Capacitor: fifth edition

Capacitor: fifth edition
Publication date: February 29, 2000

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End of the second round
First week of the third round

To begin with, so, into the air, without turning to anyone: the Condenser, by the way, does not have any anti-cheating agents. Even, by the way, “one vote - one IP” - even that is not checked. Therefore, the next time I see five votes given to the same text in five minutes, I will simply remove this text from the vote. And the author - from the game. Without entering into negotiations. I am completely indifferent to the ambitions of the cheaters. I am absolutely not indifferent to: a) fair play, b) the purity of the final result . But this is all true, by the way.

I want to dedicate this issue of the Condenser to Lieutenant Rzhevsky . It’s a pity that I don’t give titles to the releases, otherwise this one would be called “All the fagots, and I’m D’Artagnan.” Because the second round was developed by the authors exclusively in the pun genre.

After looking at the first text, I thought: how funny, the person joked so nicely. The second text made me think about the same author, under two pseudonyms, persistently developing the same idea. After the third text I wanted to cry, after the fifth I resigned myself. Then sacramental words began to appear in email titles, in letters accompanying texts, and directly in sender addresses. In the first week, I didn’t say anything, only delicately hinting at a certain... um... general tendency in many texts. But the second week completely finished me off. Gentlemen players ! You are all cunning, like Ostap Bender, artistic, like Lieutenant Rzhevsky, and, most importantly, original, like Lord Byron. Why then, why does eighty percent of the texts of the second round not just “spend the summer”, but “spend” it - leading it by the nose, playing a joke, deceiving it, cheating the summer, leaving Summer hanging; and another ten percent lead Summer through the catacombs, hide it from enemies, hide it under a hollow, protect it with their own body and, finally, lead it through all the thorns to where it should be?...

In short, the feeling from the works of the second round is the most ambiguous. An excess of originality led to the fact that a huge number of texts turned out to be similar to each other, like identical twins. In general, the whole situation reminded me of how my adopted brother and I, making serious faces, explained to our acquaintances how it was that we were twins, but did not look alike; we are supposedly non-identical twins: he is fraternal, and I am non-identical... Many believed.

Okay, we made a pun. I’m even somehow offended: such a rich topic, such a vast basis for it, it’s all so personal, and two-faced, and impersonal... ugh, here comes the dirty trick. And Svetov was the only one who developed it, and even he was lazy. But he won the first week, which made me very happy. Although this week I would remove his work from the vote. For the reasons stated at the beginning of the release . I don’t know who almost made him feel so good. Probably someone loving.

Petya then raises his eyes, looks at her and says I flew to Africa on a turbo plane. All the children couldn’t help but burst into vile laughter, and Marina Alekseevna twisted her charming upper lips into such an erotic bow that the writer Shurik almost finished and said what’s interesting in Africa. Petya answers: crocodiles attacked me. Here all the children who, as the writer Lev Pirogov said, are all fagots, simply grabbed their tummies and fell under their desks from laughter, not from an attack of appendicitis. Marina, like her Alekseevna, also wanted to fall under her desk and roll around on the linoleum corroded by chlorine in fits of mad laughter, or even better, into the physical education arms of the physical education teacher, but she restrained herself and only asked how did you escape from them, Petya, in a helicopter. And Petya also pursed his lips and answered gloomily, I couldn’t escape and immediately fell apart into pieces of rotten, stinking meat.

Alik Shrum was far behind (almost twice) with his story “Fortitude” - very charming and of a completely different kind. True, pun-filled, but still enjoyable:

Summer, however, refused to believe me for a long time. It was curious through the cracks between the mirrors. It hovered mercilessly through my fur coats and padded jackets. It flowed with chirping and variegated plumage through the rifle scope. Summer plagued me with summer constellations until I brought winter stars into the house, drawing them with chalk on top of the charcoal-painted ceiling. Summer drowned out the drops of my icicles with the rustle of pine needles and suffocated the aroma of the stove with the smells of herbs and mushrooms.

