Cz.K. Sebő’s new capsule boy song, “North Maine Woods,” came out just a few hours ago. (capsule boy is his electronic project.) This dreamy, veiled piece is (in part) a love song to the place in Maine where he worked one summer, years ago, and where he has never returned. The immediate feeling is recognizable: a place that you love and can never return to, because even if you do go back there one day, it will be different and so will you. A loss that can’t be taken away. But also a sense of being there forever, always carrying it. Both of these at the same time.
But then what the song does with this is so gentle and subtle that even the idea seems like a passageway into something else. I love the part in the middle where the keyboards sound like trees on fire. And the part where everything pares down, then slowly builds up, rises up again. The sound has many different textures wrapping and unwrapping slowly. Individual notes take me by surprise. It evokes some sort of memory or else creates it from scratch, sending me on a search.
It evokes other music too—I can’t figure out what. Maybe Brendan Perry’s 1999 solo album Eye of the Hunter, for instance, the song “Death Will Be My Bride.” Perry’s sound is different, though: more upfront and pristine. I don’t think I’ll figure out what this reminds me of, since it’s an indirect likeness. For that matter, it might be reminding me of itself, since I have heard it a couple times at concerts. This can happen with a song I love: it seems to bring up another song, but that other song is like the woods in Maine, lost but present.
I don’t know whether this or “Funeral Circular” is my favorite capsule boy song so far. Let them both be, in different ways.
Congratulations to Cz.K. Sebő for this song and to Fruzsina Balogh for the cover art.
One of the most fascinating and moving aspects of Shakespeare’s plays is the employment of disguise. Hamlet suggests to his companions that he is going to affect an “antic disposition”; Juliet, advised by Friar Laurence, fakes her death; theg witches fool Macbeth with their elusive prophesies; Beatrice and Benedick pretend to abhor each other; and so on. Shakespeare understood what Tom in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie would articulate centuries later: “But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.” (But in Shakespeare’s plays, the disguise can work both ways.)
Disguise is filled with irony too; Cordelia’s sincere words frame her as the ungrateful child. Iago’s treachery cloaks itself in the guises of honesty.
The plays may lead us to ask ourselves what disguises we are wearing, what layers of disguises. Even the performances involve disguises: not only masks and costumes, not only the assumption of roles, but other wrappings as well. For example, in the beginning, when we were just starting to prepare the scene from Romeo and Juliet, none of the boys wanted to be Romeo—partly, I think, because of all the lines involved, and partly because of his smittenness. So we broke the part in three: one Romeo notices Juliet at the ball, and then, when the silhouette part begins, a different Romeo says the lines while yet a third takes part in the silhouette. Also, we emphasized the dances in the scene, thus taking some of the pressure off of Romeo and Juliet both. They liked this solution and took to it enthusiastically. Capulet is the one who speaks the most—calling for more fire and light, urging the guests to dance, reminiscing with his cousin, and trying to calm Tybalt down. Although he is not in a mask, as host he wears many disguises, trying to tend to others, while also yearning for a successful party, which not only helps assure his daughter’s future but brings back memories of his youth.
All of this leads me to a beloved song in three versions (and possibly disguises): “Disguise” by Cz.K. Sebő. It has more in common with Shakespearean disguises than may seem on the surface, even though, to my knowledge, it is not directly influenced by Shakespeare’s work. The original version, solo acoustic guitar and voice, was released by Cz.K. Sebő in 2015, when he was in his early twenties; versions by Platon Karataev and capsule boy (Cz.K. Sebő’s electronic subproject) followed. The original Cz.K. Sebő song is my favorite of the three; the bareness, simplicity, and vulnerability come together. It comes close to breaking my heart (but doesn’t, because it soars, and also because I’ve been through so much like this). It brings to mind Hamlet’s “But I have that within which passes show, / These but the trappings and the suits of woe.”
But the next two versions (disguises?) bring something out of it that might not be obvious in the original. The Platon Karataev version not only gives it a big sound, not only makes the guitar part richer, but also reveals a vastness that was there all along. This song is about all of us; we are all wearing disguises, all waiting and hoping that someone or other will talk to us and see us. The Platon version also makes me wonder: what is the “this” in “this is just a disguise”? Even the statement may be a disguise. We’re made of disguises upon disguises; what may seem our deepest, most honest revelation may actually be a mask or shroud, or someone else’s favorite clothes.
