Janos Gereben
- 1969
Fellowship Title:
- Social and Political Development in Eastern Europe
Fellowship Year:
- 1969
From Leipzig to Osaka, part II: The Children
June ‘70 (**Images not Available) **People only Jerusalem **Osako **Lu Wu **Ayudhya **Bangkok: food on the mind **Tokyo: food on the table **Hamburg: food for the doggy Whoever invented that nonsense about the “true internationalism” of children, whoever first said that “children are the same the world over” must have been blind in both eyes. With Coca-Cola signs dominating the entire inhabited universe, the only truly different and therefore characteristic sights the quick traveler gets a chance to see these days are the faces of children. The “cute sameness of kids” is in the mind of the gusher. The real thing is beyond that belabored facade. Children are people. They are fat or hungry, energetic or lethargic, bright or stupid, ambitious or complacent, happy or depressed… They are people and therefore different. Those four pictures on the front page show four different groups of children, picked at random from different countries, different civilizations, different circumstances. There is very little that’s similar about them. Physical size may just be the only clear possibility: they are
The OP and POP of the Post-Socialist Realist Era
BUDAPEST—The mindless muscularism and happy-happy-happy of socialist realism were short-lived in Hungary. There was a period, to be sure, when the market and financial-political rewards did create such a “school” in Hungarian art, but—as this article aims to prove—it was a brief and isolated movement. Tibor Duray: The Sufferer. 1958. Jeno Gadanyi: The Seer. 1950. And, even in this period (about 1949 to 1956), the output of the government- and party-supported socialist realists formed only a meager minority of Hungarian art. This rejection of the Soviet model is so clear that party-approved art histories, such Lajos Nemeth’s Modern Art in Hungary, cannot find a sufficient number of paintings and sculpture to illustrate the “good and proper” direction. Art in Hungary during the Communist years became more morose, disturbed, and depressed than it has been traditionally—and that’s a tradition not to be taken lightly. In Hungary, there has been no continuous line of development in the arts such as that found in countries with more peaceful and fortunate histories. France, for example, had such a tradition.
Expo ‘70: Hurry Up and Wait
May 1970 Wanda Gereben, wife of Alicia Patterson Fellow Janos Gereben, was asked for her impressions of the Osaka fair, to be passed on to others. These observations have been reprinted and distributed with the hope that they will be of benefit. The following, I hope, are some helpful hints to your friends and relations who are planning to make their way to Expo this year. Since one arrives in Tokyo, regardless from where they are coming, he must get to Expo by either train or plane. We found a neat dealy that we can recommend. The National Railway is issuing an excursion ticket for Expo visitors. One must ask for it as it is not advertised. You can get it and loads of other helpful information (all in English) at the Japanese Tourist Bureau (JTB) which can be found in any train station or near the Marunouchi Hotel. Here’s how it works: Buy a ticket for the Bullet train (round trip) from Tokyo-Kyoto-Tokyo. With this, for a few extra bob, get a special
In Lieu of Summing Up
VIENNA—Looking back at the end of a year in Europe, the following item from the London Times stands out among truly significant memories: The Course of Nature The riddle of the worm’s wriggle From a Correspondent Worms are hardly a subject for popular observation, and the literature about them is thin underfoot. So when a Royal Navy commander wrote asking me why worms “tied themselves into complicated knots not to be found in the Admiralty seamanship manual” if suddenly brought to the surface, the possible answer needed some reflection. Long ago Darwin showed how hypersensitive worms are to any contact. He found that even a slight puff from the mouth caused instant retreat into the burrow. Here, it would seem, lies the answer to my correspondent. An authority I consulted said that sudden exposure of worms to duce a reflex “escape” reaction – the air while digging would pro-they turn blindly in upon themselves in trying to reach safety. Sometimes they coil tightly into little balls, as I have observed myself when turning over a
JE, JE, JE!
Nothing French about that; it’s “Yeah, yeah, yeah” in Hungarian. The Hungarian State Music Publishing Co. BUDAPEST—It’s all familiar: the shoulder-length hair twirling around the electronically contorted face…the words, most unintelligible, some English…“beat” and “rock” looking down from posters and tempting from the windows and shelves of music stores…the rocking, screaming audience…big money and ever-clawing fame for practically nothing and coming overnight… It’s all familiar but for the place. We are not in San Francisco five years or even in London last year; this is Budapest, the capital of a Communist country, and the time is now. The Illes group. On the opposite page: two views of The Omega. Not too long ago, the only sources of this Western bliss were illegally monitored broadcasts of Radio Free Europe, BBC, and the Voice of America. All three stations reduced their music programs because there is no point competing with the very hot and very cool sessions heard on the Hungarian State Radio. No other Communist country, not even Yugoslavia, can match the Hungarian permissiveness on this—among