the end

"и если кто-то снова вдруг проникнуть попытается

в страну чудес волшебную в красивом добром сне, -

то даже то, что кажется, что только представляется,

найдет в своей загадочной и сказочной стране."

life lessons for snails

i found that if i carefully iron every article of clothing, they take up almost half of the space than they normally would in my suitcase.  my mom took away my newly acquired books, but i somehow managed to acquire more, and now my baggage is not light, although quite compact. i dragged my suitcase through the rain to g.'s flat yesterday, and on the way a nice young man named petr dragged it for me for a few blocks.  my flight to london is in a few hours.  

"this is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me..."  i am immeasurably sad to leave this magical land.  i have lived here for almost half a year,  and i can feel the beginnings of czechophilia blossoming inside.  i don't know what it is about this culture and these people that is so magnetic to me:  the czechs love their dogs more than life itself, and cynics beware during a walk in the park: one glance at the young dads playing with their kids, and images of marriage, children, a cute little house with a rose garden and everything you previously gagged at the very idea of begin to play in your head against your will.  the language is a mouthful of ř and ž sounds, and the word "tak" is the czech equivalent of "like" in terms of frequency of use, and you have to stand in line at the library to return your books, and if anyone can make socks and sandals look normal and i daresay even sexy, it's the czechs.  prague is my star.  i have dreamed of this city since my first visit.  i was sixteen then, and i made a wish to someday return to live and study here, and now i see that my wish was actually a promise, and a goal that i subconsciously worked toward.

with the knowledge that my time here is limited, i found motivation to fill every day with interesting activities, and to expect magic and fancy from everything around me, and it really works, i began to see it everywhere.  writing about it gave me the initiative to continue.  i thought a  lot about how i can apply these methods to my daily life, because i don't want my happiness to end here; on the contrary, i know now that it is in my power to live this way wherever i may be.  i like the idea of going far away in order to find myself.  and suddenly remembering my childhood in places i had never been before, triggered by the smell of linden trees or the sight of clothes drying on a balcony.  as milan kundera wrote, "whoever wishes to remember must not stay in one place, waiting for the memories to come of their own accord! memories are scattered all over the immense world, and it takes voyaging to find them and make them leave their refuge!"  

as for magical sweater czech, what started as an amusing game turned into a serious wild sheep chase, with too much needless fuss, but the real regret would have been not having tried at all.  and anyway it seems like this is the beginning of something rather than the end.  in writing i can explain to him what i couldn't say in person, partly because it makes no sense, but mostly because i didn't have a dictionary nearby.  i am naive and dreamy and slow to accept life's lessons.  i always thought that if i only applied myself a little more in certain spheres of my life, everything would turn out as i wanted, but now i find that i can miss the mark even if i really really try.  and nothing is what it appears to be, and even the most seemingly solid elephant can vanish without notice or explanation.

but i suppose this is the whole point.  if everything went smoothly and good luck spoiled me even more than it already does and there were no false doors, no missteps, no painful impossibilities,  no laughable loves, and nothing to cry a pool of tears over, then i would have nothing to draw.  sometimes i will find myself in the middle of a bright yellow field, at the crest of simple and pure happiness, and sometimes be reduced to a silly little thing on the verge of tears, picturing myself abandoned by the world.  i wonder if i will always be so impressionable.

i was also lucky enough to meet so many wonderful people, many of whom i know i will meet again.  i am glad that they all left one by one, starting a month ago; all at once would have been too difficult to handle.  i can leave the way i came. 

i know that it won't be long before wanderlust sweeps over me again, but for now, i think i have had enough.  i miss my friends and my family, home food, school, and everything around being in english, and understanding what is being said.  thanks so much to all of you who have been reading along, close friends, family, and people i had never met before; i hope you were all able to find something that interested you.  thank you also for all of the letters and postcards that i received in the mail;  they brightened many moments of self-doubt.  if you should like to stay with me, i will of course still be on my illustration blog, for which i have big plans and where i promise to appear with greater frequency.  until then, čau!

