Lecture delivered at the 18th Baltic Studies Conference of the American Association for Baltic Studies (AABS) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland on June 7, 2002

Aesthetics, Communication, & Culture IV: Traditionalizing in a Global World

by Aija Veldre Beldavs

I have been on the Latvian listserves for over three years and my interest in joking has been noted even to the point of jokes that could apply. The delfi site and „kokteilis" listserve had jokes about someone spamming the the net looking for her dog.

A user with the handle „lisa" asks in a delfi chat:

„I asked you yesterday if you by any chance were the lost dog of the Folklorist – Maniac."

Leaving for the conference the joke site ass.lv at the suggestion of "The One W/ Long Ears" had started a thread adapting old proverbs into new versions.

Citam bedri rok, pats iekriit -> Sev kalnu ber, cits uzlec

Dig a hole for someone and you fall in yourself -> Build yourself a hill and someone else jumps on it.

(Vents)

Keep silence like holding water in ones mouth. (=>) Jabber so fire is shooting from the rear.

Many jokes imply that change may be or has been for the worst. Or, as in the ass.lv joke site that a lot of shit is happening. One thread was converting traditional words to suuds (shit):

„The idea is this: let us take shit and replace a neutral world. The result – crappy, but it can be funny."

kameer visiem palika duushiigi ap suudu !

This is a pun on dūša (mood) and dūšīgs (mighty): Crappy mood – mighty turd. He, he. The effort took so long until everyone got brave about the shit.

No surprise, the world is undergoing change and Latvians feel it in terms of shock change as in ten years they have had to reorient themselves to clashes of East and West and confront the results of 50 years of Soviet occupation and sudden collapse. Of course, if we’re talking transformations it can go the other way: shit->something neutral or even good.

Latvians have historically exceled in double or multiple language ways of communicating.

Latvian humor has a long history both as a way of lightening and resolving social tensions within a close-knit extended household where people are highly dependent on one another and as a tradition of protest or subversion against the dominant authority or class, which was not ethnically Latvian. Many circumstances encouraged adeptness in the use of double or multiple meanings in a culture that traditionally uses indirect speech out of politeness, caution, and a long-standing enjoyment of prank and play. Prefered humor types suggest group interests, anxieties and stresses. Range is from attack mode aggression to gentle play and self-parody.

The tendency to ironize, satirize is historical as attested by German sources from the 17^th – 19^th century about peasant contexts of song rituals. All of language takes on an ever-present ironic possibility, a double meaning in a group that is oppressed, suppressed, or marginalized. It becomes a way of looking, a worldview. A Bakhtinian analysis of Latin American marginalization could just as well be applied to the history of the Baltic:

The repressive context generates an array of double-voiced, allegorical, and parodic strategies...a peculiar realm of irony where words and images are seldom taken at face value, whence the paradigmatic importance of parody and carnivalization as ‘ambivalent’ solutions within a situation of cultural asymmetry. (Stam: 123)

The art of the double voice is retained and deepened by the Soviet period. In addition to having in mind two different conflicting world-views, there is also actual or perceived danger in revealing oneself. Additionally, indirect speech is also seen as polite, rather than direct or plain. Finally, the ironic world view is internationally postmodern growing out of a sense of ambiguity, contradiciton, marginality, and uncertainty. The double entendre is only one example. Adeptness in the double voice can be often used to say two opposite things at the same time, leaving it as a Rorscharch for the receiver to interpret.

Last week there was a discussion on the Sveiks listserve if bumblebees bite or sting. Even though a picture was sent in of the stinger, and though it was also pointed out that bumbleebees also have mandibles to bite, the discussion was not just about entomology. The discussion continued to other hymenoptera, such as wasps, and the bee, which is of central metaphorical meaning in Baltic traditional mythology. My interest in net humor continues my Ph.D. dissertation work on Latvian ritual song warring, predominantly female in creation and performance and possibly related to bee mythology but going beyond intersex ludic flyting in terms of social importance. The net is a modern location for some of the same functions covered by the very ancient form of musical dialogic, except the aggression is not controlled by women, but is dominated by males. Of course the pioneering stage of the net has now opened to include many more of the cross-sections of the public.

Just before leaving I was involved in a „tuss" or internet party where the topic of sex and gender was metaphorically addressed, serving also as an example of both social drama and performance.

