Such a shame he died young.

There’s a little behavior that you see here, particularly in women and girls starting around 10, that really irks me.  It’s basically a plain-view disappearing act, trying to erase your presence from the social landscape so as to avoid unwanted attention.  The person using it usually sits upright, with their eyes open and either looking at one spot on the floor or shifting between two or them.  They don’t look deep in thought, more like fortified deep within layers of tempered unresponsiveness.  I’ve never seen this in the US.  I’ve seen American kids go off into their own little worlds, but the spark of consciousness is still on their faces and indicates potential, if temporarily back-burnered, socialization ability.  The defining trait and the purpose of this Japanese behavior is to blunt and deflect all attempts at interaction.  Hence, while American kids lost in thought can be recalled simply by doing anything that would attract the attention of a conscious higher primate, Japanese people doing this little trick might keep it up for several minutes of being addressed directly by name by the only other person in earshot.

I first encountered this while teaching out in western Japan – in a class of 3 high school girls, two were quite chatty and eager to speak while the third sat in the position described above for at least a minute while I asked her over and over again, “How are you?  Good?  Fine?  Not bad?” until the other two informed me that she “doesn’t talk”.  I guess they meant “to you, at least directly”, since she actually would translate everything I said line-by-line into Japanese on other occasions.

This is a rather strange and pink sculpture on the wall of the Kálvin tér underpass in central Budapest. I’m not going to say what it resembles, but if you thought what indeed you’re thinking, well you’re the perverted one, not me!

This building is in Budapest’s District VIII, invariably known as Nyócker or the shithole of the capital, and is one of the few remaining structures in the path of the Corvin Promenade, which seeks to regenerate the area so that it’s not a dump anymore.  It’s literally just down the street from West Balkán’s current location.

I’m sort of torn in respect to this, because I don’t want to see these old building razed. At the same time, the area has become a hotspot for crime and poverty.  While I don’t like the part about displacing the poor, I can’t really see much of an alternative for the area if it ever intends to shake its image as Budapest’s grittiest area.

They must have a problem with fraternity initiations in the area.

If you haven’t read “The God Delusion” yet, read it, if only to understand this wondrous post.

Richard Dawkins asserts that it should offend our 21st-century senses to see children labeled with the religions of their parents – e.g. a Muslim child, and Mormon toddler, a Jain newborn – as they are yet unable to even understand the theological beliefs they’re being described as having. I forgot if Dawkins makes this next point or not, but it seems like something he might or the people around him might say – that children should form their own opinions and beliefs re the cosmos when they reach an age of a bit more intellectual maturity.

The same should be true of ethnicity. If children are too young to question that the age of the Earth is 6,000 years, they’re also too young to understand or contemplate critically ethnic origin myths or the supposed sublime beauty of the supposedly ancient rituals and symbols they’re expected to grow up to appreciate. Like Dawkins states that we should all make the switch from “a Protestant child” to “a child of Protestant parents”, I believe it’s time we switched from “a Korean child” to “a child in the process of learning to be Korean” or maybe “a child most likely to become Korean”. I sound glib here but it’s only my need for precision that’s making these descriptions sound utterly silly.

I don’t agree at all though that we ought to let people “come to their own conclusions”. Those of you who know me know I don’t believe in free will, and that the ability of people to make “their own decisions” is overestimated and overvalued. I don’t suggest that children not be indoctrinated into any ethnic group, but rather that children be indoctrinated into a worldwide non-racial, non-national, mostly pacifistic ethnic group. Otherwise they’ll just end up picking the ethnic group of their parents and most of their peers, and that would completely defeat the purpose of my pretending to be able to control what people in the world call each other.

Chester < Manchester < Godmanchester

When you go out and see a woman sunbathing topless, if you’re a guy, of course you’re going to look. I’m sure that’s part of why some women do it in the middle of a public park. What you don’t do, however, is what the guy in the photo is doing above. That’s just poor form, and ruins it for the rest of us, not to mention creepy.

To see what he was looking at, click on “keep reading,” but make sure your boss isn’t standing behind you.

Keep reading »

I was only out for one night at this year’s Sziget Fesztivál as opposed to four nights last year, but I swear the weirdo ratio was higher this time around, one example being above.

Multiple Sclerosis Street doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way.