Lokrum

Well, it's picnic day. Yes, it's getting away from it some.
Should you find me, I recommend a piece of lyrics from Imbruglia's Torn - God, that must have been some ten years back:

You're a little late
I'm already torn


So, no need for text or words today. Let nature (and the love shrills of peacocks) soothe.

Sign of the Times

I've always wanted to translate this poem by Krleza. Unfortunately, his rendering of the plight of poor peasants is in a Croatian dialect I do not fully understand. The bit is, however, telling:


It has never been that bad
That we haven't some luck had
So it will not always be
That through we won't somehow see
..

Quote of the Month

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)

The Serbian Film

Yes, I'm procrastinating - and watching films.
Did you know there's a whole genre called gore? Must say I was initially worried a bit - there's this film festival gone heavily commercial in Dubrovnik, and, a few years back, the arty screenings being half empty, the Hostel attracted a crowd. But it seems ever since the Chainsaw Massacre, there's a steady following, though I do not expect them to shake up the foundations of the civilisation.
I looked for critiques of the Serbian film and found a fitting one. The title is: "Can Baby Sacrifice be a Critique of Society?" Some emotions are generated though, I'll grant that, but a word for refinement here.
However, this is the second film from Serbia to deal with the horrible killings and rape on camera filmed for the enjoyment of supposed wealthy perverts. Makes you wonder whether there's something to that.

Incredible: Bauman, Eagleton, Negri, Spivak and Zizek in Zagreb!

Conference programme:

East-West. Welcome.

The fool thinks Americans have won the war. The perceptive sees they are merely wallowing.
The supreme irony of the Cold War is that neither society was sane. You would get misfits in both, dreaming of paradise across the ocean, only to discover known totalitarianism in USSR and, a bit less known, secret services and supreme ruthlessness in USA.
As any epoch, the time had its share of deluded, sacrificed individuals. But it is always about individuals, even if part of lubricated cog machinery. Step out.

Bora

It must be the years: I feel ever so tired. During one of the gay pride protests in Zagreb, one of participants was carrying a placard saying: "I'm sick of explaining". It's not just that you have to explain culture to economists, I tell you - most people, including me, are incorrigible. Ancient Greeks wondered why "those that engender seeds in the soul" do not opt for those old and ugly souls but supple boys instead. It's because the old are incorrigible. The young promise little.
Since I already started quoting Bora from Riblja Corba, it's time for another one of his catchy tunes, from his early phase - understandably, since he later went the national chauvinist way, as most around here. Just about the most laughable ones are the "converts": for example, Mr Bilandzic in Croatia went from a devout Communist to a devout Tudjman adherent. Anyway:

What beauty to be dumb
O, how beautiful to be dumb
The mob just might get on your nerve
Why not swallow what they serve
How beautiful it is to be dumb
..
Don't do politics
Sleep, work, quiet!, eat
And trust nobody
Sleep, rise, up, sit
..

What beauty to be dumb

O, how beautiful to be dumb

Forget the head, chew the hay

you're dumb, what's right wrong becomes one day

How beautiful it is to be dumb

Handel Away!

Not wanting to spoil the wedding, Libya is to UK, what Iraq is to USA?

Naivete

Okay, the last few posts sound bad. As I said, the trick is to write something each day. And yes, when I was 22 I did think they hire the best and wondered if I'm gonna shoot up to the mark and wanted to tell off the bad guys to the mayor, just like Bill Murray in Ember.
But now, at median 37, I believe you must be naive. The "you don't know how the world works" I find gruelling and mad. It's as if our look at the world should be slanted by 29 degrees if we are to retain an inkling of sanity. The way I see it, we're so well grafted we don't even know how to be fed properly.
Think about it - yup, now you begin to see.

Endless Scheming

Giving the issue further thought, thought I'd suggest that inter-national summits be purged of secret diplomacy. Not only does the practice allow for deception and intimidation, not only is it not safe, but is not particularly prudent either.
I say let's make it criminal. According to the plan, all transcripts would be public and any shady business heavily penalised by bans on political life and, yes, even imprisonment. The mob would do wise to throw in some shame as well.
What have we learned from WikiLeaks? I learnt something, obviously.

