...cock sucker, you kissed Branka...
44°47’49’’ N/20°29’09’’ E_6:55 p.m.
In anticipation of the play in the parking lot in front of the theatre, we ate ice-cream.
We entered the lobby and then the hall. The seats were not numbered and were getting occupied. People with masks besieged the hall until the last unnumbered seat was occupied. They sat next to me and next to everyone else who, already, sat before them. They set next to those who entered later and those who came in to have a look or have someone look at them because they interfere with the careful observing of what is happening on stage. Maybe they were late for the play. Perhaps they came much earlier or, they were there, in the theatre, just in time...
The question is, what exactly is the beginning of this play?! The question is, also, how long does the play last?! These are the questions I asked myself after watching Tarantino's latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I went out from an empty movie theatre hall approaching the door through a quiet, silent and cinematically lit hallway. I went out on the street, in front of The Old Palace, where a crowd of people greeted some gracious sportsmen.
How long does the play last, when it ends, if it ends at all?! When does the step out of the narrative happen?! Can we live something outside of the play? Who are we, people-intruders, the obstacles, and who are these others, different from us residents of here and now? Who are those indigenous, the rights holders, those who have privilege walking the city?
There are no curtains. The scenography has already been there, on the stage. There was everything, there, on stage. There were objects from the flea market, and objects from the beach, and objects from some ordinary corner of the city and from the Hilandarska street. The actors were already on stage, unaware of the presence of the audience. They were muttering something at the bottom of the stage. Some of them were in front, closer to the audience. Unaware of the audience, too. It was desirable to avoid that boundary that marks the beginning of the play or make it as less noticeable as possible so that life on the stage continues playing without interruption. It was necessary to produce the illusion of entering that other world imperceptible. In any case, such moments become, as the situation in nature, society and technology changes faster and more radically, an inadequate and dangerous weapon. The borders were dissolving. The illusion of spirit and matter becomes an exclusive part of everyday life.
That smell of the sea and salty water was spreading. I, perhaps, was immersed in the ambience by the belief that the umbrellas, towels and swimming tires are palpable. Maybe because of the barbecue or beer that flowed through my veins, but a little later, during the night.
We are ready for some future nostalgia to draw us to the memory of that summer at a seaside or that breezy night spent somewhere far away from home. Far away from parents and what we see in them since we know that is waiting for us, there, around the corner as some trickster who wants to deceive us; tomorrow we will be the same with trembling nostalgia, we will remember those times when we were not what we despised and, secretly fearing, we knew we would become.
The writer is also there, and he feels uncomfortable because, fuck, he is not an actor but a writer. There is also a bunch of songs that last forever. By their duration seems to fill the time obtained for the play. No one knows if the next theatre season will fail and if there will be future opportunities to act.
It seemed to me that the brandy was real and that the smoke was real. Life was happening on stage. And life, again, could not be happening so convincingly if brandy was not real. It had to be as possibly real as that life from the past. That life that is becoming more recent forgone and the present that became that past that with each passing moment called for remembrance. Remember ourselves once, some other self, some other us. There was a collective life: everyone with everyone. The memory was present so strongly that it ceased to belong to the past and passed into the ubiquitous present moment.
I took a deep breath and dived. I was striving to hold my breath for as long as possible. The Mississippi flowed with streams of Vinjak, brandy, beer and salty water. He rolled what he brought along, wauled along his course and threw out changed, refined, salted. Sea, seaaaa.
44°47’50’’ N/20°28’28’’ E_9:05 p.m.
We had a plan to go for a beer, for as many beers as we needed. We went down the street, walked to the pub. We phoned and chatted along the way. We stopped at the park to order junk food. The barrack was the first one we came across, dirty and smeary. We ordered gyros. The chef took it seriously. He started stretching the dough, making chips, cutting meat. Everything was like in Greece, maybe even better. Definitely much better.
We were talking about something, casually, when, suddenly, voices began to form into strange masses that stretched and distorted came to our ear shells. Something was coming down the street, from the direction we were coming from earlier, in time. An amorphous shape, holding a bottle of beer in hand and a speaker hanging over his shoulder, was getting faster and closer. …joj Rado, bela Rado, daj da ljubim lice mlado, joooooj Rado, bela Rado, daj daaaaaaa… (Serbian turbo-folk song: oh Rada, white Rada (daisy flower), let me kiss your young face, oh Rada, white Rada, let meeee…). The pal was cheerful. He pissed himself of happiness and beer, and he got his moment, his eternity in that city, in that park, on that filthy asphalt. He was dancing. His memory and nostalgia of lost life spread through the wooden planks of the barracks. That feeling was growing further to the park.
