Konstantin Tovstiadi - DIStraction

"I'd freely present this treasure to anyone" - Zen Master Ryokan

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:10:44 -0400

The courtesans are turned out in their best,
How delightfully they speak and laugh along the lovely green river.
They call out to gentlemen the day long,
And tempt them with songs that charm the hardest heart.
They mince about with flirtatious glances so difficult to resist.

Someday, though, even these captivating women will have nothing left,
And they will be left out in the harsh cold.

Leave off your mad rush for gold and jewels,
I've got something far more precious for you:

A bright pearl that sparkles more brilliantly than the sun and moon,
And illuminates each and every eye.

Lose it and you will wallow in a sea of pain;
Find it and you will safely reach the other shore.

I'd freely present this treasure to anyone,
But hardly anyone asks for it.

Encouraging Words by Zen Master Guishan

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:18:07 -0400

Some day you will die.

Lying on your sick bed about to breathe your last, you will be assailed by every kind of pain,

Your mind will be filled with fears and anxieties and you will not know where to go or what to do,

Only then you will realize you have not practiced well.

The skandhas/aggregates (matter, sensations, conceptions, impulses and consciousness) and the four elements in you will quickly disintegrate, and your consciousness will be pulled wherever your ancient, twisted karma leads it.

Impermanence does not hesitate.

Death will not wait.

You will not be able to extend your life by even a second.

How many thousands times more will you have to pass through the gates of birth and death.

If these words are challenging, even insulting, let them be an encouragement for you to change.

Practice heroically.

Do not accumulate unnecessary possessions.

Don't give up.

Still your mind, end wrong perceptions, concentrate and do not run after the objects of your senses.

Practice diligently.

Be determined not to let your days and months pass by wastefully.

The story of fado (and porto)

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:30:35 -0500

Thirteen years ago I made my first trip abroad - three weeks at a language school in Brighton, UK. I had to obtain a British visa. It took two interviews and two visa officers to grant a visa. The second officer started the interview with a let's-get-to-the-heart-of-the-matter question: "Why did you give our visa officer a cookery book?"

It wasn't a cookery book. It was the project that I was working on - relating culinary traditions and culture, showing food as an integral part of history, culture, and ultimately language use. What better way to savor them than through food?

I was happy to find out that my two favorite things from Portugal - fado music and port wine - are related, too. Let me tell you how.

Fado is at least a couple of centuries old. It has its roots in Afro-Brazilian music (Brazil being a Portuguese colony at the time). It means fate or destiny in Portuguese. Fado develops in Lisbon and Coimbra in bars, taverns, and brothels - a folk tradition yet a distinctly urban one. Almost always performed in a minor key, it is a melancholic song with profound lyrics about life, love, and death.

Fado singers can be accompanied by various instruments, but almost always by two types of guitar - the familiar Spanish six string version (against the common wisdom of Northern Portugal that only bad wind and bad marriages come from Spain*) and then a more exotic twelve string Portuguese guitar. This instrument is a variation on the English lute - it comes to portugal via Porto, the port city at the mouth of river Douro, a trade center. Porto the city is known best for its eponymous staple - the port wine. The port wine growing region (a time-honored tradition, demarcated a century before Bordeaux) is the upper basin of Douro, in the mountains near the Spanish border. For centuries, Britain was the chief consumer of port wine; British merchants took great care to control not only wine trade, but wine production as well. The names of the major port houses bear witness to it to this day - Graham, Warre, Dow, Taylor Fladgate, Churchill, Sandeman, Smith Woodhouse.

The upper stretches of river Douro, with port vineyards lining its banks

Port deserves its own story - at least one, possibly many - best told by the port makers, such as the Symington family. Let's get back fado. There are many phenomenal fado singers, past and current; my favorite is Mariza. Her 2008 concert in Lisbon is superb. You can find it on iTunes, and have instant gratification; but it is best to have patience and get the CD version because it comes with a second disc - a DVD with a documentary called "Mariza and the story of fado".

The second visa officer understood the fun of relating food and culture. Before long, I had her laughing and smiling. When the ice was broken, I knew for sure my visa application would not be rejected.

