BIBLIOGRIND
The Life of a Wordsmith — Read … Live … Write
Archive for November, 2010
November 30, 2010 at 9:01 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell … This five-book “quincunx” follows the lives of about 10 people, some ficitonsl, others not, still others the inspiration for the fictive characters. Set long after, before, during, and immediately after WWII, Durrell focuses on love and sex and getting through life with at least some integrity left to your name.
Monsieur – The novelist Bruce something-or-other must travel to Avignon to bury an old friend, who has comitted suicide — or this is the story. But suicide by decapitation? Perhaps! The story takes us to the hills and chateaux around Avignon, and across the Egyptian desert at Alexandria, to tell the story of mysticism, religious fanaticism, Love & Sex, marriage and failure, success and dreams (both realized and fallen-within).
Livia – A dark-haired sister of an Avignon family falls in with the Nazis. Meanwhile, the search for Templar treasure consumes a group of investors.
Constance – The centerpiece story to this quincunx is the story of life under Nazi occupied France, Avignon, double-agents, trading sex for food and clothing, and acts of revenge.
Sebastian – Back to the Alexandrian desert; a mystic cult whose sole purpose is to assassinate its own members for the glory of death; more sex and love and unrequited sex-and-love.
Quinx – Just as you thought the Templar treasure was never to be found or, worse (maybe!) a hoax, the gathering of treasure-hunting knuckle-heads converge on Avignon and, surprise-surprise, get the full wiff (some might say “bond hit”) of treasure-within-one’s-grasp. Lots of good gipsie stories in this tale.
As November 2010 comes to a close, the latest tally for the book-reading year is 27. I think I can squeeze in 3 more by the stroke of midnight this Dec 31st.
November 29, 2010 at 11:32 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
Professor Kriz has turned 60, and invited 300+ guests to a gala at the old national gallery. Lot’s of notables were there, including his favorite English teacher (who brought his lovester with him to show off, kibitz with, and toast to with good champagne).
It’s nice to parade through a crowd with a gorgeous woman at your side. Asia says she feels the same about her “gorgeous man”. So we had fun on USA Thanksgiving night by eating Czech food and watching Czech’s scurry around when their president entered the room to smooze, have a beer, be vid-taped for tv, and talk with the guest of honor.
It was a nice night and Prof Kriz knows how to throw a good party.
November 29, 2010 at 11:25 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
It started last night. I walked to the metro stop in three inches today. On one streetcorner stood a well-endowed snowwoman (showing how very cold it is outside 
)
The trees are full of beauty, the street are slick; I took a powder on an ice side-cline, and my furry hat is out for the season!
November 29, 2010 at 11:21 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
Asia has been at play. She has straight blonde hair, and wants it to curl every once in a while. So, being the smart woman she is, she bought curlers. But not just any roller curler, NO. Asia has bought the bag of colorful, space-creature antennea curlers.
To transform oneself is a Girl at Play moment that demands the Sport of Queens: dress-up!
And being the sport that she is, Asia said “Okay! Why not?!” to a post-full of curlered, pre-post-curled, and fully-curled pics.
The price of gorgeous is a boyfriend enamored of looks-as-you-like-’em …
November 28, 2010 at 11:53 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
It happened, but not for us. Asia and I (and thousands of others) got caught in a side street crunch that easily could have turned dangerous. It would seem odd that in this situation mothers with children were the ones pushing to get ahead, but that is the case. I even had a woman holding a dog trying to push through me.
Unfortunately, the more I’m here in Prague, the less I think of the Czech mentality toward civility. I’ve seen better manners among the teenaged crowd than their parent or grandparents. Last night was a perfect example: the ignorance of the crowd situation was literally beyond the comprehension of so many parents, who seemed more intent on getting their children into the square than the fact that their children would have been trampled to death from their own actions had the pushing become a push-back situation. And believe me, I would have protected Asia and myself above anything else.
