Chaz Says "We've Got Some Time . . ."

i'm glad melanie can work from home
part-time at least
i was however a bit disappointed
because i had given myself up to moving and that
involved a lot of emotional work

but as usual the universe will give to you
if you put the universe in charge

actually the job worked for me
when i saw that 5 hour energy
drink was advertising on
baseball tonight

they've set up a web site for her
she renamed the organization
she will be travelling around the map to attend
conferences
and she is working on the new logo
all in the first day

the graphic/web person at 5 hour energy
works behind a monitor that is so big
that all Melanie could see at first was his shoes
probably a 4 foot monitor
mac of course

now that i am back from reliving my life
in omak i think i can polish up my stories
about omak with some even better fabrications
of the truth

i hope to be in alger this weekend
and i'll let the boys at the speedway know
you miss them

chaz

Tile Preparation

I chisel away with my 1/2"chisel, leveling all the old concrete in
preparation for tile laying. Julia says I need a bigger tool. Funny,
that's what all the spam I get everyday says too.

Anyway, I whack the chisel a couple of times. H-m-m-m-. Maybe a little
music would help. I put on Indexi, an old Yugoslav (Sarajevo) rock
band. Not bad. I hit it again. Huh, I think I need a little coffee.
Back again. Hit it. Don't I have a cigar stub somewhere? Yeah. Good
smoke. Hit it again. Where are Charles, Tim, Eliot, Spencer when i
REALLY need them? Hit it. I text a message to Almir, telling him how
much I really enjoy Indexi. Get a reply, and have to reply to him.
This is slow work. A couple of whacks. Hey, what's that dripping down
my chest? Sweat, by god. Better take it easy. i think I'll take a
picture of me working so hard. Take a drink of water. Jeeze this is
boring. Its getting hotter. Maybe I should finish tomorrow?

The things we don't do . . . tile floors, pack suitcases, sell shoes,
run projects . . . when all we really want to be doing is sailing the
Mediterranean with a fair breeze at our backs and some wine, olives,
figs and cheese in the larder . . .

Williams Happy Genius

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

William Carlos Williams

Near Noon, Sacred Grove

What Do I Find?

I am chipping away at my concrete floor trying to level it with a 1/2"
chisel in preparation for laying some tile and what do I find but
'Leetle Henri. '

When Julia was Here

I was trying to get to the coffee one morning when I became aware that
Julia was describing something to me: "A little black crustacean . . ."

'What?" I said, 'Was that a dream?"

"No, it was on the patio. About so big," she spreads her thumb and
forefinger," and with a tail curved like this." she curls her finger
upwards."

"Oh, you mean a scorpion!" I say.

"What's a scorpion?" she asks.

No matter, since she had whisked him into her dustpan and tossed him out
into the grass, whatever he was.

I tell Almir this story as we are making our way home one night. We
both laugh as we enter my patio.
There in the middle under the light is a big, black cicada.

Almir, the city man, peers at it suspiciously and edges around it.

He looks at me. "Is that a scorpion?" he asks.

(Image from keepingupwith-kathy.blogspot.com)

Tonight

I eat garlic on the waterfront and feel very Mediterranean.

I am wearing the batik rag shirt that Julia bought in Indonesia 'cuz I
fancy it makes me look very artistic ex-pat, like maybe Robin Williams
or Nick Nolte.

I Am No Papaprazzi

I am on my way to a morning coffee with Slavko to discuss the supplies
that I need to buy to tile my floor when I round the corner to the Riva
and see Beyonce and Jay-Z walking down the plank from Eric Clapton's
yacht to do the same. Have coffee on the Riva, that is, I don't think
they know Slavko. I finished my coffee, snapped a quick pict, rented a
scooter, rode into Nerezisca, ordered my supplies, did some
sight-seeing, got a lot of sun, and by the time I returned the yacht was
gone.

Such are the times of the 'poor and unknown,' as Ruth used to say.

Chaz Muses on the "Big Change"

an old friend said beware of big change
at my age so i replied i was 19
emotionally and i wasn't going to change
because she was afraid for me

do we sink into the morass of 58 or do we
strive for something different to bring back
some life... hah, so what if it is freezing cold
in michigan and so what if seattle is probably
the greatest city in the country and so what
if i am shaking with cold sometimes in ann arbor at least
the cob webs will be shook up and maybe frozen
and maybe shattered but if i survive i could be sailing on
the adriatic next summer...

and, oh yeah, we'll have a guest room for you
and julia in ann arbor

chaz

(John: one each, or will we have to share?)

