BIBLIOGRIND
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Archive for April, 2011
April 30, 2011 at 1:33 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Is it laziness or busy-ness that has kept me from the keyboard?
Maybe a bit of both, although I’m not lazy with my book, which gropes forward toward Draft #2 completion (done by July 22, I hold out hope). In the meanwhile, we’ve been walking in parks that have lilacs in bloom — mini forests of them. The aroma is euphoric.
The part of the blog postings that come to mind, lately, are minor complaints: I can’t stop eating; I’m not exercising enough; we’re both ready to leave Prague, but need a year to get things in order.
So then, books read, movies watched, and the weather. The daily dip into Prague is less and less, as the city has been explored and written about and photographed enough times. There is more and different beers to sample, though!
April 20, 2011 at 4:10 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Asia and I will marry on July 22 at noon, in the town hall of Vinohrady, a gothic building with a tower on Karlovo Namesti.
We’re happy
April 16, 2011 at 3:24 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
In America by Susan Sontag. Famous Polish actress laments her success and all the hard work, comes to America with husband, would-be lover, child, and retinue of other “pioneers” in 1876 to get away from it all and farm. Guess what? Yeah, of course.
Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres. Cephallonia, a Greek island caught up in WWII, is occupied by Italian and German armies. Young Pelagia, daughter of the town doctor, falls for the Italian Captain Corelli, who plays the mandolin with virtuosity. Written with tantellizing candor of the war’s events on this island and the Greek mainland (one scathing chapter about Musollini is worth the price of the book), we ride a path of love, war, death, and redemption.
The Quincunx by nobody cares. Not a terribly good read, repleat with incredible coincidences (even for Victorian-style fiction), but it had potential. I got through 166 pages, good enough to count as “read” for the purposes of this reading record.
April 16, 2011 at 3:14 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
We were thinking about something to watch in the evenings, when intellectual activities were slow or nil. I thought of LOST, which finished up its final season (#6) last year. Asia has never seen the program. I suggested she watch a couple-three episodes to see if it would be something worth 10 or 12 weeks, eves & wknds.
After the second episode, when the logo LOST jumped on the screen at the newest cliff hanger, Asia yelled out “Ahhhh!” And that settled it: we’re LOST in this twisty-turny-pulltherugout series. She’s quite canny in her evaluations of the characters, and I’m holding my mouth closed at each guess for the whole meaning of LOST, the island, etc etc.
Should be fun to hear her conclusions at the end of our run.
April 16, 2011 at 3:10 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
After a week of cold rain, the blue sky is back today, with 50+ degrees. We took a nice walk to Namesti Miru, where this year’s Easter Market is in swing. While Asia looks at gifts and baskets and more baskets, I was looking at the food: trdelnik, kilbasa, sausage & kraut. But I contained myself.
We walked down and around, through some streets, coming into Riegavy Sady, whose trees are flowering or greening, the people are out sunning on the grass, the dogs are chasing each other, and the beer gardens are open.
It’s great that the light lasts until 8pm already. Asia likes to run when the heat has settled a bit, and today I get a second walk because I just love to wander with music while my fiancé has a little run down in the vinohrad park.
April 7, 2011 at 2:53 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
And I’m wondering if my standards (for books, much less myself) have risen while the books themselves have dropped theirs (of course, I mean the authors of said crap and the publishers of the like).
Case in point: “The Quincunx” is an early ’90s novel set in early 1800s England and written in a Dickensian style. While the setting and tone is spot on, the writing has been left to the reader’s perseverence. After reading 166pp, I fired the book because: 1. every 3rd page the boy character pestered his mother to divulge family secrets, to which the mother said, “When you get older I’ll tell you all” … and which, of course, a bit of that secret was indeed exposed after another 1/2 page; 2. even the incredible coincidences of fictional conceits could not keep pace with this story’s amazing happenstance of a) emotional crisis, b) spiralling financial ruin, c) sinister beings jumping out left and right with each successive scene; and 3. the obviousness that all of these circumstances shall turn around for the boy by the end of the novel.
I jumped ahead, after I finally got fed up, and in fact on page 666 (a good number to jump to, always) the same sort of simpering dialogue, incredible turns of event, and character hand-wringing yelled at me from the page.
Finally: this book was a best seller. I don’t fucking get it.
April 3, 2011 at 9:47 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
We set out at 5.20 am, got home near 10pm, and in between we shopped, ate, toured, basked, shopped, ate, walked, and finally plopped onto a train seat.
Going and returning, we had a train berths to ourselves. Asia was so excited that she could barely sit still. We watched the landscape, took photos of the Elbe as it dives between the bluffs at Bad Shandau, and wondered if the sun was going to shine all day.
At 9am we arrived, and headed straight to a coffee shop for strudelicious sustenance. Asia hopped and skipped all the way there. The shops were not yet open, but the sun was rising into a blue sky. We shared two pastries (something German-named).
Near 10am, we found ourselves outside the old castle, now a museum. Asia wanted to shop, and I wanted to museum, so we split up for a couple hours. In the museum, I was first in line for a ticket, and went into empty galleries, taking my time and seeing some great masterworks (but a lot of religious-themed work). Some of the landscapes (c. 1650) of Dresden city and outskirts were very beautiful, and showed a time when life seemed more serene (but was probably quite brutal). I walked through 4 galleries in 90 minutes, and then crossed the square to the armory. Nice guns and swords, with one display showing knights geared up for jousting. I’d never seen how these men were really armored and hooked into (and onto) the horse, simply to carry the jousting pole and stay on the horse. No wonder men died during these tournaments. I can imagine concussions, broken bones, and death just from falling off the horse, much less being skewered by a pole.
Asia and I met up outside the castle, from which we then crossed the river to new town, basically a river-side shopping district with a beer garden. We shopped, then had a bite to eat at a cafe: sausages and beer.
A nice walk along the Elbe brought us into sunshine, and we sat up from the river’s edge to get a good view of the old city across the banks.
When we got back to the shopping district, we walked into the big Dresden mall, and found more people than I’d ever seen in a mall, outside of the Christmas eve rush! Where had all these Germans come from? We’d thought Europe was in an econ crisis, but from the looks of things, Germans aren’t doing so poorly.
Later, more sausages and beer. Then: chocolate shopping. I found dark chocolate spread (bio!!!), choco/milkfilling, marzipan & orange chocolate, etc.
We found a nice stationer’s section of a big department store. I needed some new blank notebooks, and found good deals. Then, along the wall, we discovered a whole section filled with German chocolate. We filled our arms and scampered to the checkout counter.
People lounged in the main square. It was warm at 6pm, and sausage stalls and beer stands were doing good business. Children played, old men & women strolled, and kids smoked cigarettes.
On the train platform before we left for home, we felt the all-day walking in our legs. Ugh! Too many sausages and beers! And we hadn’t dug into the chocolates … yet. Jezus-Maria!!
April 1, 2011 at 7:01 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Off to Dresden tomorrow morning in the pre-dawn darkness. Want to get out of Prague for the day. The weather forecast calls for sunny skies and 68 degrees. Our train out of Hlavni Nadrazi leaves at 6.30; we’ll return on the 7.30 out of Dresden.
I want to see the Dresdener Zwinger and its masters artwork collection. We both want to do some mini-item shopping. A nice walk along the Elbe River is in store. Some German sausages and beer for lunch sounds good. There’s an old church that was rebuilt after taking a big bomb in WWII, of which neither of us has seen the interior. And then walking and wandering.
