Work Out Laundry

Awesome! Be good to your body, the planet, and get the laundry done simultaneously:

Change: The Art of Letting Go

Change. What an overanalyzed, radicalized word. As if the more we are awed by it, the more we will detach from it and it will only happen when it is absolutely unavoidable. Ah, the almighty, drastic changes. Tsunamis, revolutions, graduations and breakups.

Let me hold on to my grandparents, my childhood... My child's childhood!

Just for a bit, let this dream last longer.

Aww, I wanna go back to Spain!

I don’t want this day to end…

Why do chocolate bars have to dissolve in my spit?

Why do highs always crash?

Is that a wrinkle?!

Starting with birth, change is all that life really is. Yes, some changes bring scars (check for your belly button), but they also bring memories. Without losing, we gain no right to reminiscence. A friend of mine kindly reminded me today: the brevity of occurrences is what makes them so beautiful, fool. Live for the moment, but do welcome new ones!

A 1926 Commercial From the Kingdom of YU

Although seemingly very theatrical, the message is the same as that of today's commercials.

An Old Nation

As Serbian scholars and experts of all sorts exert themselves to explain how it turns out that Serbs are the oldest nation in the Balkans and how every other neighboring nation is not really a nation but a self proclaimed group derived from Serbs, we, the citizens of Serbia, have rapidly been enduring additional wrinkles and gray hairs. I mean this literally - not only are we lagging behind our modern counterparts with our mentality and habits, but we are an aging population. With a negative population growth rate (estimated at -3.5% in 2004), low birthrates and high brain drain, Serbia is becoming rusty in every sense - mentally, financially and demographically. Many people are afraid to have children - afraid that they will not be able to support them financially, that the state will not provide them with basic rights to education, health care, peace and safety and that their children will become like those of my generation. Those who do have children, aspire for them to live abroad. Those oblivious to Serbia's problems, also have children, and spend their time talking about some trivial topic, such as which nation really settled the Balkans first. I would by no means want to discourage any theorizing, however I do think that - in our case - this specific argument is detrimental. Yes, we are old, but we are old in so many ways much more relevant to our lives than the origin dates of our nation. We are an aging population demographically and an aging group of individuals mentally. Our streets are aged, our schools and hospitals obsolete. Why would we want to be old in any additional way?

Why would we want to tag along yet another theory that will turn our heads from the future?

Fail Mail

Feeling tired and particularly imaginative after a late-night walk, I am waiting for the elevator. In 2 AM silence, my 70's building resembles one of ghosts. I hear nothing but elevator wires and cars rushing in a boulevard close by. As dense mystery fills the hallways my gaze travels from the stairway, the dirty floor, the high ceiling… The mailbox. Have I gotten any mail? I reach for the mailbox key in my pocket. I don’t have it with me… But, by this time, curiosity has conquered me, invading and almost itching my brain. Many buildings have broken mailboxes in my neighborhood. Is this how they get attacked? Some are even burnt.

Hm. Just a peek, please. I slide a finger through the mail slot but it bites me. The slot is not wide enough for my finger and to leave room for me to see what’s going on inside. As I pull my finger out I spot a fast food flier on the floor. I reach down for the flier and open the evil mail slot with it. I use the thin flier to keep the slot open, giving me enough eye space to peek inside. Hah, we've tricked the system.

The mission's final step - the actual peeking in through the opening - all of a sudden makes me nervous. But, I can do it. I slowly, cautiously, lean my face towards the mailbox. If only someone saw me… My eyes anxiously look for the opening. Aha, there it is... With my right eye targeting the opening, I close my left eye and make the deciding leap towards my goal.

What?! Another wide-open eye is staring back at me!! I gasp and jump away, manically grab the door of the elevator that had arrived so long ago, run inside and hit the 3 button, anticipating safety on my floor. With an obnoxious heartbeat and weak shaky footsteps, I make it to the door. I use two wrong keys before unlocking the door, get in, slam, lock well. I take my shoes off and crawl into bed. Fall asleep, fall asleep. What was that?? Fall asleep, please... If only I knew whose eye that was.

