time for a short intermission

i have a flight to saint petersburg this morning, and i will stay there for two and half weeks.  i may not have a chance to write about it while i am there, but i am mentally taking you with me, friends, and you will hear all about it when i come back, on 24th may.  also i am sure you are all dying to know what will happen next in the adventure of the magical sweater czech, as am i.  until then, na shledanou!  (s., see you very soon!)

yes yes yes yes yes

the visual arts masters program show opened today, but i did not really get to see it, because magical sweater czech walked into the school.  this was it, this was it.  i was so scared that the two glasses of wine i downed at the opening in record time did zero for my nerves, and after i spent 15 minutes hyperventilating like a 12 year old outside of the architecture studio, with i. and j. dragging me to the door and trying to convince me that i have nothing to lose, he walked out of the room and down the hall. 

inspired by the old communist saying: "we solve problems by marching ahead," i took the initiative and ran after him like some kind of demented troll.  he was gracious enough not to call the ambulance, but actually smiled as i made it perfectly clear that i have no speech prepared.  two hours later (!), i found out that he lived up perfectly to every notion i had about magical czechs - except maybe the pet bear - and now i am on cloud nine.  he speaks little english but enough for me to understand, and lo and behold, i can apparently speak a little czech!

mildly molested

today in drawing class my model was one old man, for whom my not speaking czech and his not speaking english is apparently not an obstacle to his incessant talking to me and asking me whether i understand, and occasionally flicking the tip of my nose with his index finger.  when i came in to the classroom after a break, he approached me, flicked me on the nose, and told me something along the lines of - here my lamentable understanding of czech and my careful observation of his gestures worked together - that next time, if i don't close the door behind me, he is going to spank me.  yes, that's right.  and if i had only known the czech word for "spank," i could have spared myself - and the rest of the class - the demonstration.

současný ruský film

the free russian film festival began tonight at kino světozor, and n. and i went to two films in a row.  both were the latest by karen shakhnazarov, who was present, along with some of the actors.  i was not so impressed with the first film, vanished empire, but i loved loved the second, the rider named death, about terrorism in pre-revolutionary russia (moscow, 1904).  the film is very rich in setting, costume, and music, giving it the aesthetic of moulin rouge! - a very theatrical and stylized depiction of something so dark that it draws you in.  although i feel slightly sheepish about using the word "romantic," - it is about terrorism, after all - for me that is exactly the feeling that the film evoked.  

berlin drawings

scenic drawings

bicycle, bicycle

n. got out her rollerblades and i borrowed a neighbor's bicycle, and we went riding through stromovka park in the sunshine.  oh, how i missed bike riding.  this one was a real cool retro one, that r. bought for 300 crowns at kolbenova.  in germany it felt like pedestrians are in the minority, because it seemed everyone - children, students, seniors, businessmen - are on bicycles.  in the czech republic, it seems that everyone is on rollerblades.

"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.

znova v praze

i have dreamed for a long time of those alluring words, like "alexanderplatz," and berlin did not disappoint.  it was a very special two days, but i am glad to be back in prague.  the day we left for germany, i was in the store buying snacks for the 6-hour bus journey, and a pair of the same mystical eyes as the ones magical sweater czech has flashed at me from nearby.  it was not him, but either a very close relative or this is some kind of breed of czech boy.  the next time i looked, he disappeared.  as every person questioned has not seen anyone with the described qualities, people are beginning to think that i imagined this person.  but as n. put it, it's just that no one sees him the way i do.     

berlin: three

we spent most of tuesday soaking up the perfect lines of antiquity at the pergamonmuseum, and wandering around the city afterwards.  if we didn't have m. to guide us when she had time, we never would have found, and wouldn't have even remembered about tacheles, a former department store and later nazi administration building in east berlin, that stands in ruins after being hit by several ally bombs during the second world war.  in 1990 it was taken over by young artists who used and continue to use the building as living and studio space.  the inside is completely covered in wall art, and the atmosphere is like an extreme version of baltimore's copycat building.  for me, it was moving to see the building because i only know it from a scene in goodbye, lenin! and then suddenly, here it was.

east/west

for me, it was unavoidable to think of the city in terms of east and west.  one the left is the view from our host's flat, in a quiet neighborhood in the west, which is cozy and inviting.  on the right is the typical residence of people who lived on the other side of the wall, in the east, which looks a lot like home.  even in the very fun interactive DDR museum, n. and i recognized some toys and kitchen and living room arrangements not unlike those that we grew up with.  the museum cleverly approaches the bygone era with hands-on displays of "ostalgie" (playing on the german word for "east").  

