Sunday, August 29, 2004
Press statement
Zagreb, Croatia
29 August 2004
In response to much innuendo, speculation, and hearsay, The Permanent Mission of Joshie would like to deny any involvement -- spiritual, financial, or actual -- in the recent robbery at the Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway on Sunday, August 22, 2004. While we continue to contemplate a rewarding career as an international art thief, we have not yet made any such decision. We continue to admire the elegance of the crime while deploring the violent execution. We call upon the thieves to continue to care for the paintings and return them as soon as possible -- if possible in broad daylight wearing a bowler hat.
###
[End statement]
Release date: August 29, 2004
Zagreb, Croatia
29 August 2004
In response to much innuendo, speculation, and hearsay, The Permanent Mission of Joshie would like to deny any involvement -- spiritual, financial, or actual -- in the recent robbery at the Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway on Sunday, August 22, 2004. While we continue to contemplate a rewarding career as an international art thief, we have not yet made any such decision. We continue to admire the elegance of the crime while deploring the violent execution. We call upon the thieves to continue to care for the paintings and return them as soon as possible -- if possible in broad daylight wearing a bowler hat.
###
[End statement]
Release date: August 29, 2004
The importance of getting one's Friendster account in order
After numerous delays and concerns about privacy, I have decided to get my Friendster account in order. When you get a chance please log on and publicly pledge your undying admiration for this lug.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Yes, the land of Senghor
It's increasingly obvious to me that Ken Kesey must have spent serious time in Croatia at some point. My life, you see, has intersected with Croatian healthcare at several points -- my research on finance reform, my trip to the Split psych ward. Today, a few days into an obvious fever (that awful combination of shivers and sweats at the same time) and really an inability to stand up from dizziness, I ventured out to the Fran Mihajlovic Infectious Disease Clinic of Zagreb.
The Embassy nurse thoughtfully set up an appointment for me with a tropical disease specialist -- the famous Dr. Tomislav Maretic. (Josh to nurse: I could just have the flu, I suppose. Nurse to Josh: It is August, you know.) Navigating the ins and outs of the clinic itself? Not the most fun undertaking, I must admit. Had I been feeling well, I might have just thought it an interesting cultural experience. I mean, Soviet holdover mean ladies in white jackets telling people that *of course* you can't get what you want and why don't you just go out into the parking lot and die??? Yes, very friendly indeed. A sample conversation I had at reception.
J: Hello. I'm looking for Dr. Tomislav Maretic.
R: Why?
J: Well, I'm a hired gun and he's been naughty. Oh wait, no. I have an appointment with him. That's right: appointment.
R: His office is over there.
(No noticeable gesturing.)
J: Over where?
R: There. Outside.
J: His office is outside???
R: ...
(I go outside... there's a kiosk and a bunch of buildings down the street. Miffed, I slink back to the helpful reception lady.)
J: Outside where?
(She gets up, walks outside with me.)
R: There.
(Still no gesturing as far as I could tell -- then she runs back inside and closes the door.)
Hours pass.
I find Dr. Maretic. He does his thing -- Senegal, he says. Yes, the land of Senghor. A nobel laureate. I was in Egypt once. Quite a different world from Venice. (He got no argument from me.)
Aided by the good doctor, I muscle my way through the lab (this was one of those times when *not* speaking Croatian proved incredibly useful) and have some blood taken. Maretic tells me it will be about an hour for the results, so why don't I take a nice little walk around? (The hospital grounds, interestingly, abut Zagreb's largest cemetery.) If the tests come back negative, he tells me, you're free to go. If not, you stay. So off I go to walk around the cemetery wondering if I didn't make a horrible mistake... I mean, being sick on my nice couch reading Atlantics while Ana brings me tea is one thing. Being sick trapped in the bowels of the FMIDC is quite another. Well, thankfully, I return to find the preliminary tests negative for malaria. They did, however, find some other unidentified wacky virus in my blood though and told me to come back tomorrow.
Then they kindly asked me to pay 1046 kuna (am I made of marmots???) I told them quite simply I didn't have that much (since I didn't, and, predictably, they only took Diner's Club card). How much do you have then? 500. Ok, 500 it is. And the wheels of Croatian health finance go 'round once more.
The Embassy nurse thoughtfully set up an appointment for me with a tropical disease specialist -- the famous Dr. Tomislav Maretic. (Josh to nurse: I could just have the flu, I suppose. Nurse to Josh: It is August, you know.) Navigating the ins and outs of the clinic itself? Not the most fun undertaking, I must admit. Had I been feeling well, I might have just thought it an interesting cultural experience. I mean, Soviet holdover mean ladies in white jackets telling people that *of course* you can't get what you want and why don't you just go out into the parking lot and die??? Yes, very friendly indeed. A sample conversation I had at reception.
J: Hello. I'm looking for Dr. Tomislav Maretic.
R: Why?
