The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: Hobot on January 02, 2006, 02:21:36 am
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Last month, I took a day trip with fellow members of the Russian Club to New York City to see the Russia! exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum. Has anyone else seen the exhibit? If you haven't and you're in or near NYC, I highly recommend checking it out, as it runs only until January 11. I particularly enjoyed the beautiful icons from the 13th and 14th centuries and the post-Soviet era protest works.
For more information and a better description of what the exhibit has to offer, click here (http://www.guggenheim.org/russia/index.html).
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Wait, you're in high school, right? You have a Russian Club? Somehow, I think life would have been better for me in high school had there have been a Russian Club. I studied it for a couple semesters in college, but then somehow I got caught up in German. And although I'm slowly working my way through Dostoevsky's novels, I haven't gone back to study the language. One of these days, though, I want to make a trip to St. Petersburg.
I wish I was closer to NYC, or that the exhibit happened at a time when I wasn't so broke. I would especially be interested in the icons, as Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev" is one of the things that really piqued my interest in the language and culture (along with "The Mirror," also by Tarkovsky, which remains a favorite to this day).
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Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
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I'm actually in my first year at Smith College. I, too, am studying Russian -- after nine years of French in school, it was about time for a change. I'm hoping to spend at least one semester in St. Petersburg in my junior year; ideally I'd stay for the whole year, but I have hell of credits to fulfill for my double major (Biology & Psychology), and the idea of taking upper-level science courses in Russian is more than a little daunting.
I don't know much (or anything) about art history, but I've always loved iconography. The Orthodox Church has such lovely, ornate traditional art. It was quite a treat to see such a fine collection in person.
Years ago, there was a huge exhibit of Fabergé eggs at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which is located a convenient fifteen minutes from my house. I don't remember much, as I was just a child when I saw it, but I do recall the exhibit making a big impression on me. I've always been something of a russophile.
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I'm hoping to spend at least one semester in St. Petersburg in my junior year
Wow. I'm reminded of an Internet friend of mine of many years, who counts amongst the things she's proudest of the fact that her passport is stamped with a lot of stamps from countries the gub'mint would rather you didn't go to (lots of countries with few vowels that end in -stan). She's in Russia for a year studying. It makes me kind of sad that I'm not so adventurous, especially since I'M the one with the airline job that lets me fly for free.
St. Petersburg... man, I consider it a trip to make it to Petersburg... Virginia.
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You know, Golfhaus, I never considered myself the adventurous type. In fact, I'm painfully introverted and shy, and I fear change to boot. I always marvelled at my high school classmates who spent a year abroad in Italy or a summer in Switzerland, and wondered how they summoned the courage to do so. Like I said before, I took French for nine years in school; despite my near-fluency, however, I was never comfortable with the thought of going abroad to test my linguistic prowess.
I've taken Russian for just one semester, but I already know that I want to study in St. Petersburg before I graduate. I think the reason I'm willing to do something different is because I'm truly passionate about Russian, and I find Russia endlessly fascinating. Maybe you haven't experienced such an interest in a foreign language and culture? Extreme interest is the only explanation I can find for my sudden change of heart regarding study abroad.
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I went to Moscow and St. Pete in 1992. I was 15 years old and not really wise enough to appreciate everything I was seeing, but I remember that we seemed to split our time between museums/palaces and flea markets. After maybe the third hallway stuffed with Faberge eggs and gilt mirrors, everything started to bleed together into one opulent blur. Then we'd go to Arbot Street or someplace like that and barter our little capitalist fingers off. The idea of today's Moscow scares me a little (we had bodyguards on our visit and the mob was still establishing itself) but I'd throw caution to the wind if I got to see St. Pete again. It was bright, lively and wonderful in ways that were hugely relieving after the gray misery of Moscow.
Learning to write in Russian was hell of difficult for me. Cyrillic AND cursive? That's like learning two new languages at once. I took one quarter of it in college, changed it to pass/fail halfway through, and ran away from Russian to the non-language-lab-requirin' paradise of Latin.
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Hobot - that's probably because you weren't alive during the Cold War, and thus cannot remember when the Russians were the BAD GUYS. Seriously, every American movie of the period had people either fighting Russians or Nazis. Now it's nothing but brown people as bad guys. It's already starting to get old.
We need to focus on the true threat: Bora-Borans.
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Stinking Bora-Borans and their picturesque lagoons and volcanic peaks and marine life. Damn.
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They change our money to puka shells and make us attach outriggers to our cars if we aren't eternally vigilant.
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They change our money to puka shells and make us attach outriggers to our cars if we aren't eternally vigilant.
Oh, shit. I guess I know where those filthy surfin' little coconut eaters are coming first.
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Oh, sure, AD, try to fool us, from your island with - more than coincidence? - picturesque lagoons, volcanos, and marine life. Can you really swear that you are not and never have been a Bora-Boran?
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I'm actually in my first year at Smith College.
An ex-ladyfriend of mine goes there. I hope you're not her because wow. That could be awkward.
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Bozack, I can assure you that I am not the lady of whom you speak. I posted a picture of myself in this (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,2385.15.html) thread, if you don't believe me.
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Double true, but just for safety's sake, did you ever have the Clap?
because she did.
I apologize for drunken ramblings. Sorry, Hobot! I'm usually a better person. I can provide references.
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I apologize for drunken ramblings. Sorry, Hobot! I'm usually a better person. I can provide references.
I think at this point you'd be better off providing some test results or something.
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I apologize for drunken ramblings. Sorry, Hobot! I'm usually a better person. I can provide references.
Dude, you don't need to provide reference. You have 26 tiny cans of Dr Pepper. Plus you're responsible for the entire miniscule beverage-based economy.
