tindersticks - jism

tonight listening to Greek Radio, they played this song...brought so many memories....13 years ago, Thessaloniki, my first concert at Mylos, with the person who introduced me to Tindersticks,years of innocence,law school, friends,nights out,like it was yesterday

I'm sorry

simply I'm sorry.....4 powerful words

move on....

two words I hate for their arrogance and ignorance...

"Gaza Blues"

Gaza, beginning of 2009 and the painting of Picasso is more relevant than ever...The following passage is from wikipedia and proves the symbolism of the painting:

'Guernica at the United Nations
A tapestry copy of Picasso's Guernica is displayed on the wall of the United Nations building in New York City, at the entrance to the Security Council room. It was placed there as a reminder of the horrors of war. Commissioned and donated by Nelson Rockefeller, it is not quite as monochromatic as the original, using several shades of brown. On February 5, 2003 a large blue curtain was placed to cover this work, so that it would not be visible in the background when Colin Powell and John Negroponte gave press conferences at the United Nations. On the following day, it was claimed that the curtain was placed there at the request of television news crews, who had complained that the wild lines and screaming figures made for a bad backdrop, and that a horse's hindquarters appeared just above the faces of any speakers. Some diplomats, however, in talks with journalists claimed that the Bush Administration pressured UN officials to cover the tapestry, rather than have it in the background while Powell or other U.S. diplomats argued for war on Iraq.'

I didn't see the painting on the wall outside the Security Council when the various representatives admitted the failure to issue a resolution condemning the violence in Middle East...and all of us know why....

Human Justice in Middle East

This morning Daniel Barenboim leading the Vienna Philharmonic in its New Year’s Concert 2009, wished peace all over the world and Human Justice in Middle East.....Barenboim is an Israeli and Palestinian citizen, he has co-founded with Edward Said the West Eastern Divan Orchestra and he is the co-author of Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society, a series of conversations between Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said....He doesn't believe that military force can bring any solution in Middle East...what an irony especially those days that nearly 400 Palestinians lost their lives,among them many many children...
The Israeli foreign minister rejected the EU proposal for truce cause as she claimed there is no humanitarian disaster in Gaza!
Words have lost their meaning, numbers obtain a sneaky significance and 2009 starts with the worst predictions........

http://west-easterndivan.artists.warner.de/

Ζητείται Ελπίς.....

Last Thursday I started my odyssia to travel from Ireland to Greece...
After 17 hours finally I arrived in Athens at 4.30 am..tired, sick with flu, moody...
First thing Ι faced, the smell of cigarette at the airport, second thing the attitude of the airport officer when I told him I was late for my last flight....his response: Relax,unless they call your name...everything is ok! and a cute joke about my laptop...
I smiled...if the people haven't lost their humor yet, then there is hope, I thought!
Next day I had to drive to Thessaloniki for an appointment..... the main road was blocked by farmers who protested against the policy of the government..I almost missed my appointment but didn't complain....they have their right....
Greece, a country which occupies the frontline of the foreign media for the last 2 weeks.... the country of democracy and civilisation and resistance as some people add... a country I know I will visit only on vacation, where the people I met are disappointed and feel insecure about the future, they constantly discuss the current situation, they exagerrate, become passionate, argue, live!
Greece, where the sun shines even during the winter days and gives you the illusion that things are not that bad...cause everybody has the right to dream.....

Christmas are postponed...at least in Greece

One picture, a symbolic act of protest,a condemnation by the government, one question:

To what extent can the sanctity of a place be claimed when the country of democracy and civilization is exactly the opposite?

Don't throw more tear gus....we cry by ourselves for our friend......

In Greek:

"Μη μας ρίχνετε άλλα δακρυγόνα....κλαίμε και από μόνοι μας για τον Αλέξανδρο"
This is how we feel...a combination of anger, desperation and disappointment...and tears, many tears!

The last week I read a series of articles analyzing what happens in Greece....some superficial, some more elaborated...today 6/8 Greek citizens described the situation as a social uprising....and a call from home, made me smile....my dad read a very conservative analysis and furiously asked me! "so the young people don't face any problem in Greece ?and since when being an anarchist is bad per se"?

He made me anxious to go home, enjoy long conversations both at home and with friends while drinking and arguing...

this is what I miss about Greece... the aesthetics of authentic politicization.....maybe there is still hope....

