Pre-revolution district to loom

A journalist acquaintance (Russians have always frowned upon the casual use by English speakers of the word "friend"), Andrew Osborn, has written an article in today's edition of The Independent of London about plans by British architect Sir Norman Foster to redesign the city centre right next to the Kremlin.

I've seen vague accounts about this scheme before, but it is the first time I've read a detailed description of what is being planned to fill up the 52,610 square meter area to be vacated when the Soviet-era Rossiya Hotel, one of the USSR's most hideous landmarks, is finally torn down from its prestigious riverside location.

The Rossiya was once trumpeted as the biggest hotel in the world when it opened in 1967. It admittedly had its uses - it provided inexpensive accommodation in a ridiculously expensive city. One could plan a summer trip to Moscow without needing to make a reservation simply by walking into the lobby and asking for one of its almost 3,000 hotel rooms, most of which were available for under US$100. Of course, in practice foreign visitors would have to make some kind of reservation anyway in order to secure a visa from a Russian Embassy overseas but at least there was some reassurance in theory. With this behemoth (two of its ilk preceded it - the 434-room Intourist Hotel was demolished in 2002, and the 1000-room Moskva in 2004 - while another, the Minsk, has been shut down) gradually being razed, the hotel business in Moscow appears inexorably headed upmarket.

Anyway the plans for the revival of the district, which centers on the rebirth of Zaryadye, the pre-revolutionary name of the area, give long-time residents of Moscow, a 860-year-old city currently undergoing its most extensive makeover since Stalin tinkered with it in the 1930s, something to look forward to in the next couple of years. Andrew writes thus:

When construction of the new district is finished in 2008, it will be a self-contained town-within-a-town, including hotels, offices, shops, cafés, restaurants, subterranean parking space for 2,000 cars, a concert hall, cinemas, a huge public square and a terminal for boats on the adjacent river Moskva.

The design of the buildings' façade is being left to Russian architects who want to erect pastel-coloured recreations of 18th- and 19th-century Moscow mansions so as not to jar with the Kremlin next door. But Sir Norman will be responsible for creating all the inside space and for coordinating the overall project.

The buildings will not be higher than eight storeys so as not to overshadow the Kremlin. An entire pre-revolutionary street, called Velikaya Ulitsa, will be recreated, a church painstakingly resurrected, and the area's 16th-century walls rebuilt.

Much has been bruited about the involvement by a foreign architect in the Russian capital's prestige project. Foster is said to have won over the property developers with his design for the Reichstag in Berlin and the "Gherkin" in London. In Russia, he has been contracted for the construction of Europe's tallest tower in the Moskva-City district and the Holland Island project in St Petersburg.

Andrew appears to have scooped other papers with his revelation about the Zaryadye plans as well as a commission to build a Russian version of Disneyland in an area called Nagatino Poima, a spit of land in southern Moscow said to spread over 1.858 square meters.

Of Sultanna, OGI, fires & the islands

I've just returned, tired, thirsty and on foot, from the office after having dinner with my ducky. We ate a simple dinner at OGI, a basement restaurant tucked into the upscale complex on Tretyakovsky Passage intersecting with Nikolskaya Ulitsa. One of our favourite hangouts, OGI is part of a chain of intellectual hangouts that stick to the same formula of low-priced meals in a simple but Bohemian interior that features a bookshop, all running on a 24-hour schedule. While its sister establishments - Cafe Bilingua, Project OGI, Cafe OGI and Pir OGI - are located more or less in quiet or small side streets, OGI stands out as unusually demokratichny in this gravely pafosny milieu, better known for such novy russky-frequented shops as D&G, Versace, and Bentley.

* * *

Before that, I attended an academic meeting at Room 204 in the Institute of Asian and African Studies, organised by the Nusantara Society. Nusantara is a portmanteau word from Old Javanese that means "archipelago"; accordingly the society promotes the languages and cultures of the people who populate the Malay archipelago, including the countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It called a special gathering to commemorate an anniversary my country is celebrating in its relations with Russia.

While it was good to finally meet up with a number of luminaries in the field, the aging pioneers put up an anemic show, coming ill-prepared and speaking off-the-cuff. The new generation of students actually acquitted themselves better, not just for their energy and youth, but for their heartfelt enthusiasm and interest.

* * *

After the meeting, Natasha told me about the day's tragedy earlier at the main campus of the Moscow State University. She said two students died and at least four people were hurt in a fire that broke out at 5 am in a dormitory on the 12th floor of the university's 26-floor central building. According to a BBC report, Yevgeny Serebrennikov, deputy head of the Emergency Situations Ministry, said that 1,500 people were evacuated.

Although the cause of the fire in the Stalin-era building, one of Moscow's most conspicuous landmarks, remained unclear, I couldn't help but somehow think of the anniversary of Hitler's birthday just yesterday. A similar fire at a five-storey students' dormitory of the People's Friendship University (formerly Patrice Lumumba) in November 2003, which killed 42 people and injured more than 200 people from 34 countries, is a sad reminder that foreign and mainly non-white students suffer heavily from racial discrimination in Russia. While the conflagration itself was believed to have been caused by an electrical malfunction, the firefighters were criticised for their sluggish response and allegations of extortion or racial preference. Russia has a high rate of fire deaths, totaling around 18,000 a year. Experts say fire fatalities have skyrocketed since the end of the Soviet Union, in part because of lower public vigilance and a disregard for safety standards. The age of Russia's buildings also plays a role: Many older buildings have wood partitions between the floors that help fires spread rapidly.

(The university was founded in 1960 and named Patrice Lumumba People's Friendship University in honor of the post-colonial Congo's first prime minister; its name was changed in 1992. Its aim was to offer a strict Marxist curriculum to students from developing nations.)

(It served as a showcase of Soviet patronage of the Third World, receiving generous state subsidies, but declined after the 1991 Soviet collapse as government funding dried up. But the university has continued to attract students from impoverished with its low tuition — medical school tuition runs US$1,200 a year.)

* * *

On the way back home, I noticed that Sultanna Frantsuzova has set up a small boutique on my street. (I wrote a blog entry about a fashion show of hers I attended in late summer 2005.) Since that entry the designer has become more visible and celebrated more openly for her unfailingly stylish and affordable designs. Do I still want to move out?

Belarus opposition undid revolution

Whenever the subject of the colour revolutions comes up in conversation here in Russia, it's not easy to find the golden mean; that is, the conversation sooner or later gravitates to the extremes: either all the street protests are manipulated by the West in a conspiracy against Russia or that Western intervention was less instrumental in the success of the uprising than the spontaneous explosion of long-festering popular discontent.

Having had a similar experience in my teens and yet again just a few years ago, I tend to hew to the second camp — with all the romantic implications. However, the years since our own little popular revolt in 2001 have not been kind to my people and have taught me harsh lessons.

While Ukraine provided the world a dramatic example in 2004, even more so than that in Georgia the year before that, the supposed rush for a democratic outcome in the Kyrgyz Republic was in no way clean or ideal. There were no made-for-media heros this time, and victory itself came at a price. The violence in Andijan, Uzbekistan and the Kazakh government's effective outmaneuvering of the opposition in presidential polls late last year served as warning that there was no inevitability to the democracy domino theory and that the rose-tinted days of people people revolts might soon be over. The Ukrainian political theatre, much degraded last September before descending into farce in February, continues to appall for its pettiness.


In the weeks leading to its presidential elections, with the score leveled at 2-2, Belarus was shaping up as the ultimate showdown between the "dark" forces supporting the old Evil Empire (now symbolised by Russia) and the "light" forces represented by the US and Europe. Like in the battle between the two Viktors in Ukraine, the battle between the two Alexanders in Belarus was portrayed in stark contrast. With the US shrilly repeating to any who bothered to listen that Lukashenko was "Europe's last dictator" it doesn't take a Mandela to figure out who's who. The rest, supposedly, is history.

The only problem was, history didn't occur as expected. Rather, it unraveled. More than a month after the presidential elections in Belarus on 19 March, it would now flummox those very same champions of the Rose, Orange and Tulip Revolutions to admit that the democracy movement failed miserably against the "evil dictator".

My sentiments lie inevitably with the protesters, who I believe were sincere in their intent. In fact one of my Belarusian friends is part of the protest movement. We have only been acquainted for a year, but I can tell in the period I've known her that she aspires only for a bright future for her homeland. However, I have my doubts about the purity of the objectives of the opposition leaders — Milinkevich included.

The first cracks in my belief appeared when a Moscow-based Belarusian friend of mine some days into the poll protests replied to an SMS from me wishing her family and friends well. Although I had known her and her family to be anti-Lukashenko, it had been a while since we exchanged thoughts about the domestic situation in Belarus. So I merely registered neutral concerns about the crisis. It was fortuituous, in hindsight, to have sent a moderately worded SMS: her reply, which could not conceal her contempt, expressed no sympathy for the demonstrations and pointedly suggested that the results were karmic retribution for the self-righteous conceit with which the opposition operated throughout the whole campaign.


While my friend is not exactly the most politicised person in the world, her turnaround in a little over a year from a seething critic of the Belarusian establishment to a damning disapprover of its fractured-then-united opposition was telling.

A week after that text message, I had a guest at home who works as a contractual consultant for UN- or EU-funded human rights and development projects in troubled spots in Eastern Europe and Africa. While his work on those projects strikes one more as mercenary than mécène, this guest of mine evidently carried the baggage of the civilising missionary. So when he raised the topic of Belarus (he has traveled extensively in the former Soviet Union and had lived a couple of years in Minsk) I more than half expected him to launch on a harangue against Lukashenko. To my surprise he turned his contempt toward the other Alexander: "That Milinkevich is a real bastard, eh?" He related something else apart from this, but for me, that one sentence put me off the whole democracy-for-Belarus project in its current incarnation.

