Been Obscene at KSET 29Sep2011

Last night I saw the best live performance in my life so far.

So there you have it, I said it and I can now continue with description which will not surmount the experience itself or even give it justice, no matter how much I tried. Head on - here we go!

I got to KSET waaaay too early and I had a chance to soak in the atmosphere and watch how the audience slowly gathered for the event. Sitting there, listening to music play before the act I thought about how this, now, is a place where I could take my father out with me. He used to enjoy music like this before conformity irreversibly fucked him up. Maybe there is something that could snap him out of it - and that if such thing existed at all - it is possible that it would be music like this.

To put an end to my woolgathering She Loves Pablo started to play. Zagreb own, they have from the very start shown they can rock. Energetic and wonderfully adjusted, relaxed and funny they went through their set confidently, powerfully, beautifully - nothing was missing and everything was in its place. The audience seemed overflowing with their faithful fandom and that had given wings to their act even more. I was especially impressed with their second guitarist who in addition played keyboards, extra percussion and participated vocally in the act.


As they were playing I remember thinking how this the first concert I attended that hadn't had opening act suffer the toll of everything being set up and sound adjusted for main attraction - and then they finished their set and started gathering their things and, what do you know, all the stuff and instruments I thought set for the B.O. were taken off stage.

After short pause for more gathering and adjusting Been Obscene started to play - and it was an experience so beautiful and all-encompassing it send shivers down my spine. As they are promoting their new album Night O'Mine I expected they will play more of their new material but they have played many songs form The Magic Table Dance and I loved it to tears.

Driving home I saw Zagreb sleeping and birch leaves on Vukovarska fluttering in the breeze. My ears were buzzing from loudness and my body tingled with joy.

Off the cliff

I watched Drive last night.

It has been brought to my attention that it could be good movie and that it had good soundtrack.

Both of these characterizations are understatements.

During opening minutes of the movie it becomes absolutely clear that soundtrack here will be both actor and narration tool for quicker immersion into engrossing atmosphere of barely verbal interactions.

When we enter the story cards have already been dealt.

There is no way to go but down...

... but the lingering smell of hope is just too sweet to resist.

And things go as we expect them to go, reassuringly lulling us through characters' trip down the path of obvious and not so obvious destruction. We see here, among our group, presented in all simplicity all the mechanisms through which lives are disintegrated. And the mechanisms are not awkward, unusual, violent or malevolent. They're all logical, everyday, unobtrusive actions that we all know and use, every day, through our day. And it is painfully obvious that there is no comfort in post-dictive smartassedness; "Where they have zigged they should have zagged."

I have caught my mind remember and re-live similar experiences in many time points in the movie.

Promise. Love. Hope. Passive-aggression. Active-aggression. Rage.

One can, and very often one does survive through experiences like that. And some of that experience remains available in us...

...but most of it doesn't.

We could not take it.

And for that it is so overwhelmingly beautiful to have a movie like this one, wrapped in a tight bundle like a canned despair, to remind us - the surviving us - that we are still alive.

Omoshiro da ne?

I have been in two minds with this self-sufficiency.

It all started with listening Oko Yushima defend loneliness while trying to present it as self-sufficiency:

"Loneliness is not a sin, no matter what the circumstances, I don't need help from others. Other people only get in the way. To help is mere pity. It is jealousy towards the strong. An insult to a noble spirit. To be alone is to be the only one. The privilege of a superior soul."

Truth be told, his words albeit well thought-out sound bitter and hollow.

Nietzsche said:

"The golden fleece of self-sufficiency guards against cudgel- blows but not against pin-pricks."


Interesting, isn't it?


What I am, in my heart of hearts, is a hunter. Not lone predator but a hunter* - no more and no less.


Yet I believe there is no personal gain that could justify putting one's self in front of others haphazardly, but... some things you cannot foresee.

It is a bit of a conundrum.

It is not that I do not want any company. Just that it is hard (try impossible) to find company that could last (in structural more than temporal kind of way) enough to outgrow "random encounter".

It's like I want a glass that would fit well in my hand, be heavy enough empty and light enough full, be shiny enough to make me smile and practical enough to be easily put out of danger - but to find that glass I have to break a truckload of not-good-enough glasses.

It kinda brings me down even as I know that "you can't make an omelet if you don't break some eggs".

It could be argued that I could shorten my list of prerequisites for that glass but that is my short list already, and I'm really making an effort to be reasonable. And I'm modelling requirements on my abilities.

Maybe that is where I err.

*predator preys on the weak, hunter subdues strong

Work In Progress - Variegated T-Sweater

I am just finishing this hmmm... vest.

It is not really variegated as the yarn is not variegated but rather it is made with two strands of yarn held together to achieve this mixed structure. Also it is lovely fitted to allow for curves to be accentuated and that everything fits right where it is supposed to fit.

Now just to have a day cold enough for premiere wearing. I think I'll take some more photos of it propped on a model as this promises to be my best fitted garment so far.

Sunrise in Opatija

I spent last two days on hectic business trip in Opatija. There was much to do and even more to learn, oppinions to be traded and smiles to be dispensed - and it all went well and heartwarmingly pleasing. And the mornings, they were all mine; wonderful sunrises, sea breeze, sound of waves breaking on the rocky seashore, smell of mediterranian herbs. And I remembered to take this picture for you: Opatija bathing in the glow of sunrise mirrored from the sea.

