Eger Stars

Its fascinating to be immersed in another’s world; another’s fantasy world. The images, characters, costumes, and customs linger in the mind, if only for a short time, like a dream.

A good movie can draw me in. Each movie and TV program is someone's creation of a re-playable dream. Most are silly endless chase scenes, unnecessarily violent, unduly salacious, and/or simply boring. I prefer to go to bed and create my own dreams. But some movies draw me in, typically period pieces, foreign settings, intelligent dialogue, and gorgeous cinematography.

Nowadays we watch movies on a television with all the distractions of domestic life. When we were young, a trip to the movie theater was special: vivid colors projected onto a huge screen in a darkened theater supported by a sound system that moved across the walls. I remember receiving printed programs, even assigned seating, to showings of Lawrence of Arabia, The Sound of Music, and the Walt Disney Sydney premiere of Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Remember the after matinee surprise of emerging from the theater to see sunshine illuminating a familiar world that, for an instant, seemed very strange?

The fact that we were younger then is relevant. We are more impressionable before our imaginations became prejudiced with the familiarity of ordinary reality.

Think of reading books. They too are someone's creation of a dream, another world. Reading books is uncanny. What is it about reading that inherently triggers our imagination? They are only printed letters forming words that the eye reads and the mind silently interprets as sounds. There is no soundtrack and no moving images. Illustrations play a minor role compared to cinematography. Yet as abstract as the printed word is, and although reading requires more effort than passively watching moving images accompanied by sound, books are more engrossing. Images, characters, customs, even costumes and scenery, all conjured up with twenty-six outlined shapes symbolizing sounds, linger in the mind.

All art does that. Music, the most abstract and powerful form of human creation, painting, sculpture, architecture, jewelry, gardening, cooking, even straightening up the house are expressions of creativity and opportunities to be drawn into a different world.

But it's a book that is now lingering in my mind and competing with the ordinary around me. Actually, it's not just a book. It's a triple or quadruple whammy of a classic novel, a period piece, and an iconic Hungarian story in Hungarian, a language intimately familiar to me from childhood which, anymore, I use talking to myself or the dog, or composing emails to my cousins in Hungary.

I am laboriously translating Egri Csillagok (Stars of Eger) by Géza Gárdonyi and originally published in 1901. It begins in 1533 and ends in 1552 with a small Hungarian force defending the fortress of Eger from a large army of Ottoman Turk besiegers. It's required reading for a Hungarian education.

I have a bad habit with reading, I read quickly in order to get the plot. When I was in high school, I read Jane Eyre in one day; War and Peace in three. I rarely slow down to appreciate style or description. Which is why I do not read Hungarian. It’s a language I know from simple conversation. I was never schooled in it. I'm impatient. Sentence structure is different, the relationships of words are embedded in suffixes, strokes and dots over vowels change pronunciation and meanings, and my vocabulary is about third grade, at best.

Fortunately, many years ago my Uncle Zoltán gifted me with a two-volume Hungarian-English dictionary, each volume some twelve hundred pages of eight point font. It is invaluable. I relied upon it extensively to translate my father's memoirs. Since then, Google Translate has become most helpful, but one has to be suspicious and cross-check with a real dictionary. Still, Translate is a time saver for me because it helps with spelling and I know enough Hungarian to recognize when Translate is off base. I have a great story of my cousin's email greeting to Shari, kezit csókolom (“I kiss your hand”) translated as “I handcuff you.” In fact, I just plugged in kezit csokolom (no accent over the “o”) and got “hands with chocolate” in return. Well, if you know a little Hungarian, you would never confuse csokoládé (chocolate) with csókol (kiss), Hershy’s notwithstanding.

I tried reading Egri Csillagok in Hungarian decades ago and gave up after a dozen pages, and even then I barely got the gist of what was going on. I am too impatient to look up two or three words per sentence, then spend time figuring out how they are related: which word is subject, what is the action and what the object, and who belongs to whom. There was no English translation at that time.

