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Olga Arefieva: "I Don't Like to Do Anything in Simplicity"Question: - Are you a homebody?Answer: - I feel most comfortable when during the day I've been in and out. If I stay at home I get bored. If I'm running somewhere then I get tired and my home misses me. Then again, it feels great coming back home. Q: - Are you an early-riser? A: - I don't get up at six in the morning, but at the same time I don't stay up late. After midnight I'm not able to do any business or talk about some important things. The most I can do is listen to music, watch a movie. Q: - Associating with what kind of people is of most interest to you? A: - To mix with a person for a long time I need him to grow - because I myself am growing all the time. The only way to stay around is to be in a stream. We are all floating, and if someone catches on a snag he'll inevitably be left behind. I've been watching it for a long time and I see that the relationship between children and parents, for instance, is a very big problem. Parents just can't believe that their child can go beyond them, that he in general has a right to move by himself. Q: - Well, I guess, this is true upon reaching a certain age. A: - Yes, especially in that age when children are leaving, there are real tragedies happening in the families. Parents think that they know better how their child should live because they are experienced in life. But this experience is hopelessly old-fashioned, and in any case it belongs only to them, another person has his own fate. And it turns out that some people are marking time and trying to bind others. Unfortunately, the same happens in families. There is a phrase in the Bible: "Enemies of a man are his family." It often happens that one is growing and another is not. But sometimes there are beautiful combinations, when, for example, old people understand that they don't have to look up to anything any more, they step aside from all the conventionalities which bound them all their life. Especially due to their little grandchildren. "It's well-known: old and little." All grown-ups are captives of their own egg-headedness, and old people busy themselves with babies - and suddenly they are growing at the same pace that infants are. They assume plenitude. I think that anybody can break away from his prison. Q: - When you are communicating, with whom it feels better - men or women? A: - When it comes down to communicating, I don't divide among people. People with whom it is interesting to associate are very few actually. When you find such a person, it's not his gender that you think of first. Q: - But men's outlook on this world differs from women's: A: - Not in those areas that are important for the communication per se. Q: - What are those people who are interesting to you? A: - I have lots of opportunities to meet people. But in fact the circle is very small. The other day we went to a street theaters festival. We were walking along Tverskaya street, all filled with people, watched the glass rolling underfoot, looked at the people with shining things on their heads, at the cordoning off policemen. Looked with some sadness - there's a whole world of people whom we'll never meet. We were talking then - maybe we are the only ones who exist, and all the rest is just a mirage? On the other hand - just imagine - how much trouble there is with every single man just to keep him alive. Give him birth, bring him up, dress him, feed him, comfort him: How much fuss about a bad tooth, for example. And each person from this endless sea of people can have a toothache in every single of their teeth. How much love for his fellow men must a doctor have to watch this flow of faces and perceive everyone as an individual: I'm trying really hard to imagine it, but it seems to me that I'll never meet these people. Actually, I don't even understand who all these other people are. Q: - Does this feeling make you sad? A: - I still don't know how to feel about it. I guess, the genuine sanctity means loving everyone, but right now to treat a person in some way I have to taste him, at least just a little. Though my circle is open and someone is always flowing into it, it still stays small. And it turns out that everyone in it knows everyone. When someone new appears, we find out that he has lots of ties with others. "The world is big, the stratum is thin." Q: - As I could understand, you are reading a lot. Who are your favorite writers? A: - My reading is not that big and is pretty slow. Chiefly in the subway. When you read, you switch off the surrounding world, and when I'm at home I don't want the world to disappear. Q: - And you are switching off the surrounding world in the subway through whom? A: - There was time when my favorite author was Pavic, right now he turned into archival state a little bit. Before him lots of stir in my subconsciousness was due to Borhes, before that - Kastaneda. Turned the dusty corners inside