The Czech holiday for King Wenceslaus (or is it Saint W ?? … or is there a difference?) made teaching a ghost story on Monday & Tuesday. Today I accepted a late cancelation on arrival (cha-ching!), and Asia suggested I look on the bright side: “Any kind of walk after lunch HAS to be good.” Thanks, sweetheart 
))
That leaves tomorrow and Friday, for which I’ve got this to say:
more stories from students about walking in “the nature.”
Asia knits and sews. She used to make dresses for her Barbie dolls as a girl. She can relieve a wayward button of its hangdog position with a snip of her mini-scissors and in minutes there stays a newly sewn button to its sterling self.
Her knitting, though, is masterful.
She has just completed Project “B” … a woolen handbag knitted in patterned designs.
 Sequins adorn both front and back panels. The handle is woven with heavy wool yarn, with a length of rope sewn inside for easy carrying. The bag is light yet roomy. Best of all, it’s unique.
As if anyone who knows me doesn’t already know, I’ve now published The Village Wit as an ebook on Smashwords.com, a huge ebook distribution company site. The platform services nine different types of ebook reading (retailing), including Apple iPad and Sony Reader and B&N Nook. These sites will also carry the book on their online sales sites. That’s the best news of all.
With a new email signature:
Mark Beyer
Author of THE VILLAGE WIT
Sample or purchase the ebook:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/25306
Purchase the print edition:
https://www.createspace.com/3476161
Web sites: http://www.bibliogrind.com and http://www.european-city-parks.com
and sending an email out to every friend/family member in my address book, I’ve covered the first three bases of a long game with marketing this book.
I want to send out ebook samples for “review” at independent book-reader sites. Reviews are always helpful … at least for the simple exposure. I’ll be interested to see if they have the policy not to review self-published books. If so, I’ll hit them with a nicely worded email that asks the simple question: isn’t it hypocritical to refuse such reviews when you accept advertising for the same? But this is just conscience talking now.
Anyway, the book is out in the world, and awaits a nudge, some readers, reviews, and a chance to rise within the heap of all the other books on the “shelf.”
Friday night dinner: American-style pancakes.
Asia got turned onto these two weeks ago in London, so we had to make them … and it looks like we have a new Friday night dinner: a short stack with fresh fruit, whipped cream, and smothered in maple syrup.
Yum.
The proof copy of THE VILLAGE WIT has arrived. I must report that it looks better than I’d thought it would. The cover is well done, glossy, thick bond paper; the interior is clean, with dark print, sturdy pages, and uniformly trimmed. CreateSpace has done a nice job with THE VILLAGE WIT.
I’m going to sit down and page through the proof and make sure all is in order, then, later today, approve it for copy-ready sale. That might take a day or two. I’ll have a FaceBook page ready for the print edition launch, and begin to coordinate the marketing b/w e-book and print sales.
It must be said: I feel proud of this book.
Now onto the completion of the next book: “Of Sirens and Muses” … due out Summer 2011
Yesterday we experienced an authentic Czech wedding, outside of Prague.
The ceremony took place at Kutna Hora’s town hall (an old castle), in an historic hall that dates from the 1500s. This hall also has family history for Milena, whose parents were married here, and where she received her school diploma.
The bride and groom meet their guests outside the hall. They greet family & friends, stand for photos, and walk through the crowd and into the building.
Guests wait in the courtyard for the previous wedding to finish and people leave. Then on into one antechamber, then up into the main hall (a government meeting room). Here the bride and groom enter last, followed by flower girls who hold the bride’s train.
A town official calls the crowd to order, and invites the mayor or council head into the room. He wears the medallioned necklace distinguished for his place. The ceremony is rather quick, official, with the bride & groom exchanging vows. After vows, they alternate signing their marriage license, in front of the entire wedding party, taking a seat in a big chair, watching over each other. Now they are presented to the guests as husband & wife. Of course, all of this took place in Czech, so we didn’t get the language, although Asia caught a few similar from her Polish.
