Julia Shuvalova, Author at Los Cuadernos de Julia

A Billionaire Handbook (On “Social Network” the Film)

I‘ve just come back from the screening of “Social Network” in one of the central cinemas in Moscow. By the look of it, Moscow bloggers, the users of Vkontakte.ru and Loveradio listeners had the chance to see the film before everyone else: the film’s official screenings start tomorrow.

Just this morning I was thinking about why people never seem to get what they want. Clearly, it is because of three things:

they do it wrong;
they do it with wrong people;
they don’t want it badly enough.

And that is really it. “Wrong” may be outdated or inappropriate for the kind of work you’re doing. Having right people around you is also very important. Not the kind of people who are always happy with whatever you do either because they don’t care that you become better than you are, or because they are afraid that you may forget them once you’ve taken off. The right people are those who help you grow and who want you to grow. And, last but not least, you’ve got to want it so bad that you live and breathe your idea.

You think this modus operandi is too good to be true? Welcome Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). Of course, the story of Facebook is far more complex than what can be jammed into one and half hours of screening time. The creators omitted the take-off of Facebook in Europe, and after a while only a Social Media pro can match the scene in the film with the actual date. The issues with privacy, sharing, and data, as well as the entire social “paraphernalia” in the guise of groups, causes, etc., are left behind. Instead, at the heart of the film is the story of one Harvard geek who was never accepted into any clubs and who thus decided to create a club where everyone could belong.

What separates Zuckerberg’s character from the rest is this absolute refusal to be a loser. Nerd or snobbish he can be, one thing is clear: the guy had such complete belief in himself that many of us wish we could borrow from him. He was studying at Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. He lived on campus, pretty much free from mundane concerns. And there was one small “but”: he was rejected by a girl he fancied a lot. The inception of the social network had therefore started in the most perfect conditions: the absence of problems and a tiny bit of despair. Free but impassioned mind allows you to create masterpieces.

Zuckerberg was so good at programming that he was obviously doing “it” right; what is more important, he was doing it with the right people. Some gave him a hand with algorithms, others helped with programming, some dropped ideas in conversations, but in the end nobody was able to do what he was doing. Most importantly, he was tapping into the right idea – even if it was not entirely his. Not only people around him were ‘right’ for his project, he was giving to those who registered with Facebook the ‘right’ set of functions. He was in the right conditions, and he was extending and multiplying them.

The conflict between Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) is the battle of minds, and both were right for Zuckerberg in one way or another. Eduardo supplied Mark with resources for Facebook to actually happen; Sean’s doubtless entrepreneurial skill helped to propel the social network to the global level and make it a worldwide success. And even though Sean got really close to Mark, the latter didn’t let him off for letting Eduardo down. When the time came, Zuckerberg somehow managed to marry business thinking with a little bit of old school friendship.

As a film, Social Network is by no means a phenomenon or even a groundbreaking movie. It is well made, and Armie Hammer, in particular, does amazing work playing the Winklevoss twins. Justin Timberlake looks promising, although I’d like to see him in more introspective, “classical” films. Yet the film’s remarkable achievement is in that it shows in a short space of time how to grab the chance and not to leave any stone unturned until the big goal is hit. Is Zuckerberg good? Yes. Is he nice? No. After all, the question was never about money – it was about “being the CEO, bitch” and making history. He did both.

Would you?

Photo credit – Facebook Gets Movie Treatments as Social Media at High (International Business Times, 15 September, 2010).

Wait for Me (Konstantin Simonov)

Wait For Me is not just a war-time poem; even in normal, peaceful life there are plenty of chances to fight, to struggle and to survive.

Continuing with the subject of life-marking texts or art pieces, one of them was Wait for Me. I remembered it because I started reading Paul Eluard’s letters to Gala, and they immediately strike you with their overwhelming intensity, even more so in the letters of Gala than Paul’s. This is true, at least, for her early letters written in 1916 when Eluard was at war. She complained that she was beside herself with terror that something bad could happen to him, and begged him to stay somewhere safe, even among the bourgeoisie that he hated, only so that he could be back and she could love him.