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Plus you're responsible for the entire miniscule beverage-based economy.
I AM LEGEND.
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You know, I don't mean to derail things...
...okay, yes I do...
But this all reminds me of a story I'll try to keep short.
In my early 20's my pseudo-boyfriend-who-turned-out-to-be-gay and all our friends and I all frequented a bar, and so did this girl that we all knew because of one thing - she dated someone in our circle, and they got to the point in their relationship where they were going to be intimate, and she, kindly told him before hand, "I have genital warts." Needless to say the buddy of ours lost his boner and did not have sex with her. So she became, from that point on, "Olivia with-the-warts." I ran into her for years and years, always at bars, and in my head she was "Olivia Withthewarts" almost like it was her last name. Later I was out at a bar with a friend who was not part of the same aforementioned circle of friends, and was this friend was perhaps a little more kind to most people, and there was Olivia dancing alone drunkenly in the cage (the bar had a cage not a dance floor - so 90's alternative!), and my friend turned to me and said something to the effect of"that girl looks pretty drunk" to which I replied "Who? Olivia With-the-warts?" And then I had to explain everything to my friend, who shared what I said to all the people we had come with, mostly strangers to me, and they all sort of looked at me funny, but then, from then on, they all referred to her as Olivia Withthewarts too.
Poor Olivia Withthewarts. Looking back now, the guy who originated the whole story after dating her had many glaring situations where he said things that were probably not true, so I sort of doubt now that Olivia Withthewarts actually had warts at all.
Also, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. (Anybody? Anybody? No? ...and this is why the book club sucked. I read either boring or unknown authors and I have nothing interesting to say about them.)
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Yeah, what I've read of him is great. Which isn't much.
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I took three semesters of Russian in college. My real-world usage of Russian consists of one sentence, in which I told a Russian guy in Germany, "We need three chairs."
My Russian is pretty well gone at this point. Ochen ploche!
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I took about three semesters too, I think. All I remember is, roughly, 'Ja lyublyu krast karandashi,' which should be close to 'I love to steal pencils.' Tragically I never got to use this sentence in real life.
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My favorite is "U menya yest piva," which is "I have a beer."
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All I know is Ya Pravdi Kavarou (SP? Since I only ever heard it spoken)
I was told this by a Russian girl who I was completely enamoured with for some time, but she liked to tease me for my adoration so for all I know I could be saying "Please look at my laughably small c*ck" and be none the wiser.
(Incidentally None, The Wiser is my favorite 6-day ruling King of England. Also, that's a total lie. ((The KoE bit, not the bit about the Russian girl, that part's true (((Dammit))))))
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Bozack: I can also assure you that I don't have the Clap.
side_show: I just finished One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I'd like to read The Gulag Archipelago 1918 - 1956.
Russian speakers: You have made my day. Spasebo (ugh, that looks awful in our alphabet). My favourite phrase is "Ya peesu" -- "I am pissing."
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oh uh i am sorry i cannot help this
Ochen ploche!
'Ochen' plocho'
Ja lyublyu krast karandashi
Excellent.
U menya yest piva
'U menya yest pivo', which is the same mistake. I don't mean to be a dick about this, heh.
heh!
Ya Pravdi Kavarou
'Ya Pravdu Gavar(y)ou' = 'I am telling the truth'
"Ya peesu"
= 'I am peeing'; 'Ya ssu' would be 'I am pissing'
I sort of watched a russian news report on the New York exhibition that took a generally unfavorable tone (there is a parallel exhibition in Russia, which is more traditional?)-- viz. the protest works in New York were I guess seen as in poor taste by the more conservative reporters-- but I didn't really pay attention and can't find it on the Internet. Maybe I'll do a little search for other sources...
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Thank you birkensocks for proving that I wasn't saying my junk is small.
A tiny can of Dr. Pepper to you Sir or Madam!
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side_show: I just finished One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I'd like to read The Gulag Archipelago 1918 - 1956.
Oh, see, I was totally obsessed with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and read every different Eng. lang. translation I could get my hands on. Did you read it in Russian? I've never been able to read the Gulag books, but I think my Fav. Solzhenitsyn book is Cancer Ward. I don't really know much about Russian history, so I have to admit I'm a little uneducated on why Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned, and later, I think exiled. I know I was talking to a Ukrainian guy in his '90's about his exile, and it was really hard to understand the whole situation. He's still afraid to go back to his home land, even though he also tells me that things have changed to the point where he can go back. I don't understand how and why anyone gets exiled.
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I don't understand how and why anyone gets exiled.
Hell, my state still exiles people with illegal guns. Or so the signs along the highway claim.
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That is very weird.
Basically the guy I was talking to was exhiled for making statements against the government. And, well, it's just hard to get my head around that.
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But Canada has no guaranteed right to free speech....at least, none enshrined in the basis of law.
At least, that's what these guys say... (http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/johnleo/2004/04/12/11350.html)
But I haven't actually read Canada's Constitution or whatever the founding documents may be called there.
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side_show: I, too, read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in English. Hopefully by my fourth year of Russian I'll be able to read novels in the original language, but just one semester of study has not given me the capacity to do so.
I think Solzhenitsyn was exiled (in 1974, that is; he had been exiled a couple times before) because his works were intensely revealing, and therefore critical, of the Soviet prison camp system. The USSR was such a secretive, paranoid country, even after Stalin's death in 1953, that it continued its barbaric practice of exiling and/or imprisoning its own citizens probably (and this is just a guess) until Gorbachev's election in 1985.
For a more complete biography of Solzhenitsyn's life, go here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Solzhenitsyn).