Russia - The St. Petersburg Manifesto

Corrections first... Nathan Aaron Kantorov weighed in at a whopping 7lbs and 11oz. Apologia for depriving him of that one ounce. I'm sure that will make the difference between linebacker and nose tackle when he tries out for the 9ers.

And now without further adieu The St. Petersburg Manifesto...

1) We intend to open our eyes and ears in order to experience the mundane through instantaneous bliss. The moment is not only the reason but the substance of every reason.

2) Poetry will contain all the elements necessary to describe life down to the smell of alkaline water. It will be ferocious in its audacity to evoke and transcend banality.

3) We need fuel like a car on the road. We dedicate our lungs to the smell of exhaust, our mouths to the taste of tobacco, our livers to the care of spirits and our stomachs to flesh from the fire.

4) The ancient world butted against the new in a constant state of decay has a magnifecence that it could never have dreamed of prior to knowing its own steady demise. We reveal hidden treasures through the oculus of a camera, extol and steal fragments of the world as we rewrite the context of presentation.

5) Let the music in our ears be like the architecture around us, borrowed and stolen, sweet and sad, simple and complicated. Let it forever be a thin layer of air beneath our feet.

6) The poet is dead. Let him rot, let his bones be beaten into the earth and turned into a fine meal so that a writer can emerge. Let the poet's blood water dead flowers from the 19th century, let the poetess lie next to him decomposing so that we can forget the sign of the poet and instead live and write.

7) Time exists only in the fact that it once existed and will again, but not just now. Time is a burden, time is a thief. Don't think too much on time nor the propriety of the daylight hours. Devoid of stars, the night time sky absolves us all. Lick the glass of heaven and taste a bit of the manifence in creating the stars that are still there.

8) If we're to be captured let it be of our own free will, posessed with the need to let go enough so that time doesn't slip through our fingers like sand. May conversation fill the glass we drink like the blue alcohol flame that burns from the stem of a green tumbler of absinthe... let it be sweet like fire and burn our throats should we forget to speak to one another.

9) The only thing more ignoble to die for than religion is literature. Die your death on the page and not for it.

10) Sick and tire of "isms" and the latineate words onto which they are attached.

11) Feel the swell of bodies in motion, their heat, their perspiration lubricating the air with the honesty of biomechanics. Forego the normal regimen of cleanliness. Offend yourself extensively. Live out of a bag. Rage at the resurection of the light as if a might flashlight had pinpointed every debauchery of the world and you as both the criminal and the victim. Feel greed when eating and drinking and equal zest in walking and waking. Sleep is a minumum, motion a maximum.

And if you're curious what started this, then you might want to go to Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto... HERE

Maybe it was Mars Field that brought this on. I don't honestly know, but I'm finding it infinitely difficult to generate original work. This could be the product of an inability to write in unfamiliar surroundsing because I'm so damn intrigued with trying to photograph everything. Writing has always been something I did in the comfort of my own home, kind of at peace with my computer. On rare occasions, I feel compelled to write during my lunch hour because there is a terminal kind of urgency in that space of sixty minutes and I have an unflinching focus. I know that pressure is something that has always motivated me to push on through thick and thin. Although the last few days have been very stressful and we've been moving faster and harder than I can remember, the ability to pause, to smoke at will, to suck down a beer and eat an exquisite meal has made writing a very difficult thing. I've been reading a bit here and there, but writing is not coming to me. I was hoping, having been here last year, that this time I would find the time to write. The only thing I'm capable of writing are these Blogs. James, maybe it was James, I don't know, but someone said to me that Blogging is a way to avoid writing. I think that journaling and public journals (blogs) are a way to preserve thought processes and ideas. I probably will go back and read over these at some point or other and see if I can remember the reason why I wrote one thing or another, or a certain walk, and maybe it will generate some worthwhile thought later.

At the stray dog last night, our second session openning dinner, Misha said that sometimes the effect of this city, its remoteness, both geographical and ontological, the fact that it shouldn't exist, and the effect it has on a person may strike you the minute you drive into town, or maybe later when you come home, after a few weeks and then WHAM! you're hit with the fact that you were here, or that you dreamed of someplace like here right now. I'm hoping that unlike a dream, I can take back something from the memory of this dream through writing about in the plainest way possible: journaling. As for poetry and high art... well seriously friends... FUCK IT... give me a little low brow so that I don't have to be a poet and can just say that I write and therefore I am.