While the jury's still out on the opposition's intent, a decision apparently has been reached regarding their tactics. In today's Kiev Post, Lionel Beehner, a staff writer with the Council on Foreign Relations' website, wrote a quotable piece about how the opposition in fact did itself in. Beehner, who was in Belarus on a German Marshall Fund Journalism Fellowship, attributes the failure to a lack of focus. Despite having the advantage of reading from a well-worn playbook, the opposition was too disorganised, he said, to even light a revolutionary spark. A real Slavic damp squib.

Earlier this month, the opposition in Belarus unveiled a new strategy. “We are switching from the wonderful romantic sentiments of a brave minority to everyday educational and informational efforts involving tens of thousands of freedom volunteers,” said opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich in a statement. Unfortunately, this shift in strategy may be too little, too late.

Belarus’ opposition missed a golden opportunity after last month’s presidential elections, if not to force the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to its knees, then at least to force a second round of voting. Civil society and youth groups there had had months, even years, to plan for this moment, as well as playbooks handed to them by their pals in Ukraine, Georgia, and Serbia.

But the opposition was too disorganized and too focused on what Milinkevich calls “romantic sentiments” and symbolic gestures, like lighting candles and wearing blue denim, instead of mobilizing more people, particularly adults, to take to the streets in protest. In the end, numbers matter more than gestures.

Sure, the opposition was up against a number of hurdles, including a lack of access to state-run airwaves, imminent threats of arrest, and a populace anemic after 12 years of dictatorship. Not to mention that many of its leaders were either behind bars or hiding abroad. And unlike Ukraine, these groups could not rely on domestic oligarchs for their funding, and most Western civil society groups had been booted out years ago, making financing tricky to navigate. But the opposition, particularly on the night of the March 19 elections, made a number of avoidable mistakes.

Around 8 p.m., responding to fliers and text messages posted by activists, thousands flocked to October Square —declared a no-go zone by the authorities— to hear opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich address the masses. The trouble was that though he said all the right things, no one could hear him. The opposition did not think to bring an adequate sound system or generator to power it, just an inaudible bullhorn.

Also absent from the square were tents, which emerged as a poignant symbol of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, when tent cities sprouted along Kyiv’s main thoroughfare, symbolizing the protesters’ willingness to camp out for weeks. Subzero temperatures and a biting wind in Minsk, more so than the threat posed by riot police, sent demonstrators home early. No plan was in place to keep protesters cozy or to supply blankets, thermoses of hot tea, or, most importantly, the tents themselves until the next day. By then it was too late.

Then, as the night wore on and the crowd thinned, a decision was hastily made to march a few blocks to Victory Square to lay carnations at a monument. This was a nice gesture symbolically, but not exactly tantamount to storming the Bastille or standing in front of a tank on Tiananmen Square. Only a few hundred bothered to march.

Next, came the opposition’s most disastrous decision: to postpone the protests until the following night. This killed any chance of reaching critical mass. Momentum was lost, as the next night’s crowd dwindled to only half of what it had been the previous night. By midweek, most of the foreign media had skipped town. Motorists passing by no longer honked in support. Even protesters’ chants of “Long live Belarus!” had lost their oomph.

Then there was the opposition’s odd rallying symbol: blue denim. Opposition leaders, trying to replicate recent revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, were groping for a symbol, a color, a flower—anything to attract foreign media attention to their cause. They found such a symbol last year after a young Belarusian protester, his flags confiscated by police, held up a swatch of denim. Also, denim during Soviet times was evocative of the West. So, whenever Milinkevich appeared in public, he draped himself in a blue scarf to promote the spirit of what he hoped would become the “denim revolution.”

But the symbol failed and always felt a bit forced, like a marketing gimmick conjured up by Western NGOs. Not to mention, it was generic, the equivalent of Russian protesters donning fur hats or French rioters – berets. And while throngs of Ukrainians bedecked in bright orange might make for nice media coverage, protesters clad in blue jeans resemble just that: protesters clad in blue jeans.

Looking back, the opposition may have squandered its brief chance to bring reform to Belarus. They had the world’s undivided attention, but in the end, they were disorganized, improvising as they went along, instead of having a strategic plan in place. In the end, greater numbers were needed, not just pithy slogans, colorful flags, or gimmicky symbols to rally around, like denim.

Perhaps a repeat of a velvet revolution was never in the cards. But without an organized opposition, Belarus will never find out.

This is not to suggest that we should go the other way, of course. I think I'm too sentimental and idealistic a chap in any case to start cheering for dictators. More than anything it serves as a warning that things are never black and white as they seem. Now I get a bit leery when I see scenes of smiling young girls handing carnations to stern-looking soldiers or candle-bearing, pious-looking oppositionists. The cringe factor has now been raised; I am a tad -miniscule in cosmic terms, of course- readier to lend an ear to accusations of conspiracy by anti-Kremlin individuals.

New opera at la Bastille

We're off to Paris in 48 hours, yes!

One of the treats I'm looking forward to the most is Adriana Mater, the new work commissioned by the Bastille Opera from Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, with the libretto written by Lebanese novelist Amin Maalouf. The premise is quite impressive. Even though I'm a bit skittish seeing another new work after thoroughly disliking Leonid Desyatnikov's The Children of Rosenthal at the Bolshoi on 26 March, I'm committing myself to this one as a way of rinsing the unpleasant aftertaste Detya left in my mouth.

So far, reviews have not been exactly unanimous. I've seen two posted already online after the world premiere just a couple of days ago. The first one, dated 4 April 2006, is written by Francis Carlin of the The Financial Times.

Six years after the success of her first opera, L’Amour de loin, Kaija Saariaho is back with a modern fable, a striking story of lust and desire for vengeance.

Adriana is raped by Tsargo, who has been transformed by war from a drunk into a swaggering bully. He disappears. She gives birth and worries if her son Yonas will be Cain or Abel. Years later, the adolescent Yonas resolves to kill his father but falters when he sees Tsargo is now blind and a broken man.

The dream team that worked on L’Amour de loin is back. The libretto is by Amin Maalouf, the production by Peter Sellars and sets by George Tsypin. Saariaho again steers clear of the template of modern opera: the narrative is stark and linear. But you have to be a fervent supporter of the Saariaho style to overlook the flaws.

Saariaho’s decision to write for the stage was in part prompted by Messiaen’s St François d’Assise, an opera that is really a gargantuan oratorio. L’Amour de loin shared the same unconcern with dramatic pulse but worked for those who were entranced by its luxuriant orchestration. Adriana tries to tackle a more physical world and fails. Saariaho cannot juggle with theatrical pace and timing. A disembodied chorus barks out snippets of text and the amplification bombards us with crude distortion.

Adriana treats Maalouf’s wordy, banal libretto with scant regard for French meter. Vital sentences are drowned out. Worse, the first three scenes are dominated by a background blur from the orchestra.

As for the cast, Patricia Bardon is a rich-toned Adriana; Solveig Kringelborn, as her sister Refka, soars above the fray and Gordon Gietz is a lithe, energetic Yonas. Stephen Milling’s giant proportions suit Tsargo’s character but he stumbles over uninteresting music towards the end.

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts a disciplined orchestra. There are cheers for Saariaho but scant applause. The dream team has been caught resting on its laurels.

Not the most encouraging review, really, but what can you expect from the FT? This business-oriented paper would probably label as disappointing anything hinting political liberalism. When you're talking about a morality play suggestively set in the former Yugoslavia involving possibly Muslim protagonists, when the outcome doesn't really end as vengefully bloody as Shakespeare or the Bible, would you be surprised FT found it limp entertainment?

Fortunately there's a balancing review by the New York Times - a daily I normally agree with. In a feminist-sounding piece entitled An Opera in Paris Addresses Motherhood in a War Zone, Alan Riding writes:

PARIS - At its most powerful, opera takes human, religious and political dramas of the past and gives them enduring relevance. "Adriana Mater," the new opera by the heralded Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, borrows its haunting narrative from our own age and shows it to be a story for all time.

Its setting is a modern war, modern because it could be happening now, yet primitive because its weapons include rape. Thus, while the country is not named, the plot inevitably evokes the Bosnian war of the 1990s, with its grim legacy of rape and ethnic cleansing.

But here there is a twist: Adriana Mater is raped by a soldier from her own community. Ignoring the advice of her sister, Refka, Adriana refuses an abortion and rears a son, Yonas, to believe that his father died a war hero. At 17, he learns the truth. When the man, Tsargo, returns to the village, Yonas decides to kill him.

A story of such intensity demands music of equal power, and to judge by the enthusiastic response of the Opéra Bastille's packed house at Monday's world premiere, Saariaho succeeded in forging a work on an emotional scale rarely heard in contemporary opera.

The cast comprises just four characters - Adriana, Refka, Yonas and Tsargo - who are backed by an amplified offstage chorus. The opera's changing moods are defined by richly varied orchestration, explosive and reflective, as well as by the urgent parlando and lyrical arias of the vocal parts.

"Adriana Mater" is Saariaho's second opera. And as with her first, "L'Amour de Loin," presented at the Salzburg Festival in 2000 and since widely performed, she has again joined forces with the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf as librettist and with the American director Peter Sellars.

But "Adriana Mater," which was commissioned by the Paris National Opera and the Finnish National Opera, is a far darker work, one searingly painful in its depiction of humanity.

"If there is not a lot of action, there must be big feelings," Saariaho, 53, a soft-spoken woman known to be intensely private, said in an interview a few days before the premiere. "I am more for big feelings than a lot of action. I did not say I wanted something sad or violent. It just happened by itself."

