That is, indeed, an excellent ad. And an absolutely brilliant political strategy to take away and appropriate the American flag at a time when the opponents are increasingly embracing Berkeley-style pouting about “evil America”.
Category: Uncategorized
Puzzled
My aunt watched the show and wrote to congratulate me on my amazing command of the Ukrainian language. Of course, the show was in Russian, so I’m not sure what she meant.
This particular aunt is not known for sarcasm so I’m quite puzzled.
Post-show Update
I haven’t even been able to watch my show yet because I had another appearance scheduled for 15 minutes after. And I haven’t had anything to eat in 24 hours because nothing would go in. Now that it’s all done, I’m very ready for a gigantic burger. Wow, I’ve really been Americanized.
N is happy. It was the dream of his life that I appear on the show. He cultivated the host for months to prepare ground for me to be invited.
He first established contact before the book even appeared in print. Started a conversation with the host, saying, “Great show today! Interesting discussion topic! Here’s what I think…”
Then, after a while, he started saying, “What’s lacking is a discussion of topics XYZ. It would be great if there were somebody you could invite to talk about them.”
After a few weeks, he came back with, “Lookihere, there’s a new book that was just published and it’s all about these topics you and I were saying would be cool to discuss.”
And then, “Hey, do you want me to send you a copy of the book? Maybe invite the author. That would be interesting to watch.”
N never initiates contact with other humans, so it’s huge of him to do this. I’m touched beyond words.
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.
Politician Clothes
Is there even a politician who dresses worse than Rishi Sunak? Everything he wears is 3 sizes too small. He looks preposterous. The dude has everything to look distinguished and serious but he chooses not to. I don’t get it.
Giorgia Meloni, on the other hand, appeared in a powder pink number today that left me breathless. Are these politicians enacting stereotypes about their countries through the clothes they wear?
Low Tricks
Yes, let’s police emojis in people’s private correspondence. That’s a brilliant plan.
In their zeal to dunk on “the other side”, people forget that they only have one immortal soul, and plastering it with excrement for such a dubious gain is not a great idea.
A Modern Ukrainian Wedding
If you are Orthodox, you’ll get it:
Yes, There Are Christians
This is Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
I remember giving a talk at the local public library, and I showed some images. One person in the audience suddenly exclaimed, “So wait, are you saying there are Christians in Ukraine???”
I explained that Kyiv converted to Christianity in 988. I even had to write it on the board in a gigantic script, so people would process the figure. Then I talked about the persecution of Christianity in the USSR, and everybody was even more stunned.
Q&A: Writer’s Block
Writing is hard. It takes too long and it’s really painful. This is why I don’t write articles, book chapters and books. The very idea of writing an article is too daunting. The moment I think, “I need to work on my article today”, I become paralyzed to the point I can barely move. So I quit all that and instead of writing articles, I say “today I’ll write two sentences on how the metaphors of stone and water are central to this novel” and “today I’ll integrate the quote from Byung-Chul Han into paragraph 6 on page 3.”
Everything I have written was done this way. And I have written a lot.
Another thing that helps if I’m completely blocked is to start writing my two sentences not in a Word file but in the posting box of this blog. That removes the stress and moves things straight along. A different place to write is always a good idea. I always find it useful to write in a less formal place and do it between other pressing activities. I do great writing during meetings. Every summer we have a 6-hour meeting, and I write massively there because it feels good to know I’m doing something useful while everybody else is drowning in yet another endless discussion of a yet another stupid bureaucratic policy.
Try unexpected places, formats, times. Try dressing up to the nines for when you write. Have something completely unusual for breakfast, sleep on the different side of the bed. Everything that’s unusual can kick you out of getting to deep inside your head and getting stressed out over the daunting need to write.
Won’t Happen
Which program, though? There is no program. We will all sprout wings and take off in flight before there is any such program or anything remotely resembling it.
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