Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part III

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Strange phenomenon: making "primitive 78-rpm recordings on used X-ray films." (page 140)

Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladmimir Vysotsky, the latter's songs included "And All Is Quiet in the Cemetery." (pages 142-143)

Voice of America, Deutsche Welle (German Wave) broadcasts (pages 146-147).

Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jazz Hour, etcetera (page 148)

BBC better than Voice of America, to Yelena Kolosova (pages 149-150)

Cuba as romantic inspiration: many of the interviewed Soviet Baby Boomers thought that Castro and the Cubans were cool (just like hepcats and beatniks in "the West" did). "'Cuba, my love, island of crimson dawns.'" (page 151)

Split with China over Cultural Revolution and Damansky / Chenpao Island crisis (page 153), late 1960s. Ready for war, if needed. "'[P]eople think the Chinese are strange.'" (page 155)

As in "the West," Soviet Baby Boomers mostly ignored "the Developing World."  "In 1966 Soviet citizens harbored 'unequivocal disinterest in the 'Third World,' whereas 91 percent of those surveyed were interested in America and admired its technological progress and living standards. Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were enormously popular, and many believed Americans were much like Russians." (page 158) 

The assassination of JFK was felt as a tragedy and "calamity." Yelena Kolosova: "'Since the assassination, I've had a fierce hatred of Texas. The first time I flew to Dallas, I couldn't overcome that ominous feeling that the tragedy had taken place there.'"  (page 162)

"The Baby Boomers came of age at the zenith of Soviet socialism, only to see the system crumble some three decades later. Ironically, much of this had to do with the Soviet system's very success at effecting social change, whose byproducts included rapid urbanization and a rise in the number of educated professionals." (page 169)

1968 was a turning point of sorts, after the Prague Spring was crushed; things were worsened by the Afghanistan War (1979-1989).

Interesting gender statistics. "In 1970, 86 percent of working-age women were employed (the figure was 42 percent in the United States): 71 percent of the country's teachers were women, 70 percent of its physicians . . ." (page 190). 

Also as of 1970, the divorce rate in the Soviet Union was second only to that in the USA. "Soviet women initiated divorce more than men . . ." (page 201).

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Gloria Naylor: 'The Women of Brewster Place' (1982)

The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories (New York: Viking Penguin, 1982), Gloria Naylor's first book, was adapted into a mini-series in 1989 that was filmed in Chicago. The setting for the novel is vaguer -- maybe Cleveland, or maybe a smaller Midwestern or "Northern" city.  

In the course of the novel, Naylor (1950-2016) follows several interconnected women in their tatty neighborhood, an effective organizing principle that combines place, time and character. How did they get there? How do they live? What will happen to them? About most of the main characters, we learn the answers by the end of the book.

What is more important in determining a person's arc -- gender, race, class, sexual orientation, geography, or time period? The Women of Brewster Place posits that all are important, and all have some variability. Also, existential choice plays a role regardless of one's station in life, not to mention chance, or luck of the draw. Some give up, some go with the flow, some become casualties, some organize, some try somewhere or something else.

The main characters are: Mattie Michael, Etta Mae Johnson, Lucielia "Ciel" Turner, Melanie "Kiswana" Browne, Cora Lee, Theresa and Lorraine. 

"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over. Mattie realized that this moment called for all three." (page 70).

A couple of expressions I particularly like: "She smiled warmly into Cora Lee's eyes." And: "She sincerely liked Mattie because unlike the others, Mattie never found the time to do jury duty on other people's lives." (page 123).

The novel earned a National Book Award for Naylor in 1983.

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

Jim Jarmusch: 'Mystery Train' (1989)

We'll let The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, rest a bit, and turn to Jim Jarmusch's indie style film, Mystery Train (1989). Set in Memphis, Tennessee, Mystery Train is composed of three connected "fish out of water" stories. 

The pacing is deliberative, letting us hang out with the characters long enough to understand them, at least to a point of empathy -- how and why they arrived and where they may be going. Cleverly, Jarmusch helps us "defamiliarize" ourselves with the USA, looking at aspects of American culture with fresh perspectives.*

Two Japanese music fans arrive in Memphis via Amtrak, needling each other about their preferences and wandering around.

An Italian widow has a layover at the airport, so decides to explore the city. She has adventures along the way and even a little supernatural visitation.