He looked like he was from the hood, on the way to the wood... As if every hood was his. He tried to talk to the chef and his pal that was behind the shack but without success. We were still waiting. Chum, mate stopped by the bucket. They were the same height. He and that assembly-disassembly concrete bucket were the same height. That trash bucket is usually used during various patriotic events to open heads and shop windows. Guy spread the arms as if he had the power, the power of the Greyskull. He shouted within himself a couple of times, or it seemed so because there was no voice except the torn music. Music was now in the off due to the collapse of the whole situation. He danced a few minutes around the bucket and faded away. We picked up the gyros and headed for the pub. In the pub, things went jovial until we did not have enough beer, and we did not have enough beer since we did not start arguing. We just decided to go.
44°48’19’’ N/20°27’38’’ E_11: 35 p.m.
We continued strolling down the street. We came to a collapsed building. The ruins, the visible remains of another attempt to renovate the city, and, then, still existing, a country that will disappear in the future, fall apart like a mirror shatters when its crystal reflection blazes on the pointed tip of a stone. Scaffolding supports the walls that hang of the strings of the armature. It seems as if they are dangling, swinging in the wind and waiting for the right moment to snap someone, to jump from atop, to fall off to the head of the passer-by and smash it into the same pieces. The same kind of pieces that someone, not so long ago, decided to break this building and one country and close one period in history. And the time in history goes on like this, not, exactly, counting its periods in definite numbers, but in some significant events that do not repeat, do not repeat...
Who dare is who can… We could only continue to walk further towards the apartment and the bed, but we were interrupted. We were walking steadily, chatting and working out a plan to get to the other end of the river, the other end of the city. We were relaxed and satisfied but tired in anticipation.
— "Guys, do you have girlfriends?" - was a question that interrupted meditation.
The question that came sideward while we were offside was unannounced and unexpected. It could have passed and missed the target. But, like one of those missiles, it hit and disturbed the apparent balance. A little question-provocation, the question of a bored kid, who was drunk, returned with friends from night-out, heading home, somewhere in the blocks, in his monotonous life, the way he saw to live or, by the standards of civilization one has to live. Maybe we, my girlfriend, a friend and I were unconventional at that moment. Perhaps we looked like those two characters from the play, a wannabe playwright and a barbecue master-pig sticked on a Bulgarian. I don't believe it. We wore jeans and tees, just like those guys, almost the same. We were in black, but they were in gay (not homosexual!) colours of red, white and yellow. It looks like we were still inside the play.
— "With a question like that, you can just walk away." - it was a sedate answer to that intrusion into personal space, and that question-provocation that could not be unanswered or answered differently but accepting the game and being what, perhaps, at that moment, you were not.
The discussion began and soon ended as the voice of reason appeared in the three-member crew. Of course, a pack is what provides a safe framework for attacking others.
We continued walking further to the traffic light, where we stopped to call and get a taxi that would take us to the other side of the river. Taxis at a reasonable price and not at the price at which foreigners and migrants travel. Is it possible, is it even matter at all? The question from the beginning was: who are we, the others!?
Lads, interested in our sexual orientation and mental health, stopped a few tens of meters below the crossroads, decided to come back and ask a sub-question, to come for an additional answer, the question that will resonate late into the night and deep in our memory. Maybe our, somehow, aimless standing at the crossroads led them to that, or they possibly concluded from our short conversation that our Serbian language is less Serbian than their Serbian language. But before that, they returned to add that our reaction to their provocation was inappropriate and that there was no reason not to answer the kindly asked question. The classic discussion from the bottom of the bottle started. It was a time to end this argument. We kindly and declaratively explained that to avoid escalation of the conflict, we were retreating to the opposite side of the street.
The bomb has exploded, the real question followed.
— "Where are you from?" - we were questioned and, likely, accused of coming to steal something that is not ours, something that does not belong to us, that belongs only to those born at the ušće (confluence)...
We said we were from Požega, turned around and left. Curses in the form of warm greetings to foreigners, tourists, migrants, gipsies and Romanians are left to vibrate behind.
We came to Belgrade to watch the show, support the culture and see something new, which in the end did not turn out to be so revolutionary novel. The state of affairs, however, remained unchanged. Gays continued to provoke laughter from the audience in the theatre, and the streets of Belgrade town remained unsafe for casual passers-by.
Appendix
Watching movies in cinemas and theatre plays in theatres has a magical effect on me. I remain deeply reflective upon that lived experience of the act of collective participation in the creation of a work of art that directly or indirectly concerns the fundamental element of any traditional collective ritual - play.
Space is an equally important factor in creating this kind of immersive experience. Therefore, I am leaving traces in the form of geographical coordinates and approximate times. My wish is to awaken the investigative spirit in the readers. No matter how accurate an indication of the possible location that coordinates and times are, they leave the possibility of universalization of all possible spaces that are a potential generator of these and other types of human interactions and different activities that are likely to occur in those interactions.
