Coming back to Belgrade after Bela Crkva for a few more days or so. Possible meetings lined up with a couple of people and a guest lecturer spot at the ISB. Video of it will be made.
Coolness. Complete coolness.
Tired. Don't care if the clowns eat me, I'm sleeping...
~*~
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Graffiti
Spotted this on a burned out building as the train went past:
then, in another color by a different hand:
~*~
JIM MORRISON LIVES!
then, in another color by a different hand:
It's The Rest of Us Are Dead
~*~
The Wanting Seed by Anthony Burgess
From the book I brought along... (it's a bit dated English, but a solid, disturbing story)
"If there is no God, is there at least a pattern-making demiurge?"
"All dirty words are fundamentally religious."
~*~
"If there is no God, is there at least a pattern-making demiurge?"
"All dirty words are fundamentally religious."
~*~
Me & Shakedown Bear in the Chesscom Hotel, Budapest
[a brief recap before reaching the present]
EDITORIAL NOTE-Serbian keyboards don`t acknowledge the existence of apostrophes. At least, this one doesn`t. It also doesn`t feature the ideograms the kes claim they do.]
Hungarians love the tourist dollar/euro/pound. What they don`t love is tourist questions.
e.g.
1. Lady at Tourist Info Desk, Budapest Airport
2. Bus Driver
3. 2 folks at newstand in train station
4. Infor Desk fellow, train station
5. Hotel front desk bloke (I`ve been him and answered many a repeated question in my 6 years there)
6. Restaurant waiter
7. Tourist Office Ladies
8. Internet cafe girl
Some simply didn`t answer/didn`t/claimed they didn`t speak English. Those who did answer my question(s) all answered the same thing--
``On Ferencick Square`` or, alternately, `` On Vorosmarty Square``... I sincerely believe that if you double/tripled your questions and threw in a ``Where`s Osmam bin Laden?`` the answer would be ... you guessed it: ``On the Square.``
Also, if you are dreary tired, hot, hungry, and mapless, Budapest is not the city to attempt navigating. Even if you`ve been here before.
Seriously. Don`t.
~*~
PS Discovered the ' & " ! Yay!
EDITORIAL NOTE-Serbian keyboards don`t acknowledge the existence of apostrophes. At least, this one doesn`t. It also doesn`t feature the ideograms the kes claim they do.]
Hungarians love the tourist dollar/euro/pound. What they don`t love is tourist questions.
e.g.
1. Lady at Tourist Info Desk, Budapest Airport
2. Bus Driver
3. 2 folks at newstand in train station
4. Infor Desk fellow, train station
5. Hotel front desk bloke (I`ve been him and answered many a repeated question in my 6 years there)
6. Restaurant waiter
7. Tourist Office Ladies
8. Internet cafe girl
Some simply didn`t answer/didn`t/claimed they didn`t speak English. Those who did answer my question(s) all answered the same thing--
``On Ferencick Square`` or, alternately, `` On Vorosmarty Square``... I sincerely believe that if you double/tripled your questions and threw in a ``Where`s Osmam bin Laden?`` the answer would be ... you guessed it: ``On the Square.``
Also, if you are dreary tired, hot, hungry, and mapless, Budapest is not the city to attempt navigating. Even if you`ve been here before.
Seriously. Don`t.
~*~
PS Discovered the ' & " ! Yay!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Budapest
You haven not really experienced goth kids until you see a group of Magyar high schoolers pierced and draped in black in the summertime in Budapest. Also, I do not know what the Hungarian word for Stoner is, but theose kids were on the same metro train as the goths. Cute.
In the same way Lady Bathori was cute, I suppose...
Dragging tired into Budapest and well-fed. Time for a stop at the market store and back to the hotel for an early evening. Three planes in less than 24 hours has taken toll. (I would say its, but I cannot find the apostrope on this Magyar keyboard.)
Enough for now. Beograd tomorrow evening and a stay with 3 black cats.
~*~
In the same way Lady Bathori was cute, I suppose...
Dragging tired into Budapest and well-fed. Time for a stop at the market store and back to the hotel for an early evening. Three planes in less than 24 hours has taken toll. (I would say its, but I cannot find the apostrope on this Magyar keyboard.)
