The worst April 1st joke ever

Yesterday I heard a very shocking news from Slovenia: "They closed Kinodvor!"
I was surprised and ran to the computer to find out more about the news.

During the night the lock is changed and the server with the site is disconnected. Nobody of people working there is notified about the event. So next day, they stand in front of a locked door with no message explaining the situation.
The visitors are also left without any explanation, while the program for April was published on flyers, newspapers and even hanging in the little lit window at the front of Kinodvor building.

The newspapers brighten up the thing: It's not a joke, it's just that Kinodvor temporarly closed. And that all the equipment is gone.

I am totally shocked. Not that Kinodvor closed, with the current management it couldn't go very long, but the way it all happened is just disgusting! Not to tell people who are working there, letting them to make a program, having a meeting about working in the next month. And even then, not having the guts to call people and tell them they don't have to come to work.
I don't know what more to say.

And who did all this? Staš Ravter, the director of Kinoteka. After the first director died, he got to that position because of the intervention of his important friends and not because of his film experiences. The crew of Kinoteka disagreed with that choice and half of them left when he became a director. The other half he pushed so far that they also resigned, because they couldn't stand the situation anymore. He replaced everybody, also the team of Kinodvor, where the building is owned by the city, but managed by Kinoteka. The new team tried to do their best, but under such conditions nobody can succeed, so less and less people came to Kinodvor, the expenses rose and when Staš didn't get more money for it from the city and from the ministry of culture, he just goes and shuts the place down in the most disgusting way.

I can't believe this is all true, I can't believe that he actually sent people ant that they took away the projector, the sound system, the screen ... I was there when those speakers were put on the walls, before the screen was there, how everything was made precisely and with care, it was taking weeks before everything was ready.
And then one person has the power to just take it all down in one night?!

This is awful! I can't wait till elections. I will travel from Holland to give my vote. They just screwed everything up! And if I see Staš Ravter, he will be sorry he ever got involved with film!





April 1st is my birthday ...

No to violence

I was browsing around and came across this video. I think it has an important message so I decided to publish it here.
I quote the description by the authors:
"You don't hear what we're trying to say to you? Let us show you. Let us write it down for you." That's the general and very simple concept of a videoclip. Shooting took place in Slovenia's capital - Ljubljana, on a city's marketplace. On the left side of a footage there are famous architect Joze Plecnik's pillars, on the right side you can see biggest "mortuary" in the city - closed part of a market, where they sell big quantities of dead animals. Mr. Plecnik was a vegetarian.
Have a look and decide yourself:

It's made by Supersoul connection.

Happy new year!

A bit more than a week a go, precisely on 21. 12. I had presentation of my thesis titled Analysis of print quality of digital duplicators, which was the final project of my studies and I finally graduated. Now this is ticked done and I can do whatever I want, yeah!


After the presentation I stayed in Ljubljana for two more days to meet friends. I slept in Celica hostel, a former prison of Yugoslavian army. Premier Janez Janša was once imprisoned there. But it's renovated now and changed into a hip hostel. The designers decided to keep a little bit of prison spirit so there's a choice of 20 unique prison cells where you can sleep behind the prison bars. I wanted to stay there since the hostel opened but never really took the chance. Untill now. This is the cell where I slept. It was fun!

The Christmas I spent with my family in Kavče. It's getting really big, this family of mine, a lot of nephews running around and a lot of big people too, so it was a real full house. There's a bit of snow in Kavče and the temperatures are very low, brrrrr, not to walk around too much...

I will spend New Year's eve in Nijmegen. I'll see for if Dutch fireworks are different than the Slovene ones. :)) Here below is a greeting card for you, but you have to click it in order to see it played. Somehow this blogger can't really digest animated giffs.

Busy december

It's been quite a week. I was in Slovenia. I had to bind and deliver my thesis (picture above) and I also helped at Animateka festival in Kinodvor, together with a nice crew of projectionists: Maja, Marko, Jakob, Aulne and Anja. It was also nice to see people I haven't seen a long time.
The festival is one of the best film festivals in Slovenia. It has a nice atmosphere and also takes good care of the crew (that is very important if you are a crew member or if you are served by one of the happy crew members).
Here is a link to the official site, maybe you can find me on some pictures (hardly possible): www.animatekafestival.org. Maja took a lot of pictures of the background, like this one, where Aulne (new French projectionist colleague) and me are doing the competition program action. You can find the whole collection of Maja's pictures here (you really should take a look, they are very nice!).

IDFA

These days I am working in the film/video controle of the festival IDFA in Amsterdam. There is about 400 film titles, mostly video (Beta SP, Digibeta, HDCAM), but also 35 and 16mm prints, and all these have to be checked and verified before they are played. I'm sitting here in front of a video monitor for the 5th day now, and my eyes are SQUARE.



