The ?Bucharest Jazz Club? was still active, but it was constantly moved from one Culture House to another, and the member fees could no longer cover the mounting rent. At best, we were tolerated, since jazz was not one of the party leaders? preferences.

At club gatherings, we listened to records brought by those who had the luck to receive them from abroad, which they borrowed to the other members who could thus copy them on Soviet recorders, which did a very poor job.

Several bands would occasionally play live for us, but they became more and more scanty, since some bass or sax player always flew to the West. (129)

I was lucky with the jazz records my parents kept in their house. I didn?t have to start from nothing, as others did, and I didn?t have to start with the stuff they sold in front of the ?Muzica? Store. At first, I used to listen to music alone, then with some friends; there were only two or three of us who listened to this kind of music. We didn?t fit in with the high school trend. The others were in love with Pink Floyd, and I cut a dumb figure for having other tastes. Then we started going to ?Club A?, the architecture students? joint. It was the only pub which stayed open after 10 in the evening, and in those times they still served German beer, ?Radeberger?, 20 lei a bottle. They played jazz at this club. The first time I stepped in, Johnny Raducanu was playing. We also went to ?Hotel Nord?, where they played every afternoon: Dan Mindrila (now dead), Nicolae Simion (émigré) and Mircea Tiberian. It was a select, yet tiny public. The trend went with hard rock. (P. P., 55)

JUNK MARKET

There was nothing like the junk market, that was 100% pure fun guaranteed. Besides cars you could find any variety of shit. You could buy walkman players, they were all rubbish and there was no telling how they had been smuggled into the country. And they weren?t cheap at all, some 300 lei each. A better one could cost you 400 lei. The junk market was in Ghencea, in the suburbs. It was cool to go to the junk market and buy those posh T-shirts with rubber imprints, slightly salient. That was really rare stuff. You could also find Romica trainers, made in Bulgaria and really fancy, or their Romanian version, Rosprint. (114)

JUST

Adjective used repeatedly at every meeting. All measures taken by the Party were just. By extension, all ideas in keeping with the teachings of the Great Masters of communism were, they too, just. Any other idea was dangerous.

A joke: ?At a meeting, a comrade waffles on, repeating slogans and quotes. Someone at the presiding desk cuts in: Don?t you have any personal ideas, comrade? The man replies promptly: I do, but they are not just, so I don?t agree with them.? (51)