The Sex Student

Just saw the film on Kinsey and am now more convinced than ever the fundamental social division is the one between the adapted and the misfit, as ideal types of course.
Kinsey actually found out the same thing Freud did: it's the civilisation that brings discontent, and that we are are also conscious hypocrites in this case.
There's a darling scene, among all the attacks of prudes of this woman visiting him, he stating things had not improved much in society: "What are you talking about? Things are so much better now - it's because of you!"
There's good for every evil - would be the verdict of Croatian folk wisdom. This is why I insist on the division of conformity versus not. And it's pretty hard to be smart here, take anyone's word for it.
What is also interesting to note is the amount of sexual experimentation within Kinsey's team: Kinsey tries homosexuality, while other opt for adultery. It is impossible to keep the spirit contained once you start.
Perhaps the answer lies in the richness and fullness of life. I once read they did a survey in old people's home, finding out the greatest regrets are for the things not done. And the standard is an individual guess at best. Kinsey talks, much as Darwin, of "biological variety".

The Core (a-fitting-easter-post)

Nope, it's not about the film.
If I could boil down social evil to one single precept it would read as follows: "If you don't doublecross me and I don't doublecross you, we're fine".
Application: general
Derivations: endless, retaining the principle
Counterindications: daily misuse
Shelf-life: eternal

Musicals Lyrics (2): Old Friends

MARY
Here's to us —

FRANK
Who's like us?

CHARLEY
Damn few.

FRANK
Hey, old friend,
Are you okay, old friend?
What do you say, old friend,
Are we or are we unique?
Time goes by,
Everything else keeps changing.
You and I,
We get continued next week.

Most friends fade
Or they don't make the grade.
New one's are quickly made
And in a pinch, sure, they'll do.
But us, old friend,
What's to discuss, old friend?
Here's to us — who's like us?
Damn few!

CHARLEY
So, old friends,
Fill me in slow, old friends —
Start from hello, old friends,
I want the when, where and how.
Old friends do
Tend to become old habit —
Never knew
How much I missed you till now.

ALL THREE
Most friends fade
Or they don't make the grade.
New ones are quickly made,
Some of them worth something, too.
But us, old friends —
What's to discuss, old friends? —

FRANK
Tell you something:
Good friends point out your lies,
Whereas old friends live and let live.

MARY
Good friends like and advise,
Whereas old friends love and forgive.

FRANK
And old friends let you go your own way —

CHARLEY
Help you find your own way —

MARY
Let you off when you're wrong —

FRANK
If you're wrong —

CHARLEY
When you're wrong —

MARY
Right or wrong, the point is:
Old friends shouldn't care if you're wrong —

FRANK
Should, but not for too long —

CHARLEY
What's too long?

FRANK
If you're wrong —

CHARLEY
When you're wrong —

MARY
The thing is:
Old friends do leave their brands on you,
But old friends shouldn't compete.

FRANK
Old friends don't make demands on you —

CHARLEY
Should make demands on you —

FRANK
Well, don't make demands you can't meet.

CHARLEY
Well, what's the
Point of demands you can meet?

MARY
Well, there's a
Time for demands,
Whether you meet them or not …

(They squabble.)

ALL
Hey, old friends,
How do we stay old friends?
Who is to say, old friends,
How an old friendship survives?
One day chums
Having a laugh a minute,
One day comes
And they're a part of your lives.

New friends pour
Through the revolving door —
Maybe there's one that's more.
If you find one, that'll do.
But us, old friends,
What's to discuss, old friends?
Here's to us!
Who's like us?

Two old friends,
Fewer won't do, old friends —
Gotta have two old friends
Helping you balance along:
One upbraids you
For your faults and fancies,
One persuades you
That the other one's wrong.

Most friends fade
Or they don't make the grade.
New ones are quickly made,
Perfect as long as they're new.
But us, old friends,
What's to discuss, old friends?
Here's to us!
Who's like us?
Damn few!

Musicals Lyrics (1): The Story of Lucie and Jessie

Here's a little story that should make you cry,

About two unhappy dames.

