Prayer

Here inside there is the shiver
Head-snapping sad scream for a miracle,
Please: just one huge,
everlasting breath of air
Underneath the mercury ocean,
To last forever.

Mr. Fox and Rabbit - Part 18

“The hot ones are going to Rabbit?”
Rabbit smiled fixedly and very slowly and purposefully turned to face Dr. Bear. “I am sorry… did you say something?”
“I did.” Mumbled Dr. Bear.
“You ATE the hat?”
“Yes.”
“Oh well. Let us get the hell out of here.”
The animals piled into Perfectly Frank’s Suzuki Samurai and set out at 2:23AM.
“Why are we setting out at 2:23AM?” asked Dr. Bear, nervous for no reason he could really nail down.
“Well, most stories have people setting out at dawn, or dusk, or at noon,” grumbled Rabbit. He revved the engine and began the fruitless search for a non top 40 radio station.
“What’s wrong with those times?”
Mr. Fox grinned. “They are highly unrealistic. Most of the time people leave during none of those times.”
“Well, people do leave at dusk quite a bit.”
“What is dusk?”
Like a scepter, Rabbit raised a decrepit, rolled up copy of the July 1992 issue of Penthouse. He intoned in a deep, sonorous voice: “Depending on the time zone, it is sometime between 4 and 8PM.”
“In Hungary, it is closer to 4.”
“I know. Those bastards really insisted on being in the EUROPEAN time zone. That frigging time zone is something like 2562 miles wide. Insane!”
Dr. Bear and Mr. Fox nodded sagely. They spoke in unison, bobbing their vastly disproportionate heads. “We AGREE, Rabbit.”
“And...” Rabbit trailed off, staring straight ahead, looking bored to death. “Never you mind.”
“What does any of this have to do with Commander Vimes?” asked one of the animals.
“Nada,” answered Rabbit, annoyed. “It is a mystery – thus, enter Commander Vimes! Solve the discrepancy!”
“This has the stench of copyright infringement.” Muttered Dr. Bear.
“Does it? I thought it was the cheese enchilada I had for dinner,” Rabbit grinned maniacally. “In any event, I stored up some good aged Scotch for Commander Vimes. Tasty, fantastic, out of your mind juicy, aged, golden, flavorful booze. It is so tasty it defies description.”
“Well… Fabulous. I thought Commander Vimes was a recovering alcoholic.”
Rabbit’s grin could have frozen methane. “Yes…?”
“So why are you tempting him?” Dr. Bear produced a copy of Feet of Clay and thumbed through it until he had come to the relevant passage. “In any event, it says here that he had been tempted and he actually dumped the stuff on the carpet rather than give in.”
“To temptation.”
“Right. To temptation.”
Dr. Bear nervously looked for a cup. This was obviously the prelude to toasting. It sounded like a toast. Why was there nothing to toast with? There was the edge of hysteria to his voice when he finally spoke up. “Ok, ok… Are we toasting? Also, is the car moving? Have we seen anything new? Do we need to get gas? What the hell is happening?”
“We would only need gas if there was a need to get gas in the story. It would be a sort of a break in the story.”
“I agree,” said Mr. Fox in the form of a sibilant hiss and a sinuous hip movement.
“Well, we DO need to intro Commander Vimes,” said Rabbit and pulled the car over into a gas station owned by Valero. He pointed at the sign with his paw. “Valero is primarily a west coast refiner of petroleum. The company mostly uses sweet crude from Iraq. It is tasty crude, light, easy to turn into juicy GAS!”
Commander Vimes briskly walked from the gas station convenience store to Rabbit. “I am Commander Vimes of the City Watch,” he said with just a trace of irritation in his voice. “What the fuck are you?”

Steven Spielberg

That bastard is shooting his movie downstairs and because of this they closed off the street and I cannot get coffee from my customary coffeeshop.

Revolting.

fireworks! 

This is a silver fox corpse Chain Smoking Accountant bought on a whim. I cannot wait to see her run around with it draped around her shoulder, all over town during the winter. 

The Basilica of Saint Steven - during mass dedicated to his withered paw. It is really rather frightening. 

Picture of the river 20 minutes from the beginning of the acrobatic flight world championship. 

August 20th

Okay, it is August 20th, which means it is the Day of Sovereignty in Hungary. I keep misinforming the tourists, claiming that it is the Day of Independence, which is totally not true – it is actually the day when the ‘modern’ state of Hungary was founded by King Steven. He picked the Roman Pope instead of the Greek Orthodox church, for which he was granted a crown and sainthood after his death. With German knights, he crushed the ‘pagan’ uprising by the chieftain Koppany, endowed the church with land and privileges, and in general formed a rather typical Christian kingdom.

Hungarians celebrate this event with astonishing fireworks, a really wicked airshow/acrobatic flying world championship over the river, mass at Saint Steven’s basilica OVER THE KING’S MUMMIFIED HAND, getting drunk and meandering through the city suckling on bottles of champagne. No joke about the mummified hand.

