Deniskiny rasskazy

Ah, finally. The world lies in ruins, and the time has come to rebuild it. Of course, it would be much easier if the last survivors weren't complete dimwits.

When Nina asks Jenna to return the toboggan she loaned her, she gets stuck waiting with Jenna's weird brother, William. While Jenna tries to locate the elusive toboggan, Nina waits. And waits. She gets a full dose of William's world -- including his depressed mother, his odd golfing buddy (a novelist), his anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-work world view, and his unorthodox method of making a grilled cheese sandwich. Annoyed at first, Nina ultimately begins to soften toward him.

The comic-tragic story of the brothers Hula and Natan, two car mechanics from the outskirts of Sderot, a city in the south of Israel constantly bombed by rockets from Gaza. The two live in a caravan in the weedy yard that serves as their garage, surrounded by old jalopies and clunkers. While the situation between Israel and Gaza deteriorates, Hula and Natan's garage, their only source of income, is about to be closed down by the authorities. With a lot of grotesque humor, and under the continuing threat to their lives and work, the two try to survive, but sink deeper and deeper into the depths of fatalistic frustration.

Besides protection from bullets and schrapnel, a soldier's helmet has many other useful purposes on the war front. An American soldier who who served as a tank commander under General George Patton tells of everyday uses of his helmet.

Alexey Suhanok, a Belarusian stand up comedian, lives through the horror of a next-door war by making edgy jokes on the subject. Alas, this self-defense mechanism doesn't stop him from having a nervous breakdown of his own.