December 31st;
Pop in at Lilla & Moni's party, visit
Scott & Rita, and see in New Year with
mother back at Stephen's Liszt-Ferenc-ter flat. On the way out and back nervously dodge teenage boys
throwing fireworks in the street. The
Guy-Fawkes-Night-ish
smell of gunpowder coming off the pavements quite evocative though.
December 30th;
Have caught my mother's
cough.
Sasha's birthday party good though.
December 29th;
Peach
gin with Esther,
port at Stephen's.
December 28th;
Cocoa with
Terri,
beer with Veronica.
December 27th;
I shall miss the
white
fairy lights covering trees down both sides of Andrassy ut when they go.
December 26th;
'Writing
the Romantic Comedy' by screenplay analyst Billy Mernit, is a cheerful, helpful,
rather badly-written book about writing. Every page bounces with ugly language.
Screenplays might not need good prose, but some of
it is still a bit cringe-making: "This
interesting idiosyncracy (Edward's
fear of heights in 'Pretty Woman') is just the
kind of psychological nugget that a sodium Pentathol session with your character may unearth."
(For anyone not placing plot-payoff bets as soon as Edward's psychological nugget
pops up.)
Plenty of practical advice, though. He has watched a lot of films,
from
'The Lady Eve' to
'Breakfast
at Tiffany's', even briefly raising his cap in the direction
of the romance subplot within
'Pulp Fiction'.
He apologises for introducing it, but the 7-beat
model makes its entrance, with various points in the story called things like The Swivel or The
Dark Moment. Some handly lists at the back confirm that the almost textbook plot of
'Pretty
Woman' made it the highest-grossing movie of this kind in the US. (A film I watched dubbed into
Hungarian in the 1990s when the only words I knew were yes+no+thankyou. I was able to
follow it effortlessly, so smoothly-oiled was the plot's machinery. (Mernit uses
the word 'armature'.)) This should give some idea of the overall approach:
"Your protagonists should come equipped - like interlocking puzzle pieces -
with just the right-shaped edges to match each other's profile."
He praises the (slightly drab)
'Chasing Amy' as a
cunning variation on the classic structure, likewise with
'There's something
about Mary'. He acknowledges it's
harder to write innocently frolicking stories than it was in the era of
'Some Like it Hot' or
earlier in the late 30s - his favourite period.
'When Harry Met Sally',
'Sleepless in
Seattle' (two others I found a bit dreary) plus
'Four
Weddings and a Funeral' (which I
never saw) got special mentions: showing romance can still be fresh today.
Hmmm. Perhaps I need some romantic comedy in my own life before looking at this genre. Probably
mother's real message.
Overall, this left me feeling I should have seen (Andy Bennett at school praised
it highly)
'Annie Hall' -
in Mernit's view as well as Bennett's, Woody Allen's finest romantic comedy.
Mother and I finish the
surprisingly nasty bottle of Villanyi Kekfrankos I bought yesterday. Avoid
this wine, citizens.
December 25th;
I finish the Mernit book and open a threatening lawyer's letter from
RBS
about my (now down to) 95-quid debt. Avoid
that
bank, people.
December 24th;
I start Billy Mernit's
'Writing
the Romantic Comedy',
a present from mother. She still surprises me.
December 23rd;
Pick up cold-prone mother from
airport.
Esther's and Stephen's kindness save Christmas.
December 22nd;
2nd day at the
Dunaujvaros paper mill.
At home try to switch on heating, finding that
Geza the Git
installed a hot-water boiler which heats no radiators.
December 21st;
With Tim to paper mill for first day of interpreting work. Fascinating to see round a
production line with 3-tonne rolls being cut, stacked & wrapped into small packages of
photocopy paper. Occasionally someone on a fork-lift truck whizzes past
(tight turning circle) the Christmas tree beside the palletising machine
& shrink-wrapping oven. Over lunch I rather go on at Tim
about local scrip with
"demurrage" (not
this meaning)
for large businesses in small depressed towns.
December 20th;
Dubbing 6 German horror-movie trailers. If you know me,
please
send me your postal address. My address books were
stolen
in 2002, so I can't reach many people.
December 19th;
My
Sundays
are a bit of a mystery to me. How do I spend them, exactly?
December 18th;
Art?
Can't
get
enough
of it, mate.
December 17th;
Animated drink with Tim - I
talk
a bit too much. + Dancing with the
stylish Kerry &
the delightfully dizzy Rita late in some cellar.
