Dracula's birthday, as we all realize, is 31 October, which simply takes place to coincide with Halloween, thereby inflicting a few confusion. Anyway, so once I went trick-or-treating as Cornelius from the "Planet of the Apes"--it became the '70s k, and I turned into a child, how became I to realize?...I sincerely concept soylent green turned into humans--in a costume that they probable use these days to demonstrate the danger of fireworks--to mention not anything of the mask, a cheap plastic mould with an elastic string that perpetually broke, inflicting you to must carry it with you and thereby destroying any potential you might have needed to wonder the those who got here to their doorways...Until of course they attempted the "please, take just one" sweet-in-the-bowl-out-front-with-the-lighting fixtures-off-virtually-we are-not-home-socialism-in-action technique--more frequently than now not, I might run into endless Draculas. They had the cape, the faux fangs, and that cool fake blood...And possibly even a number of those cool postage stamps. (Context is the whole lot at Halloween. My youngest brother went sometime inside the overdue '80s as "Jason" from the "Halloween" horror series. A little old lady opened up the door at one house and said "Ooooooh, observe the cute little hockey player"! By the way, what happens while you pass as much as someone's residence in a costume, ring the doorbell, and say trick-or-deal with, on an afternoon aside from Halloween? I parent certainly one of things can occur: 1) they call the police officers, or 2) they are looking for to regift the nonetheless-closing popcorn balls and circus peanuts left over from remaining Halloween.)
If Dracula become simplest found in individual on Halloween, he could be observed the rest of the yr on television--mainly, perhaps ironically, for kids. There changed into Count von Count from Sesame Street. The rely's subject song blanketed a line, "When I'm on my own. I rely myself. One, one count number! Ahahahaha [to thunder in the background]!" Interestingly, according to the Internet's Wikipedia ("Count von Count") entry, there's a few vampire folklore which indicates that vampires can end up captivated with counting things and that ought to you ever confront one, throwing sand or seeds can also assist to distract them (a useful journey tip...).
The Count von Count skit is emblematic of the stressed mix of Romanian, Hungarian, and once in a while inexplicably inserted slavic factors that make up the Dracula composite. For example, as in the Seinfeld scene excerpted in the creation (whose characters definitely communicate a few phrases of Romanian in the scene!, but who're although named Katya (the gymnast) and Misha (the circus performing acrobat), names (diminutives) which might be neither Hungarian, nor Romanian), the Count's bats for a few unknown purpose have slavic names--Grisha, Misha, Sasha, etc. The Count's traits are without a doubt stimulated by way of Bela Lugosi's (certainly, a real Transylvanian (from Lugoj), of Hungarian origin) 1931 portrayal of Dracula (right down to Count von Count's accent), and, it might appear, the Count's cameo girlfriend "Countess Dahling von Dahling" is inspired with the aid of the Hungarian actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor, who is famous for being well-known, as is stated, and for calling human beings "dahling" (handy, she has said, because then you in no way need to keep in mind anyone's name).
Finally, there was Count Chocula, a staple of Saturday morning tv serials and the classified ads in among which they were sandwiched (nothing in assessment to these days, however, as commercial breaks took up a whole lot much less time then). All I knew of him became that he presided over what seemed like a certainly-tasty chocolate cereal that appeared more like dessert than breakfast. That, of course, explains why our mother refused to shop for it for us. Back in the in-retrospect-no longer-a-horrific-time-to-be-a-kid, now a good deal-maligned, hedonistic "have a nice day smiley-face," "Me" decade of the Seventies, gluttony as one of the seven lethal sins turned into given brief unique dispensation. Gluttony become in...Even though chocolate covered cereals with marshmallows were not in some households. (In the ones days, "nutrition correctness" had now not yet taken over, as names which include Sugar Smacks (renamed Honey Smacks) or Sugar Pops could advise.)
"Knowing" Hungarians
My introduction to Hungarians turned into further difficult to understand. To the quantity I diagnosed Dracula with any region at all, it turned into, as I cited, Transylvania; to the volume that it turned into a country, Romania--now not yet having gotten the spiel countless times with the aid of the proprietors of personal rooms I changed into to live in Hungary in later years, "ah, so that you are going to Transylvania, you recognize that was a part of Hungary--one, one dismembered state, ahahahahahaha--till they took it away (to the accompaniment of thunder inside the history) ." What did I realize and when did I are aware of it (nicely, it turned into the Watergate generation, you already know)? It became now not, as an example, till years later that I realized that I had as soon as lived inside the Hungarian-American mecca known as Cleveland, or that the Austrian own family from whom we sold our house in a suburb of Toronto inside the early '70s turned into named Feleky. (It become pretty a street we lived on then (1970-1974); my parents, Irish immigrants simply naturalized American residents, the mom of a pal a Prague Spring Czech refugee, and lots of new Greek families, seemingly some having fled the right-wing navy junta of 1967-1973.)
