Monday, 8 June 2015

WINTER MUSEPAPER - PHOTO TRAILER

First row, left to right:
THE MACHINE II, credits Jaromír Lelek
QUESTIONS FOR ALASDAIR BOUCH, credits Alasdair Bouch
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE SCOTTISH LIFE, credits Lucy Szemet

Second row, left to right:
A SORT-OF GUIDE TO DUBLIN, credits Elena Tkacheva
MP LOGO FOR THE WINTER ISSUE
A LESSON IN POLITICS AND SWEARING and his poem BEADS, credits static.guim.co.uk

Third row, left to right:
THE KRAMPUS VIRUS, credits Andrew J. Buring
REVIEW OF "SOMETHING LIKE A FOLK SHOW!", credits Anna Hupcejová
SELAH SUE ON A SUNDAY SOIRÉE, credits Luc Josia-Albertini

Overture page of the Winter MP

Editor in Chief                                Anna Marie Hupcejová
Co-Editor                                          Jaromír Lelek
Native speaker co-editor            Graham Bush
Graphic Designer                           Anastasia Vrublevská
Sponsor                                            The English College in Prague – Anglické gymnázium

Overture

The first 50 copies of the Autumn MP were sold in a single week, the next 50 copies disappeared equally as quickly. This success not only surprised us, but also made us decide that the next issue should definitely be thicker. Hence in the Winter MP there are altogether not 21, but 27 pages of content and we have included new sections such as “For the Stage” and “Miscellaneous Articles”. Though only 75 physical copies were ordered, I believe that in case they do run out, it is worth writing us for the PDF copy that will be available too. In either form, I hope our readers will enjoy reading the creations of (both present and exchange) students and professors from the Faculty of Arts, CU’s English and American Studies department.


Anna Hupcejová (Editor in Chief)