Then comes the capsule boy remix of the Platon Karataev version: a return to the origin, in a way (in that Cz.K. Sebő and capsule boy are the same person), but with changes. This electronic version brings out both the terror of the first part (“so please look at me… so please talk to me”) and the possibilities of the second part, which here become downright sweet and playful.
This song is beloved by many because it speaks to our yearning to show someone who we really are. But it also plays with this “really.” Do we know who the “real” self is? Is there one?
I believe that there is a real self, but (as hackneyed as this may sound), to find it we also have to lose it, and it is not discrete but porous, blurry, unbounded. One of my favorite moments of the song is “I am full of yellowness ’cause i was never enough.” The very word “yellowness” is a disguise, because the stress (on the “o”) is different from what I would expect in English. But I love that pronunciation and stress–it sounds like “lowness” and makes a connection between “yellow” and “low.”
I have felt throughout my life that “this is just a disguise,” not because I put on a front, but rather because attention is in short supply. The exceptions are times like now: in the preparations for the Shakespeare festival, it really doesn’t matter what people think of me, as something else is at stake involving many people. We will all be in disguises of many sorts, but through this, we will play ourselves. The disguises enable the release.
“Disguise” is not the most Shakespearean song in the Platon Karataev/Cz.K. Sebő repertoire, but it evokes Shakespeare for me and has been on my mind and in my ears. Platon songs with a more direct Shakespeare connection include “Lady Macbeth” and “Aphelion” (at times I hear “aphelion” as “Ophelia” in disguise; in any case, the song evokes Hamlet strongly) but there are others with subtle allusions and influences—for instance (I think), “Most magamba,” “Litmus Heart,” “Bitter Steps,” and “Light Trap.”
I am moved by my students’ dedication to the project; they have shown openness, excitement, and true attention. One of the challenges, early on, lay in slowing things down: having the opening processional and the later pavane dance be truly slow. Tempo is a disguise in its own right: fast things disguise themselves as slow, present as future, and vice versa. Hamlet says, “There is special providence in the fall of sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows aught, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be.”
Speaking of Platon Karataev, Gergely Balla sent us a wonderful message about the festival:
“Shakespeare drámái az eddigi Platon Karataev szövegekre is hatottak és ez valószínűleg így lesz a jövőben is. Fontosnak tartom a szolnoki Varga Katalin Gimnázium, valamint a Verseghy Könyvtár közös kezdeményezését, mert újra és újra vizsgálnunk kell, hogy mit tudunk meríteni ezekből a művekből. Változatosnak és izgalmasnak ígérkezik a program, mely pont egybeesik két új Poket kiadással (Hamlet, Rómeó és Júlia). Szóval jó fesztivált kivánunk!”
Approximately:
“Shakespeare’s plays have influenced Platon Karataev’s lyrics up to this point and probably will continue to do so. I consider the joint initiative of Katalin Varga High School and the Verseghy Library important, because again and again we must consider what we can draw from these works. The program looks varied and exciting, and it coincides with two new Poket releases (Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet). We wish you a good festival!
About twenty-one months ago, in May 2021, C.K. Sebő released his musical rendition of Csenger Kertai’s poem “Balaton” (in which Kertai reads the poem aloud to Cz.K. Sebő’s accompaniment). I loved it and ordered the poetry collection, which I promptly and slowly read from cover to cover. I had just started reading it when I went to hear Cz.K. Sebő in concert for the first time. A month later, I met Kertai at his poetry reading at the Három Szerb Kávéház. Soon afterward, we started up a correspondence, and the translation project began.
Kertai’s poems are not easy to translate. The language is simple, at times intentionally naive and innocent, but also brooding. Then again, “innocent” is not the right word; the speaker knows all too well of human imperfection and the futility of attempts to be God-like. The poems speak to each other and build something together. Their worldview is both Christian and existentialist, with a focus on everyday matters (that can suddenly become luminous or murky) or on metaphysical events. The “you” in the poems is not fixed; its referent can shift even within a single poem. The translator has to be bold. Hogy nekem jó legyen has received serious and detailed critical praise—not just praise, but reflections and responses. But in English, some of its subtlety can disappear unless the translator recreates it.
