Maslina

Even in 2023, the world was left without many who left their mark.

Among others, writers Milan Kundera and Cormak McCarthy (author of the wonderful novel "The Road"), actresses of extraordinary beauty Gina Lolobridjida and Raquel Welch, actor Ryan O'Neill, singers Tina Turner and Toto Cotunjo, politicians Henry Kissinger and Silvio Berlusconi, have passed away. footballers Bobby Charlton, Amaro Amansio and Gianluca Vialli, fashion designer Paco Rabana...

Yugoslavia said goodbye to: jazz trumpeter Duško Gojković and jazz singer Nada Knežević, beautiful TV presenter Sanda Langerholz, actors Met Jovanovski and Tanasi Uzunović, as well as the two protagonists of the cult series "Crazy, Confused, Normal" - Saša Petrović and Mirsad Tuka, and the oldest Serbian actress Branka Veselinović, writers Dragoslav Mihailović, David Albahari and Dubravka Ugrešić, grandmaster Aleksandar Matanović, legendary coaches Miroslav Ćir Blažević and Mirko Novosel, footballers Mustafa Hasanagić, Vahidin Musemić and Petar Nadoveza, basketball player Damir Šolman, radio host Marko Janković, former keyboardist " The White Button" by Vlado Pravdić, former President of Serbia Milan Milutinović, and Montenegro by prof. Dr. Ratko Božović, director Jagoš Marković, actor Žarko Laušević, musician Zoran Kalezić, writer Marko Vešović, water polo coach Petr Porobić, politicians Rifat Rastoder and Novak Kilibarda, sculptor Ratko Vulanović, poet Ranko Radović, former soccer player Miroslav Bošković...

However, I was most touched by the departure of a Baranin in December.

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The crucial thing for my loyalty to Maksim Lutovac was that he looked at me with the same eyes all the time: both when I was in my second year of law for the fourth time (when I didn't know what I was going to do with my life) and when I became a "serious" man, a father of three.

Whenever we talked or walked - we fantasized, and a human being without imagination is nothing. With his departure, some of my dreams also left.

He knew how to be both a fool and an academic. He had a high threshold of tolerance for such widespread human stupidity and vanity.

We marked 40 days since his death. Life goes on, it's time for a new blog…

* * *

An old olive tree on Mirovica is drying. What failed for people for more than two millennia, succeeded for the Barans who, by coincidence, live next to it in the 21st century. The worst thing is that those who had to take care of her (or rather: just leave her alone) accuse each other of who is to blame for her wilting. And they have no idea how insignificant they are compared to her majesty – Old Olives. But if they don't cure her, the stain will fall on us all.

* * *

Warm weather favors the spread of viruses and rats. There are noticeably more of them in Bar than before. The mutation of the corona, the infestation of rats and the drying of the Old Olive tree are more than enough reasons for various psychics and protagonists of conspiracy theories to start a new offensive.

* * *

There is a lot of talk in this country, too much. They talk endlessly, everyone knows what to do and how to do it, and almost no one does anything. There are few hard-working, enterprising people, hard-working people, ready to deal with troubles and bad people.

And barren intellectuals, "orators", position themselves better and more and influence life in our small community more and more.

* * *

My slightly younger friend, Baćko M, regularly advertises on Facebook. I carefully note his aphorisms. Onomad wrote: "We welcomed the New Year in the circle - mobile phones!" And his one-stroke drawings, which speak more than many novels and paintings, are a kind of "dribbling of the spirit in a small space." Well, that Baćko, who wittily and wittily decontaminates our spiritual space from stupidity, doesn't even have ten years of service, instead of having a national pension.

* * *

Sometimes while listening to an interlocutor with whom I do not agree, I prepare a slightly sharper retort, which, however, I do not say - out of consideration or because it might make me uncomfortable, anyway. And when, later, I recount the event to a third person, I happen to insert that unspoken sentence. Why, I don't know? I guess I should highlight myself, my ingenuity or courage. It's enough to tell the story that way once, and no one can convince me that everything really didn't happen that way.

* * *

There are more and more buildings in Bar. It seems that they are going up and down, without any plan or order. They "hang over each other's heads". And they are ugly, as if they were designed, on the one hand, by some socialist realist architect from the fifties and sixties of the last century or, on the other hand, by some exhibitionist. Bar, in terms of population, is the third city in the country, and soon it will be the second, after Podgorica, before Nikšić. It was lucky to be located on the coast of the sea, under three mountains and in a vast marsh field. We are rapidly losing the privilege of feasting our eyes on beauty wherever we turn, as squat high-rise buildings increasingly narrow and obscure our view.

Our guests, local and foreign, who flooded the bar promenade today, February 4th, objectively (still), the most pleasant promenade on the Montenegrin coast, obviously don't see that, nor do they care.

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I keep some nice pens, ballpoint pens and notebooks for special occasions. I pile them up and don't touch them, even though I know that those special occasions are not in sight, nor will there be...