Well, I think that every European would say that we have better taste in anything, but then the Americans might disagree. De gustibus non disputandum.

I think that maybe we're looking for different things in music or arts in general. It's like Leonard Cohen who used to be more popular in Poland than in his native Canada. (I even used his lyrics on my mature exam, writing about the condition of humanity). Or Jim Jarmush whose all films are a must-see for Europeans, and not many Americans even heard about him. Nor you can find his films at Oscars, while they collect prizes in Cannes.

Well, maybe we like in the American culture the things we think are the most American, while in fact we're very wrong? I mean it's like the Americans think that Europe is the Old Continent, while all Europeans think we're much more progressive than the Americans, who made a progress only once, and a long time ago at that. And we can’t understand why they keep making changes to a very old constitution, while every European country would simply write a completely new one. Maybe except for the Brits who decided it would have to be changed so often, that they didn’t even bother to ever write one, lol. Well, the Polish May Constitution was written only two years after the American one, and was already more progressive then, still, the current constitution we have is our 10th. We just leave the old things as old, and create new ones, while the Americans are rather likely to keep the old one and make alterations. They’re very sentimental after all. But what I mean is that the points of view differ, and are very much influenced by our own opinions about ourselves.

On the other hand many English people come to Poland to work as DJs, because our tastes were much more into Rock than Clubbing. However, the influences of the Brits were very strong in our music during the second half of the 20th century, but then we are very much into things like Buddha Bar as well, and Polish culture cannot be looked at without remembering about the French one at all. I mean the French have always been Polish allies, and probably the most decent ones. But well, is there one European country not influenced by the French? I mean not so long ago French was the international language, not English. That’s why Jane Austen spoke French, while the French couldn’t speak English. On the other hand the US rather cuts themselves from France, and they refer to European culture more through the English one.

Also, if I were to point to one western country that has the best knowledge of Polish culture, that would be France for sure. You can buy all the most important Polish books in French book stores. And there have always been many common cultural projects between our countries. And as much during the communism Polish radio Free Europe was broadcasted from England, Polish magazine Kultura was published in Paris. Quite interesting for the French having the opinion of closed to other cultures, and fond of themselves only. Although I still can’t bear their jokes about the English, lol. While I think that it’s very clever of the Brits to direct all trains from France to the Waterloo station. (One must love the English sense of humour.) On the other hand the British historians are much more fond of Polish old politic systems than the French ones who see our Noble Democracy as a competition to their French Revolution, so they focus rather on the situation of feudal peasants here than anything else. But even if there are so many points of view here, we’d all be in an agreement about the US history, lol.

In short I think that as much as we have our own views about all our neighbours in Europe, our opinion about the Americans is quite a common one. I.e. we may argue if the German, French, English, or Italian cars are better, and probably the Swedish Volvo would be taken into consideration as well, but we’d all agree that the Americans cannot make cars, esp. the luxury ones. As the guys at BBC Top Gear say: Where do they take the plastic from? (It was in reference to a Cadillac). While we’d probably all agree that Subaru are very good cars, and yet I’ve never read an American story with a Subaru in it, lol.

In Poland American music still means jazz. That’s because jazz was forbidden during the communism just as the “decadent music of the spoiled American capitalists”, lol. The effect? Two huge international jazz festivals are held every year in Warsaw only, and several more in Poland. And I really wonder if the Americans still listen to jazz as much as we do here.

On the other hand the history experience of the Europeans is more common. It’s like I heard Roger Waters saying that he composed The Wall being under the influence of some of Andrzej Wajda’s films, esp. Canal. It was a kind of a cult film for him and his friends. Even though the Brits didn’t have a civil uprising, still their own war memories of kids living among the ruins of a city during the war were similar to those shown there. I don’t think it might be similarly understandable for the Americans who were never engaged in a war on the civil level, and could not identify themselves with a film like that. Still, Pink Floyd was quite popular in the US.

I think the general differences are best shown by comparison of the US and Italy. In the US they like everything what’s old, because they don’t have it, while the Italian kitsch (that is what an average Italian would like to hang on their walls) is an abstraction painting because they are so sick of everything old.

The other Waits’ reference there is You’re innocent when you sleep My romance with Waits started years ago, yet in high school. I learnt English from his lyrics. The idiom Rain Dogs, Rain Cats is not so popular after all. My other favourite American musician is Frank Zappa, although the Greeks are very proud of him as well.

Now, I really wonder what kind of stereotypes there are in the US about the Europeans. I love stereotypes, really, as long as they are not taken too seriously, they are very diverting. The last one I heard about was a rumour in Ireland that Poles eat swans!

Yes, the Water and Machines piece is an abstract from the original story. I just had it already prepared in a website form. Call me lazy! There were other pieces wrote by Tina and I during the early RPG period. (There was even a long time when Tina wouldn’t admit her real personality, and I was very much in love with the Brougham arguing with Darcy/me about everything.) I’ll try to find them among the over one thousand files I have now (I’m not kidding, there are so many of them), and post them here as well. We also plan on writing more short things from the boys’ point of view, but it must wait until after Tina delivers to the world the new addition to her family.

The Wickham story is hilarious! I think Tina made a very good job of it. But since we agreed a long time ago that Lizzy was Polish, and Darcy must have been a Fin, she must be very knowledgeable about men in general, lol.

Sylwia