BIBLIOGRIND
The Life of a Wordsmith — Read … Live … Write
Archive for January, 2011
January 31, 2011 at 3:40 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
I haven’t written much this January, even though I started strong. The winter days fill up the mind with keeping warm, drinking hot drinks, and eating. Although Asia argues that I’m not, in fact, a fat reindeer, I’ve gained a few pounds. But nothing to go hammering a new hole in a belt about.
This month I’ve set aside Of Sirens & Muses, to let it rest from my mind. Of course, that was the plan, and it only succeeded by five-eighths: as I read novels and sit on trams, trains and buses, and as I dream, bits and pieces of “polish” and “character” come through in a way that makes me write a sentence or two or seven, often furiously in my notebook, for later insertion at a (mostly) understood point. Yet, these are such isolated bits of addition (perhaps 3,000 words in the month) scattered throughout the ms, that I have still managed to “leave the story” and rest my mind.
It’s the middle of winter in Prague, and we’ve been in a deep freeze for a few days, and for a couple more to come. “It’s winter,” one of my students said; just what I used to say to Chicagoans when they complained of the cold as February dawned.
We want puppies, but don’t know when the best time (for us) will be to get them. We talk about puppies; we see puppies; Asia tries to dream about puppies. I had a dream two nights ago about Dracula, who was about to turn 20 years old. And in the dream, I thought 20 years was very old for a dog. And then I remembered he was dead. So I guess the puppies idea is working on me pretty good.
I’ll try to keep the PragueBlog going strong for the month of February. There must be something to write about every day.
January 21, 2011 at 11:07 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
Filed under: Taking Care to Watch Your Health (and not leaving it up to doctors)
For a month, since I got new glasses, I’ve experienced un-clear vision in the right eye, as if the lens was made inaccurately between office visit and factory. Also, in the mornings (overnight) I noticed a sort of yellow mucus sticking around my lashes and in the eye corners. Looking up at the lights, I discovered I was seeing through a fog. Thinking about this, and examining my eyes, I discovered that my eyes have become drier than in the past.
I tried eyedrops. No effect, really. I tried hot compressed. Limited success. But now I was getting somewhere: one day I could see clearly, and the next, back to blurred vision. And then one day I discoverd that my right eye was clear for close-up sight, blurred for distance, while the left eye was blurred close up, but clear for distance. This is messed up (regardless of several people telling me that’s how they have their contacts deliberately made), and gave me headaches.
No the kicker: I returned to the doctor, who examined my eyes, listened to my dry-eye complaint, and sold me drops and a dry-eye salve. She also re-examined me and, with consultation from the optometrist, suggested that I buy two new sets of glasses, one for distance, the other for reading. To me, this was not the answer. I couldn’t see well enough that day anyway, and to simply re-examine me and crank up the magnification, was not the sort of doctoring I wanted.
I took my drops and salve and went home, and applied the salve that night. The next morning, I could see perfectly through the glasses that I purchased the month before. What the doctor had suggested to me the previous day was ludicrous!
However, the next day my right eye was out of pure focus. But then the next day, yesterday, my eyesight was clear and focused. And today, my sight is also clear (more or less). The drops and twice-daily salve is working to rid my eyes of the mucus, while replenishing the tears.
I’ve gotten a recommendation from a friend to see an different opthalmologist (Johns Hopkins’ taught). I want a full-on-again examination to see if the other doctor could have missed something (duh!) and to see if the glasses I have are dialed in correctly for my eyesight.
Anyway, it’s good to be seeing correctly again.
January 20, 2011 at 6:25 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
We’ve extended the holiday-eating regimen, and at my age that means I’ve become a fat reindeer. I stepped on the scale today and read 80 kilos (176 lbs). That’s too much.
The main culprit? … food.
It’s high time I get back into a vigorous workout regimen, eat sensibly, and make my 75 kilos a happening by Febuary 18.
January 14, 2011 at 10:43 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
The game began with wide-open words — exit, shute, veto — and moved onto screed, queer, hornet, puny. The game was mostly neck’n'neck, and then Asia played two triple word scores to pull ahead.
I made a play to come back with triple-word score fen. But, in the end, Asia finished with 243 to my 233.
A great win for the SCRABBLE novice. Asia scored her highest total yet, and we had just one tile left to play. Many words on the board were five- and six-letters long.
A rematch has been demanded for tomorrow.
January 13, 2011 at 8:51 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Okay, it’s only January 13 and I’ve tackled three books already. Time, it is what it is, and I like to read.
AND WHY NOT!
The Mimic Men by V.S. Naipaul: Those colonials who leave their homeland for education, and then return, can only impersonate the refinement they learned. Because when back in the colony, they confront the same petite ignorance that propelled them to leave in the first place. This book is masterfully written, and captures moods of two exceptionally different places.
