I am propagandizing the masses in support of cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).  A few bucks is all it will take for you to join the likes of Dr. Preobrazhensky (I hope you get this reference!) on the donor list to the left.

I was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago and am being treated at MSK. Everyone at the MSK hospitals in both New York and New Jersey, from the doctors to the doormen and every nurse in between, have been real Heroes of Labor. I thought I'd set up a page in case anyone might wish to help support their research, especially their clinical trials (I almost participated in one myself!).

The good news is that I'm now qualified to teach a master class on Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward (which is a terrific novel, by the way — read it!). 

If you wish to remain anonymous, why not flaunt your wit and erudition by choosing, as your alias, a figure from Russian literature, culture, or history to add to the donor list! I'm curious to learn who among our favorite personalities will choose to donate.  Are you an existentially oppressed patient, like Oleg Kostoglotov, from the aforementioned Solzhenitsyn novel? Are you one of the many caring doctors in Russian literature, like Dr. Ragin from Ward No. 6 (!) — or like Anton Chekhov himself? Or perhaps you're just a good humanitarian, distraught over human suffering — like Ivan Karamazov? 

, !
Mark Pettus