CLOSE UP Video Interviews

Your correspondent and his spouse spent about 2-1/2 weeks in the Czech Republic mostly doing a longer and a shorter “workaways” – you help out a host working about 4-5 hours a day and they house you and provide food! https://www.workaway.info/

 First, we stayed with a lovely young family in Slavkov pod Hostýnem, Moravia, installing a stone pathway to the front door and enjoying yummy meals and outings with them. Then we stayed with a wonderful young woman and young daughter between Dětřichovec and Jindřichovice pod Smrkem in northern Bohemia within walking distance from the Polish border, such as it was (signs in Polish, that’s all). We cleaned up the greenhouse and garden, enjoyed excursions and yummy meals.

These highlights of our times with our great hosts and bookending our stays in Prague, your correspondent captured on video. The complete playlist is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcoTwwNUGoN3ONqNRK4-oGirkbZlw7ysT

An evening strolling along long and wide Wenceslaus Square with other tourists and the occasional Bolt bike delivery person. https://youtube.com/shorts/i2s-xqf6d5E

We saw a parade of students. I asked an older guy with a bullhorn if they were protesting, but he said they were celebrating. It was the May Day (May 1) Majales parade. They dressed up funkily and were singing” Take me home country road." Online I saw on a schedule of lectures, workshops and interesting events. https://youtube.com/shorts/HnL6eTfF0G8

The day after our arrival in Prague, we hooked up with an “alternative Prague” tour, taking buses and trains and walking lots to learn about graffiti art, ethical hackers, communist era dissident politics through neighborhoods like Holosevice and visits to artist spaces and hip hangouts. Close Up video stories here https://closeup.brianrudnick.com/2024/07/alternative-prague.html

A collage with our workaway hosts  in Slavkov pod Hostýnem https://youtube.com/shorts/jm_nqeDrODg

Sneezhik “the best dog” (n Slavkov pod Hostýnema) Sneezhik, the little snowflake, a large long white coated,well-behaved dog, went with us all the way on our walk up the hill toward the Basilica.  He just lay down and waited for us within eyesight when we lagged. At a restaurant in town the dog just sat next to couple of chairs near the wall, almost invisible, pretty good for a dog nearly the size of a wolf.  He’s a white Swiss shepherd- a breed bred from a German Shepherd and American German Shepherds with white coloring and somewhat different “confirmation”? Very smart, very loyal, needs a lot of exercise and grooming. Yes, one of our favorite activities was brushing the dog and there is a lot of hair that comes off this dog. https://youtube.com/shorts/xFViWoh6eqc

Our lovely workaway host recites a Czech tongue twister. Did we forget to ask what she is saying? https://youtube.com/shorts/FlRdjZFp0m4

We visit the hilltop Hostýn - Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary complex on a Sunday, the most visited pilgrimage site in the Czech Republic, hoping we might see some religious observance and our hopes are realized when we join a procession along the stations of the cross with chanting and a brass band. Very beautiful and moving. https://youtube.com/shorts/As3IpS9bZV0

On the other side of Hostyn hilltop from Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and just visible from it is a windmill. Apparently, there was opposition to erecting such a practical energy-generating station so near the holy site but the green-minded citizens appear to have gotten the upper hand. There may also be current, renewed local opposition to replacing it with a more modern and efficient windmill. https://youtu.be/nl1N1RfqpPo

There were vertical spinning carousels inside the station Bystřice pod Hostýnem train station with worn posters  appearing to promote vintage black-and-white photo shows. All of them peeling off, appealingly. Of course, I had to make a video with my assistant spinning the carousels. https://youtube.com/shorts/Ql6uIR8YwJI

Alternative Prague Tour.  An “alternative Prague” tour had us taking buses and trains and walking lots to learn about graffiti art, ethical hackers, communist era dissident politics through neighborhoods like Holosevice and visits to artist  spaces and hip hangouts.