Let us call them Lucy 'X' and Jessie 'Y',

Which are not their real names.

Now Lucy has the purity

Along with the unsurety

That comes with being only twenty-one.

Jessie has maturity

And plenty of security.

Whatever you can do with them she's done.

Given their advantages,

You may ask why

The two ladies have such grief

This is my belief,

In brief:

Lucy is juicy

But terribly drab.

Jessie is dressy

But cold as a slab.

Lucy wants to be dressy.

Jessie wants to be juicy.

Lucy wants to be Jessie

And Jessie Lucy.

You see, Jessie is racy

But hard as a rock.

Lucy is lacy

But dull as a smock.

Jessie wants to be lacy,

Lucy wants to be Jessie.

That's the sorrowful précis.

It's very messy.

Poor sad souls,

Itching to be switching roles.

Lucy wants to do what Jessie does,

Jessie want: to be what Lucy was.

CHORUS:

Now if you see Lucy 'X,'

Youthful, truthful Lucy 'X,'

Let her know she's better than she suspects.

Now if you see Jessie 'Y,'

Faded, jaded Jessie 'Y'

Tell her that she's sweller than apple pie.

Juicy Lucy.

Dressy Jessie.

Juicy Lucy,

Dressy Jessie...

PHYLLIS:

Lucy's a lassie

You pat on the head.

Jessie is classy

But virtually dead.

Lucy wants to be classy.

Jessie wants to be Lassie.

If Lucy and Jessie could only combine,

I could tell you someone

Who would finally feel just fine!

CHORUS:

Juicy Lucy...

PHYLLIS:

Just fine!

CHORUS:

Dressy Jessie...

PHYLLIS:

Just fine!

CHORUS:

Juicy Lucy...

PHYLLIS:

Just fine!

CHORUS:

Dressy Jessie...

ALL:

Tell 'em that they ought to get together quick,

'Cause getting it together is the whole trick!

PHYLLIS:

Yeah!

History Point

I'm pretty sure we bore the West with our "Balkan turmoil". Still.
The recent tribunal case clearly showed different vantage points to, well, anything. The weakling Croatian diplomacy alas never succeeded in portraying the war as an act of agression. First, to a westerner, all countries here are alike, exacerbated by the fact the war methods were sometimes identical, if not in scale.
And it is Dubrovnik in particular that these idiots could have used as proof: there had been no murky killings, Serbs constituted but some 4% of the total population, only to get organised and in a matter of a day collectively leave without warning to their neighbours - and watch the shelling from the other side.
True, things can be all things to all people. I recently talked to a Croatian-Serb mongrel that left for Milan, and I must say I understand.
However, what I dislike are people that fail to comprehend the larger picture, together with a few loose unresolved strands. Next they try something rationally, and end up with a conclusion Dubrovnik Serbs have right to their property. As you can imagine, this justly represents the red cloth being waved in front of Croatians.
If Slovenes and Croatians wanted to dismantle Yugoslavia, they were also actively pushed out by impossible solutions proposed by Milosevic, the original looney. My hero, James Baker, US Secretary, visited the guy only a day before the war started. Now, this is a transcript I'd truly care to see.
Yesterday's Guardian reads as follows: "After Obama had finished speaking, Logan Price, a member of the Bradley Manning Support Network, engaged the president for several minutes in debate over Manning's charges and the effect of WikiLeaks. "I can't conduct diplomacy on open source, that's not how the world works", Obama can be heard telling Price on video." Yes, this must be very safe for us.

"God, How I Interest Myself"

Sometimes I think, take the Balkans as an example, that people should just forget and focus on the here and now. But no, there's always an expert resuscitating something ancient.
This is where democracy is weakest. I say collective endeavours are a sham, marketing frenzy, and I say those exciting people should be beaten with a fat stick.
Why on Earth would I rally or invade when I can have coffee? The feeling of minding own business was summarised best by the Serbian rock band from 80s, Riblja Corba, in the song entitled All Quiet on the Western Front (itself an example of what I call forever translations: it's actually Nothing New in the West in German; it's the same in Croatian and Serbian).
Ergo, the songwriter just cites newspaper headlines, in an ingenious way plus rhyme, only to finish with the chorus of Nothing New. The end part contains the few lines that were actually suspicious for the Communist Party:

the great stubbornly toy with the small
ideals are the idiot's dole
and
factories pollute everything by
cretins turn to uprisings and die


Somebody should really render the whole thing into English. Figure, it could do wonders for the American scene.

