Big River Man - Martin Strel

Yesterday I went to see an interesting little film, Big River Man, about one of the most incredible Slovenians to ever live, Martin Strel, endurance swimmer. To date, Martin has swum the length of the Danube, the Mississippi, the Yangtze, and most recently the Amazon. And he has done this all after the age of 45.



I must warn you that, while the film has a fascinating subject, it is deeply deeply flawed. The basic construction of the film is choppy and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the main characters -- Martin and his son/trainer, Borut -- and instead of trying to work through that misunderstanding it decides to make a mockery of them and Slovenia and geez, almost anyone. There is almost no one in this film who doesn't come out looking like a bumbling idiot. The filmmakers asking/allowing Martin's (none too bright) son to narrate the film was also a big mistake, not only was Borut uncharismatic as a narrator, but frankly I have to say that unless a Slovenian person knows English really really well, their personalities just don't come through and they just sound robotic and well...Borat-y. I think the producers would have done well to hire a interpreter and let Martin and Borut speak Slovenian for most of the film, they probably would have talked more and said more interesting/coherent things. Most glaringly, there were such gaping narrative holes in the movie, that Strel himself would probably find it daunting to get across. That said, the reason why I still recommend Big River Man is because of the glorious images of what this story is simply about: Martin swimming.

The footage of him floating, gliding, stretching, and splashing himself down the Amazon in absolutely beautiful. While on dry land, his massive body (the result of bad food and hard drinking) moves ungracefully and somewhat aimlessly; in the water he is at home, the weight of the world -- his troubled past and uncertain future -- is lifted, and he is pure poetry, understandable in any language. Pick it up if you can, and let me know what you think!

A Black Man Takes A Hike

The next time someone here displays surprise that I never took hikes or went "into nature" before I moved here, I am going to send them this video. Too funny!

Black Hiker with Blair Underwood from Blair Underwood

Carneeeeeevaaaaal!

After our trip to lovely Murska Sobota, we figured that since it was carnival weekend and since we were passing through Lower Styria, we should stop in Ptuj which is the oldest city in the country (established by Celts!) and also Slovenian Carnival Central. This is the place where they have these awesome kurents (pagan characters that are meant to scare off evil spirits) and I finally got to see them in all their crazy pagan costumed glory.

The carnival was a good time like a mini Mardi Gras and it gave me hope that at least some people in this country know and want to have a good time.

Photo and video evidence follows:












Pippi Longstockings (or Pippi Langestrumpfe in German) was a popular costume








commentary on the economy and the country's (low but slightly increased) birthrate


Some commentary on last year's controversy about whether muslims could build a mosque in Ljubljana




alas carnival seems to be the time for people to really crack out the racism and on top of all the "Indians", "Jamaicans", and even "geishas" that I saw, there was this "gypsy caravan" of people with their faces painted brown. Ay yi yi. Ironically enough, just a few miles away some Roma people were actually having an international conference just a few days before. Here's to their continued struggle in the face of this kinda crap.

Love and Obstacles - the tour

Ever since I read the short story Love and Obstacles by Bosnian writer, Aleksander Hemon, I've been curious to visit Murska Sobota in northeast Slovenia. So this Valentine's/Carnival weekend, The Captain and I headed up there. I really enjoyed myself walking around colorful and sadly sorta abandoned Murska Sobota and we even took a short ride over the border to Hungary where we had (of course) goulash, got shaken down for a few euros by some crossing guard lady who tried to explain stuff to us in Russian, and retreated back over the border after realizing that their language was so incredibly different from the handful that we were familiar with that we might get totally lost.

Here are some images so you get the idea.






Murska Sobota


just across the border (a 20 minute drive or so)


the goulash was eaten


we also had this dödölle (fried potatoes and onions with sour cream) which was excellent along with some yummy meat


too much decoration in hungary


more Murska - this was one of like three diferent "Bar Africa"s that I saw in this region. what gives?


alongside our hotel


Valentine's dinner at the restaurant. It was heinously bad


Murska Sobota, an aerial view


shamefully weird valentine dessert in Murska Sobota

All in all, I am grateful for the opportunity to see more of the country and I am glad I went. Thank you to all the super friendly people of Murska Sobota!

Hey Everybody It's....

A Gratuitous Picture Post!

last weekend we went on a walk around Šobec...














at some point we also went to kranjska gora and watched a bit of popular Slovenian rock band Siddhartha. They are really pretty awful.

Cities and Ambition

source

Most of the time when I try to talk about what frustrates me about living in Slovenia, it just comes out in a big blob of anger and resentment towards the country and its inhabitants, but that's not really what I want to say. What I really want to express is what programmer and essayist Paul Graham writes about so eloquently in his piece "Cities and Ambition".

*

An excerpt:

How much does it matter what message a city sends? Empirically, the answer seems to be: a lot. You might think that if you had enough strength of mind to do great things, you'd be able to transcend your environment. Where you live should make at most a couple percent difference. But if you look at the historical evidence, it seems to matter more than that. Most people who did great things were clumped together in a few places where that sort of thing was done at the time.

