"film lovers are sick people"

Here are some quick notes on my recent film activities....

I finally got a chance to watch the DVD of Closely Watched Trains (1966), directed by Jiří Menzel, that I bought in the States but didn't watch before I left. A very good film, and certainly deserving of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award it won in 1968. Although it's a somewhat "normal" or straightforward coming-of-age story (not some of the the arty crazy business I know everyone loves so much), Menzel and writer Bohumil Hrabel give the film a genuine energy and sense of humor that I can't help thinking that even Zach would really enjoy. To put it in his words regarding the Czech work of Miloš Forman, it restores your faith in narrative filmmaking. It should be available in any decent video store--check it out.

On Friday I had the opportunity to see a recent Czech film called Cesky Sen (Czech Dream). It's a documentary-ish stunt pulled off by a couple of FAMU students (from Charles University's film school), who got a bunch of funding and put together a massive advertising campaign for a 'hypermarket' (think Costco or something like that), except the whole thing was a scam to see if they could get peole to show up for the 'grand opening' and then see how they would react when they found out the store and all its great deals were nothing more than a giant rainbow-covered canvas draped over some scaffolding out in a meadow. It's really hiliarious and pretty amazing social commentary at the same time--some of the things that people on both ends (advertisers and consumers) said were extremely interesting and exceptionally telling about the role of advertising in modern consumerism. The stunt provoked a heated debate in the Czech Republic media (which is deftly worked into the film itself) but at the very least it got people talking about these issues (which, in my opinion, supercedes the 'meanness' of tricking a bunch of people into traveling to a grand opening).

What sent us off to see this film was the fact that our music teacher, Pavel, was wearing a Cesky Sen t-shirt during our first class. A couple of us had heard about the film, and asked him about his shirt, to which he nonchalantly replied, "Oh yes, that's my brother's film." Turns out his brother is one of the two students who made and 'starred' in the film, and this Wednesday they're coming in to discuss it with us. The Czech Republic is such a tiny place with such a tightly-knit artistic community, that apparently this happens all the time. Awesome. I expect I'll be writing more about this in the future--in fact, I emailed a professor of mine from BU (he's got a full-time position at Emerson now, actually) and he told me that I should write an article about the whole thing because there are some journals that might be interested. Yes!

Unfortunately I don't think it's available in the US, or will even be released there anytime soon, which is sad because given the recent success of Michael Moore's work as well as that Super-size Me movie, Cesky Sen is something I think would do very well. Y'all will just have to wait until I bring a copy back.

Then, on Saturday, we went back to Kino Světozor, which is a pretty great art-house cinema (their slogan is "Popcorn Free 100% Culture"), to see Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-up (1966). I'm not going to say much about it except that it's a great film and the cinematography is fucking brilliant in a rather subtle way and I love it (the first scene in the park especially). It was really good to finally see the thing all the way through, and on a big screen no less. More trips to Světozor are definitely going to happen.

Well, that's it for now. My next post will be very interesting I'm sure--I'm switching host families. My current one and I are just not a good match at all. But I don't have time to get into it right now, as I'm actually on my way to found out when this whole thing is going down. I've also got a really fucking cool music post in the pipeline, and tons of other shit is going down--films, Lanterna Magika, and hopefully that Psychic TV show, which is on the same night as Lanterna Magika, but we're gonna make it work goddamn it!

come to me, my flock of hairy jerks

(here is an email i just sent to zach, jess and nicole. as i was typing it i realized i might as well post it here but i'm too lazy to fix it up so i'm just cutting and pasting. it applies to many of you, however. where are you? what are you doing? i have email! talk to me! ask me questions!)


yo. so. what's up with you guys? just because i'm thousands of miles away doesn't mean you can't bombard me with stupid emails about stupid boston!

i assume you've been reading my website, so you know what i've been doing, but i want to hear from you guys... did zach get a job? (probably not). is espresso royale a smoldering pile of ruins yet? (most likely). how's the house/neighbors/cats/friends besides you guys who are even more useless at staying in touch?

as for me, i went to see a show on friday night. it was at this place called palac akropolis, which is sort of like a bigger/better Paradise, except with more dance music i think. anyway, we saw this czech rock band called OTK which is an acronym for something, and a german electronic duo called tarwater. the czechs were good--very rock, but in a good way--sort of like spiritualized, with a bit of slowdive, and the more metal side of mogwai (although they could have pushed things a bit more on that end--i think they wimped out a couple times). i say slowdive partially because it's true and partially because the lead singer looked and (even weirder) sang JUST like the guy from The Doom Generation and Nowhere. Same hair, same voice... only czech.

anyway, i was high when i first walked in and the band started up so i got perhaps a bit too excited because it reminded me of home. i'm sure i had a huge goofy grin on my face. i was not, however, as excited as The Rock Golem, who was this odd wiry dude in an orange hooded sweatshirt (hood up, of course) who is perhaps the most enthusiastic fan i've ever seen at a show--when the band started to rock out he'd get really wound up, to the point of taking off his sweatshirt and helicoptering it around his head while howling some sort of gibberish. amazing.

he left after OTK, but The Statue stayed. The Statue was perhaps 13 or 14 years old, looked sorta like harry potter, stood at the absolute front of the room, both hands lightly placed on the stage, palms down, and NEVER MOVED ONCE. I don't know what was going on with him, but he seemed to be in some sort of adolescent music trance, very quiet but very intense, and absolutely locked into whatever was going on up onstage.