Nearly a year later, in March 2022, Kertai was one of the three featured guests in the online Pilinszky event that I hosted with the ALSCW. In October 2022, he presented in my seminar on “Setting Poetry to Music” at the ALSCW Conference at Yale.
By then, I had translated his poetry collection Hogy nekem jó legyen (For My Good); eight of these translations had been published. “Redemption” and “I” appeared (along with a sound recording of Csenger reading the original poems) in the January 2022 issue of Asymptote; “Lake Balaton” and “On Forsakenness” in the March 2022 issue of Literary Imagination; “Constant Slashing” and “Mercy” in the Winter 2022 issue of Literary Matters; and “With Greatest Ease” and “Moon” in the Spring 2022 issue of Modern Poetry in Translation. Then, just yesterday, two more appeared, this time in the online version of The Continental Literary Magazine: “Maypole” and the collection’s title poem, “For My Good.”
The full collection will be published in English translation—I am confident of that—but the publisher has yet to be found, and in the meantime I want to tighten some of the unpublished translations. I want this to read and resound so well in English that people will truly read it—because it is so easy (for me and others) not to read something, especially poetry. We have demands on our time and energy, stacks of books (or other items) waiting to be read, and bewilderment over the thousands of books being published around the world every day. Where do you begin? How do you choose? Why should this book take your time and attention?
I am one of the worst in this regard. I don’t come anywhere close to reading all that I want to read. Reading a book, and reading it through, carefully, is a special occasion for me. I can’t read casually and quickly.
So I want the translations to be like the “Balaton” poem and musical rendition—leaving the reader with the knowledge, not just the feeling, that they will read more.
I added a sentence to this piece after posting it.
In April I will turn 59. That’s not yet sixty; it’s still barely within the range of middle age. But sixty and older will come, not just to me, but to anyone who lives that long. In this there is no shame. Yes, you start sensing that much of the world regards you as obsolete or overlooks you entirely. On the other hand, you are much stronger and more confident than a few decades earlier. You realize that you can do whatever you want, within internal and external limits; you become more concerned with living fully (kindly, boldly, responsibly, keenly) than with winning approval. Or at least you see the possibility.
It has taken me years to move beyond approval, but I have done it, though I still have blips here and there. Winning approval was my means of defense, during family conflict and at school. I was good at it; people praised me for my intellectual abilities and accomplishments, my interest in languages, my cello playing. But when I hit early adulthood (and even much earlier), I needed to escape the snare of approval but didn’t know how. The things people approved of in me were genuine but incomplete; I hadn’t been faking anything, but I had constrained myself. For instance, I loved certain classical music but also kinds of music that parents and teachers looked down on. I had serious intellectual interests but was not only intellectual. I loved quiet but had a wild streak too. To get my point across, I started doing things that people disapproved of (which missed the point, I later understood). Over time, I learned to care far less about approval: to listen to and play about the music I wanted, write about what I wanted, read freely, speak my mind, stay quiet when I don’t want to say anything at all, and relate to others as equals. How great it would have been to do this earlier! But that’s partly what years are for.
Last night I went to hear Cz.K. Sebő / capsule boy (his electronic project); he was opening for Analog Balaton, a soulful, beatful pop electronic duo. Analog Balaton had a double show, on two consecutive days; both were sold out (and capsule boy was playing only on the second). On Thursday, the capsule boy single and video “Funeral Circular” came out. The song (which Sebő wrote in Spanish) conveys bright light and darkness and reminds me of moments of Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa; the video, directed by Ákos Székely, with graphics and dancing by Fruzsina Balogh, takes you deep into the song and into something else too. Something exciting and important has taken off here; I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Sebő’s songs and performance captivated the (huge) crowd; as the set progressed, more and more people joined in the listening, dancing, swaying, cheering. He seemed to catch on to the response, to relax into it and enjoy it. He seemed fully in his element with the music, bringing the samples in and out, singing and backing away, moving to the beat, conveying the mood.