Naturally, I liked this distribution of first and second place: different texts, different tastes, different readers; there is no one-sidedness, and this is valuable. Moreover, third place with an equal number of votes is shared by “Childhood Memories of Apollo” and “Rebel Leader” - one spent Summer (read: deceived), the second spent (read: spent):

It was then that Leto-Laton’s mother appeared and asked: “Where is your sister Artemis?” I answered: “The vile and arrogant Hermes, while I indulged in my favorite pastimes, carried her away; I could not catch up with them.” Our mother clasped her hands and ran to Zeus to complain. Then I pulled my sister back - she was so scared that she did not take revenge on me. This is how I spent my summer. True, Zeus was very angry. But why haven’t I heard thunder before?

(Gabriel Gadin, “From the childhood memories of Apollo”)

It was necessary to act quickly. I focused on the slow theta oscillations of lower level thought and penetrated the stone wall of the nearest building. It was possible to hide here. Then I mentally pulled the leader’s body towards me. Then again. And once again stronger. Summer did not pass through the wall. His body lay helplessly against the wall. It was an ordinary plastic cyborg! Such commands are not available to them.

(Evgeny Savenkov, "Rebel Leader")

However, Gadin and Savenkov do not make it into the collection, just as the touching Tata Sh. predictably does not make it into the collection:

Little happiness. Lots of light.
I admire without loving.
Summer passes without you.
In fact - without you!

Well, sometimes it's not so sad:

Abandoned piers.
Steep banks.
Wavy-silky
evening meadows.

Only where the willows are arched,
the realm is dark
shining above the waters
furious moon.

Although Tata’s poems are just nice. In general, all her texts are cute. Where are my seventeen years?..

Total: within the framework of the theme “How I fucked up/dragged the summer,” two works are included in the collection: Svetov, “The First of September” and Shrum, “Fortitude.” For which I congratulate them. Two more texts will be decided by voting this week, and the fifth - we'll see. I have one idea here.

Choosing which is tastier from this week’s texts, I, first of all, decided to offer the players and fans a mysterious text by Denis Bychikhin, the enemy of all Parkers . The text, however, is not about the Parkers, although one could expect a text like: “Summer in Safari. 101 Parkers, 202 glass eyes” from Bychikhin. But in this text, Bychikhin admits to much lesser crimes:

We go there Zamoshkin. And I must say that they did not come alone. There was one in charge of soap there, and she offered this to women. Marketer, Proctor & Gambel works bending over. But glorifying is horror. The way he looks at me he says it’s wonderful. Zakhar began to stutter. He hiccups and throws his hand to the side, saying that he can’t breathe.

And she told him, everything is empty. Zakhar is empty. And then to me it’s wonderful. I feel so sorry for Zakhar. He's like Pinocchio.

Well, in short, I’m saying this is not the case, don’t offend Zakhar, how empty it is, everything is gray there, it’s better to listen to the poems. Understandably, she was stupefied, she must say to discuss, and the music above is very conducive to everything. You, Zakhar, sit down and catch your breath, and we will go to the examination of the syllabicabatonic and back. Well, we come there Zamoshkin.

This is not an easy text, Bychikhinsky. And heartfelt, even if you cry.

And another heartfelt text was from ledra, also heartbreaking:

“Today is Sunday and my mother and I are leaving by train to visit my grandmother in Gomel. We will stay there all summer, and I will write down everything that happens in this notebook. And dad will come to us sometimes if he can get away.” After thinking, the girl adds: “I’ll write more on the train.” Having re-read it with pleasure (not a single mistake!), the girl closes the notebook, then comes to her senses and adds a number in the margin - “June 1, 1941.”

In general, it’s clear that the theme is something like this – it evokes sentimentality. And then, let’s say - the immature sexuality of pioneer camps, kisses in the yard on a warm evening, sleepy crocodiles, witchcraft phrases:

He, it seems, was also inventing something of his own. Well, you understand - Leto was great at presenting things. I've already listened to it. And then he says to me: “Only you need to know the witchcraft phrase, and without it this place is just an ordinary forest clearing and nothing more.” And he told me this very phrase. I've already heard it and even said it - in the clearing. So I knew what happened after that. Well, I think cholera, I'll show you...