A laid-off and jilted Englishman is drunk, angry, and carrying a loaded pistol in a bar. Buddies and a brother-in-law (who turns out to be only his would-be brother-in-law) try to calm him down and keep him out of trouble. Once outside of the bar, he asks to stop somewhere to get more bounce. What could go wrong? 

Strategic points in the urban landscape (like the patchy hotel and a particular view of the city skyline) combine with time and energy to lightly brush the stories together. 

Joe Strummer (1952-2002) of The Clash plays the surly Englishman with charisma. His sidekicks include characters played by Steve Buscemi (The Sopranos, &c.), comedian Rick Aviles (1952-1995), and Detroit's own Vondie Curtis-Hall. 

Nicoletta Braschi (who is also featured in an earlier Jarmusch film, Down by Law) plays the Italian widow and Elizabeth Bracco (The Sopranos), her temporary roommate. 

Youki Kudoh (Snow Falling on Cedars) and Masatoshi Nagase (Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!) play the needling Japanese visitants.

The hotel guys are played by Screamin' Jay Hawkins (1929-2000) -- "I Put a Spell on You" (1956) and Cinqué Lee (Spike Lee's younger brother).

Good stuff! More recently, Jarmusch directed Gimme Danger (2016), on Iggy & The Stooges. I posted on it here.

*See Russian Formalism for more on this groovy scrim.

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Berlin: November 1989

These are digitized slides, pictures my parents took while in Berlin in November 1989. The Wall was coming down! Here, a Romani family stops by for an impromptu portrait.

Partially dismantled and ransacked guardhouse. 

Bullet-riddled section.

Part of the Wall with temporary fencing.

Dismantled bits.

I've only been to Berlin once -- before the Wall was dismantled. East Berlin was . . . interesting. Thanks to my Mom for digitizing these images! 

Today's Rune: Movement. 

Fedor Bondarchuk: '9th Company' / '9 Рота' (2005)

Fedor Bondarchuk's 9th Company / 9 Рота (2005) takes us on a war tour in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, from the perspective of Soviet Red Army troops. It's a fascinating movie. Yes, true, we've seen much of this kind of thing before in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Pork Chop Hill (1959), Go Tell the Spartans (1978), Gallipoli (1981), Heartbreak Ridge (1986),  Full Metal Jacket (1987), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), and so on, but this time it's with Russians and other peoples of the Soviet Union, fighting in Afghanistan in modern times -- where, indeed, even now US and Allied troops are still fighting thirty years later. I am always thrilled to see variations on a typically American theme, done internationally with a few twists.

9th Company does the usual trick of bringing recruits through basic training -- here with their "comrade drill sergeant" suffering from post traumatic stress previously garnered "in country" in Afghanistan. He doesn't mince words when there's a problem: "This is a real fuck-up, soldier." By the time he's done with them, they're ready for war. They've also gotten to know "Snow White," a prostitute who works at and near the training camp. One of the soldiers, an artist, calls her "Venus emerging from the sea."  

The next phase of 9th Company is set in the Afghanistan war zone proper. Afghan Army troops ("the greenies") are depicted as not very reliable allies (sound familiar?). The Soviet soldiers face the shock and surprise tactics of "the muj" (mujahideen), including ambush, landmines, and decoys; and their escape tactics, utilizing holes, caves, tunnels, villages, dust and darkness. The Soviet recruits join seasoned veterans, who the viewer may more quickly feel empathy for, because they seem more like fully developed adults rather than dimwitted youth.     

9th Company doesn't sugar-coat the misery of campaigning in Afghanistan, nor the violence of combat.  Definitely worth checking out. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.   

Berlin: Artefakte / Artifacts (Je me souviens)

Berlin: nach dem 9. November 1989.

Berlin: Die Mauer. 

Berlin: Pausenloser Einsatz. Die Mauer am Brandenburger.

Berlin: Die Mauer am Checkpoint Charlie. 

DDR East German street art with cosmonauts and spaceships: "friendship of CCCP and DDR." Early 1980s. 

