A Global Update

So lately, due to financial restrictions, we've been taking more walks around Prague to explore all that this beautiful city has to offer. The short amount of daylight really prohibits outdoor activities but we try to manage to get out for at least a few hours. Work has been stressful and disheartening, which has put me into an uninspiring rut. I have been walking with my head down to and from work. The demands of life have blinded me from Prague. I needed a solution and we found one that was staring us in the face. If I was missing Prague, I should go out and see it. And frankly, it's been a wonderful revelation. I took Prague for granted for a while but now I'm startled by how much beauty is everywhere….

"... they decided to take a walk... and after a night of stiff winds the air was rinsed clean and the light was so precise that distances in the park seemed diminished. Clouds began to build, fair-weather cumulus, high-prowed and drifting. It was one of those days... when there's a distilled sense of perception, a spareness, every line firm and unredundant, and the leaves were beginning to turn, the dogwoods and sumacs, and nothing was wasted or went unseen."

During my last semester of college, I had become exhausted with doing anything related to history. I was burnt out and lacked the motivation to continue researching my once arduous passion. 19^th American History had become tedious and stale. So for the past two years, I’ve shelved history for another time. That time is now. I have rekindled my love for reading/researching/writing history. I have been reading about the Radical Republicans during the 19^th century and how they influenced American politics. To me, this stuff is very interesting. This was a tumultuous epoch with extremely passionate people in an inchoate democracy, which shaped the political system we use today.  Upon reading this passage, I felt inspired with history again....

"By democracy, I mean a historical face, rooted in a vast array of events and experiences, that comes into being out of changing human relations between governors and the governed. Stopping history cold at any particular point and parsing its political makeup negates that historical flow and stifles the voices and activities of actual people attempting to define the operations of government. Only over an extended period of time is it possible to see democracy and democratic government grow out of particular social, intellectual and political contexts... Democracy is never a gift bestowed by benevolent, farseeing rulers who seek to reinforce their own legitimacy. It must always be fought for, by political coalitions that cut across distinctions of wealth, power, and interest. It succeeds and survives only when it is rooted in the lives and expectation of its citizens, and continually reinvigorated in each generation. Democratic successes are never irreversible."

Why can’t I seem to be really knowledgeable in something particular? I’m thinking of music at the moment, but I guess I can apply it to most things. I absolutely have no interest in finding new music lately. I don’t really have any new music. None.  Maybe I don’t like the new wave of music coming out or I have just lost my drive for listening to music altogether. I have something to say about this new wave of music. I get it. Art can be whatever you want it to be. But I feel like some (not all) bands get away with being ‘good’ for doing nothing musically inspiring at all. (I say this with some reservation. I don’t mean to offend anyone’s taste in music. Nor am I saying that my taste is any better than yours because it's not and I know it.) But I can’t help the feeling that the fringe music is automatically more inspiring because it’s exactly what its not; mainstream. I want to listen to musicians making music that combines taste and talent. If you have any recommendations, let me know. A healthy marriage of both, please…

"He worked for a movie distributor part-time and also produced documentaries, or coproduced, or made phone calls, and it was a process that carried just enough slanting light to make it renewably futile. He arranged screenings for a film society as well. And he saw everything, collected movie posters and lobby cards, could recite the filmographies of the obscurest directors because the more obscure the figure, of course, the more valuable the knowledge. This has always been a point of honor in the business."

Movies have been watched. True Grit, Black Swan, The Ghost Writer, The Kids Are Alright, Somewhere, Blue Valentine, Animal Kingdom, In America, Resident Evil 4 (that one was just for me), Buried, The King’s Speech, The Town and some others. TV series have been watched. Dexter, Breaking Bad, Madmen, Big Love, Californication, Fringe, V and The Wire (all up-to-date/finished). Gearing up to start Boardwalk Empire. I'm excited to start watching it because I've heard good things about it. Looks like my type of series.

I liked this exchange in the King’s Speech…

Lionel Logue: [as George "Berty" is lighting up a cigarette] Please don't do that.
King George VI: I'm sorry?
Lionel Logue: I believe sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you.
King George VI: My physicians say it relaxes the throat.
Lionel Logue: They're idiots.
King George VI: They've all been knighted.
Lionel Logue: Makes it official then.