Shirvindt multiple sclerosis. “Sclerosis, scattered throughout life” Alexander Shirvindt. I put the car in reverse

CoLibri®

* * *

Yes! The time has probably come -
It's time to give in to temptation
And sum up life
So as not to flirt with oblivion.

Unknown poet

(It is unknown whether he is a poet? It is known that he is not a poet. My poem)

A patchwork of thoughts

Senile thoughts come during insomnia, so the blanket here is not an attempt at an aphorism, but a natural covering. You have to have time to reach the sheet of paper. If the route is through the toilet, it’s a big deal. That is, what I wanted to write was lost.

The physical state of the body provokes comprehension. Comprehension gravitates towards formulations. The formulations begin to smack of thought or, at the very least, wisdom. Wisdom looks like individuality. In the morning you realize that all this senile cowardice already has a centuries-old background and is dictated by all sorts of geniuses. Dead end!

The years go by... Various media outlets are increasingly asking for personal memories of departed peers. Gradually you become a commentary on the book of other people's lives and destinies, but your memory weakens, the episodes get confused, because old age is not when you forget, but when you forget where you wrote it down so as not to forget.

For example, I wrote down the previous thought in one of my three books published earlier. And I forgot. Now I read it as if for the first time. I wish the same for those who also read them.

Sclerosis came as an epiphany.

...How often we supposedly pronounce various words philosophically, without thinking about the essence of stupidity: “It’s time to scatter stones, time to gather stones.” What is it? Well, you scattered all the stones in your youth - and how to collect them in old age, if you bend down, is a problem, not to mention straightening up, and even with a cobblestone in your hand.

But since this is a textbook truth, then I also want to collect the stones scattered throughout life, so that all the most precious things are not lying around anywhere, but are in one heap; so as not to languish in time and space, sclerotically stuck in traffic jams of memories when trying to move from one milestone to another.

And it turns out I already wrote this. True, since then I have passed several more milestones. And there is something to remember. Or rather, there is something to forget.

I was once asked: “What, in your opinion, should not be included in a book of memories?” He answered: “That’s it, if you’re afraid of exposure.”

Memoirs are displacing Swift, Gogol and Kozma Prutkov from bookshelves, and many graphomaniacs are inventing documentary fables.

At the Satire Theater there was director Margarita Mikaelyan. Once, at a meeting of the artistic council, she stood up and said: “I am many years old, I have been working in the theater for a long time. I’m listening to this discussion now and thinking: how long is it possible? And I decided – from today on I won’t lie.”

Pluchek says: “Mara, it’s late.”

There is no need to fall into the temptation to write a monumental work within the framework of memoir stereotypes under the modest title “I am about myself”, “Myself about me”, “They are about me” and, at worst, the self-deprecating end: “I am about them”...

Today, everyday dishes of life are passed off as a la carte - hence the cheap biography menu and heartburn in the finale.

I once came up with a formula for what I am: born in the USSR, living under socialism with a capitalist face (or vice versa).

I think that cloning was invented by Gogol in “Marriage”: “If Nikanor Ivanovich’s lips were placed on Ivan Kuzmich’s nose...” So, if this were to go here, and this to go here, then, unfortunately, it doesn’t work out that way. Cloning your own biography does not work out.

In 80 years I have never seriously despaired – I’m just pretending. This preserved the hair, the smooth skin of the face and the infantilism of the old asshole.

Once I came across, it seems, Romain Gary (aka Emile Azhar) - sometimes I painfully want to show off my erudition - on the phrase: “He has reached the age when a person already has a final face.” All! There is no longer any prospect of growth and transformation - we must come to terms with and live with this physiognomy.

The number 80 is unpleasant. When you pronounce it, it somehow slips through. And when it’s drawn on paper, you want to cover it up. Recently I caught myself thinking that I began to pay attention to the years of life of famous people. You read: he died at 38, 45, 48 years old... - and sadness overcomes you. But sometimes you look: someone lived 92 years. A great weight off one's mind. Therefore, I now have a reference book - the House of Cinema calendar, which is sent out every month to members of the Union of Cinematographers. On the first page there is the section “Congratulations to the anniversaries.” There are dashes next to women's names, and round dates next to men's names. But starting from 80, they also write non-round dates - just in case, because there is little hope of congratulations on the next round date. And this calendar is my consolation. True, sometimes you come across completely unfamiliar names - some prop man, a second director, a fourth pyrotechnician, a fifth assistant... But what numbers: 86, 93, 99! Ichthyosaurs of hope.