Enough for now. Beograd tomorrow evening and a stay with 3 black cats.
~*~
Monday, May 24, 2010
D'oh! Whew!
Set my alarm this morning for 10am for a 1:15pm flight. I woke up to my landlord knocking on my door at 12:10pm.
Made the flight. Just. I'm in Philadelphia waiting for the Heathrow overnight.
Now there's the adventure of my backpack being checked to a different destination than me.
Hoping for the best.
~*~
Made the flight. Just. I'm in Philadelphia waiting for the Heathrow overnight.
Now there's the adventure of my backpack being checked to a different destination than me.
Hoping for the best.
~*~
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Waiting...
14 hours until my first flight.
I'm packed, re-packed, checked, re-checked, and re-checked again.
To quote an old song from an illustrious unknown band, I feel right now like I'm being eaten by butterflies... and I know my nerves are walking...
Might stare at a Kusturica movie until bedtime, see if I can pay attention to anything.
This is the cusp of all I've been working towards for the past year. New journeys, new writings, new people to meet, new stage to perform upon, new chapter to begin. This is my analepsis from the illness of the previous few years. I am ready. Last May I said to the Universe at large, alright I've had enough, what else can you show me? and this is what has been presented:
A (now only) 44-day excursion through a land that has produced far more history than it could consume and I've been hungry for quite some time. I'm more than willing to clean up a few table scraps.
In the next five days I'll be in or pass through four countries, including the first stop in a sequence of namesakes: Bela Crkva. A soon-to-be-met-in-person acquaintance in Serbia has already nicknamed me to his friends: Crkva [that is, Sirk-wha, in simplest form].
These butterflies will settle down once I'm on the plane to Heathrow. And I'll have all but forgotten them when I grab my backpack in the Budapest airport and begin the ground campaign.
I suspect I'll post here again on Wednesday or Thursday.
· • ·
I'm packed, re-packed, checked, re-checked, and re-checked again.
To quote an old song from an illustrious unknown band, I feel right now like I'm being eaten by butterflies... and I know my nerves are walking...
Might stare at a Kusturica movie until bedtime, see if I can pay attention to anything.
This is the cusp of all I've been working towards for the past year. New journeys, new writings, new people to meet, new stage to perform upon, new chapter to begin. This is my analepsis from the illness of the previous few years. I am ready. Last May I said to the Universe at large, alright I've had enough, what else can you show me? and this is what has been presented:
A (now only) 44-day excursion through a land that has produced far more history than it could consume and I've been hungry for quite some time. I'm more than willing to clean up a few table scraps.
In the next five days I'll be in or pass through four countries, including the first stop in a sequence of namesakes: Bela Crkva. A soon-to-be-met-in-person acquaintance in Serbia has already nicknamed me to his friends: Crkva [that is, Sirk-wha, in simplest form].
These butterflies will settle down once I'm on the plane to Heathrow. And I'll have all but forgotten them when I grab my backpack in the Budapest airport and begin the ground campaign.
I suspect I'll post here again on Wednesday or Thursday.
· • ·
About the Region
• · •
Some things can’t be true even if they happened.
——Ken Kesey
The general sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
——Roger Waters
…many things can be viewed more clearly, explained in greater detail,
and understood more easily.
This does not mean that the world has become any smarter or better for it.
——Dragoljub Žarković
Can you imagine a country where you can still find ancient towns
ringed by a crystal clear sea?
Jugoslavia is a country with a long, turbulent history.
After World War Two, it became a socialist federation
made up of six republics and two autonomous regions.
It speaks five official languages and prays to an Eastern Orthodox,
Catholic, and Muslim God.
This is no imaginary land, this is Jugoslavia.
——Tourism Commercial, 1990
What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit,
and I get bombs thrown at me!
It is outrageous.
——Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1914
If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented.
——Count Hermann Keyserling, 1928
The Balkans, which in Turkish means mountains, run roughly from
the Danube to the Dardanelles, from Istria to Istanbul, and is a term for
the little lands of Hungary, Rumania, Jugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria,
Greece, and part of Turkey, although neither Hungarian nor Greek
welcomes inclusion in the label. It is, or was a gay peninsula filled with
sprightly people who ate peppered foods, drank strong liquors, wore
flamboyant clothes, loved and murdered easily and had a splendid talent
for starting wars. Less imaginative westerners looked down on them with
secret envy, sniffing at their royalty, scoffing at their pretensions, and
fearing their savage terrorists. Karl Marx called them ethnic trash.
