tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4408270317773802892026-10-25T18:52:13.742-04:00The comings and goings of Tony and Debra as they enter the next phase of life!Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.comBlogger242125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-33785307011777514232021-04-18T14:43:00.002-04:002021-04-18T14:43:20.901-04:00

From the New York Times Business Section April 4, 2021"We Have All Hit the Wall," by Sarah Lyle."What time is it?  What day is it? What did we do in October?  Why are we standing in front of the refrigerator staring at an old clove of garlic?  Just recently I spent half an hour struggling to retrieve a word from the faulty memory system that replaced my prepandemic brain? ('

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-3732690261379131732021-03-09T15:04:00.002-05:002021-03-11T19:01:43.314-05:00

 In the order I read them..Zeno's Conscience.  Italo SvevoI read this in preparation for a trip to Italy, particularly Trieste.  It is one of, if not the, most famous novels to come from Trieste.  Svevo was a contemporary and friend of James Joyce, and Zeno is often said to be one of the models of Leo Bloom, from Joyce's Ulysses.  It shares Joyce's linguistic wordplay and

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-76681852686551991172020-12-31T17:26:00.002-05:002020-12-31T17:31:12.408-05:00

 Really what is there to say about 2020 that has not already been said and re-said.  The world had a couple of months at the beginning of the year before everything came crashing down.  Everyone's horror story of March to the end of the year is both different and the same.  All of us (to one degree or another) suffered the isolation and fear of the pandemic. Many of us

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-90429180999401579432020-09-20T13:53:00.007-04:002020-12-19T14:31:45.736-05:00

This is one of the first pictures I took of this dilapidated but enigmatic building.  It was March 2009 in Timisoara Romania, and I was fascinated with it--returning many times over the next 3 months (and during later visits) to look and take pictures of its various details.  But when I left Timisoara for the last time in 2015, I knew nothing more than I did when I first saw it: who

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-53512554299647332042020-08-14T15:06:00.007-04:002020-10-10T11:51:55.486-04:00

[Note:  I haven't blogged for about 3 months.  I debated about whether to post this piece or not.  It's very introspective and self-centered.  But I felt I needed something to transition from blogging before the pandemic to blogging after. I am really trying to figure out what my blog should look like when life has pretty much closed down except for home.  Anyway

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-57458880576933160412020-05-10T15:09:00.001-04:002020-10-10T15:49:33.520-04:00

Spring in Louisville is gorgeous.  Planned around the Kentucky Derby, Louisville gardens are designed to be at their floral best in early May.  The Derby is always the first Saturday in May.  But the peak of blooms coincided with the peak of the corona virus, and the Derby was cancelled. Though its spirit lived on. My building is on Cherokee Road, at Cherokee Triangle--a

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-16390312044849202562020-03-24T14:03:00.002-04:002020-10-10T11:55:04.679-04:00

We are home from Budapest.  We left a week ago, about two weeks before our scheduled departure, and, against a number of odds, we made it back in one day.  I just wanted everyone who has been following our travels to know.  Also I have several Budapest posts in draft, which I will finish up and publish.  (Because there's not going to be a lot interesting going on here.)&

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-91309035345568500862020-03-13T11:06:00.002-04:002020-10-11T12:55:31.178-04:00

Kiskunfelegyhaza (if you can pronounce it you're better than me!) is a small city about an hour and a half train ride from Budapest.  It has an extraordinary Town Hall that we have long wanted to see.  So we hopped on a train and spent the day there. Town Halls were important structures in Hungary around the turn-of-the-century.  They attested to civic identity in a country

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-2605270647140303722020-03-04T10:06:00.002-05:002020-10-11T13:55:11.267-04:00

It was rainy yesterday, so we went to the list of museums we were saving for an indoor day, choosing the Rath Gyorgy Villa, Rath Gyorgy (1828-1905)--or Gyorgy Rath as we would say in the US--was an esteemed jurist and legal scholar.  In addition, he was an important collector of art, including major European paintings (now in the Museum of Fine Arts) and works of Art Nouveau,

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-91351749940968430052020-02-29T12:15:00.002-05:002020-10-12T15:18:34.392-04:00

  You walk along Frankel Leo utca in Buda, where you are told there is a synagogue that is hidden in the building. You pass many nondescript and decaying buildings, until you approach a block that seems a little newer.  You reach no. 49 and you notice Jewish signs on the building's exterior. You peek inside the doors. A kind woman unlocks the door and you enter a

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-23581106244357564672020-02-14T09:39:00.004-05:002020-10-14T12:57:08.281-04:00

Walking in Louisville is exercise made more enjoyable by talking to friends.  Walking in Budapest is looking: examining, admiring, assessing, photographing.  Sometimes it is re-seeing the familiar, and sometimes it is seeing something entirely new. Bela Lajta is one of the most imaginative Hungarian architects of the early 20th century.  A student of Lechner, he quickly moved

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-15315679840976142532020-02-12T15:28:00.003-05:002020-11-01T15:09:01.764-05:00

We have been in Budapest about a week and a half.  Mostly we have settled in, gotten our stride back, and revisited favorite streets and restaurants.  It is lovely to have the city so familiar to us.  We feel as though we are returning to somewhere we almost "live," rather than as "tourists."  However, it is also nice to find new things.  (And already we have

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-33313159388175583732020-02-03T12:02:00.001-05:002020-11-01T15:29:55.400-05:00

We arrived in Budapest Saturday evening, and are mostly getting settled and trying to undo jet-lag.  Yesterday was sunny (despite the forecast) so we ventured out on our traditional first day walk, Up Vaci utca. Then over to Andrassy ut. And up to Menza for lunch.   We are here for two months.  Life will  become more interesting and (I hope) the blog will

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-88514282316509276452020-01-30T17:31:00.004-05:002020-11-01T19:01:30.942-05:00

In the order which I read them. Snap.  Belinda Bauer.  Picked it because it was on the Man Booker Long List and one of the reviews said Bauer was heir to the great Ruth Rendell.  Can't remember the details of the story, except that it's about a cold-case murder and a series of crimes that happen in the present.  It's really good for people who like these sorts of things.

