Hungarian Food: Langos

One Hungarian dish that everybody should try when they visit Central or Eastern Europe is langos (pronounced lahn-gosh, with a long o sound).  It is nothing fancy, merely flatbread that is either deep fried or baked in a brick oven (typically, the former)  For those in the United States, it is quite similar to Indian Fry-bread, having the same simple, slightly sour flavour.  Most of the time it is served, covered in garlic butter, sour cream, and cheese to make a Hungarian version of the flatbread pizza.  Apparently, many eat it with ham, corn, potatoes or a variety of other toppings, but I most often see people chowing on the cheese/sour cream version.  There are langos stands everywhere; it appears to rank third in fast food hierarchy, after pizza and gyros.  A langos vender across the street, whose restaurant is simply a 3ft wide window before a kitchen, just big enough for the cook, has a constant flow of customers.  His sign is so faded, if one didn't see him sling such an incomprehensible number of flatbreads, nobody would know what he sells.  I didn't have a clue for weeks, until I approached his tiny shop and saw the handwritten menu posted to his window.  Just last week, I tried his langos, which was fluffy and delicious, dripping with garlicky butter, layered in two centimetres of cheese (I've found myself to be a bit lactose intolerant as of late, so I omitted the sour cream, but accepted the hit from the cheese).  It was a cheap treat (costing about a buck-fitty) and I could understand its popularity.  Though, it struck with a vengeance a few hours later.  I don't really eat fried food any more so I found myself with a terrible case of heart burn and the cheese gave me a stomach ache, but it's a small price to pay for a little decadence.

Memes are Lazy Art - An Opinion from 2012

The famous, inquisitive African child and his delightful commentary on the absurdity of the "developed" world. This is one that I actually quite like.

I don't really get memes.  Many people are particularly fond of this form of expression.  Some of my best friends, even my beloved Michelle are hooked on these things.  For those of you who don't know what a meme is, it is a replicating piece of culture that mutates (evolves/devolves).  Now, this is an extremely narrow definition of the idea, but for the purpose of this essay, one just needs to know that the term meme has basically been mutated, to mean that people take a photo and type some text over that top and...that's it (an "image macro" so to speak).  Don't get me wrong, there are some clever memes out there.  Occasionally, Michelle will show me a good one or I'll see one on facebook, but most are decidedly, not funny.

I don't know exactly when the first Internet meme was invented, but the first I remember was the classic, So-and-So Ate My Balls pages from the mid-90's.  It all started with Mr. T Ate my Balls.  Basically, it was websites filled with photos of celebrities and characters talking about eating balls.  It may not sound funny, but at 14, these were genius.  Here's an example, using a modern image-macro template:

This is muti-layered meta-joke, based upon an earlier joke you've probably never heard of.

They were crude in not just their subject matter, but also their execution.  The formula was simple: upload a photo into paint, add a text bubble, type something about eating balls, then post it on your website full of other balls-eating related content.  In 1996, when it was much more difficult to virally spread an online joke, the popularity of such a concept was quite impressive.  The memes were not themselves funny, but the absurdity of seeing Gary Coleman in the midst of a ravenous addiction to the oral consumption of testicles, was a breathe of fresh air from the situational based humor of the time (Whoopie Goldberg is a CEO,  Whoopie Goldberg is a Basketball coach,  Whoopie Goldberg befriends a dinosaur...ok, maybe absurdity was starting to return.).  This was in the days before the neo-dadaist movement of the 2000's with Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, or other "random humor" shows were big.  The fact that they were not funny, made them funny; and that was the joke: a viral cultural phenomenon that itself was a meta-joke, a commentary upon a joke that wasn't even funny the first time it was told.  A modern take on the chicken crossing the road.

Around the same time as this was another of these early Internet memes, the hamsterdance.  It portrayed four animated .gif images of dancing rodents, set to a song from Disney's Robin Hood.  I'd first come across it in an online chat room around 1999 or 2000 (for you youngins, before there was facebook, people would join groups for similar interests and send texts to each other for hours), finding it amusing, I started setting it as our school computers' web browser homepage.  Much like "ate my balls" memes, these morphed into other groups of animated .gifs dancing to music.  (Catdance, jesusdance, dancing babies, you name it, they were all dancing in 2000.)  Note that this is pre-flash, everything was purely html and thus rudimentarily done.  It was the simplicity of the technology that allowed these variations to spread so quickly.  I think hamsterdance was a turning point for Internet culture, showing that the Internet was a medium for mass production and distribution of ideas, that was ever changing and evolving.  Also, there was money in it.

