... retreat...reload...recover...return..

random (1)

Only 3 posts in a year? God!
that could count as betrayal to my planets...

okay then; in lieu of happy new year (although January is about to leave us), here are five random thoughts of the first days of 2011:

1. no other drink can beat a good cup of coffee; not even the best cup of tea
2. the first signs of spring come in January; especially when one realises that days are growing longer and there is still light after 5pm (uk time)
3. the story of an old man in his 80s having an allotment and friends to have his tea with on a daily basis make me ask what makes a good life
4. waking up one morning and realising that things can get better is possible
5. model-dependent realism; the way we experience the world. indeed.

Here's to a year of random thoughts. random posts but not random lives.
Welcome back.

recently...

...I think that for the past 18 months it's become more difficult to be loyal to this blog and leave a thought here every once in a while. i blame facebook and other social networking sites for that; what is it about the instant 'status updates' in such virtual places that almost hampers my ability to write something longer here..?

But here is a thought, tonight: recently, i have been trying to stop every once in a while. stop and do nothing. not keep myself busy. not work, not have fun. just stop. i read somewhere that 2010 is just flying, escaping like sand between our fingers. i have the same feeling; how did we make it to the end of spring? so I stop. trying to understand what time passing really means....
and then i start again.

30

having turned thirty only recently, and not quite knowing how to write about it (no, it doesn't feel like all of a sudden am old and responsible) i will retreat to my favourite activity:
quote from something that i have been reading lately.

'the random ordering of the world, the unimaginable odds against any particular condition, still please me. [..] never believed in fate or providence, or the future being made by someone in the sky. Instead, at every instant, a trillion trillion possible futures; the pickiness of pure chance and physical laws seemed like freedom' (I.McEwan Saturday)

yes perhaps this fascination for random order and random encounters and chance is still what keeps me happy in this world..

the second law of thermodynamics

teaches us something about the irreversibility in nature.
catastrophe theory in mathematics relates to small changes in circumstances that can lead to abrupt and drastic changes of behaviour.
chaos theory relates to understandings of time and space; say, for example, why do we remember the past and not the future?

science has been slipping notes under my door.
and spring is almost back in this part of the world.
and i am not sure but sometimes things seem to be making more sense in their absurdity.

it's been a while. hello again.

01.01.10

Tonight: lunar eclipse. full moon. change of year. change of decade. 1-0-01 etc. for various personal reasons but also due to the absurdity of the past decade, let's make believe that the new one will be better; in the last two hours of 2009, a once-upon-time girl, now a woman just about to turn thirty in the new year, remembers one boy with golden hair, who laughs loudly and struggles with a sheep and a rose everyday in the asteroid 325.
"Look at the sky and ask: 'Has the sheep eaten the flower? Or not?' And you will see how everything changes. And no grown-up will ever understand why and how this is so very important!"

Look at the sky.and ask. perhaps things will become a lot simpler that way.and will reveal something about what you are.

Happy New Year 2010.

3

a cup of tea
and two clementines
and some red wine.
taste and smell persists no matter how much time has gone by.
the only other thing i remember is that it was raining that thursday. at least, tonight the sky is clear.

Homelands..

'In a love affair, most seek an eternal homeland. Others, but very few, eternal voyaging. These latter are melancholics, for whom contact with mother earth is to be shunned. They seek the person who will keep far from them the homeland's sadness. To that person, they remain faithful.' (Old Map)

'The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.' (Arc Lamp)

(Walter Benjamin, One Way Street)

soon?

Not only is time relative--temporal terms that we use in everyday language are even more relative. We say 'the other day' and we might mean a week or two months ago; we say 'often' but more often-than-not we mean 'rarely'. 'Last time'..which exactly and according to what, is that time classified as 'last'? And worse than anything else..'soon'. Who decides what 'soon' means?

Going back to good old Saussure and the 'signifier-signified' system of signs that gives my students immense headaches always, the linguistic signs that we use to refer to time are the most arbitrary of all; not only because they don't have any relation to the referent, term that they stand for, but also because the term itself is relative and one could even argue not existing. So arbitrary signs for a construct.

Hence, as a last thought of this week or potentially the first of the new week (depends on how one perceives the start and end of a week), i think that i wish to ban from my everyday language any linguistic reference to time: no 'tomorrow', 'yesterday', 'a couple of days ago', 'soon'. I could potentially keep only the references to hours that clocks count (knowing ofcourse how relative these are as well).But yes, if only I could ban all these empty linguistic temporal signs from my everyday communication--perhaps, I would get alienated from people but at least I would run away from yet another stupid, empty language game.

'when a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of the world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.'