On my question about differences in crayfish hunting and fishing in Latvia among the responses (I didn’t bring up the original topic):

ramonz

Only pussies (lit. "milk boys" – pienapuikas) fish ("izvilkt," lit. "pull out" ). Real men bite to unconsciousness and buy the necessary bait in the fish pavilion :)

SWK, not a fishing fanatic

(Quoting)

Interesting, do you catch fish with your hands, or crayfish with a rod and reel?

2. Fishing – worms, earthworms, little fish

Crayfishing - skinned frog, rotting, neighbor’s Mincis (cat) or Rexis (dog) in the same condition.

Beard, catches crayfish by hand without bait

3. It’s harder to fish. Besides the many alcohol bottles one must take along fishing rods at least for appearance.

The answer if bumblebees bite or sting brought this response from the same group:

Biting is when one goes out with the guys (večiem) in the evening. Stinging is when one returns in the morning to one’s wife.

Running with the term „real men" of 2) was the response:

Real men throwing up crawl out of the tent.

Iisti viiri vemjot izraapo no telts.

In this presentation such questions arise as:

1. What kind of humor are we talking about? ("…what exactly is a dream and what exactly is a joke...," Syd Barett, last contribution to Pink Floyd, "Jugband Blues," in A Saucerful of Secrets album, 1968)."

2. How and to what degree do anecdotes, stories, and folklore in general testify as to the story tellers, the audience, and their concerns? The choice of jokes, especially in context, is used as one indicator to what is of concern.

3.What distinguishes humor on the Latvian internet from the net as a whole?

The Latvian internet is, not surprisingly, male dominated, young, technologically oriented. Females have emerged mostly in the last years. The moderator of ass.lv, a onetimes no holds barred experiment, is now a woman. Many female users, however, are most visible in flirts on delfi or chats, though there are female-oriented places on the net.

One invective heard on some of the more macho listserves graphically says a lot about overall preferences: laiz egli (lick a fir). It is a graphic sensorial example with multiple meanings. For one, it is curt and brief (in contrast to this presentation) :). It has a vulgar meaning but it is also imaginative. It is a philosophy: Experience, then you will know. And talk is not cheap for the dail-up user in a poor country.

Of the twin masks of tragedy and comedy, to me comedy ranges between two extreme types: light and dark. The light one is associated with free play and strange connections to the extreme of euphoria, the dark with aggression to the extreme of deadly sadism or suicidal masochism. Joking may be a way of distancing, an attempt to step back to a safer zone, perhaps an unwillingness to deal with issues, or, just the opposite, it may be used to solve problems and communicate in an efficient shorthand manner. Joking is a way of perceiving and communicating and is also a form of expressive culture.

Laughter involves pleasure centers, is relaxing, even euphoric. It functions to relieve and vent stress. Physiologically the threat and laughter reflex are close together, as in the nervous laugh, the release of tension at mock or terminated threat, the villain’s laugh, or that of guilty accomplices doing something that is normally socially wrong. Or a person may be in a light, happy, or silly mood.

In contrast to tragedy or melodrama, it is a way of dealing with tough emotions by taking a small step away, gaining space for respite or reflection, a holding stand.

Underlying the different types of humor is a sudden perception of incongruence which is also a perception of the strange and unfamiliar. Such perception may be on a very fine level requiring understandings of multiple domains. This encourages intellectual humor, not necessarily linguistic, in contrast to just the opposite crude slapstick, though both are often mixed together as in cartoons.

In the course of dialogue that appears to be casual bantering, what problems, cultural norms or social values are being renogiated, reclassified, or worked out may be only partially understood by outsiders, or not even be perceived. Outsiders who drop in may be considered lurkers, and if they attempt to join the conversation as stalkers.

In the mentioned "tuss" initial suspicion, tension, and hostility was turned into a play version or game when someone came up with the idea of a "senior party" whose indirect invitation I accepted by playing on the word "senior" typing that I didn’t consider myself a seniorita (Spanish young woman). One of the participants sent in a joke addressed to "Sintija Kipluka" playing the role of the celebrant of a nameday party to explicitly show how words were being used with double meaning:

:-) Andron Mc

At your age everything (everyone) is (has been) over (on top /of you/), no? :-)

The "tuss" was done partially ad hoc, partially with a conscious knowledge of my participation and ethnographic interest in the subject. The focus became a sharp-witted woman, active in delfi and other listserves, with the handle of "Medusbite" (Honeybee) taking on the whole listserve (which inescapably in the dominantly male group brought out allusions to group sex). Medusbite- OrganzA played the role of a party girl of legendary proportions.

Bite nevar saprast..kaapeec taadas intrigas..(kameer prom)?

