Black Friday, Etc.

Stay home, I say, and watch this movie.  It's free! http://www.revbilly.com/chatter/blog/2011/21/a-buy-nothing-day-gift-what-would-jesus-buy

When Black Friday Comes

   When Black Friday comes, my pretties......

May you find yourself getting up early, not to make a mad dash to the nearest big box retailer, but only to shuffle sleepily to the fridge to fetch a leftover piece of pumpkin pie to accompany that nice, hot cup of coffee you just brewed for yourself.

May you ignore that wicked little voice which tells you you'd better get out there and shop because there are once a year deals to be had.  It's not true. http://money.bundle.com/article/5-top-myths-about-saving-money-black-friday Relax and enjoy your day off, away from the madness. (More Black Friday truths can be found here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-reasons-skip-black-friday-164603988.html
Pay particular attention the the part about "frenzied shopping".  I'm actually surprised this showed up on Yahoo's home page.



You know that word "savvy" you see in articles and advertisements, referring to you, the intrepid shopper?  It's flattery.  Ignore it. Stay home in your pajamas.

If you do venture out into the madness....remember that bright, shiny thingy looks much sexier and more useful in its store display than it will back at home, away from the fluorescent glare. Take cover in a coffee shop or better yet, go back home. Watch a movie.  You won't miss a thing.

May you lack the desire to be part of the embarrassing spectacle that is Black Friday shopping, an entirely commercially concocted American holiday of its own, a day which brings out the very worst primal behavior in people.  Seriously, we have to resort to these measures to go to the damn store?
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2010/11/black_friday_shoppers_continue.php
Folks die during this unbridled consumer madness. Shame.

Having dismissed the idea of joining the Black Friday folly, if you find yourself in front of your computer may you visit the following link, for fun and edutainment: http://www.revbilly.com

I'll leave you with a quote I found on Rev. Billy's website, coined by a German blogger named Luisa Franca. Remember the Bob Dylan tune "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding"..."he not busy being born is busy dying"?
  Luisa's twist, heavy with relevance, "she not busy being born is busy buying."
Stop Shopping. x

Dervish of Buda, Father of Roses

  After work this evening, I took the short, precipitous stroll up to Gül Baba's mausoleum.  The Turkish poet's tomb is Islam's northernmost pilgrimage site. He died here after a battle in 1541. Legend has it that he introduced roses to the city, although roses had grown in Hungary long before the Ottoman invasion. The hill on which the tomb rests is called Rozsádomb, or Rose Hill. The old man has quite a view of the city from up there!

Someone Else's Shoes

  

  I saw these shoes the other day, tucked neatly away inside the nook of a large building on Bálint Balassi utca.  Decent pair of kicks, even without the laces.  Who and why, I wondered.... x

Me, On The Edge of Creativity

  Something strange happened last night.  Strange but very cool.  I'm not sure how to proceed or even if I can. It was all in my head anyway.
  Yesterday evening, I was in our kitchen washing up some dishes after preparing the marinade for our fajitas.  Fajitas are one of our comfort foods, whose ingredients are easily procured from the ABC downstairs.  It was a comfort food night, cold and smoggy.
   I was at the kitchen sink, staring down into the bubbly dish water, when I began to feel slightly faint.  I tried to ignore it, thinking it would pass.  I'd been sick  so feeling kind of woozy has been my status of late.
  It got worse.  Quickly.  Soon my vision was blurry and my body began to feel icy and numb.  I felt as if I might vomit if I stood there any longer so I shuffled out of the kitchen, turning briefly to tell Aidan and Boone, "I feel sick".  I travelled through what felt like a nauseating worm hole to my bedroom, dark and warm, and plopped face first onto the bed, clumsily wrapping myself in the tangled duvets.  I'm not one to make my bed on a daily basis.
  Boone followed shortly to check on me, asked if I was okay, and I said I was, as long as I could just lay  there for a few minutes.
  As I lay there, the spins slowly easing and the nausea retreating, I began to have visions....yes, visions, but only inside my head.  They came without any effort, seemingly on their own, like an internal reel of clips.  There were faces, scenes, animals, all presented in different styles from animation to abstract expressionism.  I realized they were ideas...ideas for drawings, collages, photographs.  Coming from me.  But I had no way to hold onto them.  Nothing stuck.
  This visual process was backed up by the most intense aural hallucinations I've ever had.  Sometimes between wake and sleep, my brain cooks up melodies and harmonies, sometimes with vocals, which lull me sweetly into dream land.  These compositions almost always disappear upon waking and I'm never sure whether or not they are mixed up regurgitations of the music I listen to on a daily basis.
  The music I heard inside my head last night was all me. Like the visions, they seemed to come on their own.  They sounded original and seemed unreferenced. To me, they sounded beautiful.  I wanted to hold them down, rmember them.  But like the visions they were slippery and would not stick.
  Now, I swear I had not taken anything to induce this little mind trip, which sounds a whole lot like an acid flashback.  No cold meds, nothing, just a few sips of hot wine passed my lips last night.
  Whatever it was, I loved it.  I felt joy.  I rarely feel joy, I feel her fleeting past from time to time but rarely able to catch her by the tail.
  I stayed in my cocoon of duvets for a half hour, perhaps, I couldn't tell because the dimension of time wasn't discernable to me then. I was lost in this wonderland of creative bliss.
  When I finally arose, heading back into the kitchen to complete my tasks and eat my fajita, (Boone had popped the marinating chicken into the oven) my body was shaking but my mind was as clear as crystal.  I was also ravenous.  I made short work of my fajita, declaring happily, "I will never get tired of these."
  I realize that this experience is probably nothing that unusual.  Who knows what we as individuals go through on a daily basis, unshared, unspoken.  But I really felt like this was a message from my higher self (who seems to have been on a decades long retreat) to my conscious self. Look what you can do.  See what you could have done. Enjoy a glimpse of could have been, what might still be. Do it.  That part of the experience is still not quite evident.  All I know is that I came out of this episode curious, content, and incredibly hungry.
  

