two posts in one day? impossible!

But no! It is not impossible! It is happening before your very eyes! This post will not be marathon length, however, merely a quick 5K with a children's fun run afterward.

Zach sent me an brief email promising a full description of some unspecified 'interesting events' (said email, I might add, has not arrived as of yet in my mailbox). He then asked the question, "How's the pot in Prague?"

My reply:

...he asks the guy who just got back from smoking a joint. uhh, it's pretty good. i actually got this stuff on saturday night from a random guy who approachedmy friend Chris, who's visiting from home, and I as we emerged onto the street from the illustrious marquis de sade rock cafe (which is fine during the week but on weekend nights turns into the place that hordes of middleaged british tourists descend upon--and i mean that literally, they all come in at once after shuffling around for 10 minutes outside in the cold and there are never less than two dozen of them--in order to leave immediately after consuming one drink which probably isn't even alcoholic, probably because the place is "a bit shabby, isn't it?"). come to think of it, the place really reminds me of espresso royale, if it were a little more touristy than college campusy (by which i mean location, not the actual place of business itself, and what are exchange students except tourists who stay for a really long time?) and that might be why i knew exactly what the mob of mummys and daddies would do. whatever, i only go to these places for the liquids anyway, and the marquis de sade does have the best beer selection i've found here so far, and they play moderately acceptable american indie rock most of the time (the playlists of the two stores under comparison here are actually frighteningly close--maybe someday i'll walk in there and the czech equivalent of nicole or i will be working).

can you tell that i'm stoned yet?

i actually might have a better connection than shady randomness in an alley downtown. let's hope.

the only thing i really have worth mentioning is that i've decided on a topic for my independent study: vera chytilova. the woman who showed us daisies is pretty much prague's expert on both czech and french new wave (peter hames, the guy who wrote that Czechoslovak New Wave book i was reading this summer, asked her to write an article on Daisies for some project he was working on--actually, she just sent it to me, i'll attach it). you'll hear more about this later. i have to run.

ciao (which is an acceptable thing to say amongst the youth of these parts)
ethan

Since I was stoned at the time I neglected to mention that it was pretty much the first pot I'd been able to get ahold of since coming here, aside from a joint Roya and I shared after some Swedish artist guy she met who was leaving the next day gave her the rest of his little bag. It's been one of the few frustrating things I've encountered here, and its partially due to not knowing anyone and partially due to really not having the time to pursue the whole thing, being as busy as I am and living under conditions which do not exactly faciliate such activies (ie. with a family, and two dogs who bark every time you open or close the front door).

On a somewhat unrelated note, yes, I have decided on a topic for my independent study, and why yes, it is Vera Chytilova. Why no, I was not stoned when I made that decision, although talking to someone whose English is at the level of my advisor, PhDr. Zdena Skapova, can be a quite similar experience--what I mean by that is she's really intelligent and knowledgeable about her field, and her English is good but just bad enough that she comes up with some interesting ways of putting things and can be hard to follow. I suppose I shouldn't talk because my Czech consists mostly of ordering food, paying for food, and semi-decipherable hand gestures that make me look like a (I'll use the adjective again, why not, it fits, we'll call it a theme) stoned mime with the munchies.

And I should mention that that class I mentioned signing up for earlier was cancelled due to lack of any student interest worth mentioning and shall thus not be mentioned at any point in the future.

And now, for the fun run: kinoeye. For all the film geeks out there. They did a whole issue on Chytilova. I love them.