The ratings are conducted on 0-777 scale. The 0 is zero, nothing,
primordial filth. In other words, 99% of all extant writing.
The 1 is writing with presence, attempts at presence, or
attempts at attempts at presence. The 0.9% of the last
percent: graphomaniacs, obsessive-compulsive legalese
instruction writers, schizophrenics. Poesie concrete.
The 2 is writing with presence fading in and out,
literary ambitions squeezing blood from limp penises
and dry vaginas. Lermontovs and Brodskies of the world, mummified
genitals in hands, outstretched, pecked on by the
hungry sparrows of Nikolaj Tryapkin. The rest is Cabbalist
numbers: the crystal 777, the icy world of Gumilev and
Mandelshtam, the brilliant-blue 93, the plane of Pushkin's
Songs of Western Slavs... The twinkling 111 --
old Jason sleeping under the hull of Argot,
rickety barges of Andrey Belyj drifting down the
slimy-yellow waters of Neva... The tropically
hot 23 and the dry exhaust fumes of truth --
666... The perfect 26 and the hideous 333.
Numbers are the crutch for infirm, the cradle for the
weak, and the last resort for the murdered.
Misha Verbitsky.