Taki’s Poem to the Ladies at the Library

Once I was famous among stacks
And all the library could offer
-books, papers, magazines
I read- a spendthrift of its currency!
Now in the darkness of Decembers
these years I close my eyes
what they can’t see -the heart remembers.

Yatta

Be Happy!!!
It"s so easy! Happy go lucky!

Philippe Jaroussky: Fra le procelle (Vivaldi)

This Weekend in Bristol!

click above for info and directions

The 8th annual Honoring the Harvest celebration, sponsored by the Bristol Parks and Recreation Department, will be located on the Mount Hope Grant in Bristol in the Outing Reservation Building on November 14 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This celebration of the fall harvest will be lead by Native Americans from the Pokanoket Wampanoag community. Join us for a feast of succotash, cornbread, pumpkin bread, and cider while enjoying dancing, drumming, and craft activities. The program is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

Greece at War

alone

My poor blog is left here all alone while I sail off into a fantasy world of pirates and gold. I haven't been feeling very creative lately and the days seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Not in hours of daylight, in actual time. Never enough.
So I post a favorite poem and vow once again to return to words one day.

The Art of Poetry
- Jorge Luis Borges

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.

My Favorite Things - Sound of Music

Found this on Andrew Sullivan's blog, love it.

Alela Diane - The Pirate's Gospel

Poem in October

by Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In a rainy autumn
And walked abroad in shower of all my days
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and the sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singing birds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

Hooray

PASOK!!!

Remember the Mountain Bed - Billy Bragg and Wilco

Remember the Mountain Bed

written by Woody Guthrie

Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves:
Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds:
You laughed as I covered you over with leaves, face, breast, hips and thighs.
You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes.

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled woodvines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me.

Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky.
As your fingers played with grassy moss, and limber you did lie:
Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
Your feet played games with mountain roots, as you lay thinking there.

Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away:
The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go.

There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned.
Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life’s reason why
The People laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die.

The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown,
Our words still ring in the brush and the trees were singing seeds are sown
Your shape and form is dim, but plain, there on our mountain bed
I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head…

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams,
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands.

I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears,
I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here:
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.

All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
My greeds, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight:
My loneliness healed my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again.

moonlit beach

moonless beach

Beach
by Skorda

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.

Scorpion

Notice from the Greek Institute

SAVE THE DATE: ALKISTIS PROTOPSALTI & STEFANOS KORKOLIS ONE NIGHT ONLY!‏

The Greek Institute is pleased to announce that we are sponsoring an
unforgettable and unique performance of

ALKISTIS PROTOPSALTI and STEFANOS KORKOLIS

in a piano-voice combination that took Athens by storm in 2009!


SAVE THE DATE!
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2009
8:00 PM
SANDERS THEATRE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MA


To purchase tickets:
Call The Greek Institute at 617-547-4770
or log on to our website at: www.thegreekinstitute.org

OR call the Harvard Box Office at 617-496-2222
or log on to: www.boxoffice.harvard.edu.

WE ARE TAKING ADVANCE ORDERS AT THE GREEK INSTITUTE
TICKETS GO ON SALE AT THE HARVARD BOX OFFICE THE LAST WEEK IN AUGUST!!

Stay tuned for more updates!

those birds

Groundless

The blackbird and the raven and the crow
Join seven magpies meeting on the wire
Their shiny beady black eyes all aglow
I think they may have gathered to conspire.
The caws and squawks grow loud as I walk near
I shiver as they look right down at me
I'm brave but still I feel a touch fear
that I'll become their victim if I flee.
I hold my breath, their wings begin to spread
They're restless now, I see their black eyes flash
Then they take off and fly over my head
To jostle with the seagulls for some trash
So was this scary feeling in my head
Or did those black birds really want me dead?

I Cry for Walter Cronkite

I Cry for Walter Cronkite
by Skorda

The icons of my youth are dying one by one.
Now time is taking even the strong,
The ones who made it through the crazy times:
When war and drugs and people with guns
shook the life from so many still so young.

One moment present tense, the next a memory
It is happening more now. Soon they’ll all be gone
Those whose words and deeds and faces
told us who we were and what we wanted
back before we drove the twentieth century
over the cliff of time.

I’m sad that Walter Cronkite died,
I didn’t know the man, but I knew his voice
He was ninety-two, his life had been rich and full with experience,
but still it is sad.
My grief at his death touches selfishness, the personal.
One more small door closing on my generation,
shutting off then from now.

