Spencer James: New Work & Slop Pop
 

Slop-pop dude
BY CAMILLE DODERO

 

Spencer James says he’d better dig out the copy of his band’s EP right now or he’ll forget to pass it along — the Flats Fixed guitarist/singer is feeling a little spacey. "There was this car in front of me the whole way down here, smoking weed," he says, retrieving a jewel case from a bag next to the white bike he just rode in on. "I was riding in the back draft, so sorry if ...." His sentence trails off in an invisible ellipsis.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in Fort Point Channel’s Studio Soto, a first-floor gallery on Melcher Street overlooking the lifeless A Street Diner. Studio Soto isn’t usually open on weekdays, but the MassArt-educated painter/illustrator has keys to the space and opened it for a guided tour of his show, "Spencer James: New Work & Slop Pop." In one corner of the space is a red-and-orange piece that stars the Count from Sesame Street. "I like the Count’s ‘Ha-ha-ha,’" James explains with a grin, Sonic Youth blaring in the background. "My grandfather is from Croatia and he had that Eastern European accent." On another wall, there’s a painting of the cursive phrase "the name of your band." "It’s so important to bands," the 39-year-old says. "Now that I’m out of the potential age range to be a pop star, it’s just kind of funny that the name of your band holds so much weight."

But names hold a certain importance for James, too. He christened his three-man pop-punk band after a sign in a Mission Hill tire shop: FLATS FIXED. And the term "slop pop" is integral to the identity of James’s work. It’s not his genre tag, per se: scrappy music writers have tossed the label around, a New York band called Poolsville released an EP by that name in 1998, and James himself has heard Melt-Banana called "slop pop." But a few years ago, when it came time to assign a moniker to Flats Fixed’s self-releases, he parodied Sub Pop and called it Slop Pop Records. The adjective conveys not only James’s approach to music, but his messy, somewhat haphazard, color-that-casually-bleeds-outside-the-lines approach to painting. James admits, "Mistakes are actually the most important part [of my work]."

That’s especially evident looking around the Fort Point gallery. Many of James’s drawings are of figures: elephants, lotus flowers, a yam shaped like a uterus. And for the most part, they look like enlarged notebook doodles. Being bored and scrawling on paper is actually what inspired a few of them. Like the Buddha series — portraits of the back of Buddha’s head. "I was an A/V technician," says James, referring to the full-time hospitality-style job he held at the MIT Hotel he recently left after five years. "I found myself drawing the backs of people’s heads a lot."

Although the Croatian-born Jamaica Plain resident has an art-school background and even worked at his parents’ folk-art shop during high school, he says he doesn’t really know much about art. For example, he has no idea how to mix color. "I know just enough to be dangerous," he likes to say, adding that he’s red-green colorblind. So when James started at MassArt, he first found himself drawn to the visual and tactile qualities of found objects, like old, rained-on plywood. "My parents totally didn’t get it, though. I would give them this block of wood with a chain and they’d be like, ‘No value. I don’t get this.’" But then he started painting on the plywood, a process that didn’t allow him room for tidying up error — and inevitably "happy mistakes" became the art.

That’s also consistent with James’s handmade line of Slop Pop trucker hats and T-shirts. The hats have logos that are hand-stamped and off-kilter. James created the items because he "wanted something fast" and because he’s lately been inspired by bike couriers. He worked as one during college. "Couriers are this weird unsung hero," he says. "I just think it’s funny that couriers and their piercings, nose rings, and tattoos — smelling like cigarettes — are like an integral part of perfect hair, manicure, perfect suits, and lawyers and business. They’re always in trouble with the law, cabbies hate them, yet they have a right to be on the road...." They tend to get caught in the back draft, too.

Flats Fixed plays this Friday, January 6, at Studio Soto, 63 Melcher Street, Boston | www.studiosoto.com.