Frane T.

Frane T. has a large stuffed owl on his living room wall. Its wings are
outspread a good couple of feet and its face is ferocious. Frane was a
hunter in his youth, although he is a little vague about where he
hunted. "We got on boats," he said, ". . . other islands . . ." Nor can
I quite tell what it was, besides owls, that he hunted. Wild pigs, at a
guess, which we still have on Brac, so he says.

To the left of the owl, which occupies pride of place as you enter the
room, are 4 medium sized paintings, hung on line. The first, which
darkly depicts a Mozart-like figure seated at a piano, is 400 years old,
he tells me. I prefer the third in line, some whimsical figures painted
more recently by a relative.

Frane is proud to show off his home. He even takes me into the bedroom,
opens a closet, and shows me blankets draped over two rather large
objects stacked together. 'Harmonica,' by which he means accordion, and
'clavier,' or piano. For besides being a hunter, Frane has also been a
musician, travelling from town to town in Europe, a fisherman, and – his
real occupation and that of his father before him – the town butcher.

Now he is 71 years old and retired. Each year, he rents a building on
the waterfront to the Albanian family that makes ice cream and also
rents them accommodation for the season. He rents the butcher shop too.

He is a large man - tall, broad-shouldered, barrel chested - with white hair who walks with a slow dignity,
ponderously, with his arms held stiffly, slightly bent at the elbow,
away from his body, shoulders forward. Almir pokes fun at him,
insinuating that he looks like a great seabird holding its wings up to
dry. And he does. But the gait, like much about Frane's life now, is
really a remnant of his youth, a Yugoslav "John Wayne' macho mannerism
from 40 years ago.

'Ah those girls from Belgrade," he remembers through Almir. 'They were
really liberal back then. You would go to the beach and, if they liked
you, they would come right up and within 10 minutes . . .' Almir assures
me it is true.

Frane has never married. He spends the days with his sister in her house
and sleeps at his own home in the village. It is a strong stone house,
with private patio shielded by grape vines from which he makes 'lozo', a
type of brandy. He has an open view of the village.

There is a story about Frane, about why he never married, about why he
is trapped in the past. It seems that in his youth he loved a girl from
a poor family. Frane's own family, being relatively wealthy in property
and higher position, forbad their marriage. One day Frane awoke to
discover that her family had taken her and had emigrated to Australia.
He never saw her nor heard from her again. And he has grieved his whole
life.

Tonight, we sit in his grape arbor and drink his homemade prosek, a
sweet sherry type of wine. "I can bring my ukelele and we can play some
music," I say. He looks at me mournfully for a moment. 'Ah yes, we
could,' he says,' but there are no women, so what would be the purpose?'

I light a cigar and pour more prosek in silence, having no good answer
for him.

Later we go down to the Riva for some pivo. There are plenty of women
present and kareoke loudly booms from nearby speakers, but Frane seems
no happier.

"Look at those three Swedish girls," he says. 'Here they are, sitting
alone, and no-one comes to charm them,' as if such a crime was unheard
of in his day.

Reportage: I Survived the SFF!

At the football cage

Dreamtime painting by Frog

Irvin aka "Frog"

The Red Carpet

My Refuge

Almir, Friend and Underground Man

Walking to City Centar

I am safely returned from a week in Sarajevo, my senses of time, distance, and causal relationships all subtly warped.

I survived the Sarajevo Film festival with the help of my friend Almir,
a true underground man who was my guide introducing me to food, music,
personalities, many a .3 L beer, and the best local watering holes which
helped serve as retreats from the crowd and noise of the festival days
and nights, and with the true refuge provided by Irvin and Draza, - who
evicted their 6-year old daughter so I could stay in her room - educated
Bosnians who had returned 4 years ago from 8 years in Australia where,
needing work, they were recruited by a Russian to work for an Iranian,
painting, as "Frog" and "Sara," authentic aboriginal Dreamtime paintings
for sale to tourists and which I had admired on their apartment walls.

I saw 9 or 10 films – Serbia, Croatian/Bosnian, Spanish, Chinese, Greek;
attended 3 or 4 music concerts – Cuban, Serbian gypsy, Croatian rock and
roll; participated on harmonica in 2 all-nighters at the Marquee Rock
Club, where under a huge portrait of Elvis Presley the owner would
ensnare unsuspecting patrons in a web of his virtuoso rock and roll
guitar playing until many drinks later they might notice that the dawn
had long since come and gone. ("John! John!," he would cry, "You must
hear this!!!")

