The Russia Diaries: 10 August - The Beatles

Mankind is looking for something, and will certainly find it. Oh, if it only happened more quickly.
- Anton Chekhov

There is a moment or two in the car when we all get used to one another. I am unprepared and not quite certain how to proceed. Vadim switches his brain to English, and settles in to it carefully, consciously, while speaking of consciousness, I am mindful of communicating well in my feeble English-only-but-excellent-at-hand-gestures-in-fact-I-always-win-charades-and-can-provide-several-alternative-word-choices way. (Note: I really am quite excellent at charades and do not recommend being on an opposing team at a party... don't challenge me to a duel... you will lose and curse my name).

The radio hums un-imposingly in the background. There is a pause that fills the car when the small talk and general inquiries die down. "Do you like the Beatles, Alexandra?" he finally asks. "Yes," I reply, "Who doesn't?"

"Paul McCartney played Moscow in 2003..." he trails off. "I was there..." It was three tiny words, but it rang out, sending energetic ripples throughout the atmosphere of the American car. I was there was pregnant with meaning. I begin to suspect there is more to it than your average Western Beatle-mania.

"You see," he explains "being a Beatles fan in the West was easy. Not so in Soviet Union. In those days," he explains, "it was illegal to bring a Beatles record into Soviet Union and if you were found with one, it was usually taken away. The Beatles were considered the sound of the capitalist threat during the Cold War," he adds.

It is true. Apparently in Soviet times, if one did try to smuggle a Beatles record in to the country they authorities would put the record on a special device, scratch it, and return it to the smuggler as a souvenir. Owning one was considered to be a form of treason. Recordings that did manage to pass through the tight screen were like gold. Most of the Beatles music that Vadim managed to listen to was, at best, third- or fourth-generation copies.

In his 1930s novel, The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov says that love fell upon the heroes like a mugger with a knife from a side street. Something similar apparently happened to the souls of Soviet "teenagers" (incidentally, a word Russia learned thanks to the Beatles).

"Beatlyi was the Russian word to describe things by the Beatles," Vadim adds. "I remember hearing the word for the first time. I knew exactly what it meant." He smiles wryly, the sensation of it ever present even now. "But it was impossible not to listen when all anyone was talking about was the Beatles. The music came to us from an unknown, incomprehensible world, and it bewitched us, it took hold of our spirits and imaginations."

In the early days, infatuation with the Beatles implied an unconscious oppositional stance, more curious than serious, and not at all threatening to the foundations of a socialist society.

"The youth of the Soviet Union do not need this cacophonous rubbish," stated Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev of the Beatles in the early 1960s. "It's just a small step from saxophones to switchblades."

Yet the Soviet youth, claims Vadim, did need the Beatles, and went to enormous lengths to be more like them. Vadim contends that the Beatles, more so than any other band of the time, was the single-most important factor in shaping pop culture behind the Iron Curtain.

"Later on, you could bring Rolling Stones albums into the country," he states, "but not the Beatles. The Beatles were an event. The Rolling Stones were just a rock band, but the Beatles were the cultural event of our century. 100 out of 100 youths, if asked who invented the electrical guitar," he continues, "would answer 'The Beatles.' Who invented rock-and-roll? The Beatles. Every event has a master, and the master of modern music was the Beatles."

He adjusts his black glasses in a swift, efficient movement. We are still for a moment, lost in thought. After a few minutes, he speaks again. His voice is quiet. His tone definite, what he is about to say is specific.

"The Beatles brought this message about love and peace. They allowed us a little bit of escape when there was no escape..."

We drive on. Flying through the traffic-less city streets with abandon.
Freedom.

The Russia Diaries: 10 August

10 August, 2009
Moscow

In Moscow you can sit in an enormous restaurant where you don't know anybody and where nobody knows you, and you don't feel that you're a stranger.
-- Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters

* * *

To Moscow! Ah the cry of Chekhov's three sisters! To Moscow indeed!

Truth be told: I am depleted.
Drained.
Burnt out.
These are the most accurate words to describe my current condition, but naturally it only grazes the edges. At this moment in my life I am empty in every significant way. Confidence. Creativity. Basic energy required to function. Jobless, homeless, heartbroken and exhausted, I am uncertain as to whether or not I will be able to be present for this journey. Yet, great moments of human endeavor can stimulate a sort of poetry.

This moment calls for the poise and ponderous delivery of never-to-be-forgotten strengths, a compromise between spiritual slaughter and the potential for a kind of ascension... Oh the competition.

But one must persevere. I must not allow the depletion to impale my brain, or let others crush my currently unbeating heart.

I will make a point of healing, topping myself up again, and, perhaps most dauntingly, opening myself to woundedness. The rains shall rinse out every fear.