(Paul Auster, The Brooklyn follies)

friday (or the difference between a person and a place)

'I handed myself over. And you ran away.
You can't just leave people.
A person is not a place you can just leave behind.'
(David Greig. One way street)

two teabags later

it's been a while but the clock seems to have stopped..
curious, last night i dreamt of a white rabbit running and imagine i was following it
without a reason..it just made sense to me, in an irrational way

it's been a while but i am still sitting on the same seat by the window on a plane
my hair grew short but when i look at my image i am still wearing a purple top and have long hair

it's been a while but i still remember of broken glasses, walks in the sunset and some sweet words that made sense to me in an irrational way

pause..15 years later

no just two teabags..bugging me like the hours i spent by the window waiting for a car to arrive, a text to be received, a story to be told again from the beginning

it's been a while..a week or two..time is fucking relative. we knew this already. we just remembered again.
and you look yourself in the mirror, and roll cigarettes, and take boiling hot showers to wake up from the dream.

and wonder, as now, as ever: whatever happened to human contact? and why did you lie to me when you said that things are easy? the world is easy..

it's been a while, it's been years, it's been two weeks and a day, it's been just two minutes..long enough to make two cups of tea and throw the teabags away

the last night of a proces that begun a long time ago
in a flat that we won't see again.
that became a temporary home for two weeks
with wine and smoke
like good old times
that felt like green balloons and drinks on the rock and the perfect sunset in the summer of 2001 and paper plates thrown out of a window
looks like what it used to be
yet it is no longer

then it is gone
and then you hear the sound of someone typing on the keyboard
the same key over and over again

a moment of suitable silence adieu
roll the dice

and then we start again
or i do
me?

lisbon or what i learnt in IFTR

it's 02.31. am writing in a hotel. in lisbon. i have much to say. yet i have not much time. so i shall be brief. in lisbon in the past week,we talked a lot about silences; how can you talk about silences without being silent? how are voices filling silence and do they?
we have been walking a lot in a landscape of many surprises and variations
we have been drinking and philosophising a lot.
the topic of the conference was censorship; apart from the general rules and conventions of social life i dont think that we censored ourselves much.
people took many photographs. i took none but one: the writing on a wall in the metro station of citada universitaria: 'i am not a citizen of Greece; i am a citizen of the world only'. Socrates' words and the lovely company and the decision to write subverting the banal methodologies and the passion of some people and the potentiality of a nice winter in london and the beautiful air and sun and space of Lisbon and the view of the bridge this morning is what i will keep silent; not because I am censoring them, but because i hold them dear.
and perhaps what i have learnt in Lisbon in the past week, is that sometimes silencing things does not mean only censorship or self-censorship and not daring; it might be the strength and courage to hold them dear like that; silent and unadmitted;but be content.

and now it's time to go back home. for a very short time. but home or the closest i have to it.

re/dis-placing

what's the good in strength
when no miracles allowed?

swiftly moving on--everything will be just fine..absolutely.

01.07 am
humid horrible night
spilling drinks and words
a bin
covered with water and fake sun-tan like mud
threw the keys in it
walked away

postscript: the only place i feel like home anymore
is with you (A.D.N)

postscript

how i wish you were here

sometimes it's like silence
and it falls with a loud noice
leaving the rest unsaid

it's been a year, or maybe more, or maybe less
stuck with drops
regardless of place and season

sometimes it's like a silence
a moment of it is longer than you needed
the next step is not to be taken

really it's been a year
with or without trust
it's been a year

20 items less yet so much lighter

curious she doesn't mind it..
quiet yet inevitable

'give me something i could do/oh give me something I could give you back again/
give me just a little tiny something...
and please remember all those flowers, flowers,flowers..'
(Monika, 'not young in my youth')

long long time...

no see... my birthday is almost over and March is on its way out and I haven't written for more than a month.the reason why this is happening is because I am writing in another blog quite a lot and I am thinking about too many things all this time launching this campaign against comfortable and easy situations

BUT

it is a good time and I am already dreaming of a wet, humid and creative August in the vaults ...and yes, with a smile on my face, I am walking to bed thinking:

sleep scattered you
around me near me
without me being able to touch the whole of you

the simple life

somewhere between the mad days, the airplane and train tickets, the constant up and down the hill, the days with the snow and the snow melting, the endless hours in front of the computer and word documents being created, the piles of essays and exams, the powerpoints waiting to be created, the pages of the diary being filled in with a crazy rhythm, one can pause for a second..
and appreciate that even though much has been happening and it is hard to keep track of things and people and dates, this is actually one of the best and simplest periods of one's life.

this morning the sun entered the bedroom
I felt that someone was on the doorstep waiting for the door to open..
so I did
and I welcomed spring with a big smile

how long?

somewhere it's almost dawn
looking outside the clear glasses
light flickering in the distance

a body moves in white sheets
with leftovers of sand
and petals of lavender

somewhere a voice gets lost in the crowd
a phone rings
the lights of dawn evaporate
dissolve
dominate

nothing to remember
nothing to repeat
nothing to structure

how long before the sun blinds your eyes?

where i end and you begin (inter-blog reference)

Margo wrote a very interesting post the other day about the unknown paths of someone and staying relative to oneself, describing her and her students' journeys..and it put me in thoughts...

so let's start from the big bang:
my students were born in 1987,1988 or 1989, 1990 etc
when i talk about the fall of the Berlin wall, I remember myself at the age of 9 being absolutely glued in front of the tv watching--they were not even born or they were just babies; hence there is a gap in terms of reference, not necessary but it occurs many times..this is not the point, the point is that there is a gap that you might fall in.

then today, I was pacing up and down the exam room in my university looking at my students taking their final exam of a module on performance and globalisation (which was such a pain throughout the months between october and december). one of them asked me to go to the toilet (and i had to escort him, ah! the joys of invigilation!), on the way back I saw that he was wearing a big budge saying '21 today'..I smiled as I always do when I feel uncomfortable or guilty.

