Thank you to Collage Lounge for having Nikita and I come and speak last week, and thank you for everyone who turned up
Categories: media, Uncategorized
Collage reading
“The King of FU” is now available on Amazon
The Babushka Society
My Patreon Projects
The Babushka Society Radio Drama
Projects
FLASH-365: Project working with artist Nikita Klimov creating one flash fiction story and one piece of art each day, for one year.
The King of FU: Author of the magical-realism memoir: The King of FU
The Most Beautiful Woman in the World: Short story published in Cease, Cows Magazine.
A Brief History of IKEA: A very short story published in The Drabble
PATREON: Writer for the Patreon group: Flash-365, creating comics and zines in English and Russian.
Hijacked Amygdala: Contributing writer to the art collective ‘Hijacked Amygdala’
My mother grew up in the 70s. This means that all of her favorite spy movies had eerily similar bad guys with names like Boris, Ivan, Ivan, and Boris. When my mother visited me in Russia, she stepped out of the arrival gates and said, “Holy-fucking-shit, I’m here.“ Since American media had already moved on to Arabs by the time I crawled into the world, I never thought of Russia as an enemy. But today there were four Russians outside of my apartment building this morning. They rang up, and I thought, “oh, they are here to murder me–I am going to be taken to some dark room and tortured until I admit anything, they want me to admit. it won’t take long, I am so squishy and pink! Then I will be hung in the Red Square and I don’t even know any Morse code, so I won’t be able to send any secret messages to anyone and I get stage fright so even if they let me speak, I’ll probably just sweat and mutter until my neck snaps–“ My girlfriend–woken from the ringing–stormed passed, spoke through the receiver, buzzed the men into the building. On her way back to bed she looked into the kitchen. I was still half-hidden behind the cabinets, peering out.
She sighed and went back to bed.
It is common knowledge amongst young residents of Russian cities that Babushkas [older Russian women] do not like to be followed. If you tread, especially at night, too close behind a babushka, she will turn, check to see if you are a murderer or a thief, then pause and let you pass.
This is normal.
The trouble began afterward. I stopped in a store for a pack of cigarettes. I came back out, lit one, and continued my journey home only to find myself, again, treading a little too closely behind that exact same Babushka. She stopped quicker this time, turned faster, she scowled and hugged her purse a little closer and so I nodded as if to say, “I’m sorry,” to which she read, “I’ll get to you in a minute.” The first few kernels had popped. I walked on.
A little further down the road, I bumped into my friend, Ivan. I stopped to chat. I couldn’t help but notice the babushka passed yet again. I tried to smile in the least creepy, I-am-going-to-find-you-and-steal-your-bread, possible way. She was puffier, redder, expanding.
But it is no use. I vowed to take a good long while with Ivan, who turned out to be in a rush. He left. But, for good measure, I stood and finished my cigarette. I looked up and found the babushka was nowhere to be seen, so I trekked home.
I came up to the end of the alley into my courtyard and–oh dear god. There she was, she had stopped to feed the homeless ginger cat that lives behind the dumpster. She saw me. There was a panic in her face and she was popping at full speed now, backing away. I could almost see the fluffy pops of panic flying out of her brain, accumulating beneath her bonnet. It was tense.
I held up my hands, “I am sorry! I live just there.” Then something happened. She frowned. Her whole demeanor changed, and I could almost hear her thoughts as she shrugged and went back to feeding the ginger cat: “Oh, he’s just a squishy little American. I could take him.”
I drink a glass of water before bed. I stand and watch my cats try to eat the cockroaches sprawling over my cutting board. Those damn cockroaches. The first time I saw them, I went numb behind the ears and almost puked. Six cans of Raid, a dozen roach-traps, a kitchen full of containers full dried goods and one month later, I just watch them. There are hundreds more now, many of them are babies. Someone has been getting their freak on.
Good for them.
In the morning, reality knows only two things; the roaches have fled into the cutlery drawer, or the dish-rack, the microwave, the cabinet beneath the sink, a crack in the walls, above the shelves, beneath the floorboards, behind the toilet, under the bath, or in some other dark nook cranny or crevice inside this apartment of seemingly endless dark nooks, crannies, and crevices, also the cats are hungry.
I am truly grateful that they are so fat and sweet, those cats, and they cuddle.
But hell, what good are they.
Baba Yaga menaced Russian children for generations, but what would happen if you ran into her in modern-day Russia? The Babushka Society is a demented magical-realism adventure set in the heart of Saint Petersburg, where two young men stumble across a babushka conspiracy, led by Russian fairytales’ stalwart character Baba Yaga, to take the country of Russia back from the Hipster scourge.
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This is a bilingual Russian-English story, translated by Julia Pyatnitskaya
⠀⠀⠀⠀
Where can you pick it up?
⠀⠀⠀⠀
KINDLE: check us out my Amazon page and receive your copy for 0.99 $
PDF: Pick up a FREE PDF from Nada Blank E-Press
PATREON: If you’d like to support me on Patreon, sign up and receive a copy and follow along with future projects.
⠀⠀⠀⠀
When you’ve finished if you could please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads, we would greatly appreciate it.
