Existential Sketches: Collected Stories

By Nina Krasikoff

Existential Sketches—this is a book of collected stories. The canvas of these stories is a wide cornucopia of curious characters who aren’t always grazed by luck; quite often they are unostentatious, but they definitely present a unique attitude of incurable dreamers, upon which they acted on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796028768

Book preview

EXISTENTIAL SKETCHES

Collected Stories

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Written and illustrated by Nina Krasikoff

Copyright © 2019 by Written and illustrated by Nina Krasikoff.

ISBN:            Softcover              978-1-7960-2877-5

                      eBook                   978-1-7960-2876-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/24/2019

Xlibris

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EXISTENTIAL SKETCHES

CONTENTS

Radio Days

Farmer’s Market

Duke Of The Clark Street

He Sang To Himself

Viennese Boys

The Night Hawk

Lonely Sea-Gull

Lady’s Paradise

Call Of Nature

Incurable Artist (In Memory Of Lee Godie)

Cup Of Coffee

Christmas Sketch

Also by Nina Krasikoff

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Tales from the three-ninth Kingdom

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Food from the Valley of Asian Kings

To witness

To catch a spirit

To give a voice to emotional and imaginative life

RADIO DAYS

Every place in the world has a tune grounded on local reality and builds on itself, reflecting the culture and temperament of the people, who collectively nurtured this tune into a national identity. Its emotional drive, coupled with romantic or dramatic pleas, fits the standard of the local music scene to suit their needs. Quite often the tune remains in its birth place, creating familiar background or just the right sentiment for existence.

Some of these tunes took off in the world, to live a full life, because the birth place was too small to spread their wings. Heard elsewhere, they inevitably giving away the character of the place they came from. Those, that came from other places are usually welcomed, but almost always reshaped, adapted and beheld as one of their own after all.

The thought of Amado Mio, one of these remarkable tunes, set me up for adventure that lasted a few decades and brought me back to my childhood in Europe.

During ruined postwar years, there was the only one type of cultural media—radio.

It was rather simple invention, designed to broadcast the only one channel, with the multiple programs. Every family had one and heavily relied on it as a source for the latest news, carefully selected musical programs and occasional detective story, performed by the actors, whose only job requirement was to have the right voice.

Their voices made them famous on invisible radio stage, but left them unrecognizable on the streets, which sadly nil the role of paparazzi. Majority of broadcasted music was classical.

It was like delicate cultural gossamer, which connected the fragile moments of our early lives and served as the most beautiful background for it. The standard model of the radio was shaped like a small speaker-trumpet, painted in a military khaki color, attached to a little square box with ON and OFF switches and a little hook to hang the radio on the wall. A long and thick cord extended from the radio down to our couch disappearing behind. To turn ON or OFF was a bit inconvenient; nevertheless, we never thought of bringing radio lower, due to the common notion, that being hanged high amplified the sound. That setting left no other option, but keep the radio working all day long. To turn it OFF before night, one had to jump on the top of the couch and flip the switch down. The some acrobatic procedure had to be repeated again in the morning, in order to turn it ON, employing us in a daylong audience, which we did not mind, because it was the only access to the cultural life during deprived and limited post-war years. Most of the news programs reflected aggressively marching cold war, but any country on a short list of becoming a satellite of communism were heavily promoted and broadcasted as a favorite for the cultural exchange.

As a result the radio programs were overwhelmingly filled with the news and music of these places. We skillfully muted out annoying and brainwashing political verbalism and sponged out only the music, imported from these faraway lands, like exotic and colorful island’s rhythms of Cuba, impossibly beautiful and seedy Argentinean tango or intensely emotional and burning with temperament boleros from Mexico. We did not know much about origin of these musical numbers, but our imagination, which was larger than life then, allows us to connect emotionally to the rhythm and sound. Now, being far away and recalling things from the past, I often wonder about the source of our imagination. After the most destructive and horrifying war, stores were virtually empty and music and fashion magazines were not in circulation yet.

The library and the radio—all we had, yet, it helped us to spin imaginative life, filled with the ravishing dancers and singers, performing along the music, blasted from the radio. While the rest of the media was measured up to political propaganda, the music was pure and uncontaminated, allowing us to forget the after-war misery and gently guided us to explore and fulfill our hunger for beauty. I vividly remember that time, when women smarted themselves with the new hair styles and creatively drew a thick black line on the back of their legs, to compensate the absence of the stockings. Flea markets were filled with cosmetic products of amateur origins and perfume was the only one kind suits all. The one and the most favorite item on cosmetic shelves of the local pharmaceutical Apateka was the face powder Carmen, with the picture of a sultry looking Latin woman, dressed in a lacy black dress, sporting a rouge flower in untamed hair, which became epitome of feminism and seduction.

Quiet often I would sneak in the bedroom of my parents, place a little round box made from the glossy creamy carton on my palm, pulled attached to the top silk tassel to open powdery fragrant box, then dipping my pinky and smearing the powder under my nose. It’s