Reading those letters made me remember the poem Wait for Me (Жди меня) by the Soviet poet Konstantin Simonov. I wondered if there was a translation, and indeed there is a very good translation by Mike Munford from the UK. In fact, I am really impressed, not merely with the quality of translation, but the very fact that Simonov’s work has been rendered into English and analysed. Munford makes a very important comparison between the poems by Rupert Brooke and Simonov’s, between the moods of two lyrical heroes trapped in the battlefield: while Brooke’s mood is almost suicidal, Simonov is showing the remarkable will to live and laughs in the face of death. One may say, it is no wonder that Brooke died and Simonov survived in the war.

Yet there was more to Wait for Me than meets the eye. As it happens, the story that we read in the poem is somewhat different from the story that was taking place in the poet’s life. Petrarch’s or Dante’s delight in the beauty of their Muses tend to overshadow the fact that their love was unrequited. In case with Wait for Me, we’re likely to read it as a poet’s vow to his beloved to come back against all odds because she faithfully waits for him. Sadly, Valentina Serova, a Soviet actress, for whom the poem was written, was far from this ideal. Even if this was not the case at the start of the war, it would be later, and Simonov the poet could most likely foresee it. Suddenly we catch the glimpse of despair that is shaken off by the sheer force of the same will to live that separated Simonov from other war-time poets before and after him.

As with every good poetry, this text has transcended the immediate context in which it was written. It is no longer just a war-time poem or a poem about war. Even in normal, peaceful life there are plenty of chances to fight and to struggle. Whether men or women, each of us needs this person who can wait – as long as it takes, against all odds, even against themselves.

konstantin simonov wait for me — Konstantin Simonov, the author of the poem Wait for Me.

I urge you to visit Mike’s website, and I am very grateful to him for doing this kind of work.

Konstantin Simonov, analysis of his poetry, and notes on translation.

Wait for Me

by Konstantin Simonov (translated by Mike Munford)

Wait for me, and I’ll come back!
Wait with all you’ve got!
Wait, when dreary yellow rains
Tell you, you should not.
Wait when snow is falling fast,
Wait when summer’s hot,
Wait when yesterdays are past,
Others are forgot.
Wait, when from that far-off place
Letters don’t arrive.
Wait, when those with whom you wait
Doubt if I’m alive.

Wait for me, and I’ll come back!
Wait in patience yet
When they tell you off by heart
That you should forget.
Even when my dearest ones
Say that I am lost,
Even when my friends give up,
Sit and count the cost,
Drink a glass of bitter wine
To the fallen friend –
Wait! And do not drink with them!
Wait until the end!

Wait for me and I’ll come back,
Dodging every fate!
“What a bit of luck!” they’ll say,
Those that would not wait.
They will never understand
How amidst the strife,
By your waiting for me, dear,
You had saved my life.
Only you and I will know
How you got me through.
Simply – you knew how to wait –
No one else but you.

1941

Lucky Dogs in the Revolution Square

An application of the dog-rubbing luck charm

A couple of years ago I read in someone’s Russian LiveJournal about the custom among the Muscovites: to touch, rub and sometimes even kiss a sculpture of a dog on the underground station, The Revolution Square. The station takes you to the very centre of the city, close to the Kremlin, the Red Square, and the General Store.


The Revolution Square station interior

The station was opened on March 13, 1938, and is famous for its 76 bronze sculptures of Soviet people: sailors, soldiers, mothers with children, sportsmen, and pupils (altogether there are 20 different images that are then repeated throughout the station). During the Great Patriotic War the sculptures were evacuated to the Soviet Middle East; they were returned to Moscow in 1944. The figures are placed in chronological order, from October 1917 until December 1937. Granite was used for the station’s floor, while the walls were made of Armenian black marble, accompanied by other types of marble. The station is located 116m above the sea level.

The sculptures were placed in the arcs; design thus dictated that the figures couldn’t stand in full height. Thanks to this, the station soon became an epitome of the Soviet realities; the joke had it that “the station shows that the Soviet people either sit, or kneel“.


