Reflections, musings, all indirect.
The shadows of timidity set.
Eyes bound to embrace if by chance
And then in blush turn once more back.
To shaded Eyes, the hidden glance,
The brushing back – displaying risk.
Another eye to eye embrace
Till two souls set save embarrassment.
A nail pick and a fumble still
The night resides in circumstance.
Ill-comfort or the lack of breath…
One’s terrified by the sombre poet.
Hope, yet eternal, Springs then falls
It is the chill of winter Afterall.
And so the fleeting glance- perchance-
Is nothing but the final failed romance.
And yet in words as these, such coined,
There is a lurch towards new Hope!
The night before my birthday, my fortieth, and I hit Tina Turner’s…it used to be called Anya’s but that half-Greek fantasy set sail down towards the ninth district, somewhere around Mester utca, a long time ago. The soap I bought, a dried up reminder of a notion I once had.
The whole place is infested with memory and even my darkest hour, not worth mentioning, being part of the fabric of this place provokes a Dichotomy, an idea of improvement based upon a previous moral digression, thoroughly equated therefore by its having occurred within the confines of this place.
It was always an awkward place, often ruled by boredom, fatigue, drunkeness, and paranoia. It, however, served well as a last resort. It never closes, you see,”… and that has made all the difference…”
I sometimes long for this place in the blur that is pre- fatherhood memory, but in truth, a moment like this, actually living the memories, is the closest anybody can get to all things past. Sometimes it’s worth coming back for the trip – the reality of what was left behind, suitably soft, a drawing smudged to suit a tolerable indifference.
The corner in one of the upstairs booths, was my workbench of occasion, though never to the extent of B City and the Soproni place, now Cheerio – then nameless (at least to me), and yet Tina’s, ahem…Anya’s (like the stalwart calling Snickers Marathon), provided some of the material for my future. Here dreams were shattered, rebuilt, born yet before, and after. Time bent here… as these words may take me back, they may in time propel me forward, or at least be read again in a time not yet recorded. For now I just create them in the hope that someone, maybe even me, can read them in a future!
If you mention Móricz Zsigmond körtér it often evokes a feeling of nostalgia, and this for a place I have but a recent memory of. I’ve thought and taught here and drunk but a bit and yet I feel it’s somewhere I’ve been before, a place of greater memories, even if it isn’t.
There is a certain atmosphere in the area what with the tram rushing through as well as the 6 and 61 finishing up here. The schools, bookshops, fastfood places, all a step off make it a vibrant hub and now with development of the Metro 4 complete this area has come into its own. It owns the night scene Buda side, even if Lövõház is challenging to the north, and with the restaurants, bars, and general nuisances fanning out in all directions from the square, it’s certainly a pin to put in your google, or mental, map. Bartók Béla út, which dissects the square, is the main source of attraction and distraction with Szatyor, Nevada Pub*, Moha*, to name but a few offering up in terms of not only food and drink but other forms of spiritual nourishment. Nevada with its Cowboyish Wild West look, swinging doors to boot, has live music from the middle of the stairs on your way up: a live set-up in such a confined space?…interesting! (Sometimes a DJ may take over.) Booking a table is almost a prerequisite especially if you’re a group, or come looking for the perfect seat. The winter sees activities contained indoors while the sun shine draws forth a smattering of chairs making it a perfect beer and leer environment, even if your lungs and ears have to compete with the slight inconvenience of pollution from the ever busy Bártok Béla út…
Szatyor across the street has a sprawling ground floor with tables all ariot, while upstairs the seating is shared with a space for performances, exhibitions, and all the rest. As with Nevada it can get tricky to find seating around the weekend so be warned.
Whereas Nevada is a pub with grub on offer, Szatyor is a cafe with its own culinary aspirations. An offer of garlic soup followed by a Lángos was one of the lunchtime treats when I was visiting , and I tried it (poor students that afternoon), so while many may judge that as its downfall, it was most certainly for me its selling point. Like Nevada service in Szatyor never breeches the barrier between polite and friendly with smiles being somewhat a rare commodity.Maybe it’s the pressure, maybe it’s me, but especially in Szatyor’s case it seemed to be a little off-putting.