Videos:

Short:  https://youtube.com/shorts/d2XIRoxhqB8

Medium:  https://youtu.be/H-b4yD6SXdE

Longer:  https://youtu.be/9FRWovgloMA

Close up story: https://closeup.brianrudnick.com/2024/07/alternative-prague.html

Doktor Voda (Doctor Water) workers clean out an old 25 foot deep well at a house in the northern Czech Republic countryside. Video https://youtu.be/n2pabhaM3ZQ  Close Up story here https://closeup.brianrudnick.com/2024/07/czech-well-cleaning.html

We went to the spa in this little village. It is a group of buildings, and some of which we didn’t see because they are farther inside the park beyond the main plaza.  People come with ailments to be treated by physical therapists and to drink the natural mineral water. There were taps on opposite sides of the fount inside a gazebo style building and people like us were drinking or filling up their water bottles with mineral water Displays tell you what it was about and even broke down all the mineral and molecular components profile of the mineral water -it tasted good and minerally. https://youtube.com/shorts/yrOfx8WopxM

A tour through a traditional Czech glass bead  factory in Jablonec opens a window on the facet-making part of the process in this multi-generational family business. Video here https://youtu.be/MQIuk_nnM4Q  Close Up story here: https://closeup.brianrudnick.com/2024/07/czech-glass-bead-factory.html

"The Memorial to the victims of Communism (Czech: Pomník obětem komunismu) is a series of statues in Prague commemorating the victims of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989. It is located at the base of Petřín hill, Újezd street in the Malá Strana or the Lesser Town area. It was unveiled on the 22 May 2002, twelve years after the fall of communism in the Eastern Bloc, and is the work of Czech sculptor Olbram Zoubek and architects Jan Kerel and Zdeněk Holzel. It was supported by the local council and Confederation of Political Prisoners (KPV). " from Wikipedia  https://youtube.com/shorts/OkGB8sJnhZM

We visited the spa in Libverda in the Jizera mountains, an area that also attracts cyclists traversing the popular Single Trek route. It is a group of buildings  that we strolled around and some more that we could not see, farther beyond the plaza in the park section. People come with ailments to be treated by physical therapists and to drink the natural mineral water. Inside a small round building there was a fount with taps on opposite sides. People like us came and drank or filled up their water bottles with mineral water.  Photographic displays describe all the mineral and molecular components and tout its restorative properties. Cautions are also made not to burden others by describing your own ailments. More information. https://www.lazne-libverda.cz/en/healing-spring/

We taught the 3 year old daughter of our Czech sworkaway host how to pronounce American coin denominations in English! https://youtube.com/shorts/fjqJoFItyPk

Our workaway host recreated how she spoke English with simple sentences and a heavy accent when she first arrived in Australia.https://youtube.com/shorts/IJ1P2ETwUxw

We moved through a sound art exhibit outside the Rudolfinum concert hall in Prague, triggering each speaker tower to emit its unique eerie sound effect as we drew close to each tower. https://youtube.com/shorts/Y59wZvSE09U

At a train station in Moravia, pressing the flush button on a toilet produced a long flush of water. And it costs about 25 cents to enter the bathroom. https://youtube.com/shorts/xVEd6o1blIk

A Ukrainian tourist, stranded abroad by war, finds love in Paris and work as taxi driver in Prague. We connected with him at the Czerny Most station in easternmost on our way back from Liberec and he accommodated us by helping us add stops at a popular park then the Memorial to the victims of Communism and Prague Castle…on our way to the airport hotel where we were staying for our departure home the next day. Video interview https://youtu.be/7QQwhDmqvJo Close Up story here: https://closeup.brianrudnick.com/2024/07/ukrainian-war-refugee-drives-taxi-in-prague.html  

Novalis Baroque festival on the Vltava River https://youtube.com/shorts/NkLI4zhW1m8