It is customary for great writers to summarize their results and have a complete collection of works. And when you have only three essays in your life, you can put them together, add something, and you get a “multi-volume” work of 300 pages.

I have always wondered why biographies and autobiographies are written from birth onwards, and not vice versa. After all, it is obvious that a person can describe his simple life today more clearly and thoroughly, and only then, gradually, along with his fading memory, descend into the depths of his everyday life.

I put it in reverse.

From 80 to 40

* * *

The conclave of today's artistic directors of theaters is approaching the Vatican in age.

I remember one of the congresses of the Union of Theater Workers several years ago. We have nostalgia for conventions. This one was held in some green room at City Hall. “Turn on the first microphone...”, “Turn on the second microphone...”. I sat, listened, listened, sat down, woke up, and I got the feeling that I was in a billiard room: a huge green cloth and billiard balls, only many, many. These are bald spots. And Alexander Alexandrovich Kalyagin, sitting on the presidium, is also a powerful billiard ball. (Although, of course, it’s fortunate that there are people of such acting level who at the same time want to be the main bosses.)

A lot of years have come unexpectedly. In a second for some reason. I was on a fishing trip and my friends brought me. Friends are also not the freshest, but still ten to fifteen years apart. There is a descent down to the lake. They go back and forth, and I fell there, but I can’t get back up.

I can walk in a straight line like a stayer, but the steps are already a problem. Knees.

With age, everything becomes concentrated in a person - all the parameters of the mind and heart. But there is also physiology, which by the age of 80 dominates all parameters. When you neither sit down nor stand up, then everything obeys this, and “physics” begins to dictate. When you stand up and your knee doesn’t straighten, you become stingy, angry, and greedy. And at the same time. And if my knee miraculously straightens, then I’m ready to give everything and spare nothing.

I first understood the meaning of the expression “weak in the knees” about twenty years ago - it turns out that this is when, firstly, they hurt, secondly, they bend poorly and, thirdly, they have become weak. I turned to two familiar luminaries regarding knees - both gave diametrically opposite recommendations, and decided to wear the knees as is, because I couldn’t afford new ones.

I am treated with a special warming gel for joints, which I buy at a veterinary pharmacy. Friends who were riders recommended it. Here are the instructions for use: “Apply from knee to hoof. After the procedure, it is recommended to cover the horse with a blanket. It is advisable to refrain from working on soft ground.” I'm smearing! Amazing effect! At the same time, I refuse soft soil. Fundamentally. I agree only with a hard surface. Like tennis players. One loves hard, the other loves grass. So am I now.

Fatigue accumulates. Moral, not to mention physical. I couldn’t sleep here last night: my knee! I turn on the TV. The film "Three in a Boat and a Dog" is playing. Just the moment when we are chasing the catfish. I’m standing in a boat, Andryushka Mironov is standing on me, and Derzhavin is standing on Andryushka. I think: but it happened!

And on the set of the film “Ataman Kodr” I galloped 12 kilometers for a drink to the nearest Moldovan village and back. The film was directed by the wonderful director Misha Kalik. We played on horseback all the time. And after filming they rushed to the store on horseback. Many years later, at one of the Golden Ostap festivals, of which I was the permanent president, they brought me a horse. I had to ride out like a sovereign on a white horse, easily jump off and open the festival. You don't understand when you plunge your body into disaster. I jumped on this horse with the help of everyone around me. But I couldn’t jump off at all. Therefore, he crawled down the rump, hugging the horse’s neck.

I have very heavy exercise in the morning. When lying down, I first twist my legs for the lower back. 30 times. Then, with difficulty, groaning, I sit up on the bed and make a rotational movement on my creaking neck five times back and forth. And then with hangers 10 times. Someone once taught me, and I got used to it. And I feel like I did some exercise.

Recently, in the winter, my wife and I went for a walk at our dacha, but so that this activity would not be completely pointless, we went to a village store. And there we were seen by the loader Mishka, who used to work as a mechanic in our dacha cooperative. He wasn’t very fresh, but he joyfully rushed towards us with the words: “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you! Why do you look so bad? They've grown older. Oh, it’s just scary to look at you!” We try to break away from him and leave the store. He is behind us. Outside - bright sun, snow, beauty! Mishka looks at me carefully and says: “Oh, you’re even worse in the sun!”

