I had hoped to go hear Dávid Korándi (cappuccino projekt) and then The Roving Chess Club in Budapest tonight, but after an intense week I ended up slightly dizzy—not sick, but just short of robust. Because next week starts out with two important trips to Budapest after school—a Purim celebration at the Ohél Ávrahám synagogue (where I will chant two chapters of the Book of Esther), and an unrelated, eagerly awaited gathering the next day—I need not push it this evening or weekend. I will listen to the cappuccino project album tonight.
It was actually a short week because of a long weekend. On Monday and Tuesday we had no classes, but on Tuesday we teachers took part in activities led by our colleagues. I went first to a poetry workshop, then a drama workshop, both of which I enjoyed. That evening, I attended a gorgeous Platon Karataev duo concert featuring Emőke Dobos’s art for Partért kiáltó (on the screen, moving slowly and rotating). Being able to focus on the rotating images brought the songs to me in a new way, with new textures and associations.
The concert was followed by an interview discussion, which I loved for the way Emőke, Gergő, and Sebő could take any question (posed by Dóri Hegyi) and turn it into something interesting and beautiful.
I got home after midnight, went promptly to sleep, and arrived at school the next day at 7:30, since I was one of three interviewers for the oral entrance exams. We interviewed about 75 students over three days (about 30/30/15); I enjoy doing this but was unsure, from the start, whether a concert on Friday night would be realistic afterwards. It is not, especially since I am not needed or expected there in any way. I like to keep my commitments whenever possible, but this wasn’t a commitment, just something I wanted very much to do.
In addition, I am working on a long poem and an unrelated essay, as well as translations, the Shakespeare festival, and more. It is good to have just a little bit of time for doing close to nothing, letting the thoughts slow down.
Update: The Roving Chess Club will be playing at the Tisza Mozi (in Szolnok) on March 17! I plan to go.
A confluence of things. The music, the performance, the venue, the sound, the occasion, the time of day or night, the audience, the state of mind of a particular listener, the way the music might strike the performers or listeners at a given moment, the effect of these things on each other, the eccentricities that make this concert different from any other like it, the samenesses that we look forward to.
The way children love to hear stories, poems, songs again and again, so do adults, but unfortunately we have to justify it to ourselves. Do I have time? Can I afford it? Of the many events I could attend tonight or this week, is this the right choice?
This time, my only question was about time, since I am pressing to put out the autumn issue of Folyosó and still have a lot of editing to do. The editing takes many hours because there’s so much basic correction and formatting involved. When editing, you can wear out your eyes and still miss some little thing—but then, there are pieces that make it worthwhile, again and again. There are students who take writing seriously—and playfully—and are grateful to find their way to readers.
But I figured that I could take my laptop on the train and work there—not always a given, since the train can be noisy and crowded, but worth a try. As it turned out, I had a quiet ride both ways and was able to get a lot done.
The concert (part of a fundraiser for the Waldorfeszt, an independent music festival that may or may not survive) was peculiarly moving, even within the Platon Karataev duo context, where that tends to be the case. One song that I didn’t remember hearing before became a new favorite. Other songs came to me in new ways, maybe because of how they were played, maybe because of what I heard in them this time.
I was not alone. The people around me were rapt, and I talked briefly with two fellow audience members afterwards (whom I have met before, at a recent concert). That’s another part of these concerts: whether you talk with others or not, you know you have something in common with them: this music you have been given, the coming out to hear it, and things you can’t define.
Most of us are back in Hungary now. It will take a long time to assemble thoughts about this extraordinary trip—to Yale for the ALSCW conference, and to NYC for music, wandering, and visits—but it happened and was beautiful.
A brief rundown: We went to the U.S. primarily for the literature conference but also for a few days in NYC. (This trip had been in the planning since March.) Several members of the group arrived in NYC a few days before the rest of us. (The group consisted of seven Hungarian adults, a baby, and me; six of them presented in my seminar on “Setting Poetry to Music.”) We all met at Grand Central Station on October 19, had dinner there, and took the train together to New Haven. I walked with them to their AirBnB apartment—a spacious, luminous first floor of a house near Wooster Square—and headed off to my own lodgings. The next morning, I came by for breakfast, and then we headed off to campus to look around. We visited the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library with its translucent marble walls and its map exhibit.
Then we took different directions for a while (I had lunch with my friend Ron) and met later outside the Humanities Quadrangle, where the conference was to take place. An old friend of mine, Jenn, came by to lend Gergő and Sebő her husband’s guitar. Another friend would lend a second guitar the next day. The Platon Karataev duo concerts we had scheduled in New Haven and NYC had to be cancelled, because they are not permitted under a tourist visa or ESTA waiver, but we had scheduled a private session at Yale’s Dwight Chapel, and they were also to record in a studio in Brooklyn. We then entered the quadrangle for a genial, tasty reception and an evening of readings. (More about all of this later.) Afterwards I went with my friend Claudia (from Dallas) to the former Viva Zapata, now VivaZ Cantina.