Gondoliers  during Baroque Festival https://youtube.com/shorts/mEjAcitOE4w

Charles Bridge scene during Baroque Festival https://youtu.be/qdz6Wur-OLU

The tour, conducted by Thomas, took us to the other side of the Vltava River in Holešovice and mostly focused on young Czech artists who do graffiti and engage in expressive political activity; ethical hackers, the “parallel police” and the like. Thomas gave us a good background on what Czech thinking is relating to communism (memories of repression, suspicion of others) We traveled by foot and by tram and saw a boatload of very neat things, artist workspaces. We saw galleries being reclaimed from a massive slaughterhouse compound. Thomas explained that Czechs are not too keen on getting very friendly with strangers, a holdover from the communist era, when even a friend, coworker or family member might be an informant reporting back to the authorities on you. There was some optimism about trust in fellow human beings after liberation from the Nazis; some Czechs were hopeful about communism, but authoritarian rule from Moscow ensued. Lack of free, speech and imposed borders among other factors soured Czechs on communism. Due to these still poignant memories, they are very supportive of refugees from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He pointed out a large mural on a building by Ukrainian artist entitled something like Red Demon. The Czech Republic has taken in about 1 million Ukrainian refugees a considerable number considering that the population is only 12 million. He said every seventh person you encounter in the city of Prague is Ukrainian.

The short version https://youtube.com/shorts/d2XIRoxhqB8

The medium version https://youtu.be/H-b4yD6SXdE

The longer version  https://youtu.be/9FRWovgloMA

Zuzana Slámová’s grandparents founded the G & B Beads factory that she runs today in the Czech town of Jablonec nad Nisou which has a tradition of glass bead making. There are actually two sites; the first is where they fabricate the beads, a little distance away. In the facility we visited they finish off the beads. It also boasts an art museum on an upper floor and on the first floor a retail store and a little museum with historical machinery.

Slámová ’took us through the building. In one room there were a couple dozen big tumblers that get filled with sand and water and spun to finish the beads. Workers had already left for the day. But not all the barrels are still in use. Production is only one fifth as much as it was at peak due to increasing competition from China. Most of the business is wholesale for export to 34 countries with the biggest demand from Japan, the U.S. and European Union.

Active production was in progress in another room. A couple workers there repeatedly inserted a string of beads into a machine; they applied a lever to bring the beads in contact with a large grinding wheel to create the facets.

Slámová showed us beads designed by her grandmother and of course, we had to buy several strands of the “babička” design. We also bought decades old original "dice" beads designed by babička. New designs come out every year. (Thank you Zuzana!)

See photo album here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBydVE

On a six day visit to Bermuda, your correspondent became intrigued by the variety of accents.

On a ferry ride, a very zippy jet-powered ferry from Hamilton to the Royal Navy Dockyard, an elder ferry worker referred to his proper yet distinctive accent as “British Bermudian.” He distinguished it from the Queen's English and from a West Indian accent. Tongue-in-cheek, he attributed British Bermudian to the temperate sea breezes on the island, warmer than England and cooler than the West Indies.

Jean-Marie runs a “garden inn’ in Southampton and although our timing didn’t work out to stay there, we visited! She has a lilting accent from (warmer) Antigua. She married and settled with a Bermudian and settled here, but goes back to Antigua every year. A garden tour included the greenhouses full of smal,l green poinsettias which she imports as slips , feeds and grows, prunes back in September. In the following months she draws the curtains  to provide just the right amount of night darkness so that they turn brilliant red at Christmas. Unfortunately, two back-to-back hurricanes caused her to twice enlist neighbors and draft her sons to haul the plants into the house and back to the greenhouse; the salt mist blowing in the one semi-open side of the greenhouse could have “burned” the leaves brown and gotten into the potting soil.

At a lovely Airbnb, across the road where we stayed, the innkeeper’s partner, Danny, exhibited a British Bermudian accent, also. His heritage is very varied-including Scottish and Indian from India. Ironically, some of his family were originally settled in a more northern area of the island populated by Native Americans (American Indians) a legacy of the confusion attributed to Christopher Columbus in the 15th century who thought he had reached the east Indies. He recounted that the 300 year-old house was once a horse stable for an inn and brothel that had stood across the street; evidently it was popular with sailors on the then sparsely populated island!

