Zaver...(15/1)

The current exhibition at muzeum hlavniho mesta Prahy gathers the belief of the research findings of the ritual and burial system in ancient times in Czech. It is a small scale yet serious exhibition...though appropriately set its light at an exhibiting place focusing on anthological and historical ground of the 'Czech' people (or better say the tribes of ancient people dwelling in the area now defined as Czech), the finding of the presentation is not comprehensive enough. There lacks an authoritative commentary and it is not convincing for its presumption and 'generalisation' for a visitor like me. It is definitely difficult to draw any conclusion about how ancient people looked at death and handled death. The current evidence from excavation is not conclusive for us to understand the topic. As cited in the exhibition, Burial remaining of the different stages of the Stone Age were found in various regions of the country and based on the manner of the burial arrangement revealed, there is a similarity that researchers agree on such as the direction of placement of dead bodies as well as the gesture and position the bodies were aligned. The exhibition believes that people at old times were more open to death, or perhaps it was that death would be a more common thing happened within the tribes. From time to time, the dead bodies were either buried or incremented. Other means of disposal may be difficult to reveal at our times. The significance of corpse direction the researchers look at may be relevant in relation to the importance of nature in the past. People might believe in their gods and goddesses, and the direction could be an interpreted expectation of an unknown world that they symbolised in their knowledge world. People are always evolving in a wish about the unexplainable. The display was good and it ended with a query of the way we should look at this unknown world. Death is as unknown as life.
When looking at the description of the stone ages finding, my mind was like wandering at the primitive world of the 2001 space odyssey...

Praha...(15/1)

Prague is the shining stone of the Bohemian culture that enlightens me after I first met the city. It is more than touristy...

It is more than baroque or mannerism. The crux of the Bohemian lust is the glory of a mixture of hedonism and individualism. People view life in a different way, and the beauty is not found in other Slavic countries. The city is a very developed centre of all about Czech Republic. My third visit was an exploration of the normal life in Praha. Outside the tourist centre, the city extends its Vltava root to the various developed districts.

Calm and comfortable, it is a moment of transition for me to a forward step to the unknown continuation somewhere some time. In the restaurant, Spomal of Peha was playing in the radio. It was ironically fitted.

L'Ignorance de nostos...(14/1)

Chapter 2 of l’ignorance written by Kundera is interesting. It is a very typical demonstration of Kundera’s literal writing. He rooted the idea of ignorance, the crux of the work. Nostos or la retour is characterized a form of artistic sensation in the Western culture. According to the logic of Kundera, nostalgia appears to be a form of ‘malade’ I would say…it is the missing link. The term nostalgia is used to be a very dramatic yet dreaming mirage idea to me. The first very impressive recognition of the word came to me via the work of Tarkovsky named ‘nostalgia’. Because we have never had a utopian land, we have the luxury to enjoy and experience ‘nostalgia’. The term itself carries a sense of a respect to the origin, or the motherland. More than an expression of an unreachable sensation of need and comfort desired, the feeling of nostalgia calls for a self-modeling process to a meaning of existence to a certain extent. Nostalgia is a good expression of existentialism I would say. Kundera cited a very true relation of the past and the future in the issue of nostalgia. I think of the same. It becomes a consensus of life, and every individual has to face it and live it. Interestingly, Kundera also quoted the story of Ulysses as a classic journey of retour and the contemplating mode of a ‘nostalgian’. One shall only feels nostalgic during a journey, a physical or a psychological journey. When a record of this mode of mental dynamism is signed on a graphpaper, the dancing wave assimilates the winding journey one is engaging. I share part of the thought of Kundera, especially when I am terminating the state of wandering in France and I share an identity of a generation of ambiguity growing up in the borrowed time at the borrowed place. We keep on searching. It is ignorance perhaps. The sorrow of Kundera is ‘to-be-ignored’, or perhaps rather 'to ignore the ignorance'. When he has to admit a consensus, he ignores. When nostalgia becomes a mixed feeling of forgiveness and ignorance, it is unstable, it is uncertain, and it is painful. My exotic adventure is materialistically a dolce vita, and this is a unique exposure of independency versus alienation. Normatively, the existence of a rootlessly sentiment choruses the nostalgia of the ideal land. Youth is one irrepressible source of nostalgia, either when we are young or when we are not young. This is the beauty of a pair of flying wings. When nostalgia resists from sentimental addiction, it is self-actualisation. But definitely, it remains a disturbance of memory before the metamorphosis is completed. Homeland would it be where that it needs a compass to control, or as Kundera said ‘verfremdungseffekt’.

