Amazing morning. Yesterday the office manager pulled me into her office. “We think you should take a tour of Moscow with our favorite tour guide.”
“Uh, okay. That sounds great. What does she charge.”
“You of course will be our guest. When would you like to go?”
“Well, I’m only in Moscow a couple of more days . . . how about Thursday or Friday after work?”
“No. Too busy then Too much traffic. We think tomorrow morning.”
Sales might suffer
“…but I’m working tomorrow mor—“
“Our tourguide Valerie and our driver Alexander will meet you at 10 a.m. at your hotel. After tour she will deliver you to office.”
“Well okay then. Thanks!” You are the boss. It would be rude to say no.
Chekhov
So this morning Valerie, Alexander[1] and I tore around all over Moscow, and I got to see things I wouldn’t have gotten to on my own. The University, Sparrow Hill with its amazing city views, Tolstoy’s house, and many impressive buildings.
Most notable was a cemetery where I got to see the final resting places of Shostakovich, Chekhov and Stanislavsky! Valerie helped me get good pictures of them.
Stanislavsky was the dude who basically invented modern acting. The famous (or infamous, depending on your point of vie) “Method” acting technique taught by the major mid-Twentieth Century teachers in the United States were based on Stanislavsky.
In Moscow, right across the river from Red Square, I came upon a fender bender right at the big intersection leading onto the bridge. Several cops were there debriefing the participants in the accident. All were clearly Russian and I of course didn’t understand a word until, finally, when everyone was pretty much done and about to leave, the driver of one of the cars muttered very clearly:
Shostakovich
“Shyett hhhhappens.”
Love it.
[1] Whose last name is Gorbachev and I was DYING to ask him the obvious question, but I refrained.
[2] Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Marcel Marceau,
[3] Way too many to mention, but including Marilyn, Truman Capote, Dean Martin, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, both dead Poltergeist daughters, Mel Torme, Natalie Wood, Minnie Ripperton, Donna Reed, John Cassavetes
[4] Everyone who’s not at Westwood Memorial or Forest Lawn, including Fay Wray, Edward G. Robinson, Valentino, Mel Blanc, etc.
[5] Gogol, Shostakovich, Chekhov, Prokofiev, Eisenstein, Boris Yeltsin
[6] My grandfather Alvis Durward Ivey, and, not far from him, Lee Harvey Oswald
[7] Darwin, Chaucer, Newton, Handel, Dickens, Browning, Tennyson, Kipling, Olivier, Anne of Cleves (my favorite wife of Henry VIII), Henry V, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots
Yeltsin's much hated gravestone
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