out. Talking about the latest events - the book by the Ural writer Olga Slavnikova A Dragonfly Enlarged to the Size of A Dog. I'm promoting this book in every possible way, but haven't yet met a person who would like this book as much as I have. One couldn't read it because it was too complex and too long, another found it too somber, still another recognized herself in the book and it turned out to be too painful. Slavnikova describes the ceaseless horror of the ordinary Soviet existence, the complexes that pressed down on our country and especially on single women. Nevertheless I found this book very pure, though it gets too deep into your subconsciousness. And along with all this, the author gave me the pleasure of enjoying the book's language tightrope walking, wild metaphors - I regarded it as a language performance. As I see it, she had two goals in writing this book: to describe this gloomy world and at the same time she was violently amusing herself by means of the metaphors. In this second part I'm entirely on her side, though I understand that this is already a game rather than literature. And regarding psychological immersion, she is an impressive woman of letters. Q: - Do you think that life directs a person or that he has a choice of possibilities? A: - The choice is always there: to idle or not to idle, to try to break the reality - to try to find oneself in it. Lots of people stumbled on this; psychoanalysts are constantly dealing with it. Rich people come to them: " I have everything, but I don't have a purport, that's why I'm on the brink of a suicide." They begin to dig up and it turns out that in fact he wanted to become, for example, a shoemaker. Or an artist, painted some pictures when he was young, but his parents persuaded him that paintings are an insignificant daub. "You'd better become a lawyer like all normal people." He became a successful lawyer - as a result his life is ruined, the failure being visible only to him and the higher forces. And on the surface he is happy. Many were broken to pieces by this illusory system of values. It's some kind of a test, we are like mice in the labyrinth that are confronted with different tasks. Everything in this world is beautiful, except for ourselves. Man is also beautiful, but he is poignantly imperfect and very dynamic. A tree doesn't have to think what to do - to stand or to fall - it stands where it was growing and enjoys the unity with the surrounding world. And man has to think and torment himself: what am I supposed to do now? To try to find a common language with God. We are like ants that are wandering on the plane just because they are not aware of the existence of another dimension. The moment we'll become aware of it we'll cease to be ants. We'll become dragonflies. Q: - Does a man discover it from the within or from the outside, due to a series of accidents? A: - Chain of accidents exists in the life of every man. You can compare it with your angel constantly knocking on your door while you don't see and don't hear him. One remains blind as a mole, another begins to understand something, still another has to be mauled on the noddle to wake him up. I have a feeling that cruel ways are used only as a last resort. We are able to be more delicate and not to provoke the world to maul us. Then on the other hand, the more difficult are the tasks that you have mastered already, the more difficult are the tasks you are faced with. It can't be easy for anybody on this earth, it's all arranged this way, it's a school where everything is in our capacity but it's not easy in there. Q: - How long ago have you come up to this belief? A: - Christ says: " My yoke is blessed and my burden is light." This thought wanders in the air, it is known from the biblical times. Difficult things are easy all the same. Q: - Do you think that Gorky's thought "Man is born for happiness as birds are for flying" is idealistic? Do you think that a situation like this is impossible? A: - We shouldn't confuse happiness with pleasure. I agree that for happiness. But for someone happiness is a piece of meat, a bottle of vodka, a chick with big tits, and "that I have everything". If he gets all this he'll think what to do next to make happiness even bigger - maybe to beat somebody up or crush the furniture: He'll seek the answer but won't understand what it's all about anyway. And somebody else at this very time, notwithstanding cold, anguish, lack of understanding, loneliness, exerted himself to the utmost creating something - and it turns out that he was really happy. He is that bird for flying. When I say "bird", "chick" I mean not the people themselves, but their attitude to life. To my mind, there are right and wrong ways of living. The right one is accompanied by the feeling of subtle happiness, happiness of high fraction. Q: - Are you often visited by this feeling? A: - You could say that it doesn't end. Q: - What does it depend on? Do you try to live in equilibrium