RIP King of Pop

You will be missed.

What, me macabre?

I've been thinking a little lately about Spalding Gray and his constant search for "perfect moments". It's not that I'm on the same quest but I do think that two of the most important things in life are collecting stories and experiencing these perfect little moments. I don't know if mine reach the same intensity of Spalding's but maybe that's a good thing (I don't know if I'm ready yet to share his fate).


But the other night I was coming home late from a private lesson and thank god the tram reached my stop when it did because I was listening to Dracula Mountain by Lightning Bolt on my headphones and I didn't know how still I'd be able to sit when the song kicked into overdrive again about halfway through. On the two block walk from the tram stop to my apartment I was really very pleasantly surprised by the way that a song that I hadn't listened to in years could still fill me with such joy and light a spark in my adrenals. And just when I thought my smile couldn't get any bigger I turned the corner to see fireworks bursting in the west-texas-big evening sky, perfectly augmenting the already gorgeous view that I have from my front door. I really love it when you can feel how the present is just a collision between the past and future.

I've since asked a few of my students about the occasions for this and other inexplicable displays of pyrotechnics I've witnessed and they just generally shrug their shoulders. Apparently fireworks just happen sometimes in this city.


Another nice surprise came on a Saturday afternoon when Marit and I were showing her brother and her friend around the tourist parts of town. We were walking down the street and we noticed what seemed to be a small group of zombies staggering towards us, so out of respect for the dead we stepped to the side to let them pass. But what at first seemed like only a handful of sanguine catatonic strollers soon turned into an entire horde of brain-hungry undead. Thankfully the Swedes and I had all left our brains soaking in jars back at Marit's, so they didn't hassle us too much. But it was nice to see trails of blood splattered all over the cobblestone streets of Old Town (which I'm sure has seen much more horrifying events than a few hundred zombies wandering around).

Prague recently held it's own incarnation of the international theater Fringe Festival. I was very busy at the time, but I was able to make it to a wonderful show called Kubrilesque, which is as you might guess a burlesque interpretation of the films of Stanley Kubrick. It's not every day you get to see beautiful women stripping their way out of monkey costumes or showing off fishnets while rolling around in a wheelchair routine.

Two weeks ago Marit left to go work for the summer in Scandinavia. I promised myself that I'd spend this summer in as lighthearted and sunshiny a way as possible, so naturally the first thing I did when she left town was take a trip to Olšanské Hřbitovy (Olsanske Cemetary) with Roni.

We peeked into the abysses of cracked tombs (yes, that's an IMAX),

played the statue game,

and tried our best not to get swallowed by the ivy.

Thanks to the play that I'm in, I've also had the luxury of spending my Friday and Saturday nights lying down drunk in an alleyway waiting for tourists to come kick me awake and question me about a murder investigation. But hey, at least I've still got my dignity.

Easy Like Sunday Mornin'

Here's a great song for y'all. I can't find a proper studio version of this anywhere, but I don't think the song needs one.

Dog Faced Hermans - Bella Ciao

Is this sentence really a lie? Probly.

Tak……I guess it’s about time for a proper post.

While walking through the square near my apartment today, I noticed the unmistakable scent of freshly-cut grass. To someone coming from a sub-tropical climate where the grass can grow up to 3 inches in a week in the summer, this smell means home. I felt another item on a sort of subconscious checklist being ticked. Something to do with conflating places through familiar sensations. Probably something Proust wrote about it, but I wouldn’t know because his writing style bores me to tears. Anyway, this sort of mental nesting has been a recurring theme for me the past few weeks and has been pretty key to staving off any homesickness that might crop up (especially since a couple of my friends from the TEFL program have bowed out and returned home already).

The most intense of these “adjustment” moments came a few nights ago, while I was waiting for Marit at the I.P. Pavlova tram stop. It was a Tuesday night in the city and I was probably one of the few people in town trying to find a proper place to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. The weather was comfortable enough and, save for a few fellow pedestrians, I pretty much had the street to myself. In the quiet of the night and the absence of the seemingly inescapable language barrier, I started to feel like the city was mine, that I was no longer a “cizinec” (foreigner). And in that same moment something clicked for me. Something that had been nagging at me for months.

When I first arrived in Prague I was completely taken aback by the beauty of this place. It really is quite something. It was actually too beautiful for me.

I was disappointed.

