillow, Romani people, Shopping, Wheat Fields (Van Gogh series)

Back in time

Through the window in time

I slipped

Back to the cobbled alleys of Pest

And walked back to the world

Rescued by Bela Hamvash

and the magic of Tokai vine

(I am) back to the rolling lowlands,

forest ridges and wheat fields

dithering in the wind

Back to lamenting of prairie poets –

lost sailors trapped in the corn fields –

who had lost not only their ships,

 but the entire sea.

(I am) back to the sounds of Chardash

By which Romani fiddler tames the dusk

a lonely tear scrolling

All the way down his cheek

Until it reaches the deadlock

At the tip of his pencil moustache

(I am ) back to the crispy tomatoes

Marinated while still green

Greener than the green of spring

Back to wooden gates with a horseshoe

nailed on  for luck and protection

(I am ) back to duvets

stuffed with goose feathers

 and big pillows sewn from damask silk,

back to nights  in which the feathers

stick out from  covers and pillows

pinch and tickle the sleeper’s bear skin

inducing them with lucid dreams

(I am ) back to the wooden chests

which guard starched linen and

Embroidered cloths,

Ironed carefully and folded so

that the edges form a straight line

enclosed by the scent

coming out of  tiny lavender pouches

 Back to the taste of cayenne pepper

Which circulates through goulashes

Passing memories of dearest things

That once were in the Old Country.

 

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The Death of the Painter

24 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Magical Realism, Photography

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

art, Podgorica, Visual Arts

The best way to avoid boring reality of Podgorica is to spend the time on the rooftop of the building where Miro lives. The magic of the terrace surpasses by far its physical limitations – the former spreads above the offices of Omniauto, stretches across the entire Spaniard cicrcuse and reaches all the way down to the suburbs. The  monumental, metaphisical building with time adopted the qualities of the people who spend long, hot summers there. Up here, the climat is very different, it’s fresh and breezy even when down there the city is melting on over hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The terrace is capricious like Bibi, strong and determined like Miro, from Ivo she got joy de vivre, she longs for the occult after me…
We really have to watch out whom we let up here, the terrace can sometimes get cranky and downright mean if we let in someone who doesn’t belong here.  Once it swollowed the pizza delivery boy… and spitted him out at the sea-shore, thirty miles away from the city!
Some people are always here, some – only occasionaly, some visit only once…
Misses Anka, Miro’s mother, with a halo of ash-blond hair, wearing embrodiered white dress and fine leather sandals, is always here – even when she is at work; her patients at the hospital usually don’t realise that this lady is being at two places at the same time.
My close friend Bibi sometimes decides we should miss her even more than we do usually and, moving the clouds with her hips, she walks away, heading to her studio in Toloshe, which is not all that far away. She has to come back when people on Spaniard Circus are covered in plaster that fell off the terrace which mourns her absence.
Cvjetko Lainović is always here, with us. That night when he died he promissed he will stay forever here, under this whitness which he personally painted in the very night he died. Even the proverbially suspicious terrace trusts him on this one because she knows that sky above her is the whitest sky of all… At down, when the white sky is cut with little purple veins, Cvetko covers his eyes with white butterflies, this way he protects the whitness of his vision even during these momenets when the night gives birth to the day.

Copyright© 2008 Lena Ruth Stefanovic, All Rights Reserved

Cvetko Lainovic, oil on canvas

Cvetko Lainovic, nude drawings

The story is from my second book ‘Io Triumpe’ (OKF, Cetinje, 2008.) Genius Montenegrin minimalist Cvetko Lainovic, worldwide known for his “white paintings”, towards the end of his life did series of interviews with Miro Minic, the owner of the capricious roof terrace, a famed journalist and a friend of mine.

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Subcultures, Skinny Bitches & Russian Ballerinas etc.