The kneeling Soviet woman with a lucky hen

Back to the lucky dogs: in the recent years the custom has become to rub the sculptures to attract luck. Strictly speaking, it isn’t just the dogs that are considered lucky: you can recognise the “lucky bits” by their unhealthy polished surface, and so luck is also brought to you by hens, boots, and even some armaments. Observing people rubbing the bronze is a surreal experience. Some stop and religiously yet gently wipe the bronze; some nonchalantly touch the sculptures as they rush past; some even smudge a kiss; and some scour the nose or a shoe, while silently reciting a sort of prayer or a wish. However they do it, the bronze rubs off, revealing the fruits of popular ardour.

Still, this underground station is a popular place to meet up and even has its personal Ploschad Revolutsy website.

Before you ask, though: I couldn’t bring myself to rub the lucky canine… yet.

Image of the station interior is courtesy of Egor Chernorukov’s Studio.


Another lucky dog… and not so lucky schoolgirls

A Monument to Walt Whitman in Moscow

There’s another reason for me to be proud of studying at the First Humanities Building. Near the entrance there now stands a monument to Walt Whitman who has always been greatly admired by the Russian poets. Kornei Chukovsky who was very fond of Whitman and translated a few of his poems, including To You (Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams), analysed several authors’ attitude to the great American’s work; the names included Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892).

The poem To You is sometimes seen as a declaration; given Whitman’s sexuality, it is also considered homoerotic. However, it is probably better to read the poem in a much broader sense, as a quest for a soulmate. The lyrical hero isn’t merely searching or waiting for someone to come along; he grabs the first available figure and makes them his own. No doubt, most of us will find it childish, for we’re well aware of another’s privacy. But what Whitman is trying to remind us about is how intimacy is discovered and built, that it cannot be built without violating the private space. Hence the hero is almost maniacally attached to the person’s hidden self, always good but often deformed by the society’s code. The hero is a healer; it is the greatest explorer since Columbus, for his task is to unmask the real “you” in a person: “you have not known what you are, you have slumbered upon yourself all your life”.

As the author of this Russian article says, to love means to guess, to know better. Whitman knows better, as he courageously shines the light on a Man’s infinite, God-like ability to create.

To You

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me.
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work,
farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking,
suffering, dying.
Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear.
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing
but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent
to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,
beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus
of gold-color’d light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,
effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber’d upon yourself
all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the
accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others or from
yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these
balk others they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed,
premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully
to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing
the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense
and interminable as they,
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent
dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain,
passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,
whatever you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing
is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are
picks its way.

ТЕБЕ (перевод К. И. Чуковского)

Кто бы ты ни был, я боюсь, ты идешь по пути сновидений,
И все, в чем ты крепко уверен, уйдет у тебя из-под ног и под
руками растает,
Даже сейчас, в этот миг, и обличье твое, и твой дом, и одежда
твоя, и слова, и дела, и тревоги, и веселья твои,
и безумства – все ниспадает с тебя,
И тело твое, и душа отныне встают предо мною,
Ты предо мною стоишь в стороне от работы, от купли-продажи,
от фермы твоей и от лавки, от того, что ты ешь, что ты
пьешь, как ты мучаешься и как умираешь.
Кто бы ты ни был, я руку тебе на плечо возлагаю, чтобы ты
стал моей песней,
И я тихо шепчу тебе на ухо:
“Многих женщин и многих мужчин я любил, но тебя я люблю
больше всех”.

Долго я мешкал вдали от тебя, долго я был как немой,
Мне бы давно поспешить к тебе,
Мне бы только о тебе и твердить, тебя одного воспевать.

Я покину все, я пойду и создам гимны тебе,
Никто не понял тебя, я один понимаю тебя,
Никто не был справедлив к тебе, ты и сам не был справедлив
к себе,
Все находили изъяны в тебе, я один не вижу изъянов в тебе,
Все требовали от тебя послушания, я один не требую его от тебя.
Я один не ставлю над тобою ни господина, ни бога: над тобою
лишь тот, кто таится в тебе самом.

