words

when you panic you grab the steering bars so tight and you can hardly breathe and maneuvering becomes torturous and nearly impossible, and you might get to where you planned to go, and if you do, you will be exhausted and remember very little of the journey. but if you relax, the panic will leave and even if you are just learning to ride, it will become pleasant and much easier to ride. and you will still arrive at the destination you were originally orienting yourself towards so passionately, but you will have breathed fresh air, noticed much beauty and gotten better at riding a bike. and here it is, today's nine hour long conversation boiled down. relaxing not in the sense of limpness and lifelessness, but in the sense of relaxing to survive, relaxing because if you don't, you will crash, break your neck, or even worse - be constantly unhappy not only with the world around, but with your own life efforts. zagreb's last words of wisdom for me tonight before we split to Split. goodnight

slugs

thick yellow slugs dot the path to hrelich. today is the first sunny day in a while and they crawled out to warm their oozing flesh. some slowly move across the gravel, crossing from one side to another, others lie motionless in their half-dried yellow guts. beginning from the stairs leading down from the railroad on the bridge and the entire twenty minute walk to the market people are selling things spread on the ground, clothes, metal parts, cosmetics, shoes. the market itself, hrelich, has existed for forty years, as i said, at the foot of the city dump mountain. its mostly run by gyspies who collect things through out the city and dumps and buy things in bulk. but others come there too to sell as a hobby, to talk, to bargain, to look at the others. the place has an atmosphere of twilight zone, tarkovski and gogol bordello, with an underlying sense of infinite posibilities and peace. some zagreb people call it church. living wednesday to sunday, hrelich to hrelich. im continuing with my disposable camera project and just finishing the second roll of twenty seven today. i cannon post any images here, too complicated technologically, so you will have to find me when i get back. may be ill have a whole exhibition of this, sound, photos, drawings. ill have to look for a space somewhere in boston. coming home from hrelich today we entered a fashion model shoot taking place at the apartment. minimal black while and beige shoot for a friend who is going to paris for fashion week. its like that here, trash and luxury inspiring each other, inseparable. met new people at the market, milan and friends. going to see them tonight. another crop of zagreb alternative underground intelligentsia scene... cheers

tu tudu tudu tutudu tu tudu tudu tutudu

lou reed, bob marley and the pixies accompany us at our breakfast in another zagreb kitchen. our new host is tomi. tomi is a thirty three year old doctor in the psychiatric hospital. tomi enjoys wine, smokes seldom but with pleasure,  loves having guests more than anything and for the past three years has taken a decorative theatrical photograph of every one of them. tomi is from dubrovnik, which where most of the croatian blueblood comes from.

tonight tomi, ana and i are hosting a dinner party for ten with the theme of sculpted food, mostly buildings and animals and of being as comfortable in and with your body as possible, costumes or not, clothes or not. we will cook together when tomi gets home from work at the mental hospital. tomi apartment will be the setting of this play/photoshoot/dinner/dance party. there is the plastic bambi, the red phone, the vast collection vintage lamps and chairs, mirrored serving trays, tall cealings and dark blue living room furniture. it's got a blue velvet feeling to it.

the difference between honest silence
and false speeches
beestings my chest
to unravel the knots without getting bored
circus performace and audience swtich places
the safety of the dark rowed seats no more
the warmth of converstation
we cling to it even closer where on the road
while dreaming of honest silence

wednesday we are going again to the gypsy flee market. a got another disposable camera, twenty seven market pictures. some call hrelich (the market) church. it's every sunday and wednesday all year and one can confess and listen to the beautiful sermon of barter and rubble.

a rainy morning with rainy thoughts. sending blessing to all the lovely people who might be reading this or thinking of me and each other. we live day to day and to be more decisive about who we will love forever will make us happier. i love you today even if i know you much screw me over tomorrow. diana from the old crackchaos apartment waved that phrase around like a banner.

good bye and i love you

patina culture

''that reminds me,'' she said '' that lamp over there had a blue bulb in it once. we sat in this room for thirty six hours with this blue light. and it was there because that was the only light bulb we had and i didn't realize that it was blue until i opened the shades and looked out the window and the whole world was bloody red. i was so confused and then i realized we've been sitting in this room for thirty six hours in the blue light, smoking, drinking and all the colors were totally twisted. it took a while to adjust to this strange scene outside.''

