Poetry Hearing, Berlin

I spent this past weekend in Berlin, attending the Poetry Hearings Festival of English Language Poetry (November 20 & 21). The readings included Matthew Sweeney (IR), Alistair Noon (DE/UK), Mary Noonan (IR), Maurice Scully (IR), Donna Stonecipher (USA/DE), Tim Turnbull (UK), Andrew Shields (USA), Hanna Silva (UK), and Tom Chivers (USA/CH)

Poetry Hearings is a yearly event. This was the first year I was able to attend. Glad I did. This year's line-up of readers was exceptional. I particularly enjoyed Hanna Silva's performance, which reminded me a bit of Meredith Monk.

Monk is a singer/composer/choreographer/filmmaker who I used to revere, but hadn't thought of in some time. A little digging on the internet lead me to a documentary by the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, which included a great segment on Meredith Monk.

If you're the only one who reads your own blog is it still self promotion?

A 'magic' recording debut for Ken Nash
Alchemy organizer gets serious about his music with a wickedly clever CD

     photo: Walter Novak, Prague Post

American expat Ken Nash is a seemingly endless source of creative energy and activities: musician, fiction writer, graphic designer for such ubiquitous brands as Birthday Alarm e-greeting cards and Pilsner Urquell and the host of Prague's Alchemy Performance Series. Clearly, the man is doing things. But self-promotion is not Nash's style, which makes his latest venture - an album of original songs titled Magic Squirrels - all the more praiseworthy.  read more

Starting Over

Ken Nash blog 2.0

Okay. So I got off to a rather shaky start with this blog. Some of you have pointed out that the previous posts aren't entirely factual. Hey, do I look like a person who checks facts?

I've just relaunched my website (KenNash.com). As you may notice, I've moved some content off the site. Things like my cartoons and sketchbooks. That stuff is now bloggulated.

My Sketchbook
The Global Cartoon Project
My Gene Pool

But this here blog is the place to get an overview of things. And to find out what I'm currently working on.

So forget about all my old blog posts and start looking forward to some real good gossip about Flanna Sheridan.

The Ken Nash Cover Band

The Ken & Liam Too busk Belgrade, Serbia

Excavating Czech History

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Babar Voytekova, director of the Conservation Heritage Institute of Prague (CHIP). Their Karlin neighborhood warehouse currently holds over 2000 artifacts unearthed during the construction of the recently completed Palladium Shopping Emporium.

Over shots of Slivovice, Babar explained how her team of archaeologists worked day and night for four years during the site excavation. They were first called in after the discovery of large quantities of iron cutting tools dating back to the 1800s believed to have been used for sheering sheep. One discovery gave way to the next until they had begun unearthing ruins dating back to the third millennium BC.

"We found large pieces of earthen wear with traces of fermented wheat. So we know even as far back as Roman times the Czech people were fond of beer."

"That entire quarter of Prague was believed to have once been a market. Beer and sheep were freely exchanged. So it seems quite appropriate we should have a new, modern shopping center at this same location."

Babar also explained that around the 12th century the site contained army barracks. And remains of military weaponry as well as bronze helmets and codpieces were also unearthed.

The 7.2 million crown (3.3 million USD) shopping complex is the largest of its kind in the Czech Republic, with three levels of underground parking along side an aquatic theme park. European Development Opportunities (EDO), the project's developer, has capitalized on these discoveries by incorporating them into their Design theme.

"The aqua park has a Pagan theme," Babar told me. "There are water-spinning maypoles. Talking trees. And massive stone sculptures of Apollo, Aphrodite and Kafka -- made from fiberglass, of course -- that spit water on you. Also the sauna has a pyre by which you can dry yourself and have grilled sausage."

After we were sufficiently soused on home-brew slivovice, Babar took me for a tour around the warehouse. While wandering amidst the shards of pottery and rusted iron spears, I asked Babar if this has been the largest project of its kinds she's undertaken while director of CHIP.

"So far this is the only project I've been directly in charge of," she told me. "Unless you want to count the Olsanska Food Court in Zizkov. But that was mostly dealing with old bones from the Olsanska cemetery. Nothing as interesting as this."

Babar has only been director of CHIP for the past three years. She was an interesting choice for the job, not having had any formal science training or experience in archeology. Marek Vihan, Prague's Minister of Cultural Heritage, appointed Barba to the position after the former Director of CHIP stepped down while facing corruption charges.