This morning I heard that the Greek police run out of tear gus and asked more to be sent from Israel and Germany.....

Improper Behavior or Αποκλίνουσα Συμπεριφορά!

That is what the rambo-policeman said in his defence:"Τhe assassinated boy had demonstrated an improper behavior...although coming from a wealthy family he was expelled from his school and used to cause problems.!!!!!!!!! "
σαν να λέμε τα είθελε και τα έπαθε..... and of course he forgot to say I'm sorry!!!!!!!!!!!

Why?

This is the question I receive from several friends world wide....
why all this episodes and riots in Greece?why all this anger from the young people??

This is the response I provide from a BBC web site's analysis:
"Rebellion is deeply embedded in the Greek psyche. The students and school children who are now laying siege to police stations and trying to bring down the government are undergoing a rite of passage.......The centre for this December rebellion is the Athens Polytechnic, where students have been out on the streets with wheelbarrows and shopping trolleys to collect and recycle rocks and pieces of marble used in the previous night's assaults.......The polytechnic is the symbol of modern rebellion.
On 17 November 1973, tanks of the then six-year-old military dictatorship burst through the iron railings to suppress a student uprising against the colonels.
The exact casualty figure is still unknown to this day but it is believed that around 40 people were killed.
The sacrifice of the polytechnic was so significant that the post-junta architects of Greece's new constitution drafted the right of asylum, which bans the authorities from entering the grounds of schools and universities.
That is why places of learning are the springboards for the current wave of violence and it also explains why many of the riots are in university towns.
Students and pupils have effectively been given carte blanche to carry on protesting, because their professors have declared a three-day strike. ..
Although many of today's protestors were not born when thepolytechnic gates were crushed by the tanks, the lesson of the students' martyrdom is a key component of every Greek child's school democracy curriculum.
The latent Greek contempt for the police, which has now erupted so volcanically, has its roots in the dictatorship, when the police were regarded as the colonels' enforcers and traitors to the people.
The death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos at the hands of an experienced 37-year-old policeman has precipitated a wave of nationwide violence unseen since the dictatorship"""""""""

Of Turkish coffee and other names....

This morning I run out of my usual coffee,so I decided to boil a cup of Turkish coffee..while I was stirring the coffee I smiled thinking oh my God, imagine asking for Turkish coffee in Greece!

it simply doesn't exist!it's Greek coffee of course! In Cyprus it's called Cypriot Coffee....

coming from Northern Greece I feel culturally deprived of the history of the place I was born and the place I spent a significant part of my life...like someone stole arbitrarily the history of both places...Kavala and Thessaloniki...Mehmet Ali, the progressive Albanian pasha of Egypt was born in Kavala.Used to play in the beautiful old Turkish neighborhood, the one we call Panagia now.

His Imaret became one of the fanciest hotels in Europe and his house, a luxurious restaurant....the grave of his mother in the middle of the central square of Kavala was demolished during the Junta...the "patriots" wanted a pure ethnic city., nothing to remind the past...still though even nowadays people use Turkish names for some parts of the city.....a city full of refugees from Turkey like my grand grandparents..where still two neighborhoods are called 500 and 1.000...from the 500 and 1.000 houses built for the Greek refugees....

Thessaloniki, my other love....a City of Ghosts as Mazower says in his book....Jewish, Muslims, Christians....all together...in this crossroad of civilisations, between West and East, the bottom of Balkans, a cosmopolitan city full of Anatolian aroma....

where the food and the drink is so important that you spend hours around a table with friends, losing the sense of time....

You think you are over with some places, I always connect situations and people with places...these two cities though are self contained...you go back not because of the situations or the people....you go back for the city itself...........

http://www.imaret.gr/

http://www.cityofkavala.gr/pub/en/

Open horizons...

Kavala-Thessaloniki-New Orleans-Geneva-New York-Galway=water!
more and more I realize I cannot live away from water...

Κωνσταντινούπολη-Πόλη των πόθων

For those who do not speak Greek, the title of the post means Istanbul-City of Lusts!

this is the title of the new book of Giannis Xanthoulis, a Greek writer with origins from Istanbul, decorated with pictures of Ara Guler, a well known Turkish photographer...

For the worshippers of this City, a tea at his Cafe in Peran, opposite to Galatasaray Lycee is a must!