I, as a footloose youngster in my twenties, adored them.
——C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles, 1969.
Don’t, don’t, don’t live under this dream that the West is going to come in
and sort this problem out.
Don’t dream dreams.
——Lord David Owen at Sarajevo International Airport,
December 18, 1992
In winter days frost grips the city, but still the dedicated elderly and youth
meet for discussion, but when it comes time for spring and blossoms,
Heaven becomes the Sarajevo gardens of roses.
——Muhamed Nerkesija Es-Saraji, 17th Century
All the devil requires is acquiesence;
not conflict, not struggle.
Acquiesence.
——Suzanne Massie
Pessimum facinus auderent pauci,
plures vellent, omnes paterentur.
[The worst crime was dared by a few,
willed by more, and tolerated by all.]
——Tacitus
La vida total es un porqueria porqueria.
——Black Francis
A little political murder in the Balkans?
That will never lead to anything.
——Anonymous internet comment, 2003
As soon as flags start to wave and national anthems start to play,
as soon as history and religion are mentioned,
you can be sure that new bloodshed is coming for new generations.
——Hidajet Seric, 1993
Solo i morti hanno visto la fine della guerre.
——Platone
That crossed the line from ironic coincidence to evil omen.
——Calvin
· • ·
Some things can’t be true even if they happened.
——Ken Kesey
The general sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
——Roger Waters
…many things can be viewed more clearly, explained in greater detail,
and understood more easily.
This does not mean that the world has become any smarter or better for it.
——Dragoljub Žarković
Can you imagine a country where you can still find ancient towns
ringed by a crystal clear sea?
Jugoslavia is a country with a long, turbulent history.
After World War Two, it became a socialist federation
made up of six republics and two autonomous regions.
It speaks five official languages and prays to an Eastern Orthodox,
Catholic, and Muslim God.
This is no imaginary land, this is Jugoslavia.
——Tourism Commercial, 1990
What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit,
and I get bombs thrown at me!
It is outrageous.
——Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1914
If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented.
——Count Hermann Keyserling, 1928
The Balkans, which in Turkish means mountains, run roughly from
the Danube to the Dardanelles, from Istria to Istanbul, and is a term for
the little lands of Hungary, Rumania, Jugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria,
Greece, and part of Turkey, although neither Hungarian nor Greek
welcomes inclusion in the label. It is, or was a gay peninsula filled with
sprightly people who ate peppered foods, drank strong liquors, wore
flamboyant clothes, loved and murdered easily and had a splendid talent
for starting wars. Less imaginative westerners looked down on them with
secret envy, sniffing at their royalty, scoffing at their pretensions, and
fearing their savage terrorists. Karl Marx called them ethnic trash.
I, as a footloose youngster in my twenties, adored them.
——C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles, 1969.
Don’t, don’t, don’t live under this dream that the West is going to come in
and sort this problem out.
Don’t dream dreams.
——Lord David Owen at Sarajevo International Airport,
December 18, 1992
In winter days frost grips the city, but still the dedicated elderly and youth
meet for discussion, but when it comes time for spring and blossoms,
Heaven becomes the Sarajevo gardens of roses.
——Muhamed Nerkesija Es-Saraji, 17th Century
All the devil requires is acquiesence;
not conflict, not struggle.
Acquiesence.
——Suzanne Massie
Pessimum facinus auderent pauci,
plures vellent, omnes paterentur.
[The worst crime was dared by a few,
willed by more, and tolerated by all.]
——Tacitus
La vida total es un porqueria porqueria.
——Black Francis
A little political murder in the Balkans?
That will never lead to anything.
——Anonymous internet comment, 2003
As soon as flags start to wave and national anthems start to play,
as soon as history and religion are mentioned,
you can be sure that new bloodshed is coming for new generations.
——Hidajet Seric, 1993
Solo i morti hanno visto la fine della guerre.
——Platone
That crossed the line from ironic coincidence to evil omen.
——Calvin
· • ·
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