August 4, 2009

Soviet War Memorial (04.08.2009)

It’s eerily quiet, and my shoulder hurts a little bit. It’s funny, we’ve walked for about 38 miles today in warm weather and the only part of me that's fatigued is my left shoulder. I think back on the day’s events—the Wall, the lunch near the water, Sally getting mad at me because I asked her to translate Telekommunications—and wonder why my shoulder hurts. Sadly, this leads me to miss Tobi’s half of our little conversation. I think he was talking about the misinterpretation of the West in Russia. Did a bee sting me in the shoulder or something? Damn…

The mosaic in the memorial building at the far end of the promenade is gorgeous. I overheard a fellow onlooker: “It’s a mosaic because all the pieces represent all the people helping to keep the Soviet Republic strong. The different colors show the different characters and how unique the Soviets are.” This remindes me of something Prof. Searle talked about one day in class: one of the most annoying things in this world is when a work of art, be it a novel, a painting, a song, or an action, is ruined because people overanalyze it. (The word he used was 'flotchynotchynihifilipication.') The woman, an American, adulterated my simple oohs and ahs with her cufflink commentary. Who is this lady anyways, and what are the chances she is a post-WWII Russian visual art scholar? She probably isn't. I don’t know why this bugs me. The more I think about it, the more I agree with her theory, really. But how does she know what the artist wanted to convey? How can she know? The thought experiment provides a momentary distraction from the silence and my shoulder.

On the walk back towards the group I see a little note someone has written at the base of one of the marble edifices surrounding the promenade. The scene on the stone is of people running from an air attack, and Stalin's quote mentions the Rote Armee a few times. It’s not surprising how such a loud depiction sticks out in such a quiet space. The note is in French: Je t’aimais, je t’aime, et je t’aimerais – Marc. Translated, it means “I loved you, I love you, I will love you.” Touching line, really. But it bothers me that someone took the time to write such a poetic, romantic line on a Stalin-consecrated slab of marble. I think, The war memorial deserves its peace, Marc. You kinda suck, Marc. Then it strikes me that there is no word for a pretty thing juxtaposed with an ugly base--or if there is one then it’s lost on me. We see this relationship all the time in art and in life, but there’s no phrase in the vernacular. That’s a shame, I guess. My shoulder hurts again.

I remember that I tried to do a one-armed handstand with Daniel at YAAM and failed miserably. If I had one guess as to why my shoulder is sore, that’s it. But maybe it’s the sobering silence of the memorial weighing down on me. No, no… That’s stupid. It was the handstand.