The right to comedy

In the recently reprinted book of the memoirs of composer Nikolai Karenikov there is a funny episode. There are a lot of such, I remember by heart from my sixteen years-since 1988, when these little stories were first printed by the magazine "The Spark", as we knew it : journalistic investigations alternated there with poetry, and this did not embarrass and even inspired. I recall this story more often than others, but it is used, as it were, inappropriate, not in a entirely provided for.

The young composer comes with the partimature of his symphony to the famous conductor - the People's Artist, the Order -bearer, the laureate of all Soviet awards. The point is that this music can be performed. A record is put, the conductor is listening.

“Then a voice rang out:
- How old are you?
- Twenty -six, Alexander Vasilievich.
Pause.
- Are you a Komsomolets?
- Yes, I am a Komsomol of the Moscow Union of Composers.
Pause.
- Do your parents are alive?
- Thank God, Alexander Vasilievich, alive.
Without a pause:
- Do you say that your wife is beautiful?
- This is true, very much.
Pause.
- Are you healthy?
- God was mercy, it seems healthy.
Pause.
In a high and tense voice:
- Are you full, shod, dressed?
- Yes, everything seems to be in order, Alexander Vasilievich.
Almost screams:
“So what the hell are you burying?!”
Perei pause.
Everything was clear. I silently collected film and score and headed for the door. But, feeling that I can’t leave the battlefield, not trying to at least somehow squeak, I still lingered in the doorway and asked:
- And the "right to tragedy"?
- You do not have such a right! Went out !!! "

Both the dialogue itself and the phrase, which it ends, always acted on me sobering. She, as we see, is applicable to almost any situation and instantly - bam! - Puts us in a place where the minimum dose of everyday well -being can and should be regarded as an alarming accident. This phrase, like a life buoy, pops up in the mind every time I am going to raise a degree of natural pathos, and already sometimes pretty high. The absence of the right to tragedy (and the happiness of getting out) is something like a corset that allows you to stay directly in the circumstances that make you bent (or break spectacularly in half). In short, this is a very useful phrase of those that constantly sound in her head - she should stay there.

- And the "right to tragedy"? - You do not have such a right! Went out !!!

This is the last time I recall or comment on the plots associated with the end of OpenSpace.ru, what you knew it, and we did. Two weeks of a forced break between stopping the old site and the launch of a new time is a sufficient time to stop worrying and starting to live. In a sense, any “come on, goodbye” can be a reason for gratitude; In our case, this is exactly the case - everything that happened happened on time. What is happening now (the most clearly - in journalism, but the matter is far from limited to it), it seems to me the slow decay of one utopian project - I would call it the time of professionals. My generation, which began in the 90s, idolized professionalism like no other; Still - he promised and provided too many important things. It took shape, like a puzzle, from a set of different ages of different ages and a fresh dream of independence, worldview and material - and it should have been provided with the quality, brilliance and strength of healthy work, the ability and willingness to make nothing from the text - from the sales tool, from the reader - the buyer. “We,” united by this bracket, was much wider than now I want to admit; And the circle of his classes was also wide. The large and small soldiers of this utopia, as they should have, could and could do everything everywhere: advertising, PR, gloss, television, political technology, a row can be continued, everyone visited here. And me too.

Now this unity in the eyes is properly relaxed, turns into a scattering of confused, disoriented and very living “I”, and this just inspires some hope. From such “I” (who will have to accurately determine their boundaries and a place in the changed field), new “we” will be collected on new grounds, and it is better if these grounds are pronounced and thought together.

Because together is a new word, he is only for some months, it only learns to walk (and be correctly understood). It is very tempting to privatize it, attribute it to a particular agenda, make it synonymous with the left or right, limit it to one or another framework, reduce to charity or activism. In fact, the field for general work is much wider than it seems now, and it is possible to be in it by pure chance for the first time: neither compatibility, nor solidarity, nor mutual assistance can be monopolized, they arise by itself where there is a need for this. The history of the editors of Colta.ru unexpectedly for everyone (and primarily for ourselves) was the reason for the emergence of this flying, sudden “ together ”, which is easy to see and difficult to describe the mediakite language: neither age, nor education, nor income decide here. To do this, I (and everyone who will stay with us on the new site) will work, think about it, talk to him. What will become our common resource, how it will differ from the old, where and how to grow - we will also find out together.

Having lost the right to tragedy, you find that life has additional opportunities in stock and that the right to comedy is a thing that cannot be lost, even if you really want to. Then this becomes clear this: the four -year history of our project with its extraordinary turns, dramatic closures, miraculous salvations, passions and scraps - to the best of the glorious, moderately sad and very, very funny. And this is good: also because there are no comedies with a bad end. And some do not end at all.