The Most Beautiful Budapest Time-Lapse Video, part 2

25Dec11

Again… Since I posted a year ago a time-lapse video and stated that it was the best. Now the same person has published a new time-lapse video which is way more nicer than the other one. I had tears in my eyes while watching. Budapest is really this beautiful, no lie!

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Tags: budapest, Dancsó Péter, time-lapse, video

Good Morning: The Constitution’s Table

13Sep11

Today I was walking to work at Blaha Square when I saw something that made my day. We have some youth groups who are involved in politics but they are not actually participating in anything seriously. Their most important goal (and role) is to point at those events and decisions in Hungarian politics that are just funny. And how can you not find something ridiculous nowadays?

How could you miss setting up your or the people’s own Table of the Constitution with a pen attached to it with a ribbon in the national tricolor? 
I’m quoting here The Contrarian Hungarian who translated the new regulation which made obligatory to every municipality to set up a room with a table for the new Constitution. (Don’t forget, if you are a Hungarian citizen you can order your copy of the new Constitution at the local municipality.)

Starting on Thursday, September 1, 2011, every municipal council in Hungary must set up a table to display the country’s newly enacted constitution.

The table must be covered by glass, and the constitution on the table must be opened on page 28 (though citizens may browse the document freely, turning it to any one of its pages).  Next to the table, a chair must be set. The table must have its own room. The room must be guarded by an employee who is employed exclusively for tending the table.

Decoration (here there is rule for creativity) and a ribbon in the Hungarian national colors also must be placed in the room. Above the document itself, a sign must be fixed on the wall with the words “AZ ALAPTÖRVÉNY ASZTALA” – “THE CONSTITUTION’S TABLE.” The sign, hopefully more carefully guarded than a different document ordered to be kept on display in government offices and municipalities last year, which ended up being smeared with a deviled egg in one citizen’s effort to protest, must be IN BLOCK CAPITAL LETTERS.

Update: a friend just told me he saw another table of the Constitution at Móricz Square.

Update 2: Another friend witnessed a table of the Constitution at Széll Kálmán Square (this square has recently been renamed from Moszkva/Moscow Square to Széll Kálmán Sq., some days ago 4K! a youth politics/activist group ‘renamed’ it to Peking Square.)

Update 3: Somebody saw  a table at the Southern Railway Station as well. Have you seen any?

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Tags: Blaha, constitution, funny, Hungary, national, ribbon, table, tricolor

Maybe It’s All Fake — Television in Hungary

25Aug11

In this crazy and hot summer no surprise something has happened in the Hungarian media. After the second round of one accusing the other of lying it turns out a television reporter had made up her story. The false investigative report generated anger among wise consumers of fast moving commercial television goods, among media analysts and maybe among broadcast media workers as well. The one and only working watchdog of the Hungarian media the National Media and Infocommunications Authority also commented the case.

An investigative report about corn thiefs

TV2 a Hungarian commercial television channel has a show with reports of a more serious tone. The show Napló (Diary) often broadcasts materials dealing with investigative cases. The report of Gabriella Barczai about corn thieves in a small town in northern Hungary was broadcasted on July 31. The presenter Tvrtko Vujity (also an investigative journalist for television) rolled out the story by saying the guard of a corn field wanted them to show how corn thieves operate. Of course, he said, it’s not guaranteed that they go there and can record that golden minute when the crime happens.

In the video it seems like Gabriella Barczai was in the right place at the right time. TV2 was the very lucky one showing their audience that their journalists go and get the story no matter where and how. The reporter talked with the thieves in front of the camera about why they stole ears of corn and for how much they usually sell them.

The case caught the attention of the local police who investigated it and surprise surprise it turned out the three men appearing in the report as thieves were paid for playing the ‘role’. The show broadcasted another report the following Sunday in which the guard Zoltán Terjék acknowledged he paid the three men so the TV could show how he worked. The innocent reporter tried the guard, asked him why he set up the scene and added that the television would have shown those materials as illustrating cutaways if she had known beforehand what it was all about.

Before the image of the misled television stuck in our mind, reality (?) checked in. The guard of the corn field was fired for being a liar which was of course very bad for him. So he stood up and said wait, it was the TV staff who paid those guys. The news site HVG.hu also talked to the guard who said he wanted to do a favor for the television staff.

