the plankman’s blog

daniel’s flickr library.

The Český Krumlov mission turned out to be the coolest outing we did. Lara and I had noooo idea what to expect. We knew it would be a cool town and a castle… we just didn’t realize how marvelous it would turn out. When visiting Prague / Czech republic, do yourself a favor and spend a night in Cesky Krumlov. Its sooooooooooo cute, quaint, cool and beautiful.

Theres also this gem of a museum called the Egon Schiele Art Centrum. You wouldn’t expect to see such a well designed contemporary art gallery in the middle of a small medieval town! Along with the early 20th Century Czech contributions to their Expressionism show, was a FANTASTICALLY cool retrospective of Czech artist František Skála. He’s now one of my new favorite artists. Take a gander at his seaweed heads to get an idea of his coolness! Such a wide range of work… Performance, Lighting, Wood carvings, massive record players, foam suits, huge pop icons … cool.

So Cesky Krumlov is lekker. The castle is the second biggest after Prague Castle. It underwent a number of restorations / renovations / additions etc. Throughout the town, the people went sgraffito mad – which is basically fresco facade patterning, with a little more physical work thrown in. Some patterns are first painted into the plaster and later chiseled to further enhance the designs. Really cool. I will definitely do this one day when I have a medieval town to decorate ;-)

If you ever plan a trip there: PLEASE pre-book your bus tickets (both to get there and return to prague.) On our way there, we saw many locals being turned away, while a few were forced to stand… And on the way back – the bus was TOTALLY full. No standing room left. And its over two hours. So book!

daniel’s flickr library.

Gallery Day! (And the opera of course)
We chose to venture forth to two museums:
The Mucha Museum -> Which offered a succinct and informative history of Alphonse Mucha’s life. He seems to have been one of the first really cool graphic designers out there! I have decided: I like his work. Beautiful / Decorative / Infused with important symbols etc. Good stuff. The cubist museum of Black Madonna House was sadly a disappointment. I guess two relevant moments were firstly when i realized that we were standing in a cubist building. Which was actually kinda cool… And second when I remembered why this movement was relevant… Can you imagine being used to seeing images which were highly representational… and all of a sudden the artists start going crazy and abstracting what we knew into something virtually unrecognizable… It really was paradigm changing! (It had to have been, cause all the relevant artists of the time touched on it at some stage.) I know I like to talk shit about art work – and therefore Im absolutely sure of what my comments would have been 90 years ago: “Uhhh Why the BEEP would the guy have used circles and weird polygons to describe shapes that are easier described with flowing curves instead??? Haven’t they seen ANY 3D modelling software? Oh wait… not for another 80 years… Oops.”

More walking and eventually a BUNCH of shopping. Daniel bought a suit with lara’s patient help. Of course Lara was doing waaaaaay more shopping than Daniel (and he had attained a state of infinite patience) Hmmm…. speaking in the third person confuses the daniel… If he doesn’t stop it soon, he’ll end up losing whatever shaky connection he has with my.. er… his identity. er.. Ok. Im back. Anyway, I bought a slick suit. Specifically with Katie Jay’s marriage in mind (mid november). Now all I need is a corresponding facial hair arrangement – and things will be looking up!

And onto the Opera:
Everyone who goes to Prague should see an Opera at the State Opera house. (And get dressed up in their new suit!) It is an awesome experience. GORGEOUS lavish romantic golden opulence in-doors… Comfortable seats… An orchestra with a conductor of course – and classical performances by truly talented singers. We saw La Traviata (By Giuseppe Verdi) I thiiiink its a little over 100 years old… and I know my Granny Gertie used to perform it in the Pretoria Opera house… I could make out about 20% of the italian, and once fancy get up. Fun Nights.

daniel’s flickr library.