Breakables, etc

  I've been pretty good with money since landing in Budapest.  I've been forced to be so....iffy pay schedules and "feast or famine" tutoring scenarios kind of made it so.
  I have managed to acquire a few precious items in the past year, things that will be beautiful functional  reminders of our time in Europe.  Wanna see?

  This little collection represents three countries.  The red plate is from the Czech Republic, and at eight euro, a screamin' deal.  The blue plate is from the Tihany Peninsula, Lake Balaton, Hungary.  That blue is so deep, so vibrant, so marine, a person might be tempted to dive right into it. I love the whimsical horse design on it as well. The small floral dish is a gift from Debra, who purchased it in Paris.  My own little piece of the City of Lights.

  This plate is from a gift shop which sits beneath the shadow of the mighty, Hunyadivár, that vast and brooding fortress in Hunedoara, Romania. The "tree of life" motif is widespread in the former "greater Hungary".  Pre-Christian Magyars believed this tree held up the sky, kept it from falling to earth.

  This goofy little group warms my heart. I had been lusting after this cat clock since moving over to Pest.  Each time I'd stroll down the körút this past summer, I'd eyeball this kitty, confident that I was the only one who wanted him.  Other clocks from his storefront display window appeared and disappeared, but the cartoon cat stayed.  It was meant to be....since I stated quite bluntly to the boyz that all I wanted for my birthday was that clock.  I think the fact that I miss Zissou so intensely kind of inflamed my desire for this clock.  Well, the dear boyz heard me, bless their hearts, they heard me, and now he sits safely on a shelf with his pals marzipan Krampusz and the darling little stone turtle that Dean sent to me, his head snapped from his body in transit.  Where's the damn superglue, anyway? x

Exquisite Truth Comes to The 4/6 Villamos

                                                            
                                                         4/6 tram, on its way around the ring road


  From a Facebook post from Dan Schwartz,  owner of the wonderful Treehugger Dan's Used Book Shops here in Budapest:

On the 4-6 tram last night 2 Hungarian school girls were trying to practice their French with each other and not getting very far - their vocabulary consisting mostly of snippets from pop songs. In steps a homeless man who starts chatting to them and correcting them in French, and then another young guy joins the conversation...


  This snippet from the day in a life says so much, not only about Budapest or Hungary, but also about the state of the world at large.  School girls, the possibility of a bright future ahead, learning French from pop songs. Educated homeless man, down on his luck, but up on his French. Young boy, also apparently fluent.


  I guess the truth is that you never can tell.  The old cliche of books and covers comes into play.  Humanity is much too comfortable with our lazy assumptions and this is so important to remember these days as jobs around the world are scarce. All of that fancy education may mean nothing, may get you nowhere, and you may find yourself on public transportation, listening to some whippersnapper reciting shallow pop songs in flippant French.


  The 4/6 tram is a constantly revolving stage of live theater.  I should listen more.  I'm usually hyper-focused when I'm on the tram (almost everyday), since that is how I handle being in among the crowd.