And after all, to quote Anton's sisters once again:

What seems to us serious, significant and important will, in future times, be forgotten or won’t seem important at all.

And so I am here, in Moscow, further than Irina, Olga and Masha ever got, and here, again referring to the words of the sisters, I am not a stranger. In Moscow, there shall be light.

* * *

After our three-hour Aeroflot flight from London we passed through the formidable gates of Russian security, collected our bags, and made our way through the glass airport doors.

And there, hands cradled behind his back, standing just beyond the threshold, he stood.

He wore a burgundy cotton t-shirt, perfectly pressed linen trousers and light-weight sandals to combat (or perhaps to appreciate) the glorious heat of a late Russian summer day. His gray head was angled ever-so-slightly downward, his eyes hopeful and expectant through his dark-rimmed glasses.

As we approached he opened both of his arms wide and smiled. The gesture was subtle but his face spoke volumes as he approached, embracing Kit with both of his already open arms. "Hello, old friend," he greeted, his accent rich and voice full of feeling. "Hello!" greeted Kit, equally thrilled. They look at one another and grin broadly. There is a look of appraisal, of flooding memory, of understanding at grayer hair and nearly matching black-rimmed glasses.

In the vestiges of my memory, even from the periphery I can recall Kit's last visit to Russia, for when he was last there he was with Lilly who was with me celebrating the New Year my house in 2002. He emailed her. He spoke of amber. I didn't know him then, but I remember it well.

It has been seven years since they visited last. They are very old friends, and it would not take hearing the story of their meeting in 1991 to know it in this moment.

"Oh! This is Alexandra," introduces Kit, and Vadim takes my hand with both of his, greeting me with such an intensity of welcoming that my breath is nearly taken away. "Come!" he says his voice suddenly full of fun, and we make our way across the busy parking lot.

I already like him.

"I love American cars," he informs us as he packs Kit's giant blue and my petite red suitcases in the truck of his Chevrolet. He shuts the lid of the trunk, opens the doors, and soon the bespectacled Vadim (sporting a new goatee so I am told) is buckled up and we are on our way.

"Shall we drive through the city center?" he asks with a degree of excitement in his voice. "I love to drive through the city when there is no traffic. Traffic is terrible problem in Moscow, but today is a Monday. I feel like we should take the opportunity. Today it is a very good day."

Yes it is.

To Russia, with love...

Looming over the rest of Europe with its immense, inhuman size and dark, brutal history, Russia is an essential and fascinating place, the opposite of modern Europe and still an unknown quantity to most. Indeed, it is one of the last truly adventurous and unpredictable destinations on the continent.

And so... I venture East... for The Motherland calls me.

This is an adventure I have been planning for a very long time, and it will bring the ever-present mystery project even closer to its fruition.

I shall be accompanied by Kit, master of cultural, adventuresome fun, as well as the spirits of my ancestors, and a few delightful and generous Russian families willing to house a crazy American with a very Russian name (Александра).

So I shall be away for a while. But I promise to share all with you upon my return.

In the meantime I have scheduled some "out of office" publications to keep you satiated while I survey the Hermitage, explore the Central Committee building, view the houses of four Russian greats (before lunch!), feast my eyes on the Kremlin (and the Winter Palace, the Moscow Art Theatre, the Bolshoi...), bask in the glories of Lake Baikal "The Pearl of Siberia," and explore the blissful Siberian wilderness on the magical island of Olkhon.

Not to mention an overnight train or two, and an airline whose logo is a hammer and sickle with wings... all whilst sipping Moscow mules in deliciously soulful style... by which I mean a soul of the Russian variety...naturally...

...And perhaps I shall see Hodel...wouldn't that be something...?



;o)

The Russia Diaries: Vadim

10 August, 2009

Moscow

This story cannot be told without first telling you of Vadim.

The facts are these: He is a family man of perhaps 55. Married to the excessively beautiful Irina with two children; the 25-year-old golden son Arkady-- an entrepreneur with bags of understated charisma, a natural head for business and a Midas touch, and the stylish-and-as-beautiful-as-her-mother-incredibly-intelligent-and-artistically gifted-but-charmingly-self-effacing-22-year-old fashion student Anastasia.

A large house on a developed estate sitting amongst the wild outskirts of Moscow with a yard and a barbecue. A dog. A cat. An American car.

He is tall. Slavic looking. Grey with a goatee and imposing black spectacles that are simultaneously hip and serious. He is a thinker. A dreamer. Author of a slim novel. He is a spinal surgeon. And crucially, Vadim might say most importantly to the formation of his identity, he has experienced and perhaps at times endured the transition of the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation.

He plays guitar. He is a Captain in the Army reserves. He loves coffee. And Bulgakov. And Gogol. And the occasional cigarette. And The Beatles... more than anything in the world.

