I Am a Bad Son

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We all met in Tahoka as we have for the last two years, and it was a good year. Last year was a good Thanksgiving as well, but a year ago our family was still freshly hurt by loss, some expected and some not. This year, I think, was made all the more joyous by the bittersweet pain of last year's Thanksgiving. This year the big fuss had to do with new babies, new relationships, and even an upcoming marriage!
The whole weekend, though, I couldn't help but think about the Baileys and Browns. I know what a family holiday get together can be like when the wounds recent loss are felt at every moment, intertwined with every laugh, every hug, and every conversation. I can only hope that like the Gabril poem describes below, this experience carves deeper their capacity for joy.

Wednesday was Dad's birthday, and I thought several times throughout the day, "I need to call." "I need to blog." But one thing after another and I found myself sitting down to call at 11:00pm, and decided it was too late. Sorry Dad. Happy birthday! Please don't think I forgot.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet : On Joy and Sorrow
Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Water Glass Maestro

This was one of the coolest sites in the city. This guy played the entire overture to "Carmen", I just managed to get this much on video.
Sorry that it's slow to load. Marla, Anne, whoever, how do I convert it do a format that loads faster?

Another Performance

So I was so excited about making this guy a star and getting him discovered in the U.S. by putting him up on YouTube. Turns out that it seems every vlogging American who has come across this man in Budapest has done the same. And why isn't he on Leno or Letterman yet? Who would need writers when they could have a live performance of the water glass guy?

Lizst Conservatory and the Palace of the Arts

Without a doubt, one of the richest experiences of the tirp to Hungary was hearing the two symphony concerts towards the end of the week. The first concert we attended was the Hungarian National Symphony performing at the Lizst Academy. The academy has been at its current location since the end of the 19th century. This hall has a hallowed feeling to it when you grasp the fact that people like Lizst, Bartok, Kodaly, Debussy, and many more, visited this hall. The acoustics rank this hall as highly as anywhere else in Europe.


All around the hall, are these sculpted scenes, each depicting a different musical adjective. I took a picture of Scherzo because I could get very close to it, and without the use of my flash, none of the others would have come out. Scherzo is an Italian word that means, roughly, "joke."


The concert was an all Brahms program with the HNS and chorus. Here is what the stage looked like when filled with the players and singers.


And then there was our last night in Budapest. We attended a concert of the Budapest Symphony at the new Palace of the Arts. It's a very modern facility, with a beautiful concert hall inside. From the outside, this looks like the sort of thing that an American city would erect for their basketball teams. Seriously, it looks like Toyota or American Airlines Center. But it's for music. The concert was quite possibly the best symphony concert I've ever been to. Now, the symphony was not particularly "on" that night. Distinct mistakes could be heard in the Strauss "Death and Transfiguration" and Elgar's "Enigma Variations" but the way the orchestra played overall . . . . .there's just nothing like it. Here is the Palace of the Arts, lit up for the night along the Danube.

Hungary Part II

This is my new Hungarian friend whom we call Georgina. She has a Hungarian name, but mercifully did not ask us to learn how to say it. She works in the Hungarian tourism industry, and her daughter is a professor/doctoral candidate at UNT. Georgina was our walking tour guide the first day in the city (the 10 hour walking tour that showed us every square inch of the city wore us out!)
Hearing her personal accounts of all the events that took place at the sites we visisted was the best thing about the tour. Her father was a judge in the pre-WWII days. Naturally, he was seen as a threat to both the nazis and the communists. A highly educated man, fluent in 4 or 5 languages, he was forced to support his family with manual labor once the communists released him from prison (when the Soviets took over, in many ways, they simply finished what the nazis had set out to do. They did away with anybody who was seen as an intellectual threat to communism. Hundreds of thousands of jews, protestants, as well as lawyers, professors, and other "enemies of the state" were deported, imprisoned, and many killed. Her father was among them.)
Georgina, as a student, took the national college entrance exam four times, and both times placed high within the 99th percentile, but she was never allowed to attend college because her family was an enemy of the state.
She was terribly kind to us, not just giving us the wonderful tour of the city, but helping our professors navigate the train stations and arranging our tour of the Parliament Building. Several of these things are things we would have just had to do without had she not helped.

Budapest

I know I am long overdue for some Budapest pictures and stories. Ever since we got back I have been busy and somewhat sick. I think I brought back bronchitis from Hungary. Anyways, I'm still busy catching up on makeup work and all, and still coughing, but I feel much better, and even though the makeup work is far from done, I'm taking a blogging break.

For now, I'll begin with the Parliament building. This building, like many in this city, has been greatly rebuilt since the much of the city was liberated by the Soviets at the end of WWII. Ironically, most of the war damage in Budapest was sustained from the liberators. HItler found Budapest to be such a beautful city that he demolished the bridges in order to keep invaders from doing it any harm.
(top) Should be rotated 90 degrees, sorry about that. This is the front entryway of the Parliament building.
(middle) Crown, sceptor and sword of King (St.) Stephen. The state of Hungary was founded in 896 when seven major tribes of the area came together and settled the area. St. Stephen was the first officially recognized king, because he Christianized the nation. The crown and objects in the picture were given to Hungary by the Pope, meaning that Hungary was officially a nation recognized in Christendom. Each king of Hungary got to wear the crown only once, at his coronation.
The crown and these objects have had an interesting history that is hard to keep track of. At times they've been stolen by invaders, buried in various tombs, and recently they spent about 25 years in the United States, when they were kept out of the reach of the Nazis and Communists.
(bottom) The Parliament building from across a park. This park was the site of some of the most violent demonstrations/massacres between the Hungarian people and communist military forces.