All Around B-Town

The Synagogue at Dohány Utca. Located near Déak Tér, it is the largest synagogue in Europe.

music: Fuzfa Julia - Arany Jeruszsalem

You are allowed to drink in public in Budapest. And people do. Often a lot.

And if you drink often, and a lot, and do this for many years, you become a wino. At least, that's the term that we Americans know for such a person. But here in Hungary a popular term for this kind of person is "palinka face", in reference to the popular fruit brandy that is the unofficial national drink of Hungary.

This is not to suggest that Hungarians are a nation of lushes. From what I can see, the alcohol intake of Hungarians is about average when compared with most of the civilized world. I've been to Scotland, and let me tell you - there's no comparison.

Nor is it an indictment of the quality of palinka. The quality of palinka can be just as fine as a great wine. Can be quite expensive too.

But there are a couple of odd low-rent drinking customs here.

One is the packaging of cheap wine in 2-liter plastic bottles, the same as a jumbo Diet Pepsi is bottled in. This palinka-face favorite has thankfully not hit America (yet). You see a gang of guys sitting in the dirt in the Arpad Hid Metro station sharing a huge transparent plastic bottle of wine of dubious color, and it's enough to put you on the wagon for a month.

The other odd thing I notice is the proliferation of small airline-size palinka bottles everywhere.

From what I can tell, here's the drill: A guy gets off work, heads for home. On the way he stops at the local minimart and buys a little bottle or two of this stuff. Of course his buddies in the hood are there too buying their little bottles, making it the perfect opportunity to stand around on the sidewalk drinking and talking smack about politics or what-have-you. When the party breaks up and everyone staggers off home, the bottles are left behind like some kind of animal marking of territory. Curious.

Oh well. Egeszegedre!

I ask friends here: What is Hungarian style?

Italians have a style. The French have theirs. Japan, Mexico, the USA, even regions of Africa all have a cultural identity evident in everything from urban planning to fashion. So what is Hungarian style?

The blank look I get in return from my Hungarian pals in answer to this question is depressing. Forty-some years of communist malaise has so stifled the economic sector and, in the process, the creative community, to the point that people here think Hungary is only capable of borrowing ideas from others. And rendering an inferior version of it.

This is crazy. After 1000 years of history you don't even have a signature style of design, clothing, decor? Doubtful.

Well, there is a Hungarian style. I know it exists. Dormant, perhaps, but there's a rich lode of inspiration waiting to be mined by whoever can resist the lure of easy money from the west and its accompanying cultural influence.



You just wouldn't know it from a walk down the Vaci Útca. This street, and the "revitalized" Andrássy Út, are places where you can see the self-effacing temperament of the 21st Century Hungarian in full bloom. There's something contemptible about carpetbagging haute-couture designers from Paris, New York and Milan setting up shop in the heart of the city that 100 years ago was second to none when it came to architecture, design and modern art.

If there is one thing that makes Budapest a magical place to be, it is to be among the still amazing remnants of a 40-year period of city-building and cultural ferment unlike anything in world history. If there is a major world capitol that blossomed more rapidly and more beautifully than Budapest, I don't know of one.

I think there is something about the sense of possibilities in this city that keeps people captivated by it. Foreign venture capital and the local nouveaux riche Budapesti who grasp for it in some misguided chase for the good life won't bring Hungary back to cultural prominence in Europe. The only thing they can do is imitate and make the architecture and urban planning and style of this city into a second-rate version of some existing prototype.

Wallowing in the past is not an option. But I hope more Hungarians come to the realization that it was two world wars and a long dark economic tunnel, and not an inherent lack of cultural pride and innovation, that is responsible for Hungary lagging behind Western Europe when it comes to maintaining their own ongoing cultural renaissance. Who among the people I see every day on the Metro and on these stone-paved streets will be the ones to step up?

Just over the river on Batthany Tér you can find some beautiful and varied architecture. There are some pre-revolutionary, or whatever you call it, buildings from the early 1800s, a fine catholic church (Mathias Templom) and even some cool modernist socialist jobs.



But as is usually the case, the best are the 1900-era buildings. There is something about the art nouveaux period that switched a light on with architects and designers. There seems to be no end to their spirit of invention when creating these wonderful structures.



