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)