In fact, I’ll keep it!

It was two years ago today that I posted my first Manja Mexi Movie blog post. I can’t believe it’s been two years already.

(I know this, even though WordPress has stopped informing me about the number of posts or anniversaries and things like that a while ago. I don’t know what happened. – ADD-IT: The notification came at 11pm. WordPress never forgets, thank you!)

To think that the main impulse for starting the blog was lack of feedback from my family and friends upon sending them heaps of emails with photos from my new life in the new country!

To keep us company in this post, here are some of my favourite already published photos:

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Obviously the world is indeed big enough to find a variety of people who are not too lazy to tell you when you make them smile, busy schedule notwithstanding. Thank you all so much for that! I know how precious this is: even I with all the time in the world have trouble following everybody I’d like to. There are just too many brilliant people around!

It’s not just laziness, some friends back home are saying they don’t understand my blog because it’s in English. Hmmm, as little as I write? Photos are in English as well, are they? Whining like some Italians! Aren’t Slovenians known to brag how good we are at English? Because, compatriots, no matter how much you whine, this blog is NOT turning Slovenian any time soon.

And lest we forget, at the beginning, for much of the first year really, there were just about 7 followers, all family and friends. Only after I started joining photo challenges, many more of you came over and some stayed. Among the challenges that have achieved this are (in each line three links lead to three posts for every challenge):

• Weekly Photo Challenge
• Norm’s Thursday Doors
• various Cee’s challenges
• Sylvain Landry’s SL-WEEK

and the latest I have joined:

• Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness.

Soon I will reach the upgrade limit for this one and will start another WordPress blog. Nothing much will change (other than the theme), I quite like it as it is. I hope – I always hope – to do more writing, but just like the rest of the world I’m getting lazier in this regard, posting more photos and less words. They are easier on the eye, it seems, or is it brain. It’s not that words are lacking, I always have a bunch, they are lurking JUST behind the corner. Beware.

Here is a recap of my writings that I posted last June. I find it very telling that only father, Snow Somewhere Else and Badfish commented. Well, I do say it’s for the organised and the mad ones. 😀 (Love you!)

What is alarming is that I’ve only added very few writings to Own Words category since.

Among them are:

• an amusing tale about peeing
• 100 words on why nobody is to trust
• a reason why sister’s mirror broke
• some musings on borders, limits and boundaries
• and a recent bunch of excuses as to why I am not a writer as such.

In short – nobody has a truly good excuse for not following me. But I cannot and don’t want to force anybody either. Everything I said on this day last year in my first anniversary post is still true: we have strawberries and if you don’t want them – your loss.

And as they say in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: “It’s a deal, it’s a steal, in fact…

…I think I’ll keep it!” 😀

Truly, from the heart, thank you all for every minute spent in my virtual company.

≈ Manja Maksimovič ≈

Featured photo: The header of my upcoming blog: MLK in Ljubljana. 

Photo: a © signature mmm production

Welcome, Sergio

We watched an amusing and poignant feel-good film this weekend called Welcome, Mr. President. It’s Italian and it’s about what happens what Italy elects Giuseppe Garibaldi as a new president. A librarian fisherman from the mountains fits the name and the role. And yes, there’s Janis too:

However, Italia indeed has a new presidente since this weekend. His name is Sergio and this name always brings Zmelkoow’s tune to mind. And no, he’s not James Bond from Trieste as they sing. Benvenuto!

Poem from the board

There once was a board on my wall:

It included many things, memories, places, each item deserving a special entry. Look, there is Trpanj and a little English town in the middle of nowhere, and postcards from A. and R. and one of a huge rock made of shells in Karpathos, which we first bought and then located the rock in nature and it was nowhere as huge as it appears, and the Kiss, and the little pin calling for 40 days without alcohol, which N. gave me for my 40th birthday and I didn’t see the zero and said: “Oh, four days, I can do that!”, and Jeanette, and Slavoj’s hand, and Mickey, and my tarok cards, and a very old cartoon from Mladina magazine saying “Sad ću ja turbo da uključim” (I’ll switch to turbo now), and poems: e.e., Kosovel, a short one on tango, and this one by Austrian poet, here in the original:

Ernst Jandl 

zweierlei handzeichen

ich bekreuzige mich

vor jeder kirche

ich bezwetschkige mich

vor jedem obstgarten

 

wie ich ersteres

tue weiss jeder katholik

wie ich letzteres tue

ich allein

I just found this poem translated into English by Peter Lach – Newinsky in his Word and image lab:

Two Kinds of Hand Signals

 

Before every church

I cross myself.

Before every orchard

I plum myself.

 

How I do the first:

every catholic knows.

