Micro-churches on the rise in CR

2008-1-17  -  In an remarkable yet increasingly familiar turn of events, a media outlet has connected the sort of “civil society” microdiscourse mode that I discuss in bluegrass/americanist communities……to faith.  Here’s a link to a Prague Post (local english-language weekly) article profiling a trend in christian community-building here:
http://www.praguepost.com/articles/2008/01/16/spiritual-groups-gain-in-popularity.php
If you’ve been keeping up, the parallels are striking: Czech distrust of established institutions, desire to establish a small, tight community that offers amplified sense of “warmth” and intimacy…and with hints of inter/transcultural stimulus or emulation, traces of “America.”
We know the Springers, and they are lovely folks; if you’d like to contact them, let me know.
Peace!

Christmas bluegrass…alas.

2007-12-22  -  I had tried to get Emily excited about the 12-22 Vernerice event – koledy singing na namesti and then christmas concert from Relief, all in a little town up near the German border. We got motivated, got to the nearby town of Usti, and then our ride back home fell through. Backing down from Radek V.’s encouraging, we just took a train back to Praha–but only after strolling a bit in Usti, seeing some tame falcons and owls, and checking out a toy store. (almost christmas!)

It’s too bad. But I didn’t want Em to have to deal with an unknown night, the bluegrass uncertainty, and depend on some unknown person’s generosity to take us back to Usti that night, or somewhere in the morning. and shoot – I didn’t want to spend the whole night worried about how we were going to get back home.

So we, and especially _I_ missed something. oh well. maybe it wasn’t all that much to be missed. it would have been a nice community activity, something that emily and I are excited about (singing, and especially singing sacred repertory…and christmas stuff….WITH czechs, no less.) But we had a surprisingly pleasant trip on the train, and had a lovely day on the whole.

Rickyho na ČT 2

A friend emailed me this link to “Na Plovarne s Ricky Skaggsem – An interview with Ricky Skaggs by Marek Eben.”

They must have recorded the segment when Ricky was in town this summer for his show at “Music in the Park”. (see Marek Eben is a musical personality who has been working as a TV “redaktor” / interlocutor for a while. Before coming across him here, I last saw him as one of the hosts of “Stardance,” an instance of the “reality show” where Czech stars are paired with pro dancers and pushed out on the parquet for our amusement.

Here’s his introduction to the interview:

Dobrý Večer.
Když jsme ještě jezdili na Portu, tak se v Portovným žargonu děleli muzikantí na kotlikářem. To by trampy. Pak na hledače nebo pro roky to byli folkáří. A pak na pytlikačí a to byli bluegrassové muzikantí.

Ovšem jsou pydlikáčí a pydlikači. A když za pydlikání dostanete hned dvanáctkrat Americkou Grammy, už to musíme brát vážně. Máme dnes to velké potěšení přivitát na Plovárně absolutné špičku Amerického bluegrassu. Multiinstrumentalistu, spěváka, skladatele, Rickyho Skaggse.

Here’s some English:

When we used to go to Porta, in Porta jargon musicians “děleli na kotlikářem,” [referring--I think-- to the kotlik or pot that tramps used on their rambles.] Those were tramps. Then… This just gets tangled – he is using a lot of funny words…any of the Czechs in the audience care to adda comment below, to explain all this?

I can add a bit of context. Porta is a distinguished festival founded in Ústí nad Labem in 1967; it’s still going strong. The festival’s name comes from the Latin phrase describing its hometown as the “Porta Bohemica,” or “gate to Bohemia.” The event’s original subtitle was “Celostátní festival country western music“…that is, Country-wide festival of…well, country western music. So you see why I’m interested. Eben’s list of folks involved at Porta ends with bluegrassers, the “pytlikače.” Another bit of “jargon” from that Porta scene – something to do with little bags…? Google helps me none here, but I get the sense that this is something like “picker,” an emic term for someone who “picks” a banjo or guitar or mandolin. Inflection can give the word extra emphasis; as Eben says, and Americans too, there a pickers, and there are pickers. When, for their picking, someone wins 12 Grammy awards…you take them seriously. Then he goes on to introduce Ricky and the interview progresses.

I haven’t seen the whole thing yet, but I did notice Eben making what seemed to me a forced smile and some over-nodding as Ricky talks in the first few minutes about music coming from God. Maybe I’m forcing this cynicism on Marek, but at the very least…I can’t imagine he would use similar American-evangelical-style “blessing-from-God” speech to describe his own music-making. Jirka, the colleague who sent me the link to this internet version of the show, stressed that it was about bluegrass and God. I’m curious how he and other Czechs deal with such strenuous testimonies to the sacred aspects of bluegrass musicking?

There’s much more to be done here – now I just have to find a copy of this interview that is not translated over with Czech dubbing…