"What to talk about when there's nothing to talk about?" The classic phrase, which is repeated in every way by the theatrical extras, so that the indistinctly discordant noise of the crowd comes out, has irrevocably become the motto of many monologues and interviews on TV. It's a shame, however...

"ABOUT

what to say when there is nothing to talk about? The classic phrase, which is repeated in every way by the theatrical extras, so that the indistinctly discordant noise of the crowd comes out, has irrevocably become the motto of many monologues and interviews on TV. It's a shame, however, when, say, Zhvanetsky is involved in this garbage element, which he throws out at us in a series of dialogues with Vadim Zhuk "Simple Things". I understand, I sympathize with the crisis in which the brilliant humorist finds himself (all the more so since the crisis is proof of his originality: he is not up to par with most comedians), and yet ...

Here is a monologue with a chorus: life has become better, life has become more fun. Say, I'm telling you this, I, who have lost popular adoration, "idolism": better! “The food has become more varied. Even for those who have no money, it is also more diverse!

Does Zhvanetsky mean the old women scurrying around in the garbage container, which is the view from my window? (And the contents of the landfills, who argue, really became richer.) And this must have happened: exactly an hour after Simple Things, a certain Claudia Ivanovna called Vremechko and accidentally filled the empty vacancy of a satirist. Having told how her neighbor reasoned with her cat: what you ask for, you don’t see, she’s hungry herself, and he really decided to diversify her menu. He dragged and folded at the mistress's feet the prey - a rat.

How could such faux pas come out of famous lips? But it's like asking: why is it so innocently rehabilitated on the same TV ... How should I say? Yes, I will say: wickedness.

At the risk of seeming completely devoid of a sense of humor, but even (although why “even”?) In advertising, astronauts will leave their girlfriend alone to fend off extraterrestrial freaks for the sake of intoxication with “mirinda”. That young trinity, imitating a radio signal about bad weather, will scare everyone away from going to the beach in order to enjoy some more drink in solitude ...

Nonsense? A trifle? Still would. But some ... monotonously nasty. And most importantly, freely replicated.

P

Why, explain to me, is no longer the king of humor, but quite a worthy journalist Natalya Zimyanina can afford this in the Evening Club? “I dragged myself for once ... over potholes ... across a bridge of some kind, a nightmare,” she will describe her sacrificial feat, her ice trip to the old performance of the Gogol Theater based on Ivanov, and with condescendingly insulting amazement suddenly discovers that the production (her jargon) is “completely not Zadripina”. Worse than that: “... if the Swedes, Hungarians, Poles brought such a performance, our critics would gasp ...”

Here Zimyanina gasped. Having cryptically quoted someone's phrase that our literature was tortured by "pederasty and narcissism", the journalist at the same time notes "autism syndrome among male actors in the Gogol Theater. Well, let's assume narcissism." And I don’t know with what feeling the courageous men of the theater read this (perhaps with indifference; perhaps they are used to the fact that there is nothing more cheeky and worse than today’s theatrical criticism, despite the fact that in our cultural life there is nothing more serious and better than the theater), but it was as if an abomination had stuck to my soul from the casually perfect crap of wonderful artists.

So, why should a journalist whose music reviews I read with respectful interest, in addition, what is there to hide, a very middle-aged lady, assimilate a banter that I will not call youth, so as not to offend all the youth? Yes, I don't think so. Just. I wanted to. The general background is such that it consists of many, many things.

And against this background, real villainy is also possible ... That is, God save me from declaring the very author of the article in question, criticism of M. Zolotonosov, a villain. Of course it isn't. But his article as a symptom and an act is another matter.

In short: in the yearbook of the Academy (!) of Russian Modern Literature, he performed an act of rehabilitation not of some kind of advertising playboy, but of the “great provocateur” Yevno Azef, “a man who is greater than his fate.” Whom, unfortunately, the publishers of the “Young Guard series “ZhZL” are unable to love (because “the Jewish patriot does not fit into their model”), and let’s say, the prose writer Yuri Davydov “cannot historically rehabilitate him due to ... the stereotype of his thinking .. ."

Do you argue? But it's stupid to defend a wonderful writer, as for the character ... There can be no dispute at all - there is nothing to do with it. Zolotonosov does not cite a single not well-known fact from the vile life of a “two-coated pig” (prince Kropotkin’s definition). Whose essence (I am already quoting Davydov) “was brokerage. A bloody broker in a bloody slaughter, he did not make a revolution or a counter-revolution - he made money and reveled in power.

Quite different is curious. Once upon a time (Davydov again), some writers "lit up with hysterical inspiration: Azef is the embodiment of the world genius of evil." And according to Zolotonosov, it turns out - good? Patriotism, in the service of which it is permissible to eat and drink with the money of the Okhrana, sending comrades to death? Such a fascinating paradox?

But if paradox is “a commonplace over and over” (Chukovsky on Oscar Wilde), then for the newest paradoxicalist a commonplace, “stereotyping” is an aversion to meanness. To betrayal and traitors. Simply following the rules of honor and nobility. (How, in fact, banal and insipid!)

WITH

does this mean that we live in a "country of scoundrels", as Yesenin titled his play-poem? No. Thank God no. But that immunity against wickedness is weakened, alas, it is exactly so. “Everything is allowed in love and in war,” said Evgeny Schwartz, adding: “But there is also peace.” For the time being, we live, think, write, as it were, in conditions ... Not even that love, for which "sex" has become an exhaustive synonym, but an ongoing war. Evil squabbles. Aggressive confusion. Allowing yourself what the people of the world (its synonym is “normality”) cannot allow.