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/id_check/documents/05189266.asp

Croatian interpreter needed in Cleveland, Jan 11-12, 2006

I need a Croatian interpreter for a hearing in CLEVELAND on January 11 at 2 pm. I will gladly pay someone to work as an interpreter for this hearing for a Croatian person needing a good Croatian English speaker to interpreter for him.

My company:

www.affordablelanguageservices.com

Feel free to check out our website.
I would greatly appreciate knowing if someone anyone could do this job!! $20 hour for those with little experience. $25 if they have credentials or training.
PLEASE call me at 513-745-0888 EST 8-5
ASK for Lynn or Felix.
OR ELSE just e mail me back. Thanks so much!!

CroNetwork: The Croatian-American Organization for Young Professionals.

Snow Queen Crown established inCroatia

ZAGREB, Croatia Jan. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Austrian skier Marlies Schild won the "Snow Queen" World Cup slalom held on Mount Sljeme overlooking the Croatian capital of Zagreb on Thursday evening.

Schild finished the race with a time of 1:53.63, securing here second straight World Cup slalom success and 60,000 euros (some 72,000 U.S. dollars) of prize.

Schild was followed by her teammate, Kathrin Zettel, who had a time of 1:54.07.

Croatia's best woman skier, the triple Olympic champion Janica Kostelic won the third with 1:55.08 despite finishing the second run without a pole and a glove, which she lost before the first gate.

The Zagreb event, which was put in place last year, was renamed the Snow Queen Trophy this year after Kostelic's nickname of Snow Queen in her homeland. Enditem
 

MONET cruise along Croatia's Dalmation coast

A cruise along Croatia's Dalmation coast
By: RALPH COLLIER, Main Line Times12/20/2005

For more information about M/Y MONET, please contact Elegant Cruises and Tours at 1-800-683-6767 or visit www.elegantcruises.com .

The M/Y MONET offers a sweet sampling of the advantages of cruising on a small, intimate ship rather than the usual huge, impersonal vessels. She is dockside in Venice as 50 odd passengers climb aboard. (There are only 30 cabins, total.) Among them, there are the customary first-time sailors. On their anxiety scale, where "1" is "no sweat" and "10" "no fingernails to gnaw," the mix of Brits and Americans give her a comfortable "2" rating.

