Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts
Thursday, October 01, 2020

Prague’s concrete paneláks aren't finished yet.

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Having grown up under the tutelage of a father who went out of his way to avoid urban areas, and this being America, my exposure to urban ...
Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Books: "Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism," by Kristen R. Ghodsee.

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Prague, 1989. This isn't Kristen R. Ghodsee's first appearance at NA Confidentia l. See this post from 2017:  Women, sex, socia...
Thursday, January 09, 2020

BOOKS: The Tragedy of Liberation, an account of China's revolutionary insanity, by Frank Dikötter.

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This is a hard, unrelenting book to read. Many thanks to my friend Jon for providing the opportunity to do so. The official blurb: “...
Sunday, November 24, 2019

Eastern Europe's 30-year revival: Has the transition from communism to capitalism been a "remarkable" success?

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Czechoslovakia, 1989. We'll be vacationing in Croatia (briefly) and Slovenia, both components of ex-Yugoslavia, and thus to America...
Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Video: The Treuhand (1991-94), and how newly reunited Germany put capitalism back together again in the former GDR.

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(Video at link below.) November 9, 2019 will be the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's obsolescence. Communism's collapse wa...
Saturday, August 31, 2019

Did I pass Victor Grossman on the street in East Berlin in August, 1989?

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East Berlin, 1989. I've heard of Victor Grossman, recalling his name from the period in the late 1980s when I abstracted geopol...
Thursday, July 18, 2019

ON THE AVENUES: I'm a citizen of the universe, but I can't take a photo to save my life.

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While lounging at Pints&union on a recent Saturday afternoon I found myself chatting with estimable local photographer David Modica. ...
Thursday, May 23, 2019

An amazing Albanian propaganda film, circa 1984: "Where a free and happy people are living by the sweat of their brow."

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If you've never viewed an old-school "New Communist Man and Woman" heavy-industry-porn propaganda film, then prepare ...
Tuesday, February 26, 2019

ON THE AVENUES: Pretty in pink slips, aren’t they? Those who mutilated Speck need to be cashiered.

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Yes, it's true that I've been indulging in reruns, but hear me out. For the past two weeks I've been using all my spare mom...
Sunday, January 06, 2019

Capitalism and communism: "Sometimes bad service is class struggle."

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Black Market Bill and Open Season Barr, Moscow, 1987 I made three visits to the USSR during the 1980s, and to be honest, my personal sa...
Thursday, October 11, 2018

Gdansk and the Falowiecs: "Can Poland’s Faded Brutalist Architecture Be Redeemed?"

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Falowiecs, Gdansk. Thanks, W. Gdansk, here we come -- well, in a bit. While other tourists remain marooned in the heart of the rebuil...
Thursday, September 20, 2018

ON THE AVENUES: Fighting the power with ballots, not bullets.

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ON THE AVENUES: Fighting the power with ballots, not bullets. A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor. Next summer will be the 30th anniver...
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Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Three reminders of rock music's role in defeating the Communist bogey man.

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I intend to watch this soon. ​FREE TO ROCK is a documentary film directed by 4-time Emmy winning filmmaker Jim Brown and narrated by ...
Monday, July 09, 2018

A few mementos from the 1989 European Summer.

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I visited the basement archives today in search of Public House paraphernalia , and couldn't resist opening the jam-packed banker's ...
Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Road to Gdansk, a primer on Polish history and the first flowering of Solidarity.

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This hard-nosed, old-school, just-the facts documentary was released in 1983, only a short time after the events being recorded. I can...
Tuesday, March 13, 2018

It can't happen here? Kundera's novel and the repressive politics of "normalization" in Red Czechoslovakia.

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It occurs to me that it has been 30-odd years since my first reading of The Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera's renowned ...
Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Damn it, I want to go to Gdansk and visit the European Solidarity Centre.

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Photo credit: In Your Pocket . So, I was reading an article about the industrial architecture of the Communist-era steel mills in Krakó...