Живописцы писали кишащие толпы людей и меж ними одного –
посредине,
И одна только голова была в золотом ореоле,
Я же пишу мириады голов, и все до одной в золотых ореолах,
От руки моей льется сиянье, от мужских и от женских голов
вечно исходит оно.

Сколько песен я мог бы пропеть о твоих величавых и славных
делах,
Как ты велик, ты не знаешь и сам, проспал ты себя самого,
Как будто веки твои опущены были всю жизнь,
И все, что ты делал, для тебя обернулось насмешкой.
(Твои барыши, и молитвы, и знанья – чем обернулись они?)

Но посмешище это – не ты,
Там, в глубине, под спудом затаился ты, настоящий.
И я вижу тебя там, где никто не увидит тебя,
Пусть молчанье, и ночь, и привычные будни, и конторка,
и дерзкий твой взгляд скрывают тебя от других и от самого
себя, – от меня они не скроют тебя,
бритые щеки, нечистая кожа, бегающий, уклончивый взгляд
пусть с толку сбивают других – но меня не собьют,
Пошлый наряд, безобразную позу, и пьянство, и жадность,
и раннюю смерть – я все отметаю прочь.

Ни у кого нет таких дарований, которых бы не было и у тебя
Ни такой красоты, ни такой доброты, какие есть у тебя,
Ни дерзанья такого, ни терпенья такого, какие есть у тебя.
И какие других наслаждения ждут, такие же ждут и тебя.

Никому ничего я не дам, если столько же не дам и тебе,
Никого, даже бога, я песней моей не прославлю, пока
не прославлю тебя.

Кто бы ты ни был! иди напролом и требуй!
Эта пышность Востока и Запада – безделица рядом с тобой,
Эти равнины безмерные и эти реки безбрежные – безмерно
безбрежен и ты, как они,
Эти неистовства, бури, стихии, иллюзии смерти – ты тот,
кто над ними владыка,
Ты по праву владыка над природой, над болью, над страстью,
над каждой стихией, над смертью.

Путы спадают с лодыжек твоих, и ты видишь, что все хорошо
Стар или молод, мужчина или женщина, грубый, отверженный
низкий, твое основное и главное громко провозглашает себя
Через рожденье и жизнь, через смерть и могилу, – все тут
ничего не забыто! –
Через гнев, утраты, честолюбье, невежество, скуку твое Я
пробивает свой путь.

The Building of My Life

First Humanities Building,
Lomonosov Moscow State University

This is a true story. Around September 1996 I had a dream in which I saw a modern-looking building decorated with a plaque with carved figures on its facade. In the dream it was a building in which I was studying. In July 1997 I passed the entrance exams successfully, I had my first exam session in winter, and in summer I had the second session. I was sitting outside on the grass with a few unimates, watching the First Humanities building of the Moscow State University. I was observing the building and the plaque, as if I never saw them before. Then it downed on me that my dream came true.

The building, a hall of residence converted into a place of study, was by no means glamorous. The huge space of the cloakroom on the ground floor was always full of people and smoke. Smoking in public places is mainly permitted in Russia, and in 1997 when I began to study there the numbers of smokers was staggering. It used to house the faculties of Management, History, Philosophy, Philology, and Law.

My personal memories of studying here are by and large positive. I cannot help but affectionately recall waiting for our Latin tutor for some 20 minutes, and then to have to walk up and down stairs between floor 3 and 10, searching for a free room. Queuing up in student canteens, with little more than 10 minutes on my hands. Passing every single exam with an excellent mark. Queuing up in cloakroom next to a couple, a rather cool guy and a besotted girl who was planting nibbling kisses on his cheeks and lips while he was talking about the ancient Russian history. Being late for a seminar on an exceptionally snowy day and receiving the commendation from the tutor, a demobilised general, for “actually making it”. Watching infatuated couples embraced in a passionate kiss. Bizarrely, when a few years ago a former unimate told me he remembered me in a similar embrace, I genuinely couldn’t remember. Writing poems during lectures and seminars. Composing a play in verses, staging it, and receiving accolade from both students and tutors. The list can go on and on.

