Topicresearch
50 entries, newest first.
Baikonur dawn notesAn early research tangent on Baikonur that never entered the manuscript, and why some unused hours still refuse to leave.Notebook on the Long TrainWriting in transit across a long rail stretch: the texture of research notes taken half on purpose, half because standing still had become impossible.Courtyard Bench, StanfordOn a research-adjacent return to the Symbolic Systems courtyard, and the gap between the student who sat there and the novelist who sits there now.A Name in the Declassified FileThe small, particular jolt of finding one real name that had only ever arrived secondhand, and what it costs to write near it.Almaty cafe cornerWorking through Kazakh-archive threads on Soviet computing history in an Almaty cafe, with mountain light on the table.Moldova, library deskAn afternoon at a library desk in Moldova, chasing one thread and pocketing scraps meant for other books.Cosmonautics museum pagesA research day at Moscow’s Museum of Cosmonautics: spacecraft models, borrowed light, and notes that feed the work sideways.The only ternary computer ever builtNotes on Setun, Brusentsov, Lebedev, and Ekaterina Shkabara, whose name recedes in the retelling.Console TimeAn afternoon at the console of a Soviet-era mainframe with the people who kept it alive: relay racks, magnetic drums, and the logic of three states.FeofanijaOn researching Kyiv’s Feofanija district as a frame setting, and why a live war can never be treated as scenery.Reading Toward a DistrictA paper map of Kyiv, a pencil arrow, and a phone call about which paths still exist.A diary in codeOn encoding a private diary in balanced ternary, the fictional device at the heart of the new book, and the real machine that made the idea feel possible: Setun.A third stateEarly research notes on a new novel about Soviet computing, balanced ternary logic, and why a third state beyond yes and no feels like the right shape for hidden lives.The Hill That BurnsYanar Dag at dusk: a slope that has been on fire longer than anyone's grandmother remembers, and a hand held to the planet's pilot light.ДС-158An abandoned asphalt plant with its type plate still legible: industrial ruins as regional literature.The Back Seat ArchiveLoose photocopies, one hard brake, and several hundred pages redistributed across a Niva footwell. Curb-side re-sorting with a tire iron for a paperweight.A Ledge in the SkeletonInside the unfinished blocks: concrete cells open to the weather, and a seat on the ledge of an apartment that never was.The Town From the RidgeAbove Engilchek with the D5 on the tripod: a tin town built for a mine that closed before it mattered.Gold on PaperThe day's yield on a creased sheet: a pinch of flakes, two hands steadying it, and the price of everything visible at once.The Ninja MinersArtisanal gold at the sluice: the informal economy in rubber boots, watched politely from the rim.The Dish at OrgovROT-54 at evening: a giant ear in a gorge, rust on the railings, and the reason this whole trip exists.Prayer Flags and YaksWhat high altitude does to a body and to attention, chased across the Tibetan plateau for a research thread I cannot yet name.The Door to HellA hunch-driven detour to Turkmenistan's burning crater, and what it taught me about writing an unexplained signal.The Long Way to the SourcesA coolant break on the Pamir Highway, an implausibly turquoise river, and what endurance is teaching this research.Small Plane InReaching a stretch of mountains no rental car would insure, on the way to remote fieldwork for the numbers-station book.The Cathedral That Never Went CriticalThe reactor hall of Project 816: twenty storeys of cavern, a pit that never held fuel, and the end of the road from the dance floor.The Gate in the MountainThe 816 portal: green gates open, a red star overhead, and a tunnel that swallows scale on the way in.The Shop Below the MountainBaitao: the town that was built for a secret, a village shop with festival stock, and neighbors of a hollow mountain.The Wheel at DazuThe Wheel of Rebirth in the sandstone at Baodingshan: all of existence in one carving, inspected before the reactor.Incense by QR CodeA monastery basin, one yuan by phone, and the oldest transaction on earth running on the newest rails.A Market of RésumésThe marriage market in People's Park: pink paper, hard numbers, parents as agents, and love as an archive.The Hotel Where They DancedThe Beijing Hotel by daylight: three buildings, one century, and a ballroom where the Chairman took his turns.Nights on 4625 kHzA shortwave receiver, headphones, a map of Russia on the table, and the buzz that never stops.The Questions the Exhibits Do Not AnswerA museum notebook full of orbital modules and life-support diagrams, and the gap where the bodies should be.Ships on Dry LandRusted fishing hulls on dry seabed, a vanished island, and the first notes toward a book that does not exist yet.Flashlight HoursFlashlight visits to abandoned sanatoria: the wards, the basements, and the paperwork nobody thought worth taking along.The Monument and the DogsThe liquidators' memorial with its permanent honor guard of strays, and feeding what the Zone left behind.The Trumpet AngelThe Third Angel of Chornobyl: a wormwood monument in welded steel, blowing its trumpet over the snow.The WindowsillSmall things left on a broken sill, the view through empty panes, and the Zone's genre of accidental still life.Hotel PolissyaThe tallest ruin on the square: the hotel that watched the evacuation, letters still on its roof.The Cot by the WindowA mesh-sided cot in the nursery light, and standing in the doorway rather than entering.The Doll and the PrimerA kindergarten bench, an open alphabet book, a doll someone posed years ago, and what to do with arranged grief.The Pool Called AzureLazurny: the swimming pool that outlived the town by a decade, its diving blocks waiting in the cold light.The Wheel That StoppedThe Pripyat ferris wheel under snow: an amusement park that never opened, and yellow the frost cannot mute.The Alley of Lost VillagesA snowy path lined with name signs, one for every village the Zone erased, and walking it to the end.Pripyat, 1970The town sign in the snow, the nuclear atom in concrete, and a city that got sixteen years.The Machine at the CheckpointDityatky checkpoint: a Soviet contamination monitor older than my mother, palms flat on the sensors.The Barrel KeepersAnniversary week on the Maidan: veterans rebuild the camp in miniature, and the fires in the barrels are lit again.The Square, LitMaidan at night from the upper terrace: the stella, the lights, and a square that is never only a square.KukuruznikA flight into Dnipro, a biplane older than my parents still earning its keep on a wet apron, and a borrowed headset that smelled of somebody else's work.