Now married, Milena & Honza recieve the guests in the hall. Theirs was the last wedding of the day, so the photographers took shots in the hall, and family was able to linger. The family then lines the stairway that leads from the hall into the courtyard, to publicly receive the new couple.
The celebration took place at Dacicky restaurant, a big place only a few hundred yards away, through the center of Kutna Hora. Dacicky has an outdoor garden and a long dining hall and a tap room. The indoors was nicely NON-SMOKING … yeah!!
In the Czech Republic, the custom is to take a seat once in the restaurant and HOLD IT like you’re defending the country. There was limited mingling of the guests, at first. And then, after the first feeding (four were scheduled), people began to loosen up. Asia and I sat in the main dining room, which had window looking onto the garden and buffet … and the whole pig roasting on the spit.
First feeding: cold meats, cheeses, fresh fruit, bread, and sweets. Czechs like their hams and sausages and hot peppers and such. This was a nice feast.
An half hour later, Milena & Honza arrived, and the party had a champagne toast in the garden. Toasts are plentiful, beginning with the groom, then onto family, and pretty much anyone else who had something to say.
More merriment, and then the SECOND FEEDING: roast pork on the spit. To die for. Crunchy skin, moist meat, horseradish sauce and mustard and big pearl onions and cherry peppers, along with the continuing cold buffet. I went back three times for roast pork over the next two hours.
Milena and Honza have been taking dance classes for a year or so. Tonight they put on a little production as their first dance, using Dirty Dancing’s “Time of Your Life” to show off. They are quite good, and had some fun with the crowd (the “lift” sequence, where Swayze carried Jennifer Grey, was done with Honza being taken up with help from his friends, flying across the room like a jet liner).
Asia and I had a nice dance, slow and romantic. Then we quit the floor. We were thinking of leaving early to catch a 7pm train back to Prague, but then decided another hour & a half would be fine. We’re glad we stayed because we saw some competition.
 Czech’s play Bride & Groom Games, pitting the “new couple” in demonstrations of their working together and competitive spirit. Milena and Honza are both tall drinks of water, well over six feet. They competed in the Czech version of the “potato sack race” (their feet tied together) and hopped to the finish line (Milena almost went head first into the rose bushes trying to catch up, almost beating Honza at the finish line); they had a watermelon seed spitting contest, using chewing gum—Milena won by 3ft. They lit votive candles, after first having to run through the crowd asking guests for matches; Milena was disqualified for gathering all the votives in a bunch and speed-lighting them. They used CDs for a discus competition, trying to land them inside a ribbon ring. They also threw mini spears at a paper target. In all, Milena one the competition 5-4.
Asia & I wandered around, watched the pig continue to warm-roast on the spit, had a nice coffee in the garden, watched some kids run around, went into the tap room for a beer.
THIRD FEEDING: more cold foods, with smoked salmon, deviled eggs, smoked cheese, and more sweets (nut crumb cake, sugar cookies, mini eclairs &ect). We were stuffed to the gills. And it was time to go.
A swift taxi ride to the train station, and an hour’s cruise into Prague, we were home by 10:45. Nice evening, great food, fun people. Next wedding: in three weeks! A Czech-USA pairing.
Milena is getting married today. She’s the clone of Julia Roberts, and my private student who has passed the ICFE. She comes from the small town of Kutna Hora, about an hour outside Prague. The wedding is at 1.30; it’s a beautiful late-summer day. There’s going to be an international guest list, as Milena lived in Germany for seven years, and has friends around the world. This means Asia & I won’t be the only ones unable to speak Czech, and so will find the common language of English one way to enjoy the day.
Asia is wearing a black dress with a delicate, ornate necklace; I’m in a blue suit with cobalt tie. We’re taking a camera.
The wedding is at the town hall; the reception at a local restaurant. Traditional Czech food (a whole roast pig) and wine/beer. Dancing. Bride-Groom games. Etc.
We’re bringing a camera.
London is always fun for me. They speak English there, which, after two years in Czeko, is a nice change … even for two days.