Terezin: Terezin was the nazi concentration camp near Prague. It was different from the Death Camps / Labor Camps (Auschwits / Dachau etc) in that it was where jews and others were sent for more specific ‘processing’. The majority of the time this meant they would be shipped to Auschwits. It was also the poster boy of the nazi camps. They made propagandistic movies depicting the camp as a sporting ground for jews to live in harmony with their nazi overlords ahem… i mean, neighbors. There were a number of strange inconsistencies: The first was that that the people who were living in this area in the first place were basically evacuated by the nazis – in preparation for its use as a concentration camp. It was the perfect spot for them to create a camp cause it was originally a ‘hidden fortress’ built by one of the prussian lords – forget who. Anyway, back to the story: The people were booted from their homes by the stoopid nazis. Once the space was available, the nazi’s started shipping in massive numbers of jews – while making vacation style advertising to distribute to jews across europe (and the red cross). Fucked up. Just FUCKED. It gave me a glimpse into the insane marketing machine that the nazi regime had created… Reminding me of the current scenario in most countries with questionable motivations behind their occupations of lands that don’t belong to them… Hint hint hint?

Anyhoo – back to the weirdness… here we are, looking at this strange place where people are currently living… And they’re the SAME people (or the children of the same people) who lived here before the nazi occupation booted them out. I found this kind of strange. Imagine moving back into your home – which had its tool-shed converted into a place of religious worship? And then you jjust carried on with your daily life. weird. That is one of the better stories – imagine your very own room was used to sleep 30-40 people in it… How are you supposed to feel about that? But at the same time, where else are you supposed to go? Your home, history and friends were all here before the war… it makes sense to return there and TRY return your life to some sense of normality… (which i imagine is totally impossible since the tourists started pitching up to see the remnants of the czech republic’s concentration camp. F U C K E D!)

The best window onto the true effects of the place was through the artwork by children and locals… It was INCREDIBLE to see how much work was produced and saved… Considering all the propaganda, and the disconnection between what is now a home town to some – and what was a camp of extremely disgusting motivation – this was the only truly revealing aspect of our tour around terezin.

Other notable moments were: The aforementioned tool shed which had been converted into a shull. Its worth mentioning that there were 3 shulls in the form of shulls, and 4 shulls in the shape of churches… It was a good way to disguise them. There was of course a crematorium. The nazi’s were all freaked out about the number of dead bodies they began dealing with – so of course the easiest method to stay safe was to eliminate the possibility of disease. Destroy the places where diseases may linger. Grrrrrr….. It was totally mechanized. Cold. Sad.

daniel’s flickr library.

Arrived Saturday… waited and waited and waited for dear lara to arrive. She was unfortunately hindered by the madness of raving locals – heading towards the castle (for reasons only know to themselves.) And with much fanfare (and the very kind driving support of her taxi driver) she arrived. Lara wept as we held each other… tears flowed onto my manly shoulders as she breathlessly mentioned how glad she was to finally arrive with her brother! (in fact the truth is she was like: “hey dan!” And that was that… a little less dramatic, but just as fantastic ;-)

Thus it finally began.

So the following day which i will continue referring to as DAY 1 -> Sunday the 25th of Sept. We trekked a little around Prague old town, and ended up going to Hradcany – the castle. St. Vitas was a MAGNIFICENT gothic cathedral in the centre of the castle grounds. Well worth a visit. Stained glass windows of breathtaking quality. The view from the tower is hard to beat! And something which I’d never seen before was a window made out of layers of agate. Subtle coloring, but quite beautiful. Go take a look at the pic…

We were fortunate enough to run into a rather impressive toy museum. Super cool and kinda scary too. Once you realize the kind of things kids used to have access to in the golden old days – you start to understand why people have become the way they have! freaky painted eyes… A group of devil toys; soldiers and ballet dancers of questionable sexual persuasions… And then there was an incredible barbie collection! Notable barbie creatures were the barbie with a baby in her belly (literally) and Ken – the doctor. Oh yeah, and MC hammer + Vanilla Ice standing next to each other. HOT.