*De Espanha, nem bom vento, nem bom casamento

One time trials

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:03:02 -0400

When presented with a problem, you have to find a solution. Sometimes it is straightforward. You walk up to a store, the door says "push", you push and get in. Other times it is a little trickier - there is no sign, but you can observe the people coming and going and note which way the door is flapping and apply the observations to get in. Still other times it is trickier still - there are no signs and no people - and maybe three different doors. Which one do you pick, and do you push it or pull it? Do you enter quickly and recklessly - or carefully pausing to close the door as silently as possible?

The tricky problems are usually the ones requiring cultural knowledge. The locals and the insiders have the knowledge, you don't. Feeling like an outsider sucks; besides it costs money. The locals know all the tricks: where to make a short cut, where to park for free, where to buy discounted rail passes.

When you are a cultural outsider in a new country or a city as large and complex as Moscow (where you don't visit for two years and it changes enough to be confusing), you are constantly presented with these tricky cultural choices. And unless you stay for a while, you only get a single trial on solving each one of them correctly.

That means you will make mistakes and make inefficient choices. You will open the wrong door, take the long way around, and buy expensive tickets. It will cost more than it would cost a local. You might even get into some embarrassing situations. But you just have to let go. Enjoy the few that you get right, and don't judge yourself for the ones you don't. Enjoy the new ride and ignore the bumps. One day you will be experienced enough to get almost everything right on a single attempt, and composed enough to meet the few occasional failures with a smile.

Catching memories

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:06:47 -0400

When I was seven, I listened to Paganini Fifth Concerto for violin and orquestra on a vynil disc. When I was fourteen, I was playing a tape of Kitaro's Dream over and over again. When I was seventeen, I'd browse the catalog of a "sound recording" shop in Moscow and order a tape of Paco de Lucia's Siroco copied from a CD. A year later, I spent an unthinkably huge amount of twenty dollars on a disc with Mozart's 25th symphony and the Masonic Funeral Music. In the university, my friend Pere Campos introduced me to Hiru Truku, Mikel Laboa, Vinicius de Moraes, and Maria Creuza. All were dutifully transferred to tape.

I even brought a tape of favorites with me when I came to the US in 2000. Then in 2001 I got my first computer, a PowerMac G4. iTunes came out the year before; and since then it has been a project of finding everything in digital format. Like an Israeli special force agent hunting terrorists, I searched for them everywhere, taking them in one by one, until I had Paganini, Kitaro, Paco de Lucia, Mikel Laboa, and Maria Creuza in digital format. Some were bought on CDs and transferred, others found free online, still others bought on iTunes or similar music stores.

They were all herded in, except one - Pablo Guerrero. There was one song from his A tapar la calle disc called Si volvieras otra vez that I could not hunt down. So I took a roundabout way:

- find the song on YouTube
- play the clip in HQ
- launch Audio Hijack Pro and capture the sound from the browser
- import the recorded sound into iTunes
- trim the silence on the ends by going into song info (Apple + I on Mac / Command + I on Windows) and setting the start and stop play time (the last tab on the right)

The result will not please audiophiles; but it pleases me. It transfers me back to 1999, and that makes me happy.

В ча�? когда мерцанье

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:50:00 -0400

I have become fascinated with Dmitry Hvorostovsky. I particularly like his recording of Russian folk songs and romances. Most of the songs on it I have heard before; but one was new to me. It is based on a poem by a little known Russian poet Nikolay Grekov (�?иколай Греков (1810-1866). The song is about the loss of his wife. It is pure anguish and longing; performed beautifully by Hvorostovsky.

Here's the Russian original; I am not aware of existing English translations.

В ча�?, когда мерцанье звёзды разольют
И на мир в молчанье �?он и мрак �?ойдут,
С горькою и�?томой на душе моей
Я иду из дому на �?виданье к ней.

И �?виданье �?то в тишине ночной
Вид�?т до ра�?�?вета звёзды лишь �? луной.
�?ет в нём ни лобзань�?, ни пожать�? рук,
И хранит молчанье мой прекра�?ный друг.

