If you ever want to remember what it is like to be 4 years old, try using giant door knobs on giant doors. This is the knob to my hotel and is just about at my eyebrow level.
Here is the whole door which is, I would guess, 12 or 13 feet tall--plus the transome window on top. It's really ridiculous how disturbing it is to use such an oversized door, like suddenly finding oneself in Alice in Wonderland. And all the business doors, shops and hotels, are like that. Speaking of hotels, I left the conference early today to settle my room business and do some shopping. (Simon made it clear that he expects presents and that I should get something for the kids while I'm at it, too.) The receptionist (another strikingly handsome individual--this hotel really knows how to hire good looking people) assured me that I could stay; they were going to bump someone else out to accomodate me but would I please pay for the extra night separately? That charge ended up being another $4500 crowns, which is about $225--almost as much as I paid for the three other nights. I'm am going to assume that UM-Flint will be picking up this tab one way or the other, so I don't really feel cheated, but yet I do and I feel guilty too at the thought of someone else being bumped along because my reservations were made incorrectly. I dread looking out my hotel window tomorrow night and seeing some sad sack wheeling a rattling suitcase along the cobbled sidewalks in search of a room (but not enough to give up my room, so not real guilt just a vague uneasiness).
All the guidebooks claim that Czechs go for marionettes in a big way and they weren't kidding. Here is one store that sells only marionettes.
And here is another. There were dozens; I couldn't possibly find them all in three days here. Most of the dolls are silly animals and such, but some are truly alarming. I've seen devils and witches, ghosts and other monsters--one female doll had a head that popped off so you could play act her beheading. Should I get that for Thomas? Downtown the opera Don Giovanni was being performed tonight (two guys in silly 14th c. castle suits played horns to announce the start of the show--it was weird; I half expected the first season of Black Adder to start) and across from the concert hall was a smaller concert hall that was performing the entire opera using marionettes.
Now these guys are weird and I only know what they are because I happened to be eating breakfast at the right place and at the right time. There is a 10 minute kids show on around 7:30 am that features this dad and son and their (mis)adventures together. The dad is an overbearing control freak who wigs out when things go wrong (this morning his axe head flew off and landed in a tree) and the son has to talk him down and solve his problems for him. (The dad can't even sit down without slipping onto the floor and then getting angry at the chair he missed.) The dolls looked ancient, like something from 100 years ago but the film quality and credits were very recent. Can you imagine putting together a show like that now? Afterwards they cut to the usual sort of talking-heads show with (more) beautiful people--all blonde with fabulous white teeth and sassy short hairdos (men and women). The only thing that really marked the show as slightly odd to my eyes was the BRIGHT SHINY puffy shirt the woman was wearing. It seemed like it belonged in a Human League video from 1982 or so.
The little bit of Czech tv that I have seen is AWESOME and I would gladly spend a week here just watching tv all day long--so long as I had someone to share it with. Sunday night I had some tea before going to bed and there was a commercial for a music group called Maximum Turbulenc, which is an oompa-group that sings polka songs. These guys (there were four of them) were HUGE, each was a mountain of a man, all decked out in leder hosen, jumping up and down and belting out polka ditties in Czech (not German as one might expect) and as they jumped up and down the camera jumped, so that it seemed like their impact was making the whole world shake (hence the band name). The commercial went on for ages (or so it seemed) and ended with the usual "Buy now!" sort of thing, only in Czech, and you could get 6 cds for only 400 crowns (which is about $20). A bargain! Yesterday morning there was a long music video that featured an aging hippy with long flowing white hair singing very melodically as he walked along a stone fence in a huge field with a young and beautiful woman looking adoringly in his eyes. Who is this guy? Is he famous here--the Czech Robert Plant? I'll never know.
