Az Ezüst Hold (The Silver Moon)

The moon looks lovely tonight.  Framed by pearlescent clouds, it's almost oval shaped right now, giving  its face an odd perspective (waxing gibbous) I love these gigantic windows that I can gaze out of late at night. The same old view somehow looks different each time.
  So that's one thing I will miss after I leave Budapest.
  I wish I could post a decent pic...guess you'll just have to take my word for it.
  Enjoy the moon!

Kasza Attila József Születésnapja / Attila József's Birthday

                                                                             Attila József, by Dési Huber István


  Today is Poetry Day in Hungary, which rightly falls on the birthday of the country's embittered bard, Attila József.  The hardbitten realism of his free verse has a tragic beauty that few other poets of any nationality could hope to duplicate. The following is one of my favorite of his poems.

                                                                   SPRING MUD

                                                       A cloud bursts on the street,
                                                       the square and the field
                                                       The canal roars, a ditch overflows
                                                       Plaster peels from old houses.
                                                       The rain is pure, holy liquid
                                                       trickling down the legs of horses.
                                                       Water and mud on the rooftops.
                                                       Holy water and mud.

                                                       The whole earth is soft, warm mud.
                                                       The heavens, the horses, the houses,
                                                       are all soft, warm mud.
                                                       Children stand in the windows
                                                       watching the rain, listening to it drop.
                                                       Their hearts, too, are soft, warm mud.

                                                       The peace of seeds has moved
                                                       into the hearts of houses, horses.
                                                       Into the hearts of men. To descend
                                                       where we are all lovers in the end.
                                                       We are all soft, warm mud
                                                       In this bond of dust and holy rain.

                                                       Let it rain forever like this.
                                                       Drop by drop. Kiss after kiss.
                                      
                                    

Budapest Sorbet

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this beautiful video. Once upon a time in Budapest, it was winter and reaaaallly cold. x

http://vimeo.com/38817937

Lajos Csabai Ekés, Painter and Designer

  There is a multitude of treasures on display within the Great Synagogue of Budapest. Silver, bronze, bejeweled objects, beautifully detailed menorahs, delicate Torahs, all lovingly displayed....not to mention the synagogue itself which is among the most beautiful buildings in all of Europe.

  The museum inside the synagogue is small and unassuming. It would be easy to enter, spend half an hour enjoying the ornate religious objects wrought from metal, wood, and stone, and leave with a head full of bright and shiny memories. Good enough? No, absolutely not.

  It's worth the time and minimal effort to climb that last flight of stairs in the museum. For modern art lovers, the real treasure awaits. A small collection of cubist/expressionist works is on display up there, the art of one Lajos Csabai Ekés. 

  I did my best googling to find out more about this artist and found no biographies available. Csabai was born in Budapest in 1898 and was a well known movie poster artist. He died in 1944 in the city of his birth, beaten to death by Hungarian Nazis, known for despising and demonizing the best and brightest of Hungarian Jews. His legacy is a body of emotional and colorful work. Cut down before his time, the art he left behind continues to bring joy to the hearts and minds of art lovers world wide. Rest in peace, Csabai, and thank you so much.

                                                                                                self portrait

15 Március

   

                                                                                 pro Fidesz rally at Országház


     "I wouldn't be surprised if something bad happens on March 15," stated Magdi, one of Boone's colleagues, with more than a hint of grim Hungarian resignation.
  After hearing that, and knowing how delicate the political situation is here in Hungary, I rushed to get my family registered with the U.S. embassy, just in case. No, we did not do that upon our initial arrival in Hungary. Yes, I know, we are terrible procrastinators.
  As I said, and in case you haven't heard, we are living in Budapest as Hungary itself languishes at a crossroads, politically and economically, asking itself, do we want to be part of the European Union? Can we identify as Hungarian and European at the same time? Do  we need or want financial assistance from the Union and the IMF? If we disagree with the status quo in our country, what can we do about it, how do we make our voices heard?
  March 15 is a national holiday that belongs to every Hungarian. Its commemoration is particularly relevant of late. March 15 marks the day when, in 1848, the Hungarians sought independence from the Habsburg monarchy, seeking democracy, fair tax burden, and basic civil rights. Like most revolutions, the reasons for and beginnings of this one were complicated and the oppressor was all powerful.
  Many Hungarians today most likely see too many uncomfortable similarities between the causes of the 1848 revolution and what is taking place under the government of Orbán Viktor today.
  Given the Hungarian tendency to speak one's mind openly and honestly, combined with the history of revolution in the country (among numerous other things), Magdi's observation did not seem so outrageous. The radical right wing party Jobbik and its faithful have been known to cause a kerfuffle or two in the countryside, terrifying the Roma population with its nationalistic bravado. There had been a few demonstrations already this year and last, mainly against Fidesz and its flagrant use of the 2/3 majority it enjoys in Parliament as a way of securing its ideology and intentions for this country. This has been all over the international news so I will spare you my own overview which, interpreted via my American prespective, would not, I fear, be free of my own personal, political convictions. My views do have a way of sneaking into my writing, nonetheless. Surely a government which is quick to gerrymander voting districts in its favor, hastily rewrite the constitition, and silence radio stations known to be critical of the regime,  all in the name of erasing any trace of communism, would be troublesome to any believer in democracy, Hungarian or not.
  This year, March 15 was a gorgeous day, sunny, warm, cheerful. The Nicholsons were not going to stay inside. So, while Aidan and his good pal Mercede wandered around Buda and Pest, Boone and I headed down to Parliament, on our way to the Erzsébet bridge. Országház served as setting for a pro-Fidesz demonstration. Armed with our passports and loads of curiosity, we set out.

