Tears Of A Snake

Yesterday we were both starving, as we had a pretty rotten supper the night before at the little place we go to, which you will note for future reference will just be called “our place”. That’s what we call it, anyways. It was a super hot day and we just had the worst luck there. The soup was barely lukewarm. The chicken cutlet turned out to be dried out old beef and was too greasy tasting to eat. The mushroom perogies that I had been dreaming of which was to be the main attraction fooled me: they contained poppyseeds and raisins. We took home a pizza feeling like greedy, ungrateful tourists after not knowing what the toppings would be because the menu was completely in Cyrillic and I was dying of embarrassment as Ois stood there, very loudly and slooowly stuttering and trying to sound out the words like a lost episode of Life Goes On.

So we were a bit cranky when we woke up, plus we hadn’t heard anything about our 3rd appt date, so we decided to just get out of the house and wander around. Also there was an art exhibit I really wanted to see while we were here, as I had read about it on the plane and it featured work by Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman and a specially commissioned piece by Elmgreen & Dragset. (Those were the guys who did the Prada store in the middle of the Texas desert a few years back, maybe you remember that.)

The Amish Kapoor pieces we great, as to be expected. All 3 works were memorable and stole the show for me. He had a GIGANTIC (like, over 16” tall and probably as wide) rotating bell made of red wax, with a metal wall that went around it, smoothing the bell down and also shaving some of the wax off in ribbons. Ah- I should probably mention what the show was called, it was Sexuality & Transcendence at the Pinchuk Art Center. The next one was called “Male & Female” and was this stainless steel sculpture polished to a jewel-like mirror finish with a bunch of facets cut into it so everything sparkled. On one side, the sculpture had 2 gentle indentations while viewed from the other side there were 3 rounded shapes. It was beautiful. The last piece was inset into the wall but gave the impression of a painting. It was this deep, pure, velvety purple with a concave center that you weren’t quite sure if it was flat and made with deeper shades of paint, or it actually went into the wall.

Jeff Koons was Jeff Koons. They had his gigantic blue diamond sculpture there, his marble bust self-portrait, and the enormous purple sculpture with a mirror finish of a- wait for it- balloon RABBIT. I had no idea this would be there, BTW. The balloon rabbit was 2 stories tall. I liked seeing how he made the twists of the balloon look at each joint. The best of the show though for me was a Ukrainian artist called Illya Chichkan, who I had never heard of. He had a room full of a series of blown up photographs of mainly middle-aged Ukrainian soldiers in their uniforms copying the poses in well-known fashion ads, except they didn’t know that’s what they were doing. Beside each photograph was the original magazine ad. Each photo was fab- on the way out of the gallery I stopped in his room again and sneakily took a fast picture as if I got asked to leave with a wagging finger we were going anyways.

The one you see first was my favourite. It was a Bingo-type lady in her early 50’s with brassy blonde hair and who had too many gold rings on her fingers on top of a small table, crawling forward like a little panther, as she copied a perfume ad. There was also a middle-aged man in his uniform with carefully combed hair and shiny shoes lying on his arched back like Sophie Dahl in the Obsession perfume ads. That was my next favourite. It was just really clever, and a great idea behind the entire body of work. I can’t wait to look up more stuff on this guy.

After the gallery our feets were soresoresore so we looked for some place where we could sit down and nurse a coffee. We’re basically doing just free stuff while we are here, so our only expenses will be rent and food. We found pretty much the only place we could sit down in the bottom of one of the city’s peculiar underground shopping malls. These underground malls are going to give me nightmares, I just know it. They are so weird and labyrinthine, and so much of everything looks the same, yet it’s also a bit like a Chinese Bazaar down there too: you’ve got tablecloth shops sitting cheek to jowl with a shop selling only nail polish, sitting beside someone selling Q-Tips and air conditioners, sitting beside someone else selling hooker shoes and a selection of frying pans. I would say it’s in the league of Waiting for Godot, however with all the cell phone stores all over the place, it’s more like waiting for Oisin.

We sat down beside a fountain spewing eerily green water and were given a menu. Now I don’t know about you, but when I’m travelling and I see something so irresistibly badly translated on a menu, I feel compelled to order it. So my choice was easy. While Oisin ordered just a coffee to drink, I ordered “tears of a snake”.

Our blond teenage waiter came back to the table smiling and presented Oisin with his coffee, then with a flourish, he placed 3 glasses of stuff in front of me. One was a martini glass filled with colourless liquid. The second was like a very tall shot glass with a handle, like a beer glass for a baby. It contained a liquid that was deep, deep brown. The third looked like it was juice of some kind, possibly lemon, with thin bits of pulp suspended in it. We both sat there looking at this concoction for a few minutes while Ois drank his coffee thoughtfully. I figured what the hell, and began to raise the martini glass to my lips when instantly I heard,  “Nyit! Nyit! Nyit!” and the waiter and his boss, an older lady literally came *running* to the table, motioning for me to stop. I froze. In quickly chattering Ukrainian between them both then looking at me and waving their hands, finally the young guy said in broken english, “First. Make fire! Then-” he said thrusting a black plastic drinking straw at me, “You drink! Fast! Fast!” And suddenly he was trying to light the glass on fire with a cigarette lighter while his boss animatedly waved her arms around as he struggled with the lighter. He stuck his thumb in the liquid in the glass and she huffed in disgust, whooshing the glass away while he followed her back to the bar like a scolded puppy. She returned with a new glass and a pack of matches. This time the liquid was lit on fire successfully. I had no idea what I was about to drink but I stuck the straw into the contents, praying the plastic wouldn’t melt with the fumes like a miniature Chernobyl, and sucked it all down. It burned my throat. While I was slurping, he was yelling at me to drink the brown glass next, all at once, immediately! I jabbed my straw in and did it. Then they both cheered me on to finish the last right away again with the straw all at once. I closed my eyes and slurped. With beaming smiles, they whooshed away the empty glasses and disappeared. My throat was on fire with the combination of what I imagined was homemade Ukrainian tequila of some sort, Tia Maria and lemonade, and my eyes were watering. Tears of a snake, indeed.

A few minutes later the kid returned, and Oisin, who is never one to refuse a drink, asked if he could try it too. I think with the trouble they had lighting the first thing on fire they were reluctant to look foolish in front of the tourists again, so he suggested something else that he exclaimed would make “big fire!” He was like a kid with a chemistry set. He was so excited it would have been a shame to disappoint him, so Ois nodded and he scooted away victoriously to the bar. He came back with a snifter of Sambuca, three coffee beans, and empty snifter, a white square little napkin and another black straw. He jabbed the straw through the center of the napkin and put it flat on the table. Then he lit the liqueur on fire with the coffee beans, and slowly swirled it around the glass, holding it horizontally. He poured the flaming liquid into the empty glass, turned the previously fiery one upside down on the napkin, and told Ois to “Drink fast! Now!” Then he told him to suck on the straw inside the upside-down glass like some sort of boozy-fumed bong which Ois did with red eyes. Now, please remember this is at 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon in an underground shopping mall food court. It was like we were in another world.

We paid the tab and left for home, stopping at a grocery store on the way to pick up some more bread and yogurt and ingredients for chicken paprika for supper tomorrow night. When we got back we checked the cell phone from our agency to see if anybody called, but no one did. Still no news on the date of our 3rd appt. Sigh.