The Cygnus and Cephus region, from Astrophotography I was in Leningrad once with a group of Soviet New Agers. One of our group from the UK was an artist. She painted everything from her bed. There were pictures of her feet, of the window, of a view of a tree seen through the window, of the door, with a coat hanging on a hook, a tall lamp switched on. The lampshade was beautiful. The painter was fey. One of the Soviets was arranging a marriage with her in exchange for roubles galore and the use of a flat in Leningrad for a year. Negotiations lasted just one afternoon. It was 1985 and this was the Leningrad underground and it was lumpen, but jumping. The man the painter was about to marry was a Latvian with a smooth face and a blond beard. He described how he had become so knowledgeable: he had studied with shamans in the Far East for a year, he had swum in Lake Baikal, he had climbed the Urals barefoot. He had taken psychotropic drugs. There was so much more mobility in thos
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head