Heading to NYC this afternoon to see Elena Shvarts et al. at the Russian poetry festival, Lincoln Center. I hear it's sold out & I don't have a ticket. Hope I can get in.

Pasternak (very roughly): "Poetry - our ticket to the good seats."

Mandelstam was angered by that poem - he read it as complacent, considering the times & the conditions (Stalin). "The apartment is quiet as paper. . ."

so, until we blog again. . .