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We got to the Daniela Šafránková’s vernissage right on time, which is a very un-Prague thing to do, for most scheduled events it is standard to arrive about a half hour late and you’re still the first one there. Well, any worries along those lines were dispelled the second we walked in the door. It wasn’t a big bar, but it wasn’t a small one, either, and the place was packed. It was immediately evident that there was no chance of getting a seat. We ordered a couple of tonics, and stood in as advantageous position as possible, not blocking any passageways at least, except for the bartenders access. They were very cool about it, happy to be hosting such a sizeable crowd, but I did get asked to move a lot. Anyway, I suggested we sneak out during the saxophone player’s set, but Helena said no, she was quite enjoying herself, so that was cool, I just had to deal. Happy wife, happy life. Also, it was great to see such a great turnout for Daniela, so it was a success.
Then, after a bit of a walk, a short bus ride, and another bit of a walk, we got to our poet’s meeting, which turned out to be sort of a very informal poetry reading where, despite arriving after the scheduled start time, we were, indeed, close to the first ones there. After a bit, folks started to arrive, and it wound up being a very pleasant, informal poetry reading, with about 10 people, in a room of comfy couches.
I truly appreciate Helena coming out with me tonight. Poetry is not her scene, but she put up with it like a trooper.

I didn’t write a blog last night, because I was binge watching Voyager, including the unimatrix zero episodes, which I definitely consider a highlight, perhaps the highlight of the series, and then I sat down at the computer and got caught up arguing with people about petty shit, as one does, and when I looked up it was after 1 a.m., and to hell with it.
So, my plan is to write two blogs today, which shouldn’t be too hard, because we’ve got a couple of events to go to this afternoon, a Vernisage of the woman who did the cover for Pink Snow, Daniela Šafránková, and then a meeting of poets with a special guest from New York. There was a 3rd one which we must forego. Why does everybody schedule their events at the same time?
Anyway, I’ll report on those in the 2nd blog. For now, back to yesterday…
Watched three things on Netflix, only one of which I recommend. Marianne and Leonard was great. Done documentary style, lots of interviews, actual footage, it was a beautiful, poetic movie about love, and although I have never been a particular fan of his music, the film took me to a different time and place, and I liked it there.
Then I watched Attack of the Hollywood Cliches. Don’t bother. Just a cheap excuse to show lots of clips of movies from all time, most of which we’ve all seen before.
Then, because, I am embarrassed to say, I had never seen it before, I decided to watch Mad Max. I’m not sure if it’s a case of doesn’t hold up, or was never any good in the first place, but I turned it off for dinner, and don’t care if I see it through to the end or not. I don’t think I missed anything, way back when.

Took a little trip over to Malastrana today to drop off a couple copies of my most recent book, A Country’s Just a Place. It’s been out for about a year now, but that was during Covid time so they were closed. I’m very, very glad that they are still there, and in the same place. Helena came with me because she’s been cleaning stuff out and making room, and wanted to give them a big bag of books in English, probably about 20, a combination of books in English that I’d read, and those I never intend to. We also dropped off a couple of copies of my Tarot poems book and matching deck box set, which is the only thing they’ve sold since I was there last, probably about 18 months ago.
All that didn’t take long and we browsed the shop for a while, it was not easy to find my books on the shelves because they are narrow volumes, packed in between bigger books, sort of like when Krtek drives his little car on the freeway and because he’s a cartoon mole he’s very tiny and has a tiny car, which doesn’t even come up to the human vehicle’s hubcaps. It’s amazing they ever sell any at all.
While there, I bought Hop on Pop, which I think my younger students (which, at the moment, is a majority of my students) will appreciate, as I’ve been using the same 5 or 6 books over and over and over for the last several years.
We stood in line to pay for it and then the clerk on duty said “Here, it’s in return for all the books.” Very generous and decent of them, I thought. Love doing business with that place.
If you are in Prague, and you speak English (which I kind of assume, because you’re reading this, aren’t you?), I recommend you swing by and give them your business.

I do not know what’s happening with Facebook, I don’t suppose anybody knows yet, maybe not even Zuckershmuck himself, but in the few hours its been down he’s lost (so I hear, this is all breaking news as I write so this blog is pure speculation) 7 billion dollars and dropped down to 5th richest man in the world.
I find it hard to sympathize.
It might have something to do with the allegations, from a whistleblower who used to work at Facebook, that he was putting profits ahead of common human decency, by promoting stuff on Instagram (which is also down) which was, somehow, damaging to teenage girls. I don’t know if you can really blame him for content, even prioritizing shit content over good content, that sort of falls under freedom of speech, and I feel that teenage girls, like every other segment of the population, may need to grow a bit thicker skin if they’re going to be engaging on social media, where people absolutely love, love, love talking shit, because you can say things online which would get you a swift punch in the face if you said them out loud, and that’s actually, IMO, one of the beautiful things about it.
When we realized that Tik-Tok, my daughter’s favorite platform, was still live, and that’s apparently based in China, we considered the fact that maybe this is a Chinese power play (I’m not being at all serious about that, btw).
Or perhaps it was the folks at Twitter, which seems to have been the biggest beneficiary.
Anyway, I hope it’s back tomorrow, because Facebook is my main platform, my way of communicating with the world, but I’m not going to stay up all night trying it every 10 minutes. I expect it will be. Seriously, if any company were ever ‘too big to fail,’ Facebook is it.

I’m watching a sci-fi movie starring Nicole Kidman because, seriously, she is just so smoking hot I will watch anything with her in it, and there are plenty of gratuitous scenes of her in her underwear, but “The Invasion” is so incredibly, godawful bad that I am kind of embarrassed to be watching it.
It’s pretty much a straight up rip-off of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” but that in itself is not a bad thing. That is a great film, in both the 1956 and 1978 versions, and alien beings taking over human bodies and making them act all out of character is a Star Trek staple.
As an action thriller, there are plenty of car crashes, chases, explosions, etc…to keep most people happy. But, the writing is unbelievably lazy. The Russian ambassador, at a dinner party at the Czech embassy in D.C., refers to ‘Czechoslovakia.’ Now, one thing I do when I’m watching films is to try and guess the year in which it is set, or at least the century if it’s people riding on horses and wielding swords. People are using mobile phones and the kids are playing fairly sophisticated video games in this, so I assumed it was fairly recent. After that snippet of conversation, I thought maybe I was wrong, so looked it up. Made in 2007. So, that’s 14 years ago, but it’s also 14 years after Czechoslovakia ceased to exist.
I can’t believe the writers didn’t know that. I can’t believe no script editors caught that. I can’t believe the actor who was playing the Russian ambassador mouthed the lines without objecting that it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Well, actually, I can believe that last one. Actors are paid to recite lines, not to know anything about world geography, or to care. But the writers and editors, for sure.
So, I turned it off in the middle. Just checked Rotten Tomatoes. Critics gave it 19% and the public gave it 40%. I’d say this time the critics got it right.