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But I had a little look on my blog statistics that suddenly appeared and noticed that since July (when it started measuring) these have been the countries my blog has been viewed from most frequently:

Slovenia
United States of America
United Kingdom
Canada
Germany
Finland
Belgium
Australia
France
India

Just seemed like another fact I can find on the internet and even though I have no use for it, it seemed interesting for a moment...

Hundstage

And indeed they were... I was just sorry to have missed the dress rehearsal, so I took a few (few even in the days of film) photos during the performance when the music was really loud. Here is one of them... I wonder if they will come back to have another dress rehearsal?

Busy evening

First off all I went to see a performance at Rog... Bizarre and that is why I liked it... It was called Clay Road and it obviously lead all the way to China (all roads lead to China and not Rome)... But on the way I saw plenty of things... some good, some seemed like just a last minute idea... I suppose it is just like when you travel with a train and look through the window... At the end I got some Pu-Erh tea, so the trip was certainly worthwhile (well I also got a few good photos on the way)
Then I went to see a concert of DeseirDeeler, who is a sort of Lydia Lunch sort of type who is not trying to emasculate all men... A bit of a punk-rocker, a bit electro-synth, a splash of poetry and well... the evening is going fine...
After that I whizzed to a party thingy... one has to unwind a bit doesn’t one... took a few photos there, but as I hardly ever take flash photographs I need a bit of practice and someone to tell me a few secrets... I know a few tricks, but I am getting bored with them... and I know there is more out there to be learned...

What goes up

must come down. And in the same way our exhibition went up, it had to come down...
And at the same time this is quest appearance No. 4: This time the photo is by Monika Jankovic, who was a part of the exhibition (not with this photo obviously)

Air Ballet

No, I do not have a lot of grand jetés, changements, sissonnes and assemblés in mind. In fact no ballerinas whatsoever - well not what you and I would call ballerinas anyway... But for somebody who is Eiffel tower deep in technology... now that is an entirely different kettle of fish (whatever they are doing in a kettle). I suppose for him it was ballerinas all round.. well ok.. as long as it was in the air.

Caution: a drunk on your left!

I decided for a photo from this play, because just an evening before, while sitting with a friend in my regular, the two of us got approached by a certain drunk professor (that is once he had managed to scare all the girls away from the room - systematically, table by table). The story told by him was not the same as the one in the play, but the feeling was pretty much the same as in the play... a story I guess all of us have (well, all of us who go out at least once in a while)... you know a drunk rambling incoherently, with a really important story...

RIP

Grandpa.

Marathon

I found it quite mind-boggling how many people ran the Ljubljana marathon this year. But then again, it was also the first time I positioned myself just about 1 km from the start, where there are all still together, but they are also all already running... And it took about 20 minutes for the entire group to go past - and yet this was the only rabbit in the race...

Guest appearance No. 3

As I was returning from Saturday coffee, my friend Saso Puppis saw this and wanted to photograph it... So he asked me for my camera and made this photo. I have no idea if it came out as he wanted it to, but as he thought it was good enough to stop and ask me for the camera, I have to at least give him the opportunity to appear on my blog :)

A piece

from the exhibition opening. Always something going on it this sleepy little town.

Jaap

Blonk. A Dutch guy who dabbles in sound poetry. The first impression was that here is somebody who was a single child and was left alone at home a lot and was bored, because there were no playstations or facebook at the time, so he started toying around with what he could find... and what he could find was his vocal cords and other ways of making sounds and noises with his body... But then as the performance continues you really get into it and discover that it is not just randomly thrown together sounds... thumbs up, says I.

Following

yesterday's lost in space, today it is in your face.
Ah, the rhymes...

One of those

evenings, during which I was indecisive as to what do I want to do... I felt a bit down, so I was toying with the idea that I could stay at home and just be lazy... but then again I was feeling a bit down and I have spent the whole day at home trying to do some work... so I decided to go and see the opening of Sonica because a couple performances were announced (and you know me - I am a sucker for live performances)… so in the end I decided to go out, but could not stay out for too long… wasn’t in the absolutely right mood, even though the distractions were welcome.. So after the first performance I waited for the second one to start and I soon decided that I am not in the mood for it so I went back home…
ah yes, I think I chose this photo because it sort of depicts how lost in this vast universe I felt yesterday...

No comment

Industrial

Sunday night has to be industrial. And when I say industrial I do not mean merely the music. I also mean the fog (which by the way does not create the best possible conditions for photographing). It was worse than in the golden age of the industrial revolution. It was even worse that London in the times of Sherlock Holmes... Heck, it was even worse than Ljubljana in the 1970s (and trust me nothing was darker and foggier than that).

Dreamy

Jazzy.

Event - ours this time

This time my friends and I had a joint event. And what can I say - if you were not there it is your loss :) I think we should organise more and as times go by we might even sort this organisation thingy out... but otherwise it was fun (albeit exhausting)... well, see you at the next one...

Party

Any concert that ends with a bunch of people from the audience on stage has to be a good one... After all is it not all about the contact between the performers and the fans (or audience)? This photo is not from one of those moments, but the evening sure ended up like that...

What's wrong with this photo?

