I began a new Russian course a fortnight ago, which gives me a good excuse to spend more time reading Russian-language Livejournals.

The importance of LJ in the Russian-speaking world probably isn’t obvious from the English-speaking side. Pick any Russian journalist, writer or (non-corporate) public figure under 35, and there’s a decent chance they’ll have at least a nominal presence here*. LJ is home to independent journalism, to political discussion and organizing across the spectrum, to essays on art and culture, and generally to a large chunk of the Russian-speaking public sphere. That and the cat pictures, of course.

So it’s nice to read that LJ has just been unblocked in Kazakhstan. The block was imposed in 2008, apparently because the president’s estranged son-in-law rakhataliev, had been using it to criticize him. [LJ helpfully disabled the account in question, but apparently without any effect]

Now it’s been unblocked, apparently as a result of lobbying by the glitterati. Or so says e-grishkovets, Russian writer/actor/director Yevgeni Grishkovetz. He put on a play in the Kazakh capital last month. The president saw it, so the following day the political elite duly turned up

en masse

, all wanting to talk to him. Grishkovets knew what to do:

“I said that…I regret that many of my acquaintances, as well as Kazakh citizens I don’t know, are unable to take part in the life of LJ; that it is nonetheless a significant resource, whose users include not just me, but many other important and famous people, communication with whom is important for many people in Kazakhstan”

A month later, the Kazakh government has unblocked Livejournal. Quite possibly coincidence, of course, but in any case a Good Thing.

* Other Russian sites are comparable in volume of users, but IMO less politically important. Or maybe that’s just my pro-LJ bias speaking.

place names and the article

Liz Phair on Keith Richards’ autobiography

Pulled by the poppy and pushed by cocaine, Keith acquires a taste for working unholy hours in the studio that damn near kill his colleagues. He goes round the clock and considers it mutiny if anyone toiling with him leaves the deck. “I realized, I’m running on fuel and everybody else isn’t. They’re trying to keep up with me and I’m just burning. I can keep going because I’m on pure cocaine . . . I’m running on high octane, and if I feel I’m pushing it a little bit, need to relax it, have a little bump of smack.”

duranorak:

When someone writes the definitive essay on fandom – I mean, when someone sits down and explains the insanity of it, the way it is a black hole of time that means I sit here for long, long minutes trying not to grin so hard my face hurts and simultaneously cry like a child for no real reason, the way it can make total strangers loathe or adore each other in a way very few other things can, the fragmenting into groups, the shipping (WHY DO WE DO THIS. WHY. I was born doing it, and don’t understand), the giddiness, the stars in my stupid hopeless eyes, the conventions, the cosplay, the meta, the joy and pain it’s possible to experience through reading one sentence connected to one’s current whatever-it-is – when someone writes that, will you let me know, so I can read it, and understand?

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I’ve been busy and thus ignoring the outside world (though I hear there was some kind of a protest?). So, just links:

Crooked Timber has more discussion of the “unpaid forced work for the unemployed” plans. Notably:

Doesn’t every country implement a scheme like this every once in while, when they have forgotten it didn’t work the last time?

The problem is always the same: if the work were worth doing (after paying for management and training and capital etc.), you should hire people in normal jobs for it. If not, you are simply firing people to re-hire them as Workfare.

On the other hand, if the work is not worth doing, you are cheaper off if just let people sit at home, where they can check the job advertisements and mind their own kids.

—

Switzerland seems likely to vote in a law allowing deportation of EU nationals convicted of crimes.

—

Did everybody see Laurie’s article on Katy Perry’s magic breasts? Not

entirely

fair to Katy Perry, but entertaining enough that I don’t much care.

Just back from my first ever encounter with Loesje. Loesje is an international network which tries to spread creativity and political commentary by means of slogans on small posters. That is, groups in each city/country meet, collectively compose texts, which are then spread.

In a strange way, it feels a lot like Amnesty. International network. Events structured around a specific purpose. Mythology just a tiny bit too grand for the organization (including, in Loesje’s case, the saccharine story of a Momo-like little girl who has a way with words and a lot of friends). Both very clear in their own identities, slightly askew from the rest of the world but directly engaged with it. Both Good Things.

The German green movement is currently managing a tour de force of succeeding by failing. I guess that’s true of most protest movements — winning is nice, but heroic failures are almost as good for building a movemnt.

A shipment of nuclear waste is currently in transit through Germany. It’s come from France by train, and is currently a few miles from it’s destination, the ‘temporary’ (anything but) storage area in Gorleben.

Along the way, some 50,000 people have protested. They’ve chained themselves to the rails, hung themselves from bridges, and devoted extreme effort to removing ballast from the tracks. [I’m not entirely clear how this latter works — is it likely to do more than make the train wobble a bit? Or is the appeal just that pinching a stone is the smallest imaginable unit of “direct” action? Anyway, it seems the Thing To Do].

This happens every year — it’s a standard bit of protest theatre. This year’s protests have been bigger than ever before, because Germany’s nuclear plants have just had their lifetime extended 14 years. Also perhaps because it comes on the back of another huge environmental protest, against an (unbelievably expensive) railway station in Stuttgard.

