LENIN’S LITTLE-KNOWN TWIN BROTHER

Via Bakhyt Kenjeev, and with much gratitude to the great Russian poet Bakhyt, here’s the site of a very interesting artist from Ufa, Bashkiria, Russia, Rinat Voligamsi: www.voligamsi.com. The “Informal Album” section of the site is dedicated to V.I. Lenin and his never-extant twin brother, Sergey Ilyich Ulyanov. Overall, smart and hilarious.

The above piece is listed as “Sergey Ilyich Ulyanov with daughter Natasha at Finnish border crossing. 1925.” Here are a few more samples:

Volodya Ulyanov going to the river to drown cat and kittens. 1880

 

Sergey Ulyanov in his antique shop. Zurich, 1937

  

S. Ulyanov and L. Trotzky. Mexico, 1938

SIC TRANSIT

Nothing proves the futility of human endeavour with greater finality than a library, as per Borges:

MEANINGLESS METEOROLOGICAL UPDATE

Some serious snowfall underway in Montreal:

OLD JEWS TELLING JOKES

Just that, nothing more and nothing less — old Jews, telling jokes:

http://oldjewstellingjokes.com/post/346602533/a-special-message-from-the-producers-of-ojtj.

Quite hilarious.

A PROPOS OF: PRINCE OF COOL

Arguably one of the most potent forms of nostlgia is that felt for the times and places one could not have experienced due to the circumstances of the time and place of his birth. Here’s Chet Baker, with his “I’ve Never Been in Love Before”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyVDPo3pMsc&feature=related.

A PROPOS OF: NEILS BOHR ON EXPERTISE

According to Neils Bohr, an expert is “a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.”

Alas, the filed of writing is an ever-expanding one, by default.

A PROPOS OF: COMING ACROSS THE BLOG OF A CERTAIN POPULAR TV-PERSONALITY IN RUSSIA

The following quote from the great Russian satirist, whose 90th birthday falls on this year, pertains to some certain famous TV- and radio-personality in Russia with a nightingale-specific last name. Those living in Russia or watching Russian television from time to time will know immediately the indivudual YT is referencing:

— Vasya, what do you think that nightingale is singing about?

— It’s friggin’ hungry, that why it’s singing.

Mikhail Zoshchenko, “Sentimental Novellas”

WERNER HERZOG READS CURIOUS GEORGE

This is very good:

http://www.abebooks.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/18/werner-herzog-reads-curious-george/

RED TRIANGLE

Randomly encountered photo of the contemporary St. Petersburg artist Ilya Orlov’s painting “Red Triangle.” The Red Triangle rubber-goods factory, situated on the Obvodny Canal Embankment in midtown St. Petersburg and likely long defunct, is where Yours Truly’s mother worked for many years, as a technologist/engineer. The first eight years of YT’s life were spent in a communal apartment within a few minutes’ walk from that gloomily impressive edifice:

WHAT, NO CLIPS OF BREZHNEV’S SPEECHES WERE AVAILABLE?

40 inspirational speeches in two minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wRkzCW5qI&feature=player_embedded