with this world? A: - man is always moving somewhere, so there exists difference of potentials, overfall of altitudes. Something draws him ahead, something pushes from behind. I guess, equilibrium appears when he lies flat and there is a knoll of earth above him. But this is equilibrium just for his body; nobody knows what happens to his soul afterwards. The feeling of subtle happiness comes when you do the right thing. Q: - Doing the right thing means writing poetry, music, dancing? A: - Every man has an opportunity to realize his potential in many ways. There might be more talent and inclination to something, but I think that it doesn't matter in which field to realize oneself. What matters is not the genre, but those lessons that accompany any activity and relationship. Q: - Where do you think your work stems from? Was there any impulse, after which you began writing? A: - I guess this impulse was not exactly of human origin. Fate. Maybe the language. I feel unity with the culture connected to Russian language. I listen to foreign music with interest, but in general it still doesn't strike roots with me. Only if it is something timeless like ethnical music or the primary authentic blues. Close to archetypes, to something that underlies the soul. I do not always understand the superstructure, especially in other countries. Though I've been abroad many times. Q: - With concerts? A: - Yes. Never could understand foreigners, they are aliens to me. It is as if they don't ring. I just don't understand how they live. And Russian man is vibrating spiritually. Of course, not every one: Q: - Do you have a feeling that foreigners stopped in their development? A: - I have a feeling that they don't communicate on the fundamental level. Every country, though, has its breaks-through, striking movies, books. But in the whole I think that the biggest concentration of spiritual vibrations is in Russia. Q: - Would it be correct to say that the language, the word are more important to you than the music? A: - No - language, body, things are all just branches through which you can come out to the tree, each of them has its life, mutations. I'm going in all directions, that's why for me everything has its place. Q: - Do you often experience periods of silence, when you don't write poetry or music? A: - The moment of writing is exceptional. Though I perceive life in a very creative way and don't like to do anything in simplicity. I always want to do everything in some special way. But it's a secret for me how the songs are written, I don't remember and don't comprehend it. Q: - As if you are writing unconsciously? A: - No, but the question stumps me - I have a feeling that I never write. And when I see how many songs I have, it surprises me. I don't feel myself a poet, a writer or a composer. I just released a double-disc album, almost everything is new - but when did I do all this?.. Q: - Do ever write in your sleep? A: - I don't write, but very often I hear music in my dreams. Q: - When you wake up, do you write it down? A: - No, because I don't remember it. I had I funny dream the other night: as if somebody was showing me on the Internet my song "The Cardboard Coat" with a rollicking orchestra laid upon it, reworked voice, melody and lyrics. The note starts with my voice and continues with another, you can even hear the breaking point. Q: - Does inspiration come to you at different moments of the day or at some certain one? Do you sit down to write? A: - No, I don't sit down. Songs come at the most unexpected moments, "standing up and in the hammock". I try to record them on the Dictaphone, write down on paper - because I immediately forget them. There are lots of recordings on my Dictaphone. If I found some fragment later, liked it, I have to pull out the idea, lock it in and finish it. Sometimes a song doesn't develop for many years. Later I understand what was missing, add it, and finally it takes shape. But I don't consider it newly written. I didn't think so then - because it wasn't finished, and now - because I only gave it the last kick. It's hard to define the moment of a song's birth. Q: - Do you come back to your old works to change something? A: - If the song is finished, I don't get back to it. But I have great deposits of unfinished things. There is a lot to occupy myself with: Q: - How often do you have the desire to do it? At what times? A: - In the morning. I have to be in the right mood, like Timur and his team's - have to do something good. But more often I'm lazy. Q: - Are you a lazy person? A: - Yes, lazy, though very active. Q: - Does it mean that you make yourself do something? A: - I'm not too good with making. If I need myself to do something, I have to find a hook, emotional incentive. There are people who can work at home or educate themselves, live according to the schedule; I can't. I can contribute lots of time and effort to the cause. But it shouldn't require from me constant exertion of will. If I