22 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Essay

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Ayn Rand, Ballerina, Ballet, Dance, David Riesman, FabSugar, Jews, Los Angeles, Maya Plisetskaya, Moscow, Russia, Svetlana Zakharova, Syracuse University, Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet

Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow portrait, Maya Plisetskaya, Public Domain

Back in 1950 sociologist David Riesman distinguished between a majority, “which passively accepted commercially provided styles and meanings, and a ‘subculture’ which actively sought a minority style and interpreted it in accordance with subversive values”.

I have a seemingly innate aversion to everything mainstream; whatever is mass feels like plague to me personally. Not that i want it like that – but the rule of thumb is – the more something is mainstream, the more it will make me sick in my stomach, be it books, movies, fashion, way of eating or anything else per that matter.

Maybe it’s because i grew up within uravnilovka , the infamous Soviet leveling where any trace of individuality was suppressed – and in many cases, persecuted.

Far from egotism of deviant  Ayn Rand (i am all for social democracy), but forcing entire nations to wear the same clothes, watch the same movies and read the same books to me equals to mass murder. Don’t think the so-called free world is that progressive in comparison with once-commies, it only has way more subtle ways of persuasion – and intimidation.

We discussed recently with Australian author Dianne Gray the cult movie Idiocracy – i wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of it, but take my word – it’s a must see… Yet it was simply ignored and somehow pushed under the rug – because it mocks and warns about the idiocies we are served by mass media and sold by corporations – and the immediate danger this fostered entropy leads to.

It goes without saying that it’s way easier to manipulate a flock of sheep than a group of individuals, and that’s exactly what’s society trying to do – making us easy to handle. I don’t think some evil genius is behind it all, i don’t believe in conspiracy theories – it’s the force of entropy, of the decay of social structure combined with the political leaders’ false assumption that they know better. They don’t, but the philosophy starts where the belly is full – and if the majority is driven to poverty and dumbed down , then you’ll witness what i did back in commie times: the same party leaders who publicly bowed to the “people”, in private referred to them as being “cattle”.

I am an educator myself, my own PhD thesis is in methods of teaching and i do know that when intellectual curiosity and analytic thinking are encouraged – most of the young (and not so young) adults do flourish, not to mention kids who are somewhere until the age of 11 naturally in the zone.

We as humanity don’t need millions of unskilled workers anymore as automation of production took over and we can actually focus on providing better overall conditions for everyone – and that includes decent education as a priority and encouragement of creative expression as well. (On another hand – of course i think birthrate should be controlled somehow – bringing up “Idiocracy” once again – it is indeed the poorest and the least educated that biologically reproduce the most and no one needs that as this planet is overcrowded as it is.)

Until we as humanity make a quantum leap and come up with some genius solution for our malaises  – we have counter-cultures as tools for subversion of the existing (dis)order.

I like causes and ways of living to which comparatively small groups of people are devoted fanatically – myself, i am a vegan, a Tarot collector and last but not the least – an observant Jew. The latter might come across as contradiction in terms as there are very few things around, if any, more ancient than Jewish religious observance – yet nowadays it is indeed – a subculture; small percentage of Jews in US are observant, and that percentage is even tinier in Europe.

Not to mention that being a vegan in Balkans which is traditionally carnivore is plain odd and that collecting rare and expensive packs of cards comes across as is even more  weird to the most.

Explaining yourself is futile – those who share the same passion get it anyway and those who don’t – never will. The same with subcultures of ballet dancers and skinnies. 

Here is a most interesting article on the world of ballet dancers – Behind the Curtain: The Body, Control, and Ballet by sociologist Paula T. Kelso, it’s based on Suzanne Gordon’s Off balance: The real world of ballet and Benn and Walters’ 2001 study.*

Two of my own tribes are mostly struggling with weight; Jews i think due to the humorous, yet somewhat accurate depiction of the way we celebrate the holidays (the proverbial “they tried to kill us, we won, now lets eat”) and Tarotists – i am not sure why, but it does seem there is something behind the story of physical body expanding because the influence, not to say – attack,  of foreign energies onto empath’s energy field is enormous, as mumbo jumbo as it might sound. (For the record, being a doctoral student myself – i do not seek scientific back up for every single occurrence under the sun; for myself, out of academia,  i don’t need it and i gave up long ago persuading others into anything – so that i would actually need a plethora of scientific facts to come across as credible… Believe whatever rocks your boat, it does not concern me.)

