Tanović & Metafiction

Met with film director Danis Tanović yesterday morning.  He introduced me to the five other members (there may be a few others) of his political party at their headquarters.  Which, like all great political parties, is a sedate café.  We didn't exactly hit it off at first, due to a misunderstanding on the telephone the evening before about just where to meet.  I waited outside the whole while he was inside...  Funny how things work out.
But, through numerous distractions and a sideline conversation about other things, he, one other, and myself ended up, as he said, "Discussing philosophy with this guy from North Carolina before 10 in the morning."

He said he didn't think he could help me with my work, even as the few incidents he spoke of were just the sort of thing that does indeed inform my work.  Perceptions.  Confusion.  Lack of rational sense to any of it.

That's what this is all about.  Forming so kind of narrative out of these bundles of chaos and confusion.

In the end, he did tell me that they meet most every morning at their campaign headquarters (my euphemism, not his), and that I was welcome to drop in again before leaving Sarajevo.

I think I will do just that.


Next entry, I may voice a few things about Višegrad.  It seems to be where I entered Chapel Perilous; moved from the field around into the Palace...  Certainly where my journey became metafiction (that is, beyond realistic belief), which, I suppose, is as it should be.  Pararealism at the other side of the Bridge on the Drina.


~•~

Srebrenica

Yesterday, while here in this internet cafe posting the photos, the internet caretaker (a lady of a few years older than me) saw them from over my shoulder and asked about them.  I told her I'd just returned from there.  She looked at me and said in a relatively even voice, "My husband is in Srebrenica."

She didn't say died, she didn't say killed, she didn't say buried.

Any of the others might not have slipped past my defenses I have placed against emotional reaction against these stories.  But her expression and words slipped in and tore a hole.  For the next half hour when other people would come into the cafe, I heard the break hidden in her voice.  She canceled out my time on the computer (essentially giving me an hour for free), and, when I finished, I walked over to her and said, "I'm not sure what it would mean to you, but I am sorry."

She clutched my hand tightly in hers and spoke so hushed her words sounded like an escaped sigh.  "Thank you.  Thank you for visiting there."

Later, in speaking with a close acquaintance here, I heard the repeated phrase, "There is nothing to say about Srebrenica.  It is a place you simply have to go to."  And, "Everyone on the planet should visit Srebrenica."

I've been through two Nazi death camps.

The town of Srebrenica and the memorial at Potočari are different.  Not that there's an atrocity contest, but this place is different than Treblinka.  It's different than Auschwitz and Birkenau.

It is a still and quiet place.  It is a place far beyond words.

"My husband is in Srebrenica."

That was the most painful thing I have ever heard spoken in my entire life.

The rest is silence.



~•~

Almost Wordless...

I'm not yet ready to talk about the people I met outside of Višegrad and what I saw and heard there, but in returning from there, I met up with an American girl who's been doing research here in Sarajevo for the past month and together we voyaged to Potočari / Srebrenica today...

Srebrenica Meditation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shakedown Bear in Potočari

~•~

Old town alleys

No matter how many old town alleys you wander after midnight,

the same hungry shadows find you

to gnaw at your heart in the borderlands

between your Love and Fear.

The Gate is closer than it's ever been,

and I have seen the Palace.

But the Path is still obscured from me...

"Not yet," the ghosts all tell me

while the angels still are crying

lament their whispers in the dark.

~•~

The silent, slumming angels after midnight in old town

There's a story that goes with this, however it should not be taken as proof of anything.  If there's one truism that is entirely untrue, it is the saying that pictures never lie.

Writers are the other hand... well, all writers are liars.  Good writers are notorious liars.

The story that accompanies this is true.  As to any belief you place in it, that part is entirely up to you.

While out after midnight taking photos again with Sıdıka, I was crouched taking this photo (not the best of the series, of course):

With Sıdıka behind me.  As I snapped the shot I was aware of someone walking around where I was, sticking to the shadows out of the line of photo shot.  At first, I assumed it was Sıdıka, but the person passed on, walking all-but stealthily.  Sıdıka and I both decided immediately that we weren't the sort to be snuck-up-on and yet here was this person who did.  I realized I had a camera in my hand and, as if it would verify the moment, I got off a shot--albeit blurred.  The girl turned the corner and we both hurried after her, intrigued by someone who walks as quick and invisible as we do.

We reached the corner and found only the empty midnight street, distant sounds echoing up from the few clubs open in old town.  The shop fronts were all boarded shut, without a door in sight.


There an old Sarajevan story about the angels (of all the religions) wandering the land weeping for the lost souls of this land.  When I snapped the blurry photo of the soundless girl, I literally looked to see if her feet touched the cobbled stone.


They did.  But I'm not convinced that she wasn't a slumming angel.


A blurry photo offers no veracity of any kind.


If I told you that story and offered a detailed photographic study of a girl with large black wings would you be any more convinced my story was true?  Or would that merely add new layers of possible doubt (PhotoShop being what it is and all)?


There are ghosts all over this city.  Not all of them are those of the dead.  Not all of them are even from humans...


...the National Library burned in 1992 incinerating more than 2 3 million books.


Tell me a convincing story where that happens and leaves no ghosts in its wake...

~•~

Food of ubiquitous acclaim

I do have to take a moment here and acknowledge the food.  Not only is the average above average, but a couple of recent meals in particular should be cited as spectacular cuisine.

Last night I had a dish at To Be Or Not To Be (sic) that read ''Beefsteak in Choco-Chili Sauce.''  It began with a mixed salad (customarily eaten with dinner and not before) of white cabbage, white peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  The side dish of the entrée was grilled sliced potatoes, sliced vegetable resembling a cross between an eggplant and a zucchini, and more sliced white peppers, sprinkled with chili powder and paprika.  The main dish was indeed a supremely tender steak doused in choco-chili sauce that, in lavishly praising the previous dishes, I ran out of English and French superlatives to say anything further than yum-yum.

Tonight's visit to the Pivnica and its chicken breast in green curry sauce was positively anti-climatic in comparison of its delicious-ness.

The flaws in each, respectively: bland, unspectacular bread, overly-salted rice.

Kind of like my adverbs in this entry.

The ćevapi is of course, the best.  And the pekara (bakeries) are achingly tasty.  I haven't tried the local ice cream, which is said to rival the rest of the cuisine in town, and it should be noted that although there may be a McDonalds or BK somewhere in the country, I have seen no evidence of such as yet.  The same cannot be said of the infamous Coca-Cola label...



~•~

Morning mosques and paper lanterns

Up and about at 4 am to find the colors of the alleyways in Old Town...

Sıdıka pointed out this alley as we walked past:

The Mosque of the Palace:

& although I believe PKD was corrent in many things, I didn't suspect that it was the (Ottoman) Empire that Never Ended...

Sarajevo is in BiH, not Turkey.  Although the latter seems to be hoped for by a great many new residents.


Next week I'll venture forth to Mostar, Srbrenica, and perhaps elsewhere.  All the while still keeping my wonderful rooms at the pansion here.


~•~

(back to my own little squigglies)