12-IX-2004.
Ninth. Nina's room looks like this now. That's the shade. Saves on heating, feels warmer when you step in.
We ran the smudged upper part practically everywhere, to hide the texture of the walls. A bit of trompe l'oeil never hurt. As she used to say „are my eyes failing me or is this a trick of the light?“.
And this room also had plastic floor tiles. We left them so for now, until the carpet reaches these parts. Once it did, it was, ouch... painful. Again, when we removed them, we found that glue which never properly dries, the horror. We went through the torture all afternoon while spreading the mat, because wherever you step, the sole sticks; anything that accidentally touches the floor also sticks. We spent more time unsticking things than actually working. But once we were done, we sighed a huge bas-relief fund.
Just like any other year, new textbooks. Huge, heavy, hardcover. They are owned by the school (or the city/county), and are free unless you fail to return them at the end of the year. One year the cover of the history textbook featured the famous Yalta picture - Staljin, Churchill, Roosevelt, in color, everything great, and we spotted the fake right there. Roosevelt's cigarette was erased, so he just accidentally held his index and middle finger straight together, while somewhat bending the ring and pinky. I don't remember whether Churchill's cigar remained.
The pedagogical value of this move is obvious: you can lie whatever you want, if you know that you may be caught by just some irrelevant minority, because the minority will either not spot it at all or will not care. And those who do catch you have nowhere to air their complaint. Actually they do, but there where they can also reach only an irrelevant number of people. Against smoking, everything is permitted.
Eleventh.
Met with David in the hotel, always the same one, because that's where you can get a room for 100$ - Jüzek wouldn't pay for more, at least not for us. Whoever comes first, leaves a message with the room number, and then it's easy to get through the house phone switch.
Our rooms were quite high. His on, say, tenth, my on fourteenth (which would be thirteenth if they weren't cheating, and twelfth in european units). At least I had a good view from above, with all those tiny terrace and flat roofs - people would have little gardens, canopies, hammocks. Anyone who could, did carve an oasis in the Big apple, where all the hubbub of a metropolis is just 20m away and they sit in peace and sip their drink.
We gathered in his room first, to make plans. I took the opportunity to make this shot of his keyboard. I don't quite know whether this is the true french azerty or some belgian subvariant, it was just good to have at hand. It happened already that I have to hook into his box in Antwerp, where, of course, flemish was set as language and this was the layout. I peeked into a print of this photo several times, when I needed to guess where the parentheses, commas etc are*.
He did turn his machine on and type on it, even though it was a saturday. Not observing the shabbat, eh?
In the morning we slowly walked to the office, sat in some garden to have a coffee first. First time that I see ordinary water sold in a restaurant. Not quite ordinary, this was european import and it cost, had a brand name. Amazingly, place was quite empty. On a sunday morning.
There were just a few of us in the office, so we occupied the manager's office, has this big table where we can sit by each other and draw whatever plans we want. I have no idea what we did, there's always something.
Took off later in the afternoon. Some italian guy came with us, a hunk of a guy, from some villae in the mountains in the north, around Trieste or thereabouts, where he's the mayor of the place. He designs jewelry and UniJewel is his customer, he came on business. We went to Rockefeller center (which is wrongly transliterated as Rokfeler in serbian, should be Roukefela, too late now) for a beer. He pretty much ignored me, until I called him by name, then his jaw dropped. „After so many times in New York, this is the first time I heard my name not mangled and butchered“. „Ciao vicino, io sono uno Iugoslavo“.
The beer wasn't so bad, but then wasn't worth remembering either. They didn't have Stella Artois, bu which David swears, it's the best one in the world. Okay, will try some day**.
There we split, the guy went his way and we went to a turkish restaurant for dinner. He considered me a good enough guide, I should be able to find my way through the menu. Which I did, there were many items on it with familiar names, not too mangled. We did much worse with the german names of things, despite the shorter time. Look, liquid yogurt! Gimme that! I explained the difference, and he wanted to try it.
We ate, don't remember what, and he ordered another round of yogurt, liked it a lot. When it was time to pay, he added about 8% tip, far below the regular 15%. The waiter immediately came to ask what went wrong, what were we not satisfied with, almost ready to fight, we're taking away his sustenance! David said the amount is proportionate to his satisfaction, take it or take it. We vanished stage left quickly, and he then had an idea to compose some document that we'd put on the office server to be there in the morning, so we need a good wifi now, so Starbucks. Found one at the corner of Madison and 31st.
Somehow he talked me into taking a fruit salad, we can't sit so long on coffee alone. Alright, if you insist so much.
The salad arrived and there it is, three grapes, a small chunk of pineapple, pear and couple other fruits, and the rest is just canteloupe. Whoa... this is delicacy for you? We wouldn't bother to grow canteloupes, regardless of it requiring just to put the seed in the soil, water a few times and check when it's ripe. Could have grown them at home, and I don't even like them. This is the same as when in Leningrad they served us the russian salad (aka Olivye), with „exotic spice“, waiter said. Exotic? Choped green onion leaves can't be found within less than two thousand kilometers, it is exotic. Well, may be exotic to you, not to me, it grows in my yard, I pick it when I feel like.
Since he concentrated much on his typing, I just kept looking around and shooting. Not too bad, I was facing a big panoramic window, and shot my reflection in it, appropriately framed. And half a dozen other interesting motifs.
Then he suddenly got up and paid, and forced a march to the hotel. The yogurt started its works, we hurried intensely.
On monday I guess we worked, and this could be exactly the day when they fucked up my lunch. I'd usually go down, right next door there was a snack bar of sorts, where they had a chicken sendwich, which was a complete lunch - couple of white meat steaks, breaded (not pohovano but this was close), with whatever filler around, in a sizable bun, eat like a man for just six bucks. This time, exactly by the time when my guts started complaining existentially, they gathered some meeting. Valerie sat to my left, and parked her coffee on my side. Oooowch... I asked her what's that smell, vanilla she said. Thought to myself, if this is vanilla then I'm Napoleon. This is coconut, artificial at that, oh the horrors. My guts were tumbling, the smell being too strong. I endured the session, and saved the six bucks. Couldn't get myself to eat. David and I went for some nondescript pizza after work, the worst scum of a grub, but it was along the way, greasy and just 1,50$ a slice and it filled the belly, give what you may.
On tuesday we split - somehow there are no files saved, no photos, nothing. Then we split, he went to catch his flight, and I went to the Chinatown to catch the bus. I made few dozen shots, some on the way to the bus, some from the bus through Chinatown, some on Noo Joizy (that's how the natives pronounce it) industrial areas that the bus passes through.
These days I remembered to send a circular email to pretty much everybody, in three languages (i.e. skipped russian), to announce that I'm a dot com now and the only valid address is sGradlj@sGradlj.com. Heard back from Ileš, Željko and rasejani so far.
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* this trouble didn't get any easier until windowses of 2008 or 12, when m$ finally decided to install all the keyboard layouts, so when you remote into it from anywhere, your keyboard layout awaits. Until then, ouch.
** the day came in 2016 or so, but then it was bottled in Apatin, where all the beers taste the same, and I get a strong impression they also come from the same vat. So I don't know if that counts.
Mentions: David Krakovski, Ileš Notaroš, Majkrosoft (m$), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pohovano, rasejani, sGradlj, sGradlj.com, UniJewel, Valerie Marceau, Yisaac Kwiatnik (Jüzek), yogurt, Željko Popov, in serbian