Simply writing the title of this post sent me off on a mini-journey across cyberspace, as I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure what the word “liminal” meant, and yet I was going to use it in my subject line. I thought I was pretty sure what it meant, but not entirely, so I looked it up.

The first entry for the word on Dictionary.com told me, not very helpfully (but intriguingly), that “liminal” was an adjective meaning “of, pertaining to, or situated at the limen”; leading me to find (belatedly in life, since I don’t know why I didn’t already know this) that the word “limen” means “threshold.”

And, interestingly enough, Prague/Praha also means “threshold.”

So. I am writing from the airport in Prague, a liminal space in a liminal space. It’s a crazy hall of mirrors or something!

Anyway, the entry is intriguing, and I could wax rhapsodic & poetical & shit about how pregnant with meaning the metaphor of a threshold is, and how it’s so terribly relevant to my Meaningful Life (hey–My Meaningful Life would be a great band name. seriously. I want cash for coming up with that), but I won’t do that, here; there are other places for that, like journals and bar napkins.

I will say that I love liminal spaces–and I can now confidently use that word, assured that I am fully aware of its meaning and etymology–and that the prospect of traveling for another full day is something I rather look forward to, just in terms of having the time to let my brain breathe a bit. Also, I need to work on revising a draft of a script that was due yesterday (which I sent! but it needs work), so after getting this post done, I will turn to that.

Now I want to rewrite the entire thing and make it about liminal spaces. But that can be another script.

Anyway: clearly I missed several days of Underread Bloggery, but sometimes it’s okay, I think, not to document every moment, constantly. I mean, I was documenting in my head, and penning brilliant posts in my mind, for later writing&uploading-to-site, so in some ways I was documenting every moment. Just not publicly. That’s okay; now I don’t feel horribly overexposed.

Here are three random things I have loved about Prague, because three is always a good number, and I should put a limit to this, for this particular post:

1. becoming somewhat familiarized with the Czech language, and learning (in a supremely basic, caveman-level sort of way) how letters operate differently in terms of pronunciation, creating the sounds that are characteristic of the Czech language. for instance, š is pronounced “sh”, so the word Vyšehrad is pronounced “Vish-ey-rod” (roughly; there’s a lot more going on there, of course); and c’s (without any diacritical marks) are pronounced “tz”, so hruškovice is pronounced “HROOSHkoVITZay” (again, horribly roughly). I love that, and I love learning about it, and reading language in a new way, and speaking in a new way. Not that I could speak much, but still; reading language and letters in new ways with new rules is very awesome (Vyšehrad and hruškovice will come up in #2 and #3).

2. the bells of Vyšehrad – holy shit, I have never, ever heard church bells that have moved me like the bells at Vyšehrad, the original royal palace/castle in Prague (and the site where, legend has it, Princess Libuše prophesied that a great city [ahem: praha] would rise one day. she also scorned other royal suitors and married a lowly ploughman, or something, and together around 500 A.D. or so they started the P?emsyl dynasty that would rule Bohemia for 400 years, or so) – there’s a lovely cemetery in Vyšehrad, and to be in that place as the bells ring (the bells ring out as part of Smetana’s Vysehrad symphony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trgCZrgL4Ws)

I went to Vyšehrad with my friend and her sister the first day I was in Prague; my friend and I returned yesterday, to catch the noon bells. Fucking amazing. Google that shit and find a recording of the bells. Or I will be uploading a crappy audio track once my friend sends it to me.

3. The quiet of Prague at bars, even though the bars are full (and at restaurants). It’s not like silence, but people just speak more intensely and softly here; there’s no loud shouting and speaking as is customary in the states. Again, people are very alive and involved and engaged, but the volume level is turned way down, without at all compromising the life and energy of the place. In fact, the lower levels of speaking in general somehow contribute to a greater intensity. But that’s just me fetishizing & exotifying Prague, again. At bars, I appreciate the Czech spirits like Hrusovice, a spirit from pears. I have some in my luggage; hopefully it survives the plane

which I must now go to board. more on this later, I imagine. But I always say that.

