Si vis discere, primo tibi dediscendum est.

PATERE PUGNAQUE

INVENI TE IPSUM

DEDISCE, CONDE, PETEQUE CAELUM

Buda + Pest = Budapest

This is a photo I took in Budapest last summer.

Monkeys controlling the mouse cursor through computer chips implanted in their monkey brains by human scientists can think about clicking on the image to get a better view. Humans or monkeys sans computer chip are asked to manually guide their mouse cursor over the picture, press down with the index finger, then lift said finger.

Budapest is divided into two parts by the Danube. Buda lies on the west side and Pest on the other. This picture was taken from Pest; you can see Buda across the river. “Shoes on the Danube Bank” is a sculpture by Gyula Pauler. Everything I found about the sculptor on the internet was in Magyar. He could hire a translator to set up a web page. Could, not should. The shoes represent those of victims of Nazis who were shot and thrown into the river. Last summer, someone or some people stole a few of the shoes. I’m not sure which is worse, tampering with a holocaust memorial, or the fact that the District V police are looking for the perpetrators.

I’m going to quote Dostoyevky from The Possessed. I have not read this book. However, a professor of Russian literature recounted in a class I took a few years back how Dostoyevsky, a conservative supporter of the czar and orthodox christianity in Russia, was walking along a street of St. Petersburg with another writer (my best guess is Belinsky? I searched unsuccessfully on the internet for who the other man was. Belinsky was a Westernizer, but I believe the other man was a Slavophile & conservative like Dostoyevsky..?), and had a conversation very similar to a conversation I found from The Possessed while searching the net for a clue as to who the other man was. As I remember from what my professor narrated, Dostoyevsky was asked by his companion if he would inform if he found out there was to be an assassination attempt on the czar.

“The question! The question!”
“If any one of us knew of a proposed political murder, would he, in view of all the consequences, go to give information, or would he stay at home and await events? Opinions may differ on this point. The answer to the question will tell us clearly whether we are to separate, or to remain together and for far longer than this one evening. Let me appeal to you first.” He turned to the lame man.
“Why to me first?”
“Because you began it all. Be so good as not to prevaricate; it won’t help you to be cunning. But please yourself, it’s for you to decide.”
“Excuse me, but such a question is positively insulting.”
“No, can’t you be more exact than that?”
“I’ve never been an agent of the Secret Police,” replied the latter, wriggling more than ever.
“Be so good as to be more definate, don’t keep us waiting.”
The lame man was so furious that he left off answering. Without a word he glared wrathfully from under his spectacles at his tormentor.
“Yes or no? Would you inform or not?” cried Verhovensky.
“Of course I wouldn’t,” the lame man shouted twice as loudly.
“And no one would, of course not!” cried many voices.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Possessed. New York: Dell, 1968. 428.