"ах, как опаздываю я - почти что на день целый!"

i am rather proud of this photograph, which i took on the tram a couple of days ago.   i had to be discreet about it, which is difficult when you are sitting across from the person, but he looked at me at just the right moment.  

the first of july gives me a sense of closure before i snap back.  this is the part where i begin to grow, taller, taller, until i can hold everyone and everything in my hands.  "you're nothing but a pack of cards!" i find it difficult to believe that five months just swam past, taking me along with them.   soon it will all have been just a yellow dream.

не было бы счастья...

today's horoscope said, "a surprising turn of events midday or this evening throws you for a loop, but the emotional upheaval is almost certainly for the best. it's all part of something larger and positive."  and how!  oh dear.  we finally met.  i bought half a kilo of cherries at an outdoor market and ate them all while waiting forever until msc finished his exam.  we sat on the bench by the water, and then he suddenly said that he is quite sure that i like him, but he has a girlfriend of one year and he has no plans to end it with her. dear god.  he was speaking quite fast but i caught it all.  poor msc, and the worst thing is that i could not even defend myself, tell him that he got it all wrong.  but how do i explain to someone that i have been ambushing at school and calling incessantly that i only did it because i wanted him to be my friend, because he is different from everyone else and i wanted to listen to accordion music with him and ask him stupid questions?  i don't blame him; how desperate i must have seemed!  i mumbled something like "blah blah blah kamarad" (friend that is a boy, not boyfriend) and i think he understood.  one day i will write to him what i meant.

then suddenly the most horrible rain came crashing down.  we ran back to school, laughing because the we got completely soaked in seconds.  in the architecture studio, the teapot was not working.  he said that when i come back he can show me around his home town, and maybe he will visit the states, and asked me to write and send him lots of photographs.  hard to believe, but that is all i wanted.  i knew that he shines the first time i saw him and i was not wrong and i am not sorry.  his friendship was worth fighting for all along, as uncool and foolish as i had to be.

then he left and i stood in the rain waiting for my tram.  suddenly i felt like a child, like the adult world briefly condescended to humor me, and then curtly put me back in my place.  but it's a good conclusion because now i feel that i am ready to go home.  i think that was the point of this extra day, to lessen the sadness of leaving and help me make the transition.

who's magical NOW?

oh my god guess what i just did?  something i have never done before in my whole life: i missed my flight!  i was completely sure that i have an evening flight, but no, it was actually an early afternoon one.  when i looked at the flight number, i thought i would faint.  now the moment of panic is over, i rescheduled my flight for tomorrow, and am attempting to have a sense of humor about this.  oddly enough, the tables have turned:  clearly some "outside of time" magic has rubbed off on me, while magical sweater czech is suddenly being uncharacteristically responsible and sending me messages about his whereabouts, making plans.  how very amusing.  i think i might actually see him today!  this is called a blessing in disguise,  i believe.

через ночь неволи, белый день свободы!

the russian poet marina tsvetayeva lived in prague from 1922 to 1925.  here, she wrote "verses to the czech republic," "poem of the mountain," and "the rat-catcher." unfortunately i could not find an english translation for these poems, but her love and sympathy for this land and its people and all that they have been through, shine so clearly.  tsvetayeva called her life in prague a "blue dream."  for me it is a yellow dream...

last dances with czechs

i just came home, at four in the morning, and there is some strange girl already snoring in what i thought would be an empty bed tonight (since i. left in the morning).  i was at our school's end of the year party, dancing along to "thriller" and "material girl" with my remaining friends and people i had never seen before that smiled big smiles at me.  of course msc did not call me today, but this was to be expected.  however, just before midnight, a miracle happened.  i looked at my phone to find a mile-long text message: he was in brno all day and just returned, he is so sorry for not replying, can he see me tomorrow?  what time will i leave? he has two exams tomorrow so he is pressed for time, but in case we don't meet, do i have some email address?  this is the first time ever that he has demonstrated to me his ability to use the telephone.  how very magical of him, after a whole month, to remember about me on my last day in prague, but better late than never, i say.

two nights ago, i joined two friends on a trip to the cinema to see coco avant chanel.  the film is in french with czech subtitles, which greatly worried me, but you know, i understood everything.  sure, many words here and there were not clear, but i got the idea of everything that was being said!  i noted that some of the words i knew because they are similar to russian, but most were ones that i had learned in class or independently.  i tried to pay attention to some grammar usage too, but i cannot do so many things at once.