Hamsterdance merchandise, including shirts and coffee mugs and calendars and all that started selling like mad.  An extended remix of the 10 second hamsterdance jingle was even reached number five on the Australian singles chart (number 2 in Britain).  People latched onto this idea that a trifle could make money and even more importantly, variations on trifles can mean something.

The technology improved and the flash player made online animation a product that could be easily and quickly viewed, but with the growing ability of C++ to make really anything, animators and creative types with a knowledge of programming began creating sites like Homestar Runner and rathergood.com to show off their talents.  It was a golden age for animation; one didn't need a distributor to show off their art and using the growth of internet advertising and merchandising, one could do it for a living.  All one needed was ability and some luck.  Memes began dying out as the tastes for internet culture became more sophisticated. Simply, the average person was not adept at making cartoons.  For five years, the average internet user was mostly a consumer, not a creator.  (a more accurate portrait is that most focused their creative attentions on the simpler, web-design and blog-creation.)

A velociraptor, who philosophically ponders whatever a person writes on top of the image.

The tide seemed to change after the rise of the LOLcat.  Sometime around 2006, image macros of cats, superimposed with grammatically incorrect leet sayings (cats can't speak well you see), broke out of the message boards and into the general public, and the internet meme was reborn.  The beauty of this was its utter-simplicity.  All one needed was a photo of a cute cat and paint, then boom, instant contribution to internet culture:

From conception to posting, this took me exactly three minutes and 17 seconds.  Though this one admittedly, isn't very good.

I never found the LOLcat thing to be amusing, but more annoying.  I did enjoy the cute photos of pets now and then, but the sayings didn't strike me as clever.  Being an English major, I felt that people should at least be able to spell simple words like "is" correctly.  It had been ten years since I'd had my balls eaten, so the return of this mass-produced commentary on the simplicity of creating mass-media was already a tired concept; and worse, the irony was lost.  It may be elitist of me to say it, but by the time the mass populace caught up with this kind of absurdity, I had moved on.

This one only took 46 seconds to make.

LOLcats were followed by Fail-memes (or maybe preceded by, it is hard to trace the origins of these things).  Fail-memes were just a bunch of photos of failures, with simply "fail" written on them.  It was an even more simplified way to create a picture joke.  It required no thought in both creation or viewing.  The hardware needed to see and make them were the same.  Mix this with facebook and its ability to share and spread culture quickly and you have an instantly gratifying exchange from producer to consumer.  There isn't really a middleman and grows through word of mouth.  This is one of the most democratic art-forms in the world.

People spend endless hours making and viewing these rudimentary forms of expression.  Valuable work time around the world is lost to blindly scrolling down pages of these variations upon themes, in some sort of Skinnerian reinforcement of finding the 1 out of every 250 that actually generates a laugh.  The internet is now polluted with literally millions of these images and finding one that may have had an original idea is nearly impossible.  When anybody with a computer can not only make something, but expose it to the masses in less than a minute, does it have value?

The evolution of current photo macros are fascinating.  It is a short history (but a dense one given the sheer overload of information created using this format).  The cause, effect, and especially order are hard to trace.  The Simpsons and Family Guy's popularization of dropping obscure pop-culture references in an endless game of nostalgia battles spawned memes thats' origins were simply, images from films, with the corresponding quote written on it.

A favorite scene of mine from the 1989 film Uncle Buck.  All I needed to do with today's simple access to images, was type in Uncle Buck on an image search engine.  Then put some text on top of it.  Time from conception to completion 2 minutes.

The most famous of these is an image of Boromir from The Fellowship of the Ring, exclaiming with great indignation, hand formed into a ring, "One does not simply walk into Mordor."  With only the tiniest bit of an inspirational spark, one can simply, change the words slightly to make a joke.

17 seconds.

Another variation is to change the image slightly or make another nostalgic reference to a different film.  And on and on into infinite variations.

This one took ten minutes because I had to find a picture where Yoda was looking in the same direction as Boromir, then haphazardly cut it out and paste it onto a new image.

The Boromir gags can be traced as far back as 2004, but this summer was its height of popularity.  They ebb, flow, and mutate into new forms.  They'll become popular, people will churn out thousands of variations on the theme, then disappear until one day, as people tire of the joke, or find a new one.  Then somebody comes up with a novel amalgamation old and new ideas, and the meme is reborn and the imitators will follow.  What gets lost, though is the original joke and the idea of original expression.  It is not hard to just find a photo and make a macro.  Just follow the formula:

A photo from some old film + Words (extra points if it makes reference to another popular meme) = My own contribution to culture.  So, let's see....old film....old films.....AH!  I love Touch of Evil starring Orson Wells and Charlton Heston.  So, I can just type in Touch of Evil into google images, scroll through until I see an amusing image, put it in paint, type something on top, upload it onto this blog and.....there, you can all witness my clever wit.

If this doesn't go viral, I can make more and more and more until I find one that people like.  These remind me of a giant photo caption contest, except instead of us being exposed to the best few, we are exposed to every single entry.  Theoretically, society will filter out the ones that aren't funny and the rest will fade into obscurity, but it doesn't work like that though.  For them to be passed on, somebody has to see them and share them.  Even the ones that are popular and funny are still trivial and ultimately forgettable, because the second somebody has a good idea, it becomes absorbed, changed, regurgitated and thus watered down, again and again and again until all you have is just a photo of Boromir with clasped fingers.  What is wrong with this?  Nothing really, I just hope that people who make and view these photos are cognisant of their frivolousness.  We are leaving nothing behind with these.  Nobody is going to look back at this:

1 minute, 23 seconds

...and regard it as equal to a Rembrandt painting, or even a Mondrian.  (I could have found an actually good photo macro to make a better point, but there is something fun about making these things.)  Societies have been doing this with material culture for the history of mankind, and some asshole has written and will write an essay just like this, proclaiming that the current society's folk-art (and really that's what this is) is just a useless waste of time that contributes nothing to world.  Even serious art is filled with in-jokes that will mean nearly nothing when removed from its context, but even a "scherzo" movement took time, skill, study, and practice to create (and it also required education and free-time, a luxury afforded almost solely by a privileged class...I'm going to avoid most discussions of class structures in my commentary) and can still be regarded as something valuable.  This, however, does not:

Will this mean anything to anybody in a year?  Does it mean anything now?

Meme is a wonderful pop-term for these images; I see them as a futile attempt to scream "me! me!"  Paradoxically, now that such a large number of people have the ability to have their voice heard by the world, it just becomes noise because everyone is talking.

This is not all bad.  For sociologists looking to study the effects of mass-media and its effects on the evolution of ideas, this is amazing stuff!  Studying the internet is like the studying life-cycles of fruit-flies, because there are so many participants, mutations happen quickly.  The language of expression is changing and being absorbed by society so quickly, images are taking on more complex meanings in very short amount of time.  Again, this has been happening forever; it is how language was born, but are the implications of photo macros and internet memes on the future of communication?

This is now linked with pondering deep (or not so deep) questions of the universe.

CELTA Livin'

When I decided to piggyback on Michelle's adventure to Hungary, I knew that a life on the couch would not be a viable option. This is especially taking into account my financial situation, which is fine since, fiscally, I've proven to be of mixed Scottish and Jewish descent. But sadly, a year's savings lasts significantly less than five years of life (or even one year of life), so I was forced to explore methods of earning money. This can be difficult in a nation where they speak a strange language, unrelated to anything else (except Finnish, where the only similarity I've noticed, is stressing the first syllable of every word).

I have 13 years of food service experience and I'm sure I could become the equivalent of an Ecuadorian in America, plugging away, being exploited on a kitchen line in some restaurant, but this really isn't how I want to live my life. I have no problems being an semi-skilled foreign immigrant, but only as a last resort. So, I looked inside of myself, embraced my inner-backpacker and decided to pursue teaching English as a second language. I cringed as my life continued to be a stereotype.

Although I do have an English degree, one cannot simply become an English teacher. So I did my research and found a highly respected certification course, the CELTA, being offered by the International House Language School in Budapest. I signed up, wrote an essay, had a nerve racking interview, and after sending them a month's savings, I was enrolled.

The course started on the first of October, giving me just a week to adjust to the time-zone and the lifestyle before diving in completely. I didn't really know what to expect. I'd heard many horror stories about the full-time CELTA course; tales of no sleep, tears, and impossible loads of knowledge in such a short amount of time. It had been a long time since I was last a student; I was quite worried that I'd forgotten how.

The first day of class was quite fun. My classmates seemed cool and Gary, our deceptively tall and funny Scottish instructor was a brilliant teacher (as you would expect from a man hired to teach the art of teaching). In the first week, we were already slotted to teach real students, even though few of us had any experience or skills.

My first teaching experience left me addled, but it went quite well. It was not nearly as hard as I'd thought; though even though it was day 3 of the course, we'd already learned a ridiculous amount. From that point on, I would have to teach for 45 minutes, every other day. Even though much of the course was spent learning methodology, teaching and watching our peers teach was the real course.

