Another reason for this second entry is that today celebrates my friend who took these photos in Sovana (first two photos) and Pitigliano during his last visit.
I invite you to view two posts on my new blog:
What is certain is that there will be no more new Thursday Doors on this blog, but the treasure-chest of past entries is here to stay and it can be viewed here.
Photo: Svemir Zeko
First Pooh:
This is a page from the original copy of Winnie-the-Pooh as “improved” by me as a child before I convinced myself that I sucked artistically (here you can find another example of my Pooh art). The language is Slovenian since I tend to swing that way. For everybody else here is a part of it in English:
So Owl wrote…and this is what he wrote:
HIPY PAPY BTHETHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY
Pooh looked on admiringly.
“I’m just saying ‘A Happy Birthday’,” said Owl carelessly.
“It’s a nice long one,” said Pooh, very much impressed by it.
I was very impressed too when two days ago on my bthuthdy (when I gave myself gelato) special presents came rolling in. Well, the messenger brought them, but they got opened live via Skype.
The messenger’s present were the original Pooh copy and a brand new one, and browsing through the old one I remembered EXACTLY how it felt to hold the book so many years ago and colour it in. Rather impatiently, I recall.
Here is a collection of other gifts, so dear to my heart.
Sister found an online offer of a book necklace with a key. The books are real!
This bag was amore’s gift, not bestia’s, but the feeling is mutual. (The other side of the bag in the featured photo above.)
Father’s own handiwork, a (n)jam made of home-grown žižole (Ziziphus jujuba, commonly called jujube, red date, Chinese date, Korean date, or Indian date).
The envelope bearing this photo of me on my 5th birthday (if not mistaken), together with both my grandmothers and my beautiful and VERY young mother (taken by father)…
…contained this poem written by mom. Even though the last line says: “Manči, translate!” I shall not do it, only reveal that it mentions Thursday Doors, and includes Pearl Jam and Kurt Cobain in the same line, hilariously written in the Serbian write-as-you-speak style as “Prl Đem” and “Krt Kbejn”.
Photo: a © signature mmm production
Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
—Miles Davis
Photo: a © signature mmm production
And a special thank you to Jože for this photo from Roma. We just had to sit down a little again. 😀
Dear Alenka, thank you so much for your visit and good times. Today is your birthday and no matter what have a cin cin in my name too. I hope to see you back here soon.
Photo: a © signature mmm production
She loves our bestia and this is a sculpture she made of him.
So far, she has been keeping a low profile but it is only a matter of time when the secret is out and she becomes a household name.
Take this frank portrait of her poet father, for example.
And here she is, hiding behind her muse.
The fact that she is only 9 today, should play absolutely no role. I mean, look at those snouts, and ears!
Happy birthday, dear E., and take over the world in your own sweet time.
Photo: a © signature mmm production
Yes, he is named after Fonzie from “Happy Days” which, however, I was never able to watch as it didn’t air on Slovenian television. But Italians all seem to know who he is and agree that they look a bit similar. Well done, G., for naming him!
Today he will meet his ‘friend’ Angie-the-cat again. Maybe she will even play with him just a little, as a present.
Live long and prosper, bestia!
Photo: a © signature mmm production
I thought it would be good for the occasion to have a look at what kind of doors I published in the first year of my blog before landing the perfect challenge for me.
The first time I participated was on May 1 with the typical title Thursday Doors on a Friday, wondering if this was allowed, but it took me a month to grow into a regular. Since then I think I only missed one Thursday, early on, it just flew by too fast. Door-spotting has become a family sport and a source of joy. Thank you for that, Norm, and to every contributor for making it fun.
The following photos have all already been published before I found Thursday Doors. I am too lazy to edit them up a bit and upload them once again with the watermark. They will have to do as they are.
And this is a recent revisit to my favourite local door used for the New Year’s Day edition of Thursday Doors. I had to take some new photos because they are in bloom. Let our Thursday Doors bloom on too!
Photo: a © signature mmm production
For the anniversary edition of Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors challenge.
The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And perhaps even more than that, it’s having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels.
—John Bowles
Six friends doing their own perfect take on Village People for sister’s 30. Photo: MM
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Dance
First her father and my father met in their Maribor, went to school and played basketball together for team Branik. Below is a photo from 1963. (I’ll let you guess who the fathers are. :D) (ADD-IT: I removed the fresh re-enactment of this photo because it will be published in a book soon.)
Then they married (one woman each) and moved to Ljubljana. First her father, then mine. Then we were born in the same year, first her, then me. Then came the year when she got a brother, and me a sister. Then they got a dog.
Thank you for hosting us at your beautiful summer camp on the island of Krk last summer (more photos from there here). Who would say that you’d find a place that can rival Duba.
I hope we can one day have some fun together over here – possibly with the third gracia – and talk about the times when we were crazy and young. Welcome! (Captions available by clicking on each photo)
When she last visited us (pridi cai is still standing!) she brought me a very special gift (well, not only that, there was also her painting!): a fifty-year-old book titled “Nuova poesia Jugoslava” (“New Yugoslav Poetry”) with poems of ex-Yugoslav, that is to say Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, and Macedonian poets, in original and Italian language side by side.
She already requested one poem from there to use in her Italian class, and here is another by Slovenian poet Kajetan Kovič, in English (found online) and Italian (from the book). I loved this poem growing up and had it in my scrap book which has since been replaced with this blog. I dedicate it to her cleaning robot. 😀
Robots, by Kajetan Kovič
Translation by Veno Taufer & Michael Scammel
Robots are on the march.
The first robot is rectangular.
The stone in his hand
is a cube.
And a cube is a cube from time immemorial
and all that is, is a cube.