If you’re old enough you remember him well.
His voice, steady as a heartbeat,
Always droning somewhere in the background,
A reassuring constant through decades of change
A voice both shared and familiar
Day after day
recounting the events of our cruelly imperfect world.

Forty years ago this week, he was there for us
That July,
the lull before the Manson murders and Woodstock
A moment when Americans united
feeling good, feeling proud, feeling strong.
Listening to Walter Cronkite
as we gathered around flickering screens of grey and white
watching men walk on the moon.

It didn’t last long, that communitas
The war did not end, and December brought Altamont
Dreams were diminished, dashed or discarded
But we still had Walter, we called him Uncle Walt by then
He was there, our trusted witness to change
in our lives, in our homes,
as if we knew him well,
in living color.

My grief at his death is real, if small
I would like to believe my pain is big, but it’s not
I want to cry for all that was
Or for all that might have been
But I know that I cry for what I was
For who I think I was, or might have been
I cry for what I can’t remember
I cry because it all washes away

The present robs the dead of complexity
Distilling life down to the simple,
a look, a word, a phrase,
wrapped up neatly and delivered to the future.
It’s happening to Walter now, barely dead,
The winnowing of life for the bits that flash.
The elevation, the apotheosis
I’ve even heard him called the voice of God.

I cry for Walter Cronkite
I cry for myself , for my generation
The summing up of lives, the relentless loss.
The icons of my life are dying one by one.
When all have vanished, when my generation dies,
Who will bear witness?
Who will remember what was real?

wistfully watching, wishing I were there(click here)

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.

W.B.Yeats and Donovan

The Song of Wandering Aengus
-W. B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Litsa Giagousi - Para Poli: Friday Afternoon-Time to Get up and Dance! M'agapas?

Nothing like shaking it to a good old fashioned club tune to stretch out the kinks of the work week.
Everybody...stand up...let LOOSE!!!

a poem by Robinson Jeffers

The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean
-Robinson Jeffers

Unhappy about some far off things
That are not my affair, wandering
Along the coast and up the lean ridges,
I saw in the evening
The stars go over the lonely ocean,
And a black-maned wild boar
Plowing with his snout on Mal Paso Mountain.

The old monster snuffled, "Here are sweet roots,
Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.
The best nation in Europe has fallen,
And that is Finland,
But the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
The old black-bristled boar,
Tearing the sod on Mal Paso Mountain.

"The world's in a bad way, my man,
And bound to be worse before it mends;
Better lie up in the mountain here
Four or five centuries,
While the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
Said the old father of wild pigs,
Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.

"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies,"
Said the gamey black-maned boar
Tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain.

Savina Yannatou - Dedication (live)

Variations on a theme.

Manos Hadjidakis - Dedication

Variations on a theme.

yum

My father's birthday was January 30, I made this cake and we celebrated last night. It is incredibly rich and calorie laden but for a special occasion I think it well worth the indulgence, I would have to say it is one of my all-time chocolate favorites. Here is the recipe,originally published in "Gourmet Magazine" in June 1992, I have made only slight changes.
Bittersweet Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Cake

For the cake

- 6 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
- scant 3/4 cup sugar
- large eggs, separated
- 1/4 cup (or so) Maker's Mark bourbon
- 1 rounded tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup pecans, toasted lightly, cooled, and chopped fine

For the glaze

- 6 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- 1/2 cup heavy cream

pecan halves for decorating
lightly sweetened bourbon-laced whipped cream as an accompaniment (OPTIONAL)

Directions
To make the cake:
Line the bottom of a buttered 8 1/2-inch springform pan with parchment , butter the paper, and dust the pan with flour, shaking out the excess. In a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt the chocolates, stirring until the mixture is smooth, remove the bowl from the pan, and let the chocolate cool until it is room temperature. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream together the butter and the sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy, add the chocolate, and beat the mixture until it is combined well. Beat in the egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, and beat in the bourbon and the flour. In a large bowl beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they just hold stiff peaks, stir one third of them into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, and fold in the remaining whites and the chopped pecans gently but thoroughly. Turn the batter into the prepared pan and bake the cake in the middle of a preheated 350°F. oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a tester inserted 2 inches from the rim comes out clean. (The center of the cake will remain moist.) Transfer the cake to a rack and let it cool completely. Remove the cake from the pan, invert it onto the rack, and remove the wax paper carefully. The cake may be made 1 day in advance and kept wrapped in plastic wrap at room temperature.