I loved Maya Plisetskaya in Lady With A Lapdog – and i doubt i’d ever get a chance to see her performance, wasn’t i accompanying in 1985 my father , back then secretary of state of Montenegro – on his official visit to Russia.

She was over sixty back then and a big part of her art  was performed – by arms and hands… But what a prima ballerina can express with her arms is beyond verbal, it’s… magical.

As much as admire Maya – and all in all have great respect for the art of ballet – i would never, not for the life of me, subject neither myself nor my hypothetical kid to that rigorous way of living. Yet the truth is that i’ve done crazier things in my own fields – and am more than proud of it albeit it indeed comes across as crazy to the most.

(That being said, there is no definition of “crazy” – except for being different from the most and in my book it’s a compliment.)

Today i met by chance once the first lady whose protocolar escort i used to be, she looks gorgeous, like a model – not only she is a beautiful woman, but she is really thin. I had asked her jokingly to breath into my face as there is always that tiny chance that such looks are contagious, she laughed and said: you know it’s genetics! And with her it is indeed, as maintained as she is – she genetically has the body of a dancer with long limbs and tiny frame.

I have an uber-cool and pretty neighbor who does have big bones, yet is also slim and fit and of course i admire her because i know what an effort and discipline it takes; i am not that devoted to being slim, but i have fat genes and mine keeping on the fitter/healthier side takes an enormous effort too… Which is – it’s the very discipline and being different i admire in others, not the body per se.

Back in 80ies we had Fit for Life , nowadays we have Skinny Bitch.

Both are criticized for lack of scientific evidence – yet what was “scientifically proven”, the infamous late food pyramid  has driven entire nations into epidemics of obesity.

What if it’s All Been a Big Fat Lie? Well, it was – and even Atkins was a healthier way of eating than that.

I don’t like Skinny Bitch’s author(s) writing style – maybe because i am from Eastern Europe and we had enough of being patronized – and even verbally harassed; as a book it’s lousy if you ask me, but what they advocate, pure veganism, is awesome because it’s based not only on concerns for your own health  like in 80ies, but on concern for other living beings; they are taking Diamond’s philosophy to a whole new level and for that they have my unreserved support.

So, yeah… All in all, whatever it is that makes you personally very different  and even odd in the eyes of majority – is the very reason i do love you.

 

cool reads:

The Washington Post’s tribute to Maya’s 80th birthday

*Between Scylla and Charybdis. Nutritional education versus body culture and the ballet aesthetic: the effects on the lives of female dancers.

 

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From Russia With Love

19 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Photography, Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Afghanistan, Erasmus Grasser, God, Jesus, Moscow, Napoleon, Russia, Vladimir Putin

My Russia has two faces, the sad one that breaks my heart and the cultured, noble face of Muscovite who queue for hours, in horrid cold, so to get into city’s museums…

Amazing cultural heritage awaits you there – from sledge in which Napoleon fled from Russia in 1812, having underestimated the fatal impact of Russian winter’s frost to Egyptian mummies and  Grasser’s playful Moresca dancers…

Officially one of the ugliest monuments in the world was built in honor of Peter the Great, who oversees the river, having turned his back to the Cathedral in which Pussy Riot performed the infamous ‘punk prayer’…

Russian spiritual leaders from the times long bygone – rebuilt in statues of sand – just shake their heads to all of that and sigh into the wind of changes…

My Russia

legless beggar in Moscow’s subway

moves around on a wheeled stand

made of wood

he can not afford a wheelchair

the military uniform he is wearing

is covered in blood stains

his eyes are alert, his jaw bone – strong

you can imagine him as a captain

or even a colonel

once upon a time in Afghanistan

maybe it was curses of Afghan mothers that got him

maybe he was just dressed up as a soldier

by the underworld barons

of Russia

in pain, dropped on her  knees

blind old woman, her head covered with black scarf
is hiding from the cameras and patrolling guards
high above her head she holds a picture of a tired Jesus.

