But on the other hand, everything is delicate here. And if the people aren’t to blame, then who are, I wonder? The snails?
For example, a respectable-looking person is celebrating his 95th birthday – will anyone want to say: you’re a complete bastard, and you betrayed Christ! How does the earth put up with a Judas like you? Perhaps a lot of people will want to say this, but it doesn’t matter, because no one will say it, it’s uncomfortable. You must agree, if a Judas has reached 95, and instead of hanging himself on a tree, he is flourishing, it complicates the impression somewhat.
Being rude is a trait of youth. Once the world was young, and inhabited by young, hairy posers (there was even a musical called “Hair”), and in some countries they were called hippies, in other countries they were called something else, and they were against war, politics, boredom, wealth, against their fascist fathers, and they wanted peace, love and freedom.
The world stopped being young a long time ago, in the 1970s. First the happy and hairy people vanished. Then space vanished. (Books about traveling to other planets completely disappeared!) Then any criticism of fascist fathers stopped. Then the topic of the future became indecent, and was not discussed. In Russia the last burst of youth was delayed and was seen in the mid 1980s, along with the “red wave” of Russian rock and the storms of perestroika writing.
And then it all came to an end. Completely bald people emerged, and culture, like the entire world, became old, gloomy and selfish.
Our culture in particular.
The main thing now is how to reach the age of 50. You can at least make your name famous before then. After that you don’t need to do anything – every five years you can celebrate a milestone, which is what our cultural figures do. Unlike in other countries, the milestones of our masters of art are not a private affair, but a national event. There are articles in the newspapers, and news reports on television. Every day someone turns 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95… People must make speeches of congratulation – it’s an important event, after all.
But why do masters of art have these privileges over everyone else. Why are the numbers that mark the length of their lives accompanied by bells and speeches? Why do the poor journalists have to write articles “for important dates” with tedious regularity?
I don’t know. But the impression grows that this is a tedious, terribly old, regulated world, where only rituals and ceremonies remain. And these rituals and ceremonies increase and develop on their own, according to their own rules, independently of the world of living meanings. Some birthdays are no longer limited to a single day – they spread out, filling the space around them. Furthermore, not only living beings celebrate birthdays, but whole groups – theaters, studios, newspapers. It is as if we were living in a huge collective jail, where every year is important, where there are no events apart from the passing of time. It is inconvenient to remind people that in a living, free world it is important what you do, and not how old you are. The increase in birthday celebrations clearly shows the death of culture, especially as milestone birthdays are usually calculated around a century (quarter of a century, half a century, three quarters of a century and a century), but here they are celebrated every five years!
The feeling of an old world is strengthened by the mysterious increase in the number of bald actors in film and on television. This is something new.
In the old days, baldness was carefully concealed, and people wore wigs. In Dostoevsky’s story “Uncle’s Dream”, the elderly uncle is most afraid of the world discovering his little secret – he wears a toupee. Wigs and toupees were widely used, and balding was something to be ashamed of, as it was associated with old age. A bald young man was clearly a rarity back then. It was completely impossible for him to appear on stage or on screen. Later, in the Soviet period, balding, as a sign of divine privilege, was only possible in the cinema for actors playing Lenin, or perhaps for the actor Evgeny Leonov. But a bald young man was completely out of the question.
However, now young balding people can be seen everywhere. Either Chernobyl has had its effect, or this is the fashion nowadays. There is no censorship on this – things have reached a point where four or five bald people can be seen on every television program. I saw it myself once in one program – the investigator was bald, the suspect was bald, and the witness was also bald!
A talented actor such as Viktor Sukhorukov is one thing, he is allowed to do whatever he wants. But ordinary people on screen are something else altogether. The abundance of bald heads gives everything an unhealthy, elderly look.
It makes our culture look very miserable look in general. It is a kind of island of bald people, where milestone birthdays are constantly celebrated. We seem to have forgotten that art is something cheerful, mischievous and joyful. But what joy can see here?
Everyone sits on presidiums, with solemn faces, saying, “I am convinced” and “allow me on this day…”
How miserable! It makes you want to take a broom and sweep away this ceremonial, elderly, pointless world – a world of nauseating bald birthdays. So that living people and good deeds are celebrated for what they are, without counting the fives in zeroes in the years of our lives.