Mythological themes, medieval golems and gargoyles, historical themes and real-life heros... you name it and it's on a building here. Even the communists were inspired by these mesmerizing reliefs, repurposing the idea for their worker's tributes in concrete and granite 50 years on.



Some deco-era buildings still exist with amazing flourishes extant, but the deco movement was subdued here, possibly because the lousy post-WWI economy curtailed grand projects. And the fascists stomping about to Horthy's drum beat hardly fostered a spirit of creative civic development.



But there's enough beauty in this town to go around. And from the relative prosperity here today, much of it is getting restored kicsit a kicsit. Think of this and you think good thoughts.

The wind was whistling through the bare branches of the trees in the old socialist-era courtyard as we stood on the curb, waiting. The snowfall with its insulating effect muffled the street into an eerie silence.

Within seconds I hear music. Faint but quickly getting steadliy louder, as if the unseen hand of God was riding the 'up' button on a stereo remote in the sky. Sure enough, it's a Subaru Impreza WRX with the yellow light atop the roof shining bright. As our taxi barrels around the corner and into view, the strains of Foreigner's Hot Blooded pour out the open windows and echo through the courtyards. I lean close to Andi and comment by quoting Donovan in a tremulous voice:

Here comes the Mobil Taxi man,
playing songs of lo-o-ove

Once again cabbing it in Budapest. When the weather gets cold it's the only thing to do. And once again it's Mini Mobil, who charge a thrifty 2000 ft ($9) to get into downtown from Újpest.

As with the taxi services of any major city in the world, even if you find a reputable company there are always some drivers in their employ who will pad the fare by taking you the long way around. It happens every so often when you live on the fringe of the city (Újpest = Budapest / Queens = New York City). When you have to sharply reprimand a driver to get his route straightened out, you will avoid his company the next time you need a cab. Mini Mobil Taxi seem to have the best driver conduct, so we take them most often.

As I was saying - the Mobil Taxi men DO play the songs of love. And so do most of the other cab companies. It's something of a Central European tradition, this blasting of FM radio in the cab for the supposed comfort of the passengers. Subjecting the passengers to those schizo combinations of music that Hungarian "Power 106" stations like to put together, which are always completely without any continuity. Between commercial breaks on these stations you're likely to hear a sequence something like this:

Brittney Spears Toxic
The Beatles Get Back
Yes + Sir Mix-a-Lot Owner of a Lovely Butt
Natalie Imbruglia Torn
Ganxsta Zolee Vato Loco
ABBA The Winner Takes it All

(Yes, this is definitely Europe. They always have to wedge the ABBA in there somehow.)

When we can't get a Mini Mobil taxi, 6x6 is a good alternative. I'm always looking for an excuse to call 6x6 because I like the logo - an illuminated pair of dice on the roof with all sides coming up boxcars. City Taxi is a third choice.

All of these companies have dispatchers who speak English. And their drivers all love me because I tip 20%, which is unheard of among the locals here. When my friends see me tipping 500 ft for a 2100 ft fare, their mouths drop and they reprimand me for being foolish with my money. Which I like because it gives me the rare opportunity to feel like a carefree live-for-today type, rolling my eyes and saying: "Gawd, people, let's not be small about such things... it's only TWO AND A HALF BUCKS."

When you are coming from any of the downtown Pest hot spots whether it be Sirály, Szimpla, 6tus, Mumus, Kuplung or other favorite, you wander down the narrow one-lane street of Király. It is 3 am and it is empty of the cars that were pushing through the crowds of pedestrians some hours earlier like the Triumph convertibles in the Cinecitta sets of central Rome created for La Dolce Vita, and there is nothing distracting you except the occasional drunken lovers' quarrel heard from a side street and the lights and window displays... you stop, weaving just a bit from drink, and stare mesmerized in front of one or more of them as you make your way to the bus or taxi stand, or maybe you are walking it all the way down to IX district and it's taking you a lot longer to get wherever you are going, these lights, stopping you in your tracks and you're thinking what next, who else is going to start a new jumble of a retail shop and where will it be, and I hope it makes the street as varied and changing as this one, yes Király útca is all bought up and poncified now, but it's a good sign, the lights, the exotic geegaws, hope that with the rest of the world's great cities reeling, is Budapest moving to its own beat and is a new renaissance coming?

