10"x 10" oil on masoniteWhen we were younger and there was no particular agenda, we decided that it might be a good idea to see if we could sneak into Russia. This was before Ion had started with law school or written a book or had a family, and we had a bunch of time, so after we had traveled around Poland, we decided that we should probably just go to Moscow by train, avoiding any guards as we went by moving stealthily from car to car and pretending we were reading newspapers or whatever. Instead of actually obtaining a visa, we figured that we would use our combined powers of persuasion with any border officials or train guards, if questioned. Like Jedis. We didn't quite make it as far as Minsk, in Belarus, before we were hustled off the train, (and do I remember a guard throwing my bag out the window?) and detained for a few hours. It was like "Boy's State: Eastern Bloc" for the next few hours as we tag-teamed the border guards with rhetoric, vehicular openings, and strategic argument, and it almost worked.
This is a painting of Ion wielding a mighty argument with a border guard under the fluorescents of a holding area in Hrodna. I love that Soviet architecture with concrete and cavernous spaces and polished floors which catch reflections and light. I also love the slightly mismatched uniforms of the border guards, and the guards' friends sort of "hanging out," in case there is any trouble. And Ion, as ever, clean-cut even after a bunch of dodgy Bialystock hotels, earnestly making his argument not for release, but campaigning to press on, press on, further into the unknown.
This is a painting of Ion wielding a mighty argument with a border guard under the fluorescents of a holding area in Hrodna. I love that Soviet architecture with concrete and cavernous spaces and polished floors which catch reflections and light. I also love the slightly mismatched uniforms of the border guards, and the guards' friends sort of "hanging out," in case there is any trouble. And Ion, as ever, clean-cut even after a bunch of dodgy Bialystock hotels, earnestly making his argument not for release, but campaigning to press on, press on, further into the unknown.
uh, you spelled wielding and Hordna wrong.
ReplyDeleteDually noted, thanks!
ReplyDeleteSo....what happened? I'm on the edge of my seat. Well, you got out OK, that is obvious, but how? Did they ship you straight back hog tied or did they keep you in a cell for a while and make you regret your journey. What happened to your bag? What a book idea!
ReplyDeleteBut I think maybe that the idea is more along the lines of F.S.F's Gatsby where our hero is going to keep doing exactly what he's meant to do, (and he obviously hasn't spent the last 10 years in some kind of gulag) so he made it out safe, but more to the point, he was experimenting, at the time, with fast-talking; giving his silver tongue a test-drive- but in this context, as in many, you're talking up against something much bigger than yourself, and so maybe it doesn't always work out the way you want it to, but you keep struggling onward against the machine because despite the way you look with your fresh haircut and your khaki pants and dorky shirt and lack of piercings or tattoos; you know what? You are punk rock independent even though you don't even know it, and that is simply how you were made, and yes, I'm talking to you, Dan in Japan.
ReplyDeleteNice. I can't top that.
ReplyDelete