Hand In Goat
What’s it like
to put your hand inside of an animal
feel around some organs and
assorted body parts
put your hand on its heart
and squeeze/pull/rupture something
near the heart
maybe feel the blood pour out
of a major artery/vein?
Do you feel:
Like a man
Connected with nature
Still drunk from yesterday?
Attempt at Reflections on Tuva
At this point I hoped that I would be able to put some thoughts down about what happened to me a few weeks ago. I guess I’ll start with a list of things that happened:
-Saw some fields on fire while taking the train to Abakan
-Took a gorgeous taxi ride through the mountains with ever changing scenery that reminded us Americans of 5-6 different states
-Met a lot of really nice Tuvan people
-Took a long bus ride out into the mountains that involved pushing it up hills and feeling like we were going to fall over. The driver was amazing, it was like a safari ride, and I will never make fun of those short little Russian buses anymore.
-Met some shepherds who were very stoic.
-Watched a goat die via hand through slit in chest and separating aorta from heart
-Ate lots of various goat parts
-Listened to quite a bit of Throat singing
-Played music with throat singers in the back of the bus on the way home
-Saw Tuvan wrestling
-Saw basically every bank in Tuva
-Rode a horse across the Steppe
-Played a song for an English club
-Went to a Tuvan club that really was the closest thing in Russia to clubs I like at home (no frills)
-Got really sick for 30 hours (flu)
-Attempted to make burritos for everyone
I feel like the week I spent there was just long enough for the idea of Tuva as a beautiful place to be solidified in my mind without having to deal with the troubles of every day life. They say drunken Tuvan men can be dangerous. They say there’s crime and racism but I didn’t see it.
Since I’ve been back in Tomsk I’ve tried to process these experiences but it’s difficult. The world felt a little but more connected there, or something like that. People seemed a little more real than many of the Russians I meet. Maybe it was the richness of culture that I sensed. Russia still seems to be figuring its identity out, Tuva seems to have a very ancient one. I want to go back.
Just got featured in Tuvan’s finest online news source. Click the pic to see the article. Google Translate if you don’t know Russian.
my favorite quote:
Брендан Мульвихилл, США, исполнил песню в стиле кантри, сыграв на мандолине (струнный щипковый музыкальный инструмент небольших размеров) – удивил многонациональную аудиторию.
lol @ not actually playing country.
I feel this picture truly embodies the love/hate relationship I have with Russia.
TRAIN 2 TAIGA
TRAIN 2 ABAKAN
TAXI 2 KYZYL
GONNA SLEEP IN A YURT
GONNA KILL A SHEEP
GONNA LOOK CUTE 4
ALL THE TUVAN GRRLZ
I WANT TO SWIM WHERE VLAD VLAD PUTIN SWAM
I WANT TO TAKE OF MY SHIRT LIKE HE DID
I WANT TO HAVE A ‘CULTURAL AWAKENING’
GONNA THROAT SING
GONNA CLIMB A MOUNTAIN
GONNA GO 2 A DISCO INSIDE A STADIUM
W/ A SECURITY DETAIL
SO WE DONT GET ‘KNIFED’
TIME 2 TUVA
I kissed this girl
but her tongue didnt move right
and then she went home.
Before
I got her number & I saved it on my telephone
but I did it in the wrong alphabet.
so I wrote down all of the possible
permutations in order to decode
her name so that I would know it
if we ever kissed again.
Russian Words I Think Are Beautiful 7: Beetle
The river blew up today but it was on purpose
There were some explosion sounds and I looked north
They said what happened and I said I think the river exploded
because it has been frozen too long
We walked down to where the river had probably exploded
There were people everywhere
From there we went to the end of the pier/wall and looked
and saw that the water level was rising
I said I wonder how many of my students I will see here
I saw none
Then we made some jokes about smells and silly people and porsche and borscht
while making our way back to my apartment
We stood outside
I took off my shoes because I like you
Together we made a promise that we would meet in a few hours
after you walked your dog and they walked with Anya
and I stayed home and wrote about this
this is what a river looks like when it is frozen but an unfrozen one runs into it.
‘Lass uns runter gehen. Ich möchte das Eis ein bisschen genauer anschauen.
‘Okay, gehen wir.
She swung her leg over the concrete barrier, I followed. We shuffled down towards the piles of ice that had been moved to/washed upon the shore.
‘Gehst du echt auf sie laufen?
‘Wieso nicht. Sieht nicht gefährlich aus. Pass auf meine Tasche auf. Mein Komputer is drinne.
‘Wenn du reinfällst, helfe ich dir nicht. Ich gehe weg, nehm die Tasche mit.
She smiled, knowing I wouldn’t actually run away if she fell in. She put one foot on the ice, another. Took a third step, and the beached floe on the top of the pile crumbled. She with it. She sat, laughing at her idiocy.
‘Bring mir ein bisschen Eis mit, will es anschauen.
‘Welches?
‘Eins mit Schichten, ich will die Schichten anschauen.
She stood up, brought me a piece of ice. One with layers. I looked at the layers and the air trapped within. Six months worth of freezing. I threw it back, made sure it hit a vulnerable looking spot in the pile. With a crunch some ice shattered. I smiled.
‘Findest du es auch komisch dass sie hier angeln gehen? Die Fische sind unbedingt giftig.
‘Klar sind sie.
‘Deswegen gehe ich nie Fisch kaufen beim Markt.
She then began to tell me about the lakes in Sweden, where the fish are also poisonous. She says the water is beautiful, you could see to the bottom, but nothing lived inside. I replied that it was odd. Not like here. Here you couldn’t see to the bottom. Still she wouldn’t ever want to fish from it.
‘Hier siehts aus als ob Öl drauf wäre.
‘Ja stimmt.
We looked at the water with the sunset on it, like a ironed iridescent beetle shell. Both of us were probably wondering if there was really a layer of oil on top.
ME VS. A GIRL VS. A LANGUAGE VS. JESUS
JESUS SAYS
THAT HE UNDERSTANDS ME
WHEN I FUCK UP
AND/OR HAVE PROBLEMS
WITH
MY BROTHER
OR DRINKING
SADNESS
OR PAYING BILLS
WONDER IF JESUS PAID ‘BILLS’
OR HOW HE SOLVED PROBLEMS
WITH HIS ‘BROTHER’ JAMES
WONDER WHAT HE THINKS
OF STRAY DOGS
OR RUSSIA
OR SIBERIA
WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN
TITANS
ARE TEAMAKERS?
OR WHEN A GIRL CALLS
WHAT DOES
THE SON OF GOD MEAN?
OR OCTOBER MEANS SNOWFALLS
IS A DOG A WOLF OR A DOG
WHEN IT HAS NO HOME
DOES IT TRANSFORM BY NATURE OF ITS DWELLING
WHAT IS A MAN IN RUSSIA
WHEN HE WASN’T BORN HERE
OR IF RUSSIA TRANSFORMED HIM OUT OF RUSSIA
WHAT AM I WHEN I AM NONE OF THESE THINGS:
DOG, WOLF, RUSSIAN, MAN
DID JESUS BECOME THE SON OF GOD BECAUSE
A) HIS MOM TOLD HIM
B) HIS DAD TOLD HIM
C) HE TOLD HIMSELF
AM I NOT RUSSIAN BECAUSE OF
A) BIRTH
B) LANGUAGE
C) MENTAL STATE
IS A WOLF NOT A DOG BECAUSE IT IS A WOLF
Stadtwolf
