Borenboim’s dream

He dreamed a dream: he was a teenager, at his stepfather’s dacha in Sosenki, standing at the gate and looking out at the street. Vitka, Keras, and Gera were walking down the street toward him. They were supposed to go together to the Salarevsky dump.  The guys were approaching. They held sticks for poking around in the garbage. His stick stood next to the fence. He picked it up and walked toward them. They walked quickly and happily down the street. It was early in the morning, midsummer, the weather dry and cool. He was enjoying himself and his step was light. They came to the dump. It was enormous, stretching to the very horizon.
    “We’re going to go through and turn it up from south to north,” said Karas. “There are turbines in there.”
    They picked through the garbage. Borenboim sank in to his waist. Sank even lower. There was an underground vault. An intolerable stench. The heavy, sticky trash quivered like quicksand. Borenboim cried out in fear.
     “Don’t be chicken,” Gera giggled, grabbing him by the feet.
    “These are positive catacombs,” Vitka explained. “This is where the parent accelerators live.”
    People walked through the catacombs. Odd, fearsome machines passed by.
    “I have to find the computer dough, then at home I’ll make traveling boots for super-powered diesel locomotives,” Borenboim thought to himself. He kept picking through the trash.
    All sorts of objects turned up. Suddenly Karas and Gera broke through a wall with their sticks. A glooming din emerged from the opening. “It’s the turbines,” Borenboim realized. He looked into the opening and saw a huge cave with bluish turbines rising in the center. They produced a dismal roar: smoke spread from them, stinging the eyes.
    “Let’s get out of here before we’re squashed!” Vitka advised.
    They ran along a twisting path, getting bogged down in sticky, squelching garbage. Borenboim bumped into a piece of computer dough. A silvery-lilac color, it smelled like gasoline and lilac. He pulled the dough from the heaps of trash.
    “Mold it in the form, or else it will come unsoldered,” said Karas.
    Suddenly, a rat jumped out of the computer dough.
    “Bastard, he ate the computer program!” Vitka shouted.
    Vitka, Gera, and Karas began to beat the rat with their sticks. Its gray body shook with the blows, and it squeaked pitifully. Borenboim looked at the rat. He felt its palpitating heart. It was a tender little bundle which sent waves of the subtlest vibrations across the whole world, sublime waves of love. And the most remarkable thing—they were in no way connected to the death throes and the horror of the dying rat, they existed all by themselves. They penetrated Borenboim’s body. His heart contracted from a powerful attack of tenderness, joy, and delight. He pushed the guys aside and lifted the bloody rat. He bent over it and sobbed. The rat’s moist eyes closed. Its heart quivered, sending its last farewell waves of love. Borenboim caught them with his heart. He understood the language of hearts. It was untranslatable. Sublime. Borenboim sobbed from happiness and pity. The rat’s heart shuddered for the last time. And stopped: FOREVER! The horror of losing this tiny heart seized Borenboim. He pressed the little body to his chest. He sobbed aloud, as he had in childhood. Sobbed helplessly on and on.