The Machine I. - Part 2

             He found himself walking down a hall of immense proportions. Pieces of technology could be seen littering the ground, piled into high spires that reminded him of termite nests. Some of these mounds were connected to each other with bristling wires, while others lay dark and inert, disconnected from the larger network. A pinkish light filled the air, and a subsonic electric hum persistently vibrated in U.'s ribcage. U. could feel the hairs on his forearm standing to attention, as the currents of electricity blazed around them, a perfect matrix of unseen energy. Televisions of all sorts and brands lined the far walls, and were transmitting their content relentlessly. News feeds, CCTV, sitcoms, footage of the Rwanda massacres, commercials; all of them mingled in the pattern of an immensely complex Technicolor quilt.
            A stooped figure could be seen making the rounds from one TV cluster to another. Its hunched profile navigated between the high piles of machinery with surprising efficacy, occasionally climbing over some of the dead debris. It stopped for a while before some of the TVs and watched them, only to soon continue on, sometimes pausing for to kneel and check something at the base of one of the tall, lopsided spires. Under the person's touch some of the nodes lighted up, while others powered down, their lights ebbing away to darkness.
            U.'s guide patiently waited for the question.
            “Who is that?”
            “That is the Artifex. He maintains and tweaks the Machine, so that people like you may experience it to the fullest.”
            “What does he do here?”
            “He maintains and tweaks the Machine, so that people like you may experience it to the fullest.”
            U. took to sliding his fingers across the surfaces of the lopsided mounds by which he passed. Some parts of the spires were completely corroded, while others had a pristine metallic shine, while still others gave off sparks or oozed a strange type of bluish liquid which stuck to one's fingers and chilled the flesh. U. and his guide slowly moved through the jagged environment, and the guide patiently waited up for him when something peculiarly interesting occupied U.'s attention. The stooped, dwarfish figure of the Artifex paid no attention to them, and shimmied on as if they were not there. A deep hood shaded its face, and, although he strained his eyes, U. could not make out its features. Who was he?
            “You will know soon enough, U. Please, over there. The Machine is waiting.”
            The walls of the large warehouse space were lined with narrow, tall, sliding doors made of a cheap tin metal. The guide paused next to one of them, and motioned for U. to come nearer. He slid the doors deftly open, and the rattle of the thin doors pierced U.'s ears. He stepped forward.
            “Come in. Welcome to your Machine.” The two of them stepped into a small chamber. A padded reclining chair was connected to the surrounding walls by monolithic curbs which presumably sheltered sheaves of wires. All curbs and surfaces of the chamber were lined with dark, rubbery tubes, which occasionally connected to larger metallic vectors. The room was dark, and no sound yet escaped from the large contraption that nestled itself around the small padded settee which sat directly in the middle of the cramped room. The darkness was only pierced by a small aperture which looked up onto the night sky. The softly diffused moonlight settled itself directly on the central chair like a spotlight, giving it a seemingly white complexion.
            U. walked around the chamber, interested in every minute detail of the design. He saw large pistons being bathed in the blue cooling fluid, their metallic bodies being washed over like the faces of the drowned. Huge clusters of thin, white tubes lined the ceiling corners, where they rested like huge beehives. They looked down onto the room below, ominous, heavy, and seemingly about to tumble like a cluster of ripe grapes.
            Upon the touch of a button from the guide, the room lit up and the large white beehives started flashing like rainbow. The soft moonlight was ripped apart by the electric drizzle emitted from the screens and dials of the contraption.
             While U. was checking out the strange interior, the guide started a monologue, speaking softly.
            “This is your Machine. As you may have noticed, there are many Machines, all lining the walls of the Central Chamber. This means that not everyone has the same Machine as you do. They vary, because the experiences vary. You see, the Machine is an enigma, a labyrinth. It changes its physical properties - its circuits, its wiring, its software, everything – based on the mental capacities of the user. The users come together, and create its environment by themselves and for themselves. The nature of this process is still a mystery, and only Him, that great Artifex we've caught a glimpse of, knows the minute working s of it. And even he does not understand all.”
            “So what can I expect from it?” asked U. while slowly running his palm over a large copper dial.
            “You can expect all and nothing. You will fuse with the larger system of the great Machine. What happens there stays there for each to figure out for the self. It is a risk; it is an investment. Some stay linked to the Machine for decades and decades. Eventually, they atrophy, their mouths ooze a strange liquid, and their flesh turns rubbery and non-responsive. Some choose never to leave the labyrinth, and rather fuse, becoming one with that great, mysterious being. 
            Others enter the labyrinth's inner sanctum, receive, and re-emerge.
             You see, the Machine may be found everywhere, connected with other centres all over the world. It is in constant flux; it constantly evolves and morphs, growing new appendages, forming new connections, while letting others atrophy. It regulates itself, do you see? In this, it is an organism in the truest sense; yet, created by the celestial art of man.”
            Here the guide paused, and his eyes roamed the chamber with an appreciative air.
            “Have you been in the Machine?”
            “Yes. But I am only a servant. The Machine has been good to me.”
            U. noticed the guide kneeling mechanically by the door, his eyes still riveted on the glossy surfaces of the wired walls around him. The being sat down on its haunches, and bowed its back. Its forehead touched the ground with a metallic clink. Its back then returned to its upright position and it proceeded to reach into a small pouch in his caftan, pulling out a little copper card. It then got up and, with that peculiar rhythmic gait, walked over to the nearest greenly flashing terminal. The screen of the terminal was filled with algorithms, occasionally flashing geometrical shapes which mingled and coalesced into twirling, dynamic, psychedelic patterns, their permutations seemingly inexhaustible.
            “Are you ready to fuse?”
            “Yes.” said U. and his voice was surprisingly calm.
            “Then sit down.”
            U. proceeded to sit down into the soft settee which enveloped him like a bean bag chair.
            “Ab antiquo ad aeterno,” mumbled the guide and proceeded to swipe the copper card into a slot next to the main terminal. The Machine clicked and whirred, a myriad valves and lifter galleries sliding into place; it started its mad dash towards oblivion. A large headset, until then suspended a few feet above the central chair descended ominously onto U.'s face. Its touch was soft and rubbery, and U. could only see blackness. His body relaxed into the strange contraption, and his senses bristled with expectation.
            Then an explosion of colour and sound filled his brain until it overflowed with electric sensation and U. settled in for the long haul.

