old people who do not wish to swim or do really, anything

Cluj-Napoca, Romania

12 9 2010


3:39-4:07 pm

Cluj-Napoca, Romania



We see the old woman dipping a spoon into a plastic bag. The contents of the bag are not discernible from here. Behind her is a grey plastic crate, that looks like a milk crate- until I see that there are four more, evenly spaced, and that one of them is rusted, meaning that these plastic crates are metal crates, and so, perhaps they are fixed to the ground. Perhaps they shield some electrical thing. Perhaps they are the front line guarding the underpinnings of a city. The old woman’s legs rest on the low step on which she sits. She sits, not with her legs out in front of her, but resting to what would be her left side. The left leg on her looks reddish and purplish. It looks somehow bulging and uneven in unexpected places. It could be part of a tree; it could be a painted, craggy rock; it could be a fat leg that someone decided to burn- they burnt away the skin of her leg to set free these new colors.



A tree with flaccid leaves clinging with a sort of why-do-I-bother-I’m-gonna-die-anyway attitude.



An old man on a bench with a turtleneck, a burgundy hat with a navy band- almost a feminine hat, and his little mouth is open in a slot, and I have learned that when, on old people, that lower lip curls in, it may be that they have lost those teeth, and so this man sits, and he may as well be a floating cetacean siphoning for krill, and but he has his legs crossed tightly in the way of old people who do not wish to swim or do really, anything. But he is transforming, and now he seems to be a sort of canine panting in the sun, tied to a tree- he looks straight ahead, dully, but sometimes cars catch his eye, or maybe it is passing birds, or young people. This old man stares at a college kid who drapes his leather jacket over one shoulder, wears red pants and smokes. This old man stares and turns his head to follow the progress of this younger man. Now the old man stares up into the sun, but is quickly distracted by that flying bird.

The old woman who was sitting on the low step with the odd leg has finally shifted and sits forward, turns again to pick up a blue piece of plastic, then looks forward again- but she has revealed more of her leg, and I cannot tell now whether there is some sort of protective cast or wrap on it, or if she possesses an elephantitus-leg. It is enormous. It is a massive, uncooked kebab that she must always walk on and rest her other leg on while she stares into the depths of the street. Her hair is cut as if with a bowl, and she may be the type of person who would paint her own glasses in pastel colors with cheap paint- which would have saved her the money she spent on the glasses she is wearing.

And now she is up!

And she hobbles, and her momentum is more side-to-side then forward. She walks in a slow and unsteady walk. Walking on an outsize kebab is the walking of the inebriated. Now she is at the public fountain. She rinses a plastic bottle and submerges it! She picks up some litter from the street and tosses it into the middle of this oval-shaped, sandstone pool, right here in the middle of the pedestrian walkway, this pool. Now she has her hand in the fountain, and is splashing water into the street, over and over, she removes water from the fountain.

Here: Cluj-Napoca, Romania

10 9 2010 Cluj- Café Corso:

Next to me is a planter in a window. Three spaces hold three long, rectangular plastic containers. The plastic containers are full with dirt, and the plants rise up from the dirt. And the table I sit at is nestled up against the window with these plants, and another table. Between the two tables is an angular space where the white of the floor, and part of the seat of a chair are visible.

Three old men sit beneath an umbrella. One of them strokes beneath his chin, then his lower jaw bone with an index finger that looks like a weathered walnut. The door to the massive cathedral is ajar. I can see this from here. The taxis line up in front of the cathedral. Here, they are white cars, with the yellow taxi sign fixed to the rear-roof section. The side of the cars display a thin, black and white checker decal, just below the passenger windows.

I see through a space in the trees, the waving of a blue flag.





7 9 2010 Cluj: Le General- on the balcony



Prime seat here looking out over the street, and the wavering of the skinny trees in their holes- really, their holes- they are put in the sidewalk and can see fully, how big they are allowed to grow. They will never exceed this metal grate. They will see that one day they will be growing up against a metal plate. They see that one day their roots will be pushing into the stone squares of the walkway, that one day they will face the sad blanket of the asphalt.

Hey and I have here a beer. It says: regele berii in romania. It is called Ursus, which means bear.