As I approach my golden years of retirement, I need hobbies. Why not give Egri Csillagok another try? I looked for an English translation. All that is available are used, hardcover editions running thirty or more dollars a copy. The only available ebook was in Hungarian. I got it. My mind clouded over trying to read and understand. I realized that to read it, I had to take the time and the trouble to write down an English translation. Why not translate the entire book? I managed to translate my father’s writing, I have my dictionary and Translate, and I boast about using my Hungarian skills two years ago when I was in Budapest and visiting cousins in Hungary.

So off an on for the last fortnight I have been translating Egri Csillagok into English. Actually, it’s been more than off-and-on because when I am “on” it's very intense. I am immersed in Hungarian text for many hours at a time, figuring out the meanings of literary words, even medieval Hungarian words and archaic Hungarian expressions. Fortunately, Gárdonyi's prose is elegantly simple, often terse, but that still leaves plenty to decipher.

I was about a tenth of the way through when I decided to splurge and buy the hardcover English translation. I was apprehensive. For several days after the book arrived, I didn't open it, nor did I work with the Hungarian ebook. I was afraid that reading it in English would be too easy and would detract form my self-imposed discipline. In turn, I was afraid that the translation would take too long and have little value if there was already a good one. But I had already collected twenty or more Hungarian words highlighted in yellow for which I could find no translation. So I turned to the English book.

Fortunately, it’s a flawed translation. Although the Hungarian is mostly all there and translated, Mr. George Cushing felt it necessary to contribute his inventions to Gárdonyi's novel. At first I thought that maybe the Hungarian ebook I had purchased cheap from Walmart and Kobo had been dumbed down. I found another ebook version on a Hungarian library website and downloaded it. It is identical to the Walmart-Kobo version. Son of a gun. In addition to the pastime pleasure of translating an interesting Hungarian story, my translation would not only be more faithful to the original, it could be made available as an ebook.

I use Cushing’s version as resource to translate the occasional word (which I cross-check with my English-Hungarian dictionary volume) and, in the odd sentence, to occasionally check for relationships of who is doing what to whom.

What is amazing to me is becoming more familiar with reading Hungarian. My vocabulary isn’t increasing appreciably, at least not so far. I find myself looking up zarándók (pilgrim) again and again, but maybe with repetition and time, words and meanings will attach themselves in my mind. But it has become much easier for me to recognize and read familiar words whose sounds I know but whose spellings are unfamiliar with accented vowels and odd combinations of consonants.

Most amazing of all, I find myself immersed in a Hungary of the 16th Century with wagons, horses, swords and clumsy guns, castles and fortified village houses, children skinny dipping, peasant villages and paprikás stews cooking in cauldrons over fires, dusty, rutted cart trails, brutal janissaries and marauding akindji raiders, vitéz (heroic, Hungarian, of course) fighters, Catholic, Protestant and Moslem adversaries, and intrigues and names familiar from Hungarian history and geography.

It’s a fascinating world. The images, characters, costumes, customs and Hungarian words linger sweetly in my mind.

St Anthony's Monastery

St. Anthony's Church, the main church at the monastery.

"[T]he Orthodox Church makes no sharp distinction in its worship between the spiritual and the aesthetic. One becomes aware of God's presence through the senses, in the experience of 'splendor' and 'beauty.' . . ."

"This emphasis on sensory involvement has its basis in the Orthodox and thoroughly Biblical conviction that it is the whole world, and not only man's soul, that will be transfigured - 'saved' - when Christ establishes His Kingdom at the end of time."

Greek Orthodox Diocese of America website:

Orthodox Art and Architecture

Visit an Orthodox church and you will see a vision of heaven on earth. Visit St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery and you will see at least six visions of heaven on earth, each a different variation on the Orthodox theme.

 ——— ∞ ———

 

The iconostasis of St. Anthony's, the wall of icons
that separates the Holy of Holies from the main church.

My connection to St. Anthony's Monastery is Shari's Greek language tutor. That connection was made through the local Greek Orthodox church in Tucson, St. Demetrios, and its annual Greek Festival. The tutor visits the monastery every other weekend.