In anticipation of the play in the parking lot in front of the theatre, we ate ice-cream.
We entered the lobby and then the hall. The seats were not numbered and were getting occupied. People with masks besieged the hall until the last unnumbered seat was occupied. They sat next to me and next to everyone else who, already, sat before them. They set next to those who entered later and those who came in to have a look or have someone look at them because they interfere with the careful observing of what is happening on stage. Maybe they were late for the play. Perhaps they came much earlier or, they were there, in the theatre, just in time...
The question is, what exactly is the beginning of this play?! The question is, also, how long does the play last?! These are the questions I asked myself after watching Tarantino's latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I went out from an empty movie theatre hall approaching the door through a quiet, silent and cinematically lit hallway. I went out on the street, in front of The Old Palace, where a crowd of people greeted some gracious sportsmen.
How long does the play last, when it ends, if it ends at all?! When does the step out of the narrative happen?! Can we live something outside of the play? Who are we, people-intruders, the obstacles, and who are these others, different from us residents of here and now? Who are those indigenous, the rights holders, those who have privilege walking the city?
There are no curtains. The scenography has already been there, on the stage. There was everything, there, on stage. There were objects from the flea market, and objects from the beach, and objects from some ordinary corner of the city and from the Hilandarska street. The actors were already on stage, unaware of the presence of the audience. They were muttering something at the bottom of the stage. Some of them were in front, closer to the audience. Unaware of the audience, too. It was desirable to avoid that boundary that marks the beginning of the play or make it as less noticeable as possible so that life on the stage continues playing without interruption. It was necessary to produce the illusion of entering that other world imperceptible. In any case, such moments become, as the situation in nature, society and technology changes faster and more radically, an inadequate and dangerous weapon. The borders were dissolving. The illusion of spirit and matter becomes an exclusive part of everyday life.
That smell of the sea and salty water was spreading. I, perhaps, was immersed in the ambience by the belief that the umbrellas, towels and swimming tires are palpable. Maybe because of the barbecue or beer that flowed through my veins, but a little later, during the night.
We are ready for some future nostalgia to draw us to the memory of that summer at a seaside or that breezy night spent somewhere far away from home. Far away from parents and what we see in them since we know that is waiting for us, there, around the corner as some trickster who wants to deceive us; tomorrow we will be the same with trembling nostalgia, we will remember those times when we were not what we despised and, secretly fearing, we knew we would become.
The writer is also there, and he feels uncomfortable because, fuck, he is not an actor but a writer. There is also a bunch of songs that last forever. By their duration seems to fill the time obtained for the play. No one knows if the next theatre season will fail and if there will be future opportunities to act.
It seemed to me that the brandy was real and that the smoke was real. Life was happening on stage. And life, again, could not be happening so convincingly if brandy was not real. It had to be as possibly real as that life from the past. That life that is becoming more recent forgone and the present that became that past that with each passing moment called for remembrance. Remember ourselves once, some other self, some other us. There was a collective life: everyone with everyone. The memory was present so strongly that it ceased to belong to the past and passed into the ubiquitous present moment.
I took a deep breath and dived. I was striving to hold my breath for as long as possible. The Mississippi flowed with streams of Vinjak, brandy, beer and salty water. He rolled what he brought along, wauled along his course and threw out changed, refined, salted. Sea, seaaaa.
44°47’50’’ N/20°28’28’’ E_9:05 p.m.
We had a plan to go for a beer, for as many beers as we needed. We went down the street, walked to the pub. We phoned and chatted along the way. We stopped at the park to order junk food. The barrack was the first one we came across, dirty and smeary. We ordered gyros. The chef took it seriously. He started stretching the dough, making chips, cutting meat. Everything was like in Greece, maybe even better. Definitely much better.
We were talking about something, casually, when, suddenly, voices began to form into strange masses that stretched and distorted came to our ear shells. Something was coming down the street, from the direction we were coming from earlier, in time. An amorphous shape, holding a bottle of beer in hand and a speaker hanging over his shoulder, was getting faster and closer. …joj Rado, bela Rado, daj da ljubim lice mlado, joooooj Rado, bela Rado, daj daaaaaaa… (Serbian turbo-folk song: oh Rada, white Rada (daisy flower), let me kiss your young face, oh Rada, white Rada, let meeee…). The pal was cheerful. He pissed himself of happiness and beer, and he got his moment, his eternity in that city, in that park, on that filthy asphalt. He was dancing. His memory and nostalgia of lost life spread through the wooden planks of the barracks. That feeling was growing further to the park.
