Thursday, September 27, 2012

Autumn Beauty


I drive through town from my new home to work on the other side of town.

Mornings are cool and beautiful, air is crisp and Soundset Plavi radio show hosts are making me laugh out loud in my car as I travel to work. I make my rounds, talk and pack and ship and negotiate and I leave for home tired and smiling.

I pick up my offspringess from school and she says: "Home, sweet home." as we enter our flat.

I cook dinner and she tells me about her day. We analyze and we plan ahead. We receive guests and play with friends. Often we share dinner with loved ones and we whine and motivate and preach.

In the evening we watch Star Trek or Mythbusters or Bleach or Lie to me or Life and we talk as I knit.

Later still I carry offspringess from my bed to hers and enjoy streching out some.

I hope I will never ever forget how I missed these simple pleasures of life.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Japandroids @Purgeraj 08Sep2012

I took some time off here, at the end of summer, and I was on vacation last two weeks after working the summer away. In this time information bombshell fell at the office and I was called home for consult on something every #*%$#* day... So opportunity for some R&R presented itself in a form of Japandroids concert that was announced at new Zagreb venue, NKC Park, and I went there to check up the place and soak up some noisy emotion-provoking goodness.

As is happens, my camera-phone fell into tub of water earlier that day and I was so pleased it was still working after some drying and tinkering with I naturally assumed it would serve me well at concert site...


... but it was so hot there, at small hall in Purgeraj, that the remaining water in the phone condensed on inner side of the lens and all my Be Forest pictures turned out like this.

Soft-edged, dreamy, retro-feel grainy. I love them. Just as I instantly loved Be Forest and their somnambulate, nostalgic sound of times passed, evocative and sweet, sensual yet performed by people so young and fairly attractive it was a paradox in itself to let oneself enjoy it fully. And I loooved them.

I mingled a bit and poked my nose around the venue and I enjoyed the company of friends as crowd gathered for the main event. Concert was sold out which did not surprise me but I was a bit surprised by multitude of people and compactness of space at Purgeraj. Small hall was jam-packed with people and it was difficult to see and difficult to breathe for me as I am not much of a people's person and I like my personal space unpopulated with people I'm not intimate with - so I squirmed out of the concert hall and back into the bar and there I noticed, with no small surprise and happiness, that there are screens in the bar space and in the outer terrace space showing camera feed from the stage!!!

I have heard and read oodles of silly remarks during past few days on how "this is not the same as watching the concert from first rows" and that "you can watch the concert like that from the comfort of your own living room" but I say: "Don't be daft!".

If I had wanted to watch the concert from first row I would get there in time to experience it like that. If I had wanted to press against people in the hot oven I'd do just that. In addition, you are forgeting that there are people that do not feel the inclination to jump into mosh pit but they still like being out with their friends that do. There are people that are just very short, or maybe disabled - having medical conditions like MS or are in a wheelchair that would very much appreciate having such a great opportunity to watch the show from few meters away but still to be sheltered and have full comfort of motion.

So I poked around some more and I mingled and I spoke with super-friendly bartenders and waiters and drank blueberry juice from ice-packed glasses with lovely giant straws and I still enjoyed the show very much. I had unparallel opportunity to observe friends and acquintances engulfed in wild extasy of singalongs, stagedivers, unknown secret lovers AND I still had enough time and space to take some more awful pictures of stars of the evening with my dried-out phone. Japandroids made for a great, energy-filled flying carpet of happiness and their showmanship and communication with the audience, both before and during the show was endearing.


This was one great night out, rapturous and multilayered, remedial for body and soul.