about surprises

Tonight when I came out of a fruit store, I got caught in the rain.
Me with my small box of strawberries got caught by the rain.
I was caught with the rain in the same atmospheric space.

The best thing about rain in the city is the asphalt that mirrors light.

Say cheese

about visualization

A photo has a great feature – it triggers a whole series of images, emotions, feelings, even smells! that ‘unzip’ in your mind once you see it. That’s a great thing about YOUR OWN photos, unfortunately, we still didn’t find a way to transfer our exact memories and feelings about something to another person. So, it’s the best and the worst thing – different minds provide us with various interpretations of one and the same object or concept, or situation and it’s actually curious but, on the other hand, so many possible interpretations can sometimes be critically misleading.

This is one of my favourite photos, called ‘Wineglass’ (I wonder why). And like some songs, that make you remember the situation when you heard it up to the smallest detail, I remember that it was a summer day right before the sunset and the clover field before the St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, I remember running towards it, hurrying to take off my shoes, and the feeling of the cool clover leaves touching my bare feet, I remember the people around me and the music I was listening to at that very moment. It seems amazing how so many things can fit in a tiny snap-short moment.

about fear

There was a bombing at Moscow Airport today. It’s no use to say it’s horrible. Some correspondent in ‘Telediario” said, ‘Moskovites are already used to such things”. I wonder if someone can really get used to SUCH things.

The most terrifying about it is to realize that one is completely helpless.

It reminded me of a movie triptych called ‘Tokyo!’, one part of which, called “Merde” is about a man-like creature that started ‘shaking’ the city peering out of the sewers onto the streets of Tokyo and scaring people with its disfigured ugly face, claw-like long-nailed hands, and eerie inexplicable actions. Once it finds explosives underground and comes out peacefully throwing around grenades like some benevolent man would throw around candies.

Finally, it was arrested and sentenced to hanging. But then something strange happened: when its head is already in the loop and the support is knocked from under its feet – it vanishes into the thin air.

Ironically, it’s a vicious circle. Evil inspires hatred, thus itself.

Evil cannot be eliminated by its own means. Nor can it be eliminated by fear.