This week was just stacked with events, starting with Internations on Tuesday, then Ignite! Budapest on Wednesday, and the launch of Peter Zilahy's book, The Last Window Giraffe last night.

Ignite! Budapest was started by Steve Nelson last year, as part of the global Ignite! scene. It is similar to the TED lectures, which I highly recommend and viewable on Youtube. Some of the ones I have liked recently are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UGC2nLnaes
http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html
TED describes itself as "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world." TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

In Ignite!, each speaker gets 5 minutes and 20 slides to make a complete presentation about something they, and hopefully the audience, find interesting. The first Ignite! drew 120 people, far too many to fit into Treehugger Dan's, and it is now hosted by the Cotton Club on Jokai u. As last time, I am sure the video of the presentations will go up on Youtube within a few days. The night was beset by technical difficulties for some reason, but the speakers powered on through. Sometimes their solutions to the technical problems were quite entertaining, like screaming, "oh fuck!," or working them into a presentation about how NOT to give power point presentations. The most enjoyable of the night were Mary Murphy, Gretchen Hines and Jeff Taylor. No surprise, since these folks also participate in Gift of the Gab (final March 24th).

The book launch last night was also well attended by about 50 people. Local Alan Reese agreed to interview Peter on stage. Alan had never done such a thing before, nor had he ever read a book all the way through before, but he accomplished both tasks admirably. Between the two of them, they kept us entertained for about 1.5 hours. The publisher brought a bunch of the books, and quite a few were snatched up at 50% off.

Péter Zilahy is one of Hungary’s most exciting, diverse writers. Originally a poet, he also writes prose, drama, essays, is a photographer and does live performances. He recently performed a sell-out show on New York’s Broadway. The polyglot author presently lives in Berlin, where he publishes essays in the biggest German papers, but he also writes pieces for The Guardian, The Financial Times and The New York Times. The Last Window Giraffe was first published in 1998, and has since been translated into more than 20 languages. It’s won multiple awards, as well as having been adapted into an interactive CD-ROM and a live stage performance. The Last Window Giraffe describes the world of the seventies and eighties in a playful form. It is a book of a whole generation and is based on a children's dictionary which was entitled Window-Giraffe (Ablak-Zsiráf, Ablak =Window being the first item and Zsiráf=Giraffe being the last item in this A to Z). It is also a great book if you want to know more about Hungary and Hungarians and offers an insight into a world behind the Iron Curtain that you don’t need to come at armed with a prior knowledge of the region’s history. The book also describes the events of the Carnival-like protest of Belgrade 1996-97 as being symbolic of all protests in its courage and absurdity. The Last Window Giraffe is a lexicon of what's been left out.

The group of Ignite! presenters and topics included:
Natalie Bowlus – “A Tragicomedy of Errors: British Shenanigans, WWI and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.” With the prevalence of the Middle East in the news today, it is hard to imagine that a hundred years ago the same area was nothing more than the site of an ongoing struggle for influence between the Great Powers (England, France and Russia). At the Paris Peace Conference the stage was set for the Modern Middle East; however, the solution that emerged in 1919 was vastly different than that imagined at the beginning of the war. This presentation seeks to take the audience from point A to point B and examine how the final outcome was a product of accident, ignorance and good old-fashioned clock-and-dagger, double-crossing diplomacy as much as design.

Sandor Illes – “Be Innovative by Being Lazy!” We, as humans, are quite lazy to change our usually boring and repetitive, every day tasks. But who is truly lazy, finds a way to get rid of these tasks easier, to spare that time to an extra coffee break. The others call these people inventive or innovative. I am going to show you some (mainly technological) examples how can we change our “cozily lazy” way of life to truly lazy style.

Peter Temesvary – “Something’s in the Air”Let’s go flying!

Mary Murphy – “Verbally Challenged: How the L-word Lost Its Lustre.” In days gone by, when the leading man told the pretty girl that he loved her, it was the same as a proposal of marriage. It meant something. Today, through overuse, misuse and abuse, the L-word has lost it’s charm and its effectiveness, and with it, the world has lost its soul.

Howard Cohen – “How NOT to Do a Powerpoint Presentation.” After working in so many jobs that required me to do presentations or to train other people to do them, I have seen so many examples of presentations and seen so many people genuinely believe that they have the most amazing presentation skills when, in reality, they are sending their audience to sleep. I thought it was time for me to fight back! So I am going to show you how not to do a presentation. I just hope I don’t come too close to anything my fellow presenters have prepared!

Jeff Taylor – “Graffiti is Censorship.” The presentation will present the controversy of graffiti art by discussing it in its competing contexts with other art forms, namely architecture. Graffiti inevitably appropriates its platform, its canvas, from pre-existing objects, and in so doing degrades, and even denies those objects’ right to exist in their creators’ intended condition.

Justin Hyatt – “On the Active Life.” A long-time activist looks at what it means to take a part in the environment around you, what it means to be involved in things that matter, and a few tidbits from the field - and it’s all about finding your “hot button”.

Dániel Faragó – “Make Contributions Possible.” In the last seventy years people are sitting on the riverbank and are waiting for the the birds to fly in their mouth especially in Hungary. “What can we do alone against everybody else?” “I am not enough to make things matter!” The time of excuses is over. Making a contribution is easier than ever. And I’d love to make it happen, organised in grand.

Mark Andrews – “The Joys of Joyce: ‘he would wipe alley english spooker, multaphoniaksically spuking, off the face of the erse.’” There must be something cool about a guy who spends 17 years writing one book, especially a book that draws on 60 different languages to entertain its reader. This talk will take you on a humourous exploration of Joyce the river lover, Joyce the linguist, Joyce the EFL teacher and Joyce the lover of Swiss Fendant white wine. And without Trieste there would have been no Leopold Bloom. Trieste, ah Trieste, ate I my liver!