Arístides Mínguez - Put together by Yiannis Alevizos

Transcripción

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwp-dcX75LA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrLxb-DVAmw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyGmvfJiJ-4
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Before we go on to other letters exchanged with Aristides and then with Nuria let’s see the latest, so
far, letter from Aristides , a letter answering the “Weberian” comment on Merkel we sent him as
comment to his article titled “Welcome Merkel” we saw a few pages ago:
My dear friend:
one day, when my mind is clearer and my body less fatigued , I'll write about what
the Germans want from the southerners like you and me: they only like our sun, but despise everything
else that makes us Mediterranean. The problem is that our leaders are the first traitors and have
sold our people in return for their money.
With what you say about the Germans I agree 100% and when you feel less fatigued and you have
more free time I will explain to you how our collaboration can lead to a reversal of the German plan in
some aspects…
…But now let’s go to what we were going to say after the photo on the previous page: Lyrics of link 1.
I wish I knew Spanish so as to be able to translate them in a way that could be sung to the same
melody as the Greek original, like I did in the English translation. Happily Spanish is a language that
sounds as a poem even when in prose and even when translated by a robot-translator…
Antes de pasar a otras cartas intercambiadas con Aristides y luego con Nuria l vamos a ver más, hasta
aquí, carta de Aristides, una carta respondiendo el comentario "Weberiano" a Merkel que le enviamos
como comentario a su artículo titulado "¡ Bienvenido Merkel" que vimos hace unas páginas:
Mi querido amigo: un día, cuando mi mente es clara y mi cuerpo menos fatigado, I\ voy a escribir sobre
lo que quieren los alemanes de los sureños como tú y yo: sólo como nuestro sol, pero desprecian todo
lo que nos hace Mediterráneo. El problema es que nuestros líderes son los primeros traidores y han
vendido a nuestra gente a cambio de su dinero.
Con lo que dices que los alemanes quieren coincido 100% y cuando se siente menos cansado y cuando
el tiempo está más libre voy a explicar a usted la forma en que nuestra colaboración puede conducir a
una revocación del plan alemán en algunos aspectos…
…Pero ahora vamos a lo que íbamos a decir después de la foto en la página anterior: Letras de link 1.
Me gustaría que sabía español para poder plasmarlos en una manera que podría ser cantada con la
misma melodía como el griego original, como yo lo hice en la traducción inglesa. Felizmente el
español es un idioma que suena como un poema, incluso cuando en prosa e incluso cuando traducido
por un robot-traductor...
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THE BALLAD OF ANDREW THE HUNCHBACK
Andrew was sleeping rocked by sea,
cool in the shadow of his tent boat,
breeze just caressed him and his dream
was full of sun and full of girl’s talk.
Jennifer, Kathryn, Marie and Joey,
Jennifer junior, Jacqueline and Erie,
oh how this life is full of joy
you dance and beat, poor heart, with hurry,
you dance and beat, poor heart, with hurry.
Hot summer noons Andrew and we,
a crazy bunch in scream and laughter,
we dived and swam in open sea,
never as glad before or after.
Then came old winter’s bad long face,
our crazy team went back to city,
something pushed your heart out of pace,
hold on, old Andrew, what a pity!
LA BALADA DE ANDRÉS EL JOROBADO
Andrés dormía acunada por mar,
fresco a la sombra de su barco de tienda,
brisa apenas acariciaba a él y a su sueño,
estaba lleno de sol y lleno de charla de la muchacha.
Katerina y Zoe, Antigonaki y Zinovia,
oh cómo esta vida está llena de alegría,
baila y vencer, pobre corazón, con prisa,
bailar y vencer, pobre corazón, con prisa.
A verano mediodías Andrés,
un montón loco en grito y risa,
nos se zambulló y nadó en mar abierto,
nunca tan contento antes o después.
Luego vino la mala cara de larga de invierno viejo,
nuestro equipo loco volvió a la ciudad,
algo empujó su corazón hacia fuera de ritmo,
espera en, Andrés viejo, ¡ Qué lástima!
bailar y vencer, pobre corazón, con prisa
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If Glossa’s Nick, whom we saw many pages ago, had, lived to tour-guide in his paradises both in
forests and in beaches, not only his own generation and the next but also the one that would be his
grandchildren, then the ballad we heard would sure be fit as a soundtrack to his promenades (and he
would sure be like the grandpa of Lys’strataki who thus boat-toured American and international troops
and their Glossa girlfriends when, later, they do “show tongue to chieftain Bush”…Let’s see some
more of that Paradise plus one tale on how the occupation stops being like an excursion for kids…)
Si Nick de Glossa, que vimos hace muchas páginas, vivía a guía en sus paraísos en bosques y en las
playas, no sólo su propia generación y la siguiente pero también el que sería sus nietos, entonces seguro
se encajaría la balada escuchamos una banda sonora de sus paseos (y seguro que sería como el abuelo
de Lys'strataki que así barco-recorrieron América y tropas internacionales y sus novias de Glossa
cuandomás adelante, realmente "Mostrar lengua a cacique Bush"... Vamos a ver más de ese paraíso
además un cuento sobre cómo la ocupación deja de ser como una excursión para niños...)
…………………………..
Neverado (The village head):-Yet the issue is not over. I wish it were but something else
worries me too. But I have trouble saying it. At depth what our disagreement consisted in
was…Well, what can I say? Don’t you see for yourselves? You Maria? Don’t you see it?
Maria (to (teacher)Michael):-Sir, why don’ you tell him to say it with a song just in case it
comes out better? That’s what you used to tell us to do when we had a problem with selfexpression when writing compositions, and the recipe always worked.
Michael:-Why repeat it after you said it perfectly? C’mon Neverado, it you can’t get it out in
your own words say it with a song that talks about it.
Michael(turning to Maria and smiling): -So you do remember that , eh?
Neverado: (humming to himself): -Mm, mmmm-mmmmm hm, it’s really coming out better in
singing. OK, you are worth your salary as a literature instructor. Send for the girls, I want to
talk to them.
George Bunny: -OK then. Listen everybody. Neverado is going to express himself. Maria
call your friends, we’ll be waiting.
Neverado (to the girls who have gathered and are looking at them) sings in the tune of an old
song of the German occupation when Greece had been visited by troops from Germany, Italy, Britain,
Indies :
Lysistrata who the dads are going to be?
Lysistrata who the dads are going to be?
If your daughter answers “yes”
and her brother answers “si”
laughing stocks of the whole country we will be
Lysistrata answers in the same melody (and then the girls repeat in chorus):
Let a real Greek be the father of one son
a flamenco dancer be his sister’s dad
for their brother’s dad and father
a cowboy would be no bother
if he’s not a chicken-hawk but a real man
(By the time the chorus repeats that the American soldiers come and do hear that . The girls continue
now addressing them and accompanying they lyrics with dance-pantomime expressing the same. Ellie
sometimes just dances with her hands, moving them as if arguing in a speech, sometimes joins
dancing)
Girls:
(In the melody of “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”)
We could like George Bush or even the whole gang
if they face themselves in mirrors and start crying
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if they keep on tough-shit playing
read our lips what we are saying
is that they’d be more of men if they were fangs.
Soldiers (in the same melody):
(dancing in style reminding parades or military training exercises e.g. pushups, frog-leaps etc)
We’re not all like our Bill Clinton or George Bush
please don’t blame us keep in mind that we’ve been used
please don’t just prepare to fight
if we’re blind then we need sight
and we need a chance to show our hearts are good.
Girls (in the same melody):
OK guys what we’ve just told you is not that bad
we don’t mean to hurt you nor play hard- to-get.
To our beaches let’s go swimming
then to our bars for some drinking,
your commander would allow it but don’t bet.
Soldiers (in the same melody):
(They have suddenly put on sunglasses, have put aside rifles and they have taken out of their armysacks fish-rods, frogmen’s shoes, snorkels, bathing suits, tennis rackets, beach-volley balls, cassette
players etc.etc)
If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands
and please take some kind of license from your moms.
Now we have a Glossa accent
and our Texas tone is absent
yet we feel we make proud our true cowboy dads.
(Suddenly Argyroula shows up and sings to them frowned and with fists on her hips, and mainly
addressing her song to George, a soldier who was approaching Marina, her daughter. As we’ll see,
phone numbers are the least they have, since long, exchanged)
Take a good look at me and just read my lips
I can send you back to mom packed just like chips
just don’t see me as a host
if you think you can play boss
and if hawk is your game split and just get lost.
(George gives a startle and jumps back and gestures to Marina that they will speak on telephone)
Then nature takes her way:
The approach between the two groups and the gradual loosening of the mistrust vibrations is better
described through songs and choreography which more or less go as in the following chain of songs:
http://www.wahtsontv.co.uk/video/youtube/id/2a0ikm5lYV0
Tonight let’s reach down to the beach
let’s dance and swim, let’s sing and drink
just join us pal and come it will be fun
the party will be waiting for the sun.
Let’s hear together what night has to say
let’s wait together for another day.
(Same song as once played in a schoolyard party.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZWV4lkjEQ4&feature=related (at 3:38) And as we said the singer with
the tambourine is the real Despoina some years after graduation)
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(The curtain falls in the sound of these when it opens again they’re all in bathing suits and have in
hands rackets and tennis balls or volley balls and cassette players. Alex, the fat soldier, is holding a
grill instead of a racket and also a chain of sausage links)
They all dance hasaposerviko at the continuation of this (in Greek). For a small while the
Americans make clumsy or wrong steps but immediately they learn by carefully watching the
girls dancing. Suddenly the music changes to American music and then it’s the girls who
make some clumsy and wrong starts but they immediately learn by watching the Americans
carefully)
They all dance “Speedy Gonzales” and “Bossa nova baby”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iALGml0BQoI , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxHs7OMZcWM
Argyroula’s voice is heard from a distance shouting to her daughter:
-Marina , have you seen your gran’pa?
Marina:-Isn’t he in the cafeteria on the beach?
(Curtain closes and opens. The soldiers have made a circle around him and are hiding him. He does
speak English, he had been an immigrant in his youth)
Argyroula (passing far from them with a chain of sausages held on the other end by Alex):
- But where did he go? In hiding?
The following song is heard, the soldiers dance it with big jumps as if they had realized what the lyrics
say and the girls look at them in bafflement both because of the coincidence of leaps with lyrics and
because no such dance exists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwa16wgIU88&feature=related
Five by five I skip stairs, ten by ten I’m flying over walls and floors
for two fires of magic, your two eyes of fire,
one look from them into mine ten stabs of desire.
Rocking boat at sea, rocking near the shore,
flowerpots in the balcony and flowerpots by the door.
Vangelitsa is talking to an intellectual-looking soldier and they seem to be talking about how similar
the songs of all countries are. They’re also looking at each other very warmly.
The following song is heard at the site where the soldiers and the grandpa are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrOwgufbUjI
So dance and dance and dance again, for shoes just have no pity
’ts enough for them to take their rest the hours that you’re sleeping.
Dance your steps real hard and kick her
the earth will eat us we won’t eat her.
This same earth we all step on now
we’ll all enter when we go down.
Thanassis who is blond and tall plays a Texan soldier. He grabs the other end of the walking-cane of
the grandpa like the first girls dancing is holding the second’s handkerchief and starts dancing, thus
the grandpa feels as if he himself were dancing too and follows the beat sitting with his feet only. In
the meantime Ellie-Lys’strataki is eyeing Thanassis and he too is eyeing her.
The next song that is heard is :
Oh darling, save the last dance for me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-XQ26KePUQ
The girls start dancing it with each other , the Americans are looking at each other , then they go over
to them and gently pat them on their shoulder to look back, for them to ask them to dance with them
not with each other. Then sticking to the partners that had chosen each other they go on to dance
blues with the following song:
Je t’aime, moi non plus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2C98G-9rJk
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The next song is background to a first love quarrel that we witness, between a soldier (Johnny, played
by Yiannis) and a high school student (played by Kike) . On what reason? Yiannis suggested the
following: As they’re dancing blues he attempts to kiss her or touch her a little lower than her back
and waist, she is shy in public and reaches with one hand behind herself to slap (lightly) his hands
every time they become too bold, suddenly she does decide to kiss him in public ; at that point his cell
phone rings and he, instead of turning it off to reciprocate the kiss, does answer the call, at which
points he slaps him with a very resounding blow sending the cell phone meters away, all soldiers
applaud , girls laugh, he stands at a loss, his phone keeps ringing from the ground, Kike’s eyes are
flaming as she is staring at him flushed with anger, she tells him “Is that how the rules in your
village go? Leaving a wedding party to go dig ditches?” During the following song we see
pantomime and body language of anger, despair, apology, mutual chasing, reconciliation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kOIXEi3AaA
Tonight like kids we had again
that quarrel for whatever,
that quarrel for whatever.
You sat enough your turn to stand,
you talked enough now it’s my turn,
now you leave and I remain,
the same old tune forever.
Quarrel one and two and three,
then quarrel four and five,
I can’t stand you, you can’t stand me
our love just can’t survive
Then the blues song and dance are resumed
Argyroula’s voice is heard from a distance shouting to her daughter:
- Marina where are youououou?
The refrain of Margarita Margaro is heard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzFVyBFTzIw&feature=related
Your mom’s a witch and holds a broom,
she locks you every night in your room,
but then you drop me a silk rope and we know better
than just to weep and cry and just sit in gloom.
When under lock under key we’re found by next dawn
we’re pieces of silent booms.
Kike and Marina are shown (in scenes that supposedly have happened already) throwing ropes to the
soldiers played by George and by Johnny to come to their rooms. Miltos who also is blond and tall is
also seen under the balcony of Maria , the ex student we saw earlier, throwing pebbles to her
window as a signal for rope throwing , this happening under the sounds of:
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yii1ufTyOWs&feature=related
Then things get even hotter
(in the melody of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNSzJ7j7KkE )
…and at night, yeah!,
warm, dark night, yeah!,
you’re a matchstick that just catches fire,
and you burn me like a twig yeah!,
till next dawn my burned ashes retire.
Then we hear wild parts of:“Tuti fruti” and “Johnny Β. Goode”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLXR5WsHTWY , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kew3Xx6e8-I&feature=related
(while the scene goes back and forth between beach dancing and under-bedsheet dancing in
the dark bedrooms behind the balcony doors. We end up on the beach:)
Kike and Marina are both having birthdays , they become sixteen. They both blow out candles
writing 16, on a cake. Bystanders applaud, they both play the same prank on Yiannis
(Johnny) and George who are coming running to their open arms but they embrace each other
(the two girls) instead of their lovers leaving for them just thin air to embrace, then Johnny is
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giving Kike a flower and a cassette which they put on a cassette player and it is Chuck
Berry’s “Sweet little sixteen”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzY28Unb3v0 they kiss and the
bystanders applaud.
Argyroula (Argyroula who has by now found the grandpa tells him):
-You used to be an immigrant in US. So maybe you can understand better what the song
says, I can’t make out with all those guitars and drums that cover the lyrics.
Gran’pa:-Sweet little sixteen.
Argyroula:-How romantic! Ask them to give it to us to copy. I will also be playing it in the
souvlaki stand. To our girl that donkey’s ass didn’t make a dedication? No flowers either?
They both come form the same country. In his village the cows have eaten the cowland’s
flowers?
Grandpa:-Take a better look. Isn’t that what he’s doing?
George is taking out of his jacket and gives Marina a flower and a cassette and we hear on
the cassette player:
“You’re sixteen you’re beautiful and you’re mine” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjy-OMIyXbg
Argyroula:-Oh, poor kid, I took everything all wrong. Tell me what the songs says.
Grandpa: -You’re sixteen you’re beautiful and you’re mine.
Argyroula:-Tell him to drop dead. Sixteen year olds have to study for their entrance exams
and for the coaching school and for their English lessons.
Grandpa: -How come you remembered all of them in one hit. Georgie-boy gives her perfect
English lessons even if he is an American. And he has the same name as our Yiorgos.
Aren’t those two like brothers?
Argyroula:-Has the jerk come to ask for her from her mother? What is she? An orphan?
Listen to that guy! Sixteen , beautiful and his! Let him dare and that rope I found in my
daughter’s wardrobe I’ll pass around his neck and hang him like laundry. Listen to that girl!
Sixteen and she wants to throw ropes, love has scattered her brains all over. To elope with me
your son used a ladder not a rope.
Grandpa:-Why d’you make such a fuss? In Texas they use ropes, not ladders. They use a
lasso to catch cows.
Argyroula:-My daughter ain’t no cow! Let him call his mother a cow. What are you looking
at? When your son threw me the ladder I had not started putting on weight because I didn’t
like my mother’s cooking. When I started to cook we started to put on weight, you son and I.
If you didn’t like my cooking yourself you would be living with your other daughter-in-law.
If both the bride and the groom like to eat , why should a father-in-law have a say?
Grandpa:-And I didn’t even try to say a single thing. Imagine you if I had said something
too!
Argyroula:-Imagine you saying something! Oh: What does he want coming here? You think
he smelled the sausages? Don’t they have sausages in America?
George (speaking slowly and word for word to make sure he is understood):
-Many-happy-returns. I-wish-you-enjoy-your daughter-till-she’s-one-hundred.
Argyroula:- (speaking slowly and word for word to parody him):-Right, I-wish-we-enjoyher, you-yourself-don’t-enjoy-her-too-much-or-you’ll-be-lifted-by-a-cyclone-like-those-youhave-in- your-home-country,-Cowland.
George: -May I dedicate a song to you?
Argyroula:- To me? What song?
George starts a cassette player with a song he had ready for her , at the same time offering
her a bouquet of flowers he was hiding. The song is in the melody of Theodorakis’ “Tin
kopelia mou tin lene Lenio” and the stanza he has chosen to play goes like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Hck8RDajY&feature=relmfu
My heady flo-, my heady flower rose,
my heady rose’s fragrance
I’m coming to your folks
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I’m coming to
I’m coming to your folks
to ask them for their blessing
and my match that I love and want.
Argyroula (very glad):-Oh, how very polite! Just like Denis Roper when he proposed
marriage to Kate Garbie in public in Roula’s talk show. My boy I want to kiss you. Come
have a couple of sausages, or three or four , couples I mean. Does you mom like sausages?
They’re my production. I’ll give you some chains to give her. When are you taking a leave to
go to my fellow mother-in-law?
Grandpa:-Just as we were preparing to give him free of charge some rope for hanging and a
volunteer woman hangman , we suddenly christened him Denis Roper. That’s what I call
progress. At the time of American Aid we were so rich we used sausage chains as dog
leashes. At the time of American occupation we use sausage chains to tie American fellow
mother-in-laws. What a mouthful I said! I wrote history today.
In a film we see the grandpa (whose name is Andrew) taking girls and soldiers to open sea for dives
and swims on his boat while the background music is “The ballad of Andrew”
Andrew was sleeping rocked by sea,
cool in the shadow of his tent boat,
breeze just caressed him and his dream
was full of sun and full of girl’s talk.
oh how this life is full of joy,
George, Yiannis and Miltos take a few days’ leave to go to the States. George in the port is wearing two chains of
sausages sometimes around the neck as girdles and sometimes crossed over his chest as a guerrilla’s bullet
straps. They are wearing uniforms and hold suitcases or military sacks. On parting with Marina, Kike, Maria who
are embracing them from behind no words are said , we just choose the background song to be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAimvPAv63M
…You’re for me the little cypress tree
I love in my yard
Who will give to me the kiss I need
and come to my arms?
I’ll be thinking of you
in our secret beach and I’ll wait
for my small and happy little bird…
In a few days they return. George brings as a gift from his mom to Argyroula a cactus flower. Their
girls embrace them face to face. The background song is “Strose to stroma sou gia dyo”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDpTWkPVCa0&feature=related
Make up your bedsheets now for two,
for you and me, for me and you,
hold me as I hold you right from start
to feel that love and life are back.
…………….
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………………………….……
122
IN GUANTANAMO
IRAQIS TOO
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124
We see the commander walking back and forth in front of the village gathered in the square (they are
all there, even small kids, it’s mandatory. Some soldiers hold guns). He is holding a headbag and
shows it waving it.
Commander:- I don’t ask you if you know what this is. You sure know since you all watch
television and read papers. Whoever is arrested in Iraq as a possible terrorist wears this all the
time. All the way from Abu-Ghraib in Iraq to Guantanamo in nowhere land. To you, just
because I am an admirer of your ancient ancestors, I will make an exception and I will not
insult you by having all the arrested wear this so dishonoring bag. I hope you can appreciate
the quality of the commander you have. But just as I help you, you should help me too.
Since I do happen to know that in your recent history , in the ’40s, it was such a bag , with
holes for the eyes to see, that was used by your ruffians , OK since I know your recent history
too, I will only give bags to the ruffians among you so that they can show the terrorists
without making themselves known. And because I don’t want you ruffians to feel afraid that
I’m going to leak your names so as to have you killed before you receive the ruffian reward
money, I will give the money as down payment and I won’t even ask for your name. You’ll
be wearing your headbag even when you’re talking to me. I want the terrorists’ names, not
your names. A gentlemen’s agreement, isn’t it?
Michael:-Just how did you escape the strait jacket in your country? Unless you’re all such
loonies and nobody noticed where your brain leaks from.
Commander:-Professor, I did not expect such words from you. I like you and consider you a
friend and you dishonor both me and my country.
Michael:-To feel dishonored you must first know what honor is. And you don’t . So you
dishonor whatever group has you in it. Your family, your army, your country; and the whole
human species. Give me the bag you hold. You dishonor this too. What does it take for an
idiot like you to understabd that this bag dishonors you and not the Iraqis when you put it on
them. For them it’s an honor to suffer this for their country that they love. What do you do to
show your love to your country? Going around with ruffian bags to be told on whom to put
shitbags?
Commander:-Professor, you know what I can do to you?
Michael:-I think you only can fart my balls. What do you think you can do to me?
Commander:-Professor, I will be sincerely sorry. We did have a glass of wine or two, didn’t
we?
Michael:-You dishonored the glasses too. And the store where we drank them. Whatever you
touch you turn into shit..
Commander:-Professor, my stomach got a cramp. Such hatred! I feel a sob rising in my
throat.
Michael:-It’s just a fart but your face looks like an ass so it loses its way not knowing where
to come out from.
Commander:-Whaaaat?!!! Arrest the son of-a-bitch before he leaves
Michael:-Why leave, you stupid vulture? Should I be scared of you or of your shitbag?
Either of you two can only do to me what I told you, let me not say that again it in front of
my girl students. Let me put it on myself, newspapers write that you put shit and piss in
these bags but your hands and your little robots’ hands are shittier than shit.
He puts it on, then he removes it saying:
-Oh, shit! It’s not a shitbag , it’s a ruffian’s bag, with no shit but with eye-holes for the ruffian
to see whom to point to. Let me wear it frontside back to at least not see your assface. Clown!
Buffoon!
The commander bites his fists, sends for his pills , the curtain falls.
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
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Epilogue: Happy end announced by Vaso (Paz):
After the American elections and the re-election of Bush, the Americans left everybody alone and went
away peacefully, the prisoners were released, the whole absurd situation had been created by the
insistence of the superiors of the commander to keep the soldiers there and show some antiterrorist
activity because there would be some political cost if they lost face admitting they had made a mistake
sending troops to Glossa, so after Bush was re-elected this didn’t matter anymore, Rumsfeld fired the
CIA hound who had taken Buzanos for Bin Laden. The love affairs went on from a distance as
naturally (phones, letter, trips, marriages, break-ups etc) as they would go on without all the madness
we saw. What about the commander’s two women through whom he wanted to show off to the happy
soldiers he envied? Learning of each other’s existence and talking to each other and seeing that both of
them really loved him and both really understood how he had become such an asshole (1.asshole in
wanting two women (wife and girlfriend; and in the open, too, in order to show off!) because he was
such a love-deprived careerist when in his prime, and 2.asshole for acting so absurdly imprisoning
innocent people because his superiors gave him crazy directions to avoid political cost) they found the
following Solomon-ian solution between them: Each said to the other: “Of course neither of us would
do him the favor of staying with him if he wants a second woman too. But if he leaves me will you let
him return to you?” Both said “yes” to this so they told him they forgave him but he would have to
choose. He discussed the matter with his Greek friends who told him he was a very lucky man to have
such a narrow escape for his idiotic handling of everything he had gotten into. And he returned to his
wife. Then his girlfriend decided to remain in the island for a while to feel more calmly the vibrations
of the place where such a complicated mess had found such a peaceful ending.