�?е пылают очи у неё огнём,
В них разлит мрак ночи �? непробудным �?ном,
И тогда приду �?, тихо к ней �?клоню�?ь,
В�?ё её бужу �? и не добужу�?ь…

Loves Long Forgotten

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:17:48 -0400

I normally don't write poems, and in the rare cases that I do, I don't share them. Today I will make an exception - these are old, from a love that is no more, as if from another life... Sending happy thoughts to everyone I have ever loved and to all of you, my readers!

To make a caipirinha it takes some brown sugar
And shiny crystal glasses
So you can watch the liquor
Flow over cubes of ice
You make a caipirinha
The way she made it for you
So you can fill your soul
With memories and tears

Like a tiny inquisitive creature
You roam the streets of my soul
Looking in every corner
Till you fill me completely

Across the table
You are speaking softly
Looking away
As your thoughts unfold
Trusting me with them
You don’t see
The way I admire you

When you spoke
Their eyes were on you
And I could hide among them
And let your voice caress me

Reading William Butler Yeats

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:59:01 -0400

Kori Keylon is a dear friend of mine. She is one of the best people I know. I am privileged to have met her. She was my pen pal first - in the days before PayPal and e-mail; we first wrote to each other all the way back 1991 - which is now more than fifteen years ago. It usually took letters three weeks to travel between Southwest Russia and Utah; it allowed for lots of deliberation on our part and made for a very enjoyable and rich conversation that we could never replicate with e-mail.

Kori knows more about my personal life than do my parents. We shared a lot; and one of the most enjoyable things was exchanging favorite poems. Kori introduced me to Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman - and W.B. Yeats.

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Reading Marina Tsvetayeva, Part II

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:09:25 -0500

Early Tsvetayeva is so beautiful that I had to come back and post another favorite of mine - The passerby (Прохожий). Here's the Russian original - a very faithful but not very poetic translation into English can be found here.

Идешь, на мен�? похожий,
Глаза у�?тремл�?�? вниз.
Я их опу�?кала — тоже!
Прохожий, о�?танови�?ь!

Прочти, — �?лепоты куриной
И маков набрав букет, –
Что звали мен�? Мариной
И �?колько мне был лет.

�?е думай, что зде�?ь могила,
Что �? по�?влю�?ь, гроз�?…
Я �?лишком �?ама любила
Сме�?ть�?�?, когда нельз�?,

И кровь приливала к коже,
И кудри мои вили�?ь…
Я тоже была, прохожий!
Прохожий, о�?танови�?ь!

Сорви �?ебе �?тебель дикий
И �?году — ему в�?лед.
Кладбищен�?кой земл�?ники
Крупнее и �?лаще нет,

�?о только не �?той угрюмо,
Главу опу�?тив на грудь.
Легко обо мне подумай,
Легко обо мне забудь.

Как луч теб�? о�?вещает!
Ты ве�?ь в золотой пыли…
И пу�?ть теб�? не �?мущает
Мой голо�? из-под земли.

One hundred months of solitude

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:13:51 -0500

On August 23, 2000, I flew out of the Moscow International Airport. My destination was Austin, TX; I was traveling with Air France via Paris and then through Newark. This was my first time flying across the ocean (hence repeated another 30 times) and the first time in the US. I was about to start graduate school. I didn't know what to expect; even less did I know why I was doing it. I was nervous and barely slept the night before. Will the Russian customs mess with me? Will I know where to change planes? Will I get through immigration in the US? What will Texas be like?

I almost missed my connection in Paris Charles de Gaulle. Only JFK in New York and O'Hare in Chicago are a bigger abomination for a traveller than the airport in Paris (I didn't know that back then). I ran into the plane and they closed the gate. I found my spot, middle seat in between two French men, none of which were friendly or willing to chat. I was now not only nervous, but tired and uncomfortable.

In Newark I was told that my flight to Austin was cancelled; I had to wait 7 hours for the last evening flight. I looked at the food options; firmly determined not to eat fast food, I picked a salad and an orange juice that boasted "freshly squeezed" on the label. The salad was unpleasant (the joys of a cheap Caesar dressing - another unknown back then) and the juice downright disgusting. It was squeezed alright, but not freshly; it was turning sour. I had a few sips and concluded that Americans like their juice very very different from us.

