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Archive for April, 2009
April 28, 2009 at 8:28 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Spring & flowers go together like beer and chocolate, as we all know. Prague has about the most concentration of lilacs bushes I’ve ever seen. There are veritable purple groves across the city, especially in the broad squares and numerous little parks.
Purple is one of my favorite colors anyway, so when you combine this natural blue-based flower everywhere for the next few weeks, and add the fruity-slightly-sour aroma the blooms give off, this is as close to heaven as I suppose I’ll ever get near (should such a thing exist, which in all … oh forget it).
I walked through one of my favorite parks today, Valdtejnská Zahrada, where the colors are vibrant and the castle & steeple views are things of fairytales. This walled-in park has many benches, a nice pond, bronze statues of mythic gods, and a lone peacock that likes to belt out its mating call every so often.
Once hard to find, Veldtejnska is now popular with tour groups because its back entrance was opened a few years ago, which is just outside the Malostranska metro stantion exit. So close you can smell the “euro-dog” wagon selling some nasty street food to the all-too-fat tourists.
I like this park for its hidden corners where you can find some mid-day solace while skin-soaking vitamin D and even drink a beer if you want. In the center of a big, busy city, you don’t think of finding such a quiet spot.
Finally, the atrium of an office building has rotating art exhibitions for new and established artists. The house exhibit are these tribal heads, four feet tall and wearing interesting expressions, painted in complementary colors and distributed around the atrium. Some of even lighted from the inside, like a jack ‘o lantern. The latest artwork displayed (some for sale, too) shows some very excellent nude graphic works. One life-size print, framed, sells for 20,000 Kc, about $1000.
April 28, 2009 at 7:40 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
I’ve given Saul Bellow’s “Herzog” 75 pages and just can’t get into the meandering narrative. So that’s it for this book. Perhaps it’s my attitude. I liked “Humboldt’s Gift” which was really smart and combined weirdo Chicago drama with reflection and lots of idea philosophy. Maybe I’ll give Herzog another day.
April 24, 2009 at 6:09 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
Since coming to Prague I’ve had the chance to read lots more, with all my buzzing around on subways, trams & buses. So far I’ve read these titles:
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Skvorecky
The Alexandrian Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
Drop City by T.C. Boyle
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
Roger’s Version by John Updike
The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul
And of course, I also had time to finish a novel, too. 
Now to get the fucker published!
April 23, 2009 at 7:41 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Riegrovy Sady (tree grove park) is a big, tree-filled, ascending park that has some of the most beautiful views of Prague’s many spires, red-tiled roofs, and Prazky Hrad. It’s fun living in a city with so many hills. The views from different spots entertain the senses. Add to that the Vltava River meandering through town, and Prague is a happening place. I wonder if the original Bohemians back in like 900 knew what kind of real estate they were taking over at the time.
Bestest of all bestestes is that only Czechs know about this park. It’s far off the tourist-beaten track, so you’ll not find crowds, yelling Spanish & Italian teens, or Asians squatting down like they’re leaving a dump to get the best camera angle.
Not that I don’t like tourist. Some of them are my best friends. But like too much of anything, it spoils the buzz.
Anyway, Riegrovy will be my nearest park of choice after I move from Suchdol into the near-enough-to-central Prague come July 1st. It has come to pass that I must leave the suburbs and jump into the saucepan of PragLife. I’m looking forward to coming home after 2 or 3 a.m., since now I’ll have a night tram to carry my unsteady bone-bag home.
April 20, 2009 at 7:31 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Today coming home during the rush-hour from Strasnicka on the green line, I watched three college kids — a boy & two girls. The girls were teasing this boy unmercifully with flirting looks and talk (without Czech language, I had to imagine from passed looks, wise glances, and pouty-lipped phrases). This boy was enthralled by their youthful beauty (dirty blond and jet-black haired girls, both cute in that late teenaged, not-yet-fat stage; Wonderbras showing off the headlights like a 1920′s roadster). I don’t know what they were saying to this boy, but when they got on the train the three were talking and laughing, but now he sat mute, stunned, flumoxed by their overt sexuality exposed within this public forum.
And then things got steamy.
The girls were very casual with their talk and their closeness to each other. They would look at their male companion, smile coquettishly (only girls know how to smile this way), and then kiss. These weren’t lesbian kisses of passion or excess, but light snaps like we used to play Post Office as “kids” testing out the opposite sex’s saliva flavors. The boy held his book-bag over his lap. He sat silently, watching, listening to his girlfriends’ fertile talk, hot stares. The girls draped their arms around each other, and looked back at their boyfriend. Smile, primp, hand-holding. Kiss kiss. Smile. The coquettes’ flourish.
Simply wonderful.