 Jim Stein

The Machine II.

No thoughts, only sensations: a tunnel of bright light blazing across myriad galaxies. More pathos, please. His consciousness experienced utter disbelief in the face of his dead mother resurrected in front of him. The Machine thus deftly incarnated, just for U. Waves of luscious warmth undulating his receptors as the girl THE ONE that got away caresses POV style. Father proud. Racing across super-clusters comprised of billions of stars & star systems. That dead hooker from five years ago digging her way six feet up through criminal mud and going back to school. It’s ok, it never happened. U. witnessed a space shattering, gravity bending explosion of a Supernova, and then serenity. The following is a slow-mo selfie of the process that led to that serenity riddled with virulent remarks and dystopian visions. The process took about the time the Big Bang germ universe needed to inflate into the size of an orange.
In other words,
To provide the ached for serenity, The Machine dug deeper:
An electrified arm heavy with oil reached his prefrontal lobe and opened U. up—a cybernetic lobotomy—a giant butcher leaning in on a paralyzed piece of clay executed routine motions, extracting a memory here, moulding a feeling therecolours bursting from every crevice, yet dark, metallic grey prevailed and suffused every stagethe butcher’s apron stank grey matter, x-ray eyedhis elbows thrust deep dripping spinal fluidthe progress of the thinned slab of a soul towards oblivionhigh voltage urgee-e-electronic spasms pressurized the throbbing strip of brain meatglandula pinealisquicker and madder with every contraction.
Fusion 98% complete
U. and the others are not going to remember the process, the oblivion is within reach:
No thoughts, only sensations: others were there somewhere, U. felt their presence. Suddenly, there was an overreaching umbrella presence, not a god but a mum. Not your mum, but an Über-Mum, an impersonal yet soothingly comforting being that diffused itself over every nerve, an embalming agent crimson with cream pie. sHe hugged the gutted mind. A volcano of warmth with an angelic air of the Virgin, yet, with a distortion in the TV signal, the Virgin turned Godzillaa mechanical monomaniacal monster with barbed wire for her hair crushed the screen breaking the glass into a million pieces piercing non-existent earsa need to care, tailor a motherhuge, rusty antennae posing as hung, pathetic nipples broadcasting its circuit sermon, an analogue vlogcoil speeding ever upinexhaustible hieroglyphic permutations scarred the screen‘why don’t ya split an atom?’frantic, convulsing nuggets of neurons dashing volatileone taking off in a blast from the rent brain, glue-sponging on the metallic wall like a hungry snailfrog limbs fried electro-crispy with uranium batteries, ‘The brand new Artifex Uranium Batteries – They will span a generation – Get one today!’
And then there was a fade away into pictures sweet, recollected in tranquillity. An idyllic scene up on a hill, where the mother was summoning her children to a wholesome meal, followed by the heart-warming image of a soldier returning home unscathed, happiness and warmth filling the bosom of the wife. The TV signal got distorted again; Über-Mum re-assumed the scene, roaring and releasing the outlets of her engineered breastsheavenly smooth mother-milk pouring out into glasses stamped as ‘Knifey Moloko’ marching motionless on a conveyor belta toxic toddlerbattery acid blazing out like a WWII flame-thrower“Its very memory gives a shape to fear”and then a black screen, pulse nil, still clay.
“Our souls (which to advance their state
           Were gone out)” purged of the body’s ailments, purified of the organic filth. “We like sepulchral statues lay,” shell flung away, safely planted in the cradle of a setteewill it blend? It was a bilious blind date, in which one knew everything, the other nothing. U. and The Machine, intermingled in an intercourse of souls, were ushered up on a higher plane, perchance headed for Bora-Bora. It was an experiment in organic game-playing now that the church is a sightseen. Lab the altar, say Noah to drugs and do please post about your rape as the computer virus blends with cancer, tech transcends its maker and the digital midget wreaks his bitter vengeance on the Man. Fusion 99% complete. Will we ever regain our reign?Ssshh, The Machine can hear you.