My mother used to make that staple of many an American household (as a minimum at a time), "Hungarian goulash"...It sounds ghoulish, however it tastes scrumptious. (As is frequently referred to, the American version is greater much like porkolt (stew-like) than to gulyas (a soup).) I loved it, despite the fact that I didn't understand what it become or in which it came from. (It can handiest be said to be ironic too, although I did no longer recognize it become ironic at a time: my father is a '56er, best he got here from Dublin, a relative (a policeman!) stiffed him at the port, and so he wandered the streets of New York together with his suitcase in heavy Irish tweed at some stage in Indian summer, only to duck right into a bar to peer some pitches of Don Larsen's Perfect Game inside the World Series, an occasion whose importance turned into inscrutable to him; like many a Hungarian '56er, however, he felt like a Martian (see underneath for more on the theme of Hungarians as "aliens"). No, my father did not encounter Frank McCourt!)
"Goulash," of course, already had a long records on television through that factor, what with mad scientists in Warner Brothers cartoons, dwelling in "Transylvania" among lightning storms and talking about making "spider goulash" and similar mad scientist specialties. (The different Hungarian touch used in a whole collection of cartoons--which includes a traditional Warner Brothers' caricature through Fritz Freleng with Bugs Bunny as a concert pianist ("Rhapsody Rabbit") and a traditional MGM cool animated film through Hanna and Barbera of "Tom and Jerry" dueling it out at a piano ("The Cat Concerto"), each of which got here out inside weeks of each other in 1946 leading to mutual accusations that the competitor changed into guilty of plagiarism (see Wikipedia access)--is the manic-depressive, often manic, frantic song Franz (Ferenc) Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2".) "Goulash" became additionally the plot-line of what from latest optic become a definitely racist episode ("A Majority of Two," 4/11/68) of the Sixties sitcom "Bewitched" in which, as traditional, "Darrin" (alias "Darwood") changed into to entertain an out-of-metropolis enterprise guest--would you want a excessive-ball, sir, make that a double; sorry they have got slashed the fee account, dinner at Darrin's once more...--who in this event turned into Japanese. The complete episode, Darrin's spouse, a witch named Samantha (Elizabeth Sir Bernard Law), is attempting to song down a way to prepare the meal request the businessman's secretary had relayed: Hun-gai-ran-gou-rash. She is involved, of course, about causing the Japanese businessman to lose face if she asks, which is indeed a situation considering that at some stage in the episode whilst this occurs to someone his or her face will literally disappear, apparently leaving a blotch of white-out. Everyone, of path, has a very good snigger on the stop, but, after the businessman has romanced most effective a mildly Asian-looking (didn't need to have her looking tooooo Asian) stewardess, and it seems all the businessman truely wanted changed into "Hungarian Goulash," but as a result of his secretary's accessory...Everyone besides that nosy next-door neighbor Mrs. Gladys Kravitz, who, we can deduce, should be spying at the Stevens' family for "Dragnet" or "The FBI," in view that "freak out" events were pronounced at that cope with...
Then, there has been the display, "Green Acres,"...Something was simply up with that, but precisely what I didn't recognise. Although I knew the character Lisa Douglas turned into eccentric, I didn't recognise she became Hungarian, and I simply did no longer realize that she become Eva Gabor and no longer Zsa Zsa Gabor as could be very often improper. As a kid, I concept I failed to recognize the display, exactly due to the fact I become a kid. Nope. Now, years later, I recognise: that wasn't the trouble.
