A PECULIAR LETTER TO MBARURIAN EMBASSY IN BULGARIA (comical proof that the democratic authorities don't give a damn about the customers)      [ Remark: Despite the funny and invented name of a country this Letter was really sent to one Embassy in my country about some insignificant small plea, but their total ignoring me is quite significant for the majority of our worldwide democratic habits in the era of Internet and emails, so important that I have spent a pair of days more in anonymizing it and inventing a heap of names and new style of verses, and even writing in this style a funny verse. I have made all anonymous in order not to expose the real country (and because it could have been any other in its place, I suppose), but the situation is so funny (and my Letter, too), so that I can't leave it to perish in my archives and feel simply obliged to make it known to the public. I have to add also that where I have changed something from the original Letter I give some short explanations in such square brackets. ]      ---       embassy.sofia@foreign.mba , office.sofia@foreign.mba , copy to cucemba.sofia@foreign.mba      Subject [in Mbarurian]: the use of books from your library to cucemba      [Also in Mbarurian] Excuse me for my writing in English, but this is the language that I know better (if I don't count my Bulgarian). And excuse me one more time for disturbing directly the Ambassador, yet I have not succeeded to find the address of your Cultural Attache, if you have one. The question is not important for your part and concerns the work of your Cultural Center of Mbaruruland (CuCeMba), and in particular the taking of books for home reading from your library. On the other hand, the question is expressed in quite comical way, so that I hope not to disturb you much, but mainly to pull you for a bit away from your serious work.      Chris Myrski -- -- -- -- --           To Mbarurian Ambassador in Bulgaria, Mr. Tumbeto Abibi      Honorable Ambassador,      This is a question for your Cultural Attache, yet I have not succeeded to find an email of such person, if you have one, so that I am writing directly to you. Still, I hope you will not lose your appetite with this funny plea of mine, but will rather have reasons for some refreshing laughs over the state of (some of) Bulgarian intellectual, if not exactly elite, then at least representatives.      Now to the point. It goes about the rules for taking books from your library to the Cultural Center of Mbaruruland (CuCeMba). The reasons for my resentment (if it can be called so, because I have NO real reasons to object to them) are that there are two different positions expressed from two of your staff members, which called to my mind the well known model of behaviour from our proverb (maybe there is a similar one in Mbarurian) that "the king allows, yet not the warden" (царя дава, пъдаря не дава). As far as this is a relatively often met situation I have long ago come to the conclusion that both parts are in some extent right, but this, still, sounds funny, and the most reasonable way of behavior for the subject is to inform the "king" for the actions of the "warden", for the simple reason that the most necessary help that can be given to higher placed persons is to feed them with some feedbacks from the down-placed masses (because this information, that they receive via the official canals, quite often, is not reliable). I mean that, really, I am interested in solving of my case how I want, but I will be probably equally glad to receive your negative answer; the only thing that will give not big pleasure to me is to be ignored by you, and with this purpose in mind I use some humor to placate you a bit and make you to say "yes" or "no", but not to abstain.      So let me call the "warden" here bojoto nohapito (BN for short [what in Mbarurian means unhappy little boy]), who is an young boy (well, about 20-some, but from the standpoint of my nearly 70 years everybody younger than 50 is young) and looks always unhappy (probably because seems to be "the ninth hole of the pipe" -- ha, ha --, as we say, and he has a strong wish to make faster career), and who says that there can be taken only up to 2 books and for not longer than 1 month; some exceptions can be made but once, not always. And let me repeat that I can't object against these rules, if they are those that are given to your staff members, because they are pretty liberal, the term for keeping of books is usually 20 days, in some places even 14, and there can be also some fines for delaying, and some taxes for using of the library, and rarely is allowed to take more than 3 books; to say nothing about the fact that this is official library to the Embassy and everybody have to feel pleased to be allowed to have access to it. Yet at the same time there is one more of your staff members, this time I will call her shushoo memasho (SM for short [what in Mbarurian means sugary mademoiselle]), who is sugary, I don't exaggerate here, and looks about 30-some, who has said to me, and this several times (I have written even emails ones or twice to ask whether I can keep books for such long time), that I can keep the books for up to 3 months, where I have kept them usually for 2 months and a pair of days, and as to the number of book she has said usually also 2, but has not shown displeasure if I take by 4 books.      