tuckova

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Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

Category: TODAY

  • anyhow in a corner

    Some years ago I read (on one of my beloved ranting feminist blogs) a sentence that I can no longer find, which was basically: I will no longer waste my time faulting women for whatever they are doing to remain functional under the patriarchy. And I thought about that, and I thought: but lots of…

  • the storm we call progress

    I'll tell you what, it's hard to write about anything when what is uppermost in my mind most of the time is something I want to give as little time to as possible.  In 1988, which was my first presidential election, I volunteered for Dukakis. I really liked him, he seemed reasonable, smart. Flawed, sure,…

  • trepanning for gold

    I'll tell you exactly how it happened. The needle went in precisely where it was supposed to. We'd agreed in advance about how it would be and I wasn't frightened. This is what I was thinking: that I was hoping it would help, that I was ridiculous for thinking it would help, that hope and…

  • working on it

    You're working in a restaurant that closes at midnight, and at 11 a bunch of people arrive and want a table. And you say: We close at midnight, so you can obviously sit down now but I want to be clear that I would like you to be gone at closing time. They act offended…

  • starý dobrý časy

    I'm remembering the feeling of Sunday mornings at the end of a long weekend at the cottage, anybody's cottage, the comfortable stupor of a three-day weekend of eating and drinking and eating and drinking, playing cards or watching old Czech movies until late at night. How as the slivovice bottle got emptier the jokes got funnier;…

  • ew politics

    This election has me rattled and make no mistake. My normal policy is to get enough information to make up my mind and then move on; I don't have so much time in my life that I need to spend any of it learning anything about a candidate I've already decided against. I also don't watch "anti-hero"…

  • O Me! O Life!

    There are many plates spinning in the air which is sort of my usual except a little more than that. The cat died, we sold the cottage, I got dual citizenship. None of these things are bad but all of these things take extra time and attention. My parents are coming for the party to celebrate my…

  • the end of the cotthut

    Eleven years ago I bought a cottage here, it's kind of part of the Czech lifestyle and I was married to a Czech so it seemed appropriate. I liked the idea of being outside without running water or electricity on the weekends, just to re-set and to forcibly relax. In about 2010 it stopped being fun to…

  • Seuss

    Our cat died this morning. She was sixteen. I have had cats my whole life and this is the second one that I didn't love. The first one went to live with my boyfriend's grandfather after six months of us vexing each other. This cat, though, was acquired partly because I wanted my son to grow…

  • hello. hello. hello.

    My sister has a bird, a parrot, that was rescued from some old dude who wasn't really able to take care of it. Otis is an absolute beauty and quite gentlemanly in many ways. He has a collection of phrases from his previous owner, and sometimes we talk to him in that voice, as if…