I was in the meadows of Liepāja, treading foreign warport meadows...and seashore beach....he he

Bee unable to understand...why such intrigues... (while away)?

As in a cartoon that is watched by adults there was a strange mix of the offensive, vulgar, and crude with the ingenious, insightful, and relevant as to tough social issues. In one word play involving double entendres for "tree," "stump," and the like, the word for "pith" (serde) was introduced. The word for "heart" is etymologically related (sirds), so I typed in "ka tik nav serzhu lauziitaajas" (as long as they aren’t /lit./ pith smashers) which if the word for heart "sirzhu" had been used it could be translated as "heartbreakers"). There was an immediate response from a ZBH, "serde luuzt tikai cenu izdzirdot" (the pith breaks only hearing the price).

The virtual gathering being largely ad-hoc with users who didn’t know each other in person resulted in some remarks that everyone screws everyone and someone could get really screwed. Nasty clashes on the net happen. However, the rough humor does bring up a sensitive, emotional social problem characteristic of poor countries. Instead of regular jobs and families the young, including some of the best, may end up in exploitation ways of life. Since the language of the "tuss" was in insider idiomatic Latvian with some words in Russian, which I don’t understand, and with references requiring local knowledge I could often only guess. Part of the game was to ferret out information in the exchange through word play without asking threatening questions outright.

Internet humor is not only circulation of international jokes of the type "radioactive boy scout," a bizarre true incident that came up on international sites as well as American <http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html>. Each stable group on the net has its own artistic coded information based on assumptions of shared experience and language. It forms a virtual community and is an example of Dan Ben-Amos’s 1971 definition of „artistic process in small group situations" (Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context: 24), a way of communication. The listserve may have a running joke, such as the strange gunāriņš jokes on the autolistserve of "Jansons un gunāriņš” also teaming up with Puteklīc, and so on.

> ramonz

Hmmm…A sugarrooster in the guise of gunāriņš?:)))

>Phew…I would rather lick something else)) (in response to "lick a fir")

There are lots of math and science jokes, thus by Marholds in the nlo listserve:

_optisko asi_ ar spirtu :))

I really liked it that Repshe is getting ready to clean the telescope optical axis (asi) with alcohol.

labais :)

Some of the listservers have had army training experience and there are NATO proposals for Latvian unit specialization in sapper engineering. Thus, the sapper-type black humor about multiplying while dividing but the results not being viable or about sappers never joking twice, and that a sapper doesn’t fall far from the mine. In one post on the "nlo" listserve about strange phenomena, such as UFOs, a post was signed as "Micky, homo sapiers."

One of the Sveiks listserve participants Valdis stated his purpose for joking on the internet:

"Since I belong to one of those who enjoy using the goal-oriented aspect of humor, I would like to add there are a few other things, which make this expressive form useful. A joke is laconic. Because it usually has a deeper undertone, it allows one to say a lot in a few words as well as quickly evaluate if those involved in the joking have a similar perception and compatible thinking speed. In groups where these are compatible, sometimes fairly complex problems may be solved in a half-serious tone, saying laconically, but understanding in half-words while retaining a brisk state of mind. If there isn’t such a common perception, joking and teasing is bothersome and doesn’t happen a lot."

In the museum there is a picture. Title: Rear end, view from the front…

Experience indicates that in every case someone else dies.

Witticisms emphasize understanding and misunderstanding and therefore mark those who will be able to work together and undersand each other. As "rumpis" stated: "Draugs ir nevis tas, kursh piedzirda, bet gan tas, kursh salaapa ;-))" (A friend is not the one who gives you drinks, but who patches you up.) So joking is largely among those who share commonality of language and attitude. The butt of a joke, however, is often an outsider. Humor often bonds in-groups at the expense of outsiders and can be used to express identity. It acts as a cooperative bonding mechanism to confront a hostile, competitive world as seen in modern games theory or sociobiological selective terms.

Context usually determines the interpretation. The very same hostile joke told a friend in mock agression is a sign of trust and friendship. Directed at an outsider it is real aggression, perhaps a warning bark that if this person doesn’t back-off, worse will follow.

