Future means getting old

How can you choose who to vote for if art competes against a country in war?

I have just finished watching (sometimes merely listening to) the videos of all 40 countries competing in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin (because Italy won last year). The first semi-final will take place next Tuesday.

I won’t say that I want this time back since it was my choice to do it. But I will write about it.

It is getting more and more absurd. How do you compete against the country in war? Russia is out, but the Ukraine is in. I don’t see people in the Ukraine choosing to spend their money on the televote… But won’t everybody else give the Ukraine the most points, 12? Just because they can and because really it’s the least they can do?

But even if we leave this question alone, there are others.

How can high art compete against cheap carnal fluffiness such as the song that begins Instead of meat I eat veggies and ….. I like them both fresh, like them both juicy?

I saw a western. I saw a house with wings. I saw bananas. I saw much angst, such as a girl who throws everything out of the fridge and climbs into it herself. I saw melancholic, crazy, obnoxious, randomly beautiful people, like every year. Not an obscene amount of talent. On two occasions I saw a runaway breast (or is this fashion now?).

As for Slovenia, we are sending a band of teenagers called LPS which stands for Last Pizza Slice. I posted the live performance of their song already (that is, only the vocals are live, the rest is recorded, as always for this event), and here is the official video – a cartoon made by some of their schoolfriends. I like their energy and joy but the song is really far from ground-breaking.

Which brings us to the reason for this post. Most of all I saw, heard and experienced the Serbian song. Here is the performance by Konstrakta from Serbia’s national final, which I saw a while ago and was blown away. The title is In Corpore Sano, “In Healthy Body”. Make sure you have subtitles turned on for the English translation. It’s important. The key point is that in Serbia the artist must be healthy, since she is not eligible for paid health insurance.

In all my many years of following the Eurovision Song Contest, I have never experienced anything remotely similar. For me this is high art and worthy of all accolades. It’s hypnotic, necessary, pure poetry, and just in time.

In case you wish to see more, Konstrakta made a triptych of three songs with In Corpore Sano in the middle. Again, don’t forget the subtitles to learn how Sharon Stone, who doesn’t use botox, locked herself in the bathroom once. And cried.

This is where the title of this post is from as well. The future means getting old. If we are lucky.

Filled peppers as an Italian makes them. Since Konstrakta is eating in the video, and filane paprike are beloved in Serbia too.

This day in my blogging history

• 

  2014: Blown away by the better written, by Rade Šerbedžija (my translation):

  how am i supposed to live

  who finds it harder and harder to recognize myself among so many

  i am blown away by the better written (Read all.)

• 2014: Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk. —William Shakespeare

  .

  2015: My opinion is that anybody offended by breastfeeding is staring too hard. —David Allen

• 

  2015: Silent Sunday in Lucca

• 

  2016: Admirable Siena: There is an ad in admiration. But there is mir too (=peace).

• 

  2017: Isola del Giglio in 20 blinks. The port town reminds me of summers spent in another country in another life, of Trpanj in Croatia.

• 

  2018: Thursday Doors gifts from Croatia and Italy by family

• 

  2020:

  My moon is monk. My moon is key.
  My moon is mon key. Monkey is majmun*.

  *Majmun (pronounced mymoon) is Croatian/Serbian etc. for monkey.

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