Saariaho, the mother of two, said she was drawn to the subject of motherhood, still moved by the memory of another heart beating inside her. The idea of confronting motherhood and war then emerged from Maalouf's experience as a war reporter who chose fiction - and exile in Paris - when civil war erupted in his native Lebanon.

"The story is set in no fixed place at no fixed time," Maalouf, 57, said in the opera's program. "Even so, I had in mind some of the conflicts I have followed closely, notably that of former Yugoslavia. But the most important thing for me was that Adriana's aggressor was from her community, not the enemy camp."

Saariaho said she frequently discussed the story with Maalouf, but only began composing when the libretto was completed. This she did on a computer, working mainly from her imagination. As a result, she said, when she heard the score played by an orchestra for the first time, it was "very shocking."

"That moment, when I start hearing it, I stop imagining it," she said. "I begin to forget what was in my mind. I go back and look at the score and remember what I heard the orchestra play and what I first imagined. And I ask myself, 'Is this what it is supposed to be?' I have to be very critical. Did I write it as I imagined it, if this is how it is played?"

Still, Saariaho is evidently assured by working with longtime friends, not only Maalouf and Sellars, but also Esa- Pekka Salonen, a fellow Finn, who is conducting the Paris Opera orchestra for the five performances of "Adriana Mater," through April 18. "If the artists come together, the result is so much more than music," she said.

With George Tsypin's translucent décor suggesting a Balkan or Middle Eastern village, Sellars's fluent direction helps the four characters of the opera, divided into seven tableaus, to occupy the Bastille's large stage. The opera's ending tableau turns from despair to hope. Adriana's son, Yonas, cannot bring himself to kill his father, the rapist Tsargo, now old and blind. Feeling he has betrayed his mother, Yonas begs her forgiveness. But now, Adriana is sure that her blood flows through the veins of Yonas.

"This man deserved to die, my son, but you did not deserve to kill," she says. And taking her son in her arms, she concludes: "We are not avenged, Yonas, but we are saved."

Sellars, clearly moved by the opera, described it as "a classic."

"In the 21st century," he said in an interview, "we have a responsibility to do more than sit around and tell sad stories. Here we see there will be a future. And that future has been guaranteed all over the world by women, women who in impossible situations nourish and cultivate human dignity."

With the score mixed, I toss the dice. (A man with a credit card can be dangerous.) I've just booked tickets for me and my Inessa for €50 each. The minimum was just €40 around a week ago, before the premiere, but they've gone up; a good sign, if anything. Even though for the same price you could see two operas for two people here in Moscow, they've different standards for opera there. I remember in 2002, when I saw Madama Butterfly at the Teatro Real in Madrid, I had to pay €18 - an astronomical sum for a student, especially one who was looking forward to pay just €2.

I hope Riding -and not Carlin- is right.

Soit le substantif soit le verbe

Depuis mes années universitaires je me demandais comment le mot "baiser" a-t-il acquis l'autre signification. Bien sûr n'importe qui peut deviner que baiser aurait dû commencé sa carrière en tant qu'euphémisme qui a subi un processus de transmogrification extrème.

Camille Laurens le mets au clair dans son rubrique Le grain des mots, qui est parue dans l'édition de l'Humanité du 15 novembre 2001.

Non, non, n’y comptez pas : je ne vous dirai pas d’entrée de jeu ce que j’entends par là - s’il s’agit du substantif ou du verbe. Mais après rapide sondage autour de moi ("le mot baiser, qu’est-ce que ça t’évoque, là, tout de suite, sans réfléchir ?"), il semblerait qu’en ce début de siècle on le comprenne plus souvent dans le sens de Virginie Despentes - Baise-moi - que dans celui des troubadours - "d’un baiser ma douce et noble dame s’est emparée de mon cour". Enfin bref, inutile de biaiser davantage : j’adore ce mot dans les deux sens, dont on n’a aucun mal à saisir presque charnellement la proximité, la complicité ; il est une carte de Tendre à lui tout seul, des "premiers soins" aux "dernières bornes de l’amitié", de la Rivière d’Inclination à la Mer Dangereuse dans laquelle elle se jette avec la même logique qu’un nom dérivant vers un verbe. Selon le Grand Robert, "baiser, employé absolument, n’est plus d’usage décent comme il l’était à l’époque classique". Il est alors remplacé par embrasser. On peut cependant imaginer que l’autre sens a toujours affleuré ; ainsi chez Molière, quand Diafoirus fils s’enquiert des règles du savoir-vivre : "Baiserai-je, mon père, on ne baiserai-je point ?", le parterre devait se tordre. Louise Labé, quant à elle, en chante l’érotisme incendiaire, qui brûle à la rime : "Baise m’encor, rebaise moi et baise/ Donne m’en un de tes plus savoureux/ Donne m’en un de tes plus amoureux :/ Je t’en rendrai quatre plus chauds que braise." Là où la bise n’est qu’un petit courant d’air froid, le baiser, donc, est de feu, même s’il s’accorde aussi avec " aise " et " apaise ". La Belle Cordière en fait le geste souverain de l’amour, celui qui permet véritablement à chacun de baisser la garde et d’entrer dans l’Autre, physiquement bien sûr, mais aussi mentalement : "Ainsi mêlant nos baisers tant heureux/ Jouissons nous l’un de l’autre à notre aise/ Lors double vie à chacun en suivra/ Chacun en soi et son ami vivra."

Il bacio - "rose trémière au jardin des caresses", selon Verlaine. Certes il y a le baiser de Judas (sans doute est-ce de là que vient l’idée de trahison : "je me suis fait baiser"). Mais le plus souvent, ce mot qu’on prononce en avançant les lèvres suggère l’abc de l’amour, le b a ba de la passion. On peut le voler, le donner, l’échanger : c’est toute une économie amoureuse. À la fois frêle et solide sur sa base, baume éphémère et fusion éternelle, le baiser est taillé dans le marbre de Rodin et dans le feu du Phénix. "Sonore et gracieux Baiser, divin Baiser !/ Volupté nonpareille, ivresse inénarrable!" : le poète ne cesse d’en chanter les louanges car l’homme, dit-il, "s’y grise d’un bonheur qu’il ne sait épuiser". Mille baisers, donc, c’est la grâce que je vous souhaite.

Let's (not) speak Russlish

At work today I stumbled upon an article by staffmember Andrew Taylor in Pulse St Petersburg (there used to be a Pulse Moscow as well - I remember way back in 2003 -, but it was discontinued in early 2004) that talks about the risible inclusion of Russified English words into the language of Pushkin and Tolstoy. It's amusing.

Every year hundreds of foreigners from all corners of the world come to St. Petersburg to study the language of Dostoevsky and Pushkin. More, in fact, study Russian in the northern capital than in Moscow. But for Brits, Americans and students from other Anglophonic countries, the language they hear and see in St. Petersburg increasingly resembles their native tongue.

Piratskie kompakt-diski are sold at a sharp diskont on virtually every corner. Bukmekery and other gambling eksperty help you place bets. Khippi, rokery, rastamany, kul’tovye fil’m-meikery, along with other friki and nonkomformisty, are all part of Petersburg’s kountr-kul’tura (you can add gangstery, prostituty, bandity, khuligany and other riff-raff to the list). Lovers of ekstrim-sport engage in snoubording, vindserfing and bandzhi-dzhamping. Kustomery and komsumery frequent supermarkety, gipermarkety and mul’tipleksy… Oh, the list is prakticheski endless.

Many native-English speakers, along with those who speak English as a second or third language, are pleasantly surprised by this Anglicization of the language they’ve arrived to study: The more English cognates, the fewer "real" Russian words they have to memorize. But there are some folks, such as myself, who came to Petersburg to study good Russian, not "Russlish," the barbarized language that assaults them in this city of Peter

For a little insight into the Russlish phenomenon, I offer extracts from a tipichnyi day.

Russlish: a tipichnyi day

8:00 a.m.

My day starts at the fitness-tsentr. I enter the sports-zal, where rich, sweaty housewives engage in dzogging on treadmills, and buff fellows busy themselves with bodibilding. By the way, I recently read the following statement: "Bodibilding – ne eksklyusivno dlia streit men" ("Bodybuilding is not exclusively for straight men"). Thus, in order to avoid any awkward misunderstandings, I try not to be over-friendly with the muscle-bound toughs.

Note: Although streit is relatively new to the Russian tongue, it’s antonym, gei, has been firmly entrenched in the national lexicon for many years. Draw your own conclusions

9:15 a.m.

At home, I sip coffee while listening to talk radio, where top-menedzheridebatiruyt ("debate") the effekty of off-shor kholdingi on the lokal’naya ekonomika. Interestingly, today’s top-menedzher in most any big-biznes is often referred to simply as boss.

Sometime around 11:00 a.m.

At work. A piarshik (i.e. someone involved in pablik releshens) sends me a press reliz via faks regarding the opening of a klab-khaus for baikery. The organizatory of the new klab (purposefully voweled with an “a” instead of the usual “u,” thereby further mutating orthography but phonetically bringing it closer to English) planiruyut ("plan") shou-programmy, khedlainery, frendli-atmosfera, rok-muzika from European and American khit-parady, along with open-eiry (i.e. "open-air" kontserty). Furthermore, the klab boasts a large number of memberz and several supporterz. My goodness, who pens this junk?

A bit later I overhear one dizeiner say to another: "Sokhrani vse khi-rez faily v folderakh na desk-tope" ("Save all high-resolution files in folders on the desktop"). The language of dizainery, kompyuterschiki, programmisty and other khi-tekh workers is so littered with Anglicisms that I often have no idea what they’re saying.

