From: Lucian Mogosanu Date: Sat, 4 May 2019 08:44:47 +0000 (+0300) Subject: Add draft for Mangalia post X-Git-Tag: v0.11~64 X-Git-Url: https://git.mogosanu.ro/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=c88183d4bd491d47bdf14ed1417f8b477d794c9f;p=thetarpit.git Add draft for Mangalia post --- diff --git a/drafts/000-mangalia.markdown b/drafts/000-mangalia.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5eb0862 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/000-mangalia.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,192 @@ +--- +postid: 000 +title: Mangalia +date: April 30, 2019 +author: Lucian Mogoșanu +tags: in-the-flesh +--- + +It was this one beautiful spring weekend when I decided to pack some +clothes and go home[^1]. + +Mangalia, you see, is a very very old town, dating back to the time of +Satyrus the Peripatetic. I'm sure you've heard of him, haven't you? and +of Pontus Euxinus, Moesia Inferior, and of... nevermind. Since we're +here, though, let's take a look at an illustration of ancient Dacian and +Roman settlements: + +TODO: mangalia-01 + +To the left, the keen reader can notice some hanging clothes, not part +of the illustration. Below, we go fast forward a few thousand years, to +an illustration of post-modern art: + +TODO: mangalia-02 + +This is what remains of a late 90s/early 2000s TV show, the Callatis +Festival, sponsored by Mangalia Daewood Heavy Industries, meanwhile +bought by I forgot what other company. Moving on to more interesting +illustrations, here's a cat: + +TODO: mangalia-03 + +TODO: mangalia-04 + +Mangalia is full of these little animals, be they stray or owned. I'm +guessing they must like the seaside, there were many of them in +[Heraklion][heraklion] as well. Below, birds, swimming and flying: + +TODO: mangalia-05 + +TODO: mangalia-06 + +TODO: mangalia-07 + +TODO: mangalia-08 + +TODO: mangalia-09 + +These particular swans were very user-friendly, to the point they were +standing at two metres from me, trying to eat from the palm of my +hand. The same can't be said about the Steven Seagulls flying about, but +who cares about the little rascals, really. + +TODO: mangalia-10 + +Above: the Genovese lighthouse. Below: more post-modern art. + +TODO: mangalia-11 + +TODO: mangalia-12 + +I've no idea who Tmok teh Smqr is, nor why his signature is larger than +the cat, but do you happen to remember Courage the Cowardly Dog? + +TODO: mangalia-13 + +Pictured above is the Romanian [shittoral][btcbase-1910112][^2] as seen +from the port. Gotta admit, it's a pretty nice view from +afar. Meanwhile, we travel a few kilometers to the south, to the beaches +of Vama Veche, i.e. Ye Olde Customshouse: + +TODO: mangalia-14 + +TODO: mangalia-15 + +TODO: mangalia-16 + +TODO: mangalia-17 + +TODO: mangalia-18 + +TODO: mangalia-19 + +Back in the day when Vama Veche was hip and all that jazz, the kids used +it as a base for the cargocultist reenactment of Saint Yasgur's +Festival. Meanwhile it's devolved into an outlet for teen and millenial +orclets who, as the sign above illustrates, are "anti-manele", not that +what they're listening to is fundamentally different from that +particular music -- you see, there was that Gypsy on the main ulitsa who +played Dylan better than most of the Romanian derps I've heard. At least +these particular "vamaioți" don't come with any pretenses to +"[hashtag-resist][rezistenta]": they just lie about and smoke the +occasional weed, making the quaint atmosphere tolerable at the very +least. This was the 28th of April, though, I don't even want to know how +the place looked on the 1st of May. + +Below: a coupla more shots of [pig's fart][pig-fart] (also see: 70MB +[animation][dandelion.gif]). + +TODO: mangalia-20 + +TODO: mangalia-21 + +TODO: mangalia-22 + +Above: high-resolution graphics of beach and abandoned hotels in the +sunset. Below: modern art; and modern stray cat. + +TODO: mangalia-23 + +TODO: mangalia-24 + +Further below: the main promenade. This night shot is perhaps one of the +few reason for carrying a heavy DSLR with me. + +TODO: mangalia-25 + +TODO: mangalia-26 + +Above: something-something about fatherlands, death and other +non-post-modern stuff. I'll let the reader decipher it. Below: +something-something about great achievements of high culture (notice how +they're looking up, right?). + +TODO: mangalia-27 + +Meanwhile, in [worker culture][july-theses]: + +TODO: mangalia-28 + +That, I suppose, pretty much sums up Mangalia[^3]. + +[^1]: Now's not the worst moment to tell a boring for you, yet so very + important to me story about my roots. + + It's not at all clear to me where this Mogoșanu comes from, other + than its obvious connection to one-thing-or-the-other called + Mogoș. It's well known in the family that Mogoșanu the Old was from + Apoldu de Sus (i.e. the Upper Apold), or maybe it was the Lower one, + whatever, some backwater village in the lower Transylvania. Either + way, at some point (in the interbellic period?) one branch of the + Mogoșans migrated way southeast to lower Dobrogea, where they lived + among and got along with Bulgarians, Tatars and Turkish Gypsies and + whatnot. The village, Dobromir, was *that* close to becoming part + of Bulgaria, only it didn't, and here I am, North of the Danube. + + So then sometime later this dude Dumitru, one of ten brothers, got + back from the war in one piece and took as his wife Parascheva + Băcioiu, whom he had three children with and with whom he moved all + the way to the outskirts of the capital, as the times went and as + the regime's needs dictated. Long story short, one of the three + children was my father, and another one came to be my godmother, the + wife of one Rădulescu, whose first name (among others) I came to + bear, and so on. And this is how I can call Mangalia a home about as + much as I do the slums of Bucharest -- I have some sort of + relationship with this little town, and that's that. + +[^2]: The process through which the Romanian littoral became a shittoral + wasn't much different from the one where that overgrown + [industry][oameni-melci] was sold for nothing to little + [pretend-businessmen][ticalosul] who broke it into little pieces and + sold it for scrap. + + Overgrown, that it was, yes, but in the '70s the Romanian seaside + was choc-full of Germans, Finns and other foreigners looking for a + good time -- read: to lie on the beach and fuck Eastern European + girls. A problem might be that it lived only circa four months per + year, which didn't quite justify the upkeep costs; another problem + might be related to the huge hotels that would sit mostly empty even + in June; either way, the fact remains that Neptun and Mangalia have + proper beaches, while Turkey doesn't. Meanwhile, Bulgaria and Turkey + manage to keep their aestival tourism going, while Romania, + well... not really. + + So, in short, that's how "shittiest most expensive" came to be: sell + all the real estate to the Micula brothers and drive everyone else + involved into a depression. A sad story, indeed. + +[^3]: Although it doesn't, you know. If you're ever going there, + consider visiting, among others, the Archaelogical Museum and the + Esmahan Sultan Mosque. There's more history to [this sea][citadel] + than meets the eye. + +[heraklion]: /posts/y05/07b-heraklion.html +[btcbase-1910112]: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-04-27#1910112 +[oameni-melci]: /posts/y03/05d-despre-oameni-si-melci.html#selection-30.0-30.3 +[ticalosul]: http://trilema.com/2010/ticalosul-si-libertatea/ +[rezistenta]: http://btcbase.org/log-search?q=rezistenta+prin+cultura +[pig-fart]: /posts/y04/070-bucharest-botanical-garden.html#selection-97.306-97.320 +[dandelion.gif]: TODO +[july-theses]: /posts/y03/05a-july-theses.html +[citadel]: /posts/y04/068-the-story-of-the-citadel.html