tarwater was pretty good--they're yet another german band who used to play punk and now make electronic music. it was just two guys, one of whom played the bass and manipulated something or other, and the othe who sang and manipulated more things. like other german bands of this sort, they struck a good balance between abstract noises and melodic/dancey songs (i'm thinking Lali Puna, Notwist, etc). the singer reminded me of carl from underworld, which is a good thing, although his lyrics were a bit more banal from what i could understand (they were all in english but of course he's german, so...). They sorta wavered between underworldy type stuff and being rather boards of canada-ish. which is not exactly ground-shattering but it was still pretty damn good. i'll take some good warbly synths and chopped up samples over regular guitars anyday, although my witty comment of the night was "there's a thin line between depeche mode and good music."

so that's that. i guess i should disclose future musical plans: the 29th of this month i'm going to see psychic tv, for which i am very excited. and there are tentative plans to take a trip to berlin to see tom waits in november (my friend roya, whose presence here has totally saved my life because i actually have someone to talk about art and good music with thank fucking god, has a friend who's studying in berlin, and tom waits is playing the day that classes end and our independent studies start--should be an amazing little trip).

I've acquired a little bit of music since arriving, but that's something i'll get into later. it's hard to actually buy cd's here--i went back to the record store where I spotted those david lynch soundtracks and realized that a) they're used and b) they cost a lot of freakin' money (blue velvet is 350Kc, which is about $14). hopefully i can find out about some cheaper record stores or something, and i have yet to hit up the second hand stores for used vinyl. fortunately, the guy who teaches our music classes seems really cool, and although his english is pretty poor i'm going to take him out for a drink after our class next week and pry some info out of him. he writes for newspapers and magazines in prague about music and is friends with the guys from OTK, so he seems well-connected and can hopefully guide me in the right direction.

and now i have to leave and get on the tram back to my (family's) wonderful suburban flat and eat some freaking lunch. send me emails, damn you all!

kisses, ethan

drama, and photos!

Not much happened on Wednesday and Thursday, not for me personally, anyway. For others, however--much drama. Apparently, one of the girls in the program here, Rachel, was harassed by a drunk guy after she got lost on her way home from the jazz club on Tuesday night. In my opinion, out of all the girls here, Rachel is probably the most sheltered/least independent/least confident. She's from Rhode Island, but for all of those who attend(ed) BU, think of your typical Long Island "I live in the Student Village and I LOVE it" type of princess. Yeah.

So, obviously, she's out. Booked a flight home that day. Here's where things get interesting though: Rachel came here with her friend Nisha. They're best friends back at Bowdoin, where they both go to school. On Wednesday, it was pretty obvious that Rachel was leaving. On Thursday, we show up for class in the moring and one of our ADs tells us that both of them are leaving. We are shocked--some of us, myself included, had pretty ambivalent feelings about Rachel, but we're all pretty unanimous in our affection for Nisha.

Much arguing ensued. After class on Thursday we were going to watch a movie, but instead we got into a big group discussion (with Rachel and Nisha present) about how much we want Nisha to stay. We were very tactful about it (I say we, but I should say the other girls--I kept my mouth shut because if I were to start voicing my opinions... well, things would've gotten ugly) but it became patently obvious that Rachel was being really manipulative. Nisha was giving really wishy-washy arguments about how she would be happier at Bowdoin and she's not so sure she's going to be 'completely happy' in Prague, etc, etc. Many statements of support and commiseration were put forth about how hard it is to be away from home and ye olde 'comfort zone,' but things ended up where they started--she was leaving too.

And then, Friday morning, I walk into the classroom to discover--Nisha! Apparently her mother told her to stop running away from her problems or something. We're all pretty happy she decided to stay, wresting herself free from the evil clutches of Rachel. (more hearsay/gossip: Rachel told Nisha that she didn't know if she could live with her back home because Nisha would be a reminder of her horrible experience, or something. What the fuck kind of friend says that?)

OK, enough of that. Here's the good stuff: Photos!

These were taken on our excursion yesterday to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, located in the eastern half of the country (Moravia--Prague is in Bohemia, the leftern half). There we checked out an international graphic design exhibition, which was interesting except for most of the typography stuff. The Czechs are especially reknowned for graphic design because during the whole Communist thing most artistic types couldn't do the work they might normally do, and thus moved into graphic design, illustrating children's books, and so on. Then we went to Moravsky Krumlov, an old castle that has these huge-ass nationalistic paintings by Alfons Mucha, of Art Nouveau fame, which are controversial because they connect the Czech Republic to the east, to Russia and 'pan-Slavism', which is a bit misleading because Czechs, and Prague especially, have always looked more toward Western Europe.

Anyway, you'll see none of that in the photos but check them out anyway: CLICK!

(please comment if that link doesn't work)
Next time: the return of lastbusanywhere (aka. I went to a show and it was awesome!)

lots to catch up on

Saturday we had to check out of the hotel by 10 but the “host family reception” thingie didn’t start until 5, so we had essentially the whole day to ourselves. I spent a good two hours sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the church down the street (Naměsti Míru) reading the history book we’ve been assigned, Prague in Black and Gold, which is a fascinating read, although a bit thick at times. Later, Roya and I tried to find a café where we could sit and read but we ended up at Café Slavia across from the National Theater, famous meeting place of Prague intellectuals turned slick touristy feed-hole (like about half of this city, it seems) and instead of studying we ended up talking about art incessantly because we’re kinda nerdy and that’s what we do.

