I spent entirely too much time online. That aside, I spent entirely too much time amusing myself with Livingstone Magazine. And in between all of that, I was listening to German dance music from the '20s and '30s. Started with hearing that song on Zmruż Oczy - you know the one, "la la la la la, all around the world just la la la la la"... Kelle has corrupted me forever. Curse you, Jasiek. And, after all of it, I found my way back to Viktor's Piano. And yes, Suz, maybe, just maybe I'm planning on updating it this time. Or not.

...Are you watching closely?

The date which has thus far crept its way up to and through the story has been 1964. Just after, that is, the People's Republic of Croatia became the Socialist Republic of Croatia [Socijalistièka republika Hrvatska] , which lasted until '91 and the point where the Croats declared its independence. I started out with something slightly early, aiming for the mid-'40s, but that places me in the realm of the Independent State of Croatia, and I wouldn't want to steal any of Till's Nazi-induced thunder. But no - I know infinitely more about the socialist system than I do the fascist one, which is sad because my knowledge of socialism is rather limited to begin with. But I do know that if I delve too far into the '40s, I'm going to start writing about the Germans again, and at the moment, Croatia has won a minor literary triumph within my mind. I intend to let it have its moment in the sun before I have to go back to Shan and Livny and all the military and all the [pseudo] glory. Viktor deserves his moment. A moment, that is, set firmly in the '60s, and all that I come up with from googling "croatia + 1960" is death rates and birth rates and medical journals and reflections on non-applicable politics and Wiki. I'm half tempted to email Gina again, crying "Help me!" But... ne. I'll leave her be. I'm bound and determined to find some small scrap of useful info in this great mess of randomness that is the internet. I keep dreaming of hitting this veritable jackpot, this hidden-away and obscure website (or book) full of photographs and old letters and day-in-the-life-vignettes and general information on the 1960s Balkans. But it is not to be, I think. I'm left with Livingstone and various articles on sailboats and tourism, news on ice skating, a glossy image of an iPhone: they have iPhones? I don't even have an iPhone. No one I know has an iPhone. Dear God... why... are they advertising for iPhones? That's the best you can come up with when all I want is a few photos of Dubrovnik?

My luck, it would appear, lies with the library. That vastly unorganized and rather entirely useless local library, with a childrens' section that takes up the whole bottom floor (there are only two), haughty middle-aged librarians and computers which never seem to work.




Voilá: various luggage labels from various hotels hrvatske. For your enjoyment. I, personally, got a kick out of them. Then I unwittingly clicked on the link for the Hotel Mlini and it dragged me in the space of an instant to Expedia.com, where they offerred to help me plan a lovely vacation to Dubrovnik. More amusement. And then, after a laugh, I left Expedia.com lest my parents get the impression that I'm running away to the Adriatic Coast. Someday, perhaps? But not today. Today, it is nine o'clock in the evening, and I am quite content to have a ham sandwhich and write about Viktor's homestead without ever managing to set foot there. Too late to go anyway. Night out. Three A.M in Zagreb. See, now if I had reservations at the Hotel Esplanade, it might be a different story, but as it is...

                       

... fin.

Poor Viktor. He's such a wreck.

"Silence is Golden", I've discovered, is little more than an exhaustive character study on Viktor - Dušan cast as the conveniently placed alter ego. What does that make it then?

'Silence is Golden, A Character Study of Viktor Marijanovic in Hell'.

How bleak. Poor Viktor. I was rather hoping that the Kasimovs' "kid" would be the last character to go through a perpetual identity crisis (I would say 'Fugue', but I think that would be getting slightly too impish with the puns)...


--

Gina's been away for the summer and I was hoping that I would have a few chapters to sling her way once she got back, but my Iternal Editor doesn't seem to be following orders. Every time I get close to The Piano Player he starts kicking up a fuss about the Chair, how it needs to get done and how I can worry about Viktor later, he's expendable, third-class...

Sometimes my Internal Editor sounds remarkably like Livny.

"Ah, don't worry about it, I'll send the kid."

"And if they're waiting there?"

Livny shoved Shan hard between the shoulder blades, sending him forward another reluctant step. "Oh don't worry about it, not a problem, really. He's third-class, expendable, it's really no great loss..."

"My God, Livny."