75, 85 and 100. If this is not the waist or hips, then the numbers are very suspicious.

When Bernard Shaw was asked why he did not celebrate his birthdays, the writer replied: “Why celebrate days that bring you closer to death?” And really, what kind of holidays are these seventy- and eighty-year anniversary?

Senior parties are terrible. Live so that everyone will be touched that at 85 you look 71? Although, apparently, the great attraction of public longevity is the immortality of optimism.

For young people, we have a path everywhere,
Old people are respected everywhere.
I'm an old man standing at the doorstep
Life that is closed for registration.

Old people should be helpless and touching, then you feel sorry for them, and they are needed for the landscape and for young people to momentarily comprehend the frailty of existence. Militantly youthful old men must be thrown off the cliffs. For lack of rocks, discount it. I mean banking.

One good doctor calmed me down. “The dates are all nonsense. The age of a person,” he said, “is determined not by dates, but by his being.” Sometimes, very briefly, I'm somewhere around 20 years old. And sometimes I'm close to 100.

The famous line of Bulat Okudzhava: “Let’s join hands, friends, so as not to fall alone” - in our case now: “So as not to fall alone.”

Living long is honorable and interesting, but dangerous from the point of view of shifting temporary consciousness.

I remember (I still remember) the 90th anniversary of the great Russian actress Alexandra Aleksandrovna Yablochkina on the stage of the House of Actors, which after some time began to be called after her. In response, she said: “We... are artists of the Academic, Order of Lenin, His Imperial Majesty the Maly Theater...”

The birthday of our theater coincides with the Day of the Old Old Man, or (whatever it is?) the elderly person... So I have a double holiday.

The Satire Theater is 90 years old. Every ten years we celebrate an anniversary. During the reporting period, I made four of them - 60, 70, 80, 90. For the 60th anniversary, a snail-shaped ramp was installed on the stage. The whole troupe lined up on it. At the top, on the platform, stood Peltzer, Papanov, Menglet, Valentina Georgievna Tokarskaya, a lovely lady with a tragic fate... I led the program and introduced the troupe: “Here are the youth... and here is the middle generation... and here are our veterans, who are on their shoulders... And finally “,” I shouted, “the forever young pioneer of our theater, 90-year-old Georgy Tusuzov!” He ran against the movement of the ring. The audience stood up and began to applaud. Peltzer turned to Tokarskaya and said: “Valya, if you, old b..., didn’t hide your age, then you too would run with Tuzik.”

By the way, about the “forever young” Tusuzov. Using his preservation at the age of 90 once almost cost me my biography. The 80th anniversary of the most powerful circus figure Mark Mestechkin was brewing. In the circus arena on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, people and horses crowded behind the forgang to express admiration for the master of the Soviet circus. The Moscow authorities, the MGK of the party, sat crowded together in the government box.

Having assembled the anniversary team, I brought Aroseva, Runge, and Derzhavin onto the stage, who demonstrated to Mestechkin the similarity of our creative directions with the circus. “And finally,” I habitually say, “the standard of our circus training, the universal clown, 90-year-old Georgy Tusuzov.” Tusuzov runs into the arena in a trained manner and, to a storm of applause, cheerfully runs along the route of the circus horses. During his run, I manage to say: “Here, dear Mark, Tusuzov is ten years older than you, and in what shape - despite the fact that he eats shit in our theater buffet.”

It would be better if I didn't have time to say this. The next morning, the Satire Theater was invited to the secretary of the Moscow State Committee for Ideology. Since it was impossible to invite me alone - due to my persistent non-partisanship - to the Moscow City Theater, I was led by the hand by the secretary of the party organization of the theater, the dear Boris Runge.

At the morning table sat several stern ladies with challahs on their heads and a couple of men with their hair combed with water, obviously after yesterday's alcoholic mistakes.

They did not delay the execution, since there was a long line for the carpet, and they asked, naturally turning to fellow party member Boris Vasilyevich Runge, whether he considered it possible for a person who dared to say from the arena of the Red Banner Circus to be able to repeat within the walls of the Academic Theater No one can MGK the party. Borya looked at me helplessly, and I, not being burdened with the burden of party ethics, made a naively surprised face and said: “I know what my native MGK is incriminating against me, but I am surprised by the depravity of the perception of the respected secretaries, for in the arena I clearly said: “ He’s been eating at our theater’s buffet for a long time.” The embarrassed MGK allowed Runge to go to the theater without party penalties.