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-86834535727202353192020-01-02T18:23:00.001-05:002020-11-15T17:56:42.115-05:00

We knew we wanted to go to Trieste and Florence but had to think about what other two places we wanted to visit in between.  I had always wanted to see the Piero della Francesca cycle of the Legend of the True Cross in Arezzo, and in some ways the trip was organized around that.  Looking for the 4th city, we decided on Padua because of the Giotto frescoes.  Then in Florence we

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-67037081631009182802019-12-06T18:41:00.002-05:002020-11-17T14:35:14.373-05:00

"A great city that has lost its purpose is like a specialist in retirement.  He potters around the house.  He tinkers with this hobby or that.  He reads a little, watches television for half an hour, does a bit of gardening, determines once more that he really will read Midnight's Children, get to know Beethoven's late sonatas or try for a last time to get a grip with rock. But

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-81480418452097466162019-10-03T14:00:00.004-04:002020-11-30T15:47:52.967-05:00

The Enduring View. Its not been much of a blogging summer.  Not sure why.  There have been lots of nice events and all the usual summer pleasure.  But they didn't seem to offer the kind of story I like to tell on a blog. We did have a kind of short summer.  We didn't arrive til mid-June, partly because we lost our deck last winter from record amounts of snow and ice, and

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-92203163584128968982019-06-13T17:59:00.002-04:002020-12-06T14:49:51.702-05:00

Tony in Miami 💓  I was going to title this blogpost "A List Is Not a Story."  I have been absent from Blog World for a while.  Mainly because I couldn't formulate an interesting post in my mind--a story, that is. Since I got back from Budapest, I have done a lot of things.  Some have been wonderful, others mundane.  But all of them added up in a kind of

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-20718969323638858112019-04-11T12:26:00.003-04:002020-12-20T15:00:39.960-05:00

  The second iconic building we saw on our last day walk in Butdapaest is the Liget Sanatorium, built on Benczur utca 47 in 1907-1908 by Marcell Komor and Dezso Jakab. I first discovered the architecture of Marcell Komor and Dezso Jakab in 2009, when I was in Timisoara Romania accompanying Tony on his Fulbright at the University of the West.  That spring, I saw their relatively simply

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-5772227634577233512019-03-23T14:56:00.008-04:002020-12-19T16:45:51.856-05:00

On our very last walk in Budapest, we saw the interiors of two iconic Art Nouveau buildings--each a BIG get.  Entering either would have been a triumph; both seemed like a miracle.  The posts that follow will showcase the interiors of these two buildingsThe first is the  Egger Villa, at Varosligeti fasor 24, was built by Emil Vidor (1867-1952) in 1902.  It has been

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-67520902911364732822019-03-08T13:29:00.095-05:002020-12-26T18:09:37.673-05:00

Walking along the long street of Dozsa Gyorgy, I passed a building I had wanted to see the inside of for years.  (See, for example, the last pictures on the post here.)  It was built by Gyula Fodor in 1909.The building has no central door, but if you turn down what seems like an alley on the right side of the house, you will find a door and above it a column of stained glass

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-52457129128529833432019-03-05T17:55:00.010-05:002020-12-19T14:43:18.187-05:00

Gyula Fodor is not as famous as some of his contemporaries, many of whom were students of Lechner.  He did not build for the aristocracy.  Nor did he, for the most part, construct large public buildings, such as museums, theaters, schools or churches.  Mainly he built beautiful houses for wealthy people.  He took commissions from people who had the resources to make

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-40562204886244236892019-03-04T13:44:00.003-05:002020-12-18T13:28:23.536-05:00

This is a photograph on a postcard bought in Budapest.  It reminded Tony of me.  I am always peaking into windows or doors, trying to see what is inside the houses I photograph.  This year, I have had tremendous luck actually getting inside.  Even buildings I never thought I would see.  The secret is to hope someone is about to walk into the building, run up to meet

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-63526931456036885172019-02-18T12:03:00.003-05:002020-12-30T12:50:37.532-05:00

  In Hungary, Eger is basically known for two things.  One, it is generally considered one of the most beautiful small cities in Hungary and two, it is one of the most famous wine districts in the country.  Both made it appealing, and so we went on an overnight trip to see the town and drink the wine. The older part of Eger is almost completely Baroque, which makes it unusual

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440827031777380289.post-31108488278686866232019-02-12T11:54:00.006-05:002020-12-31T14:06:05.612-05:00

This morning we got up to bright sunshine again.  How lovely is this February, and so unlike last year when every day was gray.  Let's go to Buda.  By the time we got out, it was gray and snowing.  Oh no!  But we could see blue sky behind us. The wind was blowing hard, and we persevered.  We walked over the Freedom Bridge--that connects Fovam ter and the Central

Debra Journethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01989751518041232674noreply@blogger.com0