Bucharest Of Yore
A thousand years ago on the spot where Bucharest stands today there rose a town called Perun; this Perun was the god of fire and thunder with the ancient Slavs, featured with a golden face, silver hair and beard. It replaced the Greeks' Zeus and the Roman Jove. The
Laugh To The Left
In the visual arts, the laugh, the ridicule and caricature have a certain regime, which is rather different from the one developed in literature, mainly because it is an expression of criticism and contempt much more immediate and politically engaged. Starting in Germany
A Secret Weapon
However, I deeply believe that our intelligence, which is inborn with us, Romanians, will help us defeat our adversaries- this is how a soccer coach of a Romanian team just facing a European cup game ended his speech a few days ago on television. According to the expert
Empty Bottles
Emptyyyy bottles! Buyyyyyyyyin'! This dramatic call, like that of the ancestors, which we have all heard at one time or another in Bucharest slums, reminded me of what happened to a friend of mine – it could be a comic thing, if it was not tragic – who went to Sovata
International Meetings
I've always been fascinated with international meetings. Not that I went to so many, but those I did got to offered me the opportunity to form a opinion, not a very original one, of course, but still, it's an opinion, which may even be subjective. International
Don't Know: 40%
A few days or so ago, the Romanian press offered us, its obedient and flabbergasted beneficiaries, another opportunity to please and sharpen our minds. A new Gallup poll. And what is Gallup? Gallup is some sort of a modern, computerized Pythia. Claiming scientific positivism
Who Needs No Theater
I get up one morning and, you know me, I take Gazetta dello Sport, to see how goes Il calcio after the Bosman sentence, which represents such a situation that you can't even begin to understand what will happen to this much cherished game. And lo and behold, what do
I Kiss Your Ass, Beloved Leader!
excerpt Lying on the hot tile floor, Brave Leader was reaching back and scratching his ass with the Romanian people. What he lovingly called the Romanian people was in fact a tiny little bathroom brush with ivory engravings, which he never parted with, and liked to have
100 Years At The Gates Of The Orient
excerpts Episode no. 33At the Vizier[1] Meanwhile, not long after the crescent had entered a Christian cloud, much to the heathens' grief, three men's shadows on three horses' shadows were more like crawling than riding towards the vizier's palace.
Wise Humor As A Sum Of Contraries
Speaking about I. L. Caragiale, i. e. the quintessential comic playwright in Romanian theater, N. Steinhardt made a few distinctions likely to offer generous openings: However powerful its spiritualism, Asia terrifies us with its uncivil dirt and squalor, while blind and
Revolution In Vintileasa
Almost no one in Vintileasa saw on TV the scene when the revolutionaries broke into the famous Studio 4 in the afternoon of 22 December 1989. The villagers were busy doing other, more important things. Some were killing their Christmas pigs. Others were stealing wood. Most
Glossary
Constructive dialogue: two high-ranking dignitaries (over 6 ft. tall) chat about this and that, while they arrange little, cute, colored cubes, make them look like buildings, each according to his own judgment. This tiresome work, which involves not only gray matter, but