I gave my life to other people's anniversaries. When asked why I don’t celebrate mine, I came up with the answer: “I can’t imagine an anniversary where Shirvindt and Derzhavin would not congratulate the hero of the day.”

But one day we played the play “Honoring” at the Mayakovsky Theater. They hung a huge poster there - my portrait and the phrase: “In connection with the 60th anniversary of Shirvindt - “Honoring.” And small - "Slade's Play". People came with certificates, bottles, and souvenirs. Once Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov even came with his retinue - not to the performance, but to congratulate the hero of the day. When the situation became clearer, some people were missing from the Moscow government.

At an anniversary, like at a pop concert, you need to be successful. Not at the hero of the day - they didn’t come to him, but at the public. One day, Boris Golubovsky - he was then the chief director of the Gogol Theater - had Gogol's portrait makeup done. He grabbed me and Lev Losev backstage, took me aside and nervously said: “Now I’ll check the congratulations on you.” And he began to read to us, in Gogol’s makeup, a greeting written for the anniversary. Then he looked at our faces and began to frantically tear off his wig and put on his makeup.

Anniversaries, anniversaries, anniversaries... Parties, parties... When over decades you become an obligatory attribute of any dates - from high-ranking to small-departmental ones - the value of the importance and necessity of meetings and feasts gradually atrophies. Let me write one more poem - with a bad rhyme:

Soaring in the whirlpools of the table
And having barely tasted friendship,
It's scary to think how many songs
We didn't listen to the bottom...

At the 10th anniversary of Sovremennik, I called the team a “terrarium of like-minded people.” Who hasn’t claimed the authorship of this boorish aphorism! I don't sue over copyright, I'm being generous.

Decades have passed. There are no longer many like-minded people. There are only a few left. Volchek is the great Tortilla of the empty terrarium.

At her recent anniversary, I remembered how in the 90s we stood with her on Red Square, hanging the Order of Friendship of Peoples on ourselves.

Immediately after this, the order was simply renamed “Friendship”. Obviously, considering that the friendship of our peoples with her ended with us.

Today she has everything. To reward her, you need to come up with a new order. She has a unique theater. She has a wonderful son - the closest friend of my wonderful son. May he live long! Let this lousy planet see who should ideally inhabit it. After all, for some reason they don’t make people like her anymore.

Events fill existence very densely. A brother's anniversary smoothly turns into someone else's funeral service. And then, you see, the 40th day of the next brother connects with the 80th anniversary of the next one. Horror!

There is a joke: a crematorium worker sneezed on the job and now doesn’t know where anyone is. Now the era has sneezed so much on our generation that where everyone is is completely unknown.

Unfortunately, more and more often we have to bury friends. I’m afraid that I myself may not live up to being a legend, but serving the departures of real legends has become a prestigious mission. The work is bitter, difficult, but at least sincere.

And at the same time…

Bury and congratulate
I don’t have the strength - fuck it.

About the dead - either good or true! At funeral services, I have questions: do the guys hear what is being said about them? For example, I would be interested to know who will come to my funeral and what they will say about me.

The funeral also became some kind of show. Already, as at anniversaries, they say: “Yesterday at the memorial service so-and-so performed well.” And they discuss, in pop language, who “passed” and who “failed.”

Tragedy, farce - everything comes together. They buried Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov. The funeral service was coming to an end. I was sitting in the hall and suddenly I heard someone near the stage faint. I couldn’t see who fell, but I found out how this story ended a few days later.

My old friend Anatoly Adoskin, a most intelligent, gentle, subtle man and ironic to the core, comes up to me. “Can you imagine what happened to me,” he says. “I fainted at Oleg’s funeral service.” There were a few minutes left before Oleg was carried out, the entire Kamergersky Lane was filled with people, and suddenly they carried me out. True, head first. I understand: I need to at least move, but I’m weak. I began to think that this was how they carried out Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. And then I stood up a little.”

Our life is similar to this case with Adoskin. Today's anniversaries differ from memorial services in less sincerity only because in the latter case there is no global envy of the hero of the event.

I read how one nursing home was praised. After the fires and orders to check all such houses, the commission came across a wonderful boarding house that really cared for the elderly. Clean, well-fed old men and women crawl there, and the administration has a trained mechanical cuckoo. Every day at dawn she crows 20-30 times, no less - therapy!

