Friday After the Rain

Budapest's been lately seeing snow for hours or so- just as the English summer is half an afternoon of sunshine in June and the storm, Budapest winter is half a morning of snow in February and the rain. But at least the pavement is shiny in the evening light, if that's any kind of consolation. A very feeble one.

The Raveonettes and BOKKA on A38

New year, same boat and the Raveonettes are back in town with a new album- we can only wish some other acts would make A38 a must on their tours. They even graced us with two opening acts, of which, we must confess, we skipped the first based on some alien sounds coming from the hull and retreated to the safety of the „nose bar” for some drinks. (Unprofessional but true.)

Polish band BOKKA on the other hand were quite intriguing based on the preliminary google investigation we conducted, and they did not disappoint, putting on as fine a concert as you can expect from an opening act- of which A38 does occasionally provide a gem or two.

Visually they might have been even more satisfying than the Raveonettes, who showed up all in black and brough along themselves, their guitars and the drummer. The philosophy was probably leave it to the sound, and it proved mostly correct. The beginning might have been a bit subdued and as usually songs from the new album didn’t totally warm up the crowd- but that basically happens to all bands, irrespective of the quality of the new material, everyone’s there mostly for the Pavlov reflex of the hits they know. Once the hits were duly served the atmosphere hit all the right notes and it was smooth sailing all the way to the encore.

Le Snow!

Though, taking into consideration usual Budapest conditions, the snow will most likely either be gone by tomorrow morning, or turn into hideous brown slush, it's here and it's quite wonderful.

Cold Snap with a Twist

As Salinger said, poets always take the weather so personally. Well, bar some formally defective haikus composed during my restless high school years, I am no poet, yet I did often have a tendency to, well, let's be frank here, bitch and moan about the weather. I like to think that a positive sign of my getting wiser (and older) is that I have befriended the weather. Even the unfashionably sudden, in your face kind of minus ten on a Wednesday morning. Because when it compensates for itself with lovely sunrises, you can't really hold a grudge against a morning freeze.

Raiding the Archives

Here comes me deciding to put my photo folders in some new yearly order- my resolution being not to have resolutions, but actually do stuff. The giant risk is of course getting lost in the whole process, checking out old albums, getting all nostalgic and suddenly switching to tumblr or something.

But given that it's only the second day of the year, the force was strong with me, and not only did I accomplish my task, but found some rather pleasing random shots as well. Like I'd totally forgot about the Homer Simpson which was so lovingly placed to the front of the tram by the driver just seconds before the shot. Since Budapest trams work both ends, he would probably have to switch Homer at least a dozen times a day to have him correctly facing traffic.