The nuclear waste will reach its destination. The nuclear plants will still be running in 14 years. The station — well, that one might have some effect, actually. But the main effect is that the Green party are on the up, and the wider Green movement is ballooning. Because it doesn’t matter if they lose; they keep everybody talking about an issue where the majority disagree with the government. Then they win votes, get into a coalition, and maybe eventually change a policy. “Direct” action is pretty indirect, but it might just work.

The coalition have apparently figured out the root cause of unemployment. It’s not that there are more workers than jobs, or that a small army of victims of the cuts are now joining them on the dole. No, they’re just lazy; a few weeks of forced labour will sharpen them up, render them employable and thus employed:

where advisers believe a jobseeker would benefit from experiencing the “habits and routines” of working life, an unemployed person will be told to take up “mandatory work activity” of at least 30 hours a week for a four-week period. If they refuse or fail to complete the programme their jobseeker’s allowance payments, currently £50.95 a week for those under 25 and £64.30 for those over 25, could be stopped for at least three months.

…

“This is all about getting them back into a working routine which, in turn, makes them a much more appealing prospect for an employer looking to fill a vacancy, and more confident when they enter the workplace. The goal is to break into the habit of worklessness.”

I can’t do much better than refer them to The Onion:

With unemployment at its highest level in decades, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a report Tuesday suggesting the crisis is primarily the result of millions of Americans just completely blowing their job interviews.

According to the findings, seven out of 10 Americans could have landed their dream job last month if they had known where they see themselves in five years, and the number of unemployed could be reduced from 14.6 million to 5 million if everyone simply greeted potential employers with firmer handshakes, maintained eye contact, and stopped fiddling with their hair and face so much.

“This economy will not recover until job candidates learn how to put their best foot forward,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, warning that even a small increase in stuttering among applicants who are asked to describe their weaknesses could cause the entire labor market to collapse.

I saw Eisenstein’s film Strike last night. Some friends were saying farewell to a piano, and marked the occasion by showing silent films with (exceptionally good) improvised accompaniment.

I’ve never watched Eisenstein before, and hadn’t known what to expect. Certainly not this. Strike is clever, dense, fast-paced and incredibly passionate. Filmed in 1924, it fictionalises a workers’ protest from Tsarist Russia of 12 years earlier. The communists organize in a factory, stir up trouble with their extreme demands (an 8-hour work day! 6 hours for children!), and bring production to a standstill until they are eventually slaughtered by government forces.

What really affected me were the individual stories, told economically along the way. Not only is it emotionally powerful, but I’m boggled by the skill required to recount a biography in a silent minute. Take this section (up until about 1:15). A worker has been wrongly blamed for the loss of equipment, falsely branded a thief:

You can tell this worker is a craftsman. What he values is what he sees all around him: skillful absorption in technical work. He’s excluded from his work, his community, his self-respect: the three are identical if you base your identity on what you create. So, craftsman to the last, he creates a neat noose and kills himself. Character, tragedy and plot development, all in 60 seconds. And that’s just one of many, scattered throughout the film between the grander (and less interesting) mob scenes.

I’ve read some complaints that it’s too black-and-white, heroic workers under attack from the evil capitalists. Partly true — and I thoroughly approve of making points through caricature. But only the upper echelon are demonised. The immediate boss comes over as a scapegoat (with the help of an actual goat — Eisenstein is

very

fond of animals). A quartet of police spies are sleek, strong, capable — they’re caged animals (

see?

), who would almost be heroic if they weren’t working for the enemy. There’s the makings of a caper film here: the stealthy pursuit (first ever spy hiding behind a newspaper?); the camera concealed in a watch; the talented team of skilled infiltrators.

Conversely the proletariat lose their shine when they down tools. The strike may be needed, but it robs the workers of their identities; muscular labourers quickly become slack and foul-tempered. The protestant work ethic is hiding right behind the revolutionary fervour.

And the cinematography! It’s not that there are a few clever shots. Almost

every moment

, the camera is doing something surprising. Eisenstein was shooting this film at the age of 25, doing things few had even attempted before, inventing the techniques as he went along. And he never indulges himself by lingering on some novel device: shots that must have taken massive preparation are over in a couple of seconds, and we move on to the next marvel.

To quote one of surprisingly few reviews which appreciate Strike as more than a sterile piece of film history:

In only the film’s first minute, Eisenstein had already put together four incredible shots. First, there’s a dissolve from a closeup of an evil capitalist to the scurrying workers providing his wealth and back again. Then a gorgeous crane shot of the enormous factory where much of the film is set (did they have cranes in 1925?). Then we watch some factory workers go about their business from behind a lighted screen, rendering them faceless silhouettes, part and parcel of the machinery of the factory. Finally, our first introduction to the strikers is shot as an upside down reflection from a puddle, so that we start by seeing the reflection of the factories smokestacks, then see the conspirators’ feet appear upside down in the shot as they walk through the puddle, only to reappear rightside up in the reflection. And these are all in the first minute of the film, in Eisenstein’s first feature film.