Another place worth mentioning is Moha which can be found farther down the street towards Gellért tér, and which is also inclined to entertainment beyond the food and drink on offer. As a place for breakfast it works, with ham and eggs amongst the choices, and there is an atmosphere which suggests something greater bubbling just beneath the surface. The grand piano in the corner may have something to do with it; my interest peaked. Of all the places I’ve mentioned it is the one place which I have not had the chance to sample evening time, so as to what to expect I can only fictionalise. A sign indicating a movie theatre hidden somewhere out of the morning’s grasp leads me to conclude that this place is aspiring to something bigger. As to whether it will achieve this, well, that remains to be seen, or will perhaps remain forever relative, because afterall, what is success? How can it be…blah blah blah.
That there are plenty more places to choose from goes without saying but to a man who has now got two children and too little time, such voyages of exploration are somewhat staggered, at least in comparison with what has gone before. These days memory must serve in place of accuracy, perhaps, and so I leave you to ponder and, if you wish, to contradict my words, for afterall, and in the end, there is no right nor wrong, just subjective truths:)
Bike themed and youthful the problem with this place is that it doesn’t take itself seriously enough as a business. My entering was greeted by surprise and my order was misheard.
Maybe I’m In a mood and maybe it is functional in a way that would usually serve but today that’s not enough.
After sitting stewing I decided to repeat my request and sure enough the girl had been allowing me the pick of the ziros kenyérs. I shot before asking questions: a trait I hate in others and which I’ve indulged myself just now to hypocritical proportions.
Now hunger tantrums aside let me take another look around. It is a basic spot complete with broken toilet (ladies) at the moment but with booth style seats it surely can be of use. Still in a district with so many alternatives being caught downstairs in the gloom at lunchtime is low on the list. Come nighttime, come difference perhaps but for now best take my word for it, unless like me your curiosity is greater than some random stranger’s opinion.
“Texas and whiskey… funerals”
How are you? How’s tricks? How’s the family, or not? How now brown cow! Any news? Well, apart from the usual nonsense…
[Blah blah blah]
Anyway, as for the teaching regulations I seem to have avoided their web for another while and am still in the white as far as invoicing goes but it’s becoming more and more difficult. If the companies are spooked then rather than jump through the legal hoops they’ll just jump ship. As far back as 2011 there was a change in the law which meant that companies to whom I issued invoices had to cover my health insurance payments. A funny thing about it was that in some cases this seemed not to be true, while others, believing the initial rumours, wanted instead to pay me in black. Two years on the companies that stayed with me have had no trouble so whatever shadow had passed over in those dark ’11s had dissipated…only to loom much larger as of Sept 1st this year…when, indeed, the law stated much more specifically that people of my disposition, the idiots-for-honesty, were most definitely dis-entitled to issue invoices with the trademark “nyelvoktatás” code. Instead in a frantic scramble for legitimacy another existing code was sought out and came in the guise of “egyéb oktatás”. That there is a clear distinction between the two is obvious in the way of spelling, and may even be supported semantically, but to say that what I actually do has gone from being “language” teaching to “other” rings of something sinister. I see myself in a coutroom some time down the line pleading innocence in the light of allegations of some newly contrived perversion as distinguished by an ever-enlightening-ruling-elite (the word government ringing too much of communist ideologies by that time). That my case will hinge on the ominous term “other education” will certainly be my downfall and as I am dragged away by my oppressors I will rage loudly and invoke the honest Hungarians now resident in Slovakia (and other Trianon treated regions) who at once in a darker past woke one morning to find themselves strangers in a strange land, and note that in my own demise I may take heart that I am not alone. A man made criminal, a man made foreigner, in my case to the profession that I once purported to be be qualified to do.
Like a particularly malignant infestation these Nemzeti Dohányboltak have cropped up everywhere in the last few weeks. No longer Mindjárt lesz they are here Most. Like scurrying cock-a-roaches they have found there way into every abominable cesspit and seedy enclave in the city as well as discreetly off the radar in more frequented areas. They seem to have lent squalor to every corner with their dark foreboding exteriors. Chocolate brown, though some folk have suggested elsewise brown on the colour chart, their prohibitive 18 s sign has led in some cases to tourists avoiding, or entering, them taking them for sex shops. The national colours seem misplaced in such illustrious company!
First, why the sense of clandestine usually held for the dildo dealing outlets or casinos or other establishments of such character? Maybe, as has been suggested, it’s because the shady sorts are indeed involved. Whatever the spin you believe, as with the games machine debacle, vested interests have been served. Welcome IN Hungary? Naw, welcome TO the world is all!
I dedicate this to Rebecca, Zolsi, Sziki, and last but not least, Vivien. Who are they you may be asking: my friends, my past lovers, my colleagues, my acquaintances; My children!?