TV2 mentioned inside investigations in their statements. The results are not known. Maybe Gabriella Barczai set up the scene but I guess there were other members in that ‘staff’ who saw what was happening and still in the first round TV2 was trying to defend their position. They fired the reporter subsequently to the firing of the guard. Supposedly, they were afraid of the police investigations revealing more information about the recording of the scene, or the ‘actors’ starting to tell in public what happened exactly. Do you think Gabriella Barczai was the only liar in this story?

When I read about the case the film the Network (1976) came to my mind: “The only truth is what you get over this tube… Listen to me. Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamn amusement park… You people are the real thing, we are the illusion.”

The Hungarian media authority’s blog post about the false report implied the same thing ending with these words:

Nevertheless, let’s watch and listen to news programs and read dailies perceptively, meanwhile let’s always think about this: it’s not certain that all is corn thief which looks like that on television.

My problem (as a journalist) with this is that even if the media authority said this, this is not true. Or they shouldn’t talk like this. I always believed in media trying to do their best to present the truth. It’s true that the demonstration of the truth is not the truth itself but we should do our best to get close to that. Each media has their tools to do that in a fair and correct manner. No-one ever should imply that Hungarian media lie to their audiences! Should you be always dubious when you open the newspaper? So why does media exist if it’s not telling people the truth at all? It’s rather the leadership of those medias that know about themselves they are not even getting close to the truth should look into their system and find out if they have any problem concerning their code of ethics.

Thanks to HVG.hu news site which called attention to this story and didn’t let it fade away.

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Tags: corn field, false report, Hungarian media, investigative, journalism, Media, television

Releasing The Spanish Revolution Compilation

23Jul11

Interview with Enes from the Beroots Bangers

Enes is a French rapper living in Spain. He and his friend Zemo are forming the rap group Beroots Bangers from Barcelona. They have recently released a new video ‘Escapate’ with lyrics about MCs who should escape the stereotypes of being show-off gangster rappers. I talked to Enes through Skype about Spanish rap and the ‘Spanish Revolution.’

How did you get to Spain?

I was born in Paris, well, in the suburbs of Paris. But my father was born in Spain, he was a political refugee in France. He came back to Spain some twenty years ago and I was sick of the Paris suburbs. Once during holidays I decided I would never go back to that shit. I stayed in Barcelona. It’s my little paradise, I just love Barcelona.

So you speak Spanish?

When I came here I spoke only French then I learned here Spanish and Catalan. Because we also speak Catalan here, it’s one of the small languages of the region.

How old were you when you moved to Barcelona?

I was fourteen, just getting fifteen.

What was your relation with French rap then and now?

I grew up with that music. The first rap song I remember hearing was Je danse la mia of IAM. That’s my natural music ‘cause I grew up in the suburbs. I’ve been listening to it since I was a little boy and I never stopped doing that. My whole family, my friends from childhood, they all live in Paris. So I am still in touch with the French hip-hop music.

Are there many listening to French rap in Spain? In fact I was translating French rap into Hungarian because here people like French rap but they don’t understand anything.

It’s the same in Spain. I’ve got an initiative of translating French rap into Spanish because they really like the music but they don’t understand anything. It’s the same with English, they love it and consider it something that should be respected but in fact the [American] guys are rapping ‘Your mother is a bitch’. Spanish guys are really bad at languages. The new generation used to speaking a bit of English but rather the ‘school English’. So they don’t understand the American rappers.

How much politics are involved in Spanish rap?

There’s not much politics involved, in fact Spanish rap isn’t about anything. It’s more like the typical ego-tripping American rap. That’s the normal school of Spanish rappers. It’s quite hard to find real songs with real subjects. We have few who talk about politics. but the most political rap in Spanish is not even from Spain, they’re Los Aldeanos from Cuba.  El B and Aldo who make political rap against Castro. They are living in Cuba and they may get into jail and die for that. I consider their music the best Spanish rap in the world.

And in the music of Beroots Bangers?

We don’t actually talk about politics. We didn’t even want to make a song about the Spanish Revolution. I used to saying that we are not politicians but journalists. I prefer to describe the situation to the people and let them make their conclusions. I don’t want to make value judgements. For example I may talk about how much the government spends on military stuff or health care. But I’m not taking sides.

What is that video about when you were sitting on a bench and talking about the Spanish revolution?