The M/Y MONET is bound for the Dalmatian coast in Croatia. Mention the area to locals here and they'll reference the Komati Islands, which lie just off the coast. The Komatis make up by far the largest archipelago around wild, deserted slivers of windswept rock dotted with salt lakes and sheer cliffs emerging from the limpid Adriatic. The islands are a superb destination for hiking, swimming, and at other times of the year, sunbathing.
Unlike large cruise ships, the M/Y MONET's tariff is all-inclusive; there are no side excursions or other extras. Bottled water in staterooms is gratis, and throughout the day and night, coffee and tea are available with delectable pastries from the MONET mess. There are lectures by university professors, local musical talent and the ship's own pianist. Irving Berlin wrote the song "I Love a Piano," but the musician plays a synthesizer, suggesting to one passenger that Berlin could not have written the same ode to that instrument.
One of the first ports of call is a city named Split in Croatia. As is custom when the MONET approaches her harbor, a local pilot boat comes alongside to place one of her pilots aboard the MONET bridge to guide her safely to the docking facility. They know not just the treacherous tides, but local currents and tiny adjustments needed to dock the ship.
Split, just off the Dalmatian coast, reveals a shimmering shoreline; it is dubbed "the new Riviera" as the bloody wars of the 1990s that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia recede into European history. A number of international luminaries, arriving on their own yachts, have dropped anchor here recently. By day, there are fishing boats galore along with massive yachts, and everywhere, there are the doughty little tugboats that look like a child's toy but do a man's work -- or, more precisely, the work of a stallion.
There is a rich diversity of accessible and relatively affordable attractions ashore. (Local currency is the Kuna, which is more sympathetic to the U.S. dollar than the Euro.) All of this makes for an even more welcoming port.
Winter and spring are excellent times to enjoy the Croatian islands. (The M/Y MONET resumes cruises on March 15, 2006.)
In Croatian towns, the tourist is struck by the simple beauty of it all and wonders how it might just have felt to be here only a decade ago, when the world abandoned this lovely spot on earth and its people bombed, shot and raided one another's meager territory in a ruthless rush for power and control.
Given the size of M/Y MONET, there is but a single seating at breakfast, lunch and dinner. At some tables, at dinner, conversation does not flow with the drink; it drowns in it. Red and white wine are poured by waiters as though the beverages are going out of style, and since it is free as part of the cruise, some passengers tend to imbibe to their heart's content at lunch and dinner. The well-known oil tycoon Nubar Gulbenkian said some winters ago that the best number for a dinner party is two - "myself and a good waiter." He would have been charmed by the waitstaff on this ship, who are attentive and simpatico. After a few days aboard ship, American passengers tend to love them and speak of them as being almost one of the family, rather in the manner that they speak of their pets. The more reserved British aboard show considerably less spontaneity.
Three times daily, passengers are warmly greeted by a uniformed host, a bronzed, handsomely weathered, robust looking gent with a gutteral accent and suave demeanor. The ship's cook is not the ordinary chef-de-cuisine, for the chef goes public at breakfast and at later meals briefly visits the tables in the Nymphea Restaurant to determine how the evening's efforts went over. Both chef and menu get high ratings throughout the two- week voyage. The food aboard the M/Y MONET is always decent, often delicious, at times superb, making this ship's culinary efforts among the best on the high seas.
A ship like the MONET turns out to be the perfect size for calling at small island ports and coastal towns of Dalmatia. She has only outside cabins. In tune with her name, there are countless superb replicas of Monet oil paintings in cabins. The Giverny Lounge also has numerous photos of the painter in his atelier, gardens and in the bosom of his extended family. It is significant that Claude Monet himself was in Venice at this time of the season exactly 93 years ago. He made just one painting trip to the shores of southern Europe, and his experiences at Bordighera, a picturesque resort near the Italian border, marked one of the crucial stages in his long trajectory as an artist.
For more information about M/Y MONET, please contact Elegant Cruises and Tours at 1-800-683-6767 or visit www.elegantcruises.com .
Ralph Collier used the Lonely Planet Guide to Croatia while cruising the Dalmatian coast on the MONET. Log on to www.LonelyPlanet.com , or call 1-800-275-8555.

Ralph Collier is a member of the Society of American Travel Writers and the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15785752&BRD=1676&PAG=461&dept_id=43790&rfi=6
 

Schild Wins Slalom, Kostelic Regains Lead
Thursday, December 29, 2005

Marlies Schild led a 1-2 Austrian finish in a slalom race, and Janica Kostelic was third Thursday to regain the World Cup overall lead.

Schild covered the Schlossberg marathon course in a two-run time of 1 minute, 57.92 seconds, a whopping 1.02 seconds ahead of teammate Nicole Hosp. Kostelic was timed in 1:59.65.

"I was really surprised to win with such a large margin," Schild said after posting the fastest times in both runs and getting her fifth career World Cup victory. "I didn't feel so good on the course and it was tough work."

American Kristina Koznick finished fourth in 1:59.81. Lindsey Kildow led the rest of the Americans with a finish of eighth. Sarah Schleper tied for 13th, Julia Mancuso was 15th, Lauren Ross 23rd and Resi Stiegler 26th.

Triple Olympic champion Kostelic of Croatia, who said she woke up feeling weak and ill, took both the overall and slalom points leads from Anja Paerson of Sweden.

Paerson, who won Wednesday's giant slalom, slid out on the fall-away in the opening leg. It was the first time in almost a year that she has failed to qualify for the second run of a World Cup slalom.

Paerson also broke one of her best skis, with which she won the season's first two slalom races, in Aspen, Colo., and Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic.

Kostelic leads the overall with 592 points. Paerson dropped to second with 540.

Paerson, who defeated Kostelic for last season's overall title by three points, was not upset by her losses in the standings.

