Free man in Prague, Kafka, Berta Fanta, not apologising, paywalls, Hejira
nosebag #34
Good morning all and welcome to this week’s nosebag, a flavour of everything I’ve been reading, writing and thinking about this week, for paid subscribers only. Last Sunday I woke up in Prague, a trip on which, as some of you will have seen on instagram etc, the new edition of GBLAF in Czech was ‘baptised’ (literally!)…
…and which was also a really amazing experience for me in terms not just of seeing a place I’d never seen, but also because I was a ‘free man’ - I had the keys to a beautiful flat right in the centre and could come and go as I pleased - and I was alone. Those of you who are mothers will know how rare and almost mythical such an experience is! At times, it was almost overwhelming, and I felt horribly homesick, but most of the time, ‘I felt unfettered and alive, there was nobody calling me up for favours, and no one’s future to decide’.
On day three with this song playing in my mind I got up early and walked to the train station, worked out how to catch a train to another city (Kutna Hora), spent the day there sightseeing, took myself out for lunch and came back to Prague in time for a Negroni and a two course meal… ‘going cafe to cabaret’, as Joni puts it.
The next morning, feeling I’d seen enough interiors of churches and cathedrals to last me a good while, I visited the Kafka museum. I’ve not read any Kafka, although I’m kind of familiar with his ‘Kafkaesque’ vibe, and the museum didn’t disappoint on this front - the whole place being set up to reflect the edgy, existential and ‘is this actually a weird dream’ energy of his work.
He sounded like a miserable bastard to be honest, but fair play to him for at least creating something of value out of it all. What really grabbed my attention, though, was the figure of Berta Fanta, a woman whose literary salon in Prague played host to Kafka, Steiner and even Einstein, who would play violin duets. Very little information was given in the museum about Berta, but I was hungry for it.