La Marseillaise - France Anthem, Bastille and Revolution - 14 Juil. 1789 / 14 Juil. 2009

Happy Bastille Day!

It was a good holiday week. My daughter, 3 friends 2 large dogs and lots of music. It should have felt crowded, but it was just about right. So very good to have life in the house, music in the air, dinner on the table. Here's Toby playing 5 string guitar in the dining room, I could listen to him all night!

Images of the Fourth of July Parade Bristol, Rhode Island

Eleanor Stewart musical art

Hoedown from Rodeo from Eleanor Stewart on Vimeo.

Iguanas in Florida

My friend Roxanne and I were driving through a parking lot in Ft. Lauderdale when we came upon several large green iguanas basking in the sun. What a surprise!

Fern Hill

Fern Hill
-Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Sumer is icumen in

When the rain stops, the season will begin...

one more very clever octopus

While we are examining the intelligence of the octopus, here's one mor!

Skilled Octopus Opens Bottles - Un Pulpo, Octi Abre Botellas - More amazing video clips are a click away

Oktapodi (2007) - Oscar 2009 Animated Short Film

I haven't been able to eat octopus for awhile now. No wonder!

life, etc.

I haven't been here in so long. It has become a question of "let it go" or "don't". For now, I say "don't give up just yet".

The past few months are a blur. The end of the semester was intense, I had 5 courses, 2 not in my area of expertise. Then just before finals my dad was rushed to the hospital with heart problems. Two more ambulance trips in the next month, 3 weeks in the hospital. Fortunately, he is OK now. Housebound and wearing a monitor, but OK.

I then went to check in with my mother in FL. She is up and about, but she has kidney problems and other ailments that come with age. All in all, she is OK.

Taki's doctors have assured him that he is cancer free, but he does not feel well at all. We were so hoping to get to Greece, but it would not be good idea while he is feeling as he is. So we wait.

It's time to revive this blog. If that means moving away from the Aegean, so be it. Last chance is now.

Back from Borneo

Now that the semester is winding down, I hope that I can write more and post here more often. The Borneo classes took quite a bit of my time, and I was at the Borneo blog- and the poetry blog and the Native America blog- far more than here. As hectic as these past weeks have been, I will miss the students. It was fun.

Happy Birthday Brendan!

(Click title for birthday greeting, B.)

Crows

Josh Klein on the Intelligence of Crows:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html

Happy Birthday to ME!

I still expect something special...

Candles

- C. Cavafy

The days of our future stand before us
like a row of little lighted candles-
golden, warm, and lively little candles.

The days gone by remain behind us,
a mournful line of burnt-out candles;
the nearest ones are still smoking,
cold candles, melted and burnt.

I do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,
and it saddens me to recall their first light.
I look ahead at my lighted candles.

I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder-
how quickly the somber line lengthens,
how quickly the burnt-out candles multiply.

When in Big Sur

Visit the Henry Miller Library:

http://www.henrymiller.org/

Fleet Foxes - Mykonos (Official video)

Save our Sea Creature Friends: Turtles, Dolphins and Qctopuses

Turtles:

http://seaturtles.org/article.php?list=type&type=70


Dolphins:

http://www.savejapandolphins.org/


Octopus:

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Clever Octopus:


One Very Clever Octopus - The top video clips of the week are here

May 1 is International Workers' Day

http://www.iww.org/



Power and Glory
-Phil Ochs
Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land
Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains
Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain

Here is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Her glory shall rest on us all (on us all)

From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too
Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new
Texas and Ohio and the California shore
Tell me, who could ask for more?

Yet she's only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand

But our land is still troubled by men who have to hate
They twist away our freedom & they twist away our fate
Fear is their weapon and treason is their cry
We can stop them if we try



GREEK NAME DAYS FOR MAY

May 02 Zoodochos Pigis
May 03 Timotheos (Timothy)
May 05 Eirinis, Irini (Irene)
May 06 Serafim
May 07 Akakios
May 09 Christoforos (Christopher)
May 10 Simonos (Simon)
May 11 Kyrillos & Methodos
May 13 Sergios, Sergios / Glykerias, Glykeria (Sergio)
May 15 Paxomios
May 17 Andronikos
May 18 Ioulias, Ioulia (Julia, Julie)
May 19 Menandrios
May 21 Konstantinos & Elenis, Konstantine, Kostas, Tina, Kostantina, Eleni (Helen)
May 27 Ioannos Rosos
May 28 Tis Analipseos
May 29 Theodosias
May 30 Isaakios (Isaac)

Shaka

Happy Birthday Connor!

