BIBLIOGRIND
The Life of a Wordsmith — Read … Live … Write
Archive for November, 2011
November 30, 2011 at 9:32 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
I’ve been reading LinkedIn posts lately, written by writers who are trying to be their own best publicity/marketing machines. There’s little that traditional publishers do for 99% of their writers, and, while this has always been the case, today’s market and today’s technology are far closer than ever. This will only get better for writers with that entrepreneurial spirit (easy for us, since we’re already working our asses off without getting cent-one before the work is finished).
What this amounts to is self-branding. How to do it is by writing. Easy enough. Get a blog going; have interesting things to say; write weekly, at a minimum; get into a blog network; be invited to guest blog; get invitations for online interviews, Skype chats, etc. Keep this up for 6mos, get some recognition, and continue it with your books. Then people will know you for your writing, your personality, your wit, intelligence and style.
Selling the books will follow.
Sounds like a business plan. Sounds like many hours of work. Good work. Better than jobbing work.
Wish me luck. Some luck is always needed.
November 28, 2011 at 8:15 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Our first sausage of the Nuremberg Christkindlemarket
The weekend was lovely to get out of ice-fog Prague and into Germany. On our list was Nuremberg and Dresden. The objective: sausages and gluhwien; kuchen; shopping.
We took a direct bus from Prague to Nuremberg early Saturday, and dropped our bags in the RR locker so we could explore while the light was good. Nuremberg is a pretty town with lots of historic buildings, including churches and two castles (Kaiser’s Imperial and some Duchal).
The Kaiser's Imperial Castle sits atop Nuremberg's hights
The smell of sausage and mulled wine was in the air at every turn. This was Saturday, and the Germans were in a shopping blitzkrieg. We had no mission other than wandering and enjoying, pictures and food. I had my first sausage at 2 o’clock! The key to Christmas markets is to pick up the local sausage with the local hot-wine mug. There are several varieties of mugs to choose from. All you have to do is lay down some euros and walk away with a hot alcoholic beverage and its mug souvenir.
Our self-portraits are becoming a story in themselves
The stalls were open and business was busy. There was a series of stalls that sold fresh cookies, cakes, and other pastries. Just looking at it made your pancreas shudder! The ginger cookies (smothered in dark, milk or white chocolate) were tender and flavored to perfection. Very good with hot wine, too!!
The gluhwien mugs are collector's items
With the light yet bright, we walked up to the Kaiser’s Imperial Castle, a nice walk through some old architecture (I’ve lived in Europe 6 of 7 year, so if you’ve seen one castle, you’ve pretty much seen them all 
) On our walk down, we came across Albrech Durer’s house, in which he lived while creating some of his most famous artworks.
The sausage vendors had enough heart-stopping varieties to feed an wermacht
We walked out as night had fallen, and went to the train station to collect our bags and get to the hotel, a few stops on the U-bahn. ArtHotel is a great little chain that has comfy, clean and warm(ish) rooms. After a little rest, we went back to the market. At night, the Christkindlemarket gets rolling. Groups of wine-happy Germans stood around, laughing, smoking, and sprechen the Deutche.
The opening weekend at Nuremberg Christkindlemarket
People packed the aisles in Nuremberg’s main square. Most were tipsy, to say the least, and the stalls were perfectly lit for browsing. You can buy everything from do-it-yourself nativity sets to winter hats/gloves, and miniature pieces for doll houses to African-Indian products. There were far more sausage (and other food) stalls and gluhwien stalls than all the others.
Here I'm eating a steak sandwich with my mug of gluhwein
We left before closing so we could get a good night’s sleep. We’d been walking for 8 hours. Back at the hotel, a good shower and warm comforters made the night blissful.
We caught an 8.30 train to Dresden. The ride wound through hills and forests. It was jumbly and too sunny, and we were glad to get off. Dresden has the oldest Christkindlemarket, started in 1430. What sets Dresden apart from Nuremberg is its decorated stalls, which show some kind of diorama atop the roof.
Dresden has the oldest Xmas market, beginning in 1430
We got pictures of Santa, snowmen, chimney sweeps, nativity, giant sausages, and snow-laden houses. (see below for the full array)
We walked through Dresden and across the river, where we had a nice lunch in a Deutche-only restaurant. Asia had the schnitzel; I had the swine medallions. We then walked through the Dresden market, which stretched across the river and into the main square, and then onward toward the train station. Quite a fair.
Asia against the wal of Xmas decorations
Of course, after an early day of full-bore XmasMkts, we lasted about five hours here, and then we were done snaking our way through crowds, helping people smoke their cigarettes. So we decided to have a nice coffee and pastry at an indoor cafe close to the train station. Here we had fun going through our pictures, eating a slice of coffee cake the size of my arm, and watching videos of how Christmas pastries are made.