The good and interesting thing is, that we are situated in the Tuschinski cinema in Amsterdam (the upper two pictures). It's a very impressive old building where you can easily get lost. Kinodvor cinema in Ljubljana looks a little bit like that, but then in a very simple basic version (the down picture).

We are back from Geneva!!!

Yes, we are back! And we survived! And they let us out from Swiss!

It was a real trip. We departed from Geneva on Friday at 11. I was nervous and pissed because I thought it's already 12 and that we are very late. But only the clock in the van was still showing the summer time! Sorry, Joyce and Jan Dirk, I was awful.

Next thing was, the phone with Tomtom dropped dead out of battery just when we got out of Geneva. Despite being on the charger all night! Shitty, but we got in a better mood after stopping at a Coop market by the high-way and spent all of the swiss francs we had left on croissants and candies!

It was going OK till the border, the weather forecast - the rain and snow - didn't really come true, we only saw a few snowflakes dancing in front of the window, just to say hi.
We were passing the border in Basel. There are two LKW border passes, one is with the France and the other one, which we took last time, is with Germany. We decided to try with the French, since last time the Germans didn't want to give us a stamp, we thought the French are nicer ...

Swiss didn't make much problems at the customs, they gave us the import money back, but then at the barrier the officer sent us to weight the car. It was a disaster: 4500kg! That is 1 ton more than what I am allowed to drive with my license and what the car can be loaded. The officer called the police and while waiting for them we tried to get a stamp from the French. They didn't want to give it. You should go to the same place where you got in - at the German boarder!

Then the police came, Joyce and Jan Dirk explained that we don't know where all that weight is from. Some machines and some small stuff, it can't be soooooo much. The police was calculating and talking, took a look inside the car. See, it's almost empty!
When they heard we are artists, going back from an exhibition, they let us go, even without a ticket. They said, we saved 700 francs and that we should use it for the art. I can't believe, they really let us go.

Since the French didn't want to give us the stamp, we thought we could try at the other border pass, but the officers at the barrier didn't allow us back to Swiss because we were too heavy. So we were trapped between France and Swiss with an overloaded truck and it was getting late.

Joyce and Jan Dirk tried again with the French customs person. First it was a solid no, but then he heard their discussion in Dutch, which he happened to understand. He could hear that we are not trying to fool him around, and then gave the stamp on that thin piece of paper.

I couldn't believe when they got back with the paper and we drove away. We really got away with it. Amazing. It could be a lot lot worse, Joop was almost organizing a saving squad from Holland.

We bought a car charger for the phone on the way to Mainz where we stayed for the night and had some very heavy food in one of the filled pubs. Next morning we left and I was still afraid that the German police might stop us and send us for being weighted, but luckily that didn't happen. Only some rain.

The last problem was parking in Nijmegen on a Saturday afternoon. Well, not parking, that I know quite good by now, but more finding the parking space :)).

But even that we found and I got very happily home, had a nice loooooong shower and Joop cooked a fabulous Spinach risotto.

Here you can find the whole collection of photos from Geneva.

Lake Geneva

You can take a cruise on the lake...But see the front of the boat ...
Oooooops ...
Bad driver ...
Tststs ...

I am an art piece!

I'm going to be in the catalog of the exhibition!!!

Geneva printing

3 minutes of printing.

Geneva

Knust is going to Geneva to print a Dotdotdot magazine within the context of the group exhibition 'Wouldn't it be Nice' curated by Emily King and Katya García-Antón (25 October – 16 December 2007).

There goes a stencil machine from down the first floor...

Straight into the van...

Where everything is nice packed...

Waiting at the German/Swiss customs along with the real big trucks...

Our working space at the gallery (Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneve)...

Which we share with the other art pieces. You see a hammoc? That's my favorite.

Anderhalfwitavond in Extrapool

Anderhalfwitavond is an evening where the novelties of the Halfwithal shop are presented. Halfwithal shop is a part of Extrapool which is open every friday afternoon and is selling books and fanzins, CDs, LPs, Tshirts, badges, which you can't get anywhere else. There's also an online shop.
Next week there will be the next Anderhalfwitavond (write down this date in your agenda: 27. 10 at 21.00 in the Onderbroek). Next to presentation of books, there are also concerts and cakes and DJs and here you can see more about the program.

