2014. november 14., péntek

The Telephone Person

H. pénteken benntartott hármunkat az irodában, mert nem értette, hogy mi a feladat egy ügyirattal kapcsolatban. Elhatározta tehát, hogy amíg meg nem érti - és ez eltartott két óráig -, addig nem mehetünk haza, és ott kell szobroznunk a szobájában. Az egész jelenetben nekünk hármunknak semmi szerepünk volt, illetve annyi, hogy H. egzisztencialista szorongását kellett enyhítenünk: ha végül nem jönne rá, akkor ne legyen egyedül.

Közben lebonyolított három mobiltelefonhívást. Van az az embertípus, aki azt hiszi, hogy egy telefonbeszélgetés során ORDIBÁLNI kell, mert különben a másik NEM HALLJA. Ezt sosem bogoztam még ki, de szerintem arról lehet szó, hogy mivel nem látja a beszélgetőpartnert, ezért azt gondolja, hogy a nemlátást egy másik érzékszervi ingerrel kell kompenzálni. Kénytelen voltam átülni egy másik székbe, mert H. mellettem ülve telefonált és megfájdult a dobhártyám.

Utána az ügyirattal kapcsolatos alkotói hév annyira elragadta H-t, hogy a telefonhívást azzal a felkiáltással zárta le, hogy "jó. jó. köszi", elbúcsúzni azonban elfelejtett. Tehát a beszélgetőpartner nem kapcsolt, hogy a "jó. jó. köszi" a beszélgetés végét jelenti. Ezért hallhatóan javában magyarázott még, amikor az erről már mit sem sejtő H. kinyújtott kézzel eltartotta magától a mobiltelefont, hogy kikeresse a beszélgetés megszakítása gombot. És megnyomta. A vonal másik végén lévő emberbe pedig bele lett fojtva a szó.

Senkiben

Te akartál velem lenni jóban-rosszban
és csak annyi a baj,
hogy ami nekem jó, az neked rossz.
Neked kényszer az, ami nekem sors.
Te undorodsz, ha kezet fogsz a jövő árnyaival.

Senkiben. Nem bízhatsz senkiben.

2011. október 1., szombat

Hey Helsinki

I went to Helsinki with an exciting Saturday night arrival. One of the fun parts in exploring an absolutely unknown city is having to find your way to your place from the airport at night. You must be prepared in advance to remember certain objects and names of streets to be sure you can find your address. Helsinki airport is actually in Vantaa, that is, outside Helsinki proper so you take a bus that gets you to the center. Once I was in, the guiding object in my first night was supposed to be Pyöräilystadion: my pre-planned way and directions depended on it. Does not its name sound surreal? It was elusive enough for me: I never actually found it. I was lost in the Helsinki night.

Helsinki is a female city

I was already warm and safe in my apartment when I realized that I had been looking for Pyöräilystadion on the wrong side of a main road. I should have been in a neighborhood called Pasila, and I had been roaming about in Vallila. I began to suspect that Helsinki was capricious. Helsinki is female.

Helsinki has a higher proportion of women (53.4%) than elsewhere in Finland (51.1%). Life expectancy for both genders is slightly below the national averages: 75.1 years for men as compared to 75.7 years, 81.7 years for women as compared to 82.5 years.

Older than Pasila

So I was in Pasila. Pasila is a modern neighborhood built up mainly in the 70s (and 80s) to ease the housing shortage in a period when Helsinki was rapidly expanding. It is basically a residential area with many concrete block houses, red-brick houses, functionalist buildings and a few parks. Consists of a Western (Länsi-Pasila) and an Eastern part (Itä-Pasila) which are connected by an overpass going above railroad tracks. The Pasila Railway Station is perhaps the second most important traffic hub in Helsinki, any train that goes to Helsinki makes a stop in Pasila.



Pasila is generally disliked among locals as the girl on a bus tells me. I inadvertently ask the stupid question to a local elderly lady if she has always lived in Pasila. She looks at me and says: “I am older than Pasila.”