i was walking down karl-marx-allee, drinking strawberry milk from a glass bottle, and i thought, "it all really happened, didn't it?  it happened, and it happened right here."

prague-berlin-prague

the czech-german countryside is very colorful, with stretches of saffron-yellow canola flower fields appearing quite often among the green pastures.  

this was my sixth time in germany, but my first in berlin.  this is a prague-blague, but i should say a few things about berlin now, because i have long wanted to go there and it fits well into the themes that interest me.  we arrived on monday evening and met our very lovely host m., who lives in a cozy little flat in the west side of the city.  we spent the two full days walking, and at night we slept on her foldout futon.

goodbye, lenin!

my mom (pictured here, in café europa) is back in the states, and i have to get ready for berlin.  we really did a good job with the european film festival; we saw two polish, two german, and one estonian film.  the germans were the best, with the aforementioned nothing but ghosts and cherry blossoms - hanami.  the latter ended with applause and during the course of the film i could hear czechs and foreigners alike blowing their noses.  in fact it was most likely czechs, because i noticed that they have zero inhibitions about loudly blowing their noses in public.

dresden: two

there are many museums in dresden, and seeing all of them in one day is humanly impossible, and i don't believe in seeing everything just for the sake of seeing it, anyway. we picked the gemäldegalerie alte meister (old masters picture gallery), and that was enough. the old masters can be extremely tiring if taken in excessive amounts, and i like to play games to make the experience more exciting. one such game involves looking for the most hilariously proportioned baby jesuses. another is finding as many dashing men as possible. the gemäldegalerie alte meister is not lacking in either department.

dresden: one

it is simultaneously fascinating and strange to be able to take a day trip to another country, without needing a passport.  yesterday we took a train to dresden, which is only two hours away.  two hours, and everyone around speaks german and all prices are in euros.  dresden is very small, with disproportionately grandiose buildings scattered every which way around the old town.  my favorite thing that i found was on the back of the ständehaus on auguststraße: two very insecure-looking atlantises.  one looks like he is looking for any sign of hair on his chest; the other, like he had an accident.  also, when we were in schloßplatz, i wondered whether napoleon had ever been here, only to find out now that this is somewhere in the vicinity.  looks like i might have to go back to investigate, maybe in june.

life is elsewhere

my mom's arrival has reminded me that there is a world outside of my magical cocoon.  i have only reached the halfway mark, but i can feel the panic coming.  "the time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things..."  my time here is limited, and eventually i will have to think about credit transfers, my fall schedule, my senior thesis, and doing more work here while i can. n. and i bought bus tickets to berlin for two days.  we even found a very nice woman to stay with through couchsurfing, where you can literally stay on somebody's couch.  i hope i will forget my troubles for a while.

valdštejnská zahrada

it is april, and one of prague's "secret gardens" is now open to the public.  valdštejnská zahrada (wallenstein garden) has two male peacocks that move about freely.  the beautiful white one was gracious enough to open his tail, but the colored one was stingy and only screeched at the top of his little peacock lungs for no apparent reason.  peacocks are very loud.  i have never ever seen a white one before;  i thought him even more striking than the other one.  beautiful bird.

dny evropského filmu

my mom flew in to prague on friday on a direct flight from the real world, and she brought jellybeans.  she will be staying here for nine days.  the film festival days of european films has started, and i have planned a very active film-viewing schedule for the next two weeks.  yesterday we saw a really marvelous german film called nothing but ghosts (i beam with happiness at the thought of german cinema lately), and tonight a not quite so marvelous polish film called wednesday, thursday morning.  the director grzegorz pacek was there, but the q&a after the film was quite tense, as the film has some good moments, and was the kind that i hang on to, hoping it doesn't fall short, but then it does, and i feel sorry that it did.

that green gentleman

more obscurity that goes unnoticed.  after somehow stumbling upon an interesting website, this morning i left in search of someone called zelený muž ("green man") around the old town.  a green man (or "foliate head") is an architectural decorative element consisting of a face surrounded by leaves.  the green man can be found all over the world and is quite mysterious but generally believed to come from pagan traditions dealing with vegetation and the coming of spring.  

above are some of prague's green men that i was able to find.  the bottom right is part of the richly ornamented side of the karolinum, the oldest university in the czech republic (1347). he is very special because he is the type called disgorging head, or one that spouts vegetation from his mouth.  they all have very distinct personalities, and the aforementioned website has very specific and touching descriptions of prague's green men, quoted from václav cílek.

