|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
photos: ponec stage | truck bunny | literary infinity
videos: fire | chants | chomps | chaos | water
brooke invited me to a modern dance performance last night called Extraction. it was staged at divadlo ponec in zizkov.
the production team had installed sensors around the stage that were apparently capturing the dancers movements and tranlsating them into sounds programmed by a computer in the back. at one point, all the music suddenly dissappeared and was replaced by a looped recording of the sounds of the dancers moving across the stage. with each pass of the 4-5 second loop, the recording would build upon itself, gradually becoming a virtual cacophony of arms and legs sweeping the floor. when it was approaching the level of white noise, it quickly dissolved back into various low pads and synths. what a cool idea.
i rode to the end of the tram line 10 yesterday. here's what it looks like. this city is big. i found a cool cemetery with lots of overgrown ivy, but the gates were locked. an old woman passed by and spoke to me in czech, probably saying something to the effect that, yes, the gates were indeed locked.
as it turns out, the czech language is very difficult. three times today, people have asked me questions in czech, only to have me utter something incoherent back at them. promiňte, děkuji, nerozumím, ne mlooveteh cesky, blah, blah, blah. i am a walking blabber machine. usually, most people look as if they would like to give me a slap. all i want to do is say a complete sentence that doesn’t involve ordering a beer. i'll keep trying...
here are a few new pictures from around prague
chodov dino cobblestone divadlo hall obviously... snow hello
we’re traveling back to america in june to attend a couple weddings. i have no idea how that's going to feel. obviously, i’m looking forward to seeing friends and eating certain foods. but other than that, i’m at a loss.
i love america. from a selfish standpoint, it’s very convenient. at any time of year, you can obtain almost anything you desire. unless you're a total clod, people are usually pleasant toward you. entertainment is abundant and varied. there are lots of good ideas coming from all over the country. clearly, there are a lot of irritating things about america too. but i’m not going to get into that. here, in prague, there are frustrations too. but i’m not going to get into that either. it appears that life, everywhere, is always beautiful and annoying. is that the point? if things sucked all the time, or if things were always splendid, would we learn anything? would we be able to compare? i feel so obtuse.
on our last night in barcelona, we walked down from the jardin de miramar toward la calle de la princesa for some tapas. as we passed through la plaça de sant jaume, we saw a stage to our right with musicians playing this music. after a few more steps, we saw hundreds of people dancing like this. they all seemed to be having a pretty good time. then, on the other side of the square, even more people had gathered around a man with a megaphone, all shouting like this. apparently, we had stumbled upon a protest by some citizens of barcelona who still think that their government is not giving them all the facts about who was behind the terrorist attacks in madrid on march 11, 2004. they all seemed very angry. by the way, the week after the 2004 attacks, 1 million people in barcelona marched to protest terrorism. that's 1 million out of a total of 1.5 million inhabitants. throughout the country, 28% of the entire population took to the streets. and subsequently, prime minister zapatero withdrew spanish troops from iraq. i think that's impressive.
here are some images from barcelona.
beach structure literary vending some graffiti la boqueria plaça reial which came first? oranges over sangria parc güell la bandera
a few weeks ago, we took a train to ostrava. our friend martin is the starting center for the basketball team. he picked us up at the train station after our 3.5 hour journey through east bohemia and moravia to watch his team play the team from liberec.
our hotel had several interesting motifs. in the lobby, as a lovely welcome, someone had gone a little crazy with the taxedermy and produced this and this and this. and the bar area seemed ready to go to war with this and this and this. but in contrast, the restaurant had a distinct overlook hotel feel to it. slightly more disturbing was this painting in our room. we went to the the arena around 5. the game itself was amazing. i could try to recap it, but i'm no good at that. everyone there was extremely attentive to what was happenning on the court. and there was no food in the stands, no slurping of sodas or crunching of nachos. afterwards, we travelled to martin's apartment for pizza and drinks. there were very minimal amounts of english being spoken, which was nice. eventually, we walked over to the infamous stodolni street, home to 80 bars and clubs. i kept trying to order beer, but the ostravian ballers kept handing me vodka currant cocktails. regardless, we had a swell time. thanks martin.
i've been writing a lot of new songs.
some are string arrangements. some are appearing on acoustic guitar. some are evolving as beats in the computer. some are reworking themselves from previous material. some are just sounds like the ones i posted a couple weeks ago. some are really annoying the hell out of me. no clear theme has emerged from any of it. it's going to take some time, i reckon. but it's going to be different. i promise.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