Alas, I did fall asleep and wake up rather late, completely numbed. I had forgotten all about the mail slot, my bizarre thoughts, and the even more bizarre eye. I was eating my breakfast eggs, sipping on freshly squeezed orange juice, when my mom came in from the market and dropped the mail on the dining table. There it was! That creepy stubborn unblinking eye was looking at me again! It was the eye of a pretty woman whose face was used for a flier marketing a newly opened hair salon down the street. Trashy little salon flier, you’ve scared me and questioned my sanity.

I used to play this game every day. It made sense to play the game. I’d peak through the slot and discover letters and postcards, all sorts of hellos from real people. Family, friends, crushes, encounters, travel companions. It seems not that long ago even... Yes, my finger was small enough to open the slot and still leave some space to see what was inside, but apart from that, little has changed. The elevator is the same; its rusty wires remain unchanged. Even the wall paint is still the same. In a city like Belgrade, still largely guarded from globalization and development, the past haunts you. On awkward nights like these you may very well loose yourself. You forget that the only greetings awaiting in your mailbox nowadays are those from corporations and government institutions. Fliers; bills; and a notice or citation here and there.

Beyond Untraditional

I wanna be a street artist when I grow up!! But use used up torn bags instead of new ones.

Has anybody seen my pride?

It has been two days since the first "successful" Pride Parade in Belgrade and I am finally able to sit down and write about what has happened. Belgrade is still somewhat demolished, but this is nothing we are not used to. The anger in me has faded for now although, so far, my emotions have been rather difficult.

The citizen in me has been afraid. Not only afraid to walk out of the house but, more importantly, afraid that, one day, my right to walk the city and make a statement will offend someone and cause similar onset. The child in me has been looking for someone to blame. The traveler in me has been humiliated. The liberal in me f-ing pissed at the right-wing hooligans who were so set on hate that they put the entire city at risk and fought with the police all day long. Belgrade resembled a war zone with fronts set at the approaches to the pride's meeting point. Today however, the sociologist in me awoke. Perhaps more than anything, I now feel sorry for these tough, yet very confused guys. I cannot fully understand them, but I can try.

Who are these young people? Why are they angry and who precisely do they hate so much? Most of them seemed like they were in their mid-teens. They looked just like the boys who burn the city every time change knocks on the door. They are 15-year-olds cloned in sweats and hoodies, with scarfs covering their faces and Nike airmax shoes fancying up their outfits (westernizing them, almost).

Yes, they are homophobes. But this does not surprise me as much because so many factors in Serbia expedite homophobia: isolation and lack of exposure to diversity of any sort; economic insecurity questioning our fathers' masculinity and developing macho egos; the Serbian Orthodox Church; the right wing movement; years of conflict with the US and the EU generating resistance to anything that seems to be coming from the west; general loss of a sense for love as companionship - the vast decline in happy marriages is resulting in the idea of love gaining a practical "get married and have kids" meaning; and we could go on and on.

However, I do not feel sorry for the kids who spent the beautiful sunny Sunday morning and afternoon wrecking Belgrade merely because they are homophobic, although I do believe that they would be much happier individuals if they spent less time on hate. I feel sorry for them because they are hopeless.

Someone risking to get arrested or seriously injured, exposing himself to scrutiny and judgement by national and international media, in order to make a statement of hate (while by doing so gaining no rights or benefits) has clearly been demoralized, to say the least. This is someone who has little or nothing to loose. He is insecure and lost. He explains himself with "I don't want my son to be gay!", a statement that gives him a problem to solve and an excuse to let out the beast in him - "Hide them, scare them, kill them all!" The poor fellow really is convinced that exposure makes children gay. He yells out to the cops a clever parole thought up by his politically motivated, rather intelligent leaders: "You're defending Kosovo diplomatically but protecting the gays with force!" All of a sudden he is an informed activist. He has a purpose. He has something to hope for. These are all things he cannot get elsewhere. On his way home, he will break a couple of shop windows and steal an additional pair of Nike's. This heroic day provided the unaffordable 200 euro pair of shoes he has been eying for weeks! Aha, happiness, for several minutes at least...

Maybe I am utterly foolish, but I feel sad for him. And I am awakened and heartbroken to know that there are thousands of boys like him in Serbia today. I am clueless as to what the next step is. What do we do with them? They need help. But can we find it in our hearts to see them as the victim after all? Extremely challenging, but direly needed.

BBC's picture story

Two dots, joined by a line, detached by a crime.

