Thursday Doors, October 1

For this week’s Thursday Doors we take a look at Križanke, which translates as crosswords. It is a splendid concert venue in my original hometown Ljubljana in Slovenia, which architect Jože Plečnik created next to a church and inside a courtyard of a former monastery.

In the photo above there is the entrance to the church. To the right there is the City Museum of Ljubljana (last photo below) and to the left there is the main entrance to the venue. Apart from a number of local artists, the concerts that I have experienced here range from Dog Eat Dog & Biohazard, Henry Rollins Band, Duran Duran, Smashing Pumpkins, The Pixies, The Sugarcubes (with Bjork) to Nick Cave, Bobby McFerrin, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Lou Reed, Manu Chao and a variety of world music artists at the annual Druga godba festival.

The first courtyard of Križanke theatre.

Here drinks are served during concerts and mingling goes on.

A sculpture next to the entrance to the venue.

A neighbour: City Museum of Ljubljana

I don’t have any photos of the main theatre, which is open-air but has a roof, but I do have some from the other side of the wall. Those without a ticket used to sit all around the venue on benches, happy to have a smoke and a drink and a listen. True: some also seized a chance when the security were engaged elsewhere and climbed the fence. Not any more. The noise of the crowd and traffic outside could reach such levels that some “sensitive” performers demanded that not only the street closes for traffic but that people are prohibited from strolling outside as well. As you can imagine, this action spurred civil protests. Concert noise police: another thing that happens if you live long enough.

Another door! For the back door men and for sitting on the steps unless 2 Cellos play, for example. Behind the roof above the stage.

Wires that hold the up the roof, and the ‘forbidden’ benches.

The monument to Slovenian poet Srečko Kosovel on the wall surrounding the venue.

He died young.

To conclude: first one of his poems in English (I let somebody else translate for a change) followed by the original, and then the Križanke church in its entirety.

A Small Coat
by Srečko Kosovel

Translated by Ana Jelnikar & Barbara Siegel Carlson

I would like to walk around
in a small coat of
words.

But hidden underneath should be
a warm, bright world.

What is wealth?
What is luxury?
For me it is this:
a small coat I have,
and this coat is like
no other.

Srečko Kosovel:
Majhen plašč

Jaz bi hodil
v majhnem plašču
besed.

Ali pod tem naj se skriva
topel, svetál svet.

Kaj je bogastvo?
Kaj je razkošje?
Zame je eno:
majhen plašč imam
in ta plašč ni nobenemu
podoben.

Photo: MM

For Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors challenge.