Do people on this side of the ocean ever cry over the strains of the balalaika?

Is there anyone aside from me who swells with great emotion when the balalaika plays its little tune as spring comes to Yuriatin?

Doctor Zhivago is not a great movie. Yurii is in many ways a despicable character. History is simplified, love is simplified. Pasternak is not at the top of the Russian heap of great writers.

But play that tune, flash those daffodils and birches and I am lost in the world that has absolutely no resemblance to this one. This is a Russian fairy tale and I love all elements that make it exactly that.

I came back to Madison tonight and I mindlessly clicked on the TV. I don't typically do this, but I was tired and I spent way too many hours at airports (on the busiest travel day of the year). Dr. Z. spun me back to another world, made up of a different range of emotions -- one I'll fully plunge into next week on my trek back to Poland. Wonderful transition. Thank you cable TV. You came through at last.

I could be home by now

I noticed that practically all my posts today have been about the "materialistic impulse." It may have something to do with being stuck at La Guardia for half the day because I caved in to the "free ticket" grabbing game. There is no free anything. I could be sipping a nice latte at Borders right now. Instead, I am watching the fog roll in from the Long Island Sound as the post-Thanksgiving crowds get fidgety. Free travel in the future hardly seems like a pleasant prospect at the moment.

Even the liquidators found the stuff to be "down there" in terms of quality

Would you run over to the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West (or -- the former Mayflower Hotel) to pick up a bargain -- like maybe a beat-up garbage can, or an old mattress, or a sink? Some did. For the hobby of it. In the NYTimes Metro section today I read the following (emph. my own):

Riechler's Law of Shopping states that necessity has an inverse relationship to cost. As the price of an item drops, the need to own it increases... "Do I really need a portable fridge?" [Dick Riechler, the author of the law] asked, in the Socratic style. "It's cheap. Why not?"

Okay, but a used (splattered, tarnished, chipped, stained, ugh!) garbage can? Because it came from a mediocre hotel that you once stayed in? I can think of a number of reasons for "why not."

Finding beauty in a broom that you don't necessarily use with any great frequency

Always interested in learning from those who celebrate *humble beauty,* I was drawn today to the review in the Times of The Wabi-Sabi House. Wabi-sabi doesn’t seem a difficult concept (emphases throughout are my own):

It's about spare living spaces and well-worn handmade objects, and an appreciation of quiet pleasures — indeed, of plain old quiet. Sweeping a floor rather than vacuuming, taking up knitting, washing the dishes by hand — these are wabi-sabi activities. Using a glue gun (or a vibrator) is not.

I am sorry to sound contrary, but these seem to me to be indeed quiet, but not exactly pleasure-inducing activities. I am not publicly backing glue guns or vibrators, but I stand in opposition to describing cleaning as an artistic expression of humble beauty.

Further in the article, I learn that those who practice wabi-sabi believe it to be completely un-American. Perhaps as un-American as apple pie. [This is my phrase. Apple pie is Polish. Everyone should know that. Szarlotka = apple pie. Simple.] Why does wabi-sabi confuse the average American?

That's because, [the Wabi-Sabi House author] writes: "We're afraid of real poverty and decay. … [If you want to practice wabi-sabi] try not to freak out when you come home to a dirty house. Turn the lights off and light some candles, making sure they're strategically placed away from the dirty dishes and the dog hair on the carpet.

So first I am told to celebrate quiet house cleaning and then to revel in poverty and decay. This would be tough. The third identified component – not freaking out when you come home to a house that is in disarray: no problem. I am about to do that today. Though I am not too pleased with the guy who just spilled a bag of crumbled potato chips at my feet at the airport gate area. I want to tell him to humbly sweep it up for the sake of simple beauty.

Posting in limbo

Would you give up your seat on an overbooked flight for $100?
No.
For $200?
No.
For $200, and a confirmed seat on a flight in three hours?
Uh…
For a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the 48 states?
Uh...
For a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the 48 states, and a guaranteed seat on a flight that’ll get you back home in time for dinner?
Uh…
For a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the 48 states, and a guaranteed seat on a flight that’ll get you back home in time for dinner, and access to WiFi during your three-hour wait at La Guardia?
Do you even need to ask?

Mail from across the ocean

A message from Warsaw:

[I]t's snowing often these days and today for the first time this season I heard the sound of somebody beating away at their carpet outside (trzepanie dywanu) - the ritual that's a sure sign that Christmas is on its way (heard again before Easter).