Osmosis

A succint post: everybody knows the king could learn from the fool. Classical musicians bemoan lack of education and usually simultaneously have a sense of class, on the other hand, for instance.
Don't be you for a minute. Listen to what you are not.

E-Library (the Cross-Eyed Series)

Amazon announced the other day it would enter the e-library race with its Kindle. As in practically any area, Croatia is shamefully lagging behind.
So I checked out the Toronto public library offer - they are virtually killing themselves to be of some use. Moreover, the library is free for anybody from Toronto.
The local idiots, as I sometimes like to refer to lazy and undereducated officials that have a passion for stamping things and explaining the list of what cannot be done, are, I truly think, not even aware of the issue.
As we are, as always, "busy" at this time of year "preparing" for the high tourist season, I predict the major attraction will soon be seeing ourselves, trying to bellow what the world and God have against us. Aargh!

A Quick Summary

Crime and Sloth

Well, today's production of news has started with a robbery in downtown Zagreb. They apparently robbed a goldsmith, injured a man and tied up a pregnant woman. Nothing seems more or less exciting than this, depending on your soul type. But let's examine this a bit further.
For my foreign audience, crime was tenfold less present in Croatia during the previous regime. I don't think it is useful to consider these people as outcasts and wonder at the anomaly. Rather, they are a symptom of society. The what surfaces.
It is quite easy not to understand people, but as many novelists testify - their aim is to bring different people closer to you - to try to understand them.
And what can one say of the British style "journalist" craze: a layer of Libya, a layer of anonimous and horrid strangler cases? It would seem cultural studies, a study of popular culture, a British invention itself, like anything else, is a half-mistake: or simply a waste of time.

The Change Has Come

The Straight Jacket

Took a day off from the town and cooking; went to this rural place up the Dubrovnik hill where they plan to build a golf course, though Earth Day was actually yesterday. It is amazing how rejuvenated you instantly feel - there's even an actual rooster there.
And there you have it: a minature picture of Croatia at large: the whole town, this village included, have incorporated heavy-duty dictionary comprising of words such as investment, entrepreneur and project. The entry of public-private partnership somehow seems to be obsolete.
I propose to call the phenomenon the Croatian Mirage, paraphrasing the well-known American Dream. Actually, the story has so far been one of riches-to-rags for most, both financially and spiritually. As for our American friends, having read the introduction to Conformism by an American author, discussing inequality in the US, I equally advocate incorporating the phrase the best.. money can't buy.
But it is silly to go against the tide. Blundering anew, just like previous generations of political economists believing in "the invisible hand of the market", it's every man for himself against the sillier wedging within formal scale points.
Myself, I prefer the crooked way of finer things in life. But this is why my current option is application for a receptionist post at a small village on the Peljesac peninsula.

Addendum

Another important insight The Ghost Writer teaches, and that I have acutely been aware of lately, is just how little reality material ends up in the press. Thirty per cent? It is a simpleton habit to open up newspapers "to see what's going on", but actually papers and politics wage a constant battle, fraught with cover up and insicerity. This is far removed from conspiracy theories - it is a fact of journalism, as Watergate proved.
In writing of tourism, I pointed out humanities lag behind the event, describing post festum, while here I posit literature (or film in this case) as prophetic. What the fool gets through science fiction, a sage gets through, say, 1984, and should be seen through the above lens.
Those that understand text to some extent will see one more charming detail in Ewan's "spontaneous" reaction having finished the mediocre first-draft memoir of his predecessor, a feeling I get daily in a world with diminishing translation and editorial standards: he bulges his eyes, raises his hands to his forehead and mock exclaims: "Aaaargh!"

