Today we had our last lecture for my class on kitsch at the site of the Black Babies, by David Cherney. (Pictures to come)
Basically, in this little district called Zizkov, there is a HUGE telecommunications tower that was erected by the Communist party in the 80's...or maybe the 70's. Then, in 2000, Cherney's black babies were added to the tower.
I find the tower itself, aside from the babies, to be quite interesting. Again, it runs in the same vein as reinterpreting history. The communist party built the tower as a form of propaganda. It is now integral to the Prague skyline--no matter where you are, you can see this tower. It was the Communists way of overshadowing the past, the great history in other prominent skyline images such as Prague Castle. Which I lovingly refer to as "Prasky Hrad". Also, as a telecommunications tower, it was used for the dissemination of communist propaganda. Finally, it resembles greatly a rocket--a weapon of great importance in the cold war days--symbolizing the weaponry of propaganda. I think that also was a shout out to the future, promoting technology like the rocket and the telecommunications tower over things like Prague castle. For the communists there is no "past"...only future and what communism can do for you in that future.
I thought it was interesting. There are readings of the babies as a capitalist critique, crawling up this symbol of communism to defeat it, but my thoughts on that are less substantial than that of the tower itself. Since we were sitting in the grass I think I was too terrified of all the bugs that were crawling all over me to really pay attention. That tick has ruined me for life!!
Currently I should be studying for my exam tomorrow and then working on paper #3 of 4. A change of plans has occured and I am now leaving next Wednesday night for Croatia SO my papers need to be done that much earlier. Ideally by Monday night, because I want to enjoy my last day here on the Tuesday, but at the very latest Tuesday night so I can still go out to that rockin' Jazz Klub as my final hurrah...or should I say huzzah!
I am ready to leave though--people are really starting to piss me off, AND this paper stress has got me tearing my hair out and literally biting my fingernails off. Grross!
Sunday, Stacie and Melody and I are going to Auschwitz for the day...I figured that I would never make it back to Poland and in light of all the other similar sites we have visited this summer I am anxious, yet understandably apprehensive, to see it. Couldn't leave here without actually...
Well so ends my procrastination...t-minus 1 week until I get the hell out of here and 13 days until I meet up with Adam in Italy...then the REAL vacation begins!
Ciao,
Jess
6.21.2006
6.16.2006
all i could see were purples and reds
le sigh.
one of the guys on our trip had his girlfriend arrive today from Vancouver. She will be staying here until the end of our trip.
it makes me miss Adam a lot. they are all sitting down the hall meeting her and i am trying to work on my paper because i think it would make me too sad.
yesterday the guy said it was like waiting for christmas, and i understand every word of that. in fact, it's like waiting for christmas when you are six years old and are restless with anticipation.
18 days...
one of the guys on our trip had his girlfriend arrive today from Vancouver. She will be staying here until the end of our trip.
it makes me miss Adam a lot. they are all sitting down the hall meeting her and i am trying to work on my paper because i think it would make me too sad.
yesterday the guy said it was like waiting for christmas, and i understand every word of that. in fact, it's like waiting for christmas when you are six years old and are restless with anticipation.
18 days...
6.15.2006
exploiting the homesick
In an effort to appease Mandeep's craving for jalepeno poppers five of us went to TGIFridays in Wencesles Square.
This is the hamburger I had.
We also had a plate of nachos to split between everyone. $11. This is expensive for Prague, but my burger was also going to be about $12 so I figured, "hey, American restaurant, American pricing." Oh the nachos were split-able alright. If EIGHT nachos is split-able.
You may be thinking right now, Oh Jessica, don't exaggerate but I am not. Literally, 8 nachoes in a circle around the plate with enough sour cream in the middle to not only feed the entire state of Texas but also to more than handle our EIGHT nachos.
