“Well, I think Presley, he got a whole thing going. I’m not very interested in Elvis Presley. He made some very good records early on, when he was still interested in his profession. But he lost interest in his career a long time ago. It’s a very impersonal sort of thing. Presley’s records are very impersonal and he has no feeling behind them. I wouldn’t bother to listen to Elvis Presley these days. I just wouldn’t bother. As far as I’m concerned, he’s of no importance in the pop music world whatsoever.”

— Rolling Stones’ guitarist Brian Jones on Swedish National Radio, 1 April 1965

ARGUING WITH SOME STRANGERS about when exactly Russia slipped into illiberalism, when was it, was it with the tanks sent against parliament (’93), or when Yeltsin danced on stage and defeated what’s his name, that revanchist Communist (’96), or that strange day when some unassuming weasel named Putin was appointed president while everyone was waiting for Y2K to melt reality as we knew it? Lurking in the corners, the cartoon villain, ready to spring forth. Maybe it never was free to begin with? Stanley Tucci was there too, visiting other actors at Ugala Theatre in Viljandi. He wished them all a successful hooaeg or season. “May the odds be ever in your favor.” Later, he enjoyed some apple-marzipan truffles at the Green House Café, my treat. Quite tasty, he agreed.

ODDBALL GOOFBALL REVERIES of her, the Azteca of Tenochtitlan, the seductress of the Mission District. Dark hair, soft eyes, pretty fingers. This time she is dressed up in her vibrant striped cartoon dress, and after a concert we roam the twilight of the castle ruins hand in hand until we fall and make love, full love, in the thin grass of Käevumägi, the Well Hill. A sweet, sticky kind of love, with clothing half on and off, and there are tourists taking photos, but we don’t care, because it’s too much fun. Then she sits up abruptly and recalls her boyfriend in Tallinn, whom she seemed to have forgotten, but then dive backs into the warmth, into the reverie because, well, what else can you do when the connection is so lively and good? So warm, so hot, so small she was in this dream. Whatever it means, whatever gateway it opened, into whatever mystery it leads, I shall so happily follow her. She by now is my archangel, my peaingel. My põhjatäht, my north star.