Robots are on the march.
The second robot is round.
The stone in his hand
is a sphere.
And a sphere is a sphere from time immemorial
And all that is, is a sphere.
Robots are on the march.
The stone in the sky, the stone on earth
has no choice.
Today it is stone, tomorrow a cube.
Today it is stone, tomorrow a sphere.
Today it is stone, tomorrow a robot.
Robots are on the march.
The cube smashes the sphere.
The sphere kills the cube.
For the cube is a cube forevermore.
For the sphere is a sphere forevermore.
Robots are on the march.
For as long as the cube is rectangular.
For as long as the sphere is round.
I robot
Translated by Giacomo Scotti
I robot marciano.
Il primo è quadrangolare.
Il sasso nella sua mano
è un cubo.
E il cubo è sempre cubo e tutto
quanto esiste è cubo.
I robot marciano.
È sferico il secondo.
Il sasso sulla sua mano
è una sfera.
E la sfera è una sfera sempre e tutto
quanto esiste è sfera.
I robot marciano.
Sasso in cielo, sasso in terra
non ha scelta.
Oggi è sasso, domani è cubo.
Oggi è sasso, domani è sfera.
Oggi è sasso, domani è robot.
I robot marciano.
Il cubo frantuma la sfera.
La sfera uccide il cubo.
Perché in eterno il cubo resta cubo.
Perché in eterno la sfera resta sfera.
I robot marciano.
Finché il cubo sarà quadrangolare.
Finché la sfera sarà sferica.
Francesca Michielin: Nessun grado di separazione
È la prima volta che mi capita
Prima mi chiudevo in una scatola
Sempre un po’ distante dalle cose della vita
Perché così profondamente non l’avevo mai sentita
E poi ho sentito un’emozione accendersi veloce
E farsi strada nel mio petto senza spegnere la voce
E non sentire più tensione solo vita dentro di me
Nessun grado di separazione
Nessun tipo di esitazione
Non c’è più nessuna divisione tra di noi
Siamo una sola direzione in questo universo
Che si muove
Non c’è nessun grado di separazione
Davo meno spazio al cuore e più alla mente
Sempre un passo indietro
E l’anima in allerta
E guardavo il mondo da una porta
Mai completamente aperta
E non da vicino
E no non c’è alcuna esitazione
Finalmente dentro di me
Nessun grado di separazione
Nessun tipo di esitazione
Non c’è più nessuna divisione tra di noi
Siamo una sola direzione in questo universo
Che si muove
E poi ho sentito un’emozione accendersi veloce
E farsi strada nel mio petto senza spegnere la voce
Photo: MM + VS (the tree)
Featured photo: newlyweds (well, almost) in Capalbio
Once upon a time my uncle heard the Bosnian band Zabranjeno pušenje and was so pleased with its sarcasm and especially “Zenica blues” that it is now included in his standard repertoire.
I made him two tapes with their music. We went to hear them in concert in Tivoli hall in Ljubljana and there he was approached by a security man and asked to put out his cigarette, even though this was years before the restriction law. Funny that, considering that Zabranjeno pušenje means No smoking. When many years later uncle sold me his belladonna ford, the tapes were still in it.
The album of the band that includes “Zenica blues” is called Das ist Walter. The intro is taken from the partisan film “Walter Defends Sarajevo”. It’s a dialogue between two Germans overlooking the city.
– Merkwürdig! Seit ich in Sarajevo bin, suche ich Walter und finde ihn nicht. Und jetzt, wo ich gehen muss, weiss ich wer er ist.
– Sie wissen wer Walter ist?! Sagen Sie mir sofort seinen Namen!
– Ich werde ihn Ihnen zeigen… Sehen Sie diese Stadt? Das ist Walter!
In short, the hero Walter, who the Germans are desperately trying to get hold of, is the entire city of Sarajevo.
For some years now, “Das ist Walter” is also a restaurant in Ljubljana (with branches in some other cities) serving Bosnian meat delicacies such as ćevapčići. Even though we had mighty fun the last time we were there with their Italian menu (“prava bosanska čorba”, real Bosnian stew, became “lawyer’s stew”, because “pravo” also means “law” and google translate was at work), but that’s all good because not only čevapčiči are great but also uncle is in love with their beer. And for an expert like him that says a lot.
And here is another Bosnian band, Dubioza kolektiv, that probably he doesn’t know yet. They say that Walter will be back. And when he comes, he’ll be pissed off. No matter how he might look. 😀
Ovaj grad, ova zemlja = This town, this country
ima zajeban karakter = has a messed up character
najviše kad treba = when we need him most
vratiće se Walter = Walter will return
Photo: MM
It is because it has been the birthday of my first best friend in school, who is now far, and another good friend who is farther.
Since last year when I greeted both with a post on here, another has been added to form a happy trio. He lives on the other side of the world. The names of all three of them start with an M, incidentally. I don’t know so very much about him but for sure he loves dogs too.
That’s why I have decided to dedicate to all three of them the following selection of Texts from Dog. He is a bulldog (like me: Taurus + dog in Chinese, for any who take care of these things) and he sends SMS messages to his owner. If you don’t know him yet, check out his site. Apparently there are books out and all. Every time I read these, I look at my dog in a different light. He is about to start typing, I can feel it.
These are listed in the growing order of how much I love them. Bestia above is already laughing.
Wishing all three of you, and everybody else, much fun with these. Happy birthday and a great year ahead!
All taken from http://textfromdog.tumblr.com/.
And to add one of my own, of bestia on the beach in autumn:
“How do you mean, all the people have gone? Does that mean only bears are left??”
Photo: MM
The Mexi Movie I. (closed) 