Christos Anesti

Alithos Anesti



And from Skiathos in 2007:

Taxes

-by Edgar A. Guest

When they become due I don't like them at all.

Taxes look large be they ever so small
Taxes are debts which I venture to say,
No man or no woman is happy to pay.
I grumble about them, as most of us do.
For it seems that with taxes I never am through.

But when I reflect on the city I love,
With its sewers below and its pavements above,
And its schools and its parks where children may play,
I can see what I get for the money I pay,
And I say to myself: "Little joy would we know
If we kept all our money and spent it alone".

I couldn't build streets and I couldn't fight fire.
Policemen to guard us I never could hire.
A water department I couldn't maintain.
Instead of a city we'd still have a plain.
Then I look at the bill for the taxes they charge,
And I say to myself: "Well, that isn't so large".

I walk through a hospital thronged with the ill
And I find that it shrivels the size of my bill.
As in beauty and splendor my home city grows,
It is easy to see where my tax money goes.
And I say to myself: "If we lived hit and miss
And gave up our taxes, we couldn't do this".

'''''''

'''''''

bouganvillea

Name days in April

April name days
April 6 - Eutyxios
April 15 - Leonidas
April 23 - Georgios (Yorgos) - Georgia. If during Lent, it moves to second day after Easter.
April 24 - Elisabet
April 25 - Marcos

Monads all around!

Today feels like the first warmish Friday of spring! Monads all around!

Greek Independence

Palaion Patron Germanos blessing the flag at Agia Lavra, March 25, 182.

Painting by Thoedoros Vryazkis, 1865.

Greek Independence
(click title for more)

March 25

Happy Spring

they're back!

The Hebrew Mamita

Ireland

I Am Of Ireland
- William Butler Yeats

'I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
'Come out of charity,
Come dance with me in Ireland.'

One man, one man alone
In that outlandish gear,
One solitary man
Of all that rambled there
Had turned his stately head.
That is a long way off,
And time runs on,' he said,
'And the night grows rough.'

'I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she.
'Come out of charity
And dance with me in Ireland.'

'The fiddlers are all thumbs,
Or the fiddle-string accursed,
The drums and the kettledrums
And the trumpets all are burst,
And the trombone,' cried he,
'The trumpet and trombone,'
And cocked a malicious eye,
'But time runs on, runs on.'

'I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,' cried she,
'Come out of charity.'

Cycladics

beach

Beach

Thoughts flow nameless
The night black sea, no moon.
Chill mist salt scent blanket
scratch of sea grass, sand.
Timeless water rhythms
roaring, breaking free.
I find your hand, your mouth.
No words.

dolphins creating art?

I found this video of the beautiful dolphins to be a relaxing way to start the weekend.

Delphi

To the Oracle at Delphi
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Great Oracle, why are you staring at me,
do I baffle you, do I make you despair?
I, Americus, the American,
wrought from the dark in my mother long ago,
from the dark of ancient Europa--
Why are you staring at me now
in the dusk of our civilization--
Why are you staring at me
as if I were America itself
the new Empire
vaster than any in ancient days
with its electronic highways
carrying its corporate monoculture
around the world
And English the Latin of our days--

Great Oracle, sleeping through the centuries,
Awaken now at last
And tell us how to save us from ourselves
and how to survive our own rulers
who would make a plutocracy of our democracy
in the Great Divide
between the rich and the poor
in whom Walt Whitman heard America singing

O long-silent Sybil,
you of the winged dreams,
Speak out from your temple of light
as the serious constellations
with Greek names
still stare down on us
as a lighthouse moves its megaphone
over the sea
Speak out and shine upon us
the sea-light of Greece
the diamond light of Greece

Far-seeing Sybil, forever hidden,
Come out of your cave at last
And speak to us in the poet's voice
the voice of the fourth person singular
the voice of the inscrutable future
the voice of the people mixed
with a wild soft laughter--
And give us new dreams to dream,
Give us new myths to live by!

name days in March

this month's Greek name days

March 1 Marias Aigyptias, Evdokias / Tis Tyrofagos
March 2 Evthalias
March 3 Kleonikos
March 5 Kononos
March 7 Laurentios (Laurence)
March 8 Theofylaktos
March 16 Xristodosios
March 17 Alexios, Alexios, Alexis (Alex)
March 18 Kyrillos (Cyril)
March 19 Xrysanthos, Chrisantos
March 21 Iakovos (Jacob)
March 25 Evangelismos / Evangelos, Eva, Litsa, Lia, Vangelis
March 27 Ilarionos, Lydia
March 31 Ypatios

very cool fish: image and video from from National Geographic

another chocolate birthday cake

Chocolate Cake
4 squares unsweetened chocolate
1-1/2 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup water
1-2/3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick softened butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk or reg. milk with 2 ½ T powdered buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla

PREHEAT oven to 350°F.
In saucepan melt chocolate in 1/2 cup water. When smooth add ½ cup sugar and stir until sugar is melted. Let cool.

