The New Wave of Romanian Cinema

Last year I emailed Romanian writer Bogdan Suceava about the film 12:08 East of Bucharest (directed by Corneliu Porumboiu), which my wife and I saw at the Detroit Film Theatre. He responded by generously sending me several DVDs to continue my education in what has been called the "new wave" of Romanian cinema.

Over the next few weeks we made our way through Sick Connections, The Paper Will be Blue (directed by Radu Muntean), and How I Spent the End of the World (directed by Catalin Mitulescu). The latter film was presented at the festival we did at Oakland University last month and is my favorite of these three films.

While in New York at AWP I snuck out for a bit to see 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (directed by Cristian Mungiu), a powerful film about a student seeking an illegal abortion in 1980s Romania. This film is now available on DVD and at the Borders web site you can view an interview with the film's cinematographer Oleg Mutu.

The Romanian new wave has received a lot of press recently: the New York Times writes of the "New Wave on the Black Sea," Variety notes that "Romanian Cinema is on the Rise," the Los Angeles Times interviews director Cristian Mungiu, the Christian Science Monitor describes the "new force in world cinema," and Sight & Sound considers the "Eastern Promise."

I still haven't seen The Death of Mr. Lazarescu but intend to remedy that soon. If you're unfamiliar with these films I recommend adding one or two to your Netflix list.

Thanks again to Bogdan for introducing me to these fantastic films.

Russian Culture in the 20th Century

In the Moscow Times, George Loomis discusses Solomon Volkov's book The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn.

Volkov states in the first paragraph of the introduction that his book covers a period of "world wars, convulsive revolutions, and the most ruthless terror," but thereafter he dispenses with moral outrage in favor of cool analysis, often looking for rationales behind the state's hideous behavior. In any case, the accumulation of assembled facts is more than sufficient to drive home the pervading grimness. The suicides of some of the era's finest poets supply a telling example: Sergei Yesenin, the "New Peasant" poet, in 1925; Vladimir Mayakovsky, who as a good Soviet denounced Yesenin's suicide yet killed himself anyway, in 1930; and the tormented Marina Tsvetaeva, in 1941. Empress Maria Fyodorovna told Yesenin that his poetry was "beautiful but very sad," to which he replied that so was all of Russia.

Twisted Spoon Press

Twisted Spoon Press, based in Prague, is a great publisher of European (primarily Central and Eastern European) literature in English.

This fall, Of Kids & Parents by Emil Hakl, translated from the Czech by Marek Tomin will be published in the U.S. Hakl was born in Prague in 1958 and has published a volume of poetry, three novels, and two collections of short stories. Of Kids & Parents was awarded the Magnesia Litera Book of the Year prize in 2003 and was adapted into a feature film.

This description is from the Twisted Spoon website:

Taking its cue both from Joyce's Ulysses and Hrabal's freely associating stream of anecdote, Of Kids & Parents is about a father and son taking a walk through Prague, over the course of which, and in the pubs and bars they stop into, their personal lives are revealed as entwined with the past sixty years of upheaval in their corner of Europe. One's "small history" is shown to be inseparable from the large history played out on the world's stage: families are uprooted, relationships fail, jobs are gained or lost, and still life goes on. Hakl's genius is his ability to mesh the two into a seamless flow of dialogue.

Check out this work and their other interesting titles at the Twisted Spoon Press web site.

Under the Linden 2008

This sounds like an interesting event in the Czech Republic this summer:

Mixing screenings, readings, concerts, performances and exhibitions, the intimate nature of this event forms an essential part of its vision. In an increasingly fragmented and alienating contemporary landscape, the need for a meeting on a human scale, for an experience that unfolds over several days in a distinctive space and atmosphere, outside of the turbulence and distraction of the modern urban zone, seems more important than ever, and one felt by many people, in numerous ways, worldwide. Under the Linden is about building an international community of mutual intent, about defending and promoting what matters.