The photo itself is OK. It is what it depicts that is wrong... I know that most of my photos are, you know, what I would call 'nice' photos - photos from concerts, plays, dance performances, art shows, nature... things that are in reality in the reach of a selected few... but the truth is that there are millions of people out there who will probably never go to a dance performance, or to whom the theatre is merely a distant memory of their childhood, or who turn up at an exhibition opening just to get a bite to eat...
Now I don’t know where you live. But in the country I live things are certainly turning for the worse. Faced with the global recession the government of this little country decided to do what it does best. Put pressure on the little people, which usually means people like you and me. But some are not as good at jumping over the obstacles that life throws at them, some have just plainly ran out of luck, some decided this is the easier option, some escaped into alcohol or drugs, while some of us have no idea that this is waiting for us somewhere down the line … It is often much too easy to look away and say: ‘It is their own fault.’ ‘They should not have got drunk every day.’ ‘Their life, their choice, their problem.’ And yes, sometimes this is the case. Sometimes it is their decision. But sometimes it is not. And don’t punish all…
I will stop here because I do not wish to bore you all with my ramblings that could go on for another few lines, pages, blogs… who knows… All I want you to do is to next time imagine that this person is your child, parent, brother, best friend from primary school, or maybe even you… think for a moment before you walk on…

Ruins of our time

is the title of the exhibition. But I have no idea what he is trying to fend off... Art? Ruins? Photographs? The invisible evil forces? The whiteness?
The idea behind it reminds me of the exhibition I had in March 2009...

Deadlines

imminent. No time for pleasure. No time for fun. No time for photography. This is just me being totally serious & dull. No fun. No games. Just survival.

Autumn

is coming and life is passing by... all in a single photo

One

for all Slovene art lovers. Already before I took this photo I was reminded of this 1888 painting
Once I saw that, the rest was easy...

Not Goldfrapp

As you will probably notice. The concert was cancelled (or postponed to the indefinite future). As I rejected an invitation to the theatre (duh, silly me!)probably less than an hour before I learnt that the concert was no longer on the cards, I went to see the launch of audiopedia and a sort of presentation of some musical gadgets (yey! gadgets! musical gadgets even better!... I guess as far as gadgets go, these are the best kind...). We heard no Goldfrapp, but we certainly noticed the irritating high tones from the CDs (even though they were also carefully selected from the best jazz publishing houses) and the nice and soft tones of the gramophone and the reel-to-reel...

So bias

I cannot believe myself. I've seen this band twice now, and both times the singer completely caught my attention, placed it in a small box, locked it up with chains, put it in a tad larger box, locked it with a padlock, put this in a slightly bigger box, wrapped it all in chains, put it a rather normal sized box, wrapped duct (or duck if you are the pre-WWII type of guy) tape around it... (I guess you see where this is going)... anyroad, I know there is a band, and you have the frontman(or woman as is the case here) and that the frontwoman is supposed to sort of grab the audience's attention, but sometimes they have something a bit more then that (which I know, is not good for the band) and they take over the stage... So it could be that she has that all mighty presence... but then again it could also be that I just fancy her and have developed an almost schoolboy like crush on her :)... Oh well, we will never know ;)

Love is the drug for me

I thought I would see you sitting there
all pretty in your summer dress
with that little frown on your face
because you were the first to arrive
and I was running late
'cos I had to save a beggar's life on the way
for he stopped me and said he didn't have any money
to buy a sandwich and some milk...

I took him to a sandwich shop
and bought him the biggest one we found
and a big carton of milk to go with
he looked at me as if I was crazy
because he thought I would give him a quid or two
and he could put it on his drug pile
and inject it all at the end of the day

but you were not there
the chair was cold
the streets were empty
the rain was falling slowly through the still air
and I realised you never even came.

Volunteering

Whatever the reason behind their act, volunteers seem to come from a different world than most. In this cash (and much too often survival) ridden world there are still some people who care enough to do something and not just watch TV or drink beer with their friends. And no, it does not mean you have to dedicate your life to this. You can just do your bit. I would love to make all these people healthy again, but it is not in my power. As much as I dreamed I would be a mad scientist when I was young and find the cure for more or less all illnesses (except for maybe I-don't-feel-like-going-to-school-today-initis) as well as make some other really important discoveries in physics, chemistry and who knows what else, I am not even close to that today. I would also like to entertain them, but I guess I had to let Robbie do that, as he did ask so nicely (even though this is not one of his best songs) or, as in this case, Pižama. They are much better at entertaining people. So I do my bit, a bit I actually enjoy. Yes, even on a rainy day, when I come there soaking wet. I take photos. And even if this will not make them healthy, when they see them they can stop thinking about their illness for a second and hopefully it also encourages other entertainers to come...
And yes, taking the risk of sounding old-fashioned and old, I will paraphrase an old English saying: A good deed a day, keeps the misery away. (It does make you feel a bit better about yourself and the world you live in, and it certainly makes the person you helped feel better...)
Ok... I better stop now!

Interviews

But don't worry it was not all that serious... we also had a laugh or two and relaxed a bit.

If they can play

with gadgets so can I :). I think this photo (and the similar series I made) is the best depiction of the music they played. Quirky to say the least. I am trying to pass on some music through the photo (it is just to easy to record a video).

Kisha

It was excellent to see the singer enjoying herself, acting like an overjoyed child on a huge sugar rush who has just got a new bike and a new playstation, and it is not even X-mas... it certainly made the concert...

Steady hand (not cam)

A photo taken at midnight, close to where I live. But the part I was excited about is that it is taken from hand, at 0.8s (almost a whole second), and it still looks quite clear and still (well except for the light, but that was the effect I was going for). I definetly decided I have a steady hand.