To my friend Ben Maggos, who left us entirely too soon

'ello Ben. I guess this is my way of coping with the fact that never again in my life will I be able to talk to you. But maybe they have internet service where you are now, and maybe my words will somehow reach you this way :-)

It's hard to deal with the fact you are gone. You weren't supposed to leave yet - we had so many projects to work on together - make new and exciting things, perhaps change the world at least a little for the better, but more importantly have a tremendous amount of fun doing it...

But yesterday I found out that I will never get to work with you again... or play pool, watch movies, talk about things that matter and things that don't. I'll miss that, Ben. I'll miss not catching you hanging off doorways, I'll miss giving you crap about beeing too cheerful, I'll miss all of that...

I have to say that yesterday was quite an emotional roller-coaster. I felt dumbfoundedness, sadness, agony, envy, denial, happiness, anger, fear... I'm still on that roller-coaster, but I think I'm getting used to it a little bit. I wonder how you felt, what your roller-coaster was like... I remeber that time in Vibeke's class, when you decided to open up your beliefs to us, and we all playfully pounced on you :-) Well, now you know what happens, if knowing can be a part of it. And I'm sure, if there was any evaluation involved, that you passed with flying colors.

We all miss you, so much. Apparently, no one was able to sleep very well last night. I dreamt about waves again, the kind that threaten to drown... But I held on, and they passed. Were you there with me? I can't remeber. I was hoping I would see you in my dreams, if that's the only way to see you now.

It was hard telling people yesterday about you. AJ put her foot right in it when I saw her at the M.F.A. show after-party - the show we were supposed to go see together, and I laughed histerically when I realized how perfect your excuse was... Anyway, at the party, as I walked up AJ saw me and said "Hey Stjepan! Where's Ben?" I tried to be poetic about it... "Well, due to various circumstances, that is a really good question. And, there is a really good reason why I'm wearing black. And Ben had a perfectly good excuse for not coming to see the show on Saturday." Of course, that never works... "He died, AJ."

I don't like saying that... I like thinking that you moved somewhere else. Some place people don't move back from, like Hawaii or something. But maybe I'll get to move there some day too, and we can hang out again. Maybe watch some movies... I still sometimes think how this is some elaborate plan to get poeple to come to the AME movie nights. How you said last time, "What do we need to do to get people to come?" :-)

Well, wrote all this in my thoughts in the last two days, and in them I wrote so much more, and I will keep writing, perhehaps forever, but I think I will stop here, for now. But you will always be in my heart, and you will be a part of everything that I create. I have learned a lot from you, and am glad to know you, and that you are my friend. Perhaps, in a way, we can finish the projects we started, and talked of, and maybe some new ones, together.

Well, I guess that's all I have for now, Ben. Thanks for everything. I'll see you around.

Performing in Detroit

Today at 8pm EST (7pm CST, 6pm MST, 5pm PST) and tomorrow at 3pm EST (2CST, 1MST, 0PST) Wayne State's Dance Department is hosting a Technology and Arts performance. I am participating in the piece U-SAW-US, a improvisational duet performed by the lovely Courtney Patton in Detroit, and me in Arizona.

The whole performance will be webcast, and you can find links to the broadcast stream at http://www.dance.wayne.edu/DanceTechnology.html. U-SAW-US opens the second half, which is likely to begin sometime after the first half.

Working on this piece was loads of fun, and taught me a lot - including the fact that my partnering skills go down even further with increased distance to the partner.

Modern 2 - Ballet 1

This morning I went through the ASU placement audition for major-level dance classes. It had some great moments, with my favorites being those that involved me finishing a dance phrase facing the exactly opposite way of everyone else.

I felt great at the audition, because I had taken a bath the night before. More precisely, I felt great because, contrary to all circumstances, I actually managed to take a bath. The circumstances were such that the Scorpius Dance Theatre class and rehearsal yesterday was so intense that at one point my vision got hazy. To prevent moving like a B-movie zombie at the audition, a fellow dancer suggested I take a hot bath.

That, of course, meant I had to clean my bathtub. To my displeasure, I found that the brown stuff that had overtaken the tub comes off. This was displeasing because if it wasn't coming off, I could just take a bath over it, knowing safely that it wouldn't come off. Since it did come off, I would have to clean it all before convincing myself that a bath was safe to take. This was bad news, since a) the brown stuff didn't come off easily, b) it covered more than 3/4 of the bath tub, and c) it was already past 11pm.

About an hour later the tub was sufficiently clean, so I started to pore the water. That, for some reason, took a whole 15 minutes, after which I stuck my left foot into it, and burned it. Apparently, using all hot water was not a good idea.

Out of principle, I refused to remedy the situation by more efficient means, and instead sat down on the toilet and proceeded to read a book. 45 minutes later, I burned my foot again. Apparently, things do not cool off with time in Arizona.

Since it was nearing 1am by this point, I finally succumbed to adding cold water to the bathtub. After a few iterations, my left foot finally said the water was OK. I then submerged my right foot, which informed me that the left foot said the water was OK only because it had been repeatedly burned, and has since developed a new appreciation for anything less than excruciatingly hot. A few more iterations of cold water, and I was finally able to completely, although very slowly, enter the bathtub. It was one of the best feeling baths I have ever taken in my life.

Before I finally went to bed sometime after 2am, I briefly considered leaving the water in the tub, so I could have another hot bath in the morning. I didn't, but tonight I pored myself another bath. I now know that there is a fine trick to getting the bath temperature just right. I am yet to find out what that fine trick is.

When I was done with tonight's bath, I tried to pull off the drain plug. Due to various design choices that went into this particular drain plug, and to my dismay, what happened was equivalent to trying to open a can by pulling on the thing that is attached to the lid, and breaking it off instantly. Since I didn't want to have the frequency of my showers regulated by the rate of evaporation of water, I battled with the forces of nature, the drain plug, and my thinning patience, and finally came out victorious.


I would have never thought that a bathtub could be such a source of entertainment. Well, this sort of entertainment, anyway.

Back in business

OK, I am now back in Arizona, after being back in Arizona for over a week now, which was after I spent two weeks in Iowa, which closely followed being still in Arizona and telling people I was going to Iowa for the winter break (which would usually cause people to tilt their head slightly) to spend time with my ex-wife (at this point, the people's head tilt would usually go past the point of a normal, comfortable tilt, stroll through the areas of an extreme, but still physically feasable tilt, decidedly march beyond the life-threatening tilt, and finally refuse to leave until a stikingly good argument for why it should do so has been made by a chiropractor).

Of course, while in Iowa I also spent a week with my <the English language does not have a word even remotely appropriate for our relationship> Maria. That was a lot of fun, except for the moment when she got 8 stiches on her finger for trying to convince a blender that "consumer awareness" should be a built in feature for all of the sharper kitchen appliances.

So, as I said, I am back in Arizona now, and am proud to say that I have finally found a difference between science and art. Trying to find something of sorts has been consuming my mind for a long time now, which puts "What is the difference between Art and Science?" right alongside questions like "Why are credit cards square?" and "How the hell can it rain so much in a desert?".

Anyway, the difference between science and art is the following. The ultimate goal of science is to digest the utterly incomprehensible into a form that even the most utterly stupid people can use. The utterly stupid people then try to use it to dominate the world, and someone ends up getting seriously hurt.

Art, on the other hand, produces things that no one really understands, so it doesn't really make anything any less incomprehensible. Consequently, no one gets seriously hurt. This of course allows for the due exception of occasional cases of involontary gagging and spontaneous vomiting.