So finally we made our way back to the hotel, and my family picked me up. My host parents are the Purkrtovi (translates as Purkrts in English): Petra and Tomas own a “textile store” according to the info I was given; it turns out they sell children’s clothes, which is a bit more specific. They’re about the same age as my parents, a little younger, and they have a 16-year-old son, also Tomas, who “plays hockey and tennis and is interested in computers.”

We chatted in broken English on the ride out to their flat, which, ironically, is very close to the Barrandov film studios (“Czech Hollywood,” they called it, to much laughter). Surprises followed: they live much further outside the city than I had anticipated, for starters, out in the area of the infamous socialist high rises, which are now decaying rapidly. Fortunately they live in a new block of flats, which led to surprise number two: their apartment is immaculate. I guess since I’d been seeing so many old buildings in the center of town I hadn’t expected to live somewhere so modern and shiny. It’s a big change for me, after three years of student housing in Boston; the place is so neat I feel like I can’t touch anything. I have a room to myself, which is pretty nice. It seems to be a study most of the time, so there are lots of books (all in Czech, of course) but I have a desk and a bed and enough drawer space for my clothes.

What I truly wasn’t expecting was how frighteningly close to your typical Americans the Purkrtovi are. They made a nice dinner for me of chicken and soya kebabs with French fries (not your typical Czech meal, they told me--no kidding), and they’re exceptionally friendly, but mostly they watch TV and like sports. Maybe it’s the language barrier that’s keeping me from extracting anything more exciting they might be interested in, but overall the similarities to your average American family are more striking than the differences. When they asked what kind of films I liked and I told them about a few of the Czech titles which are essentially the reason I decided to do this program in the first place, I got the same blank stare I usually get in America. Gah!

That night we watched “Meet the Parents” dubbed in Czech, which they apparently really enjoyed but I’m not so fond of even when I can make sense of what’s being said (we’d only had three Czech lessons up to this point). Aside from “Please” (Prosim) and “Thank you” (Dekuju) the only phrase I recognized in the whole film was “Nerozumim,” which of course means “I don’t understand.” Lick my balls, irony--I hate you.

Sunday the parent took me to Vyšehrad, which is the second large fortification/castle thing in Prague, up on a cliff opposite the river and a bit south of Hradčany, the main castle I linked to earlier. It was interesting—the view of the river is incredible, and there are plenty of statues and a crazy beautiful church, but the parents’ English isn’t great beyond simple logistical things, so it was a mostly silent stroll.

After that, the family left for one of Tom’s hockey matches. Here’s where the fun begins. I’d left my backpack, with my laptop and all my electronic goodies at the hotel, so I had nothing (no music! fuck!) to keep me entertained beside the history book we’d been assigned. I also had no way to get around and nobody to ask where an internet café might be, or how to make a phone call (I only had a local phone card). Not a huge deal, except it was Katie’s birthday and I still hadn’t talked to her since I’d arrived in Prague, and I couldn’t even send an email to apologize for my inability to figure out the phone situation. Copious moping ensued—here I was, with a family I could hardly communicate with and who don’t seem interested in the things I like, trapped in a strange apartment with no entertainment except Czech history (which is fascinating but not really what I felt like immersing myself in at the moment), and it’s my girlfriend’s birthday and I couldn’t even send her an email, let alone call her.

Monday the phone situation only got worse. I tried to get a phone card, but of course I bought the wrong one. Or rather, I got a local calling card because international ones are hard to find and supposedly one can make international calls after 5 if you use a special code. Nope. Or at least, I couldn't, and every time I tried to call information, I would ask the operator if they spoke English and they hung up on me. Gah!

Fortunately, I had Roya, Maggie, and Ashley to commiserate with in this really cool café called Ouky Douky (these crazy Czechs and their pronounciation). It's a bar/used bookstore/internet café with a really cool vibe and some Mexican food that's actually decent; I fucking love it. Eva K. also returned the CD-RW I gave her with Bjork's new album on it--her boyfriend filled it with mp3s of good Czech music and this rock band from Mongolia called Yat-Kha, who combine louder Mogwai-ish instrumentation with traditional Mongolian throat-singing. It's nuts (more on other musical discoveries later).

Tuesday I walked all over town trying to find the right kind of phone card. An hour later I finally got one, so I rushed to a pay phone only to discover that I can't connect to Katie's phone. Gah! Apparently you can't call a cell phone or something--that's the best reason I could come up with. Not to mention I only would have had nine minutes to talk to her--and this is a 500 crown phone card, mind you (about $18 US). Nothing left to do but email her and ask for her host family's landline number. By this time we'd exchanged emails about the whole situation, so I felt a little better, but email is really no substitute for actually talking.

Tuesday night was pretty freaking cool despite all my troubles. At 5 we finished up a really interesting architecture walk, the first of seven. The teacher for these is this guy Simon, a Brit who's "stuck" in the Czech Republic. The students from the previous semester left us some advice, part of which reads: "Take Simon out for a beer (or several)." He's a cool guy, extremely knowledgeable about the city and it's history and architecture (which are inseparable, really) and with a good sense of humor besides. It was decided that after the next walk we definitely have to take the previous students up on their recommendation. Sublimely surreal moment: pausing to look at some reliefs on the side of a early 20th century building depicting a couple of foundational Czech myths (the time period in which the Czechs were just beginning to revive their national identity after some 300 years of being dominated by the Habsburg empire out of Austria) as a group of blind women sang opera-ish songs next to us, and then--a dude walks by with a pot-bellied pig on a leash! And he's shouting at the thing in Czech! Amazing.

