briefly in Prague

For the first time since 2006. Tonight only.

I’m 50% Czech, not at all unusual for people from Eastern Iowa. Of my 8 great-grandparents, 4 were surnamed Blažej, Kadlec, Zitek, and Hach. Harman is the only Prussian-sounding name in the bunch.

But all of my grandparents were born in the U.S., and though 2 of them were sent through Czech lessons as kids, it seems to have been fairly perfunctory. All that was left were a few swear words my grandfather would utter when hitting his finger with a hammer, and a few recipes my grandmother knew, plus polka on the radio at their house every Sunday.

The Czechs seemed to assimilate very quickly, and didn’t retain group or neighborhood solidarity in the U.S. for as long as, say, the Polish and the Irish. My mother has some stories about a weird exotic Prague-born uncle who didn’t really speak English, and I see his gravestone everytime I visit the gravesite of my grandparents. Otherwise, very little trace of Czech-ness in the family, even after just a few generations.

But then my first nephew was born in Prague, so the tie was re-established more obliquely.

Bogost on OOO vs. the new aesthetic

In The Atlantic. HERE.