We caught the 7:08 train back to Prague, and had a compartment all to ourselves. This was really nice, because it’s like a room and comfortable and all our own.
These pastry balls are coated in flavors: Schneeball, Cocoladeball, etc
A nice statue-diorama in Nuremberg
The lights of Nuremberg came on early in 2011
Der Deutche Flagger Luft Higher, ja??
The last series shows the displays atop Dresden’s market stalls:
November 24, 2011 at 10:16 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
No, CR doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Neither does any other European country. Nor any other in the world. It’s a truly American tradition and holiday.
That means I get to tell Czech’s about it as part of an English lesson. We talk about pilgrims and indians and giving thanks, and football and turkey and overeating. Then I describe the real history behind Thanksgiving: the Pilgrims needed to ask the Iroquois how to farm properly, how to survive winters, how to deal with the bugs and pestilence. Okay, so when all you do is read the Bible, perhaps you’re lacking in the practical how-to-survive details. And then there is the nasty little secret about America’s history with its native population. Within about a single generation, the New World settlers were already killing and/or pushing Indians off their lands.
That didn’t stop for 400 years.
November 23, 2011 at 4:45 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan
This collection of short stories has everything to do with life between the sheets: sleeping, sex, dreams, etc. I read most of these stories as dreamscapes McEwan used as starting points for stories. None is bad, and a few are exceptional. My favorite is the last of the group, “Psychopolis” in which a man allows himself to be humiliated by a woman, then meets with her and others in a scene that is both captivating by its dialogue (in which they talk about all sorts of men/women hot-button issues) and sheer oddity.
Dangling Man by Saul Bellow
A man awaits induction into the army at the beginning of WWII, but he’s been put on a string because of his citizenship, health report, and marital status. Meanwhile, no one will give him a meaningful job because of his service status. The psychological spin these put him in cause agitation, sleeplessness, anger, and, ultimately, a desire to get on with “it” no matter what the cost.
Orchard by Larry Watson
An artist and his new muse is the talk of the small town in Door County, Wisc. However, the muse is married to a man who doesn’t like the idea that his wife is naked for a man, alone in his studio, for hours of each day. This is 1952, and things are not what we understand of them today, even in middle-America.
November 22, 2011 at 7:47 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
I’m done reading “classic” books. They’re just too old; in language, sentence structure, and narrative flow. Frankly, they bore me.
Recently I was able to get through Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbevilles” by virtue of perseverance, even while finishing it in under seven days. The language was stilted, but at least Hardy can tell a good tale. What has sent me over the edge, though, is Stendhal’s “The Red and The Black” … the story of Julien Sorel’s rise to riches in post-Napoleonic France, via common deceit and hypocrisy (of 57 pages read, I counted 20x this word was used …. Oi!!)
I think this summary is about all one needs to know, as Stendhal wasn’t exactly exacting in his descriptions of Sorel’s inner being, nor the other characters. Very cartoonish, at least through those early pages. And frankly, I don’t have the time to waste if a book doesn’t grab me after 50 pages. Now more 150pp and “I’ll see how it goes.” Fuck that. No. Over. Done.
The real problem is me, likely, but then, the archaism of both subject and its literary rendering makes these classics a tough read. I want to scream, “Get on with it!” or “Where’s the character here?” and even, “What the hell is happening?” … Okay, maybe my attention span is sufficiently modern to need a bit of the old goose that 20th century narrative fiction gives a reader. I’m willing to live with that.
I don’t mind the old-fashioned mores that so many of these books deal with as a central issue. Piety is not a bad thing; and I don’t need liberal sprinkling of sex scenes, either. However, the way classical authors portray these moral questions make them, the questions, out to be life-or-death situations; heaven or hell endings!! And, as you’re all aware, as you should be, I’ll take hell every time. Satan’s a righteous dude compared to that fickle man from the O.T.
Now … that still leaves Dickens. I thinks there’s room to wiggle here, in my oath (I did just give Mephistopheles a nod, don’t forget). Dickens has some great characters. And, while he can be long winded, his plots and themes have some cache yet with modern culture. For example, look at the economic situation around the world, and especially in the USA and Europe. Soon they’ll need to relax the child-labor laws just so people can put food on the table.
Go Dickens!
November 21, 2011 at 9:09 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
We’ve just finished watching the second season of Californication. In the words of Hank Moody, the lead character (and so many like him in the series), this show if fucked up.
I’m on record as saying — perhaps the first to notice — that the program is the Male Answer to Sex and the City, that highly entertaining show centered around four women who, for 6 years, had trouble getting, keeping, and enjoying men. Hank Moody doesn’t have that problem. He’s pretty much died and gone to heaven.
Problems? Yes. Women trouble? Oh, yeah. Angst? Nnnnnnn-Not really.