April 15, 2009 at 9:43 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
On Easter Monday, I bussed-walked to the Prague Zoo, on the north side of town, across the river, set in a lush, hilly area. The layout is about the best I’ve seen vis-a-vis zoos.
Architects have used the hills to help animals live in more natural terrain that isn’t so man-made (mountain sheep are penned into a two-acre space reaching far up onto the steep side of a mountain) and not so cage-like (monkey habitats are made with water surrounding islands, keeping the little fuckers secure because certain monkeys don’t swim).
Zoo patrons view pachyderms from above (or sort of eye level), giving an unusual perspective. While the giraffes and some African antelope types get a 5+ acre habitat to stretch their legs.
I saw an American bald eagle, and the great American buffalo. I watched women hang their babies over pen barriers where, ten feet below, sat hungry-looking tigers. In this land of atheists, I wondered if I could find a Christian to throw to the lions. A group of six penguins swam in a circle and moved much like synchronized swim teams. The polar bear gave a swimming exhibition, too. A gorilla picked his nose to the delight of the infidels.
No screens separate humans from bats in the nocturnal mammal house, which pretty much freaked me out when two of the furry fliers wizzed past my head close enough for me to hear their minute echo screams.
Of course, no Prague venue is complete without a beer kiosk every 50 yards, and the zoo is no different. One thing I’ve noticed, happily so, about CR is that parks & concert venues & theaters don’t rip you off on beer/food prices. Typical captive-audience places in USA & Euro capitals charge $5-$7 for a beer. In Prague, I get half-pints of knock-you-on-your-ass beer for the equiv of $1.25.
This pick illustrates the popularity of beer in CR (they grow ‘em young, don’t they?)
April 12, 2009 at 10:15 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
The Whipping Stick. This is the Czech tradition on Easter Monday. Here’s how it goes …
Czech men go about town knocking on doors with a willow-branch whipping stick in hand. The women of the house upon answering the door must submit to a “whipping” — after which the women give the men some “treat”, often a colored Easter egg, or more likely, a shot of liquor. This Easter Monday rite takes place in the morning. After Noon-time, the women turn the table and dowse the men with water (cold shower from all that whipping? perhaps.).
The tradition behind the whipping is two-fold: the woman is kept obedient and pure, and also is prevented from “drying out” through the year. The “drying out” has been defined for me as, mostly, staying pretty and young and fertile. A typical spring rite, as folklore would have it. Likewise, in the afternoon dowsing men receive from women, there is a purification and wetting and general “sobering up” — such as Czech men naturally need (at least in this scenario, after having been given many many shots of liquor).
While contemporary Czechs still practice this rite (willow whipping sticks can be purchased for about 30 Kc on the street: and note, the colored ribbons are the traditional “treat” given to men by the women, so the many collected colored ribbons shows a dedicated male), whipping of women has fallen out of favor in Prague and other, large, cities.
Czechs have figured a way around this neo-ERA craziness: they get out of town on Easter Monday to find women whom they can whip and receive treats.
All I have to say about this tradition is this: Where’s my whip?!
April 11, 2009 at 7:54 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
The past week has been a complete opposite of winter’s drab, cold weather. Now we Praguers have lemon-yellow suns floating in periwinkle skies, 70-degree days that feel much warmer, birdsong and smiles and girls in skimpy tops and far too short skirts.
But who’s complaining?
April 4, 2009 at 9:49 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
I walked along the Vltava River at sunset, from Vysehrad to Charles Bridge (Karlov Most), a distance of maybe 1.5 miles. The night was balmy after a 70-degree day under yellow sunshine. This was the second time I was out today, as I’m finally able to soak in some sunshine since Prague’s six-month winter finally ended. Ugh!
This morning I had a Czech language class at school, in which I’m making a bit of progress: pronunciation, pronouns and gender endings, and some adjectives and interrogatives. Our teacher, Sylvia, has advised we take it slow and let it sink in over three or six months, at which time she said we’ll probably be able to say things and understand some.
After class I wandered about, took a tram here and there, worked in a pair of shoes but now think I bought a half size too small, then walked up Petrin Hill for some more photography.
But tonight along the river was fantastic. I found a spot, finally to take some evening shots of Hradcansky all lit up. I rested the camera on a stone pedastal and monkeyed with the iso gage to get the right balance, then snapped the pick using timer mode. This is the result. You can see lots of today’s picture (now uploaded) at my flickr page.
April 2, 2009 at 6:49 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Today it reached 64 degrees. No wonder I had to take my black mac off!
And finally, we in Prague have been talking about the possibility that winter is really over. This is a particular relief for me, because winter in Prague means NO SUNSHINE FOR FIVE MONTHS.
I think that gives you the picture. But for colorful springtime, enjoy the benefits of an international city: FLOWERS