How exactly does one describe "Green Acres?" The plot ostensibly became that Eddie Albert's man or woman wished to revel in the "real livin'" of the countryside (these days, that is called a "r-e-a-l-i-t-y show," starring a similarly well-known-for-being-well-known celeb, Paris Hilton...Who's definitely associated with the Gabors (see under), but, thereby inflicting us extreme existential issues at this point on this sentence). Eddie Albert drags his reluctant Hungarian wife with him, and he or she isn't very glad with the state of affairs because, as we analyze from the subject matter tune, she could as an alternative be buying on Park Avenue. (The nation-state subject matter changed into so not unusual in CBS sitcoms throughout the Nineteen Sixties, that some critics derisively referred to it as the "Country Broadcasting System".) Anyway, they lived in a few rural region, several hundred miles from Chicago, probable Illinois. Despite the small length of the city wherein they lived, Hooterville became capable of website hosting not one, however two sitcoms: Green Acres (1966-1971) and Petticoat Junction (1963-1970). (The town became reputedly recognised fine for the sufficient breasts of the young lady stars of Petticoat Junction, seeing that, as it turns out, the choice of call become no longer accidental). The two shows have been united with the aid of the presence of Sam Drucker, reputedly city grocer, postmaster, and banker, and the unforgettable person of George Jefferson (oh, sorry, no, too early, this became still the Nineteen Sixties, strike that then). As the Wikipedia entry notes, Hooterville had Drucker's grocery shop and the hotel from Petticoat Junction...Not precisely, Pixley fabric (to say nothing of Mount Pilot), and in all likelihood that massive sucking sound on the country's finances. At least the metropolis did now not have Goober or Howard Sprague, actually no longer nearby personalities the chamber of commerce needs to put it on the market whilst looking to attract investment).
Moreover, I might challenge to guess, this was one metropolis where the locals did now not "exceed the plan" or "ruin the harvest file," notwithstanding Eva's evidently collectivist inclinations. Instead, a number of time became spent with fending off the vexing locals, which include the featherheaded nation bureaucrat, county farm agent Hank Kimball, a gender-ambiguous brother and sister portray group, and Arnold Ziffel, the "hilarious" TV-watching pig, apparently "Green Acres"s'answer to Mr. Ed (an insidious, but fake, urban legend has it that the cast ate Arnold after the display changed into cancelled; the truth is simply being at the set made him nostalgic for the sanity of the sty). The running shaggy dog story of the series turned into that Mr. Douglas (Eddie Albert) wanted to be there, however not anything went right and the locals drove him loopy; while Mrs. Douglas, regardless of her love of fluffy negligees and diamonds, healthy right in and understood the locals. Her Hungarianness within the display turned into as an alternative unusual, haughty, attractive/ditzy (as connoted by way of her accent) and apparently oblivious to motive--sure, a veritable goulash of "otherness."
One would love to expect that "Green Acres" can be explained by means of recourse to extra complex evaluation: that it became somehow a) a mirrored image of the drug way of life's first penetration of the innovative intelligentsia (consistent with Alice, the wind turned into whispering, not yet crying Mary..."Green Acres" an accidental desire of title?!), or that b) there was a few deep allegory at work here, suggesting pursuit of a utopian rural existence is a chimera, and that rather you get electrification and a TV-watching pig. (Appropriately enough, while it and other such usa broadcasting gadget shows were cancelled in 1971, it changed into called the "Rural Purge.") It is more likely that the display became simply escapist, almost by accident absurd--even though it did leave a score that lent itself properly to translation into Hungarian for a skit at a summer time language camp years later. (One of the exceptional indictments of "America's Cold War realism" of the generation can be discovered within the film "Forrest Gump," in a recovery room for injured soldiers during the Vietnam War...Within the historical past "Gomer Pyle, USMC" performs on a TV...In 5 years, Gomer someway by no means made it out of fundamental education to Vietnam...)
Through the Eyes of an American Child of the Television Age: Identifying Hungarians and Romanians as Hungarians and Romanians...Thru the Wide World of Sports
Al "The Mad Hungarian" Hrabosky
Speaking of Eva...I mean Zsa Zsa, no, I mean, for as soon as this is right, Zsa Zsa Gabor...A visitor spot on every other rural-themed Sixties tv display introduces us to our next theme: the Hungarians as "mad" or loopy (a l. A. Lisa Douglas). In one episode (28 January 1962), Wilbur congratulates his speaking horse, Mr. Ed, for having cured Zsa Zsa of her worry of horses, to which Mr. Ed responds: "She cured my fear of Hungarians" ("The Best of Mr. Ed," multiple web sites; Mister Ed aired from 1961-1966 on, you guessed it, CBS). In J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zooey" (posted as a whole in 1961), Mrs. Glass tells Zooey: "You should use a haircut, young man...You're attending to appear like this kind of loopy Hungarians or something getting out of a swimming pool" (the phase additionally includes a reference to Zsa Zsa Gabor and use of the descriptor "Balkan"; I do not forget now analyzing this ebook below leafy bushes below the Pannonhalma abbey in Hungary in June 1990) http://www.Freeweb.Hu/tchl/salinger/frannyandzooey.Doc. (I might be curious to realize right here: this section first appeared in The New Yorker in May 1957, and the reference to a Hungarian "getting out of a swimming pool"--a instead strange evaluation--inevitably brings to mind the well-known bloody water polo fit among the Soviets and the Hungarians on 6 December 1956 at the 1956 Summer Olympics (sure, it really is proper, because the Summer Olympics have been held in Melbourne, Australia that 12 months). The Hungarians defeated the Soviets in a fit with big political overtones--indignant Hungarian fans were reportedly geared up to lynch a Soviet participant for a punch to the eye of a Hungarian star--the healthy coming just a month after the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian rebellion.)