Most mornings, I'd wake around six, have a quick breakfast, check over my lesson plan, then head over to school. Even though the school is on the other end of the city, well into the Buda side, my apartment and the school were both close to subway stops, so it only took 15 minutes. I would always pay my respects to the epic façade of the Keleti train station and thank my life for allowing me to live a block from such a beautiful building, before catching my train.

I typically arrived around 8 and would spend the next hour printing, copying, and cutting. It is crazy to think that even after all the planning and designing is finished, there is still another hour of work before teaching. Our teaching went from 9-11:30, comprising of three 45 minute lessons and a 15 minute break. After this, we tore each other's lessons apart then prepared for the next day. After a lunch break (which I typically spent working), we spent a few more hours being taught different teaching techniques by our three main instructors. All were entertaining, inspiring teachers and I learned much, not just from their lessons, but taking note of their own styles and how it helped me learn.

Our school day ended at 5PM. Those with no lessons the next morning would hit the bar for a quick beer, the rest headed home to plan. I gained a new respect for my past teachers once I saw how much work goes into planning. I, like most students, just assumed that most work was done in front of the class, with a bit of test correction now and then. Lesson planning is long, hard work. Even though I only taught for 45 minutes in the morning, I would spend an average of five or more hours preparing, often working until midnight. In fact, the teaching was the easiest part: with proper planning, the lessons didn't involve much thought, even if I didn't even stick to the plan. I knew though that if I find a teaching job, I'd need to drop the 6:1 ratio of planning to class time.

I was so busy constantly that the four weeks just flew by. Week 3, traditionally the hardest week of the course, ended with a four day weekend, which helped us all recharge for the last couple days of our lessons. It was a stressful month, but the course wasn't nearly as tough as I was led to believe. I did get at least seven hours of sleep most nights and I remembered most of what was taught in class, mainly since our instructors were fantastic. My hard work and dedication paid off as I was given a A-level for the course. It is good to know that I'm still “that guy”, when it comes to school.

Now I'm a certified English teacher and with an A-level, finding work should not be too tough. In fact, I was offered a class before I'd even finished the course, but things are never straightforward in Hungary...

Music Monday: Congratulations by MGMT

When I first heard this band in Australia three years ago, I had no clue they'd ever make an album such as this. My friend Chris said it, "quietly blew him away." Their big international hit, "Electric Feel" was like a Prince song, as played by two New England white boys. Their three dance rock hits helped their debut, Oracular Spectacular, go platinum worldwide and gave the masses high expectations for their follow-up. Based on these three songs, many were very disappointed to find that Congratulations was a collection of throwback, late-60's psychedelic pop. This shouldn't be to surprising to any who actually listened to the entirity of Oracular Spectacular, including the second half featuring less-catchy, more artistic psychedelic workouts.

I was not disappointed by their "change" in sound, considering I was not a huge fan of the band. MGMT and their producer went to great lengths to capture the sounds of  1960's pop they've unleased.  This is by no means a straightforward throwback that has become so popular with hipster bands lately, but the late- 60's as seen through the eyes of electro-funk obessed New England white boys (though this album doesn't actually contain any electro-funk. It is a confidently delivered album, from the surfy, harpsichord laden opener, "It's Working" until the closing title track.  It is a meticulously structured album, but sounds almost like a cocky afterthought.  "Siberian Breaks", the centerpiece and highlight of the whole album, is a 12-minutes suite, beginning with a modern interpretation 1967-era Byrds and ending with a sweep of swirling electronic beauty that is almost Wagnerian in texture.  Oracular Spectacular sounded like a promising debut by a band destined to fade away as one album wonders.  Congratulations shows that they are much more than that; they'll still go down as one album wonders, (it is the kind of album that'll anger the masses) but the cool kids will follow every move they make.

Arrival

I've crossed oceans enough times, found myself stuck on buses for 12 hours, trains for 36. Flying to Budapest seemed like nothing. I just sat back and watched a few movies; I've spent whole days doing the same thing. I landed in the early afternoon, planning to manage the public transportation to find my home, but after spending nearly two days awake, I opted for a taxi.

The outskirts of Budapest seemed like any other developed country. I saw houses, factories, drab apartments, but mostly express-way. Things were a bit different when the taxi entered the actual city. It looked like Europe; not necessarily the Europe I knew from my travels in Germany, but the Europe of movies: concrete, endless apartment buildings, bakeries at every corner, carved doorways.

