Author Archives: András Hanák

No More Rubbing of Equestrian Testicles

Here is the Rub

Rubbing delicate parts of a statue is thought all over the world to bring about luck.  At least tourists and students believe in this magic in many cities.

Well-wishers rub the nose of Greyfriars Bobby, a patient dog statue in Edinburgh.  His story can break the heart.  In Cambridge, Massachusetts, mostly students touch the toes of John Harvard’s shoes.  The toe caps of both shoes are shiny, while the high heels remain black.  In Verona, if you are lucky with lining up, you may touch the boobs of Juliette without inviting charges for child molestation.  Juliette’s right breast has been rubbed more frequently than the left one.  And in New York City’s Timer Warner Center at Columbus Circle, you have Fernando Botero’s (God rest his soul) giant and no doubt portly Adam and Eve statues, and you may already guess that so many people touch Adam’s rather small but prominent penis that it has been worn to a shining golden color.  For the record: Eve’s body is untouched.

We in Budapest have an early 20th century policeman statue on the corner of October 6 and Zrínyi Streets, leading up to the Government evicted Central European University’s old entrance.  The jovial cop’ sizeable belly is shining gold as a result of friendly touching.

So, what kind of city is this, we may ask our question once again?

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KOTVENU B’SEFER HE-AYYIM

Inscribe Us in the Book of Life

Those of us who finished our Passover Seder dinner last April around 10:00 o’clock or so dutifully reiterated the time-honored closing desire: L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim – Next year in Jerusalem.

We expressed our wish to be in Jerusalem next year.  Now we are on the brink of yet another new year.  Rosh Hashanah will be arriving on the evening of September 15.  We are still here in Budapest, and, in all likelihood, this will be so in Year 5784, too, but who knows when and how we will assemble in Jerusalem.  It will be so one day.

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What Kind of City Is This?

Perceptive readers may recall that in my introduction of our Hungarian Perspective on September 4, 2023, I did bring up the story of a troubled woman who arrived to Paris to murder Jean-Paul Marat, and before she carried out this awful deed she got caught up with the horrors of Paris in transition.  What kind of city is this?  – she would repeat the same question in a catatonic manner before she rang the doorbell on Marat’s home.  Surely, what kind of city is this?  As I have noted in my first post, the question, pertaining to this country, will come up in this Blog a number of times from different aspects.

I must say that I never intended to exclude villages and small towns from the inquiry of what kind they are.  If something takes place in rural settings, villages, this also qualifies to the generic question: What kind of city is this?  Here we have a telling story which advises you a fair bit of what kind of a country, city and village life we experience in Hungary.

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Hungarian Perspective: A New Blog on the Block

Motto: “Bloggers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it.”

With the death of Eva Balogh in late 2021, the rich years of her blog, Hungarian Spectrum, have come to a regrettable end.  This has left a painful void for readers who counted on her priceless commentary and acute observations.  A few of her readers came up with the challenging idea of recreating a Blog or a Site, in the English language, addressing a mix of Hungarian issues of general interest.  We decided to respond to this interest, and to that end are launching a Blog: the Hungarian Perspective (HP).

We are in the process of recruiting contributors.  Some may be professional journalists, savvy pundits, while others – perhaps most of them – will be simple Athenian craftsmen (line Bottom) and women (like Flute) who believe they are ready to perform a play or two on the stage of commentary.

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