here you wake up in the morning at six or seven to the base being flipped on and madonna or 'where is my mind' filling the apartment. the blinds go down, the boxes of cigarettes get piled into the middle of the table and that 'afterparty' commences. the club lets out at six and it's always irma's place. they are building up the patina. sunshine or open air will harm the process, oxidize the delicate veils of dust and sweat and the charm will the shaken, disturbed. always night here for days in a row. onstage but hidden from the audience, the audience being only the actors themselves, veiled in the fog. then when the day is finally presented through the open windows, everyone comes out into it with this secret potion in their pocket. back on stage, the audience of the street stares with judgement, expectation, suspicion, bright in the sunlight of their reality. but the musk of the night's patina clings to the clothes, sweet and rancid, like anything here. like lipstick over a scab, electric blue eyeshadow on an eight year old girl. a wooden idol with years of blood, milk and honey poured over it in offerings. patina.

theater

foggy scenes floating in and out of each other the smoke and the curtains over the day's light conceal the time of day and night comes into the morning experiencing the youth of a postwar country got rid of the rainy day and sleep came when the rain came and now another night calls out to dance dance dance life is a play and each must do the part assigned. here it is especially clear to everyone and noone questions to the job that must be done. get into the cab and put on a play. cabs in zagreb are the worst! so expensive! ask for the registration and throw it on the floor! no, i'm not getting out so keep driving i'm your customer! then, half way through get out with a scene and get into another cab, praising the cheaper price. in the end you pay only half and the bargain is played out as the ancient ritual calls for. a brilliant performance, tomy, sealmess. off to the coast on monday and to detoxify and see the world outside of this escapist apartment. doing well, very well. much recorded and drawn. goodnight

short plays and delicate moments

chicken paste - it's as common as peanut butter and jelly, except they don't serve peanut butter and jelly in restaurants before meals, and here they do! and if you sneak your own extra chicken paste, you can add it to the side of potatoes and have a full meal for the price of an appetizer.

walking - a cure for stupid questions 

rakia  - a brandy made from plums, a very sweet and strong balkan specialty

hvala - thank you

ukulele - i bough one today and hope to learn to make it sound like music. four chords down, all more to go

meat - it's just meat, what is your question

dusk - be outside for as many dusks as possible. they are beautiful in every city. 

yellow houses - are a great element of any town because they reflect the light and make everything look warm

nemci - means 'germans', in russian too. coming from the word 'mute'

belgrade - where we are going. where the ships stand sunken into river. where ivan the painter will take us to a circus

bronners soap - good stuff for trips

mama - i love you and miss you

thank you

another night in zagreb, serbia dreams

ivan from belgrade showed us his childhood drawings today. belgrade in the 90's must have been full of one legged daggerheads, lustlful babyzombies, bandaids that never worked, teeth and holes. lucky to take a look at someone else's kid arts. he's having a painting show tomorrow. a painter from belgrade. we might hitch out of here tomorrow. cities are full of suggestions. when one no longer needs suggestions, it's time to go. we are sleeping tonight, not last night. the place is full of people, smoke, beer, tv, radio, sex, dogs, cats, croatian words, speed. people my age here take the hardcore escaping route, no detours. growing up here, especially, can do that. we took the tram to the outskirts today and walked along the river and the road to herlich, the gypsy flee market. we got there by early sunset and the market had already ended, but what was left were piles of clothing and things, and a few other people picking through the rubble. we joined them for a few hours. wandering with the crows, quiet everybody submerged in their own reasons for being there. the sunset illuminated the bright heaps, with the perfect accent, i found a mickie mouse shirt that i liked and a few papers, notes, photographs, music scores. back to the city, stopped by a off road buffet and managed, after some gesturing and shreds of russian and english to order 'meat and potatoes', salad and beer on the side of course.

the women we are surrounded by in this appartment speak in deep voices of smoke and yelling. articulated, animated, alive in this chaos. noone really knows anything for sure in general, the point is to realize that and move one.

