SOUNDTRACK: RYLEY WALKER-“Love is Everywhere (Beware)” (from WILCOvered, UNCUT Magazine November 2019).
The November 2019 issue of UNCUT magazine had a cover story about Wilco. It included a 17 track CD of bands covering Wilco (called WILcovered or WILCOvered). I really enjoyed this collection and knew most of the artists on it already, so I’m going through the songs one at a time.
It’s interesting that Walker chose the band’s brand new (at the time) single to cover. I don’t think the album was even out yet when they released this issue.
I saw Walker live last month and his set was a forty-five minute wild improv guitar session. So I’m even more surprised at how beautiful and tender this cover is.
There are some great percussive effects from Ryan Jewell which I wouldn’t have really noticed if I hadn’t seen him do similar things live. Walker didn’t sing at all when I saw him, and his voice here is soft and whispery. It works perfectly with the muted tone of the song–guitar harmonics, a shuffling beat and gentle bass from Calexico’s Scott Colberg.
The song grows gradually louder, mostly from Jewell’s drums until with about a minute left, Walker goes absolutely berserk with a wild electric guitar solo–largely noise and chaos, while the rest of the song continues as before. Very Wilco.
[READ: February 15, 2020] Snippets of Serbia
This book came across my desk at work. The book is entirely in English and yet the cataloging information (the CIP page) is in Russian, primarily. It was published in Beograd by Komshe Publishing.
That’s all fascinating because Emma Fick is an American artist. She is of Serbian descent and went there to teach English. She brought her sketch book because she always does. While there she drew pictures and then earned a grant to travel to Serbia to draw more.
The introduction to the book gives a good summary of Serbia and its inability to be pigeonholed.
Serbia is fascinating and baffling, captivating and frustrating, vibrant and confounding. There is no singularity to Serbian culture, and its historical, religious, cultural, culinary, and philosophical narratives are knots that must be carefully detangled.
Illustration was her way of absorbing Serbia.
She knows the book is flawed and incomplete. She knows there are mistakes in it and she knows that her experience of Serbia is not what Serbia is, But boy did it ever make me want to go there–a country I have never given a second thought to.
The book is roughly 200 pages of watercolor sketches of people, places, customs, and especially the food of Serbia: Belgrade, North, South, East and West.
The sketches are really neat–they feel loose and free but never sloppy. And yet there is no sense of precision–it’s more like impressions that need to be fleshed out. And it makes all of the pictures feel more alive because of it.
After a family tree explaining her Serbian roots, she gives a brief story of how she came to be in Serbia. Then she starts showing the country: restaurants and cafes (with cigarette burns in the tablecloth to show of the authenticity).
The country is full of smoking signs instead of no smoking signs it’s like they’re proudly proclaiming “smoke here, please.”
The food pyramid is predominantly meat. A meal is not considered a meal if it doesn’t have meat.
Specific foods in Serbia are: 
Karađorđe’s schnitzel–rich and heavy filled with Kajmak, veal or pork cutlet and fried bread on the outside.
Some Serbian necessities: Plazma: mild cookies; Smoki: a puffy peanut flavored snack, Najlepše želje chocolates; Zebra matches; Vegeta: the salty secret to all the dishes; Dečiji sapun: soap and Dr Pavlovic Cream: the key to good skin for babies and adults alike.
There’s also Rakija, the national Serbian drink, a kind of fruit brandy and the cool glasses they come in. It’s a shame I don’t have a better picture to share.
Three things that guarantee death in Serbia: wet hair; a draft from cracked windows called “Promaja” and not wearing socks (don’t even think about it).
And commonly accepted Serbian cures: for bruises put cabbage or bread on the bruise. For headaches chop up potatoes and wrap around your forehead. In general Rakija cures everything. For a sore throat: take a shot or two and then wrap a cloth soaked in it around your neck.
Serbian Orthodox Christmas occurs on January 7th because they go by the Julian calendar. On Christmas Eve you fast (a picture of a lot of food with no meat) then on Christmas day you feast (lots of food with meat).
Each family has a patron saint or Slava. To celebrate the saint you have a Slava candle, Žito–a boiled wheat dish, an icon of the saint and Slavski Kolač: slava cake.