I am being asked now and again why I didn’t stay there. Generally, I chose to work and to make an impact in the sphere much more public than historical studies. But, on a grander scale, it merely means to me that I followed a George Bernard Shaw’s quote: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. By that I don’t mean that my teachers weren’t good enough to “do” it; a lot of them are world-known, so it would be audacious of me to imply any inability of “doing” on their part. After all, to be a good teacher is also a skill. And I have always loved research, and I do like the whole process of sharing the knowledge, exchanging ideas, and passing on skills. I guess I didn’t see teaching in purely academic terms, it has always meant more to me, and in this sense I was neither interested, nor did I feel qualified to teach on that grander, universal, scale.

The title of the post is short yet poignant: this First Humanities Building, however glamourless, was the cradle in which I was born again, mentally and creatively. I realised recently that while for some people the question was “am I good enough for the MSU?“, to me the question was “Is there any better academia for me than the MSU?” Every time the answer was “no”, so by July 1997 when we had entrance exams I wasn’t trying to become a student there – I already was. My mind was entirely set on that idea. You can think of it as another example of law of attraction working, but I’m also thinking of the mechanism of a sale. It is done before it’s done. Looks like in my case it was done at night when I dreamt of that modern building with carved figures.

Love Me (Michel Polnareff) – With Mina Mazzini Cover

I don’t always go back and republish the posts but now and again I simply have to draw the reader’s attention. I have just discovered Mina’s cover of Love Me Please Love Me that we must share with the world. It was made in the 1990s, and in the video the imagery kindly mocks Mina’s burgeoning figure.

Original post – 20 March, 2007

As you undoubtedly know, Michel Polnareff performed at Bercy in Paris earlier this month, and on his official website, Polnaweb.com, you can find dates for future concerts. (I wish I lived in France!) The performance was broadcast across the media, including mobile phones, hence it is no wonder YouTube and Google are already full of recorded extracts from the concert.

I highly recommend to visit this website, RTL.fr, where you will find several radio interviews with l’Amiral, as well as short reports from the concerts. The link to follow is Michel Polnareff en concert.

And below there is a video of Polnareff performing live one of his very famous songs, Love Me. I’m totally in love with the opening of the song, but even more so with the lyrics – which you can find below in French and in my English translation (not adapted to the music).

Love me, please love me
Je suis fou de vous
Pourquoi vous moquez-vous chaque jour
De mon pauvre amour?
Love me, please love me
Je suis fou de vous
Vraiment prenez-vous tant de plaisir
A me voir souffrir.

Si j’en crois votre silence
Vos yeux pleins d’ennui
Nul espoir n’est permis.
Pourtant je veux jouer ma chance
Même si, même si
Je devais y brûler ma vie.

Love me, please love me
Je suis fou de vous
Mais vous moquerez-vous toujours
De mon pauvre amour?

Devant tant d’indifférence
Parfois j’ai envie
De me fondre dans la nuit.
Au matin je reprends confiance
Je me dis, je me dis
Tout pourrait changer aujourd’hui.

Love me, please love me
Je suis fou de vous
Pourtant votre lointaine froideur
Déchire mon cœur.
Love me, please love me
Je suis fou de vous
Mais vous moquerez-vous toujours
De mes larmes d’amour?

Love me, please love me
I am mad about you
Why do you laugh every day
At my unfortunate love?

Love me, please love me
I am mad about you
Indeed, you take so much pleasure
In seeing me suffer

If I believe your silence
Your eyes full of boredom
There is no hope for me
And yet I want to take a chance
Even if, even if
It is to ruin my life

Because of such indifference
I sometimes wish
To disappear in the night
In the morning my confidence returns
I tell myself, I tell myself:
Today everything could change

Love me, please love me
I am mad about you
However your aloof coldness
Tears me apart

Love me, please love me
I am mad about you
But will you forever be laughing
At my tears of love?

Imagine: The Impact of One Life

Had John Lennon not been walking home on that fateful December night, he’d have turned 70 today. For his fans all over the world he is turning 70 anyway. We’ve been ridden of the necessity to see him age, to disappoint us in something, just as well as we’ve had to walk it alone, with “Imagine” playing in our heads. Most importantly, for those of us who strive to be better than we are, Lennon will always be an example of how to make it, of how to become a worldwide music and peace figure.

