Yesterday was 'open door' day, culture-wise and all the museums were free of entrance fee - in short, one of the two days a year I go check on what's new in history in towns museums that I've been to 600 times in my life. (There are two open-door days, in case you were wondering which two...) We went with Drejč, and it was super. Best of the lot was the Alma Karlin expo.
Alma Karlin is somewhat of a local celebrity, although quite little is known about her to the general public. people, say, know, she was a world traveler, a writer and butt ugly. It's a famous anecdote that she was captured by a cannibalistic tribe while in Malaysia and they wouldn't eat her, because she was too skinny. She was also quite cross eyed, had a limp and something called "linguistic rabies" - a way to say a female is good with languages. As an only daughter of a early 1900's town family, though a sickly child, she was schooled quite profusely and abroad and even had her own language school back here in this town. But then she decided to try to be somebody - an ambition desperately pursued thorough all her lonely life - and become a travelling correspondent for a German magazine. It didn't go quite so well as she had hoped. I'm guessing for everything she did, some professorly German man did the exact same thing with a twist and got published a lot sooner. Not that we didn't have much in common and so I know how she felt, but the only thing I don't approve of is how absurdly low she thought of herself and how every line in her book reeks of self-pity and self-degradation? She was not so much brave as she was fatalist and she clearly stated several times she wishes she would have died dramatically - tired and ill as she probably was most of her travels... Towards the end she seemed to be very poor and quite lonely, setting down with a bunch of tiny dogs and a female painter, but her overall impression of being a pointless pauper is a ridiculous facade on her part - if she would have wanted, she could have been quite more luminous and happy. I've met females of her kind, too clever to be loved and way too ugly to be interesting, and all they ever did were pretend to be a loser. It pisses me off, considering I can think of at least two women who were ill-fortunate in their physical appearance, but are a wonder of creativity and wit. The one thing that does cheer me, however, is that all the postcards and tiny trifles and junk she brought back are now museum-pieces and the city finally recognizes one of the most interesting female personas.
Meanwhile, I am entirely hooked onto a game called Plants Vs Zombies (though I have not yet found a way to play it... I ought to buy it and at this point I would.... but of course I cannot go around buying computer games. my piratey reputation would have been shot to smithereens!! (If, may I remind everyone, a techno nerd I be not. The only way for me to crack a game is if someone's done it before me and I download the keys.)
