Shurik

This film is truly a gift of Russian Cinema.
http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=jw1Mpis87oE


Winnie the Pooh is also much better in Russian.
http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=UGIlHolPZ_A

Humility sometimes tastes like asphalt

and snow.

That was my first thought when I wiped out, banana peel-style, in front of the Hermitage. Actually, my first thought was: “did anyone see that?”

That's always my first thought when I do something humiliating.

Yes. The answer is always yes.

It’s cold here, really cold. Cold like my heart, except a hundred or so degrees colder. I now understand why my pal Robby grew out his beard when he was in Saint-Petersburg:






















I’m living in downtown Saint-Petersburg, right next to the Moyka river and near the famous Nevsky Prospect. The Hermitage is two blocks away and free to students; it’s amazing. But I’ll write about that later. I’m taking intensive Russian classes at the Saint-Petersburg University Department of Philology (ha!) for four hours every morning, and despite being here only a week so far, two days of which I slept, and two days of which I was really sick, I feel I am picking up a lot of Russian.

Things move slower in Saint-Petersburg. I go to bed around 10 pm or so, and I wake up at 6 am. I eat meals slowly. It’s a welcome change of pace.

I am still learning my way around. It’s a huge city, and I’m having trouble finding a place to buy Q-tips. I’m concerned that Russians don’t use Q-tips, and that I’ll have to conserve my small supply for the next semester. I never feel clean until I step of out the shower and use a Q-tip.

I’m living with Violetta’s mother and grandmother. Their house rocks, it is covered in flowers and pictures of Violetta. Her mom is hilarious. Every meal is a lesson on Russian history, why Russia is screwed, and why Putin is a murdering psychopath. If the KGB doesn’t murder us both, I’ll come out of here with a interesting grasp of Russian politics.

She also lives to feed me. Seriously. Every time I think dinner or whatever is over, and I couldn’t eat another bite, she brings out the main course. She is also nuts about her three cats, Mysya, Vasya, and Pysya. I’d put up a picture of her and her cats, but I can’t find the cord for my camera. I’ll have to hold off until I get a new one.

Pysya hates me.

Well I don't know what I'm looking for...

But I know that I just want to look some more
And I won't be satisfied
'Till there's nothing left that I haven't tried
For some people it's an easy choice
But for me there's a devil and an angel's voice
Well I don't know what I am looking for
But I know that I just want to look some more

I am in Saint-Petersburg, which will be spelled like so from here on out, not Petersburg, not St. Petersburg, not Petrograd, not Санкт-Петербург.

I just slept for two days. That’s some intense jetlag. It was a great plane ride over though. Polish Airlines. They kept showing this little animated video in which a cartoon lady demonstrates how you can exercise while remaining in your seat. As she’d demonstrate exercises, the video kept cutting to other animated men who turn their heads and watch her intently. Too intently for comfort, methinks.

Every time I get on an airplane I sit down and immediately complain to whoever is sitting next to me that seat belts on planes are useless. If this plane crashes, we are all going to die: simple as that. They don’t have seat belts on public buses, do they? Heck, even with schoolchildren (many of whom need to be chained down) there are no seat belts on buses. I feel strongly about not enforcing the fasten-your-seatbelt rule on planes; we ought to take our flights like the Roman warriors took their battles: if it is my day to die, so be it.

And then I read stories like this.

What the heck is up with the “no smoking” icon? Of course there is no smoking on airplanes! What, you’d have to have not been on an airplane since 1970 to not know this!

There was an old man on my flight who stood for the entire time. I only slept a couple hours, the rest of the time I watched movies, and periodically glanced over at this guy. He periodically glanced over at me. We had a conversation, without speaking.

“You’re old”, I said.
“You’re young”, he said.

“You’re standing”, I said.
“You’re sitting”, he said.

“You’re not watching the movie”, I said.
“You are watching the movie”, he said.

“You sure use the bathroom a lot. Perhaps that’s why you are standing”, I said.
“You haven’t peed once this flight. That's amazing!” he said.
"And I'm not going to, old man. I'm gonna hold it."

“We are opposites, you and I, old/young, standing/sitting, peeing/not, yin/yang, and here we both are, hurtling through the sky at 1000 miles per hour.”

Which made me think about 1000 miles per hour: that’s a lot of miles in an hour. A thousand of them. That’s 16.6 miles per minute. That’s a third of a mile every second. Seatbelts—really?

And then dawn hit, which I swear hits faster and harder when you are rushing towards it at 1000 miles per hour. At first, it was just a line of red in the black, then orange, then deep blue, cold blue (-60 degrees), then that great, NASA blue, and finally the sun starts to poke up and the whole thing becomes too brilliant to look at without burning your eyes.

It is at moments like these, when I’m traveling at .3 miles per second tens of thousands of feet in the air, with dawn breaking and the clouds rolling under me like scrolls of silver that I begin to quietly wax poetical to myself.

Sometimes I feel like I am 20, a lot of the time I feel like I’m 70, and in either case, I feel like a fool.