J: Well, I'm a hired gun and he's been naughty. Oh wait, no. I have an appointment with him. That's right: appointment.
R: His office is over there.
(No noticeable gesturing.)
J: Over where?
R: There. Outside.
J: His office is outside???
R: ...
(I go outside... there's a kiosk and a bunch of buildings down the street. Miffed, I slink back to the helpful reception lady.)
J: Outside where?
(She gets up, walks outside with me.)
R: There.
(Still no gesturing as far as I could tell -- then she runs back inside and closes the door.)
Hours pass.
I find Dr. Maretic. He does his thing -- Senegal, he says. Yes, the land of Senghor. A nobel laureate. I was in Egypt once. Quite a different world from Venice. (He got no argument from me.)
Aided by the good doctor, I muscle my way through the lab (this was one of those times when *not* speaking Croatian proved incredibly useful) and have some blood taken. Maretic tells me it will be about an hour for the results, so why don't I take a nice little walk around? (The hospital grounds, interestingly, abut Zagreb's largest cemetery.) If the tests come back negative, he tells me, you're free to go. If not, you stay. So off I go to walk around the cemetery wondering if I didn't make a horrible mistake... I mean, being sick on my nice couch reading Atlantics while Ana brings me tea is one thing. Being sick trapped in the bowels of the FMIDC is quite another. Well, thankfully, I return to find the preliminary tests negative for malaria. They did, however, find some other unidentified wacky virus in my blood though and told me to come back tomorrow.
Then they kindly asked me to pay 1046 kuna (am I made of marmots???) I told them quite simply I didn't have that much (since I didn't, and, predictably, they only took Diner's Club card). How much do you have then? 500. Ok, 500 it is. And the wheels of Croatian health finance go 'round once more.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
On the publicness of the Permanent Mission
"Josh, your blog is basically a semi-public conversation between you and Steve-o. Really, it's kind of like Copley 212 with the door open."
Friday, August 20, 2004
Fun things invariably start with "k"
It begins innocently enough: a colleague approaches to ask whether or not "kowtow" is hyphenated. (It's not.) Yet glancing through the k's in my dictionary quickly becomes a labor of love... kraal, kraft, kraken, kremlinology. Skipping ahead only slightly: kung fu, Kurdistan, kuru (news to me -- a rare progressive fatal encephalopath that is caused by a prion. D&rn prions.), kvass, kvetch, kwacha! In fact, had I not stumbled upon kwacha, I probably wouldn't have stopped everything I was doing (working to make the Sava River navigable once again) to brainstorm currencies named after verbs.
As the good people of Zambia know, kwacha actually means "it dawns." I mean, lots of currency names are fun (the Croatian kuna! Named after a marmot!) but few are verbs. Well, loyal PMJ readers: I challenge you to come up with another one.
(And no, any variation on the Finnish marrka (a la, "the earth freezes") doesn't count -- largely because it's false.)
As the good people of Zambia know, kwacha actually means "it dawns." I mean, lots of currency names are fun (the Croatian kuna! Named after a marmot!) but few are verbs. Well, loyal PMJ readers: I challenge you to come up with another one.
(And no, any variation on the Finnish marrka (a la, "the earth freezes") doesn't count -- largely because it's false.)
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
He asked us what was the good of reading the Gospels in Greek
Czeslaw Milosz, a man who -- at least for the people of Stockholm -- "with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts," passed away on Saturday at the age of 93.
The gates of grammar closed behind him.
Search for him now in the groves and wild forests of the dictionary. (C.M., 2000)
The gates of grammar closed behind him.
Search for him now in the groves and wild forests of the dictionary. (C.M., 2000)
Sunday, August 15, 2004
At long last
I am (finally) wifi-ing in Zagreb. Let the blogging begin (anew).
Friday, August 13, 2004
Like any reasonable person with a fondness for obscure foreign languages
Ruth Franklin "harbors a deep suspicion of all travel writing" in TNR online.
As in any good guidebook, there's a brief rundown of the country's history and politics ("Tzoric and his Rzelic Party ruled for the next decade before eventually being ousted in 1989 by the newly-formed Peace Party, who immediately declared war on Slovakia and Poland"), and a guide to the challenging Molvanian language, in which questions are commonly phrased in the triple negative. The country's electricity runs at 37 volts, a number arrived at based on numerology. The explanation of tipping customs will ring familiar to anyone who's traveled in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, particularly via Aeroflot:
"Most restaurant and hotel bills include a small service charge (10-15%) as well as a smaller charge (3-5%) for including the first charge. ... Don't forget to tip the maids who clean your hotel room or there is a strong chance they will return and mess it up again. Taxi drivers should be tipped at least 10%, unless you're prepared to exit a moving vehicle. It is also not unusual for air passengers to tip their pilot following an incident-free landing."