Whether he is a hero of lionhearted vigor, or a simple man with complex experiences I may never be able to know, for he is simultaneously reserved and formal whilst also being the friendliest, most sincerely hospitable and openhearted man I have ever met.

Powerful and quiet. Private and candid. Joyous and sorrowful. An enigma of immensely pleasurable proportion. Yes, I have to admit that I very quickly came to see, understand, sympathize and delight in the riddle of Vadim. If not, in fact, quite frankly, to adore him.

Ahhh London: The Cat Call

So it went like this:

Creepy Youth in Car: Hey BABAAAAY!

[Al glances sideways with her signature "Oh my God he isn't referring to ME is he?" eyes]

Creepy Youth in Car: Yeah babaaaay that is RIGHT! I AM TALKIN' TO YO'!

[A firecar siren is heard in the distance...]

Creepy Youth in Car: HEY! it is comin'' fur YOU girl! CUZ YOU ARE SO SMOOOOOOOKIN HOT YOU'RE ON FIRE!

[Al is moved. That was actually a tremendous utilization of a chance opportunity. It deserves more of a smirk than a scowl. Smirk is granted.]

Creepy Youth in Car: WOO HOO!

[The Creepy Youth in Car drives off along West Green Road, ignoring the fact that a fire siren is something that is not in fact a toll of a proverbial "bell" announcing the arrival of a "hot" female, but is in fact a fairly serious social indicator of... a fire...]

Ask Al: The Actor's Process

What is the creative process like? Do you have a particular method for creating the characters you portray?

H


* * *


Dear H,

The short answer is No. But...the best way to put it is that I approach character development a lot like a collage. I want my character to live and breathe-- I want the character to be as close to a real person as is sane and possible. I know that sounds pedestrian, but the truth is, oftentimes there is a great deal of emphasis on a performance rather than on creating the impression of a living, breathing person. It is part methodical, part spontaneous and varies for every process.

I always have a book. (Usually a really simple, ugly one I feel happy to destroy, alter, throw about, and accidentally drop in the bath) which I fill with both very technical things (technique stuff a la Stanislavsky, Meisner, Hagen), and a tremendous amount of instinctively collected material.

Technically speaking one must collect several piece of information from the text itself: facts about the character, things the character says, and things others say about your character, etc. Those pieces of seemingly obvious information sometimes reveal a well of literal and subtextual inspiration and information about the character.

I always write out a full fleshed-out back story (I prefer writing this in third person "Julie Jordan was born in a small fishing village 40 miles south of Portland, Maine in the middle of the 19th century..."). I do the same for the gaps between scenes my character appears in, filling in the unspoken or unmentioned details of what happens between the scenes the audience views. For example, with Julie, I filled in the entire story of what happened between the opening scene where Billy and Julie fall in love, to the next scene where we see them unhappily married 3 months later. Etc.

Last, I collect any kind of visual or written additional inspiration that might help me access the character in another way. This means drawings, newspaper clippings, poems, bits of literature, photos, even fabric I feel is relevant to the development of the human being I’m chiseling and layering.

In general I like to arm myself with this copious research and more cerebral material before I ever get "on my feet." Once we’re staging, the work becomes primarily instinctive but I feel free to "feel" my way because the instinctive work has been informed by the prior intellectual work. I never leave a corner (either technical or instinctive) unexplored.

As I said of Julie Jordan in Ryan Roark's article last December:

"As far as Julie is concerned, I wrote down her biography, her history, and I wrote down what happens between the scenes, that the audience doesn't see. To be perfectly honest, I'm a closet academic. I want there to be a real cerebral process of what happens between the scenes, that then can translate itself emotionally, so that when you see Julie after two months have gone by, you can actually see that two months have gone by. I know exactly what has happened to her and what she's done. The lines and the words are rooted and loaded with real events and real things I've created in my mind. We all did a lot of that together, as the process. One of the great things about Lindsay [Posner, the director] is that we sit around a table for two weeks and we comb through the script, asking 'Why that word, and not another word?' and 'What do you think happened?', and we're all on the same page about exactly why we're saying what we're saying. What's great about that is that even nine months down the line when you're tired and you're maybe a little bored, that sort of detail can see you through. There's no way of losing yourself, because it's so specific and so rooted...."

I hope that answers your question! Good luck!