here's the mail it never fails

dear friends,

i am so grateful for the letters and postcards you send me.  it always makes my day to find an envelope waiting for me downstairs, and inside, your lovely words and drawings.  i have several unsent and unfinished postcards on my desk.  for those of you on my mailing list that haven't gotten anything yet, i promise you will;  i don't believe in sending banal "wish you were here" affairs, so i wander around looking for inspiration to send something more personalized.  it takes longer, but i think it means more.  děkuji vám za všechno!

in particular

i did not explain the "sweater" phenomenon as well as i should have.  i have learned that there exists a certain "czech boy look," which usually consists of something like corduroy pants, a backpack, endearing hurricane hair styled by pillow, and a button down shirt, the collar and tails of which stick out from under these mysterious "bard" sweaters that i noticed when i first came to art school here, where this type is especially common.  after much careful observation, i have concluded that most of them come from the architecture department.  these boys are rare and possibly a dying breed, but what is really great about them is that there is absolutely nothing ironic, styled, or affected about their appearance.  they seem to be outside of time.  hence, "magical sweater czech."

pondělí velikonoční (easter monday)

happy easter monday; no school!  in the czech easter, there is a tradition for every day of the week leading up this day.  the most interesting one is called pomlázka (from the verb "pomladit," meaning "to make younger").  in this centuries-old tradition, boys run around the village, holding whips made from braided pussywillow twigs with colorful ribbons tied to the end.  with these, they proceed to whip the girls of the village, and sometimes even douse them with water.  the girls then reward the boys by giving them lovely painted eggs that they have worked on all week.  fair exchange, no?  at first i thought, oh funny old village tradition, ha-ha, but now i am scared because i am seeing boys in the street with these whips sticking out of their back pockets!  (above, "mazanec" easter bread.)

divoká šárka

more about divoká šárka: i was feeling enthusiastic all week about going somewhere green, with a backpack (it was a very simple dream), and we went to this big beautiful valley.  just twenty minutes by tram away from home, there are streams, wide fields, tall forests, and steep cliffs, and grass so green it hurts your eyes to look at it.  the name of the park means "wild šárka," the name of a beautiful amazon from czech mythology, who was the right-hand woman of vlasta, the ruler of a matriarchal society.  when war broke out between the women and the men, who lived on the opposite side of the river, vlasta sent šárka to destroy ctirad, the men's general.  šárka managed to lure ctirad to his death, but the men won the war anyway.  and whether she had fallen in love with him, or because death was a preferable alternative to surrender, in the end she committed suicide by jumping from one of the cliffs.

bílá sobota (white saturday)

because today is white saturday in the czech easter tradition, i woke up thinking that on this day i would like to find the color white.  this thought left my mind by the afternoon, and then n. and i went hiking in divoká šárka, a large natural reserve in prague 6.  we spotted a six-pointed building in the distance and decided to walk towards it.  after crossing a field and climbing a steep and slippery hill, we walked to the star-shaped renaissance summer palace (built 1555-56) called hvězda ("star").  

the palace is white and inside, the walls and ceiling are pure white, with ornamental carvings.  and the place where the palace stands is called bílá hora ("white mountain"), where the battle of the same name took place in 1620, during the thirty years' war.  and all around, tiny white flowers cover the forest floor like a carpet.  then i remembered my morning idea and found it touching that the color white found me first and drew me to itself.

velký pátek (good friday)

the general opinion among foreigners seems to be that czechs are standoffish, arrogant, and impossible to understand as a culture.  perhaps to people from countries where human interaction is generally more open and warm, the differences are strikingly obvious.  myself coming from a culture that isn't particularly famous for its kindness to strangers or even to its own, i can sort of understand this (mis)conception and the truth and reasons behind it, the way i can understand why czech verbs conjugate the way they do, but still have no feeling for them.  yet i hear disappointingly often from friends who have lived here for longer than i that i will probably never find any close friends among the czechs.  of course this is a bullshit thing to say, but still, i wonder. 

sometimes i think it is easier here for students who have no intention of ever belonging here. people who, coming here, don't feel nostalgia for a time and place they never lived in.  but i sit on a strange fence between understanding a little and understanding nothing, and it is the combination of one glimmer of hope for the future and the bitter pain of being different that startles and confuses me.  dear prague, please don't break my heart.

zelený čtvrtek (green thursday)

sometimes wine + strudel happens in the middle of the day.  yesterday there was a party in the fashion studio; people dancing like crazy on the table to 1990s hits.  it was so fun!  and the most interesting part is that this happens in the school.  people hold parties after hours in their studios and nobody minds.  well, the man at the reception desk came upstairs to tell us to keep it down a couple of times, but when his shift was over, he went home and we were free to continue.  imagine that, i wish MICA was so welcoming, but then again the student body at VŠUP is practically nonexistent, and sometimes it seems that the school is empty.