Make the glaze:
Put the chocolate in a small bowl, in saucepan bring the cream to a boil, and pour it over the chocolate. Stir the mixture until the chocolate is melted and the glaze is smooth.

Invert the cake onto rack set on wax paper, pour the glaze over it, smoothing the glaze over the top and side with a spatula, and arrange the pecan halves in the center of the cake. Let the cake stand 2 hours, or until the glaze is set. If you wish, serve with the whipped cream. YUM!!!!!

February Greek Name Days

Feb 1- Tryfonos
Feb 2- Ypapanti tos Sotiros
Feb 5- Agathis (Agatha)
Feb 6- Voskolos, Fotios
Feb 7- Parthenios
Feb 8- Zaxarios, Theod. Stratilatos
Feb 9- Nikiforos
Feb 10- Charalampous, Zinonos, Haralambos, Hara, Hariklia
Feb 11- Vasios
Feb 12- Meletios
Feb 13- Akula and Priskillis (Priscilla)
Feb 14- Ayxentios, Valentini, St. Valentine
Feb 15- Eusevios
Feb 17- Theodoros Tironos, Poulcherias
Feb 18- Leontos Romis
Feb 20- Agathonos, Vissarionos
Feb 22- Anthi (Anthea)
Feb 23 Polykarpos
Feb 23- Nestoros
Feb 25- Tarasios
Feb 26- Porfurios

sunset

Florida

where I was

Two pictures from my winter vacation: Mexico. I was also in Florida, on the sea and on Grand Cayman Island where I watched the inauguration at a beach bar, mojito in hand.Huzzah!

gyro

It's always nice to come home through TF Green airport. Nothing quite says home like this sculpture of a giant gyro!!!

oldham

I couldn't sleep, so I picked up a New Yorker magazine that had arrived shortly after the holidays and had somehow escaped my attention, and what a great surprise to find Kelefa Sanneh had written a nice long article about Will Oldham, aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy. I've linked it in, so if you click on the title of this post you can read it-enjoy!

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - No Bad News

Trouble, more trouble can you get anymore
Slow bubble boiling on the bedroom floor
Lonely ain't lonely, someone calling at the door
Someone lovely and she's bringing bad news

She clenches and she cries and she lays on the stairs
Pounding on the earth and yanking at her hairs
And showing such fear at being found unawares
To be here and be bringing bad news

Well, something bad happens and a lot of people go
Bad themselves, that's how awful it is
Turning half the heart into something hard and dark
And she had to bring here this

Well, she's told, "Hold your buttons and look at the sky
Someone will fix things if you let your face dry
Keep your face near the earth and your heart beat high
And you may transcend the bad news"

Well, something bad happens and a lot of people go
Bad themselves, that's how awful it is
Turning half the heart into something hard and dark
And she had to bring here this

For all hammers and nails
For all leaves and winds
For all love ambitions
And enemies and friends

She shakes her face so fiercely that all her features go
She lays like a monkey unclothed in the snow
And her voice it decays and before it does she goes,
"I will never again deliver bad news"

Something bad happens and a lot of people go
Bad themselves, that's how awful it is
Turning half the heart into something hard and dark
And she had to bring here this

Mm, hey little bird – hey little bird
Thank you for not letting go of me when I let go of you
Hey little bird – hey little bird
Thank you for not letting go of me when I let go of you
(Hey little bird – hey little bird)
Thank you for not (letting go of me when I let go of you)

Out of Ft. Lauderdale

Yes, there is a story to come.


(thanks, Kerry for the photo)

a trip

I'm in the airport in Newark, filling up on cheese and crackers, free drinks. A three hour layover. Met up with my mother and sister here, we travel on together, heading south, first Florida, then beyond. I'm looking forward to the sun, the colors, especially the shades of blue.

beginnings: work in progress

- by Skorda

He was born on the bar of the Messogia Taverna.

George himself had no recollection of the event, of course, but as a child he had heard the story of his birth so many times, and with such vivid detail, that the stories became his own. They mingled in his mind with other childhood memories, and eventually he became thoroughly convinced that he could remember the exact moment of his own birth.

George carried the memories of his early life in Greece as a secret treasure, tucked tightly into a small corner of his mind. The memories of his birth were the most precious, for these belonged to him alone. In his darkest moments, when he felt isolated from the world around him, and very far from home, when he could feel his will for living buckling under the painful weight of regret loneliness and fear, he would ease these memories out from the dark corners of his mind and find comfort. Searching for meaning in his existence, as if to somehow affirm his own human value, he would relive each step of his journey from nothingness to being.

