the beginning of the end
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under popcult
The final season of Lost needs to resolve all the mysteries, tie all the loose ends.
The authors made a turn towards mythology, there is talk of “forces of good and evil” and if after six years of loyalty we end up with some Lord of the Rings ending, I give up …
Tags: lost season 6, TV series
Life according to Eggers
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under books, films
New Sam Mendes’s film is another one in the series of indy flicks. If you are not familiar with the genre, let me help, those are the films starring cute geeks (Micheal Cera is always welcome), just enough socially adjusted for a wide audience (most of them are high school or university students, if not, budding writers), but still a little bit on the weird side. There is no promiscuity in indy flicks, because SHE is the ONE. Well, since life is measured against songs of The Smiths or Belle and Sebastian.
At a glance, Away We Go is meeting most of these criteria, moreover the music of Alexei Murdoch is central to the story. What I believe gives more authenticity to the film is the script written by Dave Eggers and Vendella Vida, a real-life married couple, who based the film on their own experience before the birth of their first child. The main characters in the film, Burt and Verona, are making a roadtrip in order to find the best place to raise their child. They are meeting all kinds of freaks on the way, but the trip was not taken so they could learn something about themselves, so that one of life’s misconception could be shattered, they just wanna find a nice place to live. When they do, the movie ends. And the place is truly beautiful.
The life-likedness of characters is apparently Eggers’s speciality, as he started his writing career with a memoire appropriately entitled for under 30-year old A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius. It makes you wonder how much one can be presumptious? Well, Dave has an interesting story to tell, not particularly unique, however the way he perceives things and then writes about them catches reader’s attention. Following the death of both parents in the span of just a few months, Dave took parental duties for his then 13-year old brother Christopher (called Toph in the book). They move to San Francisco and despite dirty dishes, pigsty of a house, playing games, by acting as a parent, Dave is growing up on his own, as well.
dave eggers's books by ari@flickr
eggers signing books by ari@flickr
In the meantime, Eggers founded literary journal McSweeney, started the creative writing workshops and won TED award for the contribution to public schools. Not everything he did was based on his life, recently Eggers worked as a scriptwritter of the film Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze, based on the story of Maurice Sendak.
Tags: away we go, books, dave eggers, film
A Perfect Day for Bananafish
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under books
happyjackeats@flickr
Kind of an obituary in New York Times.
My all-time favorite short story.
R.I.P. Jerome David Salinger
Tags: salinger
if not now, when
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under books
Holocaust Memorial Day was marked today. By coincidence, currently I am reading a novel by Italian Jewish writer Primo Levi If Not Now, When (Se non ora, quando), which follows a group of Russian Jews making their way through Ukraine and Poland to Italy, starting in 1943. Levi’s opus was shaped by his own experience from the concentration camp, which followed his brief period of fighting with Italian partisans.
For a title, Levi is using a Jewish saying, originating from Hilel the Elder, one of the most imporant religious leaders of the Jews. In the book, this saying is transformed into a poem, recited by one of the characters, during a break from marching through desolate areas. It captures the Jewish experience, as well as the stories of the characters in the book
Do you recognize us? We are the flock of the ghetto,
Fleeced for a thousand years, resigned to the offence.
We are the tailors, the scribes, and the cantors
Withered in the shadow of the Cross.
Now we have learned the paths of the forests,
We have learned to shoot, and we hit straight on.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If not thus, how? And if not now, when?
Our brothers have risen to heaven
Through the ovens of Sobibor and of Treblinka,
They have dug themselves a grave in the air.
Only we few have survived
For the honor of our submerged people,
For vengeance, and for witness.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If not thus, how? And if not now, when?
We are the sons of David and the stubborn ones of Massada.
Each of us bears in his pocket the stone
Which smashed the forehead of Goliath.
Brothers, away from the Europe of tombs:
Let us climb together toward the land
Where we will be men among other men.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And if not thus, how? And if not now, when?