I drank coffee at the Holiday Inn while a sudden storm blew the
courtyards fountains water horizontal; I saw Gillian Anderson's rear end
moving away from me in a golden sheath on the red carpet; spoke with the
director of the festival who had started it 15 years before as a
gracefully defiant gesture during the war; drank vodka with the aging
vice-mayor of Sarajevo who probably held the proper position judging
from his attention to the micro-skirted young woman sitting at my right;
drank beer with a man famous long ago as the best and fastest food
waiter during the Sarajevo Winter Olympics of 1984. I tucked in my
sweaty tee-shirt before I walked the same red carpet under the TV lights
and camera into the National Theater and its uncomfortable seats for the
first regional screening of a Greek film which was so creepy and
unhealthy that I left part-way through. At 3 a.m. on a Sarajevo
backstreet, I par-TAYED with "Bimbo,"a gaunt and spectral, tuba-playing
Professor of Comparative Literature from Sarajevo University who would
only grunt each time I tried out lines from English, French or German
poetry.

I missed a friendly soccer game with Iran – the stadium was half-empty
but they had not printed enough tickets and so could not let us in and
our harrowing taxi ride and exposure to the angry mob of unhappy fans
was for nothing, but then watched the same game from the Manhattan Club,
feeling much safer and happier.

Like a scene from a Fellini movie, I saw a wedding procession of maybe
50 cars stretching over several blocks winding their way slowly through
the rush hour traffic, each car decorated with flowers and driven by
serious men in white shirts and black ties, all pounding on their car
horns as they circled the city again and again.

I saw thousands of the most long-legged, gorgeous women on the planet
(after our own, of course, guys); drank vino with another "Fellini," a
big man who had suffered a black out, fall, and hospital stay from two
ulcers at almost the same time I had and was equally prohibited from
drinking alcohol; learned to upgrade my usual response "dobro" (good) to
"odlicno," (excellent).

Now I am safely back and decompressing, the all-night bus ride being
fine except for the big Turkish young man in the next seat fresh from a
24-hour holiday in Sarajevo who kept dozing off and falling on my
shoulder. The peaches are all gone from the tree (thankfully harvested
by friends), my neighbors are off for a few days to their small house on
the other side of the island, my own house is empty and quiet.

I put on some old gypsy music on a CD that I bought for $4. in Sarajevo,
make some watered down coffee, and watch the temperature rise, thinking
of family and friends back home.

Dateline Milna, Aug 09

Today is my last full day in Milna for awhile. Tomorrow, we catch the
morning catamaran to Split, then bus to Ploce and train to Sarajevo, for
its annual film festival. Really outstanding films. I have been
selecting the films I'd like to see, most tickets are only a couple of
bucks . . . oh yes, Gillian Anderson is the special guest this year.
I'll check her out on the red carpet on Wednesday night (last year, it
was Kevin Spacey)

Since Julia left, Almir and I have been swimming, grilling, and meeting
colorful local characters. Sarajevo will be nice, but I look forward to
quiet time alone back in Milna in a week or so . . .

Update 8/05

So, Julia is sitting in New Jersey waiting for her final flight to
Seattle. I am drinking pivo and grilling cevapi and veggies (and
drinking pivo) with Almir.

Big party at Djani's last Sunday night - lot of roasted lamb, veggies,
pivo and homemade music. Then Zana left Monday for Sarajevo.

We rented a convertible for a brief jaunt to the old church of St.
George on Tuesday, then Julia left last night. I was
hyper-ventilating. Now Almir and I are alone, planning on going to
Sarajevo next Monday for its annual film festival.

And I sold my car, Bella Biejela, (White Beauty), today and it broke my
heart. But at least she will be running around Milna again soon.

Our Man at the Edison Eye Invitational (3)

CHAPTER THREE


It was a quieter night in edison. After I parked my car and walked to
the front steps of the gallery there were many people sitting outside
and milling about the front door. They were all chatting about the
wonderful trips they had taken to central america or about the good they
were doing serving on Arts committees but not too many of them were
focused on the Art hanging in the gallery. I kept looking for the aging
divas with the long scarfs around their necks waving to their drivers to
find a better parking spot but I think the divas always arrive later in
the evening.

I went inside and instinctively searched out the position the Baron had
given me in the art gallery's real estate. I was again placed off to
the side of the show but at least this time I was placed near the entry
to the cafe where the wine was instead of on the way to the bathroom. I
guess I'm moving up.

