dance – Energy and Time

Croatia day 25: Zadar

September 13th: We started by grabbing breakfast at the bakery near the bus station.

A slice of meat pie, and an apple pastry

Bakeries all over Croatia are multi-purpose. They’re breakfast places, and early morning coffee shops, as well as serving desserts and breads. (This was also true in Iceland.) One breakfast staple is a flaky deep pie with either cheese or ground meat inside.

The main task for the day was for me to find a medical clinic and get a blood test that I usually have once a month. My doctor insisted. 🙂 The first clinic I visited could not do the test, but directed me to one that could.

Me at the first clinic, waiting to be told that the test could not be done here.

On the way to the second clinic, we passed a “pyroshop” claiming to sell “pirotehnika”. My head swum with fantasies of hundreds of new ways to make fire. But sadly, it was only selling sporting goods like bicycles and scuba masks.

When we reached the second clinic, I had to show my vaccination certificates again, and wait a bit, but the doctor doing the blood draw was very professional. The charge for the test was 65 kuna (= about $10.72). That’s the full price; I was a foreigner with no applicable health insurance. Results were emailed to me in a little under 2 hours, about the same time as the Express Lab in Fort Collins takes. Makes “socialized medicine” (= “affordable health care”) start to sound reasonable.

The only minor snag was that “prothrombin time” was abbreviated PV, not PT. Because the Croatian word for “time” is “vrijeme”, naturally. So “PT/INR” became “PV/INR”.

Zadar is the oldest continuously-inhabited Croatian city, going back further than just Roman times (when it was called Jadera). The easiest way to get to the Old Town was to walk further out the harbor and cross over on a foot bridge.

Random columns dot the landscape. I just column like I see ’em.

I found the local EDM bar, but it was too early for anyone to be dancing.

Finding lunch took a long time. We could have just eaten near where we were – there were at least 2 open restaurants – but Carol was fixated on a particular street-food restaurant, so we walked a kilometer to get there. But it wasn’t open yet, and there was nothing near it, so we ended up walking almost back to where we started, through sights we had already seen. I think we need to start taking that “bird in the hand” idea a bit more seriously.

Carol had some mammal with gnocchi, and I had the seafood pasta.

Our main goal for the afternoon was the Museum Of Ancient Glass.

Bulk glass raw material, from a shipwreck near Mljet, 2nd century AD

An optical illusion mosaic “Old man and young boy”, made from glass tiles. Don’t see the young boy? Try turning it upside down.

The theme of the main exhibit was originals and imitations.

On raised stand, a glass bowl with ribs, 1st century AD. Below, 3 attempts to imitate it.

Some ancient tableware sets were all-glass, including plates, bowls, cups, vases, and jugs for wine and oil and vinegar.

Some public benches in Zadar are for sitting, but some are for lying back and resting.

For dinner, I had “mixed shells”, mostly clams and mussels but with a few razor shells. Carol went for the seafood risotto.

Around sunset, we went to listen to the Sea Organ and see the Greeting To The Sun.

Dancer

by Emmy Hennings (1885-1948)
translated by Howard A. Landman

Tänzerin

Dir ist als ob ich schon gezeichnet wäre
Und auf der Totenliste stünde.
Es hält mich ab von mancher Sünde.
Wie langsam ich am Leben zehre.
Und ängstlich sind oft meine Schritte,
Mein Herz hat einen kranken Schlag
Und schwächer wird's mit jedem Tag.
Ein Todesengel steht in meines Zimmers Mitte.
Doch tanz ich bis zur Atemnot.
Bald werde ich im Grabe liegen
Und niemand wird sich an mich schmiegen.
Ach, küssen will ich bis zum Tod.

Dancer

To you it's as if I was already
Marked and waiting on Death's list.
It keeps me safe from many sins.
How slowly life drains out of me.
My steps are often steeped in gloom,
My heart beats in a sickly way
And it gets weaker every day.
A death angel stands in the middle of my room.
Yet I dance until I'm out of breath.
Soon lying in the grave I'll be
And no one will snuggle up to me.
Oh, give me kisses up till death.

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 28

O komm und geh. Du, fast noch Kind, ergänze
für einen Augenblick die Tanzfigur
zum reinen Sternbild eines jener Tänze,
darin wir die dumpf ordnend Natur

vergänglich übertreffen. Denn sie regte
sich völlig hörend nur, da Orpheus sang.
Du warst noch die von damals her Bewegte
und leicht befremdet, wenn ein Baum sich lang

besann, mit dir nach dem Gehör zu gehn.
Du wußtest noch die Stelle, wo die Leier
sich tönend hob-; die unerhörte Mitte.