1:40 p.m.

Hunger strikes. I head to a restaurant advertising itself as a respektabel’nyi istebleshment. I order the biznes lanch (on weekends, this place offers branch, pronounced “brawnch”). For dessert, the waitress rekomenduet ("receommends") chiz-keik. I decline.

3:30

At the ofis, sitting at my kompyuter. A colleague asks me to translate a short article. The following sentence leaps off the page: "Inflyatsia, stagnatsia i dazhe defol’t – potentsial’nye rezul’taty disbalansa mezhdu eksportami i importami" (“Inflation, stagnation and even default are the potential results of the misbalance between exports and imports”). The rest of the article continues in this vein, and I finish the job in rekordnyi time. In short, it’s quick and easy to translate Russlish into English.

That evening

It’s been a hard day, one that I will kiss off in a feshenebel’nyi klub-bar. This place, like most alternativnye or anderground (not, heaven forbid, meinstrim) kluby in St. Petersburg, has a chillout (pronounced “cheel-ah-oot” by locals) room. That’s where I plant myself. I flip through the kokteil menu, which features skryu-draivery, zhin-toniki and even long-eiland eis ti. I order a domestic beer. The fellow next to me introduces himself. He’s in marketing. He diskutiruet (“discusses”) how to pozitsionirovat’ ("position") brendy so that the publika will receive the korrektnyi messedzh. This konversatsia causes me severe diskomfort. I finish my beer and take the first shans to exit.

It’s a bit dishonest, of course, to bemoan the Anglicization of Russian. All world languages, including English (especially English!), are amalgams that reflect the ebbs and tides of cultural exchange. Indeed, over the centuries, Russian itself gracefully has absorbed elements of the Greek, Latin, Tatar, German and French tongues. Many intelligent voices argue that Russian will do the same with English.

The difference today, however, is the sheer amount of English (along with Latin and French via English) words that have invaded the Russian lexicon in a relatively short time. It often seems that, when offered a choice, Russians will choose Anglicisms when a perfectly good Russian analog is available. This is unfortunate. Why not skidka instead of diskont? Podpol’nyi over anderground? Neudobstvodiskomfort? Hell, even delevoi obed over biznes lanch!

For the legions of foreign students studying in St. Petersburg – especially those from Anglophonic countries – this recent barbarization of Russian perhaps eases their task. But it is my hope that the language I chose to learn remains great, mighty, truthful, and free. Russlish, alas, will never be any of these.

Being bilingual from childhood, I had always been tempted to mix my two mother languages. Now if the resulting patois were to be used as a kind of insider's code, an idiolect that grants one access into a select circle of similarly fork-tongued individuals, then the accompanying humour alone would allow one to indulge in the use of such a mélange. However, when more than 80 million people do the same thing, it's no longer as funny.

My Russian is not exactly anything to write home about, but I still dream of speaking it fluently one day. If I even reach a hard-earned level of competence, I believe I too would feel as strongly about linguistic purity as the writer of this piece.

UK's lad culture on the dock

Guardian has an insightful op-ed piece today, Lad culture corrupts men as much as it debases women by Alok Jha, which explains the particularly twisted way young men view women and how this has led to a significant increase in date rapes.

The Home Office won't be able to tackle date rape until it understands the pernicious influence of the magazines men read

It's a typically British way of doing things. Too shy, lacking in confidence or plain incapable of working up the courage to talk to someone you fancy, you fall back on the standard social back-up plan: get drunk. Then perhaps a snog, and you pass out, waking up the next morning with a headache and questions of, er, should we maybe, er, go out sometime? You can always blame the booze if things get too embarrassing.But alcohol-fuelled nights don't always end with clumsy kisses and promises to call. Two-for-one deals on extra-strength cocktails and clumsy machismo can end in a messy confusion of intentions where lack of communication isn't just an endearing sideshow, but morphs into tacit permission for men to have sex with women, no matter how drunk.
"If you don't get a yes, you don't have sex" - the new Home Office campaign warning young men about the consequences of date rape is a no-holds-barred assault on such behaviour. Young men might see the advertising as yet another finger pointed at them by a society that already characterises them as hooligans responsible for the drunken skirmishes outside pubs every closing time. Now their list of shameful behaviours has grown: all young men are potentially guilty of rape until proven innocent the (hungover) morning after. Even murderers aren't treated like that.

So what positive impact can the Home Office hope to achieve? The problem is that the adverts, for all their finger-pointing, do not go far enough. Start with the images. To a bunch of advertising executives, the image of a woman's crotch wearing skimpy underwear with a coy no-entry symbol must have seemed inspired in its simplicity. To a bunch of drunk and horny men, it's just a woman in pants, as likely to excite as to force them to thoughtfully consider their actions. And there is something more systematic to consider: many men have been brainwashed by lad culture and its promises of easy sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Shaking them out of this will take more than a mildly titillating government advert.

Take any young man fresh from school, and I'll show you someone racked with confusion about how to behave around women: someone old enough to have wildly insistent sexual urges, but too young to have developed the emotional sense to know how best to deal with them; old enough to have heard of feminism, but too inexperienced to know whether this means that holding doors open and basic chivalry are no longer required.

No wonder men in their late teens and early 20s lap up magazines such as Loaded, Maxim and FHM, the publications that heralded lad culture and continue to fuel it alongside their more recent counterparts, Nuts and Zoo. They exist ostensibly to give young men a voice, reflect their passions and, crucially, tell them how to attract women.

But what lad culture has actually done over the past decade is to distance young men from real life by forcing them into an alluring straitjacket. It tells young men they can get all the girls they want - down some of this drink, spray on some of that deodorant, and watch the girls fall at your feet.

These magazines explain in detail how to work out what women think. Fingers, elbows, shoes and anything else pointy pointing at you? She likes you. She plays with her hair? Even better. She comes home with you? Result. She says no? She's playing hard to get. She says no again? She doesn't want to come across too easy. She says no a third time? What are you, a man or not ... take control of the situation, she'll love that.

Add to this prescription peer pressure, rampaging hormones and a bottle or three of alcohol, and the promises of lad culture can easily overwhelm the semi-formed nougat that is the brain of the early-20s male.

These magazines claim to give young men the confidence they need: an insight into the skills they require to navigate a path through their romantic lives and an understanding of the qualities that women find attractive. Instead, impressionable young men have been sold a distorted image of who women are and what masculinity is about - an image that does nothing but frustrate, degrade and humiliate them.

For all the faults in its execution, the Home Office campaign does mark an interesting departure. While it is principally about protecting women, the principles behind it could help young men find a way out of a culture that requires an unchecked reliance on alcohol and machismo to have a good time. Someone needs to shout as loud as the proponents of lad culture: drink, go out, have a laugh, but, through it all, don't feel you have to bow down to the rules and ideals set down by magazines that want nothing from you but your money and dignity. Never before has there been any consistent public message that the have-it-all and take-it-all ideas behind lad culture need to be tempered with common sense and decency.

If the campaign encourages young men to acknowledge some of the more shocking consequences of lad culture - to recognise that they are being sold down the river by the magazines they aspire to - and if it makes a few young men stop to think when they're alone with a woman who's passed out drunk in front of them, then it will have been worth it.

Which reminds me, I think I better go back to doing my thesis.

Real memories for keeps

I've just edited a piece written by Vika in the aftermath of our cozy evening at Café du Théâtre right next to Helikon Opera on Bolshaya Nikitskaya last Thursday. The concept and the execution of the article were brilliant, its tone infectious - much like the director of the cafe itself. Vika said she will try to restore her original voice - I don't know why she feels the need to do so.

Anyway, here was my corrected version just in case it's the only time it ever sees print.

The inside seems even smaller than it looked from the outside just before you convinced yourself to come in. With your love for cavernous pre-Revolutionary interiors there's every danger this oh-so-cozy intimacy might bore you. Yet a quaint feeling of instantly belonging here envelops you the moment the smell of freshly baked bread arrayed next to the door hits you – even before you remove your coat. And then the enchantment begins.

"Oh Champs d'Elysée," squeaks the accordion and your soul echoes this famous melody from your memories of childhood. It can't be déjà vu? You've never been to Paris yet oddly your mind draws that picture-perfect snug-as-a-bug French café along Champs d'Elysée and yourself sitting comfortably in a wicker chair sipping café au lait. A waiter then pops out with a menu, interrupting your flight of fancy by rooting you in down-to-earth expectations of nourishment. The café's range is limited, you think to yourself. Then again, what else would a theatergoer ask for before going off to that play or dropping in after a show? Certainly not a heavy meal, what with all the endless fuss over dieting. Thus the light fare on offer may just be enough to put you in a festive mood or refresh your inner male late in the evening. If you're really hungry and have come for a full dinner, you'll find some things to choose from like meat or fish dishes plus some unbelievably good soup. They're not only a treat for the stomach but also a feast for the eyes. The plate looks fantastic and all of a sudden you start to feel exquisitely French, only it's not paté du fois gras or coq au vin that has mesmerized you but a huge chunk of salmon instead. You dare not ruin the illusion – your friends startle you before your hands even grasp a fork and knife. The prices are somewhat moderate and are worth the size of the dishes. For all these paeans the café's raison d'être lies not even in the cuisine.