but a grin without a cat...

the second time i ever saw msc was when he came into my drawing class.  i froze up like a popsicle and could not even say hello.  but i looked at his paper, where he had written the name "prokop," and so it all began.  the czech name prokop can be a first or a last name, so for a time i referred to him as prokop prokop.  when i finally met him, i found out that his first name is not prokop.  that left his last name and i thought i had it all figured out.  but today i went into the architecture studio, and found a list of the students' names, telephone numbers, and email addresses on the door.  i matched the telephone number to the one in my phone, and guess what?  his last name is not prokop either.  what a riddle this boy is!

d3a / stanislav fiala

during our last architecture lecture at the beginning of may, eva wanted to show us a film but the sound was not working, so she gave us the option of going home or asking her about anything else we might be interested in.  the day before i was reading about stanislav fiala and the architecture partnership d3a, and i asked if their buildings are worth seeing up close.  eva made a strange face and said, "yes...i, i can tell you where to find them..." and wrote down some addresses for me.  i thought, "ok, so she isn't a big fan of their work."  then she said, "well, actually,  stanislav fiala is my husband."  and in fact she and the other lecturer are working on a book together about d3a, and she had the pages on file with her, so it turned into a very interesting impromptu slide lecture!

d3a is responsible for a lot of the modern architecture and urban planning in prague.  yesterday i went in search of the muzo center (above) all the way in the hostivař district of prague 10, but i could not find it at the address i had written down.  after walking around the area i finally gave up, and got on a tram home.  about three stops later, i saw a corner of something that looked like something that might be the muzo center.  i got off on the next stop, walked toward where i thought i saw something, and sure enough, there it was, in the strašnice district.  that's two stories of pure chance! 

žižkov

i was wandering around žižkov after paying a visit to the area around hotel olšanka, a strikingly unattractive mammoth of soviet architecture which my mom and i stayed in on our first visit to prague in 2004.  actually everything in sight - the high-rise buildings, the people, the stores - have an outdated, worn-out, depressing look.  but before running away i did see, there in the distance, the largest equestrian statue in the world:  it is the one-eyed 15th century czech general jan žižka, looking over the city of prague.  he and his horse are made of bronze and stand at 9 meters (30 feet) tall (22 meters (72 feet) if you include the pedestal) on vítkov hill.

olšanské hřbitovy

in žižkov (prague 3), there is an old, seemingly endless collection of twelve cemeteries called olšanské hřbitovy.  one of them, called prague cemetery, is where the victims of the 14th century plague epidemic are buried in mass graves.  there is a cemetery reserved for orthodox and greek catholics, and a jewish cemetery, where franz kafka is buried.  also here is jan palach, a student who committed suicide by self-immolation on václavské náměstí in 1969, in protest of the soviet occupation of czechoslovakia (the square on which my school is - náměstí jana palacha - is named after him).  i went on a quiet walk among old and forgotten graves, some completely overgrown with vines.  i didn't look for any of the famous graves - in fact i didn't think of them until now - but i think maybe that is better, as in search of them i would have missed everything else.

about the slovaks

a few months ago, n. introduced me to her friend from bratislava.  b. doesn't speak any czech, but she doesn't need to, because czech and slovak are so similar, that slovaks can speak their own language in the czech republic and be understood, and students even have the option of taking their exams in slovak.  the language is closer to russian in the "relaxed" way words are pronounced, and there is no dreaded ř sound, making slovak much easier for me to understand.  sometimes, when talking groups of people passed, i would get excited that i could understand a lot of what they were saying, and then n. would say "slovaks," smothering my fragile hopes.  i think a lot has to do with czech pronunciation, seeing as i understand written czech so much better than spoken.  and then there is also a prague dialect, which i can hear sometimes in individual words such as mléko (milk; "mlee-ko" in prague-speak) and polévka (soup; praguers say "po-lee-vka").

czech navy, my sailor mate

celetná ulice is one of the oldest and allegedly most haunted streets in prague. it is also the most crowded with tourists, and therefore the last place on earth where one might run into a magical sweater czech. yet it is exactly where and exactly after whom i was running at full speed through foreigners, vendors, dogs, and children. i managed to compose almost all of me (except for knees) and hah! he offered me half of his sandwich at least three times, and told me that his plan for the summer is to build his own yacht. i don't know how he always manages to tell me these random things in so little time and with our tragically limited vocabularies, but he does. 

