Korunni

I want it.

This is the closest thing to my dream apartment that I've ever seen. Balcony and all!

Swans

There are paddle boats the shape of swans on the Vltava. Sheet lightning flashes above the castle. I found a building with my best friend's name on it, an owl in gold and green.



"What is his name? What is his name?" the shadow asked as I crossed the street to his side, dimmed by eerie trees. I lit a cigarette for protection. I'm tough; I could poke your eye out with this. He bent me over in a bathroom stall. "You came here for this, but what is his name?" Who knows.



I'm impaled on the city of 100 spires. Riding the tram in the mornings around the castle compound. Having fairy-tale fantasies: I want to put my bare ass on every holy structure I see. I've fallen through some trap door. I don't care what happens to me here. O compared herself to Alice. I'm neither one; just me.



I fold inward with loneliness, and then change color and shape as if tumbled through a kaleidoscope. Every time I'm turned by art, the crowd, the sights, your hand, I break down into fractals, brilliant and sharp.



My time's almost up. Someone extends a háček from stage right, and slips it around my neck, pulling me away. I'll wear it on the journey home, under my shirt like a hidden passport.

**

Thanks to Kate, who read this in early June and didn't advise the journalist to stick with her day-job writing. Well, she didn't advise me to share it either, but I wanted to now.

The weirdest thing is, I'd had the lines about the spooky street and predatory sex in my head for weeks, and then on one of my last nights in Prague, I actually witnessed some misbehavior on that street. I heard a hiss, then turned to see a man not six feet away jerking it beside a tree. He said obviously solicitous things to me in Czech, and I felt a rush of adrenaline, but the surprising thing was the sound that came out of my mouth: "Ahh!" Like finding a spider in the sink. I did it twice. He mocked me and I kept walking at the same pace, correct that he was a harmless perv. But worried that I had created a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts...

EROTIKON: Scandal!

I started planning this burlesque show from Prague, after seeing Gustav Machatý's Erotikon, from 1929. It's actually happening in a couple of weeks, and I'm super nervous! I've never produced a show before. But I'm getting a lot of help from Tata's and the ladies, who seem to be excited about the theme, and the Rendezvous even ordered me a bottle of absinthe (or that which is branded as absinthe) to make a drink special: the Royal Absinthe Fizz. Champagne makes it fizzy! :)



My new act is princess-themed, because I had many princess fantasies while wandering through Praha. My colors are pink, silver and rose. ("Mah culahs ah blush and bashful!- Steel Magnolias). Half of it is to a Smiths song and the other half to a Hildegarde cabaret song from 1935. It's a shame I wasn't able to link up with the burlesque troupe in Prague. But it's fun being able to draw on my experiences there in a creative way, now.

Synch Fest

My coverage of Synch, a travelogue really, is up today at Resident Advisor! Hope you enjoy :)



The view from Anafiotika...my future summer home (in my dreams)!!

Athens and Berlin

It's going to take me a while (and a paid Flickr account) to get all my Prague pics online, but here are two sets for now:

Athens!
Berlin!

And here's what I've been taking pictures of since getting back:



It's my friend Lolita "Ta-Ta's" Valentino at her Big, Bad, Dirty and Pink Prom on July 2. She's looking glamtastic!

I performed my "John, I'm Only Dancing the Mambo" act, which ends like this...



(Photo by Chris Blakeley) I'm trying my best to hide my Pilsner baby with that vintage record!

It's Not Svickova

Behold! The mysteriously delicious dish:



This is the first and best of 3 servings of the Czech classic that I had in Prague, with Kim at Kolkovna one afternoon. What makes it so divine? Apparently, a lot of vegetables that go into making the sauce...and end up nowhere near the plate. :)

Back home now, my TV dinner of turkey with mashed potatoes and veggies will have to do, until I can muster the power to cook up a stirfry or something healthy (tomorrow!). My beer is also not the amazing Pilsner Urquell but a refreshing Pyramid Hefe, which I did miss. And thankfully, the Caesar salad I'm eating is actually one, devoid of a strip of bacon, hunk of cucumber, or other curious ingredient found in the various Czech versions.

I miss my Prague life already! I'll continue this blog for a little while by uploading some photo sets from Prague and travels, and then start posting again regularly in my old blog, Another Big Riot. If you want to keep up with me, check there. For a while it may not be as interesting since I'm mostly concerned with finding a job, sunbathing (the weather is glorious in Seattle!) and burlesqueing. That a word?

