"Super-duper-natural"

Yesterday, I went to a festival called Supernatural, where the point was to promote sustainability through amusement with various band and DJ performances. In order to enter, we had to swap 3 cans, 3 plastic bottles and 3 magazines for 1 ticket. Everything seemed so idyllic, the Kosutnjak forest was full of beautiful people throwing frisbee and playing badminton to electronic music. However, as the day unveiled, it started getting colder, the happy pretty people got drunker and the green surfaces turned gray. Covered with trash.

"Well, they're going to have people clean it all up afterward either way", a friend of mine tried to make me feel better.

That's not the point. If one of the goals was to acquaint the Serbian youth with one of the easiest forms of waste management, then why was it difficult to set up recycling bins apart from the ones behind the bars and the one set that I spotted at the very entrance of this large two-stage festival? Moreover, water was only sold in plastic bottles and the bartenders were given orders to pour it out of the plastic bottles into plastic cups. I saw the bartenders dispose the original drink beverages - cans, water bottles, juice boxes and other glass bottles - into recycling bins but what about all of the plastic cups? I found myself having to put them down on the grass upon finishing each and I am not sure if the cups that covered the grass by the end of the night were recycled. Regardless, we generated much more waste than needed.

I felt like a fool walking my way out of the forest and to the bus stop. This, too, was one of the ways to decrease waste. A great one, I must say. The festival was made to be inaccessible by cars and the visitors were pushed to walk to and from the party in the beautiful spring weather. As much as it "added to the experience" on the way there, it felt rather silly on the way back.

Thank you forest, I've trashed you, and now I am walking home to feel good about it all.

The Virtual Take Over

This is a short film by Patrick Jean, titled Pixels. It's about 8-bit icons from the 80's spreading across New York City. This is how I feel when I spend too much time on the computer. 

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Independent web videos.

I'll have some ash in my pancakes, please.

This week, Grandma treated me with her wonderful pancakes! The occasion? My 87-year-old grandparents have only two friends - a couple of the same age - with whom they organize Sunday lunches at each others' houses. It's exhausting, boring and often frustrating. Boba, the male friend, usually falls asleep within the first five minutes of sipping the aperitif, wakes up to groggily move over to the dining room to eat, and falls back asleep shortly after.

Nonetheless, this tradition gives my grandparents, and probably the other couple as well, something to prepare for, something to plan, and something to gossip about after.

The pancakes that Grandma spent Sunday morning making and that ended up as a treat for my coworkers were in fact intended for Boba and Jovanka. Grandma called me around noon to ask me to pick up the pancakes as there had been a sudden change in plans. The Sunday lunch that had not been skipped in a decade was not happening. Boba and Jovanka were not coming.

After a dramatic pause called for by the sudden shift in my heart from being excited for the pancakes to worrying about my grandparents' only friends, I gathered the courage to ask: "...why?"

"Boba is afraid of the volcanic ash cloud! He won't walk out of the house, you know him." - We simultaneously burst into hysterical laughter. Secretly feeling at ease, I told her I'd be there in 10 minutes.

Born in 1922 in Belgrade, my grandparents and their friend Boba witnessed a lot throughout their lives - the Nazi occupation followed by the "liberation" carpet bombing, the often kind and sometimes very unkind communist rule, Milosevic's rule, sanctions, embargo, the second highest hyperinflation in world's history, the NATO bombing, the October 5th revolution and countless additional life complications - all to be lucky enough to be healthy and alive at the age of 87.

Why on Earth is Boba worrying about volcanic ash?

The names mentioned in this blog entry are fictional based on real characters.

France in Springtime - Tecktonik Everywhere

I am looking forward to catching more Tecktonic dancers with funky outfits and Mohawk hairdos on the streets of Lyon, for May Day (International Workers' Day) holidays. Tecktonic is a relatively young street dance, originating in the Parisian suburbs in the 2000's, consisting mostly of arm movement. It's static in the sense that the feet do not move as much as in other forms of dance, yet so hectic that it is difficult to tell what the dancer is actually doing (I realized this when secretly trying to replicate in front of a mirror at home). It's surprising how much our arms can twist and twirl!

Here's the video for A Cause Des Garcons by YELLE with Tecktonic in it (you can download the original version of this song, along with 3 remixes in a zip file, here):

The creators of this dance (two guys are considered as creators because they catalyzed the movement by organizing massive Tecktonic parties, hosting 8000 people at a time) actually copyrighted it and made Tecktonic into a trademark. Tecktonic has "grown" from a street dance to an industry, offering many branded products from t-shirts and backpacks to energy drinks and Play Station games.

However, this witty way of making money has been criticized for robbing the youth of its movement. "When you're young, you dance to tell your parents 'I'm a free man! I've got my sexuality, my desires and they aren't yours!' You dance to express your freedom! But, here, it's not this kind of dance. Because it's a commercial dance. It's a safe dance. No sex, no drugs, no alcohol… It's anti-rock 'n' roll! It's a Sarkozy dance!" - says Vincent Cespedes, a young French philosopher and writer, for BBC News.

Knitting 101: The Product

Meet Zucha, my life-long friend, modeling the very first scarf that I knitted for my baby niece. Who is going to wait for winter to wear this chic one-of-a-kind sustainable piece of art?

And here is a better view of the stitches, loose and messy, but not bad for a first timer and the thick colorful thread allows for imperfection. Start with thicker threads!

Knitting 101

I spent the day learning how to knit from my friend's grandma. Here are some of the reasons why I am already addicted:

• The more "trades" you learn, the happier you will be. I just cured a kidney infection, which impacted me psychologically more than anything. I had to lay in bed for over a week (the only "walks" allowed were to the restroom). The fever, pain and nausea were so exhaustive that I had trouble comprehending whatever I attempted to read or watch. I keep thinking about how knitting would have given me a sense of productivity and a way to to pass the slow monotone days. 

• My friend's grandma who is teaching us to knit has been successfully battling dementia through knitting and sewing. I believe this as I've witnessed it, but this is not an unexplored therapy method - here's an article that explains how knitting, and other similar cognitive activities, can be linked to the delay of memory loss. 

• I know very few people my age (early twenties) who know how to knit. This gives me the feeling that, by the time we all become grandparents, knitting will be a virtually forgotten skill and hand-knitted products will probably be so rare that they will become valued and cool.

• The scarf I am making for my 1-year-old niece is going to be one of a kind and she is way too special to be bumping into random babies wearing the same outfit as her.  

• Through knitting, I will be spending more time with my friend's grandma and there is quite a lot to hear and learn from her.

I love knitting and so will you!

One Proud Ballerina

The Ballerina - a typical ride on Serbian fairs, festivals (including the BeerFest) and portable amusement parks (we do not have a real amusement park yet and the closest thing to it was Bambiland, a controversial park built by Milosevic's son in the 90's and abandoned after Milosevic's fall) - set in front of a prototype communist building with a Heineken add. This spot is located on Belgrade's Danube riverbank, between the delta of Sava and Danube and the historic Zemun area.