The Ghost Writer

Just saw another Polanski's great. I am glad the master's still got the thing.
The atmosphere of political intrigue and paranoia is perfectly illustrated by the cold, stern architecture, the wet and empty island and the incongruity between what goes on in the villa and what's on the news. I especially enjoyed the futility being depicted in the hired hand's despair of having to collect and recollect the fallen leaves over and over again on account of incessant wind.
But all of this, neat trick as they are, is to be expected. What I treasure most (apart from the fact Mr Brosnan finally had the role of lifetime worth remembering) is the final embodiment of what serious politics and serious writing, either in the realm of actual or imagined paranoia, might have in common - absolutely nothing.

Emphasis Mine

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me
If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me

The Knot

It is an evident fact intellectuals are silent when it finally comes to violence, or - as it used to be said over here with pathos "that muses are silent during war". As an aside, I don't think we even have a multitude of muses.
But there comes a time when it is a cosmic duty not to be silent. Even though I do not think I would have been okay had I been an adult during socialism, with the vantage point of the two decades, just about the only grudge I hold against the Communist Party is that they failed to remain true to their own ideals and arrest Slobodan Milosevic the very first time he called for violence.
In Croatia, we have once again reached a critical point. Yesterday, the Croatian war-time police minister reminded those present at a rally "arms are not that far away, not even today". Now, this is when I say authorities, a funny word when you think of it in terms of context and etimology, should bite it and arrest the chap. No, instead they arrest a couple of nobodies that tear the EU flag. Big deal, all flags are kitsch anyway.
They say science is an art that predicts. I must say there were a lot of practical humanists in ex-YU: those intelligent saw what was coming at least two years earlier. Croatians, on the other hand, were dubbed "geese in fog" some hundred years back by their very own leader.

Humble Thoughts

I am obsessed with the bourgeois sense of achievement, I must say, for which I also cannot find any metaphysical grounds. The worst are intellectuals who never reach the stratosphere and don't turn into humble creatures. Knowing means not knowing, forever since Socrates, and - after all - your gifts are given and can be claimed back. I feel no urge to elaborate further. What follows, then, is modesty - and trying to be useful. And one more thing - if you are so clever, after all, why don't you do something for yourself - if on such an ego trip, or for your community and this vale of tears?

Idle Thoughts

Yesterday, I witnessed a conversation between a waiter and his friend about changing damn oil and CD player in their cars - for whole 15 minutes. What follows is a brief transcript between me and my friend:
Me: -the above-
Friend: Disgusting! But it's the worst when they talk of money. "These go for x at Crnomerec. Had you bought them, you would have been a millionaire today!!"

Rp.

As the title says, a brief diagnosis and an exercise in despair.

The sad truth, even considering my unemployment, is that you can only help yourself. The second is none simply give. Paraphrasing Todorova once again, it was a mistake to apply the national model some two centuries ago on a region as diverse as Balkans. Or was it? Was there any other route? The book also convicingly shows the same carnage scenario had occured but earlier in western paradise states, and now, cultivated, the lords were loath to watch.
Just about anybody who would try to impose the logic of unity on the area these days is a simple idiot. Except contagion - if one strives to be funny for an instant. My God, how "we" have degenerated! The same issues, the same frenzy, the same imbecile look of dreams and aspirations!
But the paradigm can successfully be applied everywhere. Look westwards, look eastwards. What are Sarkozy or Putin but degenerates? Or the conceited Swede the children of whom are so well adapted they shoot around or the American jock trained to snatch and growl with fascist patriotism, not to mention the fat ones? The signs are unmistakable.
But you might say, this is the dark side only. There are societies that thrive and their art surely counts for something. Their art? Art is the product of fringe marginals who are perhaps craziest of all. And that feed on ideas that never were.
Then how about love? Both as a passion or passion? Surely love is redemptive? Compared to atmosphere, I would say yes. It's just you don't look into the dark abyss beyond it.

