Sunday, February 24, 2008

From A Retired Teacher's Notebook

by Anton Chekhov

IT is argued that family and school should work hand in glove. Very true, but only if the family is a respectable one unconnected with trade or shop-keeping, inasmuch as proximity to the lower orders may hinder a school's progress. On grounds of humanity, however, one should not deprive shopkeepers and the wealthier tradesfolk of their occasional pleasures - such as asking teachers to a party, shall we say?

The words 'proposition' and 'conjunction' make schoolgirls modestly lower their eyes and blush, but the terms 'organic' and 'copulative' enable schoolboys to face the future hopefully.

As the vocative case and certain rare letters of the Russian alphabet are practically obsolete, teachers of Russian should in all fairness have their salaries reduced, inasmuch as this decline in cases and letters has reduced their work load.

Our teachers try to persuade their pupils not to waste time reading novels and newspapers since this hampers concentration and distracts them. Besides, novels and newspapers are useless. But why should pupils believe their mentors if the latter spend so much time on newspapers and magazines? Physician, heal hyself! As for me, I am completely in the clear, not having read a single book or paper for thirty years.

When teaching science one should above all ensure one's pupils have their books bound, inasmuch as one cannot bang them on the head with the spine of an unbound book.

Children! What bliss it is to receive one's pension!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Jupiter Mission

I took a film course a few years ago. Dr. D. encouraged us to bring in our favorite scene and play it for the class. I didn't, because I was still going through puberty at the time. But if I could go back, I would play this, my favorite scene in any film, ever:



Speculation?

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Kamp Kielce

My apartment block looks like a camp, and not the Bible vacation kind.



They call it Barwinek, the Polish word for the vinca flower, whose name derives from the Latin vincire: to bind, fetter.

The apartments are grey, concrete compounds. The compounds are rectangles with five stories worth of square windows that, despite lacking any characteristics other than squareness, still manage to look sad. The Communists, the Nazis, whichever regime inflicted these prefab ruins upon the Poles, arranged the apartments three compounds to a block with only one end left open, either in mimicry of an Italian courtyard or to discourage escape.

All of the compounds are numbered in the Korean style, so you don't forget where you live. My compound is number five, but they go as high as 37. Numbers 25 through 37 are painted the same color as the deep end of a public pool. Numbers one through 25 are not painted at all, except by local graffiti artists. On the side of my compound, my translator tells me, they have sprayed "You will always have a place in my heart!" and "Hello!" Other compounds are less fortunate.

The apartment square is crisscrossed by cement paths. When the sun is up, tens of Poles can be seen traversing these paths in their own peculiar ways: with a buggy, with a cane, with a limp, with a whole lot of vegetables, swaggering drunk. Even if it is unusually crowded, probability dictates that no one path is ever likely to have more than one person walking it at any given time. This fact, in tandem with the new automatic check-out counters at the grocery store, grants almost total isolation to anyone who seeks it. On the grass islands between paths stand some battered playground structures, most frequently utilized by fierce-looking teenagers and napping drunks. There is a low, dissatisfied murmur in the air at all times. The apartment square has the feel of a prison exercise yard. But if you're young and spry with a spring in your step, as I sometimes am, you can walk these paths and pretend that you're the front-runner in some needlessly complex Olympic speed walking event.

There are dogs. Having lived only in societies where canines are kept under the nylon yoke of Man or cut up in His soup, I have never before experienced the pleasures of watching what dogs do when granted total emancipation: they act like humans. The Wild Dogs of Barwinek dart about with absent looks on their mugs, as though they are immersed in some unending task which demands 70% of their brains. They follow a scent with much enthusiasm for a few minutes at a time, then get bored and look for something else. They ignore humans like we are some minor species of rodent who sometimes gets in the way. They don't often sniff each other's rumps as you might expect: they tend to ignore other dogs, unless it's urgent. They do, however, lift their legs/squat and pee on all manner of phallic structures. You will sometimes see a dachshund and a much larger dog at play, the dachshund getting repeatedly tangled and smooshed under the larger dog's tires, the Poles gathering around to watch, the dachshund tumbling end-over-end like a fumbled football.

Along the southern fringe of the complex are some shops. There is a general store called Kolporter, a word that means "distributor" in Polish, no intended connection to the great Cole Albert Porter, American songsmith of Peru, Indiana. There is a lingerie shop, little more than a glazed window in a yellow shed, before whose sexy red UV lamp the hot matkas bask, babushkas tilted skyward.

The Barwinek vegetable monger is a cheat. The other day you eked out the word for "carrot" and he gave you some brownish dildo-shaped things. You handed him the money and he claimed the cash register was broken, or that he didn't have any change, or something, i.e. he was screwing you over and you both knew it. But as a chronic foreigner, you've learned which wars to wage and when to nod politely, bow, and say thanks, Pan Vegetable Monger, for the kick in the teeth. So you gathered your bruised mutant fruits and veggies, stuffed them into your inkstained messenger bag, and ducked out the door, forging into the cold, cruel headwind of an unkind exchange rate ...