After reciting of the poem and a story on its author Martin the Carpenter, Gedaleh, leader of the partizan gang says „That’s enough now: these aren’t the thoughts for everyday. They’re alright every now and then, but if you live with them you just poison yourself, and you’re not a partisan anymore. And bear this in mind: I believe only in three things: vodka, women and submachine gun. Once I also believed in reason, but now anymore“.
Levi thought of this book as his adventure novel and throughout the first two hundred pages (which is where I am right now), you are following the advances of a unit, their conversations on war, life before the war, family and what pushes them ahead, as the place they are fleeing from never recognized them as their own.
I am off to continue reading. I leave you to the first part of the TV documentary on Levi’s visit to Auschwitz in the beginning of the eighties.
Tags: holocaust memorial day, primo levi, remembrance
run for cover
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under politics
dude crush@Flickr
pooyan@flickr
Criticism, as well as calls to ban the veil, come from people on the right (I could only imagine how
via Religious Fashion
It remains to be seen what will happen with the proposal of the French MPs to ban the full veil on public places. Considering the severity of articles of Sharia Law, do Muslims have the right to object, Ray Hanania, American of Palestinian origin is asking on his blog Palestine Note.
Me, I am waiting for some entrepreneur to launch hijab or burka, as a luxury good, the latest fashion must-have. I am already seeing Lady GaGa’s next video.
haiti
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under everyday life
Arcade Fire - Haiti
Help out by donating to your local branch of UNICEF
Tags: haiti
partizan flicks
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under films
picasso poster for the battle of neretva
Big-budget action films are not being made in any of the post-Yugoslav countries. If anyone dares, the product looks like a cheap imitation of a Hollywood film, with audiences staying clear of cinemas. New generations could not envision that former country, aside from artistic achievements embodied in black wave cinema and popular comedies, had a developed movie industry, in which action films dealing with the conflict between Nazis and partisans held a prominent spot.
After its premiere in Motuvun film festival in Istria, Croatia, a documentary on partizan films had its screening in Belgrade this weekend. Directed by Igor Stoimenov, who already embarked on a similar nostalgic journey with a series Robna kuca (Department Store) on Yugoslav pop cultural phenomena (new wave music, football, Sarajevo winter Olympics from 84), it is not focusing on their politics, but the myths surrounding the films, authors and actors and accompanying trivia.
valter beer
From epic battles (The Battle on Neretva, starring Orson Welles and Yul Bryner) to partizan thrillers and westerns, authors tell a story on the possibly most unique film genre to emerge from Yugoslavia. Naturally, partizan films portrayed the dominant ideology of the times, reducing the complex national conflict, in addition to occupation by the Germans, to a simplistic story about good and evil. In the retrospect, they did not manage to indoctrinate its audience – generations who grew up with it, managed to take down Communism, but more importantly lead the country into bloody civil war. It seems that the basic anti-Fascist message eluded most of them.
Is it nostalgia for times long gone or resurgence of collective memory, yet story about Richard Burton playing Tito, drunk while at it (“they brought a whole boat of Chivas for him”), Picasso making a poster for Neretva film and Das ist Valter being the most popular film in China for decades, has to provoke some kind of a sentiment.
Das ist Valter dubbed in Chinese
Tags: yugoslav cinema partizan films popular culture
A New Prague?
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under everyday life
Before I illuminate you on what the title means, if you haven’t already guessed, I need to go over the news of the day. Serbian President Boris Tadic was in an official visit to Italy, where he was joined by the half of the Government, but that’s whole different matter. What I want to tell you is this – it is better to be George Clooney then sun tanned. On a press conference, Berlusoni first said that Italy and Serbia have many similarities, but that he
does not like Serbian language, as it is not melodic enough. Furthermore, he is intrigued over how opera sounds in Serbian. Most likely an opera he would hear in Serbian would be familiar to him, in the only language he speaks. But then introducing Tadic, Berlusconi said “Now I introduce President Clooney”, alluding to the salt and pepper hairstyle of our President. Tadic smiled and said that Serbia and Italy agree on everything, except the independence of Kosovo, il Cavaliere interrupted saying the relations could get worse if Dejan Stankovic, football player from Inter scores a goal against Berlusconi’s own A.C. Milan.