This Mess We're In

In Todorova, there's a quote to the effect the Balkans is a sort of hell paved with the bad intentions of foreign powers. While this is evidently true in case of today's verdicts from the Hague, I am equally appalled by the sheep-like mentality of my fellow citizens and the still continuing manipulations coming from the proverbialy ineffective, in all possible meanings, government.
About the most absurd ones are those that try to get things straight using rationality. You simply don't know where to start after twenty years of different machinations. It reminds one of the Biblical attempt to cup the sea.
Combined with my personal situation, I must say my (I like to think) noble patriotism wavers: today I truly wished I had been born elsewhere.

List of Shows

that I'm having every Wednesday at UNIDU radio, starting 13 April:

1 - Covers
2 - Classical Music
3 - Jazz Divas
4 - Auteurs
5 - Goldfrapp: Felt Mountain
6 - Musicals
7 - Miladojka Youneed: Bloodylon
8 - Eurovision history
9 - Shameful local music
10 - Tiger Lillies: Births, Marriages and Deaths

The Stream

On the other hand, if anyone stumbles upon the page, there's live stream to the radio station, with my show being scheduled every Wednesday at 10pm, until summer.

http://www.uniduradio.com/

The New Thing

I found a new passion: creating one-hour music radio shows. So far I devised 6 in 2 days and am now free to watch the show roll for a month and pick up possible feedback. I feel good, even though I'm not being paid for this; truly, the best thing you can do is start bottom line up and clean your front yard - it's called being constructive.
It's not easy speaking in the microphone at first but you soon realise the only option is to act is if it were not there. As I quoted Samuel Johnson innumerable times: "As if somebody cared". The blog, after all, is testimony to the fact. It is doomed to remain forlorn and commentless in the depths of the Google server.
I should now do some actual work - and wait to see the note in retrospect in 10 years' time..

Faculty of Mis-Management, as I Once Joked

George Burns: Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.


Coming back to castes, even though present-day quasi egalitarian society would dismiss the idea immediately, it is not so shallow as it may seem at first glance.

This is exactly what the truly shallow idea of management is. It is just that we are too feeble to comprehend the complexity behind the caste factors.

Truly, it would be paradise on Earth if we could but organise.

Rerun Day

I decided to quote myself from the old blog, a post I like best. Conceited, yes, good writing, yes.


So, Oz
Ahm back. Not for long - it's Budapest next weekend and the following two days, but I've finally managed to relax a bit. Just like love, stress is something you cannot miss when under. Slightly difficult to imagine.

In our daily search for brains, heart and courage - it is often we forget to interpret the Wizard of Oz. If you remember, the heros get to have their mystery disentangled - I kinda imagine death as something of the sort - they get to see the Wizard behind all the levers - a frightened old man.

Supposing you are sane enough, it is easy to see our presidents in much the same position. Therefore, the right position would be, as much as I like rabid criticism - the one of trying to help them.

'Tis pity a yokel does not admit that he is wrong when shown so, but it's just one of the rules.

Group Dynamics Thing

Have you ever wondered why truly great writers never accept awards?
It must be human nature. Frailty, that is. None can stay clean, so to speak, in multitude. Human group projects are failures right from the start. They require a caste-like system of execution that none perfected so far for castes, biologically encoded ones, are beyond anybody's understanding.
Don't take my word for it; read Emerson. He once wondered why he had no followers and resolved the issue stating he wouldn't want any to start with.
So one is confined to asceptic sterility or pus-infested whoring. (This is a working model.) I choose solitary filigree sidewalks, metaphorically speaking, according to a pop-rock album from 80s.

Spring Quote

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)

Lyrics

The contemporary way would then be to post a U-Tube clip. The old fashioned way would be to immerse yourself in lyrics:


Life is so strange when its changin', yes indeed
Well I've seen the hard times and the pressure's been on me
But I keep on workin' like the workin' man do
And I've got my act together, gonna walk all over you

[chorus]
Gimme back my bullets
Put 'em back where they belong
Ain't foolin' around 'cause I done had my fun
Ain't gonna see no more damage done
Gimme back my bullets

Sweet talkin' people done ran me out of town
And I drank enough whiskey to float a battleship around
But I'm leavin' this game one step ahead of you
And you will not hear me cry 'cause I do not sing the blues

[chorus]