John Lennon in video, Citroen stand,
Moscow Design Week, October 2010

His life, however, provided more impact and inspiration than the person who had led could even fathom. And I wonder if Lennon would smile, irony hidden in his eyes, upon entering the Moscow Manege that welcomed the exhibition l’ART DE VIVRE à LA FRANÇAISE. For the first thing he’d see would be the Citroen stand (Citroen was the official sponsor of the Moscow Design Week 2010), with the presentation accompanied by two videos, one with Marylin Monroe, another with John Lennon. Both iconic figures had something important to tell us: be yourself.

Perhaps, this is what makes celebrated artists, dead or alive, so attractive: they are (or were) themselves. They led their lives in that particularly painful way of following one’s own mind. As a result, we admire them. But do we try and follow their example? Do we want to be ourselves as badly as they did?

My Kind of Day (Go, Mario Vargas Llosa!)

Thursday was the kind of day that starts well, begins to fall through in the middle, and then takes off again towards the evening, to reach a happy climax at night.

I had a good meeting in the morning, made an unsuccessful trip home (I couldn’t get in the house!), tried to get to a public lecture but couldn’t find the place where it was held, and spent over an hour in a cafe in one of the Moscow theatres reading about cinema and writing synopses. Some time during the day I learnt that the Russian physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov who currently work at the University of Manchester were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research in graphene. As you may know, I graduated from the Manchester Uni, too, so my congratulations go not merely to my compatriots but also to people affiliated with the same academic institution.

Mario Vargas Llosa,
Nobel Prize in Literature 2010

But the most exciting news still awaited me at home. In 2006 I was keeping my fingers crossed for a certain author who has since been mentioned many times on this blog. Mario Vargas Llosa has been considered “nobelizable” for many years, but, as some argue, his political views stood in the way of his getting the well-deserved award. For the record, even in a novel as sexually charged as The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, Llosa didn’t leave his protagonist void of political views.

Four years ago I said I’d be over the Moon had he won. In October 2010, when Llosa did finally scoop the Prize, I was screaming with joy and pride for some 5 minutes. As Rory Carroll reports for The Guardian, even the novelist himself thought the news was a joke. And I find it truly auspicious that so many wonderful things had happened on the same day: the Russians won the Prize, and a favourite author of a Russian writer won the Prize.

Now, the Russian writer and the author of this blog was told in the morning that she accomplished a lot for her age. If I think about it I shall agree, but I don’t feel like I did enough; and this also hints at how much I will do in the next few years. Yet I’d be nowhere had it not been for people whose examples I chose to follow. These figures don’t dominate me, and I’m not a slave to their success or status; but they DO inspire me, force me how to push the envelope, and uncover, help me me see, the possibilities in my own life. As far as Literature goes they are:

William Somerset Maugham – for insights into the life of the Artist;
Kurt Vonnegut – for “telegraphic” style and the study of war;
Mario Vargas Llosa – for “cinematographic” style and the study of an evolving human character;
Pascal Quignard – for the erudition, hard to find in a contemporary author;
Romain Gary – for maintaining several preoccupations alongside the writing career, and winning the Goncour Prix twice;
Mikhail Bulgakov – for setting the example of how to adapt himself to the stage.

These names stand out, as far as I am concerned. These people’s output has been immense. Their influence on Literature and other arts has been critical. They were all “adaptable” and sometimes even were directors or scriptwriters. Their input into their profession was huge as far as knowledge is concerned, and they all have been included in the world affairs. For the record, Maugham and Gary were both diplomats, while Vargas Llosa even ran for presidency.

Lastly, they were all successful. We often fall into this trap of eulogising and admiring the genuines who live poorly, never receive public praise, and maybe die before they hit 25. There is nothing wrong with genuises, but what about our mindset? If every genuis dies before 25, what becomes to the race of genuises? And it’s hard to create on an empty stomach. Besides, in reality nobody likes poor artists because poverty equals failure.