for the rest of the exam, I was thinking of a time travel machine that I could take and go back to the years 1999 or 1998 when these people where 10 and I was 18,19,20 writing exams, hating latin and thinking that I knew everything. I am trying to bring myself back in their shoes knowing that there is nothing more relative than the experience of being an undergraduate student.
and then tonight, my most favourite student ever and now a very dear and close friend announces his good news and prospects of study for next year; 'you are about to embark on a most delightful journey', the little piece of paper from the fortune cookie of the night of September 16th 2002 came to mind straightaway, the moment that I read his message; I am still travelling this journey and he is about to embark on one of his own...then is the gap growing smaller? it is just where you situate yourself in the line of this journey (very start, start, middle, towards the end, about to finish) that is different. or is it?

being relative to oneself means keep asking questions, right?
my questions tonight are:

1. has it really been 10 years since I got that funny book as a birthday gift for my brother and he was 21 and I was 19? (I froze tonight when he reminded me; 'no sense of humour' he said; true i find it very difficult to keep my sense of humour these days)
2. why do I keep on choosing to fall on my steps through the walk of someone else? and how can I not believe that time, after all the fuss, the trouble and the arguments, is indeed cyclical?

radiohead's song comes to mind...
'there is a gap in between, there is a gap where we meet,
where I end and you begin..'

13 gifts that i had in my sleep

a yellow raincoat
the bike I used to ride when I was 5
my cat
the book that I never finished
a parachute
a paper moon
a glass of the finest orange juice
a dolphin
my grandmother
words words words
a small ball of white, red and blue stripes
the sound of spring rain
the keys to the fourth dimension

and in my own time...

i started disliking airplanes
but mostly airports with all the plastic bags and the crap surrounding them
'smoking is not permitted in the building; please use only the designated areas..'
perhaps the term 'non-place' really is accurate; or empty place in my case
...
i also realised that an avocado can stay alive in the fridge for
more than 15 days..still decided to throw it away
...
i got rid of the christmas tree in one go
no second thoughts, no wondering of what might happen till next christmas
..
i have this crazy urge to start smoking in my study like good old days
i will keep fighting against it --for a while
..
heard the silence buzzing in my ears last night
had to turn on all the lights
and sing to forget it
i am still carrying it with me
..
am getting used to not hearing my top favourite phrases
'stuff' and 'how is life?'
...
am landing
...
how long does it take for a space to turn into a place?

in the meantime..2.

in the meantime, America is waiting for Obama's inauguration
there are websites counting down the hours
and I want to believe in the articles that claim that regardless of the pressure and the complexities of the present moment, the 44th American President can actually 'do it'.

but why are U2 always present in such momentous events?
I really don't like them anymore

in the meantime...1. a fragile ceasefire

a 'fragile ceasefire' was signed in Gaza, I read in the paper this morning
of course fragile..since some claim that 'the job has not been completed." Netanyahu, who is expected to be Prime Minister next month, refers apparently to Hamas and extremists..
i think that a large part of the international community thinks that 'the job' is anything but defence..

check out the article in The Independent for a brief but accurate account of 'What really happened in Gaza'..and enlarge the image of the man leaving his home, carrying his belongings and not looking back..

afterthought at the end of a year; goodbye 2008

Walter Benjamin writes in The storyteller:
'memory creates the chain of tradition which passes a happening on from generation to generation. It is the Muse-derived element of the epic art in a broader sense and encompasses its varieties. In the first place among these is the one practised by the storyteller. It starts the web which all stories together form in the end...'

can it be that every year is nothing else but one more story that adds to the final web which is the story of a person's life?
can it be that we, the subjects of our individual, personal stories- micronarratives and to a lesser extent subjects of the grand narrative of history, we experience our stories according to the inspiration that the muse gives us to experience and live our lives?
can it be that we just live better if we have been given the gift of being able to share our lives and tell our stories out loud in ways that will add to other people's stories?
can it be that our individual stories make sense only when they become part of the greater tradition of stories of humankind?
can it be that life is yet another form of the plenty forms and varieties of the epic art?


Happy 2009 (in approximately 70 hours)...
may the stories go on
may we have the passion to endure and experience
and the virtue to narrate and share

more to remember

..and what about what has not been captured in cameras and films, how can these be recorded in the micro-narratives of my story?

for example,

there are the recent Radiohead and REM albums that played non-stop in the cd
or
the evenings that I spent listening to other musics thanks to my friends
or
the song 'it's the first day of the rest of your life' playing non-stop on the 29th of July
or
the feeling of joy and triumph when the phone rang at 9.30 am on that morning
or
the tear that I could not control at the end of Complicite's A Disappearing Number
or
the scream of joy at the end of Schaubuehne's Hamlet
or
the pain I felt that February morning when I could not move from the bed
or
the disgust that I felt when I realised (yet again) how petty people can be
or
the evenings that I spent on the leather couch in Dublin drinking gin and tonic and talking or thinking about nonsense
or
the words that were not sent via email and the emails that were received late
or
the beauty of the words of Murakami and Mishima and Yoshimoto and all the Japanese writers that invaded my life this year
or
the taste of that strawberry sweet we used to have together in Leon
or
the moment when you told me 'read this, I will get you a coffee--what do you want?', but we were in Starbucks that day and it was a day during rehearsals
or
the tiredness of carrying my baggage to and from
or
your smile that I am carrying with me everyday and makes me smile--but you cannot see me because you are far away or because you don't know how much you can make me smile
or
the feeling of missing precious moments because you have chosen to be present and experience other moments
or
whatever is forgotten, considered unworthy and deleted from the long lists of memories at the end of a year..

something else to remember (grand narratives?)