I've been:

watching my best and oldest friend Arielle get married to an incredible man

spending time in my favourite place on earth: MICHIGAN

...with some of my oldest friends (Ben, Alex, Arielle, Doug and Lilly)

...and favorite teachers (David, Robin, Lady Chu)

making smores at a bonfire on Lake Michigan

...and being The Keeper of the Marshmallows

walking along the shoreline of Grand Traverse Bay with Lilly: trousers rolled up, shoes in hand, and realizing our lives are paralleled....

wishing I could live in Michigan

wondering what in the world I am going to do with my life

and making grand plans

and trying to find a place to live

in such terrible, unutterable emotional pain worse than any I have known before (including a certain loss...)

but regardless, working through it...

being reminded by previously mentioned wedding that true love heals many things

being reminded how much I love HOME and cannot/will not live without it

being reminded by previously mentioned friends that I and my friendship is of value

crying... a lot...and not the professional kind...

planning and preparing for The Great Russian Adventure (eek!)

listen to The Interlochen Theme and coming to the realization that camp is where the magic happened...

walking up and down far too many airport travel lounges.

mistaking the American dime for the English 5p... a LOT...

Exchanging stories, gorgeous food and child's laughter with Lady Chu and her amazing family. Look what a lifetime of letters can do!

loved and loving

basking in the glow of a frozen strawberry yogurt from the totally unchanged Melody Freeze, which still costs one beautiful dollar

getting sentimental because strawberry frozen yogurt tastes of childhood

realising the universe works in mysterious ways: Lilly and I, best friends who live in Santiago and London, run in to one another at Interlochen without even realizing we would be there at the same time... just when we needed one another...

trying to stand.

Gratitudes 27-50

27. Thunder & Lightning
28. Lazy days with duvets and books
29. Toast (mmmmmm....)
30. Peanut butter
31. Jam (Of the insert-the-berry-here variety)
32. Cheese
33. Good conversation
34. Fresh fruit
35. Michigan
36. Beautiful snow
37. Clouds
38. RSAMD
39. David & Robin
40. Louise, for finding and believing...
41. Merrily We Roll Along for the moment I knew...
42. Liz, Kate, Anne, Susan, and Rosie, and for that matter all those who taught me things the hard way...
43. The book
44. My students
45. My teachers (sometimes the same people...)
46. Candles
47. Hodel
48. David, Stephen, Stephen, Simon, Sonia, Trevor, Andrew and Kennedy for changing my life...
49. Ruthie
50. The miracle of water...

Vin Diesel: The Facts

The Fast and the Furious was on today. And it reminded me of a few given FACTS about the bad ass action hero superstar-o-rama that is Vin Diesel. I gave it some thought, and here are the facts:

- There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures that Vin Diesel allows to live.

- Vin Diesel's hair is too afraid of him to grow.

- When Vin Diesel goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket

- Vin Diesel is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis

- Vin Diesel can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass... at night....

- If you were to lock Vin Diesel in a room with a guitar, a year later you would have the greatest album ever; it would sweep the Grammys. When asked why he hadn't done this before Vin would reply "Because Grammys are for queers." Then he would eat a knife to show the seriousness of his response.

- When Vin Diesel does a push up, he isn't lifting himself up, he pushing the earth down.

- Vin Diesel coined the phrase "I could eat a horse" after eating every last unicorn in existence.

- Vin Diesel can win a game of monopoly without owning any property.

- In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Vin Diesel could use to kill you... including the room itself...


...It's just the facts, ma'am.

Gratitude 26 (all on it's own)

26. A P Watt and Louise, for finding and believing in...

This is probably the moment to announce that thanks to London Still and all who have contributed to it's humble success, I am embarking on a marvelous journey as an actual writer (eeeek!) with fellow ice cream/badcrimedrama/musical loving agent Louise.

Louise, thank you for being so obsessed with Carousel and the ballet that bears your name that you thought to troll a message board and follow a link... (incidentally, thank you to whomever put the blog's link there in the first place!). Regardless, baked goods, crime drama and the world of writing will never be the same.

You can find my bright shiny profile in the search bar, or between Nevil Shute and Christopher Silvester in the list of authors... let me just say that one more time, I am among a list of authors... WOW. Talk about this gratitude getting it's very own spot.

Thank you to all.

(And watch this space...hehe!)

Gratitudes 1-25

This is a list of 100... just in case you are wondering...

1. Health
2. Serendipity
3. My Mom
4. My Dad
5. The orange cat
6. Interlochen
7. Mornings
8. Fresh air
9. New perspectives
10. Rosie - for reminding me that you should always trust your instincts...
11. Lilly
12. JNF
13. Jessica
14. Arielle
15. Michael -- all of whom are TRUE best friends.
16. Teaching
17. Singing
18. Glasgow
19. All my talents and gifts to which I feel so overwhelmingly grateful
20. Creativity
21. Russia
22. Rain
23. Light through the leaves
24. The smell of freshly cut lemons
25. Magical umbrellas

Twenty-Six

Oooooooo! Fantastic.
It was the best.
The best birthday of my adult life.
There was a treasure hunt.
And magical coffee.
And mexican food.
And home-made cupcakes.
And many many loving friends.
I am filled with such gratitude.
Thank you friends.
Here's to another year!





© dan wooller