Spomal'...(15/10)

za niecim krasnym
tak rychlo ako sa da
do tvojich basni
marne rym hladam...

za niecim zvlastnym
do zahrad kde nie je kriz
kam sa to blaznis
nestiham s tenou ist

spomal mas privysoku rychlost
vnimam ju len siestym zmyslom
maaaam zavrat
nahlim sa po tvojom boku
a mam uz dost zbytocnych pokut
maaaam sa bat?

za niecim stalym
tak rychlo ako to da
sa vsetko mali
aj napriek vyhodam

za niecim bajnym
do zahrad kde nie je kryz
kam sa to blaznis
nestiham s tebou ist

spomal mas privysoku rychlost
vnimam ju len siestym zmyslom
maaaam zavrat
nahlim sa po tvojom boku
a mam uz dost zbytocnych pokut
maaaam sa bat...

Cesky Krumlov...(26/5)

A conventional blog consists usually information about the blogger's favourite 'this' and favourite 'that'...I was thinking of since long time ago having a review of my own about all those artists and figures I admire like Dostovski, Tarkovski, Keislowski, Jack, Jessemine, Nico etc. And among them, Egon Schiele would be one of them.

I visited Cesky Krumlov where Schiele stayed for a year or two to develop his works and his tribute to the village environment. Visualising the town away from the paintings of Schiele provides me another spectrum of appreciation to his adaptation of colours and mood to his a few paintings on the landscape of the village. There is an Egon Schiele Museum in the town which possesses a small scale display of his works and story. This is the third exhibitions I saw on the artist after a large scale one held in Amsterdam last year and another one on Vienna Movement at the Grand Palais in Paris a few months ago. Obviously the one I visited last year is the most in-depth one. The focus of the three exhibitions are different, and reading how the biography of the artist was written from the three exhibitions is interesting. There is a significant difference on the focus of writing, and judging from the information provided from each exhibition, you would get a feel of how the exhibition organisers value the works of Schiele and how they would offer a perception to the visitors.

Czech Budweiser...(25/5)

Apart from the controversial dispute with the US Budweiser on the use of its brand name, Budweiser Budvar from Cesky Budejovice is a beer producer who has been working hard its widening its business scope in the world market...The visit to the museum of the beer house was interesting as it provides a means to explore not only the history about the beer but also the economy of the region (formerly the 'Czechoslovakia' or CSR) in the early 20th century. The exhibition at the museum has a brief introduction about the local production of beer in CSR as well as the export strategy and development of Budweiser Budvar to other countries and regions.


The findings from the visit supplements the tour I did at Pilsner's museum at Plzen. Both beer companies had a renowned history during the era of CSR. In fact, CSR during the 1920's was one of the top 15 economies in the world, and beer business was one illustration about its economy and its influence to the consumer market in the world, or more significantly in Europe. Resembling the development of media and marketing in US, advertising and publicity of the two beers revealed from the posters and ads shown in both museums demonstrate how the two corporations actually perceived advertising and imaging as an important tool to promote their products 'worldwide'.


Femininism, logos and trademarks, localised languages and soft selling, partnership with associated restaurants, caligraphy, lifestyle, exoticism etc...these were all the approaches Budweiser Budvar used in its advertisement, and obviously these are all the good materials for a reserach on the social development in the CSR as well as beer as a consumer products in the last century.

By the way, when you look at their ad poster they developed for the Asian market with the Chinese slogan posted at the top of the page, you could simply smell how good the promoter was in their good old days.