I had a great time there (with some lovely conversation afterward too); I stayed for a little bit of Analog Balaton but then left to catch a not-too-late train back to Szolnok. I read Cortázar on the way home and arrived a little after midnight.
So yes, it gives me joy to be able to go hear a concert like this, to see and hear a favorite musician taking his directions and being so enthusiastically received. This was only a fraction of my week; on Friday I went to a literary event hosted by Eső, and the week has otherwise been filled with teaching, writing, translating, music, reading (in Hungarian, English, Russian, Spanish, and Biblical Hebrew), planning for the Shakespeare Festival, practicing Books 7 and 8 of Esther, which I will be chanting on Purim, and taking care of various odds and ends. But as far as fractions go, it’s a resplendent one.
Back to the question of age: It is true that at a particular age or stage of life, certain activities are more appropriate than others. There’s something undignified, rude, possibly even destructive, about pretending to be am age you are not. But if you are not pretending, and if the activity is good, then there’s every reason to do it if you want. To listen to music, play music, dance, sing. To be there at great moments. To follow your own instinct and ear. To care and at the same time toss away worries. To leave false assumptions, false oppositions behind. To grieve and rejoice as life will have it, trusting your own rhythms and forms, which others may or may not understand. To be able, at the end of it all, to recall Yeats’s “To my Heart, bidding it have no Fear“:
Be you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the lonely, majestical multitude.
For about two years now I have loved Cz.K. Sebő’s music (and written about it here and elsewhere). But his new EP Kesze-kusza (Topsy-Turvy), especially the first song (“Kesze-kusza nyár,” or “Topsy-Turvy Summer”), has new depth for me in terms of musicianship alone. The guitar is meditative and rich—he way it lets the pauses ring, the way the notes come forward and retreat. This quality was there before, but it has reached a new level. The acoustic tone (he borrowed an exceptional guitar for this) is so beautiful that I can listen to the whole EP, again and again, for the sake of that sound. You can hear not only wood, strings, and air, but wordless thoughts. On the first song, the accompaniment by Soma Bradák (drums, percussion) and Benedek Szabó (bass) is so subtle that you might not even hear them enter. And then, when you listen to what they are doing, this adds to the wonder.
The lyrics are dreamy and evocative, the syllables so well timed that they sing themselves. This time the words are not hidden. I love the sometimes muffled singing on How could I show you the beauty of a life in vain? (and with that, the ambivalence over words), but this is pure and bare.
The melody may sound familiar; this song inspired Platon Karataev’s “Létra,” the magnificent theme song of the film Magasságok és mélységek (Heights and Depths).
The album is just under fifteen minutes long; it sustains its mood and beauty from start to finish. Three of the other songs on the EP are instrumental (solo guitar, with some effects); the third song, “Értelmet,” also has lyrics. I think the last song, “1012,” is another favorite along with the first. It surprises quietly; it explores and finds its way.
Fruzsina Balogh’s wonderful cover art evokes not only the songs but the experience of listening to the EP.
I don’t think this will be a final musical destination or anything close; his capsule boy album, now in progress, will take different directions. But it touches on infinity.
The EP (and especially the first song) inspired a poem yesterday. The poem isn’t “about” the EP or the song, but this music was a source. If anything, the poem is about holding back from an instant reaction to music, giving myself a chance to take it in. The fourth stanza alludes to the last paragraph on p. 67 of Zàn Coaskòrd’s book A Valóság, Hit és léleK rejtett csodája; the last stanza hints at Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” So I’ll end here with the poem.
Listening
Diana Senechal
Today I tried something new (Or old in a new way): Saying nothing.
True, many stints of null Had marked my days before, But this nothing had
A pluck to it. Tuning, muting Its strings, gearing
Up for the miracle (As anything that comes From zero is miracle),
It befriended the oval. Later I thought of how The hush had given me time
To hear space sing, To see the clouds converge, Break up, glitter, and
Spatter the long sands, Daring me into a brief Collapse of words.