i don't know who is reading this, but if you are i'm glad. it's good for a person to know someone is thinking of them, even sometimes. this is a city with quiet streets, but houses full of noise. people pray at night here, and talk talk talk all through the night, every night. new people come and they talk and there is no end of beginning to anything, not to a cigarette not to a  beer for them, just keep going, food sleep? they are too young to worry. many dream of going to new york, of course. there are many old trees in the parks and the mountains cup the city from the sides. learning a new language. mind is fluid and eyes are wide open eating. we want the road soon, out of the city. cities full of desires, we look like beggars and all beggars must move along someday. many lovely people we met though, all are welcoming yet in their own wild world we are but passing shadows.

i don't know if i'm getting to abstract or dark here, but it's 2 am, and i'm just giving you the raw stuff coming out of my fingers. there are a few of you i miss painfully, i must admit. but the journey goes on, and eli, your advice is received. thank you.

ghost towns and gypsy lips

good night

zagreb, croatia

ana and i are in croatia staying with good people, a friend of ana's friend from nyc. we are drinking chamomile vanilla tea with honey and getting ready for sleep. took the train from slovenia to crotia in three hours. tall pale mountains in the horizon, pink in the dusk. nap on the train, ate a dinner of sardines, rye bread, dried fruit, bananas and blueberry liquor. slovenia was much like austria then a balkan land. we went to a bar called kolaz (means collage), people who looked much more like us then we have been used to. good people. the city is a collage, life and history here seems like the process of making a collage. layers, shapes, yellow houses, pink houses, yugoslavia, war, the war effected some, others live without thinking about it much, but some walls still have bullet marks on them. ornate baroque churches. we are asked what it is that we do? teaching, painting, teaching painting, sculpture, we write, we travel, we look to bring people together in  art communes, getting off of facebook, reading more, becoming more aware. tomorrow we are going to the fresh market to get breakfast items, then to the museum of contemporary art, where a friend is working in the morning, then gallery opening, then  an experimental film festival opening, then the after party of the gallery opening, and the gypsy flee market is in the morning. sleep sleep going to sleep. not reading this over today, so no spell check. love

ljubljana, day three

ana is here. so good to have a sunny partner. continental breakfast with local mushrooms across the ochre river this morning. hostel bed gave good sleep. autumn air, chilly outside, fresh. manz bridges in his town, deep breathing. tomorrow we hitch to bled, a city on a lake, perhaps camping. camping in croatia for sure. we will walk and walk and look. gypsies are waiting in serbia, ana will want to go there one more time and show me the maroon houses, the ghetto fields, the plastic bottle trash and the old women, giving free food to strangers at bus stations. we are warm and healthy, although the air in cold. slovenia is balkans but very westers in its manners. macedonia in octobers. greece in november. ive been eating carrots and i think i can see better. when we camp we will paint. ana is coming soon, we will plan the day. gather supplies, forces, energy to keep mind open. hostel room of four bunk beds, bodies sleeping deeply breathing, strangers in slovenia. a few are mid-twenties, out of college out of work. what's new? this is a good place to be in our case, pefect. the crossroads, the gateway of europe. ana comes soon, i go.

in ljubljana, slovenia

i'm in ljubljana. it's raining and i just woke up. one a.m. before sleep went to the supermarket and bought some rye bread, chicken pastet, goat cheese, grapes, a grapefruit, kefir, tea and chocolate from the maximart. a fine meal, although i don't think i'll get the chicken paste again. art project, yes. what am i going to do for this art project. i ate and slept and washed myself and bought a 5 liter bottle of water. the basics taken care of. now what? ana is not here yet, i hope she's warm and dry somewhere. the mind is a landscape, the light on which changes rapidly fleeting. ljubljana is an old town by the river with many bridges, low colorful buildings, stone-paved streets, visitors, looking, slowly walking. willows hang over the river and the park has a few very old mossy trees. ljubljana losely means 'lovely'. it's dark outside and raining giving some time for silence. when the sun rises and sunday comes i will go look at the city again. may e find the museum or an art store. i brought some gouache paints with me so i have a way to record colors. a graphic novel, though. how to gather thoughts and experiences into a story. alright, cheers, till next time.

anya

Petah Tikva, Israel, August 2010

Putney, Vermont, August 2010