"Jedna žena" brought me two news. The good one was that it won the 1st prize, which was a small personal victory for me - the underground music, the complicated and serious music that I learned to love, has earned some bragging rights and won some space for itself. The bad news was that "some" had its limitations: they did play the song on the final concert, but as it was on TV, there was no way they'd be let to play the whole 20:45 of it. It was cut down to about half, with the best part missing. Of course, it became immediately popular; it was the most popular song that almost nobody really heard. The echoes of this remained; the phrase "one woman" made its way into many other songs, even on the farthest ends of the spectrum (meaning narodnjaci and festival pop). And this amputated version was played on the radio a lot, completely superseding the full version, which now couldn't be heard anywhere and I almost thought it was completely lost. And frequently even this short version was played only partially. The guys on the radio, specially 202, would play it near the end of hour, so they could leave earlier, and they'd leave it to technicians to fade it out after 7 or 9 minutes, so the hourly news can be read on time.
The cameras shooting the final evening didn't have zooms, they had three lenses on a rotating board. The operators did an amazing thing - they rotated the board halfway between lenses, so there was a partial circle in normal angle on top right, and another partial circle in wide angle on bottom left. Some viewers were calling repair service, claiming malfunction of their TVs; some were calling TV directly, saying there's something with the repeaters, picture is falling out of vertical sync in a weird way.
Yesterday I asked Miljka whether she was coming, nope. Mom not letting her. Didn't ask why, knew she'd tell me. And then on a slip she wrote "know why they won't let me? can't put that on a slip". In the end, during the big break, after lot of hesitation, said "my folks can't stand yours". So what, a Romeo and Juliet scenario. And yes, I think my dad didn't think much of hers. Next class, a slip "I hope that doesn't influence your opinion" - "on what" - "on me" - "you think with your head, that's what makes you you. I don't change opinion too easily, I mean like I did before".
I specifically meant to exclude B. from the party, but he got wind of it and started turning other guys against me. How can I organize something without him coming. He's not anything to me, and the number of seats is limited. I canceled the party. Enough folks would not come, and what for if she's not there?
With the party off, dad suggested we go to Zajač. What would I do there, listen to the same old phrases I heard dozens of times already? My grandfather retelling for the umpteenth time how I wanted to be a cosmonaut? To be shown around like a doll? There's nobody I can really speak with. Then mom realized how badly this suggestion hit me, so she opposed it, which then got dad pissed off, so he went out to dig the lawn. That's what he'd do when he'd get very angry, trying not to shout around and slam his fist on the table (as he'd get outvoted and wouldn't get anywhere), so he'd just invent some menial job away from us and do it to cool it off. Once I remember he was rinding the horseradish for hours.
Whether I saw something subliminally or whatever the reason, I just rushed on the street and spotted Milica, Vladimira and Miljka on the other side, passing by. Rushed in, got dressed, got out to make dad let me go ("ok go, seeing as you're already dressed up), and so we went to Ž. He didn't let us in, claiming the house is a mess, remodeling, it's chaos inside. We stood at the gate almost fifty minutes and finally left. We later heard that Dragana and Rencika came by some time later and also didn't get in. Walked them home, buzzed around ruža and came back.
Today, beautiful day. Milica and Miljka came by in the morning, just to tell me that they dropped by Ž. to tell him they'll come at 17... which meant I was invited too. But it turned to be a flop - the four of us weren't company enough, so they sent me to pick Zvojko, which didn't work - I knocked but no answer. So she organizes a party and when it flops she is mad... at me?
[Comment 2020, while writing the above: Perhaps I should have done something else, but there with her restrictions on movement (chaperoned at all times), my restrictions (not quite grounded but under close supervision)... one of us had to snap. Or to snap out of it. So the unspoken romance lasted a couple of weeks, was nice while it lasted, perhaps exactly because it was unspoken. Next four years we met often, being in neighboring classes, but weren't close; don't think we ever danced again. She got married to some guy I knew by name but not by face, got two or three kids (came with a belly to the maturski in 1984). Saw her at these gatherings, sometimes on funerals. She would look unhappy at times, tired at others, in good mood otherwise. One of her sons is married to Borko's daughter.]
With so much going on I never remembered to write down when was it that they started broadcasting Monty Python - which could have been any time in 1969 or this year. It didn't look like much on our television, the image was rather smudgy, must have been the broadcasting tech in Sarajevo, or was it that they'd get such a print, or it lost a lot while adding subtitles... And it was shown at the second rate comic slot, late afternoon on tuesdays or wednesdays, which meant I may catch the last five minutes if I went to school in the second shift, so I never built a habit to watch it regularly. That slot was usually reserved for some comic series from the pen of Novak Novak (Novaković, but there's an art name), who previously co-signed numerous similar serieses (yes!) with Lola Đukić, and this was the last of theirs that I even tried to watch. So the slot itself wasn't too popular, as far as I was concerned, that's when they play random shit. But what I caught of Python was good, they were so off kilter. Along the stuff that went on on Bitef and generally Atelje 212 an atmosphere was built that the unhookedness was okay, that the theatre can walk off the stage, that disjointed fun can pass and we can live with lots of fun. The universal seriousness was crumbling.