Bicycle Deposits  

In various locations all over the city there are these large heaps of bicycles. Bicycles lie about in a mess in main traffic hubs, places of importance, even on the island Suomenlinna which you can only access by a ferry. They are not neatly arranged, they are rather lousy and shabby, but hey they are public property. You put a coin in the coin slot which you can redeem after you have finished cycling and returned the bike to the Citybike Stand. I did not see too many people riding bicycles, but then, I did not see many people in the streets at all, especially on Sunday which was the first full day of my entire life I spent above the 60th parallel.

2011. szeptember 11., vasárnap

Nine Eleven

I no longer watch newscasts - I try to spare myself as much worrying as I can. I will not check the nine eleven commemorations either, I only hope no terror act would be carried out again.

New York, don't worry. I will never leave you. I will be back. 

2011. szeptember 1., csütörtök

Clouds are beautiful and enigmatic

I was about 13 and the school assignment was that you should bring your favourite piece of music, play it in front of the class and elaborate why you liked it. 


I was the weird guy back then too so I pounced on the opportunity, volunteered to be the first and brought this song in. The song starts with the narrator (there is no singer, merely a weekish chorus later in the song) saying "I am looking at the clouds, these clouds are so beautiful, enigmatic, innocent and true to their own nature." The song climaxes when the narrator announces that "I may as well be a kamikaze myself" which would be shocking enough to a class of 13 years old children if only they knew who a kamikaze is.  

The song was written in 1983 with communism still ruling in Hungary - with one public sphere, one (or maybe two) TV channel(s), one uninterrupted official narrative. Anything beyond that was available to a few hundred intellectuals based in Budapest. This song was substream too of course, never released until the 1990s and I will never know how it felt back then in that context where the words "mainstream" and "substream" did actually mean something. 

I don't know. Anyways, this band produced a number of other songs none of which are even remotely enjoyable, but this one is good. But I could not say why I liked it, so I guess I failed the assignment back then   

2011. augusztus 29., hétfő

They've all come


"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America

This was written in 1968 - no signs of global warming, no mention of ozone layer, no notion of rocketing oil prices (the price of oil was practically not changing between 1930s and 1971 -- isn't that incredible?) this was before even the oil crisis of the seventies in a world that seemed secure and perfectly maintainable.

On January 8, 2008, Governor Jon Corzine proposed a 50 percent increase in tolls on New Jersey's three toll roads in 2010, with increases of a similar percentage every four years after that, in order to help pay state debt. Each times tolls increased, there would be an additional increase for inflation since the last toll increase (for the first, since 2006). The roads would be maintained by a nonprofit corporation that would pay back bonds to the state. Under this plan, and without considering the inflation increases, tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike would have risen from $6.45 to $42.92 in 2022. It was considered possible that commuters will receive discounts from the higher toll rates. The plan, however, was not enacted due to mounting opposition from New Jersey residents (wikipedia).

Will anyone ever make a coast-to coast funride with Greyhound again? And wake up on a bus when dawn breaks? Guess only businessmen will be able to afford it, but businessmen are not the type of people who mutter to Kathy half asleep, count cars, or feel lost. It is all gone.  

2011. augusztus 28., vasárnap

Daphne and John

What a splendid idea. You hitchhike your way across USA from New England to LA with a girl. You don't care for each other but by the time you get to California you fall in love. The world should work like this.


I wonder, though, would I still be so enthusiastic about the romantic potential if I hadn't developed a crush on Daphne Zuniga? I think I would, I loved When Harry Met Sally and I never cared for Meg Ryan. Love is a result of the struggles you go through together and the more intense the experiences are, the more profound your love develops. And another factor that adds to the romantic potential: you should not notice it happening. Like when you have been drinking vodka in an armchair and you never notice you are completely drunk until you stand up and stumble immediately.