And then I went fishing. Early morning, wind, slush, no bite. Suddenly the cuckoo is the first of the season. Cuckoos and cuckoos. I counted - 11 times! Well, I think he's lying. And then I thought about it - I didn’t pause, my voice was clear, without pauses, almost like a metronome. Who knows, maybe it's true? And then I suspected that it was mechanical.

Cowardice is the sister of panic. I'm not afraid of death. I'm afraid for my loved ones. I'm afraid of accidents for my friends. I'm afraid to look old. I’m afraid of dying gradually, when I’ll have to grab onto something and someone... “Our Everything” wrote very correctly: “My uncle had the most honest rules, when he seriously fell ill...” Being young, I believed that this was a preamble and not more. Now I understand that this is the most important thing in the novel.

I am a handsome old man who is afraid of becoming helpless. In general, the diagnosis is “moderate old age.”

* * *

I have been at the Satire Theater for more than forty years. The endless debate about the archaic hospital and the modern entrepreneurial movement is wildly boring with its meaninglessness and illiteracy. This is also an invention for me - an enterprise! At the end of the century before last, great entrepreneurs put together a theater company, staged some kind of “Thunderstorm”, sailed on a steamboat down the mother Volga to Astrakhan and played this “Thunderstorm” on all the piers, snacking on chilled vodka while crossing the Volga with sturgeon and black caviar.

When they ask me why I don’t appear in enterprises, I say that I have absolutely no time for this, and then, if I wanted to play something, then in my theater I would somehow contact the management and come to an agreement with them. But seriously, the situation with repertory theater today is dangerous. Some smart specialist proved that peat fires are a consequence of drying out swamps. Before you thoughtlessly and incompetently drain the swamps of repertory theaters, it’s a good idea to think about the future fires.

Unfortunately, there is no consolidation of people who lived their lives in the theater. Everything can be covered in a second. Why, when the threat of eviction hung over the Actor's House, did he win? Why is the huge building on Old Arbat, which many vulgar billionaires drooled over, still preserved as the Actor's House? Because the actors united and blocked the entrance with their bodies. Now the sword of Damocles hangs over the meaning of theatrical existence.

“I’m a tired old clown, I’m waving a cardboard sword...” Satire is no longer my thing, it implies anger. Self-irony is closer to me - salvation from everything around me.

Yes! The time has probably come-
It's time to give in to temptation
And sum up life
So as not to flirt with oblivion.
Unknown poet

(It is unknown whether he is a poet?

It is known that he is not a poet. My poem)

A patchwork of thoughts

For example, I wrote down the previous thought in one of my three books published earlier. And I forgot. Now I read it as if for the first time. I wish the same for those who also read them.

Sclerosis came as an epiphany.

And it turns out I already wrote this. True, since then I have passed several more milestones. And there is something to remember. Or rather, there is something to forget.

I was once asked: “What, in your opinion, should not be included in a book of memories?” He answered: “That’s it, if you’re afraid of exposure.”

Memoirs are displacing Swift, Gogol and Kozma Prutkov from bookshelves, and many graphomaniacs are inventing documentary fables.

Today, everyday dishes of life are passed off as a la carte - hence the cheap biography menu and heartburn in the finale.

I once came up with a formula for what I am: born in the USSR, living under socialism with a capitalist face (or vice versa).

In 80 years I have never seriously despaired – I’m just pretending. This preserved the hair, the smooth skin of the face and the infantilism of the old asshole.

The number 8o is unpleasant. When you pronounce it, it somehow slips through. And when it’s drawn on paper, you want to cover it up. Recently I caught myself thinking that I began to pay attention to the years of life of famous people. You read: he died at 38, 45, 48 years old... - and sadness overcomes you. But sometimes you look: someone lived 92 years. A great weight off one's mind. Therefore, I now have a reference book - the House of Cinema calendar, which is sent out every month to members of the Union of Cinematographers. On the first page there is the section “Congratulations to the anniversaries.” There are dashes next to women's names, and round dates next to men's names. But starting from 8 o'clock they also write non-round ones - just in case, because there is little hope of congratulations on the next round date. And this calendar is my consolation. True, sometimes you come across completely unfamiliar names - some prop man, a second director, a fourth pyrotechnician, a fifth assistant... But what numbers: 86, 93, 99! Ichthyosaurs of hope.

I put it in reverse.

From 80 to 40

The conclave of today's artistic directors of theaters is approaching the Vatican in age.

I can walk in a straight line like a stayer, but the steps are already a problem. Knees.

