Crisis 22

Jovanka on the Bridge

(July 22, 2023)

I wonder if Vladimir Putin will ever, like the sin-laden heroes in Gogol and Dostoevsky, kneel down with his missile-sprinkling patriarch and beg forgiveness. Until then, it seems impossible to forgive him for invading Ukraine, for killing so many innocent people, and for threatening the use of nuclear weapons.

It’s also hard to forgive him on the personal level. He’s made us go from our normal lives, where we could think about any number of problems, to this abnormal state where we can’t help thinking about the one big problem he’s created.

The Ukraine crisis is a wake-up call to the real world, if, that is, we were sleeping through reports on the Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, the climate crisis, Syria, Libya, North Korea, poverty, carfentanil, Haiti, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, political polarization, the lapse of nuclear arms treaties, or the latest news from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The news about Ukraine is so threatening to the peace of the entire planet — with ten thousand nuclear bombs at the ready, and hundreds of kilometres of mined wheat fields and blown-up grain elevators and starving millions, and an ever-increasing vision of interconnected violence and suffering — that it’s hard to forget about it, let alone to drift off to sleep at night.

It’s almost impossible to spend much time worrying about Emily’s latest troubles in Paris, or debating the ethics of the Serbian Jovanka, who walks naked across Pont Alexandre III to sell perfume in Emily in Paris (Season 1 Episode 3).

The gap between seeing the beauty in life and seeing the world as it is is getting harder to bridge, just as the golden bridge dreamt of by Sun Tzu is getting harder to build — as the West brings in the Leopards and Storm Shadows, the ATACMS and SCALPs, the F-16s and who knows what next. Not that we shouldn’t stand up to Russia’s hideous assault; just that it’s starting to feel as much like Armageddon as “Achilles Last Stand.”

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Some people have in the past been accused of putting their heads in the sand. Now, it’s not just permissible, it’s advisable to start digging on the beach. For your own mental health, it might be recommended that we click from General Petraeus on Youtube to our Netflix app and watch Emily in Paris. Perhaps we should stop listening to his commentary on the Iraq War and spend our time instead trying to figure out why Emily’s so shocked by the Serbian Jovanka, who dreams of a private jet and strolls naked across the Pont Alexandre III.

Or perhaps we ought to fly to Puerto Vallarta and sit on Playa de los Muertos, the Beach of the Dead, and order another margarita. Try to forget our troubles with Serbia and naked French bridges. Click from Netflix to our music app, and listen to a 1990 song by the Scorpions … “I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park / Listening to the wind of change …  did you ever think / That we could be so close like brothers?” 

Try to listen without weeping uncontrollably. Stand up, even though you may be dizzy from that third margarita. Shake the tears from your eyes and yell out something about not taking it anymore. Throw your headphones into the water and grab that little boy’s plastic shovel. Dig about two feet down, and throw your head in.

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Q & A

(Oct. 8, 2023)

Azerbaijan has cleared out the Armenians, Hamas has slaughtered 260 people at a concert, and Israel is pummelling Gaza. Haiti, Sudan, Pakistan, etc. are in dire straits, starving for weapons and bread, while the wheat squeezes south from Odessa, the Black Sea fleet having retired to Novorossiysk, as a bellows taking in air or a pendulum gathering weight.

Meanwhile, the Chinese and their chubby sidekick shoot missiles over the ever-expanding China Sea. Xi watches as the old investment starts to pay off. Young Kim, along with Assad and Khameini, are being welcomed back into the cult of psychopaths.

So naturally Putin is in a good mood, relaxed, at one with the spinning globe. He’s all over the Web giving advice to a worried world on how this glorious Renaissance might go on forever.

He sits next to an interviewer, as if he were at home with his daughters and dog, or he stands sincere at the podium, like a patient spider, calm and collecting souls from absent homes freshly bombed.

The new Tsar pontificates (doing the priest’s job as well) on how the world no longer accepts the tyranny of the West. He asks rhetorically, “Who are you to tell us anything?” He strikes a stupefied air, as if he can’t comprehend how dim the West can be, and arrogant, and oblivious to their own shameful past. He asks why Russians should feel guilty. 

He asks, “What should we feel guilty about?”

He says that Ukraine wouldn’t last a week without Western aid, and that the West is full of Nazis. He observes that the Canadians prime minister, not known for exuberant displays of intelligence or right-wing fanaticism, recently celebrated a former Nazi in parliament.

He sighs, the weight of infinite patience on his shoulders. The Russians are called, once again, to their old task, on the beaches or on the Maidan.

His priest’s frock showing under his tight suit, he insists that Russia only liberates nations, it doesn’t oppress them. Unlike NATO in Kosovo or the US in Iraq, Russia cares about the people. It understands that there’s more than one civilization, and it respects each and every one. 

The answer comes down from the thundering sky: “Ukraine.”

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Next: 🎸 The Algorithmics

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