Long time no see, summer time has been keeping me busy. Enjoy this tune!

Feeling Without Touching

Glass Candy - 'Feeling Without Touching' from Travis Peterson on Vimeo.

Remixed Morcheeba

even though we know its forever changing
even though we know we lie and wait
even though we know the hidden danger
i hope its not too late

88 = 16

On June 14, my grandpa turned 88. When I asked how it felt, he said: Just like yesterday. Besides, 8+8=16 and that's how I always feel. Grandpa really is a miracle. He and my grandma (87) went to Tunisia on Friday and are going to the Canary Islands later on this summer. They have already been to France and Egypt this year and I am sure they are already scheming where to spend the winter holidays. Living by the moto - When you're our age, everything and anything is allowed - they really are an unstoppable couple. Grandpa also uses a GPS device, a smart-phone, a Facebook account, a synthesizer which he connects to a computer program through which he learns how to play, and many other gadgets too sophisticated for me to comprehend. As the years go by, he keeps getting smarter and I can see his French and English improve by the day. Every time I see him, he tells me about something he has learned browsing the internet and, more often than not, it is stuff that I have never even heard of.

Grandma is special in her own ways. Very stubborn, very opinionated, very strict. Although today she uses her age as an excuse, I really think she always thought she was allowed to do anything. Raised in a bourgeois family, she would steal skis and other expensive goods from her own household to donate for the Partisans, then a guerrilla force fighting for liberation from the Nazi's. Grandma sometimes brags in a nonchalant tone about her contributions to WWII resistance as a medical worker. She traveled on foot and on horse with her own group of all-male Partisans from Belgrade to Zagreb through wilderness and forests. She entered Zagreb on a horse, on the very day that it was liberated, surrounded by the boys that she had been taking care of. Although she supported the communists when it was very dangerous to do so, Grandma left the Communist Party in disappointment when not supporting them was dangerous. Ever since, she has been very used to disagreeing with the world and I think she overcomes it all by being convinced that she is always right.

One hot summer in the mid 50's, Grandpa was riding around with his motorcycle buddies when he noticed Grandma. She was the only girl in Belgrade to ride a motorcycle at the time and techie Grandpa couldn't help but notice that it was a nice one too. Decades after they had fallen for each other so unconventionally, they have decelerated to a more predictable life. Regardless of their plentiful travel, they do have to comply with some rules - lunch is at 12:30, nap time is from 2:00-4:00, dinner is at 6:00, bedtime at 9, etc. For as long as I have been around and can remember, they have been splitting a 0.75 liter bottle of beer for lunch. Having already had bad experience in Tunisia, where beer is very difficult to find and expensive, Grandma decided she would pack 10 0.75 cans of beer for the 10 days of their vacation, for them to split a can each lunch. Grandpa disproved, but she had decided and that was it. So, she packed 5 cans in her own suitcase and the other 5 into Grandpa's case, secretly. I can just imagine the Partisan inside her chuckle when she did this - He may be against it now, but when I surprise him with a can... heh heh.

Lo and behold, their suitcases arrived to Tunisia safely, yet completely wet. The cans exploded from the juggling and air pressure. In a very inconvenient way, Grandma was busted. Somehow, they did not have any problems going through the customs. Somehow, they survived the embarrassment of walking into their 4 star hotel smelling like two alcoholics. But when they arrived to the room, Grandpa found that even his fancy camera had gotten wet. Let's just say that I received an ample of angry text messages from Grandpa. They are not back yet but I hope that they got over it quickly and started enjoying their trip. In the meantime, I have been seriously considering being a third wheeler on the trip to the Canary Islands, if they'll have me. I am sure it would be a one of a kind adventure. Who knows what our guerrilla traveler has prepared for that episode. Stay tuned...

North Korea Spreading Hope?

Last night, I went to a bar in Belgrade with my friends to watch Brazil, the number one soccer team in the world, play against North Korea, one of the longest shots in this year's World Cup. None of us expected much of the game and, if anything, we thought it would be a game full of Brazil's easy scores, one similar to when Argentina scored 6-0 against Serbia in 2006. Little did we know that North Korea's goal against two Brazilian goals would feel like victory for all of us.