I am not entirely sure that this will make it to the grand narrative of Greek History
but the recent (and ongoing) protests of the youth in Athens following the brutal murder of the 15-year-old boy on December 6th are definitely a moment to be remembered in the new year...

if Obama's victory is about the audacity of hope
the young Greek rebels are crying against the audacity of corruption and demanding the audacity of a better future...if any is left for 2009

something else to remember (grand narratives)

this moment has already entered the grand narrative of History
the anonymous individuals
and the one man that millions of people are expecting from
not as a static picture or a mirror image
but as a true tide of hope

Barack Obama elected American president (November 08)

something to remember (snapshots)

black and white
and a bit unclear
like some memories that you are not entirely sure
whether they are yours or
you have borrowed them from a film
or stole them from someone else..

and sunflowers in the vase
on the way out
on the 31st of August

in memoria of
life in Dublin

something to remember (snapshots)

the making of Halt!Manufactured; the ten days in the Newman Building (May 2008) and what can/might/will come next from these new friends

something to remember (snapshots)

the streets of Berlin, January 2008 (definitely one of the most attractive places I have ever been)

στην μνήμη του Αλέξη

μπορούμε αυτή την φορά να μην ξεχάσουμε;
να μην ξεχάσουμε το παιδί που έφυγε άδικα χωρίς να προλάβει να κάνει λίγα από αυτά που εμείς παίρνουμε ως δεδομένα και κάποιοι μες στην πόρωση τους και την μαλακία τους και την θρασυδειλία τους τα φτήνουν και από πάνω.
τα σπάνε και τα καίνε

η κρίση είναι τεράστια και μας κοιτα βαθειά στα μάτια -- ας την κοιτάξουμε και εμείς να δούμε τι μπορούμε να κάνουμε ο καθενας ξεχωριστά και όλοι μαζί. καιρός για ανάληψη ευθυνών--τώρα.επείγον.

θα προσπαθήσω να θυμάμαι τα μάτια σου Αλέξη
να φανταστώ όσα δεν πρόλαβαν να δουν και δυστυχώς όσα είδαν λίγο πριν το τέλος

in praise of... (1)

1. South West trains; especially on sundays for giving us free tours (well..relatively) in Surrey and Hampshire..London Waterloo to Winchester (via Staines, Egham etc!!!) today= 1 and a half hours...but if you take it easy and relax, there is something about the slowness of the trains and the realisation that nothing is THAT urgent that cannot be delayed for a while (not even a bunch of essays due on Monday morning), that makes you see the world outside the window in a different way;
2. Ella...just because she has been keeping me the best company in cold afternoons and evenings in the past month;
3. avocado..and the beautiful friend who initiated me to it;
4. little notes saying 'i love you' and 'i think of you' especially when they come from the other side of the world;
5. dolls especially when your mother rediscovers them and clean them up and dress them the way you used to do together;
6. keeping it up without expectations, without desires, without pressure;
7. japanese literature, for the surprises and the beauty in the pain;
8.blogging for offering again another space to breathe and be;
9. complicite's a disappearing number that is still so vivid in my mind and giving me so many good ideas;
10. winter, yes, winter for always filling me with hope

new look

i like the new look of Drifting Planets...dark and playful at the same time
corresponds to my need to feel that I am moving on and some things are changing
including the arrangement and the style of my planets
who still, 2 years and more later, carry on roaming, drifting and meeting again
perhaps less frequently than before but still truthfully (or at least trying to)

like people that I meet and then (either them or me) disappear
but the challenge always comes with those who don't disappear
who are somewhere around, closer or far away
it doesn't matter whether I see them or not
or even whether I speak with them on a day-to-day basis
i know that they are around and this is the challenge--always
how we meet and then carry on with our individual journeys
only to meet again at another moment

weird...

okay
first, I wake up this morning from an incomprehensible rhythmic sound which reminds me of an alarm clock or a fire alarm but it is neither -- nor; it might have been someone buzzing the bell, probably the milkman since I saw a small bottle at the outside door later on

then, I sleep again and I am transferred into this weird story where my flat is full with smoke, the carpet is dirty or covered with another carpet,I am cooking fish that I will eat reluctantly and semi-burnt three hours later when I realise (while being on the train) that I have left the oven on and I rush back home (through Woking or Basingstoke or something) to find out that a friend of mine has saved the day by turning off the oven. but then, i have a visit of this person that I love very much (both in the dream and in reality) and he looks so ill and horrible and he says that he is not hopeful..and i start crying because it cannot be--no..and i wake up because a sob is shaking me...

and now, for the past two hours the phone has been ringing and whenever I pick up, I can only hear another rhythmic sound (like a fax or the sound of an internet modem) and I just say hello hello hello and nobody answers --and i feel weird

is this day turning into a David Lynch film? a part of me wants to switch off all electric devices and lock all the doors to keep these ominous sounds and images outside..

something dystopian..something interesting

the other day i found myself wondering in a familiar place that I have always considered as one of my favourite buildings in London
the Tate modern--well, I went there mainly to see the exhibition of Mark Rothko and test the ways in which his work would speak to me... (would I be one of the people who sit on the benches in the rooms of the gallery, staring endlessly and desperately the works expecting from them to reveal their secret?)...and I did go, and the works did speak to me somehow in an incomplete way and it was painful but it was not bad altogether and I am glad I went.

but what was the memorable experience of that afternoon in Tate Modern was Dominique's Gonzalez-Foerster dystopian vision of London in TH.2058 in the turbine hall as part of the unilever series..not only for the concept, not only due to innumerable quotations-references to dystopian novels and films, not only due to the real interactive theatrical platform that she constructed...not only for bridging the past and the future of the building that I love in such a creative and imaginative way..

but also because I want to go back and it feels that the concept itself is left in-media res; this is not the last day of London, these are not the only survivors but just passer-bys who want to spend a rainy night..perhaps because even this dystopian vision is not entirely dystopian and has a glimpse of hope in it..perhaps because of that and for many other reasons that I will discover when I return there again, TH.2058 is one of the most interesting and sudden experiences of contemporary art I've had in recent years.

check it out until April 13th 2009:

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/dominiquegonzalezfoerster/default.shtm

no harm done..really

i'd rather think about petty behaviours
and small dramas
as slimer gum from ghostbusters..a bit disgusting but ultimately ridiculous and harmless...

laughing at what annoys you
might be the best way out

to make a note of... (3 months later)

the right to love the way that you feel is appropriate
the feeling of weakness that cannot be articulated
the need for future adventures and conquests
the importance of privacy and silence
the anger against anyone who attempts to violate private spaces
the arrogance of knowledge
the failure to convince
the fragility of information
the fluidity of circumstances
the lack of interest to convince
the possibility of change and
the utopia of all-encompassing emotions of hope
the realisation that replacement is part of the game
the uselessness of certain ideas and actions
the vanity of power
the break with the past -- at last
the ephemeral of promises
the inevitability of the end
the surprise that certain relations bring
the all-enduring love lacking any sense of pressure
the urgency of certain notes
the absurdity of relations
and the beauty that sometimes is impossible to take in

life as it happens
everyday

(painting by Mark Rothko)

yet again... (for the year in Dublin)

places are safer when you see them on a map

when you just arrive and you cannot feel

the distinctive smell

the peculiarity of the city

cannot really tell what's special about the accents

and north and south divisions seem irrelevant to you...

places are safer when you see them from a plane

or arrive at 8am, late June

and you stand by a bridge thinking

'oh what a strange deja-vu; i have lived here before'

but then perhaps you haven't..you are just about to

places are safer when you just bring in your baggage

your memories, your longing of a different place

and when your everyday walk is a bit of a surprise

looking for a flat, looking for a job, looking for a friend

places are safer when you don't understand the local jokes

or the references to names that you can't even pronounce

when you stay in the safe twilight zone of the outsider who

does not really want to learn about the inside--

but pretends that she does

and you walk by houses without knowing or caring about whose house they were

or pass by statues and read the information but they remain as irrelevant to you as before

places are safer when they just have a name

and numbers of people that are irrelevant to you and your world..

but

places become dangerous when a little cafe has become your favourite niche

and a number of buses take you to your everyday journey

and the face of the guards are getting more and more familiar

just because you walk past them everyday

and the concrete built building becomes familiar

even at 9pm on january nights

when you leave it and the lights are off

and it's cold, you shake in your coat

places become dangerous when they are filled in

by sounds and stories and memories

and corridors and rooms and pubs and drinks and flats

and names of people

first names

then faces

then bodies

then beings

then presences

yes, a place becomes dangerous when it's full with presences

here now, not from the world of before..

and soon, just as the safety net,

just at a glimpse of the second

it takes you to close and open your eyes again

the presences have become absences again

and your suitcase is full with cards and gifts to remember

and the place is gone

just like a dream, it's gone and vanished

and you cannot see its face...

you see it from above again

like before but

you cannot go back to the moment that it was just a name

and not a year of your life

and you wish you could go to that moment

when the place was a name

when the place was safe

when the place had not taken part in your story---

but yet again/you don't

when you are not around..

..i normally prefer to stay at home
or at most get a cup of hot chocolate in the best place in dublin..
and read japanese literature and admit that
am so far away from achieving any understanding about the meaning of life..

funny how voices overlap
in nights like this
and the well-known deja-vu is almost becoming past
perhaps it never actually happened
all a story, a tale to be said the nights you are cold
and so very little make sense

..and the walks that i never did
seem to come back to me now and the city offers itself to me
but i know that it is gonna be for so very little..
no, i won't take the offer..what do you think?

