The Other V. Postrel Blog
My sister-in-law Pam found this mysterious blog by one "Vash Postrel." It's only mysterious, of course, because we don't read Russian. Writes Pam, "When I do a translation in Babelfish, turns out the name of the journal is 'Your Rogue' or 'Your Brat.'"
Fortunately, we know the Volokhs, who came from Ukraine a bit more recently than the Postrels, and between them pretty much know everything. Sasha explains (I've removed the Cyrillic):
The guy with the livejournal is called Vash postrel; that's not his name but a reference to a Russian expression, Nash postrel vezde pospel. Virginia, I may have told you about that expression a long, long time ago.
"Postrel" is indeed a slang word meaning "rogue" or "smart-aleck"; the verb "pospet'" (of which "pospel" is the past tense) means "to be done"/"to be ready" but also "to succeed" or "to be on top of things." ("Nash" means "our" and "Vash" means "your"; "vezde" means "everywhere.") So the expression means something like "Our smart-aleck is on top of everything" or "has succeeded in everything."
So the blogger is not a long-lost relative. Postrel means smart-aleck. Pretty funny.
Sasha provides a sample of the blog content:
On January 18th at 4:45 p.m., he says: Too bad they didn't give Javier Bardem the Golden Globe for Best Actor for The Sea Inside. The Oscar isn't looking too likely for him either, even not taking political correctness into account. He should already have gotten a prize for Before Night Falls. [Then a few sentences about the Aviator.] The American dream needs reanimation. Rise up from the ashes, Mr. Hughes. [Then complains how he hasn't seen half the Oscar-nominated movies. He chews out Russian movie renters and pirates a D for timeliness and himself for demanding good copies and not knowing English well.]
The December 24th entry is also about movies: He saw a Fassbinder retrospective, which was exhausting but worth it. Soon, he says, he'll start believing that Santa Claus is an active lesbian.
Another entry tells how he was taking a sleeping car to Moscow and a small child pointed out that his hair was messy.