Month: March 2023

Loving Russia

The Massachusetts Review will publish my essay “Loving Russia” in its summer 2023 issue. The title comes from a 2001 New Yorker essay by Susan Sontag called “Loving Dostoyevsky” and is an attempt to address — this does not feel like the right word — my own conflicted feelings regarding a subject to which I… Continue reading Loving Russia

Petrov’s Flu

I make a point of not reading anything about the films we’re showing as part of our Slavic film series before I watch them. The series has been organized by the Indiana Slavic department in collaboration with the Ryder Magazine and Film Series, in collaboration with the Byrnes Russian and East European Institute. Mostly this… Continue reading Petrov’s Flu

Meat Breathing Through Plastic Wrap

I wasn’t properly prepared for the fourth film in our Slavic and East European series with the Ryder and REEI. (I wrote about the first three, Murina, EO, and The Other Side of Everything here, here, and here.) There’s a good reason for this, which I’ll get to shortly. The slices of meat squirming across… Continue reading Meat Breathing Through Plastic Wrap

Rytkheu Panel Next Week

I’ll be participating in a roundtable next week (March 22, 1:30pm EDT; 5:30pm GMT & 6:30pm CET) devoted to the work of Chukchi author Yuri Rytkheu. The virtual event, organized by the Russian and East European Institute as part of a series on indigenous and under-represented writers from Russian-speaking spaces, will be hosted by my… Continue reading Rytkheu Panel Next Week

Oh Say Can You? No, it’s something a little different.

After a test run and some mixing tweaks, Ba.Ren.Chi’s “Oh Say Can You” went live on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon Music Streaming, and some other platforms I don’t remember about a month ago. Then I started making changes. I don’t think I quite understood the song before. It was angrier than I… Continue reading Oh Say Can You? No, it’s something a little different.