The disappearing editor

Apologies to my devoted blog fans (hi, Mom) for not having posted in about 57 days.

But I have a note. Or at least an excuse. I'm in a show in San Jose: "Tomfoolery," a revue of Tom Lehrer songs. The man is a genius. Decades later, his songs are still relevant and hilarious. "Send the Marines," anyone?

And physical comedy is a new experience for me. I usually play an ingenue. Now I get to fall down on the stage, hit people with a yardstick, and throw up into a sombrero. Now that's great theater.

Fellow Tom Lehrer fans, unite! What are your favorite songs?

The revolution on video

Here's a supplement to my previous post about the 1956 Hungarian revolution. It's a clip from the Radio Free Europe video that plays at the Hoover Library and Archives exhibit.

From the uprising to the United States

Anyone who spends .57 of a second on my blog knows I’m interested in everything Hungarian. I used to live in Budapest (and went through a phase of signing my name "Majdnem Magyar").

So I fell all over myself to cover the Hoover exhibit on the 1956 Hungarian revolution for the Weekly. In the process, I met a few 56ers through watching the documentary "Starting Over in America," which was made by Sally Gati and is shown in the exhibit.

For a historic event that seems so far away in space and time, it’s fascinating to find so many California connections. Laszlo and Paulette Fono, who own the Bravo Fono and Babbo’s restaurants in Stanford Shopping Center, are 56ers. Laszlo was also the U.S. National Ski Champion in 1958.

Tibor Landsmann, who helped Red Cross workers during the uprising, now owns a jewelry store in San Francisco. And Vilmos Zsigmond was a student who documented the revolution on 35mm film. Here in the States, he became a cinematographer, nabbing an Oscar for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and working on a bazillion other movies.

Gati spends a lot of time -- justifiably so -- on the story of her husband, Frank. He was at university in eastern Hungary when the uprising began, but came to Budapest to fight alongside the other students and workers. At first, the feeling of breaking away from Soviet domination was exhilarating, he recounts in the film.

"It was like a longtime dream coming true ... as opposed to running scared," he says. "More like becoming an adult, as far as a nation was concerned."

After the Soviet tanks rolled in to crush the revolution, Gati walked through Western Hungary with his best friend George for five days. They escaped over the Austrian border and ended up on a ship for the United States. Gati became a computer analyst for Bank of America.

For the most part, America treated these 56ers well. They're shown in the film saying: "I was so lucky to get out of there" and "I was born American. I was born in the wrong place."

But a period of transition can be inescapable. I was very moved by these comments of Tibor Landsmann: "In Hungary...I didn't have to worry about dentists or doctors; everything was taken care of by the government. I realized it was not my decision -- it was the government's -- and here you have to think as an independent human being. ... It took me about four, five years to assimilate myself to the American lifestyle."

Reading on the road

For my commute
I cannot root.
The bumpy roads
in disrepute.
And everyone
on the same route.
The carpool lane:
forbidden fruit.

See how literary I've become, now that I listen to books on CD in the car? This is the best way I've found to pass time on the clogged freeways. I'm currently going through every disc offered by the Palo Alto and Menlo Park libraries -- they can be a little scratchy, but you can't beat the price. Is anyone else as addicted as I am?

Sometimes I choose a book just because I like the person reading it. Is that like seeing a play because of its innovative use of spike tape? Well, I may be an off-the-market broad, but I think George Guidall has a dreamy voice.

A few recent reads and humble opinions:

• "The Night Watch" by Sarah Waters. An intricate tale of young people in 1940s London. Sometimes improbable how all their lives intersected, but the characters were so real that I could forgive that. Plus, ever since I was in "Merrily We Roll Along" I've loved stories told in reverse chronological order.
• "The Jane Austen Book Club" by Karen Joy Fowler. I was a total sucker for this. Light and sometimes silly, but a sweet camaraderie among the book-club members. Kudos for adding a male member of the club, too.
• "Seizure" by Robin Cook. This was so ridiculously bad: overwrought, dialogue as cliched as a bad penny, laughable ending. Oh, George, even you couldn't save it.

Photo by Kenn Kiser (from morgueFile.com)

Los Altos life

Inspired by the First Friday Art Walks in Palo Alto, I took an art walk of my own earlier this week (more precisely, an art meander). Downtown Los Altos rolls up the sidewalks at 6 p.m., so it was a welcome change to see Main Street pop to life on a Tuesday morning. Restaurants yawned and stretched, and the bells on shop doors were getting their first jingles of the day.

Strollers stood sentry outside the Art-n-Fun center at 167 Main, where fliers touted classes in sand painting, printmaking, the art of the Asian paper fan, and other arts. I contemplated taking time off work to perfect the pinch pot.

Two doors down, a sign promised the arrival of Vino 100. Ooh, if your pinch pot bombs, you can drown your sorrows here.

There were gracious photos of Ireland's castles and churches in Gallery 9, taken by Roy Harrington. There was an equally gracious Scottish terrier sitting outside Peet's.

Over at Viewpoints Gallery on State Street, I was very taken with the watercolors of Cupertino artist Floy Zittin. She had painted proud birds in front of backgrounds that managed to be murky and inviting at the same time. Like the dreams of a child who wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. Rarely have I seen such alluring texture in watercolors.

I visited for a spell with this cheerful little guy: a rooster painted on the wall on First Street at Main. He looks like a bird with a purpose. Perhaps he was headed to Viewpoints Gallery to make some new friends.

Pictured at top: "Quail in Brambles," a watercolor painting by Floy Zittin

Local boy makes premiere

If you're going to come back to your hometown, why not bring a New York film crew along?

Last year, Paly graduate Jonathan Yi did just that. He hauled his crew and his NYU expertise to Palo Alto to direct "Shift," a movie about a middle-class kid who gets stuck in a mailroom job -- and learns there's more to life than the college track. Weekly writer Terry Tang hung out on the set and wrote a cover story on the making of the film.

Now it's red-carpet time for "Shift", which is having its Bay Area premiere at the Oakland International Film Festival. The 36-minute movie will have three screenings: on Sept. 21, 22 and 23.

Congratulations to the "Shift" team. (I also like the creepy film poster, where the hero has postmarks for eyes.)

Roaming the reception

The Pacific Art League was hopping last Friday during a reception for a number of exhibits. There were some nice slices of life among the chatting and glass-clinking:

• Why does that man across the room look so familiar? He's in the painting "Feierabend (End of Day)" on the wall. The artist, his wife Masha Lobastov, beams at him. On the canvas, he's distinguished with a charcoal sweater, a volume of Chekhov. Masha jokes, "Because it takes so long for all the details, the models have to suffer."
• Young doctor Mike Wang, whose painting "Care Free" hangs nearby, talks with venerable photographer Fan Ho. Ho's pics of Hong Kong in the 1950s and '60s will soon have another exhibit. The two have hit it off like a house on fire, and it seems like decades of wisdom are being passed down.
• Leah Lubin, a new art teacher at the League, tells me about her class on photo collage. I can barely draw a straight line. I think I might like this art.
• Aldo Lira is another new teacher, from New York. He hands me a postcard, and I'm intrigued by his painting style. Sort of Old Masters meets fantasy, classically winsome women juxtaposed with odd glowing lights in the sky.

Pictured: Aldo Lira's 2004 oil on linen "Interstices II With Citation From Raphael"