Six monks from Mount Athos in Greece lead by Elder Ephraim established St. Anthony's Monastery in the desert just south of Florence, the Pinal County seat. That was in 1995.

The area around Florence is lowland Sonoran Desert. What historically used to be the Gila River, free flowing most of the year, has been dammed for almost a century so now it is almost always dry. Creosote bush, cholla, sage and hardy small hedgehog cacti grow there, with the occasional palo verde tree. The lack of river flow coupled with bore wells extracting water from aquifers means the water table has dropped from ten to a hundred feet below the surface. It is in this arid environment that the monks purchased land.

The monastery land without irrigation. On the hill top is
the newly completed chapel in honor of St. Elijah.

Getting the necessary permits from Pinal County was not a problem, but planners, sheriff and other County officials were puzzled because the land had no water. They discouraged the monks but the monks were not deterred.

The land was purchased and Elder Ephraim identified three areas to drill for water. Wells were dug in those places and water found.

Elder Ephraim spends many hours each day in meditation. Apparently, he knows a few things.

 ——— ∞ ———

The wells supply abundant water, as evidenced by at least ten acres of date palms, orange and olive groves, lush gardens with tall fan palms, paved walkways, and some half dozen fountains and courtyards.

The physical development of the monastery in a scant twenty-two years is nothing short of amazing. The monks lived in trailers as the buildings were constructed with generous donations and volunteer labor.

There is the main church (St. Anthony's), three other free-standing churches (St. Nicholas', St. George's, and St. Demetrios'), an open chapel in honor of St. Seraphim, plus separate buildings for monks, nuns, guests, meals and visitors. The community has grown to forty monks and novices.
 
The site is truly a feast for the senses.

Each structure is impressive. The design, materials, woodwork, metalwork, hardware, and every other imaginable detail of the churches are all impressive. The only electric lights in the churches are two reading lamps at the chanter's stand. Ornate and huge metal chandeliers are suspended under the central domes of each church. During services, the churches are  illuminated by candles and oil lamps.

The icons are awe inspiring, which is the intent according to Orthodox tradition.

Many of the icons were created in Greece. There are scores and scores. Much of the woodwork was carved in Greece. The churches are richly decorated with ornately carved wood frames. Even the wooden doors are gorgeous and precisely fitted.

To add to the glorified beauty, the churches and other buildings are set in a well laid out in a shaded environment of palm-lined walkways, lush orchards and flowering gardens, and delightful fountains.

 ——— ∞ ———

A feast for the senses. Orthodox Christianity, even more than the Roman, extols the beauty of creation with representations of saints and the divine. They are human forms and faces; stylized, but very much human.

Inside St. George's, a church constructed in the Romanian style.
The woodwork is detailed, precise, and prolific.

The human image in religious expression is strictly forbidden in Judaism and Islam. There is stunning geometric beauty in the mosques I have seen in Egypt, Jerusalem and Turkey, both in the overall design of the spaces and in the intricacy of their adornments of filigree, tiles and Arabic script quoting the Koran. There is no human image.

Then there is the stunning, human beauty of these Orthodox churches.

Each religion is making a statement about Spirit: one is that Spirit cannot be depicted; the other that Spirit pervades creation. Both are correct, in my view, but my preference is to recognize Divinity in creation and in humanity.

I believe that everything in creation is only an appearance, an expression or a symbol of Spirit. I believe only Consciousness exists, and we live within an expression of that Consciousness. Our world in its enlightenment is actually very beautiful.

Somehow, beatific images with human faces make me humble. I can relate to the image because it is similar to my own. If some human faces can be elevated and sanctified, then perhaps we all share in that possibility.

Put it another way. It's hard to be a jerk when confronted with beautiful images that remind us of who we are (or should be), and particularly images of the Divine Mother in the form of woman and child.