We flew into Luton airport, north of London, and took a cheap bus into the city, where Asia’s friend, Mickael, met us and hosted us at his apartment. Hoxton Square is a happening area north of The City. I bought some Polish beer at a bodega, just to wet our whistles before a nice snooze. Mickael’s place is opposite a bar, and the sound of quacking ducks put us to sleep.
Saturday started out gray-skied, but we had a plan to wedge them open with our sunny attitudes. After a quick stop for a breakfast sandwich, we trundled over to the Borough Market, on the south bank of the Thames. Here, beneath elevated rail tracks, lies a huge weekly market for food, flowers, and wine/beer.
We picked up Romain and Chen, Asia’s other two friends living in England, and we became the international crowd: 2 Frenchman, 1 Pole, 1 Taiwanese, and 1 American. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but we were SERIOUS people today.
It appeared that every ethnicity was featured beneath a tent at the market: curried chicken, guerrier cheese melts, Greek hamburgers, oysters and clams, Thai chicken, and enough desserts to rot a sweet tooth. We bought a jar of tomato & onion chutney and lemon-butter preserves.
This is a place to wander, sample, drink, take photos, wander & sample some more. Then find a park to walk off your “free” lunch.
We wandered down the southbank towards the London Eye, with no desire to stand in that line or do much sightseeing, but instead to soak up London’s flavors and people and people and people and more people. When you come from a sleepy little 1.3 mil city to a 7.7 mil EuroTropolis, the difference is a closeness that you can almost taste.
Lunch was a dip into the British cuisine: fish n chips. A London Pride ale washed that puppie down. Onward to the book stalls beneath a bridge. Book shopping was #3 on our list (behind (#1) visiting friends and (#2) retrieving Asia’s long-abandoned suitcase from Chen, who lives in Newcastle), and we tramped with eyes flitting across book spines around the several yards of tables. But I quickly saw this book-search was in vain: too many beach titles.
Jonno Adams lives in London, these days, so we met at Charring Cross, left the Asia group for a bit, and found a pub that had a decent selection of wines. We caught up on the three years since we’d last seen each other. Jonno’s ready to storm the beaches, and looks the part, too. He does have that “Britain can make it!” look, n’est’ce pas?
Later, meeting up with the others, we collected four more, and made 10 for dinner at a China Town restaurant, where Asia and I proceeded with a Dinner4Two that could feed four starving goats. Yum. The night was settled past 12-ish, which was nicely rounded with Tube rides, people watching, derelict sightings, and more quacking ducks till 3am.
Sunday was an important day: nary a dent was made in either of our book lists. We needed to do some serious hunting, and there were only five hours left on the program! The day opened with beautiful blue skies and an American-style breakfast restaurant around Hoxton Square.
We ate heartily, with Asia praising the pancakes and maple syrup all through the day. Then we needed to dash.
The first bookstore was quite beautiful, in Marylborne, a picturesque neighborhood that looks more like a Victorian village had been taken up and set down in the center of London. As beautiful as the shop was (3 levels, ornate touches, stained glass skylight), there were few used books here. Bum steer, thanks to the InterWeb.
One more chance. Off we raced to Nelson’s column, and up a near street where lay a bookshop. But wait! Just past the National Portrait Gallery (NO SIGHTSEEING!!!) we came upon a different used-book shop … Ah-haaaaa! … and here we struck gold. After only a few minutes (I was still perusing the sidewalk selections) Asia came bounding out of the door holding a bundle of titles in her hands. “I’ve found five on my list! And I’ve just walked in the store!”
I bought six at this shop. And next store was another shop, where I found five more books. Ah, what ecstasy! Better than …. well, use your imagination, but not the one that puts you in the gutter.
To sum up: a fab weekend.
When we got home, James Bunny couldn’t wait to see all the goodies we brought home.
In the interest of living life to its fullest (and picking up Asia’s long-abandoned luggage), we’re off to visit London, to Michael & Romain, and Jonno & Lord Nelson, take a gander at picture paintings, shop in used-book shops, shop in one-pound shops, wander aimlessly with purpose, drink beers & ales, eat fish ‘n chips, have a picnic in Hyde Park, speak the English as even the Queen doesn’t know how, and ride the Tube.