yesterday, day 5, I figured it was time to culturally fortify myself, so I visited two museums in Prague—the Mucha Museum in Prague, where I finally learned what the term “art nouveau” might refer to (and my arty friends who aren’t reading this blog give a collective gasp of horror at yet another display of my relentless ignorance), and where I experienced a sudden, powerful desire to be able to see Sarah Bernhardt play Hamlet (sigh), and the Kafka Museum, which tried quite hard to create (and, I suppose, succeeded, to some degree) a crazy claustrophobic ambiance permeated with very cool primary documents and strange bird calls from some video of an isolated & presumably agonized cartoon man sitting at a desk (in an abstract sort of way). Actually, I rather enjoyed it, and I read all the English text in the exhibition, which was very do-able, since all the text was translated into about three languages, leaving not too much final wall space, in the end—so I felt very accomplished at the end of it without feeling completely fatigued or suicidal from spending too much time in a claustrophobic, moodily lit, narrow-corridor defined space, since it didn’t take all that long to go through. Also, I learned the etymology of Prague: Praj = threshold, apparently. Which had something to do with the very end of the exhibit, but I shan’t give it away. Anyway, the exhibit is a nice companion piece to R. Crumb’s Kafka, which I’d read earlier that morning.

Later that night, my friends and I stumbled through the snow and several crowded pubs with no room for us, until we finally settled on a giant pilsner house place that used to be a place where people were executed by hanging (I can’t think of the word for this). People there had giant hamhocks on their plates, to accompany their beer. I have a picture, but now I’m realizing I have to run to catch a show tonight at Volksbuhne in Berlin.

I got to Berlin late this morning. I love the public transportation here—it’s a bit dreamy, if you’re into good public transportation, as am I.

Here’s a picture, for your viewing pleasure:

ah forget it, not working, and no time to troubleshoot.

off to see Ozean.

For some ungodly reason I’ve been up since five AM, local time—and I thought I’d totally conquered jet lag since my first two nights here I slept fairly normal hours… ah well. Contemplative time in the morning is nice. I read R. Crumb’s Kafka (art by R. Crumb, natch, and text by David Zane Mairowitz), a book my friend here suggested I read to help put me in the proper Praguian mood. It was a very nice read/viewing, and totally summed up Kafka for the ignorant layman, like myself.

I’ve also spent the last few hours cramming for Berlin, emailing friends of friends way too late for it to be of any use, and google mapping directions from the train station to the hostel to the theaters where I’ve arranged to see some shows.

I have also spent some nice quality time this morning writing introspective shit about being a tourist in a land where I can’t speak or read or understand the language, typifying the Dumb American who didn’t bother to get her act together to learn something other than english; howsumever, that introspective shit is not the kind of thing I share on these rambles, so the Gentle Reader will remain ignorant of the exact details of said writing, and will have to be satisfied with my glossed over summary.

Oh. I was going to deal with Day 4 – and I’m sort of just discussing Day 5, which is today.

Okay, in brief, since it’s time I made some coffee and headed out:

Day 4 (yesterday, thursday, 7 january 2010)

some notes:

my friend/host, her sister (who’s also visiting now), and I walked up to Vyšehrad, a 10th century castle on a hill that features: some lovely decaying brick walls; an equally lovely (and even lush, oddly, although it was winter) cemetery (where some celebrity Czechs are buried, including Antonin Dvo?ák), which was wonderful to walk around; a gorgeous basilica restored at the turn of the last century and reopened to the public in 1992, which we almost didn’t go into because we were feeling cheap and thought you had to pay (you didn’t); a stand from which we purchased some hot wine & grog, and walked around the park in the cold sipping on hot alcoholic beverages with a humbling view of the city…it felt very decadent, which, of course, it was. Then we got a little too cold, and hopped on the metro.

I spent more time in cafes wandering from my friend’s apartment to the Archa theatre (I think in Stare Mesto neighborhood, but unsure…), where I’d planned to see a premiere of  a new dance/music/theater project called Emigrantes. I’m fairly enamored of the number and style of cafes here; I think I could probably spend my entire time here wandering around the streets and ducking into various spots, and I’d feel like it was time well spent. But castles & museums & performances/art are a nice touch, as well… the cafes just appeal to that hide-in-a-corner part of myself, that is generally at regular war with the get-on-a-stage-and-perform part of myself. For this trip, I’m content to be an observer/hider.

The performance was great, in spite of my nonexistent understanding of the Czech language. I definitely missed some critical stuff in the opening and closing monologues, delivered by one of the four child performers (it was four adults & four children)—so probably I missed, you know, the point—but the bulk of the performance was movement, with music, and I definitely enjoyed much of the choreography and general themes. I knew going in, since I’d read from the website, that the piece was about the refugee experience through the eyes of children, and that certainly came across in very basic ways. What surprised me was the rough and even violent movement duets involving an adult & child – I don’t think I’ve ever seen adult + child dancing together in a way that was so hostile and unsparing in terms of sentiment; I also enjoyed the adult duets, although it wasn’t as new or surprising to me—attempts to connect/engage/be intimate, but dealing with too many barriers to said-intimacy that the connection is inevitably foiled…ah, the trials of human alienation…The music was all performed live by two musicians who were great.