My first personal cognizance of Hungarianness as Hungarianness, but, got here around 1976, with the ascribed "mad" first-class of Hungarians, in particular and accurately enough, Al "The Mad Hungarian" Hrabosky. Hrabosky was a relief pitcher for several distinct groups in the 1970s and early 1980s, however his excellent years were with St. Louis and Kansas City, with 1975 being his cardinal 12 months inside the record books. The mid-Seventies were the times of colourful characters in baseball, in particular among pitchers: the cigar-chomping Cuban of the Boston Red Sox, Luis Tiant, who gave the look of we became throwing toward the outfield in preference to the catcher because of his pitching movement; Sparky Lyle for the New York Yankees, his cheeks like a blow-fish packed with chewing tobacco; and Mark "The Bird" Fidrych of the Detroit Tigers, who talked to the ball as if it had been alive and whose boyish enthusiasm unluckily couldn't triumph over accidents that strangled his profession in its infancy.
Then there has been Hrabosky who notwithstanding the Slovak-sounding final call claims Hungarian descent. Contrasting the absence of colourful characters amongst pitchers in today's baseball, Gordon Edes wrote in a superb--if he have been Hungarian, we might even say "sweet"--article in 2003 approximately Hrabosky as follows:
But for sheer theatrics, one reliever remains in a league of his very own: Al Hrabosky, called the "Mad Hungarian" while he pitched for the Cardinals, Royals, and Braves from 1970-1982. With his Fu Manchu mustache, long hair, and a silver ring, the Gypsy Rose of Death ("I do not even recall the silly tale I made up for that, it changed into thus far-fetched--possibly a circle of relatives heirloom of Dracula"), Hrabosky would flip every time out into performance artwork. He'd stomp off the mound towards 2d base, eyes blazing, the fury practically seeping through his uniform as he grew to become returned to the hitter who changed into left ready at the plate until he changed into finished operating himself into an altered kingdom he known as his "managed hate habitual," then whirled around, pounding his ball into the glove whilst the home crowd usually went nuts. (Gordon Edes, "Hrabosky had an aptitude approximately him," "The Boston Globe," 28 March 2003, F9, reprinted at the Internet)
How did Hrabosky get his nickname? Again, Edes recounts:
The nickname, he stated, got here from a group publicist. No one became sure of his nationality--[the American film star] "Burt Reynolds as soon as called me 'The Mad Russian'"--and best the spelling-bee champions got his name proper. But then someday, a Cardinals publicist, Jerry Lovelace, said "Hey, M.H.," to the younger pitcher from Oakland, Calif., and a nickname become born....I stated, "What does that mean?" He stated, "Mad Hungarian." I said, "I adore it." (Edes, 2003)
Hungarians, I concluded from looking his tv appearances and from his nickname, ought to be associated with craziness. That is how, of course, many snap shots are handed on, not with malice, however as descriptors for individuals, a way of awarding identity and for advertising purposes. Hrabosky's "mad" conduct become installed earlier than his nationality (as Burt Reynolds' calling him "The Mad Russian" indicates, in itself a bad and advantageous reflection of "East European" ethnicity inside the United States on the time--interchangeable, part of a melting pot, although a separate one from those of West European ethnicity--although cultural constructionists might view such "everycountry" ascription greater darkly (see beneath)), as opposed to his Hungarianness being diagnosed first, and his conduct seen as reflecting his Hungarianness. Once the 2 come to be intertwined, but, and given the propensity for collective institutions to outweigh individual associations, it become tough and almost inappropriate to understand which got here first--the 2 were married and interchangeable in the popular creativeness, or as a minimum sports fan's creativeness.