You see, when I first fell in love with this place through the books of Hrabal, Kundera, etc., it wasn’t the grandeur of their prose that attracted me, but the inwardness, irreverence, humility, and self reflection of their writing. They didn’t celebrate the extraordinary so much as the simple beauties and truths of beer, sex, music, and philosophy. Underneath everything there was always a touching way of laughing respectfully in the face of tragedy. A knowledge that brutal history is just that: history. They managed to bring to light the soft, forgiving undercurrent of love in everything, even suicide. I’ve had the hardest time trying to reconcile the Prague that Czech literature inspired in my imagination with the Prague that’s right here in front of me every day. The poetic drunken debauchery of Hanta has been the square peg to the round hole of the almost stuffy majesty of the ornate spires and statues in the gothic/baroque/etc. architecture of the city. There is so much beauty and history here that the city itself almost stands like an intimidating monolith. So yes, I was disappointed.

But I shouldn’t be so surprised that the city of Franz Kafka is a city of contradictions. After all, I think there are almost as many cathedrals here as there are Christians. And being a lover of paradoxes, I shouldn’t get so frustrated and stubborn when brought face to face with them. The more time I spend here the more I understand how the history here can simultaneously inspire the humility of knowing your infinitesimally small place in the gears of time and pride in knowing that you are in some way bound to the magnificence of the city’s splendor, be it through blood or fate or whatever the hell else keeps you here. It’s almost like a pride that makes you humble. Prague has retained is beauty through the centuries thanks in large part to this odd combination. Its survival always makes me think about this amazing conversation in Catch 22:

Old Man: You all crazy!
Nately: Why are we crazy?
Old Man: Because you don't know how to stay alive. And that's the secret of life.
Nately: But we have a war to win.
Old Man: But America will lose the war; Italy will win it.
Nately: America's the strongest nation on earth. The American fighting man is the best trained, the best equipped, the best fed.
Old Man: Exactly. Italy, on the other hand, is one of the weakest nations on earth. The Italian fighting man is hardly equipped at all. That's why my country is doing so well, while your country is doing so poorly.
Nately: That's just silly! First Italy was occupied by the Germans, and now by us. You call that doing well?
Old Man: Of course I do. The Germans are being driven out, and we are still here. In a few years, you'll be gone, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is a very poor, weak country, and that is what makes us so strong. Strong enough to survive this war and still be in existence... ...long after your country has been destroyed.

Anyway, I guess that’s enough falafel-sizing for now. I’m not much of a writer so I don’t know if any of my dots will connect for any of you, but they’re connecting pretty well in my head.

So here’s a quick run down of the cold hard facts of what I’ve been up to since my last post w/substance.

1. Saw the Obama speech in front of the castle. It was pretty amazing, even though the speech wasn’t his best. He’s 10x’s a better speaker in person than on the TV. The man knows how to work a microphone like Marvin Gaye.

2. Definitely still teaching. I got some classes at a pretty great school and I like every student I’ve had so far. Still have tons to learn but I’m getting better.

3. I got cast in this tour guide/guerilla theater who-dun-it thing that takes place on the streets of Prague. The suspect that I’m playing is this alcoholic psychotic janitor who just got laid off by the theatre he worked for. I’m gonna get paid to “act” like I’m drunk and “act” like I’m insulting American tourists.

4. Been spending almost too much time in gorgeous parks this spring. Relaxation is all well and good but sometimes I feel like a layabout.

5. Still DJing semi-regularly at the Blind Eye. It’s a fun gig. It’s a good way to have a fun Saturday night sharing good tunes, dancing, and drinking free.

6. It turns out me and my friend Eli won a Storer Boone award (Stoner BonerLOL is a New Orleans theatre award) for best set design for the design we did for “Assassins.” Though I don’t generally care about these kinds of things, it’s given me an odd sense of closure about leaving behind a job that I really dearly loved. It allows me to apply some sort of Veni! Vidi! Vici! logic to the situation instead of feeling like I should be back there continuing with the job that I was so good at.

7. I’ve been karaoke-ing fairly regularly as it is my only musical outlet until I get some instruments shipped over. Though I think I might’ve just found a bandmate to start working with.

8. Tomorrow is a national holiday celebrating the end of WWII. Andrea and Ulana are hosting a potluck at their apartment for the remaining TEFL grads of our class. I am cooking some spicy spinach. I am soooo pumped.

Anyway, gotta go meet some friends at this awesome beer garden with one of the best views of the city.

Na shledanou!

two mosquitoes with one slap

Just taking a brief break from some heavy duty lesson planning to let y'all know I'm surviving in style. Here's a fantastic song for you:


Thieves Like Us - Your Heart Feels

Happy Easter!!!!

It's really hard to ignore a holiday when the world around you is celebrating it.

peace

Boogie We Can Believe In

Time for another Saturday tune. As it stands now, it looks like I'm DJing tonight at the Blind Eye in Zizkov and then attempting to wake up bright and early to assure myself a spot in Hradcanske Namesti to see President Obama deliver his first speech in Europe as leader of the free world. In keeping with both themes of my weekend, here's a great medley of the Flinstones theme song and Hail to the Chief as performed by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band:

Enjoy!