"I'm joking, I'm joking - lighten up, will you? And will you get off the road, what do you want me to do, push you the whole way? You're not so bloodied up that you can't walk, and don't you think for one half of a second that I'm gonna carry you out of here..."


But this is the wrong LJ for that.

I need to do more research. Found more Draculić books online, mercifully inexpensive. I thought yesterday that I might be able to by them - and maybe a CD to put me out of my Chopin-induced musical misery - but looked at my check register and realized (surprise) that I was dead-broke.

Viktor will have to make do with How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed. Even if communism doesn't play well with others.

Another email, from this morning:

Hi, [name].  I AM glad you are writing to me and when I said "keep me posted, I DID mean that! You are a rare soul -- considerate of others and I appreciate that. But you should never hesitate to contact me. If I can't help or don't know how to help, I'll just say that. Otherwise, relax -- don't worry! I think your project sounds so interesting and I'm really impressed at the amount of thinking that you've put behind it already.

After your last message I went rummaging through my bookshelf and I found a book I forgotten about: 'How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed' by Slavenka Draculic. She writes about Croatia in the sixties (I think?) and seventies. I wonder if you've seen this book already. At any rate (and I didn't have time to really scour through it) I wonder if she mentions which newspapers, magazines or books she or her friends and colleagues were reading in Croatia at that time. There might be a chance (via the wonders of the Internet) that these documents exist and can be obtained. They might offer an interesting glimpes into life (as publicly endorsed through governmentally censored media sources--magazine, newspapers). Would these items be in English translation--honestly, I don't know, but it might be interesting to see just what is out there. Perhaps, too, she has other books she's written about her experience? Ivo Andric's "The Bridge on the Drina" might be interesting, too, though I think it is set in an earlier time period--but still--to cultivate an ear for rhthyms, cadences, musicality, regionality in prose that parallels that of a "real" Croat--it might be useful. Also, I've stumbled upon helpful insights (jokes and once a recipe!) by reading the translator's forward/notes.

Anyway, I hope those books help. Research is such a fun adventure. One door opend five more windows and pretty soon you're lost in a most wonderful labyrinth of discovery.

Again--keep me posted--I mean it!


Gina

... somehow 'YAYZERZ!' just falls short of the mark.

The aforementioned 'first notes' extend past just Viktor and his... quintessential Croat... ness...

(It was a long day - then and now, be quiet). 

If you can't tell from reading it, this was written in a particularly dark and dismal moment for me, however many months ago. Directly after totally bombing a piano lesson - so bad, in fact, that I think Jill was taken aback. Imagine: worse lesson one can possibly attend. Imagine: worse performance one can possibly give. Imagine all the humiliation and apologies and "Well, we have to work on this then, don't we?" and you'll have some vague idea of where I was at on that particular Wednesday. So off the chart on the Permissible Piano Lesson scale that I hate to imagine what would have happened had I performed in front of my old teacher rather than Jill - that lady was a few marbles short of a full sack, and she had the shouting and anti-social tendencies to prove it. #_# In any event, I played it for Jill. I knew the whole way through that I was just destroying it. I felt like covering my face with my hands (and I probably would have if they hadn't been occupied at the moment). Jill said not to worry, in so many ways: Well, we have to work on this, then, don't we?

A bit of it below, written while I waited for Pros to finish his pieces after me. No plot, no intentions, just venting and the purely crushed, seething and atrocious roots of a story. To be safe, I wrote it in the third person and changed the protagonist to a 'he'. This was done about halfway through - there are scribble marks at some points throughout the opening, when I was making good this transition.

--

And it seemed to him in that moment a loathsome thing, a pathetic and baser pastime and he wondered with all of his might why he had previously taken such an interest in it, made it his be-all and end-all when it suddenly became so clear to him that it was an empty, hollow thing. He hated it in that moment with all the passion of his soul, and vowed never to touch it again. Ever, in all of his life. He obviously lacked the talent, was obviously unworthy of such a hollow gift and he reveled desperately in that lack of talent, a hysterical push to lowest low of depression that called for him to lock the f---ing thing and toss the key in a river, called for him to go out in the street and when people stopped to say" I haven't heard the piano", to say to them no, I've given it up, it's apparently beyond my abilities.

