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