Been up and down since I turned seventeen
Well I've been on top, and then it seems I lost my dream
But I got it back, I'm feelin' better everyday
Tell all those pencil pushers, better get out of my way

[chorus]

Damn Continuity

After my afternoon nap to an experimental album (a weird experience indeed), went for coffee by the sea. Could not stop noticing an ex pupil from this other class in school - he looked exactly like forty year olds some forty years ago.
Even though, before the advent of Christianity and some more weird and sinister ideas, Romans envisioned sex as a way of cheating death, "so the world is populated by shadows of the deceased", I must say this kind of continuity has me enthralled and rather scared.
So nothing has changed? We are so in grip of the tried that we cannot get away? Perhaps we will then give in to damned habit.

Best Short in a While.. 4 Real

"Poverty tells many stories":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSRMeiLljnw&feature=player_embedded

Once More With Feeling

No More of These Dreams!

is the conclusion of one of Mark Twain's characters, implying life itself.
Yesterday I complained to a colleague how the whole world and country social drama seems a grotesque dream with lunatics in star roles: think Putin or Kerum, more locally.
I was next corrected: "Crazy people have depth", was his verdict.

For all of you coming over as tourists, here's another simple corrective offered by a different friend: "Who fooled you? You could have gone to Barcelona for the same amount!"

Then, in the evening, I tried relaxing watching the City of God. What a mistake. Some more depravity and misery. The conclusion was written a long time ago by Brecht in the 3 Penny Opera: "And that is all there is to it - the world is poor and man's a shit!"

But it's actually the money issue. It is simply unbelievable how content and constructive an individual becomes once his desires are engaged. Then the road forks: some still see the inequity, others think they deserve.

Invasion of Images

If I close my eyes -
I see death.

If I open my eyes -
life is watching me.

I shall open and close,
like day and night
like night and day,
my eyes.

by Jure Kastelan

"Sounds Different"

Hi all, visitors to Dubrovnik included, I am starting my volunteer work at UNIDU radio. The above named show airs every Wednesday at 10pm, until summer, with reruns scheduled for the summer itself.
The first show is entitled Cover Power.
The greatest challenge I think will prove to be a classical show, for this is a genre that traditionally "doesn't go". Let's try to shake that up.

And a Dash of Violence..

Isn't a non-violent protest somewhat of a contradictio in adjecto?
For full two months people in Croatia, the vociferous ones, have clamoured for change. The monied politicians' strategy is simply ignoring burning issues and, as they know not differently, going through the same ineffectual motions.
American Founding Fathers compared revolutions to going to a doctor's and applying a leech. A little outflow of blood, they say, is beneficial.
Another friend funnily commented it is humiliating that Arabs came there before us. God, even the infamous Franjo Tudjman said something to the effect that none grant liberty.

Shame

Not quite but thereabouts: the census lady graciously came over and I finally deregistered myself as a Catholic and entered Agnostic.
The Croatian state is a rare example of a chauvinist institution that tracks ethnicity, in addition to the category of nationality. I refrained from answering.
I always talk of that Italian director that, for years, entered "I'm ashamed I'm Italian" in the square for nationality.

Clint Getting Ready

The Hereafter, trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XvJwTYnKww

Adapter to Quotidia

Was far too busy to write, or do anything for that matter, for I was communicating with my network Cirago NUS1000 for six hours. Now all is just swell but thank God for tech forums.
Today, the poor census creature announced its arrival. One Catholic less this time. Can't wait to see just how lost the Republic of Croatia is within its forms.
Other than that, it's a sunny and windy day. I'm gonna do some cooking, not thinking.