(Roy Aksenov, "Glade, or How I Spent the Summer")

By the way, for me, summer is also very strongly associated with childhood witchcraft: I still remember how I convinced the entire team at the training camp that during a quiet hour I managed to summon a black kitten out of nothing and return it back to nothing. They didn’t exactly believe me, but they didn’t completely deny me either. By the way, twelve years later this story repeated itself to me, but in reality: the big black cat I picked up last April disappeared two weeks ago into oblivion. So it goes.

Lisa Musick sent the warm story “Waiting” to the game, which resonated with me, like a child of summer, with a very soft note:

I remember I ran to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. Disappointed, convinced that nothing had changed, I felt moisture at my feet. The bathtub overflowed.

- I can't stand the wait! I'm going crazy!

“Go to bed,” came the laconic answer into the phone.

I couldn't sleep. Heat attacked my body. The stuffiness pressed me so hard that I felt pain. At first aching, the pain slowly turned into piercing pain.

- I can not wait any longer!

“Shhh...quiet,” a kind woman’s face is in front of me.

And a good counterbalance to it is the text of Vitaly Kopyl:

The following store is closed without any announcement. Another one, I was dying of thirst. Losing control of myself, I knocked out a window, cut myself with glass fragments, grabbed a can of beer - empty, a carton of milk - a dummy. Steel roller shutters did not allow anyone to enter the store. I looked around for a shadow. The shadows disappeared. The sunbeams from the broken glass burned my hands painfully. The sleeve of the T-shirt has smoldered. Fear filled me and I ran. A sand whirlwind hit me in the chest and filled my eyes with sand. I fell and crawled on all fours for some time.

This is not a scary story about going out for a cold beer on an early summer morning, but a quite tense mini-thriller. However, read for yourself, because I’m putting him to a vote too. As a result, this week the game is based on five prose texts:

Denis Bychikhin , "How I spent it"
Sergey Vlasov , untitled
Vitaly Kopyl , "Don't try to fool him"
Lisa Musik , "Ozhidanie"
Dmitry Svan , "Accounting"

Voting has begun. Texts are here .

I promised to cover the third topic, which is more difficult. Indeed, I somehow want intellectual tension - either the puns have exhausted me, or I need to read a book... And then yesterday my parents brought me a cactus as a gift, and I went completely crazy. At night, the cactus and I talked on various topics, and by the morning I had a desire to give “Peyote. Mescalite. Automatic” as the third topic. But I came to my senses in time. In addition, after the “summer” relaxation, I want to set a plot, not a theme - to tighten some conventional screws, to call, perhaps, to creative discipline. Am I a dictator or not, after all?

So - the topic of the third round:

Many, hastily blowing, will lose their sight, and then all their senses.

This phrase is not accidental; it was not invented by me. Finding out where it comes from is not difficult, but it is not at all necessary. I like the theme - on the one hand, its simplicity, on the other hand, a fairly limited set of images. Players will have something to compete with.

I wish everyone good luck in the third round. The game is on.

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Previous publications:
Condenser: fourth issue /22.02/
	Continuation of the second round. Cannes is better than Tel Aviv. Appearance vs. content. Do comments harm the progress of business? How I spent my summer, take 2. Titans paint a self-portrait. Sonnet for the Condenser.
Third issue /15.02/
	The end of the first round, the beginning of the second. "Shaverma" and "Song about Vanka Cain" won. A qualitative leap. We cut to the quick. Not without new Russians. New topic: how I spent my summer.
Second issue /08.02/
	Not a month, but two weeks. Not 12 topics, but 24. Not a competition, but a game. "A month in Dachau" for the little ones. The first five texts.
First issue /27.01/
	The ceremonial opening of the project, accompanied by a quiet curse from the production editor.

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