nettime: I was in Belgrade, a late night nostalgia

["Vuk Cosic" <vuk@KUD-FP.SI>]

   I spoke to Irena while we ate our breakfast in the "Aca" bakery, 
best in town. We discuss about everything, and that is nice. She 
likes to come to Belgrade with me, and this is our second time. We 
bought lots of funny badges and photos of the demonstrations later, 
and have even made a little web divertissement about Milosevic's 
wife, the cannibal. 

<!--
If I'm not to tired, I'll put it on the server 
after I write these paragraphs. Check:
http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/mira/
-->

   I spoke to my friend Milos who is a Saatchi designer, making New 
Moment, a known magazine about nothing. He is probably the nicest man 
in town, and thinks NL is the country to live in ("best design and 
best people"). When people make noise for the tv news, he puts his 
guitar amplifyer to the window and tunes an old strato for half an 
hour. He now has a new girlfriend Marija that I liked very much - 
Milos likes Irena and we joked about swiching.... but never told the 
girls. I think I don't like that.

   I spoke to my friend Talent who is a very good artist (and I will 
do a web site with him one day). He told me of his brain tumor, and 
I was sad. Then we went to the flea market where we had a great 
time. We bought things. Once, when we were leaning against a cordon 
of armed policemen, he was shouting at people that wanted to talk to 
these killers that have hurt about 300 people the previous night on 
the bridge. Talent is very nervous at times, and I hope he'll be 
better soon. I often think of him as of my best friend, when I am 
confronted with a form that asks me that question. He comes to 
Ljubljana few times a year, and everybody loves his work. I am so 
proud.

   I spoke to my friend Tanja, she used to be Talent's girlfriend, 
but is now with Dusan the famous sax player with whom I went to Paris 
for some education. Tanja is an architect and nervous (many Belgrade 
friends are so). She is allwas carying her whistle, and other 
paraphernalia... I think it looks good on her, but I didn't find the 
good moment to tell her that. She is now learning some 3D graphics, 
but doesn't  want to tell me more. One evening we were all sitting at 
my place when Philip called to say we should stay in because police 
is beating everybody that wears a badge, or a whistle, or tennis 
shoes - Tanja had all of that. That was the bridge night when all 
those people were hurt. Sasa came then to install some extra RAM in 
my brothers computer, and I showed some net.art to my dearest friends 
that night. Later Tanja said it was a nice night.

   I spoke very little to my friend Dejana, she is Talent's 
girlfriend now and makes amasing art fashion. I think she's a bit of  
maniac when it comes to her work. She is also using the humorous 
interface very nicely, and I like her very much too.

   I spoke to my new friend Drazen, he is running B92 net activities, 
and is a hero of Real Audio. We allways make lots of plans, and I 
think that is typical for people that first met online, and then have 
to use every moment of the actual meeting to plot. This is 
pathological with some people I know, such as myself. We will meet in 
Rotterdam tomorrow, Drazen and I. 

   I spoke to my friend Sonja, and she is one tough bich. On the wall 
in her office there's a photo with Al Gore who is vice president of 
America, and America is a big country. She's one of my dearest my 
mother's friends actually, and is head of Soros, so I now know all 
about their satelite and non-satelite connectivity problems. We spoke 
of old times, but she rememberd some real old ones, so I left. There 
I spoke to one more of mother's friends, she is Vera, and is very 
dear to me. We wrote a poem together for my fanzine fifteen years 
ago. 

   I spoke to my friend Mileta who is a painter and a writer. He gave 
me a mountain of his new books and catalogues. Other friends call him 
the minister because he will be one in the oposition government, 
once it will be made. He spoke serousely about the demonstrations, 
and gave me some juice that was real good. On the  way back to my 
place I saw very many people in their windows wistling.

   I spoke to my friend Dejan who runs SCCA, we exchanged plenty of 
materials, and I gave him ZKP3.2.1. He was at our first meeting in 
Venice, I draged him there from an opening. He met Diana in Novi Sad 
and got the ZKP3. He reads a lot, and appreciates these volumes. He 
told me of that "Cordon Bleu" week - that's when the students made a 
cordon in front of a police one. They stood there for a week and have 
organized a real program for the policeman. Well, Dejan told me of 
the "art cordon" when artists came with plenty of mirrors. He said 
that's the only time the police didn't look dangerous. And he said he 
shivvered. 

   I spoke to my friend Debeli (that means "the fat guy", and we 
call him that because he is tall) he makes films. Some people I don't 
know came to his flat, and I met the organizers of the strike at the 
national TV. They told me how the boss tryed to bribe them with 
mobile phones. They said no, and are heroes now.

   And I spoke to many other people too, the taxi drivers, the Skart 
designers, and more. They were all talking almost only about 
Milosevic, and I had a great time listening how critical a critical 
mass can be. The last day of my stay, Milosevic said he will 
recognise the elections results that have started the demonstrations. 
Nobody believed him, and I left satisfyed. 

   Now I am very tired and have no great ideas about how to end 
this intimate report.

bingo
v


--
*  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
*  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
*  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
*  more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
*  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de