Rub Paw Press

me & vitamin water & blackberry (cool accoutrements)

Hi friends, I’m the newest blogger to be added to the ‘all-star roster’ here at RubPawPress. My name is Keith Birthday. José has mentioned me on this blog several times. I’ve never met Aaron, but apparently I seem like a ‘tenured bro’. I don’t look anything like either of the aforementioned writers on this site except that my hair is also curly and I also generally have facial hair. Besides that, my pigment/melanin count is significantly lower (or at least appears to be). José asked that I make an ‘autobioblurb’ about myself. So here is my extended a/s/l.

I know José from Philadelphia. We both used to live there. We went to the same college. We had a poetry class together and José was the only other person in the room whose opinion I respected. José doesn’t remember me from that class at all. The class had maybe fifteen people in it total.

Later, when we became friends, I lived in a significantly more gentrified area. The neighborhood was named ‘Fishtown’. Jose lived in ‘South Philly’. His neighborhood has a name but I forgot it. In order to see each other we would have to bike ~5 miles. Or sometimes I would drive, but that would only be when I needed to transport equipment. We were in two bands together; he was the ‘frontman’ of one and I of the other. I was the DD of both (having been the only one with a car). I’m still pretty sure his music is better

me with 'serious artistic intentions' (Jose in background)

We also liked to go and dance and try to ‘get lucky’ with local grrrrls. We were ‘wingmen’ for one another.  Once he and Dan Hghs and I turned my house into a club sandwich situation.  That was what we called it when we all got girls and went back to my house and ‘cuddled’ with them on all three different floors, like the slices of bread in a ‘club sandwich’ (brolol). We high-fived about it the next day, thought we were cool. If we didn’t get girls, we usually made late night Pizza runs to Lorenzo’s on South Street and ate large slices of pizza while talking about life. Either outcome was satisfactory. Eating pizza with yr bros is always a good time. It was worth me biking ~2 miles out of my way.

a slice of 'Lorenzo & Sons' za we'd often get

Like José, I also moved from Philadelphia, but in the opposite direction. It’s cold where I live, very cold. This is true because I live in a city called Tomsk. Tomsk is a city in Russia of ~500,000 peeps. It’s located in the geographic area commonly referred to as ‘Siberia’. I moved here on Sept 5 2009

googmap of location. actually feel kinda special cause I'm close to the geographic center of Asia

I am here because the government sent me. I also sort of chose to go here (I wanted to go to Russia). It was founded in 1604 by Ivan the terrible when he built a palisade fort along the river Tom to protect against invaders (I think) and everyone likes to brag about that.  There are six universities here, and the locals refer to it as ‘Siberian Athens’ due to the large student/theater presence. It is a very pretty Russian city. I would suggest you check out more pics here.

still luv u Lenin.

I am happy with this situation overall. There are lots of nice people here. I feel special because I get to teach at a University and feel like a really smart person. The government pays my bills. The downside is the temperature here at this time of year (winter) usually hovers around negative 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. -40 is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit so it’s really convenient when explaining to people how cold it is here. Winter starts early and ends late. We had our first snowfall this year on October 11. Right now it is too cold to snow. It will probably start snowing again in March and actually get warm in May.

I was recently told that ‘high up state dept officials’ read my personal blog. Wonder if that means Hill Clins reads it. Think that each secretary of each dept should make a tumblr. Think Bill Clins would probably have a good tumblog.

this has probably happened a lot.

Let me tell you some silly things about Russia:

1. Russians generally live up to the stereotype of drinking a lot of vodka
2. There are lots of stray dogs in essentially every town; they generally are better behaved than domesticated dogs.
3. This silly music video by a soviet-era ‘boy band’. Their name means ‘fiberglass’. This song is about the New Year, which is essentially Russian xmas/party time. These children were apparently orphans. Everyone in Russia thinks this video is funny:

4.Russia almost never has soap in its public bathrooms, but lots of people wore those silly surgical masks during the piggy flu scare. They would also take them off whenever convenient. Some of them even just wore cloth masks, which I’m sure made them more likely to get the piggy flu.
5. A true Russian girl never leaves the house without looking ready to go out/wearing high heels
6. Yes, many Russian men wear those silly fur hats.

see about 432987 of these every day

7. Many Russians can be impressed in two very easy ways (recent discovery).
-Shuffling a deck of cards (bridging them gets you more oooohs)
-Typing on a computer without looking at your hands
8. On the topic of cards, Russian card decks always come with 36 cards. It’s almost impossible to find a normal ‘poker’ type deck.
9. Russians only know one card game, but it’s a really good one, so I can understand why they didn’t see the necessity of inventing another.
10. Russians do not understand the concept of personal space. If there is a traffic jam at the entrance to a subway or similar public transportation entrance, Russians will generally all push against one another in a large group towards the entrance until they get in. It’s sort of like an ‘as the crow flies’ technique. Also, no one talks in this mass of people. It’s a little strange. Here is a diagram to help clarify:

circles indicate people, they aren't all the same color, though.

This system actually seems like a very minor version of the video of ‘crazy azns really stuffing themselves into a subway car as subway police help them’ as illustrated below

Of course there are some really awesome things about Russia. Here are some:

1. Russian cartoons are AMAZING. During the soviet times, cartoons were not seen as anything but a children’s medium. As a result, all of the smart animators just made really good children’s cartoons. Just check out this sweet Russian version of ‘Winnie the Pooh’.

What’s really interesting about Winnie here is that his name is ‘Винни-Пух’ which phonemically essentially the same name (Vinnie-Pookh). Even better is that ‘Пух’ actually means ‘down’ (as in feathers) in Russian so the name really works out.

2. The local made Russian beer here in Tomsk is delicious. It is not only local and fresh, but is unpasteurized. It also only costs 92 Rubles for 1.5 liters, which is like three dollars for a forty–and-a-half of actually good beer. It’s called Нефильтрофф which means ‘unfiltered’

3. Vodka is cheap and actually for nine dollars you can get a decent bottle.

4. The Cyrillic Alphabet. It just looks really cool.

lookin' good

5. Trains in Russia are awesome, especially when traveling long distances. Here are some reasons

-A bed to sleep in whenever you want
-hanging out with your friends all day
-new friends you meet on the train
-fifty hours of forced relaxation from Moscow to Tomsk (there is nothing else to do)
-eternal hot water heater in every train car
-fast ramen/tea/coffee/hot water related products access
-Old ladies selling homemade food at the stops
-Other old ladies selling dog-hair socks in the train (totally bought a pair). What dog are they made from? “From the village dog, of course!” This prob means stray dog.
-Crazy women who you meet in the train restaurant car who learn you’re from America and then only ask you questions about the Bermuda triangle/the Caribbean. Then you play cards with her (she only knows one game of course [see above])

6. There is a ‘Russian Sparks’ called Jaguar and it will not be forced to remove the energy component anytime soon. It’s fun.

om nom nom nom nom

7. The Banya, or bathhouse. Nothing like being naked in a steamy 200-degree room with other dudes sweating out the bad stuff. I’m actually not kidding, going with your friends is great.

8. Russian pancakes, called ‘Blini’ (Блины) are really delicious, especially from the kiosks in Tomsk known as ‘Siberian Pancakes’ (literal translation). I usually get them with ham and cheese and tomatoes. Sometimes with mushrooms (in cream). They are really delicious.

9. Russians are really friendly and generally very interested in foreigners. They really like helping you. They are warm-hearted.

If you need to contact me, the best way is via keithbirthday at gmail.com. The funny thing is I actually forgot the password to that account, but by the time anyone decides to email me I’m sure I’ll have figured it out