Friday, January 19, 2007

Last night I was having a drink with my friend Helen at Shakespeare's, the bar/cafe wing of the bookstore where I work, and this older fellow came up and asked us if we were American. Ye, we said. So he starts asking us about US geography, and what are the states in the middle here, near the lakes? I sort of just started listing things I knew to be in that area--Wisconsin, Michigan, etc--but I didn't really know what I was talking about. Neither did Helen. So then his other friend walks up, and we start talking about Montana. This other fellow says he went there, and there was lots of speed there and oh! it was a great time. And then so he says his band is playing tomorrow night and do we want to come? So what is this band anyway? Well, it turns out it is Plastic People of the Universe. This is a big deal apparently! They're something of a legend, involved in Charter 77 and all this anti-communist stuff.

Then, I let my class go almost 15 minutes early this morning. God, I'm a lout. But I"m really beginning to enjoy this place.

3 Comments:

Blogger Amanda said...

Plastic People of the Universe? Awesome!

er, okay, I do not really know what I am talking about. By "lots of speed" in Montana, did he mean the no-speed limit thing? Or the drug? Could go either way...

I know our geography pretty well. That is what comes of a) having lived in two different regions of the country and b) having sat beneath a giant map of the country for two years at my first full-time job, for no reason whatsoever.

probably more b than a, though.

3:25 PM

 
Blogger Boulos said...

Wow that wife of mine is like a sponge for real...

As for you, Tanio... I am a support of Plastic People, as my parent's plastics business kept food on our table, so kudos to you and them.

As for the speed thing, I shared my wife's questions...

1:19 PM

 
Blogger Vincent said...

The Plastic People of the Universe, eh? That IS a big deal. Tom Stoppard's most recent play (i think it is his most recent one) deals with democracy in Czechoslovakia and your new friend's band was featured. (I only know about this because I read a review of it on the plane one time.) Just a fun fact there (plenty more where that came from). I have only heard a couple of their songs, but they were pretty good I guess, in a sort of "we love frank zappa and lou reed way too much" sort of way. Because everyone knows that people who love those dudes way too much are always hella weird.

ok, nerdism over.

7:40 AM

 

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