As the North Korean anthem played and one of their players was shown crying his eyes out, an incredible sense of support and fellowship toward this team spread across the room. I kept thinking what it was like for the players to fly over to South Africa only to be uncertain whether their efforts would be broadcast home. I think that most of us remembered the 1994 World Cup in the US, when the UN Security Council imposed sports sanctions on Yugoslavia for political reasons and our teams had been prevented from playing in any international games or tournaments from 1992 to 1995. It would have meant the world to the broken moral of our country at the time to have played the World Cup.

Spontaneously, the entire cafe began cheering for the boys in red, whose no-name jerseys looked as if from a different era in comparison to the flashy Nike yellow-green outfits. Here and there, I would even imagine that the Chinese "fans volunteer army" was honestly cheering for North Korea. And perhaps it was. Perhaps it was too swept away with hope and sympathy like I was.

In Serbia we have a saying that goes like this - "There are few things money can't buy... Everything else is available at the Chinese market." Did North Korea actually manage to purchase support, not only from the Chinese but from people in Serbia and all around the world? Rumor has it that the player was instructed to cry during the anthem. Maybe we, the "spontaneous" supporters, were all just a part of President Kim Jong-il's game... But maybe, and hopefully, we simply remembered that all humans deserve a chance.

Hot Hot Chip

I've been spending the hot summer days on Belgrade's steamy asphalt listening to a lot of Hot Chip. Enjoy!

Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
Hot Chip Feat. Bonnie “Prince” Billy - I Feel Bonnie
Hot Chip - Touch Too Much (Fake Blood Rmx)

I stick my emblem at you!!

Designed back when Kikinda (currently in northern Serbia) was situated on the border with the Ottoman Empire, Kikinda's city emblem may be the scariest one out there. It must have originated as a proud symbol of resistance to the Ottoman oppression that had conquered Serbs for 600 years... But come on! Regardless of the charming heart below, a spear going through someone's head is definitely not a friendly way to welcome visitors to your city. It's 2010 and the media representation of Serbs does not ring friendly bells as is. The last thing we need is I "heart" Aggression emblems.

Mixers, Blenders, Shakers. Festivals For All.

I have been recovering from the 5-day festival "Mikser" for the past 3 days and things not look promising. I feel tired, unproductive and, by the looks of it, I am going to need a couple of more days to get back to myself. This time, I think it was well worth it though.

I knew that the festival was going to be a peculiar one, judging by its location. As I approached the gray scary-looking humongous wheat mills in an abandoned industrial zone of Belgrade, I could not imagine what was coming. Labeled as a Design Festival, Mikser (meaning mixer, like the one used for cooking) is much more than that. It seemed to me that it threw various aspects of the youth's subculture and social life in a bowl and literally mixed it into something very delicious, of universal taste. The way the industrial site was utilized for all of this was inspirational. Each day's repertoire offered a perfect blend of education, creativity and partying. Every day, I would start of by exploring the expo and talent zones, the former one mixing design talent with industry and the latter one, set in the midst of the "scary" silos towers, reserved for independent artists and designers of all sorts. Then, I would listen to a lecture or visit the open air "kino" to see a documentary. Hopping from one "zone" to another, I would stop by the graffiti artists' stand, the tattoo stand, artisan workshops and - possibly the highlight of the festival - a hanging tunnel made up of packing tape that made you feel like you were in outer space when inside. The designers were all there and happy to talk about their art which was awesome, particularly for us non-artists. Filled with positive energy and ideas, I would watch the pink sun set behind the Danube and wait for the colorful selection of music performances to begin. Day after day, I got carried away and began taking this type of life for granted, as if it would not end.


Oof, fortunately, festival season is open in Serbia! Some of the festivals coming up or happening as we speak are Cinema City and Exit in Novi Sad, and Refract Festival, Belgrade Design Week, Japanism Festival, Nitrate Film Festival, Belgrade Summer Festival (BELEF), International Folk Festival, Beer Fest, the Boat Carnival, and many more in Belgrade.

I think I'll manage...

Our Good Friend Yugo

Maaarijaa come onnn!! Deki was yelling out to my window from the street, leaning on his white Yugo and reaching in through the window to honk, in his shiny-fluorescent-red tracksuit and rave shades, with trance blasting as loudly as it was possible with the car’s humble sound system. The tracksuit was sent from his uncle in Germany, making it very cool, regardless of the black two-headed eagle emblem, just like the one on the Albanian flag.

