"A woman who speaks 'perfect English' has been found on a rock in the sea off a Croatian island but is unable to say who she is or how she got there."

"The woman, thought to be in her sixties, was covered in cuts and bruises when she was spotted by a fisherman on the craggy outcrop on the isle of Krk. She was on her own crying.... Officials said she had no passport, papers or phone....  A resident who lives near by [said]: 'It’s weird that she was in the area at all. It is an extremely inaccessible part of the bay with terribly sharp rocks — literally razors that cut the rubber on your shoes. There is no life or animals except maybe wild boars or bears which know how to swim here in search of food, but this is a rarity because there is no food, nothing. A woman that age certainly could not swim that distance, it needs exceptional strength.'"

 
From "Mystery woman found on rock off Croatia" (London Times).

"As happens to so many of us, I was asked to write a sitcom for Croatian television. I’m an American ex-pat living in Slovenia..."

Wrote Noah Charney in The Atlantic — back in 2015 — in "Cracking the Sitcom Code/After signing up to write a script for Croatian television, I learned that virtually all TV comedies, from Seinfeld to South Park, follow a simple formula." I'm reading this because I'm in the middle of watching the complete 10 seasons of "Friends," and I'm writing about it episode-by-episode as I go. In the process, I've developed my understanding of the structure of sitcom writing, and this article is right in the zone for me.

Charney had written some plays, but never any television. He took the job, though, and he began by googling "How to write a sitcom." Then he watched a lot of sitcoms, looking for tips. He was looking to crack the code and discover the structure. He found "a highly-specific, minute-by-minute" formula, and he found it — the “sitcom code.” And (most helpfully?) he used a word-processing program that had a "sitcom format."

The Sitcom Code breaks down what needs to happen in each episode, by the minute. As Dan Richter of Demand Media notes, “Sitcoms, minus commercials, are typically 22 minutes long [with] a script of 25-40 pages. Every sitcom episode has a main plot (story A), as well as one or two subplots (stories B and C).” There are three main acts, divided by two commercial breaks (in most American TV), with 3-5 scenes per act. One of the distinguishing characteristics of sitcoms, as opposed to other forms of television, is that the main protagonist(s) barely change from one episode to the next... Therefore whatever happens in the episode, the situation must end largely where it began....

Each episode begins with the protagonist stating a goal or problem that must be solved, and which we understand will be solved by the end of the episode.... When writers sit around and prepare a new episode, many literally map out what will happen, minute-by-minute, in the main storyline and sub-storylines, filling in jokes later.

Charney describes one episode of one sitcom under the headings: "The Teaser (Minutes 1-3).... The Trouble (Minutes 3-8)... The Muddle (Minutes 8-13).... The Triumph/Failure (Minutes 13-18)... The Kicker (Minutes 19-21)...." I found this too boring to read, which taught me something about writing about a sitcom: A plot summary is unreadable. You've got to write interesting sentences. In my "Friends" writing, I do what I do on this blog, write about whatever interests me and only what interests me. (That's the formula for blogging. Feel free to use it!)

Back to Charney:

This deconstructionist approach to sitcoms was truly helpful when it came time to write my own, as I had minute-by-minute slots to fill and a strong idea of this endlessly successful and recycled series of plot arcs. But I still had to write the darn thing. The Croatian public were waiting.

Next time you settle in to watch a sitcom, keep this code in mind, and an eye on your stopwatch. You’ll be amazed at how tight and to-the-minute the formula is, yet marvel at the variety that TV writers conjure within this straitjacket literary form. Now, I better start Googling “what Croatians find funny…”

Charney is in a funny situation himself. But I don't get the last line. Did he write the sitcom or not? Obviously, the magic is in what you put into the structure. But structure is great. It's good to notice things that follow a tight structure. Apparently, even the sitcoms that seem powerfully innovative use this structure. I wonder if the structure has mostly to do with the placement of commericals and whether commercial-free shows stick to the formula. Maybe it's such a good formula that they do.

The most popular museum in Croatia — based on the quantity and quality of TripAdvisor reviews — is The Museum of Broken Relationships.

That's one interesting thing you learn from "These Are the 25 Most Beloved Museums in the World, as Ranked by TripAdvisor" (ArtNet News).