You can see why I am so ecstatic for Vargas Llosa. But I have to say that Romain Gary (who died a week before I was born) still poses the biggest challenge. The first time he won the Goncour Prix under his own name; the second time he won it under his pen name. If I do something similar in my career, I will dedicate my prize to him.

What Do You Dream About?

Actually, you don’t have to tell me – this was the question I was asked recently by someone.

What do you dream about?

There is, of course, hell of a difference between dreaming and not doing anything to make the dream come true – and being driven by your dream to get closer to realising it.

And very often we succumb to a sort of casual dreaming, the one that provides the otherwise dull and uneventful life with an “injection” of serotonin to keep us going. Moreover, we only dream about things for ourselves and maybe a few close ones. The rest of the world is not included.

Here is where the problem lies. Reaching the heights of personal happiness and thus releasing the mentioned happiness chemical will only temporarily cure any lack in well-being. The reason is simple: you’re constantly drawing on your own resources to pump yourself happy.

Try and help others. Give them a smile. Give them a hand. Don’t just dream how good your house will be with a new kitchen. Dream how good everyone’s kitchen can be when everyone can afford to have a kitchen of their dreams. To make this happen, something will have to change in design, in economy, in the way we live. James Dyson did just that, and now that his vacuum cleaners are making millions of people happy, he is a happy man. And no, not only because he’s become a billionaire. It is because people’s satisfaction rubs off on him.

The law of attraction still works here, too. If you want to be happy, start dreaming of seeing other people happy. The truth is that we can really make a better world. But we need to answer this question first.

What do you dream about?

An Orgasm Is Served in a Moscow Cafe

My native city is finally and gradually beginning to inspire me in a positive way. Or at least I’m discovering things that make ideas and smiles float into my mind.

Now, the title is by far the most daring on this blog, but brace yourself and shrug off any thoughts of indecency. An “Orgasm” is actually a name for a cocktail made of Cuantro, Baileys, cream, banana, ice, decorated with a cocktail cherry. I didn’t try it because I chose a cup of Americano. Served in Coffee-House, one of the cafes in the chain that has been running since 1999, the coffee is delicious, as are diverse and sundry cheese cakes, sandwiches, and salads.

Alcoholic cocktails and beverages (e.g. Irish coffee) are listed at the back of the menu. Although I loved going to Coffee House at the time when their main cafe was in Tverskaya St, I never tried to order any alcohol. As we know, in the UK it was only recently that beer and spirits began to be served during the day. I asked the barista if cocktails and wines have always been served at Coffee House in daytimes; she replied positively.

Orgasmic!

So, speaking of Orgasms – what a great name to give to a cocktail! You might be able to tell that I’m not a huge cocktail drinker if this cocktail is actually quite well-known and popular. Since I had no idea of it, though, and thus am completely void of any bias, here’s a list of “variations sur la theme” that I came up with in a matter of 5 minutes. I didn’t try too hard and generally opted for the most naturally possible versions. Obviously, this was a rather easy copywriting task, although no less enjoyable…

1. Man: One Orgasm for me, and one capuccino for the lady…

2. I’d like an Orgasm, please.

3. Have you got any Orgasms today, please?

4. (In a dialogue) I think I’ll have an orgasm, what do you want?

5. (In a dialogue) What do you want? An Orgasm or something else?

6. – What would you recommend?

– Perhaps, you can try an Orgasm.
– Is it any good?

7. (In a dialogue) Is it just an Orgasm you want or something else?

8. (In a dialogue) Do you want an Orgasm on its own or with a cake?

9. Waiter: I’m sorry we don’t do Orgasms before 5 pm (that was before I knew that cocktails are served throughout the day).

10. Waiter: I’m sorry I can’t give you an Orgasm if you’re under 18 (this one is quite plausible because alcohol is not served to the under-18s).

11. Waiter: No, we don’t do any Orgasms today.

12. Waiter: Yes, Orgasm is very popular.

13. (In a dialogue) I’m sorry, darling, but you’ve already had 5 Orgasms, I recommend you have a milky tea now.

14. How much is an Orgasm?

15. (In a dialogue) So, you want an Orgasm, yeah?

Illustrations are courtesy CoffeeHouse.ru website.