Moving along...

For one of two days that are supposed to be pretty quiet, as recovery work is being done elsewhere, it's been a pretty busy afternoon. Part of it was interpreting a 2-hour meeting that covered a number of urgent topics, so the words were coming fast and furious from all sides.

Yesterday continued what has become a trend during this campaign, of watching old comedies. Early on, it was Caddie Shack, followed by Airplane! and Blazing Saddles. Last night was, apparently, Bill Murray double-feaure night, featuring Ghostbusters and Stripes. I'm sure this is far from a comprehensive list, as I do not hang out in the television room much, but it's pleasant to be in a room with a bunch of people who are laughing with energy as they're watching these old movies.

On further reflection, I have put in a little time playing/learning the beginning levels of the Gears of War first-person shooter on the Xbox 360. I can feel those old synaptic paths, burned in while playing Doom an eternity ago, coming back. There's no chance I'll become a gamer, though, as the time the machine is available is very limited, owing to high demand from other campaigners.

Time to get ready to leave work.

Cheers...

A. I. Solzhenitsyn, RIP

It was reported today that Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn has died at the age of 89, of acute heart failure.

I would venture to say that if Westerners know the names of any one contemporary Russian writer or of any half dozen Russian authors of any era, his name is very likely to come up.

I was never became a big fan, although I still remember the impact that One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich had on me when I read it in high school, and although I bought and read most of the first printing, by YMCA-Press, of the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago in Russian (and the rest, in the English version, as the going was - for me - quite slow), my interest fell off about halfway through the second volume as I was overcome by an overwhelming sense of despair that life could ever be good or, at times, that it could even be lived.

Still, those first few lines of the first part of Archipelago grabbed me as no other lines have grabbed me since. Here's the Russian, followed by my translation:

     Как попадают на этот таинственный Архипелаг? Туда ежечасно летят самолеты, плывут корабли, гремят поезда -- но ни единая надпись на них не указывает места назначения. И билетные кассиры, и агенты Совтуриста и Интуриста будут изумлены, если вы спросите у них туда билетик. Ни всего Архипелага в целом, ни одного из бесчисленных его островков они не знают, не слышали.
     Те, кто едут Архипелагом управлять -- попадают туда через училища МВД.
     Те, кто едут Архипелаг охранять -- призываются через военкоматы.
     А те, кто едут туда умирать, как мы с вами, читатель, те должны пройти непременно и единственно -- через арест.

     How do people end up in this mysterious Archipelago? Planes fly, boats sail, and trains rattle on their way there hourly, but not a single sign on them indicates their destination. And both ticket agents and representatives of Sovtourist and Intourist would be puzzled if you asked them to sell you a ticket to go there. They know nothing of the Archipelago as a whole, or of any of its countless small islands; they never heard of it.
     Those who go to operate the Archipelago end up there via MVD academies.
     Those who go to safeguard the Archipelago are drafted by military enlistment boards.
     And those who go there to die, like you and I, reader, those must - without fail and exclusively - be arrested.

For some reason, it never stuck in my mind that by education, Solzhenitsyn was a teacher of mathematics and a physicist. Perhaps, when I get back home after this campaign, I'll go dig up and dust off some of his more recent works that my old man had in his library when he died.

Cheers...