he had some errand in karlovo náměstí (involving paper?) and asked if i would come along, and dear god if only he knew how much i wanted to, but s. and i. were waiting for me, and friends are more important than half-mirage boys, magical or not.  we made something like plans, but plans were made a month ago, and two weeks ago, and where are they now?  yes, magical czechs are outside of time, and monday is so far away, and so uncertain!

movin' on up

the dormitory turns into a hostel now, and we could only stay there until the 25th of june.  i moved with i.  into an apartment a few blocks away, on strossmayerovo náměstí.  it is a large and spacious place where three russian students live, and we were able to rent a nice room with two beds from them for five days.  here is the view from the front balcony, above milady horákove, the main street going through the letna district.  and in other news, more goodbyes.  this morning p. and i went to put m. on a train to hamburg, where he will be for a few days before he returns to milan.  and now s. is on a plane to paris.  goodbye, goodbye...

летучая кафка, летучая мышь

today is wet and gray again, and i finally managed to take myself to the kafka museum in malá strana.  the exhibition chronicles franz kafka's life from his birth in prague's jewish quarter in 1823, to his death in 1924.  although he wrote exclusively in german, kafka spoke czech quite well and worked as a legal clerk and insurance officer, which is how he got to know bureaucracy so well, i suppose.  the museum has a very effective atmosphere, with dimmed lights and strange music, interrupted by shrieks of a crow.  projections of photographs move across white netting, and toward the end is a twisting hallway filled with black drawers from floor to ceiling.  endless drawers and drawers labelled with names;  it feels like the beginning of a nightmare!

familiar light

the people in fashion design seem to love vernisážes more than the members of any other ateliér, because s. invited me to another party in the spacious, beautiful studio in újezd.  except it was not the "table dancing to 1980s hits" kind we had hoped for, but another "standing around with a wine glass, kiss kissing on cheeks, while people spend ages announcing things we don't understand" party.  i didn't stay for long.  i was walking home in the twilight in a suddenly blue and self-critical mood, but then i saw a crowd of people under karlův bridge.  i came closer and from the center of the crowd a choir began to sing, surrounded by a small orchestra.  like golden, singing fireflies, under the bridge on a cold and wet tuesday night.

bonn

on saturday we left siegen on a day trip to bonn, to see a large modigliani exhibition at the kunst und ausstellungshalle.  the paintings, of course, were touching and beautiful as always, but there at the museum was another exhibition...czech photography of the twentieth century!  i leave the czechs only to find that they have travelled with me.  it was a gigantic collection of photographs, mostly from the uměleckoprůmyslové muzeum, featuring well-known masters: josef sudek, františek drtikol, jan saudek...but i was smitten with some interesting contemporary photography as well, especially the work of miro švolik and his series "môj život človeka" ("my life as a man," pictured above).  if i was a photographer, i would have liked to do something like this.

siegen

the last four days i was again in germany (i have a crush on this country, i just can't stay away!) except this time i went for a visit to one of my favorite places in the world, the town of siegen, which some of you may remember from last year's illustration.  we also visited the nearby villages kreuztal and kirchen, both of which are precious precious precious.  for the time being my life has become little houses on green hilltops.  siegen makes my heart sing, but coming back is the best part.  i have now left the czech republic four times: once by bus, once by train, twice by plane.  and i miss it after the first day away, and coming back really feels like coming back home.  the next time i leave it will be for a long long time...

rosteme s knihou

t. and i went to barokní letohrádek (baroque summer pavilion) portheimka for some children's book illustration exhibition that i read about on a poster when i went to the library earlier this week.  it was actually a display of the ridiculous amounts of books illustrated by one helena zmatlíková, whose work i immediately recognized:  every time i pass a branch of the city library, i see those freaky little children with big eyes and yellow curls looking back at me from many, many 1960s-70s book covers on display.  and then i even thought, "what, is one person responsible for these candy-colored creations?"  and now i know the answer.  it took us about 7 minutes to see the entire exhibition, and then we went to sit by the river, drinking beer and looking at the not-quite-white swans.