Registering at the Gemeente part 1

Gemeente means municipality in Dutch. Slovenia became a part of the EU in 2004, and joined the big union with workers movement and portability, and everything got so much easier, and you can get a lot of information about that on the EU portamobility site here.
Well, don't believe that it's all that simple. The workers market in Holland only opened in May 2007 and several other countries of western Europe are still requiring a work permit if you want to work.
But ok, I want to work in Holland, and now I can. Only one small detail. If you want to work in Holland, you must be insured. Ok, I am insured in Slovenia, and by having an EU health card, I get the same rights in other countries as I have in Slovenia, no?
It's a bit hard to find an answer to that question. EURES - The European Job Mobility Portal is only giving information about moving to another country. Well, I am still staying in Slovenia, thanks, I just want to work in Holland, when I am in Holland.
So I asked around. The employer is only leaving an option of a dutch insurance company and I couldn't find a solution for my case. Maybe my case is a bit dubious, but for example, I come to Holland for 2 months of season work, picking up the strawberries, or whatever. For staying under 3 months, I don't have to register at the municipality, but what about the insurance? I couldn't get any answer. Maybe the only place where they might give me a hint would be some organization specialized in providing foreign workers to Dutch working market. I guess there are many for Polish workers, but for sure none for Slovenian.
So, there it will have to be. Dutch health insurance, as an addition to my Slovene one. But another problem, in order to get a dutch health insurance, I need to be registered at an address in Holland. So now I have to register although I travel to Slovenia at least every 3 months.
So in August, when we got back from Slovenia, I decided to register. It said on their web page, that one has to register in 5 days after the arrival. A bit strange, what if I decide to stay after 2 months. But whatever, I went to the municipality and asked at the desk, where can I register. They told me, that I need to make an appointment if I am moving from abroad. Again an appointment, I thought, nothing happends in this country without an appointment.
"Ok, let's make an appointment."
"No, no, no," he said at the desk: "we can't make an appointment here, you have to call this number and make an appointment."
And he gave me a phone number. How ridiculous, I am standing at the desk, and he can't make an appointment for me. Why doesn't he call that number? Huh.
So I went home and I called. The person who picked up the phone didn't make an appointment for me, but only took my data and asked for my phone number.
"We will call you back."
Phhhhhhrrrrrrrr. I have to register in 5 days from my arrival and I need to have a phone number. If you are moving to Holland, first thing you need to do is buy a prepaid phone card, because everything will go over that phone. I learned much faster how to say my phone number in dutch than how to spell my name (btw, they never wait for the spelling of your name, they just write something and then you have problems when your name is not matching with the one on the appointment schedule).
I was called back the next day and was told to come next week on 22. of august at 10AM. I need passport, a birth certificate and a permit for moving in a house where I am going to live by a house owner.

Bio cultures turning everywhere

That's what happens if you leave right turning cultures out of control. Click on the picture to see it bigger. For more information refer to my previous post about Right turning (bio) cultures.

English pie

I watched Nigella Express the other day, a cooking programme on BBC2, where she prepared chicken pie. I was surprised that she is calling something, that is just covered with puff pastry and thrown in the oven for 20 minutes, a pie. Here's a common definition of pie: A baked food composed of a pastry shell filled with fruit, meat, cheese, or other ingredients, and usually, but not always, covered with a pastry crust. I agree with that, you can't call something covered with some puff pastry a pie!
But I thought it might be interesting to try, so I made my own version - off course not filled with chicken. I took some precooked potatoes and cauliflower, and mix them with a sort of bechamel sauce, cheese and spring onions. I covered each model with one sheet of puff pastry and let them bake for 20 minutes at 180ºC. This is what came out.



I will call this an English pie. It looks nice, but the inside part was very very hot because of all the liquid which came out of cauliflower and not very thick bechamel. It was practically boiling! And we were very hungry and wanted to eat it immediately, so that was a real minus for this recipe.

Paksoi lasagne

Here is a simple recipe for a paksoi lasagne for 2 persons. I found it again when tiding up my recipes and remembered that it made a really nice meal. You can replace paksoi with "blitva". I'm sorry - I only know the Slovene name for it. It's very similar to paksoi.

Ingredients:

8-10 sheets of (green) lasagne
1 piece of paksoi
1 onion, chopped into small pieces
a bit of oil
2 tomatos, in slices
100g feta
2 eggs
(optional 100g champignons, in slices)
2dl yoghurt
pepper and salt
oregano
rasped cheese
3 table spoons of bread crumbs

What you need to do, is:
Wash paksoi and chop it into smaller pieces. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion, throw in (the champignons and) the paksoi and let it steam for a few minutes (until the paksoi leaves drop). Crush feta cheese and mix it through the vegetables.
Oil and fill up the lasagne model with layers of vegetable mix and lasangne sheets.
For the topping: mix eggs, yoghurt, half of rasped cheese, oregano, salt and pepper and pour this mixture over the lasagna. Take care that the top layer of lasagne is nicely covered with the topping mixture. Put the slices of tomatoes on top. Mix two spoons of rasped cheese with the breadcrumbs and spread that over it.
Bake at 180ºC for 30-45 minutes.