—Vladimir Sorokin, Ice

I apologize

I’ve been negligent, I know, I’ve been distracted, as always, so hard to focus these days, what with this and that, and I know it’s irresponsible of me to let myself wander like that, but really, I’ve been busy, so busy with this and that, and they called on me, that’s right, they called, and when they call you can’t say no, or you could but they wouldn’t listen, they’d do something dreadful, something unimaginably dreadful, so, you know, I did what they asked, I played the “candidates,” the presidential candidates, in the recent “debate,” because the “candidates” themselves couldn’t be bothered, they said, because they had more important obligations, and they didn’t say more because they didn’t have to, because I couldn’t compel them to, because I simply don’t rank and they don’t owe me anything, not even spittle, and certainly not an explanation, so I did what they asked with no further questions, I was even a little flattered that they asked me, I won’t lie, because they never asked before and never really even noticed me, but I didn’t have time to practice as much as I would have liked, maybe you noticed, I hope not, god my hands hurt, mainly the fingertips and that weird muscle beneath the index finger across from the thumb, it aches no matter how much I ice it and of course I can’t hold the ice to it well because the other hand hurts just as badly and I don’t remember now which hand held which “candidate” and I fear I may have failed to differentiate their voices adequately, to present them as two distinct options, but I kept forgetting which hand was which because of course I couldn’t see, I was all stooped over and I had that cloth over my head because it was essential that I not be seen, but no one ever considered that it was equally essential that I be able to see, if only well enough to know which "candidate" was on which hand, and now I’m certain I got their lines mixed up and I may have even put them on the wrong hands, so that the right candidate was on the left hand and the left candidate was on the right hand and lord knows who said what and I am mortified by my amateurishness, but it seems from all the commentary that no one noticed, so please don’t tell, please just shush, or of course there will be consequences, unimaginable consequences, and for the time being I am relieved that it’s blown over, that the commentators were convinced and the public thought there was a winner and a loser and hence a choice, a clear choice, two options and not just one and now if you don’t mind terribly, even typing this is causing me considerable discomfort, and I do fear that they will call me again for the upcoming “debate,” since no one noticed the hash I made of this last one, since everyone seemed to really enjoy the show, the drama and the disappointment of it, so I should really go now and immerse my hands in a bucket of ice water and I plan to remove my hands from the bucket of ice water only to pray that I escape their notice entirely, that they call off the next “debate” or find someone else, someone more experienced, more capable, someone more suitable for the job.

Serenity

"The Orad Group is a major player in the perimeter security field, with a specialty of integrating technologies pertaining to access control, biometrics, and Intelligent Video Surveillance. According to its deputy CEO, Orad is now looking into the creation of virtual or, more precisely, invisible security apparatuses. The idea is to transform cities or different facilities into military bases of sorts whereby people inhabiting a space are secured by all the technologies used to secure a military base but that these technologies are invisible. One will not need guards in booths at the entrance of the gated community, which might not be gated at all; the fences, cameras, sensors and other technologies that are used for perimeter security and safety (as well as social sorting) in a military base will all be there, but they will be unidentifiable from the surface so that the inhabitants can enjoy the serenity of the space."

—Neve Gordon, "The Political Economy of Israel’s Homeland Security Industry"

Names of bars

Take And Drink, This Is the Cup of My Blood

Drinking Makes You Hard

You Break Your Glass You Buy It

This Place Is Home

Drink And Pay Tomorrow, No Problem We'll Worry About It Later

Even The President Drinks *

—names of bars in Alain Mabanckou's African Psycho

*While Take And Drink, This Is the Cup of My Blood is unambigiously a single establishment, it is unclear from the text if the remaining clauses each refer to separate bars, or if, linked by commas, they together form a single, lengthy name that refers to one establishment.

It was a boring video anyway

I spent some good part of the last three hours (breaks for dinner, dog-wrestling) trying to figure out how to upload video from my phone to this er, space. Failed for reasons too boring to recount. Namely lack of patience. Video in question depicted four, count 'em, cops issuing a ticket to the woman from whom I buy pupusas on the corner of Wilshire and Alvarado every week or two. My stomach can't handle pupusas every day, but they are good pupusas, I will vouch, and lousy cops. Nice guys all, I'm sure, whatever, if you say so, but their main purpose in the neighborhood, as far as I can tell, is to keep the fear quotient cranked and the local entrepreneurs on the run. By which I mean vendors of pupusas, tamales, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, peanuts, DVDs, funny little bracelets, cigarettes, big bottles of Pantene, other necessities of working class life. All of them in a constant state of alert, ready to abandon their wares as soon as the big, bad wolves attack, always in packs, howling woop woop like they do, fierce 9mm teeth glinting in the noonday sun. Apparently the free market is only okay sometimes, for some folks. (I agree: we just have different sets of folks in mind.) In the bad old days, for which I have a soft spot, the crack dealers never had it this rough. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good lookin' out. Anyhow, keep those cell phone cameras handy. Watch the watchers. It makes 'em sweat. Here's a pretty picture of clouds: