Archives for May, 2004

The watergates in Ljubljana, from aiwaz.net.

Two great photo albums for today:

First, a photo collection of Joze Plecnik’s architectural work in Ljubljana. Plecnik was a famous architect who left a considerable impression on the Slovenian capital. This site does a very nice job of illustrating some of his work.

Second, Slovenian blogger BeeBee was recently in Macedonia and Greece, and has put up an excellent collection of photos from her trip. If (like me) you didn’t think there were rice fields in Macedonia, get ready for a surprise.

(Thanks, taz!)

St. Mark’s hill, Koper. From the city’s official site.

One of the great benefits of living in Slovenia is that there is so much variety within easy striking distance: the Alps, the Adriatic, the great plains of Hungary, the great cities of Vienna and Venice, the cave-a-licious karst region, and so on. At this very moment, I’m probably somewhere in the “head of Istria” (Caput Histriae), a city more commonly known as Koper. (Or Capodistria, if you parli italiano)

I set this site to auto-update over the long weekend, so if something went wrong… well, to hell with it, I’m probably so relaxed right now that I don’t even know my own name. (At least I hope I am.)

I’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, to paraphrase Gen. MacArthur: “brb.”

This plastic half-dog can be yours for only 16 euros!

This plastic half-dog and bone, taken from the new Moda Plus catalogue, is indisputable evidence that the economy is booming, and that Slovenes have more and more disposable income to spend. It’s also extremely strange.

(Thanks, Martinovanje!)

Freedom House has released its 2004 report, Nations in Transit, which gauges democracy in Eastern Europe. Slovenia scored 1.75 in the Democracy Score Rankings. (The scale runs from 1 to 7, with one being the highest level of democratic development.) Poland scored the same.

On the summary page (PDF), Slovenia is briefly chided for some recent corruption scandals, but praised for passing the Law on the Freedom of Information and improving public administration. Oddly, the issue of the “erased” is not mentioned.

The report can be seen here.

UPDATE: The author of the report sent me an e-mail pointing out that the “erased” ARE included, in the governance section. My apologies!

Love Thy Neighor: A Story of War, Vintage, 1997.

Peter Maass is a journalistic heavyweight with a stellar resume: The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and so on. From 1992 to 1993, he covered the war in Bosnia for the Post and shortly thereafter released a book about his time there entitled Love Thy Neighbor.

I disliked Love Thy Neighbor. At first I had trouble putting my finger on why. But rather than toss it in the trash, I decided to conduct an autopsy on it and try to diagnose what went wrong. Here are the results of my exam.
(more…)

Provalija is the Serbian word for "abyss."

The Years of Entanglement: Yugoslavia 1981-1990 is a photo essay by Dushan Drakulich. It has pictures from all over pre-war Yugoslavia, including a few from Slovenia. It’s a fantastic collection and immediately apparent that Drakulich has razor-sharp eyes and a talent for juxtaposition. (For example, look at the picture on this page — second from the top.)

Of course, many of the pictures get their bite from the fact that we all know what happened to Yugoslavia. The page of propaganda slogans, especially the one praising the "Single Indivisible Our Mutual Homeland Yugoslavia," is depressing to see. Especially when the "indivisible" would become "violently divisible" just two years later.

For more photo essays by Drakulich, visit his main page.

(Many thanks to the indefatigable plep!)

 
Sanja Nikolic moments before collapsing.

I’ve gotten quite a few e-mails asking about the fate of Sanja Nikolic. (Click here to see the original post.) One Japanese reader even asked if it was true that Sanja had suffered an "intracerebral hemorrhage" and died. I dug around a little on Pink TV’s site but found nothing. Luckily, a man named Mr. Cancel, who is a direct descendant of Sherlock Holmes (if only in spirit) finally solved the mystery. He sent me an e-mail, which said:

"I asked Pink TV via their site and got this info: She became very popular after that and she is still member od Info top. I guess everything worked out alright in the end."

Many thanks to Mr. Cancel for solving the mystery. And here’s hoping Sanja continues to prosper for many, many years to come.

In a school for mentally handicapped children, the students were given an essay assignment. The topic was Samo ena je mama. (There is only one mother) According to the teacher, one student turned in a paper that was both wrong and brilliant; he was conflicted about how to grade it.

This is (roughly) what the essay looked like:

One day I came home and noticed that a stranger’s shoes were in the foyer. When I went inside, I heard a voice. It was our neighbor talking to my mom. I went into the living room and my mom told me to get two beers for them. I walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I saw that there was only one beer inside, so I yelled to my mom: “There is only one, mother!”

It’s a masterpiece, is it not? I would give it the absolute highest possible score.

This page has a condensed, one-page phrase guide for Slovene. (Click on the “booklet” link to get it in PDF format.)

The creator, currently living in Denver, is also looking for someone to record the phrases in “reasonably dialect-free Slovene.” That probably eliminates 90% of the population, but if you feel up to the challenge his e-mail is info@single-serving.com.

I went to a concert last night of the chamber orchestra of the Maribor Philharmonic. The guest soloist, a 73-year-old violinist of former renown, squeaked his way through Bach’s Violin Concerto, BWV 1042 and a Brandenburg concerto before the intermission arrived and I left.

It was quite a disappointment, but while I was sitting in the hall cringing at the occasional squawks I realized that the root of the problem is with the audience, not the performer. No matter how many wrong notes one hits or how sloppy one plays: there’s always hearty applause and a rousing standing ovation at the end. There’s no quality control. No boos or hisses or rocks, or riots. Just applause.

I’ve seen more poor/average concerts than spectacular ones (both in Europe and the U.S.) but the applause level always seems to be, maddeningly, the same.