Feeling somewhat upbeat I walked into the cafe to investigate the crowd
further and I was impressed that so many people had showed up for the
show but I think they were in a more social mood than an art buying
mood. I had some salad with a bit of salmon and then had a perfunctury
glass of wine. It was red and it was good. I put some more money in
the donation basket and helped myself again. I met an old friend there
and we talked about real estate and politics for a while and then I
realized I had to get popping on my report about the Art show.

I started walking up to people and began to start conversations about
what they thought about the show. The first couple were from LaConner
and Bellevue and they were long time patrons of the Edison Eye. They
had bought something just recently from Dana and were not buyers
tonight. I showed them my painting and the woman's eyes lit up and she
told me she had an orange dining room and she might like my painting.
She asked me if it was a Mayan motif and I told her no it was Minoan.
She started to querie me about what books I had read about Greek history
and then we talked about Scheilmann in Mycanea and Evan's work at
Knossos. I told her I had been reading Thucydides this summer and she
told me I was amazing for reading such works. She still didn't buy my
painting. By the way this couple just came back from a trip to Split
and the southern croatian coast. They had even visited Brac in the past
but when I asked if they had been to Milna the wife said I was pushing
her too far.

Just then Dana came along with an eye patch on and he was looking very
frustrated. I asked how the show was going and he said it was
terrible. He couldn't sell anything other than a small piece by Barry
Christenson. "This show is too big... customers can't focus on
anything. Next year I am going to do this Invitational in two parts." I
wanted to say to Dana that the subject of the show was too mundane and
who wanted a painting of buttons. But I didn't. I motioned to Dana
that the couple I had been talking to were about to leave so Dana went
to work on them to go look at some pieces with him. I encouraged the
woman to go take a look and she and here husband followed off with Dana.

What pot to stir next. I found a couple sitting on the bench in the
smaller gallery space. I had noticed earlier that they had been
sitting there and I decided to ask them a few questions about the show.
The woman asked if I wanted to know about the Art show or the "show." I
said tell me about the "show" and she told me there were far to many
ladies in High Heels and Birkenstocks and they were not interested in
the art work but rather they were only interested in making the scene.
I asked her what was wrong with that and she just looked at me as if I
was crazy. The guy with her said the subjects in the show didn't appeal
to him becasue they were so ordinary. "Maybe people feel good looking
at spoons but it doesn't do anything for me." He had a baseball with
him that he asked me to sign and I noticed it had Babe Ruth's signature
on it and when I asked him about that he told me he was lucky to get
that signature the other day. He also asked me to sign for John as well
because John was in Dalmatia and couldn't sign for himself. "Dalmatia,
you gotta be making that up."

I next saw Toni and she was in a summer dress with a lai around her
neck. She was in a good mood even though Dana was bleeding out his ears
because no one was buying any paintings. She was laughing and asking me
privately if I was sure she could rent John & Julia's home in Milna some
day. I assured her I would negotiate that for her and I even told her
that John could see her island from his bedroom window. She was aglow
and offered me another glass of wine. Of course I accepted and we
cheered the good weather and then we talked about her sailboat. The
wind had been minimal this past week because of the heat but she said
she was going out Sunday afternoon no matter what.

I followed a few other artist's around and introduced myself and had
these artist's show me their work. One had painted a Hydranga bush and
another had painted an apple tree spirit. These two artists discussed
how Dana would come up with a theme for the Invitational and then the
artist's would do whatever they wished. Hmmmm.

I saw Christine Wartenburg and she had submitted a painting of carrots
and I took her picture in front of it. A friend of her's came by and
insisted I take another picture of Christine and the painting from a
better angle. Of course I did. Christine's painting was near mine and
I walked away feeling better about my placement in the show.

I then bumped into my friend again and he was dismayed that he couldn't
get anywhere in the ice cream line. Too many divas in front of him. We
walked down the street to another gallery on the corner and there was
some great bowls in there with beautiful fish motifs that were $600. As
I was looking at them the owner of the gallery came by
and said that these bowls would sell for $2000 in Seattle because people
in the city have money. I wanted to tell him that people in the city
had bigger money problems right now than he could imagine but I just let
it go because it was playfull to my ears to hear that urban myth again

My friend and I walked back to the edison eye determined to get him some
ice cream. I walked up to the counter and asked the lady there if we
could get some ice cream and she announced I am only the "f...ing wine
lady but I'll call out my superior to scoop some f...ing ice cream." I
thought to myself I have finally found someone with some color to write
about. She yelled out a name and from behind a door came the ice cream
guy with a tub of ice cream in his arms. My friend started to order a
double scoop and I started talking to the wine lady.