Roma accordion player
wrenches subway’s heart

with his music

while

a homeless man is crying in his sleep

at the entrance to the platform
in my head, Buddha says to Nietzsche:
“Karma is inevitable,
But I feel their pain as  my own..”
Nietzsche shakes his head, saying
“These are little people,
their suffering is – irrelevant. ”
I close my eyes and pray
to believe that
God does know what He’s doing.






Copyright ©Lena Ruth Stefanovic 2012. All rights reserved.

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From the Narrows I Was Liberated

18 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Photography, Poetry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

David, God, Montenegro, Rosh Hashanah, Talmud, Tashlikh, Zohar

 

 

 

 

Ottomans called this land Karadag
the black land
where black mountains encircle
the black lakes
and women with black eyes
save the black wine
for men with black mustache
when they come back home from the battle
in the Bright Dawn of May*
L.R.S.

Last night (Mon, 18 September 2012/ 2nd Tishrei 5773 ) at a poetry festival in Northern Montenegro:

 

Montenegrin authors Tanja Bakic, Lena Ruth Stefanovic, Gaga Trpkovic, Jelena Nelevic

 

(right to left: Jelena Nelevic Martinovic, Dragana Tripkovic, Lena Ruth Stefanovic, Tanja Bakic standing)

we speak on behalf of generations who were silent
we speak for your mother and her mother and her mother’s mother
who kept silent
in a “male world”

 

we speak for those who kept covering bruises 
and wept into the pillow
for they still had to keep the light 
for they still had to feed the kids

yet it was them – your mothers
who built this male world for you
it was them who spared you the truth
that it is a woman
running the world
while you are showing off boys’ toys
in the sand of the global playground
only for grown up little boys
L.R.S.

Hebrew word tashlich means “you shall cast away” and the esoteric ritual itself is performed in the afternoon on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, preferably near running waters. As we stand by living water, the barriers to spiritual and personal growth are washed away and we hear the voice of King David echoing “Out of the narrows of distress I called upon God, God answered me with liberation.”

“Min ha-meitzar, karati Yah, anani ba-merchav Yah. Out of the narrows of distress I called upon God, God answered me with liberation (Psalm 118:5).”

As we cast off the pain and transgressions into the river Moracha near city of Kolashin in northern Montenegro, this guy appeared -as it seemed – out of nowhere…

He hung around us for couple of moments

before trotting off into the approaching dusk…

Photo&text content copyright ©Lena Ruth Stefanovic 2012. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

*The Bright Dawn of May is the national anthem of Montenegro

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Bulgakov, Facebook Protocols & The New Year 5773

16 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Photography

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

Komsomol, Margarita, Master, Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, Mitt Romney, Rosh Hashanah, Woland

 

I liked this freshly pressed post by Steffan Postaer: Are perpetually happy online personas a big lie or simply a matter of protocol? But, I instantly knew its author is nowhere near my circle of Facebook friends and probably will never be.

I hardly ever see such sugar coated photographs of “duck face” smiling couples or read statuses on life being all pearls and roses, sprinkled by fairy dust…  Could be due to my being facebook friends with really cool crowd, could be something else, who knows.  But truth to be told, one needs to be subjected to lobotomy so to forget how badly life hurts on some occasions… and how ecstatic it gets on some other.

You don’t need to know that last time i did Brazilian waxing it hurt like hell because i forgot to take the painkiller that everyone in their right mind takes 2h earlier… Ok, now you know. But that’s indeed too much information.

Oh, and there will always be Brits. And Montenegrins. And Dutch. And other people who traditionally don’t rave about their privacy.