The next morning, I attended a panel on Eliot’s The Waste Land, then headed into our seminar room to set up for the first session of “Setting Poetry to Music.” We had a fairly large audience (for a seminar), an inspiring round of presentations, and a lively, too-short discussion. (Again, more about this later.) Then we headed out to the courtyard for lunch. During our lunch, Tim came by with his guitar and cheer. In the afternoon, I presented in the seminar on “General Education and the Idea of a Common Culture.” Then darted out the door and rushed to Dwight Chapel.
About a week before our trip, I had written to the Yale chaplain, Sharon Kugler, to ask whether we could visit the chapel, which holds many memories for me, and whether Gergő and Sebő could play music there. She not only welcomed us but put us in touch with Dwight Hall staff to work out the details. This was an unannounced, informal, unofficial session, completely acoustic, with only the group members and a few others in the audience. The sound filled the space.
The video I shot (of them playing “Ki viszi?” is visually grainy, with a few clumsy filming moments (particularly when I was walking backward), but the sound approximates what this was like. Many, many thanks to Chaplain Sharon Kugler, the Dwight Hall staff (especially Debra Rohr and Alexine Casanova), Tim, Jenn, and Tony, and of course Sebő and Gergő.
In the evening we had dinner at a pizzeria of well-earned fame (which offered vegan pizza, among other delights). We were joined by my friend Lara Allen, who would be presenting the following day in the second session of “Setting Poetry to Music.” Delicious pizza, lively conversation and laughter. After an hour or so, I left the group to attend the ALSCW readings—but was so tired that I fell asleep in the auditorium and woke up only when the readings were all over.
The next day was packed again: an inspiring Shakespeare panel, coffee with Martha, lunch in the courtyard, the second “Setting Poetry to Music” session, a panel on Japanese literature, and then an elegant, rousing banquet in the dining hall of the Yale Divinity School. To top off the night, some of us went to hear the Algerian band Imarhan at Cafe Nine. They were dreamy, rhythmic, ecstatic; the room swayed and danced.
The next morning, I took part in the ALSCW Council meeting, then met up with the group at the train station.
Before I forget, I should say that the foliage was almost peaking. October is my favorite New England season, especially in New Haven. I love it not only for the leaves, but for the tones of light.
The New York part of the trip was just as momentous and moment-filled, but since it was more personal in nature, I’ll tell, just briefly, about my own part. We all stayed, for different lengths of time (some for one night, some for two, some for four) on the top floor of a legendary old stone home in Queens (known as “The Castle”). On October 24, Sebő and Gergő recorded at Leesta Vall Sound Recordings; I had the joy of listening to the whole session. Then I brought the guitars back to New Haven (my first chance in days to sit back and let my thoughts roam) and returned them to Tim and Jenn. In the evening some of us got together at an Irish pub with good music playing through the speakers. Long conversations, both jovial and serious. Then we more or less went our different ways, except that a few of us stayed at the “Castle” until Thursday, and I took a walk with them on Wednesday.
On Tuesday I saw my friend Tara, who came down from Troy (New York) to see me. On Wednesday I walked around a lot and had coffee with my friend Lizzie. On Thursday I moved to an apartment in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn; I also saw Godard’s Breathless (À bout de souffle) at Film Forum and had dinner with my friend Sharon (who was my freshman-year roommate at Yale and plays violin in the New York Philharmonic). On Friday I did laundry in the morning (I miss laundromats, of all things), then had lunch in Chinatown with a former colleague. In the afternoon I headed up to my storage space in Washington Heights and managed, in just two hours, to move my things into a smaller and cheaper unit. From there I headed to Queens for a lovely gathering at my friend Liz’s. On Saturday morning I attended the Shabbat service at B’nai Jeshurun and talked to a few people afterwards. Then I bounded off to Williamsburg, where I heard Hannah Marcus (also an friend of many years) play and sing in her Cajun band The Red Aces. A great end to the trip. From there I sped back to the place in Flatbush, gathered my things, and took a cab to the airport. The plane took off close to midnight.
Such a stretch of time in NYC is an unpaid luxury for me. It happened because I originally assumed we would have autumn break in the last week of October, as we usually do. In addition, I originally wanted to leave some room for a possible literary/musical event that we would hold in NYC. (The event didn’t come together, which is just as well, given that it might have led to visa problems for members of the group. But it is an idea and possibility for the future.)
Then it turned out that our fall break would be in the first week of November, beginning on October 31. It seemed that I could leave NYC no sooner than October 26, arriving in Szolnok on the 27th—so I figured, why not call it a week and stay a few more days, into the fall break? But even that changed; it was later decided that we would have no autumn break at all, just a long weekend—so I changed my return flight and came back a few days earlier than previously planned, just so that I wouldn’t be absent an additional Wednesday, which is my longest teaching day of the week. Still, these extra days gave the whole trip a sense of time and lingering, even though it all went by fast. I have much more in my memories than I have laid out here. Also, the friends I saw, both in New Haven and NYC, are some of my dearest friends anywhere, so there was a fullness to it all.
Next time I will describe the content of the conference itself. For now, a few more pictures—and a special thanks to Zalán and Marianna, who took care of Sziszi and Dominó while I was away.
I made a few edits to this piece after posting it.
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 