Another close call in Moscow

The architectural craziness of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square cannot be captured by simple photos, certainly not by my unskilled hand. There are unusual and hypnotic nuances that shadows bring that make the peculiar textured onion domes seem more than three-dimensional, as if they are dynamically changing before your eyes. At noon the cathedral looks entirely different than it does in the morning, or in the evening. To a person with normal color vision I'm sure the imagery is even more spectacular. The cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1534 to commemorate the slaughtering of the Tatars in the Russian city of Kazan (a city on my agenda, watch for the bouncing ball).

At ninety degrees from St. Basil's is Lenin's tomb, which I stood in line for, again, over an hour. I'm not really sure why I went again this year, perhaps to see if he was less waxy this time. The goons in the tomb were just as mean-looking as before, so I quickly donned my Mr. Stoneface mask as I sauntered in to take another looksee at the most celebrated of the mummified communists. (If anyone out there needs a good band name, there you go!)

Since I was playing tourist, I thought mayhaps I shall take in the famed Moscow Circus, not too far from where I'm staying. And as I waited in line to pay the entrance fee, a thought struck me like lightning, one so horrible that my throat ricocheted off my heart. How could I forget, that entity which is most unholy on earth, so wretched in its existence that even children have the good sense to quiver in horror. And after somnambulating through the streets and subways of a 9 million strong city of crazy people, after having a rohypnol vacation in Muscovian shrubbery, I was about to inadvertantely subject myself to this?

CLOWNS!!!!

To that, I said nyet.