There’s nothing quite like a private tour of the countryside.
It was May 2012, in the spring heat of Hungary. A local resident took me in his car…
First stop was Sümeg Castle, located in the town of Sümeg, Veszprém, Hungary. The castle sits atop a mountain called “Castle Hill”, about 20 miles north of Lake Balaton. Built in the 13th century by Béla Read the rest of this entry »
People who know me are aware that I’m a big fan of wellness treatments. Whatever’s on offer, I’m happy to receive. That’s one of the reasons I spend time in Hungary–a nation with the label: Spa Capital of the World. In Hévíz, a thermal lake spa town, I sign-up for a 21-day treatment program which includes an assortment of things. No question, the translations are helpful as I move through my days and weeks …
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Prepared for Edition #16 of the International BluePrint Blog Carnival >Language>Place.
Theme: Translation Host: Florida-based author and artist Steve Wing
This image also appears in Spas Baths Hot Springs and VisuaLiving.
Another Hévíz translation collage: Translation Treat(ment)
My memory of Hévíz—a Hungarian spa town—is a memory of sensation. My time there is sacred. It’s not a particularly “exciting” time; it’s a rejuvenating contemplative retreat more than anything. For close to a month, my routine consists of eating, walking, resting, sleeping, soaking in mineral hot springs, and receiving wellness treatments (massages, mud packs, etc.). For me, it is bliss. It’s the closest to I get to God.
On more than one occasion I’ve gone there to disconnect from life-as-I-know-it where I live; to disconnect from computers; phones; responsibilities. Solitude is available in large quantities. I slow down. I stop thinking. And when I stop thinking, I begin to sense life in and around me in ways I tend to overlook during the rest of the year. What I find through disconnection is a reconnection with the language of my senses—and nature.
For example …
From my window each morning
I hear and see:
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From the cobblestone streets
I watch and listen:
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From the lake—a thermal lake—
I feel my skin enveloped in heat and liquid nutrition:
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I smell
sweetness in the earth; air; trees:
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Well … there’s earth, air, and trees in that video, but you can’t really smell them.
Perhaps one year I’ll capture the scent and share it here …
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This post was prepared for:
Language > Place Blog Carnival #14:
Locating the Senses in Language / Place
It’s funny, the memories that stick with us. For me, memories from a wedding I attended in Keszthely, Hungary have little to do with the castle it took place in, or the even the bride and groom (dare I say). What I remember is the flower girl, the flow of her dress, and the light that made her glow like a light bulb as she left the castle to get on with her day . I also remember the man who wore traditional Hungarian boots. It actually wasn’t the man so much. It was more about what he had on his feet. I thought, “How can I get a pair of those boots to take home with me on the plane?”
For full-sized images click the links:
It came together in a flash of inspiration when I had a list of other things to do…
I felt the urge, desire, to capture a memory, yet my attempts to contain it recalled the circularity of a familiar moment that changes hue.
The sunrise each day—in Hévíz, Hungary—would greet me with
variations on a particular sky view.
Below, two renditions—complete with visuals, words, and links to avian tunes:
Another image of the Lukács Thermal Bath in Budapest.
The bigger, better view is over at my photo blog:
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History:
12th c: monastery baths existed in this area
1880’s: first spa hotel built
1937: drinking cure hall added
1979: daytime hospital established
end of 20th c: spa thoroughly renovated and modernized
now: a popular meeting place for artists and writers
Treatments:
healing drinking cure
physiotherapy
mud packs
Finnish sauna
dry and steam sauna chambers
foot massage
underwater massage with water beam
refreshing massage
medical healing massage
carbonic acid tub bath
weight bath
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Here’s a different view > Lukács 1.
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Have you been?
Water!
Not just any water–thermal, medicinal, healing water.
Here’s the direct link, with more details and a larger image included:
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Do you have water you’d describe in these terms?
If so, where?
oenisplx / igrnimeeg / spnimirt is an asemic project I put together with Dorothee Lang.
It’s included in the language/place blog carnival #7–assembled by Julia Davies:
“unwritten language / unnamed place”.
A larger version of the asemic images appear in life as a journey > the direct link is here.
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The term ‘asemic’ is variously described as “post-literate”, “nonsensical”, “non-symbolic”. Like abstract art, asemic work promises viewers the opportunity to generate personal meanings from their own cultural and linguistic standpoints rather than having meanings imposed by writers and artists.
In keeping with the spirit of asemics, I won’t tell you the origin of the images. I certainly won’t reveal that the images began as photographs I took inside the bathing complex that sits at atop the mineral-rich Hungarian Lake Hévíz–the largest thermal lake for swimming in Europe; the second largest in the world.