⠀⠀⠀⠀
You can find all the links in bio ⠀⠀⠀⠀
My mother grew up in the 70s. This means that all of her favorite spy movies had eerily similar bad guys with names like Boris, Ivan, Ivan, and Boris. When my mother visited me in Russia, she stepped out of the arrival gates and said, “Holy-fucking-shit, I’m here.“ Since American media had already moved on to Arabs by the time I crawled into the world, I never thought of Russia as an enemy. But today there were four Russians outside of my apartment building this morning. They rang up, and I thought, “oh, they are here to murder me–I am going to be taken to some dark room and tortured until I admit anything, they want me to admit. it won’t take long, I am so squishy and pink! Then I will be hung in the Red Square and I don’t even know any Morse code, so I won’t be able to send any secret messages to anyone and I get stage fright so even if they let me speak, I’ll probably just sweat and mutter until my neck snaps–“ My girlfriend–woken from the ringing–stormed passed, spoke through the receiver, buzzed the men into the building. On her way back to bed she looked into the kitchen. I was still half-hidden behind the cabinets, peering out.
She sighed and went back to bed.
It is common knowledge amongst young residents of Russian cities that Babushkas [older Russian women] do not like to be followed. If you tread, especially at night, too close behind a babushka, she will turn, check to see if you are a murderer or a thief, then pause and let you pass.
This is normal.
The trouble began afterward. I stopped in a store for a pack of cigarettes. I came back out, lit one, and continued my journey home only to find myself, again, treading a little too closely behind that exact same Babushka. She stopped quicker this time, turned faster, she scowled and hugged her purse a little closer and so I nodded as if to say, “I’m sorry,” to which she read, “I’ll get to you in a minute.” The first few kernels had popped. I walked on.
A little further down the road, I bumped into my friend, Ivan. I stopped to chat. I couldn’t help but notice the babushka passed yet again. I tried to smile in the least creepy, I-am-going-to-find-you-and-steal-your-bread, possible way. She was puffier, redder, expanding.
But it is no use. I vowed to take a good long while with Ivan, who turned out to be in a rush. He left. But, for good measure, I stood and finished my cigarette. I looked up and found the babushka was nowhere to be seen, so I trekked home.
I came up to the end of the alley into my courtyard and–oh dear god. There she was, she had stopped to feed the homeless ginger cat that lives behind the dumpster. She saw me. There was a panic in her face and she was popping at full speed now, backing away. I could almost see the fluffy pops of panic flying out of her brain, accumulating beneath her bonnet. It was tense.
I held up my hands, “I am sorry! I live just there.” Then something happened. She frowned. Her whole demeanor changed, and I could almost hear her thoughts as she shrugged and went back to feeding the ginger cat: “Oh, he’s just a squishy little American. I could take him.”
I drink a glass of water before bed. I stand and watch my cats try to eat the cockroaches sprawling over my cutting board. Those damn cockroaches. The first time I saw them, I went numb behind the ears and almost puked. Six cans of Raid, a dozen roach-traps, a kitchen full of containers full dried goods and one month later, I just watch them. There are hundreds more now, many of them are babies. Someone has been getting their freak on.
Good for them.
In the morning, reality knows only two things; the roaches have fled into the cutlery drawer, or the dish-rack, the microwave, the cabinet beneath the sink, a crack in the walls, above the shelves, beneath the floorboards, behind the toilet, under the bath, or in some other dark nook cranny or crevice inside this apartment of seemingly endless dark nooks, crannies, and crevices, also the cats are hungry.
I am truly grateful that they are so fat and sweet, those cats, and they cuddle.
But hell, what good are they.
Baba Yaga menaced Russian children for generations, but what would happen if you ran into her in modern-day Russia? The Babushka Society is a demented magical-realism adventure set in the heart of Saint Petersburg, where two young men stumble across a babushka conspiracy, led by Russian fairytales’ stalwart character Baba Yaga, to take the country of Russia back from the Hipster scourge.
⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is a bilingual Russian-English story, translated by Julia Pyatnitskaya
⠀⠀⠀⠀
Where can you pick it up?
⠀⠀⠀⠀
KINDLE: check us out my Amazon page and receive your copy for 0.99 $
PDF: Pick up a FREE PDF from Nada Blank E-Press
PATREON: If you’d like to support me on Patreon, sign up and receive a copy and follow along with future projects.
⠀⠀⠀⠀
When you’ve finished if you could please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads, we would greatly appreciate it.
⠀⠀⠀⠀
You can find all the links in bio ⠀⠀⠀⠀
It's a FU-king Sale!
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FREE 3 Day Kindle-Book Sale: The King of FU
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From the 7th-9th The King of FU is available for free on Kindle on Amazon. Check it out completely risk-free (so long as you don't read it aloud to any sensible adults.)
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And, if you enjoy it, please take a moment to leave a review letting us know your thoughts.
Trying to speak Russian feels like fumbling around a room of people I’m sure I’ve met before but whose names I can’t quite seem to remember. Sometimes, I think I’ve got one. I walk over and cry, “Frank!” The man turns and says, “no, I am Frankы, Frank is over there calling Julии, just behind Frankом, the novelist. Jackass.” And, this is nothing compared to my perpetual fear that I might be offered a voice-activated Russian time machine. If I were told I had to go back and save the world in 1953, I am sure I’d find myself 21 years, or 223 years, or 347 years in the future, or possibly past, and I’m sure that when I stepped out of it I’d be a man or woman or at least a noun (or worst case, an adjective) and hopefully there would only be one of me, though I’m less sure that I wouldn’t be eating my own nose upon arrival.
Either way, the world would surely burn.
.
.
.
#english #russianlanguage #instagood #language #fun #style #effect #moscow #comic #humor #spb #travel #languages #russian #learninglanguages #j #languagesarefun #foreign #drawing #russians
