Month: September 2010

Before Camille was born, I had a pair of classic 13-button navy wool sailor pants. I don't remember buying them and I don't remember getting rid of them. Who runs this outfit?

I've been searching for another pair for oh, about ten years. In Portland, at one terrific vintage store, the 100-year doyen who ran the place knew exactly what I wanted, "Those high-waisted pants that make your legs look a mile long? So sexy with the little lace up the back!" she sticks out her tiny vintage-Chanel-suit covered bum. The pants are named after the carmel-covered-popcorn-peanuts-and-a-prize because that's what the kid on the front of the box has been wearing since 1918, she told me. But she was fresh out of sailor pants and I never made it to the military surplus store where I could probably have bought them for $1.

This summer, we poked through Santa Cruz's many vintage clothing stores. In one store we visited quite a few times, you could time travel from decade to decade, genre to genre: 1950's musician cowboy to '70s LA cocktail party attendee to '80s skateboarder to '30s burlesque dancer. They had it all, which was awesome, as who among us doesn't want to be all those things?

I guess I also want to be a sailor. These are my new (old) favorite pants, all-wool, indistructable, warm, perfect for everywhere from San Francisco to Moscow and all ports of call in between. Note to self: don't get rid of the vintage stuff.

At the Handmade Festival near the Park Kultury Metro, there were many cool items for sale–I bought a scarf– but also, hands that knew how were busy teaching little learning hands beautiful crafts.

"I'm too tired!" I whined as I was dragged down the noisy, traffic-y ring road to the Tchaikovsky Symphony Hall. Here I go, I thought, for one of those expensive naps.

The concert starts with a Beethoven violin concerto, amazingly lovely. (Yawn.) Then a contralto Texan, a Tchaikovsky competition award-winner, sang and her voice was insane, and everyone who wants to be a singer should have huge red hair–it looks great on stage.

Then the entreact, as they say in Russian, intermission. I ran up and down the marble stairs of the concert hall to increase my chances of staying awake for whatever the second half might drag me through. I am the worst classical music-concert attender!

The stage is packed with violins, first through tenth, and a gong and a guy tuning his kettle drums. This is the Russian National Orchestra–think any of them are any good? Peter and I have no cash, so we can't buy a program, we have no idea what's coming. They make an announcement: turn off your cell phones and the next piece will be: Musorski's Pictures at an Exhibition. One of my all-time favorite pieces! The first few notes are so tenderly played and wonderful, tears come to my eyes. And I really like pieces that include someone playing the triangle. "That was like a religious experience," said Peter as it ended.

Afterwards, out on the sidewalk, a woman behind us flips open her phone, "We just got out of the concert and our mood is 'sup-pairr.'" "Here's Bulgakov's apartment," Peter shows me, "wanna go in?" Since I'm reading or trying for the third time to read The Master and Margarita (it's not him, it's me) it's idiotic not to go in.

The Master and Margarita takes place in the 30's, wasn't released in the Soviet Union until after Stalin's death because it is so dense with social commentary, and is as fantastical as The Wizard of Oz–it's a cult classic. If you are one of the cultist, my apologies for my poor description of what is for MANY, their Pictures at an Exhibition in book form, only more.

Inside the apartment-museum: original manuscripts, Bulgakov's desk and typewriter, photos of him smoking cigarettes, and his syringes? You can drink coffee or tea at tables with satin-covered chairs and just hang out, as two people are doing, over empty cups and cigarettes. The long-haired young woman gets up and plays an old piano in one of the rooms. She flies though a gorgeous Scarabin piece, "That's all of it that I know," she says, stopping abruptly. Then she started singing and playing something Elton John-ish, beautiful. "Is this normal?" I asked Peter.

I seriously consider using Bulgokov's bathroom– it's open to the public– just to say I did.

The museum has interesting hours, it's open from one in the afternoon to one in the morning. I'm going to go back there with my The Master and Margarita and sit there and read it, like a total geek.

We walked the rest of the way home and after we got back fireworks started. Just another night out in Moscow.

Outside Bulgakov's apartment, a guy stops to smoke a cigarette and pet a gray kitty.

Bea and I went running today across the street at the track. Thirty or so kids were also using the track, having races for P.E., so Bea and I avoided that part of the track. 

After a while, the kids lined up on both sides of the track and started clapping in unison and chanting. I thought it was "Slo-ba-dan" at first, to which, huh? Then I realized it was "sa-bach-ka"- "doggie." And they were clapping for Bea to run between all of them to finish the race. So we ran down the track and across the finish line and they all cheered.

Leningradskie Prospect. Looking to see how to get Sheryl Crowe tickets (yes! Here! In Moscow!) I looked up the venue, to see where it is located, and realized I could read those words, Ленинградский проспект, without actually sounding out each letter. I feel like Helen Keller, "water!"

And it only took two years! 

I love it when I sound out a word, usually on a billboard, and it's English. "Business Class" on a Volkwagan ad. And on a billboard for a novel–billboards advertising novels! Can you stand it?– "Best-seller."

You have to say "beeziness closs" and "beast sellirrrr" with your best Russian accent, the way Camille says, Oy-zi Oz-borrrrrn, after hearing someone on the radio talk about his upcoming show. For which I am not trying to get tickets.

But most of the time, still, I painfully sound out the words and then I don't know what they mean. 

This week I needed to add the word "remodel" to a headline, and that's one word I actually know, there are so many signs with that word on so many buildings being "remonted." But the cashier at the grocery store told us we could only be in her line if we had cash, and I had no idea what she was talking about. I don't know the word for wind, which we are having a lot of right now, or how to tell the vegetable stand lady that after being gone all summer, I'm happy to see her.

Russia has a self-proclaimed 99.9% literacy–see, communism accomplished something! Everyone here reads while riding on the metro, walking down the sidewalk, and yesterday I saw a guy reading a magazine while driving. But I'm illiterate. Russian is not one of those languages you just pick up. This is the week to sign up for language lessons, again.