Rosh Hashanah

The Vltava River

Casting away our sins.

This weekend I am going to Berlin! From Friday morning to Monday afternoon. There are about 10,000 things I want to do in Berlin so I am very excited. Get excited for a ton of pictures and stories, I have a good feeling about this city.

I just got back from services and a long Rosh Hashanah dinner in a synagogue in the old Jewish Quarter. It was a very nice service and the dinner following was particularly for college students in Prague so I met some interesting people. It was very nice to experience services in another language. They were held in Hebrew, Czech, and English... which explains why I was there for literally 5 hours. But it was a nice event. During the services, we did the ceremony of casting your sins (symbolized by bread) into a body of water. We walked out of the temple and to the Vltava River, it was just before sundown, and we cast our breadcrumbs into the river and watched them, our sins of the last year, wash away. It was very pretty. There was a toddler, a nephew of the Rabbi, who kept eating the bread. Someone tried to stop him and the Rabbi's wife said "Let him eat. He doesn't have any sins yet." It was a very simple and pleasant evening. L'shana tova!

The hungry child without sins.

Beat the Peak: Panoramas, part One

Oh hey there, Ondrĕj! 

Base Camp of Snĕžka, in Poland. There's our group on the left. Hannah, Jes, Jason, Ondrĕj, Aly.... and Hannah again all the way on the right. 

BEAT THE PEAK! WE MADE IT! The view from the top! Sidenote, look closely at the couple just to the left of the middle... there's an old man grabbing his wife's rear! (hahaha)

The view from the top, sans tourists. 

Beat the Peak: Panoramas, part two

The Long Road Back. (Fun game with all of these pictures: see how many times you can spot Jes & Jason!)

Taken from base of Snĕžka. The valley on the left is a view of Poland. 

A lookout point and the cobblestone staircase to the top of Snĕžka. Once you have climbed a mountain to get to the base of Snĕžka, you are greeted by an endless flight of cobblestone steps to the peak. Getting to the top really is a breathless victory. (There is also a ski lift you can take to the top. Weak.) 

This panorama is taken in late afternoon as we descend back into the tree line from the peak. 

Beat the Peak: Czech Republic VICTORY! and a side of Pineapple!

Made it back from Snĕžka, safe and sound! What a hike! It was a great experience. I am really grateful to my friend Ondřej for arranging it, because otherwise I would never have managed it. He took us to his hometown, we stayed in a local house, walked backroads and trails to get from the train station to the house (literally, through the woods... to his mother's friend house, we go.) Even the walk, at dusk from the train was unforgettable. Sunset, corn fields, brisk fall evening in the countryside. It's a picture of peace I will keep with me for a long time. 

While walking to the house the first night, we walked through fields and hills, and even came across some horses!  It was a beautiful walk, at dusk, all of us chatting and enjoying ourselves... maybe too much, since it got very dark before we made it home. But we made it!

Intrepid Hikers. Snĕžka

A  purple flower Ondřej showed me that is only found in the Czech Republic!

Wild blueberries we picked along the trail! A little overripe but all natural. 

Team Beat the Peak ready for action!

Ondřej says only American girls are stubborn enough not to accept help from boys.
 (He was very sweet and carried my backpack while I took photos.)
We all had a good laugh about Ondřej's sudden backpack baby. :-) 

In the distance, we could see many bunkers built before WW2 to protect the
 border from German invasion. We were very close to the border with Poland.
At one point the trail even crosses into Poland (so technically, I've been there
now!) We had a nice view of it most of the way (pictures of that to follow.) 

Snĕžka, the highest peak in the Czech Republic. (It looks small, because the photo is taken
from the summit of a neighboring peak.) Its's 1602 meters high. 

Beat the Peak.... exhausted and happy!

Ondřej, on top of the World.

 

VICTORY! Team Beat the Peak for the win! As per Jason's Mt. Fuji tradition, we all munched on canned pineapple at the summit. What a great idea. The juice is so sweet and delicious, and the fruit is so refreshing! It hit the spot! It tastes like winning!

Ondřej chillin' on a cliff. 

The trail was this beautiful the entire time. It went from feeling like I was in the mountains from the last scene in The Sound of Music to this kind of garden path to rolling grasslands. Certainly one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever been on. This area is so diverse, it kept changing constantly and was really stunning. I could spend every weekend here. 

Beat the Peak: Czech Republic

This weekend will be awesome! 7 of us are hiking to the to the tallest peak in the Czech Republic! We will be staying in the rural town, Vrachlabi, nearby for two nights (Fri/Sat) with Ondraj's (a local Czech student's) family. We will hike to the highest peak, Sněžka, in the biggest National Park, Krkonoše, in CZ. It is in the Northern part of the Czech Republic. From there we will be able to see Poland, since it is on the border. Then on Sunday we will have until 3 pm or so to do some other hikes in the park. And then take the train back to Prague! 

I'm really excited to go!  But until I have pictures of that to show you... here are some more of my travels in Praha!

Subway Shenanigans

I snuck into an abandoned building, now being reconstructed, for a photoshoot.
Broken glass, overgrown greens, and great light... the film turned out well!

The Bloody Beatroots in concert. Great show! 