Or maybe they were thought (as i was, albeit i gave up on that) “smile – the whole world will smile with you cry and you’ll cry alone.”

I think reality tv did it. I think general dumbing down did it. And the greed behind it and the publicity HOs with sitcoms where everyone confesses and all together cry… That’s fake – the infamous public atonement and the following forgiveness of sins by a millionaire/ tv show host who is so filthy rich that they basically forgot what it feels like to be a mere mortal.

If you know what I mean.

But that’s publicity, and your usual sinner –turned-tv-Saint shall write a book which will become a best seller among other beach reads – the ghost writer will probably remain anonymous, and the ex sinner won’t care about anything (and probably  is not capable of self-reflection in the first place)… What happened there was down to someone’s idea of making money out of it all – out of the sin, the repentance , the forgiveness, the tears of relieve… I call that BS, not the human discretion and privacy concerns or simple unwillingness to share with whole wide world what one goes through in the privacy of their bedroom – or bathroom per that matter.

Which brings me back to something I detest… Among all the damage the  false tv-messiahs and alike have done is the acceptance of fiction and non-fiction that’s of extremely low quality, not to say – garbage.

A friend of mine, when the going was tough, started writing chick lit – the weekend romance series, she signed those with pseudonym and albeit it sold well, she wouldn’t admit dead it’s her who wrote them. Nor we would admit we read them – dead or alive, that is.

Dumbing down is not democracy. Someone’s  ignorance is not as valid as another’s being educated. We need elite; we need the avant-garde, because it was never the majority who ignited the progress, only individuals… and those come in all shapes and sizes and are never perpetually happy in a cheap way.

Recently two of my own statuses got numerous likes, those were:

“I get up, the world spits to my face, I clean it and say: I love you too.”

And another

“I love it when I Ching tells me off.”

The ones I like the most have to do with Tarot, riddles, heavy sarcasm and mocking Mitt Romney.

Most of my friends are indeed happy , most of the times. And so am i. And even when i am not all that happy – i remember the ancient Judaic commandment  ”you must be happy” (and are allowed to fake it, until you make it ;))  – not because you are stupid and fake – but because, if you are somewhat smart and honest, over time you will realize it is all for good.

Mikhail Bulgakov , put it this way:  But would you kindly ponder this question – what would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings. Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You’re stupid.”

Had i mentioned his “ Master and Margarita ” is my favorite novel of all times?

“Take these as essential ingredients: Satan, Jesus, Stalin, Pontius Pilate and Caesar’s Empire, assorted literary critics, a great Artist and the woman who loves him, life in 1930s Moscow, a poet on the bitter road to truth, and various demonic henchmen including a big black cat. They add up to one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century…” (From the review of The Master and Margarita, edition Penguin Classics )

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

“At the hour of the hot spring sunset two citizens appeared at the Patriarch’s Ponds”. This is the opening line of The Master and Margarita. The literary authority Berlioz and the young poet Bezdomny are debating on a bench. Subject is the existence of Jesus when a third man is joining the discussion. Later he will introduce himself as professor Woland. He predicts that Berlioz will be decapitated that very day by a Russian woman, a member of the Komsomol. And it was inevitable, because “‘Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil, and has not only bought it, but has already spilled it”.
According to the legend, they sat on the third bench from the left – its this one in the picture i took last year.

The bench is still at Patriarch’s Pond, close to Tverskaya Street in city’s center:

Patriarch's Pond, Moscow, Russia

 

And oldsmobiles are still parked in the nearby cobbled alleys:

Oldsmobile Chaika

With that i am wishing you Happy New Year! L’Shana Tova! May 5773 overflow with sweetness and genuine happiness!

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When all else fails, tell a story…

13 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Photography

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Arts, Byzantine Empire, Gogol, Literature, Montenegro, Nikolai Gogol, Overcoat, Russia

It’s been said that we all grew out of Gogol’s Overcoat … To me personally, his is one of the very few that always fit- regardless of times and the weather and regardless of everything else. That’s what great literature, classical literature is about – it is universal, it is timeless and you can see yourself wearing their shoes, or better to say – their overcoats – no matter where  and when you jump into the written world of a genius writer.

