From the Depths of Moscow

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-metro8jan08,1,3830210.story

Since moving to Moscow seven months ago, I've been schooled in the stark realities of Russian society by daily rides to language classes and the office on the Metro. The vast sprawl of tracks and tunnels seems to offer a direct line into Moscow's soul -- a place of faded elegance and hopeless cynicism, debauchery and destitution, barely contained brutality and touches of kindness.

... there is something in these halls that tells a story about Russia itself, a monument to communist days, when underground palaces, glittering in chandeliers, decked in mosaics and frescoes and Stalin-era sculpture, were built for the common commuters.

Now they are shabby and cramped, the bulbs burning out in the chandeliers, the halls a miserable jam of too many frazzled bodies. Up above, wild Moscow rages along, lawless and mad, cold and rich.

(no subject)

How can I still feel so tired and weird from the food poisoning episode?

Also, now I have a cold.

I am so frustrated.

fandom and male privilege

http://cereta.livejournal.com/189901.html

Teeth

Is this going to be:

- really good?
- really bad?
- or just really fucking hateful?

I must go to Paris!

But since that's unlikely before this exhibit closes:

http://nytimes.com./2008/01/16/arts/design/16eros.html

Are any of you in Paris and willing to go to tell me just what an 18th-century sex dialogue sounds like? Because that's either fascinating or hilarious. Possibly both.