I have very heavy exercise in the morning. When lying down, I first twist my legs for the lower back. 30 times. Then, with difficulty, groaning, I sit up on the bed and make a rotational movement on my creaking neck five times back and forth. And then with hangers once again. Someone once taught me, and I got used to it. And I feel like I did some exercise.

75, 85 and 100. If this is not the waist or hips, then the numbers are very suspicious.

Senior parties are terrible. Live so that everyone will be touched that at 85 you look 71? Although, apparently, the great attraction of public longevity is the immortality of optimism.

For young people, we have a path everywhere,
Old people are respected everywhere.
I'm an old man standing at the doorstep
Life that is closed for registration.

One good doctor calmed me down. “The dates are all nonsense. The age of a person,” he said, “is determined not by dates, but by his being.” Sometimes, for a very short time, I’m somewhere around 20 years old. And sometimes I'm close to 100.

The famous line of Bulat Okudzhava: “Let’s join hands, friends, so as not to fall alone” - in our case now: “So as not to fall alone.”

Living long is honorable and interesting, but dangerous from the point of view of shifting temporary consciousness.

The birthday of our theater coincides with the Day of the Old Old Man, or (whatever it is?) the elderly person... So I have a double holiday.

The Satire Theater is 90 years old. Every ten years we celebrate an anniversary. During the reporting period, I made four of them - 6o, 70, 80, 90. For the 60th anniversary, a snail-shaped ramp was installed on the stage. The whole troupe lined up on it. At the top, on the platform, stood Peltzer, Papanov, Menglet, Valentina Georgievna Tokarskaya, a lovely lady with a tragic fate... I led the program and introduced the troupe: “Here are the youth... and here is the middle generation... and here are our veterans, who are on their shoulders... And finally “,” I shouted, “the forever young pioneer of our theater, 90-year-old Georgy Tusuzov!” He ran against the movement of the ring. The audience stood up and began to applaud. Peltzer turned to Tokarskaya and said: “Valya, if you, old b..., didn’t hide your age, then you too would run with Tuzik.”

By the way, about the “forever young” Tusuzov. Using his preservation at the age of 90 once almost cost me my biography. The 8th anniversary of the most powerful circus figure Mark Mestechkin was brewing. In the circus arena on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, people and horses crowded behind the forgang to express admiration for the master of the Soviet circus. The Moscow authorities, the MGK of the party, sat crowded together in the government box.

At the morning table sat several stern ladies with challahs on their heads and a couple of men with their hair combed with water, obviously after yesterday's alcoholic mistakes.

But one day we played the play “Honoring” at the Mayakovsky Theater. They hung a huge poster there - my portrait and the phrase: “In connection with Shirvindt’s illness - “Honoring.” And small - "Slade's Play". People came with certificates, bottles, and souvenirs. Once Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov even came with his retinue - not to the performance, but to congratulate the hero of the day. When the situation became clearer, some people were missing from the Moscow government.

Soaring in the whirlpools of the table
And having barely tasted friendship,
It's scary to think how many songs
We didn't listen to the bottom...

Decades have passed. There are no longer many like-minded people. There are only a few left. Volchek is the great Tortilla of the empty terrarium.

Why was this book created? Out of habitual vanity? Out of a feeling of unheard-of importance and the need to tell humanity something that could not even occur to them? Yes, to be honest, all this is present, but to be completely honest, I really want to secure at least a little bit of my time, my friends, my home, and therefore my life.

Characteristics of the book

Date written: 2014
Name: Sclerosis, scattered throughout life

Volume: 340 pages, 62 illustrations
ISBN: 978-5-389-09034-7
Copyright holder: ABC-Atticus

Preface to the book “Sclerosis, scattered throughout life”

Senile thoughts come during insomnia, so the blanket here is not an attempt at an aphorism, but a natural covering. You have to have time to reach the sheet of paper. If the route is through the toilet, it’s a lost cause. That is, what I wanted to write was lost.

For example, I wrote down the previous thought in one of my three books published earlier. And I forgot. Now I read it - as if for the first time. I wish the same for those who also read them.

Sclerosis came as an epiphany.

...How often we supposedly pronounce various words philosophically, without thinking about the essence of stupidity: “It’s time to scatter stones, time to gather stones.” What is it? Well, you scattered all the stones in your youth - and how to collect them in old age, if you bend down - a problem, not to mention straightening up, and even with a cobblestone in your hand.