afternoon on a hill

yesterday i went to bílá hora, the last stop for tram no. 22, and a two minute walk from the yellow field, but you have to know where to go, because it is hidden from view.  i was just drinking kefir and watching the sun set over the landscape.  not to get all "walden pond" on you, but i think it helps to put the world in perspective at times.  i don't know why it is so interesting to sit in high places and look carefully down at the miniature life below, but it gives me an enormous feeling of being wide awake and also very very small in the middle of the giant scheme of things.  i wonder what people that have reached the top of mount everest feel like, or the first cosmonauts in space, and especially those that reached the moon.  "up there? it's beautiful up there, but very far from home."

gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is

how many lions live in prague?  the czech lion (český lev) is the symbol of the medieval coat of arms of bohemia, where he is represented as a crowned, double-tailed lion rampant.  the symbol dates back to the 13th century, but nobody really seems to be sure of the reason for the second tail.  i found this unusual lion on the corner of one of the houses in my neighborhood.  maybe i can find more in the old town.

honey in the sun

i found one i found one!  i went to divoká šárka, again like yesterday, and sitting on the very top of the cliff, i noticed one of my yellow fields on a hill far far ahead.  i thought, i have all day, and set off in what was approximately the right direction, since when i got down i could no longer see it.  i walked through fields and hills and streets, and just when i came out onto a road and was about to give up, i noticed a sliver of yellow to my right.  i turned into a small pathway, and came out into this giant sea of yellow.  from the center of it, i could see the hill i was sitting on when i spotted it.  one, two, three, four... despite all letdowns, i am lucky like a four leaf clover.

curiouser and curiouser!

"in a place far away from anyone or anywhere, i drifted off for a moment."  i took the tram to divoká šárka again, and climbed as high as i could this time, where i found a comfortable rock like a throne and sat quite still for i don't know how long.  then i walked the 8 km (5 miles) home through the picturesque dejvice district, with the sun behind me and listening only to the most cheerful camera obscura songs.

at five o'clock this morning, i was in letna park, wondering what kind of dimension i have entered, as the two extremely magical czechs that i was there with were pirouetting around barefoot on the grass and waving their arms in the most perfect illustration of the word "frolicking" that i have ever seen.  then one of them climbed a tree and could not get down for the longest time.  when he finally did, he grew very attached to a large metal pole and refused to let go of it, while the other was trying to convince me of the virtues of walking around barefoot on cold, wet, dewy grass;  his ancestors did it, he said, and i should too.

painting the roses red

prague is a-bloom with roses.  j. left for tallinn this morning, and i went to hlavní nádraží to see n. off on a bus to barcelona. we will meet again, i know, i can feel it, we will make it happen. our last party will be tonight, to say goodbye to the spanish and french economy students. again i am alone in my half-empty room, just the way i started out four months ago.  my time in wonderland is coming to a close as well, and i have a strong desire to go to old and new places and do things by myself for a while. take a bus somewhere, walk for hours, return in the evening.  maybe it is even kind of exciting: my time is fully mine again.

plzeň

n. and i went on a day trip to plzeň today, home of the pilsner urquell beer brewery and a charming little place.  located in western bohemia, about one hour southwest of prague, it was founded in 1295 and looks a lot like dresden; even the trams are yellow.  we climbed the steep spiral staircase to the top of bartolomějský cathedral, the highest tower in the czech republic.  remember my hope for something beautiful to happen to me?  yes, the wind was beating us so hard and the town looked so lovely, and the name of the bell inside the tower is prokop.  i have wanted for so long to see for miles and miles, from above,  and today i did, little cars and people down below, then precious toy houses with orange roofs, and beyond, the greenest fields and forests...