And, as you can well see, there is a difference between 2 and 4 books, and especially between 1 and 3 months, and I will explain you now why this is of such importance for me, to make me write an email to the very Ambassador. So, you see, I simply can't allow myself to use city transport for this occasion, because I am a pensioner and receive only about ... 3 bus tickets per day for all expenses, and come by my own two feet from about New Suburb - 2, what has to be a distance of 6-7 km, for I walk for 1.5 hours in one direction only; and this is not only big load for my years but it takes more than half a day, rather a whole day (and I have now no more time -- I work, ha, ha, for the posterity). I have explained this to the BN and to the SM and their reactions were like I said (and I fixed this in their names). The reason why I have such funny low pension, is that I have studied too much for our botched transitional period (that has still not ended), and not worked for more than a quarter of a century. In this way, stressed that you are right even in the worst for me scenario if the BN is right, I have no other choice as to stop using your library, at least for some years (one never knows what the future will bring), or to beg you to grant me some special rights as reader!      OK, now about the reasons why I am bold enough to beg you for such drastic exceptions (I will explain them very soon) from the other readers, which can be called VIP user, or Honored user, or with Exclusive rights, or the like, where, if you want, you can make them standard and apply also to other, similar or not, but by your choice, persons. Id est, this has to be some nominative scheme that will be granted personally, and for me life-long, as far as my identity documents last until I am alive; I may be the first such person but the way will be already paved for others. The simplest reason is that I am, I suppose, the oldest of your readers, on 68 [then], and you must have not so many readers -- I suppose about 50 and no more than a 100. The other reason is that I am, probably, with higher educational level, I have, as I put it, 2.5 tertiary educations, received in 3 different countries, and know 3.5 foreign languages (except Bulgarian, and the half is the Mbarurian). I am also, this surely, yet I can not put "the hand in the fire", the poorly living with this pension of 170. lv monthly ([85 Euro then] what is much better than before, when I received officially nothing, at least for the last 10 years and lived alone).      Yet there are more serious reasons, although I will not give you proofs for them, which put me in the category of "men of the pen", intellectuals, writers. I don't want to give you proofs for this because I work entirely anonymous, what allows me to be a fair critic of our, Bulgarian, yet in some cases also generally human, behaviour, and I am not published in Bulgaria, I am, so to say Internet emigrant, where I have, counted as titles, about 50 books, counted as ebooks about 100, and counted by chapters a bit up 200, and this excluding my verses (which in Bulgarian exceed 10,000 lines), and this in 3 languages. So this about my major pseudonym, but there is also other my recent pseudonym, under which I have just a pair of papers, yet in 4 languages, and intend to add a pair of things more, where in one of the materials I have examples for translation of verses from Mbarurian (say, from Dinbone Basooki's children book "La famsa spedita fru le baeri en Lagono" in English [where the name of the book means "The famous expedition of the bears to the lake Lagono, in western Mbaruruland"]), also of verses and acrostics in Russian and Bulgarian; this name I also will not reveal, but, as an exception, I can tell it to you personally, if you show a desire for this (i.e., to give you an address of, even Mbarurian, site, where you can find me). More than this, because just in the moment I am writing one book with, like I call them, Arubets (but don't know whether I have coined properly this name) as the style of verses of the famous Mbarurian 15th century Duba Aruba, the so called threebunets, this time in Bulgarian, and I will not publish it for some time, an year or two, and I give no titles here, so I will attach at the end the 13th of my threebunets (in Bulgarian [it was so originally, but I translated it with much efforts in English for my readers, who are supposed not to know Mbarurian]); if you occasionally like it, I can send you one more if you choose a number from 1 to 51 (because this is the number for the verses in the book, which I have written till the moment). Yet mark, please, that I am NOT some officially recognized Bulgarian intellectual, I am rather democratic dissident, so that if you are interested in maintaining good relations with our authorities you must be warned that I don't maintain good ones in my turn with them.      