8-10-2025 MY FAVES: in retrospect...

 books of the week

i completed reading twelve years a slave. at moments i forget this is not fiction, but a man's true story. how many more devastating stories have been lost to time? this story is almost 200 years old, but similar tragedies continue through our timeline. and even now, we are blasted by real time news - look at gaza, look at the deportations happening right now, specifically if you're on tiktok watching news on the 24 hour music festival in la (wink wink)?! 

we must stay educated, we must face the ugliness, and tap into our humanity, and remember - one individual cannot fix an entire genocide, but we can help our neighbors, the locals around us suffering in silence. we don't have to stay silent.

i'm on hold for two books currently, so i checked out the year of magical thinking by joan didion in the meanwhile. i'm a huge fan of didion's writing. it's so simply, honest and compelling. her vast knowledge and research and her truthfulness - in this case, about grief - feels more helpful and honest than a self-help book ever would. another book dissecting the past - a personal past of marriage, family, and the pains of sudden loss of a significant other and family member.

music of the week

i stumbled upon an instagram reel that speaks about how kendrick lamar sampled an old yugoslav rock song by the band september. many comments shared how balkan and yugoslav rock is highly underrated, and i agree. we in croatia may be praising the good old stuff, yet i feel like i continue discovering more and more hidden gems: by thrifting old vinyls, my mom remembering random songs from her youth, and just through the power of the internet, just like the song by september: ostavi trag. 

i have a spotify playlist collecting songs from the balkan region sampling other hits. we're notorious for sampling each other to the point where one couldn't confirm who made the original: the greeks, bulgarians, or serbs? 

beside this playlist, i have retro jugoslavija - a collection of all songs i know and love from the time when yugoslavia still existed. 

i am hoping for another yugo night in the slovenian club to discover more old vinyls. i got super lucky earlier in the year. 

here's 10 songs your diaspora friend may or may not know, but definitely should:

prozor prema zalazu - đani maršan

florida - september

zašto praviš slona od mene - dino dvornik

radnička klasa odlazi u raj - haustor

tko je zgazio gospođu mesec - videosex

princeza - dado topić, slađana

par godina za nas - ekatarina velika

ne mogu da ga ne volim - magazin

kad zamirišu jorgovani - vesna zmijanac, dino merlin

osmijeh - grupa 220

movies of the week

the focus on the past is evident with what i have been watching this week as well.

boyfriend and i watched braveheart. his coworkers were recently on a mel gibson rant, and i've seen this film years ago as a kid. since it was free on youtube, we decided to watch it friday night. 

not a fan of mel gibson, but it was a compelling movie - boyfriend didn't even sleep through it. mel gibson's movies present lots of gore - almost like quentin tarantino, but tarantino has a cooler soundtrack. and why is it that mel gibson is always looking for a tortured martyr to play? this goes beyond movies too...

i am obsessed with the princess' makeup in the movie. i feel like that's a makeup look i will be recreating for the rest of the summer, considering my face stays pale, i think a glowy pale look, with soft pink cheeks and a shadowy contour is perfect. 

boyfriend and i also watched more episodes of anthony bourdain: no reservations season 8, episodes 4 (lisbon) and 5 (japan: cook it raw). i got cravings for canned fish and some really good ramen.

finally, sib just read confessions of a shopaholic so we had to rewatch the movie adaptation. fashion-wise, it's highly underrated and the soundtrack is phenomenal. the plot itself is anxiety-inducing and the first hour and a half everything is just terrible. i had to take walks through the house to de-stress myself. could we say this is a retrospect of post great recession usa?