Where is …?

No New Year resolutions this year.
Just wishes.
For things to calm down.
For rewarding projects, both photo and crafting.
For not feeling disgusted with the idea of turning on the computer in the evening.
For time to read. Write. Post.
And for not lagging behind.

Meeting some new people would be nice.
Seeing a few of the old friends would be even nicer.
Travel a bit.

Stay sane.
What more could one want anyway.

Little rituals – reading Cafe Selavy

I like rituals. Not the collective ones, for you will not find me cheering in the crowd, marching in procession, singing with the nation. No, flocking is not my thingy. Apparently there is more than just a trace of individualism inside my thoroughly socialist cloak, soaked in the  ideals of solidarity and common good…

One of my small, solitary rituals is reading Cafe Selavy on an evening bus home. I think the darkness of the night becomes it, the alienating bus ride as well. It’s not the same thing if I catch the last train home – that is too smooth, brightly lit, revealing, humanistic even. No, the bus ride is much better. The silent passengers, reluctant to share a seat next to them with a stranger, silently sit in their privatised slots, stearing at the brightly lit screens of their mobile phones. Far from the Enlightenment spirit of the train, where books, newspapers and magazines rule, the bus is the domain of small mobile screens and MP3s.

The atmosphere becomes Cafe Selavy’s darkish overtones and as the bus snakes back and forth between every splash of more than four houses between Ljubljana and Kamnik, I sit back in my seat and by the time we pass the pub where the Russian Tsar is said to have used the toilet in 1842, I’m already deep in the moody universe that couldn’t be more different from my own, though it is the kind I years ago on my pessimist days though might be awaiting me…

I read it backwards till I reach the last post I had read, which produces a particular narrative effect. Not exactly of connoisseurship, but similar. I know that the small screen does not do justice to the images, but neither would the judgement of someone who would glance at my little screen and see the latest Lonesomeville series pic.

Today, even the music was befitting, it started with The Pogues and then went to Lana del Rey’s Video Games, a song the I can’t seem to get out of my head today. I googled it when I came home. A review called it nostalgic, to me it sounds more like the classiest song from a Tarantino movie soundtrack. Velvety, dark, seductive. Will play it again now.

Card reader

It is hard to have a photoblog if you can’t find your card reader to download your pics. As if the chaos of the working space isn’t enough, K. uses it as a fake mobile phone to “call” her grandma. But I did. Find it. And voilà. My latest flâneur pic.

FIve in five

Grasswire (blog) will turn five (years) in  five (days).
I will turn a bit more than that.

Not so white

I’ll be brief today – have so many texts to write and edit that I’m going…
slightly…
just very very slightly…

But somehow, things don’t seem so black anymore.
And the new Word documents are not so white eather.
Have a great week.

IF – Light brigade

It’s been a while since I decided to make something for Illustration Friday. But than this week I had scanned some illustrations from a 1930′s  Slovene fashion magazine, which I will probably use in my magical shelf cabinet project. Ant these three seemed like a perfect match for this weeks topic – “brigade”. As history would have it, they would probably have ended up in a brigade. Luckily, they were just lines on paper.

Found still life with fire extinguisher

Istanbul, July 2011.

I’m (not) 22

I’m mostly translating and editing text these days. I should actually be grading student papers, but this editing thingy is deadline-based…

There is this refrain that comes to my mind again and again while I’m doing it. The song is not easily translatable to English, so I won’t even try. It’s not just the lyrics, it’s also the Bosnian/ex-YU context.

Kada kažem jebo mater.
Ja ne psujem, ja samo tako pričam.

There are texts that should not have been written. And there are those that should not have been translated.
And some of these should not be edited, but be published as they were submitted to publicly ridicule the authors.
But there are always suckers who consider the best interest of the publication, who utter a careless “yes”
and spend their nights singing:

Kada kažem jebo mater.
Ja ne psujem, ja samo tako pričam.

From afar, the graffiti face looks a bit like the author of the song.
I said from afar.

Click to listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysjP0ZgrGvs

Ovo je genijalno, ja sam oduševljen….
Kada kažem jebo mater.
Ja ne psujem, ja samo tako pričam.

Crafting for sanity: The boy

Crafting for sanity. And for my daughters, of course :)

Ever since semester started, I have hard time adjusting to my new schedule. But as I’m juggling with more balls than I can handle, one things that keep me at least partially sane (and occasionally behind schedule) are the little crafting/DIY projects. Luckily, there have been quite a few. Since September, I have finished re-upholstering of two armchairs for our living room, made a bed for K,  re-upholstered 2 armchairs from my office, started working on an addition to my office desk, and my current favourite – magic shelves for the girls (will absolutely post on them when I’m done). And finished renewing this little fella.

We simply call him “the boy”. CC spotted him on the local flea market and we got it for 5€ without even trying to haggle. All he needed was a good paint job and a new base. This took a while. But during the “while”, a friend of our made a very well phrased comment on not overdoing it, on leaving parts of it in its original state. We immediately knew she was right. So I sanded everything but the face and the ball on the top, exposing the very good wood beneath the flaking paint. This was obviously no home-made DIY project. Or if it was, it was done by a pro. Three coats of paint (and two weeks) later, ta-da, the boy was in the anteroom just in time for the winter coat hanging season. The girls love it/him.

All he needs are 5 upholstery tacks, which will require a special hunting expedition to Ljubljana.
Luckily, I know just the place.

Apropo iSTANBUL graffiti

Just remembered that the image from the previous post has its pair. Of a sort.
As long as we are just talking about it… But images, noooo, images are dangerous.
Offensive. Seductive. Problematic. Powerful.
Censored erotic miniature, in an antique shop display mere 300 meters away from the orgasm(ic) graffiti.
Still, even Malevich would probably agree, that a white square is better than a black rectangle :)