Participants include John Berger, Don DeLillo, and Sally Potter, among others.

Under the Linden: A Gathering for the Enduring Arts takes place on August 20-25, 2008 in Kamenice nad Lipou, Czech Republic. Additional information is available at their web site.

Absinthe Recommends

Let's start by saying we do NOT recommend seeing "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Very sad to say about Indiana Jones. (But "Iron Man" was quite cool.)

We've recently read and enjoyed I'd Like by Amanda Michalopoulou, translated by Karen Emmerich; Factory of Tears by Valzhyna Mort, translated by Franz Wright and Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright; and Diary of a Blood Donor by Mati Unt, translated by Ants Eert.

In addition, in an interview with Haaretz, Jonathan Littell, the American-French author of the notorious novel Les Bienveillantes, states that there are no authors he'd like to meet: "most writers are totally uninteresting." ArtInfo.com interviews the Picasso biographer John Richardson. The Goethe Institut discusses new trends on the German stage: "many of the most striking new plays ... have been penned by very young playwrights." The Financial Times profiles the "Sons of Sartre," and Bernard-Henri Levy (BHL) is called "a pretentious little jerk" by French president Sarkozy's speechwriter, Henri Guaino.

A Shout from Copenhagen: Kennedy Dethrones King?

At the end of April I made an unexpected trip from Copenhagen to New York because I learned that I was one of six finalists for a so-called "Ellie" Award – the National Magazine Award 2008 for an essay I had published in New Letters magazine.

We were up against essays in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper's, Elle, and Entertainment Weekly – all magazines with millions or at least hundreds of thousands of circulation while New Letters has about 3,000. Among the other five essayists was Stephen King, the irony of that being that I am a "literary" writer, with very few readers, while Mr. King is a "commercial" writer read by millions all over the world. Augmenting the irony was the fact that Mr. King's essay was about J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books – millions upon millions of readers.

Surprisingly I won. Or the magazine that published me won. Or we both won. It was a heady evening at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall where for $480 a ticket (fortunately I didn't pay!), we ate canapés of the gods (bits of goat cheese and beef on chips of toasted rye, shrimp to die for, lobster tails – all served by handsome young people who looked pleased to please us), drank from an open bar (three kinds of vodka) and rubbed tuxedo sleeves with the magazine magnificos of America. The "Ellie" itself is a large, many-bladed sculpture designed by Alexander Calder, and it looks like something you could hijack a plane with.

Bob Stewart, editor of New Letters, and I sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the theater for nearly two hours stuffed into our penguins, speculating whether it meant something that we were trapped on the inside end of the row, and I don't know about Bob, but I needed to micturate and didn't dare. At the urging of Lady Alice, I had worn my tux – fortunately I could still button it after 20 years (I must have already been fat back then) – but not a black tie; instead I wore a black tee shirt with a Sheela na Gig pendant she had silversmithed for me and my "leopard skin" pillbox hat (no red paint, please – it's synthetic), which she had commissioned the Danish Queen's hat-maker to design for a birthday present.

Finally, Charlie Rose was on stage to present the award in the essay category, and we experienced this surreal moment of having the pages of Bob's magazine with my essay projected up on a huge screen on the stage while 500 people looked on and the voice of a woman who sounded equally educated and merry was saying over the sound system, "Wince-inducing, outrageously honest and wickedly funny, Thomas Kennedy's account of his prostate-cancer scare is essay writing at its most original…"

Then Charlie Rose was saying, "The winner is New Letters, Robert Stewart, and Thomas E. Kennedy's essay, 'I Am Joe's Prostate.'" Bob yelled in triumph, pumping his fist in the air, while his wife Lisa and staff members Betsy and Amy screamed from the balcony (that scream was reported by the New York Observer), and I muttered, "Holy shit."

