Show Must Go On

Please join us in 46 minutes. Yes, you won’t understand what I’m saying but who cares? You already heard it all a million times.

I pray to God there’s no lawn mowing or construction outside. And I don’t sweat too much because I can’t turn on my table fan, and it gets too hot inside.

Also, it turns out that the journalist and I attended the same university in Kharkiv at the exact same time. I was in foreign languages (English and German) and he was in history. And now we meet.

12 thoughts on “Show Must Go On

  1. Don’t understand a word, but wish I did!

    If you do it again: can you arrange a dark background? And keep your arms off the desk– you keep touching your chin. It’s distracting. He’s got a pretty great camera setup where he doesn’t have to get that up-the-chin view from his laptop, but I wonder if you could get some of that effect by just setting the laptop on top of a few large books to get the camera up higher, so you’re eye level with it instead of looking down at it.

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      1. God, I finally had a chance to see it, and I was mega close to the screen. It definitely didn’t look like that on my end while I talked.

        It’s a software I never used before.

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  2. “won’t understand what I’m saying”

    I get bits and pieces (mostly from western cognates since the vowel slurring disguises most slavic roots).

    My first thought toward the beginning was “Wow…. he really likes the sound of his own voice…” it seemed like forever before you got a chance to get going.

    Also…. russian spoken by Ukrainians seems to have a much warmer sound than the hideous nasal whine featured on russian state tv….

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yes, we both are from Kharkiv and speak with a very noticeable regional accent. It’s noticeable to us but I’m impressed that you heard it.

      A really funny part is that one of the questions – the one about the heteropatriarchal henhouse – was from my husband.

      And of course, there was an obligatory question (not from my husband) about Trump. I answered with the joke about the butt and the sofa.

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      1. \ speak with a very noticeable regional accent. It’s noticeable to us but I’m impressed that you heard it.

        I heard a foreign (neither Russian nor Ukrainian) accent in your speech. May be, it’s your natural voice, but English may affect too after 20+ years of living outside FSU.

        Many people, who live for years in Israel, get it in Russian, if they immigrated many years ago, especially at younger ages. (Don’t talk now about children.)

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Definitely, I have an Anglo intonation now. My voice is way too inflected for a natural Russian pronunciation. But it’s more fun this way. Keeps people from being bored.

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  3. Watched all and would love to see you again. 🙂

    The possible book on modern American literature for Ukrainians sounds like a dream book to read. Hope you’ll write it since, for obvious reasons, US and EU countries receive the most attention in Ukraine.

    May be, your next talk with Romanenko could be on this topic?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’m glad you enjoyed! I hope your mother watches, too.

      I’m very happy with how it went because everybody so far wants to talk about the strictly literary aspect, and I want to talk about politics. Finally, I got the chance.

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