Word: gogol
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Russia's two gravest ills, according to the celebrated 19th century writer Nikolai Gogol, were its fools and its roads. And even though the overall population of contemporary Russia continues to shrink by more than half a million people a year, fools appear to multiply as profusely as ever. Perhaps that's why whenever national elections are held, the polling station nearest my dacha (country house) is the local loony bin. As for the roads, each 40-mile drive here from Moscow confirms my suspicion that roads were in much better shape in Gogol's time. Today, they look...
...driver and I heaved the stretcher on which my mother-in-law lay moaning into the ambulance, and off they went, down the same road on which Gogol might well have conceived his line about fools and roads. Our dacha is just a walking distance from the estate of Abramtsevo, owned in Gogol's time by the Aksakov family - literati who turned their home into an informal salon for the Russian intellectual gentry. As a dear friend of the Aksakovs, Gogol was a frequent and honored guest in Abramtsevo, now a museum and a major Russian landmark of Russian cultural...
...After my wife's call, I felt like lighting a votive candle to Russian progress: In Gogol's time, there were no cell phones to keep one abreast of the healing powers of the broken roads - just one of the daily miracles that keep this country going, sometimes against considerable odds. That may be why, even a century and a half after Gogol first complained about Russia's roads, expecting them to be repaired - well, that would simply be foolish...
Remember how gypsy music was supposedly making a comeback? Praised in the blogosphere after their 2006 debut, Beirut was lumped into the same Eastern Invasion category as Gogol Bordello, simply because both bands cited gypsy influences. However, Beirut eschews Bordello’s hedonism and registers as a slightly more ethnic Neutral Milk Hotel. “The Flying Club Cup,” Beirut’s second album, seeks inspiration further west of their old sonic haunts and finds it in France. The influence is evident, superficially in the pretentious Francophone chatter at the beginning of songs...
...Ashoke Ganguli, whose train journey through the Indian countryside begins the film “The Namesake,” Russian writer Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat” radically changes his life. Because of Gogol, Ganguli moves to the United States and embarks on a journey he could not otherwise have imagined. He even nicknames his Indian-American son after the author, giving the movie he theme behind its title.Actor Kal Penn, who plays Gogol, also credits a certain work of art with inspiring a radical career change. The work...