 ——— ∞ ———

The dress code is not perfection and some of the practices are depressing. Monks are severely dressed in black. Women must be all covered with long dresses and sleeves, closed shoes, and head scarves. I visited in spring when the desert is blooming in contrast to the Christian practice of Lent which is inherently somber. (Unlike Roman churches, the icons were not covered in purple cloth.) By the time I was leaving, believers had gathered in the entrance hall of St. Anthony's to have the priests hear their confessions. An odd practice, but I suppose they feel better afterwards. And don't get me started on the books for sale in the bookstore. I am not a great fan of religious dogma. Still, the stylized dress code and religious practices serve to impress a sense of humility and respect. More importantly, one cannot complain about the friendly, cheerful, even devotional disposition of the residents, guides and believers at the monastery. That made even the tourists behave nicely.

Thing is, I did not even have a full experience. That would include not only the beautiful space and its icons, but the illumination by oil lamps and candles, the fragrance of incense, the divine sound of musical chanting, the liturgical drama of the opening of the Holy of Holies and the sharing of communion, and experiencing the elevating energy of the participants' devotion.

Non-Linear Editing and the Compression of Time

Editing video on a computer used to be called non-linear, as distinguished from editing on film media, or even running one VCR and recording on another. Using two video tape players was how I began video editing. Non-linear means one can assemble and re-assemble an edit in any sequence. Those were the days, about a decade ago, when I plunged into editing video on a computer.

Since then, we got high definition consumer video. Time passed by my mini-DV tape camcorder, my Apple G5 computer, and the state-of-the-art Apple Final Cut editing software on which I edited probably fifty to a hundred different programs. I stopped taking video. I put off upgrading to high definition knowing that it entailed a new camera, a new computer, new editing software, a Blu-Ray drive, new DVD and Blu-Ray authoring software, and the learning curves to figure them all out.

Four months ago, my niece asked me to videotape her wedding. I took the plunge and bought a new high definition camera, the subject of an earlier blog post. Fumbling with its controls, I managed to get about an hour and a half of video. Returning home, I thought I would go back to Windows since I already had a relatively new Windows laptop. My first non-linear editing program, way back when, was Adobe Premiere on a Windows machine, so I thought I would give the current version, admittedly, the basic Elements version, a chance. That proved too frustrating, so I decided to return to Apple editing. Hence my new iMac and the current Final Cut Pro X.

Technology has changed in a decade, much to my frustration. I used to be able to assemble an edit from multiple clips in a few minutes. That was non-linear editing. Now, the powers that be at Apple have created a "magnetic" timeline which cannot be turned off. It automatically inserts, arranges and shifts clips. What used to be non-linear has reverted back to linear.

That is the state of today's software. It's too automatic. Fortunately, I found a YouTube video showing how one can fill the magnetic timeline with a slug then proceed to non-linearly assemble clips.

Edits done, I proceeded to use four different DVD authoring programs (three on the iMac and, after transferring huge files on a thumb-drive, one on my Windows laptop) and various different settings to burn DVD's in about a dozen different ways. I felt like Thomas Edison experimenting with hundreds of different materials for filaments before he came up with a working light bulb. High definition my foot. Different burns competed with each other for the most miserable picture quality, complete with pixelation and artifacts. I began to get depressed about the project and put it aside.

I thought to myself that perhaps I should just stick to a Blu-Ray product. I burned my first Blu-Ray disc and, thank goodness, the picture quality on our television was gorgeous. The thing is, we hardly ever use our Blu-Ray player. Even when we rent videos, we go for DVD instead of Blu-Ray. There are two reasons. First, we only have two HDMI (high definition) input plugs in the back of our television and they are used for the DirectTV dish and for AppleTV (i.e., Netflix). I tried using an HDMI splitter, but it doesn't work on our TV. I am not going to buy a new TV just to get an extra HDMI input, and reaching in back of our existing TV with a flashlight to switch connections is a pain in the neck. The second reason is that DVD quality looks very nice on our big TV, almost as good as Blu-Ray.