After the walk a few of us hung out in the Marquis de Sade café, which is awesome solely because that's a fucking great name for a bar/rock club. It was divetastic--reminded me of TT's in Boston, with interesting art on the walls, dingy as hell bathrooms, good beer, and a cool (if small) video rental room. And to top it all off, they had an experimental video section with Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Bunuel, Brakhage, and more! I don't think I'll ever rent anything, what with all the work I have ahead of me, but it's nice to know such things exist.
Then, after a disappointing vegetarian meal at this place called Country Life, which I'd had recommended to me but turned out to be a cafeteria-style joint with appropriately unappetizing food, we went to the Agartha Jazz Club to see Jiři Stevin, a Czech jazz impresario of some kind. At first it seemed like it would be rather traditional, but then Jiři busted out a flute solo where he kind of sounded like Damo Suzuki, stuttering abstract poetry over the mouthpiece, creating a great effect where it sounded like someone was playing along with his crazy utterings. From that moment on, he had me (the beer helped, I admit). Overall it was pretty traditional, although one song did bring to mind a good Tortoise song minus the electronics, but that's in no way a bad thing.

And now it's time to head out again. We're catching a show tonight by this German band Tarwater, whom I've never heard of before but according the blurb in the paper are a former punk duo who have moved into electronica (like Notwist, and a couple other German bands I can think of--good for you, Germany). Tomorrow we're off to Brno to see an international graphic design exhibit and some huge nationalistic paintings by Alphons Mucha (even if you don't know him you know his style, which was really popular in France around the turn of the 20th century thanks to his poster work--look him up). Hopefully on Sunday I can catch up on the rest of the week. Ahoj!

ya can't plan nothin'

I had no idea I was going to be so freaking busy here! I have lots to talk about but I think I need to contemplate and sort things out in my head before I post it here. Sitting in an internet cafe with lots of people talking and typing and already owing 60 crowns out of the 100 total that I have on me is not the best way to sort out the past four days in a coherent manner. I'll try to post something about my family later tonight, if I can, and hopefully get into some of the events of the past few days as well. It's been sorta rough but I'm slogging through and I'm really starting to get a deeper appreciation for Prague.

randomodernity #2: sad in praha

This is what my ipod's shuffle mode gave me on the way home from studying with some friends at really cool cafe/bookstore in Prague after a really frustrating couple of days which are explained in another post. It helped.

Come in Alone - My Bloody Valentine
Never Tell the World - The Free Design
Unravel - Bjork
Lion Thief - The Beta Band
City in Progress - Broadcast
Le Matin - B. Fleishmann
April and the Phantom - Animal Collective
Your God Eats Me! - Console
You're the Good Things - Modest Mouse (one of my favorite songs of theirs)
Making Time - The Creation
Showroom Dummies - Kraftwerk (started playing just as I arrived home)
Colour Me In - Broadcast
Salle d'Isan - Isan
Svefn-g-Englar - Sigur Ros (I fell asleep to this one)

the first week, continued

Wednesday night
After leaving the brewery, Roya and I walked up the Mala Strana (loosely, the 'Lesser Side,' talking about Andy Warhol. We passed this really interesting monument to Czechs affected by Communism; essentially it's a series of steps going up a hill, and on each step there is a figure of the same human, but as the steps move upward, more and more of the figure is removed and by the final step all that's left is a foot. At the bottom there is a plaque listing the number of Czechs who were executed, imprisoned, forced to emigrate, etc. It's really moving and apparently controversial; shortly after it opened someone tried to blow it up.

We were trying to find a place to eat, but we had moved into the super-touristy area, which is a bit depressing. Here are all these magnificently preserved buildings lining narrow cobblestone streets, and the street level is full of cheesy t-shirt shops and expensive pizza restaurants. Crossing the Charles Bridge, however, is amazing. It's lined with elaborate religious statues, and you get an amazing view of the river, the Old Town, and Prague Castle in all directions. Granted it's jammed with tourists, but the sun was just dropping out of sight and the beauty of the whole thing was enough to let me forget that for a moment.

I had to eat ham in the restaurant we stopped in because the girl brought us the wrong pizza and we didn't feel like explaining to her that we'd ordered the vegetarian one. This happens. Oh well. The bathrooms at this place were interesting as well--you have to walk through this vaguely Chuck E. Cheese-type place with big plastic slides and little coin-operated trains and rocket ships, and then the doors were only labeled with single letters, 'M' and 'Z'. Of course we learned what these letters meant the next day, but I had to figure out which was which by peeking in and looking for urinals. Oh well.

Thursday
Not a whole lot going on today--more Czech class, more orientation. We got the names, addresses and a little bit of info about our host families, but I'll wait to describe them until after I meet them. I had to take a nap in the afternoon; lingering jet-lag and tons of walking around makes the 7 hours of sleep a night I'm getting not quite enough. Went back to this restaurant called Doba with Roya, Nisha, and Rachel and ate a plate-sized potato pancake with a ridiculous amount of cheese. After that (I think--my memory is getting hazy) we met up with the rest of our group for drinks. It's not the easiest thing to find a cool place to drink around here, and tramping around with a group of loud American girls garners us a fair share of odd looks. Czechs, apparently, tend to be quieter and travel in pairs or trios. We found a really fancy cocktail bar and all of us ordered beer. We were the last ones to leave; Czech bars close pretty early. I zoned out and watched Czech television the whole time. Through careful deduction it was proclaimed that beer commercials are the same everywhere (although, to be fair, these were not as offensive as those fucking Coors Light ads--no twins, for example). Sleep was desperately needed afterward.

