Author Archives: specialk

Book Review: Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Leave a reply

What if the Devil showed up and no one believed he was the Devil?

Starting with this rather absurd premise Bulgakov explores Moscow, faith, religion, politics, the world at large and religion. Reading the book you are struck by the wierd thought that Bulgakov must have known that the book would never be published. This book must have existed for his own personal entertainment. And so it’s almost like exploring the author’s brain as he ran through different streams of conciousness.
Which brings me to the thought that the most famous quote in the book: Manuscripts don’t burn was an attempt to convince the author that eventually at some point the story this book would be published.

The book oscillates between the sublime, such as when he is describing the first arrival of the Devil, the surreal such as when the author describes the Devil’s ball, and the fascinating during the long sections when the author describes daily life in Moscow under the Soviets.

My favourite section, by far is when Woland does his little magic trick in front of an entire audience and spreads chaos and mayhem throughout Moscow. And everyone assumes it must be anything but the Devil. The money changing into random coins, tricksters and liars, the empty suit something bizarre in the atmosphere, spontaneous dancing and singing a group dementia.
The book ends well, even though it was never polished.

This is not an easy book to read and requires a substantive personal investment of time and effort.

Maoist Self-Criticism at Stanford University

Leave a reply

I spent the better part of 6 years at Stanford working on my master’s degree. My time there was mostly pleasant, and I have very fond memories of the Professors and the classes.

However, what I hated with a passion was the Eastern-European style bureaucracy that runs the admissions office. And the thing I hated the most was that they never felt it was part of their job description to notify you one week in advance that a critical date was approaching: the date to submit your registration.

As a part-time masters student, I was not on Campus every day being made aware of critical dates.

What was the consequence of missing that date? Why a 100$ fine. When you’re paying approximatley 6000$ a semester to attend stanford, that 100$ fine was insult on-top-of injury.

And you couldn’t just submit the paper work on line, no you had to go stand in-line at a time convenient to the registrar.

I thought to myself: Why it could never get any worse.

Mistake!

Now, in addition to making you pay the 200$ fine, they REQUIRE a type-written note explaining WHY you failed to submit the paperwork on time. The note must also ask the registrar to forgive you and let you register for the quarter.

Excuse me?

If the professor whose class I am in is comfortable with my physical presence in the classroom, then what does the registrar care? Are they going to NOT take my 6000$? Are they going to throw me out of the University? No. They just want to humiliate me. They want me to prostrate myself on the floor and beg for forgiveness.

This smacks of the kind of self-criticism you had to produce before you joined the Russian Communist Party or the kind of self-criticism required of the intelligentsia during Mao’s cultural-revolution.

In Stalin’s time they just shot you.

Just shoot me now.

Air France, Delta and North West … the trinity of horror

Leave a reply

Over the July 4th weekend I had to travel to Greece to attend the wedding of a dear friend of mine. He and I have known each other since we were 2 years old. Because I am not as well organized as I would like I ended up buying the tickets fairly late in the game. And because I ended up buying them fairly late, there was only two airlines that had tickets I could afford, Delta and Air France.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

That’s what should have been going through my head, not: Sweet!.

My wife, tried to caution my enthousiasm for cheap fares, but I was too obstinate to care.

So I took Air France from SFO to Paris Charles de Gaulle to Athens and back.

What should have been a 4.5 day relaxing trip turned into a sprint to the heroic finish.

Our adventure began with the 26 hour delay of the flight out of SFO (because … well I think the pilot just decided he’d rather watch the World Cup game in Paris than do his job ..). Because of the chaos of having 400 people missing their flight and connections we had to stand in line for three hours to get our boarding passes. We then had to suffer an additional 2 hour delay because the processing of passengers was taking too much time.

Once in the plane, the very friendly Air France staff decided that feeding us was a low priority. Well that’s not strictly true. They decided chatting with every passenger in the plane as the passengers were being fed was a priority. As a result instead of getting food almost immediately it took them 2+ hours to feed the plane. For folks that had not eaten since their light breakfast, there was a strong temptation to do some self-service feeding.
Upon arrival in CDG, we discovered that our flight into Athens was delayed by another hour.

I was hopeful the return trip would be better.

However…

Our departure from Athens on July 4th was delayed by 20 minutes. This caused significant anxiety because our connection was very tight (55 minutes) and we were in danger of missing it. But that’s okay, the flight out of CDG was delayed by 2 hours, 30 minutes of which we spent in a shuttle on the tarmac waiting to be let into the plane.

Now why do I paint and tar Air France and Delta and North West with the same brush? Delta because I bought the ticket from Delta. And North West because they are in an alliance with those jokers. But that’s not the only reason I hate North West. In 2004 I was travelling to Athens on North West. I liked North West because I liked KLM. I had travelled thousands of miles on North West for many years. And in this one flight the callousness of their flight attendants destoyed a many year love affair. I got some coffee. The coffee was served in a defective styrofoam cup. I was sitting in the middle row of a 747. While I was getting ready to drink my cup, the stewardesses on either side of the middle row decided to pass over my head some trays. The trays almost fell on my head. In an attempt to avoid them I spilled the coffe. The stewardesses then did everything in their power to ignore my scalded leg (3rd degree burn). Even when I pointed out what happened they shrugged. A kind word, even an offer of a napkin would have been sufficient. In the end, I had to force my way into the galley and demand some towels to clean myself up.
So a pox on all of their houses.