It occurs to me that I don’t believe in states or nation states or tribes. Oh, I know the laws and customs and I pay taxes and all that, but I don’t believe in the ethos of states or nation states or tribes. Maybe I'm a human being, a person first, a mortal being, one man, a global citizen, a Catholic, a libertarian socialist, a professional of sorts, an inhabitant of the 20th and 21st centuries, an environmentalist, a feminist, a thinking denizen who happens to know American English as a first language ~ and maybe I'm a little more than that.  Maybe I'm a refugee, an exile. Or so it feels as I write on this Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, Poppy Day, Le jour du Souvenir, El Día del Recuerdo. Above all, as they say in Emilia-Romagna: Amarcord; and in Quebec: Je me souviens ~ I remember.

How about you?

Today's Rune: Protection.    

Berlin Detroit

The Wall: Berlin, eight years before it came down. (Click for larger image -- if you wish).

Detroit, twelve years after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. Intersection: Hastings Street and Harper Avenue. (Click for larger image -- if you wish).

Today's Rune:  Breakthrough. 

India: The Sahmat Collective Exhibition at the Ackland

Colorful and impressive multi-genre exhibit at the Ackland Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- "The Sahmat Collective: Art and Activism in India since 1989." 

". . . discover the influential, Delhi-based artist collective called Sahmat, whose members create -- through a mix of high art and street culture -- powerful  and vibrant works of art in defense of freedom of expression and in celebration of secular, egalitarian values." 

Free admission. True story!   

[Benjamin] Franklin Street from a cross-walk, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, September 2013. About a block from the Ackland, just last Sunday. 

The Sahmat Collective: closeup. Groovily, flashless photos permitted. 

The Sahmat Collective: banner outside the Ackland. I did some eyes-on art history here as an undergraduate student, among the most enduring strands of my formal education. I strongly recommend ongoing cycles of art history to everyone of all ages via the internet, in person, by the book or in class -- whatever works. It's usually affordable to all or even free so it's up to you.  

Today's Rune:  Fertility. 

David France: How to Survive a Plague (Part I)

If, as Frederick Douglass put it in 1857, "power concedes nothing without a demand," David France's How to Survive a Plague (2012) shows an immediate demand -- faster, more effective response to the AIDS crisis, more resources for effective treatment --  via well-organized groups ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and its 1991 spinoff TAG (Treatment Action Group). Much of this compelling documentary covers the late 1980s and first half of the 1990s. In it, one will see not only the rank and file of ACT UP and TAG and their allies, but also buffoonish conservative enemies like North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, and let's not forget the mixed response of Pat Buchanan on Firing Line. Also: see George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Charlie Rose, among many others, drawn into the maelstrom. 

How to Survive a Plague is moving, fast-paced and exhilarating all at once. Fantastic!

Today's Rune: Signals.     

World Karma Comic-Comedian Russell Peters

When performing, stand-up comics have to be sharp and on their toes, prepared yet flexible. This line of work is not easy, and even less easy is financial success, wide recognition and influence.

I love a good comic-comedian as much as anyone, to laugh and be amazed at quick-thinking jabs and responses, to empathize. And to be enlightened into thinking about things from different angles.

Lately I checked out a fair sampling of comedy feauturing Indo-Canadian wordsmith-mimic-joker-observer Russell Peters.

This dude is a true world comic.

He can (and does) make references to the cultural peculiarities and foibles of all sorts of social groups. He can mimic formal language, local inflections and slang from Iraq to India to Indiana and beyond.

Funny guy. It seems as if his immediate audiences love him. Most do not take particular offense because he is coming at people and social groups from a global perspective, and with a seasoned Indo-Canadian understanding of how things work.

He enjoys close consideration of sounds, wording, names and the quirks of language, attitudes and stereotyping, all of it leading to a greater appreciation of the way things are.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.         

Louis L'Amour: His Life and Trails

Finished Robert Phillips' Louis L'Amour: His Life and Trails. An Unauthorized Biography (Toronto: PaperJacks, Ltd., 1989), a quick-paced biography of the prolific writer. 

Reading about Louis L'Amour's (1908-1988) life, two things stand out even beyond his remarkable output of novels and stories. Those two things?  Poetry and boxing. Combine them into one and you have Louis L'Amour's "yondering" years, which comprises more than half of his time on Earth. Clearly, he's got some of the same spirit as Teddy Roosevelt -- a voracious appetite for books and landscape, for adventure and wilderness. From yondering he switches gear into "the almost monastic life" of writing, eventually settling down to produce on average five pages per day and thirty-five pages per week. Throughout his life, he scoffs at age and genre categorizations, expectations and preconceptions. At forty-eight, after dating a French widow and Julie Newmar, among many others, he marries Newmar's friend Kathy Adams, age twenty-two. They eventually have two kids and remain married until his death thirty-two years later.