Nakama-tachi

Morning has drawn fog across Zagreb. Stage is set, curtain is here - the show can start now.

I watched Bleach 340 last night. It always amazes me how much of societal critique and life coaching can fit into something as inconspicuous as anime. I deeply approve of this. Where else can you see in mere 20 minutes most important life concepts explained in detail and shown in practice - stripped to their components and shown as full-blooded functioning cogs in the machinery of meaning of life?

What is the meaning of frendship? What are its precursors? Its purpose?

There is no better way to embrace those answers than to take a peek into Kubo-sama's brain.

In the photo above - the clogs I got from a friend on my old job. We talked in night-shift about movie Grease and how I loved Olivia Newton-John's shoes and how it is impossible to find shoes like that and tomorrow night she showed up at work with these clogs. They are just like the ones I liked in the movie, only movie-version were red and these are ocher - and she had had them for fifteen years. I was so moved I cried and took the shoes and promised to take good care of them.

I have them over fifteen years now. They are in perfect shape still.

Threesome at Tvornica 17Sep2011

I went to see Threesome perform in Tvornica last night.

I first listened to them play on Stross Summer Festival last year with Radost! and I liked their sound and energy. Seeing them play last night I can only say that they have unquestionably progressed in dynamism of their sound even more and that their sound is positively enthralling.

Yesterday they have been supported by Pistolrays from Zagreb who were surprisingly good and well rehearsed but sadly, they managed to loosen up a bit just only at the end of their act. I suppose more experience playing in front of an audience will surely harmonize and brush-up their performance what will be welcome improvement because the really deserve the attention.

The Threesome themselves were wonderful; in good spirits, young, good looking, fun and explosively energetic - they owned the crowd from the very start of their act. And it was an act sweetly evocative of 1994. movie Threesome. You see, Threesome are a band consisting of girl on drums and two guys on guitar and bass. They start their performance confidently but cautiously, with girl being clearly most relaxed and confident-looking. Guys slowly tag along - going through set-list like actors through movie, getting more and more convincing and forceful in their act - from awkwardness and caution through acceptance, persuasiveness and growing confidence through experimentation to confident mastery.

Lovely and fulfilling experience. Threesome at its best.

True Blues

As it happens,  my psychological world is essentially comprised of recurring motif cycles which bring me both serenity and discord.

I've been watching Life again.

I've been listening to Gomez.

I found this interesting article on Psyblog on succumbing to the incessant need to be involved in something.

From my experience so far - it is always easier to crave „absorption fix“ in adjustment-to-new-circumstance times. Its immersion is pleasurable in the short-run, highly motivational, quickly rewarding, endorphinously intoxicating.

Yesterday evening I made this bracelet and earrings set from matching glass beads. I waited for the first morning light to take some pictures because I still don't have good diffuse light source for taking pictures indoors or in poor light conditions. I am wearing the set now and I'm being noticed.

I love how applied psychology works.

See The World

As I drive to work there is magnificent yellow sun low on the horizon blinding me with its allure, touching with its light-lance darkest pits of my soul, appeasing the monsters and feeding them beauty.

Flax bushes stand tall just below the sharp turn before I emerge into Mikulici. So beautifully blue, awkwardly inappropriate.

Almost autumn.

There is an itch under my skin, thirst that commands, heart that complies.

Pink-black bracelet in the making

Yesterday morning I made this lovely bracelet for myself. It was a kind of experiment really, because I was not entirely sure how this would look like finished so I waited until I got some leftovers from other projects to give it a go. And this time I remembered to snap some pictures for you. What you see in the picture above is large spool of cotton thread with small alternating pink and black beads which are then crocheted one by one into bracelet - kind of small rope with thread on the inside and beads on the outside. I love it how it turned out. It is hypnotizing and feminine at the same time and it goes with lots of different clothing styles.

Stitchmarker Invasion

This weekend I am finishing some projects and beginning new ones. It has been very productive summer this year and I suspect productive autumn is afoot - so I made bunch of helpful tools to intensify the experience.

Paired sleeping

People are usually very good in hiding things from themselves. That is not really surprising since those kind of deceptions are self-preservation in action in its most beautiful and convenient form. So it is far from unexpected for one to only realize one misses something after being confronted with it. And then it feels a lot like incessant flood of pokes into fresh laceration.

Until this weekend - one spent watching True Blood - I never realized how much I miss having good sleeping partner.

It has been so long since I had one.

Third of my life has flown by me since I had a good night sleep while being held or held anyone while sleeping. And I remember I used to be very good paired-sleeper.

I'm too old for this shit

I wanted to go to 2-day music festival on Friday and Saturday (yesterday and the day before) when all hell broke loose. On Friday when I finally managed to get all of my engagements done we have had the first autumn storm this year and on Saturday I felt so heartbreakingly lonely I could not be trusted to go and socialize without it ending in go-to escapistic solution No.1.

Instead I spent all day and most of the night watching True Blood. Which, in itself, showed to be less than ideal solution as it very vividly showed all the things I've lost... I've had... And could easily have again... And miss. Dearly miss. And believe I should not crave nor strive to get... because I'm too old for this shit. I'm tired and cannot take it anymore. But it is all a lie. I'm not and I will and for a glimmer of hope I will let it all burn.