He looked like he was from the hood, on the way to the wood... As if every hood was his. He tried to talk to the chef and his pal that was behind the shack but without success. We were still waiting. Chum, mate stopped by the bucket. They were the same height. He and that assembly-disassembly concrete bucket were the same height. That trash bucket is usually used during various patriotic events to open heads and shop windows. Guy spread the arms as if he had the power, the power of the Greyskull. He shouted within himself a couple of times, or it seemed so because there was no voice except the torn music. Music was now in the off due to the collapse of the whole situation. He danced a few minutes around the bucket and faded away. We picked up the gyros and headed for the pub. In the pub, things went jovial until we did not have enough beer, and we did not have enough beer since we did not start arguing. We just decided to go.
44°48’19’’ N/20°27’38’’ E_11: 35 p.m.
We continued strolling down the street. We came to a collapsed building. The ruins, the visible remains of another attempt to renovate the city, and, then, still existing, a country that will disappear in the future, fall apart like a mirror shatters when its crystal reflection blazes on the pointed tip of a stone. Scaffolding supports the walls that hang of the strings of the armature. It seems as if they are dangling, swinging in the wind and waiting for the right moment to snap someone, to jump from atop, to fall off to the head of the passer-by and smash it into the same pieces. The same kind of pieces that someone, not so long ago, decided to break this building and one country and close one period in history. And the time in history goes on like this, not, exactly, counting its periods in definite numbers, but in some significant events that do not repeat, do not repeat...
Who dare is who can… We could only continue to walk further towards the apartment and the bed, but we were interrupted. We were walking steadily, chatting and working out a plan to get to the other end of the river, the other end of the city. We were relaxed and satisfied but tired in anticipation.
— "Guys, do you have girlfriends?" - was a question that interrupted meditation.
The question that came sideward while we were offside was unannounced and unexpected. It could have passed and missed the target. But, like one of those missiles, it hit and disturbed the apparent balance. A little question-provocation, the question of a bored kid, who was drunk, returned with friends from night-out, heading home, somewhere in the blocks, in his monotonous life, the way he saw to live or, by the standards of civilization one has to live. Maybe we, my girlfriend, a friend and I were unconventional at that moment. Perhaps we looked like those two characters from the play, a wannabe playwright and a barbecue master-pig sticked on a Bulgarian. I don't believe it. We wore jeans and tees, just like those guys, almost the same. We were in black, but they were in gay (not homosexual!) colours of red, white and yellow. It looks like we were still inside the play.
— "With a question like that, you can just walk away." - it was a sedate answer to that intrusion into personal space, and that question-provocation that could not be unanswered or answered differently but accepting the game and being what, perhaps, at that moment, you were not.
The discussion began and soon ended as the voice of reason appeared in the three-member crew. Of course, a pack is what provides a safe framework for attacking others.
We continued walking further to the traffic light, where we stopped to call and get a taxi that would take us to the other side of the river. Taxis at a reasonable price and not at the price at which foreigners and migrants travel. Is it possible, is it even matter at all? The question from the beginning was: who are we, the others!?
Lads, interested in our sexual orientation and mental health, stopped a few tens of meters below the crossroads, decided to come back and ask a sub-question, to come for an additional answer, the question that will resonate late into the night and deep in our memory. Maybe our, somehow, aimless standing at the crossroads led them to that, or they possibly concluded from our short conversation that our Serbian language is less Serbian than their Serbian language. But before that, they returned to add that our reaction to their provocation was inappropriate and that there was no reason not to answer the kindly asked question. The classic discussion from the bottom of the bottle started. It was a time to end this argument. We kindly and declaratively explained that to avoid escalation of the conflict, we were retreating to the opposite side of the street.
The bomb has exploded, the real question followed.
— "Where are you from?" - we were questioned and, likely, accused of coming to steal something that is not ours, something that does not belong to us, that belongs only to those born at the ušće (confluence)...
We said we were from Požega, turned around and left. Curses in the form of warm greetings to foreigners, tourists, migrants, gipsies and Romanians are left to vibrate behind.
We came to Belgrade to watch the show, support the culture and see something new, which in the end did not turn out to be so revolutionary novel. The state of affairs, however, remained unchanged. Gays continued to provoke laughter from the audience in the theatre, and the streets of Belgrade town remained unsafe for casual passers-by.
Appendix
Watching movies in cinemas and theatre plays in theatres has a magical effect on me. I remain deeply reflective upon that lived experience of the act of collective participation in the creation of a work of art that directly or indirectly concerns the fundamental element of any traditional collective ritual - play.
Space is an equally important factor in creating this kind of immersive experience. Therefore, I am leaving traces in the form of geographical coordinates and approximate times. My wish is to awaken the investigative spirit in the readers. No matter how accurate an indication of the possible location that coordinates and times are, they leave the possibility of universalization of all possible spaces that are a potential generator of these and other types of human interactions and different activities that are likely to occur in those interactions.
Miloš Bojović
September 2021.
September 2021.