Surely there is not a single foreigner in Moscow who has not been to or at least heard of Café Margarita in Patriarch Ponds. It has a certain renown among expatriates that matches the notoriety of Hungry Duck or Boar House. Café du Theatre belongs to the same genre as Margarita. The proprietors may not have wished to give explicit homage, but their live musical performances inescapably remind one of Margarita. The difference, however, which could allow Theatre to carve out its own niche, is that the guitarists and the pianist can and do sing to the accompaniment of the accordionist. Songs in Russian, Georgian, French, and Italian were sung during the evening as were French and Russian chansons, western songs popular in the USSR in the 1970-80s, Russian folk songs and anything else the diners requested. Good food, live music, and a chorus of multi-accented voices rose to the occasion. For those too shy to sing, tambourines, salt shakers and various percussion sets were provided to all the tables, allowing everyone to join in the performance in a very familial setting. The café interior, accented by crayon etchings of Parisian street scenes, is more European than Margarita's, which looks more like a Soviet-era book-crammed flat for the intelligentsia. All the same Café du Theatre is really a place by and for Bohemians – in the way Russians understand it at least – with Helikon Opera and Conservatory regulars stopping by to enjoy the dimly lit, vanilla-colored space served by extremely polite waiters and incredibly engaging host, Igor the Art Director.

As for service, the waiters are still a bit forgetful, seemingly carried away by the music and atmosphere. In some sense they reinforce the café's Bohemian concept of living in a cocoon in absent-minded wonder. While a reminder or two sometimes becomes necessary, it's certainly preferable and less annoying than Moscow's infamous hovering wait staff, probably because of the sincerity, innocence and docility accompanying the apologies. It makes you feel as if you are dining at a friend's home instead of being waited on in a downtown restaurant. How can you possibly get annoyed with your friend's family? This coziness makes you lose all sense of hurry: the tea lights continue to burn, the music plays on, the merry voices keep to the refrain, and your friends sit still by your side. All is well.

Truffaut titled one of his films Shoot the Piano Player. At Theatre, we would advise against it. That would mean going after the life of the party. Igor the Art Director is not only a good pianist with a good voice. This Jack Black look-alike can also pass for Vrubel's Demon and Carlson from a Russian cartoon. With dark long hair, magnetic eyes, youthful gait and an almost maniacal energy he appears and disappears in different parts of the café very unexpectedly. He might be Mozart's Figaro to some, the Tasmanian devil to others. He is all that and more. One moment he is ordering some treats for the musicians or welcoming a new guest, the next he is dancing, playing the piano and singing heartily to vigorous applause. With infectious aplomb and enthusiasm, he does everything to give his guests an unforgettable time while evidently having a good one himself.

If this has made you in the least bit curious, do go and check Café du Theatre out. With its 10 or so tables don't be surprised if you have to wait to be seated. Concerts are performed regularly but not nightly so calling in to ask the staff advance is advised: 290 01 47. Igor the Art Director will also helpful: 941 64 06.

The address is Bolshaya Nikitskaya, 19.

Post Scriptum: In the end Vika decided to run it as is with the editor of one of the magazines here. It's really her work, despite her demurrals. She was saying how my rewrite had put in too many French words. I guess that's the idea - but no more than what non-French speaking Anglophones normally use anyway.

Staline et la nostalgie

C'est formidable, la manière avec laquelle les Français peuvent transformer un article dit culturel en l'autre complètement politique avec un accent social: il n'y a que lire l'edito suivant par Jean-François Guelain entitulé C’était le bon temps! au Courrier de Russie sur l'année Chostakovitch et les sentiments indulgents vers Staline.

L’année 2006 coïncide avec le centenaire de la naissance du compositeur russe Dimitri Chostakovitch. C’est donc tout naturellement que 2006 a été décrétée « année Chostakovitch » en Russie.

Patriote, il composa sa septième symphonie en l’honneur de sa ville natale résistant à un blocus de 1000 jours par les troupes de la Wehrmacht. Pourtant, c’est pour une œuvre moins connue et sans contenu patriotique affiché, le Quintet avec piano, qu’il avait obtenu en 1940 le prix Staline. En 1948, la censure du ministre de la Culture, Jdanov s’abat sur lui comme sur son contemporain Prokofiev et tous deux sont accusés de « formalisme », une bien vilaine chose, dont on s’étonne pourtant qu’elle ait irrité quelqu’un comme Jdanov. Cinq ans plus tard Prokofiev meurt un 5 mars, le même jour que Iossif Vissarionovitch Djougachvili, le séminariste géorgien devenu le sanglant Staline. Pendant la période brejnévienne, pour évoquer l’époque postérieure à la mort de Staline, on disait souvent « après la mort de Prokofiev ». Aujourd’hui la société civile se divise surtout autour du décès du dictateur. Notez que Staline est mort en 1953, soit il y a exactement 53 ans et que les instituts de sondages ont profité de l’occasion pour interroger la population sur l’image qu’elle gardait du dictateur auquel on attribue au moins 11 millions de victimes. Pourtant, selon les études d’opinion réalisées ces derniers jours, l’image de Staline, après avoir été perçue négativement en Russie dans les années 90, est aujourd’hui considérée comme globalement positive. Plus inquiétant : même si les adorateurs du dictateur à moustache en croc se recrutent principalement parmi les générations les plus âgées, ils sont de plus en plus nombreux chez les jeunes. Parmi la population des 18-35 ans, 39% pensent qu’il a joué un rôle positif, alors que seulement 30% des répondants pensent le contraire. En général, il est porté au crédit de Staline d’avoir fait de l’Union soviétique une superpuissance « crainte et respectée ». Cela signifierait donc que la Russie d’aujourd’hui ne l’est pas et que la population vit dans cette nostalgie. Cela veut également dire que, à deux ans des prochaines échéances électorales, tout programme démagogique promettant le rétablissement de la puissance impériale a toutes les chances de trouver un écho favorable auprès d’une majorité d’électeurs. Dans ce contexte, les projets délirants de Boris Berezovski sont particulièrement dérisoires.

Turin goes crazy for Russia

For all its foibles I've always been partial to Russia and Russians even before coming here. It's not simply because I had been somewhat socialist in orientation and dreamt of coming to the Soviet Union to study. There was always something about the country, its culture and its people that appealed to me.

For that reason, I am glad to see this article by Juliet Macur appear in 22 February 2006 edition of The New York Times about the craze now sweeping the Winter Olympic Games now on its last stretch in Turin. Even though the Russian team sponsor Bosco di Ciliegi and its in-your-face marketing tactics smacks of New Russian capitalism I do fancy the paisley-patterned sportswear peddled by this upscale clothing company. (There was an uproar when gold-winning speedskater for the 500m race, Svetlana Zhurova (photo below), was forced by this influential sponsor to attend the post-game party at the Russia House even though she needed rest. She lost the race for 1,500m the next day.) I reproduce the article here in its entirety.

On Podiums and in Parties, Russia Is Red-Hot

Outside the Russia House, headquarters for the Russian delegation in Turin, a horde of people gathered at the entryway, looking frozen and distraught.

"Please, I am Russian," one woman in heavy mascara and skintight jeans pleaded to a security guard late Tuesday night.

But the guard, in his red Russian team jacket, did not budge. The red rope keeping the woman from the hottest party spot at the Turin Games did not fall away.

"Sorry, but everybody says they are Russian," the security guard said before looking the other way.

For decades, Russian and Soviet Union athletes represented a cold, intimidating delegation at the Olympics. But in Turin, there has been a turnabout.

Here, it is hip to be Russian.

The Russians' red-and-white uniforms and gear, with their distinctive paisley-like design that mimics a pattern on Russian coins, are big sellers, to Russians and non-Russians alike. The Russian spectators at the Olympic sites are wildly enthusiastic, with Russian flags waving and chants of "Russia! Russia!" echoing through the crowd, including Wednesday when the Russian hockey team upset the Canadians.

And the parties held at the place they call Russky Dom, for Russia House, are filled with Russian dignitaries, movie stars, directors and pop stars. The athletes come to party, too, including those who have won some of Russia's 16 medals in Turin. (That is sixth on the medals' list.)

"We have the best parties because we made Russia House look like our motherland," said Olga Yudkis, a spokeswoman for the Russian luxury clothing company Bosco di Ciliegi, which sponsors Russia House.

At those parties, which happen nightly, a Russian polka/rock band plays. Borscht is served from huge vats sitting on an outdoor fire. At several bars, vodka drinks are served, some with syrupy black currant juice, others with orange rinds that bartenders set afire before dropping them into a martini glass.

For years, the Russian and Soviet teams were considered the evil empire of the Olympics. Their athletes seemed mass-produced by the Soviet machine. They performed like robots. Their presence loomed.

Now they have turned into a fun-loving group that is a great host.

"The Soviet Union used to be a great, powerful country and I think that made people think we were all bad and intimidating," said Yekaterina Galkina, who is on the Russian curling team, which gave a demonstration at the Russia House. "But now we are kind and warm. Not scary, like people maybe thought before. Now you see we are fun and friendly."

It's just as the American figure skater Johnny Weir preached from the moment these Olympics began: no one is cooler than the Russians.

Weir, who finished fifth last week in the men's figure skating competition, showed up at the Russia House after midnight Tuesday, for his second consecutive night of partying with his favorite comrades.

This time, he wore a beaver-and-python jacket and True Religion jeans, blending in with the other men and women in fur and designer duds. In minutes, he had a leggy Russian woman in stilettos on each of his arms. The trio giggled as they skipped past the hors d'oeuvres.

"These are friends of the lawyer of the richest man in Moscow," Weir said in passing, as the women tossed their long hair. "These Russians know how to have a good time."

The women interrupt him: "C'mon, Johnny," one brunette said, in a heavy Russian accent. "We want to dance."

"Dve minuti!" he yelled out in Russian, telling them to wait two minutes before running off.

At the parties, the Russians celebrate their Olympic victories, particularly in figure skating, where they have won gold medals in three of the four disciplines so far, with the women's final to come Thursday night. After winning the gold medal in the men's event, Yevgeny Plushenko zipped straight to Russia House, where he stayed well into the night.

