When we are in an unfamiliar situation it does not mean that we automatically think unfamiliar things. We are in Guča, at the trumpet festival, the great mela of Dragačevo (Dragačevski sabor u Guči) at which the brass is blown more boisterously than anywhere else in the world – way back since 1961. We sense the music in our belly and see how our left knee jiggles in time to the tenor horns’ rhythm – but the tones have no effect on our mind. We look at our right hand that snaps open and shut like an electrified brooch in rhythm with the cymbals. It could be the hand of a Serbian, of a Macedonian, Albanian or Bosnian – our thoughts, however, do not have their feet planted as yet on the ground of the Balkan peninsula. Regularly, the spike-grilled piglet, the overbaked beans, the cabbage salad, and the boiled paprika come into our memory in the form of burps – for our brain, though, it could also be turnips that are absorbed by our intestines.
Why is it that the music fails to play inside our head? These trumpets are certainly not muted – but perhaps we ourselves are much too loud at the moment.
First Publication: 21-8-2013
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