Letter

I hadn’t read a book in Russian for thirty-five years until last week. A couple months ago, my father sent me a link to an hour-long documentary about a writer named Sasha Sokolov. I have an email folder full of links from my parents. I can’t say I’ll ever get to reading, watching, and listening to all of it, but now and again something in there grabs me. That’s what happened with the Sokolov doc. It’s called something like The Last Russian Writer and I can’t remember if there are English subtitles. Lately I’ve been trying to watch Russian movies more and it’s a big help if there are no subtitles because it forces me to just listen to the talking rather than reading the invariably limited and inferior English translation.

I’d heard of Sokolov before, probably for his first and best-known book, A School For Fools, which was handed around as samizdat in the 60s, then published in Russian in the 70s by a press in Michigan. There are several English translations, but I’ve been itching to see if I could get through a book in my mother tongue, so I took a copy out from the library. From the first sentence, it felt like taking a gulp of water after wandering in the desert for decades. It was something I’d missed without even knowing it. That said, it’s been very slow going and the edition I got has illustrations I dislike and is oversized, making it cumbersome. I called up my father to see if he had a copy lying around, but he couldn’t find one, so I went online and found one at Russian site for about six dollars. It’ll be good to have my own, because getting to the end of the book will probably take months.

I started the painting above the day after David Berman died. Because the sleepless night before inspired it, I was gonna name the painting in his honor. But as I worked on it I changed my mind. Center-left in the picture is a light blue-green rectangle with some yellow marks in the middle. It is the cover of a book of art from Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Schweik. Joseph Lada’s illustrations were done after Hašek’s death in 1923 but are inseparable in my mind from the text of the story. They are also the basis for Jiri Trnka’s great 1955 animated film. I flip through this book every now and then and remember listening to Schweik’s adventures as my father or mother read them aloud when I was small.

Schweik was a fool who revealed the folly of those running his world. We could use a fool like that today because we’re so far through the looking glass there may be no way back without some serious outside help. Sokolov’s book, so far, is an attempt to render a different kind of lunacy. I don’t know that I’m getting it all yet but am thoroughly enjoying the music of his stream-of-consciousness phrasing. It’s pretty out-there stuff, but it makes a lot more sense to me than what I read in my adoptive language every day in the New York Times.

It’s a welcome reprieve.

—I went to see Jeff Parker perform his amazing album, The New Breed, and, not unlike with Sokolov and Schweik, it felt like that music made it easier to breathe. I’ve listened to the record dozens of times, but having it played in real time was very special.

The night David Berman died I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts kept racing like desperate rats in a maze with no exit. I read a book, watched TV, kept turning off the light, then turning it back on again. I’d open the computer for no reason and click around aimlessly, then put it away. With the music paintings about to go up at the Rainbo, I needed a new art project, something to keep me engaged.

One of the times I got out of bed, I found it. There’s a built-in hutch in my kitchen. There are some cups and dishes in there, but mostly it’s full of souvenirs. Lately, I’ve started to put books in there too. Books I recently finished that left an impression. The Great Gatsby is in there. As is Unquiet and some others. The countertop has postcards, a dish of quarters, and assorted bric-a-brac. I looked at it all as if for the first time. It could be a painting, but I’d need a big canvas.

It was about 4am. I booked a Zipcar to go to the art supply store at noon and set the alarm for 11am. An hour later, I rebooked the car for 9am and puttered around the house until it was time to go.

Aside from the painting idea, I got it into my head that I was going to buy a hat. I’ve been getting burnt to a crisp by the sun all summer. The trouble is that hats never fit me and I sweat so much that the cover they provide isn’t worth the heatstroke they hasten. I forget this every time though. I’ve given and thrown away more than I can recall. I did an hours-long internet search, settling on a store in Wicker Park. Sleep-deprived, with two canvases taking up the entire back seat and hatch of the rental, I showed up at the store, tried on a couple hats, then left without buying anything.

The next day, I set up the big easel to face the hutch. I set my palette—a window pane from the alley—on the stovetop and got to work. It was the first time the stove had been used in any way in months. 

Friday night I went down the street to see some bands at the Co-Prosperity Sphere. One of them—a loud punk band, with twin brothers and a third guy who looked like a close relation, called Tongue Party—wasn’t bad. But my attention kept drifting to the paintings I’d have to hang at the bar the next morning. I’d been intending to put up a painting of a woman holding a guitar, center stage behind the bar. But I hadn’t heard from her since she posed for the painting and I’d come to believe that the painting was at least part of the cause. It had been hanging in my living room, taunting me, for two weeks. I’d begun to loathe it. While the band bashed away at their instruments, I came up with a plan. 

I left the show and walked home. I took the drawing up to the roof, took a match to it, and took pictures watching it burn. It was peaceful and dark up there, the slow-working flame the only bright light.

David Berman killed himself last week. He was fifty-two. I’m really sad about it. I never got to meet him but was a huge fan for many years. Few could turn a phrase like him. I don’t hold what he did against him. It’s really hard to keep living. I’m sure he held on as long as he could.  

I’ll miss his voice and his words. I’m grateful there a records and books which will keep him from disappearing altogether. His songs and poems will be with me and everyone else who loves them for as long as we’re drawing breath.  

“When it’s snowing, the outdoors feel like a room.” 

I don’t feel like writing anything else about these past few weeks. Most of what’s been happening personally and globally has been gutting to greater or lesser extents. Makes me envious of those who’ve checked out. But I doubt I’ll go out of sadness or mental illness or anytime soon.

When the time comes, I’ll do it with a clear mind and peace in my heart.