and i come back home,
and i turn on the lights
and i make hot noodles
and i think it's boring, cut the crap,
and i know that this is not home, home is what we make of it
and i find myself again in-between states
and i've been here before
and it's like a joke because i know that it's millions of lightyears away since you find yourself in my steps
and i take it comically and lightly
because there is no other way that you would have wanted me to take it
and i pack books and stationery and the little purple anti-stress ball that came with me a year ago
and i stop to stare at the rain fall and contemplate that everything is a mindgame
and to wonder what you might be doing now
and to decide that it doesnot really matter

and to talk to the man in the off-licence on dame str.
who is wondering how long i've been living around here
but forgets to answer the basic question: for how long still am i going to?
and autumn is almost here in a known-unknown land that used to be my home--if it ever was
and the street up to Christchurch does not seem as exotic as it did
and i am packing my bags and my shoes and my clothes and my notes from the orientation lecture, a year ago, and what is left from this process of travelling and drinking guiness and talking about theatre and human contact and
i am wondering whether this would have ever made sense otherwise
but it doesnt really matter--it's mid August and the drama, thank God is over
it's just that i see boxes around me
and i am afraid of what can happen next
and i know that you are not around
and i am not sure that you have been around before
even the night i felt that you were not some mindgame
but really there..next to me..for so little, i did..i think

'this is not theatre--this is drama, and it's different'
how funny! a stupid phrase when looked back, changes completely
it's been a year--almost
by the time it is, you will be back
around here
at home?

one of these days, I want to lose myself in the streets of Dublin--before i go, it's the only thing i can possibly do

Looking for gold

was never really easy. For example, this famous duck spent years trying to get it -- and everything started with that one little penny that he found --then he only had to find the ways to multiply this one penny. And it took a lot of patience..

now, we are all looking for gold too, i thin-not necessarily the shiny yellow gold or the black gold that Scrooze was after--especially these days with all the discussions about recession, looking for gold sounds a bit awkward and taboo as a subject. But when we are looking for other forms of 'gold', how do we look for it? How can we make the right steps that will take us all the way to finding and getting the 'gold'? And how much patience do we need to have to find gold?

what is scary about gold-hunting is that perhaps over the years we become obsessed with a particular kind of gold, and perhaps we might miss other valuable elements that we come across, just because they don't look shiny enough.

this time..

...they will have to meet
or actually they already have but nobody was there to witness the meeting
it needs to happen again
this time.properly

mess is..

..to start one thing, go on with another and never manage to finish a third..
..throwing clothes and papers all over the place
and not minding the cigarette-butts in the ashtray...
not managing to read a whole chapter of that stupid book
and leave sentences unfinished
and constantly checking your email, your facebook page, your mobile
and setting your alarm at least eight hours before you start thinking of going to bed..
and keep on saying the same things over and over again in front of the mirror
or maybe not..
not remembering the telephone number of your family
and forgetting the birthday of the dear friend..

mess is when your routine is broken
only for very little
and then restored as if it was never broken but you know that it was..
and even though you can go back to it, you simply cannot find the strength to do it
and you find yourself in a mess..
what's problematic though is that the mess at the first place
was not yours..it was someone else's..
but at the end of the day that's what mess is..
contagious..if you go close to people who are in a mess, most probably you will end up carrying one of your own

Summer Festivals 1: 7+1 Reasons to visit Greece during the summer

1. Dimitris' Papaioannou Medea 2; the renowed Greek choreographer/director reworked his seminal production based on Euripides' tragedy and opens the Athens festival (1-5 June)
2. The Wooster Group's Hamlet; Shakespeare's text in a post-modern reading--looking forward to that even though sadly I will not be able to be there when it's on (13-16 June)
3.Pina Bausch in Epidaurus' Theatre with Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice (19-20 July)
4. The two Oedipus (Rex and in Colonus) by the National Theatre of Greece; if not for any other reason, just for the interesting cast (8-9 August)
5. The Bacchae in a garage; my most favourite Greek theatre ensemble in their first performance after the closing down of the space (post-Amore) present the most challenging Greek tragedy in a most interesting space (7-9 July)
6. Heiner Mueller's Philoctetes in the small theatre of Ancient Epidaurus; if not for any other reason but for the excitement that any play by the German playwright brings (27-28 June)
7. Damage, the world premiere/adaptation of the famous Josephine Hart book as an opera; if not for any other reason, just because we did not have enough of The Beggars' Operas work with their recent Il Trovattore (21-22 July)

and..

my most favourite reason to take an airplane to go to Athens to see the world premiere of Hamlet directed by Thomas Ostermeier of the Schaubuhne Theatre. (7-9 July)

this summer, the Greek festival's programme is amazing and the festival should be considered a destination festival..
chapeau to the artistic director and the team..and I will be there..
For more, check the official website:
http://www.greekfestival.gr/home_page?lang=gr

the ship song (just for you)

night in Dublin
03.18, groups of people in their early twenties
running to catch the last night bus south..
i am walking and i feel my blue shawl getting more and more wet..
thank God I am wearing boots..
cross the traffic lights in trinity, walking on Dame street
how long have I been living here?
when am I gonna get my own way ticket?
when is this gonna be over?
why didnt this ever work out?
you are lying to me..

such a lucky bastard

03.21
a girl with black hair among other girls with blond hair
is trying to find her balance on her silvery high heels
trembling wet hair
and her silvery short skirt soak
and the sounds of people screaming
running towards me and my shawl being soak wet
and i feel the coldness of the may rain pearcing me
my skin, inside..
sirens hurling in the night
and girls and boys gathered outside the cheap chinese take-away..
ugly..
i dont fucking belong here

please show me home
'-only when i am gone, only then
-i appreciate that'

03.28
i am running back home
and feel the rain on my cheeks
and the tears
cheap as it sounds
yes i am crying
for going back home on that dublin night
and for being wet
and for screaming that i feel zero pain
while i should have
and for being May again

03.31
back home
hair dryer and the rain growing stronger
'if i dont catch you when you are over
i guess i will see you whenever'
turn on the heating
wanna feel your 8 and the warmth on the skin
and us never managing to meet
and us never having the proper timing
and you asking--really why did you ask me?