ветер перемен

strange feelings taking over.  school is over, and many friends are leaving this week.  i am stupefied by the speed of time and temporarily immobilized, but i am working on changing that, because i don't want to be lame like the person that wrote the thing above.  that is not a productive way of looking at things.  i will attempt to think less and do more, filling the remaining days in my calendar with something to do.  i would like to travel around the czech republic, visit a castle.  the question is, which one?  the czech republic holds the world record for the greatest amount of castles per square mile.

coz we're, like, adventurers!

i never got around to showing this to you; i just cannot get over this phenomenon of yellow fields and toy towns.  on the way to the airport a month ago, i spotted one such field that seems to be accessible by foot, and naturally, i plan on accessing it.  speaking of yet unexplored places and unsolved mysteries:  the prague lion, the vltava, marina tsvetayeva, the paternoster, moravia, d3a, and other adventures still ahead!  p.s. i want something really beautiful to happen to me this week, i don't what, just something; it's about time.

l'auberge espagnole

yesterday evening we (six girls) were invited to a dinner party at a flat in dejvice where three czech boys, some of g.'s friends, live.  five minutes within walking through the door (the space where the door should be, that is; the actual door was leaning on the wall a meter away), we were cutting vegetables, washing the dishes, airing out the tablecloth, and emptying ashtrays, while our hosts stood back in quiet defeat.  and we made some balloon animals on the way there.  oh and between the nine of us, we represented six different countries: czech republic, russia, estonia, france, italy, mexico, and japan.

výstava klauzurních prací

illustration

my postcards on display.  i also included my sketchbook if anybody wants to see where this pattern business came from, and what i have been doing for the last few months.

architecture

product design

all of the studios were set up very beautifully, even though some of the work - mostly in the more conceptual studios - was of questionable craftsmanship.  it looks so good!

wolves in the latest sheep's fashion

the fashion ateliér's opening was lovely; quite a few pieces were inspired by slovak traditional costume, and the overall exhibition was very light an airy, and it took place inside the old building at újezd that faces the river from the kampa side. afterwards we moved back to the school's main building for the opening of the product design students' exhibition, which was a contest to design a new product/packaging for heinz ketchup.

it was here that i found out, because nobody bothered to tell me, that grades were being given out at our illustration studio. i was glad that i missed it, because from what i heard, the head of our studio showed a different side of himself and trashed the work of foreign and czech students alike. apparently he does this, apparently nobody really likes him, apparently nobody is really so friendly with each other there. how can he smile and nod all semester, and only at the end express his true opinion? that isn't how constructive criticism works. i know it was silly to cry at a vernisáž, but i couldn't hold it in when i heard this. you can't imagine the pain and disappointment. i didn't let it break me for months - not being told anything ever, not getting any translation, the students looking right through me when i said hello, not knowing what the teachers really think about my work, not being taught anything, feeling constantly like an inconvenience to the people that are, in theory, there to help me - i found some ways to justify all of their behavior, but all of this eats away at one's self confidence little by little, and last night was just too much.

i can't say i wasn't warned

all of the studios opened their doors these two days for jury and to give all of the students a chance to speak about their work. (above, jewelry). tomorrow is the official opening and until next friday, the school and studios will be open for the public.  i finally ran into MSC and told him that he has some 'splainin' to do.  well, he left his phone at his parents' house (for, what, two weeks now?) and he even said it like this is normal.  we agreed on tuesday of next week, but something tells me that i am an idiot.  if anyone was gambling on this, now would be a good time to bet against me.  assuming that my heart will finally break on tuesday, i have four days to not think about it and do something productive.  than afterwards i can tearfully eat all of the tubs of ice cream i want.  tonight is the opening of the VŠUP fashion studio, which is very very exciting!

moje praha

i finished my klauzura project, which is a set of eight postcards, featuring some patterns that i found around the city.  more details here.  i have to document them as much as possible because i think they might get taken away by the VŠUP illustration studio.   i wish somebody would tell me what is going on!

about my school

the academy of decorative and applied arts (or academy of art, architecture and design) was founded in in 1885, then being the first and only state art school in the czech republic.  since its founding, the school has been the center of many important artistic movements and in 1900 became the czech representative at the world exhibition in paris, where it was awarded the grand prix.  a staggering amount of famous czech artists and architects studied here, later taught here, and some went on to become headmasters of the school.  the school got so many makeovers with the cultural and political changes during the 20th century; it's impressive to think of the people that walked in the same dark hallways and used the ancient workshops.  

it's probably the only thing about prague that i won't miss.  it seems to me like it is so prestigious that sometimes it forgets that it is a school.  i never did take MICA for granted, but now i really appreciate it.