Then we were on the stage in the spotlight, and Charlie Rose was shoving the big-bladed "Ellie" at me and saying, "I'm gonna give you this!" as blitzes flashed, and Bob was making a speech of thanks, and we were coming down the stage steps again. I asked Bob, "Who was that?" and he looked incredulously at me. "That was Charlie Rose." I've been away a long time.

As all 500 of us bottlenecked out of the theater toward the post-ceremony champagne, people kept nodding, smiling, saying, "Congratulations," and "Love your hat!" and "Is that a leopard skin pillbox hat?" In the men's room, the guy at the next urinal smiled at me – something a man is never supposed to do! -- and said, "Congratulations!"

As we entered the reception area, I saw Albert Goldbarth, standing with the contingent from Virginia Quarterly Review (they also won, in the single-topic issue category), and he beamed and said, "If only I were drunk, I would kiss you!" A woman came over and introduced herself as the editor of Reader's Digest and another as editor of Good Housekeeping and then a tall dark-haired man shook my hand and said, "I haven't read your essay but I hear it is very funny and I look forward to it. And I hope your health is okay." I thanked him and then looked at Bob. "Who was that?" Bob smiled incredulously. "That was David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker !" I've been away too long.
I phoned Alice in Copenhagen where it was four in the morning and said, "I won." She began to cry. "I knew you would." It's true. She had assured me I would win – as had my friends Duff Brenna and Greg Herriges and Mike Lee and even Bob Stewart had seemed pretty confident.

I did not really think so and had been assuring everyone who would listen that I did not expect to win at all, that I was content with the honor of being a finalist – although the evening before, at another reception for the event, in the New York Public Library, somebody with a high position in the proceedings asked if my essay was available for Best American Magazine Writing, and another had looked at me in a certain way that seemed to intimate she knew something I didn't.

Then when Charlie Rose was going down the list of essay finalists, suddenly my nostrils were filled with longing to savor that famous sweet smell of success, and I knew that if I did not win, I would be disappointed, perhaps seriously so. The transformation from content-to-be-a-finalist to lust-for-victory had been instanteous. Suddenly I wanted it. Bad!

I would be a liar if I denied that it was nice to be called, but soooo much nicer to be chosen.

This prize is described variously as the Oscar of the magazine world and the Pulitzer of the magazine world. Oddly I bought the NY Times next day and took it to breakfast, to scan the pages for any mention of the "Ellie" – all except the real estate and the business sections, which I dumped in a refuse basket. There was not a word – but I found out later, there had been an article in the business section, I had even been mentioned by name, also in the Washington Post and some other places as well. Even some of the newspapers in Denmark reported that their American-in-residence had won the most distinguished prize in the American magazine world.

When I got back to this ancient kingdom, dear Lady Alice and my kids, Isabel and Daniel, had a "surprise" party waiting for me with about thirty guests. I was feted with flowers and wine and champagne and gifts. Tonny Vorm of the Danish magazine Euroman came bearing an amazing three-liter bottle of finest ecological beer in a gala wooden case – a gift from Euroman which offered to buy Danish rights to the essay for a nice fee. A journalist from the prestigious Weekendavisen scheduled an interview. There were scores of emails of congratulations. I was invited to read the essay at a bookshop in the city center – more flowers and champagne. Fairleigh Dickinson University invited me to be visiting writer in creative nonfiction for another nice fee. Apparently the essay will be reprinted in Best American Magazine Writing 2008. And I don't know if it has any relation, but I received word that a novel I published in 2007 was also a finalist for ForewardMagazine's Book of the Year. Ripples keep rippling.