Also, the second most popular museum in the world is the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. The Louvre is only the 13th most popular museum in the world. The most popular museum in Germany is Topography of Terror. The most popular museum in Hungary is the House of Terror Museum.

You'd think art would be more popular, but perhaps it's just not that popular with the sort of people who go into TripAdvisor and write reviews.

Anyway, The Museum of Broken Relationships began as an art project.

Museum of Broken Relationships is a physical and virtual public space created with the sole purpose of treasuring and sharing your heartbreak stories and symbolic possessions. It is a museum about you, about us, about the ways we love and lose.

From the museum's website:

"I will vote against because I think that the referendum is not a festival of democracy, but a festival of oppression against a minority..."

... said one Croation who voted "no" on the question "Do you agree that marriage is matrimony between a man and a woman?" But 65% of Croatians voted yes on the referendum.

The referendum was called by conservative group In the Name of the Family after Croatia's centre-left government drafted a law to let gay couples register as "life partners".

The Catholic church's leaders have urged their followers to vote "yes" in the referendum. Nearly 90% of Croatians are Roman Catholics....

Croatia's liberal president Ivo Josipovic said he would vote against amending the constitution.

"We don't need this kind of a referendum," Josipovic said. "Defining marriage between a man and a woman doesn't belong to the constitution. A nation is judged by its attitude toward minorities."

Are you one of those people who think it's so obvious: Brak = Žena + Muškarac?

"We want to show clearly that the majority of people in Croatia is convinced that marriage is only a union between a man and a woman... And that all the rights pertaining to marriage can only be part of a union between a woman and a man," said Zelja Markic, head of the citizens' group "In the Name of the Family."

The conservative bloc said it's a matter of having "a Croatia in which same-sex couples cannot adopt children," Markic said in an interview with the Catholic paper "Glas Koncila." This would go against Croatian culture, identity and values, she said....

Council of Croatian Community in France files suit against Bob Dylan in a Paris court, accuses him of racism.

"He was without any doubt inciting hatred against Croatians," according to the Council of Croatian Community in France. What did Bob do? In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said (as quoted at the link): "Black people can sense Klan blood, Jews can sense Nazi blood and Serbs can sense Croat blood."

What does that mean "sensing blood"? Talking in terms of blood does have a racist feeling to it. He's a poet though, so there's that tendency to use vivid metaphor. Blood is one of the great metaphors — used in 49 Dylan songs — but it's complicated and refers to many different things. The word "sense" is vague, unlike say "smell" or "taste," and tied to "blood," it can cause too much confusion, and I don't recommend judicial relief.

Here's the Rolling Stone interview (which came out last year). Check the context and the actual verbatim quote:

Do you see any parallels between the 1860s and present-day America?

Mmm, I don't know how to put it. It's like . . . the United States burned and destroyed itself for the sake of slavery. The USA wouldn't give it up. It had to be grinded out. The whole system had to be ripped out with force. A lot of killing. What, like, 500,000 people? A lot of destruction to end slavery. And that's what it really was all about.

This country is just too fucked up about color. It's a distraction. People at each other's throats just because they are of a different color. It's the height of insanity, and it will hold any nation back – or any neighborhood back. Or any anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery – that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.

It's doubtful that America's ever going to get rid of that stigmatization. It's a country founded on the backs of slaves. You know what I mean? Because it goes way back. It's the root cause. If slavery had been given up in a more peaceful way, America would be far ahead today. Whoever invented the idea "lost cause . . . ." There's nothing heroic about any lost cause. No such thing, though there are people who still believe it.

The statement "He was without any doubt inciting hatred against Croatians" incites... negative opinions against... the person who makes that statement... in that I'm left thinking he's not too good at reading. But reading's an emotional thing. I'm continually amazed at what happens to words when they're swirled around with the readers' emotions.

"Croatian romantic nationalism emerged in mid-19th century to counteract the apparent Germanization and Magyarization of Croatia."

"The Illyrian movement attracted a number of influential figures from 1830s on, and produced some important advances in the Croatian language and culture. In the Revolutions of 1848 Croatia, driven by fear of Magyar nationalism, supported the Habsburg court against Hungarian revolutionary forces."

In Croatia, today's "History of" country (wherein we read the Wikipedia "history" pages of the world's 206 countries.)