On Tuesday night, Tatyana Navka, part of the gold-medal-winning ice dancing team, toasted with fans and friends, clinking her glass and saying, "Na zdorovie!" (To your health!)

In the women's event, Irina Slutskaya was in second after Tuesday's short program, but many Russians think the judges will purposely avoid giving her the gold because they do not want a Russian sweep.

No matter if Slutskaya wins or not, the Russians still have been successful here, in the competition and in business.


Some of their Olympic team gear, designed by Bosco, is on the verge of selling out, even with high prices. Sweatshirts with the word Russia written in Cyrillic are 149 euros ($177). Sweatpants, with Russia spelled out in gigantic letters across the backside, are 229 euros ($273).

A crew from a Swiss television station came to Russia House this week and asked Yudkis, the Bosco spokeswoman, why the gear has been so ubiquitous.

"They said, 'Do you know there is Boscomania in Turin?' " she said. " 'Why is half of Turin wearing your clothes?' I said, 'I don't know, but the sales have picked up as each day has gone by.' "

Bosco's biggest seller is the Russian Olympic team's mascot, Cheburashka, a fuzzy white animal with huge round ears and saucer-sized eyes. The character of Cheburashka comes from a children's tale that follows the adventures of a strange animal from Africa, who accidentally got packed in a crate of oranges sent to Russia, then made great efforts to make new friends.

Athletes have tiny Cheburashkas attached to key chains hanging from their backpacks. Fans fling stuffed Cheburashkas onto the ice after the Russian figure skaters perform, making their presence known at nearly every Olympic event.

"In the past, Russians hardly had money for food or for their apartments, but now they have more money to travel and come to the Olympics," said Konstantin Zadvornov, president of the Russian curling federation. "Now we can cheer on our Russian sportsmen, which we could never do before."

And they can come to the Olympics and go to parties every night if they want to. If they are lucky enough, they can come to Russia House and feel at home.

They can skate on the ice rink atop one of the buildings. Or sip a cosmopolitan while sitting in a chaise lounge on one of the patios.

Or they can just mingle.

"Isn't it obvious why this is so much more fun than U.S.A. House?" Weir said, as one of those brunettes grabbed his hand.

I guess Weir stated not only what's true in Turin but what people are starting to think the world over.

French and Danish

What's the difference between the French and the Danish?

Or for that matter, between the United States and Iran?

Not much, as far as using food as targets of protest is concerned. In what is certain to be pounced on in the blogosphere, Iran has followed in the footsteps of the "Great Satan" -the US- in banning the name of a food item following controversy.

According to the Doha-based cable network Al-Jazeera, bakeries all over Tehran covered up labels for Danish pastries after the Iranian Commerce Ministry called for the name change in retaliation for inflammatory cartoons of Islam's revered prophet first published in a Danish newspaper.

From now on they are called the Rose of the Prophet Mohammad. Or "gul-e-muhammadi" in Farsi for linguistic purists among you. The report also says one popular bakery, Danish Pastries, concealed the shop name with a black banner that read "Oh Hussein", a reference to a martyred saint of Shia Islam. Iranians use black banners for mourning.

Iranians adore sweets of all kinds, often bringing candies and pastries with them when visiting friends as guests in dinners or parties. Despite the name, the flaky pastries with fruits or nuts tucked in its layers are all domestically produced. It would be too expensive to buy imports, even if they were available. (Denmark, to add to its woes, is smarting from a consumer boycott of its products from Havarti cheese to Lego in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Muslim countries.)

This pettiness recalls a similar protest by a prominent member of Iran's diametric ideological opposite, the United States. Walter Jones, the republican congressman from North Carolina, forced Capitol Hill cafeterias to scuttle the French from fries, preferring them to be called freedom fries in protest of France's opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq. Calling them chips would've simplified matters.

(As a footnote, the Guardian reports that Jones both regrets having made the suggestion as well as supporting the invasion.)

What is ironic is that Danes don't even call the pastries in the same way. In most Scandanavian countries doughy treat is called wienerbrød/wienerbröd. Despite the Viennese claim, it wasn't really invented in the Austrian capital. (The English ought to know what it means to be victims of a misnamed food item. It won't stop me from eating muffins, though.)

The Danish was first created in the 17th century by a French apprentice baker who, forgetting to add butter to the flour, tried to hide his mistake by folding lumps of it into the dough. Thus was created the mille feuilles (thousand leaves) - which Russians call napoleon, presumably after la Grande Armée brought it with them in the sweep from Austerlitz to Moscow.

From France, the pastry made a jump to Italy - where it is known as "folded pastry" - before being copied in Austria. Austrian bakers started exporting the pastry to Denmark, when a labour strike by Danish bakers prompted replacements from Vienna. From there, according to the Danish bakers' union, it was was only a matter of time before Danish immigrants took the pastry with them and introduced it to the rest of the world.

Some customers at least had the sense of humour to ask for the pastries with a laugh or even with irony. (The same approach was taken by Woody Allen in an appearance in a 2003 promotional video to lure American tourists back to France. "I don't want to have to refer to my French-fried potatoes as freedom fries and I don't want to have to freedom-kiss my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her," Allen said in the short film produced by the French government.)

What was decidedly not funny was the offer by a Pakistani Muslim cleric of a US$1 million reward for anyone who killed Danish cartoonists who drew the offending cartoons.

The cartoons, first published in Denmark in September last year then reprinted by other European papers over the past month as a support for freedom of expression, have sparked sometimes violent protests in Iran as well as demonstrations across the Islamic world, where they were seen as an insult to the prophet.

Live to eat another day

Deciding to have our Valentine's Day celebration early, we agreed to take off one of the restaurants in our long wish list by trying out their dinner menu tonight. The honour went to Uley, a gourmet fusion cuisine restaurant located at Gasheka Ul. 7, which is a right turn down 2nd Brestkaya Ul. facing Peking Hotel on the Garden Ring Road near Mayakovskaya.

After spending a small fortune eating at poorly chosen restaurants (the Soviet-style Artissimo in front of the Tretyakov Gallery was a severe example) in recent days, we agreed to reserve special occasions for eating out and go to pricier and more upscale establishments instead.

Seeing that both of us might be busy on V-Day on Tuesday, we pushed up our romantic dinner date to tonight. Too bad I spent only the evening with my ducky.

After spending most of the day downloading free music on Limewire, I finally made a move to go out at 2 pm to respond to a request from my boss to show up at work for some documents that needed sending back to capital.

An hour into work, I got a phone call from Anna, a friend and former flame from Saratov. It was her first time in Moscow since August 2004 and my first meeting with her since September of the same year. I should've been excited but there was something unreal about our meeting up again that I can't put a finger on. Anyway, we met up for an hour at the Lafé café in the Atrium at around 4:40 pm.

My Dear seemed unusually occupied at the library and then at home, so I took a quick nap back at the flat, only getting to at 7:20. Strange, I thought, how Inessa had yet to ring me up and it was getting on quite a bit. Finally we agreed to meet at Ulitsa 1905 Goda Station and from there proceed to Uley, which she chose over Galereya Café.

The resto boasted of white tablecloths and candles. Fine dining, it all but screamed. We were seated at the far corner, away from the bar or the divans. Out of an interesting but otherwise limited menu, we chose to have as soup and main course the following: French onion soup for her, Ceasar's Salad soup for him; Fois gras for her, lamb chops for him. The soups were extraordinary in their ordinariness. With the service not having been the most prompt and the bread being cold and dry, we stared at not very promising prospects for dinner. Fortunately the main dish and the afters we ordered more than picked up the slack. The final damage: 4,700 rubles. In other words, the most expensive dinner I've had to pay for myself.

The best part of the evening, however, wasn't the food: it was the special surprise my Honey had for me (and the reason she was slightly late at our meeting place), a weekend wristwatch! Yes, my mavourneen bought me a nice casual timepiece from the Swatch shop at GUM (where we last looked at wristwatches). Now I don't have to look like a real anorak wearing the same watch 24/7.

I wouldn't recommend a second time to Uley, but still it was interesting to go there at least once. As I told Inessa, the mystery of Uley has been solved.

Gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte

I just discovered today after reading an Associated Press article what measurement unit follows the now commonplace computer term gigabyte, which is defined as a staggering billion bytes.

The article spoke about a booming business for "electronic discovery" centres like Kroll Ontrack that keeps permanent digital files and other scraps of corporate intelligence that may be valuable in litigating lawsuits. These are not just Internet sites, mind, but also records kept in hard drives - "wedged between everything from personal e-mails to pornography", tech writer Brian Bergstein said.

The need to keep all the files in a database has ballooned the size of Kroll Ontrack's data-crunching centre in less than 18 months, from a half-petabyte of storage to two petabytes.

Wha? What's a petabyte? The Free Dictionary says: "A unit of computer memory or data storage capacity equal to 1,024 terabytes."

That's nice. Sounds like a jillion e-mails or Jpeg files. But how much more will that carry than, say, my soon-to-be-beefed-up 100Gb-capacity PowerBook G4?

And -first things first- what's a terabyte anyway? I had never heard of that before, although the past week had me asking coincidentally about the beyond of the beyond. It's a unit of information equal to a trillion (1,099,511,627,776) bytes or 1024 gigabytes. That's a lot.

So a petabyte -as if repeating it actually makes it easier for the mind to grasp- is 2 million gigabytes or one quadrillion bytes.

Consider that the Internet Archive, which aims to store almost every public Web page ever to appear, currently totals one petabyte. Or in familiar terms, 20,000 PowerBook G4 notebook computers valued at around US$2,000 each. (Okay, with the new Intel Core Duo Macs, which potentially have its hard drive capacity boosted from 10Gb to a theoretical 1 terabyte, maybe just a thousand of those. Still, it boggles the mind.) We are definitely moving on to bigger things.

