Saturday, 7 January 2017
Sunday, 20 November 2016
Yes, It’s 1979 All Over Again
It is
amazing to see how people change. With Donald Trump's victory, we are fortunate enough to witness this amazing phenomenon once again. We are fortunate because it happens pretty rarely. In fact, such a radical change of mankind's spiritual condition occurred only three times in the past 150 years. In order to understand the significance of Trump's rise to power, it is useful to revisit these past epochs.
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I really wanted to put a beautiful photo of "Mr Trump holding a mining helmet at a West Virginia rally" here but was unable to agree with Getty Images on the price. Maybe I should have consulted "The Art of the Deal" before I started bargaining. Fortunately, a prolific and highly influential hobby photographer came to my help (credit: Gage Skidmore). |
"She called it the gold standard"
Sunday, 8 May 2016
Can Spengler Explain the Islamic State?
At university, I was sometimes jokingly accused of a tendency that, no matter what the
actual topic was, the title of my writing assignments always began
with “Spengler and the ...” If you take a look at my list of
publications or even the posts of this blog, you will be able to
establish that this was nothing more than a malicious falsehood.
Still, Oswald Spengler remains a central point of reference to me and
yes, sometimes I publish essays under a title featuring his name.
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This and all other illustrations of this post are taken from "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", a filmstrip drawn by Sándor Lengyel, 1963. |
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
Scripts for the Future
My history teacher once said, “It is our loves that make life worth
living.” By this measure, I have no ground to complain.
I encountered my first love at the age of 10, on a rainy autumn
afternoon. I was in the 5th grade, just having been
allowed to return home every day right after the last class. The
day-boarders of my class (i. e. those who remained in school for the
afternoon) were brought to cinema once a month and we were invited to
join them. That afternoon I was not sure if I wanted to go because
the film's title reminded me of the action genre I did not like.
Reluctantly, I went – and I was not the same person as I left the
cinema. I fell in love with Back to the Future for the rest of
my life.
The Power of Love
The Power of Love
For a long time, I thought it was my interest in history which
resonated so strongly with this time-travel movie. In fact, however,
the film's protagonist does not travel back in time on a historical
scale. He travels back in time on a personal scale, into a period
which still lives on vividly in the memories of his parents. Instead
of depicting a historical epoch, the film shows how a family's life
was shaped by past events that happened to its members and how
another turn of events could have led to a different form of life for
the family and its members. It is this personal theme that has
enchanted millions watching Back to the Future in
the past three decades.
Sunday, 21 December 2014
The Song Factor
This is the time of the year in
which television talent shows come to their finals.
Of course there are many problems
with these shows. At present, I only wish to point to the most
fundamental one: They nurture the belief that it takes a talent to
sing a song. Those participating in the competition think they will become stars because they can sing. Those watching the show think
they will spend their evening in a meaningful way if they listen to
other people singing. Both are wrong.
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Doctor Faust with students and musicians in Auerbach's Cellar (mural painting from around 1625 in Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig) |
In the twentieth century, the
trinity of “Wine, Women and Song” gave way to that of “Sex,
Drugs and Rock & Roll”. This change of expression symbolizes a
general shift towards crudity in our lives. With regard to music in
particular, it shows how the enjoyment of music recorded by a few selected "stars" took the
place once held by the pastime of singing by oneself.
I remember an inscription hanging in my primary school that showed a motto coined by the
famous Hungarian composer and music educator, Zoltán Kodály: “Let
music belong to everybody!” In my youth I felt this motto was too
pathetic and sappy. Today, I fully approve of the message it conveys:
People should recognize that singing is not something extraordinary,
not something that only stars or would-be stars are able or supposed
to do. This insight would be the first step towards rediscovering the joys
that singing can bring.
Wine and love can be next on the
agenda.
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
A Beginner's Guide to Circumnavigating the Globe
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Great circle route around the world starting from Budapest and passing through China, Oceania and South America |
In
a previous post, I put together an itinerary to go round the world in
thirty-seven days. The itinerary was then successfully implemented
in a virtual world tour lasting from the 8th
April to the 15th
May 2013.
I received some criticism, however, for my very “loose”
interpretation of the notion of going around the world. My world tour
could be considered a circumnavigation of the earth only in one
sense: namely, that I arrived back to my starting point after
crossing every line of longitude of the planet. It did not fulfil two
other criteria that one may expect of a circumnavigation: First, the
length of the route did not add up to the circumference of the earth
(the whole journey covered around 34.000 km as opposed to 40.000 km,
the approximate length of the equator). Second, I came nowhere close
to reaching the antipode, i.e. the exact opposite point of my
starting place at the other side of the earth; in my case, this would
have been in the Southern Pacific, but I did not even leave the
northern hemisphere during my journey.
Thursday, 28 November 2013
Pandora's Bachelorette Party at Doboz
Market choices vs. anti-discrimination laws in Budapest nightlife

In a sense, I admire Mr Teczár — he has done something I have long speculated about. Ever since I learned of Hungary's anti-discrimination law effective from 2004, I have been thinking about whether price discount granted for women at night clubs could bear legal scrutiny. As the practice has been quite general in the Hungarian party scene, I had plenty of occasions to ponder on this while standing in those long rows waiting for the entrance.
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