In medias res...

Well, I'm really in the middle of things now.

My internship finished well.  All that glossophobia stuff was bunk; apparently people were interested and entertained, and I had record attendance.  I'm told that I'm a natural!  I was also told that, next time, I should avoid referring to my audience as "you guys", especially when my audience is in part comprised of trustees and the museum President.

Dashing lecturer, drunk with power:

Dashing lecturer, drunk with celebration!

I packed up all my stuff in New Bedford and journeyed back to San Diego.  It has been a pretty eventful break.  Misha visited from Vassar for one leg of his west coast adventure.  Violetta was down here to do some music in Los Angeles, so we went to the Wild Animal Park and took some photos next to these boganvalias.

And then she was touched by God.  I witnessed.

Back when the Chargers were 4-8, I told my dad that the best Christmas present he could get my brother and me would be tickets to the improbable "playoff" game versus the Denver Broncos.

We kicked the crap out of the Denver donkeys.  We beat them so badly, their head coach was fired the next day.  You can see victory in the sky.

I also found out that Balboa Park had an honorary plaque put up for me.

I spent New Year's with these kids.

James Clark got really drunk, challenged me to a fist fight, stole several packs of cigarettes, and then fell off a cliff.  This cliff:

Seriously.

I have no idea what James Phelps did on New Year's, but take a guess as to how I know he shouldn't have driven home:

Generally, I've been doing a lot of application stuff, and a lot of moving out of our house, which is a huge pain.  So much to do and so little break time remaining.

Next week: Saint-Petersburg.  (Holy cow). 

Kobo, Quasimodo and ?

Meet Kobo:














Kobo is a 60 foot adolescent blue whale who puts the "scent" into adolescent. His bones weren't cleaned properly, and are still full of oil...so the gallery sort of smells like whale oil. And...cleaning staff has to wipe up when he drips. Every day. It's best to keep your mouth closed when you're looking up at him in awe.

The museum held a contest to name the new skeleton when he was first hung, and the winner, a fifth grader, came up with Kobo: King of the Blue Ocean.
















This is our sperm whale skeleton. He doesn't have a name, but he's still cool. We also have a small humpback whale skeleton hanging beside Kobo, acquired in 1935. He was the museum's first whale, inspiring William Tripp (then curator) to say:

We are no longer a whaling museum without a whale, as some in the past have chosen to call us.

Just a couple weeks ago, the NBWM put up their fourth skeleton. She started like this.














She required a bit of dental work.














I directed the construction.














Adjusting the ribs.




















This is how I know she was a she.














Raising the whale fetus. (Quasimodo can be seen in the background).




















Mother and child reunion, back view.















Bottom view.















Mother and child have no name yet--but there is another contest! That's right, you could name the whale (I think there may be a 12-year-old age limit).

Ask me in person, and I'll tell you some funny stories about these skeletons. A band camp story? Maybe.

And one time, and the whaling museum...

"Conservators make it last longer"

"He has a whiskey collection? Now that's something I could get behind. That's the sort of collection that deaccessions itself."

Glossophobia

Which do you fear more: public speaking, or death?

In just a couple weeks, I’ll be presenting a lecture on the research I’ve been doing to all my professors here at NBWM. The good news is I've got great material to work with, and there are no grades. The bad news is that, instead of teachers I've got professors watching me, and instead of grades, there is the serious possibility of humiliation. This will be my first real attempt at public speaking since high school, at which time I was devoting much more of my effort to making fun of the assignment/teacher rather than actually saying anything worthwhile.

I thought I’d copy over some of the tips from the book I’ve been reading, because they are brilliant:

First of all, don’t worry about being nervous—most experienced speakers are. If you are well prepared, this nervousness will feel like exhilaration instead of terror, powering your talk with energy that you can transmit to the audience. People who are too calm usually end up giving lackluster presentations. It’s like taking an exam—you do better if you are keyed up because the adrenaline sharpens your wits.

Nervous. I can do nervous.

Remember that, with very rare exceptions, the audience wishes you well, and that they are just poor mortals like yourself, in need of love and approval.

Love. They need my love.

Because you are onstage, you become in their eyes an authority figure, so it is up to you to make them them feel good.

Right. Make them feel good. I am an authority figure: respect my authoritah.

Try to feel affection for them, projecting as much warmth as you can.

Project warmth. Gotcha.

If you can forget about yourself and be genuinely concerned about the audience and their need for information and stimulation, you will not have time to be afraid.

...genuinely concerned...

Try to be the kind of teacher Carl Jung admired:
"One looks back with great appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child."

Warmth again. Must have warmth so my audience can grow, like the soul of a child. Yes.

Woodrow Wilson (another authority figure) was once asked how long it took him to write a speech. He answered, “That depends. If I am to speak in 10 minutes, I need a week for preparation. If 15 minutes, 3 days. If half hour, two days. If an hour, I am ready now.”

Luckily, I've still got two weeks.