Zhanna Slor – Page 2 – Michigan Quarterly Review

Zhanna Slor

What We Can Learn from TV (Seriously!)

* Zhanna Slor *

Disadvantages aside, I think watching a television show in its entirety can actually have some benefits, especially if you’re a writer of some kind. You learn how to easily spot plot-holes (uh, Battlestar Gallactica season four? The entire Heroes series?); you can learn about character-building (Walter White, Shane Vendrell, anyone created by Joss Whedon). You can also get a glimpse of what the current trends are (mystical creatures, criminal masterminds, and, as always, cops). You can also learn what to avoid, due to over-saturation (vampires!), or what to capitalize on (office dramas; quirky families).

… or Just Watch “Girls”

* Zhanna Slor *

Enough already! First they start giving trophies to children who lose basketball games so that they don’t feel bad, now this. Creation is not its own reward, unless you’re really and truly creating for your eyes only. And in that case—by all means, paint away, just please don’t show me. Art, real art, is for other people. If it wasn’t, bookstores would be empty, art galleries would not exist, and you would never hear music at coffee shops, malls, bars, concert halls. Saying that you’ve created something for yourself only and yet posting it on Facebook is just a way of avoiding responsibility for its greatness or lack thereof.

Breaking Bread

* Zhanna Slor *

Instead of knocking on wood, Russians will spit three times over their left shoulder. If a chicken crows at you three times before noon, the death of a close family member should be expected within the month. Talking about future success: bad luck. Birds that tap on your window: bad luck. Encountering or crossing the path of a funeral procession: bad luck. Bread cut with your hands instead of a knife: bad luck. A woman coming towards you with empty buckets (when would this even happen anymore?): bad luck. There is a very distinct pattern emerging here: nearly everything in the Soviet Union was a cause of bad luck! Though I really think most of it could just be attributed to living in the Soviet Union.

What’s in a Name?

* Zhanna Slor *

Because the government decided to shut down immediately after I got married, weeks later, I still haven’t been able to change my last name legally with the Social Security office. Right now, about half my accounts have one last name listed and the other half have a different one. I’m in total name limbo.

Do Like the Inupiaq

* Zhanna Vaynberg *

Central Siberia has forty words for snow-like weather, and in the Inupiaq dialect of Wales, Alaska, there are about seventy terms for ice: “utuqaq,” ice that lasts year after year; “siguliaksraq,” the patchwork layer of ice crystals that form as the sea begins to freeze; and “auniq,” ice that is filled with holes, like Swiss cheese. Replace the word ‘ice’ with ‘love’ and it makes perfect sense to adopt these words as our own! They’d be much more accurate than the very general term “love.”

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