Zakarya is the Story Teller

i was leaving Brno and i ran into a strange man in the train station. He needed a train ticket to Vienna, which was where i was going and could not find the international ticket counter. So i showed him the counter, helped him getting a ticket, since they spoke no English at the counter and we sat next to each other. He asked me what i did and i told him i had the best job in the world (which i felt i did at the time), he replied this was impossible, because he had the best job in the world. Traveling from place to place teling stories. With time i have become convinced he is right.

• At the Edge of Wisdom
• The New Prometheus Myth
• The Cooperators Club - unfinished
• Prince Midas
• A Poet's Tale
• The Most Important Thing
• Alice and the Mad Hatter

Other Peoples Funny Stories

• College Application
• Funny Newspaper Headlines
• Downsize the Solar System
• Why God did not get tenure

"How does Zakarya come from Adrian?" you might well ask. There is no acceptable contraction of the three syllable Adrian, so one day we decided to call him Zak for short. It was used some, but did not really stick as a name. So when i was designing my name, i wanted to honor this inspiring friend, (and the A. Z. initial combination worked nicely) but Zak did not flow right, so i expanded it to Zakarya. Using the phonetic spelling to avoid any confusion between it and the Biblical name and add an almost oriental flair to it.

After Adela and i got married we went to the Temelin Action camp and she signed in as Adela Paxova-Kubickova. Taking my first name (instead of the last name) and adding the "ova" that women add to their husbands names when they get married (and drop their own name). Not really knowing what i was doing i signed in after her as Paxus Adelova-Calta, which got a riot of laughter from the Czechs. The "ova" extension is only used for women, and it actually means "the property of". But i kept it, wishing to honor my wife in my name and tangling the traditions of our two cultures.

I would find out many years later that Calta was a Sicilian word for Castle, but when i choose it the only thing it meant was 'power' in a language i had made up many years earlier. Pax Calta, Peace Power, it seemed like a good combination at the time and looking back a decade and a half later, it would appear this balance is at the center of my identity quest.