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster: Compelled to follow the history of a disappeared man from sixty years before, a man finds that discovery is only the first part of a test of his courage as a human. Auster’s trim sentences and terse narrative draws you in, only to send you on a fun-house ride of knowing and deception.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood: The future of the USA has been determined by the coming religious wars (Baptist troops fighting Quakers, etc etc etc), which force an erzats patriarchal society that enslaves fertile women as baby-making machines, and hangs men for being … men! Righteous stuff, this, and, with only a little imagination, it could come true some day, given the US’s religious wacko-ism and uber-fucked-up gun laws.
January 8, 2011 at 8:11 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
The Obecni Dum (Public House) has been advertising a Amedeo Modigliani exhibit for months now, and it has been open since December. Modigliani is that early-20th century artist who painted women, portraits and nudes, that mostly look like a bit of caracature made into art. Well-done work for the time, and cutting against the prevailing current of life figure artistry.
Asia and I went today, like we were going on a date (what fun!), with a plan to eat Chinese at this good place in the center of Prague. The line for tickets was deep, with one person working the cash desk (this observation is significant, as you’ll learn).
We walked up the three flights of carpeted stairs. Obecni Dum is a grand building designed in the art neuveau style. It has two coffee bars, two restaurants, a bar called The American Bar, and a concert hall that seats 2,000. It also has exhibition space. This is upstairs, and that’s where we climbed.
Modigliani left behind some 350 pieces of art, including drawings, sculptures, and his iconic paintings. This exhibit advertised the largest gathering of the painter’s works in decades. So we entered.
The first hall was mostly photographs of Modigliani and Paris in the twenties. His work here consisted of drawings (light pencil sketches that barely showed on the paper) that he used to whip up in Paris cafés for a free glass of wine.
In the adjoining hall, more drawings, mostly, with some early paintings. At the end of this hall, there were hung five of his iconic portraits. None of them were his nudes. This exhibit sucked. It cost 200 Kc.
We stood in line for the tickets longer than we walked through the exhibit. And this is typical with exhibits in Prague’s city-center. The organizers (Czech gov’t ??) must think that this is an easy way to get lots of tourist money. A total rip-off. Boo-hiss!
January 2, 2011 at 6:53 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
It has been a wonderful day. Asia & I woke late after staying up till past 1am. Then we did our own thing (Asia is weaving a rondeval basket; I vacuumed & worked out and finished reading a book— first of the new year!). A nice long walk in the afteroon to get eyedrops and work the mus-skulls, and then we started a fire, had a wine-rich lunch, watched some Top Chefs programs … and now it’s BEARS FOOTBALL time.
All a good time for the last vacation day. Tomorrow we must go teach English. Yeah!!!
January 1, 2011 at 11:30 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
East Is East by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux
The Private Parts of Women by Lesley Glaister
Thinks … by David Lodge
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
Creation by Gore Vidal
Mating, by Norman Rush
The Revolution Trilogy by John Banville
- Doctor Copernicus
- Kepler
- The Newton Letter
The Biography of Desire, Mary Dorcey
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Sleepwalkers (trilogy) by Hermann Broch
- The Romantic (1888)
- The Anarchist (1903)
- The Realist (1918)
Salt: a world history by Mark Kurlansky
Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Couples by John Updike
Tinkers by Paul Harding
The Stories of English by David Crystal
The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell
- Monsieur
- Livia
- Constance
- Sebastian
- Quinx
English Music by Peter Ackroyd
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
Blue Angel by Francine Prose
(beat my record by 9 books!)
Tail of the tape:
total pages: 10,553
approx words: 4.5 million
January 1, 2011 at 4:22 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
We stayed at home, built a fire, had a nice dinner of prawns & hot sauce, seared salmon over a leafy salad, and champagne. In the evening, we tried to watch a movie, “Klimt” with Malkovich, but the tedium of its presentation was too much.
Then we took some arty photos in front of the fireplace, with candles burning on top. They came out quite nice. Finally, around 10:30, we sat down to play Scrabble. Yeah, going out in Prague on New Year’s night is not the most fun thing to do.
Just before midnight we heard all kinds of fireworks going off. We poured champagne and stood at the bay window, which showed red rockets bursting over both nearby parks. In the distance, across Budejovicka, a cornucopia of colorful blasts and loud bombs crowded (and collided) in the sky. I’ve never seen so much fireworks display in a city on the New Year.
The displays lasted till around 12.30, and the low-range rockets and m-80s blasting off till about 2.30am. That’s when we finally hit the hay, though I was hardly tired.
It’s to be a good year, again, and then some.
