Boldog Karácsonyt

Today is Lisa Kathleen Cupit Keen's birthday!
Happy Birthday, Lisa!
[December 25, 1959 - February 24, 2006]

David
Kaposvár

Real Fine Love

Well now I never went to college, babe 

I did not have the luck

Stole out of Indiana 

In the back of a pickup truck 

With no education higher

Than the streets of my hometown 

I went looking for a fire just to burn it all down

You got a real fine love

You got a real fine love 

One I am unworthy of

You got a real fine love, baby

Well I thought I had a line on something

Baby no one else could say

They couldn't find it their hearts to just get out my way

And out of nowhere and for nothing

You came into my life

I've seen an angel or two before 

But I never asked one to be my wife.

You got a real fine love

You got a real fine love 

One I am unworthy of

You got a real fine love, baby

Well you can sprinkle all your teardrops 

Across the evening sky

But you cannot hide that twinkle 

Of starlight in your eye

I left my map way back there, baby 

I don't know where we are

But I'm gunna pull my pony up 

And hitch my wagon to your star

You got a real fine love

You got a real fine love 

One I am unworthy of

You got a real fine love, baby

Well maybe it's just a little thing 

The way I feel tonight

A little joy, a little peace, and a whole lot of light

John Hiatt

https://youtu.be/FMQszu5kw5c?feature=shared

Baruch Spinoza

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." 

Martin Luther King, Jr

 "I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation."

He ended with, "When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Flâneur

Flâneur is a French noun referring to a person, literally meaning "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer", but with some nuanced additional meanings. Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations. A near-synonym of the noun is boulevardier. Traditionally depicted as male, a flâneur is an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander detached from society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of industrialized, contemporary life. The flâneur was, first of all, a literary type from 19th-century France, essential to any picture of the streets of Paris. The word carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. However, the flâneur's origins are to be found in journalism of the Restoration, and the politics of postrevolutionary public space.

Saturday, March 11, 20:30/8:30pm, Istanbul - Cool

After spending the first week seeing the main tourist areas in the Old Town, the Sofia Hagia, Topkapi Palace & the Grand Bazaar, Anna, Lyle & I spent the 2nd week visiting areas of the sprawling metropolis I had not traveled to in October, when Mary & Dave were here. Istanbul is enormous, with close to 20 million inhabitants. While taking the ferry out to the Prince's Islands, we had a sweeping view of the city, perched as it is above the Marmara Sea; we could see buildings in either direction, East or West, as far as the eye could see! It was impressive. (I flew in to the old airport, from Budapest, riding the Metro from there to the Old Town, Sirkeci station; I believe I counted 15 stations; it took over an hour.)

Our 12 days are up and I left Istanbul yesterday evening, heading for Bulgaria. The train was an overnight sleeper, but that is a misnomer, because every couple of hours we were disturbed by border guards or the conductor. To be honest, other than border control, I don't know what that was all about. I disembarked in Dimitrovgrad, rather than take this particular train to Sofia, the capital. At the rate we were going, I was going to miss the connection to Bucharest, so by taking the train from Dimitrovgrad, I could cut across the middle of the country, meeting up with my train in Gorna Oryahovitsa. Save myself 5 hours or so. I'll catch the overnight sleeper in Bucharest later this evening and arrive Budapest tomorrow morning. Hopefully, refreshed, but that is to be determined.

My companion in the 2-bed sleeper out of Istanbul was a young Turk by the name of Ular. He was shy about his English, but soon warmed to the practice. (I was grateful he wanted to speak to me at all.) Ular had spent a few days with his family and was returning to his studies in Sofia; he is 20 & a medical tech student at one of the universities there. Although he did admit he is not so interested in the Biology, but is passionate about the Physics(!). He wants to be remembered 'forever;' I think he meant 'immortalized,' like Galileo & Copernicus. I was impressed and told him so. He then asked me if I had ever been to Vancouver, Canada, although it took me a few tries to understand what he was asking, as his accent was thick. I said I had and it was his turn to be impressed. I asked, "Why?" By this time, Ular had brought Vancouver up on his Maps app, and he pointed to all the green around the city, the mountains with Whistler, Banff and Lake Louise. He said there is not much 'greenery' in Istanbul. I don't know if he is the determined type or just naive. You don't need to travel half-way around the world to find 'green' on a map: he could travel to Slovenia or Italy or Austria for glorious mountains & forests. Ular then asked me if I liked Philosophy, which I do, but I had my doubts we could say much about it, what with all of the technical terms used to describe the different -isms: Stoicism, Existentialism, Nihilism, etc. He said he was agnostic, yet believed we had a 'soul.' He was referring to Religion, but close enough. He did not follow his parent's belief in the Muslim faith. He is not alone, as there are about as many young women in Istanbul without head-scarves as with, in my observation. It was getting late and he asked if I was sleepy, if I wanted to lower the beds. I thought that was a good idea and thus the end of our conversation.

As I was leaving the compartment, he turned in his bunk and I whispered, "Thanks & good luck! Now, go save the world!" He smiled & I closed the door.

More later.