I am ashamed.
How long has it been since I began writing this text?
How many waves of covid have washed away the brave heroes the thought of whom used to distract me?
I should have waited, definitely.
Now, the t ime has come.
Writing about the old times takes time. More so—writing about antiquity.
This text is not an ex/planation but a justification and a fantasy—a stream, a trickle flowing down from Olympus.
Who is writing this text other than me?
I will answer now.
I am Aleksandra Domanović, and I have been dreaming of turbo-folk for a long time. Still there, in the dusty Odesa basement of the Shkaf club, I delighted in the peals of the cheesy Japanese synthesizer that forced those around me to dance wildly to the beat. The acid arose there, long before the two hackneyed Frenchmen from Paris did.
But now it is descending lower, to the left, to the land of a million islands.
She's a laika. Rough? No, she's gentle, tender.
Almost chanson—tough men and sensual women squeeze this acid out of themselves.
Let's forget.
Acid antiquity arises before me pe-ri-od ically.
As a rule, this happens in Greek restaurants. It's an attack, a paroxysm, the fight of my olive homeland. Her slit gets filled with oil and I dive in. In fact, this is a collective image (what an idiotic image, who collected it in their basket, stuffed it there?), it is one and the same, immutable like the nostril of Anestis—this set never changes. And it does not matter at what latitude it is located. It is the same in Amsterdam, Berlin, Buryatia and Brooklyn. Columns, tablecloths, gyros. At night some dark deeds are done here. Once, making our way through Neukölln with my drunken friend, we could not just pass it by. The acid ouzo spilled over. The night ended at 7, at Herman Platz, when the old rake Vassilios, who had borrowed a tenner from us, disappeared in search of his acid.
Visibility vanishes.
I am an observer. A watcher.
I figured out that behind this screen a secret script is hidden.
Fluid past.
They left no stone unturned, these barbarians!
No, well, these are anecdotal forms,
This is a symptom.
Passing along the bottom of the Black Sea
With no anesthetics, they removed the nutritious fruits.
I am a thorn in the heel of Achilles.
What's going on here?
Discrepancies, papillae of old age.
Is prostatitis also a Greek word?
Groaning, the name Orpheus glides over the hairdressing salon in Chernivtsi.
The loosening of the space. Disorientation—perhaps we are all in eternal
Greece? We never got out of there, got stuck in the fence?
The warriors of Sparta hid behind the street corners of Chelyuskinets, Chapaev and Chicherins.
By turns they arise, shouting, rubbing their spears,
turning them into letters.
Kalispera, they say.
Vision and prevision,
These are the Clues of Ulysses.
The meaning is torn off, it’s hanging somewhere out there, on a string.
Chronos, oink oink.
The distinction is lost in frozen poses.
The echo of the eluding world spreads over the outskirts of the estates.
Echo and OXI
OUZO
The otherness of a feta chunk on a white plate, the eternal Greek salad.
Olives, elitses, oil.
Remains of Greece carried by the breaking waves.
Plato’s cave in the steppes of Azov.
With my hands, I reach for the letters,
I'm Isidor, take it easy—Isidor izu!
Traces of pioneers, ancient shacks, boats.
From the Varangians to the Vikings. What do these frozen fragments mean, this scattering of antiquity?
I walk through the streets of Odesa.
A cannon is strapped to the shoulders of the atlases.
The longest balcony in the world is in Odesa, on Greek Street, grecheskaya.
That's what they said.
Enfilades of spaces occupied by pissers and sledges.
An imitation of reality — you’re mimesising the hustle and bustle.
How is the city organized, flooded with such signboards?
Is Rome an Open City? How can one navigate in it?
The archive in this book will help.
And, well, how can you not bring up the acid-base homeostasis here?
Ideologeme:
Homer dodges the arrows and spears of those called the natives.
A capitalist frame with an overlap that envelops and ovulates Hellas.
Cavities,
The complexity of experience,
Vagueness.
A string of memories:
They are torn, fragmentary
They are mutants.
The right to possess the past—who has it?
There is only a glimpse between the past and the future.
The unsettling experience of encountering the spilled acid.
It is overtaking me.
The memory is dying off.
I am Pont-Euxin.
A temorunda’s corner.
A wave crest.
Where is the note from the Hellas embassy?
Well, of course, it's all about Ukraine.
Thank you, pathfinder Trotsenko!
You are on the right track.
Acid-acid
Arab-Arab.
Fuck—them
—acid Greeeek!
Reverse action: Athens, Khutorok restaurant, Kotyhoroshko tights shop.
Fanaticism is propelled by love.
Names and objects are separated.
Altogether, these are portals to Hellas.
O Hermes, take me away from here.
Where is this khutor located?
Between the South and the South?
Falling into the ringing dungeon, I go into the light.
The acid spills over, overflows
I follow signboards and indices.
“Greek font”, the mapping of Ukraine?
De ne de.
Imaginary future, ure ure—what shall we do without it?
Romanticizing and exoticizing—
A Nightmare on Hermes Street
Is happ e ning.
Curiosity leading us down the street
What shall we meet on the way?
What are these plaques made of? Plastic?
Infrastructure.
Looking for traces and shadows
Ah, all in vain: all in vain!
Through the length and breadth
This is the way back.
I figured out who is spilling this acid.
Secret lodge, little mess.
It is essential to mention the history of the Greeks’ migration and displacement of Ukrainian Greeks.
I think this is directly related to the theme of this book.
They were snatched out and displaced. Enough.
Does the same thing happen with the signs ?
The question mark here is separated from the word by two spaces.
Two spaces, at 22, at 37 and 49?
Already 3, 4.
I am Pont-Euxin
Knock knock knock, take me to
Written for Leo Trotsenko's "Acid Antiquity”.