--

Rage - an excellent fuel for writing. Ultimately a terrible detriment on the rewrite, but that's what showed up on the page. You should see the handwriting - it's a mess, a furious scribble. Rage only goes so far. After that, you need a character. After that, you need a story. And only after that do you need the story to be coherent. The first four I've had. It's the last one that I'm chasing at the moment. I suppose, in the meantime, that I should be grateful no more piano lessons from Hell have appeared upon the scene. If that's the price for creativity, I think I'll leave Viktor on his own and stick to pracitising Ständchen.

I found my first notes on The Piano Player yesterday. As far as consistency and sense go, the notes are all over the place. They were written in the car once on the way home from a particularly crash-and-burn piano lesson, on the backs of old Chair scenes and on a few pages in two empty legal pads that still managed to look worn and ragged.

The original notes on Viktor (aka 'Vanja' in the original sketches and 'Dusan' in Silence is Golden) showed up suddenly yesterday from under the Chair-dominated desk and a dismal time before he had any name at all, let alone three of them. I remember getting the character steady only after I had gotten ahold of the general story line - if memory serves, I ended up writing the first bit on him in the middle of the night, sitting on the edge of the bed, tangled in a sheet and scribbling something illegible down on a scrap of paper by the light of my alarm clock. This was... ah... maybe eight months ago? Nine, maybe? In any event, I just rediscovered that scrap of paper, and the mess of scribbles and non-coherent thoughts that it is. Not a good idea to dash a protagonist together at some point vaguely after midnight but still not quite just before dawn.

From what I can read, it's something to the effect of: Our protagonist, tendancy towards the tragic - quintessential Croat: sharp features, chisled through the cheekbones... insomniatic, he is the epitome of melancholia after death of wife. Wife - a pianist? He's not, in any event. Suicide attempt that lands him in the hospital, Croatia, 1950-1970 (?) doesn't look happy, perpetual mess. He drinks. Vjeko takes his revolver away from him after the first time. Dressed nice, used to be, but he's let it go. White dress shirt, unbuttoned, dingy, wrinkled, limp... soaked in sweat, tears or sljivovica. Viciously hungover, but he doesn't stay sober. Can't sleep, trying to read through some of wife's old sheet music, calls Vjeko at midnight to ask him what a sharp is.


. . . what in God's name is a 'quintessential Croat' supposed to be? Haha - give me a bit of a break, it was at about three in the morning, in the dark. 

... Because when I'm not off randomly pestering mathematicians, I pester authors, and some authors are kind enough to respond to such wandering and salutory emails. ^_~ The other night I was bored, tired and couldn't sleep - I was looking for a book to skim through and lo and behold! buried amongst the piles of old classics, anthologies and Russian literature, I found People I Wanted to Be by Gina Oschner. It's a book of several short stories - very well written, a little off, a little bizarre, but unique. Most of them - go figure - center themselves on a very Eastern European sensibility: Hungarian, Russian, Karelian, etcetera. Imp would like them, I think. ^_^ Well, I got to wondering how she [Oschner] had managed such deep and everday research. Or rather, how she had so perfectly manage to instil her stories with such a voice. So, on a whim, I asked. (Shy, this DD? Only in person). And here is the response I got back:

Hi, [name]. Good to hear from you. Especially good to hear that you are writing and have a specific focus. It sounds to me like you have a great resource at hand already -- your friend. I wonder if your friend has older siblings or cousins or aunts or uncles who might be willing to walk down memory lane and allow you to follow. I'll admint -- it IS awkward asking questions, but your friend might be able to steer you in some direction or another. I've found that restaurants and bakeries (there was a Slovenian bakery in Ames, IA - of all places) are good places to go and hand out and just 'listen' to the cadence of speech, to what gets talked about in public (and how). I found THE BEST book about life in America as experienced by a recent Jewish emigra from Estonia. He runs a piroshki shop in Seattle and had written a memior about his experience. These are the kinds of finds that are absolutely priceless because the writing bristles with 'voice' a quality that I think is essential when a writer wants to inhabit a skin that may or may not be his or her own. Also informal social contacts can come in handy. If you attend synogogue or chuch or know of someone who attends a rotary club - all of these are wonderful places to ask questions. People are unusually willing to help -- especially when they hear that a young and talented person such as yourself is an aspiring writer and wants and needs to nail down some facts to achieve some authenticity. So, I think you are on the right track. I'd look for works by Croats - especially personal items like memoirs. Don't be afraid to troll the internet (but do be careful with information obtained there -- sometimes it isn't accurate).

