(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Street Prophets Friday: Season's Greetings [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-15 Greetings of the generic and the seasonal varieties! This is just a little touch of Friday-flavored fluff, just an open thread with a bit of an ambling preamble. How’s everyone doing? Last weekend was still a snowy one. We headed up north to enjoy a bit of Nordic skiing and cookie baking. If you've ever dropped by one of my diaries and read the word “chalupa” — well, I'm not writing about a boat-shaped bit of fried masa harina with assorted savory fillings as found in some regions of Mexico. My chalupa is a 200-ish year-old, Germanic-style, farm house that was purchased by Mrs the Werelynx's grandfather back in 1970. Our chalupa last weekend Many chalupas these days are used as recreational cabins. I enjoy ours as a bit of a weekend gardener. I have my pottery kick-wheel set up in the garage, there's a little forge set-up in the barn. The garden sleeping under its blanket Mrs the Werelynx is the main cookie baker this time of year. Both #1 Son and I lent a hand. I even did a little experimental coconut almond cookie. My first gluten-free cookie! And three of us who were at the chalupa all took a turn on the old pairs of cross country skis we have there. The snow was wet and sticky— and by the time we left on Sunday, it was beginning to rain. Been above freezing practically all week. I fear the snow is gone already. Sunday evening, Mrs the Werelynx and I met a friend downtown to attend a concert by a favorite Czech folk musician named Karel Plíhal. About half of his time on stage was made up of brilliant little bits of playful poetry. Here’s a YouTube video of a benefit concert for Ukraine that he took part in awhile back: He was also playing with Petr Fiala last Sunday as he does in the video. Even if you don't understand Czech, you can get a pretty good sense of the warmth and humor of the man and his music and poetry. There follow a few other musicians and musical groups during that video, but Plíhal kicks things off. I suppose the first music I was really aware of were the folk and Christmas carol albums of my parents. Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, Arlo Guthrie … Outside the concert venue. One of Prague’s famous passageways— and two of Prague's famously beautiful women. On Monday I went across town to Fabulous Mother-In-Law's apartment to bring her some food and to sit and chat a bit. The dementia is starting to toss disturbing little details into our conversations. Apparently, her father was an anti-Semite. Now I’m wondering if she thought about that when we were visiting Prague's Jewish ghetto, Josefov together just a couple weeks ago. I went from her place to the center of the city for a bit of Christmas shopping. Christmas market and tree at the bottom of Wenceslas Square Then I took a walk through downtown Prague. Christmas market and the National Christmas Tree on Old Town Square. I walked across Charles Bridge despite the crowds. I didn’t bother to take any pictures of tourists groping the image of Queen Sophia or petting the dog on the Saint John of Nepomuk monument. Funny, as I'm sitting here pondering my oddly secular Christmas, how it's much more of a family cultural tradition than a religious festival, I'm struck with how what used to be a tradition of touching one tiny portion of a brass bas-relief plaque on the right side of the monument to Saint John has become ignorant tourists smearing their hands over anything shiny in front of them. If you’re familiar with the story of the martyrdom of John of Nepomuk, he was Queen Sophia's confessor and when the jealous king tried to pry her confession from John, he refused and was tortured, killed and his body flung from Charles Bridge. Seven stars appeared in the water where the body had sank from sight. You see statues of ol’ John all over central Europe. He's the guy with a seven-starred halo over his head, usually holding a crucifix and a bundle of reeds. He’s the patron saint whose area of influence includes floods. Tossed into the river— thus, floods? Back in the summer of '89, when my Prague-born step-mother first showed me the monument to Jan Nepomuk on Charles Bridge, only the tiny figure of the saint's body being thrown from the bridge on the plaque had been polished by folks touching it with their finger tips over the decades. Now, decades later, you’d think the dog, symbolizing John's unbroken loyalty to the sacred nature of the confessional, on the other plaque was the main attraction. Everybody pets the dog now. I understand the desire to pet dogs. Why tourists insist on also petting the queen as she watches John being thrown from the bridge in the background is somewhat more puzzling. Every time I cross Charles Bridge I see tourists fondling Queen Sophia's butt. Some days I'll stop and tell the story to them, pointing out the tiny figure of the saint himself. But on Monday I was hurrying on to other destinations. Heh, I seem to enjoy retelling that stuff— even when I'm in a hurry. For my birthday, I'd gotten a voucher for entrance to the Karel Zeman Museum. The voucher was only good until the end of the year, and as I'm a fan of Zeman’s films, I absolutely had to go! Zeman began his career in film making beautiful little animated puppet stories. His work has been cited as a primary influence on the works of many filmmakers like, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton. His marvelously stylized adaptations of the works of Jules Verne are some of my favorite films. A neat little scene set up in the museum with cutout figures of actors from the films and a screen that displayed a series of pictures taken from the films. There was entirely too much interactive stuff for my schedule, but I had a grand time anyway. Have your picture taken on a pegasus from one of Zeman's animated films. How Zeman imagined the moon landing in 1961 compared to photos of the actual moon landing in 1969 Because the museum was right at the western end of Charles bridge I decided to take the scenic route through the neighborhood and back across another bridge further south to get to my destination: a life drawing class taught by an old friend. I hadn't dropped by to pick on him in about a year. But on my way out of Maltese Square, I happened to glance in the windows of a little gallery/wine bar. I was starting to get hungry and thought I could possibly find a quick bite of something to eat. What I found was something quite different. Alex and Martin I saw another friend of mine! He had his back to me, but I knew him. I went around to the door and went in. We were both pretty surprised by the coincidence. I try to get to all of his concerts and here he was preparing to play a few songs as part of an exhibit opening ceremony for an old classmate of his. I ended up having a beer and staying awhile. Got to meet the artist and see the exhibit. Also spent a bit of time sharing a table with my friend's wife and catching up a bit. She and I hadn't had a chance to chat since well before COVID. I got to the life drawing class with only a few minutes to spare. Mostly just chatted with my friend Mirek before taking the last 15 minutes to do a quick couple of sketches of the model. Pastel Colored Pencil I'd expected another class to start afterward and had planned on spending the rest of the evening hanging out and drawing— but there was no second class that evening. I ended hanging out the rest of the evening anyway. Mirek and I went out to a Vietnamese restaurant with one of the students, a retired woman with one of the most interesting life stories that I've heard. Her husband had worked for Nestlé and his work brought the two of them to live in Switzerland, the Philippines and Columbia. They traveled all over south-east Asia and India— but never visited China. A lovely couple of hours spent discussing art and travel. It was quite a day of reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. And for me, both of those things are essential parts of the season. Thanks for stopping by. This is an open thread. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/15/2211851/-Street-Prophets-Friday-Season-s-Greetings?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/