In October, I took part in the travel literature festival in Venice, Invito al Viaggio, in conversation with the British Muslim travel writer Tharik Hussain. Our conversation was moderated by Shaul Bassi.
Take a look — it’s a great conversation (though I didn’t realize how much I fiddle with my hands…..)
I took part in the “Great Latke versus Hamentash” debate, held at the JCC in Krakow during the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival.
I defended — of course — the Latke. My opponent was an American-Israeli stand up comic, Benji Lovitt, and the debate was moderated by Benjamin Lorch.
The whole debate was filmed for a documentary film…. see trailer below:
So far I don’t have pictures of the event — but suffice it to say that it got, well, heated! Especially when Benji tried to prove his point by a fabricated email supposedly written by me — Fake News….(I mean, But My Emails….?)
I’ll try to post more, but here, for anyone interested, is the text of my opening statement:
IN DEFENSE OF LATKES
Latke vs Hamentasch Debate, Krakow, June 30, 2018
Ruth Ellen Gruber
Imaginary wild west at the wild west theme park, Boskovice, Czech Republic
As I posted earlier, I’ve been asked to write the Foreword to
| This is a cross post from my blog sauerkrautcowboys.blogspot.com
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In late October I spent an afternoon at a country western festival in Bologna, Italy. It was the very last day of the two weekends that the festival took place, and I was eager to see what it was like: though I have been to wild west and country festivals in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and the Czech Republic, I have only been to a couple of them in Italy.
This one, called “Festival Country,” took place at the Bologna Fairgrounds, and it shared space in a cavernous hall with a sort of “October Fest” beer festival (featuring what was presented as German food). In a separate cavernous hall there was a so-called “Irish Festival:” vaguely Celtic music, and stalls that mainly seemed to sell “Lord of the Rings” type clothing…..
The path to all three led through the grim industrial landscape of the Fair buildings…..
Once there, what did I find?
The scene — at least on the day I was there — was a sort of distillation of all the most common stereotypes associated with “the west,” “the frontier,” “country-western,” and, in a certain way, “America.”
This is a crosspost from my SauerkrautCowboys blog
This was the third time I have been to the Equiblues rodeo and country music festival in St. Agreve, France — an annual event that draws upwards of 25,000 people and that this year was celebrating its 20th edition.
It was one of the first big country-western festivals I attended (back in 2004) when I first started following the “scene”. Last time I was there was 3 years ago — read what I wrote back then HERE and HERE.
Equiblues lasts the better part of a week, but this year, I only was able to make it there for Friday evening and Saturday, and — alas — I missed all of the rodeo — though I saw some of the cowboy mounted shooting competition.
One of my reasons for going was to meet with Georges Carrier, an expert on country music in France who had been the director of the Country Rendez-vous festival in Craponne for 18 years.
I parked in front of the scene in the photo at the top of this page — a fitting welcome image.
But the photo below encapsulates the atmosphere event better: “Authentic Dreams”. Festivals like Equiblues are signal embodiments of what I call “real imaginary” spaces — a re-created; no — a created — “America” where everyone wears cowboy hats and boots and hustles and bustles amid the trappings of the frontier; but where little has much really to do with the United States. As usual, except for some of the artists and rodeo performers, I was one of the only — if not the only — American there. I did hear English in the crowd from one couple strolling through, but UK English.
Actually, I found this year’s Equiblues just about identical with what I found three years ago. Even the same food (sausage and frites; steak and frites; wine; beer…) and physical set-up. For festival-run merch, tickets, food, and events — you have to pay in Equiblues dollars that you have to buy with Euros: one dollar = one Euro.
As usual, I was fascinated by the use of flag imagery — American flags, Confederate flags and various other flags and banners. They are used basically without much meaning, as decoration mean to provide an “American” or “Rebel” spin, as backdrops, clothing, ornamentation.
In the photo below, fly in a row, over a souvenir and clothing stand,