The topping is what makes this recipe really yummy. Cheese and crumbs make a really nice crust on top. And yoghurt mixture with eggs is a more light option than the creamy one.

Right turning (bio) cultures

No, this post is not about politics, it's about food and chemistry. I thought I was done with organic chemistry when I finally passed the last exam of study program Graphic arts technology at Faculty of Natural Science and Engineering in Ljubljana, but then I happen to see this on the fridge shelf at a local supermarket: standyoghurt: rechtdraaiend melkzuur, aangezuurd door rechtdraaiende bio-cultures. Translated, right-turning milk acids, made by right-turning bio-cultures.
I have to admit that I find yoghurt in Holland quite different from those which I know from Slovenia. Holland yoghurt is more creamy and it is sold in tetrapak, like milk. The above mentioned standyoghurt was packed in a cup, and I learned that it is different from the other ones. But not because of the right turning milk acids!
There are two different types of yoghurt which differ by the temperature and the duration of the making process:

• Roeryoghurt, which is more common in the Netherlands, is processed at a lower temperature (32°C) for 10-14 hours. It can be made in big containers (up to 20 cubic meters), where it's also being mixed. Because of that it has a very creamy texture and it's easy to make big quantities and then fill up the tetrapaks.
  
• Standyoghurt is a yoghurt known in the rest of Europe. Cups are filled with warm milk and acid cultures and closed. That is then being kept at a temperature of 40-45°C for about 4-6 hours. This yoghurt has more sensitive structure which is destroyed if stirred, that's why it's packed in cups and not tetrapak.

And what do the right turning cultures have to do with this all?
Milk acid is chiral and has two optical isomers.

Optical isomers are substances, known for the ability of turning the polarized light into left or right. Depending on the side of turning, we call them left or right turning substances.

But what does it matter? Left or right turning?
Not much, it doesn't affect the taste nor quality. As a fact, most natural milk acids are right turning. Someone just thought it could attract customers if this is written on a package.

Cauliflower and sweet potato curry

You need (for 2 persons):

1 middle size sweet potato
1/2 of a small cauliflower
1/2 or one small onion
a hand full of green beans (sperziebonen)
1 small teaspoon of curry pasta (for example chilly&garlic by Pataks, which is very hot, so in that case take care the small spoon is really a small spoon)
1 teaspoon od garam masala spices powder (available at toko's)
1 teaspoon of vegetable bouillon
1-2 spoons of (olive) oil
2 spoons of cream yogurt
basmati rice for two persons (don't forget to cook that :)

Clean the green beans and cut it into 2-3 cm long pieces. Put it in a pot with some water and vegetable bouillon and bring it to cook for a couple of minutes. In the meantime clean the cauliflower and divide it into small pieces. Peel the sweet potato and cut it into cubes (1-1,5 cm wide). Cut the onion into small cubes.
Take a larger (teflon) pan, heat it up and moisten with oil. Add the onion and fry for a minute or two. Add curry paste and powder, stir so it all divides equally and you can smell the spices. Add cauliflower and sweet potato. Stir around till it all gets covered with curry.
Then take the smaller pot with beans and bouillon and add all together to the bigger pan. Lower the heat, cover the pan and let it simmer for about 15 minutes till sweet potato gets softer. Then, open the pan, higher the heat and let the rest of liquids evaporate. Turn of the fire and after it calms down, mix in 2 table spoons of good cream yogurt.
Serve immediately with basmati rice.

That was today's dinner and we finished it before anyone even thought about taking a photo for the blog. Sorry, maybe next time.

Kiiiiii and Le Club des Chats in Extrapool

There was a concert yesterday at Extrapool. Well, it was in the Onderbroek, since Extrapool is still being under renovation process. There were two bands playing, a french duo Le Club des Chats and two japanese girls called Kiiiiiiiiii.
I didn't see much of the first band, because I was sitting at the kassa with Ani, but I saw the japanese girls and they were crazy. My camera died, it's last words were CHANGE THE BATTERY PACK! so no pictures from me.
But you can take a look at these videos to get a taste of the concert.

Kiiiiiii



Le Club des Chats

...

Making a mushroom risotto

Some champignons were left after yesterday's salmon champignons quiche, so I decided to use them together with two umbrella-mushrooms (portabella in dutch, marela in slovene) and make a mushroom risotto.
Joop offered to go to the shop to get some more ingredients, including risotto rice. In Holland almost everything comes with a recipe which tells you how you could/should use the product.
This one caught my eye because of the line which suggests serving risotto together with some beefsteak and beans. And as a type of the dish it says a main dish.
So, I am supposed to make this risotto as a main dish and serve it together with beefsteak and some veggies??? Wow! That's real Italian style cooking, oh, yeas! Amazing! Thanks for the tip Lassie!

Started to work at Extrapool

Today I started to work at the graphic space of Extrapool.