Anyway, do keep me posted on your progress. It sounds like you have a wonderful and wonderfully ambitious project in the works.

All the best,

gina

The 'friend' she refers to would be Dan - answer to the question of do I know any Croats.

It was nice of her to get back to me on it, in any event. Most authors write a one-liner something to the effect of "Thanks, keep on writing!" ^_^ ... But now I'm not sure what to write back, if anything. Thank her for the suggestions? Tell her that everyone at church is Ukrainain and everyone in the restaurants are German? Tell her that I'm fifteen years old and lacking a car, thus a means of travelling to locales more condusive to Croatian backstory is similarly lacking?  ... Or - unimaginable and bold - take her up on that last offer and bombard her with random thoughts on poor Viktor and his plight. Hah, she'd run away screaming bloody murder. ^_~

But it was extremely kind of her to write back.

Because my characters have a special knack for attracting the less than flattering atttention of political officers and secret police, right? ... Dan and I were trying to come up with ways to get poor Viktor fired - I suppose we could have left him alone with it, but in the state that he'll likely be in for a good deal of the novel, he's bound to lose it in any self-respecting society in any event.

We ended up looking at the UDBA, possibly with the nefarious intention of having them eschew Viktor for us. An, ah, excerpt from the last email:

UDBA was still very much in the game (though it's leader until 1964, a Serb by the [last name] of Rankovic was abusing his powers to "bully" ethnic peoples that werent Serbs [particularly Albanians from Kosovo]. The result being in his firing from position and all privileges stripped from him by Tito, a good friend of his [this shows Titos determination to keep Yugoslavia united and equal, even at the expense of friends]). Also, the government was more lenient on content in published material. However, to publish such notions and ideas would still have its reprecussions, if the publisher even allowed such things to be published in the paper in the first place. He'd certainly face prison. Though I'm unsure... the mid-sxities in  Yugoslavia was a fraily liberal atmosphere... Though what his published is rather powerful, and at odds with Tito's determination to keep the Yugoslavs a united people. So safer he go to prison, IF you decide for him to take that path. I think it would make for an interesting plot. Who know? Maybe he goes on to be in some high position in Tudjman's future cabinet?

Well... probably not Tudjman's cabinet, but perhaps Viktor might make a mistake and print something unwise in the newspapers? That would assume, therefore, that he works with the newspapers, which is still a concept entirely up in the air. This isn't at all as clear-cut as the Kasimovs managed, is it? o.0 We're going to have to get Viktor some type of job in journalism or public communication. We're also going to assume, for the sake of argument that he's rather "better-off" - if one can even define "better-off" in a socialist society - to explain the house he owns in... well, I was considering throwing him in Rijeka, but we'll see what happens.

All, the glories of starting a new story. It's all flailing and randomness: wide-open and vulnerable to every little possibilty, nothing set in stone. You can change the names, you can change his home, his hair color, favorite pastimes, time period, color of the rug, etc. and still you're no worse for wear. The possibilites are endless - and the lack of structure's enough to make me run screaming back to the Chair. ^_~ Which I think I'll do, the second I learn if the Croatian remains 'Irina' or is converted to 'Irena'.

(... And I populate my cast. It's got barely six people in it who amount to anything major in the context of the story - it's sparse wanderings are enough to make anyone miss the full mess of the Chair's twenty-some officers... ^_~)

I seem to be a bit addicted to live journals for the purposes of taking notes. But alas! 'thepianoplayer' was taken. As was 'thepiano'. As was 'pianoplayer'. Thus, we've got 'viktors_piano', which isn't the best username, but it suffices for the purposes of the journal.

The Chair is still underway, here: dreamingdeep

And this, in the meantime, is the place for The Piano Player notes. Sketches, lists, and bits and pieces of writing will be posted in the Cafe, so keep a look out for them. (This assumes, of course, that in a freak crossing of plots, Livny does not randomly kill Viktor, for that would hopelessly complicate my live journals' destinies).

Welcome to the 2007-2008 NrjNo.


--

(Random thought - this is the same song I was listening to when I made the dreamingdeep LJ. o.0 A good omen, or the Kasimovs screaming for much-needed attention?)