BobeBlog

It may be symbolic when jewelry takes leave from us. Some 8 years ago... (Everything is cc. 8 years ago in my life. It feels that all the exciting stuff I used to do happened to me before I came to the US to do my Phd. Of course, it is not entirely true, is it, E? But I love exaggerating and stereotyping at times.) ... So some 8 years ago I was going out with B., who is still beautiful, delicious and sweet. By accident we started our relationship ceremonially. He wove this pretty band into my hair that accompanied us for a year (2 years, he thinks), through our hitch-hiking in France and Spain, through our shady-shaky trips to Amsterdam, through our mascarade new year's eve party and that great good laugh we had at that Fassbinder movie (where people go to cry, so use your imagination). Sweet memories. Well, on the day the band fell out from my hair, we split. It was a sign, I thought. And he agreed.

Last night while combing my hair, I painlessly combed a piercing out of my ear. I got this earring while in Miami, instead of a tattoo that I thought would have been too permanent to commemorate a relationship that were not to be made permanent itself. (But by whose fault? I still wonder.) There is one more tiny piercing in my ear and I am cooking up tricks on how to get rid of it by accident. Any ideas? I am thinking of hot passionate lovemaking when lover accidentally bites it off from ear. Jaj.

This time a chart topper on Amazon, Albert-László Barabási, originally from Transylvania, Romania. He wrote LINKED: The New Science of Network. He is a famous physicist doing network theory, very much like our Duncan Watts. Do you remember Duncan's story on crickets? Barabási wrote an article "Self-organizing processes: The sound of many hand clapping." Interesting constellation of minds.

On Isil's last day in Budapest we finally took in Buda with all its hills and monuments. We took a stroll in the Buda castle area and finally indulged in cakes at Ruswurm, an antique pastry store. I am somewhat disheartened by how poor is my knowledge of Budapest trivia (though Gabor says that's all just particularistic knowledge, and thus useless), or that I was plain ignorant about certain things. Like I kept telling Isil how our beautiful Matthias church (http://www.matyas-templom.hu/eng/) was desacrated in the 16th century by those damn Turks but at least they left beautiful Turkish or muslim decorations all over the church walls. So I sent her in to the church to meet her history but she saw no remains of Turkish art. So to correct my mistake, here is the truth: "Visitors accustomed to the Gothic style characteristic for Western Europe may find the interior ornamental painting and the richness of its shapes and colours unusual: this is a phenomenon which could only emerge at the borderline of West and East. Preserved remains showed that the church had been painted in the Middle Ages, and not only with figures but with a carpet-like ornamental painting with geometrical and tendril patterns."

We kept visiting places yesterday that offer amazing views of the Danube, bridges and Pest. To honor what Turks left as heritage for Hungarians after their 150 year rule, we visited the tomb and grave of Gül Baba (the Father of Roses), who was member of the bektasi sect, tolerant and meek, and widely respected by even Hungarians. His tomb is still a holy place, a place of pilgrimage. I was touched by the sereness of the area. On our way down we saw a traditionally clad muslim (?) woman, speaking fluent Hungarian. It is weird to think that me and Isil may be coming from a shared gene pool and culture. So many of our words are the same in Turkish.

We caught some of the sunset on Gellert Hill at the Statue of Liberty that so graciously tops the city, windblown but steady. The night before we went to see a retro movie of Budapest - shots of propaganda, ads, etc. from the 1960-70s. The statue of liberty was a prominent character in communist celebrations of liberty. Climbing up the hill brought back memories of my childhood: the huge slides on the playground (that no longer work for us that well but we blamed it on wearing jeans) and the weird awe of standing at the communist sculptures up on the top. This awe was still there! I felt so proud of Budapest, even its history and my youth.

We descended from Gellert Hill to have beer with friends at Erzsebet pressszo, where the hill's foot meets the Erzsebet bridge. I am telling you, I am famous already.

I felt so elated on Wednesday. We arranged a pre-conference meet-up with our Columbia Sociology buddies at our local cafe at the Opera on Andrassy street. A really nice spot. Friends I have not seen for years kept arriving. There is so much joy in these moments of meeting after so long. These days, after graduating from Columbia, they are dispersed all over the world: Atlanta, Washington, England, Italy. It was amazing to come together again, to see how being a professor may have altered their lives. We went for a nice dinner accompanied with the obligatory palinka (peach brandy). Isil and I walked Laura home after visiting Heros' Square where the statues of our major kings are safely back to their places, reminding us of our long and at times happier history. The Museum of Fine Arts is opening a new Durer exhibit and on that night each of its (6?) Greek doric columns had a masterful & muscular mountain climber hanging. What a sight. Somewhat(?) sexy.

Isil and I are sitting in Castro after the very Hungarian dinner at the former Karl Marx University. Very Hungarian means loads of meat in paprika sauce and vegetables doused with mayonnaise. We are preparing for our presentation tomorrow. Castro is one of the hippest places for my crowd in Budapest, has wi-fi-!!, so it makes me smile when I see Isil reciting her presentation to herself. Would she do this in Turkey I wonder. She is so sweet and I am really glad to have her as a friend. She does not know but I am nervous about her being in Budapest and having her first presentation tomorrow. I am hoping that both experiences will be marvellous and memorable for her.

Marx, Castro. Only Lenin is missing.

Blogs will come much slower from now on as I got ruthlessly cut off from my wireless lifeline. Unthinkable cruelty. Right this moment I am using the wi-fi of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and sitting in the beautifully decorated main lecture hall at the annual conference of SASE (Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics), listening to Nigel Thrift. Well, as you can see, my attention span is getting highly minimal, even though Thrift is a real bright fellow. I am just already brain dead from 1.5 days of conferencing. I am leaving my last breath of intelligence for Theda Skocpol, coming up in 20 minutes. Isil is sitting next to me and I cannot fathom how she can manage to look so focused after drinking so much beer last night.

We went to a nice reception last night, with good wine and people, then in the company of the insider circle of Stark and Bruszt to a dinner on a boat docked on the Danube opposite the Castle. I do not want to brag but Budapest is spectacular and very romantic. Need to fall in love asap. During dinner Levcsi called to meet up soon so that we could listen to the poem he recited to me in love and drunken stupor I taped some 8 years ago. I have not met him much since then. It is really weird to be talking ‘shop’ with all these people again. After dinner we went to Kuplung, a typical Budapest pub transformed from a former auto repair shop. We were meeting Arek there who is an ever-returning man in my life. Once more he brought his usual sweet and gentlemanly self: amazing compliments, treating all of us for drinks. The band Csokolom and the intense smoke is not so palatable to foreigners so we moved over to Kis Szimpla that will quickly become my favorite spot in Budapest. It is on the courtyard of a typical city building of Budapest: hanging corridors to apartments all around, trees and colorful lampions embrace the drunk and extremely stoned. Glasses break, men can’t stand straight, women giggle, dogs leisure and we drink and talk lay sociology. Nice.