It was 8 AM and he had partied all night in a city in the north of Serbia but he was conscientious enough to leave for Belgrade and drive fast enough to make it in time to compete at the hair show at Hotel Yugoslavia. I was his “model”. I ran down and, before leaving, we did our usual synchronized Yugo shake – Deki stands on one side of the Yugo, I stand on the other, and we sway the car back and forth to hear how much gas is juggling inside. Yugo gas meters never worked and were impossible to repair.

We rushed over the bridge, crossing the Sava River onto New Belgrade and were in front of good old proud Hotel Yugoslavia in no time. With not as many cops and traffic on the streets of Belgrade as there are today, the Yugo was great for bringing us everywhere in time. We entered shabby Yugoslavia and walked through the dark hallways of what had been considered to be the most prestigious hotel in the Balkans, with a few shattering lights greeting us, to the room reserved for us and the hairdo. It was one of those rooms where Queen Elisabeth II, Nixon and Tina Turner would have stayed when visiting Tito’s great country in the 70’s and 80’s. It too was dark and shabby.

Deki did a few of his tricks and shortened my “model” hair even more, I painted my face with drastic make-up and we went to the show hall. As I walked the stage, everyone seemed to like my boy look, and Deki enjoyed himself mocking and making faces at me. The more I “modeled”, the more I resembled a boy, and all that seemed to matter at the time was to have fun while satisfying Deki’s strict boss, a coked out 40-something-year-old and the owner of the salon where he worked. Neither Deki or I ever earned any cash competing and presenting at these hair shows.

***

It’s 2 PM, following a successful hair show. A guy in a shiny-fluorescent-red tracksuit and rave shades and a girl with short white hair, black eye makeup and punk clothes are leaning on a white Yugo in front of Hotel Yugoslavia. The sun, fortified in the midst of New Belgrade’s communist blocks where shade is scarce, is melting the girl’s cakey and over exaggerated makeup. The guy is also sweating severely under his cool polyester outfit.

What are they scheming?

***

We decided it was useless to go home, rest until the evening and meet up again. We hopped into the Yugo, put on a psychedelic trance tape and let the fun begin. After a stop to the gas station for beers, we headed to our usual parking lot, where I would practice driving. Deki considered the Yugo to be sort of like a drivers’ boot camp. He would always say that the best drivers learnt how to drive on a Yugo and that, if I learned all of the tricks on a Yugo, it will make any other vehicle a piece of cake. We parked the car to drink a beer and relax a bit. He was giving me some pointers on parking as I noticed two cops approach us. We turned down the music. What a pain. They rarely ever approached us for something substantial and it seemed like too nice of a day to chitchat with them, especially since we were looking to save up the little cash we had for beers in the evening, not waste it on bribes.

“Good day”, they looked at us as if they were on to something. “Can we see your license and registration?”

It was a good thing Deki and I hadn’t swapped seats yet. He had me hold on to his beer as he searched for the documents and handed them to the fatter cop.

“So, what are the two of you doing here?” –the other one asked.

“Uh, you know, we just thought we’d enjoy the sun, hang out… the usual…” Deki responded nervously hoping the cop would stop gazing into the beers I was holding.

“Open your trunk.”

As the fat and the fatter cop shuffled the messy trunk, we rolled our eyes. This annoying procedure was a standard way for to get us to pay up when in hurry or simply looking to avoid embarrassment in front of a girl. This would have been the 30^th time that the Yugo was undergoing such an exhaustive search and Deki and I were too good of friends to be embarrassed by this situation so we silently agreed on not giving them the cash. 45 minutes later, the fatter cop was sweatier than polyestered Deki and pissed that we had all the time in the world for their “procedure”. His red dripping face crawled in through the window.

“Next time, take her home to fuck her. It must be rather uncomfortable here,” he said as he returned Deki's papers.

Like a pair of angry chubby boys disappointed about not getting the candy they had been anticipating, they trotted off to their Yugo 101 Skala and drove off. The finishing touch of their performance, the degrading childish line, left us in numb shock. It was the type of shock you would get from the behavior of a person, who you know pretty well but disliked, who you thought would not be able to shock you anymore than they already had, but they still manage to. Time after time.

