Excerpt from chapter:
“Joe Biden and Me, Sexist Pigs We Be”
I was reading a discarded copy of the daily newspaper Segodnya (Сегодня, Today) —more accurately, I appeared to be reading a discarded copy of the daily newspaper Segodnya, while really just looking at the photographs in the popular Russian language tabloid—when a striking young woman with shoulder-length blond hair sat at the table next to me. She was the type of woman you had to get in line to have a crush on. A statuesque, natural beauty, flawlessly turned out for a night on the town. She arrived alone, clearly waiting on an assignation.
As our eyes met she smiled and said, “Pree-V’EHT.”
Pree-V’EHT was a problem.
What did she mean by pree-V’EHT? Was she saying hello in Russian (privyet), or Ukrainian (pryvit), or asking me to dance the Pryvit? (A twentieth century dance that ensemble-groups use to begin traditional Ukrainian folk programs, where the performers welcome the audience bearing wheat, bread, and salt representing the land’s fertility).
Was hers an informal hello, or seductive invitation to gambol with her doing the Pryvit? I calculated the odds of each possibility. Hello would be the obvious inference, but maybe the way I was sitting revealed my show-business roots as a dancer, and I looked like the kind of guy who could still give a girl a good Pryvit. So in my best overheard Russian, I diplomatically responded, “Dobryĭ vecher” (Добрый вечер, good evening,) and went back to not being able to read the Segodnya.
My pronunciation must have passed muster because a few minutes later she leaned over and began to speak to me in Russian, or Ukrainian—I hadn’t a clue. Compliments of a crash-course review of the book Russian Phrases for Dummies, I was somewhat prepared. Remembering one of the few successfully memorized “Useful Questions in Russian” at my disposal, I asked in Russian, “Vy govorite po angliyski?” (Вы говорите по английски? Do you speak English?).
I could have just as easily asked in English if she spoke English, so my bastardized Slavic accent was a gamble. If she spoke Russian, the poor phonetic pronunciation would straightaway betray me as an unsophisticated foreigner trying to impress. If Ukrainian was her dominant language, I would come across as a somewhat mentally-challenged, mumbling drunk. Either way, it would be the best first impression I’ve made on a woman in years. To my relief she pointed to the center of the table and said, “Sorry, sugar.”
Sugar was a problem ...
Excerpt from chapter:
“Svetlana, Me, and the KGB”
Before the dancers were rounded up for the bus ride to their hotel, Svetlana and I arranged to “accidentally” meet each other the following afternoon at Faneuil Hall. The ballet was dark Thursday, and the sponsors had scheduled a sightseeing day in Boston. The historic site was the perfect place for a chance meeting; a harmless coincidence that no one would ever suspect—except everyone, including the company’s tour manager Alexey Ivanovich, who was on to me quicker than you could say KGB.
Fortunately, Alexey wasn’t sure who I was. My hanging around the theater all day and attending the after-party had thrown him off enough that he hadn’t asked me to leave. By the end of the week, we were friendly enough that he would allow Svetlana and me to disappear together for hours at a time without worry—for the right price.
The inattention of sharp-eyed KGB agent Alexey Ivanovich was available for the princely sum of “teaventy von doler yatean sint.” It was hard to believe, but $21.18 could convince the ballet’s resident member of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Комитет государственной безопасности, Committee for State Security) to look the other way and allow one of his dancers provisional leaves of absence. As long as the official head count at morning rehearsals was spot on, “Nichevo strashnava” (ничего страшного, Nothing scary!).
In hushed tones and giggles, some of the dancers jokingly referred to Alexey as “Ivan” Ivanovich—a reference I didn’t understand and was cautioned not to repeat. Twenty-five years later, during a visit to Washington, DC, I finally learned why.
It turns out that Ivan Ivanovich is the Russian equivalent of John Doe, and it was also the name given to the mannequin used in the unmanned Russian Vostok spacecraft Sputnik 9 in 1961. According to the Smithsonian Institution, Ivan was made to look as lifelike as possible; he traveled fully dressed in a cosmonaut suit with a sign reading макет” (Russian for dummy”). Ivan Ivanovich orbited the Earth on March 23, 1961, just weeks before Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight as the first human to journey into outer space on April 12, 1961. The dummy was ejected from the spacecraft after reentering the atmosphere, parachuted out of the seat and landed near the Ural Mountains’ city of Izevsk.
In 1993 Ivan was auctioned by Sotheby’s in London. The winning bid of $189,500 came from Texas billionaire and two-time U.S. presidential candidate, H. Ross Perot. Since 1997, Ivan has been on permanent loan to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, where he is on public display—still wearing his spacesuit ...
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Ken Richters as "Mark Twain On Tour"
More than 1,500 performances in all 50 states and 12 countries, "Mark Twain On Tour" has traveled over one-million tour miles. Staged as a public lecture by America's most celebrated humorist, the production runs two-hours with one intermission.
Funny, thought-provoking, and occasionally politically incorrect, the production is based on the life and works of Mark Twain - with portions of the performance localized with the news of the day. A fully structured and scripted production with the opportunity to ad-lib throughout. Before each show, Ken Richters scours the region's newspapers looking for what he calls, "grist for Mr. Twain's mill!" The result is a unique and memorable evening at the theater. Local issues and politicians are always the target of Mr. Twain's caustic wit, and those dignitaries brave enough to be in the audience will most certainly be the subject of a comment or two.
For more information contact office@ipcshow.com.