You can see how powerful cities are from something I wrote about earlier: the case of the Milanese Leonardo. Practically every fifteenth century Italian painter you've heard of was from Florence, even though Milan was just as big. People in Florence weren't genetically different, so you have to assume there was someone born in Milan with as much natural ability as Leonardo. What happened to him?
............................

No matter how determined you are, it's hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.

Black and On The Sunny Side of the Alps

Just "discovered" this provocative short film while cruising the 'nets. It appears they got an all-black cast to play Slovenians. The director (and local dude), Janez Burger, was trying engage Slovenian people and get a sense of how racist/tolerant people were, so he took money from the national film fund telling them he was making a "promotional movie" for the country and shot this. Too good. Gotta get my hands on it. And this picture kinda needs to be a fixture on this site.



DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT (from their VERY NOISY, BE CAREFUL website)

‘ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE ALPS’ used to be the slogan of a promotion campaign of the Slovene Tourist Board, which wanted to present Slovenia in the best possible light – as a beautiful sub-alpine country, full of hospitable and friendly people. However, recent racist and xenophobic events present Slovenia in a far darker light. It is most concerning that racist and xenophobic rhetoric is being used also by political elites, but even more concerning is the fact that their populist tendencies find fertile ground which helps their political credit to grow. This film is a reaction to the increasingly bizarre situation in my country. A film about a typical Slovene family, which would never find shape if finance officials knew that this is the first Slovene black-African film.

ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE ALPS is a film about Slovenia. About a beautiful country where happiness, joy, mutual understanding and tolerance prevail. Nobody ever says anything to hurt anybody. A neighbour is always ready to help his neighbour. Birds sing merrily, red carnations blossom on balconies and there is an inviting smell coming from village kitchens. The sun always shines in this country. The sun also shines from the hearts of the people which makes this country the sunniest in the world. Even sunnier than Africa.

Speak More Now

Related to language learning, but on a lighter note, I wanted to share this interesting New York Times article about language learning resources online. While there is predictably not as much in the way of Slovenian there are the big ones -- French, Italian, Spanish, and even German, so I can continue the studies I started in Berlin -- as well as a useful list of free and low-priced options.

Now to find the discipline to keep up with the courses....

The Climb

For a while now, I've had this silent agreement with myself and now I think I'd better make it public so that I will have extra eyes on me, making sure I keep to it. Here it is:

I will not take a job teaching English.

Slovenia is a tough and uninviting place for a foreigner looking for a job. Just like America, if you are from south of here, the country will open its doors to you if you want to do the tough and yucky stuff, join a road crew, clean toilets, work the late shift on an assembly line.

If you are from due north of here, then you're probably coming from the home office in Vienna or Dusseldorf. A two year assignment and a cushy corner office.

If you are from anywhere else, it is a pretty tough slog. But if you come from a country with a popular language, then-- you're in luck! -- your brain and your tongue are your ticket to low waged and insecure day labor! Yes, you can be paid a couple euros an hour to better the lives of Slovenian business men and students, to watch them step on your head as they climb their career ladder, while you dangle on the bottom rungs. Yes, you!

Look, I'm sure teaching English has its charms, and for full disclosure I will say that I spent a month or two tutoring a friend in the language, so I am a bit familiar with how it goes and know it isn't the worse thing ever. But, howsabout if I just want a normal salaried job? What then?

I know of a tiny few foreigners who have normal office jobs, and while I was happy for them that they were in the right place(being married to the right people to bring them in to the organization) to get such positions, I wasn't envious because I was content to keep on freelancing while I patiently waited for my own "career" or interesting position to come around the corner. However, after two years of being here, I'm beginning to get skeptical and am starting to set my sights lower. After all this time, I'm beginning to think I'd be happy to be neatly folded into a company, with a punch card, regular payroll, water cooler chats and whatnot. Oh cruel irony, Slovenia, what I dreaded most in America has now become my greatest aspiration.

I am trying not to be bitter and hold anything against this place. I don't think the founding fathers of Slovenia ever had any lofty ideas of this country being a place where people could come from other places and make their fortune. Heck, I don't even think they want it to be a place where the natives have much of a shot at making their fortune. This is a place that lives on workplace discrimination. A place where someone at a job interview told me "It might be nice to have a black person," knowing full well I had no legal recourse.

So what's in order? Social change! How do we get it? By activism, marching in the streets, signing petitions, and maybe -- and this is where I can contribute -- by refusing to teach English.

new year, same old Wheelville

fireworks at Lake Bled (taken by me)

Happy New Year to everyone, from us in Wheelville!

Things have been fairly same-y, except for the fateful visit of my mother to our fair corner of the world. It was a really lovely trip, albeit cold and snowy in parts. Here's to hoping she'll be back soon!