Phonetics of Poetry

Well, started with a new exam. The introductory chapter, unsurprisingly, declares poetry is spatial - another way of saying it produces numerous effects simultaneously, in various directions, in contrast to everyday, linear, informative language.
Actually, accordingly, poetry this way comest closest to the nature of thought - after all, you need to explain what you are "thinking". (I'm not now sure whether I already wrote about this but I am also unsure whether the customary division into thoughts and feelings holds water.)
As for e.g. rhyme, it establishes another link in a net, pointing to a word you already processed. In this account, every poem, or every poet that is, by writing also writes theory of his/her formal engagement. (This is what I mean when I disparage rationality and opt for what is usually termed "intuition". As I once claimed, you can dissect a novel and boil down rules, but you cannot construct another good one following the same.)
Still, I believe this pursuit will prove profitable. Being a poet myself, I plan to dissect one of my own, claiming the prerogative of practical criticism. (This is when you're given a piece of unnamed text and you must wring the pleasure you can from it.)
If you are by this point wondering why for Heaven's sake all of this for, I cite numerous great texts that all begin with an apology of why write at all. I myself answered this with "aesthetic experience of generations".

Repent! The End is Near.

The idea first struck me in Zagreb long ago. Armed with a sense of history you receive when growing up in Dubrovnik, I one day realised Zagreb as well is a graveyard, albeit an Austro-Hungarian one, and more recent.
Watching my neighbours going nuts these days, fighting against kids' noise, blocking ancient roads and pathways, it would be true to say the world is always ending. It's just you might be fresh.
As for each gets his share, I still dunno.

Travelogue

Got an A in Cultures of Travelling. The life is slowly but surely turning into an economic disaster, but my GPA in graduate studies is as high as can be. It reminds me of a match of tennis I played with a fat friend, where, as I had to play against something, I set the goal to beat him in every game.
Tonite I'm in my good ol' Dubrovnik. Facing actual tourists, instead of those in my books, which also contain a joke. So, tourists visit a remote village and inquire whether the old lady they're talking to likes her settlement. She says: "Well, it's certainly not Paris or Amsterdam. I must say I liked Berlin."

Quote of the Month

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?
Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000)

And Another One

Well, I opened up another domain: kriticno.net (critical.net translated). Figure it can be interpreted both in terms of critical writing & critical situation.
It will be a challenge to template design and adjust something which will have comment capability for registered users and that will change daily. My other sites are quite small.
But the main idea is to hook up with some like-minded critical individuals who can more than grease the paper. I'd actually like to expand to other interests and towns: for the time being I have planned the subdomains of du., zg., HR. and kmd. (the theatre in Dubrovnik).
Contact at Davor [at] kriticno [dot] net

The Blank Stare

I initially got the feeling of being a perfect dumbwit during my senior high school year. I was concentrating in math and had trouble with probability theory so ended up taking private lessons. The man is talking, the man is trying - all I can do is politely nod and uneasily smile.
The gist is captured in the IT Crowd:
Economist Boss: I'm sure we can be friends. I'm sure I can understand what you are doing. What are you doing now, for instance?
IT expert: Well, I'm.. (the sound turns to static)
Boss: I see.

Oprah Freight Notes

As one of my friends once said of a musician: "Even a blind hen finds some grain".
Oprah, one of illustrations of the shallow taste of the age, lack of wit, obscene profit - and I could go on and on - once said of airplane travel:
"You know, I explain it to myself rationally. It's safer than car for instance. And then, as soon as we take off, a voice in my head pops up and says: 'Oprah, you really shouldn't be in an aluminum tube at 10,000 m.'" This is the perfect explanation of the freight of flying.
Then again, I guess the brief trip to Dbk, 45 minutes max, brings up everybody's pathology on an individual basis: another friend doesn't like being out of control and distrusts the pilot, wanting to steer the thing himself, while I would prefer being pampered by stewardesses every 5 minutes, them cheerfully exclaiming casual sentences like: "Oh, it's such a perfect day for flying", with the pilot routinely issuing info on flight in interims.
Further, there is the idea of just cosmic fate. Don't you think it fair you shouldn't crash on departure, if one must, but on the return flight?
Then again, as I said, talking helps. I used to have a strategy of shamelessly boring the person next to me, whoever it was, just because I felt better. A less nervous acquaintance complained he hated air companies "for they simply refuse to seat me next to somebody I would like to be sitting next to".
above: text. below: meta-text.
With any experience - i.e. the text describing it, just like with any lie - it's the details and bringing stuff to life that does it. The "stuff" can really and only then be said to exist at all.. The half-conscious and the unshared is wasted.