"My goal is the Olympics this year," she said. "I'm not chasing points for the World Cup title, so I am risking everything, trying to go for it all the time, to win races so I can do it in Turin."

Kostelic also tops the slalom table with 220 points. Paerson is second with 200 and Schild third with 160.

It was the first time Austrian women have taken the top two spots in a slalom on home snow and the team's third victory of the season.

"When you see the Austrians leading at home it kind of hurts," Paerson told The Associated Press. "I'm going to come back in Zagreb and push for it."

The women next race Jan. 5 in Zagreb, Croatia.

Austrian Kathrin Zettel was fifth.

Defending slalom champion Tanja Poutiainen was sixth. The Finn, also the defending giant slalom champion, has struggled in both events this season, with no finishes better than sixth after she dominated the slalom and won the title last season by late January.

Michaela Kirchgasser of Austria tore ligaments in her left ankle after crashing on the final pitch in the first run. The team said her ankle was already vulnerable after a training crash in New Zealand in August.

http://www.baynews9.com/content/40/2005/12/29/136421.html
 

Prosinecki: 'I have decided to try and help Savski Marof because it is a club that my late father loved'.
 

Croatia great returns - for love
From correspondents in Zagreb
19dec05
FORMER Croatia footballing great Robert Prosinecki has ended his two-year retirement to help save a team his late father loved from relegation. Prosinecki, 37 next month, is aiming to save Croatia regional side Savski Marof from relegation and does not want to be paid for it. 'I have decided to try and help Savski Marof because it is a club that my late father loved,' he said. 'It always gives me pleasure to play when my body allows me to,' added Prosinecki, who was a member of the Yugoslavia side that reached the second round of the 1990 World Cup finals and the Croatia team which finished third in 1998.
Prosinecki retired in 2003 after a distinguished career which saw him number among his clubs Red Star Belgrade (with which he won the 1991 European Cup), Real Madrid and Barcelona.

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17608940%255E23215,00.html

July 2006 in Zadar: Croatian World Games

Are you a Croatian aficionado? Have you ever wanted to meet Croatians from all over the world at one place? Are you fond of sports enthusiasts?

Spread the word - the first Croatian World Games are awaiting you from July 15 - July 22, 2006 in Zadar, Croatia!

People from the U.S., Canada, Australia, Argentina, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and other countries have started to apply and will be competing in 15 disciplines, such as Athletics, Swimming, Tennis, Basketball, Volleyball, Table Tennis, Soccer etc. Imagine the Olympics, but with only Croatians and people of Croatian descent competing...

The goal of this event is to bring Croatians from Croatia and Croatians from the Diaspora closer to each other. Don't worry if you are not a pro in any of this disciplines - join the crowd and compete for your own fun and pleasure. If you feel you are a pro, go and prove it to the world - you might be discovered as a sports talent and accepted into one of the Croatian national teams!

For only EUR 285.-- you get to lodge seven days with half-pension in a bungalow in the popular tourist district of Zaton, participate in the athletic part of the Games, enjoy free entrance at all Games sites and entertainment program, use the recreation facilities in the sports village, take advantage of the provided transportation within the sports village, as well as access the IT center unlimitedly.

Visit www.zadar2006.com and find out more about this first global Croatian sports event.

Sign up today and be part of this unique Croatian gathering. If you are tied up with other plans during Summer 2006, send this email to all your friends, relatives and acquaintances... give everybody you know a chance of participating in a truly energetic event!
 

Sugar-cane extract may favorably alter lipid level

Dr. Zeljko Reiner from University Hospital Center Zagreb in Croatia
 

Mon Nov 28, 2005 8:33 PM GMT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of a new study provide more evidence that rice policosanol -- a mixture of alcohols extracted from sugar-cane wax -- has favorable effects on serum lipids.