L'Amour combines life experience with an intense and wide-ranging curiosity about the world, about history and culture. He does his homework. "You are your own best teacher . . . My advice is to question all things. Seek for answers, and when you find what seems to be an answer, question that, too" (Phillips, page 59). On establishing himself as a writer, he notes: "My stories came back like homing pigeons . . . Frankly, . . . that's when my training as a fighter helped me . . . One thing you learn early is that if you get knocked down, you've got to get up again. It's the same thing with writing" (Phillips, page 80). That's good advice for any writer.  

Today's Rune: Possessions.          

The Velvet Underground Revolution: Václav Havel, RIP

As of this post, news is rolling in of the death of Kim Jong-il, North Korea's "Supreme Leader" -- a time of peril and, we can hope, opportunity. Time will tell soon enough. Earlier came word of the death of writer Václav Havel, first president of the Czech Republic.

When I was in graduate school at Temple University in Philadelphia, Havel, upon receiving the Liberty Medal, gave an acceptance speech at Independence Hall, where the original American Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. It was a warm day and I had to drag myself over from West Philadelphia in time to hear him speak. He was eloquent and "heavy." Here's a snippet from "The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World," which he delivered in English on July 4, 1994:

It logically follows that, in today's multicultural world, the truly reliable path to coexistence, to peaceful coexistence and creative cooperation, must start from what is at the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and minds than political opinion, convictions, antipathies, or sympathies -- it must be rooted in self-transcendence:

Transcendence as a hand reached out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe.

Transcendence as a deeply and joyously experienced need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, what we do not understand, what seems distant from us in time and space, but with which we are nevertheless mysteriously linked because, together with us, all this constitutes a single world.

Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction. . .


This speech was given less than five years after Havel became President in the wake of the Velvet Revoluton of 1989. Havel, being an artist as well as politican, was a huge fan of Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, and others. From Velvet Underground to Velvet Revolution to Philadelphia Freedom.

We must hope that something as good as Havel's way develops on the Korean penninsula, now or soon.

Today's Rune: The Self.    

Ten Year War to Nowhere

Chinook Down: Earlier today, guerillas shot down a US helicopter in Afghanistan, killing thirty-one Americans and seven Afghan government soldiers. Eight insurgents were also killed in related fighting, according to a Taliban press report. Other guerillas attacked and destroyed sixteen NATO fuel tankers near the Khyber Pass. These incidents are nearly identical to ones reported thirty years ago, only they were Soviets who were killed in the previous incidents, and the insurgents then were more commonly called "freedom fighters" and Mujahideen in Western press reports.

Consider this: In the Soviet War that lasted from 1979 to 1989, Afghan guerillas suffered more than 150,000 killed; civilian losses topped that by several times. The Red Army lost more than 14,000 killed and 50,000+ wounded. That war (or that phase of the meta-war) helped bankrupt the Soviet Empire, leading to its collapse.

The Soviet Union's Afghan allies lost approximately 20,000 killed in the first ten year cycle -- then many thousands more in the Afghan Civil War (Phase I) of 1989 to 1992. The 1992-1996 Afghan Civil War (Phase II) brought the Taliban into power. More fighting continued into 2001; then began the US/NATO phase that has lasted from October 7, 2001 through this very August 6, 2011 post -- and off into the future. Note: Osama bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011 in neighboring Pakistan. US/NATO killed to date exceed 2,600, with 13,000 plus Americans wounded (the highest in the NATO group).

Finally: The only forces who can/will keep fighting at this cost in terms of casualties and finances are the guerillas. For them it is a cheap war, and there are plenty of recklessly macho volunteers in a permanent pipeline that cost little to train and maintain on the job. The population of Afghanistan is too large to "pacify." It's now pushing close to thirty million -- nearly double the population since 1979, when the Soviets moved in for their long shot at pacification.

Like its predecessors, the 2001-2011 conflict has been a long road to nowhere for all parties involved, but only the Afghans themselves, in all their factions, will decide if and when to end the fighting. I am dubious of a peaceful settlement, let alone a "successful" one. How about you?