And it turns out I already wrote this. True, since then I have passed several more milestones. And there is something to remember. Or rather, there is something to forget.

I was once asked: “What, in your opinion, should not be included in a book of memories?” He answered: “That’s it, if you’re afraid of exposure.”

Memoirs are displacing Swift, Gogol and Kozma Prutkov from bookshelves, and many graphomaniacs are inventing documentary fables.

Today, everyday dishes of life are passed off as a la carte - hence the cheap biography menu and heartburn in the finale.

I once came up with a formula for what I am: born in the USSR, living under socialism with a capitalist face (or vice versa).

In 80 years I have never seriously despaired - I’m just pretending to. This preserved the hair, the smooth skin of the face and the infantilism of the old asshole.

The number 80 is unpleasant. When you pronounce it, it somehow slips through. And when it’s drawn on paper, you want to cover it up. Recently I caught myself thinking that I began to pay attention to the years of life of famous people. You read: he died at 38, 45, 48 years old... - and sadness overcomes him. But sometimes you look: someone lived 92 years. A great weight off one's mind. Therefore, I now have a reference book - the House of Cinema calendar, which is sent out every month to members of the Union of Cinematographers. On the first page there is the section “Congratulations to the anniversaries.” There are dashes next to women's names, and round dates next to men's names. But starting from 80, they also write non-round dates - just in case, because there is little hope of congratulations on the next round date. And this calendar is my consolation. True, sometimes you come across completely unfamiliar names - some prop man, a second director, a fourth pyrotechnician, a fifth assistant... But what numbers: 86, 93, 99! Ichthyosaurs of hope.

I put it in reverse.

From 80 to 40

The conclave of today's artistic directors of theaters is approaching the Vatican in age.

I remember one of the congresses of the Union of Theater Workers several years ago. We have nostalgia for conventions. This one was held in some green room at City Hall. “Turn on the first microphone...”, “Turn on the second microphone...”. I sat, listened, listened, sat down, woke up, and I got the feeling that I was in a billiard room: a huge green cloth and billiard balls, only many, many. These are bald spots. And Alexander Alexandrovich Kalyagin, sitting on the podium, is also a powerful billiard ball. (Although, of course, it’s fortunate that there are people of such acting level who at the same time want to be the main bosses.)

I can walk in a straight line like a stayer, but the steps are already a problem. Knees.

I first understood the meaning of the expression “weak in the knees” twenty years ago - it turns out that this is when, firstly, they hurt, secondly, they bend poorly and, thirdly, they have become weak. I turned to two familiar luminaries regarding knees - both gave diametrically opposite recommendations, and decided to wear the knees as is, because I couldn’t afford new ones.

Sclerosis, scattered throughout life - Alexander Shirvindt (download)

(introductory fragment of the book)

People from the acting profession appear in our homes almost every day (not to mention holidays). Tell me which actor you can’t imagine March 8, February 23, or New Year without, and I’ll tell you what kind of person you are. Maybe...
But the fact is that in some very distant “acting” universe, in which there is national fame, love and calling, these people whom we call “stars” take their place by right. By the right that we give them ourselves - for example, by the fact that we sometimes demand much more from them than from ourselves. Or by the fact that we rejoice or have fun with them at the table from time to time. Or we simply forget that they are mere mortals like us. And their work in this regard is difficult to overestimate.
But I, as a person far from the world of art, do not want and cannot talk about it, although I consider much of my attitude towards celebrities in general and actors in particular to be indicative. Let's take Shirvindt, for example. Shirvindt - he... Well...
That year, 2014, he celebrated his eightieth anniversary, in connection with which several films with his participation were shown on TV, and a program was also presented where he talked about himself, his life, appearing before the audience in the role of a director one of the leading theaters in the country, a father and loving grandfather, an avid fisherman, and many more. Also dedicated to this anniversary was the release of his book, “Multiple Sclerosis in Life.” By the way, a very good name (" mostly rare"). I saw a play on words here. Words that for us, ordinary people, perhaps don’t mean anything, but for him - their daily bread and all that. But let’s return to Shirvindt.
Shirvindt is...
I’m not very interested in reading about other people’s lives and about Shirvindt’s life in particular. But she goes along with the maestro. And the maestro is a genius of jokes and enterprise, besides the fact that for some reason I understand very well those who might really be interested in such a book, which lists milestones. What I see on TV is enough for me. Although... Hand on heart, now I understand that I don’t strive to read such books, because these people will always be more educated and impudent than me. They can speak to me in a language I don’t understand, they can remember people I don’t know, quote classics, and, in the end, curse the Motherland. But you have to be prepared for all this, right? However, here it is: without hesitation, I took to read just such a book for the holidays, which threatened to become just that - “difficult.” If the author had not started to make me laugh from the very first lines, I now understand that. It was like an invitation, after which I metaphorically flew away. Besides, for some reason I knew what to expect. Based on many years of acquaintance with the maestro from “The Irony of Fate”, at least; and also because in the few months that have passed since its publication, I have come across excerpts from it here and there on the Internet. But “The Irony of Fate” is still more important, yes.
I especially remember the story about the battery - as an expression of friendship, camaraderie, reckless youth, jokes, everything.
But I can’t miss one more point - which, of course, cannot be considered separately from the same “battery,” but excuse me. I'm trying to wrap things up. At the end of this book, on its very last pages (which I leafed through like a person who had been hit in the head by high-quality cognac), I somewhat weakened my attention, and then my gaze caught on the word “hatred”; and it was like an explosion, you can believe me. Very unexpected. Because before that everything was more or less smooth, but here:

