Two faces...

I had such a crappy day...my laptop is sill not fixed, I shouted to three different people,I had some bad news for a conference I coordinate and generally I was about to explode...
then I entered a taxi and the music in the radio was Greek the Zorba by Mikis Theodorakis, I told the taxi driver I'm Greek, he smiled and told me I thought so.....The colors of the sky were simply amazing, a mixture of purple and orange...
we didn't say anything else....until I met a friend for a hot whisky, I kept smiling....
this country is sth else!makes me furious but calms me down..has two faces,I adore the relaxed one, hate the passive one....
the taxi driver was right...I'm Greek in the tamperamento, most of the times bad some other times simply charming...the smile returned...

Salvador...

Last night I watched a movie about the last execution in Spain.
Salvador Puig Antich was a Catalan anarchist executed by the Francoist regime for the death of a policeman in 1974.Franco died in 1975 and the transition started in Spain....
the last weeks Judge Garzon, applying the new law of historic memory, described the Franco regime as a crime against humanity.
I always had my doubts about the wisdom and purpose of judicial activism in the form of transitional justice...the movie last night somehow changed my mind...
in the interests of justice some crimes cannot go unpunished........

Sodade...

A strange combination of names brought nostalgic memories...
a cambodian pop group,Dengue Fever, the Soundtrack of Broken Flowers, a movie of Jim Jarmusch I watched at Angelica Film Center, in NY, Houston and Mercer corner a warm night of August....
and the feeling of sodade for that precious period


http://angelikafilmcenter.com/angelika_index.asp?hID=1

2028.....

Recently I read an article on history and generations.
It suggested that after world war II, important events happen every 20 years.
1948:UDHR
1968:Vietnam War-May of 1968-civil rights movement
1988: A year before the collapse of Soviet Union, beginning of the end..
2008: The end of capitalism?

What about 1958?
1978- my birthday(too arrogant I know)
1998( maybethe anxiety of the forthcoming millennium)

If history is written every 20 years,I try to think about 2028, what could happen or what would we like to happen?how could we leave our sign in history??????????

Smurfs....cause it feels good to be kid again....

The Smurfs celebrate their 50 Birthday and for all of us around 30 they represent our childhood!

I still remember my smurf mania with books, discs, even my first painting was a smurfs house which we framed above my bed and was suspiciously disappeared after I moved from my parent's house!!!!!!!!!

I still watch Smurfs when I'm back home usually Saturday mornings with coffee, pyjamas and a feeling of warmth and freedom as If I was 5 again....

For the 50 year anniversary the little Smurfs became a partner with UNICEF.

The profits from the celebrity smurfs auction and from the sales of the smurfs statues will be offered to the UN agency.

Have a look.....

http://happysmurfday.com/en/en/charity

In the name of Human Dignity....

A greek newspaper and then BBC posted photos of an immigrant being striped by police officers in the middle of Athens for no reason besically!
We learnt that the victim was a drug user apart from immigrant.
That made him immediately a goal of humiliation of young police officers who ashame the so called country of civilization and democracy...what an irony!


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7679100.stm

The Truths of Others.....

Rainy morning, my mind to Kiki...
Made a list of books she might enjoy reading, during the 2 months she has to stay inside.
One of them is called the Truths of Others, by a Greek author/academic/politician, Nikos Themelis...it touches upon the issue of how we deal with the truths of others via our perception of identity....

Milan Kountera: a couple of days ago a Czech magazine published that in 1950 he gave the name of a dissident to the secret services..Kundera denied any involvement..
What's the truth and actually what's the point?How do we deal with the truths of others without being engaged in a witch hunting?
Who has the absolute truth, who is pure and finally who can be judgemental of the passions of the soul?

I added to the list of books for Kiki all his fictions like:
The Joke Laughable Loves
The Farewell Waltz
Life Is Elsewhere
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Immortality
Slowness
Identity
Ignorance


http://www.ustrcr.cz/en

Kiki.....

My mam's name is Kiki.That was the first word I said as a baby, easier than mam I guess...
When I was born she was 24, in my age she had a 6 year old child.She was never a usual mam, somehow she has a way to surprise me.
We argue a lot of course, people say we are identical but in 5 minutes we laugh and make fun of each others. To the extent that my dad, the saint, doesn't intervene anymore, cause no matter what he knows things will work out by themselves( similar to the main idea of capitalism, however proved wrong)....
Yesterday dad called. He made a joke to announce me that Kiki was in the hospital, once more.
She fell in our garden, trying to cut a peper to make salad, she basically broke seriously her left leg and she was operated for some hours.
I called her, she apologized for not being able to come to Ireland( was planned) and she told me Maria if my left leg is not properly fixed I ll buy an automatic car!
I laughed, cause I know how much she loves driving and how much she hates automatic cars...

She ll be ok we hope in 2 months,she ll start doing again pilates,be outrageous, freak me out,make me laugh, call me 5 times per day,get stressed with trivial things but be strong with serious ones....

Nobel Prize in Simplicity...

Something funny happened this morning......I went to buy some fruits and the cashier asked me where I'm from.I said Greece, he said ah....are you muslim? I said no...he replied oh yes I confused Greece with Turkey!
He made me smile, thinking that this is the simplest comment and at the same time the most outrageous for nationalists of both sides...

Paul Krugman on Monday October 13,posted a note on his blog with the title "A funny thing happened to me this morning...."
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science.

In an era where everything seems to be complicating, confusing or oversimplistic we do need a nobel prize in simplicity...the same way the word nationalization has been recently dedemonized....


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

Sunday mornings...as magic as shoes and books...

I hadn't realized how much I love Sunday mornings...read my newspapers, drink coffee, listen to music, write my blog and at some point do some work!
Today I rediscovered a great ethnic-Greek radio, Kosmos, with inspiring music from all over the world, I got updated on recent Turkish literature since Turkey is the country of honor in this year Frankfurt book-fair, read a very interesting article on FARC and modern piracy in Somalia, made a second cup of coffee, avoided annoying emails and decided to devote every Sunday morning from now on to myself...cause I feel so much better after 3 hours of self indulgence.

http://www.kosmos936.gr/

http://http://www.buchmesse.de/en/

simple v.complicating or simply complexed?

The other night I had a very interesting conversation with a friend about simple and complicating women.
I asked him what I was and he said..you are complexed butterfly..neither simple nor complicating.. he made me feel good, cause complexed situations are the most interesting and definitely I wanna be one of those...

inic eosnf