Two "Capitalist Running Dogs" Visit the Museum of Communism

Lenin and me -
there's something about Communist kitsch
that gives me the giggles

My friend Robin posing with
ideology frozen in a museum
like taxidermy

Soviet President Josef Stalin
and Kurt Gottwald,
the Czechoslovak Communist Premier
Gottwald was known for his drinking and his womanizing
(George Washington he was not)

Hey, isn't a decesive (sic) strike
against American Aggressors
what gets YOU up in the morning?

I practically expected this Communist victory
over Nazi, British, and American aggression
to be needlepointed!

What came first?
Young Pioneers or Camp Fire Girls?

The story of this monstrous ego trip
on Stalin's behalf was fascinating
and I was learning about it for the first time.

What's the difference between this and Mt. Rushmore?
Mt. Rushmore doesn't get dynamited with enthusiasm
when the administration changes.

This picture gives perspective on just how massive
that Stalin statue was going to be.
Communists like to make their art enormous
so the workers see it whether they want to or not.

This poster ACTUALLY SAYS:
No American agent shall get through our village!
Help the National Safety Corps protect your
United Agricultural Cooperative against Western Imperialists.

This one said:
"We know what to do with Bourgeois Imperialists!"

The interrogation room

The Communists finally messed with
that which can not be messed with:
rock and roll!

When they tried to surpress this
rock band, the Velvet Revolution started
with dissidents who signed a Charter
demanding that the Plastic People be allowed to play.

A facsimile of the Berlin Wall

The Museum of Communism was created by two Americans. It would take Americans to start it, because it will be years before Czechs are interested in the subject. They lived Communism and have no need to revisit in a museum.

The Museum has an irreverent tone which is part of it's charm (as witnessed by the title of this post).  One friend, a former Communist himself, hates this about the museum. "They don't capture the heartache and the tragedy and treat these crimes with all too frivolous an attitude." I do think that's a fair criticism.

One of the most shocking things in the museum is news footage from Wenceslas Square before the Communist regime was overthrown. Plainclothes policeman would infiltrate the crowds of people congregating to demand a better government. Then they would tell the uniformed police which ones to beat up. As to be expected, the young men in the crowd got it the worst. But there were many, many more bodies than they could possibly beat there and control was no longer in the government's hands. They couldn't beat them all.

One death is a tragedy,
A Million Deaths is a Statistic.
~Josef Stalin

I wish the nighttime footage from the Velvet Revolution was on display. I think that would interest the Czechs. They could show to their children the history of their admirable regime change. To this day, I remember it all and am inspired by it. I would like to show it to my children when they come to Prague. I would tell them this is the first of many things that I want you to know and respect about these people, the Czechs, that I'm living amongst.

Serious Girlfriend Time

Surely we look exactly the same as we did 30 years ago?

My beloved friend from Cottey College, Robin McClellan of Palco, Kansas was in serious need of a girlfriend weekend. Robin has a complicated life right now. She lives in Provence, France, where she is nursing her husband as he recovers from a brain tumor and raising her #2 daughter, her job with the American State Department is in New Delhi, India (currently on hold while she helps her husband) and husband Jim, the king of the grand gesture, is receiving his treatment in Perth, Australia where Robin was last posted as American Consul General. Nothing like a three-continent life to keep you busy.

To say Robin needed a girlfriend weekend would be an understatement. To top it all off, everyone in her house had the flu! Jim, and daughter #1 who was visiting for the holidays from Australia, insisted that Robin come see me in Prague. Yea!

Robin loves to tell the story
(which she did when she delivered
the commencement address at our alma mater)
of how when she lost the student body presidency
she ran off in tears - but not before her dear
friend Karen comforted her with the words:
"Robin, can I have your potatoes?"

Two girls in Old Town Square

Doing what Robin loves best: window shopping!
I think we visited 54 shops.

Relaxing on the Charles Bridge

When was the last time you saw an organ grinder?
This one is on the Charles Bridge over the river Vltava.

Rubbing the lucky statue on the bridge

Following My Favorite Blogs

I'm really enjoying the new feature offered by Blogger where you can sign up to follow someone's blog. It puts new posts from your favorite bloggers in a queue to read so that you don't have to click more than once on their blog to see if they've updated it.

Presumably it cuts down on the number of clicks my blog generated just to see if I had an update so each click is real readership growth.

One of my favorite humor blogs I follow is called "Adventures of a Foreign Salaryman in Tokyo. This guy consistently makes me laugh. He's a Swedish-born businessman working in Japan and he is the master of describing the absurb. Click on my title to give him a try.