A newbie may receive mixed signals because members of a listserve may differ as to readiness to accept the newcomer or reject him as an interloper. Also, he may have to undergo a trial or testing period, or hazing initiation which tests his interest, character, and intellect compatibility with the group. The outcry of "spam" is less directed as mass mailings, as what is considered off topic, wordy, or unclear. Under the subject "Latvian singers":

slavenais latvieshu estraades maakslinieks Harijs Spamovskis!!! (Kaamis)

famous Latvian variety artist Harijs Spamovskis!!! (word play modification of real musician)

Studies of archaic humor as in ritual insult, curse, invective, boast, abuse or satire emphasize the connection of humor to aggression as did Freud. Heroic flyting or contesting ritually preps participants for actual combat. Alfred Kurlents draws on the work of A.M. Astakhova to show how a bylina functions to arouse hate, disgust, and contempt towards the enemy and neutralizes his power verbally. Examples of joking with cruel or malicious intent persist with the justification of "I’m just having fun." The heroine’s retort to this in the movie "Thelma and Louise" before blowing away the would-be rapist of her friend is"but she wasn’t having fun."

Additionally, the non-normative or unclear can be expressed through joking, partially escaping consequences and responsibility because it is supposed to be a joke and if the butt becomes offended, he displays weakness and the ability to be wounded. That allows one to propose what would be inappropriate otherwise, or to withdraw a sensitive probe.

Shaming and public ridicule is also the most common form of pre-legal social control in traditional societies. Shame can be used as a powerful offensive and coercive weapon, means of punishment, and a way of keeping users in line. At the extreme the technique is to target what is most vulnerable about the opponent and try to make him feel inadequate to the point of character assassination. The person may be shamed into slinking off and internalizing accompanied with such terms as "looser" (luuzers, lohs). In a real no holds attack a person’s looks, skills, language, and good character are graphically and viciously attacked with obscenities and curses. "Making fun of someone" is dark, sadistic humor, but real hostilities flash and burn out in fight or flame, or flight takes place. The more long-term, the more likely it is mock aggression (or perhaps a S/M activity).

„Before sinking the captain shouts: Is there anyone on our ship who knows how to pray fervently and has strong faith? A young man steps forward, ‘Yes, I am a priest.’ The captain grins, „That is really good luck because we’re short one lifesaver."

All humor is not aggressive and all aggression is not intentional. Some, the light variety, is connected to free play. It includes word play, as pre-learning and exercising. Play and laughter are basic and nonreducible, not necessarily linguistic. There is pranking or pre-linguistic signaling joking – playing with keyboard strokes or sending strange sounds. Some are ways of testing and elucidating information similar to children tearing off the legs of insects. Pranks range from mild tweaks and taps to the vicious and malicious or revenge. Paint remover on a new car is one example of getting even.

Although play is involved in gaming, gaming is not free play. Play is open in its goal and process, while games are goal-oriented and rule-oriented.

Most contest and combative genres are games, substitutes for combat, or play forms of aggression. As black American „playing of the dozens," originally by street gangs, illustrates, many games fuctioned as training for success in a hostile environment. The idea is to stay cool, but sometimes the game dissolves into actual fighting.

Humor may be a display of virtuosity and public excellence. As such, it may be involved in establishing dominance. Walter Ong argued for verbal duel in terms of "psychosocial basis: argument as focal in male sexual identity, interiorization of conflict and displacement of overtly polemical displays in recent Western tradition" (Ong, 1981: 5)

Thus, humor includes a number of polarities: heavy aggression vs lighthearted bantering or undirected play, a testing of compatibility or just plain fun, social control vs. opening and clearing space through a release or breaking of tension, the laughter of empathy and sadistic laughter at the misfortunes of outsiders, or a generalized type of interaction among those in a close-knit group with shared understandings at the expense of outsiders vs simply a way of sufficiently distancing oneself from harsh reality that one can go on and continue working.

Insider – auslander Latvian friction can be observed in the Sveiks listserve, which attracts the largest variety of different viewpoints, many of the others having insignificant auslander participation.

Not surprisingly competitive play is male-dominated. Parks states that in displays of aggressive self-worth females are discouraged or barred from participating: In heroic narrative generally, men seem to have tried to exclude women from the category of potential ‘heroic adversaries,’(with) all the connotations of projected physical assault, posited comparability in mode of combat and admissible measures of heroic self-worth...(Parks, 179)

(Never contest with a pig. In wallowing you’ll both become muddied and the pig will enjoy it.)