The feel actually reminded me a lot of some of the work I’ve seen at Campo Santo & Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.

Okay, I’ll just say one more thing and then close this computer—the most surprising part of the performance at Archa was not the crazy violent/rough adult-child interaction (which again I loved, and not because I like seeing kids beat up [I know what you're thinking...], but because it was a lot more honest than other child-adult interactions I’ve seen of late, and a lot more complicated), but the applause at the end of the one-hour performance. Holy shit, the Czech people applaud. The performers came out for maybe three curtain calls, all amid completely nonstop clapping; at one point the musicians joined in; then a few people who I imagine were the director and choreographer, perhaps; then some more people joined in the curtain call, people who had taken my ticket at the door and other staff I’d seen in the building; then some random other kids ran up on the stage and joined the performers—and all the while the clapping did not stop, at all; there was some cheering, as well. I kept looking around to see if this was normal, or if the performers themselves were taken aback by the relentless show of appreciation…at one point, the clapping somehow got synchronized, and everyone clapped on the same beat in an eerie moment of audiencial conformity…then it broke down for the most part. But my god, I thought it would never end—it must have gone on for fifteen minutes, I don’t know. It was late. It was dark. I didn’t speak the language. Who knows.

Okay. Enough of this, for now.

oh! one more thing. On my way home, I passed a McDonald’s with outdoor seating, which surprised me, since it’s fucking freezing out. But then I noticed that all the tables, maybe six of them, with chairs and umbrellas over the tables, had heat lamps. McDonalds with fancy heat lamps. Right next door to a museum about communism, by the way.

Okay. now, done.

My first full day in Prague, and I’m sitting at a bookstore/café/bar called Globe on Pštrossova and Myslíkova streets, which is east of the Vlatova river. You can smoke in this bar, also. While reading a book. And drinking a whiskey and/or coffee.

I’m adjusting to people smoking in restaurants and bars and cafes, here. I am also adjusting to illiteracy (while vainly struggling to acquire some level of literacy) although this adjustment is a bit more challenging.

Earlier today the friend who’s kindly permitting me to stay with her (after she extended an invitation of sorts to a few of her friends, probably never suspecting any of us would actually take her up on said invitation-of-sorts and invade her peaceful, Praguian life) and I were strolling around the Old Square, me sipping from a fairly sublime cup of steaming mulled wine, and while gazing up at the befamed Astronomical Clock we happened upon a tour group. The American guy leading the group turned out to be very knowledgeable and funny and engaging, and so we joined in the tour for a few stops (he encouraged passers-by to join in the free tour, so we weren’t being total assholes or anything). The Astronomical Clock does some animated shit every hour on the hour, which had happened about ten minutes before we arrived, so the guide helpfully performed a very impressive summation of what we had missed.

Prague is a beautiful city to walk around, and aside from the buildings and the castles on hills and such, there are passage ways which are basically covered alleyways/side streets connecting/intersecting the main arteries of foot and car/bus/trolley traffic. It’s basically like an underground network of secret tunnels, except it’s not underground and it’s not a secret; in fact, most of the passages are lined with businesses like any other street. But it has that, you know, totally underground feel. So you feel like you’re constantly involved in some sort of covert operation, which makes you feel mysterious and important while you’re just walking to get a coffee or just going about the general business of being a tourist. So, in other words, I’m totally exoticizing Prague. Yay me.

But really, the underground network of tunnels that isn’t actually underground makes this city very Fun for a pedestrian like myself.

I also enjoy how the streets here don’t really conform to a ninety-degree-angle-oriented grid system – the streets (and even, judging by the single apartment I’ve been in here, the homes as well) intersect at surprising angles, and even curve some, which further enriches, for me, the act of simply walking around.

Other impressions from the day: there are a ton of bridges over the Vlatava river, which I actually also noticed last night when I got into town, but things actually look different by day than they do by night; yes, it is a hard concept to get your head around, but it’s true.

The sound system is playing Jackson 5, which makes me suspect this place is geared towards ex-pats and tourists like myself (well, now I’m remembering that my friend already told me this was an ex-pat establishment, so I guess I’m just retroactively processing what was told to me a few hours ago), which is making me suspect that I like this place because it’s familiar to my lived experience, which is making me suspect that I am Boring. Great; I suck at visiting new places. I just keep gravitating towards the old grooves… I can’t help it, they’re grooves: they do have a gravitational pull. That’s not me being boring, that’s just me being human and succumbing to the laws of physics and shit. Okay, plus, I can be a little boring sometimes. Or all the time.