03.53
'we talk about it all night long
we define our moral grounds
but when i crawl into your arms
well everything comes tumbling down..
-your face has grown sad now..
when i must remove your wings
and you..you must try to fly..

come sail your ships around me
and burn your bridges down
you are a little mystery to me
everytime you call in round..'

03.56
everytime it rains in May
the ships lose the compass
lose the orientation...

but next morning they will sail again.anew..as if nothing ever happened
as if it never rained that night in Dublin

my angels

Some things we plan, we sit and we invent and we plot and cook up;

others are works of inspiration, of poetry;

and it was this genius hand that pushed me up the hotel stairs to say my last goodbye

to a hair as white as snow and of pale blue eyes

closing my eyes and actually praying; not to God above but to you, saying:

I'll love you till the end of the world..

(images of favourite angels, words from Nick Cave, Till the end of the world

just for the unspoken prayers of these days)

the ethics of (dis)embodiment

I cannot make up my mind about the abortion performance art project at Yale university and questions of ethics, ownership and closure of representation/reproduction/embodiment and disembodiment.

Who owns the body?
How much harm can a body take?
I am not questioning whether it was 'correct' to launch such a project-or even whether it is a hoax--even the idea is quite simply incomprehensible..but then again the materiality of the body is potentially the only thing that each one of us owns?
But ultimately I cannot help but asking a rather old-fashioned question: what's next? Have we reached our limits by now?

For more see:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351730,00.html

u-topia

thinking of belonging these days
of belonging and home
and no man's lands
Gulliver is constantly in my mind...
probably because i am in Ireland
and the days are growing longer

να μας πάρεις μακριά
να μας πας στα πέρα μέρη..
με Λαιστρυγόνες και με κύκλωπες
όπως πριν όπως πάντα

10+1 things that i learnt on my birthday

1. that the beautiful gardens in the Museum of Modern Art are not supposed to be playgrounds
2. that it comes in handy to wear a hat on a day that starts with sun especially in case you take the Dublin Bus
3. how to pronounce correctly Aran and Leenane
4. how (not) to (dis)appear
5. that certain restaurants are closed on Sundays for dinner
6.how to eat snails in a great French restaurant in the heart of Dublin
7. that it would have come in handy to have an umbrella rather than a hat when it is raining like crazy by the end of the day
8. that it's good to be back home and smell roses, vanilla and drink aromatic tea while rethinking and rewriting about belonging and imagination
9. that some friends never forget you even if they are in the far end of the world (Australia/New Zealand)
10. that I will be able to get Far Away So Close, at least in the German version
and..
11. that life is weird..but still wonderful/wundervoll...

28 ή πάμε για άλλα

03.35 says the watch--yes, of course, this is the time of the year that we go an hour ahead--and this is the time of the year that coincides with my birthday
28 now..
they just stole an hour from the 29th year of my life

but it doesn't really matter
i will go to bed and tomorrow morning i will feel the smell of white roses, planted the same day that i was born
and hear the sounds of water
and dream of an ideal sunset somewhere in my hometown
and know deep down that everything will go fine
and i will be happy in the end
against all odds
and against all methods

been there
done that
had the T-shirt
dont want to do it anymore..
turn the page
take a deep breath
and go on..
this is my birthday present to myself this year and more will come...

what's this thing with honesty?

-I want to know everything about you. Because I am insane.
-I just want the truth.
-I'm telling you the truth.
-You and the truth are known strangers.
When I get back please tell me the truth.
-Why?
-Because I'm addicted to it. Because without it we're animals. Trust me, I love you.
What?
-I don't love you anymore.

(Patrick Marber. Closer)
ps. really..sometimes why are we so obsessed with truth and honesty? for truth's sake? for our sake? or actually when we are saying we are being honest, perhaps, those are the moments that we are being the least honest to ourselves and the world?
Next time someone says they are honest, think twice? honest to whom? and for which reason?
I love Alice--'I dont love you anymore...'
and thank you for your honesty...

angels wings

and something else..

to escape from mortality and loss, can I please have a pair of angels' wings?

time to fly away..

I blame the body
not for existing
but for not being able to block the ways it remembers
what was it this book that said that the body is an elephant?
everything prescribed, ascribed there
just there..
the moments of sadness and joy and fear all put on the map of the body
and a tiny prick can make everything burst out again
revived for a moment in the sadness of silence

tonight I drink for the body
I blame the body
I worship the memory that remains unspoken, unfound, uncompromised
and yet to be remembered...

Heaven and Hell

'but the truth was that I did not believe in heaven then, and never would. And when I thought about hell, it was just very quiet.'