And what are the chief special or VIP requirements that I want for using of your library granted to me personally, Chris Myrski, EGN 5005xxxxxx [this is our unique security number, not given entirely]? Well, to be allowed to take up to 4 book (even 5 if you like so) and to keep them for up to 3 months, this is all. Else I will stop, as said, to use the services of your CuCeMba for some years. But this being personal I must have some written document, a letter, signed by you, that I am allowed to this, and have a copy of it, life-long, for me to be able to confirm this always (the easiest way is to receive it at CuCeMba the next time when I come to you), and receive an email from this BN that he accepts these special rules for me (not that he was wrong, no, he is quite right to want to make career). Ah, but if you establish special rules for a group of people, then can be said that the books are 5, and that such people can take also up to 3 books with aboriginal paintings yet for up to 7 or 10 days. If you decide to show even bigger than this fair will you may include also offering a coffee (yet without cognac, I suppose), or some nice bonbons, or to give the staff orders to try to keep nice small talk with such eminent readers (as to: how you like the weather today, or have you had nice sleep today, or what are your further creative plans, or the like). (Or you may also allow using of your ... toilet premises, what can sometimes be of real necessity for me).      So that's it. If I have bored you much I even beg you to say no to this my blabber, because I need you chiefly as incentive in my works (like this try in Basooki's verses, or the idea about Duba-Aruba-style threebunets, and others). But when I have much "incentives" I simply come in Zeitnot, I have no time to fulfill them, I have already plans for 5 years ahead (and nobody to help me). And if I so much need more inspirations I can as well use the Internet, surely, so that I can do without library, if need be. Ah, and I can help you sometimes, if you ask me, to explain some of your, Mbarurian, words, providing you with unquestionably unique explanations about the hidden meanings of words or roots. Like what? Well, like, say, why you call your mother mema, or the feminine breasts buba [and here I was bound to change the examples in order not to unmask the country]? Or also what is the idea behind the English "job"? I am sure that you will not guess, but I will, still, postpone the explanation after the 13th Arubet, so that you can give it a thought.           No 13      I like to watch at your behind,      Because for me it is as if some kind      Of aphrodisiac, that catches all my mind.      Your naked back is just a piece of art,      To which I like to sing songs, being bard.      And I mean, surely, your precious bottom,      That hits me directly at prick and scrotum,      Because it is a fundament for me      For woman's uteral anatomy.      So that when you are even dressed and simply walk,      Your bottom pulls like magnet at my cock,      And I am then your faithful dog.      OK, and the 'mema', surely, is built around the syllable 'am- /ma' which is imitational word and is spread in all Indo-European languages, and which combines the sucking sound 'am-' with the crying sound 'ma'. You can alone take examples in every language, also in those of some Eskimo people, and I have found the only exception in the Japanese, where this word was ... 'haha', while the polite word is something saint, built with adding of -san. Then the 'buba'-breast [my clear invention, I confess] is built also as some imitation of something big, swelled, decaying, like in the Arabic 'boza' (known throughout the Asian south). And as to the English "job" can be cited the Arabic 'dzhebah' or 'dzhaib' (known in Bulgarian exactly like 'dzhob', and meaning just a pocket, so that this is some niche, where one can exist or find something useful for him.      Excuse me for the bothering and I will wait for an answer till about DD MMM, else have to come to return the books for last time a pair of days after this time.      Chris Myrski / chris_myrski@yahoo.com /      ?? MMM 201x -- -- -- -- --      [Now, I suppose that you see, that every more or less polite person would have said something, at least "Sorry, but we can't make exceptions". What leads me to the conclusion that this is a nice example for the, let me call it so, common civil barbarity! This might be, most probably done by our Bulgarian staff there (like in every embassy), but this may be the usual habit of those Mbarurian people, no matter who they are. And let me repeat that they will surely lose nothing satisfying my bizarre wishes, because I really walked one and a half hours on feet in one only direction, in summer or winter, such efforts have just to be honoured. To say nothing about the whole lack of commiseration with my hard living conditions, but trying to give something to the people, be it serious, be it popular, be it funny, or some combination of these things. However it is, I don't intend to walk anymore to CuCeMba, not me. Everything is all tight, if we don't count the barbarity. ]