Laser Man Love Cafe

found: Rovinj, Croatia, July 2010

2 9 2010 Beograd: Love Café near the Monument of Vuk




The café has outdoor seating adjacent to a busy street. The seating is enclosed by three rectangular hedges. There is a tram that passes frequently, and it makes a flash of sparks as it passes a certain point. Many people are out, walking this street, and the presence of so many people seems to counter the traffic, in terms of atmosphere, and the scene feels relaxed.

Horns are used liberally in this city, as in, any delay in the flow of traffic seems justification to use the horn. My left hand feels stiff, typing in the cold. I broke my ring finger at the end of July.

The waiter is a stocky man in with a black apron. In the center of the apron is a blue light blue circle with the words, “Love Café” written there. He has short-cropped, dark hair, wears jeans and nondescript white shoes. He asks where I am from, and I say, “Seattle,” and he says, “Ah, USA.” I nod, and he says, “How you like our Serbia?” I answer affirmatively and he goes to place my coffee order. I spot the man on the street with the green laser. He scribbles his laser on buildings and at cars as he paces near the bus stop bench. He wears a black hood and I cannot see his face.

Last night, the girl at the Sun Hostel, near St. Savo’s Cathedral told me that if I take a left out of the hostel door, and walk, I will see lots of big houses. “We’re in the nice part of town,” she tells me. Now I am here and it is cold, so I will move inside. Maps are mostly useless to me in this town because I have not taken the time to learn Cyrillic, and while my map is written with Latin letters, the streets are all in Cyrillic, so you see.

Here: Beograd

sintra, portugal

31 8 2010 Beograd. Int: Café


933-948

We see the glow of the ice-cream display case. We see the empty glass that reads, “voda vrnjci.” the table is black, and there is a small piece of cloth, like a decorative placemat, green with raised white threads, and loose fringes on the ends- a rectangle of fabric that is on the table beneath a piece of glass. The glass has a sort of rubber piece beneath each corner, and this prevents the glass from slipping off of the table. There is a knarled plant in a corner, and it is not neat enough to be fake, I guess. The roots, or branches sort of arch out of it and the leaves are askew and it is a sort of ball perching precarious on a black, possibly wicker vase- like a big vase- I don’t know the term for it, but it is about two feet off of the floor, and is semi-conical. And there is a ‘jelen pivo’ dispenser in front of me, and the base of this is a pretty tomato-red, and on top of the red is a silver, steel piece, like, capped over the red box, and the jelen pivo tap rises out of this in a white ceramic cylinder. And the tap itself is a piece of brass, wrapped around the white ceramic, and has two black handled levers, and a little oval shaped sign on top of all of this, that says, ‘pils.’



A plastic sack of ice-cream cones is next to this beer machine. The sack is open, and air is able to touch the ice-cream cones if it wants to; the air mingles as it pleases. And there is a television on the far wall and it plays the fashion network, and so there is an endless stream of dresses strutting across a catwalk.



In the room, on the left side, in the corner, I see a group. Two or more members of the party are in the shadows, and I see two more on stools with their backs to me, and one is in a tan sort of blazer, the true color is obscured by the dim lights, and the man next to him is in what seems to me, a hunter green sweater. The man in the tan blazer is animated and moves his left arm in pointing gestures. I hear claps and noises as if someone is amiably slapping at the table.



The girl who works here is in black, and she sits behind the bar and touches her fingers to her mouth. Her hair is curly and is back and in a pony tail. In the light, it appears that the pony tail glows amber and that the hair on her forehead and temples is black. Someone is next to her, and appears to me as a white elbow only. To the left of me the room is enclosed by windows, floor to ceiling, as they say, and the windows are encased in black frames, presumably metal, and there are three brick columns interspersed between the windows. The brick columns are painted white. The bricks are rough and protrude, and seem to me to be aiming for an old, reclaimed stone look. To my right, there are more of these white bricks, and they form a wall.



My peripheral vision catches the flash of passing car lights: white, red, white, red. A little red number glows red on the ice-cream case in front of me. I assume it is a temperature display. I cannot read the number.

