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Collections – If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now

Posted on 12 min read

Prague, Dresden, Boulder, Kansas City, St. Petersburg – 23 — As I’m cleaning my apartment I find a small notebook that was left by the person before me. The first thing I notice when I open it are the pages full of numbers. Some have names beside them, others have countries. The hand writing is small, neat, and clean. In the front of the notebook there is a poem about 9-11, a rant to a newspaper, and a laundry list of neo-conservative national actions, including withdrawing from the UN and NATO and reinstating the Monroe Doctrine. This little number is also in the front: “As an American who has lived …

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Collections – Let the Vltava Rise Up

Posted on 13 min read

Prague, Stockholm – 23 While renting a movie I realize that I’ve been in Prague long enough to see a full life cycle of Czech films: The movie posters on billboards several weeks before they opened in theaters, the same poster plastered on the walls of DVD rental shops months later, and finally those posters taken down and replaced with newer releases.  Realizing this is the first time I can fully grasp the amount of time I’ve spent here. — We see a group of kids with fair complexions, and different natural hair colors, get on the tram. I would guess Norwegian, but when they start speaking it’s unbelievable. “Where …

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Collections – MSG’s Are My Everything

Posted on 11 min read

For the last twelve days I have been out of Prague. I spent ten days in Japan, one day in transit, and one day in Paris. This first entry is about my time in Paris: On my way to Japan I decide to return to Paris for a night, because of a standing invitation from a British girl to stay at her place. When I land I take three trains into the center of Paris. It startles me to hear French, and my natural reaction is to respond in Czech. Which complicates things, because by then they’ve realized I’m not French, and have started speaking to me in English. Everyone …

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Collections – We Get Murdered

Posted on 11 min read

Three friends and I took a weekend trip to Berlin. I was the only boy in the group. This is the summary: We leave on Friday and take the 18:00 train departing from Prague to Berlin. Two guys from London join us on the train. They give us beer and wine. They call Prague an embarrassment and then try to put a line of coke on my jeans. They do bumps for the next hour until they’re smashed and stumble away. Our hostel is brand new and smells like paint. I walk under the Brandenburg Gate, through the Jewish Memorial which is haunting in its simplicity, eat a chili dog, …

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Collections – Grimy Mornings

Posted on 12 min read

A cross-eyed woman in a furry hat says something to me in Czech motioning at my table. I try smiling at her, which doesn’t get her to stop. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Czech,” I say in English, of course. She continues to jabber away and I start to stand and pick up my things from off the table, which makes her say “Ne, ne, ne,” and walk away.   2/5/08 As I’m getting off the last daytime tram, before they switch to their night schedule and car numbers become fifties, I walk straight into a large group of young people. Literally a dozen wait their turn to file out …

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