Bruner Blog
All Bruner, All the Time
Peter Solymosi Exhibit, Sept. 9-29 @ Andrassy Ut 98, Budapest
I've had the pleasure of knowing a handful of truly brilliant artists so far in my life. One of them is Peter Solymosi. I got to know Peter the first couple of year I lived in NY through our Hungarian network. He lived in a classic huge artist's loft over in Greenpoint, Brooklyn until a few months ago, when he had a big sale of some paintings and moved, first to Budapest, where he is presently and then to India, where he plans to spend a year or so before returning to NYC.
The Abandoned Pier, Oil on canvas, 2000, 54 x 48"
In addition to being a really inspired painter (I'll spare you my amateurish intellectualizing about his work; let me simply say I love his stuff), he also plays the part beautifully. Dishevelled, moody, crazed glint in his eye and extremely funny and puckish. One of my favorite annecdotes about him is that he took the image of one of his more provocative paintings, The Beauty and the Beast, and he put it on a postcard that looked very officially like it was printed by the Museum of Modern Art. He then stocked them in the museum's gift store and checked back periodically with pleasure to see they were selling nicely. Even though he didn't see any of the royalties, he got the satisfaction of exhibiting, as it were, at the MOMA.
Now, those of you in Budapest can enjoy his next thwarting of the traditional art distribution system. Deciding that he was not impressed with the way the Budapest gallery scene was run, he has arranged for an exhibition on fence on Andrasy Ut for three weeks in September. A friend said he's welcome to use the fence, so from September 9-29 you can see his work displayed at Andrass Ut 98. On September 11 at 6pm, the exhibition will include a dance performance titled "Panic" by his friend Bernadett Barna.
- 8/31/2002
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C.H.U.D.
I should have mentioned this earlier but was busy and got distracted. Mark points out that on the 27th I had "Subway Cat" and "Underdogs" in successive headlines, and he wondered what was next. This was the best I could come up with.
- 8/31/2002
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Oozing charm from ev'ry pore, He oiled his way around the floor
As regular readers know, I [heart] Hungarians. The whole lot of them really, one in particular, and several hundred on a first name basis. Thus, I hope everyone agrees to find this funny.
I just came across a passage from the My Fair Lady song "You Did It," sung between Henry Doolittle and Colonel Pickering the day after Eliza's big coming-out party. I remembered only the excerpt used in the headline of this post from when Bob Cohen, master Magyar-baiter, first mentioned it some 10 years ago, as containing some of the most delicious Hungarian stereotyping ever put to music. I quote:
Pickering
And when the Prince of Transylvania
Asked to meet her,
And gave his arm to lead her to the floor...!
I said to him: You did it!
You did it! You did it!
They thought she was ecstatic
And so damned aristocratic,
And they never knew
That you
Did it!
Henry
Thank Heavens for Zoltan Karparthy.
If it weren't for him I would have died of boredom.
He was there, all right. And up to his old tricks.
Mrs. Pearce
Karparthy? That dreadful Hungarian? Was he there?
Henry
Yes.
That blackguard who uses the science of speech
More to blackmail and swindle than teach;
He made it the devilish business of his
"To find out who this Miss Doolittle is."
Ev'ry time we looked around
There he was, that hairy hound
From Budapest.
Never leaving us alone,
Never have I ever known
A ruder pest
Fin'lly I decided it was foolish
Not to let him have his chance with her.
So I stepped aside and let him dance with her.
Oozing charm from ev'ry pore
He oiled his way around the floor.
Ev'ry trick that he could play,
He used to strip her mask away.
And when at last the dance was done,
He glowed as if he knew he'd won!
And with a voice to eager,
And a smile too broad,
He announced to the hostess
That she was a fraud!
Mrs. Pearce
No!
Henry
Ja wohl!
Her English is too good, he said,
Which clearly indicates that she is foreign.
Whereas others are instructed in their native language
English people aren't.
And although she may have studied with an expert
Di'lectician and grammarian,
I can tell that she was born Hungarian!