Here: 28.8.2010: Serbia, Gucha, and Friends

Belgrade: Café Snezana
822-837pm
29 8 10




Look. We see the maroon-colored napkin crumpled in the white plate, and the maroon napkin in the wicker basket, brought by the waiter who wore a maroon-colored, short-sleeved button down, tucked into black pants. He is one of those stocky guys who slicks back his hair and wears thick-framed glasses. The people in my line of vision wear either white hooded sweatshirts or black sweaters, it seems.

Oh, and then to my right I see a guy in a tangerine polo sitting with a guy in a brown v-neck. And then there is the family-table on my left with a mom, her older teenage daughter, her younger daughter, and a thick little kid. A few moments before, the boy, who actually, is not thick, but is essentially a walking burek, bumbled over towards me, touched at every chair at my table, and then lingered, clutching the back of the chair across from me, staring up at the television where there is a basketball game on. I am vaguely aware of the fact that the world championships of basketball are currently being played.

Two girls come in, take a table close to mine. The waiter comes to them, takes my menu and hands it to them. One of the girls is on her phone tapping out a text message. It is one of those phones with a full keypad. Her friend looks at the menu. Now the girl sets her phone down. Now her friend hands her the menu and sits staring at the television screen with her elbows resting on the table, her hands folded beneath her chin. The girl who is now reading the menu, has a lilac colored pullover wrapped around her waist, and now that she sits, I think of how worms give birth via a ‘saddle’ a little discolored band that contains the baby worms/ eggs/ whatever comes before a full-grown worm.

There is a girl in a denim-colored sweater with a bag covered in sequins.
There is a couple both sporting sweaters draped over their shoulders, tied around their necks.

It is dark out, but this is the main pedestrian street in Belgrade- amazingly long, actually, and it is still lit by the stores. The street, at times, is narrow, and reminds me of being in a fully enclosed shopping mall.

I have my notebook on the table, next to my computer. I have the pen I received in Bosnia. I was wearing my cast, gips, it is called, and we were at a shisha lounge in Sarajevo, and the proprietor saw my gips, ran to get a pen, and insisted on signing it, after which, he handed me the pen. I took the pen, and then left, heading to the Bosnian ‘klinicki’ which was the plan anyhow. The waiter puts my bill in a red squarish glass, bigger than a shot glass- reminds me of a candle holder, and on the outside, it says, in gold letters, gorki list, and there is a sort of menacing plant sprouting from the letters, also in gold. A fly strokes the table cloth with its back legs before flying off.

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Belgrade, vracar across from st. savos at “café & factory” 834pm 28 8 10

The window reflects my face just to the left of the giant red & decal on the window, and just below the green dome of St Savos temple. Inside the menu, on the bottom of the last page is written:

“ …it was a long work, even longer is ahead of us. Thank You for being a part of this.”

What is intended with a message like this? And the cigarette smoke from the next table drifts right to my nostrils. And St Savos is lit up white and the dome is tender and is about robin’s eggs tonight. And tonight we are thinking about a little experiment, about writing this over the next four months, as we are about to enter Turkey, and head down into the middle east, or wherever the fuck we go, right. 

PREVIOUS:

Ljubljana café 28 7 10

Looking up an alley. Some thick, squatting salt’n pepper, receding hair line and bald spot guy leans on my chair for balance, suddenly- shouting inside to a waitress, “ sorry.” it sounds like, “soddy.” old people tend to grip the backs of any chair they pass. The seniors among us are walking in a perpetual fall. every step unsure. The sign says, in pink and white chalk letters: pose ban. Looks like the menu was written in pink and gone over in white. Two guys picking trash with remarkably, glasses, black bow-ties, white shirts tucked into black pants, and white gloves, first thought is that they are white collar criminals doing restitution. I see one of these motorized bicycles a dingy maroon one- and wonder if they go fast enough to be worth it.

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Morning after trn fest animation night:

A woman has a plate-full of pasteries for breakfast. One waitress seems to orchestrate this entire affair. A man with a travel-shirt sits with another man. Safari shirt? Call it whatever, but I see a vent at mid-back, senseless epaulets, and a sad bald man drowning in an off-white sack of a shirt. There are three people wearing 'bmw germany 2010' shirts. What the fuck, man.

