One of the most enduring and entertaining images of Hungarians during the second half of the 20th century is the idea of Hungarians as aliens or Martians. Much of this is tongue-in-cheek, is not intended to be pejorative, and has been exploited to good effect and with great enjoyment by Hungarians themselves - to the point of their likely having been behind its origination. There are multiple overlapping/competing descriptions of how all this started. Consensus suggests that it came out of the circles of émigré nuclear scientists, physicists, and mathematicians who came to the US during 1930s and 1940s, many of whom were collocated at Los Alamos, New Mexico for the Manhattan Project
As George Marx, a Hungarian professor of atomic physics in Budapest, asks in his extremely engaging chapter entitled “The Martians’ Vision of the Future,” how is it that there were groups of Austrians, Germans, and Italians involved in these scientific breakthroughs and yet it was Hungarians alone who seemed to gain the moniker and association of “alien?” Marx appears to prefer the account according to which one day the Italian Enrico Fermi was speculating about the universe and the possibility of life on other planets, and Leo Szilard, a Hungarian, ventured an answer to Fermi’s question
“And so,” Fermi came to his overwhelming question, “if all this has been happening, they should have arrived here by now, so where are they?” It was Leo Szilard, a man with an impish sense of humor, who supplied the perfect reply to Fermi's rhetoric: “They are among us,” he said, “but they call themselves Hungarians.” (according to Marx, this is Francis Crick’s version of the myth
The myth of the Martian origin of the Hungarian scientists who entered world history on American soil during World War II probably originated in Los Alamos. Leon Lederman, director of the Fermilab, reported possible hidden intentions. The production of scientists and mathematicians in the early 20th century was so prolific that many otherwise calm observers believe Budapest was settled by Martians in a plan to infiltrate and take over the planet Earth…According to myth
General Groves left for the gents' room. Szilard then said: “Perhaps we may now continue in Hungarian!” Hungarian émigrés enjoyed speaking their mother tongue whenever a chance offered itself. This has made them look suspicious. Los Alamos was a place of top security. General Groves was annoyed that Neumann and Wigner had frequent telephone conversations in Hungarian. [Teller, talk in Budapest 1991.] The “thick Hungarian accent” was often heard even in the corridors of the Pentagon. (The Lugosi accent made the alien power of Dracula, the count from the faraway Transylvania even more realistic.)
THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN sitting on the hills of Los Angeles is an American Icon. But what does its name itself really and truthfully have to offer us if we take an skewed look
I usually like to look anagrammingly, but today I thought I try, lexigrammingly, which is not much different from anagrams. Let me explain--Lexing just involves making all the words you can with the letters that comprise the original word, name, or phrase, you want to lex and then simply use the words to tell a verse of truth about your subject
Now--getting back to the THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN, the first one, which was originally built in 1923 by film director Mack Sennett and LA Time publisher Harry Chandler, let look at is past. Just this past December of 2005 its broken-down-in-storage-parts were up for auction on EBAY
I recall my last check during its auction stage THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN reached as much as two hundred fifty one thousand dollars with 201 bids. The auction ended on December 6th at 20:18:47 PST but I don't recall the amount for which it sold. But its not the worth of THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN I'm concerned with in this writing--Its whether or not its remains a haunted icon
I found the two words, DESTINY DELIGHT, now those two words certainly do describe the folks who leave their small home towns to embark on their dreams of appearing on the silver screen. When I found the words GOLDEN LION it certainly did give me the image of MGM's roaring cat leading one of it's films