The exploitation of tourists aside, I had a few thoughts while I was there eating. Earlier this semester (I'm not sure if I wrote about this or not) we talked in class about how people go to eat "foreign" food--be it Chinese, Indian etc,--to get an "ethnic experience". They don't only eat the food, but they are immersed, momentarily, in that culture. Music, decor, even sometimes the servers are designed to create an "other-worldly" experience for those literally consuming within the establishment. An experience which fits the stereotypical view of the culture, regardless of whether it is realistic or not. What I decided though was that TGIFridays was the exact opposite of this.
It was designed to allow for an experience of a culture, yes. But there was not a single Czech person in there, save for the waitresses who were wearing baseball caps and Office-Space like flare all over their uniforms. The experience does not offer foreign excitement--it offers a piece of home, comfort and familiarity. It offers Heinz ketchup, ribs, and an english speaking menu. And for this, even the most budget-savvy traveler pays the $11 for 8 nachos. Where the rest of the world is "an other-worldly experience", it is the restuarant that offers the safe haven--and it is the comfort that is consumed.
6.12.2006
you can hear them in the streets!
Today was the day that the Czech Republic played the USA in the World Cup. Being in Europe for a world cup is a pretty unique experience I think. Even though I am not a huge soccer--EXCUSE ME-- football fan, the atmosphere is contagious. Tonight we went down to Old Town Square, where huge screens are set up to play all the games and coverage all day every day. The amount of PEOPLE was ridiculous- not to mention, huge Czech flags, beer bottles and rolls of toilet paper (randomly thrown up at various points of the game. keeps things interesting I guess--or people are too cheap to buy streamers.) Its kind of cool though, Canada would never let anything be so free, so spontaneous. We'd have beer gardens sectioned off, probably seats for people, a whole list of things. And though there were sponsor tents set up in the square, there was only a 1/4 of what our commercialized city would have allowed.all in all, very "authentic".
In other news, I booked my flight from Croatia to Milan for after my trip so post school and Prague stress will be diffused on a beach on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea. How will any other semester EVER match that??
And oh yeah, the sweet surprise. Friday evening, guess who shows up at my door? Adam. Like I said, best surprise ever. Best weekend of the trip, hands down.
oh, they're down.
take care team,
jd
6.10.2006
6.09.2006
just when you thought you had gotten rid of me...
hello lovelies!
i know, i know it has been quite a while...since my last post we made a trip to Libin, a mountain lodge in Sounthern Bohemia,(it snowed--believe it or not), I have handed in my first paper AND gotten it back and one of the girls in our group broke her tailbone--ouch! Most importantly though, today is day one of the World Cup. Now, I know what you are all thinking: but jessica, you don't even watch soccer! And I agree with you. However, this whole continent is pretty jacked up so its hard not to be excited. There is a giant tent in Old Town Square and I'm not sure what they are going to do with it...maybe show the games? I will keep you updated.
So, in the span of two days this week we visited Terezin and the Communist museum. Terezin, for those of you who were like me and didnt know, was a holding camp for jewish people before they were sent off to places like Auschwitz. Anyway, after seeing all this, the old wheel started turning again (and it was not impressed let me tell you, after my paper writing I think my brain just wanted to shrivel up and die). The Czech lands have been under control of one ideological force or another for a very long time. From the Hapsburgs to the Nazi's to the Communist regime, this country has not had long to exist on its own terms--as I mentioned before. With this, each new controlling force attempts to erase the past and reinterpret and reinvent historical symbols and figures in a way that has been manipulated to benefit their own gain.
For example, there is a statue in Zizkov of a celebrated Hussite warrior from like the 14th century, Jan Zizka (hence, the name of the town). Below this, there has always been a memorial to fallen soldiers and in some instances, the remains of "unknown soldiers". This has not always been the case though: during the Communist regime, Zizka was reinterpreted as a "good communist soldier" and the unknown soldier became "all soldiers who have died fighting for communism". Similarly with the Nazi's, historical streets were renamed, buidlings were torn down, so that people would be unable to remember a time before "the new dawn".