Parks suggests that when women attempt to participate, if they are seen as available and desirable they may either be pushed into ludic flyting intergender teasing games when seen as available and desirable, or outright insulted and harrased as unwelcome rather than be admitted as serious contenders in already claimed territory. The Latvian case is being negotiated, but poverty, serious illness, alcoholism, corruption, vice, ethnic adjustment and the like overshadow gender issues, which are seen as part of the whole package of shock level change. On the delfi chats women do speak out, not only flirt. One Sise posted a number of gender jokes with the remark:

Interesting, how reading internet humor "pages" there is a huge pile of jokes about women, mother-in-laws etc. Bet as soon as anyone jokes about the guys, the words "feministes" and "bluestockings," and "asking for it" floats up and goes into action. Well….LADIES!!!! SARAUJ!! (lit. "pull together" – cheer in hockey games)

Interesanti, ka lasot internetaa humora "lapinjas" liela kaudze ir ar
jocinjiem par sievieteem, sievasmaateem utt. Bet, liidz ko kaads pajaoko par
vechiem, taa komentaaros uzpeld vaardi - "feministes uzdarbojas",
"zilzekjes",
"neapmierinaataas" utml.:))))
Nu ko... DAAMAS!!!! SARAUJ!!

On technical boards some responses to newbie females may appear sexist when in fact they are probably more in line with RFM type, thus perhaps illustrating the opposite, no concessions because of sex. One female Erika on the "technika" listserve (2/15/02) got a bit of hazing that the most common problem is between the keyboard and the chair from one of the techie gurus on her frustrations with an old-fashioned modem: "Maybe you’ve found the directions such as "Let’s plug it in, and Windows gona say, I see you baby…Ooops…"?;). Followed by "Look at a Chinese porno film with sado-masochistic elements and try it out for yourself." When Erika didn’t take this, but accused him of spaming to cover up not knowing and closed with, "Cut out the wasted traffic," she did get responses that tried to help.

What is Latvian involves an understanding of history as well as the changes that have happened as well as what trends have been long-term. The singing contests are remarkable as an unusual example in world musical ethnography where women dominated as creators and performers in important public performances not limited solely to ludic flyting or flirting between the sexes, but involved in important social negotiations. . This tradition is one that can inspire modern women in an appreciation of the quick wit response as a demonstration of intelligence, something that in some cultures is considered a male privilege.

Post-Communist re-definition and re-negotiation of identities and values sometimes is expressed in terms of opposition between East and West where the outsider Latvians may be placed in roles advocating Western views as one extreme opposed to a Russian or Eastern orientation as the other extreme. The westerner Latvian may indeed have to confront the reality that views he holds to be self-evident, such as humanism, open expression, and Jeffersonian democracy are questioned and opposed by more authoritarian views. While the majority sees integration into Europe as inevitable or the lesser of evils, there is also a significant backlash fear of loss of national identity whose tensions explode in such expressive forms as those of humor.

On a miniscale on Latvian listserves East and West clash sometimes as irresolvable separates, and at other times take on the forms of strange combinations. Since many Latvians are conversant with both Russian and English, the access tends to be direct in the original language, rather than translated and therefore interpreted into Latvian. They can be surprisingly familiar with western pop culture. The eastern or rather Russian culture seems to include heavy doses of anti-proactive fatalism, a sense that forces, cosmic or simply international, are so powerful that it is better to wait and not show your hand. The game of life is for real, but there isn’t that much that one can do about it.

During one such round between insiders and auslanders, which was started by the introduction of the topic disillusioned repatriation and rose to flaming, I got this anecdote from an insider Latvian in private mail:

President Carter invites Brezhnjev for a visit (I think they were in office at the same time, but it doesn’t matter). A part of the agenda is to visit an amusement park. Brezhnev is brought into a large room, suddently the windows and door are shut, the light goes out, and all hell breaks loose – gunshots, bullets whistling, something breaking, of course everyone terrified hits the floor covering their ears. After a while, silence, and in one corner a little sign lights up – „This is an American joke – exit on the left." The reverse happens upon a return visit by Carter to Russia, except that the little sign lights up, "This is a joke Russian style, "No Exit."

The note attached to the joke is „It’s an old anecdote, from my school years. It illustrates (in retrospect) the difference in perception on both sides of the pond. Americans really believe that by threats (well, pull out the gun, wave it around) and the opponent will retreat."

The joke was followed by a video about a bull who in hippie style has a wordy monologue about bovine exploitation, protesting that the milk of his wives is supposed to be for the calves. At the end of his rant, he is knocked on the head and a price/lb for beef is displayed. This coincides with the no-nonsense pragmatism of many Latvians who have little tolerance for talk if it doesn’t lead to fairly immediate practical gains.