On to Belgrade, the capital.
She says she doesn’t have that many illustrations because she lives there and thinks “I live here, I’ll draw next week.”
She shows cool graffiti of a house-sized face with a window for their eye.
There’s a lot of socialist apartment block and lots of green buildings including Hotel Moskva, an architectural landmark.
In each of the locations she sketches a person either on public transportation or on a bench or just walking down the street. She likes to compare the old and the young like the old woman burden by groceries and the young woman wearing a skin tight white dress through which underwear is clearly visible.
See how to cook in a Sač, a metal or clay Dutch oven put directly on hot coals.
She also goes to Zemun to show rustic charm and crumbling facades as well as a shop with a loom right in the middle where the beautiful scarves were made.
North
Vojvodina is autonomous–the demeanor is colder, manners are milder. She shows some fancy doors in the city as well as the Novi Sad Cathedral.
Subotica abuts Hungary where signs are written in Hungarian, Serbian and Cyrillic. She shows some fancy doors in Star Moravica–a bucolic Hungarian village in Serbia–where wood burning stoves are prevalent in every kitchen.
How do you stay warm when it gets down to -4 F? In Sremski Karlovci you take off your hat and put it on your feet (socks on) and then start drinking. When one hat turns into two, you know you’ll be alright
Pacir is a village near Star Moravica where you can find cheese makers and vineyards.
South
There’s an expression about the south: “The more south the more sad.”
Niš is the birthplace of Constantine the Great and Burken the Balkan pastry filled with meat or cheese.
There is the skull tower–a tower made of human heads. There is also evidence of Roman occupation with red bricks that have been re-purposed again and again.
Meals in Nišlijska Mehana include Belmuž, a regional cheese specialty of roasted lamb and potatoes, Morvaska Slata (tomato, pepper, and garlic stew) and Veal head.
Serbia always seems to be under construction because politicians promise projects during the election which end when they take office.
The farthest reaches of the city feature Studenica and the Pavlica church that hangs over a small cliff.
I’m not sure what St Bojan and his holy Iron Maiden is supposed to reference but it seems to be a tribute to the Yugo.
East
The East is the most difficult region to access. There are notoriously bad roads, irregular bus connections and plus the culture is more private and enigmatic.
Knjaževac features the Donja Kamenica church with some cool frescoes. There’s Majdanpek, a mining town with a large pit surrounded by huge apartments.
In Crnajka village there is beautiful embroidery as well as delicious and Plašinte a traditional pastry, and nettle soup (there’s no stinging once they’re cooked). In fact there are a lot of dishes made with nettles. There’s also Kačamak–cornmeal cooked in water (like grits).
Evening in Donji Molanovac sees men silently smoking, playing dominoes.
Negotin is famous for its handcrafts, like some beautiful gloves. There are also many fortune tellers to be seen.
Bor flourished around a copper mine but disintegrated with it it is a toxic gash in the earth and Ravanica, a 14th century Moravia style school.
West
Western Serbia is full of extraordinary natural beauty–mountains, rivers, caves and gorges. She shows us the small houses of Robajewith an all-in-one kitchen + living room + dining room + bedroom.
Everyone wears Pročanke rubber shoes which are part boot, part slipper.
Užice is full of red-roofed houses dotting the rolling hills.
I am quite interested the Komplet Lepinjathe the be-all-end-all-heart-attack-inducing culinary pride of Užice. It’s lepinja bread filled with eggs and kajmak, drizzled with lamb or pork fat.
She shows a very sturdy rustic fence taraba made with sticks woven together as malleable green sapling which harden with age.
In the village of Čačak is the Hotel Beograd, an example is secessionist art.
And there’s Ovčar-Kablar Gorge called the “holy mountain” because there are 12 holy places between the two mountains.
This is a tint fraction of all of the paintings in this book.
I really enjoyed this collection and, having now seen photos of some of these places, I find her illustrations to be more powerful and interesting.
Turns out Fick has also done a book like this for New Orleans. I’ll bet that’s good too, although not nearly as exotic.
Leave a Reply