OK, so the Tin House doesn't think it is that obscure. I'm just ignorant.

First published in 1967, twenty-seven years after the death of its author, Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita filled a void in Eastern Europe and Russia, where it was instantly and passionately embraced. In Russia there is a joke that seven out of ten people today will tell you it's their favorite book. Travel agencies offer walking tours of The Master and Margarita's Moscow, and the walls of the building Bulgakov lived in are scrawled with loving graffiti tributes to the novelist and his immortal characters. Phrases from the book have entered the common vernacular

And Lane's old friends at the2ndhand.com also published a story that mentioned the Bulgakov/Jagger connection. OK, so everyone already knew this.

I'm back home after a fantastic weekend on the east coast. I knocked off Fast Food Nation on the ride out, so for the plane ride home, my generous host gave me a copy of an obscure Russian novel, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. I should qualify that -- I don't actually know if it is obscure, but unless a Russian novel was written by Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, I haven't even heard of it, much less read it -- so it's obscure to me. I got through half of the outstanding book on the flight and even got so caught up in the story that I read during my stopover rather than watch the football game on airport TV. Needless to say, I am enjoying the book -- and the cultural notes at the end of the text help to explain a lot of the 1930s Soviet pop culture references that I would have missed. Recommended.

So tonight I'm sitting at the computer, instant messaging with the euro-trash cousin, when the greatest song in the history of rock came on the radio. I did a quick google search to find out exactly when the Rolling Stones released Sympathy for the Devil (1968). The second link directed me to a Salon.com article on the song. Apparently, the author believes that Mick Jagger was heavily influenced by Bulgakov's novel in composing the lyrics for Sympathy for the Devil.

The song's opening -- "Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste" -- parallels the beginning of Bulgakov's novel, in which a sophisticated stranger, who turns out to be Satan, introduces himself to two gentlemen sitting in a Moscow park as they're discussing whether Jesus existed or not. ("'Please excuse me,' he said, speaking correctly, but with a foreign accent, 'for presuming to speak to you without an introduction.'") The song then references Christ and the story of Pontius Pilate, which the novel takes up in its second chapter. Before moving on to the Russian Revolution, the song's narrator, Lucifer, acknowledges that his listeners are mystified -- "But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game" -- just as, in "The Master and Margarita," one of the men approached by Satan in the park thinks to himself, "What the devil is he after?"

I confess I didn't make the connection on my own, but it works. Odd coincidence.

The previous post wasn't about you.

A good friend of mine and a life-long Republican confessed to me that he voted for the Democrat in the recent U.S. Senate election. I was pretty confused as to why a person who maintained the strongest party affiliation of any of my good friends would cross party lines in a critical election. He justified his choice by arguing that he was really just voting against Trent Lott as Senate Majority leader. At the time, I dismissed this concern as overreacting to a mostly harmless goodoleboy. And then Lott opened his mouth. Lott commented last week, expressing remorse that Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist Dixiecrat presidential bid was unsuccessful and noting that "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years" if Thurmond had won. There is really only one way to interpret that comment -- as a policy preference for segregation. And now, after pressure from online commentators, Lott issued this half-assed apology, noting his "poor choice of words" and the "impression that [he] embraced the discarded policies of the past." Segregation is a "discarded policy?" Yeah, sure, we did reject it. Trent, when you have given the impression that you support one of the great evils in recent American history, it would have helped to condemn it, not merely discard it. (Scroll down to "Those discarded policies")

I don't want to give my friend too much credit, he did after all, wish for Daschle as Majority Leader. The same Daschle who stood up to defend Lott, even before the Mississippi bumbler apologized.

Get rid of Lott.

Is there anything more confusing than a cricket recap? I once spent an afternoon in a Vancouver park watching a match, so I think that I kind of understand the basic idea: guy throws ball, trying to knock down a stick balanced on top of a couple others. Opponent, wearing hockey gear and holding a flattened baseball bat, attempts to knock the hell out of ball. 8 days later, the game ends.