The accumulation of omnivorousness leads to panic irritation, and here hatred is just a stone's throw away.

I hate myself! I hate having to love others, I hate doing what I hate all the time, I hate people making what I hate an object of creative desire.

I hate hatred for something that doesn’t deserve any emotion at all.

Then this master of words and famous humorist somehow taxied back to a peaceful way, but that’s not the point. I think I understood why he ended his book with this Same. Because of the two of us, he is the master of words, and when he “hits” like that, it’s not just like that.
Shirvindt is old.
He no longer owes anyone anything; and he publishes this collection of memories, fables, photographs, not for anyone, but for himself. Because, I repeat, he doesn’t owe anyone anything anymore. But he is already very, very old. Therefore, even if you are not going to read this book of his - I don’t know how to say it - just love him a little more. Right from this moment. That, for me, is the main statement of this book. Because, probably, this guy is still very passionate about his business, and his job is to please us in all our huge masses, no matter what you say... But this is not the main thing. Just love him and everyone will be fine. It will be true!

75, 85 and 100. If this is not the waist or hips, then the numbers are very suspicious.

Senior parties are terrible. Live so that everyone will be touched that at 85 you look 71? Although, apparently, the great attraction of public longevity is the immortality of optimism.

Young people - everywhere we have a road,

Old people are respected everywhere.

I'm an old man standing at the doorstep

Life that is closed for registration.

The famous line of Bulat Okudzhava: “Let’s join hands, friends, so as not to fall alone” - in our case now: “So as not to fall alone.”

Living long is honorable and interesting, but dangerous from the point of view of shifting temporary consciousness.

The birthday of our theater coincides with the Day of the Old Old Man, or (whatever it is?) the elderly person... So I have a double holiday.

It would be better if I didn't have time to say this. The next morning, the Satire Theater was invited to the secretary of the Moscow State Committee for Ideology. Since it was impossible for me alone - due to my persistent non-partisanship - to be invited to the Moscow City Theater, I was led by the hand by the secretary of the party organization of the theater, the dear Boris Runge.

At the morning table sat several stern ladies with challahs on their heads and a couple of men with their hair combed with water, obviously after yesterday's alcoholic mistakes.

They did not delay the execution, since there was a long line for the carpet, and they asked, naturally turning to fellow party member Boris Vasilyevich Runge, whether he considered it possible for a man who dared to say from the arena of the Red Banner Circus to be able to repeat within the walls of the Academic Theater No one can MGK the party. Borya looked at me helplessly, and I, not being burdened with the burden of party ethics, made a naively surprised face and said: “I know what my native MGK is incriminating against me, but I am surprised by the depravity of the perception of the respected secretaries, for in the arena I clearly said: “ He’s been eating at our theater’s buffet for a long time.” The embarrassed MGK allowed Runge to go to the theater without party penalties.

But one day we played the play “Honoring” at the Mayakovsky Theater. They hung a huge poster there - my portrait and the phrase: “In connection with Shirvindt’s 60th anniversary - “Honoring.” And small - "Slade's Play". People came with certificates, bottles, and souvenirs. Once Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov even came with his retinue - not to the performance, but to congratulate the hero of the day. When the situation became clearer, some people were missing from the Moscow government.