the 'store' and the goatman, star istevnik, macedonia

a daily philosophical debate with a goat-owning neighbor as he crossed the road to the field and as i waited along to road to hitchhike into town:

- ey ey, okay okay!
- hey, hey!
- hello!
- how are you?
- okay okay, [macedonian words and gestures adding up to 'getting by']
- oh, alright.
- where you go?
- to town
- for what?
- internet
- ah, eh, okay okay. you coming back?
- yes, tonight.
- ok, okay [i'm just taking my goats for a walk in the field over there]
- oh, how many do you have?
- three, [for milk, enough for me and my family to eat. you like?]
- yes, i do, i would love some, thank you.
- ok ok super [in the evening when you come back i will bring some by maja's house and you can boil it and drink]
- oh, thank you so much.
- bye
- bye

star istevnik
A village consisting entirely of Francis Bacon portraits, surrounded by the rolling hills of Eden and fresh sunbathed pine forrest, where a sadly notable number of young people hang themselves each year. The winding roads rise to the steep horizon and lead right into the luxurious clouds. The landscape - a collaborative vision of Bruegel and the art director of Teletubbies. Always a dog barking somewhere, the brass gypsy dream beats always just far enough to hear but not to see. Excerpt:


'the store'
How I love to watch the light of that stoically decrepit building employed by the village as the local store but mostly serving as the bar for the few but dedicated old men (and an occasional woman disguised almost seamlessly as an old man); how I love to watch that pale blue-yellow fluorescent rectangle, interrupted quietly by the panes and the permanent and solemn decoration of lined-up beer bottles, inviting and mournful; how I love to watch that window elevate into the night as the tractor rolls downhill and away. A muddy pedestal for the glowing smoke altar, the blue cube of the television suspended above the dusty wooden shelves, stacked with a few loaves of bread, cookies, cigarettes (though not tonight, and who knows when there will be any), beer, matches and other necessary, but somehow blandly unsatisfying items. It ascends, raised by the road, remaining on the hill, surrounded by the windy and endless darkness of the half-abandoned village, by the ringing tide of the surrounding forrest, whispering of ancient gods, of invasions and rebellions, of the men hanged on its limbs. Turning the corner, the rectangle disappears, the stage curtains, the unread and the unwritten play continues among the night hills, without an audience, unwitnessed, abandoned into oblivion and out of memory, our of history. But by those circumstances it is unstirred and uninterrupted, sliding along the narrow cracks of tradition, slowly and without blinking, without looking back, without looking forward. Gaze fixed on its thick dry cracked warm hands, or a few paces up the road on its goats, chickens, tractor wheels or another endless ageless tasks of survival dictating the rhythm of each sunrise-to-sunset day.

The sun sets, the dusk colors' magical transcendent performance ends in gray, violently tumbling into the colorless pitt of the country night. The demons rise up from the ground, floating out of rocks and glassless windows. The trees grow arms and eyes and roam and moan for man. No more questions or answers, the night reigns silently and judges blindly, documenting the forgotten histories, finishing the phrases and cries cut off by days, deaths and doubts. A mouthless toothless mumble and the song of the nightingale.