What the Tourists Don't See in Prague

Christmas in Prague

Prague is one of the best cities in which to have Christmas nowadays. It's starting to compete with the Western craze of Christmas-y things starting sometime in October. Besides the nice little lights and trees that are scattered in the cubbies of the city, there are also various outdoor markets that sell, among other things, hot apple wine (which I had today and it was yum yum in the tum tum), grog, trdelnik, EVERY KIND OF CHEESE EVER INVENTED EVER, sausages, potato chips on a stick, pork on a spit, coffee, homemade ornaments, fluffy wool slippers and gloves, souvenirs, beer, honey products, shiny things, table cloths and doilies, and other stuff. 

I went exploring today in the market in the Old Town square. Here are the photos. 

The Hostel Chronicles, Episode 4: Am I Drunk or Are You Really That Drunk?

So, drunks.

Yeah. They turn me into a sad panda. Or more like a passive-aggressive panda.

Working day shift at a hostel, I don't have to see too much of this interesting species. Most of the crazy shit (literally, real shit on real things) happens at night. Unfortunately, I do have to deal with the day-after drunks. The ones who had so much the night before that they remain soused throughout the following afternoon.

It's like trying to speak to a toddler who is just learning to speak. They bite their lips, hang their head, chuckle to themselves, slap their palms on the desk every so often as though it were a proper mode of communication, say "hey" every two words, talk so softly you mistake them for a pigeon, and lastly, THEY NEVER LEAVE RECEPTION. They just stand there, leaning just enough so that their vodka breath hovers right into your face, and they have no idea who they are or what they really want from you. Yet they seem to have some sort of mission. Something inside them is telling them they need to talk to me, they need to ask me where I'm from, what I'm doing here, where I'm from, am I addicted to cakes, because cakes are like crack, damn cakes are goooooooood.

At first it's kind of funny. You just smile to yourself and thank your lucky stars you're not so stupid as to ever become THAT inebriated. In fact, these drunks seem to be your entertainment. Haha! Look at that one fail miserably to climb the stairs! I can see him stumble and hit his face on the security camera! Haha! I can see drunken naked butts on the camera too! And they don't even realize it! Ha ha ha ha! ha... ha... heh..... ahem.... eh.

Yeah, not so funny, actually. Not when it happens over and over and over and over again. Naked butts on the cameras--no matter how muscular--lose their appeal fast. You get to a point when you just want to slap them all back into reality. *Slap* You cannot act like this on a regular basis! *slap* Why do you do this? You sleep all day and see nothing of the beautiful, magical city! *slap* You smell! *slap* For the hundredth time my hair color is natural and I'm from America and I do like cakes but not that much!

A Dash of Chekhov, Che, and Murakami

So...I'm a nerd. When I read books, I like to underline quotes and passages that affect me in some way. Then I usually scribble in the margins a word or two to describe my feelings, which are usually "wtf," "blatant sexism," or "this is greatest thing I've ever read."

I could write a thousand posts about the former two reactions, but I think today I'll go for the latter. I'm just going to leave the interpretation up to you, the reader. Here are some quotes that I found particularly effective, and hopefully so will you.

A ponderous Chekhov, pondering
life's ponderous points

This is from Anton Chekhov's short story Gooseberries. The character Ivan Ivanych (so original...) went off on a social commentary as Chekhov's character are wont to do from time to time:

"[...] Just take a look at this life of ours and you will see the arrogance and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak. Everywhere there's unspeakable poverty, overcrowding, degeneracy, drunkenness, hypocrisy and stupid lies . . . And yet peace and quiet reign in every house and street. Out of fifty thousand people you won't find one who is prepared to shout out loud and make a strong protest. We see people buying food in the market, eating during the day, sleeping at night-time, talking nonsense, marrying, growing old and then contentedly carting their dead off to the cemetery. But we don't hear or see those who suffer: the real tragedies of life are enacted somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is calm and peaceful and the only protest comes from statistics--and they can't talk. Figures show that so many went mad, so many bottles of vodka were emptied, so many children died from malnutrition. And clearly this kind of system is what people need. It's obvious that the happy man feels contented only because the unhappy ones bear their burden without saying a word: if it weren't for their silence, happiness would be quite impossible. It's a kind of mass hypnosis. Someone ought to stand with a hammer at the door of every happy contented man, continually banging on it to remind him that there are unhappy people around and that however happy he may be at the time, sooner or later life will show him its claws and disaster will overtake him in the form of illness, poverty, bereavement and there will be no one to hear or see him. But there isn't anyone holding a hammer, so our happy man goes his own sweet way and is only gently ruffled by life's trivial cares, as an aspen is ruffled by the breeze. All's well as far as he's concerned."

Che receiving a lei. (Omg that rhymed!)

This next quote is from an iconic yet rather debated figure, Che Guevara. (I highly recommend reading his
diaries of the Cuban Revolution.) He mentions something very close to my heart: learning the stories of El Pueblo. From August 20th, 1960:

"We must then begin to erase our old concepts and come ever closer and ever more critically to the people. Not in the way we got closer before, because all of you will say: 'No, I am a friend of the people. I enjoy talking with workers and peasants, and on Sundays I go to such and such a place to see such and such a thing.' Everybody has done that. But they have done it practicing charity, and what we have to practice today is solidarity. We should not draw closer to the people to say: 'Here we are. We come to give you the charity of our presence, to teach you with our science, to demonstrate your errors, your lack of refinement, your lack of elementary knowledge.' We should go with an investigative zeal and with a humble spirit, to learn from the great source of wisdom that is the people."