Your correspondent also came upon other English accents- someone who spoke with a rather posh accent and yet another with more working class. Perhaps most surprising was the “Bermudian” accent that was American! Robert’s English family, whose genealogy he has been documenting (3000 individuals so far), has been on the island for a few hundred years. A grandmother may have spoken with an English accent, he recalls, but recent generations like his have been sent to boarding school beginning at age twelve following through with university in the States.

Your correspondent accompanied his spouse for the Public Library Association Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, February 25-29, 2020 and had a blast. Here are some photos and videos captured from that time.

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For two consecutive days, some attendees of the Public Library Association Annual Conference stood outside and nearby the convention center soliciting signatures on petitions in support of IMLS funding. According to one of the signature gatherers, the President has been trying to shut down the Institutes for Library and Museum Services (IMLS) for four years. IMLS is the major federal source of funding 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums according to everylibrary.org, a political action committee for libraries.

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Our guide, Texas born, North Carolina raised Caitlin, belted out facts while walking backwards to groups of prospective students and their parents at the college she attended.
This prepared her well when she moved to Nashville with her partner recently to pursue a career in tourism. We heard her loud and clear as she informed and entertained us with fun facts aboard the tour bus which looped us around the city. After the tour, she obliged your correspondent for an interview touching on the serious flooding several years ago and current concern about the high level of the Cumberland River, the Woolworth's restaurant, site of sit-ins during the civil rights era and still open for business, her enthusiasm and hopes about Amazon's upcoming opening of its eastern U.S. headquarters in Nashville, line dancing at the Wild Horse Saloon and paying to get insulted when served at Dick's Last Resort.

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This is a collage of little videos from the Public Library Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee, February 25 -29, 2020. In order they are
- the steps with PLA 2020 on the risers at the Music City Center (MCC)
-dressing up for the "Wonderosity" green screen at Demco's booth at the exhibit area, MCC
-Michelle Bloom singing along with her album "Big Backyard" in the exhibit area
-Changing color light entrance to the children's area at the Nashville Public Library (NPL)
-Petitioning the government to fund public libraries through the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) outside the MCC
-"String City" History of Country Music puppet show at the NPL
-Country band at the Ingram party at the NPL
-Salt Lake City librarians partying at the Ingram Party, NPL
-Country line dancing at the Wild Horse Saloon along with Matt McAtee
-Time lapse view of street outside MCC
-Country singer in MCC lobby
-Revelers partying and pedaling on a Nashville Pedal Tavern
-Crossing music bar packed Broadway
-Music pouring out of Legends Bar on the corner of Broadway

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On her album of children’s songs "Big Backyard" , Michelle Bloom motivates kids to go outside, explore to find bugs and such, and just to experience nature! She encourages families to visit the national parks - "It'a big back yard” she exclaims. Bloom was promoting her CD at the Public Library Association conference in Nashville, Tennessee and obliged your correspondent by singing along to some of her songs, producing a wonderful stereo effect.

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Every day at 4:30 there's free line dance lessons at the Wild Horse Saloon on 2nd Avenue in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Country line dancing continues for hours with a live performer. We were entertained by Matt McAtee, who says he always get asked to play his song, "I can't stand Tome Brady" and when he did, there didn't seem to be any Bostonians or Patriots football fans in the bar.

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Librarians pass the time in a lobby at the Music City Conference Center in Nashville waiting for the doors to open to the ballroom to hear an interview with comedian -personality-commentator Samantha Bee at the close of the Public Library Association conference.The soundtrack is singer KC Johns and fellow musicians singing at the Legends Bar on Broadway.

