Without Lifting A Finger

The lagoon is under siege again. For the better? All my palms! *                       

I thought of it as an adventure. Not really my kind of music (the sameness and electronic hijinks got on my nerves -- not to mention the incense smoke oft-wafted to the god Cannabis). Anyway, good seats (pretty much at center) but not great (a bit too far away to see the human touch, though I could see the seesawing bow in miniature or the larger virtual take on pulsing screens). Best photos (toyed with a bit) I could get:                             







Victor Olegovich Pelevin ( Russian : Ви́ктор Оле́гович Пеле́вин ; IPA:  [ˈvʲiktər ɐˈlʲɛɡəvʲɪtɕ pʲɪˈlʲevʲɪn] , born 22 November 1962) is a Russian fiction writer, the author of novels " Omon Ra ", " Chapayev and Void " and " Generation P ". He is a laureate of multiple literary awards including the Russian Little Booker Prize (1993) and the Russian National Bestseller (2004). His books are multi-layered postmodernist texts fusing elements of pop culture and esoteric philosophies while carrying conventions of the science fiction genre. Some critics relate his prose to the New Sincerity literary movement. [From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Pelevin ]

                  

On a tip from a knowing man with a broom in his hand (he took the first bite and lived), I tasted a new fruit I've been staring at for years (the starry white blossoms are very fragrant, but I didn't know the fruit was edible). *** Carissa macrocarpa ( Natal Plum ), is a shrub native to South Africa, where it is commonly called the Large Num-Num . In Zulu, as well as in the Bantu tribes of Uganda, it is called Amathungulu or umThungulu oBomvu . In Afrikaans the fruit is called Noem-Noem . C. macrocarpa deals well with salt-laden winds, making it a good choice for coastal areas. It is commonly found in the coastal bush of the Eastern Cape and Natal. [1] It produces shiny, deep green leaves and snowy white flowers whose perfumed scent intensifies at night. Like other Carissa species, C. macrocarpa is a spiny, evergreen shrub containing latex. They bloom for months at a time. The ornamental plump, round, crimson fruit appears in summer and fall (autumn) at the same tim...

Kind of like what Kundera said re Musil's opus: no matter where you land you'll find something exceptional. Here's pretty much where I ended this morning. Excerpt: Yes, dreams Mikheev, the wind will put all this orchard and samovar life upside down and will stomp the dust at least for a while. The retiree suddenly recalls something he read sometime and somewhere: A breeze fashions fast silver keels out of dust. Precisely, from dust, Mikheev analyzes, and precisely keels, that is boat keels, that is boats with keels, and not the flat-bottom boats, may they sink to the bottom! If only the wind came soon! A gale in the vale, but a breeze in the trees -- again Mikheev quotes in his mind, while the path turns to the right and goes slightly up the hill. Now, as far as to the little bridge across the ravine (where the burdocks are plentiful and where, most likely, snakes live), one can leave the pedals alone and let one's legs rest: let them hang calmly, swinging on both ...

          



Got there early: wanted to see the cars waking up, rolling in. Peeted, completed the usual loop, walked back home. Enjoying Sasha's opus. Another busy day in teacherdom. *                                     

        

                      

            

      

Sasha Sokolov (born Александр Всеволодович Соколов/ Alexander Vsevolodovitch Sokolov on November 6, 1943, in Ottawa , Canada ) is a paradoxical writer of Russian literature . He became known worldwide in the 1970s after his first novel A School for Fools had been published by Ardis Publishing ( Ann Arbor , Michigan ) in the US, and later reissued by Four Walls Eight Windows . Sokolov is one of the most important authors of 20th-century Russian literature. He is well acclaimed for his unorthodox use of language, playing with rhythms, sounds and associations. The author himself coined the term "proeziia" for his work—in between prose and poetry. Sokolov is a Canadian citizen and has lived the larger part of his life so far in the United States. During the Second World War, his father, Major Vsevolod Sokolov, worked as a military attaché at the Soviet embassy in Canada. In 1946 Major Sokolov (agent "Davey") was deported from Canada in relation to spying activit...

Alexander Leonidovich Goldstein ( Russian : Александр Леонидович Гольдштейн ; born ( 1957-12-15 ) 15 December 1957, Tallinn , Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic — 16 July 2006 ( 2006-07-16 ) , Tel-Aviv , Israel ) — was a Russian writer and essayist. He was awarded the Russian Little Booker Prize , the Anti-Booker prize and the Andrei Bely Prize (posthumously, in the category for prose ). Biography and Work Alexander Goldstein was born in Tallinn, the son of Leonid Goldstein, a man of letters. From his early childhood on, he lived in Baku , where he later studied literature at Baku State University . From 1991 he lived in Tel-Aviv. Goldstein worked as a journalist for the newspaper Vesti , as well as other Russian-language publications, and sat on the editorial board of the Russian-Israeli journal Zerkalo . His articles were published in the books Расставание с Нарциссом ( Parting from Narcissus ) and Аспекты духовного брака ( Aspects of Spiritual Matrimony ). The first of t...

Mikhail Pavlovich Shishkin ( Russian : Михаил Павлович Шишкин , born 18 January 1961) is a Russian writer. Biography Mikhail Shishkin was born in 1961 in Moscow . Shishkin studied English and German at Moscow State Pedagogical Institute . After graduation he worked as a street sweeper, road worker, journalist, school teacher, and translator. He debuted as a writer in 1993, when his short story "Calligraphy Lesson" was published in Znamya magazine. Since 1995 he has lived in Zurich , Switzerland . [1] [2] He averages one book every five years. [3] Shishkin openly opposes the current Russian government, [4] calling it a "corrupt, criminal regime, where the state is a pyramid of thieves" when he pulled out of representing Russia at the 2013 Book Expo in the United States [5] Shishkin's books have been translated into more than ten languages. [6] His prose is universally praised for style, e.g., "Shishkin's language is wonderfully lucid and...

New Android phone. Different tricks to do with pics. Some things I miss from my old Windows phone. Anyway, that's progress. *                     

Coffee & Mikhail Shishkin ( The Light and the Dark ). Shishkin led to Goldstein (not even translated into English yet) led to led to ... And at some point I found Sasha Sokolov's A School for Fools (next in my Kindle carousel). *