TATLIN’S GHOST The Nose with Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International. Let us count the steps of remove. Tatlin’s plan was for a 400-metre high…
A SYLLOGISM OF PRINTING (libel) Testing an image through printing. The drawing on the etching plate is covered in ink. The ink is wiped off,…
PUTTING THE S INTO LAUGHTER Compulsory Hilarity. An X in Russian is transliterated as Kh, a guttural clearing of the throat like the G in…
COPPERPLATE Light up and hard down, was how we were taught to write—a bastardised, simplified calligraphy of ‘scribble’ writing. This was possible with an HB…
MIKHAIL IVANOVICH KALININ A Party member from 1898 and a member of the Central committee from 1919, he was neither tried nor shot. He died…
ANOTHER KHEPPI ENDING At the end of Gogol’s story, collegiate assessor Kovalyov wakes one morning and finds that his nose is back in its place…
AD HOC My sister collected stamps. My recollection is that from family of friends she received stamps of cosmonauts, ballet dancers and athletes, all marked…
VYACHESLAV MIKHAILOVICH MOLOTOV A member of the Party from 1906 and a member of the Central Committee from 1921, through the period of the great…
LEV BORISOVICH KAMENEV A member of the party from 1901 and a member of the Politburo from 1917. He was condemned in the first of…
INTELLIGENCE OF THE HAND The print is a collaboration between artist and printer. Each printer or print workshop under the direction of a master printer…
BAD DISGUISES 2 In the 1920s, Trotsky was airbrushed out of all photographs that showed him with Lenin. We are by now so familiar with…
ANGELINA BALLERINA My two daughters each had their few years at dance classes, though neither had the drive—nor the parental dedication—to make the transition onto…