Paging K-PAX and John Nash.

Comienza el Año del Perro

Mi compañero Jerome que esta destinado en Roma me envió un artículo desde la agencia de noticias española EFE, donde trabaja su ex-novia, Maribel. El artículo, entitulado "Comienza el Año del Perro con previstos conflictos y desastres" y escrito por Francisco Luis Pérez, da pronósticos de luchas, dificultades y conflictos para el Año Nuevo del Perro de Fuego que comienza domingo.

Según adivinos taiwaneses que siguen una milenaria tradición china de adivinación observando el antiquísimo calendario agrícola lunar, "las relaciones entre familiares, parejas y amigos serán puestas a prueba en el año nuevo, por lo que un adivino taiwanés recomienda un cuidado especial de todas las relaciones afectivas para evitar dolorosas rupturas."

"La dirección este y oeste son beneficiosas, la del norte no es positiva y la del sur tiene poco beneficio", afirma Wang Li-neng desde el famoso templo de Longshang, uno de los más antiguos de Taiwán y que se encuentra atestado de fieles que buscan respuestas para sus inquietudes y planes.

Los países del sur tendrán conflictos con los del norte. No es un buen año para las naciones de Latinoamérica, Africa, Oceanía y el Sudeste Asiático, pero las fuerzas negativas se pueden contrarrestar con un renovado esfuerzo, pronostica Wang, que destaca que el Año del Perro exige justicia y perseverancia.

"Los países deben buscar lazos al este y al oeste, por eso las relaciones entre Taiwán y China, entre Europa y Estados Unidos, y entre EEUU y Japón pueden mejorar e impulsar la economía mundial", anuncia Wang.

Los demagogos políticos tendrán un mal año y se enfrentarán a resistencias y violencias porque en este período que empieza es necesario andar con esfuerzos y consistencia y no con palabrerías, apunta el adivino.

Las tensiones sociales pueden recrudecerse también los cambios políticos y la llegada de líderes jóvenes al poder, pero los cambios tenderán a ser positivos para la mayoría, según las fuerzas que operan este año.

No son noticias muy buenas para todos nosotros que buscan lazos mas fuertes entre el este y oeste. Si los pronósticos se realizan entonces un año de mala leche para nuestro país será seguida con otro egalmente malo.

Tampoco será un año muy bueno para los EEUU porque el artículo dice que "estará marcado por conflictos violentos creados por los hombres, por lo que se impone una diplomacia pero basada en la imparcialidad y la justicia, y no en imposiciones o engaños."

Menos mal que la amenaza de epidemias y enfermedades no aparece este año, pero no hay ninguna seguridad que el tipo de peligro natural como el tsunami en Asia, huracanes en América Central y del Norte, el terremoto en Pakistán y la India y hombruna en Niger que marcaron 2005 como el año de desastres naturales no aparecierán en 2006.

Así se acabó para mi el Año del Gallo en que cumplí los 36 y encontré el amor despues de perder el otro. ¿Que dicen adivinos taiwaneses sobre las perspectivas personales?

En el plano personal, la influencia del perro tiene aspectos positivos y negativos, y en este año exigente los esfuerzos aislados no darán fruto y no podrán evitarse los conflictos, sobre todo en las relaciones interpersonales.

Será un año duro, sin lugar para las falsedades y los preciosismos, un periodo para retornar a las raíces, a los principios.

Los nacidos bajo los signos del Dragón (1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000), Gallo (1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005), Oveja (1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003) y Perro (1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006) afrontarán fuerzas negativas.

A los dragones les esperan cambios de trabajo o residencia y no deben iniciar empresas nuevas; las ovejas experimentarán cambios drásticos, tensiones familiares y amorosas, además de dificultades para ganar dinero.

Los gallos lo tienen todo en contra, habrá dinero y será un buen año para los negocios y la salud.

Los signos con más suerte en el Año del Perro son la Liebre (1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999), el Caballo (1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002) y el Tigre (1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998).

La Liebre ha pasado un mal año y ahora tendrá un respiro, aunque le esperan cambios drásticos, más gastos que ganancias y tensiones laborales y familiares.

El Caballo se enfrentará a contradicciones, pero hay perspectivas de triunfos profesionales y separaciones cortas.

El Tigre tendrá la protección de personas influyentes, el peligro de agotamiento y enfermedades, y la posibilidad de lograr sus deseos con esfuerzo.

La Serpiente (1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001) dispondrá de oportunidades y negocios, prosperidad económica y viajes, mientras el Mono (1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004) tendrá un año difícil, con muchos imprevistos y peligro de rupturas amorosas.

Inessa nació bajo el signo del Jabalí y según los pronósticos ella va a enfrentar retos profesionales este año. No dice nada sobre el plan sentimental.

Al Jabalí (1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007) le espera mucho trabajo y responsabilidad, con peligro de dispersión e imprevistos, que podrán superarse con esfuerzo.

El Ratón (1936, 1948, 1960, 1972,1984, 1996) tendrá problemas en sus asuntos personales y deberá actuar con gran prudencia, mientras el Buey (1937, 1949, 1961, 1973,1985, 1997) enfrentará desafíos grandes, pero con paciencia verá disminuir sus dificultades.

En el sistema del calendario Chino, el par de animales y elementos que representan al año, sigue un ciclo de 60 años, por lo que el último Año del Perro de Fuego fue en 1946.

Ese año se produjeron tensiones y cambios decisivos a nivel mundial, tales como la creación de la ONU, la independencia de Filipinas de Estados Unidos, la proclamación de la república en Italia, el inicio de la Cuarta República en Francia y la condena de los criminales de guerra en el juicio de Nuremberg.

¿Habrá alguna posibilidad que esas prediciónes no pasarán? Bueno, el mismo Wang declara que "El horóscopo chino no predice hechos, sólo nos desvela las tendencias y fuerzas que operan, pero el esfuerzo humano y la habilidad para manejar el destino es tarea personal y social".

Tennis Fashions

Like in the music and movie business, the sports world also has its phenomena - overnight or otherwise. No where is this truer than perhaps in telegenic sports.

Out of nowhere the ongoing Australian Open has provided tennis -which has had its biggest and most popular attractions come from the women's side- a new darling in the men's circuit. About time, I say. Unlike the beauty and bluster provided by Sharapova, the Williams sisters and the comebacking Martina Hingis, men's tennis has had less of a popular following recently. Among its biggest heroes, for every emotional or flamboyant player like McEnroe or Agassi, there are dry and mechanical champions like Lendl, Courrier and Sampras.

Unlike the buttoned down Wimbledon or the American-dominated US Open, the French -and to a lesser extent- the Australian Opens provide more opportunities for the minting of new heroes. The more flawed they are, the more interesting. In the past we've had Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Gustavo Kuerten and Gaston Gaudio. Last year I followed Kazan-born, Spanish-trained Marat Safin overcome the annoying Lleyton Hewitt claw back from near-collapse to claim the so-called Grand Slam of the Asia-Pacific. This year I've not really kept to date with the progression of the rounds (and perhaps never really had a wont to, until the semi-finals or finals) since Marat the Mercurial (and infinitely interesting than perennial winner Roger Federer) bowed out in the early rounds in this seventh edition he's played in. Of course there are other good players in the draw, but after this result I just gave the Open up to the relentless and methodical Federer.

What few people likely counted on was that even though we all knew the eventual destination the journey could still be fun. This was provided thankful journalists and crowds by Cypriot sensation Marcos Baghdatis, who has disposed of an impressive series of seeds on the way to the final, which will take place on Sunday against (of course) Federer. He mowed down until today Andy Roddick and Ivan Ljubicic, seeded second and seventh respectively.

Today, apart from the impressive stats, he provided drama in his semifinal match against the dangerous Argentine, David Nalbandian. Just like last year's drama between Safin and Hewitt, the duel between the two played out for an extended period and was even interrupted by a sudden downpour. Nalbandian is not a jerk like Hewitt but there was no denying the Cypriot Mr Popularity. His winsome smile and easygoing attitude won him more fans with each passing game as his determination and volleys. Also, having a girlfriend like Camille Nevier dutifully watching adoringly from the stands also helps in a big way.

I hope he'll stick around longer than Claudio did.

Happy Together

We just saw on DVD Wong Kar-Wai's Cheun gwong tsa sit (Happy Together, 1997), a film shot partly in B&W that explores the growing alienation two homosexual men from Hong Kong experience in antipodean Buenos Aires.

Although it won WKW the Best Director prize -the first for a Chinese director- at the Cannes Film Festival, the initial personal impression I got wasn't too overwhelming. Inessa actually liked it; I found it a bit more of a muddle (and this is already taking into consideration Wong's penchant for non-linear storytelling).

Without doubt, one can already see the development of the director's knack of portraying relationship conflicts that he would eventually demonstrate impeccably in later stories of heterosexual entanglements, Fa yeung nin wa (In the Mood for Love, 2000) and 2046 (2004). Of course he's handled onscreen relationships before or given free rein to his frenetic, jigsaw mise en scène with his patented UnsteadyCam. Two examples that come to mind are Chung hing sam lam (Chungking Express, 1994) and A Fei jing juen (Days of Being Wild, 1990), set in Hong Kong and Manila respectively.

