I accept that the world is changing, but this change, this closing of my used bookshop--it's a bad one.

I got intrigued. The limits of the internet fascinate me.  And the more I looked for Kochergin images, the more I realized how familiar I was with his imagery.  To some extent, he has the corner on classic Russian fairytale imagery.  He owes a debt to Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942)--one of those innocent, tremendous "Golden Age of Illustration" artists who got caught up in weird Central European Nationalism (much to the detriment of their illustrations, I'd put Alphonse Mucha in this category also). But from what I can tell, Kochergin is a creature of a different generation.

I say "from what I can tell," because the internet isn't telling me anything about these next pieces, except that they are all images created by artists named, variously, "N. Kochergin," "Nikolai Kochergin," and "Nikolai Mikhailovich Kochergin," all of whom appear to have lived 1897-1974. I am pretty sure that these are all the same person. But--this is just from the internet, so maybe not.  In any case, Kochergin's images:

And then come these (POSTCARDS: 1960s. N. KOCHERGIN). Okay, I can see the Social Realism influence here, but there's a step (in history) that I'm feeling gets glossed over:

What was the progression from the young man who created the top image to the old(er) man who created these last images? I don't know if it would make a book. But it's something I'd like to know something more about.

Snihurónka is the Ukrainian Snow Maiden, companion to Did Moróz, Grandfather Frost.

Moróz has been identified with Morozko, the pre-Christian pan-Slavic personification of the snow (an animistic spirit, god, or demon, depending on your perspective), but it is widely accepted that his companion, Snihurónka, dates back only to the 19th century, and Alexander Afanasyev's 1869 ""The Poetic Outlook of Slavs about Nature."

I have yet to resolve to my own satisfaction why this should be. Afanasyev is, effectively, the Russian equivalent of the Grimm brothers, and his folktale collection techniques, where "he never tried to give any definitive version of a folktale: so, if he gathered 7 versions of one folk type, he edited them all,"* is considered to have been intellectually sophisticated and ahead of its time. Why Snihurónka should be relegated as Afanasyev's personal invention, rather than one among many folk figures that he collected--I have not seen the scholarship that tells me this is anything other than bias against the story--the Moróz figure, in other cultures, does not have a female companion.

Very little is known definitively about Slavic mythology, but one thing that is known is that the Slavic pantheon was full of unusual gender assignments, gods who are variously represented as female or male in different times and locations, and god-pairs with male and female partners. So--why not Did Moróz and Snihurónka?

I am currently going through a French language obsession. Or, more precisely, a French word obsession. In trying to understand why, I'm seeing myself loitering (with great pleasure) at the building blocks stage of things.

I'm very much enjoying these Sicklemoon decks on Tinycards (that's a vocabulary App, a subsidiary of the language learning Duolingo program, and a log in is probably needed to see them). Each of these decks, like a sort of "sonnet plus one," has fifteen entries, each on a closely related theme. I think that's related to the way the program is set up, but to me, they are like fifteen word poems, introducing me, almost from a child's point of view, to snippets of French life: "Les Animaux de L'Étang." "Les Animaux de la Plage." "Les Fruits de la Forêt."

The pond one is a particular favorite (also the berries). Who needs to know the French words for waterstrider and whirlygig beetle? Evidently... me.

They're words--they are names--in an Ursula K. Le Guin sort of sense. Knowing the names... I think that still bestows real power--even if only a brief flare of it.

And... drat. The formatting has cropped off the accent aigu from the capital "E" of étang.

Thus far, the book has lived up to my expectations. So far, Marie is 16 years old, and I have moved only a little on from her early entries as a precocious 13 year old. But what an odd privilege, to read the words of this petted young woman, as she rackets around some fine estates in Italy and France:

Something tells me that both Nice and Paris must have been nice... in 1873, when Marie was living there.

Marie is known best these days for her journal, which she herself predicted... and somewhat for her paintings. She did some very fine paintings--not enough of which are on the internet (as of 2017). Here's hoping that will be rectified in the next couple of years.  I very much like these portraits.

On Writers You Want to Punch in the Face[book] (by Rebecca Makkai)

I have been thinking about this article since a friend shared it with me, a month or more back now.  It's a wonderful piece, in its own delightfully twisted way, and has provoked a fair amount of internet discussion. The article describes the imaginary-but-all-too-real "Todd Manly-Krauss," a writer who uses social media to write smugly and blithely and self-servingly about even the least of his achievements--with a nauseating undercurrent of tone-deaf gender insensitivity. 

Here's my standpoint--and it's a strongly visceral one.  My toes literally curl in revulsion when I read anything, in the real world, in the style of Todd Manly-Krauss (hereafter TMK!).  And not least--when I'm reading something I have written myself, or am even just reviewing an idea in my head, and my inner ear alarmedly senses that first beat of TMK intonation. 

The truth is not something that pleases me.  Because the truth is this: My fear of the TMK tone has stalled me out, and indeed inhibited my work, many, many more times than TMK writing has actually been a sin in which I've overindulged. 

And that's the element that has led me to loathe dear old (imaginary!) Todd Manly-Krauss so obsessively this past month. 

I'm not alone in my TMK fears.  One person commented on Rebecca Makkai's article: "It’s the authorial equivalent of the Christmas card letter that talks about the family’s perfect year."  Point taken. But this very real, fierce dislike of TMK--it feeds and spawns that wretched, powerful TMK fear.

And what, really, is so bad about getting a poorly written Christmas letter?  I'd rather get a sheaf of Christmas letters--some poorly written, some good--than not get any mail at Christmas.  I don't want my friends to turn the letter task into a process so lengthy, so weighted, so significant, that the letter would just absorb too much energy to actually complete, so--I never hear from them. 

The same goes, somewhat differently expressed, for the writers whose blogs I enjoy.  Don't get me wrong.  Most of the author's logs I enjoy have a high proportion of really great posts.  But they also have dopey ones too, ones I can recognize that the writers concerned are not expecting me to take too seriously.

TMK fear: it's just another hydra-head of the paralysis-perfectionist impulse.

Todd Manly-Krauss!  Oh how I hate him!