Jaromír Lelek

Generation Czech: What Does it Mean Today to be Czech

The Velvet Revolution is unquestionably one of the most significant moments in Czech history. Twenty-five years on, we asked a group of Czech millenials – the first generation to grow up since the fall of Communism and therefore with no direct experience of life under socialism – one key question: “What does it mean to you to be Czech?” We received a broad range of answers but all agree on one thing: deciding what it means to be Czech in a globalised world is no easy task…

Mišha Žaloudková, 1st year MA student
“Living abroad and travelling have made me more aware of how Czechs are gradually managing to satisfy the needs of the new generation. We are now growing up in a country completely different from the one of our parents and it's a big weight upon our shoulders. Now that we have this power, what kind of Czech Republic do we want for our children? More smiles, less anger, bitterness and jealousy, more gender equality, the ability to be flexible, worldly, and multicultural? To me, being Czech now is a balancing act: Choosing a Caesar salad instead of the traditional and fatty knedlo, vepřo, zelo but keeping the beer.”

Tomáš Balvín, 2nd year BA student

“Rumour has it that when journalists in Ukraine during the ongoing conflict wanted to avoid persecution, they claimed to be Czech – that way nobody would take them seriously. Twenty five years after the Velvet Revolution which seemed to promise so much, Czechs still want desperately to amount to something, to make up for the 'stolen' time. A quarter of a century later, they have failed to do so, and are laughed at for the attempt. Therefore, what being Czech means to me above all is witnessing our reckless, pathetic efforts to rank among the 'western elite' while very often forgetting and condemning what there was before. On a positive note, I'm sure that once nearly Czech identity barely exists at all, tourists from all around the world will still exclaim in elation "Czech Republic? Ah, Prague! Cheap beer!" and we, the addressees, will laugh about it – bitterly.”

 David Koranda, 3rd year MA

“To me, being Czech means that I get to lead a fairly good life but fortunately I am still able to grumble about some fairly insignificant things. It means that when I complain about these things there's luckily always someone who's got it worse. It means that in my life I get to bemoan the astonishing number of idiots I have to put up with, and at the same time refuse to acknowledge that a lot of people must inevitably feel the same about me. It means that while I'm aware of how beautiful some parts of our country are, when it comes to vacations I'd rather go abroad.

It means that I get to criticise other nation's sins and offences and then completely disregard our own; that I get to brag about how wonderful and complex the Czech language is, and then complain when I go see a movie and it's dubbed; that I get to look crossly at tourists who come in the National Theatre dressed in T-shirts and jeans even though I'm far from a diehard patriot and the idea of wearing comfortable clothes actually appeals to me.

It means that I was raised an atheist, that I like beer, that I still hear the word 'communist' at least once a day, that I like to berate politicians I never voted for, that I also like to berate politicians I did vote for, that I'm actually not big on voting, that I have firm opinions on matters I know nothing about, that I'm set in my ways and don’t like change. Yes, I'm Czech and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Josefina Formanová, 3rd year BA student
I would rather go directly to Prague Castle and shout out all the words which represent what our current president is harming; "democracy", "honour", "loyalty", "politeness", "respect", "tradition", "empathy", "dignity” and many others. It is not meant to be implied, however, that my "being Czech" is defined only through the disagreeable personality of our current head of state.

I’ve been studying at University College Dublin for almost two months now and I realised after a very interesting debate with our local lecturers, that one of the treasures of the Czech nation is our language. We preserved our own language for centuries, though occupied by Germans, Russians and others. There is also the great barrier of language that cannot be overcome by any other nation. It is not a boundary of any kind of territory – we all know this is a term that does not even have any kind of referent when looking back to the Ukrainian crisis which has unfold during the past six months. More ridiculously, once I traveled to Austria, a country that our nation was previously part of, being a more or less respected part of the great Habsburg monarchy. It was the moment when the police stopped me and asked me to see my passport that I understood. There is no space for trust yet.

Trust is something that will lead my country to democracy. A vital trust that there are people who were capable of being more than people, who were able to fight for those words mentioned above, and not sink into a political river Lethe. These forgotten words, "freedom", "dignity" and "democracy" were our legacy of the Revolution in 1989. 

