Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Cobblestones in Pilsen: text.city

Město se skládá z písmen. Písmena tvoří slova a věty. Věty vytváří odstavce, kapitoly. Kapitoly romány. Romány světy. Svět země a města.
Vstávám za úsvitu; z očí si setřu praštěnou včerejší noc. Dlouhá, horká sprcha, káva a po ní jogurt. Takhle už jsem celé měsíce. Ráno je součástí dne, kdy můžu zapomenout na svoji cizí příslušnost, můžu být vlastně kdekoliv s obvyklou pohodlnou rutinou. První káva, první cigareta. Než si uvědomím, na jakém jsem místě, v jakém městě, rychle uteču k psaní. Ještě chvilku nechci vědět, kde jsem, nechci nové zážitky, nechci stýskání po domově, nechci touhu tady žít. Pokud mám pocit, že můžu být kdekoliv, jsem doma. Ale ne na dlouho.
Text města je těžké číst. Nikdy ho nemůžeš dočíst, jen pokračovat ve čtení. A opakované čtení je pokaždé jiné. Jako jemná vrstva prachu na mojí mysli, je tam již dlouho, ale objevím ho. Pomalu se usazuje v knoflíkových dírkách, ve vyhrnutých nohavicích kalhot. Nejde ho vymýt, pevně se drží. Lechtá mě v nose, znehodnocuje podrážky mých bot, překrucuje punčochy na nohách žen, mužům z toho svědí záda. Ruší tě, aby sis ho všiml, nedovolí, aby se nečetl.
Hlad mě vyžene na ulici; koupím si něco u řezníka, název si nepamatuju, ale podobá se to hotdogu. Šedivé nebe pohlcuje útržky slov, které lidé křičí v dopravním hluku. K obědu si objednám něco z menu, odvodím si, že to je určitě hlavní jídlo, ne polévka nebo nápoj, podle ceny. Naštěstí znám jména piv. Místní nelelkují, pijí pivo k obědu. Doma by lidé házeli zlé pohledy, které mě většinou zastaví, ale tady je stav milosrdenství. Všichni pijí pivo. Počítačový technik podvádějící svoji ženu a jeho vysokoškolská milenka u stolu přede mnou, dvě staré dámy u okna, barman na obědové přestávce u pultu, úředníci u velkého stolu, přátelé ve vedlejší místnosti, cizinci u toalet. Ústa se zaboří do pěny na pivě jako dětské lopatičky do pískoviště. Pak, jakoby něco říkali, slíznou pivní vous z horního rtu a utřou si ústa rukou.
Podívat se oknem ven znamená, že se stejným oknem nemůžu podívat dovnitř. Když jsem někde uvnitř, už nevidím, kde jsem. Čtení města je nejtěžší bytí ve městě. Hledám kontrasty, porovnávám je se svými zkušenostmi, navlékám je na šňůru, zkouším pro ně najít paralelu, zjistit, jestli přitáhnou pól magnetu, namočím v nich lakmusový papírek, nafouknu je, sním je, vyzvracím je. Umím přemýšlet jen v souvislostech.
V supermarketu jsou staré dámy, táhnoucí nákupní košíky, a povědomé matky všude, kam se otočím. Cítím nutkání sledovat, co nakupují. Sýr, pivo, kávu, masový nářez, chléb – podle nákupního košíku odhadnu počet dětí a vnoučat, jestli jsou rozvedené, jaké brambůrky má manžel nejradši, kolik vydělávají, kde bydlí. Žena dlouho otálí v uličce s vínem, vypadá to, že chce něco speciálního. Pomohu jí vybrat, i když nemluvíme stejným jazykem, zdá se, že je vděčná. U každé pokladny je fronta, ale všichni jsou trpěliví. Dříve zmíněná žena vloží víno do tašky a zaplatí. Cestou ven ho opět vytáhne, prohlíží si ho. Cítí se trapně, když jdu kolem.