"It is true I don't have a lot of the technical knowledge," said Babar. "But I have worked closely with Vihan for many years on various cultural projects. I think I have a good understanding how to manage such things."

I asked Babar about reports that she had been a dancer at Darling Club Cabaret for several years.

"It is untrue," Babar flatly stated. "I only worked there four years."

She did not, however, deny that her association with Vihan goes back to that time. Or that she had gone directly from being a club hostess to the top position at CHIP.

"I have faced a lot of criticism because I am a woman and because I come from outside the academy. But I think my background is an asset, not a liability. I am able to look at problems and solutions in a fresh light."

Our tour of the warehouse ended in a room with some of the relics first unearthed during the excavation. These were relatively quite recent artifacts and antiques, including many tools, packaging and electric equipment from Prague's Soviet era. Babar singled out one particularly commonplace radio, not unlike many of the old Tesla radios you can see lining the walls of pubs in Zizkov.

"When we discovered this radio, buried beneath tons of sledge and debris, we were amazed that it was still functioning. "

Several members of the team reported that they actually heard old Czechoslovak Radio broadcasts emanating from ancient tube radio. "I believe they heard Studencheskaya zastolnaya," said Babar. "It is a famous Russian drinking song that my parents used to sing when they were young."

Orphans!

Last month I went to the town of Kasperkeho Hory with my friends Troy, Clare and their dog Money. We were invited to perform for an orphanage there. Clare has a face painting business, Troy does experimental puppet theatre, and I would be entertaining the kids with my repertoire of Jacques Brel songs played on my Honer diatonic accordion. This was to be our first orphanage performance and if it went well we would be performing the whole orphanage circuit in the Czech Republic.

The Orphan House at Kasperkeho Hory is a bright orange building just off the main square in town. It was an old school house built in the late 1800’s. Inside the front door are photos from the early part of the century of groups of uniformed children engaged in calisthenics, hauling coal on their backs, standing at attention with toy rifles over their shoulders, assembling a military aircraft surrounded by old plane parts, etc. Aside from some distant hip hop playing, the building was strangely quiet. It was not a bustling scene of pandemonium and shenanigans, like out of some Charles Dickens novel or Shirley Temple movie.

The first children we saw were quietly seated around a large circular table playing cards. They ranged in age from approximately nine to 17. I was surprised to see the older boys smoking cigarettes. But it was the very young Romany boy with the large glasses who was apparently the big winner, having three large towers of chips stacked up in front of him.

The head of the Orphanage came hurrying down the stairs to meet us. Her name is Paní Bila. Mrs. White. She did not speak much English, but basically we were made to understand that she had a family emergency to attend to and that we would be left alone with the children until 9 pm when the next caretaker came on duty. That gave us three hours. More than enough time to prepare and perform. However, the idea that we were going to be left entirely in charge of this group of children was a bit unnerving.

Before she left, Mrs. White introduced us to some of the older children who would assist us and take care of any problem we might have. I didn’t know what sort of problems Mrs. White might expect to happen, but the broad shouldered Roman, who kept cracking his knuckles while Mrs. White spoke, seemed capable of handling just about any situation.

“You like hip hop?” Roman asked after Mrs. White had said her goodbyes.

“Sure. We love hip hop,” said Clare.

Roman waved us into the next room where he had a boom box set up and a stack of cassettes. He placed one of the cassettes into the machine and hit play.

….gonna getcha bitch ya oughta make me hotta gotta lotta hotchie momma rub ya boda suck my wad ah…

Roman, square shouldered, head bobbing, eyes shut, was savoring the exquisite perfection of the beautifully integrated rhythm and prose. Three girls of about twelve years old entered the room, drawn there like mice to the melody of a pied piper. They paid no attention to the three adult foreigners and began to dance like extras on a Little Kim video, their pelvises gyrating, their shoulders back, legs apart.

…suck my sweat ya bet ya get the rest or just the sex ya think ya need confess ta this or can I just enlist your clit to sit upon the crest of this…

I could tell by Troy’s expression that he was thinking how to rework his puppet act to be more in tune with his audience. I had already warned him before we even got here that a twenty minute abridgement of The Prime of Miss Jane Brody was probably not going to work as a hand puppet performance at a Czech orphanage. But I think we both had entirely different expectations of what we would find here.