The Importance of Stuff

   I like to think that I'm not materialistic.  I really try not to be. I hate pointless shopping and the status attached to being able to pointlessly shop.  But I do attach some importance to my stuff, quite a bit more than I realized before moving to Hungary.
  Come to think of it, stuff began haunting me shortly after moving from Bend to Portland. I had frequent   panicky dreams about having left a whole lotta stuff behind in the house we sold.  In the dream, I traveled back to Bend to salvage as much stuff as I could before the new owners returned to catch me.
I would wake up with the most delicious sense of having barely gotten away with something. Shortly after waking, I'd feel crestfallen that it had all been in my head. I wanted that stuff, especially the stuff I never really had.
  Moving from Bend to Portland was a good thing and not just because we minimized our stuff volume. And we really did not get rid of all of the stuff we could have and so, before we moved to Budapest, we had yet another huge yard sale, this time to dump even more of our stuff. This time we got rid of all but ten or so small boxes of stuff, books, mostly, and a few cherished keepsakes.
  My prized Calphalon cookware collection was gone as was the dishware Boone and I were given when we got married. The excellent knife collection.  Our furniture. My plants.  It was really hard to part with those plants.
  This stuff does not haunt my dreams.  This stuff haunts my reality.  I have very brief panic attacks about not having anything, ANYTHING to sleep on, to cook with, upon our immediate return to the States. The idea of replenishing these necessities is only half appealing. The memory of my stuff is heavy on my mind.
  The good thing about all of this is realizing just how little stuff we need to get by just fine, if not ecstatically. Our current cookware collection consists of one large, enameled, Russian made stock pot, a smaller enameled sauce pan, a stainless steel sauce pan and a decent, textured skillet.  The last two items we lifted from our last place in Csillaghegy.  The stock pot and the skillet share a single, wobbly glass lid with a broken handle. I splurged on a glass, rectangular baking pan and a bread pan at IKEA along with a whisk and a ladle.  We have two cooking knives...one crappy Romanian tool with a decent handle but shitty blade, and another with an unstable handle but more quality blade.  Our plates and utensils belong to our landlord. Cooking in our kitchen, with its elderly gas stove that has no heat control numbers whatsoever, has been described as being "like camping".
  Our flat is sparsely furnished. We have a few collectibles to take back and that's it.  You get the idea.  Not so much stuff.
  I do hope this spartan sensibility carries over, to some extent, upon out return.  A real bed will feel like a naughty luxury.  A desk will feel like a decadent indulgence.  Counterspace will get me high. I will shop intelligently and discriminatingly for new cookware and treasure each piece like it was made of gold. A blender will feel outrageous.
  I am making a promise to myself to appreciate less stuff. Less is more.

Here is George Carlin's classic bit about people and their stuff:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

For The Love of Public Art

         Cosmo, running down a trail between an abandoned tennis court and an adorned wall in Csillaghegy




Used to be that art was for the wealthy, those rich enough to commission talent.  Art was a singular kind of beautiful, defined by a small clutch of tastemakers, and cloistered within vast halls, on display for the price of admission.
 Don't get me wrong.  I love a great museum and generally think they are worth every bit of cash spent on the hour I can commit to, before I begin to get distracted and bored.
  Give me a museum over an art gallery any day.
Nowadays, seems anyone can call themselves an artist and I really think the creative world is better for it, even while some "artists" hardly deserve that particular moniker.
 Public art, for me, is just the thing.  It may be ephemeral,it may be downright tacky, it may possess an ugly/beauty, it may piss some people off, but it adds a certain something to any city or town, be it a gigantic, confusing, ill placed metal sculpture in the middle of a parkway (Bend, Oregon, you know what I mean) or a blast of vivid graffiti stretching across a low, crumbling wall.
  Public art makes me feel as if I'm walking through one of my own absurd fantasies.  It reminds me that life does not have to be dull and tedious.  It celebrates the ridiculous, praises the absurd, by turns glorifies or admonishes a community.
   Follow the link to see some gorgeous and thought-provoking photos of public art put up in abandoned spaces...one amazing piece is the abandoned space itself.  Budapest is the ideal canvas for this kind of art. http://weburbanist.com/2011/12/02/art-in-abandoned-places-14-inspiring-projects/
  

Prohasar Man opre pirende (Bury Me Standing)

Y'know, I don't think a person like me can write a blog about Hungary without mentioning, as I may have before, how comfortable too many Hungarians are with their racism.  The discrimination runs the spectrum from crass and blatant to civilized and reserved.
  The Roma occupy a despised,  oft spat upon ring of hell in the hearts of many non-Roma Hungarians.
  The extreme right wing, melodramatically nationalist political party, Jobbik, whose main platform rests on the vilification of the Hungarian Roma, posts ridiculously stereotypical and menacing photos of the Roma on their, um, enlightening web site when it's not posting pics of obese Roma children and toothless old women.
  The middle right, Fidesz, seems to basically feel the same way Jobbik does about the Roma, the difference being that Fidesz is more polite about their racism.  Brother's keeper and all of that.
  Sadly, apparently liberal Hungarians are no less disappointing. Still more polite than the center right wing folks, they nonetheless "did not want their kids hanging out with Roma friends".

