There was a book named 'How the Steel Was Made'. Stalin took himself 'a steel' nickname. There were 'iron Felix' ( the chef of GPU), 'iron Kipling( the bard of imperialism), 'iron Lady'. It was an Iron Age. There was an Iron Curtain, what happened behind this curtain, nobody knew. I believe we're leaving the Iron Age behind. Maybe it's bad, the iron people of 20 century are no more with us, today effeminate men are lost in anarchic hedonism, no more WWII, no more building of communism, the future is uncertain. People prefer to divulge national secrets, be traitors to their own country, leak information, than to spy on other nations(or on people of their own nation), than to fight Taliban.
Are you - steel, leather(or skin, or banana skin, or banana), I mean, you - are yourself or the leather jacket you're wearing in winter, maybe lambskin, organs(not the security organs, your kidneys, liver, heart sold to needy people), rags, or plastic?
Israeli democracy - one of the most democratic, there are few countries in the world so democratic.
I transported myself and decoders I was sorting out (they all were broken but of different kinds) melancholically, and thought about Heaven was there Greek democracy or Eastern despoty, or was it empty.
Israel - Europe, Africa, or Asia? The Umbilicus of the Earth, somewhere off the main routs of the world, the trains did not go to Jerusalem for decades, there was a railway station, but no trains coming and going, Jerusalem is like Fire Land, Magellan stumbled there in 16 century, on the way from Europe to Oceania. Jerusalem is like an island, its inhabitants don't want anything of the 21 century, or even 20 century, they don't want 'to mix'.
No need to splash it out on cables, no need to splash it out on Harvard. But they'll make you to splash out on your flat, not the one you're buying, you are able to buy only a cable for 99p, that you're renting.
I remember my ID number by rote, but do I really need that number? I've heard in America there is no ID, no passport, driver's license only. This my ID number, it's like a concentration camp number, like a tattooed yellow star, like a product code, it has the same cabbalistic value.
I am not against my identity, I am against stealing of the identity, but I don't believe in identity papers.
I'm in 'the school for the fools', like Sasha Sokolov wrote, there is Harvard, a school for good pupils, and there is a school for the fools, who don't understand the social conventions.
Lately, Lilia and I went to Haifa. The bus drove to the University, and we waited for half an hour breathing bracing winter wind, till the museum of Chanaan antiques would open. It was sunny, and Lilia took pictures of 30-storey University building and panoramas opening around us. The museum took two floors in the underground of the building. The guide gathered people around some famous sarcophagi telling them about those who inhabited now these coffins. We did not want to listen and went around the museum, enjoying the statuettes of pagan Chanaan gods, and things ancient Chanaanites producted in their time. Lilia said she liked the museum design. We mounted to the second floor and glanced through the exhibition of Israeli impressionists (or expressionists, I don't know), but we did not like it. There was a brochure of a painteress named Kramer. I meet Kramers rarely in Israel, though it is a very common Jewish surname. Actually, I met it only once before, there was a Kramer art gallery in Jerusalem, though it closed while I still lived there. Anyway, Lilia doesn't believe I'm a 'true' Kramer. My mother was a Kramer, it was her maiden name, but not me.
I like to look at the stars at night. I am a stargazer. I have a book on astronomy, how to watch the stars through the telescope, but there are a few stars in Israel. There are maybe two, three stars in the whole sky, and it's sad for me.
I talk about books, think about books. My class teacher in the high school made us write 'our thoughts' about books we had read in the summer, I did not take it seriously, and I remember I read some 'bumf', I was not interested in classics, the books I really liked I wouldn't write about them, and I did it purely 'formally', to 'pass it'.
Children's literature. 'Adults' literature' - it's money, women, perversions, killings, police -if your book lacks it - it's 'children's. Children's literature - children study well, get valuable lessons, get an 'A' grades. I get 'F' grades, why mark me as 'children's'?
One English writer said Russia is a wonderful country but it lacks knowledge. Lillian also said there is a lack of psychoanalytic knowledge in Russia. But is it really true? Russia was 'a most reading nation'. It is a question whether psychoanalytic knowledge is so important for a nation's health. In my opinion, shrinks drag a lot of money out of their clients doing really nothing for them, creating illusion of healing.
British Encyclopedia isn't published anymore, it's a pity. But British Encyclopedia isn't all there is to knowledge.
I am sitting and typing now on a swivel chair. I bought it in Jerusalem, in Talpyot. I was choosing the color for a long time, looking at samples, like an ass of Buridan, finally chose one, they said it was not in stock, you had to order it, and they said take one from the exhibition, the color is much better than you chose. It was grey-blue. I came to the bus stop with this chair, and a woman asked me how to get by bus to Museon Israel. It's a mythical place for me. There is a Museon Erets Israel, near the Parliament, in the centre of Jerusalem, but this one is different. I always dreamt to get there, but never came though I lived not so far from it. I thought it was located on one of quiet, small streets off Emek Refayim street(Emek Refayim, the Ghost Valley, is the name of the street, not the name of a movie). I dreamt also of getting a job in this museum, but since I never came there, I haven't got the job, moreover, moved from Jerusalem.
Russia really lacks some essential knowledge. It lacks supermarket knowledge, business culture, I also lack this knowledge, like so many other kinds of knowledge. American life is enigma for me, Israeli life is enigma for me, and Russian life also became enigma for me. But I am not despaired.
They sold a one-cent coin for a million dollars in America. It was issued in 1902; instead of 'In God We Trust' it was written 'Freedom is the foundation of sciences, arts, and civilization' on it.
My father dreamt to go to Japan; he was interested in painting and liked Hokusai. He lived in the Soviet North, not far from Japan, but it was as if on the other end of the world.
I bought my first computer in 2002; I read books and articles in the internet, how to become a genius, how to develop yourself, how to self-help. I read on Buddhism, on various esoteric teachings, philosophy, etc. I learned to read more quickly, worked on my memory, read on health, downloaded music. From the internet I got an idea to lead a diary.
I dreamt to be an archeologist; I read a book named 'Words and Things (An Archeology of Humanities)'. Humanities seduced me, I wanted to be an anthropologist, historian, philologist, I dreamt to be a voyager. I even wanted to be a poet, but I did not learn to rhyme.
I've been to Finland in the 90s, for three days. We lived in a camp on the shore of a small lake. We brought to Finns vodka and cigarettes, and gathered mushrooms in the forest. Finns did not then (now Russians taught them) gathered mushrooms, and I remember a place where they stood very densely, there was a sea of them. Then we asked Finns for onions and oil, and fried them on a borrowed pan with potatoes.
I remember a restaurant in Helsinki named 'The Sunny Side of The Street'.
I remember a T V program where they said Lenin was a mushroom.
White or red (in Russia, there are 'white' and 'red' mushrooms, as well as some others)? Of course, red!