As vile as this show can be — the guy’s a child; his “wife” is a dysfunctional; their daughter is basically the adult AND parent in the family; their friends are in a constant-party world of liquor, drugs, sex; their enemies are in a constant-party world of liquor, drugs, sex – this show has cultural relevancy. For starters, it shows where the state of television entertainment has risen to (although “risen” is merely a term I use for advancement in potential, freedom, avante-guard quality). This show gives life as some people live it, but also as many people (men) want it to be. That’s entertainment, folks!
Secondly, by having Hank be a writer, there is a glue that binds the absurd to the literary, the artist, the “normal” state of life within all the L.A. craziness. Frankly, if just 10% of what happens in this series is truth of California life, its no wonder the city is a magnet for all forms of creatures looking to score big at the big party we like to call LIFE.
Thirdly, the show is fun adult entertainment, and nothing should be taken away from it that one can think is real. That’s what we want from entertainment: the complete lack of connection to reality; an escape; a footnote to the day.
If you think Californication is over the top in its crassness (and it is often wayyyyy crass), then please just read the title again. That’s justification alone for what takes place for 28 mins.
November 20, 2011 at 8:12 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Asia had a four-day weekend staring her in the face. Thursday was yet another Czech holiday, and lots of students canceled lessons Friday. So Asia had plans to run, do yoga, de-clutter, read, shop (meetings with Santa Claus have been frequent), and go to the Thanksgiving celebration.
And then Saturday morning came, and she woke up feeling run over. Sore throat, aches & pains, headache. Not a good sign. By early afternoon, she packed up the cheesecake for me to take to the party — alone.
Asia is making the best of having a cold
“This sucks!” she said, her voice filled with anguish, angst, and antibodies. “This is a gyp! I’m bored! This is a waste of two whole days!”
Oh the misery of it all!!
“Yes, honey, it is,” I said. And I meant it. When you have time off, you don’t want to waste it being sick. There’s nothing to do!!
But being the industrious fox that she is, Asia did some knitting, wrote out Xmas cards, mended some clothes, and caught up on rest. Hurray!
(Wait, wait, I hear her calling!) ….. (“Don’t mock the Fox!”)
To make Asia smile, I performed some stunts.
Mark as the Little Tea Pot
Anyway, I’m sure the little Mighty-Might will be up and around very soon. We have Christmas Markets to go to.
November 19, 2011 at 10:27 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Thanksgiving at Theresa’s new flat today. Czech ovens seldom can fit an American-celebration size turkey, so it’s best to cut the bird in half before the baking process.
Asia was excited to experience a real USA-like T-Giving, but she fell sick yesterday, and today was put on Injured Reserved by the Coach. Sidelined. Needs R & R.
It was 5 on 5, Americans vs. Czechs. We Americans explained, in our own peculiar and specific traditions, how Thanksgiving works, what’s it all about, and why it’s particularly both American, and America’s favorite holiday celebration. Then we ate turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, French scalloped potatoes, cranberry sauce, and mac & cheese. For dessert we had Asia’s cheesecake, Toni’s pumpkin pie, some Czech strudel.
Then it was time for me to come home to my sweetie, sitting up (more or less) sick and feverish and generally feeling punk. Boo-hoo … but I brought home turkey!
November 17, 2011 at 10:12 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Today was yet another national holiday. I think the Czechs are celebrating the foundation of the first republic, Czechoslovakia, in 1919. Not much is happening civic-wise, as far as I can tell. People are out shopping.
I woke at 6, read for an hour or so, then worked on WHAT BEAUTY for four hours. In between I had a nice breakfast with Asia, and some tea. Then at 2.30 I went to teach my private student. For dinner we had a salad and pistacios, and then watched two episodes of Californication. Afterward, I played some Guitar Hero.
Not a bad day. A good day. Pizza bread, especially. And chasing Asia around, always a good pastime.
Californication is a strange series. After watching five episodes, I came up with the idea that this is the male perspective, the response to, Sex and the City. Except, instead of having four women bitch ‘n moan about not having a man, we find, in Californication, a fully realized male fantasy: this sap has women falling all over him, while he’s a drunken loser, a fuck-up who can’t cope with … whatever … and yet has all the benefits of male hi-jinks. I liked the last episode of season 1. It makes you want to watch at least the next installment.
November 16, 2011 at 11:31 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
There isn’t much, but we woke up to a trace of snow in some of the outlying Prague areas. I had first thought it was frost, but this kind of frost doesn’t build to 1-2 cm. Nearly all the trees have shed their leaves; but some have green hues left on the inner parts of leaves. A very strange autumn for leaf colors.
There has been ice fog covering Prague for days, weeks; but every so often the fog burns off and the sun comes out for a bit. Last Saturday was a perfect Fall day, with no wind and plenty of sunshine. Perfect for a lovers’ walk!
Now the light sprinkles of snow play in the air; only cars are cold enough to keep the snow. But I feel winter is now in the air, and with it some holiday fun.
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