Für sie versuchtest du die schönen Schritte
und hofftest, einmal zu der heilen Feier
des Freundes Gang und Antlitz hinzudrehn.

Oh come and go. You, still a child, enhance
for the blink of an eye your dance-figure
to a pure constellation of that dance,
wherein we momentarily exceed the poor

boring order of Nature. For it stirred
to fully hearing first at Orpheus' song.
From then on you were moved, and got disturbed
a little if a tree took very long

deciding if to go with you to listen.
For you still knew the place, where the lyre
arose resounding -; the unheard-of center.

So, you attempted pretty pirouettes
in hope that your friend's course and face might yet
be turned toward the holy celebration.

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 18

Tänzerin: o du Verlegung
alles Vergehens in Gang: wie brachtest du's dar.
Und der Wirbel am Schluß, dieser Baum aus Bewegung,
nahm er nicht ganz Besitz das erschwungene Jahr?

Blühte nicht, daß ihn dein Schwingen von vorhin um schwärme,
plötzlich sein Wipfel von Stille? Und über ihr,
war sie nicht Sonne, war sie nicht Sommer, die Wärme,
diese unzählige Wärme aus dir?

Aber er trug auch, er trug, dein Baum der Ekstase.
Sind sie nicht seine ruhigen Früchte: der Krug,
reifend gestreift, und die gereiftere Vase?

Und in den Bildern: ist nicht die Zeichnung geblieben,
die deine Braue dunkler Zug
rasch an die Wandung der eigenen Wendung geschrieben?

Dancer: oh you transposition
of all that's transient into movement: you brought it here!
And the whirl at the end, that tree made of motion,
did it not take control of the whole sweeping year?

Didn't the treetop around which your soaring swarmed
suddenly blossom with stillness? Above it, too,
wasn't it sun, wasn't it summer, the warmth,
this unlimited warmth from you?

But it bore too, it bore, your tree of ecstasis.
Aren't these your peaceful fruits: the vases
striped with ripening, and the riper urn?

And in the photos: isn't there the mark
remaining, that your eyebrow's stroke so dark
wrote swiftly on the wall of its own turn?

Caught

Went to a Parsons Dance concert yesterday and finally saw their signature piece Caught. I’d heard about it years ago, and thought it sounded like a neat (if strenuous) application of strobe lights, but seeing it live was quite breathtaking, with the cheerfully ballistic Zoey Anderson putting her own spin on what was originally a male solo. Here’s a video of Jaime Martinez doing it; the fun stuff starts about 3 minutes in.

Posture

Q: What is the first step in teaching someone who has no dancing experience (like Bill Nye) how to dance? What were you trying to focus on the most that would keep you on the show?

Tyne Stecklein: Posture. Posture. Posture.

Miranda

Had a delightful photo shoot with the lovely Miranda S. to make sprite images for G-Force, then made the sprites and used them.

This is Carol’s and MollyB’s favorite.

This is one of my own FlowFields, based on a Julia set.

Another one of my own FlowFields (called “Smoke And Mirrors”).

When two Mirandas are not enough. This one reminds me of Rilke’s “ranks of angels” from the first Duino Elegy. “Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?” (“Who, when I cry out, hears me among the ranks of angels?”)

Heather at The Pink Poodle

She steps onto the stage
and immediately owns it. Naked,
she is warmed by an inner fire.
Her eyes radiate invitation.
Red hair, milk-white skin,
pink nipples, pubis shaved down
to a narrow "landing strip".
She is not as busty as the previous girl,
nor as tall and muscular as the next,
but in this moment the whole house is hers.

And she moves. And she is all women.

Young girl's green twig, old crone's ashes,
these are just the tips of her outstretched fingers,
but her breasts are the sun and the moon,
her pink slit drips danger and delight.
And the haggling begins. "Pay me and I'll show you," she dances.
One by one, the men build tiny green tents for her,
drape folded 1's and 5's over the low plastic barrier.
"Show me and I'll pay you" they reply, waiting, motionless.

And one by one, she is theirs, all theirs for a moment,
one after another, marking them done
by pulling their bill up onto the walkway.
Some put up another to lure her back.

But at last it is time to go, for men
grow bored so easily that they will soon
abandon a goddess for a fresher face.
So she gathers up all the loose ends of their desire
and spins them into a single thread,
spins on her back like a top, holding her knees,
holding herself closed like a flower at night.
The men cheer. She sweeps up her tribute
and, with one last smile, is gone. Already
they have forgotten her.

And no one sees the small oozing spot over her spine
worn raw by her spin.

May 19, 2000

I saw Heather dance when I was taken to the Pink Poodle in the late 1990s for a friend’s “bachelor party”. Perhaps because this is not something I would normally do, I remembered the details (including the raw spot) quite vividly and was still able to write about it.