To the local research library -- from what I've been told, the only one open to the public, associated with one of the large trusts sustaining the old city. Rather problematic place. Books have to be requested 4.5 hours before closing. Electronic catalog in need of a cleanup; perhaps a dozen categories for Language: English. One of the two volumes of Andric short stories I managed to request was also in need of some cleaning -- lifted it up and opened it before I noticed that it was covered with what I hope was caked-on food of some kind. Was hoping to find Andric's thesis on spiritual life in Bosnia under the Ottomans, but peculiarly, the only edition in the catalog was in German. Also, a biography of a Sufi saint from the UK who has written some interesting things on Shakespeare proved un-locatable in time. Did notice an interesting title on Islamic courts in the old Republic. Will have to check it out on the next visit, whenever that might be.
Walked over to the cultural center for the first half or so of a set by a local blues/funk ensemble. Quite good. Was reading Hoffmann's Serapion Brothers. A bit uncanny at points -- to be sitting in a converted synagogue in Bosnia listening to a blues jam while reading a story about a poet and composer, old friends, meeting during the carnage of the Napoleonic wars and talking about art and war.
Local recycling appears to have dropped off a bit, as in the neighboring nations. Usual bins not in evidence, and the central bin location in this half of the city appeared to be filled with garbage when I ran past the other day. Two local incentivizing machines, one dispensing transit tokens, and the other dispensing food for stray dogs (a concept I've seen in a few countries, and always found a bit puzzling -- the prescence of hungry strays at the waste disposal point would seem to disincentivize)--but these generally don't accept the large water bottles that buid up from the daily supply.
Build broad, stong pipes, and--only then--figure out ways to incentivize the inflow.
Oddly, in the market-based country on the east of the peninsula, recycling appears to be going well. (So long as you find out which sector of the city is controlled by the recycling-friendly factions.) Second-to-last time I was there, it took some doing to find a clothes donation bin; I finally found one by a local Orthodox church. On my next visit, they were quite ubiquitous.
One other oddity about the northern city in that county. On my first visit, I rented an apartment in a concrete tower at the top of the hill, from which I could see the flashing lights on the immense steeple of the old medieval church in the distance. On the second visit, I was much closer in, but facing the other direction, so I looked up at the apartment I had rented on the first visit. On the third visit, I returned to the first apartment, and as I looked for the second apartment below, I realized that it was precisely on line with the steeple of the medieval church. Not a function of the street grid, or of main arterries, as the second place was off the main roads. More things in heaven and earth.
Odd day. Went to the coffeehouse in the early afternoon to read, and elected to sit outside amid the upturned chairs (morning storm), louring clouds, and occasional drizzle rather than risk the airless rooms inside. The people here seem to be a bit like the Chicago folks -- apparently comforted by airless warmth. The closeness of it, perhaps. Then the rain started in earnest, so I explored the downtown mall across the street, picking up a few necessary supplies.
Then, a long day filled with completely useless and frustrating matters, well into the night, missing the free concert at the arts center that I had mentally penciled in.
If things were going well, if Denmark didn't have the sulphur smell to it, I'd still try to wake from the thoughtless tread through the days that seems to animate so much of the world. But, with things going the way they are, waking isn't a virtue, but a necessity.
Postprandial: "July Rain" -- "Where will you go when spring floods the earth?"
Important set of UK international chambers seems to have reached a conclusion on the conflict in the Levant. That the sort of thing (unlike almost everything else in the news) that is more significant than it might at first appear to be. Perhaps. Haven't followed those conversations closely.
One tension in Kant is that knowledge can't reach beyond experience, and perception, and therefore experience, is limited to appearance. That which limits our thoughts is itself a bit false. Or at least chimerical. But, like a dull schoolteacher, it still wields the rod.
Things are seldom what they seem / Skim milk masquerades as cream...
Also. If you have gone through a time when there were extraordinary physical difficulties associated with simple existence, these times will recur to your mind in the future. Don't accept the pop-culture explanation for this. This is your life reaching from a place of danger to a place of safety. From the place of safety, remember the place of danger, conscious that it is of the same material life. Build that bridge for recollection in tranquility.
As I've become acquainted with the subtle and not-so-subtle aspects of this (historically unique) part of the world, lines of force have developed. I incline towards a certain place when I encounter a certain difficulty. I might devoutly wish myself into the busy streets of Bucharest, or (as happened in a difficult February in the nation to the south) the mountains of Bulgaria. And this isn't entirely about the empirical aspects of the place. Once you find the three (perhaps four) lines of main force -- from the West, the south, and the East (and perhaps the north), you can sort of feel where you are in that spiritual geography.
Keeping in mind as well, that pining is a classic human fault. No matter where you are, or in what straits you might be, there have been times in your life, or (/and) there will be times in your life when you wish that you were precisely in the place where you are. Everything in a life tends to the essence of that life, as it becomes known in time.
Discouraging day. Discovered a plumbing problem in the rental in the AM, which might have been running sewage through the shower drain for some time now, went out for a Sunday hot chocolate ($2.50), did some reading (Peirce, Wolff biography (couldn't focus), Jaeger's Paieda (could focus)) at the cafe and at some parks around the city, caught a bit of the Mass of the Faithful at the local parish church, but arrived later than planned, as I mis-timed the vespersII mumbling and the crosstown walk. (Have avoided the cathedral since the tourist/massgoer confusion that ended with my walking in despite the fact that the old fellow was grabbing onto me and trying to pull me back.) Then to the theatre for an hourlong piece that the English-language website listed an hour later than the (apparently correct) time on the local version. Perils of data entry.
Eavesdropping on a slightly tape-delayed Carmina Burana from the east now, quite good, especially the soli. Heard an excellent version in Bucharest earlier in the year from the back balcony no-view. (Intentional, as I didn't want to be distracted by the staging.)
Some sabbaths one survives, rather than finds the triumph. Boldly on to the other six days.
One result of the interesting paths of late, and long, is having remarkably little tolerance for the "All is lost, I ordered my latte without foam" line of thinking. It's a social and historical fact that in a world without consciousness of the divine, and people even unable to imagine the possibility of their own experience of eternal time, that in the game for social power, people cultivate habits of conspicuous consumption and learned incapacity. And to be rather obvious about it.
The game is at least partially to 'get a rise' out those around you. This is the part that gives an advantage in the social game. When you become angry at a person, group, or conceptual belief, it's the first step to being controlled by the question of them. A complicated formulation, but follow it. Anger at the night draws us into the question of day and night, as the two are the same question. Heraclitus, I think.
So when a conspicuous consumer appears before you, cultivate dispassion, and look as closely as you can, and try to understand.