Natalia A.

Vanity: pictures of Natalia Antonova (me)

This is for everyone who thinks my blog is shallow. Haw haw.

OK, I’m beset by evil saber-toothed cockroaches, I dreamed of going to Kiev this month and reading Akhmatova among the tulips, and now that this didn’t work out, I am sad, and have writer’s block, and feel like being vain. I also wish to correct the fact that Google image search spits out a picture of the pregnant Monica Bellucci before any of my other pictures. It’s a beautiful shot, but I’m not a pregnant Monica Bellucci, and do not wish to confuse the future generations. Also, the banner on this blog presently makes me look way too emo, spreading even more inaccuracy.

So here I am (rock you like a hurricane?):

I look less like me in this picture and more like a friendly reject from the sort of comic book that will never be made into a crappy blockbuster (thank you, PhotoBooth), but this picture perfectly conveys my life in Dubai.

It was a bit like living on Tatooine.

By contrast, this is me in Jordan:

A war-weary commando, posing with her trusty weapon (dear makers of PifPaf, please make all checks payable to Natalia “Widowmaker” Antonova). They don’t make scarves with dead cockroaches on them, but a scarf with skulls will suffice in spreading terror in the hearts of the enemies. Or so I hope.

All of this is not to say that I am unhappy. On the contrary. Life has a good rhythm overall, and work on the magazine is good (if a little bit tiring as of late). I miss North Carolina, but it’s the people and the nature I miss, not the good old days. It was time to do something new.

“And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover.”
-John Masefield

Mikhalkov’s “12”: One of the most glorious moments in modern Russian cinema

Lezginka!

I don’t think you even need to like this movie in order to feel goosebumps crawling up your arms as you watch this one. If you can’t read the Russian subtitles and don’t understand Chechen, the kid expresses admiration for the knife, and the man gives it to him. After the dance, the kid’s wary father calls him home. The kid says that he’s sorry, he’s being called to do homework. The man answers with a pretty terrifying and accurate line,

“Don’t worry, boy, there will be enough of this war left over for you too.”

These are Chechen fighters, in a movie made in a post-Beslan world. And the beauty portrayed here cuts through all that. I never expected a conservative Russian filmmaker such as Nikita Mikhalkov to shoot a scene that can humanize and illuminate and goddamn it, hotify (from the word “hot” – the word “beautify” will not do) this particular group of people in a way that no amount of political debate can match. This scene is not didactic. Instead of being buggered by an agenda, you are enveloped in the intimacy of a childhood memory that stands apart from rhetoric. It’s a Lolita moment, in the sense of a work of art twinkling like a star through the fog of social commentary that immediately gets heaped upon it due to its very nature. You respond to it as an individual.

A (cranky) fellow writer recently told me, “how racist! What ‘ethnic’ people just randomly break out into dance? What kind of BS…” I had to interrupt him there, because I do actually randomly break out into dance. I’ve done it on sidewalks while waiting for a bus with my cousin, and on Independence Square with my uncle’s drunk brother, and countless other times, which I won’t mention, because I blog under my real name.

I can’t do the lezginka, but I sure as hell can shake my bum or wave my scarf when I get in the mood, which is often. When I do it, it’s not an artform, and it won’t give you goosebumps (in fact, it will probably just make you raise your eyebrow like that mustachioed guy in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and say “I weep for the future”), but if the above scene is racist, then so is my life. You know being an “ethnic” person in someone else’s eyes, and all.

Leaving me aside, it’s not at all abnormal for groups of people to break out in traditional dance. I’ve seen it happen in Brooklyn, Montmartre, and the legendary Borshagovka. They don’t always do it as beautifully as above, but they do it nonetheless.

I’d like to have a world with more dancing. The more people dance, the less time they have to kill each other.

Congratulations to Russia AND Ukraine

Thank you for a fun Eurovision. It’s not cool to care about these contests, but whatever. Screw you, stiff-upper-lippy types, and screw everyone nattering on about “we need to have a contest just for Western countries! Why I was livid that these creatures, who ought to be hoovering my living room or performing a different kind of suction (their lovelies are great as long as they don’t talk), banded together to prop up and celebrate each other! How thoughtless and rude!”

I’m not a huge fan of Dima Bilan or Ani Lorak, Verka Serdyuchka beats them both by a mile, but they’re fun performers. Dima is a huge, huge sex symbol (and will probably make an appearance as one of the beautiful people regularly featured on this blog), and Ani Lorak is one of those people who actually helped popularize the very idea of a Ukrainian-language pop scene.

I am in awe of this contest as seen through the prism of furious activity on LiveJournal. Some Ukrainians are de-friending all Russians, some Russians are doing the same to Ukrainians, others are speculating on Dima Bilan’s sexuality/Ani Lorak’s “actual gender.” But all of this, upon closer inspection, is actually really, really light-hearted. Perhaps my LJ friends are not representative, but, once again, who cares? They fun. Even more fun than the pop musicians.

Fun Online Reading For You!

OK, so we’ve been busy improving the features on the Arab-themed magazine (improvements to the general-themed international magazine will soon follow), particularly as it relates to the browsing experience.

So, for example, now you can read up on topics featuring Muslim women with all of the related articles grouped together nicely for your enjoyment. Another kick-ass category I’d like to highlight is Arab and Muslim themed humor. We’re looking for more topical submissions in that genre, so if you think you’re up to it, do write me: natalia [at] arabcomment [dot] com.

Now, as I already mentioned, GlobalComment will soon have a similar makeover. Humorous writing is the lifeblood of the site, it’s what makes my job as both writer and editor that much more divine (not in the John Waters sense of the word, har har), and I encourage anyone reading this to submit your work.

Since I’m on the subject of good reads, a cursory look at the news today had me gagging. Holy Batman. Severed right feet? Now, I tip my hat and snap my garter at the writer of this story, he kept the sensationalism in check, but you can’t help but conjure up images of all sorts of evil when you read.

If you’re not sufficiently nauseous, check out more on deranged purity balls. Freud and Sophocles are turning over in their graves.

Oh, but I promised fun online reading, didn’t I? Well, for a trip down the memory lane of Camille Paglia’s greatest misses, why not check out this old (yet gleaming) chestnut from belledame? Back in the day, Paglia used to blame women for getting raped (and, I’m sure, still does). She recently blamed a flamboyantly dressed teenager for being shot. Of course, she couched it in the rhetoric of “oh, that poor, confused child, why didn’t anyone save him from himself before it was too late,” but I could see right through that. She worships traditional masculinity in this creepy way that suggests that men are gods who can do no wrong (unless they have floppy haircuts and/or support Senator Clinton), and says a lot more about her than it does about men. Or else she just does it because it gets her attention (hey, I’m writing about her right now, aren’t I?).

I can appreciate the fact that Camille and I agree on the brilliance of Verka Serdyuchka: