Czech

Columbia Pro Cantare, a 100-member chorus founded and directed by Frances Motyca Dawson, will give the American premiere of a jazz Mass by the Czech composer Karel Ruzicka this weekend.Dawson, who is of Czech extraction, has made the choir known for its repertory of Bohemian and Czech works, as well as pieces by Polish and Swedish composers.Over Pro Cantare's 20 years, it has performed pieces by more than 25 Slavic and Norse composers, ranging from familiar names such as Dvorak and Smetana to the lesser-known Jan Dismas Zelenka and Anton Reicha.

NAGANO, Japan -- It's not our game, not our country and not our problem, but how could Canadian men's ice hockey coach Marc Crawford fail to use Wayne Gretzky in an Olympic shootout?To the untrained American eye, it was like excluding Babe Ruth )) from a home run-hitting contest, benching Jim Brown in an NFL championship game, ordering Michael Jordan to pass in the NBA Finals.As Czech coach Slavomir Lener said, "Everyone is a general after the battle." Now, after Canada's shocking 2-1 defeat, Crawford must face an entire nation of Douglas MacArthurs.

"The Widow Killer," by Pavel Kohout. New York: St. Martin's Press. 400 pages. $24.95. Every publisher claims that the serial-killer thriller they're about to release will detonate in the reader's mind the way Thomas Harris' "Silence of the Lambs" did, but there is no living writer who can duplicate the elegant, single-minded psychological surgery that Harris inflicts on his audience.And every publisher tries to pass off the latest hybrid of serial-killer and historical novel as a commercial juggernaut like Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" - not too scary, not too James Michener.

WASHINGTON -- Just after getting the much-awaited call from President Clinton one morning last month, Madeleine K. Albright phoned one of her best friends, the first friend she made, in fact, half a century ago as an 11-year-old Czech girl making a new home with her family in the United States."

PRAGUE -- For many, working in close quarters with a parent might sow little more than ulcers or insanity. For Czech director Jan Sverak, collaboration with his father has borne much sweeter fruit: two Academy Award nominations."

PRAGUE -- With President Vaclav Havel convalescing from lung surgery that turned up a malignant tumor, Czechs are having to consider a future without the man who led them to democracy.They don't like what they see."There is no one to replace him, and nobody is even able to imagine anybody else," says Jiri Stransky, a friend of Havel's and head of the Czech chapter of PEN, the international authors' group."People know that he never was a liar, he never cheated them. He's always spoken quite openly and frankly with them, and that's enormously different from other politicians."

PRAGUE -- The last time Bill Clinton visited the Czech capital, relief for a Big Mac attack would have been hundreds of miles away. Now it's just around the corner.The arrival of the Golden Arches is only one small sign of the shock wave of change that has shaken this city since the "Velvet Revolution" four years ago, and since Mr. Clinton visited here as a student 24 years ago.When the president touches down today for meetings with East European leaders, he will see a city that has transformed itself almost beyond recognition since the end of communism in the region in 1989.

No pain, no gain -- In a desperate bid for attention, little-known Czech figure skater Maya Sukova whacked her own knee with a tire iron and will miss the entire women's program.She has, however, signed a three-movie deal with the European division of Paramount, received a $500,000 advance on her autobiography and signed a lucrative promotional contract with Nike.Ike is out, too -- Success of retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf as CBS commentator in Lillehammer has network v-p of production Rick Gentile in a frenzy to sign Gen. George S. Patton for a similar role.

FRANK Zappa, the Baltimore-born musician who died last month of prostate cancer, was not just another guitar-wielding sociopath coughed up by the American rock scene. This point was reiterated most convincingly in the Dec. 20 New Yorker magazine by Czech president Vaclav Havel.In his brief piece, Mr. Havel recalls his impressions of Mr. Zappa -- "one of the gods of the Czech underground" during the 1970s and '80s -- upon meeting him a few years ago:"[Zappa] was the first rock celebrity I had ever met, and, to my great delight, he was a normal human being, with whom I could carry on a normal conversation.

Prague. -- Czechoslovakia, soon to become ex-Czechoslovakia, is the economic success among the ex-Communist countries. But this success distracts from the gravity of Czechs' and Slovaks' larger situation, and that of all the south-central and Balkan Europeans. It is the one good thing to be said about a bad scene, upon which the Western governments have turned their backs.The baroque beauty of Prague is shabby, but is being restored. It is for the moment the glamorous city of Eastern Europe, a place where young Americans in particular come, as they went to Paris in the 1920s, before another dark time began.

A lot of the Ravens' veterans are a little nervous these days. They have a new coach with a different style, and such distinguished players as quarterback Steve McNair and offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden have recently retired. The Ravens have capable replacements for McNair and some "project" players who might fill in for Ogden. And they just might have a hot-shot rookie kicker, Piotr Czech out of Wagner College, who could push veteran Matt Stover in training camp. Stover is probably not concerned.

...G...S...B...Tot. Germany...5...8...5...18 United States...3...7...6...16 Norway...7...5...0...12 Austria... 1...3...8...12 Russia...4...4...2...10 France...2...3...1...6 Canada... 2...0...3...5 Switzerland...3...0...1...4 Finland...2...1...1...4 Netherlands...2...2...0...4 Italy...2...1...1...4 Sweden...0...1...2...3 Spain...2...0...0...2 South Korea...1...1...0...2 Estonia... 1...0...1...2 Japan...0...1...1...2 Poland...0...1...1...2 Bulgaria...0...1...2...3 Croatia.

"The Widow Killer," by Pavel Kohout. New York: St. Martin's Press. 400 pages. $24.95. Every publisher claims that the serial-killer thriller they're about to release will detonate in the reader's mind the way Thomas Harris' "Silence of the Lambs" did, but there is no living writer who can duplicate the elegant, single-minded psychological surgery that Harris inflicts on his audience.And every publisher tries to pass off the latest hybrid of serial-killer and historical novel as a commercial juggernaut like Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" - not too scary, not too James Michener.

Columbia Pro Cantare, a 100-member chorus founded and directed by Frances Motyca Dawson, will give the American premiere of a jazz Mass by the Czech composer Karel Ruzicka this weekend.Dawson, who is of Czech extraction, has made the choir known for its repertory of Bohemian and Czech works, as well as pieces by Polish and Swedish composers.Over Pro Cantare's 20 years, it has performed pieces by more than 25 Slavic and Norse composers, ranging from familiar names such as Dvorak and Smetana to the lesser-known Jan Dismas Zelenka and Anton Reicha.

NAGANO, Japan -- It's not our game, not our country and not our problem, but how could Canadian men's ice hockey coach Marc Crawford fail to use Wayne Gretzky in an Olympic shootout?To the untrained American eye, it was like excluding Babe Ruth )) from a home run-hitting contest, benching Jim Brown in an NFL championship game, ordering Michael Jordan to pass in the NBA Finals.As Czech coach Slavomir Lener said, "Everyone is a general after the battle." Now, after Canada's shocking 2-1 defeat, Crawford must face an entire nation of Douglas MacArthurs.

PRAGUE -- For many, working in close quarters with a parent might sow little more than ulcers or insanity. For Czech director Jan Sverak, collaboration with his father has borne much sweeter fruit: two Academy Award nominations."

WASHINGTON -- Just after getting the much-awaited call from President Clinton one morning last month, Madeleine K. Albright phoned one of her best friends, the first friend she made, in fact, half a century ago as an 11-year-old Czech girl making a new home with her family in the United States."

PRAGUE -- With President Vaclav Havel convalescing from lung surgery that turned up a malignant tumor, Czechs are having to consider a future without the man who led them to democracy.They don't like what they see."There is no one to replace him, and nobody is even able to imagine anybody else," says Jiri Stransky, a friend of Havel's and head of the Czech chapter of PEN, the international authors' group."People know that he never was a liar, he never cheated them. He's always spoken quite openly and frankly with them, and that's enormously different from other politicians."

No pain, no gain -- In a desperate bid for attention, little-known Czech figure skater Maya Sukova whacked her own knee with a tire iron and will miss the entire women's program.She has, however, signed a three-movie deal with the European division of Paramount, received a $500,000 advance on her autobiography and signed a lucrative promotional contract with Nike.Ike is out, too -- Success of retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf as CBS commentator in Lillehammer has network v-p of production Rick Gentile in a frenzy to sign Gen. George S. Patton for a similar role.

PRAGUE -- The last time Bill Clinton visited the Czech capital, relief for a Big Mac attack would have been hundreds of miles away. Now it's just around the corner.The arrival of the Golden Arches is only one small sign of the shock wave of change that has shaken this city since the "Velvet Revolution" four years ago, and since Mr. Clinton visited here as a student 24 years ago.When the president touches down today for meetings with East European leaders, he will see a city that has transformed itself almost beyond recognition since the end of communism in the region in 1989.