CURTAIN
Since there was a happy end people leave the theater under the sound of the following replay:
oh how this life is full of joy,
………..
Bibliography:1)Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata”, “Birds”, “Aharnians”, 2) Kazantzakis’ “Captain Michael”.
This last reference has nothing to do with teacher Michael’s event but only with the event on Argyro’s
stance as a mother’s: In “Captain Michael”, in a revolt of Crete against Turkish occupation, a Cretan
peasant woman is blackmailed to reveal where a volunteer, who came from another part of Greece to
help in the fight, is hiding. If she doesn’t tell the Turks, her son will be killed. She doesn’t tell them
and her son is killed. When asked later how her heart could stand taking this decision she says “I knew
what pain I would cause to the volunteer’s mother”. Does Kazantzakis have factual references of this
kind about human nature or is the event fictional? The factual part does exist but it refers to the battle
of Crete in the second world war: The interrogators of the Cretan peasant woman were not Turks but
Germans and the volunteer was a British commando. In brief, the subtitle “woman-for all-seasons for
our season” refers not to Lysistrata but to Mrs Argyro who, when refusing to be blackmailed, thought
of her fellow mother-in-law overseas too and protected her future son-in-law instead of her own son.
Notes: 1)This play was first posted in a site with the present teacher’s memories from Glossa. The
students would play with their real names, except Vaso, Stamatis and Ellie , i.e. Paz, Buzanos and
Lysistrata) but it never reached the school stage…OK, we have already mentioned these things…(We
only have not mentioned that George Bunny (George Connejo) would be played by his son Yiannis,
Neverado and the commander would be played by the present teacher and by Kostas, a colleague)
2)The reader who wants to see if the present author is anti-American in the same way he is antiMerkel
will have plenty of pages to check for that later on here (in the story of “Mount Bushmore” that will be
outlined as part of an idyll beween a Greek girl and an American boy raised together first in Germany
and then in Glossa) 3)The last stanza of the ballad of Andrew in this last page is missing because,
finally, the end was a happy end (at least in the sense of the age old tradition of the recipes for happy
end based on mentioning what should, or at least could, have happened but is exactly the opposite of
what, unhappily, usually, happen).And with the above background we go to the concerns and interests
we share with our Spanish friend and colleague Aristides (antiMerkel concerns among many other).
126
Oh: We almost forgot to also see the last par of the last page before the happy ending:
…Argyroula comes out of the prison very sad:
Paz:-Mrs. Argyro, did they let you see George?
Argyroula:-No my girl, they didn’t. That commander, the pig-eyed one, and another , a fresh
one, first time I saw him around, wanted me to tell them, where is my son-in-law because he
deserted they say. And if I told them , he said, they would let my George go. But I didn’t
tell’em. So he didn’t even let me see my George. Who are you? Doesn’t my little Marina
have you as a teacher? I can’t see very well in the dark. Good evening, we’re speaking
without having said hello yet. And you? Aren’t you Theodosia’s Nick?
Buzanos:-Yes Mrs. Argyro, that’s who I am.
Argyroula: -Is your mother well? Tell her to enjoy you as long as she has you; with the kind
of people and the kind of thing we got into, you don’t even know if you do have your own
children.
Buzanos:-Mrs. Argyro you mean the commander tried to blackmail you with your son and
you didn’t bite at the bait. Others would say that they couldn’t know if their fellow mother-inlaw would do the same for them and would then submit to the blackmail. But that way
nobody would make the right start. How did you think?
Argyroula: -I know one thing: If we fellow mothers-in-law sold each other out then which
household would not go down the drain? Who would keep homes up? The sixteen year olds?
They only care about exams and dating and necking. And if they don’t do these things now
when will they? When they themselves have houses to look after and babies in cradles to
care about and parents and in-laws to run to hospitals and funerals to prepare? Spit-spit-knock
wood!
Buzanos: -Lady, I must admit that compared to you I am not even half of half of a leftist or
an anarchist or a beatnik or a hippy or a sidewalk philosopher.
Argyroula: -Sidewalk philosopher , my foot! What are you talking about? Does Glossa have
sidewalks? The main street is not even wide enough for some of us good cooks who eat one
dish too many and you speak of sidewalks for philosophers to lie on? How would a taxi go
uphill if we had a sidewalk? And without a taxi who would carry suitcases uptown? You?
Paz:-Mrs. Argyroula, I myself will keep my university degree simply as souvenir or as
wallpaper. What I’ll be teaching kids from now on will be things like what you did for your
philosophy on fellow-in-law moms not selling each other out. They should call you “a
woman-for-all-seasons for our season”.
Argyroula:-What are you talking about, my girl? I’m an illiterate woman. How will our kids
pass their exams if you don’t teach them geography and history and how to multiply and
alebra, or whats-its-name, I mean that alphabet done by mathematicians? They have to know
letters not to be illiterate.
Paz:-Letters are needed to read history. Not to write it. Tonight you wrote history.
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Dónde estábamos? Where were we?
Si Nick de Glossa, que vimos hace muchas páginas, vivía a guía en sus paraísos en bosques y en las
playas, no sólo su propia generación y la siguiente pero también el que sería sus nietos, entonces seguro
se encajaría la balada escuchamos una banda sonora de sus paseos (y seguro que sería como el abuelo
de Lys'strataki que así barco-recorrieron América y tropas internacionales y sus novias de Glossa
cuandomás adelante, realmente "Mostrar lengua a cacique Bush"... Vamos a ver más de ese paraíso
además un cuento sobre cómo la ocupación deja de ser como una excursión para niños...)
If Glossa’s Nick, whom we saw many pages ago, had, lived to tour-guide in his paradises both in
forests and in beaches, not only his own generation and the next but also the one that would be his
grandchildren, then the ballad we heard would sure be fit as a soundtrack to his promenades (and he
would sure be like the grandpa of Lys’strataki who thus boat-toured American and international troops
and their Glossa girlfriends when, later, they do “show tongue to chieftain Bush”…Let’s see some
more of that Paradise plus one tale on how the occupation stops being like an excursion for kids…)
…………………………..
Neverado (el jefe de la aldea):-sin embargo la cuestión no es más. Ojalá fuese pero algo más
me preocupa demasiado. Pero tengo problemas para decirlo. En profundidad lo que nuestro
desacuerdo consistió en fue...Bueno, ¿qué puedo decir? ¿No puedes ver por vosotros mismos?
¿Maria usted? ¿No lo ve?
Maria (a (maestro) Michael):-Señor, ¿por qué don' le dice a decirlo con una canción, por si
acaso sale mejor? Eso es lo solía decirnos cuando teníamos un problema con la libre
expresión al escribir composiciones y la receta que siempre trabajó.
Michael:-¿por qué repetirlo después de que lo has dicho perfectamente? Vamos Neverado,
que te puedes salir con tus propias palabras dilo con una canción que habla de ello.
Michael (volviendo a Maria y sonriendo):-por lo que recuerdas que, eh?
Neverado: (tarareando a sí mismo): -Mm, mmmm mmmmm hm, realmente sale mejor en el
canto. OK, eres digno de su salario como profesor de literatura. Enviar para las chicas, quiero
hablar con ellos..
George Bunny: -OK entonces. Escuchar a todo el mundo. Neverado va a expresarse. Maria
llama a tus amigos, te esperamos. Neverado (para las chicas que se han reunido y ellos están
mirando) canta en la melodía de una vieja canción de la ocupación alemana, cuando Grecia
había sido visitado por tropas de Alemania, Italia, Gran Bretaña, India:
Lysistrata que los papás van a ser?
Lysistrata que los papás van a ser?
Si su hija responde "yes"
y sus hermano respuestas "si"
riendo a las poblaciones de todo el país estaremos
Lysistrata responde en la misma melodía (y entonces las chicas se repiten en coro):
Que un griego real sea el padre de un hijo
de uno bailaor de flamenco papá de su hermana
para el papá de su hermano papá y padre un vaquero
no sería molestar
si él no es un pollo-halcón sino un hombre de verdad
(Por el momento el coro repite que los soldados americanos y oírlo. Las niñas siguen ahora abordarlos
y acompañamiento Letras con danza-pantomima expresando el mismo. Ellie danzas a veces sólo con
sus manos, moverlos como si argumentando en un discurso, a veces une bailando)
Girls:
(En la melodía de “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”)
Nosotros podríamos como George Bush o incluso toda la banda
si se enfrentan en espejos y empezar a llorar
128
si siguen jugando duro de mierda
Lee nuestros labios lo que estamos diciendo
es que serían más de hombres si fueran colmillos.
Soldados (en la misma melodía):
(baile en estilo recordando desfiles o ejercicios de entrenamiento militar por ejemplo flexiones, rana-saltos etc.)
No somos todos como nuestro Bill Clinton o George Bush
por favor no nos culpen tenga en cuenta que hemos utilizado
no sólo prepare luchar
si somos ciegos entonces necesitamos vista
y tenemos una oportunidad de mostrar nuestros corazones son buenos
Las niñas (en la misma melodía):
OK chicos lo que nosotros hemos sólo dicho no es malo
no queremos lastimar ni jugar duro-de-conseguir.
A nuestras playas vamos a ir a nadar
a nuestras barras para algunos beber,
su comandante le permitiría pero no apuestes.
Soldados (en la misma melodía): (de repente han puesto gafas de sol, han puesto a un lado rifles y han sacado
de sus ejército-sacos pescado-barras, zapatos de submarinistas, snorkels, trajes de baño, raquetas de tenis, pelotas
de voley playa, caseteras etc.etc)
If you are happy and you know it clap your hands
y por favor tome algún tipo de licencia de sus moms
Ahora tenemos un acento de Glossa
y el tono de Texas está ausente
pero nos sentimos que orgullosos hacemos a nuestro verdadero cowboy dads
(Repentinamente Argyroula demuestra para arriba y canta estigmatizado y con puños en las caderas y
principalmente abordar su canción a George, un soldado que se acercaba a Marina, su hija. Como veremos, números
de teléfono son los que menos tienen, desde mucho, intercambiaron)
Tomar una buena mirada en mí y acabo de leer mis labios
que puedo enviar que copia a mamá embalada como fichas
sólo no verme como un anfitrión
si usted piensa que pueden jefe
y si halcón es tu juego, partido y sólo se pierden..
(George da un susto y saltos atrás y gestos a Marina que hablarán por teléfono)
Luego la naturaleza toma su forma:
El acercamiento entre los dos grupos y el gradual aflojamiento de las vibraciones de la desconfianza se describe
mejor a través de canciones y coreografías que va más o menos como en la siguiente cadena de canciones:
http://www.wahtsontv.co.uk/video/youtube/id/2a0ikm5lYV0
Esta noche vamos a llegan a la playa
vamos a bailar y nadar,
vamos a cantar y beber sólo
Acompáñenos a pal y venir será divertido
el partido esperará el sol.
Escuchemos juntos qué noche tiene que decir
vamos a esperar juntos para otro día.
(Misma canción interpretada como una vez en un partido de patio de la escuela. .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZWV4lkjEQ4&feature=related (at 3:38) Y como dijimos el cantante con la
pandereta es la Despoina real algunos años después de la graduación
129
(La cortina cae en el sonido de estos cuando se abre otra vez están todos en trajes de baño y en manos de
raquetas y pelotas de tenis o pelotas de voley y grabadores. Alex, el soldado gordo, está llevando a cabo una
parrilla en lugar de una raqueta y también una cadena de salchichas)
Todos bailan hasaposerviko en la continuación de esta (en griego). Por un pequeño tiempo los
americanos hacen torpes o pasos equivocados pero inmediatamente aprenden observando
cuidadosamente las chicas bailando. Repentinamente la música cambia a la música americana
y luego es las chicas que hacen algunos arranques torpes y mal pero inmediatamente aprenden
observando cuidadosamente los americanos)
Todos bailan "Speedy Gonzales" y la "Bossa nova baby"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iALGml0BQoI , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxHs7OMZcWM
Voz de Argyroula se oye a distancia gritando a su hija:
-Marina, ¿conoces a tu abuelo? ¿
Marina:-no es él en la cafetería en la playa?
(Cortina cierra y abre. Los soldados han hecho un círculo a su alrededor y están lo ocultando. ¡ Habla inglés, fue
un inmigrante en su juventud)
Argyroula(que pasa lejos de ellos con una cadena de salchichas que se llevó a cabo en el otro extremo por
Alex):- pero ¿a dónde fueron? ¿En la clandestinidad?
(Se oye la canción siguiente, los soldados bailan con grandes saltos como si lo hubieran comprendido lo que dice
la letra y las chicas miran en desconcierto tanto debido a la coincidencia de saltos con letras y porque hay tal
danza existe) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwa16wgIU88&feature=related
Cinco por cinco que me salto escaleras,
diez por diez que estoy volando sobre paredes y pisos
para los dos fuegos de magia, sus dos ojos de fuego,
uno mira de ellos en mi diez puñaladas del deseo.
Cuna del barco en el mar, cuna de r del barco cerca de la orilla,
macetas en el balcón y macetas por la puerta.
Vangelitsa está hablando a un soldado de aspecto intelectual y parecen estar hablando lo similares que son las
canciones de todos los países. También quieren el uno al otro muy bien.
Se oye la canción siguiente en el sitio donde los soldados y el abuelo son:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrOwgufbUjI
Así que bailar y bailar y bailar otra vez, para zapatos, basta sin piedad
es suficiente para que puedan tomar su descanso las horas que duermes.
Tus pasos de baile real duro y patadas le
comerá la tierra nosotros no comérsela.
Esta misma tierra todos pisamos en ahora
todos entran cuando bajamos.
Thanassis que es Rubio y alto juega a un soldado texano. Él agarra el otro extremo de la caña de caminar del
abuelo como las primeras chicas bailando sostiene pañuelo del segundo y comienza a bailar, así el abuelo se
siente como si él mismo bailaban demasiado y sigue el ritmo sentado con los pies solamente. Mientras tanto
Ellie-Lys'strataki tiene en la mira Thanassis y él también está mirando le.
La siguiente canción que se escucha es:
Oh darling, excepto el último baile para mí http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-XQ26KePUQ
Las chicas abrirlo baile entre sí, los americanos están mirando mutuamente y que circulan por ellos y les acariciar
suavemente en su hombro para mirar hacia atrás, para que ellos para pedirles que bailar con ellos, no con los
demás. Luego que se pega a los socios que habían elegido entre sí van a bailar blues con la siguiente canción:
Je t’aime, moi non plus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2C98G-9rJk
130
La siguiente canción es el telón de fondo una primera querella de amor que asistimos, entre un soldado (Johnny,
interpretado por Yiannis) y un estudiante de secundaria (interpretado por Kike). ¿En qué? Yiannis sugiere lo
siguiente: como están bailando blues intenta besarla o tocar su un poco más que su espalda y la cintura, ella es
tímida en público y llega con una mano detrás de ella a la palmada (ligeramente) las manos cada vez que llegan a
ser demasiado audaces, de repente ella decide darle un beso en público; en ese momento sus anillos del teléfono
celular y que, en lugar de apagarlo corresponder el beso, contestar la llamada, en el que señala le abofetea con
un golpe muy rotundo enviar el teléfono celular metros, aplaudan a todos los soldados, chicas reír, él está parado
en una pérdida, su teléfono sigue sonando desde el suelo ¿Ojos de Kike son llameante como ella está mirando a
él con ira, ella le dice "es que cómo van las reglas en tu pueblo? Salir de una fiesta de casamiento para ir a
cavar zanjas?" Durante la canción siguiente vemos la pantomima y el lenguaje corporal de rabia, desesperación,
disculpa mutua persiguiendo, reconciliación:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kOIXEi3AaA
Esta noche como niños otra vez tuvimos que
pelean por lo que sea,
pelean por lo que sea.
Probaste bastante tu turno de soporte,
habló bastante ahora es mi turno,
ahora deja y sigo siendo,
la misma vieja melodía para siempre.
Pelean uno y dos y tres,
entonces disputa cuatro y cinco,
no lo soporto, no aguantas me que
nuestro amor no puede sobrevivir solo
Luego la canción y la danza del blues se reasumen
La voz de Argyroula se oye a distancia gritando a su hija: -Marina
donde son youououou?
Se escucha el estribillo de Margaro Margarita: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzFVyBFTzIw&feature=related
Tu mamá de una bruja y sostiene una escoba,
ella te bloquea todas las noches en su habitación,
pero luego usted enviarme una cuerda de seda y conocemos mejor
que a llorar y llorar y simplemente sentarse en la penumbra.
Cuando estamos encontramos al amanecer siguiente bajo llave en clave
somos piezas de auges silenciosos.
Kike y Marina aparecen (en escenas que supuestamente han ocurrido ya) lanzando cuerdas a los
soldados interpretada por George y por Johnny a sus habitaciones. Miltos que también es Rubio y
alto también se ve bajo el balcón de Maria, el ex estudiante que vimos antes, lanzando piedras a su
ventana como una señal para lanzar, este suceso bajo el sonido de la cuerda:
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me (Golpear tres veces en el techo si quieres)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yii1ufTyOWs&feature=related
Luego las cosas se ponen aún más
(En la melodía de http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNSzJ7j7KkE )
…y por la noche, yeah!,
caliente, noche oscura, yeah!,
eres un fósforo que solo coge el fuego,
y que me quema como una ramita yeah!,
hasta el amanecer siguiente mis cenizas quemadas retirarse.
Luego escuchamos partes salvajes del: "Tuti fruti" y "Johnny Β. Goode"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLXR5WsHTWY , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kew3Xx6e8-I&feature=related
(mientras que la escena va hacia adelante y hacia atrás entre la playa bailando y bajo-bedsheet
bailando en las habitaciones oscuras detrás de las puertas de balcón. Terminamos en la playa :
Kike y Marina ambos tienen cumpleaños, se convierten en dieciséis. Soplan las velas 16, de la
escritura de un pastel. Los espectadores aplauden, ambos juegan la misma broma Yiannis
(Johnny) y George que vienen corriendo a sus brazos abiertos pero abrazo entre sí (las dos
niñas) en lugar de sus amantes, dejando para ellos sólo fino aire para abrazar, entonces
131
Johnny está dando Kike una flor y un cassette que ponen en un reproductor de cassette y es
"Sweet little sixteen" de Chuck Berry, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzY28Unb3v0 se besan y
aplaudan a los circunstantes.
Argyroula ( que ya ha encontrado el abuelo le dice):
-una vez fuiste un inmigrante en Estados Unidos. Así que tal vez usted puede entender mejor
lo que dice la canción, yo no puedo hacer con todas esas guitarras y tambores que cubren las
letras.
Abuelo:-Dulce poco dieciséis
Argyroula:-Cómo romántico! Pídales que le dan a nosotros para copiar. Yo también tocará lo
en el stand de souvlaki. ¿A nuestra chica culo de ese burro no hace una dedicatoria? ¿Flores
no cualquiera? Ambos vienen forman un mismo país. ¿En su pueblo las vacas han comido
flores de la tierra de la vaca?
Abuelo:-Mira mejor. ¿No es eso lo que está haciendo?
George es sacar de su chaqueta y da Marina una flor y un cassette y escuchamos en el reproductor de
cassette:
"Eres dieciséis eres hermosa y eres mío" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjy-OMIyXbg
Argyroula:- Oh, pobre niño, tomé todo todo mal. Dime lo que dice las canciones.
Abuelo:-dieciséis eres, eres hermosa y eres mío.
Argyroula:-le digo que deje caer muerto. Dieciséis años de edad tienen que estudiar para sus
exámenes de ingreso y para la escuela de entrenamiento y para sus clases de inglés.
Abuelo:-por qué recordó a todos ellos en un hit. Georgie-boy da sus lecciones de inglés
perfectos aunque sea un estadounidense. Y tiene el mismo nombre que nuestro Yiorgos. ¿No
los dos como hermanos?
Argyroula:-tiene el tirón vienen a preguntar por ella de su madre? ¿Qué es ella? ¿Un
huérfano? Escuchar a ese hombre! Dieciséis años, hermosa y su! Que atrevimiento y esa
cuerda que he encontrado en el armario de mi hija te voy a pasar alrededor de su cuello y le
cuelgan como servicio de lavandería. Escuchar a esa chica! Dieciséis y ella quiere lanzar
cuerdas, amor ha dispersado sus cerebros todo. Para fugarse conmigo tu hijo utiliza una
escalera no una cuerda.
Abuelo:-¿por qué d'you hacer tal alharaca? En Texas utilice cuerdas, no escaleras. Utilizan un
lazo para atrapar las vacas.
Argyroula:-mi hija no es ninguna vaca! Que llama a su madre una vaca. ¿Qué está mirando?
Cuando tu hijo me tiró la escalera no había empezado poniendo el peso porque no lo hice
como mi madre de cocina. Cuando empecé a cocinar, empezamos a engordar, hijo y yo. Si no
gustaba mi cocina usted mismo usted vivirán con su otra nuera. Si tanto la novia y el novio se
quiere comer, ¿por qué un suegro debe tener algo que decir?
Abuelo:- y aún no trato de decir una sola cosa. Imagino si había dicho algo demasiado!
Argyroula:-imagino diciendo algo! ¿Oh: Qué él quiere venir aquí? ¿Crees que él olía las
salchichas? ¿No tienen salchichas en América?
George (hablando lentamente y palabra por palabra para asegurarse de que lo entienden):muchos-feliz-devuelve. Yo-deseo-usted-disfrute-su hija-hasta-de-ella es-cien.
Argyroula:-(hablando lentamente y la palabra para que word le parodia): - derecho, yodeseo-nosotros-disfrutar-her, you-yourself-don't-enjoy-her-too-much-or-you'll-be-lifted-by-acyclone-like-those-you-have-in-su-país de origen, - tierra de la vaca Cowland.
George:-¿Puedo dedicar una canción a usted? ¿
Argyroula: - me? ¿Qué canción?
George comienza un magnetófono con una canción que tenía preparado para ella, al mismo tiempo
ofreciéndole un ramo de flores que se escondía. La canción está en la melodía de "Lata kopelia mou
lata lene Lenio" Theodorakis\u0092 y la estrofa que ha optado por jugar va como:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Hck8RDajY&feature=relmfu
Mi embriagador flor,
levantó mi flor embriagadora,
fragancia de mi Rosa embriagador
132
vengo a su madre para,
vengo a su madre
para pedirles su bendición
y mi partido que me encanta y desea.
Argyroula (muy contento):-¡ Oh, cómo muy bien! Al igual que Denis Roper cuando le
propuso matrimonio a Kate Garbie en público en Roula talk show. Mi hijo, que quiero darte
un beso. Vengan un par de salchichas, o parejas de tres o cuatro, que me refiero. ¿Mamá te
gusta salchichas? Son mi producción. Te voy a dar algunas cadenas que le diera. ¿Cuándo
usted está tomando un permiso para ir a mi suegra compañero?
Abuelo:-nos preparábamos para darle gratuitamente algunas cuerda para colgar y el ahorcado
de un voluntario de la mujer, al igual que de repente bautizado le Denis Roper. Eso es lo
llamamos progreso. En el momento de la ayuda americana estuvimos así ricos que utilizamos
cadenas de salchicha como correas para perros. En el momento de la ocupación
estadounidense utilizamos cadenas de salchicha para atar a mother-in-laws compañeros
americanas. Un bocado de lo que dije! Yo escribí la historia hoy.
En una película vemos el abuelo (cuyo nombre es Andrés) chicas y soldados para abrir mar para inmersiones y nada en su barco, mientras que la
música de fondo es "La balada de Andrés"
Andrés dormía acunada por mar,
fresco a la sombra de su barco de tienda,
brisa apenas acariciaba a él y a su sueño,
estaba lleno de sol y lleno de charla de la muchacha.
George, Yiannis y Miltos despedirse unos días para ir a los Estados. George en el puerto lleva dos cadenas de embutidos a veces alrededor del
cuello como fajas y a veces cruzado sobre su pecho como las correas de balas de la guerrilla. Ellos llevan uniformes y maletas o sacos militares.
Con Maria Marina, Kike, que les abrazan por detrás no hay palabras de despedida se dijo, sólo elegimos la cancion de fondo que:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAimvPAv63M
…¿Eres para mí el arbolito de ciprés
que me encanta en el Jardin de mi casa
que me dará el beso que necesitan
y ven a mis brazos?
Pensaría que
en nuestra playa secreta y esperaré
mi pajarito pequeño y feliz...
En unos días vuelven. George trae como regalo de su madre a Argyroula una flor de cactus. Sus hijas abrazan cara a
cara. La canción de fondo es :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDpTWkPVCa0&feature=related
Conforman sus sábanas ahora para dos,
para ti y para mí, para mi y usted,
Abrázame como le tengo desde comienzo
a sentir que amor y vida están de vuelta.
…………….
133
………………………….……
134
EN GUANTÁNAMO
LOS IRAQUÍES TAMBIÉN
135
136
Vemos el comandante camina hacia adelante y hacia atrás delante del pueblo reunido en la Plaza
(todos ellos están allí, incluso los pequeños niños, es obligatorio. Algunos soldados mantener armas).
Él sostiene una bolsa de cabeza y demuestra que lo agita.
Comandante:-No preguntarle si sabe usted lo que se trata. Seguro que conoces desde todos
ver televisión y leen documentos. Quien es detenido en Irak como un posible terrorista lleva
esta todo el tiempo. Desde Abu Ghraib en Irak a Guantánamo en ninguna parte la tierra. A ti,
sólo porque soy un admirador de tus antepasados, haré una excepción y no se insulte por tener
todo el desgaste arrestado este bolso tan dishonoring. Espero que se puede apreciar la calidad
del comandante que tiene. Pero igual te ayudo, debe ayudarme demasiado. Ya llego a saber
que en su historia reciente, en los años 40, era una bolsa, con agujeros para los ojos para ver,
que fue utilizado por sus rufianes, OK ya que conozco su historia reciente, sólo daré bolsas a
los rufianes entre vosotros para que pueden mostrar a los terroristas sin hacer darse a
conocer. Y porque no quiero que rufianes a sentir miedo de que voy a fuga sus nombres para
que te matarán antes de que reciba el dinero de la recompensa de rufián, voy a dar el dinero
como pago inicial y no incluso pedir su nombre. Usted estará usando su bolsa de cabeza
incluso cuando usted está hablando a mí. Quiero nombres de los terroristas, no sus nombres.
Un pacto de gentlemen, ¿no?
Michael:-Lo escapar la camisa de fuerza en su país? Si no eres todos esos locos y nadie lo
notó donde se filtra desde el cerebro.
Comandante:-Profesor, no esperaba esas palabras de ti. Gustas y lo consideraremos un
amigo y deshonran a mí y a mi país.
Michael:-se sienta deshonrado debe saber primero qué honor es. Y no lo hace. Así deshonra a
cualquier grupo que tiene en él. Su familia, su ejército, su país; y la especie humana entera. ¡
Dame la bolsa que tienes. Se deshonra demasiado. Lo que tarda un idiota como tú a
understabd que esta bolsa deshonra a usted y no los iraquíes cuando se pone en ellos. Para
ellos es un honor que sufrir esto para su país que aman. ¿Qué haces para mostrar su amor a su
país? ¿Recorriendo con bolsas de rufián que se les diga a quien poner cierto?
Comandante:-profesor, Sabe usted lo que puedo hacer para usted?
Michael:-creo que usted sólo puede pedo mis cojones. ¿Qué crees que se puede hacer a mí?
Comandante:-profesor, yo seré sinceramente lo siento. ¿Teníamos una copa de vino o dos,
no nos?
Michael:- Deshonraste también a los vidrios. Y la tienda donde los bebíamos. Todo lo que
tocas convierten en mierda...
Comandante:-profesor, mi estómago consiguió un calambre. Tal odio! Me siento un sollozo
en mi garganta.
Michael:-es sólo un pedo pero su cara se ve como un asno pierde su camino sin saber cómo
salir de.
Comandante:-Whaaaat?!! Detener el hijo-de-la-puta antes de irse
Michael:-¿por qué dejar, Buitre de estúpido? ¿Debería estar asustado de usted o de su bolsa
de mierda? Ya sea usted puede dos único do me lo que te dije, me dejó no decirlo eso otra vez
frente a mis alumnas. Permítame en mí mismo, escritura de periódicos que pones mierda y
meadas en estas bolsas, pero las manos y las manos de sus pequeños robots son más mierda
que mierda. (Él pone en, a continuación elimina diciendo:)-¡ Oh, mierda! No es un bolso de
mierda, es bolso de un rufián, con ninguna mierda pero con ojo-agujeros para el rufián ver
quien elija. Déjame llevarlo detrás de frontal para por lo menos no ver su cara de culo.
Payaso! Bufón!
El comandante muerde sus puños, envía para sus pastillas, cae el telón.
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
……………………………………….
137
Epílogo: Final feliz anunciado por Vaso (Paz):
Después de las elecciones norteamericanas y la reelección de Bush, los norteamericanos todos solos y
marchó pacíficamente, los prisioneros fueron liberados, la situación absurda todo había sido creada por
la insistencia de los superiores del comandante para mantener a los soldados allí y mostrar cierta
actividad antiterrorista porque sería un costo político si perdían cara admitir que habían cometido un
error en el envío de tropas para Glossa, por lo que después de que Bush fue reelegido esto no importa
nada, Rumsfeld disparó el sabueso de la CIA que había tomado Buzanos de Bin Laden. Las aventuras
amorosas encendió una distancia tan naturalmente (teléfonos, carta, viajes, matrimonios, escisiones,
etc.) como se encendería sin toda la locura que vimos. ¿Qué pasa con el comandante de dos mujeres
por quien quería mostrar a los soldados felices él envidiaba? Aprendizaje de la existencia del otro y
hablar entre sí y ver que ambos de ellos realmente lo amaban y ambos realmente entendían cómo se
había convertido en tal un pelotudo (1.asshole de querer dos mujeres (esposa y novia; y en el exterior,
también, con el fin de lucir!) porque estaba sirven de tal una privación de amor sostén cuando en su
mejores años de juventud, y 2. asshole para actuar tan absurdamente encarcelar inocentes porque sus
superiores le dieron indicaciones locas para evitar el costo político) encontraron la siguiente solución
de Salomón-ian entre ellos: cada uno dice al otro: "por supuesto ninguno de nosotros haría él el favor
de quedarse con él si quiere una segunda mujer también. Pero si él me deja usted deja lo volver a
usted?" Ambos dijo "sí" a esto por lo que le dijeron lo perdonaron, pero tendría que elegir. Él discutió
el asunto con sus amigos griegos, quien le dijeron que era un hombre muy afortunado tener un escape
tan estrecho por su manejo idiota de todo lo que había conseguido en. Y volvió a su esposa. Entonces
su novia decidió permanecer en la isla durante algún tiempo para sentirse más tranquilamente las
vibraciones del lugar donde tan complicado mal había encontrado un final tan tranquilo.
CORTINA
ya que hubo un pueblo feliz final deja el teatro bajo el sonido de la siguiente repetición:
Bibliografía: 1) "Lisístrata" Aristófanes, "Los pájaros", "Aharnians", 2) Kazantzakis "Capitán Michael". Esta
última referencia no tiene nada que ver con el evento del profesor Michael sino sólo con el evento en postura de
Argyro como una madre: en "Capitán Michael", en una rebelión de Creta contra la ocupación turca, una campesina
de Creta es chantajeada para revelar donde un voluntario, que vinieron de otra parte de Grecia para ayudar en la
lucha, se esconde. Si ella no dice que los turcos, su hijo será asesinado. Ella no dice que ellos y su hijo es
asesinado. Cuando se le preguntó más tarde cómo su corazón podía tomar esta decisión, dice "yo sabía qué dolor
causaría a la madre de los voluntarios". ¿Kazantzakis tiene referencias fácticas de este tipo sobre la naturaleza
humana o es el evento ficticio? La parte objetiva existe pero se refiere a la batalla de Creta en la segunda guerra
mundial: los interrogadores de la mujer campesina cretense no eran turcos, pero los alemanes y el voluntario fue
un comando británico. En síntesis, el subtítulo "mujer-para todo el año para nuestra temporada" se refiere no a
Lysistrata sino a Sra. Argyro que cuando negándose a ser extorsionados, pensado demasiado en su suegra
compañero en el extranjero y protegido su futuro yerno en vez de su propio hijo.
Notas: 1) esta obra fue publicada primero en un sitio con recuerdos del maestro actual de Glossa. Los estudiantes
jugaría con sus nombres reales, excepto el Vaso, Stamatis y Ellie, es decir, Paz, Buzanos y Lisístrata) pero nunca
alcanzó la etapa de la escuela...OK, ya hemos mencionado estas cosas...(Sólo no mencionamos que George Bunny
(George Connejo) jugará por su hijo que Yiannis, Neverado y el comandante se jugará por el profesor presente y
por Kostas, un colega)
2) El lector que quiere ver si el autor presente es
antiestadounidense de la misma manera es antiMerkel tendrá un montón de páginas para comprobar lo que más
tarde por aquí (en la historia de "Monte Bushmore" que se perfila como parte de un idilio intercambiará con un una
chica griega y un muchacho americano criados juntos primero en Alemania y luego en Glossa)
3) La última estrofa de la balada de Andrés en esta última página falta porque, finalmente, el final fue un final feliz
(al menos en el sentido de la edad antigua tradición de las recetas de final feliz basado en mencionar lo que debe, o
por lo menos podría haber sucedido pero es exactamente lo contrario de lo que, desgraciadamente, por lo general,
sucede).Y con el fondo anterior nos dirigimos a las inquietudes e intereses que compartimos con nuestro amigo
español y colega Aristides (antiMerkel preocupaciones entre muchos otros). Oh: Casi olvidamos ver también el
último par de la última página antes el final feliz:
138
A!: Casi olvidamos ver también el último par de la última página antes el final feliz:
…Argyroula sale de la prisión muy triste:
Paz:- señora Argyro, hicieron le permiten ver George?
Argyroula:-No mi niña, no. Que comandante, el ojos de cerdo y otra, una nueva versión,
primera vez que lo vi todo, quería decirles, Dónde está mi yerno porque él abandonado dicen.
Y si les dije que, dijo, dejaría mi George ir. Pero no lo hice Radiolandia. Para que él no
incluso Déjame ver a mi George. ¿Quién eres? ¿No mi pequeño puerto deportivo tiene como
profesor? No puedo ver muy bien en la oscuridad. Buenas noches, nos estamos hablando sin
tener dicho Hola todavía. ¿Y usted? ¿No eres Nick de Theodosia?
Buzanos:-sí señora Argyro, que es quien soy.
¿Argyroula:-es tu madre? Decirle a disfrutar mientras ella tiene con la clase de personas y el
tipo de cosa en, no sé incluso si usted tiene sus propios hijos.
Buzanos:- señora Argyro significas el comandante intentó chantajear le con su hijo y no
morder en el cebo. Otros le dicen que no saben si su compañero suegra haría lo mismo para
ellos y luego se presentaría al chantaje. Pero esa manera nadie haría el comienzo correcto.
¿Cómo crees?
Argyroula:-Yo sé una cosa: si nosotros compañeros suegras mutuamente agotado luego que
hogar no iba a ir por el desagüe? ¿Que mantendría casas para arriba? ¿Los dieciséis años de
edad? Ellos sólo se preocupan por exámenes y citas y collarino. ¿Y si no hacen estas cosas
ahora cuando lo harán? ¿Cuando ellos tienen casas para cuidar y bebés en cunas se preocupa
por padres y suegros a hospitales y funerales para preparar? Escupir-ftou-ftou-golpea la
madera!
Buzanos:-Señora, debo admitir que frente a ti no estoy aún la mitad de la mitad de un
izquierdista o un anarquista o un beatnik o un hippie o un filósofo de la acera.
Argyroula:-filósofo de la acera, mi pie! ¿Qué dices? ¿Tiene Glossa aceras? ¿La calle
principal no es incluso ancho suficiente para algunos de nosotros buenos cocineros que comen
un plato demasiado muchos y hablar de las aceras para mentir en los filósofos? ¿Cómo iba
cuesta arriba, si tuviéramos una acera un taxi? ¿Y sin un taxi que le lleve maletas uptown?
¿Usted?
Paz:- señora Argyroula, yo mismo guardará mi título universitario simplemente como
recuerdo o como papel tapiz. Lo que va enseñando los niños de ahora por cosas como Qué
hiciste para su filosofía sobre las madres de los compañeros-en-ley no venderá mutuamente
hacia fuera. Debe llamar "una mujer-para-todo el año para nuestra temporada".
Argyroula:-¿qué hablas, mi niña? Soy una mujer analfabeta. ¿Cómo nuestros hijos pasa sus
exámenes si no enseñarles geografía e historia y cómo multiplicar y alebra, o Cuál es sunombre, me refiero a eso alfabeto hecho por matemáticos? Tienen que saber letras no debe ser
analfabetos.
Paz:-letras son necesarias para leer la historia. No para escribirlo. Esta noche se escribió la
historia.
139
Dónde estábamos? Where were we?
Ten days after Aristides’ first reply (that is February 27), and nine or eight after Nuria’s, on Friday
March 8, the parallelism of both ourselves and of the cultures and circumstances of our countries had
led, in record time, to the following pdfs allowing the possibility of a joint site:
www.BalcónMediterráneoNews.info
Yiannis Alevizos
Yiannis Alevizos
Elaborado por
y
Put together by
and
Arístides Mínguez
Arístides Mínguez
Aquí Aristides elegir entre esas fotos de Murcia visto desde cierta distancia
Here Aristides you choose among those photos of Murcia as seen from some distance
Aquí Aristides elegir entre las fotos de la vista de su escuela
Here Aristides you choose among the photos of the view seen from your school
Paso 1: , Step 1:
Un diálogo con la asistencia de intérprete de robot
A dialog assisted by robot interpreter
1.pdf
Gracias Grecia + Gratitud Griega = la famosa línea de “Casablanca” de H. Bogart\
(“Creo que este es el comienzo de una bella amistad”)
Gracias Grecia+Gratitud Griega =The so well known line from H. Bogart's “Casablanca”
(“I feel this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”)
2.pdf
Continuación inmediata del pdf arriba
Immediate continuation of the above pdf
3.pdf
Continuación inmediata de la continuation.pdf arriba
Immediate continuation of the above continuation.pdf
4.pdf
PS con un ejemplo más de lo que es la naturaleza de este esfuerzo conjunto
A PS with one more example of what the nature of this joint effort is
Consulte la página siguiente para paso 2: , See next page for Step 2:
Un cuadro de diálogo la mitad de tamaño por estar en un idioma único
A dialog half in size by being in one language only
(traducido sin la ayuda de un robot o un interpteter profesional)*
(translated without the assistance of either a robot or a professional interpteter)*
140
*Traducción sin robots ni intérpretes profesionales (y pagadas) significa las traducciones enviadas
por los lectores de piezas que gustaban y desean compartir con otros lectores. "Impefections" (como
por ejemplo falta de estilo) son parte de la naturaleza de este esfuerzo que concierne a ser educado
por personas de las generaciones superpuestas (generalmente tres) comentando eventos (por ejemplo
sucede en la calle o ser coemmented en la calle, o Plaza del mercado o "Ágora" en varios grupos (bien
conocido ideas desde Walter Benjamin "La muerte de la narración" etc.)
*Translation without robots and without professional (and paid) interpreters means translations sent
by readers of parts that they liked and want to share with other readers. “Impefections” (like for
example lack of unique style) are part of the nature of this effort that concerns becoming educated by
hearing people of the (usually three) overlapping generations commenting on events (for example
happening on the street or being coemmented on the street, or market place or “agora” in various
groups (well known ideas since Walter Benjamin’s “The death of narration” etc )
Sin embargo lo mejor no sería tener todas las cosas escritas sólo en inglés o todos sólo en Español: por
ejemplo tener artículo 'Aristides de Merkel sólo en español en un sitio y sólo en inglés en otro (y
traducido correctamente, no por un robot) tiene sentido, pero al traducir nuestras cartas mutuamente
una vez más y no a través de un robot, no tiene sentido, ya que es a través del robot que llegamos cerca
en nuestro deseo y esforzarse por comunicarse, y es a través de un robot que deben alcanzar tantas
personas que desean y tratan de comunicarse entre sí. Pero antes de continuar vamos a ver también
cómo el site- en-próximos se convirtió mucho más corto con la llegada de Hernán
However the best thing would not be to have all things written only in English or all only in Spanish:
For example to have Aristides’ article on Merkel only in Spanish in one site and only in English in
another (and translated properly, not by a robot) makes sense, but to translate our letters to each other
once more, and not through a robot, does not make sense anymore, since it is through the robot that
we came close in our wish and endeavour to communicate, and it is through a robot that so many
people who wish and try to communicate must reach to each other. But before going on let’s see also
how the site-to-be became much shorter with the coming of Hernán
…as you know, since the disastrous environmental meeting at Copenhagen, I have lost faith in the
reality for the many movements to get together and present a viable answer to the savage global
capitalism. Makes no sense to be aware of, or even protest, the social ills, be unable to do something
about them and still ask future generations for forgiveness; besides, by now large segments of people
have written and/or read about the horrible things we have done not only to nature in general but to
every organized kind of life including the human society. OK, what I am trying to say is that “My
Testimony” is obsolete and unnecessary, my grandchildren as well as all the youth in the next
generation are living the consequences of our folly and would be better judges for the ongoing disasters
for which we find no solutions. As Chris Hedges say, we can’t continue complacent with what is going
on and pretend to want a real change, either we join in a non violent revolt against all current institutions
or we better shut up.
Love for your Maria and her family/Hernán.
Hernán, what a fantastic coincidence! But let’s start from the bad news: We here, of course, had many
reasons to be equally disappointed or even more (actually more and more and more). If I tell you that
recently something appeared that changed my outlook overnight (and made a meaningful plan appear
in ten days, exactly ten) then you will be justified in thinking that I was just a manic depressive case
going again to his mania phase (if you didn’t think this you would not be the medical doctor and the
calm rationalist that you always are). I don’t mean of course that I met some group with a
proposal that promises to change a single thing overnight, I only met a chance to help in the formation
of a group with a proposal that has some idea with eventual results and not just an idea for an idea.
The initial encounter was ten days ago and the proposal actually was stated last night, five minutes
before midnight. And the first letter I met this morning was what I am reading from you right now.
What timing! (And imagine: I was planning as first thing in the morning to announce to you what I
felt forming as a surprise…) Let me not say more, and please you yourself do not aswer more before
you leaf, just leaf not read, some material (of which the long part you have already read long ago but of
which the new part will explain to you exactly what I mean and will help you understand if I am just
being trivial or even crazy etc) When you leaf the pdf of the attachment don’t answer yet, just tell me to
send you the next ones (much shorter) and then, after reading the proposal, answer me.
Kisses to Natalie and please tell her to forgive me if today I keep you a little longer than usual on the
PC and tell her she will be surprised…OK, let me not tell…So let’s start with the first pdf …
141
…como ustedes saben, desde el desastroso encuentro ambientalista en Copenhague, he perdido la fe
en la realidad para los muchos movimientos para reunirse y presentar una solución viable para el
salvaje capitalismo global. No tiene ningún sentido para ser conscientes de, o incluso de la protesta,
los males sociales, ser incapaz de hacer algo acerca de ellos y todavía pedir las generaciones futuras
para el perdón; Además, por ahora grandes segmentos de personas han escrito o leer acerca de las
cosas horribles que hemos hecho no sólo a la naturaleza en general pero cada clase organizada de
vida incluyendo la sociedad humana. OK, lo que trato de decir es que "Mi testimonio" es obsoleto e
innecesario, mis nietos, así como todos los jóvenes en la próxima generación están viviendo las
consecuencias de nuestra locura y serían mejores jueces para los desastres actuales para que nos no
encontramos soluciones. Como dice Chris Hedges, no podemos seguir complacientes con lo que está
sucediendo y pretender querer un cambio real, tampoco nos unimos en una revuelta no violenta
contra todas las instituciones actuales o mejor callarse. Amor por tu Maria y su familia /Hernán.
Hernán, qué casualidad fantástica! Pero vamos a empezar de la mala noticia: aquí, por supuesto, tenía
muchas razones para estar igualmente decepcionado o incluso más (realmente cada vez más y más). Si
te digo que recientemente apareció algo que cambió mi perspectiva durante la noche (y hace un plan
significativo aparece en diez días, exactamente diez) entonces usted será justificado pensar que yo era
sólo un maníaco depresivo caso va otra vez a su fase de manía (si usted no piensa que esto no sería el
médico y la calma racionalista que estás siempre). No significa por supuesto que me encontré con un
grupo con una propuesta que promete cambiar una sola cosa durante la noche, sólo encontré una
oportunidad de ayudar a la formación de un grupo con una propuesta que tiene alguna idea con
eventuales resultados y no sólo una idea para una idea. El encuentro inicial fue hace diez días y la
propuesta de hecho se declaró ayer por la noche, cinco minutos antes de la medianoche. Y la primera
letra que se reunieron esta mañana era de usted lo leyendo ahora mismo. ¿Qué tiempo! (E imaginar:
planeaba como a primera hora de la mañana para anunciar que sentí formando una sorpresa...)
Permítanme decir no más y usted siga no responderle más antes de que la hoja, hoja a no leer, algún
material (de los cuales la parte larga ya ha leído hace mucho tiempo pero que la parte nueva explicará a
usted exactamente lo que quiere decir y le ayudará a entender si estoy siendo trivial o incluso loco etc.)
cuando usted hoja pdf del accesorio no responder todavía, apenas dígame a enviarle los siguientes
(mucho más breve) y luego, después de leer la propuesta, respóndeme.
Besos a Natalie y por favor, decirle que me perdone si hoy mantenerlo un poco más de lo normal en el
PC y decirle a ella se sorprenderá...OK, les digo no...Así que empecemos con el primer pdf...
Dear Ioannis: I am not sure if I understand your letter this time, but since you ask me not to hurry I am sure you will
give me more material to make yourself clearer.Anyway, I have downloaded and watched the link “Gracias Grecia”
and enjoyed the presentation. I am sorry, I could not help myself in only correcting but editing and actualizing my
"testimonio", here is what I have done with the robot translation:…
Ioannis estimado: no estoy seguro si entiendo tu carta esta vez, pero ya que me pides que no de
prisa estoy seguro que me dará más material para hacerte más clara. De todos modos, he descargado
y visto el enlace "Gracias Grecia" y disfrutaron de la presentación. Lo siento, no pude evitar en sólo
corregir pero editar y actualizar mi "testimonio", aquí es lo que he hecho con la traducción de robot…
Let’s also repeat the latest, so far, reply from Aristides, and also insert some of the previous:
My dear friend:…one day, when my mind is clearer and my body less fatigued , I'll write about what
the Germans want from the southerners like you and me: they only like our sun, but
despise everything else that makes us Mediterranean. The problem is that our leaders are the
first traitors and have sold our people in return for their money…You and I have a thousand things to
do, a long way to go together. But now I have not time. I'm in a storm of exams and preparing to
travel to Athens…and to think about June events for the Cavafy year and about a video on world’s
tribute to Roman culture like the one to Greek… I'm exhausted. After some rest, I will see what I do to
work with my brother Aegean. All my love
También vamos a repetir la respuesta última, hasta ahora, de Aristides y también insertar algunos de los anteriores:
Mi querido amigo:... un día, cuando mi mente es clara y mi cuerpo menos fatigado, I\ voy a escribir
sobre lo que quieren los alemanes de los sureños como tú y yo: sólo como nuestro sol, pero
desprecian todo lo que nos hace Mediterráneo. El problema es que nuestros líderes son los primeros
traidores y han vendido a nuestra gente a cambio de su dinero...Usted y yo tenemos 1 mil cosas que
hacer, un largo camino por recorrer juntos. Pero ahora no he tiempo. I\ estoy en una tormenta de
exámenes y preparando para viajar a Atenas... y a pensar sobre los sucesos de junio para el año de
Kavafis y un vídeo en homenaje del mundo a la cultura romana como el griego... I\ estoy agotado.
Después de un descanso, veré lo que hago para trabajar con mi hermano Aegean. Todo mi amor
UPSHOT SO FAR:
Where we now stand, as far the site material is concenrend, is the next page
RESULTADO HASTA EL MOMENTO:
Donde nos encontramos ahora, como el material del sitio es concenrend, es la siguiente página
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www.MediterraneanBalconyNews.info
Put together by Yiannis Alevizos
Rehearsal of Greek School Event.pdf
………………..
Glossa forever.pdf
“I feel this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”
(Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca”)
Three southerners of three little-differing generations in e-mail conversation.pdf
Tres sureños de tres generaciones diferentes poco en la conversación de correo electronic.pdf
“Creo que este es el comienzo de una bella amistad”
(Humphrey Bogart en “Casablanca”)
Immediate continuation of the e-mail conversation of the three southerners we saw above.pdf
Continuación inmediata de la conversación de correo electrónico de los tres sudistas vimos arriba.pdf
Last pdfs here or first pdfs of a new Mediterranean site?
www.BalcónMediterráneoNews.info?
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Hernán’s second answer we will repeat later, and Nuria’s next answer too, and Aristides’ (many) intermediate
answers we will also present later, for the time being what is more urgent is to assure the reader or leaf-er of these
pages, that we will not avoid facing the objections nor the technical difficulties that our friends or colleagues
mention (nor any additional ones that the reader might think we skipped (after also seeing our answers to our own
additional questions etc). We will gladly reply to readers who may want to e-mail to us (at "Ioannis Alevizos"
[email protected] ) their own objections or questions*. But now let’s only answer questions like whether ,
at the rate things are proceeding today, events like the Iraq invasion and Abu-Ghraib are as obsolete (or at least as
merely- encyclopedic by now) as events back in the time of Aristophanes (even if fewer than ten years have
passed) and whether, to be relevant for action, briefings of teenagers, who will be adults in a couple of years, must
be more up-to-date some. One part of a proper answer to these is to show such stories involving events of last
year, not of the last decade. Actually Aristides, first saw and answered that briefing and he received some parts
with Lysistrata only after he mentioned that it was his favourite Aristophanian comedy. And we will see later why
to Nuria I sent the whole comedy (and in both English and Greek). The following is the first chapter of a pdf I had
sent to Hernán last June. (And, of course, a presentation meant for kids is not meant as a, direct and suficient,
answer to more adult worries like Hernán’s concerns that we saw, or concerns that the kids themselves will have
in very few years if they do not already have them) :
*Also somewhere we must insert the following: Readers who speak both English and Spanish are kindly asked to
please send us (at [email protected] ) the translations , from English to Spanish, they would make of any
parts — still untranslated here — that they liked and planned to translate and share with friends of theirs, and,
similarly, the translations from Spanish to English of any parts — still translated here only by automatic
translation — that they liked and planned to translate and share with friends of theirs. We will gratefully post
them in the two coexisting versions, not wondering too much if polyphony also means absence of single style,
discontnuity, etc since, when it refers to only parts that one liked and wanted to communicate it sounds like just a
decription of a single thing that many people have seen at the same time, and then, to newcomers, they narrate it
in pieces, each adding what he liked best…(After all, this whole site, itself, is an anthology of excerpts from
many sourses, and, as the famous writer of “The death of narration” , Walter Benjamin, would probably say, both
anthologizing and polyphony, in the above sense, are ways to recover some things lost by standardized
typography, not only ways to lose things gained by it…) By the way: Not all robot translations must be changed.
For example the letters we exchanged with Arisitides will be ruined if changed. The real thing is to stay as they are
Segunda respuesta de Hernán se repetirá más adelante y la respuesta siguiente de Nuria demasiado y respuestas
intermedias (muchos) de 'Aristides también presentaremos más adelante, por el momento lo que es más urgente es
asegurar el lector o el hoja-er de estas páginas, que no vamos a evitar frente a las objeciones ni las dificultades
técnicas que mención a nuestros amigos o compañeros de trabajo (ni cualquier adicionales los que el lector podría
pensar que nos hemos saltado (después también ver nuestras respuestas a nuestras propias preguntas adicionales,
etc.). Con gusto contestaremos a los lectores que quieran enviar un email a nosotros (en el “Ioannis Alevizos”
[email protected] ) their own objections or questions*. Pero ahora vamos a sólo respuesta preguntas como
si, en el tipo de cosas avanzan hoy, eventos como la invasión de Irak y Abu Ghraib son tan obsoletos (o al menos
como meramente - enciclopédico por ahora) como eventos de nuevo en la época de Aristófanes (incluso si han
pasado menos de diez años) y si, a ser relevante para la acción, sesiones informativas de los adolescentes, que
serán adultos en un par de años, debe ser más actualizado algunos. Una parte de una respuesta adecuada a estas es
mostrar estas historias que involucran eventos del año pasado, no de la última década.. Realmente Aristides,
primero VI y respondió informe y recibió algunas partes con Lysistrata sólo después mencionó que fue su comedia
favorita de Aristophanian. Y veremos más adelante por qué a Nuria envié la comedia entera (y en inglés y griego).
El siguiente es el primer capítulo de un pdf que había enviado a Hernán en junio pasado. (Y, por supuesto, una
presentación para niños no es como, directa y suficiente, respuesta a preocupaciones más adultos como Hernán
refiere que sierra o preocupaciones que los niños se tendrán en pocos años si no tiene ya):
*También en algún lugar debemos introducir lo siguiente: Lectores que hablan inglés y español deberán envíenos
(a [email protected] ) las traducciones del inglés al español, haría cualquier parte — todavía sin traducir
aquí — que le gustaba y planea traducir y compartir con amigos de ellos y, asimismo, las traducciones del
español al Inglés de cualquier parte — aún traducido aquí sólo por traducción automática — que le gustaba y
planea traducir y compartir con amigos suyos. Con agradecimiento publicaremos en las dos versiones
coexistentes, no pensando demasiado si polifonía también significa ausencia de estilo único, discontnuity, etc. ya
que, cuando se refiere a sólo las partes que le gustaba y quería comunicar parece sólo una descripción de una
sola cosa que muchas personas han visto al mismo tiempo y luego, a los recién llegados, narraron en pedazos,
cada uno agregar lo que le gustaba mejor...(Después de todo, este sitio entero, en sí, es una antología de
fragmentos de muchos sourses, y, como el famoso escritor de "La muerte de la narración", Walter Benjamin, decir
probablemente, antología y polifonía, en el sentido antedicho, son maneras de recuperar algo perdido por
tipografía estandarizada, no sólo formas de perder cosas adquiridas por él...) Por cierto: no todas las
traducciones de robot deben cambiarse. Por ejemplo se arruinará las cartas que intercambiamos con Arisitides si
cambia. Lo real es que permanezca como son
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Greek School Event
What shows up on a projection screen on a stage for high school events is the following slight alteration of the signal of our
national comedian’s, Lakis, show titled by his paraphrase of “AlJazeeraNews”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=al-AP0VJ1Nk In front of the screen comes Mihalis with
some signs (e.g. being unshaved ) making reference to Lakis.
Mihalis:-Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Here we are again in AlPagratiNews, for one
more time, to satirize and bring to you news unshaved, and to entertain and inform both you
and ourselves. What you have in front of you is obviously Lakis minus 30 years, minus 50
pounds, plus quite a number of inches. Help us all of you our fans and groupies, help us and
help yourselves too not get saved by the prospective saviors of us all, some lads of the
generation of the Polytechnic who started as flaming and enflaming youngsters that a whole
earth was unable to contain and are ending as inflated and deflating gangster fatsos that TV
windows are unable to contain…
Enters Thomas with artificial big belly (a folded jacket under his shirt,) playing an old pal of Laki. The kids not yet
playing sit on the floor playing “audience” ( for the faces of the kids who had played this at school the reader may
see 0:00-0:30 in the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1dW06uE8LE for the introduction above, and for
the episode below too the reader may go to 3:33-5:10 and to of the same link)
Thomas:-You jerk, what’s the matter with you today? You made me your target this time?
Mihalis:-Not you, I swear to God. I only had in mind our vice president. You’re not the only
fatso in town.
Thomas:-And what’s the big idea of speaking of both him and the Polytecnic in the same
spot? What did he do then? Dressed up like a tank to scare off junta’s tanks?
Mihalis:-Did you know that in those days he slept at a different house every night so as not to
get caught?
Thomas:-And when he woke up he joined people’s corruption feast? That’s why he recently
said that it’s the people that corrupt politicians and not the other way around? So we’re lucky
he only sent us a food bill, not a more sexy bill with all that one night per house activism…
Mihalis:-Great shape for gags you’re in, today. You knocked the asshole out.
Thomas:- Big fucking deal! You fall for such simplistic shit?
Mihalis:-I mean he is a hell of a symbol of the transition of heroism to corruption.
Thomas:-I mean that to understand this transition what is needed is not just gags against
assholes and fatsos.
Mihalis:-Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you as a fatso, if that is what you’re trying to tell me.
Thomas:-Well, it seems that some people have some fat around their waist and some other
people have some fat around their brain. Is that what I’m trying to tell you, you fatbrain? Do I
need to tell you a more real story to set a good example for you as to what we need to
understand the transition? A personal story for example?
Mihalis:-Please do. But if you don’t convince me I expect an apology. You can’t say such
things to a friend whom you chose as best man to your wedding.
Stella and Thomas play through motions the next link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urQR1crwdbg so that it’s
made a soundtrack of their video that we’ll come to in a minute. Before we describe what the French prose at
the beginning is about, let’s see what the soundtrack says:
The lyrics sung by the tender woman’s voice are:
I want you to just want only me/and you never to idle free
I want a house with a garden and two storeys/and me to be away all day always
I want to be your baby unique and only/and my wedding dress to also be unique and only
I want you to be an ideal lover/and work all day without rest and no bother
I want you to whisper me sweet nothings unsayable/and me have everything available
I want to hear words of wild love/and of all kinds of deposit and bond
I want you to support my every plan/and to be adoring my mom
At the turn to male voice the lyrics become:
What kind of shit you think you need/to just feel good and happy
if out of love I did all that/you’d better call me crappy.
The French prose at the beginning of the link is just some random well known expressions like “chercher la
femme”, “l’amour, l’amour” , “o-la-la”, “le metro de Paris” that an idiot who feels inferior might drop in his talk
to play cultured or travelled to impress a woman who seems to enjoy or demand such credentials, so Thomas is
playing a person of this kind who has taken out to fancy dinner, with candlesticks and all, a woman of this kind,
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played by Stella; in their video he realizes he has sat before she did when she remains standing and looks at him
nervously and he stands up to go and gently pull her chair and politely seat her , then in his genuine tenderness
he mixes all those flamboyant trivialities (the kids, advising each other at previous rehearsals, have added some
more stuff from a popular hilarious commercial where the French words employed come in instalments like
“chaise-longue, gazon, plungeon”, “television, aircondition” (all accented at last syllable like in French)
“gourmet, manger, fruit-gelé” and other such words implying that some minimum consuming standards will be
taken for granted in their relationship (at the end this commercials’ character even says goodbye by saying “sac
voyage” instead of at least saying “bon voyage” (while he is the one who’s leaving))). Then while Thomas and
Stella are dancing blues to romantic music we realize that the lyrics sung, in playback, are the demands we saw
above in verse, at some point they are recited not sung while the music plays on. Stella seems both fabulous and
ecstatic, suddenly Thomas feels trapped, and some folk tune is heard inside him, so dancing a manly dance to its
melody he declares rebellion, at the beginning of which Stella freezes stunned and as if thundestricken and at
the end of which she faints, or pretends she does to avoid having to answer anything (since deep down she
realizes that it’s Thomas who is right, not she) Thomas mad at her stance sets off to leave stage saying “Get lost,
crow”, Stella jumps up, rushes after him shouting “baby!”, “my love!”, “don’t go!” catches him at the end of the
stage and grabs him, Thomas’anger instantly evaporates and, with a broad smile, he embraces her with one arm
and with the other arm he salutes the audience in triumph (and also in goodbye, since when turning his back to
the audience he shouts to them over his shoulder “sac voyage”, with a body language meaning “My most
precious belonging is still with me in my departure”) Of course all the above is not to be explained in any other
way except through tone of voice, look and body, so it is contained in the link that lacks all proper microphonic
equipment (for how it played at school see 5:17-6:56 in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1dW06uE8LE )
Thomas enters the stage again as the old pal of Lakis played by Mihalis:
Mihalis:-That was quite something! But let me see if I got it all. You mean that to become a
maniac of consumerism you either have to be an idiot who wants to play high or be in love
with a presumptuous or dumb-dumb girlfriend who wants to play high?
Thomas:-Pal, we ain’t talking about no presumptuous or dumb-dumb, we’re talking about my
ex future wife.
Mihalis:-Oh! And I thought we were talking about your future ex. Will you drive me crazy?
Whom are we talking about? Do I know her?
Thomas:-Don’t you know my wife? Stella? My star? You were best man in our wedding.
Mihalis:-I married a bride with such a brain damage? Not that the bridegroom’s brain was in
better shape.
Thomas:-What about your brain? Was it in a shape better than mine?
Mihalis:-Same shithead I was. But what do you imply? That our vice president was right in
giving us shit about it?
Thomas:-Right?!My foot! Is that why we taxpayers give him a hell of a salary for? To think
up some grains of truth and serve them among tons of bullshit? And what truth? Ask for it
anyone in the street and he’ll tell you the same at no expense. Or ask your wife. But the vice
president charges for it and sends you a bill for this service too. On top of the debt they have
been putting on your account for years.
Mihalis:-Have we seen such a mess before?
Thomas:-The specialists opining are not unanimous.
Mihalis:-Whether we have seen it or not, we have sure sung it before.
Along with Savvopoulos, the first Greek rocker of at least political rock, of the generation of Alex
more or less, they (i.e. Mihalis and Thomas) sing the song “Hut” written more than four decades ago,
while at the same time on the projector’s screen we see the video of the link of the next page. The
verses of the English translation right after it are singable in the same melody:
(after singing this with Mihalis and with the video’s rocker Thomas leaves Mihalis in front of the screen to go on
with the show inspired partly by TV’s Lakis and TV’s “Boot radio” and partly by radio’s “Hellenophrenia”)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8OB_OLphk8
Follow my eyes to see our country
a run down hut trying to play up and look like dandy.
What can you do to be unlike a corpse decaying
whether you’re eighty or just twenty and complaining?
Priests, philanthropists and ladies,
be one of us maybe you’ll join the club of plenties.
A hut run down, run down, no central heating
apply to good old immigration just for eating.
The people is on central sidewalks buying bagels
and lottery tickets, there’s a better fate for angels
Dorothy’s not among the country’s calmest sleepers
virginal beds are sometimes sold to highest bidders.
In soccer fields the country arrested is still sighing
in coffee shops jokes, decks of cards and state TV
this is no song, it’s a roof leaking on the dying
a cigarette butt, cop in civilian shadowing me.
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Mihalis:- The sign “With so much chemical warfare and so much tear gas/ you can no
more afford this year’s books for us” that you hear…
(it is indeed heard on the loudspeakers of the PC)
…the people of ur neighborhood had already heard last September when our march was
passing under their windows heading for the Parliament …
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Mihalis:-The students that we saw were from the 7th Athens high school across the Pagrati
park. Some of us you can see in the photos; let us from this stage too escort the march
by escorting this stage with something from the square in front of the Parliament:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHiKKuoddME&feature=share
Beautiful city you burn uglily
Lyrics: George SarrisMusic: George Sarris First performance: George Sarris
Anger cracks the pavement of the streets tonight
voices crazy birds are looking for sky
Cops in civilian at the streets’ ends are eyeing people moving
My breath feels sticky in my throat that feels coarse
my face feels stinking water and maalox
facing the night with wonder, for explanations still looking
At the end part of the march I can hear crazy howls
expired tear gas has been thrown there at us
hold my hand tight or we’ll be lost in the crowd, we’re in real straits I mean it
Mind the streets’ straits they make sudden attacks
to spread around some panic they throw lightnings and cracks
my mouth feels dry, it’s agony and smoke I can breathe it
Beautiful city you who burns uglily again
life down the drain goes feeling wasted
but this whatever that’s inside me with its pain
on some wall with your blood you painted
Beautiful city you who burns uglily and who cries
the screens give promises but are lying
whatever they say it’s a long way to paradise
for those who from afar are eyeing
Stones passing whizzing and shop windows in pieces
run but do not rub your eyes when you feel itches
smoke of flaming rubbish, broken beds of flowers
Hold tight the human chain strive to keep it from breaking
Greece you lost the game and you’re bleeding and aching
night like a click sound passes handcuffs around stars
Buses burned down, panic, asphyxiation
a 70’s night from the story of the nation
Athens a crazed woman running backward in time
Running out of words, out of truths and of lies
someone’s thrown down on the pavement in blood
What you’re hitting him for? He’s just a man fallen down
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Mihalis:- Let’s follow the police reports: The cameras of the police finally spotted the leader
of the hooded troublemakers (then Mihalis starts reading out loud the red subtitles)
Here we see him in militant to tranquillity
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He gave the signal and his men are dashing
152
He enters the battle himself, one against all,
isn’t this the way he rose to leadership?)
153
He pushes eveyone back and fences them into an
arcade (his stripes were earned, not given for free)
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He goes to fetch back two policemen who escaped so
that passersby can walk again carefree on the streets
Mihalis:-But there’s more to the police report: The leaders of the movement “I don’t pay”
were spotted too. They were pensioners at the low end of the ladder, decided unto death to
derail the country’s budget.
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Only our pants you left to us
and even this with patches
tell us the date you want that too
we’ll shit it for your taxes
Mihalis (after reading loud the above red subtitle too):-Conspiring bloggers, covered by
anonymity, irresponsibly propapagated this photo –and, what’s more! – under the title
“Immortal Greece”, without caring how high this will make the spreads fly, how much it will
infuriate the markets and how far it will repel the prospective investors.
One more grandpa was arrested, as dangerous to the economic trustworthiness of Greece in
front of the prospective investors: Coming form Crete he was wearing the traditional Cretan
mantilla on his head, and his Cretan drawers and boots, and in front of the Parliament he was
raising a placard writing “Show me a politician who is not a liar so that I can ask him to show
me a politician who is not a thief ”. The police special forces told him, politely, that he was
exposing his country on an international scale causing severe ups and downs of Dow Jones
right after the helicopter of TV news spotted the placard he was carrying. Finally he was
arrested for resistance against the authorities when, instead of answering the charges, he just
opened his jacket to show his T-shirt where he had written:
Load your pistols
raise the bolt
and for your practice
my Dow to you I’ll hold
Mihalis (going on after reading loud the above red lines too):-Dear audience it doesn’t take a
mind reader to know that you’re all praying for at least a break, if not for an end too, so do
we. But since we feel so much at home with you …he takes a look around and adds “quite
literally at home”… we can’t even dedicate to you the good old Beatles’ line we’ve heard
from our parents (he says the line in singing) “with such a lovely audience we’d love to take you
home with us, we’d love to take you home”…, OK, we feel close so “let’s have a break
together” (he says that in the melody of “let’s spend the night together” of Rolling Stones…)
The three girls sitting and playing audience sit up and join Mihalis
Stella:-As we have heard from our parents, and as Suzy said, in the park right across here,
there used to be an outdoors, and so called, “free” theater, whose stage scenics were made by
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Bost whom we never knew in that specialty, but whom we all knew through his cartoons that
will remain forever.
Konstandina:-The soundtracks to the stories played in that theater were made by Loukianos
or also called “Lukey the magnificent” whom we all have known and whom we wish well
after his recent health adventure with his heart, his so big and so warm heart, and whom our
children too will know since great songs remain forever.
Angeliki:- And it was through such a song by him that we all had realized what exactly
remains forever from every such summer outdoors theater and every night performance in it:
(the three girls go back to sit on the floor and play audience again, but audience singing along with the video)
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Pagrati park by day
Summer Greece by night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDNQN8gJpbU
The summer cinemas
Lyrics: Loukianos Kilaidonis Music: Loukianos Kilaidonis Performance: Loukianos Kilaidonis
Years that feel our best are always passing
passing on a hurrying clock’s hourhand
youth that’s left behind
years never to re-find
and what I feel real stays
in our hearts and our mind
is just nights serene and filled with moonlight
in cinemas playing under night sky
sweetly passing by
nights never to re-find
in walls of jasmine and woodbine
Years that feel our best are always passing
stolen from us by a secret hand
years left behind
years never to re-find
and what I feel real stays
in our hearts and our mind
is just nights serene and filled with moonlight
in cinemas playing under night sky
sweetly passing by
nights never to re-find
in walls of jasmine and woodbine
Mihalis:-Well, who would ever imagine that tragic metaphors in songs of the ’70s would now
sound like absolutely literal and quite everyday stuff. Let’s see how the Greek answer to
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“Staircase to heaven” of those days, of our dads’ youth, feels when heard again today. We
dedicate it to Mitropanos, who died some days ago beloved by us all and admired by us all in
his stance against cancer during the last few years, singing it at the side of its poet and
composer Tournas who is also doing the electric solos etc.
Greek Rock
Lyrics: Kostas Tournas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ape1Nip_v74
Like crucified and all around you there are Romans
Laughing and giggling and discussing split and share
You sharing thirst with all those crowds of thirsty youngsters
And seeing your life now being played in cards and bets
Like crucified on dancing floor you now stand hanging
With your hands nailed you are now beating air and winds
Only your heart endures and keeps you straight and standing
A resurrection is what that heart now hopes and needs
Greek rock is to be danced like a zeimbekiko
it’s to be danced when crucified in empty space
staircase of ours, heavens of ours, our steps and pace.
Like crucified upon a cross seen by no others
You reel and stagger but obey a rhythm inside
And you have guardians sent by bosses out to check out
That you have vinegar not water within sight
staircase of ours, heavens of ours, our steps and pace.
and singing this to you was destined as my fate
Note: The italics in the next few pages were only posted on some sites*, not played on the
school stage
*(for one in English see 1st pdf of www.MediterraneanBalconyNews.info )
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Mihalis:-Feeling sad? As a recipe that works in sending the blues away, somewhat, let’s
remember a good old recipe of the good older generation. We all have had some math teacher
at some point who, when hearing us complain that an exercise seemed hard, answered “Oh,
let me give you another one too, that will sure make the exercise you mean seem easy”. Let’s
try that cure here too,by singing another song too. You all know the melody, the lyrics are in
the subtitles.
He sings along with Savvopoulos and the other kids, sitting on the floor of the stage playing
audience, also join singing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJyh_dHQz8w
Don’t, don’t say that
our old pals and friends,
don’t say that,
are gone forever.
Don’t, by now I’ve learned quite well
the old books, the old songs,
don’t say that,
are gone forever.
Past are all the days,
days that pained and hurt us,
past they are.
They’ve become toys in the hands of small kids.
Life goes on and changes, caring not to wonder
about your blues
and there comes the moment for you to make your mind
with whom you’ll be walking, and whom you’ll leave behind.
Past and gone forever
the old thoughts, the old loves
all the shouts.
They’ve become toys in the hands of small kids.
Beautiful is this moment, let me say that again, beautiful
for me to talk to you
I see fires burning
burning over harbors, burning over stations
and I am with you.
In the next stanza only Mihalis and Savvopoulos are heard
When our world will be burning
When the bridges will be falling behind us
I will be there to remind you
The days that used to be.
Mihalis:-You sure meant something when letting me sing this with only myself at the side of
playback, eh?
Angeliki (still sitting as spectator):-Of course: You played older generation, right? So you are
the one to tell us about the days that used to be. Fair enough?
Mihalis:-Oh! I thought you disagreeed with the method of using a sadder song as cure from a
sad one.
Thomas, Panagiotis and Panos jump up for the floor and approach Mihalis
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Panagiotis:-Of course we disagree… Panos:-… and have a better way…Johnny:-…well
known in our generation…Thomas:-Using tools-for-all season for our season,so-to-speak …
Mihalis:- …By tools you mean jokes of related topic?
Johnny:-Like in good old days, as old as ancient tragedies, when in order not to leave the
audience go back home depressed after each tragic trilogy there had to be a short comedy of
related topic, for example after “Prometheus fire bearer”, “Prometheus bound”,
“Prometheus unbound” there was a “ Prometheus inadvertent arsonist” or something like
that…
Panagiotis:-An all Europe tournament between winners of a TV competition in their own
countries is organized. Contestants are supposed to wash a shirt, eat a loaf of bread and
make love to a beautiful woman, all this in five minutes and in front of TV cameras
broadcasting it live all over Europe.First enters the German who says “In my country we
have a saying going like “First the work, then a good meal then the fun” ” So he washes the
shirt, loses and leaves.Then enters the British who says “In my country we have a saying
going like “First a good meal, then the work, then the fun” ” So he eats the loaf, loses and
leaves.Then comes the French saying “In our country we first make love…” but he says it in
so many words that he does not do any of the three tasks, so he loses and also leaves. Then
comes the Greek who says to the girl “Let’s kneel and do it dog-style so that you’re washing
the shirt while I’ll be eating the loaf as we’re doing it”.The other guys are impressed by his
solution and afterwards ask him how it ever occurred to him. “In my country we have a
saying going like “If you don’t fuck over the working class you can’t eat dough” ”…You
really think I should explain?
Mihalis:- Well, I don’t feel I need to ask why this joke’s point relates to the current news…
Panos:-A street-cleaner goes to bed early, he has to get up at 3 in the morning, when from the
apartment next door he hears loud saxophone playing. He gets up, goes there and says to the
new tenant who is playing “Sorry sir! But everybody here respects my schedule. Please, don’t
keep me awake” “Don’t worry, sir. It’s the last rehearsal; tomorrow I’m playing in the rock
concert” “OK, go ahead then” Next night however the sax’s sounds are heard again. The
street cleaner again asks the player to stop it: “Don’t worry, sir. It’s the last rehearsal;
tomorrow I’m playing in the rock concert. Yesterday it was raining, rock concerts are in the
open, so it was postponed” “Oh yes, I forgot, of course they’re in the open”. Same thing, with
another excuse, happens after next night too. The night after next the player hears no knock
on his door and concludes the street cleaner at last got the message and moved to another
house. To check he goes next door to see signs of his having moved out and sees , as a first
good sign, the door half open, he approaches to see if furniture is all removed but instead he
finds all furniture in place and the street-cleaner in the middle of the room, masturbating
“Sorry, sir” “Don’t worry, sir. It’s the last rehearsal; tomorrow I’m fucking you”…
Mihalis:-With indignation movements ongoing all around the world…OK, don’t explain…
Johnny:-An airhostess is walking in the aisle when she hears a parrot sitting next to a guy
telling her “Hey, you shithead, fix me a cup of coffeee” All red and trembling out of sudden
enervation she says to the guy “Did you hear how he spoke to me?” “That was correct, you
shithead. Fix him a cup of coffee” She cannot believe her ears , she goes to the kitchenette to
compose herself and thinking back to it she worries more about the possibility it did not
happen and that it all was a hallucination from altitude or whatever, she goes back to check
and she hears the parrot say to her “Where’s my coffee, you shithead” “Sir! You heard that,
didn’t you?” The guy parrots the parrot and says “Where’s his coffee, you shithead?” All in
tears she goes and tells the pilot in the cockpit, who, red with anger for both the outrageous
insult to her , and to himself– as he considers the flight as HIS flight and the airhostess as
HIS airhostess–comes and says to the guy “Shut your bird’s mouth or I’ll throw both of you
right out of my plane” The parrot says “Don’t break my balls , you jerk” The parrot’s
admirer–
he’s not his owner but just an admiring passenger who happened to be sitting by– repeats
“Don’t break our balls, you jerk” The pilot opens the plane’s door and throws both of them
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out. When in the air the parrot asks the guy “Can you fly?” “No I don’t” “Then why do you
play tough. You can’t afford it”…
Mihalis:-Now how does that relate?...Oh! Oh! You mean the campaign saying that some
things can only be afforded by bosses, the rest will be destroyed if they even think of imitating
them, and that we are like this idiot parrot of parrot admiring the asshole parrot’s toughness
and imitating it? …I see. Thomas may I interpolate a joke that has just occurred to me, or
there’s a connection between your joke and Johnny’s that must not be broken?
Thomas:-No problem; go ahead.
Mihalis:- Once upon a time there was a non conformist swallow who, when all other
swallows left on their yearly migration towards south, chose to remain where it was. Soon
cold came and realizing its mistake it started flying south but frost and ice formed on its
wings and unable to fly it fell on the ground, right in a barn. A passing cow crapped on it and
it felt it was the end , but the manure helped melt the ice and soon it could again move its
wings and happy it started chirping. A passing cat heard the chirping, approached, took our
swallow out of the shit and promptly ate it. Moral of the story:1)People who give you shit do
not necessarily mean to harm you 2)People who get you out of shit do not necessarily mean to
save you and, most important, 3) If you feel nice and comfortable under a pile of shit keep
your mouth shut…This used to be a poster in English with the title “Story with a moral”,
when my dad was about our age. But its point seems to last forever. Thomas thank you, now
go ahead.
Thomas:-A skeleton rattling in his grave is bored to death, or rather to more than even that,
eternity feels too long a time to kill with standard time killing methods, and anyway he
doesn’t have a TV etc, suddenly an idea dawns on him, and idea for how he can play such a
prank on the living that will scare them to death and make them like himself. The idea comes
from remembering a poster of the campaign against smoking in which a skeleton’s arm was
holding a lighter under a cigarette that someone was ready to smoke. So he thinks to himself
that if a full skeleton , not just a skeleton’s arm, offers a cigarette to a smoker then the
smoker will realize he’s soon going to be like him and will be scared to death. So the skeleton
gets out of the cemetery one dark night at a late hour and goes to a neaby music bar for
smokers to watch for some lonely smoker coming out that late. An easy going chain smoker
comes out to enjoy some more of the night by walking and smoking, the skeleton follows him
trying not to rattle, until the smoker throws a first butt, after lighting with it the next cigarette,
the skeleton pick the butt and inhales, then, rattling, he touches from behind the guy’s
shoulder with his finger-bone, the guy turns and the skeleton blows to his face the smoke he
inhaled. The guy looks at him calmly from head to toes and tells him: “Why do you smoke,
you idiot? Don’t you see what you have become like?”….
Mihalis:-Concerning the relation to the current news, you mean…
Thomas:-Yes, of course! That’s what I mean. We don’t run the danger of ever becoming like
the golden zombie boys who try to scare us to death! Don’t they see what they’ve been
reduced to?
Mihalis:-Johnny, I have the feeling you would add some remark right before all this?
Johnny:-Yes but now it fits even better. Wait a minute, I need a link to make that point, that also
relates to Thomas’ joke…(He goes and sits next to Suzy at the laptop.) …Later I’ll make the following
lyrics into subtitles and I’ll also insert scenes from the squares all around the world, especially US’s
occupy movement, and also Europe and even more especially Spain whose indignados prompted
Greece’s wishing Greeks a good awakening from their sleep, and from Argentina too, of course, since
we all have heard about De la Rúa fleeing from another rooftop by helicopter. For the time being see
the following lyrics dedicated to the international Golden zombie elite, who make money by
considering as life their sitting in front of a computer screen and speculating and betting. See the
lyrics and then imagine them being sung in the melody of the soundtrack you’ll hear from a
demonstration at the Constitution Square in front of the Parliament that we already saw in the burning
city video a while ago. Out of the scenes from Greece’s squares I’ll of course remember not to delete
the opening line we’ll see on the back of the jacket of the kid on his dad’s shoulders going like “Greece
belongs to her children”. I must also mention that this song is just paraphrase of the lyrics of an old
song after the ousting of a king from Greece…
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABIO8OByHFw&feature=related
In case we have enough of future generations
historians scratching their wise heads will think which nations
had people free as birds to save some of life’s graces
that now a bunch of farting trash and scum disgraces,
had people free as air to save some of life’s graces
that now a bunch of farting trash and scum disgraces.
Where I find some boys and girls, both in Europe and US?
who could now sit down and reason how to try for high treason
those whose life is made of pixels and kill just like tearing pictures,
who could now sit down and reason how to try for high treason
those whose life is made of pixels and kill just like tearing pictures.
It doesn’t make you a bad person or an asshole
it doesn’t make you a violator of the Bible
if you just spend some time to think what just befits them
what kind of laws exist that can and should just reach them,
if you just spend some time to think what just befits them
what kind of laws exist that can and should just reach them.
t’doesn’t make you a cruel man if for their due punishment
they get screens and voltage power and live there their every hour
it’s a difference they won’t notice in their hearts and in their bodies,
they get screens and voltage power and live there their every hour
it’s a difference they won’t notice in their hearts and in their bodies.
It isn’t curious those who fuck all life and dump her
just live as if she had no grace for them to love her
so don’t just wonder and don’t sit around like suckers
dump assholes, jerkoffs, shitheads, shithearts, motherfuckers,
so don’t just wonder and don’t sit around like suckers
dump assholes, jerkoffs, shitheads, shithearts, motherfuckers.
Life belongs to those who need it if you don’t, just split and beat it
leave our life alone we use it, just go virtual if you choose it
give no shit and just don’t bother get some screens and choose each other,
leave our life alone we use it, just go virtual if you choose it
give no shit and just don’t bother get some screens and choose each other.
Mihalis:-Of course, how come I hadn’t noticed the answer to my question that I really knew
since it’s not only about the same events but also in the same melody…(He goes next to Suzy and
Johnny at the laptop and, standing, he plays the following link ) …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyTPhhty6Ys&feature=related)
Mihalis plays a little of this link (=The comedian Lakis is singing it in a paraphrase relating to the ousting, (but not
real but only hoped and wished for) of the present Greek government
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Angeliki:
They made an outdoors theater of length some fifty full yards,
that could well work just in a place not bigger than most schoolyards.
Stella:
The stooges of the Parliament were hoping and were arguing,
but assholes whom they helped survive felt all was terrifying.
Elias:
While in their Parliament they hid, they still are trying to figure,
how when and who had them all fucked by cocks smaller or bigger.
Panos:
Instead of molotof cocktails the masked held torches flaming,
their other hand holding their cocks helped by their torch in aiming.
Thomas:
And while the assholes feared they’d have as penalty fair hanging,
the fans of Zoro, playing fair, gave assholes’ asses banging.
Konstandina:
And then the assholes realized that if they wanted sparing,(Konstandina pauses. Mihalis jumps next to her)
Mihalis
they’d have to plead to enter jails to save their asses’ baring (he smiles obligingly after the last 2 words)
Stella:
And thus they promptly helped to spot the loot in fancy hideouts,
tax paradises and offshores, exotic whereabouts.
Panagiotis:
Such eras have such happy ends, passing through days of jitters,
next time let’s try to guard our ass from our frauds and cheaters.
Suzy:-Dear audience we sure know what you’ve all been wondering about: If this can be sung
in the melody of the Excalibur song of our carefree childhood, where cares and worries could
be left behind, in the hearts and minds of Arthurs, Lancelots, Gallahands and Robin Hoods.
Let’s hear it again and imagine the performers singing the song we heard, not the song they
sing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD3VsesSBsw&feature=related
Suzy plays it a little and then stops it but the girls tell her to keep it a little longer, then nod to her they’re ready
Suzy:-OK, final crash test. Can it work? All it takes is to have 15 syllables in each verse in
both songs
During the whole song below all the students remain stiff and inflexible as if they’re doing some very important
performance, as serious as the singers of the link. They also have their pages in similar positions in front of them
and turn page simultaneously and with an absolutely similar movement as musicians of classical music often do
They made an outdoors theater of length some fifty full yards,
that could well work just in a place not bigger than most schoolyards.
The stooges of the Parliament were hoping and were arguing,
but assholes whom they helped survive felt all was terrifying.
While in their Parliament they hid, they still are trying to figure,
how when and who had them all fucked by cocks smaller or bigger.
Instead of molotof cocktails the masked held torches flaming,
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their other hand holding their cocks helped by their torch in aiming.
And while the assholes feared they’d have as penalty fair hanging,
the fans of Zoro, playing fair, gave assholes’ asses banging.
And then the assholes realized that if they wanted sparing,
they’d have to plead to enter jails to save their asses’ baring.
And thus they promptly helped to spot the loot in fancy hideouts,
tax paradises and offshores, exotic whereabouts.
Such eras have such happy ends, passing through days of jitters,
next time let’s try to guard our ass from our frauds and cheaters.
Suzy:-We see that some Greeks have one way to send, through theater, to court the people
that the politicians available for election by other Greeks don’t send to court. We wish all
other peoples in the world too to find, like us, such a way to send to court their own frauds
and cheaters.
Mihalis (rap-like) :-Looks like only yogurt but smarts as you heard what/looks like you
heard what but feels like real go-court, I mean like real court, not like some virtual court.
Johnny:And we hope all peoples do realize that the same Greeks do send a bill to themselves
to pay for the debts that politicians and clientele in mutual corruption created for the rest of
them. It’s an overdue fee for not watching assholes and thus not guarding their asses.
Suzy:-But this fee, or even call it penalty, even if it’s itself big and uncomfortable, or even
lethal, and really due, is of course not equal to the debt created by the interest rate charged by
corruption inherent in financial speculation itself and by mutual corruption of markets and
the so far available governments.
Johnny:-Deep down all non assholes witnessing this rehearsal know we’re right and are
already thinking about how to implement in their case the inspiration we’re giving them and
about how to advise us how to implement some ideas they have on similar issues. Above all,
giving advice towards the issue of how to make available to ourselves third alternatives
beyond the checkmate of the now available bipartisan option.
Suzy:-Mutual inspiration is both enthusiastically and gratefully welcome. Same goes for any
advising. But let’s finish with the solidarity expression received here most gratefully than all.
The Spanish rock written for our compatriot pensioner Dimitris Hristoulas after his public
suicide in the square in front of the Parliament.
Johnny:-Syntagma square or Constitution square, that old timers may relate with quite
different memories
Suzy:-And teenagers like us with only childhood memories of feeding the pigeons there…
But before listening to it while seeing its video and the translation of its lyrics let’s say in
prose its rationale as written down by the suicide himself and as commented by the blogger
who wrote the earliest and best obituary to him.
Suzy:-Yet not as presented by the representatives of the government they invite and by
journalists arguing like “He had the right to commit as many suicides as he wanted, but at
home not in public”, but as presented by a bloger, who, in summary, said: Dimitris paid his
landlady ahead of time telling her he would go to have some examinations in the hospital. So
he both had clarity and money, after all he was a pensioner pharmacist, he would not be
among the first in row to follow the people who have started looking for still edibles in the
dustbins. And his suicide note in his pocket was written with correct spelling and non erratic
handwriting so he had his cool. So he left “as if ready since quite some time” that morning to
go to that square and shoot himself under that tree from which he would leave applauded on
a stretcher.Keeping all that in mind let’s reread the note he left in his pocket along with his ID
Johnny:-More or less he says: Ι see no dynamic reaction from Greek youth. In a sense they
say that the previous generation has left them problems they’re not responsible for and they
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refuse to take on their responsibility, preferring to demand a hara-kiri from the responsible. In
case they demand a hara-kiri from a representative of the previous generation, here it is , let
them have mine. In case they insist on having the hara-kiri of the ones actively responsible
they’re idiots or cowards who look for alibis to postpone their active response. For a dynamic
response to have results it must first be made by strong and young people, and then they may
have casualties. But other people who join second, not first, may just happen to have
casualties first. Being one of the persons who would join second I do accept being a first
casualty. But there is no sense in being imitated in a suicide which is merely symbolic. The
next such casualty should not be suicidal. Let’s add that his daughter, a journalist, in his
funeral made a short speech ending with a paraphrase of Ritsos’ Epitaph verse on behalf of
the mother of a dead Mayday demonstrator going like“…my child now sleep, I take your
voice and join your brothers”into“...father now sleep, I take your voice and join my brothers”
Suzy:-The only way to put it better than that blogger is to sing it like the Spanish we’ll now
see in the “Song for Dimitris”, song famous upon birth, on its first day, or rather first hour,
first breath of existence. The reason why I haven’t checked if the Englsish subtitles are
singable to the melody of the Spanish original is that they are so luminous and so melodious
even upon reading silently, that I cannot really try to sing it. I shudder instead. I mean I
shudder from how moving it is, not from any horror.
http://eagainst.com/articles/ωδή-στον-δημήτρη-χριστούλα-από-ισπανί/
All kids , including Suzy and Johnny, go and sit on the floor and watch the screen.
At the end of the song they start applauding along with the grownups.
………………..……….
Konstandina:-Mihali, thanks for your intervention, I felt my blood freeze when I realized I
would have to say “they’d have to plead to enter jails to save …” Well, would you oblige me
once more by intervening again?
Mihalis:-…to save their asses’ baring
Konstandina:-How nice of you! Thank you.
Mihalis:-Anytime.
Angeliki:- Of course we too froze… Stella:-…when we realized we were heading for a
singing of all the verses together with the boys. Konstandina:-You bet I froze again, with no
intervention form Mihalis in sight but then…Angeliki:-The deus ex machena...
Stella:-…Suzy’s link explaining with what body language both us and the boys would repeat
all that, making it hilarious rather than shocking the second time
Konstandina:-Now that I think of it…Hmm…Mihali tell me something: had you and Johnny
at some point realized that this point would be quite problematic both for us and the audience,
and for the point of the play of course, and as a first thought for a solution you offered
yourself to prepare the vibes by saying the shocking joke for which I climbed the walls when
I thought you were even nearing?
Mihalis:-Yes.
Konstandina:-I appreciate it. We all are I guess. Thank you for that too.
Mihalis:-Phew! I was worrying you really thought I was an asshole. Thanks for thinking
twice. But don’t we all thank Suzy for the solution she gave through that link she placed
before the shocking song to tell us in what posture to play absorbed in our missions’
seriousness?
All (applauding): -YEEEEH!
Suzy:-But don’t we all have a déjà vue feeling about it?
Murmurs like: “Well….” “ Now that you mention it…”, “Let’s think a little”, “You have some hint?”
Suzy:-Haven’t we all seen someone doing all that parody of seriousness on his own account
without havin seen anything prior?
All (applauding): -LORYS!
Suzy:-Let’s see him again. Special offer to our guests tonight, Mrs Angela and Mr Alex, who
shouldn’t miss it. Mr Alex I don’t mention you first anymore because after tonight I feel you
like such a teenager that seniority has lost its meaning. So I just apply good old “ladies first”.
The following video has been taken in our school’s party just before Cristmas two years ago
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by the older sister of Mihalis, Andria, who was then graduating. The laughter you’ll hear
among the background laughs is hers. There we go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80bYaZcYP8s&feature=relmfu
General applause
Angela:- Marvellous! Absolutely marvelous!
Suzy:-Our headmaster at that time Mr Mihalis who is a lover of classical music, and of
Mozart in particular, got on the stage to kiss Lorys.
Alex:-Amazing. Please tell us more about Lorys.
Suzy:-He’ll tell you himself. This time without even opening his mouth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_pgsiwruRM
Angela:-Where’s Lory now? He has graduated, right? Otherwise he’d probably be here…
Alex:-Or rather he must have immigrated, otherwise he would be here even if he had
graduated.
Mihalis:-He has graduated and has gone back to Albany. His parents could not find jobs
after crisis. But please don’t disappoint us by showing any disappointment of the type “such
talents should be attracted to Greece” or I’ll have to send your just shown mind reading
abilities guess who among us here in this room come from Albany…
Alex:-No Mihalis, on the contrary I will mention to you the perfect line against that stupid
and disappointing mentality, a line I learned from my daughter almost twenty years ago when
she was a student and had seen it in a, believe it or not, lifestyle magazine. But then it was a
line about that mentality as applied to black people.The line was ironic towards a famous film
that was produced more than forty years ago, and in its own days was antiracist, but you see
as mentalities evolve one always has to re-evaluate them in their new background of news…
Angela:-You mean “Guess who’s coming to dinner”?
Alex:-Of course.
Angela:-Let me tell the kids what it was about and then tell us that line. I too am all ears.
OK, in that film a young woman was facing her parents’ objections to her marrying a black
man who was a university professor…
Mihalis:-OK Mr Alex, more or less we got the picture; and we don’t have to be mind readers
to even guess the line coming but drop it anyway…
Alex:-A reader was commenting in that lifestyle magazine corresondence column: “ Did you
say “Guess who’s coming to dinner”? O-oh, you mean that film which was making the point
that if you are black but are a brain surgeon, a professor of medicine at Harvard, and a
candidate for the Nobel prize, then you have no reason to feel inferior to an average white”.
All applaud
Mihalis:-We kind of expected it, or rather just felt it, but we would never put it in such great
form. You’re right, it was great!
Alex:-Well, I think you made a complete job. What’s left…
Suzy:-…Oh! Sorry,my mind flew to something else…
Well, some of the things we said were self-critical and disturbing to some of our fellow
citizens, some of the things we heard, were critical and upsetting to some of our fellow young,
especially towards the end. Our idols, the “free theater” actors who were playing in the park
across the street when out parents were young, used to play, near end, when self-mirroring
was particularly intense, a song going like “Don’t forget to forget us and don’t forget to
remember us”, but instead of playing this to you and to us, let’s, better, just apply it here and
now, first remembering to forget, by playing a fantastic piece of old rock, then not forgetting
to remind us all some new dimensions that old rock opens for us in our new days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLXR5WsHTWY
The kids hear it sitting on the floor but their motions, some hesitant some extreme (e.g. Mihalis’),
do show how agitated they are by the video. Then they all rise.
Johnny:-Before that parting song…
Suzy:-… Just how abrupt can you be? What you mean “parting”? You feel like finishing? I
don’t. Who does? Sorry, he does mean what we were saying about that old Beatles’ verse
“We’d love to take you home with us, we’d love to take you home” Oh, sorry! (looking to the
grownups ups on stage) To you roomates that just means “We’d love to stay at home with you
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we’d love to stay at home”. OK. So let’s do the traditional bow to you, and you the traditional
applause to us , so that we don’t interrupt the final song when it starts and then (looking to the
audience in front of the stage) let’s make the traditional bow to you and you the traditional
applause to us for the same non-interruption-of-a-song reason. Some songs at some points of
time are meant to only be sung and danced, not to be interrupted until we walk all the steps
down or up or out to the street.First to you…(they bow to the three grown ups, they applaud) Now
you come with us and bow to our other audience since you became part of the rehearsal on
stage …… The three rise, join the kids and turn to the audience, and all bow…..
Suzy:-OK, Johnny, now go on:
Johnny:-We hear from the previous generation that here some decades ago people who liked
to hear folk music of some classy style went to some restaurants that were quite expensive
and there only professional dancers danced, as show, on stage; maybe this was where the
term “princefolk dancing” applied. People who liked to dance themselves went to some less
expensive places with somewhat different vibes. And by some this music was called
“dogfolk dancing”. The next question was where the rock-lovers played besides rock
concerts and festivals, I mean how the rock musicians made a living in-between concerts. The
answer is that they played in dogfolk music joints, which somehow reminds the episode with
the Blues Brothers band playing for farmers and cowboys before the real country band was
after them too. To see where all this fits our days it suffices to see a few lyrics of a Greek
rocker’s song, Yokarinis’ song titled “Homesick for old rock” by just karaoke-singing it.
Then we’ll let ourselves to the whole song so that we all part (puts his hand over his mouth looking
at Suzy looking at him) singing it and dancing it. We thank our guitarist fellow student Vassilis
who not only told us about it and played it to us but also offered to play any rock we need.
Piano tunes are heard and the screen writes the following lyrics sung first by Mihalis then by other s who join
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grVUdSm278o
…I was told that rockers just don’t mix with dogfolk dancing
but if I was jobless all at home would just go fasting
so I got myself hired at a joint,
and when all the farmers left quite pleased with all our playing
we played to each other all our hits that they were hating
and the bouncers stood and missed the point.
Had been sanitized for just about a dozen years
in peroxidized conservatories withour beers
universe forgotten, classic piano bar,
had almost no studies in whatever up to here
only my heart’s urges did my brain and body hear
nothing catastrophic came to me so far.
Homesick for the old rock’n roll,
homesick for the old rock’n roll,
with a pinch of dogfolk music in the recipe,
takes a wind for old rock’n roll,
an oriental wind, for rock’n roll,
to drift back home and be danced on eccentric beat…
As the song is heard being heard the kids and the two women (and Suzy too after a while) start dancing but not
intensely, almost as if trying what kind of mild rock goes with it, Mihalis also start rocking while singing, when
the second stanza is reached Alex is agitated but dances it, at first as in trial, as a hasaposerviko, Johnny joins
him, Mihalis imitates them not leaving the microphone, the girls and the women seeing them try dancing
tsifteteli with it, and they realize it can work when the third stanza is reached, Mihalis imitates them too, while
Alex and Johnny , start rocking with the third
Johnny:-So how it can apply to our days is rather easy to conclude in a few easy steps.
Step 1: Playing music to a few interested listeners is fun. Step 2: Playing it free of charge and
in your own free time is no problem, even if that free time is after to 5 or 6 in the morning, or
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even after 8 in the morning, like rockers in dogfolk joints. Step 3: Your living-making job
does not have to be in music, at least if you already have your own instruments. Step 4:Your
fun making job doesn’t have to be in music either…
Mihalis:-…it can well be in rehearsals like the one we’re doing right now. Oh: I got the
point. Step 5: You don’t even have to be making a living, you don’t even have to live or at
least to eat. Did we eat before coming up here? No we just pretended we were unhappy that
we had to cancel the souvlakis that we would each buy to find a meeting place for us all to
discuss the pages, since most probably the waiter wouldn’t be happy with an order of one
souvlaki with 10 napkins and one coke with ten straws. Did we even have to drink water
while here? Good company and a subject of enriching discussion fills both hunger and
thirst, aren’t there some theologians who say that’s the way the five thousand listeners of
Christ didn’t notice they only had a tiny bite each out of those five fish and bread rolls of in
that miraculous picnic? Oh, let’s put at ease please our good hostess, Mrs Hellen. I didn’t
mean to embarass you, we will believe you saying you only forgot to bring from the
refrigerator the refreshments you had in it for all of us, we do know you only got carried
away watching our show and not wanting to miss a minute. We’re more thankful for that
honor than we would ever fucking be with those goddamn refreshments. Our thirst for
applause was far greater than our thirst for water, after all even before crisis so many
people never opened wiskey bottles gifted to them so as to gift them to others without buying
new ones, the only difference is that now we will do it even with cokes in the refrigerator, it’s
good they didn’t have the same bull-fucking-shit policy with gifted books the same as with
gifted whiskey bottles…
Johnny:-Excuse me for interrupting …
Mihalis:-…Be my guest.
…………………………………
PS to 1st act:
Note to reader: To make the selections from the original whole shorter by 100 page we skipped some
things. A reader that liked Mihalis’ interventions might enjoy the following links mentioned by
Mihalis quite a while ago in the full version at page 24 in the 1st pdf of www.MediterraneanBalconyNews.info:
…See what out friends in other nations are doing in solidarity.
Proof 1: From Spain our goading stimulus, we gratefully accept not only prompting but also
solidarity, some of it focused on our famous leader: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HPb46aK7hM
Proof 2 for the spreading of revolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FtPu4jEyf4,
…………………..
169
As some names (Suzy, Johnny, Angela. Alex, Helen) suggest some of the content of the other
acts of the “Rehearsal” overlapped pages on Glossa (e.g. we first saw these names in the
pages on Padre Alexis). Similarly later pages here might overlap the sequel of the “rehearsal”
even if no such names are involved*…
Como algunos nombres (Suzy, Johnny, Angela. Alex, Helen) sugieren algunos de los
contenidos de los otros actos de las páginas de "Ensayo" comprometido en Glossa (p. ej. en
primer lugar vimos estos nombres en las páginas en Padre Alexis). Asimismo páginas más
adelante aquí podrían superponerse la secuela del "ensayo" Aunque esos nombres no
participant*...
Not being a speaker of Spanish, the writer of the above does not have a first hand impression
of how accurate and understandable the robot translation of the above long excerpt from
“Rehersal of Greek School Event” will be, but he hopes that eventually some proper
translation, with the help of readers, will be included in the Spanish version of the bilingual
site that we outlined two pages before the start of the above comedy…
No siendo un hablante de español, el escritor lo anterior no tiene una primera impresión de
la mano de forma preciso y comprensible el robot será la traducción de la cita anterior de
larga de "Ensayo de evento de la escuela griega", pero espera que eventualmente alguna
traducción apropiada, con la ayuda de los lectores, se incluirán en la versión en español del
sitio bilingüe que delineamos dos páginas antes del comienzo de la comedia de arriba...
*It is easy to give an idea of what the other acts are about, if we just change the title “Rehearsal of
Greek school event” into the title of the third pdf we see in next page’s tentative index of a site’s front
page…
The revolution spreads North. From Germany, then Greece, then Spain,
indignado Johnny y indignada Suzy go Wall Street Occupy
* Es fácil dar una idea de lo que son los otros actos, si sólo cambiamos el título "Ensayo de evento de
la escuela griega" en el título del tercer pdf que vemos en el índice tentativo de la siguiente página de
portada de un sitio...
La revolucion se extiende del norte. Desde Alemania, después de Grecia, después de España,
Johnny indignado y Suzy indignada ir Wall Street Occupy.pdf
Now that we have seen more about what Hernán has seen about this endeavor we can repeat his
second letter after receiving the pdf titled “Three southerners of three little-differing generations in email conversation”. He answered:
Dear Ioannis: I have leafed everything as you had suggested. I think now I have a general idea of what
you are trying. I understand another pdf is coming and I am sure you will explain further your current
endeavors. I am very glad for your regaining your enthusiasm and passion, if you ever had lost it. I
know your call is education and teaching is exciting for all of us, I wish my command of literature was
better to participate with you and your new found teacher friends and students. Unfortunately now more
family problems require my full attention, I am leaving for South Carolina in a couple of days and I am
not sure when I will come back to New Mexico. When things are more settled here I shall write as
before. For now I shall be fast reading your communications but if I can be of any assistance I will be
glad to try. Say hello and give my love to Maria/Brother Hernán.
My own thankful answer was in the page before last in the first pdf).
Ahora que hemos visto más de lo que ha visto Hernán sobre este esfuerzo podemos repetir su segunda
carta después de recibir el pdf titulado a "Tres sureños de tres generaciones difieren poco en la
conversación de correo electrónico". Él respondió:
Ioannis estimado: he hojas todo como había sugerido. Creo que ahora tengo una idea general de lo que
buscan. Entiendo que viene otro pdf y estoy seguro que explicará más sus Actualidades. Estoy muy
contento para su recuperación, su entusiasmo y pasión, si alguna vez lo había perdido. Sé que su
llamada es Educación y enseñanza es emocionante para todos nosotros, deseo que mi comando de
literatura era mejor participar con usted y sus amigos de nuevo maestro y estudiantes.
Desafortunadamente ahora más problemas familiares requieren toda mi atención, me voy
para Carolina del sur en un par de días y no sé cuando volveré a nuevo México. Cuando las
cosas se resuelven más aquí escribiré como antes. Para ahora seré rápido leyendo sus
comunicaciones pero si puedo ser de ayuda estaré alegre intentar. Saludar y dar mi amor
a Maria/Hermano Hernán
(Mi propia respuesta agradecida a Hernán estaba en la página antes de último en el primer pdf).
170
www.MediterraneanBalconyNews.info
Put together by Yiannis Alevizos
Three southerners of three little-differing generations in e-mail conversation.pdf
Immediate continuation of the e-mail conversation of the three southerners we saw above.pdf
The revolution spreads North. From Germany, then Greece, then Spain,
indignado Johnny y indignada Suzy go Wall Street Occupy
(with with warm-up at virtual bus-stop at Mount Bushmore).pdf
www.BalcónMediterráneoNews.info
Photo from Murcia
Photo from Murcia
“I feel this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”
(Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca”)
“Creo que este es el comienzo de una bella amistad”
(Humphrey Bogart en “Casablanca”)
Tres sureños de tres generaciones diferentes poco en la conversación de correo electronic.pdf
Continuación inmediata de la conversación de correo electrónico de los tres sudistas vimos arriba.pdf
La revolucion se extiende del norte. Desde Alemania, después de Grecia, después de España,
Johnny indignado y Suzy indignada ir Wall Street Occupy
(con calentamiento en virtual-parada de autobús en Monte Bushmore).pdf
171
Before going to respond to Hernán’s,
Hernán’s, and other possible, objections as we promised and before going
to present Aristides’ very supportive letters, it would help to read the following two parts of Aristides’
answers:
Dear friend:
rest assured that today Skopelos, your island, has a place of honor in my
soul. And I will try to convince my wife …, to spend some of our vacation there. She loves the
Aegean and its color is recorded in her eyes.
Give me a little time to go reading and savoring all the material you sent
me, songs included, as I am very slow and scattered. Now I absorb exams and preparing for
the trip to Athens.
And you know where you have a guide who will take one day to visit Granada and traces
of Federico GarcíaLorca.
Querido amigo: tened por seguro que hoy Skopelos, su isla, tiene un lugar de
honor en mi alma. Y voy a intentar convencer a mi esposa
esposa (ella está pagando),
gastar parte de nuestras vacaciones allí. Le encanta el mar Egeo y su isrecorded
de color en sus ojos. Me da un poco de tiempo para ir leyendo y saboreando todo
el material que me enviaste, canciones incluidas, ya que soy muy lent
lento y
disperso. Ahora absorben los exámenes y la preparación para el viaje a Atenas.
¿Y sabes donde tienes un guía que tendrá un día para visitar Granada y rastros
de Federico GarcíaLorca. Con cariño
Fondly
Dear Ioannis, here you are my two first articles in "LA COLUMNATA". Here you are myself.
Thanks a lot (from Aristides’ robot
r
translator)
Estimado Ioannis, aquí están mis dos primeros artículos en \"LA
"LA COLUMNATA
COLUMNATA\".
Aquí Ud. mismo. Muchas gracias (from Yiannis’ robot translator)
Menis (from Aristides’ robot
r
translator)
Menin áeide, Zea. So begins the first literary monument of Western culture: the Iliad. "The
wrath sing, goddess".Menis. Anger, which subjugates Achilles to rebel against an abuse of
power by his master, the king of kings, Agamemnon. The anger at the lawlessness of the
autocrat, who leads the Greeks countless sorrows and sent to Hades to magnos heroes.
Homer. Always Homer. Forgotten, if not unknown. Despised by those who fear the verses
of a poor blind. His words can sting
sting the souls of those who still have them awake. Verses that
have built empires, spurred consciences, railed against the injustices and given voice to the
men against the arbitrariness of gods and lords.
Menis. In a country where most values "who you are" that "what you do", where being
"friend or relative" account for more than what you're worth. Where the best among public
officials come as much ADG and, above it, from CEO to Minister, can have an illiterate, just
because it is the Party.
Menis. Fair. In a country where, in some cases, amnesty knowing who has gone against the
laws, while cutting wages and rights of those who have fulfilled their tax obligations
religiously. Where to get the feeling that justice distinguishes between different statu
status, where
they seem to grease its balance of a frock coat and put ethics by storm.
Menis. In a country where many of those who live by the policy think beyond good and evil
and see the nation as his private farmhouse, filled with perks to whom he is rela
related, however
spurious interests that move. And, to the shame of the good people, they keep voting despite
being charged. Where is primed for a herd of careerists and golfantes just to satisfy the greed
of some managers of public affairs.
Menis. In a country
ntry where anyone fulero when you hold an official position, bullpen for his
mediocrity, he surrounds himself with the most gray among his people, to not overshadow his
intolerable mediocrity. And he thinks he has the right to place in the top positions, w
without
shame or censorship, relatives and friends.
Menis. Terrible. In a country where many of the transgressors, swindlers, speculators and
172
other similar ilk seem immune known and camping at your leisure. Where using the votes of
citizens to cut living standards and rights despise those who speak out against their
excesses. Where called "dog-flute" who rail against its indignities, forgetting that many prefer
to be "dog-flute" to "seagulls scavenging". Where, in what is supposed temple of Democracy
deputies applaud the government caucus, which ravenous vultures, the guadañazos who
have to suffer too many of those who gave their seats with their votes. Where, among the
flock raptor, a brat, deputy bounty only to be "daughter", dares to insult those who are going
to suffer his petulance.
Menis, always Menis. Refuge and the helpless ram, to some men who, in a display of
arrogance and impiety, they forsake the mercy of the plundering of the banks of the Rhine
and its allies, betraying their gods and their people.
Menin áeide, Zea. We need to awaken from their slumber Achilles.
AMONG MY BOOKS
"I do not mind the cry of the violent, corrupt, the dishonest, unethical of ... What worries me
most is the silence of good people ". Martin Luther King (1929-1968)
Odysseus, man. Homer, kissed by the
muse
Aristides Mínguez | October 31, 2012 | CULTURAL POLITICS »The den of the harpy»
The den of the shrew
Aristides Mínguez
Follow
............ "Andra moi Ennepe, Musa, polytropon ..." ("A man sing me to me, muse, struggled to
...").
If ............ 'meniscus' anger, Achilles, was the leitmotif of the Iliad, in his second epic, the
Odyssey, the muse of Homer sings through the 'andra', man. Odysseus, the wily, battered by
the gods. At countless misfortunes suffered while on his home turf, to Ithaca, after
participating in the greatest feat of his time: the annihilation of Troy by a coalition led by
Achaeans Agamemnon, king of Mycenae.
For ten long years ............ Odysseus was fighting against the impregnable walls of
Troy. Walls that were dying the cream of youth helena: Hector, tamer of horses, Achilles, swift
of foot, the handsome Paris. Walls that could only be taken with a decoy, designed
specifically for him: the Trojan horse, pregnant with warriors hidden in its bowels.
............ The Odyssey. Twenty-four songs. Twelve thousand verses. Composed according to
tradition in a Greek island in the Aegean, Chios, very close to the Turkish coast. Conceived
by a blind bard, who wore hamlet village in the palaces of the nobles and the slums of villains
the language of the gods. Homer, the bard. The kissed by the Muses.
Scholars ............ not agree on their real existence or the authorship of the two great Homeric
epics. Not important. Those who love their verses are convinced that existed and that it was
just as Bouguereau painted in 1874: frisando senescence, graying hair collected with a white
ribbon, eyes closed to share with us their blindness, some still in their skin smoothness , his
lyre slung across his back. Holds a cane in his right hand. The other hand is the trusts to his
guide, an Adonis of curly hair. Both are barefoot and are indifferent to them barking dog.
Homer ............, who sculpted lines that spread immortality to those who read. Homer, who
from his native island threw his hexameters throughout the Mediterranean. Homer, who, in a
sublime gesture of humility, credited with composing his work to the goddess, Calliope, the
beautiful voice of the muse who looks after the epic poets. He admits only an instrument of
the goddess to distribute to the human race the adventures of Odysseus.
And ............ the sound of his lyre sang by the Aegean cherished landscapes twelve thousand
hexameters. For almost five hundred years passed from mouth to mouth. The bards of the
time, aware of being bearers of a gift from the gods watched over their preservation and
transmission until, at last, were collected in writing.
173
............ All in the Odyssey. Like its twin, the Iliad, begins 'in medias res', the middle of the
action. It starts with the invocation of the muse and a brief presentation of the argument,
which has not yet given us the name of the hero, but that of his homeland: Ithaca. It depicts
the gods in council on Olympus. Through his words, we know that Odysseus (who was first
mentioned in verse twenty-one) is a captive of the goddess Calypso, "divine among
goddesses". Zeus, supreme ruler of the Olympians, Poseidon uses his brother is away to
convince the assembly that force Calypso to release Odysseus. I seconded his daughter
Athena, the main hero Valedora.
In a leap ............ narrative worthy of the best film, the action is suspended and moved to
Ithaca to know the sufferings of Penelope and Telemachus, Odysseus' wife and son, beset by
the demands of the suitors. Left for dead King, Penelope pressuring him not to save over the
absence and marry one of them, so that it can bind the crown. Telemachus, twenties, hardly
supports the siege of the plaintiffs, who are devouring the royal treasury.Athena, disguised in
the prince's tutor, who persuaded him to proceed to sea in search of news of his father. For
three more songs Telemachia occurs, the adventures of the young by Pylos and Sparta
inquiring about the hero.The fourth canto concludes with the preparation of an ambush by the
suitors to kill the heir to his return home.
Another jump ............ masterful narrative, the Chios leads to Olympus. Zeus Hermes instructs
his son to move to the island of Calypso and Odysseus instructed to relieve. Finally, in the
fifth canto, we come face to face with him, with Ulises Roman captive in prison of love, but a
captive of the goddess. This is reluctant to let him go and gives immortality and eternal youth
if he stays with her. Odysseus Penelope confesses he can not compare with her beauty, that
mortal knows the aches and dam time. But he sighs every day dreaming of returning to their
parts.Calipso, touched, helps you build a raft.
Ulysses ............ which again has to suffer the wrath of Poseidon, and shipwrecks, sweeps of
the Phaeacians, where it is Nausicaa, Princess, and it leads to the palace of his father, who
entertains without forcing themselves known. Odysseus prefers to be cautious not knowing if
you are in friendly territory or hostile to the Achaeans. So silent about his identity. Alcinous,
King feacio, true to the custom Mediterranean, considered a duty to the gods hospitality to
wayfarers. Entertains therefore its host.
Odysseus ............, excited to hear of a bard's account of the fall of Troy, decides to make
themselves known to the court and tells his prodigious adventures: his departure from Troy
with nine ships, their forays into territories and Cicones Lotus Eaters, the island of the
Cyclops, Polyphemus devoured where several of his men and only managed to escape by
blinding the Cyclops, which would bring the rancor monster father, Poseidon, to the king of
Ithaca and his warriors, the island of Laestrygonians, giant cannibals who devoured much of
his companions stay in the tents of the sorceress Circe, who became his warriors pigs love
with the hero and ended, his descent into Hell in seeking help to return home, where it was
found, among others, to his mother's adventures dodging the dangers of the Sirens, the
terrifying Scylla and Charybdis, up to the loss of all his remaining men, for having disobeyed
and offending the god Aeolus eating their cows.
Another masterful ............ leap in time, Homer takes us back to the present. The Phaeacians
take Odysseus to Ithaca, which again shows signs of intelligence not giving, knowing that he
would be killed by would see him return to his crown alone. The goddess Athena helps him
again and becomes a beggar. Witnessing excited to meet her son Telemachus, who has
escaped the ambush of the suitors. We mourn with Odysseus, son of Laertes, to see how his
old dog Argos, twenty years, even dressed beggar recognizes and dies happy for the return
of his master.We suffer the indignities that plague the usurpers, watering our desire for
revenge. We mourn with Euryclea reunion with his old nurse, who recognizes him, to wash
his feet, by a scar. We attended the trial of the arc and the slaughter of the suitors, once
recovered her figure. We embrace the soul hanging in the balance Penelope, cherish the bed
on which he carved an olive ...
Odysseus ............. Ulysses. Your best weapon, the 'metis'. The cunning. Unlike Achilles,
dosing knew his 'meniscus', his anger, and leave well at the right times. But, when surfaced,
was terrible, merciless.
............ All in the Odyssey. Everything we sang a blind 2700 years ago. The struggle of a
man to reach his destination, but had to rebel against the gods and being persecuted
viciously by one of them. The camaraderie, entertainment, gifts and divine obligation. The
man who, even letting themselves be loved by two goddesses eternally young and infinitely
more beautiful than his Penelope, renounces them. Resignation even become immortal again
174
embrace his wife, despite knowing stroking old age. The man who, while being unfaithful to
his wife, he is faithful. That is true to himself, to what for him is Ithaca. For any delicacy which
is comparable to that produced their goats cheese or coarse bread to bake their slaves.
............ Odysseus, the man, who falls in the realm of the living dead. The man who has to die
to revive more humane. The man who taunts Polyphemus called into believing Oudeis,
Nobody, Nemo. The man who remains intact in adversity. Facing cyclops, sirens, and even
gods Laestrygonians. The man who is twice wrecked by the wrath of a god and is assisted by
other men. The man who has lost all his companions, giving up all their loot to find himself at
home. That has no mercy for the suitors, which crows have eaten their pantries, outraged his
family and servants, but grieves to be recognized for its Argos.
Happy is he who leave ............ navigate their eyes by the verses of Chios. Blessed the one
who can read Greek savoring his music. Lucky him who, as Konstantinos did Cavafy, another
kissed by the Muses, could understand the true meaning of the immortal verses and pick a
poem also eternal:
............ "When you set out on your journey to Ithaca / must pray that the road is long, / full of
adventure, full of discovery. / Thou shalt not fear nor the Laestrygonians or Cyclops, / or the
wrath of angry Poseidon. / Never find such monsters in your path / if your thought is lofty, if a
fine / emotion enters your soul and your body. / The Laestrygonians and the Cyclops /
Poseidon fierce and can not find / if you do not carry as inside, in your soul, / if your soul does
not plot against you. / You must pray that the road is long, / to be many summer days; / being
seen arriving joyfully, cheerfully, / to ports that you ignored them before. / May you stop at
Phoenician markets, / and buy some fine merchandise: / pearl, coral, ebony, amber, / and
pleasant fragrance of a thousand classes. / Come to many cities of Egypt / to learn, and learn
from those who know. / Always keep in your soul the idea of Ithaca: / get there, here's your
destination. / But do not haste your way; / better it lasts for years, / and you get as old, to the
small island, / rich as you've gained on the way. / Thou shalt not expecting that Ithaca will
offer you riches: / Ithaca has given you as a beautiful trip. / Without them, you would never
have party; / but has nothing else to offer. / And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived
you. / And being so old, with so much experience, / no doubt already know what they mean
Ithacas ".
Poem ............ masterfully, also in communion with divinity as Homer, as Cavafy, musician
Lluís Llach in 1975.Ithaca, an island in the Ionian humble. Good only for grazing goats. It has
everything to make a man feel, at last, at peace with the gods.
Without the Odyssey ............ there would be no epics. Cervantes could not have written the
Quixote. Tolkien could have charmed us with his trilogy of The Lord of the Rings.
............ Oh, my good Homer, blessed be the day that you were kissed by the muse.
(Los artículos a continuación no son de un traductor del robot ya que (= Yiannis)
sólo fue en google y encontró los originales
The articles below are not from a robot translator since I (=Yiannis) just went on google and
found the originals)
175
Ménis
Arístides Mínguez | agosto 3, 2012 | POLÍTICA, ECONOMÍA Y SOCIEDAD » El
antro de la arpía »
El antro de la arpía
Arístides Mínguez
Últimas columnas del autor:





Preguntas engripadas
Gracias, Grecia
Historia de un maestro
Por mis alumnos
Por lo menos, unos sinvergüenzas
…………“Ménin áeide, zeá”. Así comienza el primer monumento literario
de la cultura occidental: LaIlíada. “La cólera canta, diosa”. ‘Ménis’, la
cólera, que subyuga a Aquiles al rebelarse ante un abuso de autoridad por
parte de su señor, el rey de reyes, Agamenón. La ira ante la iniquidad del
autócrata, que acarrea pesares innúmeros a los griegos y envía al Hades a
magnos héroes. Homero, siempre Homero. Olvidado, cuando no
desconocido; menospreciado por los que temen los versos de un pobre
ciego. Sus palabras pueden aguijonear las almas de los que aún las tienen
despiertas. Versos que han construido imperios, espoleado conciencias,
clamado contra las injusticias y dado voz a los hombres frente a las
arbitrariedades de dioses y señores.
…………‘Ménis’. En un país donde más se valora el “de quién eres” que el
“qué haces”, donde el ser “amigo o pariente de” cuenta más que lo que por ti
vales; donde el mejor de entre los funcionarios públicos llegará como mucho
a subdirector general y, por encima de él, desde director general hasta
ministro, puede tener a un analfabeto, tan sólo por ser del partido.
…………‘Ménis’. Justa. En un país donde, en algunos casos, se amnistía a
quien a sabiendas ha ido contra las leyes, mientras se recortan salarios y
derechos de quienes han cumplido religiosamente con sus obligaciones
tributarias; donde da la sensación de que la justicia distingue entre los de
distintos estatus, donde los que engrasan su balanza parecen hacer de su
176
capa un sayo y ponerse la ética por montera.
…………‘Ménis’. En un país donde muchos de los que viven de la política
se creen por encima del bien y del mal y ven a la nación como su cortijo
particular, llenando de prebendas a quienes les son afines, por muy espurios
intereses que los muevan. Y, para vergüenza de la gente de bien, se les sigue
votando a pesar de estar imputados; donde se ha cebado a una piara de
arribistas y golfantes tan sólo para saciar la codicia de algunos gestores de la
cosa pública.
…………‘Ménis’. En un país donde un fulero cualquiera, cuando ostenta un
cargo oficial, emporcado por su mediocridad, se rodea de lo más gris de
entre los suyos para que no hagan sombra a su intolerable medianía. Y se
cree con derecho a colocar en los mejores puestos, sin pudor ni censura
alguna, a familiares y allegados.
…………‘Ménis’. Terrible. En un país donde bastantes de los
prevaricadores, estafadores, especuladores y otra ralea semejante parecen
saberse inmunes y campar a su aire; donde los que usan los votos de los
ciudadanos para recortar condiciones de vida y derechos desprecian a los
que levantan la voz ante sus desafueros; donde llaman perroflautas a los que
claman contra sus indignidades, olvidando que muchos preferirán ser
perroflautas a gaviotas carroñeras; donde, en lo que se supone el templo de
la democracia, diputados de la bancada del gobierno aplauden, cual buitres
voraces, los guadañazos que han de sufrir también muchos de los que les
dieron su escaño con sus votos; donde, de entre esa bandada rapaz, una
niñata, diputada gracias tan sólo al ser “hija de”, se atreve a insultar a los
que vamos a sufrir su petulancia.
…………‘Ménis’, siempre ‘Ménis’. Refugio y ariete de los inermes, ante
unos señores que, en un alarde de prepotencia e impiedad, los desamparan a
merced de la rapiña de los de riberas del Rhin y sus aliados, traicionando a
177
sus dioses y a sus gentes.
…………‘Ménin
‘Ménin áeide, zeá’. Necesitamos despertar a los Aquiles de su
letargo.
Comentarios (9)
1.
Josef Bretones dice:
3 agosto, 2012 a las 10:04
Amén.
Responder
2.
José Antonio Mora Gil dice:
4 agosto, 2012 a las 10:58
Más bellamente dicho,imposible,y acertado.
Responder
o
Arístides Mínguez dice:
4 agosto, 2012 a las 11:08
Gracias por tus palabras, José Antonio, gracias por venerar como yo al
maestro Homero.
Responder
3.
Elena Fuentes Cara dice:
4 agosto, 2012 a las 11:49
Maravilloso artículo. Muestra el camino y la solución en la primera palabra
del mundo clásico. Nunca como ahora ha sido tan necesario recuperar las
palabras de la Antigüedad para desvelar las mentiras de éste. Maravilloso,
nítido, ilustrador. Enhorabuena.
Responder
4.
Alejandra. dice:
5 agosto, 2012 a las 0:22
178
Soberbio artículo y asombrosa la actualidad que tiene la primera palabra
griega escrita. ¿Qué más
ás necesitamos para que la peste que nos invade
despierte en nosotros la ira de Aquiles? Gracias Arístides.
Responder
o
5 agosto, 2012 a las 9:23
Gracias por vuestras palabras, Elena y Alejandra, sobre todo cuando los
que se las dan de Apolo nos mandan sus flechas envenenadas. Menos mal
que nos queda la épica, ahora que nos obligan a enterrar la lírica.
Responder
5.
Marci dice:
8 agosto, 2012 a las 22:51
Sublime en contenido y forma
Responder
6.
Angel dice:
14 octubre, 2012 a las 15:31
Hace falta eso que pides. Y ojalá los Aquiles despierten pronto.
Responder
7.
18 octubre, 2012 a las 13:08
Aquiles duerme en nosotros.
Responder
179
Odiseo, el hombre. Homero, el besado por la
musa
Arístides Mínguez | octubre 31, 2012 | MISCELÁNEA CULTURAL » El antro de la
arpía »
El antro de la arpía
Arístides Mínguez
Últimas columnas del autor:





Preguntas engripadas
Gracias, Grecia
Historia de un maestro
Por mis alumnos
Por lo menos, unos sinvergüenzas
…………“Andra moi ennepe, Musa, polytropon…” (“Al hombre cántame a
mí, musa, al bregado…”).
…………Si ‘menis’, la ira, la de Aquiles, era el ‘leitmotiv’ de la Ilíada, en
su segunda epopeya, la Odisea, la musa canta a través de Homero al ‘andra’,
al hombre. A Odiseo, al taimado, al baqueteado por los dioses. Al que sufrió
incontables desventuras cuando regresaba a su terruño natal, a Ítaca, tras
participar en la mayor gesta de su época: la aniquilación de Troya por una
coalición de aqueos comandada por Agamenón, rey de Micenas.
…………Durante diez interminables años estuvo Odiseo combatiendo ante
los inexpugnables muros de Ilión. Muros que vieron morir a lo más granado
de la juventud helena: a Héctor, el domador de caballos, a Aquiles, de pies
ligeros, al apuesto Paris. Muros que sólo pudieron ser tomados con una
añagaza, ideada precisamente por él: el caballo de Troya, preñado de
guerreros ocultos en sus entrañas.
…………La Odisea. Veinticuatro cantos. Doce mil versos. Compuesta
según quiere la tradición en una isla griega del Egeo, Quíos, muy cercana a
la costa turca. Concebida por un rapsoda ciego, que de villorrio en villorrio
llevaba a los palacios de los nobles y a los tugurios de los villanos la lengua
de los dioses. Homero, el Aedo. El besado por las musas.
…………Los eruditos no se ponen de acuerdo sobre su existencia real ni
sobre la autoría de las dos grandes epopeyas homéricas. No tiene mayor
importancia. Los que amamos sus versos estamos convencidos de que
existió y que era tal y como lo pintara Bouguerau en 1874: frisando la
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senectud, cabellos entrecanos recogidos con una cinta blanca, ojos cerrados
para
compartir con nosotros su ceguera, algo de
tersura aún en su piel, su lira colgada a la espalda. Aferra un bastón con la
diestra. La otra mano se la confía a su lazarillo, un efebo de crespos
cabellos. Ambos van descalzos y se muestran indiferentes al perro que les
ladra.
…………Homero, que esculpió versos que contagian la inmortalidad a
quienes los leen. Homero, que desde su isla natal aventó sus hexámetros por
todo el Mediterráneo. Homero, que, en un sublime gesto de humildad,
atribuye el mérito de componer su obra a la diosa, a Calíope, la de bella voz,
la musa que vela por los poetas épicos. Él se confiesa sólo un instrumento de
la diosa para divulgar entre la raza humana las peripecias de Odiseo.
…………Y a los sones de su lira cantó por los parajes acariciados por el
Egeo sus doce mil hexámetros. Durante casi quinientos años se
transmitieron de boca en boca. Los rapsodas de entonces, sabedores de ser
depositarios de un don de los dioses, velaron por su conservación y
transmisión hasta que, al fin, fueron recogidos por escrito.
…………Todo está en la Odisea. Como su gemela, la Ilíada, comienza ‘in
media res’, a mitad de la acción. Arranca con la invocación a la musa y una
sucinta presentación del argumento, en la que aún no se nos da el nombre
del héroe, pero sí el de su patria: Ítaca. Nos muestra a los dioses reunidos en
consejo en el Olimpo. A través de sus palabras, conocemos que Odiseo (al
que se menciona por vez primera en el verso veintiuno) está cautivo de la
diosa Calipso, “divina entre las diosas”. Zeus, soberano supremo de los
olímpicos, aprovecha que su hermano Poseidón está ausente para convencer
a la asamblea de que obliguen a Calipso a liberar a Odiseo. Lo secunda su
hija Atenea, la principal valedora del héroe.
…………En un salto narrativo digno del mejor filme, la acción queda en
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suspenso y nos trasladamos a Ítaca a conocer los sufrimientos de Penélope y
Telémaco, mujer e hijo de Ulises, acuciados por las demandas de los
pretendientes. Dado por muerto el rey, presionan a Penélope para que no le
guarde más la ausencia y se case con uno de ellos, a fin de que este pueda
ceñir la corona. Telémaco, veinteañero, soporta a duras penas el asedio de
los demandantes, que están devorando la hacienda real. Atenea, travestida
en el tutor del príncipe, lo convence para que se haga a la mar en búsqueda
de noticias de su padre. Durante tres cantos más tiene lugar la Telemaquia,
las andanzas del joven por Pilos y Esparta inquiriendo sobre el héroe.
Concluye el canto cuarto con la preparación de una emboscada por los
pretendientes para matar al heredero a su vuelta a casa.
…………En otro magistral salto narrativo, el de Quíos nos lleva al Olimpo.
Zeus encomienda a su hijo Hermes que se traslade a la isla de Calipso y le
ordene liberar a Odiseo. Por fin, en el canto quinto, nos encontramos cara a
cara con él, con el Ulises romano, cautivo, en cárcel de amor, pero cautivo
de la diosa. Esta se resiste a dejarlo partir y le ofrece la inmortalidad y la
eterna juventud si se queda con ella. Odiseo le confiesa que Penélope no
puede compararse con ella en belleza, que la sabe mortal y presa de los
achaques del tiempo. Pero él suspira día tras día soñando con retornar a sus
lares. Calipso, conmovida, le ayuda a construir una almadía.
…………Ulises, que de nuevo ha de sufrir la ira de Poseidón y naufraga,
llega a las costas de los feacios, donde lo encuentra Nausícaa, la princesa, y
lo lleva al palacio de su padre, que lo agasaja sin forzarlo a darse a conocer.
Odiseo prefiere ser prudente no sabiendo si está en territorio amigo u hostil
a los aqueos. Por eso calla sobre su identidad. Alcínoo, el rey feacio, fiel a la
costumbre mediterránea, considera un deber para con los dioses la
hospitalidad a los viandantes. Agasaja, pues, a su huésped.
…………Odiseo, emocionado al escuchar de un aedo el relato de la caída de
Troya, decide darse a conocer y relata ante la corte sus prodigiosas
aventuras: su partida desde Ilión con nueve naves; sus correrías en territorios
de los cicones y los lotófagos; la isla de los cíclopes, donde Polifemo devoró
a varios de sus hombres y sólo consiguieron salvarse cegando al cíclope, lo
que acarrearía el encono del padre del monstruo, Poseidón, para con el rey
de Ítaca y sus guerreros; la isla de los lestrigones, gigantes antropófagos que
devoraron a gran parte de sus compañeros; la estancia en las moradas de la
hechicera Circe, que convirtió en cerdos a sus guerreros y acabó enamorada
del héroe; su descenso a los Infiernos en búsqueda de ayuda para regresar a
casa, en los que se encontró, entre otros, a su madre; las aventuras sorteando
los peligros de las sirenas, de las terroríficas Escila y Caribdis; hasta llegar a
la pérdida de todos sus hombres restantes, por haberle desobedecido y haber
ofendido al dios Eolo comiéndose a sus vacas.
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…………En otro magistral salto en el tiempo, Homero nos devuelve al
presente. Los feacios llevan a Odiseo a Ítaca, en la que da muestras de
nuevo de su inteligencia no dándose a conocer, pues sabe que sería muerto
por los aspirantes a su corona al verlo regresar solo. La diosa Atenea lo
auxilia una vez más y lo convierte en un pordiosero. Asistimos emocionados
al reencuentro con su hijo Telémaco, que ha escapado de la emboscada de
los pretendientes. Lloramos con Odiseo, el hijo de Laertes, al ver cómo su
viejo perro Argos, con veinte años, lo reconoce aun vestido de mendigo y
muere feliz por el regreso de su amo. Sufrimos las humillaciones que le
afligen los usurpadores, regando nuestras ansias de venganza. Nos
acongojamos con el reencuentro con Euriclea, su anciana nodriza, que lo
reconoce, al lavarle los pies, por una cicatriz. Asistimos a la prueba del arco
y a la matanza de los pretendientes, una vez que recupera su figura.
Abrazamos con el alma pendiente de un hilo a Penélope, acariciamos el
lecho que él mismo talló sobre un olivo…
…………Odiseo. Ulises. Su mejor arma, la ‘metis’. La astucia. A diferencia
de Aquiles, supo dosificar su ‘menis’, su ira, y dejarla manar en los
momentos justos. Pero, cuando afloró, se mostró terrible, inmisericorde.
…………Todo está en la Odisea. Todo nos lo cantó un ciego dos mil
setecientos años atrás. La lucha de un hombre por alcanzar su destino,
aunque hubiera de rebelarse ante los dioses y ser perseguido con saña por
alguno de ellos. La camaradería, la hospitalidad, regalo y obligación divina.
El hombre que, aun dejándose amar por dos diosas eternamente jóvenes e
infinitamente más hermosas que su Penélope, renuncia a ellas. Renuncia,
incluso, a convertirse en inmortal por volver a abrazar a su esposa, a pesar
de saberla acariciando la vejez. El hombre que, aun siendo infiel a su mujer,
le es fiel. Que es fiel a sí mismo, a lo que para él es Ítaca. Para el cual
ningún manjar es comparable al queso que producen sus cabras ni al tosco
pan que hornean sus esclavas.
…………Odiseo, el hombre, que baja en vida al reino de los muertos. El
hombre que ha de morir para revivir más humano. El hombre que se burla
de Polifemo haciéndole creer que se llama Oudeis, Nadie, Nemo. El hombre
que se mantiene íntegro en las adversidades. Que se enfrenta a cíclopes,
sirenas, lestrigones y hasta a dioses. El hombre que por dos veces es hecho
naufragar por la cólera de un dios y que es auxiliado por otros hombres. El
hombre que ha de perder a todos sus compañeros, renunciar a todos sus
botines para encontrarse a sí mismo en su patria. Que no tiene piedad para
los pretendientes que, cuales cuervos, han devorado sus despensas, ultrajado
a su familia y servidores, pero que se acongoja al ser reconocido por su
Argos.
…………Dichoso aquel que deje navegar sus ojos por los versos del de
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Quíos. Beato aquel que pueda leerlos en griego paladeando su música.
Afortunado aquel que, como hiciera Konstantinos Kavafis, otro besado por
las musas, pudiera comprender el significado verdadero de los versos
inmortales y recogerlos en un poema también eterno:
…………“Cuando
“Cuando emprendas tu viaje hacia Ítaca / debes rogar
rogar que el viaje
sea largo, / lleno de peripecias, lleno de experiencias. / No has de temer ni a
los lestrigones ni a los cíclopes, / ni la cólera del airado Posidón. / Nunca
tales monstruos hallarás en tu ruta / si tu pensamiento es elevado, si una
exquisita
ta / emoción penetra en tu alma y en tu cuerpo. / Los lestrigones y los
cíclopes / y el feroz Posidón no podrán encontrarte / si tú no los llevas ya
dentro, en tu alma, / si tu alma no los conjura ante ti. / Debes rogar que el
viaje sea largo, / que sean muchos
muchos los días de verano; / que te vean arribar
con gozo, alegremente, / a puertos que tú antes ignorabas. / Que puedas
detenerte en los mercados de Fenicia, / y comprar unas bellas mercancías: /
madreperlas, coral, ébano, y ámbar, / y perfumes placenteros de mil clases. /
Acude a muchas ciudades del Egipto / para aprender, y aprender de quienes
saben. / Conserva siempre en tu alma la idea de Ítaca: / llegar allí, he aquí tu
destino. / Mas no hagas con prisas tu camino; / mejor será que dure muchos
años, / y que llegues, ya viejo, a la pequeña isla, / rico de cuanto habrás
ganado en el camino. / No has de esperar que Ítaca te enriquezca: / Ítaca te
ha concedido ya un hermoso viaje. / Sin ellas, jamás habrías partido; / mas
no tiene otra cosa que ofrecerte. / Y si la encuentras pobre, Ítaca no te ha
engañado. / Y siendo ya tan viejo, con tanta experiencia, / sin duda sabrás ya
qué significan las Ítacas”.
…………Poema
Poema que magistralmente, en comunión también con la divinidad
como Homero, como Kavafis, musicó Lluís Llach en 1975. Ítaca, un
humilde islote en el Jónico. Bueno sólo para que pasten las cabras. Lo tiene
todo para que un hombre se sienta, al fin, en paz con los dioses.
…………Sin la Odisea no existirían los cantares de gesta. Cervantes no
hubiera podido escribir el Quijote.. Tolkien no nos hubiera podido hechizar
con su trilogía de El Señor de los Anillos.
Anillos
…………Ay,
Ay, mi buen Homero; bendito sea el día en el que fuiste besado
por la musa.
Comentarios (17)
1.
Adrián Massanet dice:
31 octubre, 2012 a las 12:55
Impresionante texto. Sin más.
184
Responder
2.
31 octubre, 2012 a las 14:23
Impresionantes gracias a ti.
Y gracias a Homero, a Kavafis y a los clásicos por traernos las palabras de los dioses,
de los hombres.
Responder
o
Adrián Massanet dice:
31 octubre, 2012 a las 14:27
¿¿¿Gracias a mí??? No creo. Enhorabuena, he aprendido mucho.
Responder
3.
fernando dice:
31 octubre, 2012 a las 15:55
La madre de todos los libros, todas las historias y narraciones de aqui hasta siempre.
Responder
o
31 octubre, 2012 a las 16:02
Tú lo has dicho. Nuestra madre común.
Responder
4.
Santi Ramos dice:
31 octubre, 2012 a las 16:34
Qué placer leerle, como siempre.
Enhorabuena por el gran artículo, poco más se puede decir…
Responder
o
1 noviembre, 2012 a las 23:18
Gracias por tu tiempo, por tus palabras y por dejarme compartir a Homero.
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Responder
5.
Lidia dice:
BRILLANTE,tú también has sido tocado por las musas, gracias Arístides.
Responder
o
Gratias plurimas tibi.
Responder
6.
Ramón Pedrajas dice:
Felicidades. Un placer leer su artículo
Responder
o
Un placer auténtico para mí el contar con lectores como usted, que se dejan seducir
aún por el ciego de Quíos. Agradecido.
Responder
7.
Lucía Alcaraz dice:
Tú también estás tocado por las musas. ¡Qué completísimo y a la vez precioso
comentario de la obra de Homero! Un abrazo y enhorabuena por tus artículos.
Basia mille
Responder
o
186
Homero se comenta solo si nos dejamos besar por sus versos.
De él, y de su Musa, es todo el mérito.
Nosotros, Lucía, sólo somos transmisores, aedos.
Basia gratiasque.
Responder
8.
Gema dice:
Muy bello texto para ilustrar la obra del más inmortal de todos los escritores que han
pasado a la Historia. Sin Homero, que es génesis de toda la Literatura, probablemente,
los libros no serían lo que son: viejos amigos con los que soñar a lo largo del ca
camino
que es la vida. Muchas gracias por tus palabras emocionadas e inspiradas. Todavía
hay tiempo para creer en la bondad del ser humano. Besos.
Responder
o
A través de Homero aún nos hablan los dioses. A través de estos aún escuchamos al
hombre, en todas sus maldades, pero también con todas sus bondades.
Gracias por tus palabras.
Responder
9.
Bettie dice:
Pelos de punta, por el poema de Kavafis y por la pasión que desprenden tus palabras.
¡Y qué envidia, poder paladear el texto en griego!
Responder
o
Gracias a los dioses aún tenemos excelentes traductores que nos pueden acercar a
los versos tanto de Homero como de Kavafis.
Saboréalos con un buen vino y sentirás que acaricias el Olimpo.
Gracias por tus palabras.
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Aristides first of all thank you for selecting these two particular articles in response to my
request to you to choose more than the three (“Thanks Greece”, History teacher”, “For my
students”) that you sent at the early days of our exchanges . Second of all let me both thank
you and apologize: thank you for taking the pains to enter your two articles in the robot
translator yourself; and forgive me for not reminding you that since that time I have learned
to use it (learned with the help of my ex-student in Glossa Skopelos who was visiting last
weeked from Salonica for a conference in what he studies (pharmacy) and with whom, as I
was writing you, I was leaving for a theater. Before going to comment on them let me
comment on the expression “early days of our exchanges” that I used a few lines above. I
can’t believe we have been communicating for only a few days, I feel as if we had been
friends for many decades. Our first contact was on February 27 and today is March 7. I have
skipped here many of the, sometimes long sometimes short sometimes even personal,
brotherly, letters that we exchanged not only on weekends but on working days too, you in
the middle of final exams, and me, besides teaching in the mornings, also escorting in the
workday evenings, for fun, the students from my Glossa school who also were visiting for
four days of educational excursion, but only now, with your articles, it became more clear
how it was possible for us so soon to understand from each other so much and to realize
that we share so many goals. The main reasons are 1) that your approach and attitude to
knowledge of the past in these two articles, served as the best and most live and concise
exemplification of what your school considered Greece must be thanked for: namely her
potential, up to now always able, to lead all peoples, not only the Greek people, to thoughts
and actions valuable in their present for the issue of how to save the meaning of their relation
to real Life (with L capital) 2) your insight that the way Greece helps to save that part of the
soul of any people, and not only save her own abstract or fossilized or antiquated or
academic or ink-paper bookish entity, is through the following dipole. Anger of flesh-andblood people at being separated or prevented from harmony’s beauty as defined by the lightstepped divine playfulness of the entities created by Homer and making each of us, each
member of the whole human nature, want to give to him and to his heroes and gods the kiss
we feel he gave to each one of us to let us share the enthralling joy he felt when “besado por
la musa”.
Aristides I will not finish tonight this letter, but don’t answer me before, tomorrow, you see why I
strongly believe and feel that we already have covered a long enough part of the road that we can
travel in company, I mean a part of a much much longer way but already sufficiently long to convince
us we have a joint educational job to do, as I felt from the outset.
That’s incredible: …having to prepare the questions of a physics test for next morning and having left
for next day (=today) the continuation of the present letter to the ending I had hoped at the start of the
previous pdf, and feeling my mind could not stop writing mentally a PS that resumed the issue …I did
not write it down to send it as PS since I had said I would only write after finishing next night and since
I thought that Aristides would wait for that finish before answering but when I returned from school I
found the following (incredibly parallel) answer already:
My dear friend, brother in dreams, Aegean Quixote:
I think my gods have condemned me to know you and share with you a
bottle of wine at sunset, enjoying your sea and offending Merkel and theirs to love life.
I would like to ask you a favor: could you find out about how much it would
cost to rent a house on your island for a fortnight, well for the first half of August or the second? What is
the best way toget there? I think if I take my wife Marien, who speaks Greek and loves it more than
me, to spend the summer at the Aegean I do like a goddess.
And we could get to know you and I live.
Now I must leave you: many tests and activities with my students. By the way, I
also write and I play with them, brother. (I used red for the incredible parallelism and the incredible timing.
