Mon 15.Jul.2013
Bratislava, Slovakia
Some familiar Old Stuff
The by-now almost cliche'd skylight under a fountain. One of the more comfortable
public places to sit is a sort of lounge right beneath in the mall, so I get to see
it a couple of times a week.
Adjacent to that lounge is the "station" for an electric train that
kids can ride to the other end of the mall and back every ten minutes or so. The train's
electric propulsion is silent, but mounted speakers emit the sound of a whistle and
the chug of a steam engine, which warns pedestrians to get out of the way, without
explicitly honking at them.
For me, the whole thing evokes a train ride that I used to drive at the Santa Cruz
Boardwalk in 1970. Ah... memories.
I still don't know whether this sculpture represents the famous logic puzzle, or what.
It stands along one of my regular walking routes, by the Beautiful Brown Danube, but it
never occurs to me to look for a plaque or some kind of description.
I see in today's news that The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith has
shot to the top of the best seller lists since it was revealed that the author is
the pseudonymous J. K. Rowling. I'll fess up - one of those sales was to me. Thanks
to kindle, I needn't mess with looking for it in English here in Slovakia.
The mugs have
evolved
a bit since I first noticed them.
A roof decoration that I often pass. So why did I first notice it only
this week? Goodness knows what else Mr Oblivious here fails to notice, or photograph.
Bratislava Castle
and the sights therefrom
Bratislavsky Hrad (hrr-aht).
Hrad has two syllables, and don't you forget it.
The Slovak language makes little or no use of stress-accents. What sounds
at first like the accent in Slovak words is really the lengthening of a vowel. And never in
two consecutive syllables.
Stress isn't critical, but rhythm is. (!)
If you could describe Greek - or English - as "amplitutde-modulated", Slovak is more like
"phase-modulated".
Me, I find this western slavic idiom is far more elusive to pronounce than
its southern cousins Croatian and Slovene.
And arguably more of an accomplishment when I manage it.