Caro Silvio, sei un buffone. Ma penso che Serbi ti piaccono.
Watch the whole deal at Corriere della Sera website.
Why Prague? Alternative tourist guide giant Lonely Planet declared Belgrade as the first among Top 10 cities to party the night away, which was reported by Reuters. Wow, if that is really true, why do I always end up in the same bar on Friday night? Seriously, Belgrade can not compete with the cultural/musical offer of some top European destinations, but its night life is lively, probably it is more spontaneous than in much larger capitals. For example, you can listen to Eros Ramazzoti that Silvio B. would always applaud to, as well as Scottish punky pipers, while drinking whiskey.
But Belgrade, as well the whole of Serbia is getting old. In an article for The Economist, Tim Judah wrote about demography of former Yugoslav countries, entitling the piece Balkan Storks.
Tags: balkan storks, belgrade, berlusconi blunders, nightlife, tim judah
Why is Belgrade marching against Fascism?
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under everyday life
20 years after the fall of Berlin Wall.
If at that time Serbia made a bad choice, is it still doing it?
Small group of citizens of Belgrade protested against the rising tide of nationalism. There were more policemen and photographers than demonstrators.
I took this photo today at work.
On that other note, Transitions Online made a special website on the occasion of the fall of the Berlin Wall, with comments, analysis and testemonies.
Tags: anti-fascism demonstration, belgrade, fall of Berlin wall
bored to death
Posted by popkitchen | Filed under popcult
Or Instead of Manhattan, first we take Brooklyn.
New HBO series is about a writer, not able to write his second novel and left by his girlfriend, so desperate that he posts an ad on Cragislist, advertising himself as a private detective. “I read so many Raymond Chandler novels, that I think I could do this” Johnatan says, who is played by Jason Schwartzman. In this insane endeavour, he is joined by a grumpy comic writer (Zach Galifianakis) and magazine editor for which Johnatan writes (Ted Danson from Cheers). Despite the attempts at noir aesthetics (Johnatan’s suits and trenches, meeting clients in shady bars), as the team is led by Schwartzman the show is Wes Anderson-quirky combination of the contemporary and retro. He is the same as the movies like Rushmore and Darjeeling Limited, clumsy, immature, boyishly naive, slightly on the side of bizzare, even though the series is based on the life of its author Johnatan Ames. In one episode, Serbian actress Branka Katic makes an appearance.
Brooklyn native, Ames wanted to create a show reflective the spirit of this part of NYC – easygoing 
manner, over reflection, tendency towards authentic. He managed that, as Gawker says that this is the perfect show for hipsters. In my opinion, it is making it a candidate for an early ax.
Shot on original locations, as Ames lives in Fort Green, he wanted to celebrate the neighborhood. Brooklyn itself is known by its racial and ethnic diversity (significant percentage of population is African American, there are a number of national communities – Italians, Rusians, Polish, among others). The neighborhood became fashionable, it is frequently heard that „Brooklyn is the new Manhattan“.
Get to know Brooklyn through pop culture
In the popular culture, Brooklyn has been present through hip hop (which is originally from Bronx), then indy music, with the opening of number of clubs in Williamsburg.
For those who read: Johnatan Lethem Motherless Brooklyn
For those who watch films: The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach), Smoke (Wayne Wang),
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)
*Disclaimer: Bear in mind that this is written by a person, who did not see B from Brooklyn. Currently, she gathered around a quarter of funds necessary for a trip to NYC.
Tags: books, bored to death, Brooklyn, films, TV series
