Culture-iffic

Sunday night Ellie, Bre and I went and saw Okkervil River, an indie rock band (that Ben really likes). It was a fun show. I haven't been to a little concert here so it was neat. It was held in a sort of club, in a basement below a bar, which itself was below a very fancy cafe with a separate entrance and all. The club had cool furniture, very modern though, as noted by the band, it was "Jim Beam" themed.
The show was fun, they play good music, we took a poster.
On Monday, my media and democracy class took a field trip to the headquarters of "Radio Free Europe" which is now many things and "Radio Free" for many places, but not Europe so much, since "Europe is free." We talked to the director of Radio Free Iraq, who was a cool Russian guy. He told us about their service, which is compiled in Prague and sent to Iraq via satellite, for safety reasons. They only have about 7 people who have to put together a 5 hour broadcast 7 days a week. Which is crazy. They also have something like 27 correspondents in Iraq who file reports. He talked about the situation on the ground, where now 4 major attacks and 100 people kidnapped a day is considered a vast improvement over the past few years.
The RFE building itself involved a lot of security - we had to give them our passport numbers several days in advance and went through metal detectors and such. Apparently, this building would be the target if Prague ever had a terrorist attack, not only for its symbolic importance but also just because of all of the things that go on there - Radio Free Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
The RFE building itself is historical and rather intimidating.
Media and Democracy, as a class, has gotten interesting lately - I had to turn in my paper (and I must give a presentation next week) on an issue in journalistic ethics - mine was "Lying for the story". I read two case studies about journalists who were deceptive in their methods to get information that the government was withholding. The first case study was about a guy who snuck into (the office part of a) prison during a riot to find out about a hostage situation - and the other was about a reporter who pretended to be a mortician to access the morgue during Desert Storm, because he suspected combat casualties were being underreported. Apparently "reputable" papers don't go for any undercover journalism, although it does get published elsewhere... and there are lots of arguments on both sides considering duty to the truth, freedom of press vs. government, endangering others... ask me about it sometime :)

In art class today we went to "trade fair palace" (Veletrzni Palace) to see some modern arts - Cubism, Abstraction, Expressionism, Impressionism, Surrealism - it was pretty great. The museum is big and "a functionalist masterpiece" - it was built in the 20s and opened as an art gallery after communism.
My favorite part was a bit on set design for the theater - there were a bunch of little dioramas displaying sets for plays, designed by one of the Capek brothers (Czech playwrights who invented the word "robot"). There was some really crazy stuff, with false perspective, sloping floors and big staircases.
I was also impressed by the collection - there were paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Degas and Picasso - including this one:
Art history is fascinating. Story about Czech art history - under communism, art essentially stopped. The only style allowed was "social realism" - this was the case everywhere communism ruled. My art teacher, a tour guide, everyone here who talks about this style basically laughs and talks about how terrible it was. The idea was just to glorify communism. My teacher said today that "mediocre artists used it as a way to become the official artists of the state." The paintings really are awkward - smiling workers and the communist flag, etc - but I find it so funny how appalled the Czechs are by the whole movement. Especially since in Russia - according to Mark's blog and pictures - the soviet art is still everywhere.

an awkward communist painting (not one I saw, but those were awkward too)

more social realist art from the Museum of Communism in Prague

After communism, Czechs were behind the modern art movement, according to my teacher, and are still working to catch up to the cutting edge.