Lev Rubinstein’s calendar - remember the main thing

MOSCOW. The publishing house "New Literary Review" published a new book by the poet and publicist Lev Rubinstein "A whole year. My calendar

Tear-off calendars are an indispensable element of the decor of every Soviet cuisine. Losing in Aphorisms, recipes, jokes highlighted in red reminders of important events and holidays. Recommendations for all occasions: how to raise children and deal with toothache, how to feed a hamster, and where to go in the summer. Tips rarely found. Our memories are the same chaotic mosaic of sensations, favorite tunes, images, smells that return to childhood and happiness, the bitterness of unfulfilled hopes and unanswered questions.

The poet Lev Rubinstein managed to harness the heavy horse of history and the ephemeral doe of memories into one nostalgic cart. The case of doctors and the prohibition of duels in France, pies with sausages at the entrance to the Moscow Zoo, a crystal ball with coffee beans in Yeliseyevsky and a broken thermometer, housekeeper Arina Rodionovna and ice cream from GUM for 20 kopecks, a Singer machine and a cassette with beatles. Unexpected associations, fragments of life, subordinated to a single rhythm and logic. The insignificant is the most important, gives rise to a sincere response, launching a carousel of your own memories.

In the new book, the conceptualist Rubinstein remained faithful to the once created genre. The memories in his calendar are minimalistic and at the same time voluminous, like laconic statements on his favorite cards. As the classics have rightly noted: brevity is the soul of the mind, but it is also the sister of talent. Voluntary self-restraint - emphasis on the main thing, the capacity of each phrase, the ability to see the big in the small. The work, according to the author, is with consciousness, and not just with language.

Once, in the 70s, the presence of a circle of like-minded people (Prigov, Nekrasov, Esenberg, Gandlevsky), "each of which cost thousands," gave a feeling of air, the opportunity to be understood, the absence of a cultural vacuum. Despite the lack of a chance to see their books published. But "there are no others, but those are far away." However, over the years of relative freedom, a generation has opened up that is open to a new aesthetics, with a similar cultural code and unblocked consciousness. Which allows us to hope for the best.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru