Aug. 13th, 2006 01:50 pm
Hungary Part 3
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heatray5dThe flight to Budapest was epic in its length and the full measure of energy required to negotiate it. Remember that part of the Odyssey when Odysseus has to sleep on a really uncomfortable bench for three hours? I had to do that in London (founded according to legend by the survivors of Troy; oh irony that the descendants of Trojans would wreak such poetic justice on a citizen of the country founded by the philosophical heirs of the Greeks!).
The high point of the journey was watching the Italy-Germany match in a pub full of Italians. True to form, they are an emotional people, giving vocal support to a team that was outplayed at almost every turn by a Germany that somehow fell apart in the last two minutes of a hugely long game.
I was sad to see Germany lose, as they seem a technically competent team, but then Portugal plays like a team full of timid ballet dancers – all precision and grace, but with no aggression at all – and we all know what happened to them.
The Benchwarmers is a funnier movie than you would expect, which is not to say that it's actually funny. Movies like The Benchwarmers are like the black holes of the film industry. Entropy is inevitable; information, energy, matter and light are tied up in these infinite, inaccessible chaotic singularities. They evaporate into useless microwaves - chaotic, free-floating cosmic vibrations that do nothing and mean nothing. Information and heat are locked up, consumed, converted, and eventually the universe will be an endlessly expanding hulk of elementary particles locked up in a motionless, lightspeed path through eternity at absolute zero. Though there is something vaguely sad about it, there's nothing particularly awful or threatening about it. It just sits there accumulating.
The only thing really worth noting about The Benchwarmers is that poor John Heder is actually listed next to Rob Schneider and David Spade in the seatback airplane magazine description of the movie as "Napoleon Dynamite" rather than his true name. I don't expect it bodes well for his career. There is a midget that lives in, I think, a "cheese castle" too.
The low down:
zombies: 0
ninjas: 0
hot lava (in liters): 0
nazis: 0
breasts: 0
decapitations: 0
monkeys: 0
Budapest is what one expects of a post-Soviet metropolis. Crumbling buildings with cheap plaster flaking away in sheets and bullet and artillery scars left over from before the war. Air that looks clear, but carries a heavy cargo of ash and soot that colonizes your lung and throat as soon as you arrive, builds little cottages and decides to stay. I will be coughing up Hungary long after I decide I don't miss it.
The train stations there should have more noodle shops where old Chinese men remind you that you are a "brade runner." That's all they lack to complete the picture of a cyberpunk dystopia of too little square footage and too much neon. The girls all wear lumpy bras under see-through shirts, but glare at any girl exposing her tummy. People stare. Like straight up stare. Like if Budapest were a club you would tell security.
Tegin's apartment is unlike anywhere I will ever live, in that it has ample room and twenty-foot ceilings. Her tiny cot is intimidated by the vast corner in which it sits, while her wardrobe is the size of a smallish Gundam. Her bathtub seats seven, but only if at least three of the seven are not Sumo wrestlers.
I am very tired when I arrive, and wish for nothing more than coffee in large supply, some sex and perhaps 70-hours of uninterrupted sleep. The problem with this is twofold at least; firstly that, like everywhere outside the U.S., getting a cup of regular coffee is about as easy as buying a hand gun. Secondly, that it's 10:45 in the morning, and I haven't seen my girlfriend in a month. A conversation would be nice. Also: first time in Europe. Looking around is called for.
There are sights in Budapest. It's a very old city. I see some of them on this first day, and am unimpressed, though I think Budapest seems nice for a city that has been sacked so recently and has so many crumbling abandoned buildings.
Budapest is a neat city, but it's still just as a city, without much to recommend it over other cities in the world. The huge, empty courtyards at the centers of buildings (or gaps where other buildings used to be) seem to have been universally converted into bars. This is a brilliant idea that should be adopted immediately everywhere. Soccer is not watched on anything less than a 30-foot diagonal viewing surface in Hungary.
The high point of the journey was watching the Italy-Germany match in a pub full of Italians. True to form, they are an emotional people, giving vocal support to a team that was outplayed at almost every turn by a Germany that somehow fell apart in the last two minutes of a hugely long game.
I was sad to see Germany lose, as they seem a technically competent team, but then Portugal plays like a team full of timid ballet dancers – all precision and grace, but with no aggression at all – and we all know what happened to them.
The Benchwarmers is a funnier movie than you would expect, which is not to say that it's actually funny. Movies like The Benchwarmers are like the black holes of the film industry. Entropy is inevitable; information, energy, matter and light are tied up in these infinite, inaccessible chaotic singularities. They evaporate into useless microwaves - chaotic, free-floating cosmic vibrations that do nothing and mean nothing. Information and heat are locked up, consumed, converted, and eventually the universe will be an endlessly expanding hulk of elementary particles locked up in a motionless, lightspeed path through eternity at absolute zero. Though there is something vaguely sad about it, there's nothing particularly awful or threatening about it. It just sits there accumulating.
The only thing really worth noting about The Benchwarmers is that poor John Heder is actually listed next to Rob Schneider and David Spade in the seatback airplane magazine description of the movie as "Napoleon Dynamite" rather than his true name. I don't expect it bodes well for his career. There is a midget that lives in, I think, a "cheese castle" too.
The low down:
Budapest is what one expects of a post-Soviet metropolis. Crumbling buildings with cheap plaster flaking away in sheets and bullet and artillery scars left over from before the war. Air that looks clear, but carries a heavy cargo of ash and soot that colonizes your lung and throat as soon as you arrive, builds little cottages and decides to stay. I will be coughing up Hungary long after I decide I don't miss it.
The train stations there should have more noodle shops where old Chinese men remind you that you are a "brade runner." That's all they lack to complete the picture of a cyberpunk dystopia of too little square footage and too much neon. The girls all wear lumpy bras under see-through shirts, but glare at any girl exposing her tummy. People stare. Like straight up stare. Like if Budapest were a club you would tell security.
Tegin's apartment is unlike anywhere I will ever live, in that it has ample room and twenty-foot ceilings. Her tiny cot is intimidated by the vast corner in which it sits, while her wardrobe is the size of a smallish Gundam. Her bathtub seats seven, but only if at least three of the seven are not Sumo wrestlers.
I am very tired when I arrive, and wish for nothing more than coffee in large supply, some sex and perhaps 70-hours of uninterrupted sleep. The problem with this is twofold at least; firstly that, like everywhere outside the U.S., getting a cup of regular coffee is about as easy as buying a hand gun. Secondly, that it's 10:45 in the morning, and I haven't seen my girlfriend in a month. A conversation would be nice. Also: first time in Europe. Looking around is called for.
There are sights in Budapest. It's a very old city. I see some of them on this first day, and am unimpressed, though I think Budapest seems nice for a city that has been sacked so recently and has so many crumbling abandoned buildings.
Budapest is a neat city, but it's still just as a city, without much to recommend it over other cities in the world. The huge, empty courtyards at the centers of buildings (or gaps where other buildings used to be) seem to have been universally converted into bars. This is a brilliant idea that should be adopted immediately everywhere. Soccer is not watched on anything less than a 30-foot diagonal viewing surface in Hungary.
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no subject
Dang, that sounds like Raleigh. When my father was bidding on construction of a shopping mall there, I remember poking my fingers into the holes in the brick left by the Northern Aggressors. And sneezing a lot.