The Andrássy Út in two minutes, in one continuous take.

music : lali puna micronomic [ SF remix of boom bip remix ]

Had to post a few photos of the T-Mobile phone booth design contest from last year. This installation was on public display at Déak Tér, and it was a real kick.

This isn't a recent event, it happened last year. But the photos came into my possession and they are so good I have to share them. This is the kind of sense of humor in art that I'd like to see more of in this town!

[ photos: Adler Andrea ]

#1) Someone's wry commentary on general Hungarian aesthetics...







#2) This underground club-themed box will put you in the mood for that booty call even if it's only mid-afternoon...

New Year's Eve. It's -8c with little sugar grains of snow coming down. Everything in the neighborhood is covered with it, even the Trabis.

I am staying inside to rest up before tonight's party at Gödör Klubszilveszter. I've been to Gödör once before to see some gypsy combo, Romano Drom, and from my memory of that I expect a wild time.

Tonight we are all supposed to eat some kind of sausage for dinner to bring good luck for 2009. You can't have chicken sausages though - eating chicken on New Year's evening, that's bad luck. They say the chicken gods will scratch the ground, find your good luck and peck it away. Or something like that. So have to find a good Hungarian pork sausage, hopefully loaded with paprika.

Good luck to all of you too. May whatever you have to eat to obtain it be yummy.

Boldog Új Eves! (Happy New Year!)

The Event: TP's Annual Thanksgiving Bash - THE gala event of the year among Budapest's American expats
The Date: Thursday, November 27th
The Place: TP's flat a.k.a. American Embassy Annex a.k.a. Land Of 1000 Dances a.k.a. BevMo East



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27

15:15 CET
TP puts the first of the two 30 lb. turkeys into the oven, begins preparation of the side dishes.

19:45 CET
Early guests arrive with food and liquor contributions.

21:00 CET
The party begins in earnest. The first of the turkeys is served. It is the size of Jack Black and masterfully dressed.

21:10 CET
Mad queue at the food table, the ravenous crowd chows down.



21:57 CET
An informal DJ arrives with a MacBook fully loaded with MP3s. He hooks it up to the stereo but it doesn't work. DJ by committee is implemented.

22:01 CET
The Balkan jet set shows up. A bevy of stylish women vogue with an open bottle of champagne in the foyer and deal with a tornado of double kisses.

22:10 CET
Tom give the thumbs-up sign for the sound system volume to be pushed into triple digit db levels..

22:40 CET
DJ by committee is a surprise success. The dining table is pushed back a foot and people start dancing.

23:09 CET
The second turkey is taken out of the oven. It gets devoured by a hungry horde of new arrivals where it sits on the cutting board and never makes it out of the kitchen.

---

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28

00:06 CET
Some guy shows up with a plate of cookies and passes them around. Contents are guessed at but unknown.

00:13 CET
The big man cutting the second turkey puts cranberry sauce on his wrist and runs about with the electric carving knife and a grimacing expression on his face, freaking everyone out.

00:32 CET
A wildly drunken guy shows up and starts kissing all the girls. He's good-looking so it's OK. Someone says he's an immigration attorney

00:50 CET
Taxi drivers can be heard arguing on the first floor, too many guests arriving at once on a one-lane side street.

01:01 CET
Tribal activity on the dance floor. Police call from the downstairs apartment expected.

01:18 CET
The bottled water runs out. People mix drinks using the bathroom tap.

01:55 CET
Iggy Pop's The Passenger comes on the iPod and some chick on the dance floor goes absolutely ape.

02:09 CET
The whiskey is gone.

02:25 CET
Groovy-looking French guy in the down vest getting hit on by three girls at once in the kitchen, and handling the situation beautifully.

02:48 CET
Reinforcements arrive with white wine and paprika chips. They uncork the first bottle and instantly defuse a heated argument over politics in the foyer.

03:12 CET
The gin is gone. And so, for all intents and purposes, is the food; the dining table looks like Katrina hit it.

03:24 CET
Hip hop tracks thumping away, a guy starts rapping in fast Hungarian over the music, drawing a circle of dancers around him and winning many amazed fans. Only a few can understand what the hell he's talking about.

3:33 CET
No more ice. Everyone switches to red wine, creating a shortage.

04:04 CET
The fragile coalition between the rapper/dancer faction and the alt-boho guitar faction splits and their adherents go their separate ways. The kitchen door is closed and a guitar is passed around. A witty Brit notices this and quotes Churchill: "An iron curtain has descended across the continent."

04:19 CET
Someone sings House of the Rising Sun in an unintelligible German accent.

4:30 CET
Beer supply dangerously low. Rationing implemented.

4:39 CET
TP still dancing.

04:49 CET
Stephen Fry shows up and pours a tall one from the only remaining bottle of Egri wine. At least I think it was him, I was sooooo wasted.

I was in this small room wearing only my boxers. By the dim light I could see the rest of my clothes piled up on a small pine wood chair in front of a nondescript desk. The smell of fresh paint filled the room. The room was small but the ceilings were very high - so high I had to strain to focus on the base of the light fixture to gauge the distance. Everything was out of scale, proportions distorted.

Stood up and moved towards the door. Senses reeling, I felt dizzy, close to fainting. Reached out to grasp the door handle to keep from falling backwards. Strange, I thought... the furniture is modern and minimal, but this door is something out of a Jules Verne novel - tall, heavy and outfitted with an ornate brass handle. I opened the door...

Gad, what a stab of bleached lightning into my eyes! Luckily, the first room I could find by groping the wall was the bathroom. Flipped on the light to find verything as clean and scrubbed as a maternity ward. God only knows where I am but thank him for comfort, I mused, filling the washbasin and dunking my face in.

The dizziness waning, I went out to explore and wandered into the largest of the rooms. The same outsized proportions and clash of period design. Ceilings so high they were obscured by clouds. The parquet under my feet looked to be hewn from a gypsy hatchet, the pieces arranged in a herringbone pattern and finished with an earthy varnish. But the furnishings were exclusively 21st Century minimalist. The whole collection appeared to be lifted from some Swedish marketing executive bastard's Malmö penthouse. The faux wood grain, the brushed aluminum surfaces, the quirky simplicity - all the hallmarks of smirkingly clever Scandinavian design. Upon closer inspection I saw that all these furnishings still had the store info and price tags attached, with an anagram accompanying every UPC code:

IKEA

Went into the kitchen and looked through the cupboards, but found them bare. Same for the refrigerator, drawers, shelving, nothing. No food, no supplies, no sign of human life - just fixtures with UPC codes on them sporting the same corporate anagram. Thought I must be on an abandoned film set, or some sort of human zoo where homo sapiens are under observation to track how they cope with schizophrenic surroundings.

The dizziness returned. Must... get... out... of... here...

I spun back into the main room and fell to my knees. Bent over on the polyester sheepskin throw rug (SVENSKA, €28), convulsing, when...

"Hey! You about?"

I looked up to see Dave. Was I relieved now to know I wasn't dreaming, or more terrified than ever? "DAVE! Thank god you're here! Where... where are we? What kind of strange planet is this? Did we get abducted by Finnish aliens? Wha---"

"You came back here to the rented flat with us last night, remember? After the gyros joint kicked us out? Man you were wasted!"

"Still unclear. Tell me more."

"Yah about 5 a.m. the old tart started mopping our shoe tops so we'd get the hint. We walked back here on the Andrássy. I remember passing by some theater where you were going on about some cross-dressing macho Hungarian actor..."

"Sándor Csányi?"

"Yah sounds right. About him, and how he's in all these Oscar Wilde and Chekov plays but you can't go to see him they don't have supertitles at the downtown theater, and fuck Hungary for that, or summat."

"It does... ring a bell."

Then you started taking photos in the middle of the fucking street and almost got hit by a taxi."

I found my Canon portable on the table. Chimped through the last few images and found this one. Then this one. "Christ almighty."

"Heh heh! Well then. How about breakfast?"

"Oooooooooooooh noooooooo." I cuddled the faux sheepskin again.

Now truly, brutally awake, I see Rob has joined us in his BVDs and a collar shirt. Dave's wife Britta calls, she's just arrived in an airport cab and is walking down our street trying to find the unmarked building. The three of us unshaven and in various states of undress crowd out onto the little balcony to see her popping down the street fresh as a daisy.

As Dave goes down to the security door to fetch her (the one thing that even corporate Swedish designers can't fix is a 110-year old doorchime), I take some Hungarian Advil and look through some of the other photos in my camera. Seems that I wasn't the only one clowning around in the middle of the street near dawn a few hours previous.