That’s exactly what I have just said. When I made that video I felt the youth listening to our music just didn’t get what the whole ‘Spanish Revolution’ is about. Some thought it was wonderful, the others thought it didn’t serve anybody and the campers just held up the metro. Nobody was conscious about the goals of the Spanish Revolution. So we explained to our listeners in the video that the revolution is not about party politics.It’s a spontaneous start-up saying people had enough of corruption and corrupt politicians. They want real democracy. We explained them [in the video] it was important to go to vote ‘cause if you stayed at home you wouldn’t make a change. You should vote for small groups and punish the big parties. Force them to make it better because they’re loosing votes. We explained them the reasons.

After the elections the whole Spain was painted in blue as we say. The neoliberals got to power. They got 32-33%. 37% didn’t vote. The socialists lost a lot of votes. The neoliberals won in Barcelona too which is [was] considered the socialist fortress of Spain.

But you still campaigned for something in the video. Saying you should vote is campaigning.

We didn’t campaign. We just used our power as artists. That is the power of diffusion: I can make a video and my fans would see it. We just wanted to explain the demands of the Spanish Revolution. A lot of people understood the Spanish Revolution was against voting but it was about voting for the small parties, not for democrats or republicans. The biggest problem is that we have these two huge parties but they are the same shit. The video was just about for whom the people shouldn’t vote.

It was not an option to hand in invalid votes?

The problem with that is that in Spain the invalid votes are re-distributed by percentage between the parties running in the elections. So you actually give your invalid vote to them.

Did you participate otherwise in the camping?

I went everyday to the camping in Plaça de Catalunya. We went there every night because at 9 we had at every square the ‘casserolada’ which is making noise with kitchen equipments. But we also re-distributed informations through Facebook and Twitter. But by now I’m disappointed with the developments.

What kind of developments?

There are no decisions made. The three main concepts were: no more corruption, no immunity for politicians. [Second] No more multi-employment for politicians. For example being a representative and having a position at a private company. The third was the change within the regulation of banks because they were responsible for the financial crisis. 150 000 000 EUR was paid by Spain to save banks which cover the budget of education for 80 years. That is the budget of education since my grandfather was a schoolboy.

I agree with everything at the camps because they raised important issues. But you can’t make too many changes at a time. They are loosing the revolution because there are no decisions made to change in the three main goals. It was better to focus on those and not to try to make more and more changes at a time.

Do you really think the people would reach these things if they kept on protesting and making ‘casserolada’ every night?

I don’t know. I mean we reached huge things in ‘68 in France. Right now everybody is looking at the Spanish Revolution. When two weeks ago the police entered Placa de Catalunya everybody was supporting the Spanish Revolution, right now nobody talks about it. Why? Because we spent two weeks on talking and didn’t do anything, no declaration was made, nothing. It’s nice to camp but without ideology they can’t achieve anything. I am not sure this would make big changes. Small things may change though since people expressed they had enough.

Would this change anything in rap? Rapping more about social issues?

I was about to release a new song before the Spanish Revolution titled ‘Datos’ (Numbers) with information about the budgets and financial issues like the one I mentioned before. But with the Spanish Revolution I stopped it because I didn’t want to confuse people and look like making profit from the situation. Two months ago nobody was writing about the politicians and right now everybody is about to release a Spanish Revolution compilation. What the f*ck? In my opinion they may be singing about it but it’s not without financial interests. They should do the same thing as we did. Explain things to the youth.

Maybe you should release it if you feel like doing the real thing and you can stay critical to these issues.

I’m gonna release it. It’s a 7 minute track without chorus. But I think it wouldn’t be ethic to do so now. It would look like I’m forcing my interests. It’s nice to make a song about the Spanish Revolution. But not like this: after many songs about cars and bitches the republican and neolib rappers are releasing these songs. My reaction to this was: ‘Go to hell!’

[This post was published in Hungarian at Lángoló Gitárok music blog.]

Filed under: music   |  1 Comment
Tags: Beroots Bangers, Enes, LaineRec, rap, Spain, Spanish, Spanish Revolution

What song are you listening to – BUDAPEST

22Jul11

I have just found this lovely six-minutes-long video. A group walked around in Budapest and asked people what song they were listening to.