{Hello
Eszter!} Usual Budapest party:
dumpy bar hideously full of cigarette smoke, yet, oddly, packed with alluring women.
December 16th;
Tea at Carolyn & Gabor's flat. Finished article for
Mini.
December 15th;
After seeing Ari's flat and meeting Politics Judit &
art expert
Eva,
later to a
gallery with
Robin
to see show about angels with two paintings by Sasha. We meet
Sergii and
Svetla,
while I get rather silly on sweet champagne.
December 14th;
Big-Client Architect Norman
Foster thrills France, of course.
December 13th;
Futures
& options for starving people?
December 12th;
Letty's homework:
ancient India.
December 11th;
Robin fixes first photograms.
December 10th;
Writers' Group last night at
Erik's, where
we find writing one-line gags is really quite hard.
Today, a 3-foot-high glowing
Santa Claus is plugged in at our end of the office corridor.
December 9th;
So it's true. Left-handers are
sinister,
after all. Bastards.
December 8th;
Part-way through lesson with Dusan all the
school's
lights go out, as a school play starts downstairs. But
Marion's computer still works, so he and I finish the
tutorial by the light of the glowing grey oblong of
my weblog.
Later Robin
& I have sausages at Sasha's. Sasha has a
couple of exciting new paintings I hadn't seen.
December 7th;
On morning 7 bus across Danube a very sleek Cuban girl
loaded down with brand-name shopping bags sidles up to
me in a thrillingly brazen manner and we have a natter
in very basic English until she reaches the
Gellert.
After lesson with Judit in afternoon about Islamic
terrorism, proceed to
ELTE,
where I give a perhaps
rather confusing talk on India. Promised links as
follows:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
+...
Then later with Esther to
Mr Carlson's
business event, getting fairly squiffy and chancing on
Erik.
Esther shows me a photograph of a friend named (oh yes) Yaffa Truelove.
December 6th;
Istvan,
Jeremy
& Robin
at the Central
Cafe. Jeremy oddly vocal about "shaven-headed,
gold-chain-wearing
Audi-8
drivers".
A type, apparently.
December 5th;
Georgina makes fabulous carrot cake, gives me
recipe.
Chilly fog closes in on
Robin's
studio. We drive Letty to the convent school in Kecskemet at dusk.
December 4th;
Robin's
new dog
Lupi
really is a bit loopy.
December 3rd;
Crowded but inspiring train journey into the countryside. Seemed to be
able to think clearly, despite lots of distractions. A lad next to
me sat with a girl talking to him quite quietly, but nonstop, for at
least an hour. He said
less
than fifty words, she
well
over a thousand, but
they looked quite in love with each other.
Then Robin & I played pool in Lakitelek until midnight.
December 2nd;
Mariann makes a fine soup at her flat, then we watch Peter Greenaway's
'8
& 1/2 women' on DVD on a computer monitor with
her flatmates,
albeit in a choking haze of cigarette smoke. Like every other
Greenaway
film, a mixture of beautifully-framed, symmetrical long shots
of grand-looking interiors, stiff-shirted men and women talking with
bureaucratic woodenness about their complicated sexual desires, & rather
bilious, overexcited use of colour. Creating a mood of
pretentious, stagey decadence. Add a dash of
cyberpunk
fascination with Japanese junk culture [in this case,
pachinko parlours],
Derek
Jarman-ish and
Ken
Russell-esque penchant for sex, religion
& visual loopiness, and a trainspotterish interest
in numbers and geometry, and you have a typical
Greenaway
casserole. The plot of 8 & 1/2 women:
a man and his bereaved father fill his expensive Geneva home with a
small harem of various women, and get bored. A depressingly
English-Catholic feel. Men are made ridiculous and
weak by their sexual desires, and it's in vain anyway
since women always have the last laugh. Drab outlook, despite the
rich colours.
An hour in Mariann's kitchen afterwards listening to a likeable
but first-rank drug bore go on about his rather uneventful
adventures on
K,
cocaine,
MDMA,
acid,
etc suddenly
helped me see why some men find drugs such a good niche. It
offers a kind of experiential machismo for sensitive types: the male
can both intrigue women with his keen interest in emotion & mood,
yet at the same time show them he likes
daring, rebellious adventure and is mysteriously
experienced in the ways of the world.
All without having to be physically hard.
December 1st;
Miklos
pops round for an
Unicum.
Mark Griffith, site administrator /
contact at otherlanguages.org
back
up to top of page