We watched the sun set behind Belgrade, poured down a couple of more beers, and decided it was not the day for me to practice driving. “Besides”, Deki was now arguing a contradictory yet equally valid Yugo theory to the one he had been selling an hour before, “if you learn how to drive on this Yugo, you will have trouble shifting gears on other cars”. Every Yugo has its own way of handling the stick shift and, more often than not, the first and reverse gears are particularly challenging and require extra strength and special angles in entering. Every owner is the master of his/her own stick shift and it is difficult to get accustomed to others after.

***

It was finally getting dark. Our time to shine. We drove over to Ivana’s and picked her up. Now when I look back at Deki’s white Yugo days, all I remember is excitement. The night after the parking lot incident with the cops was no different, no special. We drank, laughed, talked, smoked, mocked each other, danced, stuck our heads out the windows singing from the top of our lungs (to tracks blasting as loudly as it was possible from a Yugo). It was one of those moods that would make Ivana and I blow kisses at random drivers in cars around us. Bored cab drivers, lonely men and women, other careless youth like us. Blowing the kisses seemed to have a wonderful impact on everyone, confusion and surprise on their side, fun and spontaneity on our side.

The bastardly cops, the absurd hairshows and ridiculous hairdo’s, the coked-out boss, the messed up country and the shitty car couldn’t have mixed better. It was an accidental film for us to cast in as teenagers, a film full of mistakes and adaptations. And, for us, this life worked perfectly. Just like Deki’s white Yugo.

"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.

Dance!

DJ Mamy Rock - She loves to see the kids enjoy themselves!

A new London diva has been born - Mamy Rock is a 70-year-old retired widow who, after attending her grandson's birthday party at a "disco", fell in love with electronic music and the dance culture. She put on a pair shades, big earings and a sparkly Adidas track suit and began DJ-ing. This reminds me of the women in Southern Serbia who launched a house painting business but also of my 87-year-old grandpa who, having heard some electronica from my computer, thought it was very "interesting and modern" music.

Mamy Rock's style is a bit too commercial for my taste, but she seems to be very popular - she performed at the trendiest Cannes Film Festival parties. Not surprisingly, the night her grandson's birthday, when she had just been Ruth Flowers and not Mamy Rock, the bouncers gave her funny looks and tried to talk her out of entering the club.

Why do we slam doors on others, and ourselves, based on what "category" we belong in? When I was little, I dreamt of being a jokey or a cashier. Ever wonder what direction your life would have taken if it weren't for the clearly defined categories that mapped most of it out for us?

Camouflage and Other Hidden Art

I would love to take part in a disorienting art project in my city, similar to those of Fred Lebain or Liu Bolin. I will try to convince my friend Dana, who may be up for it, considering her Action. Reaction. Interaction. project for which she, among other things, "hijacked" the audience's direction by randomly placing fun directional arrows throughout London that eventually led to a sign bluntly announcing: GO BACK. PLAY. She explains it as:

Guiding people through the urban space, and surprising them by changing the signs, playing with arrows, is a system to analyze the politically coded society today. Challenging people’s senses, directional choices, trust, curiosity, behavior - in order to explore what makes sense for me, and how it can affect the others, and to make them become active: to play with the environment.

Lebain played with the New York audience by taking photos of certain spots, boosting them on posters and later aligning these posters in their original environment:

Liu Bolin from China does something similar - but with his body. With the help of his assistant (I wanna be someone's assistant on such a cool project!), Liu paints a part of an ambient on himself and then takes photos of his body picture blended with the real picture. Enjoy!

Hello Spring, Long Time No See

Constantin Pilavios: What is That?

This is a short Greek film from 2007. A small reminder to love and appreciate the love we receive:

Forever Bottled

Happy World Water Day!

We are well aware of the implications of bottled water. It's a wasteful money making industry that has often been proven not to offer anything different or better than the free and local version - tap water. The Food and Water Watch draws attention to the fossil fuels, oil and enormous amounts of water used for the production of the water bottles while only a tiny fraction of them ends up being recycled. The rest gets trashed and, because plastic degrades so slowly, it is likely that every water bottle ever produced still exists in some pile of garbage, somewhere.

