Taomeow

Didn't Hollywood movies portraying Russians teach you anything? What critical thinking? All they do is plot world domination while raising their glasses of vodka and toasting each other invariably in Polish ("na zdrovie!"). As for drunken grilling accidents, that part is not very different except Russians prefer shashlik (shish kabob) to burgers when celebrating whatever. Critical thinking is for quiet conversations in the kitchen... the greatest school of thought it used to be. Mystery schools of Alexandria meet political dissidence over tea with homemade preserves and cigarette smoke. Don't know about now... that "social sciences" scene might be out of vogue by now.

I don't think taxes have much to do with productivity except strangle it. But in general I don't know the deeper why's and wherefore's of the war for independence in its non-mythologized version -- something any historical event requires much in-depth study to begin to unravel -- now the North-South civil war is a different matter, I did my homework on that one diligently... That one, indeed, had everything to do with productivity, technological advances, and all that industrial jazz.

I don't know what Montreal is up to these days, but a long time ago when I was there it looked like it was trying to strike a balance between New York and Paris -- the Paris part came from a homeless bum who asked me for a couple of dollars "for a cup of coffee." In French.

I may be bad at economy so it's a bit hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that to celebrate winning a war over 2% tax on tea, we pay a 7.75% sales tax on anything we might want to use for the celebration. Not to mention the rest of taxes on... um... on being alive -- also on being dead, since the 7.75% sales tax applies to coffins too.

No treason. The Old World is not a lizard that can lose its tail so that the independent tail becomes the New World. Rather, it's a snake -- which occasionally plays ouroboros with itself. At least that's one way to look at it.

/\ We have a whole series of jokes based on interpreting what one hears in a "lik lik" known language. Goes both ways, by the way -- e.g. we use "bread of sieve cable" to mean "bred sivoy kobyly" -- an idiom meaning "delirious bullshit," literally "the ravings of a grey mare." The latest example from my just-concluded trip to Greece. Me and my friends were sipping espressos in a cafe in Corfu Town, and at the next table some young Greek guys were having a very lively conversation. In the course of which one of them jumped to his feet and exclaimed, with great feeling and energy, what sounded like "Shabliaka ty moliaka!" to my ear. Now I don't know about other people's ears but to mine it was simply delightful. In Russian it could have been a yet unknown curse, but also words of endearment, or a nickname for a friend, or a dire warning -- watch out, I'm about to kick your ass! Could be anything but due to the manner of delivery I was convinced it wasn't something boring. So later I tried to pick AI's brain to decipher it. What Greek expression, in a context I described to it, could it have been, and what could it mean? After a brainstorming session we zeroed in on "Ti blaxia, ti malakia" -- which is the Greek for "what nonsense, what stupidity!" Perfect. I still haven't decided which version I like better, the real one or the misheard one, but I'm tempted to start using one of them, or maybe both.

No, that's how "o" in an unstressed syllable is pronounced -- like a semi-swallowed "a." English speakers often have trouble with it when they learn the language -- they pronounce it too distinctly like an "o" everywhere. E.g. the word "horosho" (good or well or OK) which Anthony Burgess phonetized as "horror show" in "A Clockwork Orange" is a typical example -- but it's actually pronounced "harashO" since only the last of the three Os is under stress. Note (putting on my Henry Higgins top hat): there's regional dialects in some parts of Russia where o is indeed pronounced as o in an unstressed position, and a special verb in the language that specifically refers to this way of speaking -- Okat'. Then there's the Moscow accent and a word for that -- Akat' -- characterized by exaggerated a's where unstressed o's are encountered. While standard Russian, like I said, often semi-swallows them, a bit like the English schwa /ə/.)

It's perfectly fine to do it the English way -- i.e. drop statements about the weather. SeVOdnya ZHARko -- it's hot today. KhoROshaya poGOda -- the weather is nice. BUdet dozhd' -- it's going to rain. Or you could get curious (the American way): OtKUda vy? -- Where are you from? Iz kaKOvo GOroda? -- From what city? Vam zdes' NRAvitsya? -- Do you like it here? Actually, if you give me a sample list of things you would say to a neighbor who does speak the language, I can try to come up with a Russian situational equivalent.

No manager to damage her!

P.S. This appears to have been fixed now, or else fixed itself. Thanks.

Profound thanks to the wonderful mods who helped me get back on after some password/email adversities -- but now the site asks me to sign in all over again every single time I open it, so I have to enter my password as many times as I visit. Before the reset it merely kept me logged on at all times for countless moons and never asked for password. Is there a way to fix this? I did check the "remember me" box but the forum still doesn't. Meow?

I know it's a serious matter, but I can't resist offering my favorite movie scene dedicated to anger management: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEE7xzwogMc

You are, first and foremost, a smart man. Consequences may occasionally pan out to be -- what's the word I'm looking for -- severe? alienating? politically incorrect? I used to have a roommate and friend who was a gay white man. He was not proud of being either, but it so happened that I helped him accomplish something he became so proud of that he kept bragging to everybody every chance he got, even though for everybody else it wasn't an accomplishment at all... He came from a wealthy family and grew up in a community completely shielded from the rest of the world, and all he knew about swimming was always done in swimming-pools, by everybody he knew. (He was alienated from his family at the time I made his acquaintance.) So we went to the beach and I gave it all I had to convince him that the ocean was, well, swimmable. He doubted it. Waves. No boundaries. Sand, wind, all that weird stuff you don't encounter in a swimming-pool. I shamed him into trying, and he discovered he liked it so much that I had a hard time getting him to finally get out of the water. He was happier than I'd ever seen him. So he proceeded to brag to everybody he knew and even to strangers, just mentioning nonchalantly something along the lines of, "how was your weekend? Me, I went swimming in the ocean..."

Mint breeze enfolds me. Don't know about the people, but scarecrows look cool. (with a nod to Kobayashi Issa's late Edo period classic: "Approaching my village: Don't know about the people, but all the scarecrows are crooked.")