škaredá středa (ugly wednesday)

t. moved out of the dormitory and into a very charming room in vinohrady. she was in bologna all last week for the annual bologna children's book fair, and now i kind of wish i went, although going to italy would have felt out of place right now. i will someday. but she brought some cute pictures of animals for me and i sat on her balcony, looking through the very beautiful books that she bought at the fair.

historické muzeum + corrupted endeavor

here are some of my drawings from the exhibition of czech traditional crafts and costume. also i really failed at life yesterday when i missed an astronomically perfect chance to initiate contact with magical sweater czech, on account of jelloid knees and speechlessness. i am very stupid and should be sent to a stupid home.

říše loutek

t. and i went to the puppet theater called říše loutek ("kingdom of puppets") in a side street near our school.  i love the tiny art deco theater with green walls, glowing stars on the ceiling, and a miniature stage with red curtains. the dolls are funny with little leather shoes.  we were mostly surrounded by children, who understood the plot of the play better than we did, but it made sense, and i think the moral was something like, "beating people that have wronged you with a stick will solve all of your problems."  oh, i just translated the title of the play, "obušku, z pytle ven!" and it means something like, "wooden stick, come out of the bag!" we found the theater by chance once, and it is like a little secret.  the performances are every saturday and sunday, and i think i might become a regular there.  good way to learn czech, too.

obamarama

i woke up quite early this morning and made my way up to the castle square to see barack obama.  i missed him in baltimore, so i thought, hey why not.  the line to the metal detectors took about 40 minutes.  then i waited some more as the square filled with people, and when he finally came out, it seemed like half of the crowd climbed on the shoulders of the other half.  so i did not exactly see him, could not even figure out where he was speaking from, but there were big screens with czech subtitles.  so i saw obama through the crowd through a tree through a screen.  meanwhile, in wenceslas square, there was a protest against the american radar.

art nouveau: grand hotel europa

grand hotel europa (václavské náměstí, 25) is another fine example of architecture from a time when people pasted stickers from places they've been on their valises. like the hotel central, it was first designed by quidon belsky in 1889, and then reborn in the art nouveau style in 1903-05, through the masterful efforts of czech architects bedřich bendelmayer and alois* dryák, with interiors by bohumil hübschmann and jan letzel. i think the colors are quite kitschy, but how i wish i could examine all of the sculptural details up close! the interiors, it seems, have remained true to their original look, and there is a café inside, which i am making it my goal to visit.
*best czech male name, ever.

ladislav sutnar

since one of our lectors in history of czech graphic design is iva knobloch, the curator of the prints department at the museum of applied and decorative arts, we got an exclusive peek at the museum's private archives of printed material. due to a lack of exhibition space, the museum only exhibits one percent of its collection, and here were rooms piled to the ceiling with books, prints, and posters, and among the shelves and drawers were the employees' workspaces, also covered in papers, with other curiosities - like old typewriters - strewn about. a man was digging frantically in one of the square drawers, occasionally murmuring and gasping to himself.  i wish i could work with archives, especially in such a lovely old place. the incredible things that would pass though my hands!

the lecture was about ladislav sutnar (1897-1976), top notch czech graphic designer and pioneer of "information design." iva laid out his books and the work he is best known for, the technical catalogues he designed for american clients. he really is a master at visually organizing boring technical information in a very beautiful and clean way, but two hours of detailed dissection of successful design elements in every catalogue from the 1930s to the 1950s was quite tiresome. at one point something happened - i felt heat rise up to my head and the color drain from my face - and i thought i would faint. i was alright but that was very strange.

art nouveau: hotel central

hotel central (hybernská, 10) is one of the first art nouveau/jugendstil buildings in prague.  at the very top, in golden lettering, are the names q. belsky and f. ohmann.  from what i understand, the building was originally designed by quidon belsky and then redesigned in art nouveau/jugendstil by friedrich ohmann in 1900.  unfortunately i could not find more information about the hotel, and the two art nouveau architecture sources i found do not agree on the years of completion or even the architects.

but anyway it is a lovely mint color with gold accents and intricate detailing.  i especially like the ginkgo ornamentation around the central window.  today the building is really no longer the hotel central, but the home of some usual modern hotel chain, which makes me a little sad, or nostalgic for a time long ago, when people knew what slowness is.

afons mucha

i woke up feeling very enthusiastic about art nouveau, so i visited the alfons mucha museum and then went in search of prominent art nouveau architecture throughout the city.  i collected a few interesting examples but i don't believe in long blog posts, so i will do a little research to supplement my photographs and then introduce them separately.  

