Ahead of them, Red Flag a-waving...

Let’s get this clear right off the bat, in case there was any doubt: I am a crazy person.

When I’m walking on the streets by myself and there’s no one around, I practice my phonetic pronunciation of Russian poetry. Every so often someone rounds a corner and startles me, although I probably startle them more. “Crazy person muttering under his breath,” they must, invariably, think.

Last semester my favorite line was from Blok’s Dvenadtsat’ [The Twelve]: “Вся власть учредительному собранию!” [Vsia vlast’ uchreditel’nomu sobraniu - All power to the founded Soviet! (A slogan for War Communism).]

The hard part is the –ch- “the bad brothers,” as one of my nephews called them, followed by the –r-, which is palatalized and trilled (or, to put it in English: is said with smiling lips and rolled like in Spanish).

But I’m tired of Blok. I want something new. I just haven’t decided what a good poem could be. I really liked Dvenadtsat’ because there’s a refrain that goes TRAAAA-TAAA-TAA (1/8 drums, 7/8 Tommy gun fire).

I am in quite the quagmire.

Speaking of which, does anyone remember that Mac game?!