In an 8-week study of 70 patients with very high cholesterol levels, 10 milligrams of rice policosanol daily significantly reduced total cholesterol concentrations in plasma and increased apolipoprotein A1 -- a protein portion of "good" HDL cholesterol that carries cholesterol in the blood.

Dr. Zeljko Reiner from University Hospital Center Zagreb in Croatia and two associates describe their study in the journal Clinical Drug Investigation.

The combination of high total cholesterol and "bad" LDL cholesterol and low "good" HDL cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart disease, they note in the paper. Large studies have clearly shown that lowering elevated total and LDL cholesterol through diet, exercise, and cholesterol-lowering drug therapy is beneficial.

However, concerns regarding side effects of chemically derived cholesterol-lowering drugs have fueled interest in naturally derived agents, such as rice policosanol. This compound has been shown to lower total and LDL cholesterol in animal models, healthy volunteers, and in those with very high cholesterol levels.

The current findings from Reiner and colleagues support rice policosanol's favorable effects on serum lipids.

Compared with placebo, policosanol for 8 weeks significantly lowered plasma total cholesterol from 7.37 to 6.99 mmol/L and increased Apo A1 from 1.49 to 1.58 mmol/L, Reiner and colleagues report.

In this brief study, however, the researchers could not prove a significant reduction in triglycerides or LDL cholesterol or increase in HDL cholesterol with policosanol, as has been shown in other studies. It may be that the dose of policosanol used (10 milligrams daily) was too low and the duration of the study was too short, the authors offer.

There were no side effects from policosanol therapy.

Reiner and colleagues conclude that further study of rice policosanol as a potentially natural cholesterol-lowering aid is warranted.

SOURCE: Clinical Drug Investigation, November 2005.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2005-11-28T203332Z_01_FLE873937_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-SUGAR-CANE-DC.XML&archived=False
 

Anthony F. Lucasdiscoverer of the first major gusher in Texas

Anthony F. Lucas (Antun Lucic) (Split 1855, Washington 1925) discovered the first major gusher in Texas,
The Lucas gusher, flowing at the rate of 80,000 to 100,000 barrels per day.
It blew in January 1901, and about 50,000 people came to see it.
This meant the first massive exploitation of oil and petroleum in history.

A museum with 18 m high granite obelisk was built in honor to the Lucas gusher in Spindletop. 

There is also 1,5 m granite monument of Lucic with inscription saying that
his discovery revolutionarized industry and transport,...
and changed lives of people in the whole world.

The American Institute for Geological and Metalurgical Investigations founded a prize
Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal.

In 2005 we commemorated hundred and fifty years since his birth, and eighty years since his death.

Submitted by Darko Zubrinic, Zagreb
www.croatianhistory.net

Prenosi hrvatske TV preko 'SCOLA' u Americi su uzasni

Bas sam malo prije poslao zalbu na HR TV i na najvece tri novine zalbu za slabe TV programe. Neznam da li vi dobije SCOLA programe u NY. Slijedi moj tekst: Prenosi hrvatske TV preko 'SCOLA" u Americi su uzasni. Izgleda da se bas nitko nebrine sto se salje izvan Hrvatske. Dok bi mogli reklamirati lijepa turisticka mjesta u hrvatskoj, hrvatski narod, hrvatsku pjesmu i kulturu, Vi nam saljete mjesec i pol stare vijesti pune reklama za Hrvate u Hrvatskoj, pokazujete nam prognoze vremena mjesec i pol stare i kao da ste pronasli najpularniji program Taxifree. Nije moguce da bas nitko nemoze spremiti program Hrvatskoj na ponos? Svi koji smo prije nekoliko mjeseci pazili na nase rasporede da nebi promasili hrvatski program, sad se zgrazavamo.

Znam da su osim nas Hrvata, mnogi Slovenci i drugi gledali nase programe a sad su razocarani.
Zeleci bolji hrvatski program, da se mozemo ponositi i Hrvatsku strancima reklamirati,

Uz zahvalnost,

Marko Spiranovic
Spirama@aol.com
Cleveland, Oh,
SAD