Something just came back to mind... Absinthe! I had another large glass of it last night, but this was truly a ritual. It was a beautiful thing, unlike anything I've ever had before. The only analog I can think of was that Irish Whiskey in Bangkok that aws lit on fire as it was poured infront of my face with expert grace: flaming kalua met flaming whiskey on a bed of onyx coffee and satin cream. No, this was all emerald fire... What we had done in Cynic was fun... but this was far more memrable. It started with the order. "Do you want me to do it for you or would you rather do it yourself?" I thought about the barmaid's offer and then decided to stow my do-it-yourself attitude and let her run the show. Sasha was standing close. We hadn't really had a drink for the last two weeks as he's been busy with some columns, so I decided we should have an absinthe together as I know its an expensive treat and kind of out his reach here. The waitress began by measuring out the green stuff. Then she used a real absinthe spoon and placed a large cube of sugar on it and poured the liquid over the cube slowly out of the measuring beaker. She lit the cube on fire and let it burn for a good long time as she prepped the next glass. She placed two small plates with straws on them on the bar counter. There was a straw on each one. The sugar was still burning. She then took the perforated spoon and tipped it ever so slightly so that the sugar infused absinthe that was cooking and melting off the cube could better drip into the glass. After a ltitle bit of this precarious tipping she let the cube slip into the glass, a highball thick bottomoed affair and it burst into flames... blue fire in a green sea. She let that burn for a little while and then reached for a cognac glass, a snifter. She smothered the flame by placing it inside the highball. There it sat collecting fumes and condensation. She lifted the snifter up and placed it on the small plate making sure one end of the straw was firmly under the glass in the center will the other end was sticking up. She told me to breathe in the fumes. I complied with her order. I trusted that she knew what she was doing. She then repeated these steps for Sasha. The feeling of breathing absinthe fumes is like a dry cleaning your lungs. I mean it didn't really faze me but you can taste the minty strength of the fluid, its potency, but since my lungs are as black as asphalt right now, it didn't really burn. She went back to both glasses lighting them on fire. As soon as we were done with the fumes she handed us the glasses of absinthe which now were hot and suffused with sugar. Before I could toast Sasha drank half his glass. She urged me not to let it cool, and so I did the same. Then he pulled back and said "Za teb-ya" and I replied "Za vas, e za nas" and we finished off the glasses. The first one went down easily, but the second pull, the one that drained it burned like acid going down that was certain to come back up. It was harsh and brutally sweet at the same time the licoriche saturated every cell and pore in my body. I might have turned as green as the emerald city for a moment. Then the fire settled and I saw her take the glasses from us, dropping the last drops onto the upside down snifters, into that depression on the underside of the base where the stem terminates. She then handed us the straws and said, now sniff these drops through your nose. I decided that I couldn't. I hate the feeling of water in my nose and after spending most of October and November squirting saline up there post surgery I could do without anything else travelling up there.

We shared a beer after this, sitting in the very back of "Brodachaya Sobaka" smoking and enjoying the delerious heat that infilitrated our bodies. I didn't halucinate, nor did I go mad, I was already there on both accounts. We sat and talked about Apolinaire and Sasha's two train trips to Vladivostok. We were waiting for James to finish up shmoozing. It was his Birthday and we were going to go to his favorite restaraunt in St. Pete's: Il Patio. Its an Italian joint. Personally I find it very offensive. I ate there last year on my final night in the city. I was denied at the doors of Kilikia as it was closed for a private party. The food is ok, or was, but it didn't agree with me too much this morning. Still, it was his 37th, I mean 22nd, and that means we had to go there. The initial group that arrived was quite large, 13 of us. James made a point of inviting every pretty girl that would say yes... he did a fine job. Eventually Misha arrived and then more and more people until we had taken over an entire corner of this restaurant. Tanya wanted to come but she was on office duty and flying oh solo mio in 301. We bought her a pizza and I ran it back to the hotel for her dinning pleasure. I needed to hit the ATM anyway. When I came back to the restaurant after spending a whopping 99 rubels at the Tinkov Brewery and Pub (that "99" shit is so for the western mind set and paradighm) I found the groups had fractured and entered into either frivolous play with cameras or conversation that motivated Parker to a cigarette. It was lovely. I sat against the wall smoking and Michael proceeded to take pictures of me. I guess he was doing a whole series of "game faces" no smiling, so I gave him my best "I'm walking down the street don't fuck with me face." He and a few other people called it an "author or book" shot. Eh... whatever, smoke and black and white always go together in my book. Tony fell asleep at the table. Did I mention he's a narcoleptic and not supposed to drink. Last year he would pass out at my flat during the parties I had and I would pick all 110 lbs of him up and carry him to some corner. I was preparing myself to carry him off, back to the hotel, but first I decided to shake him and he woke up... after a few shakes and smacks. He got up quickly, regained his balance and was ready to keep the party going.

From there we headed to The Office pub which turned out to be closed and then double back around to Fort Ross. This is where the story gets hazy. Yeah, I wasn't on night watch, I was around the corner from the hotel, and I was drinking with my room mate. Need I say more? There were Scottish Accents and Braveheart quotes floating about... aimless banter. Nathan Duel's declarations of how amazing it was that Vollman is coming to lecture on Thursday. I looked at my watch and realized that James'birthday was over and we were now into Nathan's birthday... so I bought us a round of vodkas and we toasted to his health.

Oh and by the by... Nathan Duel is the editor of the online magazine, SIX BILLION DOT ORG, check it out...

Mariya's sister ordered bad Xachapuri and we scarfed it down greedily. Time came and went, we wound up back in the mini hotel crashing into walls and laughing about what I couldn't tell you. We were informed that we woke up our next door neighbors... doh! The morning was cruel with its bounty of sunlight. It was a cruel joke to be exact. I helped tom setup up the classrooms at the University and then lead students there and got everyone situated. Afterward we headed to Zoom for Bacon and Eggs... or something like it... which is eggs sunnyside up, with sala fried as bacon (it never gets crispy) with tomatoes, potatoes pushkin, a double espresso with sugar and lemon and some 7up. James and Nathan met us later, as we realized Zoom didn't even open for breakfast, yet they serve it on the menu. We arrived at 10:30, they only openned at 11. Cruel... just so damn cruel... but it was all still quite good when we finally got food and ate our hearts out. Yes, the secret sauce in our recovery.

From there it was more and more errands and things to fix and correct. Helping people get around, get situated, yada yada yada... then Tanya and I translated an 11 page menu for a group dinner tomorrow night... that took for bloody ever...

When I finally escaped I headed out with camera loaded with color Infra Red to Mars Field and around Spilled blood. I'm curious to see how the stone and metal, mosaic and all shows up on this film, what the heat absorption properties are like... an expensive but potentially intersting experiment.

Another cruise down the Nevya tonight... but first I think its high time for a nap... or maybe just a beer... whatever the case, I'm heading back to the hotel to lay my weary bones down for a spell...

Vsevo Dobroyo Vam Vsem...