Here's a word to everyone that made my trip possible, and so fantastic. Thank you to: Mom and supportive family/friends/roomies, Steffen, the Post, Lucie, Pat, Christine, Sarah, Ross, Kim, Stephan, Evan, Min, Melanie, Nush, Sylvie, Andi Neate, Angello and Dino, Steve @ Fringe Fest, Nils and friends, and David in Berlin, Tami and all @ RA, Axel and friends, Alex in Athens, Aimee and Burak, the ladies who brunch, and the produce lady and Odkolek employees who kindly suffered my requests for fruit and baguettes every day. I think that's it! I met waay more people than I expected, and I hope to return the kindness if anyone is ever in Seattle or vicinity. Děkuji vám and much love.

How Does it Feel

to sleep on a concrete banquette while stranded in JFK for 20 hours? No, how does it feel in my arms...

I've been wondering who sang the song that I've been hearing all over Europe, and of course it's Kylie! At first, I didn't find it exciting or annoying- it was just there. But then the chorus got into my brain, and I started humming it after passing the last of the sausage stands all blasting it from the same radio station. Now I'm getting emotional listening to it. I'm in America now, where some people love Kylie, but where her face isn't plastered on public transit. Here it is:



And here's the video for her cover of "Locomotion," one of the first pop songs I remember hearing in my life. 1987. Whitney was my first tape, and Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine was my first concert. Hehe. Anyway, in between these two videos was the time period when INXS' Michael Hutchence made the famous quote about his favorite hobby- "corrupting Kylie." Hot. I once knew a guy who had At Folsom Prison and Kick prominently displayed in his room- I thought that was hot too. I digress.

I just wrote a paragraph complaining about missing the flight and blah blah, but fuck it. I am truly pissed about waking up every hour on the hour (to vacuums, screaming children, angry airport workers, snoring-of-dude-next-to-me, arcade games, men screaming into walkie-talkies, chipper early morning travelers, etc) for my 28th birthday, but I don't feel like expressing any further negativity. I'm anxious enough about returning to Seattle that it's easier to just take a Zen approach to it all.

In my waking times since arriving at this airport, I've read about Timbuktu and Patagonia in Vogue, gossip in the New York Post (why is Page Six on pages 11-12?), some fantastic Open Letters by former Czech president Vaclav Havel, and listened to some African jazz via Matos, as the sun rose pink and gold. I fantasized that I was off to another locale.

***

Aside from some hellacious cab fares due to my not-subway-friendly luggage, NYC was a lovely sojourn. Annie and I found each other pretty quick despite our phones not working, and made our way to Jersey City to stay with her awesome friends John and Beth. We hung out in the West Village and LES- piano bar, wine bar, and some burlesque at the Slipper Room for my birthday! Best stage name I've heard in a long time: Clams Casino. She did acts to Van Halen's "Jump" and Hendrix's "May This Be Love (Waterfall)" that were great. Janice de Milo did a hilarious act to one of my favorite songs, the Shirelles' "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" I can't give away the secret, but her sense of humor in regard to the song was perfect. I met a woman taking the workshop with Jo "Boobs" (NYC's Miss Indigo), the woman's bf formerly of Seattle, and then Jo herself. Awesome! Then Annie's friend Brian, who had joined us for the show, took us around and I felt like a local. I love it that every time I go to NYC, I spend time in completely different neighborhoods.

The show got me excited to get costume-crafty...right before I left Prague, I used my limited Czech to buy some very Bohemian/sound-of-music-esque ribbon, cloth roses and yellow rhinestones with which to make a hip belt. To have success with a transaction significantly more involved than "sunkou a syr bageta, prosim" was awesome. I actually had a few moments like that in my last week- the beginnings of what felt like conversation with people. Of course, when I'm about to go...

Two blog things I want you to see:
this picture post from Christine.
My new friend Fantastikoi Hxoi's latest LP and art, available for your download, which you will not regret.

Also: what should I do with this blog, now that I'm no longer in Prague? I could let it go to the graveyard like other variations on 'Prague Rock' blogs- there are a bunch that were obv. intended to document a specific time and haven't been updated since. I have lots more Prague pictures and stories I could retroactively post. Or I could keep posting and change the title. Anybody?