about mucha: besides his famous parisian works (the theatrical posters for the "divine sarah" bernhard),  mucha also designed advertisements featuring traditional czech faces and patterns, such as the one above, for the moravian teachers' choir.  i had never seen this work before, and since i am in prague, i think it important to mention it.  the exhibition also includes a few paintings, his beautiful atelier photography, and commissioned work for the newly independent czechoslovakia (banknotes and medals).

faustův dům

(illustration of faustův dům by jiří šlitr, which i incidentally found in a book today)

the "faust house" (karlovo náměstí, 40) did not strike me as very mysterious in today's sunny weather, but it is actually the subject of many strange legends about its eccentric inhabitants.  despite its rather modern appearance (fully renovated in 1769) the mansion dates back to the 15th century.  the faust house changed owners through the centuries: prince vaclav of opava in the 15th century, edward kelley in the 16th, knight ferdinand antonín mladota of solopysk in the 18th; all of these inhabitants practiced alchemy, and i am sure that the mysticism surrounding this house resulted from centuries of outsiders' curiosity.

the strangest person to live in this house was a karl jaenig, in the 19th century. he is said to have been an avid collector of skulls, a functioning gallows, and other death-related objects. he inscribed funeral text on the walls and even allegedly slept in a coffin.

another story tells of a student who needed a place to live and settled in the then-abandoned mansion.  he found dark magic books and tired something out i suppose, because afterwards he was carried away through the ceiling by the devil himself!  which is why, in a swoosh of 19th century romanticism, it was not hard to fabricate (?) the building's connection with the dr. faustus legend.

the world is quiet here: vyšehrad

i went to prague 2 to vyšehrad, the "other" castle, situated on a hill over the river and completely free of crowds.  the castle dates back to the 10th century, but the saint peter and saint paul basilica, the twin-spired neo-gothic cathedral in its center, was built in the late 19th.  behind the cathedral is the vyšehrad cemetery, the final resting place of  antonín dvořák, bedřich smetana, alfons mucha, and other famous czechs. 

many of the headstones have intricate detailing and the mausoleums surrounding the central plots are very beautiful, especially those decorated in art nouveau style:

simple, simple golden lines, it's perfect.  i just came here to walk around in a quiet place; i did not expect to find so many interesting colors, shapes, and patterns to think about.

three separate thoughts

today was a very, very sunny day and i went to the zoo.  zoo praha is considered to be one of the best zoos in the world, occupying 111 acres of land, and housing "about 4,600 animals that represent 630 species from all around the world."  the polar bears paced and paced.

last week n. and i went to slovanský dům to see "he's just not that into you" ("až tak moc tě nežere") in english with czech subtitles.  it was strange to see baltimore because the film didn't really look like baltimore.

and a new bead store opened on strossmayerovo náměstí, with excellent timing (i was beginning to wonder if there is one).  the saleswoman looks like she would rather be eating thumbtacks, but the selection is very exciting!

folkin' around

i found a hidden gem today. the historické muzeum, a branch of národní muzeum tucked away in a little white chateau in a corner of the park kinského zahrada, houses a precious collection of czech costume, toys, embroidery, and other traditional crafts. each room is dedicated to a different part of czech traditions, such as crafts, feasting, customs of spring, summer, christmas, birth and death, and wedding.

 everything is in czech, but between buying a student ticket, turning in my coat, and being given directions to where everything is in the museum, i am happy to say that i did not have to resort to english for one second.  the museum is quiet and not very big, but was clearly put together with such love and care, that i felt so happy and calm to carefully observe each beautiful object, to the sound of traditional music in some rooms, and simply chirping birds in others.  i want to come back here every weekend until i have drawn every item on display!

hello spring

the city was stuffed with people today, because of the easter markets in old town and wenceslas squares, and if that didn't make it impossible to get anywhere, the prague half-marathon caused any remaining space to be blocked off.  i walked around for about an hour and that was enough, so i went home and worked on an illustration assignment for eight hours straight.  

while the religious aspects of czech easter were suppressed under communism, the pagan tradition of welcoming the spring remains a bright and cheerful celebration.  the most recognizable symbol of czech easter is the decorated egg, which girls give to boys on easter monday (april 13th this year).

baila bamba

j. and i wanted to look at this ball outside of kampa museum, but there were three women all over it, laughing and photographing it for-ever.  of course we got annoyed waiting for them to leave the ball already, it's just a stupid ball that reflects things, but when they did leave, it all suddenly made sense because this ball is actually oh such fun.