It turns out the Edison Eye went through 29 bottles of wine 15 salmon
fillets and loads of salad mix tonight. The wine lady went on to tell
me that she was also an artist and she had a few pieces in the show.
She was a bit upset that she had priced her pieces too high and was
troubled no one had bought one of them. "This is how I make my living
and if no one buys I don't eat." I asked her to tell me where her Art
was and she waved her hand around and said in the larger room near the
door. I searched the larger room for her work and came back to her and
said I am getting a head ache trying to find your stuff. She was busy
with a deep conversation with some young man but I think she thought I
was a reporter so she reluctantly walked my friend and I over to her
pieces. They were "Salish" type baskets made out of old maps of
Alaska. She works out of the old Hardware store and found these maps in
the closet there. They were old maps that some prospector had drawn
spots where he suspected gold would be found. The wine lady/artist
thought this was an afront to the beauty of Alaska and wanted to do
something positive with the maps. I on the other hand wanted to know
where the gold was.

The wine lady had a name and it was Jessica. She went on about how she
dropped out of the Western Art program while giving her presentation for
her degree in 1998. "I just got so mad about how these broken down
artist's can tell me about how to make Art when all they are doing is
trying to get some health coverage by working at the School." She
stormed out of the school and moved to Portland she said to make Art.
She moved to Edison a few years ago because the overhead was cheap. She
is going to have a one-person show in a few months at the Smith gallery
(the one owned by the furniture maker's that John and I went through in
June). She then ran off with her friends and I started to search once
again for a story. I think we should introduce Spencer to her.

I walked outside and I saw Joel Brock and we talked a bit. He stated
that this was a classic "Edison Eye Invitational"
and that Dana was fabulous for allowing so many artists a chance to be
shown. He also said his basketball hoop was lying in neglect in his
yard and that he was mostly pre-occupied these days keeping teen-age
boys away from his teen age daughter. "I was hoping other parents would
raise good boys but I have a BB gun just in case."

As I walked through the main street of Edison the sun was setting like a
red hot marble in the west and the moon was rising in the East. I stood
in the street and had one arm pointed at the sun and one at the moon and
felt a surge of energy run through me like some mayan astronermer.

I began to search for the aging divas and their drivers waiting to whisk
the divas off to their summer homes but I didn't see any. I might have
missed them while I was searching for my story.

I took some photos with my phone and I will send them off as well.

Chaz
Dateline Edison 8/01/09

Jews in dalmatia

So I am sitting at a cafe at about midnight listening to a local guy
called "Diego" perform "African music," by which my Bosnian friend means
"reggae." I am enjoying one song in particular when I become suddenly
confused. I listen harder. The refrain, sung over and over and over,
is 'Ya-mul-ke, Ya-mul-ke, Ya-mul-ke . . ." The dancing crowd is wildly
enthusiastic.

Wait a minute? What gives? why are Croatians singing reggae about
being Jewish?

Julia later informs me they were really singing, as you probably
guessed, "Ja-mai-ca."

Somehow, even after learning that - which makes some sort of warped
sense, I guess - since I am sitting in Croatia under a grass thatch
umbrella drinking German beer - I retain a sense of being fundamentally
perplexed.

edison eye, chapter two

Chapter 2

tonight is the show
a show of common things
dana was right
a minoan vase
a common thing?

but then neruda's poem
does elude to a flower vase
and from there to a minoan vase
is not that far a stretch

i am tired today
it was nearly 105 this week
and the heat made me weak

i'm leaving for alger in a few minutes
the weather is a beautiful 80 and now
that i look over the invitation to the invitational show
i should have painted buttons

charles

Great to talk with you

Oh my goodness, sounds like the weather in Croatia in not all that
different than the weather in Washington, both about 10 degrees hotter
than we have been running.
WE are off to sell cars this morning, 2 of them now.
Tim and Byron went to see the throat singers and really enjoyed them.
Today we hope to go swimming after all the car stuff.
By is getting ready to go back to school.
I will probably take a class again this fall, took a humor class this
spring and will probably take a nature photography class this fall.
Pat's quilt is taking forever to figure out but we will get there.
Finishing a hooked rug for now and have lots of other projects going.
Tim is starting a whole new division at Sheridan for e-content, he just
can't help himself.
Elaine is looking into writing classes for the fall as well.
That's what we are up to for now.
The latest pictures of Eason are adorable!
Glad to hear Spencer is feeling better about things.
Probably talk to Julia on her return and we shall keep in touch with John.
All our best, Lynne and family