How I do the second:

I alone.

But sometimes it happens that a poem really comes to life in a completely obscure little language, such as ours (close-up from the board, the postcard with the poem used to be distributed freely in a Ljubljana bookshop).

For two happy friends

I have a friend from the early age, from the times when the fear of dogs still had to be overcome with her help, when the passed bicycle test called for the biggest celebration, and when the Atlas and its magical maps were only reachable by a flight of imagination. The Zbilje lake was closer to hand, and wet for real. And then I got the first postcard – was it from Turkey? Or Barcelona? – and I thought: she has got what she wanted. And that was before Australia. I’m happy that I meet her every time I visit my old country and that her dog (because there must be always a dog, always female, always happy) is doing better. Here is another happy dog for her:

When I was going to the university, I made another friend, even though we shared the classroom in the high school as well, just at different times, and her good friend once found my forgotten scrapbook under his desk and scribbled something in it, which must have been closest to someone accidentally coming upon this blog nowadays. She must be a friend whom, for some strange reason, I see least of all my friends. (I wish to alert mutual friends to kindly direct her to this location so that she can see this.) However, she was a part of the surprise package deal that I got for my 40th birthday, and that was indeed a memorable occasion. She was always a hippie soul but ended up in a (in my mind) highly unlikely political job. Talking to her is always an experience and I wish the day will come (or a week) when we can talk a lot.

In the meantime, I’m posting a poem by Leonard Cohen which she wrote in my scrapbook a long time ago:

the 15-year-old girls

I wanted when I was 15

I have them now

it is very pleasant

it is never too late

I advise you all

to become rich and famous

(From: Leonard Cohen: The Energy of Slaves, 1972)

And here is another little something that will always remind me of her: the dandruff into snow scene from Breakfast Club, because she likes it so much:

And what do both women have in common? They are both quite tall, direct, honest, heart-felt, with a wicked laugh. But what joins them on this occasion is that they were born on the same day. This day was today 40-something years ago, the same year as me. And a good one it was.

Happy birthday, M+M!

≈ Manja Maksimovič ≈

A man and a dog

Ra Paulette is digging caves in New Mexico, with only his dog for company. For the last 25 years.

First my sis sent me the link to the page in demilked magazine with the images above and below (other than the last). He is the subject of the short documentary film CaveDigger which was nominated for Oscar this year. Then I googled him some more and found the last colourful image in A Structure for Spirit blog entry, tagged pachamama. Since sis just reached Peru and all. There are no keys.

All three images above from http://www.demilked.com/cave-carving-ra-paulette/

from http://astructureforspirit.com/2014/04/27/easter-pilgrimage-a-photo-journey/

 

Denis the menace

Some Denis for my sister to get better, get over here, get over there and kick some proverbial shit.

11’09”01

From the omnibus 11’09”01, last segment, directed by Sean Penn, starring Ernest Borgnine

My life in films

Must be listing season. Here is my life in films. Most of it compiled yesterday in 5 minutes (because after books Barbara said I should do films and TV too), but today I added some too and will update it as necessary (in colour). What’s next? Songs?? (! yeah !)

• 13 Tzameti
• Alice’s Restaurant
• Amateur
• Angel Heart
• Arizona Dream
• Auggie Rose
• Barfly
• Benny and Joon
• Big Blue
• Big Wednesday
• Boško Buha
• Breakfast Club
• Breaking the Waves
• C’est arrivé près de chez vous (“Man Bites Dog”)
• Dead Man
• Der Himmel über Berlin (“Wings of Desire”)
• Der siebente Kontinent (“The 7th Continent”)
• Ex Drummer
• Exotica
• Festen (“The Celebration”)
• Fight Club
• Forrest Gump
• Funny Games
• Her
• Hundestage (“Dog Days”)
• I Want You
• Idioterne (“The Idiots”)
• Into the Wild
• Ko to tamo peva (“Who’s Singin’ over There?”)
• Le confessional (“The Confessional”)
• Leon
• Lepa sela lepo gore (“Pretty Village, Pretty Flame”)
• Les jours où je n’existe pas (“The Days When I Do Not Exist”)
• Les uns et les autres (“Bolero”)
• Life is Sweet
• Lock, Stock and Two Broken Barrels
• Magnolia
• Me, Natalie
• My Life without Me
• Naked
• Natural Born Killers
• Night on Earth
• Once Brothers (documentary)
• Once Were Warriors
• Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
• Pulp Fiction
• Reservoir Dogs
• Shallow Grave
• Short Cuts
• Sleep with Me
• Southern Comfort
• Sreča na vrvici (“Happiness on a Leash”)
• St. Elmo’s Fire
• Strange Days
• The Commitments
• The Deer Hunter
• The Long Riders
• The Piano Teacher
• The Player
• The Sixth Sense
• The Sting
• The Tango Lesson
• The Usual Suspects
• Tideland
• True Romance
• Truly, Madly, Deeply
• WALL·E
• Wednesday 19.7.1961 (documentary)
• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
• Wolke Neun (“Cloud Nine”)
• Woodstock

A Minority Report scene that haunts me

1:35:33 into Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg. I DID try to find the scene as such, in moving pictures, but I couldn’t. I found a transcript though. Here it is.