Even Nabokov, a genius in his own right, albeit an infamously opinionated and big mouthed one – had the following to say on Gogol: “Steady Pushkin, matter-of-fact Tolstoy, restrained Chekhov have all had their moments of irrational insight which simultaneously blurred the sentence and disclosed a secret meaning worth the sudden focal shift. But with Gogol this shifting is the very basis of his art, so that whenever he tried to write in the round hand of literary tradition and to treat rational ideas in a logical way, he lost all trace of talent. When, as in the immortal The Overcoat, he really let himself go and pottered on the brink of his private abyss, he became the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced.”

Back in 2003, Montenegrin government saw the going getting tough and had decided, for the first time in history, to school its own diplomats. You see, Montenegro is one of the oldest countries in Europe – Principality Doclea, the great-grand mother of Montenegro, was formed in 9th century; it shall have a turbulent personal history, like many outstandingly beautiful and rebellious princesses did … In 1042 it shall run away from what once was considered her home – the mighty Byzantine empire, in 1421, it shall get kidnapped by a Serbian Despotate; princess by birthright would renounce its nobility by joining the working class family of Yugoslav people and shall remain quite happy in its new home, as long as her inborn sense of human dignity was not jeopardized and her honorable name brought down to dirt. That’s when the princess decided it was the high time she hit the road and became a sovereign queen.

But there laid the trap – see, every crowned Queen needs its court and ladies in waiting, yet those whose vocation it was – had seemingly forgotten what it means to serve the Queen.

Thus, in 2003., Diplomatic Academy Gavro Vukovic was formed and the very first class of diplomats was schooled on its own ground, on our own land, trained to fight for its interests and its honor. (To keep the peace at home and make my father happy, i must add that his side of family is related to Duke Gavro Vukovic, albeit – tiny nation that we are – most of us are related anyway. ;)) There are many reputable Diplomatic Academies in the world – and we used to school our diplomats there;  the “output” we would get back would be cosmopolitan and classy, yet quite disconnected from its roots and even reluctant to acknowledge those.

Thus, in 2003, 48 of us sat in benches and listened to yet another re-telling of the Overcoat , this time by professor Dragan Vukcevic, PhD.

Dean Vukcevic told us his version of the story, where it was about the tailor who sewed his own overcoat… With time it got worn out, and became – a jacket. Years later, the material which could be used had become sufficient merely for a cap… Until one day, only a button of the original overcoat remained.

Dean Vukcevic had handed us this metaphorical button and had make us swear that we will recreate the original overcoat from it… that’s what we’ve been working on, ever since.

In 2006., Montenegro has regained its independence, we are working on restoring the little details nowadays – as the overcoat indeed has been sewed again, sleeves attached to it and even the fancy collar added.

Here are some pictures of the magical Queen, for you:

Photo Copyright ©Lena Ruth Stefanovic, 2012, All Rights Reserved

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Pirate’s Heart &The Copper Sun

12 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Awards

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Brave New World, Chrome Yellow, Managua, New York City, Savannah Georgia, Sheridan Le Fanu, Starý Smokovec, Stromness

 

 

The Copper Sun

Many thanks to my cyber darling Managua for yet another sunny surprise, he is the guy who by default sees the light where it’s concealed – as it  seems – by default.

We are all a part of the new phenomena of BLOGOSPHERE – of the brand new paradigm, the most revolutionary and most exciting shift the written word made ever since the Guteneberg’s invention of the printing press.

Gone is the middle man – the publisher, gone is the monopoly on information, gone is the editor – in our parts, hand in hand with the infamous censor, followed by its doppelgänger – the self-censor…

Gone are beach reads, chick lit and all other euphemisms used for fiction of low quality – and the new phenomena is born – that of the confessional and memoir blogging.

