Román

In the summer of 2021, I travelled to Kiev from Moscow, convinced there would soon be a full-scale war. I hated what Ukraine became after the 2014 coup: a banana republic purging the country of its own Russianness: assassinations, arrests, bombing Donbass, banning political…

How sad that you cannot translate poetry. Sad that I will know Pindar or Hafez. And you will never know Pushkin or Esenin.

Both the 1956 American and 1967 Soviet versions of War and Peace look stunning.

Seems best to read Herodotus the way Professor Donald Kagan says to: just believe everything written down in the text as is (until disproven). The alternative is to spend years reading different accounts of various bickering modern historians.

Brits are masters at creating iconic characters: Bond, Sherlock, Harry Potter, Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf

A romcom where a genuinely nice guy falls for a woman with an abusive ex and attempts to become a violent psychopath to gain her love.

He's 55. Great skin. Passion and high energy. Decent physique. Great hairline. Focused cognitive abilities. Which begs the question — should we all smoke crack?

Found at garage sale. Six months before Trotsky's well deserved demise.

The saddest career trajectory ever is to study high level math in college, learning about the wonders of the world only to get hired as an actuary running regressions, calculating when 86 year old Ruth will die; because you need to raise her insurance premium.

A messy attempt at mimicking nature's forms. Differential equations model movement of matter. Fractals help us see uneven shapes found in the wild. Chaos theory map changes in weather. So much we don't know yet about the world around us.

Learning your favorite Twitter girly girl has been banned is like learning your Salvadorian wife got deported.

Eastern Block children were lucky enough to grow up with Krtek (he's a Czech mole) and his friends Bunny and Hedgehog, as they wander the metropolis, looking for their way home. Even now, when I see a bunny or hedgehog I try to buy them a bus ticket.

Blade Runner but the protagonist hunts down people who became skinny from Ozempic.

Working out 2x a day instead of getting hammered 4 times a week to fight the melancholy of the soul.

Sometimes you see a poster on here really into map porn: "We should invade and divide up this country like this" The world's greatest generals have seldom achieved full destruction of nations — usually millions die for nothing — but you, random fat Latvian guy, know better.

All those SF girls posting themselves coding in cafes, gyms, forests, on toilets, in whorehouses — what exactly are they coding? I only use two apps, this and Telegram. Both made a decade ago by horny yoga practicing white guys.

Anything you encounter before the age of 10 or so, you experience in a drowsy almost mythical state. In your teenage, years you lose your sense of wonder for the world, and spend the rest of your years trying to find it again.

I'v wanted to do this but with vaguely recognized political movements: I have a Bolsonaro shirt that says "Viva a Derecha". Need to get a Francisco Franco, an Andrei Shruko, out of the lefties, a Nestor Makhno, a young Fidel.

If I was a 70 year old grandma, instead of being annoying and complaining, I would learn the violin everyday for 12 hours, then in 10 years I would be very good at the violin.

Americans are afraid of Norwood, being short, wrinkles, weak jawlines, saggy tits, flat asses, being poor. Every little thing is cause for concern. Elsewhere in the world you meet the shortest, baldest man or the fattest Soviet fridge figure woman, but they are just happy.