The new rage among Eastern European Gen Xers, including Latvians is a Russian cartoon on Mult.ru about Masyanya, which the Yahoo print version magazine (June 2002: 17) describes as "about a swearing, smoking, drinking, and drugging (Russian) party girl…a little bit Beavis, a little bit Dilbert." The series confronts a world where one can not escape corruption, government inefficiency, crime, and poverty. There is a characteristic laugh that emerges in different clips.

The laugh takes on symbolic overtones in one episode where the guys are playing cards, talking, laughing, and ignoring Masyana. At one point she does something strange, which surprises them so they stop. But recovery is also quick and the clip ends as it began.

In another episode Masyana’s friend has dragged home some character she picked up in a bar who wasn’t paying for his drinks and the police stop him, but he manages to get out of it, ironically because he is totally loaded. The two girls chase him and lock him in the bathroom while Masyana calls up her friends to cuss them out about him getting drugged with who knows what. They end up deciding that the authorities aren’t going to be of any help and tie him up until whatever wears off.

The informant felt a westerner couldn’t relate to the joke because it is related to the context of everyday life that people in Latvia, as in Eastern Europe, experience on a daily level.

Linda R. on the oho.lv joke list has a different take and example but perhaps a similar:

Peter throws a rock at John. Peter’s mom runs in scolding, "Why did you throw a rock at John?" "He threw first." "But you could have called me." "Oh, what’s the point. You wouldn’t have nailed him anyway."

In another episode Masyanya is depressed about life in general and her friends discuss what to do about it. One sticks his head in the door and ends up ducking out the door. Sitting by the door they see that she is leaving with her bike and concerned they catch a taxi to the seashore. Will she drown herself? No she has done this a hundred times and this time is sitting on a rock singing, so all will be well. Again the emblematic laugh. Masyanya realizes she can’t even sing a sad song and her depression dissolves into a laugh.

I asked what happens to the party girl at the end of the party, noting the Masyana episode that ends with lyrics in English „when the party is over." Medusbite presented a brave show of appearing at a farewell party in a sheer see-through dress, then lying in the coffin in red satin with flowers. The džeki (guys) wouldn’t let it go out like that. The topic ended with jokes about real-life street crime and body bags.

ZBH

Big thick celophane bag?

a’ la HoneyBaglady

In other words, don’t play around, jokes are taken seriously here. The game of life offers less time for just playing. Playing is for real. In terms of Maslow’s hierarchy, life is for many on a more 3rd world basic level is to the practical, material, unsentimental. On the Sveiks listserve pulling out French WWI army triage medical ethics, which divides who can be saved, who may be saved under certain conditions, and those on whom no help should be wasted was stoically accepted without real humanistic opposition. Evolution doesn’t take prisoners. Not humanism, but a „warrior ethic" as to those who fail and loose. Those who indulge in western type of feelings may get complaints of self-indulgence or patsy from the warriors. I was told "friends are not for dumping on (your problems)."

The warrior ethic coincides with the party girl ethic. If everyone is trying to nail everyone else, enjoy the party or the game while possible. Assessment of a person is in terms of fairly immediate pay-off, tangible assets – money, sex-appeal, political influence rather than long-term potential. At the extreme these are gangster values, powerful, rich men with trophy model girlfriends. Older, foreign, rich males getting together with the local young and beautiful females, opportunism often worked with cynicism both ways. Even influential women with money are not ignored, so where is the sexism there? Needless to say, in a country with one of the lowest birth rates in the world, if women are discarded or fend for themselves by choice or without choice, that is not going to help the birth rate. Thus the considerable hostility to what is perceived and labeled as feminism because it is not seen as broadening opportunities for more women, but as promoting women’s independence apart from families. The double standard and subordination of women may be seen as an acceptable cost for family stability, and in times of pressure, poverty, and danger conservative attitudes dominate.

Insider jokes can only be told by insiders, and an outsider attempting to tell them is likely to be considered offensive. Insider Latvians are very sensitive to outsiders pushing them around. It becomes all the more painful when this role is seen to be taken on by one of ours but not ours, not a real Latvian because he doesn’t live here and understand from experience.

And yet, in spite of real anger, real aggression, it is balanced by real helpfulness. With all the double language, there is a realness and honesty that also is there.

My last words typed in the party were a promise to share the AABS paper:

> aija

"i can give it a shot beginning next week"

I got an immediate response playing on the double meaning of "iemest" being a term for drinking booze:

Labaak nemet, nodzersies. (tec)

As you start Monday, so the whole week will go...

Better not a shot, you’ll get drunk.

(Vēres skat. WORD97 versijā!)