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Tags: budapest, headphone, people, What song are you listening to

Cross-cultural Reality Rap

07May11

Recently, a group of young and creative people travelled to Hétes to make a video about Roma children living there and discussing what it would look like to become popular on TV. Hétes is quite a neglected neighborhood in Ózd city, Northern Hungary. These young kids are rapping about reality TV shows in Hungarian media. They look happy, funny and dedicated. But their ordinary lives are far from something that a member of the majority would consider happy and funny. But still you have to live and find happiness in your life…

The situation of the youth changed some years ago when Kriszta Bódis, a documentary director started a summer program which aims to educate the participants through creative activities. She organizes there a camp with social worker, teacher, journalist etc. volunteers, and there they teach the children and often take care about the families. They share their experiences and communicate with the participants of the summer camps on this blog.

This latest video was made by a group of creative people from Budapest and the media/film group of Roma in Hétes. The project was lead by Kriszta Bódis. Sadly, this comes after the rise of ethnic tensions in Northern Hungary. The conflict between Roma and majority communities has been difficult to discuss until now. From now on it sounds like a yes or no question.

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Tags: Akkezdet Phiai, Hétes, music, roma, valovi rap

Jamie Woon’s New Video Was Shot in Budapest

23Mar11

Very sad I didn’t pay close attention and didn’t see that on March 16 Jamie Woon published on YouTube his new music video for the song Lady Luck from the upcoming album. But now I am sharing this sweet video with you which was shot in Budapest.

I know it’s funny to read this from a Jamie Woon fan but I love the video because it is not full of the clichés I frequently mention. You can see him taking the tram and the metro in the city. The shots are more of playing with the lights, with the shapes and the patterns.

I think if I was not from this city I would never be able to find out which Central and Eastern European city this is. I would only know it was Central and Eastern Europe because even in this video they couldn’t make it without having a picture of a Trabant car.

This is what Jamie Woon tweeted after publishing the video:

@Abeano well i can certainly recommend budapest’s network. World class with some lovely 70s colour schemes

To make the ‘I frequently mention’ clear, I am posting this video as well. Also shot in Budapest. It’s Katy Perry’s Firework which starts right away with a shot of Buda Castle. Absolutely touristic.

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Tags: budapest, city, firework, jamie woon, katy perry, lady luck, music, video

Roma Rally

23Mar11

This video was made by the Foundation of Subjective values in the project We Are Here. The film tells the partly funny, partly sad story of two Roma boys who would like to be rally racers. (The video has English subtitles.)

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Tags: Foundation of Subjective Values, rally, roma, video

Talking About A Happy and Free Country

15Mar11

The new thing to me with this media law debate was that it was not only politicians, philosophers and whatever academic or journalist intellectuals supporting the campaign for free press but other sort of public persons also spoke up for the issue. It’s a very good thing on the one hand because now we can see that a lot of people feel concerned no matter what their profession is, they would like to support Hungarian media. On the other hand it is indeed very sad. Because it shows there’s less and less limit regarding who feels concerned. It’s more and more citizens saying OK, I had enough.

I couldn’t stand not posting until the the event (the organizers will also provide live stream with Ustream [btw, a Hungarian company!] from the demonstration).

For the ‘Free Press for Hungary’ campaign they had a bunch of Hungarian public persons saying a few words about why they are supporting the campaign. Here is Bori Péterfy, IMHO one of the best singers of our country. I made subtitles for the video so that you can see her talking about why she wouldn’t want her child to be born here… She’s pregnant that’s why it is now an issue for her. (Sorry for translating the child as ‘he’, of course I don’t know if it is a girl or a boy, and in Hungarian we don’t use he/she, and Bori didn’t say anything about that either.)

And now you have to listen to her music!!!

Filed under: Media, music, Society   |  1 Comment
Tags: Bori Péterfy, free press, free press for Hungary, Péterfy Bori

The Third Demo For Free Press Tomorrow

14Mar11

Tomorrow is a national holiday in Hungary, the anniversary of notable events during the 1848 revolution. That was the first time when Hungarian people went to the streets and rallied for free press for example. Nowadays, when Hungary is involved in many polemics about its media law–and how this law was changed by the pressure on behalf of the EU–we’ll have the third demonstration for free press tomorrow.

I will surely be tweeting from the event here, maybe sharing audio here and streaming online here.

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Tags: demonstration, free press, freedom of speech