For lunch, we went to a place called Slavia, on the Vlatava river. I ordered the first item on the lunch menu, which was not translated into English like the regular menu. I knew the item featured pork, because my friend knew the word for pork, but the rest of it was Unknown Upon Ordering (UUO). Here’s what it said:

100g Anglická vep?ová játra, ope?ený brambor, tátarka

Okay, so she also knew that “Anglická” meant “English” and that “brambor” was potatoes and “tátarka” was tartar sauce. But overall, unsure. As it turned out, upon arrival, it was pork liver—missed that key “játra” definition. I’m not against liver dishes, but I’m not terribly excited about them, either. But it ended up working out, and in the end I determined the meal had been a Success.

Also from today: holy shit, google’s online translator is amazing (ahem: http://translate.google.com/). I was trying to navigate purchasing theater tickets in german and czech (for some theaters here in Prague, and for some in Berlin when I go in a few days), and that translator very accurately translated whole paragraphs of text, where other free online translators that shall remain nameless had failed to accurately translate even simple words and phrases. I hate being a corporate whore, but go Google.

Okay. Time to go, for now. Augh, and I still haven’t dealt with days zero and one, let alone all of days two and three; I suppose some Genius Insights will have to go unrecorded, or at least belatedly documented.

(wrote this last night, before I passed into wonderful, undisturbed slumber)

—-

(heading into oblivion, but jotting down a few things from day 2 of Ye Olde Journey)

(it’s 12:43 AM in Prague, January 6^th, technically, as I write)

Just got back from a bar in Prague where you can smoke indoors. I started with a Jameson, and switched to a Becharova, which my friend calls Christmas in a Glass. Or something to this effect. It is, in a whiskey sort of way (although I don’t think it’s whiskey).

The bar happened after we spent a while looking for an ATM, which led us on a lovely walk that started out along the Vlatava river, and took us around near the foot of a large mountain leading to Prague Castle, the foot of which (or the part we passed) is home to a monument/sculpture dedicated to the victims of communism – emaciated figures staggering eerily down steps illuminated with discs of light. From far away I saw only the lovely discs of light, and remarked upon it creating an atmosphere of inviting fairyland. The my friend pointed out the emaciated figures, and the actual substance of the lights and monument in general, and I stood corrected: not a fixture of inviting fairyland. In my defense, I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and was/am delirious.

We wound through a very popular district whose name I’m forgetting and went to the Charles Bridge, which is very impressively fortified on either end, and which offers lovely views in all directions –

Okay, really fading now, so just a few more impressions/thoughts/memories in note form:

-       Prague is fucking beautiful.

-       Both winter and cold seem to suit Prague.

-       It’s not that cold, except when I consider it from the perspective of the hands, which truly suffer without mittens. But I have mittens. And my hands suffer without mittens in nyc, too.

-       There is good public transport here, like in London. Like in nyc.

-       I loved london in large part due to the surprising awesomeness of my Virgin Atlantic row-mate/neighbor, whom we’ll call L. (because doing so fully protects his identity while also acting as a truthful if incomplete textual representation of him, since “L” is, in fact, the real first initial of his first name). He was shockingly hospitable, inviting a total stranger to share a car ride, some croissants, and frenchpressed coffee (with steamed milk), and made me an avocado-with-marmite toasted bagel for the road, which I gradually finished over the next several hours, finishing it upon landing in Prague while still in plane; marmite + avocado bagels will forever hold a special place in my heart. Were it not for L., I would have spent eight long hours avoiding sleep in the London Heathrow airport, instead of getting homemade coffee, food, and a few hours to wander around Piccadilly circus; fortunately, I felt compelled to interrupt the calm of my fellow passenger’s descent into London by asking him if he had any suggestions as to how I might best spend a full-day’s layover in the airport. I think his rush of hospitality might have been inspired by a mixture of pity and shock at my stunning display of laziness/lack of imagination. Anyway, I am very grateful to him.

Oh crap I need to go. Really fading. Falling asleep as I type. More later.

I will track back to day 1, and actually to day 0, since Day Zero seems significant.

But I will start with Day 2: right now, Tuesday, January 5th, since that’s the day it is now. Oh, I’m loopy – did I mention that? The last time I woke up from sleep was now twenty-five hours ago, and I’ve been in transit. Crap, looks like my flight is boarding…

Okay, I’ll get to this later. But the Journey has begun, and day 2 began, surprisingly, with British hospitality and marmite-avocado bagel sandwiches. and homemade coffee.

more soon. on to Prague, now…