It seems someone made a
grave error in neglecting to
renew our subscription for
winter this year- it ran out
a few days ago, and now
we swelter and sweat in
the muggy mist of mid-
December. Fucking unreal.

A few nights ago a special
outing was made to see the
Virsky Ukrainian National
Dance Company, in all their
swirling, bounding, leaping
splendour- my favorites were
the Vyshyvalnytsi (Embroideresses)
that wove tapestries with
brightly coloured thread
and their bodies.

And now I’m feeling like
an amputee, or as if
my heart is disembodied-
floating somewhere outside
my body on a string.
And now my days and nights
are so quiet and still.
How to mend?

Well, some good news at
least is that they are making a
film of one of my favorite books:
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov

МАСТЕР И МАРГАРИТА

It promises to be better
than the Italian version
with Mimsy Farmer.

Not too long ago I had an
amazing dream about
Behemoth–
 He was sitting on the
edge of the bed in the
Czech boarding house.
I saw him. He turned
 his black furry head
around and looked at me
with yellow eyes as big
as dinnerplates.
I saw him on the street
again tonight only much
smaller, and he bit me.

“But there were even worse things in the bedroom.
A third visitor sprawled insolently on the padded ottoman
that had once belonged to the jeweler’s lady –
namely, a black tom of terrifying proportions,
with a glass of vodka in one paw
and a fork in the other with which he had
already managed to impale a pickled mushroom.”

Absolution and Eternal Refuge

[Proshchenie i vechnyi priiut]