Murakami being Mura-kickass

These last quotes are from one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, in his novel Sputnik Sweetheart (I highly highly highly recommend this short yet life-altering book.) These passages relate back very closely to Chekhov's quote about silence and living without changing anything.

"So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives with way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time, bidding farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness." (Page 225)

"Maybe, in some distant place, everything is already, quietly, lost. Or at least there exists a silent place where everything can disappear, melding together in a single, overlapping figure. And as we live our lives we discover--drawing towards us the thin threads attached to us--what has been lost. I closed my eyes and tried to bring to mind as many beautiful lost things as I could. Drawing them closer, holding on to them. Knowing all the while that their lives are fleeting." (Page 226)

Another Lewis Carroll Comic

"God Alice, why did I make
you such a dweeb?"

Most everyone knows Lewis Carroll was the 19th-century author who wrote the greatest children's novel ever written ever end of story thank you goodbye. (Alice in Wonderland, duh.)

But besides being a writer, he was also a mathematician and professor at Oxford, a notable photographer, and Anglican deacon. That's all well and good. So what makes him interesting?

Lewis Carroll, since an early age, suffered from a habitual stammer. This is not a stutter (where certain consonants are repeated) but a hesitation of speech. Via The Stuttering Foundation: One longtime friend, May Barber, described Carroll's speech, "Those stammering bouts were rather terrifying. It wasn't exactly a stammer because there was no noise, he just opened his mouth... When he was in the middle of telling a story....he suddenly stopped and you wondered if you had done anything wrong. Then you looked at him and you knew that you hadn't, it was all right. You got used to it after a bit. He fought it wonderfully."

Carroll developed a reputation as being a quiet and somewhat terribly boring mathematics professor at Oxford, and I'm sure the stammer didn't help.

This got me thinking. I wanted to make a comic about Carroll's stammer, because it's always better to turn tragedy into comedy, isn't it? So the following is my reasoning behind the stammer and what might've been REALLY going on there....

I Made A Website, And It's Called....

...The Alligator! A free online literary magazine!

This is The Alligator's mascot,
Al Dappergator

I can see your excited faces now, as you read this. Except your faces are not so excited as they are void of any emotional connection whatsoever to the line above.

That's ok!

The Alligator is this literary magazine that my friend Julia Morrison began last year. We've had guest writers publish their work along with our hardworking staff, whose work is always interesting, even when we have to squeeze it out of them two days before the publishing deadline.

So for all you aspiring artists out there, whether you're a writer, a painter, a musician who has a slew of self-recorded songs just sitting around in your hard drive, a drawer of comics, just a drawer, or any other sort of artist, let it be known that your work is desired at The Alligator. We can't guarantee work will be published, but we guarantee personal feedback for everything you submit.

Right now our editor (me) is looking for new work for Volume Two. Please go to www.alligatormagazine.com to find out how to submit and also to read this month's volume!

The Hostel Chronicles, Episode 3: Meanies

The highlight of working at a hostel and being a writer at the same time is that I get a ton of ideas for characters. Each person you meet in a day has the potential to spark a new life--albeit a fictional life. You have your magnetic travel mongers, your shy, questioning first-timers, your easy-going sight-seers, your logical planners, etc. And within these categories come multitudinous layers of being and personality. As a hostel worker, I get to witness all the niceness and warmth of humanity like a gentle coastal wave.

Then, you get the meanies.

Visual approximation of a meanie

Oh, do they exist, and they come at you like swinging pendulums of doom, like car crashes and bad milk. They rot your day into a tiny piece of sidewalk chewing gum and you don't recover until that night or even the next morning (preferably after a couple glasses of wine). 

Most of the time it happens because people are not aware of what a hostel is and how it works. Yesterday I had a group of 8 dudes from Amsterdam, and two came waltzing in (never a good sign when someone waltzes into reception, especially not if they're wearing neon yellow reflector vests). They shot questions at me about the amenities: breakfast, towels, internet, etc. I answered them congenially. Then... they asked about parking. Alas, there is none at the hostel that's private. Nowhere in the entire city is there private parking for businesses. It's all on the street. Old city with crazily winding roads and alleyways = driver's nightmare. So I explained to the young men the situation, apologizing for the confusion. They were having none of it and glared at me as though I were some hired stripper who refused to take her clothes off. Yeah. That bad.

These boys continued to screech at me, demanding discounts and what have you, and of course I couldn't offer them that. They made me call my poor manager (who was in the middle of getting her hair cut) and bother her. On and on it went, they threatened me with "horrible reviews" the likes of which I'd never seen before.... Just all-around meanies, ya know?

"And they were as mean
as sun-dazzled bats..."

So, since there was nothing I could do or say to console them, I took a good mental picture of the leaders of the group, and decided to add them to my list of future story villains and antagonists. Oh yes. You know that t-shirt that says, "Watch out, you might end up in my novel"? Well, it's factual. And I'm not afraid to use names, either. Everyone will know who the villains are and what they did!

Anyway, like I said, the meanies are people who refuse to let things go and are handling a situation in an irrational manner that hurts everybody involved. Even if you're upset, if you're dealing with someone who is being kind and trying to help you through it, you don't treat them like trash still. You just don't. That's not the warmth of humanity, that's the cloud of meanness that shows how afraid you are of the world deep down inside your mean little soul. That's my humble opinion. (And those guys WILL end up in my novel. And they will be sorry.)

Besides... why drive when you can go by Segway?

Oooooh, mama.