Lidé jsou město. Mají v sobě řeku, katedrálu a všechno, co lze umístit na pohlednici. Ale také mají každodenní tvrdost, strach ze zimy, předprázdninový stres, únavu z osmihodinové směny. V rukou lidí prodávajících jmelí počítajících drobné, ve výfukových plynech aut, v psech na procházce, v prasklinách na chodníku, ve znuděných kopírovacích centrech, v sušícím se oblečení. V děcku, které za mnou dlouze zírá.
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The city consists of letters. The letters form words and sentences. The sentences makes paragraphs, chapters. The chapters novels. The novels worlds. The world countries and cities.
I get up at dawn; wipe out the loopy yesterday night from my eyes. Long, scolding shower, coffee and yoghurt after it. I’ve been like this for weeks already. The morning is the part of the day when I can let go of my alienage, I could be anywhere with the usual comfort routine actually. First coffee, first cigarette. Before realizing the place, the city where I am, I quickly escape into writing. For a little longer I don’t want to know where I am, I don’t want new experiences, don’t want homesickness, don’t want the desire to live here. If I feel that I could be anywhere, then I’m home. But it’s not a long time.
The text of the city is difficult to read. You can’t ever finish reading it, just keep reading. And re-reading is different every time. As a delicate layer of dust on my mind, already there for a long time by I discover it. Little by little clinging in my buttonholes, in the rolled up legs of my trousers. Can’t be washed out, clings strongly. It tickles my nose hairs, debases the sole of my shoes, twists the stockings on the legs of women, it makes men’s back to itch. Disturbs you to be noticed, doesn’t allow not reading it.
Hungriness drives me out on the street; I buy something at the butchers which name I can’t remember but it’s like a hotdog. The grey sky absorbs the fragments of words the people shout in the noise of transport. At lunch I order by pointing at something on the menu, deducing what is a main dish for sure, not a soup or drink, by the price. Fortunately I know the name of the beers. Locals don’t fiddle around, they drink beer at lunch. At home people would give a dirty look, only that holds me back usually, but here it’s a state of grace. Everybody drinks beer. The computer engineer cheating on his wife and his undergrad lover at the table in front of me, the two old ladies by the window, the bartender in his lunch break by the counter, the officers by the great table, the friends in the other room, the foreigners next to the toilet. Mouths dig in the head on beer like the shovels of the kids in the sandpit. Then like saying something, they bite the beer-mustache off their upper lips and wipe their mouths with their hands.
Looking out of a window means that I can’t look in at the same window. If I’m inside somewhere, I don’t see where I am anymore. Reading the city is the most difficult being in the city. I look for contrasts, compare it with my experiences, thread it on a line, trying to find a parallel for it, see if it attracts a pole of a magnet, dunk a litmus paper in it, blow it up, eat it, throw it up. I can only think in relations.
In the supermarket there are old ladies dragging shopping carts and familiar mothers wherever I turn. I feel an urge to observe what they buy. Cheese, beer, coffee, cold cuts, bread – I can tell from the shopping cart the number of their kids and grandchildren, if they’re divorced, what the favorite crisp of the husband is, how much money they make, where they live. A woman lingers long in the wine ail, looks like she wants something special. I help her choose although we don’t speak a common language, she seems grateful. There are queues at every counter, but everybody is patient. The woman mentioned earlier puts the wine in her bag and pays. At the way out she takes it out again, looking at it. She gets embarrassed when I pass her.
The people are the city. They have the river, the cathedral and everything that can be placed on a postcard inside of them. But they also have the everyday’s hardness, the fear of the winter, the pre-holiday stress, the tiredness of the eight hour shifts. In the hands of the people selling mistletoe counting change, in the exhaust gases of cars, in the dogs on a walk, in the cracks of the pavement, in the bored photocopy salons, in the clothes hung to dry. In the kid protractedly staring after me.

Cobblestones in Pilsen vol. 12: Drain cover

Any road we’re walking on will eventually lead us to a drain cover. This is like law. The drain cover lets us leave behind the cobblestones we’ve walked past, it may even let us forget about them for a moment. Then new cobblestones will come, but they will be nothing like the old ones. When we think back, these drain covers will be the only things we can put names to. I go slower as I pass this drain cover. I’m tying up my laces, trip over, stare at shop windows, crash into a lamppost, whatever. Cobblestones, the pixels of the city, will carry on stirring the road.
  • Our first WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mihály Etlinger (*1990) is a very talented young Hungarian writer who came here for one month thanks to our partner Pécs Writers' Program. He is going to share his thoughts with you via social media networks. "This diary" will be published afterwords in a special online blog.

