An Interruption

“When I was a kid, I used to walk looking at the ground. Always my head was bent over. My dad said to me: “Vladimir! Why are your eyes looking toward the ground! Be a man and stand tall!” When I turned 18, I saw the world for the first time. I looked up. I started to move with confidence—I had a goal. I searched how to be an actor in America. So I moved to Boston, I worked for six years in Boston, international hospitality. I studied Kung fu. I learned twelve languages. Then when I thought I was ready, I moved to Los Angeles. Already in a year I’ve been in over twenty films! I go through town, I meet other actors, I ask them: “What have you been in?” They say nothing! Ten years nothing! How can you call yourself an actor, and for ten years not booked a role? I never rest. I’ll take anything. Student film. Independent production. Web series. Every time I get better and better.”

No. 077

A Few Laughs

At the comedy show a guy I knew in college sat next to me. An odd bit of serendipity, we caught up in the way false acquaintances in forced proximity do: grad school, interrupted thesis films, teaching for him; job, job, job for me; so-and-so left L.A.; someone else is at the agency; her ex is writing for an Emmy-winning comedian. Then, the man sitting in front of us turned around to introduce himself. He, too, had gone to the same college and remembered the guy beside me. There was a brief moment he said he remembered me, or at least seeing me once, though I couldn’t discern whether this was out of politeness or genuine remembrance. In the succeeding ten years I aged and now look quite unlike I did as a student. His name and likeness inspired zero memories, so it must have been the former.

No. 059