Composed 1994? (unedited)
Well, where did I leave off? Oh, yes. The Metro. And I was talking about how quiet it was. Well, it still is. Especially in the mornings when I go to work. The subway car can be full of people but you can hear the proverbial pin when the train is at a stop. This is even with people getting on and off. And between stops all you hear is the clickety-clack and the squeaking of brakes and other metal-on-metal noises.
A wind announces the next train. Before it arrives, the air is pushed through the tunnel ahead of the train. Your clothes and hair feel the wind before you can hear or see the train come from the dark maw.
Later in the day on the Metro you hear one or two conversations. In the evenings, rush hour, still just one or two. When people come home from eating and drinking, or when there are foreigners on board, there are several conversations you can hear. If there are two Americans on a car having a conversation, it is as if there are 30 non-Americans speaking. You not only can hear it but you can listen to it. We are noticeable in twos, and ubiquitous if three or four. The British people have candidly remarked we are loud, take up more than our share of space, and talk about nothing for the longest times!
Talking is allowed. You can talk if you want to on the Metro. But if you are Czech, it is not allowed. It is even almost impossible to catch someone’s eye. People travel anonymously. They are not unfriendly. You will receive very polite behavior, if you ask. But you must ask. There are no conversations that strike up. I am told this is one legacy of the former times. Do not approach first because you never know what someone else wants. [ am also told, “they” will try to determine what you want before responding much less connecting and communicating with you. So smiles are infrequent. Suspicion seems to have become a norm. Perhaps now it ts cultural reticence and not suspicion. Not looking at people is another overwhelming norm. Silence and no looking, as if no one else is there. Most of the time. And that is as it its. Blissful for me.
I came here at the close of a period of isolating myself. 1 understand this behavior a little more now, and of course I obsess about its rightness/wrongness/meaning/etc. Is it fate or what that I find myself in an almost silent foreign culture? I cannot make contact easily because the culture and language are foreign. And the culture and language, especially the language I am told, are only permeable at your initiative. I guess I am in the right place. I do enjoy the silence, the anonymity, the responsibility of extending myself for what I need. And only that is what is required of me. It is very nice that the responses that I get, so far, are polite, friendly, helpful. When I can speak Czech, if ever, I am told I will find a very rude world? It is hard to believe. I see no signs. But I am unable to hear the ones that may be there now.
Summer comes to an end. The searing heat of July and early August have tumed to mild weather and some rain. When it was hot, | thought it would never end. Now, [ hope it doesn’t get too cold too soon.
I went to the Czech National Library. Very big, centuries old. It acts as the national library, like the library of congress for the Czech Republic. And it is the library for Charles University, one of the oldest universities in Europe. The general reading room is like a cathedral with walls painted and such. This room has a ceramic oven for heating, perhaps it still does, and it is about thirty feet high. I have seen many of these ovens in Germany. This is the biggest I have ever seen.
You need a library card just to get into the general reading room. I had to show residence permit, a copy of a notarized letter from my landlord, my employment contract, and passport just to get the library card. Praise or condemn our slack procedures in the US, if you will. Books are golden here, particularly when they are banned, and many were up until the fall of the Iron Curtain. The library has a special collection of banned books!
I met with PhDr. Blanka Vlasakova. She is the foreign acquisitions librarian, and she has asked me to name the books I want in English. She will order them. I then will borrow them for several months at a time and then return them. A major privilege. You normally only get to read books in the reading rooms, not take them out of the library. How is all this possible? Someone gave the library the annual quota of German acquisitions and so they have extra money to spend on US publications. They collect books in certain fields so I am recommending purchases. These fields are of interest to me. For this I get books I want and Narodni Knihovna V Praze can then have and use them. She says I came at the right tume--luck. Just give her a list! (This is a slightly longer story having to do with my graduate studies and how I was scheming to get books I need at low cost. If you are interested in the longer story, ask.)
I have been to two English plays in the last two weeks, one by Bernard Shaw and one by a Czech playwright, a play from the early ‘70’s! Really cheap. Really interesting. Less that $2 for tickets each. And the plays and acting were excellent. I met a poet today. He invited me to a reading tomorrow evening. He promises to read two or three of his English poems. And the bookshops. They are wonderful, but limited for what I am currently reading. But they have wonderful collections of novels, poetry, plays in English.
Prague is a city which is a haven for art and artists. It’s a place which embraces this side of life--including music.
Bob Dylan was just here. Pink Floyd in a week or so. Lots of classical music every day. (Communists and former communists love music!) I don’t know anything about music, but I will be learning the bloch flute = I think it is the recorder in the US) beginning in October. Perhaps in memory of Tara, or just that I am tired of my own ignorance about things musical. (I am glad to amuse you.)
Vaclav Havel, the Czech President, is often quoted in English publications here. He is the playwrightpolitician. And much of what I have read has been inspired and thoughtful. Although I have not read a whole work by him, I should and I will. One of the things he is said to have said has to do with the reasons for being. We are not here to make money and import all the western goods and ways. We must feed our souls, and this is nothing that can be bought. I have read a Czech history. Havel is not the first artist to have ruled the Czech lands. So, I am among people with a history of motives which I think are more like non-material aspirations. I can’t help but say this is different in many ways from the US and its (is it my?) government.
There are other stories. I have been invited to a meeting in October. The Council of Europe is meeting in Prague to discuss the state of higher education in the Czech Republic, among other things. I will wear a tie and look presentable.
I have written a grant proposal to the Central European University. This institution is funded by George Soros. Perhaps you have heard of him. He is funding a number of foundations and institutions in the former USSR and Eastern Block. The grant is looking good. The Centre for Higher Education Studies, an arm of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, has agreed to have me do a study of their organization over the next ten months. I am applying for money to do this. Consultants, get ready. I may have some work for you next year! The pay will be about $70 per day.
And there are other stories. I have been invited to Ukraine by my students. I have found the Czech Sociological Review published in English. I am reading Anarchism: Community and Utopia. Very interesting. This book was published in Prague in English--it was not going to see the light of day because of its outspokenness. Supposedly. It’s pretty abstract and tame so far. I have found a certain apple pastry that is available in bread and bread-like pastry shops. Cakes and sweeter pastries are sold in other shops. I stay out of them. Because I don’t know what’s in this apple thing--looks like a Danish--it can’t hurt me. And I haven’t found one broccoli yet, to buy or in a restaurant. There are Chinese restaurants, but I haven’t tried one yet. And on one subway line, the recorded announcement has changed ever so slightly. There is a “prosim” {please) in the middle of familiar-sounding but still untranslatable Czech.
I saw the doctor today for the second time. My blood pressure, without drugs, is normal. My blood test, without drugs, shows normal amounts of HDL’s and all that. She gave me prescriptions, comparable to what I was taking under the care of my Denver doctor. My health insurance here pays for them and all the stuff with the doctor. And now I wonder what is going on? Can it be that I am somehow thriving on all the changes? I am going to have to think more about this miracle, if it is one.
As I wait for the morning tram, I do not see the same people, even though I am there at the same time each moming that I teach in Prague. No matter. I am a foreigner and isolated from them for now anyway. But the route I take, public transportation and walking, is getting to be like a small world. It is familiar, as if I had done it a hundred times already, and I have not. The visual landscape--I need to see more and different visual images. Soon I will, and then my address will be