The words resurged, But with the glint of return From a private voyage:
“Later I looked up the name Of that beach whose waves Rough-sang the sky.”
The album Az utak kifürkészhetetlenül rögösek by cappuccino projekt (Dávid Korándi) came out in mid-December (2022). It’s haunting, rousing, lovely, raw. It sends me in search of music it reminds me of (I can’t figure out what just yet) but also pulls me into itself. It tells a story of a world ravaged by locusts and coming to an end, and three friends setting out on a voyage in the middle of it all. Not all of the songs have to do directly with the storyline, but they all form part of it. The lyrics move back and forth between spoken word and singing; the music, between power punk pop, watchful wandering, and slow, soulful song.
As for what it evokes, the closest I have come is Blondie, Bowie, Hüsker Dü (New Day Rising), Slint (Spiderland), Grandaddy (The Sophtware Slump), the Breeders. Sometimes it reminds me of people playing music in my living room in New Haven or San Francisco, or of obscure albums that I somehow came upon and loved. There’s a songful ease to it; “nem arra” repeats and repeats, opens and opens, changes and changes. The album’s sound is rich and thrilling, ranging from solo voice and guitar to a full band, with Korandi, Gallus Balogh, Zita Csordás, Soma Bradák, István Hromkó, and Benedek Szabó. Cz.K. Sebő wrote the vocal melody for the fourth song, “promenade,” one of my favorites on the album.
I love the album as a whole: for the scary but calm (and sometimes anxious) story it tells, the musical roads it takes (listen to “bolognai nyár,” for instance, or “egy epikureus fulladása“), the solitude combined with companionship, the outspokenness. It’s outspoken not just because of its willingness to look disaster in the face, but because of its musical freedom and zest. I think you can listen to it without knowing any Hungarian and understand so much from the sounds themselves. Or you can run some of the lyrics through your favorite translator and get a vague idea of what they’re about. Or a mixture of both. But whatever you do, listen to “kezek.”
I first learned of cappuccino projekt when I started to listen to Cz.K. Sebő two years ago; Korándi played on “Light as the Breeze,” which I have brought up many times here. I heard him play solo twice: once at a benefit along with Cz.K. Sebő and László Sallai, and another time in with Grand Bleu. He is one of the early members of Felső Tízezer, and rejoined not too long ago. It also seems that life explorations, questioning, travels are a kind of musical practice for him. The album was in the making for five years; during this time he visited and lived in various countries, including Scotland and Czekhia. The ninth song, “nao vou nao amor,” was recorded in Portugal (and reminds me a little of “Elephant” by beloved 20 Minute Loop).
I hope this album gets many listens around the world. I can imagine returning to it with wonder in twenty years, just as I have lately returned to Grandaddy and others, but long before then, I look forward to many hours with it.
A year and a few months ago, I wrote here on the mixtures of happiness and sadness. I would like to return briefly to this topic.
Lately I haven’t been attending all the concerts I would like to hear, since I have been busy and in need of more time for projects, thought, reading, and rest. But I have chosen well. This picture, taken by Zsuzsanna Győri, shows Cz.K. Sebő’s concert on Thursday at the Béla (a bar and restaurant on Bartók Béla Street in Buda). That’s me in the foreground. I love the picture because it conveys what it was like to listen.
It was one of my favorite Cz.K. Sebő concerts so far. In the first part, Sebő played covers of songs especially important to him—by Jackson C. Frank, Blaze Foley, Bob Dylan, and a contemporary songwriter whose name I don’t remember. Maybe someone else too. In the second part, he played his own songs, three of which were renditions of poems by Endre Ady, János Pilinszky, and Attila Jószef. He talked about the songs as he went along. At one point, during the first part, he mentioned that he doesn’t feel sad when playing these sad songs. Nor did I feel sad listening to them. There’s something in them beyond happiness and sadness, beyond them but involving them.
I loved the atmosphere there: the hushed audience, the company of friends and acquaintances, the brick and lighting, the knowledge that we were all there for the same music, each in our own way.
What’s at stake here is a music that plays out life itself, but in quiet concentrated form; where you hear the many voices of the river, city, sea. Where you hear a person bringing this music across: music of others, music of his own, music of his own with the poetry of others. Happy, sad, calm, turbulent, all at once (or at different moments but brought together). Full of influences but particular, unlike any other.
What’s killing us today (or one of many things) is the pressure to be one thing or another. Happy or sad, left or right, “with us” or “against us.” Safe and summarizable. A concert like this opens into a glorious danger where we don’t have to follow the standard rules.
December 8 and 9 (the day of the concert and the day afterward) were the first anniversary of Cz.K. Sebő’s first full-length album, How could I show you the beauty of a life in vain? (Its official release date was December 9, 2021, but it came out a day earlier, as happens at times.) I listened to it yesterday with joy. Joy is both happy and sad; it has room for both and more. It reaches ecstasy and grief. I think of the end of Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking“:
Whereto answering, the sea, Delaying not, hurrying not, Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before day-break,
Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death, And again death, death, death, death, Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous’d child’s heart, But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet, Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over, Death, death, death, death, death.
Which I do not forget, But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok’s gray beach, With the thousand responsive songs at random, My own songs awaked from that hour, And with them the key, the word up from the waves, The word of the sweetest song and all songs, That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, (Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,) The sea whisper’d me.
The top picture was taken by Zsuzsanna Győri, the bottom one by me.
Music at its best is an escape into truth: an escape from noise, distraction, circumvention into something that you recognize and know at your core but also learn right there and cannot fully explain. That’s what Cz.K. Sebő’s concert last night at the Központ was like. A full room, most of the audience seated on the floor. A hush. A quality of attention that you don’t often find. A rich, beautiful performance: his own songs (including favorites such as “Out of Pressure,” “Hart,” “Eternal Home,” “Wide Eyes,” “Debris,” and a Hungarian/English rendition of Pilinszky’s “Egy szép napon”) and an array of covers (of songs by Jackson C. Frank, Blaze Foley, Current Joys, Sebő Együttes/József Attila, and Damien Jurado). The covers were an act of gratitude and love, and an opening into music we hadn’t necessarily heard before, or heard in that way.
There was something I learned at the concert, but I can’t explain it. It was a flash of “You must change your life” stretched into an hour. But changing your life doesn’t mean doing everything differently. It might mean, simply, a new alertness, a new way of hearing things, or to borrow from Art of Flying, timeawakenness. It is nothing to take for granted; you have to build room for it and defend it against everything that would chip away at it or knock it down.
So I’ll end here with a beautiful recording and video of Damien Jurado playing “Abilene.” I love how the song ends with a question.
One of the great highlights of this week was reading John Cheever. I bought a big collection of his stories; this was inspired by Benedek Szabó’s online recommendation of “The Swimmer.” Before buying the book, I read “The Swimmer” and two other Szabó favorites, “Goodbye, My Brother” and “The Country Husband” (all three are fantastic) and reread two, “The Enormous Radio” and “Reunion.” Once I had the book, I started opening up to a random place and reading that űstory; in that way I have read (so far) “Clementina,” “The Housebreaker of Shady Hill,” “A Vision of the World,” “The Music Teacher,” and (my favorite of these five) “Metamorphoses.” Although the female characters sometimes lack depth (and not always), these stories are both brilliant and addictive, a great combination for someone who doesn’t very often sink into reading for sheer fun. My reading is usually slow and preparatory; I am getting ready for class, translation, leyning, or something else. I enjoy that kind of reading, or I wouldn’t do it—but it’s great to have this thick book of Cheever and to know that I’m going to read it fast.
I have already brought up some of the other highlights of the week, but one of them deserves a repetition. Cz.K. Sebő’s instrumental song “4224” is gorgeous. Listen to it here. The cover art is by Fruzsina Balogh.
Two interviews were published or announced this week, one from last week, one taking place next Thursday. My Chametzky Translation Prize interview with Aviva Palencia, summer intern at The Massachusetts Review, can now be viewed on YouTube.
And next Thursday at 2:30 p.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. in Hungary), Matt Barnes and Keil Dumsch will interview me about my ten-year-old book, Republic of Noise: The Loss of Solitude in Schools and Culture. Everyone is welcome; to join, you need to be registered on LinkedIn.