Nadia...
It changed into additionally the Bicentennial Summer of 1976 when I become delivered to Romanians, also thru sports. It turned into, of direction, thru Nadia Comaneci ("N.C. I"), an endearing younger Romanian gymnast who scored seven best 10s, the perfection being driven domestic even more through the truth that the scoreboards simplest went up to nine.9, the proper score of 10 being considered unattainable! (The scoreboard could show 1.Zero because it couldn't go past 9.9....Spinal Tap's invention of the 11 no longer having been invented but.) Nadia spawned "Nadia-(Ro)mania" of a type. ABC which carried the Montreal Olympics inside the United States connected a musical subject matter to the gymnast's performances; "Nadia's subject matter" then climbed the pop charts! (It was virtually the subject to an American cleaning soap opera, "The Young and the Restless," however it was through its attachment to Nadia who used it for one of her floor performances that it have become well-known.)
Of direction, I actually have asked myself in view that then: could the reaction, the outpouring of true warmth and admiration from Americans (Canadians, and Westerners in wellknown) were the identical had Nadia been representing Bulgaria and no longer Romania--to mention not anything of the Soviet Union? True, the united states's Olga Korbut generated enthusiasm 4 years in advance in Munich but nothing like Nadia. Was it Nadia's comparative young people and "cuteness/sweetness/prepubescence?" Was it her instruct, the charismatic, undergo-like Hungarian, Bela Karolyi (their dating offered as indicative of the "warm ethnic members of the family" fostered by "Ceausescu's Romania")? Perhaps, but I additionally suppose it become in opposition to the backdrop of Romania's enormously-crafted and the U.S. And West's incredibly-courted picture of Ceausescu's Romania as the awesome thorn in the Soviets' aspect, bravely status up to Moscow and greater Western in their subculture and those ("a Latin people in a sea of Slavs")--i.E. For this reason not Balkan or without a doubt "Eastern," come what may caught by means of accident "in the back of enemy strains." It is virtually difficult to agree with that some thing drawing near Nadia-mania should occur inside the publish-Cold War world; it was a reflection of the time in which it befell.
Certainly, the standing ovation for the Romanian delegation because it entered the Los Angeles Coliseum at the 1984 Summer Olympics--which alas lent itself without difficulty to non-stop exploitation by Ceausescu thereafter, all through the most-hard years of his reign--and Nadia's escape from Romania in November 1989, have become metaphors for and barometers of Romania's political scenario and U.S.-Romanian members of the family. The accurately surreal "1984" second contemplated the Chernenko, pre-Gorbachev nadir of Soviet-American relations in the Eighties--palms reductions talks' had been basically put on ice between past due 1983 and 1985--and the continuing extra importance connected to Romania's foreign coverage over Ceausescu's "Golden Era" domestic coverage (the 1984-1986 length being perhaps the worst and most hopeless consistent with a few, in part as a result of brutal weather, and the weak point of reform currents at that second somewhere else within the bloc). By 1989, with the fall apart of communism in Eastern Europe in full swing--and with "Gorbymania" having modified the photograph of the Soviet Union significantly in the United States--the picture of a transmogrified Nadia--as though 1976 had by no means happened--involved in a "tawdry affair" with a married man (Constantin Panait), escaping from Romania, appeared to represent the ills of Ceausescu's Romania and how it now stood in stark contrast to the relaxation of the Eastern bloc. As the Seinfeld episode demonstrates, and as I will discuss in greater detail under, the gymnast frame caught within the popular creativeness, however. It changed into Nadia who set that mold.
(A Romanian-American scholar once informed me how surprised he turned into to appearance up at the tv display screen in the future in November-December 1989, most effective to look the married father of four, the Romanian émigré for whom a now ageing and plumper Nadia had allegedly left Ceausescu's Romania: the scholar had tended bar with the guy...And the fellow nevertheless owed him cash! My first stumble upon with "real, live" Romanians from Romania also had a sad sports topic in a experience. It changed into in Keleti pu., the eastern educate station in Budapest in May 1985. Amid the clapping of rusting bathroom flanges and intermittent torrents of urine falling to the tracks underneath, Romanian boys in dingy blue song suits with trim that had as soon as been white chased each different across the unmistakable "CFR" railcars of the time.
0 Comments