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Czechoslovakia: Orphan of The Great War, 1918-1992

Czechoslovakia is one of the countries that emerged from imperial disintegration in the wake of the Great War of 1914-1918. Another was Armenia. A conflict as large as the Great War has reverberated down through the present, and Czechoslvakia, which came to being in 1918, broke in two in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, another child of the Great War. But enough of war. What about Czechs and Slovaks and Moravians and Bohemians and the cuisine and culture they brought to America?



Well, I've eaten at Czech places in Illinois and Iowa and Texas, at Moravian places in Pennsylvania and Norh Carolina; and I've lived like a Bohemian, at least in the adopted sense of the word. You can get koláče / kolaches in many bakeries, Czech and German (stuffed pastries); a lot of the food seems like a hybrid of Germanic and Slavic, which makes sense given the geographic origin. Let's not forget Czech beer, which is among the best in the world (especially when it's on tap and close to the source): Budweiser Budvar (Budějovický Budvar) -- so much tastier than current watery American Budweiser it's off the charts -- and Pilsner Urquell (Plzeňský Prazdroj), "Original Pilsner." There have been breweries in the Czech old country for 900 years, maybe more.

Above poster: Contemporary Czechoslovak Posters, February 23-April 8, 1990, The City Gallery of Contemporary Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.  Synchronicity being what it is, I "broke up with" a Czech American in 1992/93, the same year as the so-called "Velvet Divorce" that split Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.   

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Le déjeuner des canotiers / Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881) at the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. Saw this up close about twenty years ago, and stood in amazement at its vibrancy. It's pretty big, about four feet by five feet plus some.

The Phillips Collection showcases a lot of works, ranging from Goya (I remember standing in amazement before anything by Goya) through bigtime French and American paintings. If in DC, it's just about as good or better than anything else one might want to see there culturally. Website link: http://www.phillipscollection.org/











Also in DC, there's the amazing Corcoran Gallery of Art, where the above painting is housed: John Sloan's Yeats at Petipas (1910). This is about half the size of Renoir's Boating Party. For more on the Corcoran, please see: http://www.corcoran.org/

Do you like one more than the other?  If so, why?  I have a definite preference, but like them both.

Today's Rune: Fertility.  Happy Birthday to my sister Vickie and several other peeps today!   (Note: Post title derived from Delmore Schwartz).

Aubade, or Morning Song

I. A songbird woke me up this morning and when I went outside, it was clear that spring is on the way. This little bird triggered another thought: there's a name for what she (or he) is doing -- performing an aubade, or morning song (sounds like oh-baud, or ō-ˈbäd).

Wallace Fowlie taught me this back in the 80s.

Believe it or not, Erik's Choice is moving into its fifth year of existence and I am moving toward my 50th year on Earth. I began this "web log" back in February of 2006, and have posted at least once daily ever since, more than 1600 posts so far.  Not only have I enjoyed ruminating and posting, but more importantly, it's been a great pleasure getting to know other bloggers, readers and commenters from around the globe.  Many thanks for stopping by -- and for those who also write their own stuff, for writing!




















II. My main advice after four years of posting: write about folks 65 or older. Go out and listen to more "seniors." Cherish, treasure, engage and record.

Besides extended family members and students and teachers and librarians and writers who are of all ages, some of my best friends are (or were if they're gone) people I met when they were considerably past 65. For instance, Nishan Baba Toumajan and his younger wife, Louise Toumajan taught me about their lives as Armenians in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey -- and in the USA through most of the 20th century. Baba had been born in the 1800s; Louise had been a professional tennis player after the First World War. Madame Françoise Marcus has taught me about her life growing up in France and is always quick with charm and conversation, the good life. I only met with Wallace Fowlie maybe a dozen times but we also became good friends. Then there were the Germans who'd been captured at Normandy on D-Day (Willy Wiederstein and comrades) and then worked on Scottish, Canadian and American farms during the last year of the Second World War. There was also Doctor Dick Pearse, who'd inspired me and my pal Kenny to walk the eleven miles between Durham and Chapel Hill. And there was an older guy walking along what was left of Hastings Street in Detroit, who remembered the days when John Lee Hooker lived in town playing the Apex Bar and Henry's Swing Club, and the day he saw Jimi Hendrix play.

