I OFTEN CREATE BEATS WITH MY TEETH.
for the snare, i hit my two left incisors together. for the kick, i hit my two front teeth against the bottom four. i've done this for as long as i can remember. sometimes i add in a little syncopated breathing for a hi-hat effect. and i probably look slightly strange when i do this. and i'm not sure why i'm telling you about it. it's just something i do.
I'VE DEVELOPED A STRANGE NEW LAUGH.
it has slowly crept into my sound bank and won't go away.
wow. i really hate it. i wish it would stop.
how did this happen?
I BROKE MY TOILET LAST WEEK.
when i do laundry, the washing machine inevitably goes into a spin cycle that ends up shaking the entire apartment. the whole contraption usually ends up a few centimeters away from its original location. and whatever happened to be on top of it is invariably agitated off onto the floor.
anyway, some of brooke's makeup fell behind this stupid machine.
so i set my knee down on the seat and stretched out to retrieve whatever was back there. and as i almost (and i mean almost) had my fingers around a set of nail clippers, the seat broke, leaving my knee in the toilet and my face on the top of the washer.
here's the aftermath.
i looked on the manufacturer's website for something that looked like what i had destroyed (something i never thought i would be doing). and now i think i have it narrowed down to jika lyra model #9251 or jika lukas model #9337. awesome.
i can't believe i just typed all of that.
I KNOW I'M BEHIND THE TIMES.
the times. what does that mean, exactly? apparently there is more than one time. how many times are there? i don't know how i'm expected to keep up with all of them.
WINE COUNTRY
last month our friend petr drove us into moravia to drink some wine with his friend pavel. we arrived around 4 in the small town of horni dunajovice and were welcomed immediately into pavel's cellar.
pavel makes all of his own wine. we tasted about five or six types (cabernet, chardonnay, rulandske, pinot noir, etc) and then walked across the courtyard to have dinner in pavel's garage. surrounded by powertools and empty wine jugs, we sat at a table and discussed the wine we had just consumed. and then, out came the food. at the bottom left, we have some rye bread. to the right of the bread were some raw onions. to the left of the onions was a large jar of pickles. then more bread. then a plate some form of pureed pork mixture. in the blue bowl were some other parts of the pig (not sure which though). and finally, for flavor, a small dish of salt and a plate of lard. it was pretty intense.
after dinner, we walked across town to pavel's other cellar. this one was much bigger than the one in his basement. i’m actually unsure how we got there since i was already rather inebriated. here's a blurry picture of it.
there were around 30 barrels filled with different types of wine. after tasting six or seven new wines, pavel graciously showed us his statue of saint urban, the czech patron saint of wine.
after a few more slurps, we walked back to pavel's house for some smoked pork with a side of slivovice. and at some point, we went back to the lodging facilities and fell asleep. apparently, i also agreed to cook for thirty people on an annual biking trip from prague to the northern mountains.
regardless, thanks to pavel and petr for an unimaginably memorable experience.
nazdravi!
PHOTOS & VIDEOS
ponec stage
truck bunny
literary infinity
WHAT A COOL IDEA
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 THE THE END OF TRAM LINE 10 YESTERDAY.
that'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. prominte, dekuji, nerozumim, 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...
I FEEL SO OBTUSE.
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.
TAKIN' IT TO THE STREETS
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 placa 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 in relation to the terrorist attacks in madrid on march 11, 2004. they all seemed very angry. what an interesting juxtaposition.
BALLERS
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, we were welcomed by several animals, including 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.
this painting was also 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. we all 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.
MY AMAZING WIFE...
my amazing wife, brooke, has been asked to be the dance critic at the prague post. here's a photo of the front page for one of her stories.
yeah, she's pretty awesome.