Friday
After our third language class and lunch in the restaurant in the basement of the building where SIT's office is located (I had a glass of red wine for the first time here--it was nice, considering I just asked for a 'víno červený' and not anything special) we took our last excursion of orientation week, a tour of the Jewish Quarter. It's a pretty fascinating place--given to the Jews in the 13th or 14th century (memory fails me again) because it's in an area prone to flooding (there was a unexpected and massive flood only two years ago), the original settlement was torn down, except for the synagogues and cemetary, and some 20 to 30 meters of soil placed over it around the beginning of the 20th century. There's an incredible amount of well-preserved Jewish artifacts in the area because Hitler decided to turn the Czech lands into a "Museum of the Extinct Race" and thus ordered his troops to collect and save everything. In his more cynical moments, our tour guide said, he thinks Hitler got his wish--the Nazis were pretty efficient in their destruction of Jewish history everywhere else in Europe.

Our tour guide was an interesting guy--an American who's been in Prague for three years now and is the only Conservative/Reform rabbi in the whole country. On our tour we saw, including him, three of the five rabbis in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately he was quite the talker, and I started fading about halfway through. I'd go into more detail about the things we saw except my memory of them is foggy (the theme of the week, apparently). The Pinkas synagogue was interesting--it's been converted into a memorial to all the Czech Jews killed by the Nazis (their artifacts were preserved, but the Jews themselves were not so fortunate. The names and dates of all 70,000 Jews exterminated by the Germans, according to their records, are written on the walls, covering pretty much every readable inch. Outside the synagogue was the cemetary, in use from the beginning of Jewish residence in Prague until the end of the 18th century--some 800+ years--and containing a huge jumble of ancient headstones. Because the Jews weren't allowed to buy more land, but the cemetary was full, they had to pull up the headstones, put down some more dirt, bury the recently dead, and mix all the headstones together on top. It's an intense place to visit, although rather peaceful in a way--the clutter of the headstones underneath a canopy of big leafy trees gives a sense of a community forced into claustrophobic conditions that you just won't find in other cemetaries. Our tour got cut short because it took us a long time to get through just a few locations and we didn't get to visit the Old New Synagogue, which is apparently a really beautiful building dating back to the 13th (?) century. Eva and the tour guide recommended we visit it sometime.

For dinner, a bunch of us visited Meduza, on Maggie's recommendation. The pierogies were amazing! Probably the best food I've had in Prague--imagine the dumplings you get in a Chinese restaurant but filled with potatoes and cheese, topped with carmelized onions, and a big glob of creamed spinach in the middle. The guy behind the bar spoke excellent English and sent us to this bar called The Three Pigs (I forget the Czech name) which turned out to be more of a regular restaurant, so we had a drink and then went back to Radost FX, which, as I guessed, was the trendy place to be on a Friday night, thanks to the dance club downstairs. It was pretty cool, although pretty much exactly what you'd imagine a trendy European bar/club to be. The record store/video rental place that they run out front is great though--I was browsing through the music, which is mostly foreign (i.e. American/Western European) and I spotted a bunch of David Lynch soundtracks (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart) most of which I've never been able to find back home, especially used.

Anyway, at the bar I spilled a German guy's drink and then got into a big conversation about perceptions of America in Europe and Germany. It was interesting, but he was one of those obviously lonely, pretty nerdy guys who go to trendy places by themselves. I liked hearing what he thought about America though (I'm not getting into politics right now).

And that's pretty much it. Today we meet our host families, so I'll have lots more to say later, I'm sure.

praha!

Monday
What a long day; we arrived at 9:30am local time (about 2 in the morning to me) and our advisors wouldn't let us go to sleep. Apparently if we stay up and go to bed at a normal hour then it will help with the jet lag. They had a full day planned for us: checking in at our hotel, lunch, then loads of orientation and paperwork, including some questions to help place us with an appropriate host family. Apparently all but one of the families have hosted american students before, which should be really helpful in getting familiar with the city. We move in with them on saturday. After that i took a quick nap, which helped a lot because i was really, really tired and starting to get a bit overwhelmed. Then i went to dinner with a couple of the girls, which boosted my energy quite a bit, and then we took a walk down to the vltava, the river that runs through the middle of the city. The view from the bridges is amazing; ornate apartment buildings line the streets, old towers and spires are all over the place, and there's an amazing view of Prague Castle, the historic seat of the government. It looks like this: http://www.neystadt.org/john/album/yllas-copenhagen-prague/prague-castle.jpg. Crazy, huh?

The rest of the city is almost as beautiful and i can't wait to explore it more. The language thing is not too bad, but it's going to be a challenge. Most people speak basic english and most menus are in both languages, but it's still difficult to communicate. We start intensive czech classes on wednesday--three hours a day, five days a week, for two weeks. I'm excited, as things will get a lot easier once I know Czech better.

Tuesday
Today we had more orientation stuff to help us learn the basics of what we need to do to get by in Prague. Part of this was the 'drop off,' sending us out in pairs to various parts of the city where we had two assignments: first we had to discover as much as we could about the location we were sent to, and how it related to "Arts and Social Change," (which is the theme of the program for those who don't know). My partner Nisha and I were sent to Jungomannovo namestí, which is named after the scholar Josef Jungmann, who was one of the people responsible for reviving the Czech language during the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. There's a big statue of him in the square, but we didn't find out who he was until later when the Academic Directors told us.