Mix together flour, baking soda and salt.
Beat butter and remaining 1-1/4 cups sugar in bowl of electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in flour mixture alternately with the milk. Add chocolate mixture and vanilla; and mix.
Pour into 2 greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans.

BAKE 30 to 35 min.. Cool in pans 10 min.. then remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack. Frost. I like vanilla frosting with berries or jam between the layers and chocolate frosting on the cake itself.
To make easy frosting mix:
1 stick butter
I box confectioner’s sugar
4 T milk
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
a pinch of salt.
Remove enough vanilla frosting to spread between the layers. To the remaining frosting add 2 squares of melted unsweetened chocolate and mix well.

fleet foxes: white winter hymnal

This has been in my head for several days, so I am posting to share. I find this song so beautiful,wistfully sad and haunting. And so very difficult to let go...

Happy Birthday Taki Mou

From the BBC: Prison Break Shocks Greece

(I am reading this and am astounded,not just once, but TWICE!)

Two of Greece's most wanted men have staged a daring helicopter escape from Athens' highest-security prison - for the second time in three years.

Serial armed robber and kidnapper Vassilis Paleokostas and his Albanian sidekick Alket Rizai were days away from trial for their 2006 escape.

They fled Korydallos prison after a helicopter landed on the jail's roof and threw them a rope ladder.

The aircraft was reportedly later found abandoned by a main highway.

The road leads towards Greece's central mountain range, an area where Paleokostas, 42, was able to hide with impunity during previous years, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant, in Athens.

Our correspondent says the breakout is a damning indictment of Greece's prison system.

Three years ago both men managed to escape when a hijacked helicopter landed in Korydallos' central yard at exercise time.

On that occasion, the guards failed to react, because they thought it was a visit by prison inspectors.

The architect of that escape, Paleokostas' brother Nikos, has since been captured and jailed, and is now likely to face increased security.

BBC News 2/22/09

Song for a Friday evening

The Shins: Saint Simon

After all these implements and text designed by intellects
So vexed to find evidently there's just so much that hides
And though the saints of us divine in ancient feeding lines
Their sentiment is just as hard to pluck from the vine

I'm trying hard not to pretend
Allow myself no mock defense
Step into the night

Since I dont have the time nor mind to figure out
The nursery rhymes that helped us out and make a sense of our lives
The cruel uneventful state of apathy releases me
I value them but I won't cry if the time was wiped out

I'm trying hard not to give in
Battened down to fair the wind
Read my head, at least pretend
Allow myself no mock defense
Step into the night...

Mercy's eyes are blue
When she places them in front of you
Nothing holds a roman candle to
The solemn warmth you feel inside

There's no measuring of it
As nothing else is love

I'll try hard not to give in
Battened down to fair the wind
Read my head, at least pretend
Allow myslef no mock defense
Step into the night...

Mercy's eyes are blue
When she places them in front of you
Nothing really holds a candle to
The solemn warmth you feel inside of you

the small joy of cherries and pistachios

This dreary, gray February day was made a little bit brighter with the arrival of a package that I had ordered just yesterday. Dried cherries and pistachios from NutsOnline. Cherries may help improve joint health, and I have been feeling the cold in my joints this year, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try the natural remedy. I ordered three varieties, so good.
And the pistachios are the good kind, imported antep. I am not getting paid to advertise this company, but their products are so good, and their customer service so superior, that I am adding them to my favorite places. Click on the title to link to the NutsOnline site.

a riddle

This verse was on the card attached to my Valentine's Day gift:

I swear by all the saints that be
you are the Valentine for me
This is the truth that must remain
All else is false or not germane.

Th puzzle: What was the gift?
Click on title for answer.

a poem for today

To His Coy Mistress
- Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Interpreting Leda: 3 paintings, one sculpture, an engraving, a poem and a synthesized video in French

Leonardo de Vinci's Leda



Leda sculpture by unknown artist, J. Paul Getty Museum


Leda painting by Theodore Gericault


Engraving by Giulio Campagnola


Salvadore Dali's "Leda Atomica"

Leda and the Swan
- William Butler Yeats


A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

one more Yeats

Sailing to Byzantium
- W. B. Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.