What has been noticed and commented on by my Czech students, who find their attitude of “get what we can” while the getting is possible, comes not from Communism but from 300+ years of being the doormat of foreign kings. Whatever the case, there’s a problem with no-care attitudes towards everything from cutting in lines to picking up their dogs’ shit. Pretty pitiful, actually.
November 28, 2010 at 11:28 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
The past three days have been freezing or below, and the snow has built and fallen as winter is here. Right now the snow is covering the streets and basting the trees. It’s very pretty at 11.30pm, when the streets are empty and the Baroque buildings bespeak olden times.
On the other hand, I like modern heating, hot water, and warm fuzzy socks.
November 19, 2010 at 11:31 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Asia Szustek: “I was disgusted!”
(I was going to be the guest reviewer, says Asia, “but this movie is not worth my time.”
yes. tak. ano. ja. absolutamente, sí.
November 19, 2010 at 6:47 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
Canal Town: Lots of stoned people walking around. The town smells like one big doobie lit up as an offering to the Dope Gods. And then there’s the beer: Heineken vs. Amstel. I’m not sure how Amstel is thought of in Holland (must be good, however), but in America Heineken seems to win. I think it’s the green bottles. Perhaps marketing. Could be taste.
Amsterdam is a fun town through which to walk. The canals that you cross every other block draw unique views from anywhere one might have lived. Bicycles (and the riders who ride trecherously on them) are everywhere. So too cars. Yet there’s peace here, and on some streets, even tranquility can be found.
The family are not worse for wear, since we’ve last seen one another about a year past. Spirits ran high, drink flowed well, talk rose voluminously. We hit the Van Gough museum (great paintings, nice layout), the Heineken Experience (fun but…), lots of little bars (such authenticity and history inside these places—one can almost see Rembrandt sitting at a windowside table quaffing a flaggon of the local brew), a sports bar for the Bears game, and one big English language bookstore.
Out in the countryside, on the rainy Sunday, we visited windmills, a wooden-shoe factory, Edam and its cheese-gelder town, and some small fishing village on the North Sea, in which I dipped my hand; and then proceded to eat some seafood delights along with … another beer!
November 18, 2010 at 8:33 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Jen-Jen was in the air over the Altantic (and most of America) during her birthday. I was able to text her before she got on the Eur-to-USA flight, so that was good. But …
Happy Birthday, Jen!!!
Here’s Jen opening her voodoo doll present from MARK.
Here’s Jen with her brothers: younger brother Matt and younger-younger brother, MARK
November 8, 2010 at 10:40 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
Working closely, as I do, with the difference between reality and truth and fantasy, I was anxious to see Leo D play a dream stealer. The idea of getting inside someone’s head to play with dreams v. reality for whatever purpose has been studied for over a century. Forget Freud though … everything with that fuck is infantile sexual fantasies. Anyway … I was intrigued throughout the movie, especially with the inception team’s plan to create a dream within a dream within a dream.
I’ve only twice in my life remembered a dream within a dream, one more vivid than the other. I actually was living outside the dream, getting ready for the day, going out into the world, and then something struck (literally) that brought me out of THAT dream. Quite weird.
Of course, planting some seed that’s supposed to grow indigenously and chance one’s life or decision making is a bit of a stretch. Things that happen IN life do that, perhaps more than dreams themselves. The inception team found a great way to do just that, however, which made the story more believably possible than if it had gone completely Hollywood.
And Hollywood it did get: far too much violence and shoot’em’up action, really. While it was not unecessary to the plot as such, a different way to tell the story would have made the inception/dream stealing idea more poignent for me. Of course, the movie cannot be watched a second time, because the errors and silliness of the “plot” would show through like a porn movie mustache.
Nonetheless, the movie was entertaining and I was literally on the edge of my seat for a time (making Asia laugh beside me). Oh, and we got stuck with seats in front of the screen, which, after a while you got used to, but man that kind of action so up close is like being inside a 2hr car crash.