have to make myself I begin to doubt whether I'm doing the right thing. Q: - Do you watch closely your appearance? A: - I care about how I look. There are people who are always spick-and-span, they never have a twisted collar or a hanging hair. I'm not like this. Just like in music, I'm interested in the whole spectrum. Sometimes I want to look bright and wild, sometimes - tender, sometimes - somber and shut, sometimes - ugly. I always liked extreme variants. The only style that is not close to me is the matron's one. Q: - You mean lady style? A: - The style that is appropriate for a workplace, that annihilates personality, so universal, featureless. I can't bear it, and by the way that's why I have no special liking of Europe. I like students in Germany, though - funny, stylish. I like it when a person is capable of experimenting. And don't like standard moves. Unfortunately, our country bears heavy touch of the Soviet times, and all people over 50, with a rare exception, are dressed alike. I feel pity for women in mohair hats, identical, economically cut skirts. I admire crazy grannies, though - bright lipstick, an umbrella made of curtain lace, layers of motley clothes, a hat with flowers, red shoes, sometimes of a bigger size. A person like this is a sure client of a mental institution. I think if I ever have a leak in the upper storey, it will look like this. In the movie "The Tree of Desires" Sophiko Chiaureli plays such strange woman, and it is she, as some kind of the movie's reasoner, who says the main words of the picture. It is exactly this that impresses me in Aguzarova. I also love Petlyura's favorite model Pani Bronya, I think she is about 80. Petlura dresses her in crazy outfits; they are an ideal tandem, a real boon for each other. Pani Bronya is my ideal of a woman - a wrinkled angel, she radiates good around herself, always happy, loves everybody, smiles, filled with light. I will probably never get to her heights - you have to possess endless reserves of love for that. And by the way, she is not crazy, she gets her bearings, does shopping. Q: - Don't you think that most people are crazy? The most clinical are in the madhouse, and "normal" lunatics are among us?.. A: - Man should be somewhat unstuck from his form, from his human billet. Government presses us so it would be easier to manipulate us. But we are all different as God creates us. In this sense it is useful to be able to be a little bit resourceful. For instance, if you don't put on a skirt of a certain length going to a job interview you won't get a job. So you put it on. Kastaneda called it controlled stupidity. But you shouldn't get too carried away with it, be a little bit crazy inside. Q: - Does your inner state change often? A: - I wouldn't say often. It simultaneously flies in different directions. I can be happy, crying, or silent - it'll all be the same thing. Q: - Has anybody in your life influenced you so much that you would change? A: - I change as the time passes by, but it's not because of somebody, it's from the life itself. It's because I'm thinking a lot and because after thinking I act. I don't keep myself down if I want to do something, to realize my potential structure in some additional way. Q: - Do you know many examples of harmonious couples? How realistic, do you think, is meeting your second half? A: - It's a difficult question. I don't know many examples of harmonious couples, but then again I don't qualify in this field, haven't done any researches. Q: - Do you agree with the point of view that love and marriage are an everyday toil? A: - Absolutely. Q: - You should cultivate your family? A: - It depends on how one understands it. You should cultivate yourself so that your people could be comfortable with you. We are all elephants in the china shop; it's destiny and design of the world. Not to hurt those who surround us we have to be accurate, careful, and patient, it takes your whole life. It's one of the ways to become saint. Q: - Do you think it is possible to live your whole life with one person? A: - It's a very painful question. There's nothing left but to suppose that this is how it should be. In the Sermon on the Mount there are following words: "anyone who divorces his wife... causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery". Thus in the Bible there's only one possible variant - to meet your only one and always be with him. When people heard it they got afraid: "If a man has such a responsibility toward his wife, it is better not to get married". Apostle Paul was talking about the same thing: " I wish you were like me, but if you can't restrain yourself, marry. But you will have sorrows in flesh, and I pity you". It is a difficult way. Nobody knows which way is more difficult - monastic or married. Apparently, every man has his half, someone destined for him, but not everybody has patience to wait for him. Everything has a meaning; it's another puzzle that has to be solved. June 18, 2001. |