False Friends

This evening, my boss gave me a ride home from school. He is a great man. He speaks the Queen's English and has one of those enormous Slavic heads I'd read about before but didn't believe existed until I saw his in its entirety. His past is a series of conflicts: conflicts with Russians, Germans, Czechs, Americans, conflicts with Polish radio executives, conflicts with technology. I suspect he had some prominent role in ridding Poland of the Soviets and installing the late Pope as Master of the Universe.

"And of course, szukać is the Polish verb for to search," he said as a gaggle of attractive Polish women bustled into the teachers' lounge. He lowered his voice, then stopped talking altogether. He bid everyone goodnight. I bowed, momentarily forgetting which continent I was on. The boss and I stepped outside, where it was, as it has been, as it shall remain: fucking cold.

"Sorry," he said, "I didn't want to give you a Czech lesson in front of all those young ladies. Where were we?"
"Szukać," I said.
"Yes, szukać," he said. "In Czech, szukać means to fuck!"
He was gesticulating into the wind like a drunken peasant from an old Russian novel.
"So, these poor Czechs, they come to Poland, they go to the grocery store, and the nice girl behind the vegetable counter says, 'Please wait one moment, I must go fuck the cucumbers!'"
I laughed.
"Would you like to go shopping?" he asked, indicating the big-ass hipermarket across the street. I didn't say no, so we crossed the street.

I figured I would be doing the shopping while the boss tagged along to recommend spiced goat cheeses and Ukrainian lagers and carrots. But he grabbed a cart and started loading it with kielbasa. So it was I who was tagging along.

"The Czechs are the greatest civilization the world has ever known," he said.
I shrugged.
"I say that because they have given to humanity two things for which we will forever remain in their debt." He found the goat cheese he was looking for and dropped two, no three, no four blocks into the cart. Then he turned to me and held up two huge Slavic fingers. "(1) Pilsner, from the city of Plzen, and (2) bramboráky, a savory snack to go with your pilsner."
The shopping cart was piled high with meats and cheeses and now we were coasting inexorably towards the beer aisle.
"Other cultures have contributed to the great body of human knowledge in the fields of science, art, philosophy," he grunted dismissively, "but all such things pale in comparison to this." He swept his arm across the wall of brown bottles before us. I opened my mouth to say something irrelevant, but just then he started shouting in Polish. It wasn't until he turned around that I saw the Bluetooth in his ear. In the meantime, I browsed.

"Original Budweiser. Czech imported lager, beer from Budweis," I murmured, taking a bottle down from the shelf. "No shit."
I squinted at the red label, the Masonic American beer conspiracy shattering all around me. Then, after he had duly owned whoever was on the other end of his ear, the boss started stocking the cart with long, dark bottles of Czech beer.

I waited on the other side for my boss to check out. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I elbowed a passing Pole square in the face.

"Sorry," I shouted. "Er. Przepraszam. Er. Shit."

Friday, February 15, 2008

Skończył się dobry fart

So it's the last class of the day, twenty minutes to go, right? I'm dashing around the room trying to keep the deflated conversational beachball aloft. I learn all about Magdalena's dead hamster and the specifications of Piotr's washing machine. Then this smiling, blushing obese kid tells me to call him "Finger Boy" from now on. He is twirling a pencil between the fingers of his left hand.
"Because of that?" I ask.
"No," he says, "because of this."
He holds up his right hand to reveal a gnarled triple- or quadruple-jointed thumb that he proceeds to wrap around his wrist several times.
"Okay," I say, stifling a dry heave. I take out my attendance chart and mark it accordingly: "Finger Boy."

I start to sweat. There are ten minutes left and I can't make fun of Finger Boy for all ten of those minutes. I reach into my bag of shitty questions and ask if everyone likes the local soccer team, Korona Kielce.
"Um, yes." Shrugs, puzzled grunts.
"What other teams do we have here in Kielce?"
"Viva Kielce is handball team," volunteers Krzysztof.
"We have wallyball team," says Adam. "Fart Kielce."
I blink and clear my throat.
"Fart. Kielce."
"Yes," shrugs Adam, "Fart."
I take a deep breath and try to slow my galloping heart. Easy, Petit. These Poles have a way of clogging everything with consonants. Fart = Szfrzyrzt.
"How do you spell this Fart?" I ask, scrawling an "Sz" on the board.
"No, no," says Krzysztof. "F."
"Okay. Then what?"
"A," the class chimes.
"Yes, yes! And then?"
"R."
"And? And?" I bite my lower lip.
"T."