Orientation is simplified by the fact that the main street in every town is named for former prime minister Szlonko Busjbusj, the "Father of Modern Molvania" (among his achievements was to tie Molvania's currency, the strubl, to the Latvian lit). After a visit to the capital, Lutenblag (where dining options include a restaurant featuring the chef's "Fish of the Month" and another where "the waiters can't be faulted, as they're armed"), it's worth checking out the countryside. To the south, the Molvanian Alps were the birthplace of the country's most famous philosopher, who proved that he actually did not exist. Also worth a stop are the thermal springs at Drypp, which cure "ailments of the skin by stripping much of it from the body." At Lake Vjaza, in the western plateau, you can take a cruise in a boat similar to a gondola, but powered with diesel. "For a small tip your captain will launch into a traditional folk-song. For an additional tip he'll stop." Nearby, the "bustling" city of Sjerezo hosts the Miss Molvania pageant, in which contestants compete in evening gowns, swimsuits, and nurses' uniforms.
As in any good guidebook, there's a brief rundown of the country's history and politics ("Tzoric and his Rzelic Party ruled for the next decade before eventually being ousted in 1989 by the newly-formed Peace Party, who immediately declared war on Slovakia and Poland"), and a guide to the challenging Molvanian language, in which questions are commonly phrased in the triple negative. The country's electricity runs at 37 volts, a number arrived at based on numerology. The explanation of tipping customs will ring familiar to anyone who's traveled in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, particularly via Aeroflot:
"Most restaurant and hotel bills include a small service charge (10-15%) as well as a smaller charge (3-5%) for including the first charge. ... Don't forget to tip the maids who clean your hotel room or there is a strong chance they will return and mess it up again. Taxi drivers should be tipped at least 10%, unless you're prepared to exit a moving vehicle. It is also not unusual for air passengers to tip their pilot following an incident-free landing."
Orientation is simplified by the fact that the main street in every town is named for former prime minister Szlonko Busjbusj, the "Father of Modern Molvania" (among his achievements was to tie Molvania's currency, the strubl, to the Latvian lit). After a visit to the capital, Lutenblag (where dining options include a restaurant featuring the chef's "Fish of the Month" and another where "the waiters can't be faulted, as they're armed"), it's worth checking out the countryside. To the south, the Molvanian Alps were the birthplace of the country's most famous philosopher, who proved that he actually did not exist. Also worth a stop are the thermal springs at Drypp, which cure "ailments of the skin by stripping much of it from the body." At Lake Vjaza, in the western plateau, you can take a cruise in a boat similar to a gondola, but powered with diesel. "For a small tip your captain will launch into a traditional folk-song. For an additional tip he'll stop." Nearby, the "bustling" city of Sjerezo hosts the Miss Molvania pageant, in which contestants compete in evening gowns, swimsuits, and nurses' uniforms.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
From the "we have done nothing to deserve this" department
Oh thank [Halo comments]. It's sassy, it's pink, and it's here. While I was busy being beaten down by a continent that likes Berlin even less than I do, Mageek has started a blog.
Some people call Brussels the capital of Europe
Small pets, they tell me, can be carried into the cabin of an airplane if properly restrained. Worth keeping in mind for SN Brussels passengers:
An escaped pet cat created a scare on a Belgian airliner, forcing the crew to turn back to Brussels 20 minutes into its journey. A "lot of coincidences", as the airline told BBC News Online, ended with the animal running wild in the cockpit and attacking the co-pilot.
Nobody, he said, could tell what an agitated cat what might do in the circumstances, scrabbling around amid the sensitive equipment in the cockpit of the Avro RJ. "It took a long time to catch it," he noted, describing the offending beast - said by Brussels newspaper La Derniere Heure to be a tom by the name of Gin - as "very aggressive".
One possible reason for the creature's sudden fit of fury may have been an unconfirmed report that it was "kicked by somebody in business class" on its way through the cabin, he added.
An escaped pet cat created a scare on a Belgian airliner, forcing the crew to turn back to Brussels 20 minutes into its journey. A "lot of coincidences", as the airline told BBC News Online, ended with the animal running wild in the cockpit and attacking the co-pilot.
Nobody, he said, could tell what an agitated cat what might do in the circumstances, scrabbling around amid the sensitive equipment in the cockpit of the Avro RJ. "It took a long time to catch it," he noted, describing the offending beast - said by Brussels newspaper La Derniere Heure to be a tom by the name of Gin - as "very aggressive".
One possible reason for the creature's sudden fit of fury may have been an unconfirmed report that it was "kicked by somebody in business class" on its way through the cabin, he added.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Never stop thinking indeed
Yes, yes, I will blog about Senegal in a minute, alright? In the meantime, I couldn't resist repeating a rare moment of candour from the C-in-C.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. We must never stop thinking about how best to defend our country when we all must always be forward-thinking."
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. We must never stop thinking about how best to defend our country when we all must always be forward-thinking."
Danas je . Čitate stalno Joshievo izaslanstvo.