Stop sitting in cloud codes, languishing in Google Tables, and desperately generating neural slop together with Geminis and Crays.

That's what I decided, waking up in the morning, and went for a walk around the neighborhood. In Kolesnikov's garden, I chose Pelevin's story "The Water Tower" and in a few moments I set off after the intricate thought of the nameless hero of the story, like tourists following the Stalker into the Zone.
But I quickly returned. The story lasted literally 15 minutes, and I found myself in Birch Grove. In a state of expanded but unsatisfied consciousness. Then, in despair, I trusted the recommendation system of Yandex.Books and turned on the first one from the list. It turned out to be "Walpurgis Night" by Erofeev in the format of a radio play...
Three hours later, the plot of the Russian version of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and the voice of Veniamin Smekhov released me to all four corners, renewed and inspired.

I don't know how to describe this experience other than a trip in the spirit of Castaneda. Because that stream of narratives through which Erofeev puts you is not literature, it's some kind of immersive anthropology of the consciousness of the Soviet intelligentsia. The plot, woven from works of classical literature, news, radio broadcasts, Soviet editorials, urban and theatrical folklore, is so authentically composed that the feeling of documentary reality does not leave until the very end.
At some point, there is a feeling (and it hasn't left me yet) that the delirious dialogues between the characters are now reproduced almost one-to-one in the form of smart feeds of social networks and news streams of Telegram channels. Which is even a little scary - after all, almost 40 years have passed since the work was published.

So if you're going for gas, here's a way to pass the time and better understand today.

With love, P.