And I lose it. I spray a confetti of nostril fluid all over the whiteboard. I don't pee my pants but I'm not far off.
"What means fart?" Adam asks when I have regained verticality.
"Well," I sniffle, "when you eat too many pierogis – "
I draw a bent-over stick figure with a smoke cloud emanating from his behind. The class and I both dissolve into hysterics for five minutes. Finally, I summon enough of my voice to ask what "fart" means in Polish.
"Lucky," says Finger Boy.
Five more minutes of insane laughter. Then class is over.

I perform a Kramerian slide into the teacher's lounge and grab the first Pole I can find. I launch into my tale with the sort of mundane preface that is the meat and potatoes of the American work anecdote: "So it's the last class of the day, twenty minutes to go, right?"
"Yes," she says.
"And I ask the kids what sports there are in Kielce and – "
"Yes," she says, "I think the students are really like sport in Kielce, I think. They are like football and wallyball and tennis and handball."
"Right. Anyway, this kid tells me that there's a volleyball team – "
"Yes, wallyball is very popular in Poland," she says. "It is something like national sport."

She wanders off to make some tea. Defeated, I slump down into my chair at the formica table and wait for someone else to come, but no one else comes. The bell rings. I pick up some cheese slices on the way home. Later, I overcook myself a grilled cheese sandwich. Then, around 10 PM, I climb into in the bathtub with Noam Chomsky and we have ourselves a nice, long sulk.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

One (1) Polish apartment (used)

Contains:
One (1) cactus
Several (6) dead plants
One (1) Soviet-era MИHCK 16 refrigerator, purrs when full
A lot (8) of poopstains left behind by previous tenant
One (1) plastic glow-in-the-dark Jesus, crucified, nailed into wall above garbage can
Two (2) bags of banana Cream of Wheat, one (1) box of instant rice, one (1) half-empty bag of sugar, two (2) boxes of Earl Grey tea, four (4) cryptic notes, also from previous tenant
One (1) skeleton key
Three (3) Agatha Christie novels, one (1) copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales, one (1) Lassie novel, all in Polish, the most widely-spoken West Slavic language
One (1) Soviet-era Kahmama record player with CB radio capabilities
One (1) watercolor print in which guardian angel helps Polish boy in daisy dukes cross bridge from Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom
Seven or so (7) Russian nesting dolls, un- and re-nestable, useful for propping open balcony windows when pirating wireless internet
One (1) VHS cassette: Femme Fatale starring one (1) Antonio Banderas and one (1) Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, distributed by Polsat Films, rated R for strong sexuality, violence and language



2,500 Polish złotych OBO

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The Perseus Cluster



Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on [sic] the sky. Each of the fuzzy blobs in the above picture is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. We view the cluster through the foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy. It takes light roughly 300 million years to get here from this region of the Universe, so we see this cluster as it existed before the age of the dinosaurs.
- Some copywriting stooge at NASA


See? There's nothing to worry about, now is there?

Monday, February 11, 2008

2.01.08 - In Transit

2.11.08

I'm back in Poland, the land of my rebirth as a 19th century peasant. Now that I've found a stable internet connection (if I part the curtains and prop the window open with a row of Matryoshka dolls and hold my laptop out over the balcony into the westerly Russian wind at the risk of freezing all those precious, social-life-sustaining silicon innards) I'm sifting through my Moleskine notes to piece together exactly how I got here without being kalashnikoved to death by the blessed customs officials at Pope John Paul II International Airport.

* * *

2.01.08

Here in London Heathrow, my nervous system is hitting a shrill, delirious pitch. As last night's melatonin dot slushes through my bloodstream like a pillow, I'm looking more and more Eastern Bloc by the minute. The bags under my eyes are turning black, my teeth are sprouting hairs. At this, the midway point of my journey, it is best just to keep out of everyone's way, lest I be mowed down by a luggage cart or jostled aboard a flight to Kyrgyzstan. I'm hiding out in Zone 27, where all of London Heathrow's displaced peoples gather to chatter in rodentlike tongues, looking like they've been camped out for weeks in front of chronically vacant check-in counters, the airline logos stenciled in Cyrillic or worse. I'm huddled over an orange backpack on top of a black bag, chattering in a displaced sort of way to myself.

At 9 AM (3 AM CST), I enjoyed a Real Actual Guinness at a Real Actual plastic woodgrain table in the corner of a Real Actual Dublin airport pub. Later, in Heathrow, I ate Real Actual fish n' chips prepared by Real Actual Serbian short order cooks, and guzzled another Real Actual Guinness dumped artlessly into a glass by a Real Actual Polish girl named Magda. And she totally smiled at me, the first of hopefully several unprovoked smiles from Green Card-hungry Polish matkas. I can't wait! But I shall. Oh, how I shall wait.