Prague/Praha/Prag
Cross-posted here and there.
You know you have a problem with stasis when, after being in a city only two weeks, you’re already loath to leave your apartment. In my defense, my place here is twice the size of my San Francisco digs, and three munchkin cats live in its garden. I can keep myself occupied at home. I need to floss my teeth, for example. I’m long overdue in washing my hair.
And yet I’m out for the day. Well, out and then in again: I grabbed my laptop and toddled to the Ebel Cafe off Tynska St. (itself just around the corner from Franz Kafka’s papa’s old shop, now a Kafka bookstore), where I’ve just ordered my third cappuccino. Europeans supposedly say only Americans want milk in their coffee after 12 noon. They’re probably right, but compared to the continent we’re still an infant country - make that enfant terrible country - so maybe it makes sense. Or maybe we just like packing in a little extra fat whenever we can.
Inside, the Cure is playing. Outside, it’s raining, but unseasonably warm. The last time I was here, in 1993, a foot of snow covered the city by mid-November. So. Either a cold front is about to hit or global warming is trying to kill me.
Prague’s changed in other ways, too. Obviously it has. Fourteen years is… boy, isn’t it… a long time. Then, it still had its Soviet bruises and delirious Velvet-Revolution hangover, with socialist-era canned goods on the shelves and Vaclav Havel posters in the tourist shops. And, as far as I know, it had only one ATM, in Wenceslas Square.
Speaking of Wenceslas Square... yesterday I saw a kid skateboard off the memorial to a student who set himself on fire in to protest the Soviet intervention of 1969. Now the heroic dood's a one-man skateboard park. There’s a metaphor there, just as there’s a metaphor and no small irony in the fact that the Museum of Communism is sandwiched between a McDonald’s and a casino.
An observation about Prague that those who live/have lived here might want to contest: International tourism and rampant capital might glut the old city, but I don't think they'll gut it. Heck, even KFC has to fit into a 15th century structure, and Europe’s biggest mall on Revolucini St. erected itself within a series of belle époque buildings. Prague’s survived a couple of empires, a slew of wars and a bad case of communism gone wrong. It’ll survive capitalism, too, as long as it forces the market to conform to its topography instead of the other way around.
In sum: It could be worse. It has been worse.
MR F returned to Sweden last week to attend an academic conference, which, as it turned out, he did not attend because he overslept and missed his train from Karlskrona. Before leaving Prague, he bought a fabulous black leather trench coat from a hole-in-the-wall shop specializing in military antiques. We got it all the way home before noticing the faded stamp on its inner lining: “1939” and, on either side of that date, a pair of SS’s stylized into lightning bolts.
Yes, MR F is walking around in some dead stormtrooper’s vintage coat o’ doom. Perhaps it’s best he’s not coming to Berlin with me, because… err.. y’know. The Coat might carry embedded memories and try to compel F into defending the Reichstag. Yo, Panzer man! Looks like I’ll just have to dance on Hegel’s grave all by my lonesome.
But first I’m going to Dresden. Tomorrow, I’m going. I haven’t seen it since it metamorphosed from a ruined, sooty testament to Allied terrorism to a shiny! New! Testament to Forgetting the Past for the sake of commerce.
Go Saxony! I’ll miss those damn munchkin cats.
P.S. Totally knew Dumbledore was light on his toes. Didn’t we all? Now, if JKR would only fess up about Harry and Draco’s schoolboy tryst, all would be well.
P.P.S.S. Colbert has been robbed. AGAIN. *shakes fist at oatmealy Democrats and Wonderbread Emmy voters*
You know you have a problem with stasis when, after being in a city only two weeks, you’re already loath to leave your apartment. In my defense, my place here is twice the size of my San Francisco digs, and three munchkin cats live in its garden. I can keep myself occupied at home. I need to floss my teeth, for example. I’m long overdue in washing my hair.
And yet I’m out for the day. Well, out and then in again: I grabbed my laptop and toddled to the Ebel Cafe off Tynska St. (itself just around the corner from Franz Kafka’s papa’s old shop, now a Kafka bookstore), where I’ve just ordered my third cappuccino. Europeans supposedly say only Americans want milk in their coffee after 12 noon. They’re probably right, but compared to the continent we’re still an infant country - make that enfant terrible country - so maybe it makes sense. Or maybe we just like packing in a little extra fat whenever we can.
Inside, the Cure is playing. Outside, it’s raining, but unseasonably warm. The last time I was here, in 1993, a foot of snow covered the city by mid-November. So. Either a cold front is about to hit or global warming is trying to kill me.
Prague’s changed in other ways, too. Obviously it has. Fourteen years is… boy, isn’t it… a long time. Then, it still had its Soviet bruises and delirious Velvet-Revolution hangover, with socialist-era canned goods on the shelves and Vaclav Havel posters in the tourist shops. And, as far as I know, it had only one ATM, in Wenceslas Square.
Speaking of Wenceslas Square... yesterday I saw a kid skateboard off the memorial to a student who set himself on fire in to protest the Soviet intervention of 1969. Now the heroic dood's a one-man skateboard park. There’s a metaphor there, just as there’s a metaphor and no small irony in the fact that the Museum of Communism is sandwiched between a McDonald’s and a casino.
An observation about Prague that those who live/have lived here might want to contest: International tourism and rampant capital might glut the old city, but I don't think they'll gut it. Heck, even KFC has to fit into a 15th century structure, and Europe’s biggest mall on Revolucini St. erected itself within a series of belle époque buildings. Prague’s survived a couple of empires, a slew of wars and a bad case of communism gone wrong. It’ll survive capitalism, too, as long as it forces the market to conform to its topography instead of the other way around.
In sum: It could be worse. It has been worse.
MR F returned to Sweden last week to attend an academic conference, which, as it turned out, he did not attend because he overslept and missed his train from Karlskrona. Before leaving Prague, he bought a fabulous black leather trench coat from a hole-in-the-wall shop specializing in military antiques. We got it all the way home before noticing the faded stamp on its inner lining: “1939” and, on either side of that date, a pair of SS’s stylized into lightning bolts.
Yes, MR F is walking around in some dead stormtrooper’s vintage coat o’ doom. Perhaps it’s best he’s not coming to Berlin with me, because… err.. y’know. The Coat might carry embedded memories and try to compel F into defending the Reichstag. Yo, Panzer man! Looks like I’ll just have to dance on Hegel’s grave all by my lonesome.
But first I’m going to Dresden. Tomorrow, I’m going. I haven’t seen it since it metamorphosed from a ruined, sooty testament to Allied terrorism to a shiny! New! Testament to Forgetting the Past for the sake of commerce.
Go Saxony! I’ll miss those damn munchkin cats.
P.S. Totally knew Dumbledore was light on his toes. Didn’t we all? Now, if JKR would only fess up about Harry and Draco’s schoolboy tryst, all would be well.
P.P.S.S. Colbert has been robbed. AGAIN. *shakes fist at oatmealy Democrats and Wonderbread Emmy voters*