Having read about similar studies countless times, as I was throwing an old water bottle with a sip or two of "stale" water left in it out of my car, I couldn't help but wonder... How many times have I done this without having drank or at least poured out the left over water? I started noticing that many people around me do the same thing too. This must cause for thousands of gallons of water to be trapped in barely degradable plastic. So, not only are we polluting our water and slowing down its purification through the ecosystem, but we may be actually trapping huge amounts of it in bottles buried in trash, disabling it from entering the ecosystem. I would be very interested to see some studies on the relevance of this phenomenon.

Random thought... If somebody had told me when I was little that, one day, I would actually purchase water, I would've probably considered them mad. Then, life in Beijing in the 90's brought me to the realization that not all tap water is drinkable. So, we boiled and cooled tap water every evening and, as much as my memory serves me, I still had not heard of anyone buying water. When did the idea of packaging and selling water become acceptable? It seems like it took a rather small fraction of my life for me to get used to this folly... What's next? Purchasing packaged clean air?

Looking Forward to Hearing MODERAT Live

I have been waiting for oh so long so see Moderat perform. The day is finally approaching. The trio, consisting of Apparat and Modeselektor members, is coming to Serbia in July for a live show at the Exit Festival's Dance Arena.

Moderat "Rusty Nails" from Pfadfinderei on Vimeo.

Some of my other favorites at this year's Exit Festival:

The Twelves
Boys Noize

Crystal Castles

SebastiAn

Mika
Antenat
The Bambi Molesters

To see the full list of performances at the 2010 ExitFest, click here.

Women with Newspaper Hats in Southern Serbia

A couple of days ago, Serbian media station B92 ran a report on a Kursumlijan woman's business start-up. With absolutely no work experience, 70-year-old Dragica Milanovic came to the idea of using a skill she has known since she was little. She trained a group of 10 unemployed women, gave them newspaper hats and launched a house painting business. The business has been so successful that it even won the tender to paint the City Hall. The article cited the workers' content after years of life on welfare. One woman claims how she only got into house painting as a means of survival but would never give it up now. Others say the money is good - enough to support their children as well.

Dragica Milanovic's conquest of a young men's profession is inspiring. Kursimlija is one of the poorest municipalities in Southern Serbia, which itself is an empoverished region in a transitional country. Word about Danica's business has spread to other towns in the region and, acknowledging the difficult economic climate, Dragica is looking forward to expanding and hiring additional workers outside of Kursumlija.

Things are moving, but slowly. Another report by Glas Javnosti had an advertisement right below the article stating:

-Good Pay, Excellent Conditions-
We are looking for new workers in Vojvodina. Perfect job for responsible men.

Random Documentary Picks

Way of Nature by Nina Hedenius (2008) - one year in the life of a Swedish farmer. Amazing photography and detail, no narrative.

Pretty Dyana by Boris Mitic (2003) - enters the "carton suburbs" of Belgrade populated by Roma, who have opened up a sector of economy for themselves. They are the ones who take care of recycling in Serbia, as there is no centralized system and have invented a new form of vehicle for this purpose, resembling an agricultural machine, by remodeling the old Citroën Dyane, the last of which was produced in 1983. You can watch the full video here.

Pianomania by Robert Cibis and Lilian Franck (2009) - follows the life of a German piano tuner, shedding light to the peculiar search for the right pitch of some of today's most renowned pianists. Definitely uncovered a new world to me.

The Unfilmable Banksy Film

The great stencil-stunt-artist Banksy has finally come out with a movie - not about himself of course, but about how another person failed to make a movie about him. "Exit Through the Gift Shop" is out in selected cinemas today!

Once again, Banksy is mocking the ugly side of us, our eternal wish to learn about the subjects we admire, more than they themselves are willing to uncover. Maybe, Banksy is trying to ask us to be satisfied with the messages that the artist willingly doles out to us through his/her art... Right around the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Banksy left several new marks in Park City, Utah. Here is one that I think most directly relates to the film's message - Why do we have to film something, even at the price of its destruction, in order to enjoy it?


As Banksy proudly states for BBC - "It's the story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed".

Sidenotes:

• Exit Through the Gift Shop music credits by Geoff Barrow (from Portishead) and Roni Size;
  
• In case you have never heard of Banksy, check out the official website;
• StuffWhitePeopleLike has a hilarious entry about our love for Banksy and street art in general;
• Here are a "few" of my favorites: