The Orient Express route!

Ah... those precious moments of clarity....

Looking up a couple of things in Thomas Pynchon's masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow I remembered a witty song appearing in one of the first chapters:

Nobody knows where it is on the map
Who'd ever think it could start such a flap?
Each Montenegran and Serbian too,
Waitin' for something, right outa the blue - oh honey!
Pack up my Gladstone 'n' brush off my suit,
And then light me up my big fat cigar -
If ya want my address, it's
That Orient Express
To the sanjak of Novi Pazar!

The idea of passing from the Middle East to the Balkan Issue in less than a month! And to trace the route of the Orient Express (even in an erratic way...) Alternating imperial luxury and balkan seediness, over a period of a couple of weeks! What an idea!

Now is the time for decisions! Leaving tomorrow for my first port of call!


PS I: A gladstone is the typical hinged leather suitcase (named after the Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone).


"What a way for a fashionable painter to travel, a Gladstone bag and an ulster"
- Dorian Gray.

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

PS II: My first port of call? A hint: Even old New York was once New Amsterdam...


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Journey to the Outremere: The Knights

Salah ad-Din Triumphant near the entrance of the Hamidinyeh souk in Damascus (click photos to enlarge)

Until I gather my thoughts about my first visit to the Outremere into a semblance of coherence (thus formulating my first assumptions about the Middle-East issue - or, rather, Issue ) let me state for those of you who ask that I did not mean to trace the footsteps of the Crusaders.

Damascus, April 2008: Me at the statue of the Triumph of the great warrior-king, Salah ad-Din (photo by Dimitris Dimopoulos)

I think I did a hell of a job in avoiding them alltogether, the first step being the decision to steer clear of Tripoli (Trabulus) and Homs (with the Krak des Chevaliers). However, it seemed that there would be much to avoid even in the south of Lebanon, what with Tyre, Sidon and all. Or was there...?

View of the city of Sidon from the top of the ruins of the Sidon Sea Castle

Li frere, li Mestre du Temple
Qu’estoient rempli et ample
D’or et d’argent et de richesse,
Et qui menoient tel noblesse,
Ou sont-il? que sont devenu?
Que tant ont de plait maintenu,
Que nul a elz ne s’ozoit prendre
Tozjors achetoient sans vendre
Nul riche a elz n’estoit de prise;
Tant va pot a eue qu’il brise.

(Chronique à la suite du Roman de Fauvel)

That was my question as well. What happened to the brothers, the Masters of the Temple, full and resplendent in their riches, their gold and silver and their nobility? Where were their castles? Where were the ruins that would point to the knightly past of Tyre and Sidon?

Roman columns as horizontal supports for the walls of the Sea Fortress at Sidon

The answer more or less is: not to be found. The overthrow of the Crusaders was complete and most testaments of their passing were razed. The few ruins that remain tell a sad story of opportunistic unstable rule and very low grade of integration of the local populace.

For this, the statue of Salah ad-Din stands triumphant in Damascus, with the heretical, greedy, honourless, cowardly and insolent Templars (forever a curse and an anathema to their order: anathema, anathema, anathema ), Renald de Chatillon and Guy de Lusignan at the rear feet of his horse, desolate and defeated. Anathema sit!

The defeated: Renald de Chatillon (Salah ad-Din rid the world of this worm by beheading him after the Crusader disaster at the Horns of Hattin) and the so-called-King Guy de Lusignan... note the sack of plunder! (photo by Dimitris Dimopoulos)

Besides... there were more interesting and important things to see and experience in the psychological epicentre of the Middle East Issue...:

The walls of Beyruth cry bitter tears...

PS: Let there be, now and forever, an anathema to the name of anyone who is in anyway associated with the filth, heresy, witchcraft and insolence of the Knights Templar. May his face be forever black. May his soul burn in the eternal fire. Anathema sit! Anathema, anathema, anathema....

PS II: Still the "occult" legacy of the templar vermin persists if one knows where to look: In a back alley of Tyre, above a graveyard entrance consigned in 1948... a Templar cross! In black and white, the colours of the Beauceant... anathema: !


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Love is in the air...

In Napoli where love is king

when boy meets girl
here's what they say:


When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
That's amore
When the world seems to shine
Like you've had too much wine
That's amore


When you dance down the street
With a cloud at your feet, you're in love
When you walk in a dream
But you know you're not dreamin', signore
'Scusami, but you see
Back in old Napoli, that's amore...

PS: Now we have hard (no pun intended) evidence that threesomes are completely natural

PS II: - Τι κάνει μια χελώνα πάνω σε μια άλλη; - Της γ...ει το σπίτι! :-)

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When humanity broke the first barrier: Yuri Gagarin's Flight

On April 12, 1961 cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched from a site near the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Vostok 3KA spacecraft, for the Vostok 1 mission. It was the first manned space flight in human history, which placed the first human into orbit as the craft separated from the boosters ten minutes after take-off, at 06:17 GMT.

Less than two hours later, Yuri Gagarin had safely landed, completing the first journey in our efforts to free humankind from its terran shackles and reach for the stars.

A true pioneer of humanity, Gagarin showed us the way. It is up to us to leave our bitter and petty disputes and seek the path that leads us to the skies.
It is our only duty and one that we should remember each time we turn our gaze to the night skies.



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Il Gattopardo pt. III - The film

"One of the films I live by"

Martin Scorsese

I end the Leopard posts introductory trilogy with a few words about the 1963 incomparable cinema masterpiece "Il Gattopardo" by Luchino Visconti.





One must first note that it would be really difficult to find a director better suited to direct such a film. Luchino Visconti (b. 1906) was a descendant of the Visconti family of Milano, the family that alternately with the Sforzas ruled Milan as Dukes for much of its independent medieval and Rennaisance history. As a young man he saw the two wars rendering any notion of nobility obsolete, a fate that was sealed by the rise of the nouveau-riche bourgeoisie.

Indeed, he shot several other films dealing in a similar way with the same concept of the decadence of nobility: "The Damned" (La caduta degli Dei/Götterdämmerung - 1969 ), "Death in Venice" - 1971 and "Ludwig" - 1973.

The film itself is exemplary in every way.

The photography manages to capture the essence of burnt flint that seems to insinuate itself in every colour of the sunblasted sicilian landscape.

The music was written by no other than Nino Rota.

The casting was superbly fortunate. Burt Lancaster as the patriarch of the Corbera family is a convincingly true Leopard, suave, noble and imposing. Alain Delon cuts the correct bella figura that Tancredi was supposed to be, a man of the new order of things, adapted to the manners, morality and compromises of the new less-than-noble era of italian history.

And then... Claudia Cardinale. No words for that woman. Absolutely no words for the creature that could easily give the legendary beauties that have supposedly walked this earth a run for their money.


The point of this post of course is not to laud an acclaimed masterpiece but to draw attention to some details that give the film the depth that an adaptation of such a novel truly deserves and I will illustrate these points with stills captured from the remastered bfi DVD release.

I choose to begin with this wonderful shot of the sicilian countryside. The picture alone makes one’s thought hazy, like a summer midday of merciless sunlight in the mediterranean. I can almost smell the hay and the horses… like the lazing summers of my childhood at Crete:



The Corbera family arrive at Donnafugata, where they are - in the customary (and surrealistically silly) way - greeted by the village band playing “Noi siamo zingarelle” ( “We are gypsy girls” by Verdi’s La Traviatta). Rota has followed the cadence and rhythm of this piece throughout his career. Extra note: “VIVA GARIBALDO” (sic) in the background...:



Probably the best moment of the film’s cinematography: The Corbera family attending the Te Deum liturgy, as another custom of their visits to Donnafugata, before even going to their estate to freshen up, the dust from their long journey by carriage from Palermo still on their clothes and faces, making their pose truly statuesque. Superb :



A shot so fundamentally “Risorgimento” that it has become a staple of its imagery: The plebiscite in Donnafugata:



And now the most striking detail that has left me completely flabbergasted… Sicilian Garibaldini singing “La Bella Gigogin”. This in itself is noted in the book and nothing too original, since La Bella Gigogin (Beautiful Teresa, Gigogin being a piemontese diminutive of Teresa: Teresa -> Teresina -> Gigogin ) was a very popular allegorical garibaldine song. However the greatness of the film was that its lively rhythm was adapted to sound like a Sicilian serenata, slow and almost wailing…!!! I do not know who had the brilliant inspiration to do this but whether it was Rota or Visconti, he managed to set the tone – for those who know - for the whole affair in the sicilian politics. The SI on their hats means YES in the plebiscite for the unification of Sicily and the rest of Italy and the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Splendid:

A quindici anni facevo all'amore / Daghel'avanti un passo, delizia del mio cuore
(At the age of fifteen I made love/ come forth a pace, delight of my heart)

The reception at Donnafugata: The wealthy but ill-educated and crude Don Calogero Sedàra, and his daughter Angelica:

Don Calogero's comical entrance and his ill-fated attempt to shake hands with the Prince.