In my technological malaise, I thought maybe I could transfer my edits to my old Mac. After all, both machines are Apple products (although my G5 is pre-Intel chip). To cut what is already a long story a bit shorter, here is what I had to do: (i) I exported (the current terminology is "share") my edited product by converting the 1080x1920 resolution to 720x480 DV, being careful to not to chose the anamorphic version. Anamorphic was my first attempt and the image was squashed a bit. I hate squashed video images. (ii) Because a 64 Gbyte thumb drive that works on a new iMac cannot be read by my old G5, I copied the humongous file onto my Windows laptop. This was the key to my success. (iii) I reformatted the thumb drive to the old Windows NTFS format, then copied the humongous file back onto the thumb drive. (iv) I loaded the file onto my old G5. Oddly enough, it worked.

Now for the second punchline. I have already exposed the meaning of the "Non-Linear" title to this post. The other theme to this story is the value of patience. It takes a lot of time to compress a video file so it fits onto a DVD. If it is done well, it means going back and forth several times sampling the individual frames to know where pixels can be compressed. The more movement in the images, the less compression.

If you look up comparisons of DVD and Blu-Ray authoring programs on the internet, you will notice that the reviewers place considerable value on a software's ability to do it quickly. It took only about a half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes for all my previous DVD attempts to compress and burn. Every product was wretched. On my old G5 Mac and its good old iDVD software (the freebie and sophisticated DVD authoring program that is no longer supported by Apple or even capable of running on new Apple machines), it took about six hours.

The product? Very nice, thank you. One ought not sacrifice quality for time.

Jumps & Spins, the Video

The deeper technological and philosophical question is preservation. What formats and media will survive the passage of time? Over the course of a scant decade, optical media have become passé. How does one watch video nowadays? YouTube? Smart phones? What about the future? In the world of still photography, JPG and TIFF files are reasonably universal, but there is no such standardization for video. [Witness my frustration getting two video clips visible on this blog post.] How can we archive video so it can be enjoyed decades later?

 
8mm film from Australia, about 1965

Does anyone have an 8mm movie projector?

Shadow Puppets

Shari inherited two beautiful puppets her great aunt had collected from Indonesia. Those two, three-dimensional puppets, plus a recent occasion re-watching the Indonesian movie, Opera Jawa, (a "must see") were the inspirations for doing something special for Raphael's and Woan Ching's wedding.

It was their second wedding. A year earlier, they had a rather public if somewhat frugal legal wedding at the courthouse, along with a hundred or so complete strangers. We joked about Rev. Sun Myung Moon mass weddings, expecting several scores of happy couples to shout in unison, "I do".

Wendy made the puppet of Woan Ching. She's flying with the
crescent moon and star symbols of Malaysia on her wing,
a piano in her purse. Roy made the dancing violist puppet of
Raphael. The pianist and violist met at the U of A music school.

Actually, each wedding party was called into the various courtrooms privately. It was quite nice, as was our dinner at Trattoria Pina Italian restaurant afterwards.

Woan Ching is from Malaysia. Her parents were unable to attend that courthouse wedding. But Woan Ching more than made up for it with a delightful family and friends wedding celebration this past Mother's Day (coincidental, but mothers in attendance were honored) -- with all the trimmings.

So what do puppets and Raph weds Woan Ching have in common? Well, to honor the Chinese Malaysian family, Shari thought of making shadow puppets to decorate our backyard for the pre-wedding party we hosted. She made six puppets and inspired Raph's parents, Roy and Wendy, to make puppets of Raph and Woan Ching.

The happy couple and their puppets.

The whole idea was kept secret. It was to be a surprise. It worked.

The eight puppets with the spotlights were set up the day before the sit-down, pool party buffet function. Just enough time to check the lighting the night before, then that day, a quick run to the hardware store to replace a non-functioning spotlight. Which was good because the light that died was pointed at Raph's and Woan Ching's puppets, and the new replacement was brighter and brought a nice focus to the display.

Bride and groom, parents Hee Tek and Chin-bee, and others were suitably surprised and impressed, as were we with our new Malaysian dresses and shirts.

The happy gathering of family and friends the evening before the formal wedding. (Thanks, Randy.)