10-XI-1977.
My best geometric guesstimate about the date. The previous weekend would be too early (and too close to her birthday), and there should be enough time until the end of month to get the designs for the soundboxes to Belgrade and to get them done by st 29th.
Sold the stereo I bought on 27-X-1972., and to Kid, no less. He also wanted to buy the previous škodilak, but it was too early, couple of years ago. The guy just loves to take over what I once had, not to mention the lady...
I wouldn't get into any transactions yet, had he not made the offer. And the price wasn't bad, and I was already itching to hear how does stereo radio sound (what I had had a mono radio), something live and from the spot, not studio packaged. So I ventured into the adventure - he came, paid, packed, took away, and I was left to manage. I really didn't quite need a sound system, being alone in my room for just a little while every week, and for that little I now improvised as I could manage. The contraption is laid out on this shot, for remembrance and generations.
Let's see. Top row, among the books, „Overview of SKJ* history“, „Ulysses“, paperbacks, an upright book in a box, must be the Larousse's encyclopaedia mathematica, with nearly nothing about everything, a present from Teja, not a bad thing though, then a heap of letters, old diaries and memobooks, behind the two-tome hungarian dictionary. On the right, old Iskra, turning its table again.
Lowe shelf, I see the trial print of the part of the poster for Sleš, that we made in 1975, serigraphy, developed it in bathroom, printed with his guys at zzzzz. On top of the heap of magazines is „Sovyetskoye foto“ and who knows what under it. In the shoebox (prob'ly boots') are the negatives. The rag behind the box is the hat club flag. In the yellow boxes are the photographs.
The striped bale is a floor pillow, which she crocheted and we filled it with... now I had to ask her, says chopped sponge. The headset on it is the improvised construction noise protector with telepnone [booth] speakers that Rudolf left me four years ago. The white bucket, same year and source, is the battery pack which ran the yellow blinking light during roadworks, he stole it and brought it along - still had some juice. It now fed the transistor [radio], the same old Captain from 1968 or thereabouts, still operational, I just took out its motherboard to connect the power, turntable and headset. Don't know how I did that, specially the sound input, as the tiny thing didn't have any connectors, I couldn't possibly repeat that today, this was pure Grumf, but it worked. And I could play the records.
The rug is family heirloom. The book in the middle is Herman Hesse's „Glasperlenspiel“ („The glass bead game“), which I think I bought in a book antiques shop.
Now for procurement. Usually you let a buzz out („release a flea“) that you mean to buy, and someone knows someone who'd sell, so you get put together, then go see what's the offer. Well, not this time. There was one amp available, but when I got to that drummer guy, found out it was a simple RFT, or as Rudolf would say, Rotpunkt - the east german version of Blaupunkt. Perhaps not bad per se, but surely not better than what I just got rid of.
So it happened that one evening Slave and I went to Paja for drinks and chat. Paja showed us his new amp, a Tandberg or a Bang & Olufsen, whichever. I asked what about the old aitchessare**. Why, you buying? Took us whole five minutes to set up the terms, and that was last week. Today I had the cash, and went to visit him in the morning, paid, packed, brought it to the room. Somehow I connected the recordplayer's speaker, which was regularly plugged into the cassette player, and the speaker in my old Haiti transistor radio, to it, and managed to find some local radio (what else can you get on the UHF without a proper antenna). Heard Leo Sayer's „When I'm near you“ in glorious full stereo on mismatched improvised speakers, incredible. Froze my haunches off while doing it, because Slave wasn't there that day, and I had perhaps one hour more before the afternoon class, so didn't even fire up the naftarica. Brought the thing home like that, in my travel bag.
Two problems left: speakers and gramophone. Letting out the flea helped for speakers, because I ran into Eči on the weekend, and he said he had a pair for me, he made them himself, with the distributor gear, put them on solid plywood boards, and then found out that even if he made the appropriate boxes for them, he wouldn't have any place to put them, as a whole wall in his room was occupied by something like a regal, but raised above the ground, not raised enough for these speakers, he'd have to make some smaller ones. So he sold me these, and I made a technical drawing of proper 30 liter boxes to fit them in, geometry mother. Dad happened to go to Belgrade, so he delivered the drawing to uncle Staja, who then took to manufacturing.
The gramophone went by different channels, via Borsalino. So one evening we sat with the gang from the radio, dinking beer and smoking, and word after word we come to sound gear, and I mention that I'm on a lookout for a gramophone, to which one deejay said his wife would be selling one, wants to buy something more expensive. So we settled on it, and I visited them, liked what I saw (a guy who plays records for living wouldn't keep any piece of junk around the house, now would he), took it. His wife was interesting, slim curly blonde, I'm not surprised they fit together. As he said once when he arrived late at Borsalino and everyone took to mocking him, „...so you treat me, just when I got out of sick bed... what? no thank you I'm fine, it's my wife who's not well“.
Don't know how exactly I got that home. It fits in the bag, size is not the problem, it's that the lid isn't attached at all, and while the pickup hand does lock in off position, it can still get damaged in transportation. I guess I somehow laid it horizontally in the bag and carried it carefully. Or maybe even took the car to go get it.
So I connected the speakers like that, without the box. Worked nicely, though it was not the sound. Waiting for st 29th.
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* Savez Komunista Jugoslavije
** HSR, Ei Niš's copy of Dual's device, combo radio preamp and amplifier, which I actually saw once. It was pretty much the same, except it had knobs where HSR had sliders.
Mentions: 27-X-1972., Sound system, 23-VIII-1982., Alan Ford, Borsalino, Endre Felbab (Eči), Mika Zelenić (Sleš), Paja Ćurčić, Radovan Tomić (Slave), regal, Rudolf Ochsner, škodilak, uncle Staja, Vesela Senić (Teja), Zoltan Kadar (Kid), zzzzz, in serbian