Anne Enright. The Gathering

on the first night of spring, what is interruption..really?

margo writes about interruption..one thing: is time ever interrupted?
the more I think about it, the more I realise that you cannot interrupt the circular pace of time..and even if you think that you did, look back and perhaps you will find out that time was interrupted in that exact same place before..
time is a bastard, a whore, a witch, elusive and concrete..cannot be owned, cannot be interrupted
it just flows and takes you with them

on the first night of spring

the wind is blowing like crazy outside
and the candle smells like melon and mistletoe and wine-what a strange combination of Xmas and summer..but this is the first night of spring...
and on the first night of spring
I dream of a weird place with red lights and transparent light pulps
listening to Ella, drinking gin n'tonic
when was the last time that you played musical statues? well, last winter..cause it was winter after all..
the first night of spring
the equinox and all that

on the first night of spring
eat ice cream and hold the tear that is inappropriate to be shed
because it was shed a year ago
and open your purple notebook and rediscover the blue beast
and the man who travels without a story, looking for stories

look at yourself in the mirror
and try to understand who you are but accept it anyway
open the blind and look at the full moon playing hide-n-seek with the clouds..
and write a loosy, gloomy post in your blog after all this time.

...someone asked me how nights smell in Dublin
I can't really tell..
tonight I climbed the window and went off to the secret balcony
and I inhaled the night
but nothing was distinctive about it..just like in Athens
places from a point onwards lose their distinctive smell
like lovers that you've had for years and their smell blended into yours

the first night of spring smells like something you've always known
but cannot really tell..
it smells like fragments of what used to be called 'human contact'..

calendar days

tick, tack, another second
23.59, february the 29th so close..
tick tack the rain still falling
another cigarette perhaps..i thought i quit well..perhaps next time
00.00 midnight
march the first
does it matter? i guess not anymore
March..happy birth-month to me
at the end of this month, i will be 28..thirty days from now
365 days before..whatever happened..

tick tack another drop on the window
this shouldnt be a miserable post
blame the tequilas
and the blue beast attacking me for i have forgotten him for so long
nights going by..nothing new, nothing strange
αν καμια φορά είναι τόσο δύσκολο είναι γιατί
κάποιες φωνές δεν σωπαίνουν όταν τους κλείνεις το στόμα
απλά βρίσκουν άλλους τρόπους να σε κλωτσάνε..

last night i dreamt that i was dreaming
drinking champagne on a cliff
and only a room with big windows was floating in the air
on the top of the cliff
and i woke up this morning and outside there was only rain...
march finally..for another year..no matter what..

hurt (like Samantha)

independence and self-sufficiency are myths..no matter how much I respect and have worked towards them, this morning I realised how awful it is to wake up, be in pain and be alone..and the archetype of the hero does not work in such cases..because the pain is strong and even the voice of a stranger offers a lot more consolation than the voice inside you..

actually i think, i cannot really write it, but yes I must, actually I do hate being alone..especially when I know that there are certain people in this world who could be by my side, but I (chose to be) am away from them..

now that I feel better, the pain went away, it's reconstruction time again...reconsideration...think back; what is really important? what matters the most and what can you do for that?can I find a way?

ps. the title of the post is trying to distort its seriosity; did anyone understand what I am referring to?

passing by

drinking red wine in a pub when saw him passing by
he stared at her for a minute or two
in an ideal world he would approach the window wanting to take a picture of her
while later on some drunk men actually did that and she thought that it would be cool to merge the memories
but he did not
he just stared at her..for a moment remembering the moments of true naked human contact, days before...months..did this ever happen? really? did we ever have coffee at 3am?
did i ever wake up at 8.07 and you were already awake starring at me?
and why are you starring again at me tonight? from a distance?

and then still staring at her, he moved on
and disappeared from the frame
the character-passer by in the movie
no,he was not supposed to become the central character
too busy, too complicated, too complex and preoccupied for such a role
she smiled and realised one thing:this place was finally home..suffocating, familiar but home

and she wanted to fly to the island next door
and feel young again..close to..
love the simplicity of a tiny phrase...'miss you'

Copy-Cut-Paste

write about examples, singularities,pluralities, what exactly we choose to love when we fall in love, the loved one per se, and feeling that only if we stop being examples we can find our uniqueness..
a tissue of quotations, the voice inside, back to deconstruction and the death of the author...going over and over, the diaries, copying their words, mad at himself..another night, cannot get to sleep..
his voice is lost, hidden behind numbers of others who try to reach them in the darkness, whisper words in their ears, he can no longer see her, somewhere lost, holding her beautiful shoes, lingering for a moment in the tube, piccadilly line last train to caledonian road, want to get off, have to get off--kings cross--damn lost you now..
just pure gold, never heard the voice..have to make it up..

a pastiche of voices and stories and sounds inside..
for example..which one to choose?
never before so cryptic, yet so clear in his mind..

let go/ you might lose yourself (otherwise)

fading out...

some photographs might turn yellow when time goes by

and some memories when narrated for a hundred times

sound a lot more trivial than the first time

and some times it takes a lot less effort than you expected

and things just are a tiny bit easier than before

and you feel better--admit it!

it's February

and according to a particular calendar

of a place that I just get to know

this is the very first month of spring

bizarre though it might sound

I think that this time I would rather 'classify' February

into my spring months

rather than the icy heart of winter

that always left a distant memory covered in snow

fading out..again and again..