All we were told was the name of the square; everything else we had to find out on our own, which was difficult because the only people we could find were older Czechs who didn't speak much English, and German tourists. Directly behind the statue is a church. They were having a concert that night, so we figured this was what we were supposed to discover. The church has an interesting history; in the 14th century it was a center of radical Hussitism (Jan Huss was a Protestant reformer, sort of like Martin Luther except Huss actually preceded Luther). Over the years the church was partially destroyed, and restored in the 16th century, I think. Emperor Rudolph II handed it over to the Franciscans, and it's been a church and monastary ever since, although this was interrupted during the Communist era, from 1950-1990. One of our ADs, who is Czech, said it was interesting to hear what us Americans assumed about the church, because we were asking the employees when the church had been turned into a cultural center (there was an exhibition of pre-WW2 photographs in one of the smaller rooms in addition to the concert). Turns out that Czech churches have always been associated with the arts, holding concerts and various other activities.

And this wasn't even the building we were supposed to find! Turns out there's also a piece of prominent Cubist architecture from the early 1920s in the square as well. Prague, along with Paris, was a center for Cubist and Surrealist art back when it was the hot new thing to do. It definitely says something about Prague that there are two interesting (and relevant to our topic) buildings in one location.

The second assignment was to find out as much as we could about a theme; other people got things like Food or Transportation. We got Entertainment, and decided to walk around to as many cinemas as we could find and see what they were like. There's a decent range, from smaller art-house places to big multiplexes. They were showing a lot of American movies, but a few Czech ones too. One place had an especially interesting slogan: "Popcorn Free Culture 100%" surrounding a piece of popcorn with a red circle and slash over it (think the Ghostbusters logo). They show a lot of international films (with Czech subtitles unfortunately), American and English films (like Fahrenheit 9/11 right now), and at least one Czech film a week, subtitled in English. I'm sure I'll be back there a couple of times; I haven't been able to find out much about what current Czech film is like and I'm dying to find out.

After all this we had a group dinner at Radost FX, which is a very trendy place right across the street from the office where all our classes are, serving exclusively vegetarian food. Having Thai vegetables over rice was a welcome respite from typical Czech food I'd been eating. Although there are usually vegetarian options on the menus, they usually involved super creamy pasta concoctions or egregious cheese slatherings.

Wednesday
Our first Czech class. Fortunately, pronounciation in Czech is relatively uniform and clearly evident in the writing (whereas English is a disaster with all its silent letters and dipthongs and words like live or read which are written the same but entirely change meaning when you pronounce them differently). Grammar, which we haven't gotten to yet, is much more challenging. Despite the difficulty, I'm really glad we're spending a lot of time on learning Czech. Only young people here really know any English; if you need help from an older person you're usually out of luck. And although restaurants are usually pretty good about printing menus in Czech and English, that's about it as far as businesses go.

After class, we took a trip over to the Staropramen Brewery for a tour. Beer is pretty important to Czech life; it costs about the same as bottled water (which usually works out to about a dollar for a half liter of beer that's at least decent if not excellent). It was pretty interesting to see the inside of a major brewery; the scale these guys produce on is amazing. Big vats and tanks and whatnot.

Afterwards we went to the brewery's restaurant, which is the only place in Prague where you can get their unfiltered beer, which was pretty excellent. Most of the group left, but Roya and I stuck around to chat with the two Academic Directors, Eva and Luke (a really interesting married couple whom I'll talk about later) as well as another Eva, who coordinates our homestays as well as various other tasks for the program (I'll call her Eva K. for now).

This is exactly what I was hoping that being in Prague would be like; leisurely chats with incredibly smart and interesting people. Turns out that Eva K. is really into all the Czech films that inspired me to do this program, as well as various kinds of music I'm into (She really, really, really wants me to burn her a copy of the new Bjork album). Her boyfriend, who hopefully I'll get to meet sometime soon, is into the same stuff as well. After that, both Evas, Roya, and I had a long talk about the differences between American and European education which Eva and Luke's 8 year old daughter did her homework (this is in a bar, mind you--I love Prague!). Roya herself is a pretty damn interesting person--she studies essentially the same things I do, with more of a focus on the art side of things instead of film, but essentially encompassing all those geeky academic things I love so much (gender studies, theory, etc).

I have so much more to talk about, including my first stroll over Charles Bridge and through the really touristy part of Prague, but I'm getting tired and I have Czech to study and I've been on the internet in this cafe for almost and hour and a half so I'll leave it at that for now. Hopefully I can post again tomorrow night, because on Saturday I move in with my family and I'll have even more to write about. Whew. So freaking busy! But in the best possible way.

Dobrou noc!
(good night)

travel

Here are some notes from traveling; I don't think I'm going to have enough time to get into what I've done since I got here, but rest assured, details are on the way. Short summary: this place is amazing. But you probably could've guessed that.

