Czechmatediary

My life-long project is finally completed! Here is a pretty cool list of famous Czechs and Slovaks (full-blooded or partial) living abroad. Some of those names were quite the surprise! Did you know for example that there are currently 5 Czech Victoria Secret models? Most of these people live in America but that is where my Google search ended up leading me. What I am trying to say is that this list is far from including ALL of the celebrities but it is the best one out there. So enjoy it! And let me know if you can think of any other additions….MOVIES

1. George Voskovec (actor)
2. Lucky Vanous (actor)
3. Jon Voight (his grandfather, Mr. Voytka, came to the US from Kosice) (more…)
   If you liked this post buy me a coffee! (Suggested:$3 a latte $8 for a pound) Thanks!

The re-elected president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, was interviewed in March by the famous television host Glenn Beck on the issue of Global warming (see the YouTube video bellow). Whatever your conviction about this topic is, you have to admit that Klaus is pretty brave to be one of the “black sheep” and stand out against the mainstream opinion. Believe me, I do want to save the planet, but I agree with him on couple of things:

1/ there are not enough data to conclude that Global warming is caused by human activities (it may be a factor but not the main one) (more…)

An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

(Andy Warhol)

Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.”

(Vaclav Havel) (more…)

The Czech singer and a pianist Marketa Irglova and her 17-year older Irish boyfriend, Glen Hansard, won the Oscar for the “Best movie song 2007″. Charming Marketa even got a chance - although cut off by the orchestra at first - to make a little speech in front of the zillion of celebrities (I bet she was sweating..). She thanked everyone and then proceeded to say that the prize was important not only for the two of them but also for the whole independent artist community. It gives other independent musicians and artists the courage to go after their dreams because “mirracles” can happen. (more…)

The Czech press calls her a modern-style Popelka (Cinderella). The American media love her for her pure, honest and meek personality. Marketa Irglova is a 19-year old country girl from Moravia who was chosen to sing together with her boyfriend Glen at the Oscars 2008 next week. She didn’t have to wait for the Hollywood spotlights for long; last year her and her Irish boyfriend made a low-budget but awesome movie called Once. Not only they play the main part but the soundtrack was also writen and sang by them. The movie signature song “Falling Slowly” became very popular in no time (see YouTube bellow). (more…)

A Slovak hockey player, Richard Zednik, who plays for the Florida Panthers lost 5 units of blood on Sunday after the player had his carotid artery cut by a teammate’s skate in a freak accident. After an hour long surgery Zednik is in a stable condition now. From the amount of blood that was covering the ice on that day people thought that he had actually cut the jugular vain as it was the case in 1989 with another hockey player, Clint Malarchuk. (more…)

He had taught for over 30 years at the UCLA where he had molded the minds of over 13,000 students. In 2001 he received the Nusle prize for his life works…. Miroslav Plavec was one of the front astronomers of the 20th century. His early works dealt with meteor showers, but he is also widely known for his studies of close binaries, especially of mass transfer in binary systems. Plavec was born in Sedlcany in 1925. During the Nazi occupation Miroslav’s father was arrested and taken to the concentration camp where he had died 6 months later. Being the oldest sibling, Miroslav became the head of the family and decided to move with his mother and a younger brother to Ondrejov, a home of the Ondrejov’s observatory. (more…)

I love good coffee. I love it so much that I worked (slaved) at Starbucks for 3 years. I love it so much that every time I go back to Prague I am willing to travel miles to taste a good cup. I am now going to tell you about the best coffee shop in Prague (or at least the outskirts) that I have found so far. The atmosphere is great, the service is very friendly and most of all, the cappuccino is out of this world. The place is called the Kavarna u Zlateho koralku (”Coffeehouse by the golden pearl“) and it is located in Jilove u Prahy. True, it is not in the center of the city, it takes about 30 - 45 minutes to get there via public transportation, but it is well worth the travel. The coffee shop itself stands in a former 16th century cellar and before that the same space belonged to a monastery. Now back to the coffee business: if you order a cappuccino the espresso shots are never burnt, they taste creamy and sweet, never overly acidic. The milk is steamed to perfection and the beverage is topped with a wonderfully thick foam. (more…)

Did you like the movie “I, Robot” or “A.I.” (Artificial intelligence)? These movies are a pure rip-off of one of Karel Capek’s novels called the R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). In this masterpiece Capek introduces the now frequently used international word “robot” - the non-human intelligent being. The word itself was invented by Karel’s dear brother Josef and it is derived from a Czech verb “robotovat” which is an archaic word for “working”. Capek is one of the great - if not the greatest - writers of the inter-war Czechoslovakia. Beside being an author of numerous fabulous books what was he like? Don’t be misled by his meek look. He had quite an adventurous life: he was expelled from high school, later married an actress and becomes a good friend of the president (T.G. Masaryk). (more…)

A hot candidate for the presidential post, Jan Svejnar, is not wasting time these days. His website reveals some very busy times in the near future. Svejnar is planing to tour the Czech Republic including cities such as Zlin, Ceske Budejovice, Plzen, Brno and others. His main goal is to become more - or at least - equally popular as the current president of CR, Vaclav Klaus. Even though Svejnar was a long-time economy advisory of Vaclav Havel (a former president of CR) the Czechs don’t know him very much. Another drawback on Svejnar’s side as far as his popularity goes, is his dual citizenship. People want him to give up the American citizenship before he can become the president of the Czech Republic. How about his family? How “Czech” are they? (more…)