I always wanted to live in that City for some time, to stroll around, enjoy the smell of bahars, rediscover who I am...European, Anatolian, Greek, Balkan....

ένα χαρμάνι as my great-grandmam would say...

today my heart and mind is there...wondering whether I threw away the chance to enter the Gates of Istanbul as Loreena McKennitt sings...

Everybody hurts....

how can someone describe the feeling of loss?
it's like an open wound....and open wounds are the worst, as I heard somewhere..
you think you are cured and then suddenly you realize that you need more time...the feeling of loss is back....

Not everybody is used to these frequencies...

Last night I had one of the most interesting music experiences!
I went to an experimental Scandinavian-Japanese jazz concert!When we entered the place we were given a pair of earplugs cause as the sign said..not everybody is used to those frequencies!
Between lots of laughing since one friend was a jazz virgin and we thought that after that she would never go to a jazz concert again, the night was simply the definition of globalisation:
a Canadian, an Irish and a Greek having dinner in a Spanish restaurant, going to a unique concert in Ireland!!!!!!!!!!
This morning my dad called me to listen to a Greek radio show...it was an interesting conversation among 3 Greek intellectuals on globalisation, economic crisis,environmental degradation, social justice!
then I read an article on the new movie of Theo Angelopoulos, the Dust of Time, the second movie of a trilogy covering the last 50 years of Greek history via the life of one woman Eleni, who is looking for the absolute love...
Lately I'm very pessimist about my country, I feel I don't belong there...nothing seems to work..
but this morning I felt that things happen...simply not everyone is used to these frequencies...

http://www.mimisandroulakis.gr/
http://www.theoangelopoulos.com/
http://www.agp.gr
http://www,galwayjazzfestival.com

Leonard Cohen-Suzanne

This morning I came across the last book with poetry of Leonard Cohen, the Book of longing.
my mind went back to early 80's when in our house there was always music of Theodorakis, Cohen,Xilouris, books of Nazim Hikmet,Papandreou while during elections my parents and their friends spent nights drinking, smoking and dreaming of a just society..
there is a nostalgia for this period which was a period of hope and anxiety..still have memories with my mam in Athens, in a tram when she made a joke about a right wing politician and I told her...shhhhhhhh mam they will listen to us!!!!!!!!!! and when the first socialist government was elected I remember her jumping in her jeans and t-shirt with a cigarette, kissing me...
of course they were very soon disappointed as every idealist..but they never changed..they still believe in social justice, I still find nice music when I go back home and discover magic books, enjoy conversations on participatory democracy and combat of poverty...

wrote this post while listening to Suzanne of Leonard Cohen..one of the first songs I ever heard as a child...

In a manner of speaking

Hadn't paid attention to the lyrics of this song until this morning..

"In a Manner of speaking, I just want to say,That I could never forget the way You told me everythingBy saying nothingIn a manner of speakingI don't understand How love in silence becomes reprimand But the way that i feel about you Is beyond words

Oh give me the words, Give me the words, That tell me nothing
Ohohohoh give me the words,Give me the words, That tell me everything

In a manner of speaking Semantics won't do, In this life that we live we only make do,And the way that we feel, Might have to be sacrified, So in a manner of speaking I just want to say, That just like you I should find a wayTo tell you everything By saying nothing.

Oh give me the words, Give me the words,That tell me nothing
Ohohohoh give me the words, Give me the words,That tell me everything

Oh give me the words, Give me the words, That tell me nothing
Ohohohoh give me the wordsGive me the wordsThat tell me everything"

We are human beings as well...apart from prisoners

5.ooo detainees in Greek prisons on hunger strike...and the society sleeps....

Polytexneio 1973 AFIERWMA

Tα όνειρα των εραστών δε σβήνουν......

35 years today after the Polytechnic uprising in Athens...and 7.000 policemen are going to guard the march which will end up like every year in front of the American embassy, protesting about their role in our junta....
I'm in the Hague together with a Mexican friend, who used to wear a t-shirt depicted the tank which entered the university in Mexico city in 1968...
Last week the prosecution of the polytechnic massacre by the junta was mentioned as the most successful example of transitional justice...
35 years later we don't know how many people were killed that night...
their demands though for bread, education and freedom are more relevant than ever....cause as the Greek song says the dreams of lovers do not die....