It will take time until all of it is canonized, academi-zed and, basically, subjected to all kinds of ISMs which will eventually make it mainstream and probably – over time – quite boring and passe and something newer will be born then…

For now though, we are enjoying the ride, the free flowing, the utter lack of mercantilism and the profound immersion in the unadulterated joy of the intellectual exchange and emotional bonding with folks who are wired the same way.

We could say it’s all very much like some cyber version of Huxley’s Chrome Yellow, in which he conceived The Brave New World where (in words of Mr. Scogan, one of the characters) an “impersonal generation” of the future “take(s) the place of Nature’s hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world.”

In the cyber, mind you. Otherwise, many (most?) of us couldn’t and wouldn’t give up on some previously existing commitments – be those down to an spoiled-rotten cat, eccentric parents, an ancient system of belief and a tiny nation – or anything and anyone else that’s, by our own choice or not, between us and the abstract category of the ‘absolute freedom’.

Yet, within blogosphere, miracles are the norm.

Within last 72 hours or so, i’ve been with Managua to Starý Smokovec – don’t listen to his exalted ravings, it’s a boring Slovakian village for which – for unbeknownst to me reasons – he has a thing.

Larry and i had one of those posh academic exchanges about stuff we both know, but call different names;

the moving force behind realmanure and i have developed one of those epic bonds that transgress the personal and local, rectifying thus the universal;

thanks to Arlen i learned what’s Armenian alphabet like – and got infected once again with the wanderlust…

I was with sohojay in NYC, we mourned.

I met lichtbilwefer and they told me of goats’ skins and sweetened teas in places mysterious and not-so-clean.

I check out on Zoey regularly, she got under my skin.

Bonnie Cehovet told me of urban magic and where to find it in the city.

Nonoymanga got me hooked on Manga, hand drawing and animation – and i became their follower number 1001.

I’ve peeked into the curious cabinet of Le Fanu, everyone’s favorite Tarot collector in the far off lands.

Jema tok me for a stroll in Savannah – she hadn’t warned me though it will be snowing! I was taken aback by encountering fully dressed giraffe walking on her back legs – accompanied by an easygoing elephant – but it turned out to be the norm when it’s snowing in Savannah!

Stephen took me for a walk along the cobbled streets in Stromness; Author Dianne Gray pointed out that fickle finger of fate, while wondering wasn’t it all just a little too intense for her own good…

Amras was telling me about healing powers of crystals and the pirate whose heart got stolen by the sea, told me the story of the Copper Sun…

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9/11 In My Personal History

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Coming of Age / Bildungsroman

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Balkan, Balkan Wars, Chinese Philosophy, Kabbalah, Montenegro, United States, Yugoslav, Yugoslavia

picture taken in 2011

I lit a candle this morning and i prayed to God, silently, for heroes, for America, for all of us.

On this day in 2001 i had just returned from China, was watching a movie and getting ready to hit off to the gym… when they started broadcasting the tragedy.

I was taken aback.  My mother said: oh, this must be a movie!

I knew it, somewhere deep down, i felt that spasm in my stomach which told me that, sadly, this is for real.

Let me tell you what America means to me – beyond being a country where many people i love – live.

For an European intellectual – and an American intellectual as well, it’s rather customary to express certain cynicism when it comes to politics, especially to the politics of the only remaining super power (us having grown up under the threat of the other.)

As a linguist and as a writer – i use words as my primary tool of expression, as that very bridge through which i communicate with the world.

English language, which i started learning quite late in life, opened my mind for patterns of thought which were unknown to me in the culture into which i was born –  and which i haven’t known in the cultures where we lived, which languages i learned.

It’s the language – its richness, its warmth and its genuine, innate positivity that opened up my heart in the beginning.

I wanted to learn more about the people who spoke that language.

As my own country, former Yugoslavia, started to fall apart, my own identity did too; it turned out i belonged to a people, Yugoslavs,  who instantly went extinct , i remained without a citizenship, without cultural identity and even my mother tongue was not called the same any more.