His earliest memory was that of surprise, as he felt his infant form move from the womb, sliding from wet to dry, from warm to cold, and from calm to chaos at that first shocking moment when he was slapped into awareness. He savored the memory of that moment when he opened his eyes for the first time and found himself looking directly into his mother's weary but beautiful face, with boundless love flowing from her to him. His attention would then be drawn to the loving smiles of the five other women surrounding his newborn self, his childhood "aunties", who were wrapping him up in a warm towel and blanketing him with effusive welcomes into the world. George's first earthly breaths drew in the stink of wine and grease and blood and piss. These odors, intertwined as they were with that initial moment of bliss and unconditional love, would forever bring him comfort rather than revulsion. In the course of his life this would turn out to be a mixed blessing.

His mother had been a broad boned seventeen year old farm girl, poor and illiterate, like nearly all of the other women on the island.
But unlike the other young women, Maria Andoniou had been blessed with two great gifts, she possessed both a divine face and an extraordinary voice.

Maria's face had regular features and a serene expression. On any other island, or perhaps in all of Greece, her pleasantly normal looks would draw little notice. Here things were a bit different. On this island, her lovely countenance caused the local people to turn their heads, or to gasp in shock. Few islanders could look into her face. If one inadvertently caught sight of her, the immediate response was to begin making the sign of the cross, and then, just to be safe, to spit three times or to surreptitiously move towards a piece of wood and give three gentle knocks. It was a ghastly reality, a complete disgrace and yet it was the visible truth, this poor peasant girl's face was the embodiment of the island's sacred icon, the Panaghia Kounistria,

Maria never considered her looks as a blessing. As a child she was teased, taunted or simply ignored. She would run crying to her mother. "They hate me", she'd sob, "they will not play with me. I have no friends, mama." It was true, none of the youngsters wanted to share secrets with the face they had seen in church being kissed by the priest.

As she came into womanhood Maria's looks grew ever more lovely, but her troubles did not lessen. Like every other young girl on the island, she spent many hours waiting anxiously for the day when her parents would announce that they had made for her the perfect romantic match. The high point of every young girl's life was her wedding, but as time passed and no suitors arrived, Maria's father was growing desperate. Despite his daughter's beauty and talents, he found it difficult to negotiate a suitable marriage. Few young men want to be reminded of religion every time they climbed into their marital bed.

With the war, Maria's marital options grew even slimmer. Eventually, her father succeeded in making a deal with Yiannis Grammata,. Yianni was forty-seven, too old to be called to the war. He had some goats he tended, and a small boat he used for fishing. He was not very industrious, but he got by. He’d considered marriage a few times, but the thought of giving up his freedom made him tremble. Yianni was willing to make a deal for Maria. "She's strong, she's sturdy, and I've seen that she is a hard worker. I will take her, but we must also have the farm." The farm consisted of a several acres of olive trees and pastures for goats and sheep. It had been in Maria's family for several generations. Now it was to be given as prika, and Maria would live there as a married woman. Maria and Yianni had been married less than a year when George was born.

Maria's second gift was a near operatic voice. When she opened her mouth and began to sing, villagers would stop what they were doing, the hairs on the back of their necks would lift and they would find themselves transfixed, drawn by pure sound into a world where human experience and emotion were limitless. Nick, the ancient, nearly blind man who spent his days doing nothing more than sipping coffee and running worry beads through his arthritic fingers, was so moved by the sweet clear tones of Maria's singing voice that he once jumped to his feet and began yelling over and over in a loud and passionate voice, "Please, yes, let me, please!".

That evening at the Messogia, Maria had been halfway through a heart wrenching rendition through "Sinefiasmeni Kiriaki" when her water broke.

There were not many men in attendance at the taverna that evening. The war had broken down many of the traditions and taboos that separated the sexes, but most men still found themselves uncomfortable in the presence of a heavily pregnant young woman, especially one with the face of the Virgin Mary. The few men that had witnessed the imminent birth soon fled, leaving the women to tend to the mother and her ordeal.