Battle Royal for a Chief of a Czech State of Mind

Have you ever heard of the Kingdom of Wallachia? It's a delightful bit of fun thought up by the locals in one area of the Czech Republic. The imagined kingdom of Wallachia has so captured the imagination of Czechs that it is starting to create some real wealth. So who gets it? That's the question. The NYTimes had an article this week detailing the players.

We had something similar in my home state of Iowa. A couple of brothers who owned a T-shirt shop in a tiny town next to the resort lake of Okoboji, Iowa dreamed up the University of Okoboji. The motto: In God We Trust, All Others Cash. It was an immediate hit.

Ownership was clear, however, and the brothers have had a blast thinking up more and more uses for their University. Click on the title to read about the Czech kingdom of Wallachia. Even George Bush had a passport from there!

Wonderful English Language Theatre in Prague

One of the nice things about having a large English-speaking population in Prague is that expats have started to create and grow their own institutions. We are like the population of a smaller town within a larger city. We can keep the doors open to special gathering spots like bars, restaurants, and theaters on our own.

This weekend a friend and I went to see Glengarry Glen Ross, the Pulitzer-prize winning play by American David Mamet. It was presented by the Prague Playhouse under the direction of Brian Caspe. The play was held in a cozy theater called Divadlo Inspirace. The theater holds about 70 people in the gothic basement of Malostranske namesti 13, a stunningly beautiful part of town. The whole place, including the foyer where beer was sold, had the feeling of a secret clubhouse. Who else should be there but Blogging Gelle and a whole row of his pals, which was a fun surprise.

When I saw this play as a movie with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon, I found the language so brutal it was hard to get passed it. But as Mamet said when he wrote his play set in a real estate sales office in Florida, "this is how real estate guys really do talk to each other." This time I was prepared for the language and was able to see the humor and the humanity of the characters.

There is a masterful opening monologue by actor Curtis Mathew, who played Shelly Levene, "the Machine" who tried to persuade his boss that he had just hit a selling dry spell and only needed the best leads to turn it all around. Throughout the play, Curtis did a great job showcasing the ego dejection of his dry spell and the ego inflation of turning it around.

If you've every been around a sales team, or managed a sales team, you will thoroughly enjoy the point-by-point account of how he closed a sale. Who hasn't heard a business war story retold in detail like that in real life? Heck, who hasn't told one!

There is another monologue I love in this play where one man accuses another of "being like a child" but I won't tell you anymore about it. I have to leave some surprises, right?

As usual, the Prague price for this professionally-acted theater is fantastic: 200 kc or $10 a seat. Brian predicts the show will sell out. Click on my title if you are interested in seeing the play on the remaining three dates that have seats available.

I would like to ask Czechs learning English if hearing and seeing an English language play is easier to understand than hearing an English-language movie? What do you think, my dear Czech friends?

Czech Fashion Report: Tall Black Boots

This pretty lady bought her
very cool hat in Uzbekistan
to go with her black boots

All over Prague this winter, women are wearing boots! Tall black boots predominate but a few other boot colors get in there.

Ivory boots in Old Town Prague

I was telling one of my Czech girlfriends that "European women really live up to their stereotype as chic, sophisticated dressers."

A lovely Czech lady
at Novy Smichov Mall

She asked "exactly how do the ladies live up to that stereotype?"

"Why, all of these ladies in their black boots. It looks urban and hip and feminine!"

She laughed. "Actually," she said, "we just spend a lot of time outside and the boots keep us warm."

Olga from Ukraine says,
"Here you can wear whatever you want."

I asked a new Ukranian friend if this was the reason for the knee high boots and she nodded yes adding "I love Prague because you can dress to be comfortable. Here you can wear whatever you want."

Yet a third European woman shared her pride unprompted at finding a pair with an elevated sole so that her feet never actually have to touch the cold pavement.

Shopping at Swarovski
in Old Town, Prague

Another stereotype bites the dust. It still looks nice though. And since we recently had an unusually harsh cold spell in Prague, I can see their wisdom and not just their fashion.

You Could Feel Something Like This Coming

Today the Governor of my former state of Illinois was thrown out of office without a single legislator rising to defend him. Having spent four days in Springfield, Illinois in October seeing the Lincoln sites that inspire so many Americans (including our new President), I could feel that the situation back then wasn't sustainable. He didn't have a friend left before the news came out about the Senate seat he felt was "golden."

Click on the title to read my post from back then. If you're interested in reading about the Lincoln sites that inspired Obama, please click on the Lincoln label.