Earlier today, I was shopping at my local Auchan hypermarket when I happened upon this “2018 Gift Calendar,” featuring Russia’s well-known President for Life and foremost sovereign democrat in twelve inspiring poses.
At 37.09 rubles apiece (around 54 euro cents), the calendars are a steal. Some of my friends and relatives may balk and even barf when they unwrap their presents on Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and New Year’s this year, but decades from now they will thank me for having given them a collector’s item that is sure to quintuple in value, at least, as its subject’s fourth term in office extends to a fifth, segues into a sixth, drags on into a seventh, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.
Sure, the cashier looked at me a little funny when this and another personality pinup calendar I had found in the store were rolling down the belt towards her scanner, but she was probably just a tad envious. TRR
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If you’re led around by the nose
You’ll never get to see how the garden grows.
And if you go for the shovel and the hoe
You can’t stop and smell the roses.
Eighteen things at once,
You spread yourself so thin.
You could not find a basket
To put all your eggs in.
Well, Mike, he rowed the boat ashore,
The emperor got some brand new clothes,
But when you walk and chew the gum
You gotta lose a little of something.
Jack of all trades and a master of none,
How can a person get anything done?
You can fool yourself, you can fool anyone.
Jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack,
Jack of all trades . . .
—Volcano Suns, “Jak,” from the 1985 LP The Bright Orange Years
The Russian Reader 