Here's another great show, one I catch quite often... rain or shine: The Bridge Band. The Charles Bridge Band plays to tourists all year round in the snow and sun. Every time I hear them, they really do bring a smile to my face. They aren't hoaky. They seem to be just five genuine guys who love to play music, so they do. It doesn't matter what they wear, no period costumes here, nothing like that. They show up and play, you show up and pay, dance a little and you both have a nice day. I like them very much and usually stay for 3 or 4 songs if I can. 

David Černý

Today it rained, the first bad weather we've had so I spent it at the Museum of Young Art. It was a ridiculous adventure. First of all it is home to TWO David Cérny works. If you don't know who David Cérny is, you are missing out (here's his site). This guy is #1 rebel artist extraordinaire in rope, and guess what? He is Czech. He does crazy provodcative sculptures and places them in extremely pbulcic spaces. He also has his own gallery here called the MeetFactory, which is an abandoned warehous (rumored to have once been a meat packing facility) where he has his own installations as well as promotes young artists in Prague. Also, he uses it as a space for theater, live music, comedy, movies, anything you want... complete with a bar. It's a fantastic place. I've been here for only 3 weeks and I've already been twice. Considering its far and I haven't started repeating places yet, it's that good. So today's post is all of the  Cérny works I have managed to find in Prague thus far. 

The guns below are at the Museum of Young Art in Prague, and as you can see all year round they just hang in this 19th century courtyard. They were originally installed in the World Trade Center in NYC in 1994.

 These two peeing men are near to the Kafka Museum. A picture could never capture this sculpture (but a better image can try). 1st, their penises move up and down. 2nd, they are pee-writing (there's no good word for this) famous Czech quotes. 3rd, if you text (yes SMS text) the # listed then it interrupts the quote to pee-write your text and then continues the quotes. 4th, the statues are peeing on an image of the Czech Republic. Wow, Cérny. Wow.

Three of these Babies are in the park, not far from the Peeing statues. Their faces have been smashed in completely... maybe someone actually punched some babies (Staples?!?!), maybe they have been stamped with barcodes, who knows. Either way there are many, many more of these babies crawling up the TV Tower in Prague.

 This Cérny work is dedicated to Franz Kafka, a fellow strange but awesome Czech. It is located in the Jewish Quarter. What is interesting about Kafka is that he was from Prague (and thus Czech) but spoke (and wrote in) German (because the Czech Rep. was under the rule of the Austrian Hungarian Empire pre-WW1). He never knew any Czech.

The work to the above is a satire of one of the most well known statues in all of Prague: St. Wenceslaus on his horse. Originally the statue is in the main square, which is named after St. Wenceslaus, and the horse is not dead, as you might imagine.

 This is Cérny's gallery... At the MeetFactory there are surprises everywhere.

A Cérny work that I haven't seen yet (it's in Brussels) is "Entropa". It is a piece mocking different EU countries and their stereotypes. It's worth taking a look at since it is his most recent internationally controversial work.

I have also seen a piece called "Shark Tank" that I did not photograph, because it was too grotesque to me. I didn't like to look at ti. But it is a pretty intriguing piece. 1 year before the dictator was executed, Cérny constructed a tank (filled with a sinister-looking green liquid/gel/something) containing a realistically sculpted Saddam Hussein... realistic down to the hair on his chest (even his nipples) and his toes. He is in underwear and wearing a noose and handcuffed. It is a truly bizarre thing to see. Somehow he looks simultaneously dead and dangerous. You can google it if you want, but I didn't take any pictures.

If you can't tell by now, I have a slight art-crush on David Cérny. Apparently there is a bar not too far from my flat there he is rumored to hang out at on weekdays, as hinted to me by my Czech Contemporary History Prof, Lucas. It would be pretty cool to meet him... :-D

The Museum of Young Art in Prague

Here are some highlights from the Museum of Young Art in Prague. 

Below is a vending machine selling spray paint in many colors and modes of applications. Fully stocked so you can buy everything from small tipped pens to the traditional junkyard spray can. Also, refillable cartridges, funny shaped nozzle heads, and the always practical... disposable gloves (so you're never caught red handed). 

 

At first glance this larger than life-size Gymnast Jesus seems highly insulting, but you're not quite sure how. After reading clarification of the artists statement it turns out that the piece is meant to show how society idolizes athletes.

These are pictures I took when wandering the museum.  

These are installations outside the windows. 

This is a close-up picture of a print made from a large format camera. This semester I am working primarily with large format cameras and this is one of the reasons why. Look at this detail! Stunning! Even in a reproduction you can see it, it looks real, but to see it in real life... this portrait is spectacular! 

This is a sculpture, installed into a bathroom in the museum. Just left there, as if right as rain. BTW, the newspaper below is turned to job listings for photographers.

A very cool engraved mirror, with heavenly elements soaring above
and warnings against earthly evils below. . 

The plaster mold was created on top of a couple as they slept. You can see their bodies outlined within it, even their facial features. The picture above shows the position they laid in before the mold was cast.

A room in the museum.

No Money, No Fame

 No Tits, No Glory:

These wise words are found on the floor of the Hall of Graffiti. 

This piece is titled "You Cannot Escape." It is a room covered, from ceiling to floor in advertisements, including a makeshift bed. It's message is pretty clear, I'd say.