I admire Chekhov, and not just for his writing, and not just because he was startlingly hot either. To paraphrase Ivan Bunin, Chekhov was not a little bitch. Even when he knew he was dying from TB, he didn’t whine hysterically from the pages of Russian literary journals. He didn’t ask his readers for hugs. [...]
October 8, 2009
Categories: Dork-Out, Harem, I Like To Read, I make funny, Personal Essays, Pop Culture Essays, Ukraine, Writers . Tags: anton chekhov, depression, tolkien . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 26 Comments
I’m wondering how long it will take for some idiot to make a hysterical YouTube video begging the justice system to “LEAVE ROMAN ALONE!…uh uh uh.”
Flippant, I know. It’s hard to talk about Roman Polanski’s arrest with any of the gravity it deserves. It’s even harder to keep a straight face when I see famous [...]
October 1, 2009
Categories: Pop Culture Essays, The F-Word, fandom . Tags: rape, roman polanski . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 7 Comments
I love how the legendary Dead Sea mud glitters on my shoulder here. I love the way my bathing suit carries its fresh, mineral smell now [ETA: I wrote it was "herbal" before. I must have been more tired than I originally thought].
I spent a little too much time at the hotel watching Michael [...]
June 27, 2009
Categories: America, Bad News, Music, Personal Essays, Pop Culture Essays . . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 7 Comments
I read this recent piece by Elizabeth Wurtzel with a mixture of recognition, sympathy, fear and frustration. Wurtzel is constantly derided as a pointless narcissist, but she has a lot of texture. Yeah, she’s absorbed in herself, but she submerges beautifully. She gives us something to marvel at in the process. There’s a nakedness to [...]
May 31, 2009
Categories: I Like To Read, Kultur, Pop Culture Essays, The F-Word . . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 7 Comments
I’ve been reading the excellent Phonogram. Thinking about music as a kind of amber that can preserve both the beautiful and the bloody.
In Kiev last week, I toook a break from Phonogramming away and met a friend for drinks comparatively late one night, then caught one of the newer marshrutkas home. Now this particular death-on-wheels (that’s [...]
May 25, 2009
Categories: Music, Personal Essays, Pop Culture Essays, Ukraine . . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 5 Comments
If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that I’ve no love lost for Tanya Gold’s recent writing on the Guardian. First she labels all beauty contestants as stupid slags who should be used as battering rams and tampons, and now she has decided to compliment the lovely Susan Boyle by calling her a [...]
April 20, 2009
Categories: I Like To Read, Kultur, Music, Pop Culture Essays, The F-Word . . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 13 Comments
Happy Easter to everyone on the Gregorian Calendar! Sorry the subject matter of this post is not more…er… fluffy bunny-esque.
When I saw the ads for “Observe & Report,” I already knew it probably wasn’t going to be my type of movie. I like Seth Rogen and Anna Faris, and I find Jody Hill likable [...]
April 12, 2009
Categories: Pop Culture Essays, The F-Word . Tags: humor, rape . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 20 Comments
I woke up at 3 a.m., like a good girl, and turned my TV on. Since the timezone I’m in has a 7-hour difference with the East Coast of the United States, this was what was required of me in order to be able to watch the show live.
I don’t think I’ve watched this show [...]
February 23, 2009
Categories: America, Pop Culture Essays, fandom . Tags: movies . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 2 Comments
Let me first say that I generally object to all dissections of famous people’s weight gains and losses. I have to be realistic and say that one hand, this sort of thing is inevitable, but on the other hand – maybe if we had a slightly more inclusive beauty standard, it wouldn’t happen so often.
I [...]
February 8, 2009
Categories: America, Bad News, Pop Culture Essays, The F-Word . Tags: fashion . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 31 Comments
I went to renew my visa today and after having found my way outside, I had to stand with my head against a tree.
My boyfriend, noticing that I was very pale and probably not having some Silvan Elf moment, bought me a can of Sprite from a cornershop presided over by a young woman who [...]
January 15, 2009
Categories: Dork-Out, Harem, I make funny, Personal Essays, Pop Culture Essays, The F-Word . . Author: Natalia Antonova . Comments: 13 Comments
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