But let me put this into perspective. I was lucky. As Ken Kesey said when he wrote the phenomenal Cuckoo's Nest, "I caught lightning in a bottle." I certainly do not mean to compare my 5,000-word essay with that world-changing novel, but I know what Kesey meant. I had something I wanted to write about and this voice had occurred to me – this second person voice of extreme irony and wicked humor was handed up to me from wherever it is that our words come from and it began to say outrageous things to me that made me snicker, and all I had to do was write them down. Maybe the King of the Word Factory within had decided it was time for me to get a good shot of encouragement after 47 years of trying and decided to give me that voice with which to tell that essay.
So, my profound thanks to the King of the Word Factory for giving me the ammunition for this little coup. And my thanks to New Letters and Bob Stewart for their support and encouragement over many years and my thanks to Lady Alice for the leopard-skin pillbox hat and to my prostate for keeping on – and a salute to the other essay writer finalists – Walter Kirn in the Atlantic, Katrina Onstad in Elle, Sallie Tisdale in Harper's, Tim Page in the New Yorker, and most particularly Stephen King.

One of the local newspapers in Denmark ran an article about my winning the award that was entitled, "Kennedy Dethrones King." But I didn't dethrone Mr King. He still has millions of readers all over the world who have never heard of me and will never read my stuff.

Pst! Stephen - -could you loan me about a hundred thousand readers for my next book? No? Twenty thousand? I promise I'll be good to them. I promise to show them a good time.

Greetings from this ancient kingdom!
Thomas E. Kennedy
tek@adslhome.dk

Davydov and Others

Danila Davydov just had some poems appear in the new issue of Absinthe and I thought it would be a good time to tell people about an interview I conducted with him about two years ago.

Also, for those of you interested in more contemporary Russian poetry check out the new issue of Jacket Magazine where you can read an interview with Dmitry Kuzmin and poems by Eugenia Ritz and Andrei Sen-Senkov.

In the fall Jacket Magazine and I are doing an issue of contemporary Russian poetry. It will include about thirty young poets.

From a Conversation about Anthologies: Revised

An expert from a conversation about the new Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Press):

The difference between the blandness of the Dalkey anthology in English and its analogue in Russian is that many more Russians (especially poets) speak English than English speakers speak Russian. Therefore, the blandness of the English anthology in Russia is counteracted by the fact that many Russians have read the books of many American poets, and have also read English anthologies that don’t attempt a general overview of American poetry as a whole. So, the Russian reader (poet) for the most part is fine, but the English reader may actually think that this is all there is to contemporary Russian poetry. As if the work of say Viktor Ivaniv, Andrei Sen-Senkov, and Alexander Skidan didn’t exist, or that the brilliant lyric of Kolya Baytov wasn’t one of the finest in Russia today. The Dalkey anthology, as all anthologies trying to present a general overview, aims too high and falls too short. The English reader has been presented with another “contemporary Russian poetry” anthology, but the operating principle behind this collection has once again rendered such a project rather wanting. The only way to correct such a problem in the future is to do away with the illusion of a “general overview” and put out several anthologies, which will have a modest, but clear principle of operation: to show the best work of a particular camp. For instance, we could easily imagine contemporary poetry anthologies for: 1) postacmeist poetry; 2) postmodern Russian poetry; 3) the young generation: Vavilon and Debut; 4) the St. Petersburg poets; 5) the Moscow poets, etc. All of these anthologies would be lacking something important, but they would not be giving the false impression of representing the whole of Russian poetry. The aim would be not to once again cart out a large volume that is too broad to be interesting, but to give a distinct look through one specific lense. A good example of this is the anthology put out by Iowa, which focused its attetion exclusively on women writers.

German film "Yella" at OU/Absinthe Festival

On Saturday morning, May 10th, we'll be screening German director Christian Petzold's latest film "Yella" as part of the Oakland University/Absinthe Festival of New European Film and Writing. In Variety, reviewer Derek Elley states that this "metaphysical thriller" ... "confirms him as one of Germany's finest middle-generation directors." You can read the entire review here.

Belarusian Poet Valzhyna Mort in Poets & Writers Magazine

The Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort is featured in the cover story of the May/June issue of Poets & Writers magazine. After reading the article you'll want to pick up her book Factory of Tears and if you're in the Detroit-area on May 9th you have an opportunity to hear her read at the Oakland University/Absinthe Festival of New European Film and Writing.