  Leave it to the editors  Pesticide to calls it like they sees it.
http://www.pestiside.hu/20111206/hungarians-put-aside-differences-to-aid-romanian-children-hate-roma/

   Sadly, it gets even more cringeworthy.  I have played devil's advocate more than once and asked some of my tutoring students how they feel about the Roma.  The statement I have heard the most, verbatim, as if it was being read from a script, is "They live like animals."  When I ask what they mean by that they  answer with generalities like, "they don't like to work" or "they kill each other and live in terrible conditions". Since it is not my job to preach, I leave these answers alone and move on.  But I wonder if these kids consider the fact that the continued marginalization of the Roma may cause and exacerbate these conditions.
  The adults are not much better.  If they are not subtlely stoking the racism by avoiding real, honest discussions about the Roma they pay lip service to the idea of improving the lives of these Hungarians only to treat the Roma like naughty children, viewed as unintelligent and incapable of self sufficency. I've found it's best not to ask anyone about the Roma if you dont want to be profoundly, sickeningly disappointed.
  I've not had many experiences with the Roma...the one time I did was on the tradional "leave your trash out" day in my district.  A Roma family asked me, very politely, if I needed help getting rid of any unwanted stuff in my garage.  I tried to explain to them that I had nothing, that I moved here from the U.S. and that any stuff that I have is there.  They must have misunderstood me because they came back the next day, with an English speaker, to ask if I found anything I did not want .  I simply answered no, smiled, they smiled back, and were on their way.  I never felt in danger or that they would try to break into my house...I think it's safe to say most Hungarians would have been on high alert after such an exchange.
The following is the bulk of my direct knowledge about the Roma:

Yes, they keep to themselves.  Who wouldn't amid the palpable hatred?

They do seem, like many marginalized, impoverished groups, to resort to petty and/or organized crime.  I've never been impacted by it, except by the blatant prostitution that takes place below Nyugati trian station. But who makes up the market for this crime? The non-Roma, by far.

Speaking of the Nyugati basement, plenty of honest businesses are run down there, many by Roma proprietors.

A friend of mine was once hassled on a bus by a group of Romani men...they were teasing her, demanding her groceries.  She handled it with typical aplomb, planned an escape route and everything, only to watch these men leave the bus before she did.  The bus was full...certainly most of the other riders knew what was happening, but none of these saintly folks did anything to help her.

It is assumed that Romani children do not want to learn, although many educators beg to differ.  All children want to learn.

The Roma have been ruthlessly hassled by Jobbik and the Magyar Garda for no other reason that the assumption that "gypsy crime" is a humongous problem and needs to be monitored by a group of nasty, racist, "citizen" police.

The Roma suffered under Nazism more than any other group, second only to Jewish citizens.

The word "cigány" is the Hungarian word for "gypsy".  Both terms are deemed derogatory by the Roma themselves (although there may be a kind of "taking back" sentiment among the Roma as far as the term is concerned) and yet it is everywhere in Hungary...from "cigány limonadé" to "cigány wine".

I'm indulging in an on-going research project, about the Roma, of my own design.  My knowledge is below elementary so I'm on a quest to know more.  I will most likely be sharing my findings from time to time on this blog.
If you are interested, here are some links to check out, concerning the Roma, a people rejected by almost every nation on earth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13544903

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/16/roma-europe-pariah-people

http://peshasgypsyblog.blogspot.com/

http://hungarianwatch.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/neo-nazis-terrorize-roma-in-hungarian-village/