As a Czech person, despite everything I will reply to the question with a hopeful imperative: "May words such as "shame" and "doubt" be forgotten; may the words "freedom", "dignity", "democracy" and "loyalty" be rediscovered." 


Answers were collected by Lisette Allen and the original article was published on Expats.cz on 11th of November, 2014.

Interview with Lisette Allen

We did a very brief interview with Ms. Allen for the February issue in 2013, meaning for our very first issue. Since “Generation Czech” tells little about the author who collected the responses and so does the first interview, a new and more thematically concise question-answer session seemed sound. Here it is.

Do you recall hearing about the Velvet Revolution? Where were you at the time and how did it you hear about it (even if years later)?
I was in my final year at primary school when the Berlin Wall fell; I remember our headmaster showing us a greyish lump of rock which had been part of that barrier dividing the German capital.  To me this object looked a lot like a bit of rubble you might find in a skip or on a building site. In other words, I’m not sure I fully understood then just how important this moment in history really was – but then again, I was only ten!

What three contemporary authors do you consider to be the most interesting novelists?
This is always a difficult question to answer but recently I’ve greatly enjoyed reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Zadie Smith’s NW is an outstanding portrayal of the chaotic melting pot that is contemporary London; each part is written in a very different narrative style - for example one section might be told in by a classic omniscient narrator while the next might suddenly switch to a stream of consciousness mode – this is intended to be deliberately jarring to mimic the experience of moving from one very different part of the city to another. I’m only halfway through but Tony Hogan Bought me an Ice Cream Float Before he Stole my Ma (great title!) is a story set in a working class one-parent family which thankfully isn’t a misery-fest. Contemporary novels often only portray middle class experience so I’m glad to see writers like Hudson having some success.

How did you end up running the English Skills and Cultural Communication seminar?
I applied for the job which I saw advertised in the Prague Post a few months after I had arrived in Prague– and the rest is history!

This winter semester you had an optional seminar course named “Thatcher and After: British Literature in the 1980s and beyond”. Which books from this period would you recommend reading?
Anyone interested in British culture in this period could start by watching “Boys from the Black Stuff”, a groundbreaking British TV drama which is available on Youtube (at the time of writing anyway!). It gives you a real insight into the struggles of the working classes under Thatcherism. Martin Amis looms large over the 1980s British literary scene so I’d recommend having a look at any of his novels written during the period: I greatly enjoyed reading Other People as a teenager as I had read little ‘experimental’ fiction before but there’s also Money and Success. I think most students who signed up for the “Thatcher and After” course enjoyed reading Jonathon Coe’s What a Carve Up!, a dark comedy about the period which borrows elements of gothic fiction and murder mystery and uses them to create sharp satire. Salman Rushie’s Midnight’s Children (which won the Best of the Booker Prize) is also excellent but unfortunately I don’t include it in my course so as not to clash with the Postcolonial modules available.  

Are you planning to stay in the Czech Republic?
I have no plans to move back to the UK for the moment so I suppose I’ll be forced to eat carp at Christmas for some time to come! 


Interview conducted by Anna Hupcejová

The Gift Wrapping Before Christmas

I want to tear me
into a thousand pieces
and wrap each piece with
a red red ribbon,
a gift of immortal affection
to many men, a piece of my body,
a rhapsody of flavor:
'orange with cinnamon',
'peaches and cream',
'blood orange dream'.

One gets an eye
but receives no sight, no
I would be lost in delight with him
and he would call me 'dear'
like the little animal that I am;
a tequila shot good enough
to be left to rot
once the flavor is gone.

One would have to have my chest,
however I might keep my breasts,
I'm quite fond of them myself.
This guy, he's a thing of hope,
he might disappear
as a clear streak of good will or luck
and oh, will I miss the fuck,
the peachy taste of it,
the beloved consistency.

Now He, the bloody orange Santa,
he will ask for it – a vein.
I know it since I know him well
enough to say he's a bloodthirsty
pagan, a demon king...
Yet he will bring
a brand new body with him
to replace the last one I had
but decided to start giving
like a really really bad girl.

Oh, and... you know, since
Christmas is coming.


Angie Siljanoska