I believed him. I believed Uncle Joe. I believed his wise words about the need to find “the soul” of America. I agree: this is the moment to decide who we are, who we want to be, what kind of country we want to live in. Do we want to live in a divided, hateful […]

They wake us up at 6am, Punctual as a clock. Leia is the first one. Although she is 12 years old and, according to the generally  accepted calculation, belongs to the same category as her guardian – me (it’s that very wide category of “the old” that – at least when it concerns female beings […]

As I’m sitting in my old apartment in Zagreb, Croatia, before flying to America, I’m trying to remember what the idea of America had meant for me, a young adolescent growing up in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, a country that had been subsequently thrown into “the trash can of history”, to quote Karl […]

We reached the airport in about a third of the usual time. Once at the airport, we didn’t have to sit in our car for at least an hour, surrounded by nervous honking, as is usually the case. I entered the airport building in my newly acquired hazmat suit, with a mask and a plastic […]

Exactly 28 years ago, in 1992, I, a former film star from a country that no longer existed, was standing at the corner of Amsterdam and Broadway Avenues in Manhattan, in my waitress’ uniform. It was a warm June evening and there were no patrons coming in. My fellow waitress from Lebanon and I were […]

Yoga and Me I never liked physical education classes in school. I would try to evade them at any cost. What I dreaded the most were the team sports. What was it exactly that bothered me? I am not quite sure. Was it the group mentality that always had the power to scare me? Was […]

“We’ve won. Without exploding a bomb. Without firing a bullet. Without sending a tank in the streets. We’ve won.” “Yes, we’ve won. God himself has sent us this virus. All glory to him!” “Hallelujah! God save America. God protects the Serbs. God and the Croats. Le Dieux et mon Droit. Et cetera. No need to […]

In a couple of days, I’ll fly into LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport. Once I pass passport control and pick up my luggage, I will see a big picture on the wall, the picture of the president of the United States of America, the country I chose as my temporary home when, as it […]

It is not quite cool to love it. Like loving a beautiful but empty woman or a perfect but artificial flower. Just as with a beautiful and (because of it) a suspicious woman, one should, of course, use it and secretly enjoy its charms, at the same time publicly despising it and spreading all the […]

There’s a guy who goes back to the old country on a regular basis. His plan is to work here, in America, and live there, “at home”. Because, according to him, that is where you can truly live. Here, in the good old US of A, he says, your life seems to have been shut […]

“April is the cruelest month.” T. S. Eliot. Used to love him in my intellectual youth. Now, in my anti-intellectual middle age, I only remember this one verse. Instead of growing, I feel as if I’m shrinking. Shrinking, shrinking, shrunk. Soon, there will be nothing left. And that’s ok. A distant friend of mine has […]

This is what I will remember from Phoenix: sitting on the stage for the Babylon 5 panel, watching the screen with a seemingly endless list of names of our fallen comrades. Names and dates in brackets, coldly and impersonally indicating the year of birth and the year of death, framing finished lives within neat and […]

I’m back home in Los Angeles, with Sarajevo on my mind. The images: an unspeakable number of hungry, abandoned dogs roaming the street heaps of uncollected trash in front of the once elegant, now disheveled Austro-Hungarian buildings closed museums and galleries that nobody wants or needs to finance crowded graveyards where you see the same […]

When I was a child, my grandmother, a former citizen of the country called The Austro-Hungarian Empire, was teaching me German, the official language of her (by then) non-existing country. One of the books she used for that purpose was a counting book with a mildly disturbing title “Zehn kleine Negerlein”, a title that we […]

The poster for the film “Cirkus Columbia” in which I play the lead opposite the actor Miki Manojlovic, features the two of us sitting on a merry -go-round. The image is from the last scene in the movie where the estranged couple finally reunites against the background of the approaching war. It’s a moving, surprising […]

Writing this blog seems to be impossible. That’s why the only solution is writing about the impossibility of writing. How do you do that? You list the reasons that prevent you from writing. Here they are: I have no desire to do it. I don’t know why I do it. I don’t know who I’m […]

In today’s papers I read that the charges were dropped against Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich in an incident thought to be one of the worst atrocities committed by the US Army in Iraq. He is facing no more than three months of prison for commanding his troops to “shoot first, ask questions later”. This […]

Last September I shot a short movie there. The movie was a part of an omnibus film, “Don’t Forget Me Istanbul”. The city was magical, grand and impressive, but what was truly unforgettable was the group of people I met. I knew I would never forget them. What I didn’t know was: would they forget […]

She’s back home. Or is it still her home? She remembers: home is where the books are. Home is where her boys are. Home is where her cats are. But then again, this place is home as well. With no books, no boys, no cats. Still home. Sort of. The idea of home had split […]

The other day I went down town to give my support to the protests known as “Occupy LA”. The first thing that caught my eye from the distance was a huge banner with the words: “Emperor Has No Clothes”. When I approached the colorful, lively tents that had bravely sprung between the huge, ominous, grey […]

By an anonymous observerObservation #1 She spent the summer hibernating. Didn’t write. Even opening the computer seemed like a huge and unnecessary effort. What is her problem? Why is communication with the world becoming such a thorny issue? While the whole world is madly communicating, making connections, networking and schmoozing, the only thing she wants […]

It’s a busy time in my garden. On Easter Sunday a couple of Mallard ducks spent the whole day swimming and lounging by the pool. I saw the male one poop into the pool. Should I chase them away? Are they the visitors from the wild side that we cherish and invite? Or are they […]

I guess only two wars are not enough. I guess three is the number. I guess the price of $55 million for a day’s worth of bombing is a great bargain for a cause that’s undefined and vague. Is any action always better than no action? Buddhists would not agree. The main goal should be […]

“Biutiful”, a movie that sneaks into your soul There is something in it that sticks to you… There is something in it that haunts you and doesn’t want to let go of you… There is something in it you cannot shake off…There is something in it that stays with you for a long time afterwards…. […]

No, I don’t understand the world anymore. You send your child to school and he may or may not return, depending on the whim of some troubled kid who happens to have an assault weapon in his backpack. You hear the argument: if all the people in Phoenix had been armed, they would have prevented […]

The only real question is how to prevent oneself from hollering, yelling, screaming and crying all day long. My daily ritual of reading the paper every morning is looking more and more like a masochistic exercise in pouring huge amounts of toxic waste directly into my brain. Where do I even start? Do I start […]

“This is why I live in Los Angeles”, I said to myself this morning, when I got up at 6am and stepped into the garden. The hills around me were wrapped in pinkish fog, as if a distant fire was burning somewhere far away, gently coloring the mist, the fog, the hills, the world. As […]

Introduction I was born in the city called Zagreb, in the republic of Croatia, in the country called Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. In the eighties, upon meeting my husband Goran who was studying in Belgrade, the capital of the republic of Serbia as well as the federal capital, I tried to live my life […]

Introduction I was born in the city called Zagreb, in the republic of Croatia, in the country called Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. In the eighties, upon meeting my husband Goran who was studying in Belgrade, the capital of the republic of Serbia as well as the federal capital, I tried to live my life […]