daily haiku The snake-like gaze. Sometimes you just feel it Rooting through

daily haiky As if my fingers were Razors, I stand still With the paper-like snow all around.

daily haiku i lean back and recall those crimson sunsets over the nuclear power plant

On spring, communism, and Ukrainian holidays. Here in Ukraine, we have a pair of two very special holidays, not widely known or celebrated elsewhere (except for former USSR and, maybe, a few other countries). Those are the Defender`s Day and the Women`s Day. The first one was originally the day of the Soviet army, and had been established to mark the date of the Red Army`s creation – February 23. Although the Soviet Army does not exist anymore, and in Ukraine there is no more official holiday like this (in Russia, they have wisely restrained from cancelling it, changing the name to a “Defender`s Day” instead), it is still celebrated nationwide as a Men`s day. It`s still connected with military motifs (the gift cards usually include weapons, tanks and such), but now it`s more about the idea of masculinity and protection than actual military service. The second one is celebrated on March 8. At the beginning, this one was meant to promote and celebrate the women`s struggle for their political rights. This is why it was originally introduced and promoted by the politically focused communist government. Later, though, it lost its political meaning, having turned into a bright celebration of femininity and spring. This is the day when all men congratulate their mothers, spouses, and lovers, female friends and colleagues. There is an even deeper meaning, and feeling, about it – the feeling of revival. At the beginning of March, it`s still cold and snowy, but it smells spring already, and all those flowers – in these days, the cities are all crowded by flower merchants – give the wonderful feeling that the long and tiresome winter is coming to an end, and the new life arises, as it should. If you think about these two, it`s pretty fascinating – we can see how the historical events and political ideas get intertwined with deeper, primal human features, and how the latter remain when the first become obsolete. What started with women`s suffrage and communism, appeared to address the basic archetypes of femininity and masculinity, and to appeal to the basic natural rhythms – and so the governments come and go, the ideas fade, but the holidays do remain.

daily haiku The shadows Sharp as hounds, Painfully beatiful.

An electronic deadlock: no more muses for an interior designer Through all the short, yet fruitful, history of design (particularly interior design), every designer had the option to follow one of the two muses – an exquisite lady of the past, or a fiery girl of the present. Since the late XIX-th century, every designer chose one of these two paths – either to follow and forestall his age, it`s technology and it`s major idea, like did the modernists, answering the call of the machines, concrete and steel, or to reject it and return to the clarity and innocence of the previous “belle époque” – the way chosen by Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau masters. The choice was that limited – those many, that tried to evade it by following the trends or bringing in some ethnic exotics, might appear successful within certain limits, but are now forgotten, having failed to become something more than artisans for hire. Through 20th century, some more inspirations have appeared for the artist to accept or decline – combustion and electricity, that brought forward the Art Deco, streamlined space vessels, robots, and first computers – and that is where it all ends. An electronic device, which is definitely is the ultimate representation of our time is, in fact, formless. The all-black-and-hi-tech impression, given by the modern TV, or the sophisticated, zen-inspired simplicity of Apple design have nothing in common with the nature of those items, with CPUs and software that lie behind. We`ve come to an end of design as we know it – the spirit of our age appears shapeless and ungraspable. The paradox here is that when virtually anything seems to have become possible - with all the electronics available to control every aspect of the environment, from temperature to walls transparency to smells and sounds, with all the polymer materials that can create any shape, color, and texture – we now have nothing to gain inspiration from, nothing to follow, and nothing to reject