Cobblestones in Pilsen vol. 11: Compassion

The angel second from the right is desperate for a cuddle. She doesn’t care, if her hair is messy, even though she spent hours in front of the mirror to make sure it looks as blowsy as you can get whilst surfing. When they strike her hair, she half closes her eyes and shivers. But this only happens if someone feels jealous about the other one mollycoddled.
  • Our first WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mihály Etlinger (*1990) is a very talented young Hungarian writer who came here for one month thanks to our partner Pécs Writers' Program. He is going to share his thoughts with you via social media networks. "This diary" will be published afterwords in a special online blog.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Cobblestones in Pilsen: Přijď zítra

Přijď zítra


Kávovar kýchá. Pořád, nezastaví se ani na minutu. Ten zvuk připomíná chrápání ledního medvěda, který nemá manželku, co by do něj strčila, zmáčkla mu nos nebo mu jen jemně pohladila hruď. Snažím se to neposlouchat. Vybavuji si, že včera večer na tom místě jsem pil poslední rundy piva, byl tam večírek. Jen přítelkyně dýdžeje se osamoceně kroutila před reproduktory, bez jakýchkoli zábran. 

Monday, December 8, 2014

Cobblestones in Pilsen vol. 10: The sky

If it wasn’t for the only sudden sunlight in three weeks sieving through the clouds, I would tend to think the skies are eternally grey here. But it isn’t the kind of cold grey, it’s a rather calm, self-conscious, conservative greyness. Steadiness stops time, paused time allows you to take advantage of it. The brochures depicting the city were all made in the summer. That must be a completely different city.

  • Our first WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mihály Etlinger (*1990) is a very talented young Hungarian writer who came here for one month thanks to our partner Pécs Writers' Program. He is going to share his thoughts with you via social media networks. "This diary" will be published afterwords in a special online blog.

Cobblestones in Pilsen vol. 9: In through the out door

I want to pierce a hole on the city. Destroy its walls, tear its skin to get to the heart of it. And then I will be watching from the inside what is going on in the outskirts of the city. But I am yet to get inside, I'm like a cat, who's been shut out into the cold, scraping the door to be allowed back in.​




  • Our first WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mihály Etlinger (*1990) is a very talented young Hungarian writer who came here for one month thanks to our partner Pécs Writers' Program. He is going to share his thoughts with you via social media networks. "This diary" will be published afterwords in a special online blog.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Cobblestones in Pilsen vol. 8: Tea for one

When I look at the ground I see myself in full. Like pigeons snatching up breadcrumbs from the road with ravenous apathy. Then I make a tea, scroll through the news on the net to see all the bad things that happened today. I rather don't look down. It's not good to be visible. On the contrary, going home and making a tea is good. Like a football match ending in a draw.

  • Our first WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mihály Etlinger (*1990) is a very talented young Hungarian writer who came here for one month thanks to our partner Pécs Writers' Program. He is going to share his thoughts with you via social media networks. "This diary" will be published afterwords in a special online blog.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Cobblestones in Pilsen vol. 7: Mirror

A mirror is there to show you the face you never had and never will have. Its distortion gives you the chance to regard yourself vainly. To look at a non-existing portrait.

  • Our first WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mihály Etlinger (*1990) is a very talented young Hungarian writer who came here for one month thanks to our partner Pécs Writers' Program. He is going to share his thoughts with you via social media networks. "This diary" will be published afterwords in a special online blo

Monday, December 1, 2014

Mihály Etlinger: Spisovatel v zrcadle

Spisovatel se střídavě díval do mapy a na město. Nemyslel na to, kde asi je, ale bál se dívat do mapy a v těch vteřinách nevidět město, které měl vidět. Jako když turisté všechno vidí jen přes hledáček svého foťáku. Bylo mu trapně. Zastrčil si mapu do zadní kapsy, típl cigaretu a podíval se na kostelní hodiny. Bylo tam vždycky poledne nebo půlnoc, ale pokaždé se musel podívat. Je to marný.

Cobblestones in Pilsen vol. 6: Consolation

There is something weirdly satisfying in coming across this picture in the town where Karel Gott was born. It looks like the cow cries out of sadness. He should play Lady Carneval to cheer himself up. He'd be smiling at the part where the song goes "salala" and he'd be laughing by the end. It surely is boring but why change if it has worked before? What he would really want is to dance with Karel and the girls in the video, like a high-earning guest performer.

  • Our first WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Mihály Etlinger (*1990) is a very talented young Hungarian writer who came here for one month thanks to our partner Pécs Writers' Program. He is going to share his thoughts with you via social media networks. "This diary" will be published afterwords in a special online blog.