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.