"у маленькой любви - коротенькие руки"

here is a spread from my newly aquired book; it's called "princ a malá princezna" ("the prince and the little princess").  i just looked at the back page, and noticed that the graphic design is done by milan grygar, whose name i remember from history of czech graphic design.  he did some film posters for the czech releases of "blow up" and "cool hand luke" in the 1960s.  double cool, then.

kolbenova

this morning we went to kolbenova flea market, where people with fanny packs and golden teeth sell all manner of junk: guitars without strings, one-eyed dolls,  forgotten soviet toys.  although after j. made a joke about the toys being from chernobyl, i got a little paranoid.  there was one small red elephant that i liked, but his ear was threadbare and disintegrating.  the vanishing elephant.  however, i did get very very lucky because i found a book illustrated by květa pacovská, about whom i wrote one of my first entries.  since i came to prague, i have not been able to find anything, anything with her illustrations, and here were two books!  i had to leave one behind, but the one i bought is lovely and i only paid 50 crowns ($2.50) for it.

edward gorey

look what i found at fišer bookstore.  i was happy but also i wonder about how someone had to redraw some of gorey's hand-drawn type in czech...

městská knihovna v praze

i went this morning  to make a borrower's card at the prague municipal library.  n. came with me to speed up the process by speaking czech and translating the application.  now with my card, i really feel more a part of a community, in a very tiny way.  the english and russian collections are not very big (but why should they be?) but this way i don't have to be picky and will be happy to read whatever i can find.

czechoslovakian illustration

i am looking at czechoslovakian children's book illustration from the 1960s.  these books are so obscure and rare, but i hope to get my hands on some of them someday.  i don't have anything czech in my collection yet.  my favorite is květa pacovská (i remember drooling over her book the little flower king, but i want to find it in the original czech):

also very charming are books by vlasta váňová and alena santarová (this especially because of the elephant).  this illustration reminds me of everything good, happy, and magical in the world.

itinerary

for some odd reason, my biggest dilemma is what books to bring.  i have imposed a limit of three.  norwegian wood, the unbearable lightness of being, and one more.  i can't decide between banana yoshimoto's kitchen or something by bill bryson.  this is hard.  i think i should be worrying about clothes and shoes.