Something else I won’t reveal is the video below; that water in motion–a MicroMoment I captured on camera while standing inside the Hévíz Complex after a long afternoon of soaking:
Other things I promise to keep secret are the symbolic meanings in the title of the project. I won’t tell you the nonsensical three-part name carries the following interpretive content:
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oenisplx = the letters of the word ‘explosion’
[explosion of energy that leads to the elements]
igrnimeeg = the letters of the word ’emerging’
[life emerging, colors spilling into one another]
spnimirt = the letters of the word ‘imprints’
[dried out world, only imprints remaining]
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Other collaborations with Dorothee Lang include: Induction/Deduction, The White Squares, POP UP Poptagon, and Dealing with Family and Friends.
I’m pleased to report that my videopoem ‘the lake’ made the rounds…
It first appeared in ‘Referential’–a magazine that publishes referential literary and visual art. I submitted the piece, referring to the words ‘the lake’ that appear in a poem by Teresa Stores:
the lake > Referential Magazine
After the initial publication I discovered–by accident–that ‘the lake’ was featured in the media section of ‘The #poems Daily’. I’d mentioned the initial publication on Twitter and ‘The #poems Daily’ picked it up:
It wasn’t long before I stumbled across another republication of ‘the lake’. This time, in ‘Moving Poems’–a video poetry anthology that features “the best video poetry on the web”. Needless to say, it’s a thrill to have my work featured alongside the likes of Cecilia Chapman and Alastair Cook:
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Last year, two photos I took of the lake appeared in ‘elimae:’ Lake Hévíz , Hungary
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same lake / same time /same place
A vowel is a vowel is a vowel … right?
Well, not exactly. A vowel is only a vowel when it’s recognized as one,
and a vowel in the word ‘gyógyfürdő’, I’ve discovered, isn’t recognized as one in all places.
Below, the back-story, told backwards:
A steamy experience in Hungary is featured as ‘Monday’s Poem’ at Leaf Press:
The photo that appears with my words is the only one I took at the spa–the only snapshot the attendant permitted.
This bath is my favorite in Budapest–a city touted as ‘spa capital of the world’.
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The process that accompanied publication included a linguistic snag:
The original submission was called ‘rudas gyógyfürdő, budapest’. The Hungarian word ‘gyógyfürdő’ translates into English as ‘medicinal bath’. This word–gyógyfürdő–is the one that caused the glitch.
Late Sunday evening, the night before publication, I opened an email from Leaf Press publisher Ursula Vaira:
I am working on the poem now, and am stuck on the last o in gyógyfürdő … my software (Dreamweaver) simply has no character for that. Even when I go to a website and copy the word and paste it directly in, it still turns up as a question mark.
It’s interesting that Dreamweaver understands the vowels ó and ü, but not ő.
Makes me wonder what other languages feature the first two vowels, but not the last…
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An abbreviated all-English version now stands: rudas bath, budapest
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Other Leaf Press featured writers include:
Rose Hunter, rob mcLennan, Daniela Elza & Christina Shah, Tammy Ho Lai-ming,
14 Poets [including Dorothee Lang]
This blog post is included in Edition #4 of the BluePrint blog carnival >Language>Place.
It is hosted by UK-based editor, translator, and university administrator Jean Morris.
The direct link to the carnival is here.
Nicolette Wong–a journalist/writer based in Hong Hong–recently hosted the 2nd edition of BluePrintReview’s > Language > Place blog carnival. I imagine it’s quite the task to host a blog carnival–gathering, assembling, designing the event. I stumbled upon Nicolette’s retrospective musings on the process over at the BluePrint blog.
Here’s what she said:
“The second edition is a voyage into imaginary spaces and real places re-imagined, in voices from around the world. Writers decipher what they see and hear–in words, codes, images and hints between the lines that they write. And the places shift amid detours, tender moments of misunderstanding or confusion to arrive at the heart of the stories. What’s on the page/screen is often born out of one’s search along a circuitous path.
Some of the authors included were previous contributors to the blog carnival and/or BluePrintReview. Some came across the first edition and wanted to join. The creative pieces–flash stories and photography–I solicited. The process was a little similar to that of writing a group of flash fictions: collecting impressions, then finding the right words, moods and homes for them.”
Much to my delight, Nicolette solicited my contribution: ‘Translation Treatment’.
Here it is, sideways. For full-length vertical view, click the image:
Some familiar names at the carnival include:
Steve Wing, Matt Potter, Rose Hunter, Marcus Speh, Sherry O’Keefe, Dorothee Lang
[click names for direct links to their contributions]
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Submission details for upcoming blog carnivals > Here
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Not sure what a blog carnival is?
Read This
Grab onto the railing…underwater massage
with jets in all directions. Thermal bubbles like this are
commonplace in Hungary. Hot springs in Canada
don’t feature these contraptions.
Wonder why that is?
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More treatment translations here.
Prepared for Edition #2 of the BluePrint blog carnival >Language>Place.
It’s hosted by Hong Kong-based author and journalist Nicolette Wong.
The direct link to the carnival is here.
A fresh word/image combo is live in ‘just a moment’–BluePrintReview’s companion blog that publishes ‘moments’ of various kinds on a rolling basis between regular issues.
Here’s the link:
(Hungarian) sanitarium / just a moment
I took the photo poolside, penned those words, while keeping the company of
health tourists in Hévíz as I contemplated the meaning of life and gained perspective on
time and age.
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Previous works that have appeared in ‘just a moment’ include olympic (dis)comfort zone and East Vancouver Detours. While you’re there, consider scrolling through the archive of literary news and slices of life expressed through words and images by a variety of international contributors.
This is the only traffic I encountered along the 5 km stretch of forest
that connects Hévíz to Keszthely, Hungary.
Before heading down the pathway, I asked a local woman:
Any wild animals that should concern me?
No, she said, then laughed, and looked at me funny.
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For more on Hévíz, go here, here, and here.
Trees, the forest, the view from my room in the Hungarian spa town of Hévíz.
Every day, for 21 straight, these birds broke my sleep at 4 in the morning.
Wonder what they’re saying…
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Prepared for Festival of the Trees—
a monthly blog carnival for all things arboreal.
Festival #52: Healthy Curiosity
This bird sang for me on a May day in Hungary.
I was strolling streets aimlessly in the spa town of Hévíz.
Any idea what kind of bird this is?
Not long ago, I wrote about the human practice of assigning homo-sapiens the names of non-human animals.
Now, in a ‘stone’ called ‘Catch & Release’, I offer a cross-species sporting reference to a mate-selection ritual used by some individuals. The 22 words–in all their glory–appear in the U.K.-based web-zine A Handful of Stones. According to editor Fiona Robyn, a small stone is a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment.
To read ‘Catch & Release’,
click the fish below:
A note about the image: I captured it while staring through water, looking down at a pond, standing on the bridge behind Festetics Castle in Keszthely, Hungary–the place where ‘Catch & Release’ was conceived.
And a question:
Do you use non-human animal references to describe assorted human activities and practices?
Two photos of Hévíz, Hungary are featured in the September issue of elimae. I took the photos of the lake in broad daylight back in May–the water was warm; centigrade, about 33 degrees.
Here’s the link → Lake Hévíz, Hungary
And below, a MicroMoment I captured the same day:
In case you’re wondering, the correct pronunciation of elimae is el–ee-may. It stands for ‘electronic literary magazine’. It’s been around since 1996, features creative writing and occasional images, boasts an elegant minimalist design, and is currently published under the joint editorship of Cooper Renner and Kim Chinquee in the U.S.
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Sometimes I marvel at global connections:
I draft a poem in Hungary. Polish it in Canada. It’s accepted for publication in an international journal based in Germany. It appears alongside a photo by Claire Ibarra who splits time between the USA and Peru.
Now, the poem and the photo it’s coupled with are digitally available around the world.
Here it is → dinner for 2 in Vacation town
And a link to the collection → BluePrintReview #25: the two² issue
The cast of geographically dispersed authors and artists in the issue includes:
Michael K. White, Marcia Arrieta, Ray Scanlon,
Michael Brandonisio,Eckhard Gerdes, Molly Sutton Kiefer,
Linda Simoni-Wastila Z.Z. Boone, Changming Yuan, Kirsty Logan,
Michelle Elvy, Rose Hunter (+more), Kim Keith,
Susan Gibb (+more), satnrose, Jean Morris, bl pawelek
Sheldon Lee Compton, Smitha Murthy,
Jeff Crouch, Brad Rose, Steve Wing (+more),
Suzanne Marie Hopcroft, Tyler Cobb, Justin Kern
Karyn Eisler, Claire Ibarra (+more)
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What kinds of connections inspire you?
It occurred to me at Vancouver International Airport, while waiting for a Lufthansa flight to Budapest via Frankfurt:
Language is music — especially when I don’t understand it.
My question shifts from:
“What are they saying?”
to
“What image am I left with?”
Sitting there, surrounded by linguistic diversity, I pulled out my notebook and wrote my impressions. I honed and revised them while flying to Europe over the Canadian High Arctic, Greenland and Norway.
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Now, those words appear in PicFic—an online Twitter Fiction journal.
It’s my second piece as PicFic’s featured contributor.
Here it is → Flight 493
This blog post is included in Issue #1 of the BluePrint blog carnival: > language > place.
The music in the video conjures the feeling.
The images, but a morsel of the sights and experiences I am missing …
I am dreaming:
My luggage, still brimming, I hop in a taxicab, go back to the airport, and in less than a day, arrive back in Hungary, float in thermal waters, breathe the sweet air,
and stay, this time, forever …
