Before Oppenheimer, there was… Nobel.
Just next to Kongresni Trg (Congress Square) in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, there is inexplicably located a Nobel’s Pizza & Burek. They are open, so the sign says, “24 Bhoureks.” The burek is a caloric bunker buster, a dumb glide bomb of an always-delicious meat- (and sometimes cheese-, at the risk of offending the good people of Bosnia) pastry that will always drop to find its level, taking along with it any oxygen-rich blood employed in keeping you conscious. Its soporific powers are unmeasured, but clearly far exceed any prescription medications such as heroin or fentanyl. So powerful is the burek that I became drowsy as soon as I exited the bus today and my eyes fell on this sign. Drowsy, and also confused.
What quantum devilry of syntax is the “Pizza & Burek?” Is it a burek that is dressed as a pizza, a single combined clobbering of dough and cheese and meat with all the arterial stopping power of both? Or does the shop diversify, selling both pizza and burek? I really hope it is the former.
The Pizza Burek EP from Novi Sad’s Meki Gluteusi immediately began resonating in my brainpan.
I was too tired to reflect on the day yesterday. That day began with a meeting at Ljubljana’s legendary Radio Študent 89.3. Established after the student protests of 1968, Radio Študent has been an independent community radio station and arts hub run by democratic committee for 58 years. For nearly the last 20 years it has also run its own record label. The conversation took some interesting theoretical turns into, among other things, the unique power of Balkan Trap.
New office decorations incoming.
I then walked a wooded trail through but and back to the city center to meet with an ethnomusicologist anthropologist colleague for coffee.
Today I resolved to scale the hill to the castle. There are two paths up- a relentlessly steep gravel path, and a residential staircase. I took the gravel path up, and the staircase down. The trip up was verdant and cool, but crowded with Germanic people who were happy to stand in the middle of the trail gathered around a tablet, aggressively unaware of the quiet American ascending just behind them. Quite the annoyance. On the trip down I had the staircase to myself, with Carla dal Forno’s latest album, ‘Confession,’ quietly teleporting into the inside of my skull via my open-ear headphones. There isn’t much to see at the top. Castle admission is ticketed, and I am told it the fortress is actively being destroyed by what appear to be house flippers. I was convince of this when I walked past a backhoe moving earth away from an ancient castle wall, a wall whose window was clearly not original in any way. Apparently the interior has been entirely altered, walls removed, the works. The castle’s full effect is really only felt from when looking up at it from down in the old town center.
The overcast view on the way down the stairs from the medieval Seattle of Europe.
From there I walked to the semi-sanctioned squats on the former Jugoslav Army base called Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova. Various clubs have nightly events, but it’s a bit grim and lonely during the day. Menacing, even.
There’s no place like home.
I met with several other scholars over the course of the week and received much encouragement. More meetings on the schedule for next week. It buoys me spiritually to make the acquaintance of so many human beings when it seems like we’ve all been swimming a lake of fire with pizza bureks on our ankles for so very long.