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Communists

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From Left: Brezhnev, Stalin, and Lenin

In Culver City there is an interesting museum dedicated to the period of the Cold War. It’s called the Wende Museum after the German term for “turning point” or “change.” Today Martine and I paid it a visit. We were most interested in seeing the current exhibition entitled “Counter/Surveillance: Control, Privacy, Agency,” which featured equipment and techniques for surveillance of the population of Soviet Russia and its satellites.

More than half my life was passed in fear of nuclear annihilation. We had relatives in the Budapest area and frequently sent them large clothbound bundles of clothing and other necessities addressed in indelible ink. Sometimes, our relatives actually received those packages.

I vividly remember the drills in grade school where we would protect ourselves from the A-Bomb by cowering under our desks in a “duck and cover” drill.

The Surveillance Exhibit at the Wende Museum

It is odd that we almost feel nostalgia for our old enemies. Now we are in the process of becoming everyone’s enemy, and a diverse mix of countries and terror groups are taking aim at us for our misdeeds. Americans are rethinking their foreign vacations to avoid facing an uncertain reception abroad.

When the Soviet Union collapsed around 1990, there was so much jubilation. We had won! Or had we? Now we are in the process of becoming the enemy. Not a pleasant prospect!

Spinach, Hamburgers, and Olive Oyl

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Bluto and Popeye in Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor

Okay, I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I love it. There’s a sixty-ish grizzled sailor, his beanpole girlfriend, a dark muscle-bound bear of a human, and occasionally this guy who has a voracious hunger for hamburgers (but no cash). The run of the Max and Dave Fleischer Popeye cartoons includes some 108 films from 1933 to 1942.

My favorites are the following three color two-reelers, which have classical Arabian Nights settings:

Of course, I also love all the black and white one-reelers. The usual plot comes down to a fight between Popeye and Bluto, usually over the hand of Olive Oyl, which Popeye wins after he opens a can of spinach and thrusts the contents down his throat. As for Olive, she is typically torn over Popeye and Bluto; but she has no trouble accepting the winner of the fight.

Here is one of my favorite black-and-white cartoons, “The Paneless Window Washer” (1937), which features Popeye and Bluto as duelling window-washers, with Olive the usual prize to the winner:

Better Read Than Dead

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I know it has been a week and a half since the tents for the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Festival were folded up and stored until next year. But a few thoughts have been running through my mind that I wanted to air.

Admittedly, the Festival was a boon for people who love to read. I did not, however, feel that the tens of thousands of people who thronged the fair were necessarily book lovers. Probably there were more people there who wanted their offspring to become book lovers just so long as they themselves did not have to crack open a volume.

What made me feel this way? Perhaps I saw too many people thronging the booths that offered trashy genres such as romance, “cozy” mysteries, and dungeons & dragons type fantasy. The big local bookstores were well represented, but they were so crowded that I couldn’t get close to them. The only exception was Small World Books on the Venice Boardwalk: They were not super-crowded because they dealt mainly in poetry.

As in previous sears, I found the Small World Books Poetry Stage the most comfortable venue in the festival. There was a different poetry reading every twenty minutes, and many of them were top notch. Even some of the poets who weren’t that good were wonderful performers of their poems.

I attended both days of the festival. On the first day, I was appalled by the long lines and high prices at the high-toned food trucks scattered throughout the grounds, so I stepped outside the festival and patronized the Mexican and Central American food vendors by the campus gate. On the next day, I discovered the restaurants outside the grounds of the festival at the University Village, where Martine and I got a tasty lunch without having to wait an hour and were able to sit comfortably at one of the outside picnic tables.

Magyar for a Day

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Dancers from the Karpátok Hungarian Folk Ensemble

Around the beginning of May, I look forward to the Grace Hungarian Reformed Church’s Annual Hungarian Family Festival. It’s also one of Martine’s favorite events because of the food, the entertainment, and the friendliness of the people in attendance.

I don’t get too many opportunities to participate in any event as a Hungarian. I still remember much of the language, and the Hungarian parishioners seem to understand my somewhat ungrammatical Magyar. The pronunciation is okay, but my vocabulary has gaps you could drive a regiment of Hussars through.

Martine loves stuffed cabbage, and the church does a fair job cooking it up. But most noteworthy are the baked goods (Sütemények), particularly the Hungarian cheesecake (crémes) that tends to sell out in microseconds after being brought out out from the church kitchen.

Also wonderful is the folk dancing by the Karpátok Hungarian Folk Ensemble, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary in Los Angeles. When the Covid-19 lockdown hit, the last public event we attended was a Karpátok concert. We are happy that they are as active as ever and are considering a program of events featuring their music and dancing.