Jon (Tom Cruise) is walking with Agatha (Samantha Morton), a girl who can see the future. She clearly understands everything that is happening better than Jon does, so he must rely on her direction. The two of them are in a shopping mall, trying to evade capture by the police. She gives Jon seemingly random instructions, which Jon has a difficult time of reconciling, since they at first seem to slow them down. However, because of Agatha’s awareness of all that is going on, the two are able to escape. 

AGATHA:

• Can you see the umbrella? Take it. (JON leads her past it.) Take it!

• (Jon grabs the umbrella.)

AGATHA:

• A man in a blue suit—he drops a briefcase.

• (Man drops briefcase.)

AGATHA:

• You see a woman in a brown dress. She knows your face.

• (Woman watches JON and AGATHA pass by)

AGATHA:

• Turn in here. Wait.

JON:

• No, we can’t stop here.

AGATHA:

• Do you see the balloon man? Wait. Wait.

• (The agents are seen running along the balcony. JON and AGATHA are standing in plain view.)

JON:

• What are we waiting for?

AGATHA:

• Wait, Wait. Wait. Wait.

• (Balloons block view from where the agents stand.)

AGENT 1:

• Anyone have a view?

OTHER AGENTS:

• Negative.

AGENT 1:

• Scott, Ramos, take the east end. Everyone else let’s go.

• (AGENTS run off, and JON and AGATHA continue again.)

AGATHA

• : (stopping to talk to a seemingly random lady) He knows; don’t go home.

• (The two are recognized by RAMOS.)

RAMOS:

• We’ve got eyes on.

• (JON and AGATHA pass a homeless man.)

AGATHA:

• Drop some money.
• (JON drops money for the man. As the man reaches to pick it up, the AGENTS enter and trip over him. Upon going outside, JON sees that it is raining, and marvels over the umbrella AGATHA made him pick up. He opens the umbrella, one among many plain black umbrellas as viewed from above, and they escape undetected.)

• • • ____________________________________________________________________
    • Sometimes I feel this way too.
    • Sometimes I say it out loud, to warn another, sometimes I don’t.
    • And when I don’t, I’m always sorry.
    • I remember one time someone put a vase with flowers outside on the table.
    • It was heavy and crystal and full of water.
    • Still, I could see it falling, by the wind.
    • And I said so.
    • And he said: Nahhh.
    • And I didn’t do anything.

• • That’s why there are vase remains in the gold fish pond, sis.
  • Photo: MM

ADD-IT: Finally, after 3+ years, somebody sent me the link with the scene. 😉 Thank you, argw27! Here it is:

ADD-IT: Alas, the link stopped working… Who will send me the new one?

The omelet stinks

 

If you prefer, or have trouble with the dialect, you can read it too.

Just four quotes:

Was I bored? No, I wasn’t fuckin’ bored. I’m never bored. That’s the trouble with everybody – you’re all so bored. You’ve had nature explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the living body explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the universe explained to you and you’re bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and, like, plenty of them, and it doesn’t matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it’s new as long as it’s new as long as it flashes and fuckin’ bleeps in forty fuckin’ different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I’m not fuckin’ bored.

So you think you can make the present palatable by projecting into the future? You’re living in the past, pal. It’s the future that fucks you up, Brian. It’s the maggot in the apple. See, you’re all pissed off with the present, Bri… and there’s nothing wrong with the present. The present’s fine. The present’s perfect. The present’s peachy fucking creamy. The only thing wrong with the present is the bastard doesn’t exist… because the present is the future, and the future is the past… and it’s all the same fucking bag of bones anyway. It’s a constant process of coming into being and passing away… coming into being and passing away. – The future is now. – But the present does exist. We’re in it now. – You were just then, when you said it, but you’re not in it now, you’re not in it now, you’re not in it now. You’re forever being kicked up the ass by the future. You with me? (from 50:40…)

you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs… and humanity is just a cracked egg… and the omelet stinks. (…to 58:57)

I used to be a werewolf, but I’m all right no-OOWWWWWWWWWW!