Sedmikrasky...(14/5)

Finally I saw the movie of Vera Chytilova this afternoon. Started from a quote of her, 'everyone does what they can to avoid thinking. Laziness is the most basic human trait. People don't want to think, they can't make the connection between entertainment and thought. They want immediate kicks. People will not be human until they get pleasure from thought. Only a thinking person can be a full person.'...
Daisies is regarded as an important film in the new wave cinema in Czechoslovakia. The story was conducted in a surrealistic environment like many other avant garde works of the period. The commentary and criticism on the film appear to have been focused on the political control and cencorship of the director and her work or a reconsiliation of anti-materialism and existentialism. Partly were there elements in the film that the director might have expressed, but a contrast of conservation and colours appeal more my attention. The chromic and sephia colour scheme and the alternate colour change in the scene were interesting. The experimental sound effect throughout the film produced an unreal atmosphere to where the isolated characters were. It may be a manifestation of feminism, and the dual role of Marie in the film created a twin role of a reflective behaviour of mankind (or as she may prefer 'womenkind'). The surrealistic shifting of indoor graffiti and natural habitat like the water pool was rectified by the guru mtv-style of editing technique. The speeding frames of modern symbol such as the distorting colour railway was innovative. The filming effect and pattern used should be an advanced one during the era of production. I like a lot the last part of the film when the two sisters entered the glamorous dining room and ate grotesquely. A kind of destructive beauty and there is a kind of fear sentiment popular in film noir. I recalled some moment of Salo produced by Pasolini.
The director may want to express her philosophy about human, and human may be a tribe who desires to behave badly sometimes. The film broke some rituals and norms in traditional filming and ethics, but it may not be the best one to have expressed and attempted, at least I see that some moments and setting in the film could go even further out of the boundary.
I had a nice siesta after long time this afternoon at my home, and I felt some relief of how laziness can bring me after hectic weeks that have passed.

Č...(11/4)

Kundera talked about 'Č' in his book of La Lenteur, and he refers this czech letter as a beauty of lightness simply like the flying butterfly...It is poetic, and he may be right. When French uses t, c, h and German uses t, s, c & h to pronounce the sound, czech has been simplified with only one 'flying' letter. We may view this the art of language, and the art needs some observation and imagination as its always requires.
I discussed with a friend another time about the creation of simplified Chinese. Are we simplifying the words and writing or are we trying to distort something the language possessed throughout the evolution of the thousand years history? The convention of way to write can be a nice topic for a scientific research. In the past, people wrote vertically from top to bottom and from right to left, and now the usual convention adapts the English writing style simply horizontally from left to right. My friend said a scientific study, if conductable (I doubt how the control experiment can be carried out?!), can work on the difference of efficiency if we read and write from the two methods. True, the angle and direction of viewing the objects stimulate a different part of utilisation of my brain, apparently, and the perception with different perspectives can be slightly varied (as least I have a feeling about this according to my own experience). This reminds us about the perspective we apply in this ever-changing world, perhaps, again...

Škoda Octavia, the Czech BMW…(2/11)

As my companion during the Scottish tour, the autocar of Škoda has provided a promising performance that eases my journey as quite an enjoyable one. The Octavia model has a powerful engine of 2.0 FSI / 110KW and has proved to consume less than 5 litre per 100km run...Indeed, Škoda, started its history since 1895, is one of the four automakers existing at present that has a manufacturing history of more than a century. Having acquired by Volkswagen, the Czech automaker has kept on its production and manufactured its fifth million vehicles since the acquisition. Based in Mladá Boleslav, the automaker occupies nearly one-third of the city and employs three out of four residents in the city, and it is a live model of the automobile industry that exists in the Eastern Europe now. Around 4% of the workforce in Czech are working for the company now. With its century birthday, a Škoda museum has been set up in the city, and I guess it would be worthwhile paying a visit. By the way, checking the name Škoda, it means ‘damage’ in Czech, sounds cool!

Tcheque N.01...(24/10)

Finally get done the first half of the series of projects at work last week and as scheduled, I have commenced my first class of Tcheque today...With the nowadays network of communication, I found one teacher of the language by making a little announcement on a local e-newsletter. I felt good at my first class, and I found the grammar system a bit similar to the Russian. Having some basic concept about how to approach to a new language, I got an interesting comment from my teacher who said that it's a surprise to see my way to pick up the pronounciation etc. The very difficult alphabet for me is the "r" and I do not really produce the vibrating sound...well, with a plan of a nine-month programme, I hope I can get some technique about the language.