There is honour among thieves.

Leave a reply

Several years ago, my dad had his Mercedes stolen.

On the day it was stolen, as part of the process for getting his money from the insurance company he was required to place an advertisement in the Greek Newspaper of his choice announcing the loss and asking people if they found it. This is a pro-forma task, that is usually followed by a modest insurance payout.

Surprisingly, the thief called and said on the phone:

Prof. Roussos, I am a serious business man, a respected man of society. Stealing your car is an inconvenience to us both. I have to take it to Albania to get it cut into little pieces to resell the parts, you have to buy a new car. How about we arrive at an understanding? You pay a modest fee and I’ll return the car.

My dad agreed on condition that he see the car first.

So my dad was taken along with a bodyguard to see the car. Upon inspecting the car he discovered that the car had some scratches and was dirty.

When the thief called later, my dad complained about the defects. The thief replied:

Damn! I’ve told my employees not to damage the customers merchandise. I’ll make sure it’s fixed before you get the car.

Several days later the exchange was done. There was an aura of cloak & dagger about it. The money was placed near a phone booth in Athens, and then in another part of Athens the Merc was returned.

But the story does not end here.

Several months later, my dad got a phone call:

Journalist: Are you Professor Roussos?

Dad: Yes.

Journalist: I am a journalist for a ****.

Dad: Careful. What do you want?

Journalist: Did you have your car stolen and then returned for a ransom fee?

Dad: Why?

Journalist: Apparently the same crook stole all of my belongings and my car. He offered to return everything for a modest fee. When I started to doubt his honour, he suggested I call you up. That you would act as a reference for him. That he is an honourable man who will return my stuff.

 So my dad told him that he was an honourable thief. And who ever said there is no honour among thives.

Soccer and the American Psyche

Leave a reply

Recently on NPR, someone observed that American sports are all about winning. Football, baseball, and basketball always have winners. There is no such thing as a tie.

Hockey with a long tradition of tie’s was tweaked by the new NHL to ensure that there would be fewer ties. Everygame now ends with a penalty shootout so that at the end of play a victory is declared.

Soccer is not like that. In soccer a great many games end in a tie. A great many games end in a 0-0 tie. Appreciating tie’s is critical to appreciating soccer.

I wonder if America’s winner-take-all attitude can ever permit a sport where tieing is an integral and unavoidable result.

 

Peet’s Coffee: Sumatra

Leave a reply

A very smooth coffee, not very acidic with little bitterness. It has a slight chocolaty aftertaste.

The coffee when it enters your mouth creates an intense flavouring in the center of the tongue that then calmly dissipates. After the dissipation, the mouth feels empty. This suggests that the coffee is memorable.

Sumatra is not as strong as Kenyan but is very similar in taste. Stronger than Guatemalan, and less bitter than Major Dickinson.

US Becomes a Soccer Nation.

Leave a reply

Today the US became a soccer nation.

What are the key attributes?

First your team underachieves in the opener. The press reaction to the underachievement is hysteria. This is proof, the press says, that your country is incapable of ever playing at a serious level. That the team is overhyped, the players underachievers, and the coach a buffoon who should not be allowed to run an elementary school checkers team never mind a World Cup Soccer Team. A soccer nation is never happy about playing in the world cup. The whole point is to WIN the world cup.

Second, against all odds your team then defeats or ties a world powerhouse in an improbable way. Down two players with almost 45 minutes to play you still manage to create the best offensive oppurtunities. And instead of celebrating the result everyone is talking about how you were robbed. How the referrees altered the result. How they stole the game from you. A soccer nation is not surprised about a stunning result. Of course the Americans tied Italy. And if the ref hadn’t robbed the American team they would have won.

So today when the US team played Italy to a 1-1 tie after being excoriated by the press for losing 3-0 to the Czechs, the fans and the players and the announcers and the press were not talking about triumph achieved but triumphed denied by poor refereeing….

Maybe Soccer is Universal.

The Lawn, again.

1 Reply

Yesterday my wife and I re-planted the lawn.

Strictly speaking we over-seeded. The difference between re-plant and re-seed is about whether you decided to throw out all of the old grass, or just add grass.

So here’s what we did:

  1. First we raked the lawn completely, both to remove stuff off of the lawn and to dig up the dirt.
  2. We levelled the lawn further with a normal rake and this really cool oversized rake.
  3. We applied seed (Scott’s High Traffic Tall Fescue)
  4. We applied fertilizer (Scott’s Starter Fertilizer)
  5. We applied top-soil (Kellog’s Top Soil)
    1. Trying to add a layer of top soil on top of the seeds so that the seeds don’t get disturbed was a bit of a challenge. It works best with two people. One person drops the dirt in a pile, the other spreads it out gently using a rake.

The last thing we did got us an 30-40% coverage of the lawn. I am hopeful that this more methodical approach will get me closer to 80-90% of the lawn.

If that fails, the nursery I bought the tools from sells sod at 0.40$ a square foot. The total cost for the sod would be 100$ + some amount for installation. I have not yet given up hope.