None of these things but special nonetheless. Here in my heart a place is kept just for them.
Let me tell you about Rebecca: she held my destiny in the Palm of her hands. Clear and sharp she set it and I embraced it. Zolsi offered a taste of the sweet, and I left cherry picking indulged in the nectare of a fruitful intervention.
Sziki’s cold gaze dissipated in a Brusselian whiteout, I was now most truly and fully immersed in the dolce vita. Even statues offered their own sense of relief.
Oft times the self proclaimed Cap’n, I was met upon the high seas by Vivien, daring me to engage. Not to be left floundering I set sail for the oceans of the mind and I’m still not sure when I’ll, if ever, return.
A mention I feel is necessary for Gyuri but I have no clue why. Did we meet in the shadows of my memory? And then there’s a place, not a person: the Liget Kocsma. Maybe Gyuri is the mad grinning stranger purveying such on the foamy side of life.
Now before you think that was that there was a moment when Gianni stood in horror, or intrigued, I can never tell, and was set on the path to perfect pizza. Sounds like the beginning of a good joke. An Irishman goes into an Italian pizzeria…
…and add the fact that I was coming from the Belgian beer festival and all would seem sensible, at least in some vein.
Year 3 of an eternal programme to get things to perfection in all ways cider-ly. First 2 years had the highlights and the low-lights, the last batch actually gassy and sweet on opening, while the previous year’s sour torment was over-ridden by the fact that there certainly was an effect, even if this was just a fast track to poisoning. Later harvesting versus earlier harvesting is also in debate this year with 3 specific time periods pencilled in. Today, 12/8/12, being the first of these with the windfalls all to choose from. The next harvest will also be windfalls and…while the last should be tree picked. Either way this year will see the introduction of the red apples from the garden too. Sweeter to taste let’s see how that translate into brewing and end product. Fingers crossed.
The bus that takes me over the hill from Paseréti to Kolossy tér is a tale of two cities within the confines of an even older one, Buda.
What I mean by this is, well, this! Over my side, where I jump the bus there lies the relatively sleepy suburb, albeit Hűvösvölgyi út which is an artery bleeding both ways. A few feet off, however, and one can capture the comparative solitude whether passing low beyond the tram tracks or high beyond the 129 bus’s last port of call this side of town.
On the other side, the yang to this ying, is the positively busy hub around Kolossy with many’s the bus passing through either up Szépvölgyi út or along below on Lajos utca. The tram, No. 17, also dissects the area and with the road, and pavement, works ongoing in this sweltering August, the place truly is a hive of activity.
But let me tell you about Disneyland, or Noddy Town, or whatever it was my student coined in reference to Kolossy tér. It is a place with facilities, provisions to both commerce and fun, and together where applicable. However, it has never quite captured my undying interest. Given the choice of Anya’s, later Tina Turner’s, bar on Podmaniczky utca in the 6th district, Pest, or any of the places here, whether dives or fancy, I’d have leaned towards the former. It was all about the atmosphere, and this Buda haven lacked of all this.
That said, today in my leisure I walked over from Pacsirtamező utca, through the Timár utca stop, itself Flórián tér directed – I, however, about facing going the opposite way and as I strolled along Lajos, the pretty girls from the Szolarium out smoking, the old women dragging trolleys laden from the market, I began to notice the söröző-s this side, not the Bécsi út side, of the Kolossy complex. Perhaps the casino and the Leroy always put me off there, but here, suddenly I found myself pondering a drink, the tables outside a definite lure. I didn’t stop this time. I passed them on. I’d made up my mind to go home quickly to my little flowers, but the seed had planted itself – for another day.
Passing Café 5 on the corner of Szépvölgyi and Bécsi I glanced at an alluring menu: 990 huf for a 2 course meal and thought, definitely another day.
Bouncing back over the hill now and on up to the Bölöni György stop on the 29 I’m beginning to notice a growing importance to this once tedious transport line.
There is a house in New Orleans, there may even be a hotel in California, but if there is any sense to be made of any of this try NAV, post-APEH, Budapest.
When I first tempted the threshold I turned and fled and if only I had listened to these base first instincts, and stayed the hell away, but as the man said, there are only two certainties in life, Death and Taxes, and here I am fighting the mortal battle while playing to my idiocies as a semi-honest man. On one of the hottest days on offer, topping 40c, I find myself in the foyer (!) of the Kertesz utca NAV office, the shade is welcome even if the air-conditioning comes in the way of the coolness exuding from the security man’s tub of ice-cream.
Ticket to hand and my number called I go delving into the mystery finding within a beast of a machine set in the middle of the room freshening up the interior. If this is hell, well, apart from the seeming shabbiness, it isn’t at all bad but I’m aware of the old adage – don’t judge a book by its cover – but as with previous experiences my temptation to explode into a rage is mostly down to my lack of understanding ( so that’s why there are so many conflicts in the world!). Again the lady borders on the edge of Job, patience tested by my continual expressions of “Nem ertem”. Now where people criticise the office staff at any tax branch anywhere in the world I have to come to their defence and say – listen it’s a bullshit job working for bullshit consecutively corrupt governments, and having to deal with people’s discontent day to day. Noone wants to pay taxes, not even administrators I imagine, but it is not their fault that the system has the average Joe running ragged. They are not the financial consultants, policy drafters, the experts credited with calamity. They have been duly employed to offer the buffer between the people and the shit (as are politicians but more on that later) and if shit floats then we, the hapless taxpayers, are face down in the deep-end with the same civil servants stepping on our backs to climb up. The problem is, they, too, are caught in the chaos and are being swept away on the whim of the bastards floating on top, who seer in the light while their putrid stink rises. In the sewers the rats don’t bother to dress smartly. On the oceans of power the stink of corruption is a badge of honour and up there nobody needs to hide who they really are. It’s just us, the drowners, who feel compelled to play with masks while casting accusations. “Oh they’re corrupt!” we scream but on the filter of leagues this merely bubbles to the top as another unanswered request. To them who reside there this is redundantly pretty. They are not fishermen, not interested in the depths and so we may pilfer our happiness for the remnants of hope, ordering this energy into another ream of hot-air-rising.
Redundantly pretty. That’s all. And just in case you thought it could change – remember we all stink up there so take heed and grow gills. Stop trying to support them with the banality of our existence.
On that note let’s remove ourselves to election time, and those moments when the bigger fishes* drop low to ‘dirty’ their filthy hands with the propostioning of the electorate. I say fishes here because they are not the boatsmen, merely the bait, ironically. They have only the capacity to aspire. Up where they are it’s brighter and closer to the stink…
What says you? Cast in the darkness with justice abounding or on a cruise conscious of the depths of depravity beneath? Trick question! If you’re up there you’re not thinking down here. But let me realign…
Come election time, come the chance not to change and revolt; toppling, sinking and rising on the crest of a new wave – this at best is just the inversion of power. The only true revolution allows for the acceleration of decadence and the collapse into the depths of everything. Only from the ground can we build a foundation and this is the flaw of everything. If you truly despise the system destroy everything it ever represented, represents, and will have the potential to represent. To allow tit-bits to favour you is to allow the germination once again of the festering seed, or rather to kill the daffodil but leave the bulb. And please, I don’t want to hear the “but that’s such a pretty flower”. If you’ve missed the analogy drink cyanide – one less dope when all comes to pass. In the real revolution the pretty, the ugly, the insane, the destitute, the intelligent, criminals, addicts, fools, the best, the worst, shall all be considered first as this – equal! And from that premise we must then move forward rationally towards a better society. Nothing is for the betterment of humanity if it doesn’t include all humanity**.
Ah, but I may have strayed. So apart from the bad news conveyed by her, the lady in APEH, now NAV, that I dealt with was a sweetheart, a darling. She even had the gall to compliment my Hungarian. Now that took courage. In truth I understand more than I once used to*** but please, no more compliments, no, oh you shouldn’t have…OH, you didn’t!
Leaving Kertesz utca and strolling into Pertu Cafe on Dob utca, I have indeed found a rhythm, a rhythm increasingly indicative of the understanding of my position. Unless I want to be drawn into immorality I must strengthen myself against the temptation, and even when those around me may fall victim to the aesthetic, I must be strong enough to enjoy life on my terms. As we in the drowning department are under the illusion that our voice matters, them in their boats in that stinking hell hole up yonder are also deluded into thinking we really care.
Choose not to care about them and one day they’ll have to submerge themselves deep enough that they shall really be in our domain. Until then, civil servants beware. You are test subjects till the cowards come along.
Viva la revolucion…whichever one you may choose.
* Fishes as a plural can exist and whereas it may usually be defined as the different species rather than the number of individuals it has its biblical usage in the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes, so there!
**Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind then that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
*** “Alas, how terrible is wisdom
when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise!
This I knew well, but had forgotten it,
else I would not have come here.” Sophocles
