Elizabeth Taylor wrote before the sexual revolution, and as a result her understanding of sexuality is a lot less prim, prudish and mechanistic than ours. Her writing is the polar opposite of crude but she still conveys a whole philosophy of sexuality that is wider, deeper and greater than whatever we ended up with after the 1960s.

There’s a short story in the collection titled mischievously, if a tad blasphemously, “For Thine Is the Power” that explains the whole mechanics of overheated, unloved women making #MeTootie accusations. Obviously, nobody called them that then but the phenomenon always existed. The story appears to be Taylor’s first ever published work, and it’s incredible to see such a mature portrayal of sexual confusion from a beginning writer.

Then there’s a story of another overexcited young woman who imagines that her 7-year-old student is trying to seduce her. There are no crude, physiological descriptions but the story makes it very clear what creates the unhealthy dynamic and where it can lead.

It often happens that retired tenured professors like to come back to teach part-time as lecturers. I have hired several such retired colleagues over the years and it’s been a massive mistake every time. These are all great people, I love them but they can’t process the change in status and adapt. The behave like incredible divas, and it’s just not worth the relentless drama.

One example. Part-time lecturers don’t get their own offices. They have to share. But people who haven’t shared an office in 30 years can’t suddenly learn to do it. They feel slighted, humiliated, persecuted.

It got to the point where on Friday one such individual used the fact that I was out sick and tried to break into the office of a colleague who’s on leave, throw away her stuff and occupy her office.

Yes, this is the kind of stuff I have to deal with.

I love Elizabeth Taylor’s novels (discussed here and here) but what I didn’t know is that what she did best was write short stories. Her stories are… almost better than Chekhov’s, and I never say this about anybody’s short stories.

There’s a story of a man and a woman whose marriage was demolished by what happened to them during the war. They come on vacation to the ruined French countryside, and as he looks at the people trying to resume their lives amidst the rubble, the husband understands that he must do everything to heal his marriage. It’s all conveyed in such an understated manner that the story becomes a masterpiece. Every word is in the right place, every image, every sound.

Then there’s one about a little Spanish boy brought to England as a refugee during the Spanish Civil War. The cultural differences between the boy and his host family are narrated with gentle humor that grabs you by the heart.

Some stories are very short. There is one about a woman who just gave birth to her third child and is recovering in bed. Her transition from the almost mystical state of being in labor back to normalcy is depicted perfectly. Then there’s a story about a woman whose mother just died after a long illness. Again, if you lost a parent, it’s incredible how spot-on Taylor’s description is of its emotional state. There is a story titled “I Live in a World of Make-believe” that’s about a woman who’s exactly like my mother. Read the story if you are curious about how I grew up. It’s exactly like Taylor describes but in the USSR.

Some of Taylor’s stories shock with a twist at the end but most do something a lot more important. They take a moment in life – falling in love, giving birth, waiting for a neighbor to come to tea, realizing that you grew irrevocably apart with a friend – and let you feel that experience at its very core.

Excellent writing, incredible insight. This is an outstanding writer.

In total $ amount, the US support of Ukraine is somewhat lower than that provided by Europe.* If we look at numbers relative to the GDP, it’s significantly lower. It’s a lie that Europe isn’t doing its part.

Of course, when you compare what, say, Denmark does in total numbers, it’s enormously less than what the US does. But in relative terms, Denmark us going all out, and thank you, Denmark, for it.

Thank you, everybody, and absolutely thank you, the United States. I’m only saying all this because the pouty lie that Europe is not doing anything and letting the US carry the brunt of the aid is cropping up again. It’s invented by people who want to drive a wedge between two pillars of the Western civilization. They are not friends of said civilization.

By the way, there are reports that Cuba traps young men and sends them to Russia to fight. I wonder why, instead of bickering among ourselves so unnecessarily, we don’t pay attention to what’s happening in Latin America. They are part of the Western civilization but they aren’t being helpful at all. They are entertaining themselves by murdering presidential candidates and being complete assholes about Ukraine. (Except the Colombian writer Héctor Abad Falcolince and dissident Venezuelans who have been an absolute ray of sunshine. Thank you, Venezuelans and señor Abad Falcolince).

Why don’t we hold Latin America up to the same standard we hold each other? Why bitch about Europe not pulling its weight (which it totally does) and not look at the people who are really failing? Why do we automatically expect so much more from the tiny Estonia than the large Mexico? Estonia, by the way, always delivers in spades. And Mexico never does. And I don’t mean just about Ukraine. I mean about everything. When was the last time Estonia produced a transnational criminal organization that murders presidential candidates on another continent on a whim?

And please don’t say that Estonia is more threatened by Russia than Latin America. Look at Cuba, look at Venezuela. Latin America is threatened all right but it can’t get its head out of its anal cavity and start doing something about it.

Latin America is not inferior. It’s part of the Western civilization and not some utterly invented “global South”. It’s just spoiled rotten and that needs to stop.

But everybody in Europe and North America is doing great and really coming through. As always.

* When I say “Europe”, I take the aid offered by individual European countries and the institutions of the EU.

Since February 24, 2022, over 2,500 air raid sirens sounded in my native city of Kharkiv.

The total duration of the sirens was a little over 88 days.

In the 18 months of war, 250,000 babies were born in Ukraine. There has, of course, been a large drop in birth rates because of the war. Usually, 23,000 babies are born in Ukraine every month but because of the war, the number went down to 16,000 per month.

The father of Klara’s little friend taught his kids to make fun of people in wheelchairs. They play a game where they count “wheelchair freaks” at different big-box stores.

This is a guy with a fancy advanced degree in healthcare, of all things.

You just never know.

Yes. This all happened in the last couple of days but the only thing we hear on the news is how there’s a stalemate and Ukraine is not advancing.

Kamil Galeev is right, as usual. Prigozhin is a complete idiot. We have all heard him speak many times, and he was a pouty, dumb old man. But now everyone goes, “How could he not know Putin would have him killed? He should have known!”

Earlier this summer, Prigozhin filmed this mega cringe video of himself trying to mail a complaint to Putin. He actually thought it a good idea to post a video of himself being humiliated casually by some kid secretary refusing to accept the complaint and treating him like a nobody. Prigozhin thought it was a good look for him.

“He should have known!” The words “Prigozhin” and “know” shouldn’t be in the same sentence.

The whole idea that people we see on screens are Machiavellian evildoers with complex strategies and detailed plans is childish. That’s how we saw our parents in infancy. In reality, these people have no idea what they are doing. Their actions seem so contradictory not because it’s part of some secret plan but because they sincerely have no idea what they want or think.

COVID lockdowns messed people up in unexpected ways. I have colleagues who decided they would be able to “teach” by posting stuff online from anywhere in the world, never show up on campus, and still draw $100,000 salaries for that kind of “work”.

Obviously, this is a small minority of people. Everybody else is extremely happy to be back in the classroom. But the “lockdown happy” are currently in a mega pout. Somehow, they convinced themselves that this is a sustainable model and somebody is going to pay large salaries for this.