La de da de da.

Today was such a beautiful and sunny and warm (!) day that I decided to walk home from the Bobrinskii Palace in the most roundabout way. It was really nice -- it felt like summer again -- and I really should try to take the metro as little as possible while I still can walk places. Also, as the sun was out for once and made everything look so much more interesting and visually pleasing, I shot a roll of black and white film of various metal grates and fences and bridge-details and things just for the hell of it which is always fun.

I had grammar class with everyone's favorite, Ludmila Petrovna today. Her tangent in class today actually involved me personally. She calls on me to begin the exercise we are about to do about prepositions and motion verbs and she goes, "Elizabetik, begin exercise one, go, go, Elizabetik, Lizchick, Lizochka, wait, why does Bryan call you.... eee..... beee?" So then we spent twenty minutes talking about how "Иби" is "E.B." in English and how it's not a real nickname for Elizabeth, like Mila for Ludmila, it's just my initials, and no, it's not on my passport. God, I love that woman. Grammar class is so much ridiculousness and fun rolled together.

And then I went to Emily's (Jonathan's wife) seminar for practicing artists, the one I'm auditing. I didn't go last week because I had too many things to do, but I am so glad I went this week because we had this insane conversation trying to define the difference between an idea and a concept, both in English and in Russian, and how these compare to interpretations and associations and then this huge thing about how annoying it is when people only look at art through a biographical perspective. Emily said, "Yes, my husband is an academic expert on 19th century Russian literature or whatever and I go with him to these conferences where people say, 'Ahh, yes, I just learned that Akhmatova went on vacation to this city when she was writing this poem and while on vacation she ate cucumber sandwhiches and that went on to greatly influence her work.' Who cares???" THANK YOU. Artists work so hard to create something that is self-sufficent, that should live on its own and exist in a way that other people can observe it as an indiviual, separate thing. Sure, the artist's biographical background influenced why she made it the way she did or why she made it at all or what, but that's not the point of the piece. And this whole point of view was so refreshing to talk about and to look at art in this way during the class because it was just taking what is in front of us and digesting it instead of all this academia, high-horse, bullshit that I have to hear on a regular basis. WHO CARES. THAT'S NOT ALWAYS THE POINT. Just because you know something about the author or arist does not mean you actually understand the work better, it just makes you feel like you do.

So that was refreshing, even if it all took place in that little dark cramped classroom in the Bobrinskii with all the computers and it's always cold in there and dark because we're looking at projections and stuffy...... but I went for my walk in the warm September sun afterwards and felt much better about life and art and everything. I also have an idea for a new photo project to work on while I am here. I think I am going to start it on Thursday. Until then though, I'm going to leave you in suspennnnnnse.

But because I feel bad about that, I put some new photos up already. I got back the first roll of film I shot with my Zenit TTL today. Not all of the pictures came out well, but the ones that came out I like a lot.

Uh-huh.