Here is the whole door which is, I would guess, 12 or 13 feet tall--plus the transome window on top. It's really ridiculous how disturbing it is to use such an oversized door, like suddenly finding oneself in Alice in Wonderland. And all the business doors, shops and hotels, are like that. Speaking of hotels, I left the conference early today to settle my room business and do some shopping. (Simon made it clear that he expects presents and that I should get something for the kids while I'm at it, too.) The receptionist (another strikingly handsome individual--this hotel really knows how to hire good looking people) assured me that I could stay; they were going to bump someone else out to accomodate me but would I please pay for the extra night separately? That charge ended up being another $4500 crowns, which is about $225--almost as much as I paid for the three other nights. I'm am going to assume that UM-Flint will be picking up this tab one way or the other, so I don't really feel cheated, but yet I do and I feel guilty too at the thought of someone else being bumped along because my reservations were made incorrectly. I dread looking out my hotel window tomorrow night and seeing some sad sack wheeling a rattling suitcase along the cobbled sidewalks in search of a room (but not enough to give up my room, so not real guilt just a vague uneasiness).
All the guidebooks claim that Czechs go for marionettes in a big way and they weren't kidding. Here is one store that sells only marionettes.
And here is another. There were dozens; I couldn't possibly find them all in three days here. Most of the dolls are silly animals and such, but some are truly alarming. I've seen devils and witches, ghosts and other monsters--one female doll had a head that popped off so you could play act her beheading. Should I get that for Thomas? Downtown the opera Don Giovanni was being performed tonight (two guys in silly 14th c. castle suits played horns to announce the start of the show--it was weird; I half expected the first season of Black Adder to start) and across from the concert hall was a smaller concert hall that was performing the entire opera using marionettes. 
Now these guys are weird and I only know what they are because I happened to be eating breakfast at the right place and at the right time. There is a 10 minute kids show on around 7:30 am that features this dad and son and their (mis)adventures together. The dad is an overbearing control freak who wigs out when things go wrong (this morning his axe head flew off and landed in a tree) and the son has to talk him down and solve his problems for him. (The dad can't even sit down without slipping onto the floor and then getting angry at the chair he missed.) The dolls looked ancient, like something from 100 years ago but the film quality and credits were very recent. Can you imagine putting together a show like that now? Afterwards they cut to the usual sort of talking-heads show with (more) beautiful people--all blonde with fabulous white teeth and sassy short hairdos (men and women). The only thing that really marked the show as slightly odd to my eyes was the BRIGHT SHINY puffy shirt the woman was wearing. It seemed like it belonged in a Human League video from 1982 or so.
The little bit of Czech tv that I have seen is AWESOME and I would gladly spend a week here just watching tv all day long--so long as I had someone to share it with. Sunday night I had some tea before going to bed and there was a commercial for a music group called Maximum Turbulenc, which is an oompa-group that sings polka songs. These guys (there were four of them) were HUGE, each was a mountain of a man, all decked out in leder hosen, jumping up and down and belting out polka ditties in Czech (not German as one might expect) and as they jumped up and down the camera jumped, so that it seemed like their impact was making the whole world shake (hence the band name). The commercial went on for ages (or so it seemed) and ended with the usual "Buy now!" sort of thing, only in Czech, and you could get 6 cds for only 400 crowns (which is about $20). A bargain! Yesterday morning there was a long music video that featured an aging hippy with long flowing white hair singing very melodically as he walked along a stone fence in a huge field with a young and beautiful woman looking adoringly in his eyes. Who is this guy? Is he famous here--the Czech Robert Plant? I'll never know. 
3 comments:
Strange other world.
xM
I DEMAND a DVD of the father/son show. That can be my present. I don't think I want the 6 cds of Maximum Turbulenc, thank you all the same.
I don't know if it's Poland or Czechoslovakia (as was) that produced all the weird Eastern European animated shows the BBC/ITV would buy as fill-ins. There was one very successful (in comparative terms) one about a mole, I remember. Look into it.
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/126536
Check it out--it's them!
Post a Comment