1005am, 5.sept.04, train from Kingston to New York
This train is cruising through some seriously beautiful parts of coastal RI. Old houses, marshes, and little salt water ponds with families of ducks floating in them. I have packed far too much shits, as usual. After spending a week sitting around with all my stuff scattered around my childhood bedroom, I have discovered this new attachment to my material belongings. And this, after hating life eternally while moving out of my apartment because I HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF GODFUCKINGDAMNIT. I've been rather sentimental lately. And moody.
11:22am
Things aren't pretty anymore. Connecticut is like a concrete armpit with brown-green pubes. Peeing on the train is an entertaining challenge, although this may only apply to males. Taking business class was a good idea: I have plenty of leg room and an outlet to plug my laptop into. I reorganized my ipod in the wake of the giant file swap conducted with Zach and Nicole, as well as the fact that I no longer need to have as much "normal" music to play at Espresso Royale. I am in the midst of the assigned reading for my program: The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague and Václav Havel's The Power of the Powerless. Both very interesting, although who knows if I'll finish before I get there. The fact that The Magic Lantern is about the 1989 "Velvet Revolution" is making Prague sound a lot more exciting than it can possibly be. I've decided this is good.
12:17am
New York, of course, is far worse than Connecticut.

between 6-7 hours later, somewhere over Nova Scotia
Whew. Travel is crazy. I did a lap around Madison Square Garden with all my freaking gear in tow, looking for the hotel where my car was to pick me up and take me to Kennedy airport. The drive to the airport was interesting. The driver was a real nice guy, foreign of course. When I said I study film he told me I should call him when I get back because he knows lots of good actors. We griped about the respective political conventions we had to deal with, and I think I bought him a coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts we stopped at, although he seemed to know the people behind the counter and perhaps he has one of those deals where he brings people like me in and thus receives his coffee for free.
I'm somewhat conflicted about the ride... It was a black-Lincoln-Towncar-and-driver-with-a-tie kind of deal. I felt very bourgeois, which was of course compounded by the fact that my father is paying for all this. I guess I should get used to it. My imperialist dollars will go a long way in Prague.
At the airport, I met six of the other people in my program. They all seem pretty intelligent and cool, and everyone is excited, obviously. Lots of the usual introduction-type stuff. I'm not the only one who hasn't finished the reading or started the paper we're supposed to write. I'm not going to say much about the girls (which is how I shall refer to them from now on--"the girls") because people have a habit of changing once you get to know them and I always fuck up snap judgements anyway. All I'm hoping for is to gain a couple of friends or at least have some decent people to hang out with.
Takeoff was sublime. Interesting view of Long Island from my window seat, and then--clouds! Clouds are great, and the texture of this overcast day was amazing when viewed from above. The relatively uniform cloudscape reminded me of a white desert--small grooves and undulations stretching out as far as I could see. Fascinating how the two different elements behave so similarly.
The clouds broke just in time for me to get a God's-eye view of Boston. Haha! I even spotted Warren Towers. Gave if a good stare as I cruised past. Goodbye, shithole! It was a beautifully poetic moment; I almost cried except then I remembered that I won't have to look at that ugly prison or serve coffee to the jerks who live in or around it for the next 4 months! Yes!
Lufthansa food is decent. I forgot I ordered the vegetarian meal and had the first of what I'm sure will be many awkward encounters with someone whose first language isn't English. Sorry German stewardess! I am an idiot. I got what was essentially a veggie burger served without a bun, with wild rice, some veggies, couscous, and some sort of bean salad. Not bad. Maggie said she didn't have a problem eating vegetarian during her summer program in Prague, so maybe that's one problem I won't have to worry about.
I felt sorta bad scarfing down my meal while everyone else waited, but then I realized that I finally found one advantage to being a vegetarian--you get your meals first on planes! Yes!
Speaking of Yes! all the drinks are free on these here international flights and the friendly and attractive squadren of German flight attendants practically try to drown you in the stuff. I was feeling some sorta malingering unease but then I got some red wine, my food, and a coffee and I'm ok. I'm rambling here but I can't get at the schoolwork in my bag until someone clears my tray. And I have to pee! Ack!
minutes later...
Hmm... I've got three empty cups here... and maybe if I borrowed one from the quiet Asian lady next to me... it's possible, very very possible...

6:40am German time, somewhere over England
That big glowy smudge down there is London!

7:55am German time
Farms are pretty.

8:20am, on the second plane, destination Prague
Gayest German flight attendant ever! Hilarious! Yes!

Tomorrow: Praha.

planes and trains!

This'll be real short because I'm leaving in literally five minutes (!) but man oh man am I excited. Granted, I'm facing 3.5 hours on a train, 4 or 5 hours of sitting around in loungey passenger areas, and probably 8 or 9 hours of economy class airplane travel, but still--I'm going! Finally!

The past week has been an odd kind of limbo--Katie's gone, I'm in Rhode Island sorting through my things, my friends from Boston are all moving into new places (Zach and Nicole's by the way, is amazing. I already reserved a room for when I get back. Yeah, they have an extra room), Chris Burke left on his own European adventure...

My dad just made me an omelette with asparagus, tomato, red pepper, and onion. Goddamn it was good. Yesterday my mom took me to Crazy Burger one last time--it's probably my favorite restaurant down here, and probably the only place where you can get real vegetarian food that isn't just an afterthought or a concession to dieters. And homemade fries. And homemade ketchup! Wow!

I'm going to miss my dogs, even the big drooly-mouthed freak who claws me with his giant paw and breathes like an asthmatic diesel engine. Supposedly Czechs really love their dogs. Maybe my family will have one.

I have a bunch of pictures I put online, but the links will have to wait. I gotta go!

Next time I write, I'll be in Prague. Wow.

randomodernity #1

I'm going to update this with humorous little notes when I get a chance, but for now just gaze at my ipod's cleverness, the little bastard. This is the first in a series. Oh yes.

This happened on a walk over the Mass Ave. Bridge, down the Esplanade, around BU's campus dropping off books, scamming a last free drink from Espresso, then riding the T out to Zach and Nicole's new place.

