What is the meaning of meaning?

(The answers of the Vladimirs may be varied, imaginative, and occasionally indecipherable.)

POSSESSION

If the séance is going well, invite the ghost into your body. It will be akin to being a two-headed, one-manned proletariat. You will be tired people. It will be like being asleep and hating to sleep. Like trying to hear oneself snore loudly. When a little more time has passed, you will experience a wonderful futuristic mood. You will be born in a state longing for life.

WHAT NOT TO DO

Avoid Summoning Multiple Ghost Vladimirs, they will agree on nothing:

Vladimir #1: I remember like it was now.

Vladimir #2: No, it’s me who remembers like it was now!

Vladimir #3: You remember like it was now, but I remember like it was before.

Vladimir #4: But I remember before like it was now.

Vladimir #5: I remember how it was even before that, now!

Vladimir #6: There is no before now. I remember now!

AVOID SUMMONING TOO MANY LIVING VLADIMIRS

I’ll tell you what happened to me. Morning after the last séance, I woke to the chatter of four or five dozen living Vladimirs. Suits in the varied colors of smoke and leaves at the tail end of autumn, long hair, no hair, black, white, gray men, a few curious adolescent boys and even a plump potato-skinned babushka and her granddaughter namesake: the Vladimiras, named after the grandmother’s father who was there as well encased in the small tinfoil frame the old woman carried. Yes, I told her, you may sit for a portrait, and later I drew her holding her father’s picture to her chest like a certificate of birth. I began with a vine charcoal and thought for a moment it should remain in that medium: a series of smudged lines symbolizing Babushka-Vladimira’s mortality—a contradiction in image given her girth, her husky gypsy voice. One of the veteran Vladimirs waiting outside my studio heard her chuckle and swore I was in the company of a chain-smoking soldier newly returned from war. He stepped into the room looking for the source of the laughter. Embarrassed, he later told me how many friends he’d lost to war. I painted him in green and blue brushstrokes, focusing primarily on how intently he focused on the floor. I finished two or three portraits an hour for eight or nine hours straight that day. To give everyone the same eye color, I mixed a shade akin to water when a fish flashes beneath it. You know how in love I am with the dead, but my goodness, when Vladimira, the granddaughter of Vladimira the babushka, settled before my easel, she emitted a strange heat that cannot be captured in paint. The portraits have all been destroyed. And truly, I prefer the company of ghosts—they take up much less space.

HOW TO END THE PARTY

If, for any reason, things start to get out of control, quickly beg the spirit to go in peace, then break the circle of hands, extinguish the candles, and turn on the lights. As the sun rises, there is a chance you’ll find a Vladimir huddled in the tub upstairs. His hands and feet may hang over the sides. Tragic people are theatrical. Theatrical people are tragic. You or one of your guests should declare, “I’m all even with life!” and you all should then abruptly head outdoors.