BobeBlog

Reading the newspapers in Hungary reminds me that all famous people in the world are indeed Hungarians, have some good Hungarian blood in their veins, had Hungarian moms, grand-daddies, whatever, but anyone blessed with artistic or scientific genius hails from this tiny nation's bossom. Have any doubts? I'll have a long list by the end of the summer. Here is a starter for top magyars: George Soros, Jimmy Ramone, Alanis Morrisette (has Hungarian mom), Zsa-zsa Gabor, Tony Curtis. A good number of Nobel prize winners like Albert Szent-Györgyi, Robert Bárány, Elie Wiesel, recent awardee Imre Kertész. This week Peter Lax who resides in NYC received the Maths-Nobel award. And of course, you know George Pataki and Andrew Hevesi, who I even talked to in Hungarian. The funniest Hungarian is Shrek. Historians claim that the word 'ogre' actually refers to Hungarians because in the Middle Ages the mighty Ugri (Hungarians) used to scare those sissy Western Europeans to death and the latter mythologized us as blood-sucking cannibal monsters.

"Love Scene. Eni and Bela, please, go to stage." - comes from the loudspeaker at the Budapest Opera House when I am walking back to my apartment after a night drink. I love being back in Budapest more and more. In the early afternoons I can hear opera singers practicing their arias while I am working, and there is vast sereneness and beauty that I last felt in Florence. This must be the Europe thing. I love NYC dearly, but I rarely feel being embraced by beauty there. Only in the sequioas or the shores of California, perhaps. (Funnily, only places where I went with PB.) I have to run now to meet a blonde angel from high school. Now he is at Harvard and I am amazed to have just realized that he regularly publishes in ES, among other things, about civil society development, and he researches civil organizations. This should be fun.

I need to trace back step by step what I've been up to until now, because I am already losing it.. I love this blog. It feels like a diary, but without the compulsory isolation and self-reflexion. So comment on my comments and more is on the way!