Sergey Kuznetsov. NasNet: issue 23

NasNet: issue 23
Sergey Kuznetsov

Publication date: November 8, 2000

Project: nineties

(More details about the project - here )

Keywords: cars, money, friendship

One day, cultural expert Zaitsev and his wife were driving with a young realtor Kulikov in his Saab . They were heading to the birthday party of mutual friends, whose names are not important now, because this story ends even before they reached their destination. Kulikov talked about how a Zhiguli drove into him a month ago:

- I say: “Come on, let’s go to the service station, let them assess the damage, you pay - and that’s it.” The man says, yes, it’s my fault, what can I say, of course I’ll come. And it doesn't come. Well, we assessed the damage. We come to his house, explain this and that, and he says: “But I don’t have money, I won’t pay.” Then I told him: “If you don’t have money, I can help. We will quickly exchange your poor one-room apartment on Plyushchikha for a luxurious three-room apartment in Mytishchi.” The money was found immediately.

Everyone laughed politely. Kulikov stopped near a flower kiosk and went out to buy flowers. When he returned, Zaitsev said:

- And I say to Masha: “Let’s steal the Kulikovo Saab while he’s buying flowers there.” And she replies: “Yes, you will get to the nearest post, and then you will have to exchange our inferior two-room apartment on Kropotkinskaya for a luxurious four-room apartment in Zelenograd.”

Kulikov smiled sadly.

“We’re all so funny, guys,” he said and, after a pause, added just as sadly:

- And I am the funniest of all.

* * *

N. Kolpiy, according to established tradition, sent a diptych.

Place of work tabula rasa

Recently a billboard appeared in the subway. A pretty girl with a playful, friendly, flirtatious face. I just want to talk to her. This means that the advertisers carried out a competent casting: the girl is advertising the services of the Moscow telephone network.

I have a good friend of a similar type (I know it sounds rude, that women shouldn’t do that, but I don’t know how to say it any other way). Unfamiliar men always start conversations with her.

One day, the two of us from the guests return. We get on the bus. I mean, we stand in the aisle. But then a gallant little man appears:

- Girl, why are you standing there? I'll move over, please sit down.

He dates slightly.

My companion thanks me and sits down. The guy immediately started talking: is the metro coming soon, and the weather today is whispering... Then he nods in my direction and asks:

- I'm very sorry, is this like - husband, beloved?

“Friend,” I explain monosyllabically, but exhaustively.

- Well, that’s also very good.

He praised me, that is, and with even greater enthusiasm he begins to broadcast something, addressing exclusively my friend. Like, today I had to spend almost a day at work.

And she takes him and asks:

- Where do you work?

The man hesitated.

- Well, in one, in general, we’ll talk like this...

And I suddenly realized: the time was such that her question about work sounded much more tactless than his question about her beloved husband...

I saw a lot of scenes like this in the 90s.

Route taxi. Two cadets are sitting with stone faces. It is easy to determine the branch of the military by the cap-buttonholes. If you wish, you can see what year of study they are: there is a special patch on the sleeve of their overcoat. A guy sits down next to the cadets and looks 2-3 years older than them. Dated, again.

- Oh, you guys, I see, are border guards. But I served at the outpost for two years.

Having named the place of deployment, he turns the conversation to the fact that officers are different. And that soldiers respect good officers, and bad officers accordingly. And that they, the cadets, must become good officers, and for this they must understand what. The cadets are silent. And the veteran begins a detailed definition of a good officer, all the while saying:

- I was also a sergeant.

- And now who are you? - one of the young commanders finally opens his mouth.

“Yes, so, in different ways, we spin, in short, little by little,” the guy begins to say, clearly losing the thread of the conversation. Soon he becomes completely silent.

It was simpler in the 80s. People answered: I work in such and such a place. If someone was classified, then without hesitation he got off with the ready-made formula: “In a military unit.” Or something like that.

But in the 90s everything changed. Two reasons lie on the surface: the withdrawal of the economy into the shadows and the complete transformation of society. And I still think there is a third reason, some kind of post-industrial-existential one. I just don’t know how to talk about it.

Everyone would do this!

Here's the uniform for everyone.

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Places

For many years now - somewhere since the days of "The Hayloft" - I have been watching the news almost every day on the Yahoo! website. Actually, I only watch cultural news, or, as they are called in English, Entertainment News . Traditionally, Reuters, Variety, Associated Press and other agencies were represented there. Then Rolling Stone, a photography section, and some other publications were added. But the real revolution happened this week: just between the AP and the Hollywood Reporter, a section appeared with the unequivocal name Comics .

Its content corresponds to its name: comics appear there every day. Classic American newspaper comics, maximum three or four squares long. (The most famous of them is Garfield .) That's how it all turned out... And it would be okay if these comics were tied to the present day, but no, they, as usual, are absolutely arbitrary.

In other words, Yahoo! News is rapidly moving from the newswire it was four years ago towards a simple newspaper. It’s time to think that Lente.ru should also acquire some kind of daily comic application.

Self-advertisement

No sooner had I said goodbye to the readers of Vesti.Ru in the last issue than I had to say hello to the readers of Weekend.ru . In continuation of the “news” traditions, my author’s column has been published at kuznet.obozrenie.ru for a week now. Frequency: twice a week. The topic will probably be the same as that of Vesti, but due to the abundance of travel impressions from being in the overseas States, the first issues are somewhat of a travel nature. Then everything will get better, I hope. In any case, welcome, as the local aborigines say.

But I had to wait a little longer for another project that I want to announce. The reader has probably already forgotten about the glorious server "Pole.Ru" and its "Cinema" section, on which I, without sparing myself, worked for several months in a row. It's time to remember. "Pole.Ru" did not come to life, but the team that created the "Cinema" section smoothly moved to the address www.weekend.ru . Little by little my reviews will begin to appear there... By mid-November everything there will change in the most decisive way. In a word, follow the changes.

More places

Today is election day in America, and in our homeland it is November 7th. You won’t believe it, but in a country that has thrown off the yoke of Bolshevism, revolution day is a holiday, and in America, which is so worried about its president, election day is not even a day off.

But in honor of one of these dates - a very recent link: http://www.kpss.ru . Everything works and seems to have been done in all seriousness.

Impression

Today, impressions came from Alexander Gavrilov, editor of the Book Review and a frequent guest of these pages:

This week’s impression on me is the strongest about letters and partly professional: I finished the initial work for the Debut Prize. Like, more than twenty-five thousand people sent us, like, more than thirty thousand works. They, like, really don’t care. But the most amazing thing is that they managed to select about a hundred interesting works from them. Moreover, the range is amazing: from a socialist realist novel about an invention in the field of soil improvement to “a masterfully, in terms of language and plot, a love story between an elderly woman and a German shepherd,” - this is from a review by one of the readers.

Here. Impression. At the press conference, I was advised to eventually exhibit such an object: put 20 thousand letters in a pile and show it to the people. I saw it: it's scary. From the depths of Russia, hordes of letters are moving toward us, ready to overwhelm us.

This applies very much to the 90s: writing was unfashionable, now everything is different. Wed. The glory of Kuritsyn, trembling with the consciousness of his book coming out :).

Everyone take an example from Gavrilov! Send us your impressions!

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