You see what I'm saying -- seek and ye shall find, and listen well when you do, whether you meet once or a hundred times.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Here Comes the Zoo

Twenty years in the blink of an eye. Before the Wall came down, though, Berlin was a dark Mecca for artists. David Bowie and Iggy Pop created some of their most compelling work while living in Berlin in the mid-to-late 70s: Low, "Heroes," Lodger, The Idiot, Lust for Life. Kraftwerk was ratcheting up their electronic sound simultaneously with Trans-Europe Express (1977):

From station to station
Back to Düsseldorf City
Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie
Trans-Europe Express

And let's not forget Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981), set in Berlin in the 70s and with a Bowie soundtrack.



Reunification plus twenty years. Here came the Zoo . . . and what Germans call Die Mauer im Kopf and Weltschmerz -- the Wall in the Head, and world weariness in Afghanistan. All aboard for funtime . . . It's raining in Berlin today. It's a long way back to Germany . . . And when you're tumbling down, you just look
better . . .

Today's Rune: Journey.

All Hallows: First Day of the Dead

To the departed and the fallen: Gone but not forgotten.

Also got to see Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen (2006), about life in the DDR (East Germany) in the mid-80s, and ending in the 90s, after reunification. I liked it. Got to venture behind the Iron Curtain around the time the movie begins, see East Berlin and Dresden. Strange to think how fast everything has changed since then: Gorbachev, Chernobyl, Glasnost, Perestroika, Soviet pullout of Afghanistan, fall of the Wall, Der Deutsche Einheit, and now German units participating in Afghanistan, fighting some of the same people the Soviets did. Who would've dreamed how things have turned out? Sometimes we forget that. We mustn't.

Today's Rune: Strength.

Oh, Pilot of the Storm Who Leaves No Trace

Afghanistan is a rough place. Who knows how the latest chapter will end for the latest Western project there. Why has it taken eight years to achieve so little of lasting value? Why is the Afghan government so poorly developed, with so little in the way of trained police and military?

Ask among the Russians. The Soviet-Afghan War lasted ten years (1979-1989); Soviet troop strength peaked at about 118,000; their casualties exceeded 13,000 killed. Perhaps a million Afghans perished. The Soviets built up the Afghan government, which was led by Mohammad Najibullah. Heavily supplied and equipped by the Russians, the Afghan government took control of the war against the mujahideen, only to fall to them after a brutal post-Soviet civil war (1989-1992). Najibullah got his family out to an Indian safe haven, but he was captured, tortured, castrated and his body hanged on a telephone pole for all to see.

The map above is roughly how things stand today, though US troop strength is up to about 65,000. Even usually neutral Sweden has a contingent in place, in a reconstruction role bordering Uzbekistan. The Swedish government intends to add another 100 or so in support roles.

The Afghan population, despite poverty and endless war, has doubled since 1979 from 13 million to 28 million. It's as if Afghans thrive in war. In wars and occupations of attrition and time, they have the advantage. But which Afghans will prevail? Or will any of them? It's questionable whether outsiders will ever achieve much of lasting value for their investment.

Today's Rune: Gateway.

Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill

North Carolina has had a hip and rowdy indie music scene for decades. The main venue nodes that I knew about in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s were in Chapel Hill and the larger urban centers: Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro. It helped having colleges and universities in each vicinity to provide a large, energetic and always changing fan base.

I was just looking for any artifacts from the Jim Carroll Band show at the Frog & Nightgown (or the Pier) in Raleigh, and instead came across these ticket stubs from Cat's Cradle shows in Chapel Hill: The Cramps (Flat Duo Jets opened) and Buzzcocks. Both excellent shows. The Cat's Cradle was a frequent place to go. This venue has moved around a lot, but included locations off Rosemary Street and West Franklin Street before moving in 1993 over to Carrboro, the adjoining town where I'd lived for a few of years while an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina in the early 80s. The Cat's Cradle in memory is like a Pandora's Box -- so many gigs, so many prompts in the pipeline!

In my quest to hunt down details of the Jim Carroll gig, came across an article about the Raleigh music scene and a comment by allthingsarial, who was also at the Jim Carroll show -- placing it back to 1981 or 1982. (Catholic Boy came out in 1980). Many thanks to "The Arial View" at http://allthingsarial.wordpress.com/ for the input.

Today's Rune: Wholeness. Ides of September.