In light of this, I was at first amazed by how, after all these attempts, the Czech people have continued to hold onto their history and it has become a very important part of Czech culture. But then it occured to me that perhaps they too are exercising a certain selectivity in this. This may not make any sense because I never wrote about my thoughts on Cesky Krumlov (a small, almost disney-fied town in Southern Bohemia) But there is such a thing as living so much in the past that moving forward becomes increasingly difficult. As well, there are dangers to ignoring even the bloodiest of pasts. As I said before, the Czech Republic as it stands today is a young nation. Yes, it had a democratic history previous to WW2 but times have changed. There was an election here last week and the Communist party of the Czech Republic gained somewhere around 13% of the seats. In a minority government, hell in any government, that is 15 years out of a period of terror caused by communists, how can this happen? Is there a piece of the history that maybe I don't understand? Because, a good 50 years after the fact, if a fascist party gained 13% of the seats in a German government...well that would newsworthy. They aren't even allowed Fascist parties in Germany! And yet, did they not cause similar years of pain?
Also, (to make this even longer), could the globalization and Americanization be one more controlling ideological force descending upon the Czech Lands? And if it is, will it too require its own reinterpretation of history?
And to think, this all stemmed out of the fact that I went to McDonalds yesterday.
until next time,
jd--out
i know, i know it has been quite a while...since my last post we made a trip to Libin, a mountain lodge in Sounthern Bohemia,(it snowed--believe it or not), I have handed in my first paper AND gotten it back and one of the girls in our group broke her tailbone--ouch! Most importantly though, today is day one of the World Cup. Now, I know what you are all thinking: but jessica, you don't even watch soccer! And I agree with you. However, this whole continent is pretty jacked up so its hard not to be excited. There is a giant tent in Old Town Square and I'm not sure what they are going to do with it...maybe show the games? I will keep you updated.
So, in the span of two days this week we visited Terezin and the Communist museum. Terezin, for those of you who were like me and didnt know, was a holding camp for jewish people before they were sent off to places like Auschwitz. Anyway, after seeing all this, the old wheel started turning again (and it was not impressed let me tell you, after my paper writing I think my brain just wanted to shrivel up and die). The Czech lands have been under control of one ideological force or another for a very long time. From the Hapsburgs to the Nazi's to the Communist regime, this country has not had long to exist on its own terms--as I mentioned before. With this, each new controlling force attempts to erase the past and reinterpret and reinvent historical symbols and figures in a way that has been manipulated to benefit their own gain.
For example, there is a statue in Zizkov of a celebrated Hussite warrior from like the 14th century, Jan Zizka (hence, the name of the town). Below this, there has always been a memorial to fallen soldiers and in some instances, the remains of "unknown soldiers". This has not always been the case though: during the Communist regime, Zizka was reinterpreted as a "good communist soldier" and the unknown soldier became "all soldiers who have died fighting for communism". Similarly with the Nazi's, historical streets were renamed, buidlings were torn down, so that people would be unable to remember a time before "the new dawn".
In light of this, I was at first amazed by how, after all these attempts, the Czech people have continued to hold onto their history and it has become a very important part of Czech culture. But then it occured to me that perhaps they too are exercising a certain selectivity in this. This may not make any sense because I never wrote about my thoughts on Cesky Krumlov (a small, almost disney-fied town in Southern Bohemia) But there is such a thing as living so much in the past that moving forward becomes increasingly difficult. As well, there are dangers to ignoring even the bloodiest of pasts. As I said before, the Czech Republic as it stands today is a young nation. Yes, it had a democratic history previous to WW2 but times have changed. There was an election here last week and the Communist party of the Czech Republic gained somewhere around 13% of the seats. In a minority government, hell in any government, that is 15 years out of a period of terror caused by communists, how can this happen? Is there a piece of the history that maybe I don't understand? Because, a good 50 years after the fact, if a fascist party gained 13% of the seats in a German government...well that would newsworthy. They aren't even allowed Fascist parties in Germany! And yet, did they not cause similar years of pain?
Also, (to make this even longer), could the globalization and Americanization be one more controlling ideological force descending upon the Czech Lands? And if it is, will it too require its own reinterpretation of history?
And to think, this all stemmed out of the fact that I went to McDonalds yesterday.
until next time,
jd--out
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