In an AOL reader's review, Anthony Leong described the movie's portrayal of a "pathological relationship" as insightful precisely for its reality-based tediousness and repetitiveness. I tend to disagree, though, that the casting went out on a limb for putting "two of Hong Kong's brightest straight actors" in the role of gay lovers. Maybe Tony Leung isn't but wasn't the late great Leslie Cheung openly gay? Anyway, Yanks would no doubt call it ahead of its time since it wasn't until late last year when Taiwanese director Ang Lee was able to cast two of Hollywood's brightest straight actors (ahem), Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the Oscar-bound Brokeback Mountain.

Not wanting to do a bodge job of describing the plot of this film, allow me to just cite the eminent Mr Leong:

Lai Yiu-Fai (Leung) and Ho Po-Wing (Cheung) are a couple of ex-patriates living together in Buenos Aires. However, after an aborted trip to see the Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil, a symbol of renewal that is touched upon throughout the film, they drift apart. Lai becomes a doorman at a tango club, which pays enough for him to maintain a claustrophobic flat in a rundown building. Meanwhile, Ho sells himself out as a hustler, making a living off of a series of one-night stands. However, after finding Ho bleeding on the street, beaten up by a 'bad trick', Lai decides to take Ho back in an attempt to 'start over', and finally make the trip to Iguazu.

Maybe one of the reasons I found the film a muddle was that I couldn't be fagged to figure the more-linear-than-usual WKW plot. Can't be bothered to make heads and tails of it for a blog entry, so let me just again plagiarise the quotable Mr Leong:

HT exhibits many of the hallmarks inherent in all of Wong Kar-Wai's films. The story, rather than being plot-driven, is theme-driven, with many layers of interpretation. Every aspect of the story, whether it be characters, the occupations of the characters, or even where they stand in a room, speaks to hidden metaphors and subtext. His characters are usually divided into two camps with opposing philosophies, and this is seen in the contrast between Lai and Ho. Lai, the more reserved and responsible of the two, is haunted by the past and is blinded to opportunities in the present by the haze of nostalgia. Ho, the more petty of the pair, has a shiftless life without any 'memory' of the past, which leads to a meaningless existence and the need to define his own purpose through his relationships with others. This same juxtaposition was seen between Yuddy and the cop in "Days of Being Wild", and the Hitman and Michelle in "Fallen Angels".

One can only surmise that this bloke is a non-professional critic for the way he actually talks about the film and not around it, which most armchair-type chaps usually do, without having seen all of the film, using blatantly evasive codswallop such as comparisons to the Beat Generation. Just because the blurb said something like "gay road movie set in Argentina" doesn't necessarily mean you should dust off your Viking 1957 first edition of "On the Road" nor flex your Jack Kerouac metaphors from high school! Additionally any mention of Ginzburg or Burrough is completely unwarranted.

(Now that we're back in the business of criticising Yanks, let me just comment about the way they take such a long time to clue in into certain trends that have long dominated the world outside of America or have even gone stale elsewhere. Wong Kar-Wai is a good case in point. If rental-video-clerk-turned-emblematic-director Quentin Tarantino hadn't been into chopsocky films, who knows how long people in the States would've taken to notice the Shanghai-born filmmaker. Worse, the way everyone bandwagons it's astounding, especially how people there seem to give up on critical thinking all together. No wonder everyone went for the invasion of Iraq and are not exactly up in arms over the truly impeachable offense of federal spying. To my relief, a film critic from the ultimate benderville, San Francisco, actually questioned the basis of Wong's celebrity in a piece from November 1997. To wit, G. Allen Johnson says "It's hard to decide whether Wong Kar-Wai is great or just momentarily fashionable. His films are confidently made, to the point of being cocky, yet it's their very bravado that makes them suspicious.")

(Of course it's just like me to criticise Americans and then quote one of them. There are, of course, spot-on remarks in the Johnson review: "Wong works with an internal clock rather than a conventional one. He edits his film not to music or plot resonance, but to emotion - or lack thereof. In some ways, he's a minimalist, using glances and action to convey information. When there is dialogue or narration, he makes every word count".)

Since I've gone this much stealing from AOL proprietary material, might as well go the Full Monty and iterate the way the film's technical details measure up, circa 1997:

The images that Wong Kar-Wai and his ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle in HT are, as usual, stunning. Using the same techniques employed in "Fallen Angels", where the luminance of the image was boosted through the use of high-contrast film, Wong Kar-Wai creates a dizzying array of richly-textured shots. Those familiar with his films will see the usual indulgences-- the sped-up footage of city traffic, the arty and introspective slo-mo, the MTV-school-of-film-making, the long monologues, the shifting points-of-view, and the Godardian influences of jump-cutting and iconography (the fixation on stationary objects, such as clocks, street signs, and statues)-- all of which speak to the themes common to all Wong Kar-Wai films: the transiency of relationships, the introspective point-of-view, and the persistence of memory.

Although there were some pleasing bits in the film I glossed over the significance of the subplot involving Chang Chen (Lo Dark Cloud in Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000) I would have to agree with the AOL reviewer who says that Happy Together is "a straightforward narrative with the existential philosophy and the stylish-camera work toned-down", which essentially makes it only passable as a Wong Kar-Wai film. "The exhilaration of watching his films comes from fitting together the pieces of a 90-minute intellectual puzzle, and subsequent viewings generally revealed new interpretations and nuances", says Anthony Leong. This one, however, does not have enough of that nor even enough of the kind of eye-candy that made In the Mood for Love such pleasurable viewing.

Glacial times for josei-tachi

It seems that the real cold isn't being experienced in Japan's streets at all. According to Kaori Shoji (a prolific reporter, trendspotter, art critic and editor of about Naoko's age, known for her fast wit - a regular Dorothy Parker who can outshine Mickey Berdy any day), the real freeze that's wreaking havoc on the landscape is the refusal of Japanese men to bother with flesh-and-blood women. Unlike in Russia, where the negative birthrate is probably being rolled back by the first real optimism for the future in decades, in Japan not even the country's positive growth is enough to spark any passion between the sexes. In a 10 January 2006 article entitled "Men retreat from 'hassle' of loving relationships" in The Japan Times, Shoji writes this humourous piece:

We're told that the nation's economy is in its best shape in a decade. While this is "roho (good news)," other things are happening in this country that are not so hot. Literally.

According to sources, many eligible Japanese men are in the throes of what's become known as "Renai Ken-o Sho (Dislike of Love Relationships)" and, consequently, the number of loving couples has plummeted to probably the lowest in the last decade. Single women are complaining that the dating scene has never been so barren, and those fortunate enough to have boyfriends live in fear of the extremely high turnover rate: "Kyo no kanojyo wa ashita no moto-kano. (Today's girlfriend is tomorrow's ex-girlfriend)."

Yes, there is less relationship-security now than ever before, and it's all the result of the Japanese male's seeming reluctance to get close, get committed and become that most coveted of conditions: "jyounetsuteki (passionate)."

Out-of-love epidemic
"Korewa mohaya byokidane (this has officially become an epidemic)" says editor Michiyo on this out-of-love trend. This is her story: After three whole years of nurturing warm, friendly relations with a "doryo (colleague)," Michiyo confessed her love one morning after an all-night, "futarikiri (just-the-two-of-us) drinking stint. Instead of taking her in his arms and declaring likewise (as she had envisioned) he looked acutely embarrassed, turned away and muttered: "Sou yuno, nashini shiyoyo (Let's not go there)."

Shocked, Michiyo's professional antenna went up: This colleague had to be part of a bigger disease eating away at the hearts and minds of the nation's men. It should be noted that Michiyo is smart, attractive and sexy -- she owns eight pairs of skin-tight, pin-heel boots that, when combined with her collection of skin-tight Earl jeans, makes her look like a "wasei Kyameron (the Japanese Cameron Diaz)," the kind of look that, it might be assumed, would attract suitors.

Let's not go there? What was the guy thinking?

And this would seem to be the collective Japanese female wail. They just don't know what men are thinking, or want anymore. Before, it had been so simple. Men wanted women and that was all there was to it. It was the guy's job to deduce the workings of the female mind.

Now, the tables have turned. Men are constantly shying away and looking embarrassed while women lay bare their hearts and fling them at their reluctant, shuffling feet. "I sense a nation-wide wave of 'don-biki (a great, pulling away)' on the part of men" analyzes Michiyo. "They actually act affronted when women confess. They act like little girls, they act like 'otome (virgins)!' "

It's true. The widespread "ren'ai ken-o" goes hand in hand with the widespread otome-ization of the Japanese male. Ten years ago the media gasped when young men were discovered to shave their legs and buy skin-care products. Today the focus is on young men who see sexual relationships as something "kimoi (disgusting)" and who seem to have little interest in venting their physical desires with actual partners. They live for "shigoto (jobs)" and "shumi (hobbies)." Above all, they value their privacy.

Heavy burden
Behind the "shoshika (low birth rate)" phenomenon (which has mostly been palmed off as the fault of the nation's women), is this to consider: Japanese men are less interested in love, let alone such an "omoni (heavy burden)" as marriage and "kosodate (child-rearing)."

Michiyo did an informal survey among the single men in her department, and reports that six out of eight replied that the reason they choose to avoid ren'ai altogether is because they cannot see any merit in being with women. "Onnanoko wa mendoudashi, renraku shinakya-naranaishi, purezento toka okane kakarushi... (Girls are a hassle, they expect me to call, I have to buy them gifts and that would cost money)" was one 34-year-old male's sum-up. He would rather deploy his funds and time in other ways, ways that would be infinitely more rewarding than in a "kocchini nanno tokuni naranai (There's no profit to be gained)" love relationship.

Girls of Nippon, we live in glacial times.

Some of this had already been apparent when I was living in Japan until 2000. It was difficult to imagine another society in which men preened in the same way as women and were viewed as normal. With such dire alternatives for women in Japan, it would probably a lot more fun for foreign men living there now.