The door closed behind the exiting men, and Maria began to sob.
The village five women murmured soothing phrases as they helped the frightened girl onto the broad wooden planks of the table, the very place where the group had been gathered just minutes before. Maria's sobbing continued, escalating into moans and screams. The table threatened to buckle under her heaving form, and the women, realizing that only the bar would be strong enough to support her, slipped their fingers under her back and moved her up onto the wide wooden planks of the bar. Maria gazed into the flickering reflections of candlelight as it bounced off of the glasses on the shelf above the bar. She gathered her strength and pushed. "Please God, let my baby be a boy", she prayed as the the strong contractive pain tore into her , "this world holds little joy for us women." And then she was looking into the red and wrinkled face of her child, her prayers answered.

©Skorda 2009

fish

A Thousand Pieces

This evening I was reminded of the time I spent in Denmark, how much that wonderful country means to me, and the special place it holds in my heart. I send my warmest thoughts out to the Danish people!
I love this song! Thank you, Henning.

Tusind Stykker
-Anne Linnet

Man sir' at over skyerne er himlen altid blå
Det kan være svært at forstå når man ikk' kan se den
Og man sir' at efter stormens pisken, kommer solen frem
Men det hjælper sjældent dem der er blevet våde

For når vennerne forsvinder og når livet er betrængt
Ser man alt med ganske andre øjne
Man øver sig og bliver langsomt bedre til at se
og skelne mellem sandheder og løgne

Man siger jo at det der sker er altid godt for noget
Troen har vi fået for at bruge den
Man sir' så meget, men ved så lidt når angsten den har fat
Sjælen mærker illusionen briste

For når vennerne forsvinder og når livet er betrængt
Ser man alt med ganske andre øjne
Man øver sig og bliver langsomt bedre til at se
og skelne mellem sandheder og løgne

Alting kan gå itu
Et hjerte kan gå i tusind stykker
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
Kaldte du mig for ven engang
Så er jeg her nok endnu

Mmmmmm

Ja, alting kan gå itu
Et hjerte kan gå i tusind stykker
Kaldte du mig for ven engang
Så er jeg her nok endnu

For når vennerne forsvinder og når livet er betrængt
Ser man alt med ganske andre øjne
Man øver sig og bliver langsomt bedre til at se
og skelne mellem sandheder og løgne

Alting kan gå itu
Et hjerte kan gå i tusind stykker
Kaldte du mig for ven engang
Så er jeg her nok endnu

Alting kan gå itu
Et hjerte kan gå i tusind stykker
Kaldte du mig for ven engang
Så er jeg her nok endnu
Kaldte du mig for ven engang
Så er jeg her nok endnu
Kaldte du mig for ven engang
Så er jeg her nok endnu

a passage from what I am working on

In the nearly five years since he had returned to the island, George hadn’t yet “made the adjustment”. Most men of the village wrote him off as just one more loser expat who’d come home to collect his pension checks and squander his last years in an alcoholic haze. Women, and those very few men blessed with a generosity of spirit, looked upon him with pity,

Just about everyone in the village knew who he was. He wore the same clothes day after day, a striped polo shirt and gray gym shorts. it was obvious that he rarely bathed or shaved His graying whiskers were curled and matted under his chin, and his body gave off the sharp acrid odor of alcohol passed through urine.

Each evening at twilight he would George stumble through the undergrowth of the eucalyptus grove onto the dirt that led away from the beach through the tourist center and on into town. With uncertain gait he would make his way along the narrow cobblestone alleys through the old quarter, past the old women in black who gathered on the marble front stoops of the houses by the church plaza for a few precious moments of rest and gossip before the gathering darkness forced them off the street and back into their homes. The custom of women was not to speak to this strange solitary man as he passed, but as George approached, the women invariably would pause their conversation, and look up. One or two of the women would give a slight nod of acknowledgement, meeting George’s eyes as a caged creature night seek the gaze of another trapped in similar but unknowable circumstances. Once he had passed they would click their tongues and whisper amongst themselves, passing on rumors of the terrible tragedies this poor, poor man had endured. Having known the depths of sorrow in their own lives, they did not judge him. Perhaps he needed a good woman, or perhaps he was beyond salvation from anyone but the Lord.

On the other side of the plaza, men gathered at the cafeneio “Nea Kosmos”’ to drink strong sweet coffee or the raw spirit known as tsipiro,. As George passed by the men barely lifted their eyes from their backgammon boards. There were no acknowledging nods no smiles, just silence and the steady clicking sound of worry beads, the rhythm escalating as George drew near, as if each set of beads were performing a rite of exorcism against whatever it was that had broken this man.

Skorda Hope

Delphi Kitties