The king’s mummified hand (over 1000 years old) is kept in a gold reliquary within the Basilica of Saint Steven. If you give the security guy a dollar’s worth of Forints, he will turn on the lights and you can stare at this skeletor like appendage in eerily blazing, electric glory. The hand is paraded through the city on August 20th, at the head of a procession of priests, nuns and old people in Attilas (which is not just the name of a Hun chieftain, it is also the name of the traditional formal Hungarian suit, kind of high collared and matrixy).

Steve came to Budapest and I took him and his cousins clubbing. I worked with Steve when I was a lawyer in DC. The boys got indescribably trashed. Steve is very impressed by the city and I think he will come back this fall, after I returned from the Estados Unidos.

My neck is killing me or I would ask Chain Smoking Accountant to watch the fireworks with us – I still might, of course, I am just leery of asking her and then bailing after an hour of fun just so I can go home and lie down like a total loser. We will see.

Well, okay, today is August 22nd and I did ask chain smoking accountant and we went and saw the fireworks (well, sort of, we went to the wrong spot on the river and saw very little of it).

Steve and his cousins left for Prague and I am a bit depressed.

Mr. Fox and Rabbit - Part 17

“Cheese is perishable.”
“Perishable.”
“Road trip?”
“Road trip!”
“What equipment do we need?”
“Well, we will take the Suzuki Samurai.”
“All right. What else do we need?”
“Well, there is no point in going on a roadtrip if we leave behind our fx lightsabers.”
“If you bring yours I will have to bring mine as well.”
“Of course. The whole point of fx lightsabers is the dueling. Having just one is like masturbation. Stop the excessive masturbation.”
Mr. Fox raised his paw and listed additional items, accentuating each with a peculiar, short stabbing motion. “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, DVD.”
Rabbit nodded. “To go without Walking with Prehistoric Beasts for over an entire day is simply SUICIDAL.”
“The Sorting Hat.”
Dr. Bear blushed. “Ahhh…. Guys…”
“Yes. We must take the sorting hat. It is a great conversation piece!”
“Well, now that I reprogrammed it.”
“You reprogrammed the Sorting Hat?”
“Of course. Think about it. All the loyal chicks got sorted into Hufflepuff, all the bitchy ones into Slytherin, all the smart ones into Ravenclaw… the courageous ones became Gryffindor, of course…”
“Yes, so?”
“Well, the Hat had to do this on a curve, don’t you see?”
“I am not sure if I follow.”
“Well, take the population of all the girls in a class waiting to be sorted. Let us assume that it is made up of mallrat bimbos with a combined IQ of 20.
“That does not sound particularly plausible.”
“Well, it is also not plausible that every house would get exactly 25 percent of the students in a given class.”
“Ahhh… Guys…”
Mr. Fox furrowed his nonexistent eyebrows. “So, what you are saying is that the hat puts the MOST intelligent mallrat bimbos in Ravenclaw?”
Rabbit grinned maniacally. “NO. I wish it did, but it cannot do that, by definition.”
“What do you mean it cannot do that?”
“It evaluates each student, one at a time. It does not determine the curve of the entire class first by having it placed on the head of each student, and THEN declaring the affiliation of the students in alphabetical order. That would be BORING, no dramatic flair at all.”
“So… So how does it determine affiliation?”
“Well, I kind of figured that out. Let’s assume an entering class of 100 students. The first student in the class to be sorted sits down on that chair and they stick the hat on her. The hat actually evaluates the first person honestly. When it is finished, it puts him or her in a house. It is then faced with a problem. It has 24 slots remaining for that one house and 25 for each of the others. It keeps going. Let’s say the next 10 people are also of that house, for sake of argument, Slytherin. Once the full quota of Slytherins is met, the Hat CANNOT put anyone else into Slytherin, even if the new student is Lord Voldemort’s Evil Twin.”
Mr. Fox cackled evilly. “So what you are saying is that the Hat is just kind of making it up after the first few students.”
“Yes.”
“Well… there is also another problem you did not consider at all.”
“What’s that?”
“How does the hat know what the size of the incoming class is? If it is only, say, 20 people instead of a hundred…”
“Oh, I see where you are going with this. This is not a problem. The Hat lives in the headmaster’s office, it is privy to class size information.”
“Right. However, I reprogrammed it to meet my needs.”
“What are your needs?”
“The hot ones are going to Rabbit.”
Sedately staring at his tablecloth, Dr. Bear quietly muttered: “Guys… I am terribly sorry but … I ATE the hat.”
“The hot ones are going to Rabbit?”
Rabbit smiled fixedly and very slowly and purposefully turned to face Dr. Bear. “I am sorry… did you say something?”
“I did.” Mumbled Dr. Bear.
“You ATE the hat?”
“Yes.”

Flug

I just got a translation gig that is due tomorrow at 1:30 pm (since I have to go to the Woodcarving Expo in the castle after that with my dad and my half brother). My eyes hurt. Dammit.

Ask Moses

On the island there was this booth with a rabbi in it. For HUF 10 (5 cents) you could ask the Rabbi for practical advice. A lot of people wanted practical advice from the rabbi. The sign over the booth had this funny picture of a rabbi and it actually said 'ask moses'... so I did not make this up.

Supposedly he was very funny. I did not ask him anything.

My Family Was Killed by Ninjas

I went to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on this island in the Danube with Chain Smoking Accountant. It was a great concert - unfortunately, my neck froze up two hours into it and we had to leave right after the concert was over so I could lay on my back and think morose thoughts.

Well.

I duly recommend the island ("Sziget") to anyone who comes to Budapest this time of year. It is essentially this vast green space full of trashed teens and twenty somethings smoking pot, bunji jumping from this extremely tall crane, and rappelling off of this vast scaffolding you have to climb up unto. Needless to say I did not do these things but I really wanted to. There were a thousand beer tents and cigarette booths and free internet somewhere (which we did not find).

We passed by this guy (maybe 18) who was sitting around with a sign in his lap.

"Ninjas killed my family.
Need money for Kung-fu lessons."

I thought about giving him money then I decided not to.

I am really sick of this herniated disk crap.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a’la the Winged Pig

“Do you or do you not date a boy named Dean Thomas?”
Ginny giggled. “Well… ‘Date’ might be the wrong word… Dean… Dean…” Her gaze stumbled over the rigid mass of zucchini dominating the tray in the center of the table. “Oh yes. Dean.”
Harry sighed as the dulcid voice of his lady love permeated his consciousness. His addled eyes soaked in the vision of her beauty. As always, Ginny was wearing her Hogwarts uniform. His besotted stare did not go unnoticed.
“Sweetheart, I know you are trying to save us money… But really. You are still wearing your uniform from five years ago.” Mrs. Weasley’s voice was strained.
“No worries there. Madame Malkin is so very eager to take my measurements.” Ginny pushed her finger into the chocolate pudding and began to suck on it, staring at Harry’s rapidly reddening face. “She said to just come by after she closes, come by and we can have the dressing rooms all to ourselves. She says I have the most beautiful hair… Can I just accept a little present from Madame Malkin, daddy?”
“Uhm… well… Yes…. Madame Malkin…” Mr. Weasley’s voice trailed off into the wild blue yonder. He looked distinctly uncomfortable.
Mrs. Weasley closed her eyes, her face flushed with old memories. “Oh… Yessss…. Madame Malkin…” she weakly leaned against the refrigerator.
Ron clapped his hands together to break the tension. “Well! Have some more cake, Hermione!” With a flourish, he produced a stash of suspiciously shiny brown slices on a moss green plate from beneath the table. Ron grabbed a slice of rich chocolate cake and pushed it into her mouth. “Chew and swallow, Hermione!”
Her eyes rapidly glazing over, she meekly nodded. “Yesh mashter.” She muttered in between helpings of dessert.
“Well, Ron, at least you have been paying attention in Potions!” enthused Mrs. Weasley, staring at Ron’s report card. There is even a notation from Professor Snape congratulating you on your Potion of Obsessive Lust. He also says you have a firm ass…” Mrs. Weasley shook her head as if trying to clear cobwebs.
“I don’t trust Snape.” Growled Harry. To chase away his unease he opened the Half-Prince’s book of Advanced Potion Making. The Prince used a special code to denote his ownership of the precious volume – Harry has been dying to decode it. He scanned the mysterious line one more time before closing the book and resuming his dinner.

“Property of Severus Snape. Don’t touch my shit, Potter, or I will kill the Headmaster.”

What could the words mean? Who is the Half Blood Prince? Why the thinly disguised code? Why put the secret of the book into such an incomprehensible drivel?

Heavy

A faded pastel moon
So vast, hovers overhead,
Light pushes straight down, soft and cold,
HEAVY.

I can’t think anymore
Raw thoughts, spicy red sushi, blood,
tears of air pop with hammerlike silence,
dead pale gold in those old, salty channels on my face,
Crusts of bone ice hammered thin under the pastel rain.

Encyclopedia Wand

I was reading Haruki Murakami (Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World) and there was a fascinating discussion of the Encyclopedia Wand.

It goes something like this: How can you convey an infinite amount of data into a single point on a toothpick? Well, theoretically, the answer goes like this:

Take your data, say, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and code it. An "A" would be 1, a "B" would be 2, so 214 would be BAD. Also code spaces and punctuation. This way you would get an incredibly long number. Then put a period just preceding the number. That turns it into a fraction. So the Encyclopedia that started with the entry on BAD would begin with the fraction .214.... Now, the exact middle of the toothpick is considered .5000000

If we had the technology to make a PRECISE MARK at the EXACT point on the toothpick that represented the precise fraction and we could measure such precise mark EXACTLY, the entire fraction could be decoded back into the Encyclopedia. If the fraction was repeating, the number would be ETERNAL. It would be an immortal tautology, in other words.

I really, really liked this idea.