Not only Hungarian, but of royal blood, she is a princess!
Servants
Congratulations, Professor Higgins,
For your glorious victory!
Congratulations, Professor Higgins!
You'll be mentioned in history!
- 8/31/2002
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Radio Humor
Heard a great piece the other day on NPR from the National Lampoon Radio Hour (Real Audio file) of the early 1970s, including the late greats John Belushi and Gilda Radner, among others, a very amusing pseudo-documentary about how hillbillies immigrated from places around Europe to the New World.
Also, another amusing installment from Fire Sign Theatre on NPR (Real Audio file) on the topic of Homeland Security and the government's TIPS program.
- 8/31/2002
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MLBFU.org
Major League Baseball, F*** You? Well, not quite, it's the MBA Fans Union, but same general idea. A bar owner near Chicago's Wrigley Field has formed an organization to file a class action suit if the MLB cancels games due to a player strike. I'm not a sports guy, so this whole thing is a bit irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, but I like the spirit of it. Great marketing ploy for his bar, in any event. I heard about it on NPR.
- 8/29/2002
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Subway Cat
 Cute story in today's Times about a cat that lives at the Fulton Street subway stop.
- 8/27/2002
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So Much For Underdogs
A little update on an earlier blog note about underdogs: My Hungarian wife watched two weeks ago live on TV in Hungary when the Budapest team Zalaegerszeg beat the soccer legends Manchester United 1-0, and she reported with disgust that it was a terrible match and a joke that Hungary won. Thus, she seems to take some perverse pleasure in reporting to me now that that Hungary got its ass kicked in a revenge match today, 5-0. That's Hungarians for you, the ultimate underdogs.
Meanwhile, in Harlem yesterday, the Harlem Little League All-Stars were greeted by 500 well-wishers celebrating the losing team's sixth-place finish in the Little League World Series. After all, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. (All the Hungarians are rolling their eyes.)
- 8/27/2002
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Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, Contemporary Jazz Great, Wed 7pm @ Grant's Tomb
 Hey boys and girls, I invite you to bring along a folding chair to Grant's Tomb (Riverside & 122nd: map) tomorrow, Wed. the 28th at 7pm to hear Roy Hargrove, a terrific contemporary trumpet player as part of the Jazz Mobile free jazz series all around NYC every summer.
- 8/27/2002
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Go NY, Not SF, for 2012 Olympics
I'm pleased to hear that New York, along with San Francisco, was chosen by the U.S. Olympic Committee panel today to be the country's "semifinalists in the competition to host the 2012 Summer Olympics" (to quote the NY Times intro). I heard on NPR the spokesperson say that Sept. 11 didn't factor into the panel's decision. I'm sure. It should do, in my opinion.
Regardless, New York is clearly the better choice compared to San Francisco, in my opinion. San Francisco, where I lived for four years and don't mean to keep beating up on here, is, of course, a more beautiful city, and would make for awesome TV coverage and put a great face on America for the rest of the world. There is no more picturesque city in the U.S. than SF. And by that time, 11 years after that fateful day last autum, the world will be so sick of hearing about Sept. 11th that the last thing anyone in Brussels or Bogota or wherever is going to want to see in Olympic coverage is more shots of whatever monument they put up at the World Trade Center.
But strictly from a transportation point of view, New York is the obvious pick. This was apparent to me just hearing the headline on NPR that the U.S. contenders for host cities were NY and SF. I was thinking at that point they meant actually hosting the Olympics in San Francisco, as that's what the headlines all say. I thought, that's crazy, it's a city of 750,000 people. Traffic there is already horrible. Public transportation is non-existent. Drop an extra few tens of thousands of tourists, athletes and media folks from around the world in there, and no one would be able to move.
Then I actually looked at the online bid plans for San Francsico and New York, and there's no comparison. Not only does the NY web site kick SF's ass, but the respective maps for the two events say it all. The San Francisco Plan has nothing to do with San Francisco. Yes, some events would take place in that burb, but events are spread out all over the state. The map makers are apparently to chicken to even name what town the Olympic Village is situated in (I couldnt' find it anywhere on the site), but judging from where the star on the map is, it's down somewhere near Santa Clara. Not only are events spread all over the Bay Area, they're spread out as far as Sacramento, Monterey, Napa Valley and San Diego, for Christ sake.
The plan optimistically proposes a new bullet-train system to connect all the events. Yeah, right. I'd love to seem them get that through the state legislature in 11 years. This is a town that is still debating plans to rebuild the Bay Bridge after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and the current plan is still a car-only bridge (no light rail, no bike paths, no vision for the future). Regardless, even with a bullet train, Sacramento and Monterey (much less San Diego) are still hours apart.
The NY plan, by comparison, takes place in the five boroughs on NYC and Newark, NJ, a mere 20 minutes by bus or car. As for the transit here, the athletes could all ride the subway and no one would take notice, as long as they all paid full fare.
Also, how telling is that the coverage to today's announcement on SFGate.com, which is produced by the city's main piece of garbage newspaper, The SF Chronicle, is a newswire feed from AP? The Chronicle didn't even have a reporter covering the story?
NY deserves the bid.
- 8/27/2002
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The Skeptical Environmentalist Is Wrong
I see from DayPop a lot of bloggers are linking an op-ed piece in the New York Times titled "The Environmentalists Are Wrong" by Bjorn Lomborg, author of the book The Skeptical Enviornmentalist (you'll see I think so little of the book I'll sacrifice any potential Amazon affiliate fees and not link to it). I'm really sorry to see the Times giving this jackass a platform once again. Here is one passage from his recent essay:
There is, however, one problem: this litany [of environmental concerns] is not supported by the evidence. Energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so. More food is now produced per capita than at any time in the world's history. Fewer people are starving. Species are, it is true, becoming extinct. But only about 0.7 percent of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not the 20 percent to 50 percent that some have predicted.
And what about his litany? Where's the evidence for his ridiculous claims? Natural resources have become more abundant lately? Someone has figured out how to farm oil or what? I somehow missed that headline. He goes on to suggest that rather than battling global warming, we should just learn to adapt to warmer climates. Brilliant idea. Tell that to the people of the Marshall Islands, who will be under water in a few years.
Claming that we'd be better off to let the developing world concentrate on catching up to the living standards of America and Europe first and only then worry about environmental issues, he writes "Only when people are rich enough to feed themselves do they begin to think about the effect of their actions on the world around them and on future generations." Yeah, I see all the suburban soccer moms in SUVs really fretting about environmental issues. The U.S. uses 25% of the world's resources with 5% of its population. Frankly, I don't see many Americans worrying too much about changing their behaviors for the sake of the environment, particularly if it means giving up one iota of comfort that our overly indulgent lifestyle describes. But let's indeed get all of India and China driving SUVs, too, since we're growing oil on trees, and if it gets too hot, just crank up the AC.
This guy is a crank and has been amply debunked, if journalists or bloggers would take the trouble to do the research. My friend Colin Woodard, for example, wrote a scathing piece for TomPaine.com about all the journalists who have been suckered by this guy's book, and World Resources Institute provides an exhaustive analysis of his work.
Instead, I'd recommend bloggers pay attention to this story from The Guardian: "Ecological decline 'far worse' than official estimates" citing research from the OECD, not simply wishful thinking.
- 8/27/2002
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Political Blogging
Cool new development: a congressional candidate in North Carolina, Tara Sue Grubb, has started web logging. She's 26-years-old, a libertarian, and hot. Almost wish I lived in North Carolina.
- 8/27/2002
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Who Needs A Blog When There Is Epinions.com
Thanks to sister Sue for turning me on to epinions.com's reviewer Leon, who is quite hilariouis.
- 8/26/2002
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What I Did Last Summer
 It's really none of most of your business, but I had a whole lot of fun at a reunion of old college friends the weekend before last, and I just spent most of Sunday updating our little web site. If you love looking at other people's photographs and memories, go for it.
- 8/26/2002
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