don't look da-da-da-down

i have exactly one month left in prague.  already we are watching friends leave, and most people will stay until the middle of june.  now i really imagine that time is running out.  if there is still anything that i would like to see happen to me, now is the time to be determined, decisive, and brave.  i know i am slower than molasses and my adventures don't kick up a lot of dust, but looking back, i have done so much already and i don't feel that i am missing anything, with one tiny exception (which i will continue to work at, with my last shreds of strength and dignity).  but there are a few mysteries still left to be solved, so onward!

field below

the prague fringe festival started, and last night n. and i went to the jazz and blues club u malého glena in malá strana to see this scottish singer/songwriter, andi neate.  it was not really my cup of tea, but she did sing in scottish gaelic at the end, a capella.

there are poppies growing on letna hill!  i went for a walk today to clear my head, and there were a couple of old creeps on a park bench sitting around and being creepy.  i went home and now i am working again, with dry point, scratching away at some piece of white shiny plastic paper, so i can make prints tomorrow morning.  "time is a tease.  time is a tease - because everything has to happen in its own time."    

прихоть

that's the weather here in prague, and i have a mood to match. the rain makes it difficult to do anything outside of home and school, although n. and i did manage to go to a small exhibition of old european posters from the museum of decorative and applied arts. i have mostly been staying inside and working on my klauzura (final semestral work), and trying to not feel sad and abandoned, because even though i thought that after my fantastically successful attempt to become bffs with magical sweater czech everything would be easy as pie, i was very, very wrong. given that this is a rather hectic week, i will not begin to panic just yet, but so far i am under the impression that he has completely vanished. i seriously hope that he didn't frantically pack his bags and leave the country immediately after meeting me. if anyone thinks that this smacks of "he's just not that into you," i have already considered the possibilities and judged it impossible. so there.

мааамо! а ти ж менi казала: час як вода...

i am working on a set of postcards about prague for my final illustration project. i could barely hold back my tears yesterday when the master in the graphic techniques workshop refused to help me with etching, but i moved on to plan b, which means doing most of the work by drawing. but for variety i did two with linocut this morning. it's my own fault for being an idiot and going away for two weeks, but still, in let-down situations like yesterday's i can't help but feel rejected by an entire nation (stupid, i know). tomorrow the assistant will be there and maybe i will have time for one etching. tonight i am working well past two in the morning, and i am wondering how many people out there also have the song "mamo" painfully stuck in their heads.  primarily the first chorus, that's in ukrainian...

petersburg drawings: two

petersburg drawings: one

never seen by waking eyes

of all the cities i've had the chance to know, st. petersburg is very strange and haunting in a way i have a hard time describing in words (i did drawings).  i noticed that i am aesthetically and emotionally drawn to things of former glory, the decay of once-beautiful things.  the buildings are phantom-like. they all have a look of shining long long ago, but have since become dirty and the paint is chipping.  caving in on themselves, along with the ghosts inside.  the names of businesses on old signs sound fake, like part of the set design for a play.  there is some strange weight in the air that i sense but can't describe.  creepy in a beautiful way, beautiful in a creepy way.  i am incredibly frustrated by my inability to convey this, though i can see it right in front of me, flashing in pictures of peeling wallpaper, silent films of women with high collars and frilled white parasols, and horse-drawn trams.  political conspiracies, snuff boxes, and tragic characters. always looking for something somewhere else when there was so much right in front of me all along, i am sorry i only took notice of it now.  

only a northern song

we went to our summer cabin for a couple of days, but there wasn't much for me to do but read books and draw little crooked houses and fences.  i read three books during the two weeks.  back in the city, we took out the record player and listened to soviet bootleg beatles vinyls ("let's all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born, though she was born a long, long time ago, your mother should know...") until the needle fell out (or dissolved) and we couldn't find it anymore.  then there were two plays, a jazz concert, some dinner parties, an extremely disappointing "night of museums" (but we had a good laugh) and a random ballroom dancing competition.  it was quite cold and windy up there, in the north.

ну и чего ж ты ушла-то, рыба моя?

hello, i am again in prague.  i was happy when we landed, and happy on the bus, then happy on the metro, and on the bus again. i was so happy to be back, and everything around felt like home.  the last two weeks have been really exciting and filled with activity, but the price was losing two precious weeks from my time in prague.  now i am frantically working on catching up at school.  and everywhere else in my life!