That was 8 1/2 years ago. I sleep like a baby before an international flight now. I don't care about missing planes - there is always another, and there are always hotels. Airport food sucks, but you can always bring your own, or expect less. And you can avoid JFK and CDG, stick to aisle seats, and ignore unfriendly neighbors.

But one thing hasn't changed, even though a hundred months passed. I still don't know what to expect from my being here, nor do I know why I am taking this long way around and where it shall lead.

"For ten years I searched for the road home, and now I forgot where I came from..."

Twenty five things about me

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:38:42 -0500

The Esquire magazine has a great interview format where they pick out aphoristic snippets from people's thoughts about life. Here are my thoughts on life - inspired by a recent Facebook craze with writing 25 things about oneself.

I never get tired of mountains, good conversations, foreign languages, tasty food, Bach's partitas, solitude, and a good night's sleep.

I often get accused of being cynical - usually by people whose hypocritical behavior contributes to my cynical attitudes in the first place.

I hate the day before I have to travel long distance, and love every minute of the trip itself.

I am obsessed with quantifying my fitness achievements. It used to be about how many pullups I could do. Then it was the time in running 10K, 3K, or 800m races. Then it was the time of climbing Mt Beshtau from the access road to the summit. Then it was the weight and the repetitions and the sets in the gym. Or the rate of ascent on the 200ft high stairs in the Sarkeys building. Now it is about the number of breaths in a handstand until I lose balance. I take great pride in the fact that the numbers are still growing in spite of my being 31 years old.

Living abroad for almost a decade is the best thing that ever happened to me. It is the most interesting, challenging, and useful thing I have ever done. It is also the saddest, the hardest, and the worst
experience I have ever had.

I am very sad to know that in the future I will witness the slow degradation and destruction of the natural habitats of wildlife - of some of my favorite and the most beautiful places I have seen. It is like watching a dear friend being tortured to death while you have your hands tied up.

I hate consumerism in all its manifestations.

There are behaviors that I can understand, forgive, or at least explain. And there are others that I have zero tolerance for - like driving Hummers or poaching snow leopards, to name just two.

I wish I had more time so I could re-read my favorite books and better memory so I could retain and connect all the wonderful stuff I find in them.

I could never understand people who told me that I will regret being out of high school, then look back to my university years, then look back to graduate school. It only gets better each year. I am with Antonio Pierro on this one - getting old is an adventure, not a problem.

Graduate school has done a lot of damage to my brain. I can no longer focus on reading for a long time, nor retain what I read very well. It has also given me a perpetual sense of guilt about not working 24/7 on
advancing my academic career.

Working as an interpreter with huge complicated delegation receptions was the most interesting work I have ever done. It comes close to the feeling I got shooting a basketball game for a newspaper, or rock
climbing a difficult route.

I have flown across the Atlantic 31 times. Each time the transition is devastatingly difficult. It also makes me painfully aware of the transience of my existence and of the things and people that I hold dear.

If there is one thing I wish for and cannot achieve, it is having near-native competence in more languages than just English and Russian. Nothing is more fascinating then the internal view of the lifeworld that such knowledge grants.

I like to think that I am as critical of myself as I am of others, but I am deluding myself on that one.

No one is capable of messing up our lives more than we are ourselves. I am my biggest enemy. Laziness covered up by self-delusion is the cause.

When I am idle or wasting time, I feel useless and depressed. Working always relieves the depression. An idle mind is the devil's workshop.

I am fascinated with proverbs and sayings. My terminal project for my bachelor's in linguistics was a dictionary of British colloquial cliches.

I don't understand how anyone can be bored. This is like saying that you are tired of being alive. I don't get bored; but occasionally I get upset about wasting time in situations that I can't escape.

It is always a treat to see a wild animal while walking around campus or around town - squirrels, raccoons, possums, skunks, coyotes, rabbits, deer. I wish I could say the same about humans.

I like to think that I am a photographer and a creative person. I wonder if I will know when I reach the peak in my skill. Or do we improve indefinitely?