Note the expressions: Tancredi (Alain Delon) in rapture and Concetta (Lucilla Morlacchi) poisoned by envy and despair

Uncertain and nervous but still, the very image of loveliness

And the dance near the finale. I have absolutely no words. The old surrenders to the hands of the new, and a chapter of Italian history passes away in a swirl of grace, beauty and bravura. No words at all…



In the end:
"Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti Gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore continueremo a crederci il sale della terra."

(We were the Leopards, the Lions; those that will come in our place will be the petty jackals, the hyenas; and the whole lot, Leopards, jackals and sheep, will continue to believe that we are the salt of the earth - trnsl. by me).

The Leopard: Don Fabrizio Corbera, Principe di Salina, in his study, packed with telescopes and mathematical and astronomical papers...

PS: “But we shouldn’t waste sorrow over the aristocracy of misfortune” Count Hasimir Fenring, Dune by Frank Herbert

PS II: Click on images to enlarge...

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Live report: Static @ Rodeo, 20/3/2008

Με τη βλάβη της DSL μου (η οποία δεν έχει αποκατασταθεί ακόμα) και το ταξίδι στη Μέση Ανατολή έμεινα για πολύ καιρό μακριά απο το blog. Επανέρχομαι σε πρώτη φάση με ένα σύντομο σχόλιο για την εμφάνιση των Static στο Rodeo (τη θρυλική live σκηνή όπου έκανε τα πρώτα του βήματα ο Παύλος Σιδηρόπουλος).


Θα μου επιτρέψετε πρώτα δυο λόγια για τη σημασία που έχει το να παρακολουθεί κανείς ζωντανές εμφανίσεις στην κατανόηση της ροκ μουσικής. Βεβαίως κάθε είδος μουσικής ιδανικά πρέπει να βιώνεται μέσω ζωντανών παραστάσεων ενώ κάποια είδη μουσικής - όπως η όπερα - χάνουν ουσιαστικά το νόημά τους σε μια απλή ηχογραφημένη ακρόαση, όμως στο ροκ, το live είναι κάτι εντελώς ξεχωριστό. Μπορεί κάποιος να απολάυσει μια ηχογράφηση, όμως για να καταλάβει τη δυναμική της μουσικής ΟΦΕΙΛΕΙ να παρακολουθεί ζωντανές παραστάσεις.


Η διαπίστωση αυτή επιβεβαιώθηκε στις 20/3 όταν οι Static για ακόμα μια φορά απέδειξαν πως μπορούν να έχουν στον ήχο τους τη φυσικότητα και το δέσιμο μιας επαγγελματικής μπάντας, στοιχεία που επιτρέπουν στον ακροατή να αφεθεί στη μουσική, σε αντίθεση με άλλα live συγκροτήματα τα οποία, ενώ έχουν αρτιότατη κατάρτιση στα οργανά τους, καθιστούν σαφές πως μια ροκ μπάντα δεν είναι μόνο κιθάρες, ντραμς και μπάσο.
























Πέρα απο το ότι ο χώρος ήταν σαφώς καταλληλότερος για Live σε σχέση με τον προηγούμενο (Lazy Club) και το συγκρότημα είχε ξεπεράσει τις παιδικές ασθένειες που έχει κάθε φρέσκια σύνθεση (οπότε ευτυχώς μετά δεν είχαμε γκρίνια για λάθη απο τον Τάσο) δεν έχω (ή δεν θυμάμαι...) να προσθέσω πολλά περισσότερα, πέρα απο κάποια σχόλια:

- Είναι πολύ σημαντικό να υπάρξουν περισσότερες αυθεντικές συνθέσεις, καθώς φαίνεται να υπάρχει σημαντικό δυναμικό προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση.





- Πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα η αντίθεση ανάμεσα στη μονολιθική εώς λόγια παρουσία της κιθάρας και το αεικίνητο μπάσο. Δίνει ιδιαίτερο χαρακτήρα στη σκηνική εμφάνιση της μπάντας πάνω στη σκηνή.

- Εύφημος μνεία στη φυσικότητα και την άνεση που εμφανίζεται να έχει ο ντράμερ σε αυτό το πρώιμο, σύμφωνα με τον ίδιο, στάδιο της μελέτης του.

Κλίκ στις φωτογραφίες για μεγέθυνση και θα επανέλθω όταν θα μπορώ να γράψω με μεγαλύτερη άνεση και εκτός net cafe.



Stay tuned. Stay heavy.


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