Over there is hotel meteor. Overhead, we see the orthodox church dome and steeple, black and tinged with slight oxidation, and even a patch of burnt red from god knows what, and on the other side of the horizon, we see the catholic church. And there is the blue sign that says euro-gsm, and of course in my simplicity, I conjoin these words to create a term for some ecstatic novice traveler recounting his daytrip to the Eiffel Tower. And the table I sit at is front and center of this balcony, and is a blue tile mosaic, with aqua and royal blues and some white interspersing this. It is only a patterned table, there is not an attempt at pictorial representations today. Not at this fucking table at least. And a red van has it’s parking lights flashing and has the passenger wheels jacked up onto the curb and there is nobody to be seen, but the driver’s window is open. This street is right next to the pedestrian walkway. And I count twenty-two of those beige colored umbrellas, the squarish ones that they hoist up over the tables, here. And I see an old man in a beige shirt and camel-colored pants, and old people fade into the sand in their own way don’t they, beginning with their attire. And over there is a woman in a bright green like mint shirt doing little gestures with her hand to a woman in a cream-colored jacket and a bright strawberry shirt, and now the police go by and in this country it is spelled polita. And there is a woman who like bounces from foot to foot as she walks, shifting her considerable weight, and wearing a garish bright green shirt with some olive stripes on it. And looking down, I see a man carrying a purse, and a blue plastic sac, and the woman carries a child in a pink sweatshirt, a white and white trainers, and the woman herself wears a black, veil-like head covering. I wonder about deja-vu. Perhaps it is a sort of sign post, an indicator that you are on the correct path, that you have tapped into a greater conciousness.



6 9 2010 Cluj

4:47

Here at Corso café. Here we see the gothic-style catholic church with it’s mottled, orange and purple tint. There is a man in a tan-leather jacket on the street sitting next to a tree. The base of the tree has been painted white. The streets are full of long, dark-haired girls, and bent, bulbous old women. The city exists beneath a web of wires. Maybe there was a man who was in charge of stringing up the electric /telephone /video /other wires. I picture him carrying the coiled wires on his back, and instead of using a ladder, he would toss up the wires, hoping to hook them on the pole, then moving to the next one, and stringing the city together like with dark garlands. Maybe he had only one arm, and wore a long-sleeved shirt with one sleeve pinned up.







4 9 2010 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

9:16 am



Hotel. The carpet is a nauseating red this morning. I am here, alone in the room. A television shows romanian news. A weather man is in a tomato colored shirt. An anchorwoman delivers sultry. Behind me the kitchen staff has taken up seats and they begin speaking and smoking.

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.

___________________________________________





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.

_______________________________________

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.

_____________________________________

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.

________________________________________________

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.

Here: 17.8.2010 Ljubljana: Thrift-store Eyeglasses and a Denim Vest

performance art, Tukad Munga

17 8 2010 Ljubljana


12:07-12:22

Here to my right on a tiny oval-shaped tray, we see the empty green bottle that contained mineral water. We see the glass and it is empty and clear. We see the white ceramic coffee mug with the hint of napkin beneath it.



We see in front of where we sit, a sink with a stone basin, and it seems either to be an artifact or to imitate an artifact.



And actually, directly in front of us, we see a wicker basket full of lemons- seven are visible. We see on a shelf below that, seven grapefruits in a basket, and below this, we see an open black bowl, containing five bananas.



To the left and on a ledge overlooking the café, we see the effigy of a trollesque witch, perched with her broom and an open mouth. Her teeth are like little kernels of corn, and her nose is pointy like a beak, and her eyebrows are white.



A funny little man with a denim vest, thrift-store eyeglasses, and a backpack worn low, carries a bundle of newspapers in a plastic bag is trundling in. He accosted me before at another café two weeks ago. He notices that my cast has been removed. He comes and glances invasively at my computer screen, speaking in Slovene. I reply, “yes of course” in Slovene. He tells me that I "shouldn’t work during the day," that I might "fool them." I thank him for this and he plods away.



I cannot recall ever seeing someone writing in public before. There is always the hint of cliché when you mention that you are writing at a café, yet, I never feel like I have seen it. Me, I can’t afford to consider clichés; when you are semi-nomadic, the concept of office is tempered by practicality.

Here: 16.8.2010 Ljubljana

Here on stari trg. 32, at the slascicarna café.


Here where an excavation is happening literally in front of you. The thing is of course, surrounded by that bright orange plastic fencing. That stuff that is probably in a big roll, and they unroll it and weave a long metal pole through the loops and they have a bright and temporary fence. It is this. And there is the yellow sign to my right that says ‘palacinke’ and this means pancake and there is a little stick drawing of a man cooking on a grill, holding arms above his head, each arm holding a cooking utensil. What about that? And the guys in front of me are dressed in green with white stripes. It is a bright mint green. Not as full as Christmas green, there is more yellow in it, but it feels synthetic nonetheless, and the white stripes of their outfits are two, around the ankles, and two around the wrists, and two around their abdomen at the level of the navel. An old woman to my left stares at a window where there is a doily-type lacy tablecloth and I realize that her shawl looks almost exactly the same as this. Does she realize this? Is all action motivated by this sort of narcissus at the pond behavior? No. but it happens, man. Well it is break time at the construction site. One guy stands watching the four others in the pit, who are sitting/ squatting. the man who drives the digging machine/ scooper thing, sits alone, facing away from the others. A child screams horribly behind me and it is a cry that seems to convincingly advocate vasectomies.