Living in the US I got to do things I never thought I would - like enjoying Dr. Pepper, driving a truck, and owning cowboy boots. But I don't think I will ever enjoy American football. The word "howdy" still makes me shudder. My biggest nightmare is that if I settle in this country my children would want to go to high school proms, or to a Baptist church (not sure which is worse), or turn teary-eyed at the sound of the Star Spangled Banner, or, worse still, decide to join the army.

I generally don't give a rat's ass about other people's opinion, with the notable exception of my friends and family. That's my biggest strength because I don't get put down by others; and my biggest weakness because I stubbornly insist on my choices, however stupid and counterproductive they may be. Ignoring everyone is a great strategy in art but a very poor one in business.

I enjoyed teaching, but it was the most nerve wracking thing that I have ever done. But I do want to come back and do more of it.

A long time ago I was helping my father build our house. One of my favorite tasks was unloading bricks - one by one, you go through several thousands of them over the course of the day and then marvel at your ability to move several tons by hand. I wish I was as persevering in my academic writing as I was in that task then.

The ungoogleable mystery of November

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:44:03 -0500

It is cold today in Norman, and on top of that I am tired and lonely. I remembered one of my favorite poems - found its full text online, but can't track down the author. Can anybody identify the source?

Here's November,
The year's sad daughter,
A loverless maid,
A lamb for the slaughter,
An empty mirror,
A sunless morn,
A withered wreath,
The husk of the corn,
A night that falls
Without a tomorrow,
Here's November,
The month of sorrow.

P.S. Many many thanks to Twila Camp for identifying the author - it is Eleanor Farjeon. Twila, you are the best! Thank you.

Reading Anton Delvig

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:13:10 -0500

Когда, душа, про�?ила�?ь ты
Погибнуть иль любить,
Когда желань�? и мечты
К тебе те�?нили�?ь жить,
Когда еще �? не пил �?лез
Из чаши быти�?,-
Зачем тогда, в венке из роз,
К тен�?м не отбыл �?!

Зачем вы начертали�?ь так
�?а пам�?ти моей,
Единый молодо�?ти знак,
Вы, пе�?ни прошлых дней!
Я горы, долы и ле�?а
И милый взгл�?д забыл,-
Зачем же ваши голо�?а
Мне �?лух мой �?охранил!

�?е возвратите �?ча�?ть�? мне,
Хоть дышит в ва�? оно!
С ним в промелькнувшей �?тарине
Про�?тил�?�? �? давно.
�?е нарушайте ж, �? молю,
Вы �?на души моей
И �?лова �?трашного "люблю"
�?е повтор�?йте ей!

Reading Nikolay Gumilev

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:53:57 -0500

Это было не раз, �?то будет не раз
В нашей битве, глухой и упорной:
Как в�?егда, от мен�? ты теперь отрекла�?ь.
Завтра, знаю, вернешь�?�? покорной.

�?о зато не диви�?ь, мой враждующий друг,
Враг мой, �?хваченный темной любовью,
Е�?ли �?тоны любви будут �?тонами мук,
Поцелуи — окрашены кровью.

Reading Leonel Rugama

nospam@example.com (Konstantin Tovstiadi) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:34:26 -0400

Following the lead of Emily Dickinson and Zinaida Gippius, here comes a very short poem from a Nicaraguan poet, Leonel Rugama - written in 1969, when he was nineteen, one year before he died, shot by the police for guerilla activities, refusing to surrender (famously responding to the appeal to surrender with "tell your mother to surrender"). Introduced to me by R.E. Davis - a friend and a poet - and one who wishes to have his last words to be no less glorious than Rugama's.

EPITAFIO

Aquí yacen
los restos mortales
del que en vida
buscó sin alivio
una
a
una
tu cara
en todos
los buses urbanos

EPITAPH

Here lie
the mortal remains
of one who in life
searched without relief for
one
by
one
your face
on every
bus in the city

Rugama, Leonel. (1985). The Earth is a satellite of the moon (Translated by Sara Miles, Richard Schaaf, and Nancy Weisberg)

In Spanish, the poem flows better because the Spanish verb buscar, to look for, requires no preposition between itself and its subject - buscó tu cara, looked for you face. In English, the preposition is wedged in between - perhaps it could be moved to read 'searched without relief / one / by / one / for your face'?