[Newspoetry] Vanya

[Paul Kotheimer]

In the introductory chapters of THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, it is revealed
that the second legitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich (the name and
patronymic of the senualist buffoon Karamazov as well as of Dostoyevsky
himself) has gained some fame as a journalist--or rather, as 
a writer of controversial texts which befuddled and fascinated both sides
of a contemporary nationalistic and theological debate.

never until now has PUSHKINSKII DOM, the institute of Russian Literature
in St. Peterburg, Russia, released the uncensored manuscripts of the text
of that letter, as Dostoyevskii himself envisioned for "Vanka" to present
it in his introductory scene.

Here we have the text, as released in an unique hand-inscribed copy which
we suspect may have been taken as dictation by an unknown daughter of a
character based on a handmaid who was present not far from the foreground
in the first filmed version of Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin, and translated by
Paul Kotheimer, who got a minor in Russian from the University of
Illinois,...Chicago, in 1993.  so, go figure.




>>>AND IT IS CALLED A PROPHECY


okay.  so.  so far, i have arrived in the cornfields.  i got myself an 
apartment or something, like--that's not completely fallen apart, but
affordable--and has a little computer to write to in the middle of the
night.

not that anyone will hear what i am typing, as it is the middle of the
night, and the university will not let me type into infinity as it allows
some of our contemporaries.  but, that is its nature.  first of all, smart
people should get their asses out of the hierarchical structures that
university "learning" wants imposed.  pardon the mixed metaphor, but i'm
stoned.

nextly, since we wax argumentative, something.  and then some other thing
again.  making three points.  which ought to really convince you, since
your attention span is not so very very very very very very very very
narrow.

which, having proved, where is my money? --i mean, please let me know
sometime soon, as i can't figure out how to do what i was planning to do
next with what's been given to me...  i suppose i have to EXPLAIN IT TO
YOU IN YOUR TERMS, what it was i was intending to accomplish, even though
your terms, for a myriad of reasons, simply do not apply.

except--i mean, for the time being--the money.


i mean, bling bling.  that's what ed says; and i think i know what he
means.  he means if the stove is broke, you can't cook on it.


in short, this sucks.  i hope you get a kick out of that.

okay. as, having that i am totally clueless, and.  teenagers in love, i.
it only takes a decade or three to make delightful period piece fruit
salad out of mass media slang.  and aren't we amused?  (if you heard it in
your head, you have been listening to U.S. America over the air-waves of
the century, from Nagasaki to Istanbul through Telaviv and the hometown of
the Inquisition, at television dot com.)

end parentheses.

...

having heard this, all pronounced that the year 2000 was come.

******
for your consideration, exalted Editors, in hopes you will publish this,
my first attempt.

Most Sincerely,

Ivan Karamazov