Gravity Rides Everything - Modest Mouse
instance - Scanner
Muslimgauze / Paul Simon Ladysmith / Miriam Makeba - DJ /Rupture
Rose of Sharon - Xiu Xiu
the cowboy... - Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Hold Hands And It Will Happen Anyway - Liars
Run Run Run - Velvet Underground
I'm in Love With a Girl - Big Star
Queen of The Savages - The Magnetic Fields
Descarriada (Broklyn Beats) - DJ /Rupture
Distance - Smog
Fun House - The Stooges
Onnur minning - Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson and Sigur Ros
carrot (hrvatski's nightvision) - hrvatski
t-shirts - peanut butter wolf
untitled blues - Albert Ayler
I'll be OK - Aesop Rock
The Yest and the Y'all - Aesop Rock
The Trance of Travel - To Rococo Rot and i-sound
Less of Me - Teenage Jesus and The Jerks

pleasure

Reading any of the books I've been assigned for my program is anaethemic to my rapidly evolving drinking habit ("I have to build up my tolerance! Czechs consume more beer per capita than blah blah blhahlahahahdfkenzzzzzzz.... what were we talking about?") so I've been watching films. Fuck yeah! This is the whole reason I'm doing this Prague thing anyway.

Warning: You are entering film geek territory, the land where I ruin everyone's fun and ramble on and on about things very few people care about.:1:

The first selection from my stack of brand-new Czech DVDs: Conspirators of Pleasure, directed by Jan Svankmejer, surrealist filmmaker who got his start doing animation and puppetry. Puppetry is actually very important and widely respected as an art form by the Czechs, and although Svankmejer definitely has an interest in (and a talent for) live-action filmmaking, his roots are clearly evident in his work. An interesting blend of the two, actually; the craftsmanship involved in this film is amazing, which is fortunate as there isn't a single line of dialogue, so the story is carried entirely by the images and sound design (a tactic not enough films explore).

As far as the content of the film goes, it's a very interesting look at fetishes and obsessions, and, more importantly, how these fetishes affect interpersonal relationships. This theme encompasses a broad spectrum of relationships: neighbors, spouses, professional/business, television.:2: Of course, one of the reviewers quoted in the DVD's insert (I spit at thee, Steven Holden of the New York Times!) has to draw a connection to "Life Under Communism!!!!" which in essence nails the film to a ideological plank and severs it from any broader context:

But Mr. Svankmajer's vision is much more than a surrealistic rendering of standard Freudian notions of repression and sublimation. Encountering one another through the day, these obsessive ritualists exchange the sly, knowing glances of conspirators in a political plot. Not only do they recognize one another as ''freaks,'' to use contemporary parlance, but their unquenchable perversity also unites them in a shared resistance to the puritanical conformism of Eastern European culture (or at least that culture before the fall of Communism).

Erm, except for all the info you're given, the fucking film could take place in any major European city and if you can look past things like obviously European license plates, even any major American city. Since I'm going to be talking about Czech (and hopefully Eastern European) art so frequently on this blog I might have to paste this into the banner up top, but here's what Milan Kundera has to say about this (largely Western:3:) tendency to impose political dimensions onto every freaking piece of Eastern European art ever:

If you cannot view the art that comes to you from Prague, Budapest, or Warsaw in any other way than by means of this wretched political code, you murder it, no less brutally than the worst of the Stalinist dogmatists. And you are quite unable to hear its true voice. The importance of this art does not lie in the face that it pillories this or that political regime but that, on the strength of social and human experience of a kind people here in the West cannot even imagine, it offers new testimony about mankind.

I'm not saying that a political reading isn't possible, but as I learn more about Czech film I'm starting to see more and more of this grafting of Cold War mentality onto films that do so much more than just attack Communism. Conspirators of Pleasure was made in 1996 for fuck's sake! That's seven years! Let it go! Sigh. The Holden quote wouldn't bug me so much if it weren't the first damn quote on the insert, although the Roger Ebert snip that follows is actually somehow perceptive,:3; and I guess the rest of Holden's review is okay, sorta.

Also on the DVD is a short by Svankmejer called Food, a truly funny and weird set of three vignettes (Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner) ostensibly about food but, just as Conspirators of Pleasure isn't really about erotic fetishes, but the way humans interact as a consequence of the strange manifestations of their urges and desires, Food is an examination of the way people treat each other and themselves, viewed through the lens of another primal instinct--eating.

For all my blabber about "themes" and whatnot, one can easily turn off the ol' thought blob and enjoy Svankmejer's films purely on the basis of their incredible visual style and exceptional sound design. And hey, they're funny too.

I need to see more of this stuff. Anyone who credits the Marquis de Sade, Freud, Luis Bunuel, and Max Ernst for their "Professional Expertise" (at the head of the credits, no less) can't help but pique my interest.

:1: But SHOULD, godfuckingdammit.
:2: Like it or not, the interaction between producers and consumers of TV is a relationship. It's a kinda crap and rather one-sided relationship, but still...
:3: Save the Communist censors, that is, who had an amazing ability to extract "offensive" political subtexts from just about anything. In one book on Czech film I read, the author mentions a photograph of Prague's equivalent of hippies on a float during the 60s flashing peace signs included in a book published by some rather ardent State watchdogs. The Communist caption reads that this means "Two minutes until we attack!"
:4: Roger Ebert can stick both his thumbs up his own ass, as far as I'm concerned. guh.