                                                                            televised speaker at pro-Fidesz rally

  

  I think it is only fair to mention that the organizers of the pro-Fidesz "peace" rally are not peaceful folks at all. Zsolt Bayer, out and proud anti-Semite and friend of Orbán, has been quoted as spewing hateful gems such as, "Anyone who runs over a Gypsy child in this country, would be best not think of stopping. If you run over a Gypsy, just step on the gas pedal." and "...the mere existence of Jewish journalists in Budapest is grounds enough for our anti-Semitism." Fellow Orbán associate, András Bencsik, has said equally offensive, anti-Semitic things and is a huge fan of the Russian autocrat, Vladimir Putin.   Read more about the organizers of this rally online at Hungarian Spectrum, March 17, 2012 http://esbalogh.typepad.com/. 

  And yet the rally was peaceful. The crowd was dense and multitudinous. From the many giant speakers we heard the echo of speeches in proud and determined Hungarian, the words "szabadság" (freedom) "magyarország" (Hungary) and "kommunista"(self-explanatory) most prominent (and certainly ironic) to our non-fluent ears.    Boone and I waded through, overcoming the slight claustrophobia that goes with being part of a crowd that seems to have no end. We escaped through the arches of the Museum of Ethnography, relieved that we were no longer part of the crowd.

                                                               conspiracy theories alive and well at the Fidesz rally

  Our next stop was the counter demonstration, near the Pest side of the Erzsébet bridge, organized by Milla (short for the organization One Million for the Freedom of Press in Hungary).  A proactive Fidesz did its best to prevent this rally by booking all possible demonstration sites prior to March 15. Milla succeeded in the end and the crowd on the bridge, as well as the one spilling into Ferenciek Tere,  was teeming and abuzz. The local greens (LMP) were out gathering signatures for their employment initiative , a young rep from the Roma NGO (non-governmental organization) gave a speech, as did teacher's representatives and even folks from the local LGBT community. Of course, not many events this big, with so many different NGOs, play out without a few snags. You can read about the squabbles among the NGOs here http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2012/3/15/165747/522. 

a clumsy but humorous anti-Orbán sign, referring to the visiting conservative Polish politicians, in Budapest to support Fidesz

                                                                       the Milla crowd, looking down Rákóczi ut

                                                      local rastas were ready to celebrate the 15th with some riddim

                          this sign reads something like, "Has Viktor seen a doctor already?" I could be very wrong.....

                                                                                               peaceful punk

    Predictably, Jobbik used March 15 for its own ends, gathering a smallish crowd of perhaps 1000 to shout about the evils of the EU, the Jews, liberals, homosexuals, and Roma. Speakers fired up their crowd with its nationalistic platitudes. On this day, the police, clad in riot gear,  wisely cordoned off the Jobbik crowd, ready for things to take an ugly turn. Thankfully, there was no violence, only violence in words, as the right-wing crowd shouted, "dirty Jews" to the bigger crowd,  who responded with "Nazi! Nazi!"  I felt proud of the Milla demonstrators for shouting down the racist rantings, especially one young woman who, red-faced and voice hoarse, kept responding on her own to everything the Jobbik speaker said. 

                                            cops mobilizing as the crowds exchange epithets...the banner says "No EU"

                                                    Jobbik shouting their nasty ideology, surrounded by riot police

    The crowd at the Milla demo seemed bigger to me, but I admit my perception could have been wishful thinking. This rally was indeed more diverse, more loose, easier to navigate then the tight Fidesz rally.  Hungry, tired, and wanting to meet up with Aidan and Mercede, we hopped the metro back home, both of us really glad we attended both rallies, happy that nothing physically violent had taken place.

  As I said, this holiday is a day for all Hungarians, regardless of their political leanings, and they each interpret the actions in 1848 accordingly.  Everyone wore their Hungarian cockades, nobody held a monopoly in their love for their country. The poets of 1848 would have been amazed to see this...and I wonder how the likes of Petőfi Sándor or Arany János, who expressed sympathy and solidarity with Hungarian Jews would have felt about Jobbik's ravings. I can't help but think these heroes of 1848 would have recoiled at the thought of their tribulations being co-opted by such a regressive and hateful group.