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4 8 2010 kavarna kiparna Ljubljana

A black flyer for ‘red passion’ Italian mojitos. A collection of five stone sculptures in the grass behind me. An old woman reading a magazine that features pink flowers on the cover. She catches me staring, and flips the cover under. Maybe it is a flora-philia thing, flower-porn, right. Up close shots of open flowers and pistils and multiple bees entering a flower. The woman wears a scarlet hat, a bright pink tank top, and purple pants with brown loafers. She looks, actually, like an amiable, free-spirited grandmother. One day too, I will be an amiable old relic, clinging to garish displays of allegiance to free thinking and, like, hanging at college coffee shops because it makes me feel young, right.

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21 8 2010 gucha

730-745

Old man warped in tooth again and always, right. Is this the way into the place. Well at my table is my friend in his Serbian hat and he is staring at his phone, because he joined us at ‘writing time,’ and today when he sat next to the girl in the polka dots, it was like a flower, and the bees came in between them. And to my right is the other one who writes her impressions of the thing that is here, and well, we have the coffee and palinkovac and the trumpets are still playing and there is the man in the bright orange shirt and his too-white shoes are crossed at the ankle, and there behind me is like a little man in blue and... girls tug often at their bras and adjust themselves and it looks claustrophobic, this. And perhaps the chair in front of me could be considered art noveau, but that would be a compliment, and the little funny man who was held under the water for too long, today, he took us to the gucha trumpet museum, and there were no trumpets, but only this pseudo-folk art, and all of it was for sale, and I was harsh and I said that it was just a gucha flea market. And there is the motorcycle revving itself up and here the drivers are reckless and it makes me feel okay. And in the air, is the smoke from the Serbian wedding soup and it is cabbage and pork and beans, I think. I have never been good with the naming of food. And the coffee cup is white ceramic and is written all over with orange Cyrillic and there to my left also, above the stew-fire is an umbrella for Jelen beer and it is yellow on the bottom, and black on top, and a big buck, is the mascot./ logo. And my friend is smoking and we could all smoke, too if we wanted. And there is the faded red yugo and it seems like it could be the kind of throwback car that could become popular again. And there is a thick hand on a man’s shoulder. And there is a man in denim waders and a pink teeshirt tucked in and you can see the chain around his neck, too, and the sheen of sweat and smoke is on the pores that we can see. And now here is the Slovene guy and he says, was sup, and there is a hanging flower and it is yellow and there is one that is laventder and pink and white and there is not yellow, and when I list these colors, it is not all one multi-colored flower, it is many, that is what I mean. and there is a guy snapping to the trumpet music, and the dance for these songs is like a thrusting stomping motion, and we could easily transition to Russia where we are squatting and kicking too, right, and there is a chandelier, or a light fixture that is hanging and it has six lights hung in two triangles, right, and my palinkovac is black with a yellow lemon in it. And my friend and the Slovene have moved to another table, and my friend is saying that we are here and working. Okay.



20 8 2010 gucha, Serbia

402-412

Behind me they have the pig on a spit. In front of me a table of men who take their shirts off before they sit. And the music here is trumpets, too. Well, and for this moment, the laptop is on the table, and of course this gets some looks. But that is forgotten, and now, and and. My hat is on the table. It is black, and the letters 'nes' are in white, and below the hat there is a spill of sugar, and the crystals catch the light rather niely, and if I was close enough and my eyes were good enough, I would guess that the little sugar crystals cast shadows and it is a landscape of glacial proportion for the minutia among us. And there is a fly, and it is on the sugar, and is it eating? But what is the main diet of a fly, and why do they land on my arms and legs and why do they know instinctively to make three passes before moving on. And who is this old gentleman in front of me. His teeth are terrible, and look like horrific stalactites in a dank cave, right, and his cane is ridged and spirals upwards, and the others all seem to know him and address him with the formal greeting. And I like this place because they bring the bill quickly, and now a young boy comes in and shakes the hand of the old man. And now the guys are on their second round of drinks and are screaming and whistling at their table in the corner, and the old man taps his cane, and the time is about right to go from here.