The Beanstalk from Another Angle

  I remember happening upon this film in the early eighties, flipping through the channels one Sunday afternoon when nothing but golf or infomercials were on.  To this day I'm not sure why I watched the thing from beginning to end...the weirdness alone must have mesmerized me. It truly made my lonely, wintry Sunday and I've been on the look out for it ever since.  Lo and behold, the interweb and all its magic brought this hilarious nightmare back to me.  This ain't yo mama's Jack And The Beanstalk.
  I do remember noticing how much the animation reminded me of my beloved Speed Racer.  Anime, as a genre, was not on my radar at the time, but after watching this film, the groundwork was laid for my future fandom.
  Throughout the whole movie a thread of menace winds it way.  The goofy doggy sidekick, the cute enchanted mice, nor the effervescent music can obscure that uncomfortable feeling.  Maybe it's the monstrous musician, who swaps the beans for Jack's cow, and his demonic organ music, or the way Jack's mother beats the hell out of him for selling the cow for those beans. I don't know...but things only get more uncomfortable after the beanstalk rockets into the sky, into the realm of a suspiciously spaced out princess and her cannibalistic captors. As for Jack, he frolics in and out of danger like a young, animated Buster Keaton sporting a killer mullet. His dog, Crosby, and the battalion of magical mice provide the moral fiber in this version of the classic tale.
  Some of my adult friends who have watched this version have said things like, "I find most fairytales to get creepier the older I get" and "There's almost too much to process." The soundtrack alone is fascinating but not easly digested.
  The whole movie is available on Youtube.  Watch it...you may wish you could but you won't be able to look away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnd3MFBink4&feature=share

I Speak of The Trees

    


  The trees of Hungary are the most expressive I've ever seen.  Black locust, sycamore, chesnut, beech, birch, and a great number of fruit trees (with the help of enthusiastic pollarding) grow eagerly and generously, sometimes into startlingly humanoid forms.  So many of these Hungarian trees look to be possessed with dryads, the moment of a spirit's birth frozen within the deep ridges of bark.

  I go to Margitsziget with Cosmo quite frequently and I've become acquainted with the "tree people" of the island which make it a treasured destination for the denizens of Budapest. Tourists visit frequently as well but they never seem quite as concentrated here as they do in other tourist hot spots (i.e. the Castle District).
  I love all of the trees on the island.  They all seem so eager to communicate with the humans, beckoning with delicately budding branches, foliage singing in the breezes rising from the river. This is the kind of talk that inspires Boone and Aidan to call me "fern-sniffer".

  But really, please.  The trees.  They are totally ent-like.  But one tree in particular is the star  performance artist among them. It's an elderly hedgeapple tree (Maclura pomifera), or bebiztosít almafa in magyar.  It seems to writhe in an agonizing dance of supplication but is, of course, completely still. A woody tableau of tortured surreal naturalism.

  This tree could have starred in a cameo in "Pan's Labyrinth" or any number of Tim Burton flicks. From a small distance it looks sculptural, not necessarily so animated, kind of invites you to climb all over it once you move in a bit closer.  It is awkwardly twisted but sturdy with roughly textured bark that looks (and presumably feels) like dinosaur skin. You might find yourself thinking of an ancient Hungarian nagypapa whose lap is a safe haven for his grandchildren.
  In that case, you might be fooled.  Up close, the old tree doesn't really look like the sanctuary it seems from afar. When I first came upon the tree, I kinda felt as if I had walked in on something that did not wish to be interrupted.  Some sort of creation drama was going on here. One that might be dangerous to witness.

  Creatures seem to be issuing forth from this tree, taking a glacier's age to complete the cycle.  Or maybe, as sometimes happens between the pupal and larval stages of development, the metamorphosis merely halted for reasons only mother nature can tell.
  But look...here's some baby dinosaurs struggling to break free from the base of the trunk.

   And here's an owl with a cute, cocked little head, watching the world pass by.

  I'm not sure what's happening on this part of the trunk.  A diabolical pair of conjoined twins, lying upon
the placenta from which they just emerged?

Or perhaps a multi-taloned spirit animal/totem phantom whom the Hungarian gods of old carved with wind and water?

  And here's the cudgel which guards this arrested development.  Whomping Willow?  Meh...

  Looks like someone tried to prune the old tree a bit too severely.  What became of the person who inflicted this wound? Looks painful...

    This tree's intrigue is not just bark deep. Parts of the trunk seem to be almost petrified...the exposed areas reveal satiny, sensual, tiger's eye patterns on the naked wood.  These parts tempt you to stroke them.  I, of course, obliged.  I swear I could hear the tree purrrrrrrrrr......

  I'll be seeing this tree again soon.  I'll go back, after the slick from this old hedgeapple's rotten fruits has been washed away by these early winter rains, to look and to listen to any more stories or secrets it wants to reveal and to stroke its silky wood.  I like to think this tree and I at least have an understanding, if not the beginnings of some sort of friendship.

Here They Come

Krampusz and Mikulás....golden switches or chocolates for you? x