It was all quite charming. When the taxi stopped in front of my building, I wasn't so charmed. My block was run down, drunks on the street. If it was cloudy, I'd feel like I was in a Kieslowski film, but Michelle was waiting outside, arms spread and I knew that Eastern Europe couldn't be all bad.

When changing time-zones, I vow to not sleep during the day, fearing this will set back my adjustment, but I was too tired to resist when Michelle headed to class, leaving me alone in the apartment. The moment I had my clothes put away in the drawer, I found myself under the covers, asleep for a nap.

She woke me two hours later and after a long cuddle, we were getting ready to visit our friend Yeganah before heading to a birthday dinner at the New York Cafe, one of the premier restaurants in Budapest.

Our meal was an amazing white-tablecloth affair, with our own waiter armed with a crumb scraper and cloth gloves. My food was divine, especially in its presentation. I ordered rabbit with Hungarian veggies (the were puréed, so I never really found out which veggies they were). It tasted great and the wine washed over my fatigue. My companions kept asking me if I'd like to head home, but I felt fine. I didn't know how bad I looked until I woke the next morning, remembering little and quite shocked by my dishevelled look in the photos. I remembered the free, orgasm-inducing chocolates at the end and that's all that matters.

Abroad Again: Moving to Budapest

                Four years ago, I made a decision that has altered the course of my life considerably.  At that point, I had been out of college for two years, was a rising manager in an exciting restaurant with a staff of 30 people.  I didn’t know where I was headed, but all I could see was up.  I was blinded by this early success, the ambition in the corporate structure, my growing IRA.  I didn’t see the lack of fulfillment. 

Even though I saw it as my own restaurant, I was still being controlled by those above me.  I’d pour my heart and work into projects for the betterment of the business, only to see them brushed aside.  Sure, I’d get a pat on the back for my hard work; I was being noticed by the head office in Chicago, but I really couldn’t do anything.  It did not matter though, because contentment had found me.  All I had to do was keep working hard, keep impressing my superiors and eventually, I’d reach some undetermined higher level of status.  

Contentment is a slow acting poison.  It seemed like happiness.  If you’d asked me how I was, I’d tell you I was happy.  But, work was always a phone call away.  My weekends were spent at home, ready to remedy a disaster at work.  My dreams were a series of problems at the workplace I could not control.  I had money to spend, but no time to spend it.  My one shot of 18 year old single malt scotch had become three and I didn’t even feel the difference.  In the corporate world, happiness is a pillar with only an illusory ladder.  The only escape I had were my emails to Australia.

My unexpected relationship with Jess was cut short not long after it had begun.  Just when we’d come to terms with our feelings for each other, shed the guilt from our situation and realized we wanted to explore the future together, she had to go home.  I don’t know if it was love for her or a hidden desire inside to escape the trap of the American Dream (surely it was both), but my choice to drop everything and cross the ocean involved little thought.

I’d always wanted to live in other places.  This belief was fostered in me through years of hosting exchange students.  It was given that I’d spend a year abroad and see the other side of this lifestyle that had become so normal.  My dreams were clouded by ambition, my need to live life by logic.  I didn’t know what I wanted to be, but spending a year as an exchange student would set it back.  Graduating in 2002, instead of 2001 was unacceptable, because I’d then graduate from college a year later as well.  This would make me underprivileged compared to my classmates, who would have a whole year head start on me.  I was losing the race before I’d even started it.  In the end I settled for a month backpacking in Germany when I was 17.

Eight years later, I found myself getting on a plane to cross the pacific, ready to start living with a family in Australia, taking back the dream I once saw as a threat to my happiness.  At age 25, I finally became an exchange student.

I’ve been traveling ever since.  Things with Jess did not work out, but it freed me to see the country.  After another year at home, I headed to Asia for another year-long adventure, where I met Michelle.

Now, I find myself following another woman across a different ocean, this time to Budapest, which is one of the last places I expected to find myself.  In a logic driven life, I’d not be here.  From years living abroad though, I’ve learned to embrace a life of curiosity and feeling, to ignore the ladders and the pillars (finding happiness is not a climb, it’s more about rolling down the right hills), and not to worry if my choices are setbacks.   Somehow, I’m engaged to marry a beautiful Norwegian and will spend four years in Hungary while she finishes he veterinary program.  I’m facing a forced career change, for with no Hungarian, few contacts, and absolutely no business, it would be impossible to fall back upon my prior dependencies.

I don’t know what I’ll do , but writing and English teaching are about all a native speaker can do in Budapest.   I’m signed up for a CELTA course, which will qualify me to teach.  After that month, who knows what  will happen next.  At least it will be impossible to accept contentment.