As the remnants of former Yugoslavia were buried deeper and deeper, with them went down the communist system of values into which we were raised.

I turned to my Jewish roots to find meaning and personal salvation. It’s there that i understood what essential role US had played in the Jewish battle for survival.

I had studied literature under different system, so it’s later on in life that i came to  Kerouac, Carver and Ginsberg – and they have moved my world and shifted my perception.

The movies, the music – the more i learned about the culture, the more i loved its people and identified with them.

Whichever interest i’ve developed – Kabbalah, Tarot, and even Chinese Philosophy – it turned out that i was looking in the direction of US – first Kabbalah Center, outside Jerusalem,  opened in US and my teacher was there; people who wrote books on Tarot, from whom i learned – were there too, and even intellectuals from whom i was learning Chinese thought – were in US as well.

During the Balkan wars, my father being a dissident, we sought refuge in Montenegro, where his side of family originates from; during 1990ies  every single thinking Montenegrin understood that we have to regain state independence in order to reclaim our history that once was honorable – and in order to break out of the predominant back then Balkan hate for no reason.

In 2006, after years of struggle , Montenegro is free and independent – for which , i dare to say, political support of US administration, and thus, American people – was one of the main factors that made it come true.

Thus, on this day, eleven years ago, it was not some country overseas that was attacked. It was me and my own life that was attacked.

In my personal history, i had died once, when Yugoslavia died – was it a fake construct all together, did it turn out for the best at the end of things – i wouldn’t know, but i was too young then to have any relevant influence and for my voice to be heard.

Two decades later, the world has changed, my own life changed and grew in a direction of which i never guessed, i didn’t plan on becoming who i am today, it happened… But, big part of it, big part of who i personally am is forever intertwined with American people.

So, i stand with you today and always with my soul and with my life and i say, in one voice with you: ALWAYS REMEMBER. NEVER FORGET.

Lena Ruth Stefanovic

note: this essay was written last year, on the same day… dates were changed accordingly, but nothing changed in my heart, nothing ever will.

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Teshuva (Return)

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by moderndayruth in Poetry

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Adam, Belgrade, Coca-Cola, McDonald, Moscow, Repentance in Judaism, Sofia, Teshuva

The Worker and The Kolhoz Woman Monument, Moscow, Russia; Vera Mukhina

i was born in the magical circle

which cursed tram number two outlines

around the innards of the city

which used to be completely white*

quite near the Synagogue

on a street named after Marshall Biryuzov

but we lived there only briefly

 

then we lived in Sofia

on the very transition

from socialism into  communism

when everyone used to get whatever they needed

and gave as much as they could

or something like that

most of it was humble

and our needs were politically correct

like the Biblical Adam and Eve

the people were naked, barefoot and happy

as long as they lived far from the temptations

of the snakelike West

 

yet this idyll did not last for too long

the serpent of western propaganda

offered a can of Coca-Cola

to the girl with the sickle

who forgot her partisan name

and bargained off her badge with Lenin’s face

for a McDonald’s cheeseburger

 

for a while i lived in Moscow

long before the chap with the hummer broke off

with the girl with the sickle

in Moscow i was, as expected, sad

most of the time

most of the people

were getting wasted on Vodka

because the reality hurt too much

if we looked at its eyes while sober

thus my own memories

by choice

are clouded by Vodka fumes mixed with

icy winter frost

L.R.S.

 

*in Serbo-Croatian and its “children- languages”, once the capital of Yugoslavia is called Beograd, which literally means  – the white city

photo: The Worker and Kolhoz Woman

copyright notice: the poem was originally published as a part of novelette Teshuva within Anthology of contemporary Montenegrin literature, publisher Katedrala, 2010.

The original translation (here altered), copyright  ©Zoran Paunovic, 2010

Novelette “Teshuva”copyright  ©Lena Ruth Stefanovic, 2010, All Rights Reserved

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