Yesterday I had a beautiful day. I went to Budapest for two performances: first, Platon Karataev at the MOMkult, for the opening of the exhibition in memory of Tamási Áron. It was an absorbing and dreamy performance; I think “Tágul” was my favorite, though it’s hard to say.
Then I walked briskly to the Városmajori Szabadtéri Színpad to see the premiere of a musical adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days (in Hungarian: 80 nap alatt a Föld körül). It was lively, funny, and inventive, with colorful song and dance, umbrellas, digital scenery, and a terrific cast. The libretto is by Réka Divinyi, and the music is by the band Lóci játszik. For years I had wanted to see Around the World in 80 Days on stage, having read about a performance in NYC. Here are some photos.
And there was much more: translating, writing, running, preparing for the ALSCW conference and October trip, listening to music, spending time with the cats, thinking, walking around Budapest, discovering new places and buildings. And now the sun is setting, and I will try to rest a little. Shabbat Shalom.
Cz.K. Sebő’s new instrumental song “4224,” released yesterday, has so much in it that I don’t want to try to sum it up in any way. I love the sound-filled silences and pauses, the beguiling chords, the changes and returns, the acoustic guitar sound, the ending. It is my favorite of his instrumental (wordless) songs so far; three other favorites are “First Day Without,” “Maybe I Should,” and “Interlude II,” but I think this one takes a new musical direction. Fruzsina Balogh’s cover picture is beautiful too.
I first heard it on the road to Szentendre, where I went yesterday evening to hear Galaxisok. Have you ever arrived in a town you have never visited before, and gone off looking for the concert you are about to attend, only to hear them doing soundcheck in the distance and playing “Gyuri elmegy otthonról” (“Gyuri is leaving home”)? And then you know you’re heading in the right direction.
And what a great show it was—on the outdoor stage at the Barlang, with ivy behind them, fir trees, colored lights, and a thrilled, dancing audience. They played so many songs that I love, including “Janó és Dzsó,” “Elaludtam az Ikeában,” “Mondo Bizarro,” the aforementioned “Gyuri elmegy otthonról,” “Focipályák éjszaka,” “Húsvéti reggeli a Sátánnal,” “M6,” “Ez a nyár,” and others.
I left immediately afterwards (to get back to Budapest in time to catch a late train back to Szolnok) but look forward to returning to Szentendre soon.
And now for the subject of time, which the post title promised. It is common to think and say that “summer’s almost over,” “time’s running out,” and so forth, and to bewail how little we got done when time was in abundance. And all of that has some truth. Summer really does come to an end quickly, and most of us don’t get everything done that we plan or intend (including relaxation and fun). But I actually did a lot: not only translating, writing, getting ready for October, but taking care of the cats (who went to the vet on Friday for shots and flea treatment), seeing friends and family, running every day, cleaning my apartment thoroughly, going to some wonderful concerts, biking around Tihany, leading Szim Salom services, and going to Szentendre for the first time. Moreover, the phenomenon of time running out is just mortality, which there’s no getting around anyway. Yes, make the most of “your” time, but is it really yours, and is there any way of knowing what “the most” is? Sure, set goals and deadlines, but also realize that such control is partly vain, and we’re always capable of being slightly wrong about what’s important.
Since November 2017, she has been teaching English, American civilization, and British civilization at the Varga Katalin Gimnázium in Szolnok, Hungary. From 2011 to 2016, she helped shape and teach the philosophy program at Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science & Engineering in New York City. In 2014, she and her students founded the philosophy journal CONTRARIWISE, which now has international participation and readership. In 2020, at the Varga Katalin Gimnázium, she and her students released the first issue of the online literary journal Folyosó.
On this blog, Take Away the Takeaway, I discuss literature, music, education, and other things. Some of the pieces are satirical and assigned (for clarity) to the satire category.
When I revise a piece substantially after posting it, I note this at the end. Minor corrections (e.g., of punctuation and spelling) may go unannounced.
Speaking of imperfection, my other blog, Megfogalmazások, abounds with imperfect Hungarian.
Take Away the Takeaway 