                                                                          view from Rákóczi ut toward the bridge

Apologies (Elnézését kérjük)

to the very few people who read my blog....I apologize for the sloppy appearance of the blog itself. The captions under the photos are not centered properly after I've posted the drafts to the blog. They are, however, centered in the draft, so I do not know what the fuck I am doing wrong. I intend to spend some time on the layout, try to figure out what is going on. I also want to apologize for my tendency to edit my posts only after I've posted them to the blog. I find all kinds of spelling, grammatical mistakes, awkward sentences. I'll work on that too.  

Lomtalanítás

                                                  browse at your convenience (own risk? peril?)

    I knew it was coming, I looked forward to it. Suddenly, it was here. Then it was gone.

  I should have known...that cluster of large, stubbly headed men, each chain-smoking Bond  ciggies, lingering on the corner of  Kádár  and Visegrádi utcas last Friday morning, acting as sentinels for an old Econoline van which was bursting at the rivets with broken furniture, clothing, boxes of all kinds...that was a hint.

  They were staking their ground. Quite successfully too. No one else claimed that corner.

 Later that day, I knew. As I ran down the last flight of stairs with Cosmo for our afternoon walk, I saw the big, metal, front doors to our building were held wide open by an upended box spring on one side and a heavy dresser on the other. A warm, early, spring breeze swept in, like a tease. Behind us on the stairs, men were hauling boxes from someone's apartment, destined for the curb outside.

  Aha. Lomtalanítás had come to the thirteenth district. 

    Lomtalanítás is kind of like a district wide seasonal house purging/sidewalk sale, which begins in March and lasts until October, district  by district. People are notified with a paper announcement, stuffed into letter boxes. So much paper gets stuffed into our letter box that we generally recycle most of it, without even looking, so this year,  Lomtalanítás came as a surprise. By Friday evening piles began to appear, piles of everything from half used bottles of detergent to dissasembled furniture to sheets of really old and very brittle wall paper. Headless dolls. Filthy rugs. I saw a confounding number of lucite cubes,  each about the size of a small aquarium, all lidless. Nothing is arranged attractively for passersby, it's all just dumped out there. It's a bounty, but it ain't free, make no mistake or you risk a scolding. There's always someone sitting close by, waiting to accept forint. But not until Saturday.  Friday evening is for browsing, eye-balling. I saw an unloved and unwatered houseplant that I was determined  to save. Friday night, the owners of the junk slept outside, in window recesses or in their cars, to make sure nobody made off with anything. 

  Saturday morning, and the piles had grown smaller by ten o'clock. DIYers had come by with their trucks and snatched up all of the crushed vanity tables and slats of moulding, others were sitting with their newly acquired purchases, waiting for friends with vehicles to haul the booty. The potted palm I wanted was gone by the time I made it outside. At that point, I was on my way to Lehel tér when I spotted something I would not have minded forking over a few hundred forint for...

                                     guess they finally decided they were completely over ol' V. I. Lenin. 

  Alas, the portrait had been claimed upon my return from the market. It may have served as someone's heating fuel later that evening, who knows.

  Last year, in Csillahegy, Lomtalanítás came upon us unawares. Suddenly, in our neighborhood and in the apartment blocks across the road, the piles appeared, and after them, several Roma families, who picked through the debris, left a representative to watch over the loot, then returned with trucks to haul it away. One woman sat on a new- to- her, black and red vinyl foot rest, all day long. She had to have that foot rest. She made sure that no one one else would, with her determined posture and stony expression.

  On one of our daily excursions through the blocks, we saw a few unattended piles, containing only what absolutely no one else wanted. I found a couple of left over treasures, snatched them just for the novelty.

      an old Christmas record, so brittle, the album broke into shards on our move to Pest. I still have the cover though!

  

     an old Russian record, which survived the move to Pest. says "made in the USSR" in English, lower right side

       The piles in the blocks were left to diminish on their own, some items dissolving into mud, some blown away by the winds. It took a good week for things to vanish completely. I suspect the waste management services were not dispatched for monetary reasons...perhaps the attitude the city took was  that the blocks do not need to look tidy, so let the piles of trash minimize on their own, with time. Not so here in the thriteenth district. By the time Saturday night arrived, most of the piles were gone. A few weather beaten bags had been gone through and thrown into the street or in the middle of the sidewalk. By Sunday, there was no indication that any sort of commerce took place down on the streets at all. Not even a single item was left. The only piles littering the streets of Újlipótváros after Lomtalanítás 2012 are those of dog shit, always in constant supply, happily deposited by the numerous canines of district thirteen.