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Upper Bucks Chamber and Visitors Center Executive Director Danielle Bodnar treated your correspondent to a little tour of the Center's museum. A 1902 motorized buggy is one of the many treasures on display. The Chamber partners with The Quakertown Historical Society which provides historical artwork, memorabilia and binders of old newspaper clippings and photographs and more for the center museum. Bodnar says people like to come in and take a trip down memory lane by searching the archived Quakertown High School yearbooks for, say, pictures of their grandparents or to research some family genealogy. Outside the Center, she pointed out historic Liberty Hall across the way where the Liberty Bell was temporarily hidden on its way from Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War to keep it safe from the British. And Bodnar added that the Richard Moore house on Main Street will be honored this September 14th for keeping escaped slaves safe during civil war times. A historical marker will be placed at the building which served as an important stop on the Underground Railroad. Watch highlights of Quakertown visitor center tour here.

For more photos of the visitor center, click here.

Naturalists at the Wissahickon Environmental Center Treehouse are raising and launching monarch butterflies. In the Andorra meadow a short distance above the Trreehouse, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation staffers Christina Moresi and Maris Harmon harvest milk weed leaves on which monarch butterflies have laid their small white eggs. They bring the leaves down to the Treehouse where the eggs hatch into caterpillars. They demand an abundant supply of milkweed leaves to munch on and grow. Moresi has filmed the whole metamorphosis. The grown caterpillars will climb to the top of a screen mesh and spin into milky green colored pupae. As the pupae mature, their casings become translucent and the butterflies' distinctive orange markings become visible. Finally the encapsulated butterflies emerge out of the bottom and pump blood to stretch out their new wings.
The naturalists place a small round tag on each newborn's wing and register it in an online database so if it is found in Mexico or en route, it can be identified. Moresi (right in photo) explains that the butterflies which lay their eggs in the Andorra are the fourth generation of butterflies migrating from hibernation in Mexico. Before they are released, the young monarchs are fed a rich diet of nectar and become flight worthy in a tall netted enclosure. The Center announces when they are about to release a group of monarchs. They are bound for Mexico, an extraordinary 2000 mile journey.
(Interviewer's Note: Conservationists have been actively engaged in combating a severe long term decline in the population of the monarch butterfly, a beautiful and important pollinator, that has been attributed to habitat loss from logging and pesticide use)

Watch monarchs metamorphosis and interview here 

​When a thunderstorm kept the J S Jenks kindergartners from visiting the Chestnut Hill Library for a program, the library came to them. Author Cynthia Kreilick read aloud in Spanish and English with the children from her book "Lucha y Lola," illustrated by her daughter Alyssa. The story, about travel and change, is inspired by the Calveras (skeleton depictions) associated with the Day of the Dead that Kreilick encountered on a family trip to Mexico. It concludes with the protagonists starting a butterfly kite-making business to draw attention to the plight of the endangered monarch butterfly population. The Kreilicks were featured in the Chestnut Hill Local in 2012 www.chestnuthilllocal.com/2012/11/26/mother-writes-daught...

Watch video here

Chris Levey, a saturnine looking yet pleasant 3-day a week volunteer at the barren- looking Travelers Aide kiosk at 30^th Street Station in Philadelphia says that Travelers Aide doesn’t offer all that much.  The most common question is where the bathroom is followed by where the BOLT bus location is.  People also ask about tourist destinations and Levey directs them to the Independence Hall area and offers a map.

Not infrequently Levey gets approached by people who don’t have money and need a place to stay. Men he sends to the Roosevelt Darby Center, women to the House of Passage, emergency housing shelters. They relate all kinds of stories, he says. A guy the week before said he had come for a job interview, didn’t get the job and had no money to get home.  Levey supplies these down-on-their-luckers with a token to get to the shelter.

Watch video interview here.

Rashid Abdul/Majid, a practicing Muslim, turns to his Arabic language books during breaks in his substitute-teaching class schedule on a recent day at Parkway Northwest High School in Mount Airy. He is currently studying Arabic, taking one class on the Arabic language- grammar and sentence structure, and another, called Tajweed, on how to recite from the Koran. A recently retired driver of 38 years with SEPTA who has been simultaneously substituting for many years, he loves to travel around the world and has visited China and many countries in Africa. During the upcoming March spring break, with his wife and son, he is taking a return trip to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Watch video interview here.