In any event, I've been scoping Google News for the last couple of days and have seen a lot of cricket coverage. Apparently the rest of the world has another sport besides soccer. If anyone can translate this, please let me know.

Bowlers let CD off the hook, but will do better in Tests - Ganguly

...

Central Districts were in great trouble at 153/7, but ended with 295/9 declared, with Bevan Griggs gaining great praise from Ganguly for his 100 not out. The Indian skipper also labeled No 11 Lance Hamilton's assistance in the unbeaten last-wicket partnership of 58 as "a great effort."

Ganguly surprised by taking pace bowler Ajit Agarkar off after an over in which he took the wickets of Martyn Sigley and Andrew Schwass when Central were 153/7.

...

Sweet. I'm employed. Just under three months removed from taking a buyout from my previous firm, I landed a gig here in Denver doing the kind of work that I really prefer. I start around the first of the year, so if anyone wants to fully exploit the great early season mid-week snow, you best get in touch with me soon.

Innocents Abroad has a lengthy comment on the difference between Anti-Americanism and Europhobia. I'm not sure that I completely buy the entire "Europe is inherently totalitarian" thread running through Colin May's piece, but I thought this might be a good addition to the links below.

Congrats to the Hawkeyes, BCS Bowl bound. Glad to see it, or I would have had to put up with some pretty heated bitching from the Iowa Crew (Jeff, Katie and Greg).

OK, I'm not adding much analysis here, but my Euro-trash cousin wanted links to a couple of the recent columns & blog entries on the growing US/European divide, so I figured I'd post them here. My particular recommendations are the AE article immediately below and the Stott piece referenced in Instapundit.

(update: the cousin disagrees that he "wanted" the links and would prefer that this read "agreed to be subjected to," but note that he didn't disagree with the Euro-trash reference)

Sparking this whole mess is an American Enterprise article by Karl Zinsmeister, "Old And In The Way"

Geitner Simmons, "Our relationships with them are fundamentally changing"
Cited within that piece are:
Peter Ross Range at Blueprint, "They Still Don't Get It"
Porphyrogenitus at Ranting Screeds on the rivalry/ally/friend distinction

A Brit thinks that the article doesn't really apply to his country.

Instapundit has this on comments by James Lileks, Eric Raymond and Reid Stott.

I have been thoroughly chastised for neglecting my blogging duties. For anyone interested, in the past two weeks I have interviewed with a couple of firms and now have an offer of employment outstanding. In the area of law that I want to practice. In Denver. This is good. But, I will have much less time for my other interests... like (poorly) entertaining you all. And playing with power tools. No more of that. Not so much skiing, either. Damn.

On to other topics...

Jeff prodded me into firming up my thoughts on the Total Information Awareness program last week. I spent six hours over three days trying to create a cogent argument to post here, then someone turned off my computer and didn't save my brilliant exegesis. So you are spared 1000 words worth of pithy comments and general radicalism. (I know, I know, my own damn fault for not saving. Still annoying.) In the mean time, Orin at Volokh Conspiracy made my point for me, which is essentially that Total Information Awareness doesn't do much more than the private sector already does (or could do). -- "I'm not entirely sure that TIA isn't something that Silicon Valley couldn't pull off in a few weeks, if they haven't developed the technology already." Volokh has a very good debate on the subject between two contributors above and below this post, definitely worth reading.

I just had drinks with a friend from high school. In trying to figure out where many of our mutual friends are now, we realized something rather scary. Of the nine seniors in our 1995 CX debate class, there are seven lawyers or lawyers to be, a doctor and a future prof who is already an accomplished degree collector. Represented among the law schools are Yale, Stanford, Columbia, William & Mary, Colorado, BYU and WashU. The med student is at Penn. The degree collector has a pair of bachelors, a pair of masters and is currently choosing from among the best artificial intelligence programs in the country. slacker.

What is a grain and barley quality control agent to do?