Who could ever say that it is not fate herself, leading us both, this moment? )
188
Aristides en primer lugar gracias por elegir estos dos artículos particulares en respuesta a
mi petición a usted para elegir más de los tres ("Gracias Grecia", profesor de
historia","para mis alumnos") que usted envía en los primeros días de nuestros
intercambios. Segundo lugar ambos gracias y disculpas: Gracias por tomar los dolores
para entrar en su dos artículos en el traductor de robot a ti mismo; y Perdóname por no
recordarle que desde entonces he aprendido a usarla (aprendido con la ayuda de mi
antiguo alumno en Skopelos Glossa que visitaba en el último fin de semana de Salónica
para una conferencia en lo que estudia (farmacia) y con quien, como yo estaba
escribiendo, fui dejando para un teatro.Antes de ir a comentarlas deje me comentan la
expresión "inicios de nuestros intercambios" que usé unas líneas arriba. No creo que nos
hemos estado en comunicación sólo unos días, me siento como si hubiéramos sido amigos
por muchas décadas. Nuestro primer contacto fue el 27 de febrero y hoy es 7 de marzo.
He saltado aquí muchas de las, a veces largo, a veces cortas cartas incluso personales,
fraternales, que intercambiamos no sólo los fines de semana, pero en días laborables,
usted en el centro de exámenes finales y yo, además de la enseñanza en las mañanas,
también escolta en las noches de jornada laboral, para la diversión, los estudiantes de la
escuela Glossa que también visitaban durante cuatro días de excursión educativa, pero
sólo ahora, con tus artículos, se hizo más claro cómo fue posible para nosotros tan pronto
a entender mucho unos de otros y a darse cuenta de que compartimos muchos objetivos.
Las razones principales son 1) que su enfoque y actitud al conocimiento del pasado en
estos dos artículos, sirvió como la mejor y la mayoría ejemplificación vivo y concisa de lo
que la escuela considera que Grecia deben ser agradeció: es decir, su potencial, hasta
ahora siempre poder conducir a todos los pueblos, no sólo el pueblo griego, a
pensamientos y acciones valiosas en su presente para la cuestión de cómo guardar el
significado de su relación en la vida real (con L capital) 2) su conocimiento que la manera
de Grecia ayuda a salvar esa parte del alma de cualquier pueblo y salvar no sólo su propia
entidad abstracta o fosilizado o anticuado o académico o tinta papel libresca, es a través
de los siguiente dipolo. Ira de carne y hueso personas en estar separado o impide la
belleza de la armonía según lo definido por la alegría divina luz-caminó de las entidades
creadas por Homer y hacer cada uno de nosotros, cada miembro de la naturaleza humana
entera, quiere dar a él y a sus héroes y dioses el beso nos sentimos dio a cada uno de
nosotros para hacernos compartir la apasionante alegría sintió cuando "besado por la
musa".
Aristides yo no terminará esta noche esta carta, pero no me conteste antes, puedes ver mañana,
razón por la creemos firmemente y sentir que ya hemos cubierto bastante parte del camino que
podemos viajar en compañía, me refiero a una parte de mucho mucho tiempo cierto pero ya
suficientemente largo para convencernos de que tenemos un trabajo educativo conjunto para hacer,
ya que sentí desde el principio.
Eso es increíble: tener que preparar las preguntas de una prueba de fisica para la mañana siguiente y
haber dejado para el día siguiente (= hoy) la continuación de la presente carta para el final que esperaba
al inicio del anterior pdf, y sintiendo mi mente no podía parar escribir mentalmente un PS que reanudó
el tema iniciado… No escribo a enviar como PS ya que había dicho que sólo escribiría después de
acabado la noche siguiente y ya que pensé que Aristides esperar a que termine antes de responder, pero
cuando regresé de la escuela me encontré con la siguiente respuesta (increíblemente paralela) ya:
Mi querido amigo, hermano en sueños, Aegean Quijote:
creo que mis dioses han condenado a conocerte y compartir contigo una botella de
vino al atardecer, disfrutando de su mar y ofender a Merkel y los suyos para amar la vida.
Quisiera pedirle un favor: podría usted averiguar sobre cuánto costaría para
alquilar una casa en la isla para una quincena, bien para la primera quincena de agosto o
el segundo? ¿Cuál es la mejor manera toget allí? Creo que si tomo a mi esposa Marien,
que habla a griego y ama más que yo, para pasar el verano en el mar Egeo como a una
diosa.
Y podríamos llegar a conocerte y vivo.
Ahora debo dejo: muchas pruebas y actividades con mis alumnos. Por cierto,
también escribo y jugar con ellos, hermano. (Yo usé rojo para el paralelismo increíble y el increíble
momento. Que nunca podría decir que no es suerte llevarnos ambos, este momento?)
189
Aristides we are not only brothers in dreaming, and we are not only a dream come true for each other, we are also
each other’s self “in a parallel universe” (in the sense of “Borgesian phycisists”) , in a parallel country, in a parallel
school, but also in the same time, not just in a parallel times. So we are ideal collaborators in common road and
destiny. Concerning your practical question it’s so simple to answer you in 5 minutes from now that it is not
anything you should consider a favor. Concerning your previous such technical question regarding the kids, it’s
also very simple to answer: after the parents in Glossa get to know you and to know Marien this year, they will
offer to the kids of your school beds to sleep at Glossa’s school next year, I am sure, and concerning a previous
letter of you writing “This year may be premature and we have no time to earn money for the trip. Maybe
if we raised for the next academic year, get ideas and resources. In addition, many of the children who
made the video with me, still in high school the coming year”. I feel the same way. Only we the grownups
meet this year and organize everything right during the whole 2013-2014. And my Athens’ school kids too will
need one more year to graduate,and this summer they will be full of tutorials for next year’s entrance exams, but
next year they will be free and eager for decompression together with your kids and with Glossa’s kids. But now, I
will postpone these technical questions for tomorrow because, seeing even better how parallel and how brotherly
we are I feel we can win the following bet: Today, besides one occasion (Woman’s day. And for me already
another anniversary too, I’ll tell you later) OK, today is the tenth day of our friendship. I bet that by 12 tonight we
will have found a definite collaboration whose anniversary date from now on will be tonight’s date. So let me
hurry to write down its description. I will be writing and sending you the desription in little installments as I will
be writing it, so as not to overload your busy exam-period schedule. Actually here I should first insert my letter
to Soufiane and Jose María, because here is where it belongs. It would not take time since its many options of
proposal to describe are already written, but to enter them in the translating machine in pieces not longer than 800
words (as at least my robot demands) would delay me and maybe I will not catch the deadline of the bet I
mentioned. So I start and if we get finished earlier I will add that part too (and if you wonder why I place
“anxieties” like speed-bets, just know it is the only such bet I have ever placed in my life and it only serves to
prove how close and similar and ready for collaboraion with each other we are and, above all, how much material
we already have ready to forward to our students and to not only them…You will soon see what two
mediterranean Quijotes can do, each one more valuable than the other for both their students and for each other. So
this speed-bet is not to create anxieties but the opposite. The only anxiety you should have is the question of
whether your interlocutor is crazy, manic depressive etc etc . But in a couple of hours you will know, so it will be a
short anxiety)
PS:Aristides the explanation of what I mean was finally so brief (1 page) that the material for the boys can be put after it
Aristides no somos hermanos sólo durante el sueño y no somos sólo un sueño hecho realidad para
unos a otros, también somos mutuamente es uno mismo "en un universo paralelo" (en el sentido de
"Borgiano phycisists"), en un país paralelo, en una escuela paralela, pero al mismo tiempo, no sólo
en un paralelo veces. Así que somos colaboradores ideales en el camino y destino comunes. Con
respecto a tu pregunta práctica es tan simple para contestarte en 5 minutos desde ahora que no es
cualquier cosa que usted debe considerar un favor. En cuanto a su anterior tal cuestión técnica con
respecto a los niños, es también muy fácil de contestar: después de los padres en Glossa llegar a
conocerte y saber Marien este año, ofrecerá a los niños de sus camas de escuela a dormir en la
escuela de Glossa este próximo año, estoy seguro y en cuanto a una carta anterior de escribiendo
"este año puede ser prematura y no tenemos tiempo para ganar dinero para el viaje. Tal vez si nos
planteamos para el próximo curso, obtener ideas y recursos. Además, muchos de los niños que
hicieron el video conmigo, aún en alta escuela el año que viene" Me siento de la misma manera. Sólo
nosotros los adultos se reúnen este año y organizar todo bien durante todo el 2013-2014. Y niños de
la escuela de mi Atenas también tendrá un año más para graduarse y este verano estará llenos de
tutoriales para exámenes de admisión del próximo año, pero el año que viene serán libres y ansiosos
por descompresión junto con sus hijos y con hijos de Glossa. Pero ahora, se posponer estas preguntas
técnicas para mañana porque, viendo incluso mejor cómo paralelo y cómo fraterno somos yo siento
que podemos ganar la apuesta siguiente: hoy, además de una ocasión (día de la mujer. Y para mí ya
otro aniversario, ya os contaré más adelante) OK, hoy es el décimo día de nuestra amistad. Apuesto
que por 12 esta noche habrá encontramos una colaboración definitiva cuya fecha de aniversario de
ahora en adelante será la fecha de esta noche. Así que permítanme prisa para escribir su descripción.
Escribirán y enviarle la descripción en pequeñas cuotas de escribirlos va ser, para no sobrecargar su
apretada agenda del periodo de examen. Aquí debo primero Inserto mi carta a Soufiane y Jose María,
porque aquí es donde pertenece. No tomaría tiempo puesto que sus muchas opciones de propuesta
para describir ya escritos, pero al ingresarlas en la máquina traducción en piezas no más de 800
palabras (mi robot exige como mínimo) me demoraría y tal vez no alcanzará la fecha límite de la
apuesta que mencioné.Para empezar y si conseguimos terminados antes agregará demasiado esa
parte (y si te preguntas por qué pongo "ansiedades" como velocidad-apuestas, sólo sé es la tal
apuesta que nunca he puesto en mi vida y sólo sirve para demostrar cómo estrecha y similares y listo
para collaboraion con unos a otros que son y, sobre todo, cuánto material ya tenemos listo para
enviar a nuestros estudiantes y no sólo les...Pronto verás lo que puede hacer dos Quijotes
mediterráneas, cada uno más valioso que el otro para sus estudiantes y para el otro. Así que esta
apuesta de velocidad no es crear inquietudes sino lo contrario. La ansiedad sólo que debe tener es la
pregunta de si su interlocutor es loco, maníaco depresivo etc.. Pero en un par de horas, que usted
sabrá, por lo que será una ansiedad corta)
PS:Aristides la explicación de lo que quiero decir que finalmente fue tan breve (1 página) que se puede poner el material
para los chicos después de él
190
Of course that one page was the joint website page we have already seen here long ago.
Por supuesto que una página fue la página conjunta ya vimos aquí hace mucho tiempo.
Now let’s see, in summary, a wider part of what was exchanged and then let’s get into a discussion
that is more systematic and more in correspondence with the title “Three southerners of three littlediffering generations in e-mail conversation” of the pdf we still are in:
Ahora vamos a ver, en resumen, una parte más amplia de lo que fue intercambiado y entonces vamos a
entrar en una discusión que es más sistemática y más en correspondencia con el título "Tres sureños
de tres generaciones difieren poco en la conversación de correo electrónico" del pdf en el que todavía
nos son:
Both Aristides and I noticed that with each letter we received from one another, we felt millions of
ideas dawning on us about what to do next with the projects we had in mind. Ideas on what to do in
collaboration and ideas on what more to do each of us in his initial plans. And all was exchanged in
timing where either what took place was crossing of our letters in the air (of e-mails in ionosphere or
wherever, I mean) or one was thinking what the other thought before having heard it, as if he were a
mindreader. At one point Aristides said that he felt honored to be one of the friends to whom I
dedicated the famous Humphrey Bogart line from “Casablanca”* (“I feel this is the beginning of a
beautiful friendship”) and this reminded me the time almost five years ago when I had also had the
same premonition, meeting Hernán with whom the correspondence has not been interrupted, nor
become rarer, ever since **, more precise than the word “honored”, I thought, was, for both of us, the
word “twice lucky, both for happening on a brotherly friend and spirit and for happening on someone
else with a function so similar that collaborations could make each other’s work fuction much much
better”. We started exchanging photos of Murcia and Glossa (later I’ll remember to present jointly
many from both places). We also expressed to each other our mutual and unreserved admiration for
the passion and dedication each had for his job with his pupils. Let’s make another break here*** to
see something Hernán had read four years ago, and might be relevant in the discussion that we will
have later, then let’s go to see what we exchanged with Nuria, and then we’re all set for the discussion
between the three southerners of little-differing generations, promised in the current pdf’s title.
*and then from Makavejev’s “Montenegro” and from Kusturica’s “Black cat, white cat”
**Where we had met was in ZNet and Zspace where we happened, more than once, to comment the same articles
and to be finally talking to each other, and to be talked to by each other, hardly addressed to or noticed by anyone
else. I thought he was a young student, I only realized that he had great grandchildren when we finally exchanged
e-mails and continued our exchanges independently of Z.
***This particular part , more than needing translation, needs some of its analogs in Spanish modern history that
certainly abound
Aristides y he notado que con cada carta que recibimos de uno con el otro, nos sentimos millones de
ideas amanecer nos acerca de qué hacer con los proyectos que teníamos en mente. Ideas sobre qué
hacer en colaboración e ideas sobre qué más hacer cada uno de nosotros en sus planes iniciales. Y
todo se intercambiaba en tiempo donde sea lo que ocurrió fue cruce de nuestras cartas en el aire (de emails en la ionosfera o donde sea, me refiero) o uno estaba pensando en lo que el otro pensaba antes
de haber oído, como si fuese un mindreader. En un punto Aristides dijo que se sentía honrado de ser
uno de los amigos a quienes he dedicado la famosa línea de Humphrey Bogart de "Casablanca" *
("Creo que este es el comienzo de una bella amistad") y esto me recordó el momento hace casi cinco
años cuando yo había también tuvo la premonición de la misma, encuentro Hernán con quien la
correspondencia no ha sido interrumpida, ni ser más raro, desde **, más precisa que la palabra
"honrada", pensé, era, para ambos, la palabra "dos veces suerte tanto para el suceso en un amigo
fraterno y espíritu suceso en alguien con funciones tan parecidas que colaboraciones podrían trabajar
del otro fuction mucho mejor". Empezamos a intercambiar fotos de Murcia y Glossa (más adelante
recordaré presentar conjuntamente muchos de ambos lugares). También expresamos mutuamente
nuestra admiración mutua y sin reserva por la pasión y dedicación cada tenido para su trabajo con sus
alumnos. Vamos a hacer otra rotura
aquí *** ver algo Hernán había leído hace cuatro años y podría ser relevante en la discusión que
vamos a tener más adelante, luego vamos a ver lo que intercambiamos con Nuria, y luego estamos
todo listo para el debate entre los tres sureños de poco diferentes generaciones, prometidas en el título
del pdf actual.
* y luego del "Montenegro" de Makavejev y de Kusturica "Black cat, white cat"
** donde habíamos conocido fue en ZNet y Zspace donde nos pasó, más de una vez, para comentar los artículos
de la mismos y finalmente hablar entre sí y para ser hablado con unas por otras, apenas dirigida a o notado por
nadie. Yo pensaba que era un joven estudiante, sólo me di cuenta de que tenía bisnietos cuando finalmente
intercambiado correos electrónicos y continuó nuestros intercambios independientemente Z.
*** esta parte en particular, más que necesitan traducción, necesita algunos de sus análogos en la historia
moderna española que sin duda abundan
191
Alexandros Panagoulis*
“…In one sense I was happy my bomb missed his car by one meter. I’m not a killer, I’m a
fighter. And to fight against a junta doesn’t mean to kill its leader who is just a puppet
buffoon played by foreign interests, nor to kill some of its quite replaceable policemen or
soldiers ,whom I would not stand the remorses to kill. To fight a junta means to disarm it,
and disarming it means that a great number of soldiers will not obey their orders, and
somebody telling them to do so means he proves to them that it is humanly possible to stand
the consequences, as I did prove by only writing to your leader that he is a buffoon and a
clown on all grace pleas and petitions you brought me to sign, in order for you not to expose
your regime in front of international organizations which objected to my execution and at
the same time for you not to look powerless in front of the people that you wanted to
terrorize. My oration is not contempt of court martial , because you are not a court but bosses
of torturers some of whom even have a sick thwarted surgeon’s sexual imagination; and you
are not martial either since you are deserters not soldiers; I deserted your army to serve my
country, as I do serve it everyday in the torture chamber; you deserted your country by not
deserting an army that receives orders against its country and its people. Alas to a nation not
giving birth to a tyrannicide when giving birth to a tyrant.”
THE APPLE TREE OVER THE APPLE
(Based on facts from the books by Chronis Missios “Oh, well, you were killed early” and “Smile, you.
Is it too much to ask from you?”, and from the book by Kostas Mardas on A. Panagoulis “Rehearsals
of death”)
Mihalis: Uncle, tell us the story with that friend of yours.
Uncle: Going over the same again? I’ve told you ten times.
Mihalis: George hasn’t heard it.
Uncle: What a headache! You tell him that.
George: I want to hear it first hand
Uncle: So you want it first hand. And this means I should get my tongue dry and stiff by
repeating it. Aah, if the greaser had ever imagined what a celebrity he would become!
Adult George: Hey! Is it the greaser’s story you’re bored repeating to the kids? Shame on
you!
Uncle: But it’s become a full time job! He brings me one by one all his fellow students and
there we go over and over again. It starts to remind me the proverb “To whom God gives no
kids , the devil gives nephews”.
Adult George: OK, since God gave me kids but not nephews, I’m going to tell tem the story
myself.
Mihalis: You too knew the greaser?
Adult George: I and you uncle were together all those yeas we were carrying rocks. We slept
in the same tent and in the morning “counting grief by counting rock stones” as the song
goes…
Uncle: Cut it out.
Mihalis: Was my uncle such a sour-face even then?
Adult George: Has you neck’s back tried his hand’s smack, so far?
Mihalis: No.
*Notice the lowered looks of his guards as he speaks to the court**
**To the excerpts from his oration in his trial we have added excerpts from his talk in the torturers’ trial years later
192
Adult George: Don’t try it in the future either. My neck’s back still remembers it after twenty
years and it will still remember it for another twenty if I’m still around.
Uncle: OK, I wish you to live long so as to remember it, but are you ever going to tell the
kids about the greaser or are you going to give a speech about us?
Mihalis: We want to hear about the smack. George wants to hear about the smack too. Right
George?
George: Right.
Adult George: That’s a deal name-mate. Give me five.
Uncle: See to it that I give you five somewhere else. My palm feels that itch again. That stuff
of ours is for us to just remember it, not to say it around.
Adult George: OK, kidoes, you do see what heat I’m getting from higher up. He feels itch
on his palm, I feel itch on my neck’s back. So we were talking about the greaser: OK, we
had our grief…I mean we were counting our grief …OK, I mean we were carrying rocks at
high noon, when we heard we would be visited by high officials of the state and their ladies,
the guards told us to get in shape, washing, saving and all, they gave us decent food, even
wine to be in good mood and make a good impression when the officials would deliver
speeches on our glorious ancestors to make them a model for us who had started on a wrong
track and help get us back on the right one, but the greaser was nowhere to be seen; suddenly,
as an official was giving his speech, the greaser shows up as naked as born from his mother
and carrying two buckets spilling shit over the brim ; but he has also smeared himself all over
with shit. He goes near the platform and starts, in a plasterer’s manner, throwing handfuls of
shit to the camp commander and the officials and their ladies and their guards, to all of them.
The crapfuls were splashing on them, we were blue with laughter, watching the commander
order soldiers to arrest him, and nobody approaching him so shitty, slimy and loathsome he
was the way he had smeared himself. What could the commander do? Threaten him? With
what? Is a soaked man afraid of rain? He was already condemned to death. Would they beat
him up? They had already exhausted on him every way of beating. So nothing worked with
him. So the commander started threatening the guards with punishments and during all that
the greaser, unhindered, was going on splish-splash plastering their suits and uniforms and
faces , that’s why he also was called “plasterer” after this. Then they thy dashed on him, but
the way he was smeared he was also slippery and they could not hold him; that’s how he was
named greaser too. Also he was smearing their faces too when they were approaching to an
arm’s distance. OK, they did beat the hell out of him later. But they had already done it before
too, anyway. And now he had taken his revenge, on our behalf too, to his heart’s , and to our
heart’s, delight. So he became a hero; or rather a celebrity, a hero he was already anyway, that
island was full of heroes, but he became a celebrity too.
George: Did you ask him for an autograph?
Adult George: We did , but he said that his pen had run out of ink and that he only gave
shitographs.
Mihalis: Uncle, you had not told me so many details. We were lucky your friend was here
and told us everything. George, we’re going to tell everything to the rest tomorrow at school
breaks.
George: No, we’re going to tell them at the game’s half-time. Now let’s run to the soccer lot
early enough or they’ll put other players in our places.
They leave running
Notes: 1. It goes without saying that especially the long paragraphs (short too) are not “actor lines to
learn” but stories for actors to hear and then just recount them as they would recount some story they
had heard.
2. The uncle’s name was Mihalis too. Sometimes brothers and sisters of such people gave their kids
their names to make them better feel they had a family, since their tribulations did not let them have
their own.
Mihalis: How did you retain every single detail?
George: It’s because every now and then I brought it to my mind just in case I could answer a
question I had. How did the greaser think of it? How did he get all that idea? Where do such
ideas come from?
193
Mihalis: I had that question too. I did figure it out , but only after many years.
George: Shoot.
Mihalis: He must have though to himself: “You who are brazen enough to suggest, with
speeches and all, that the true descendants of Leonidas and the 300 are you and not us who
venture to get the snake out of its hole. You are up to the neck sunk in shit and wherever one
touches you he soils himself. I mean that instead of answering us when we tell you to come
out like men and say what is happening in our country in places like this so that everybody
knows, you blackmail us by firing from their jobs our relatives too so as to make not only our
own families starve and live on neighbors’ alms but also the families of our relatives and
friends and so as to make it look as if anybody who touches us is polluted. Whereas it’s the
other way around. If we touch you and get this kind of response, it’s like we got soiled. Well,
I’ll make myself as untouchable as you and make you get soiled if you touch me anywhere ,
but I’m going to make it with real shit, not with power’s shit like you do it”. That must be
how the idea occurred to him
George: That’s why I always called you big! But now the question becomes how did you
think of it? OK, that’s what intellectuals are for. Ahaa! Now I too got an idea: The greaser
must have thought to himself: “and then, to rinse shit away I just take a shower or a swim and
that’s it. Whereas your shit is here to stay because it’s stuck in your mind and in your soul; in
order for you too to rinse it off you have to resign from the position you have climbed to and
stretched out on, and kindly allow me to bet you will never do that. Besides, if you did, you
would soon be put in our positions on the island and not on the stage giving speeches. So
please kindly allow me to let you receive this crapful too: Splash! Now how did I think of it?
Wow to me! And re-wow! Look at myself! Who am I? An art critic? You did make a culturefreak of me too! Sleep under the same tent with culture- freak and next morning you’ll wake
up being an intellectual yourself.
Mihalis: Look at him! His cackling over his egg is longer than his hatching. And your
reflexes are world record. We slept together over twenty years ago and the idea only occurred
to you now; Hmm! It was fun OK, but admittedly it also was quite an idea; I mean the one
with “I’ll take a bath and the shit will be rinsed off ”
George: So you did like that? Oh! I thought it might make your palm itch for another smack
on me. Remember?
(the non-fictional basis of the above and of the next episode is from the books by Hronis Missios)
CURTAIN FALLS TO CHANGE SETTING/CURTAIN REOPENS
(George and Mihalis looking twenty yeas younger (i.e. at their mid twenties) and a third friend, Philip
(played by Philip G.) are in suits , all three wearing neckties too (which George and Philip are
loosening), coming out of a courtroom)
George: Did you realize what penalty we received? Can you figure it out? Each got five
times a life sentence and four times a death sentence. How many times crazy or drunk are
they? What are you talking about your honor? If you execute us even once how are we going
to serve out the life sentence? And if we live to serve out even one life sentence how are you
going to execute us? Let alone serving five life sentences. Can we guarantee you we can
reach Noah’s age, or whoever it was who lived to be five hundred? Did you, by any chance,
get drunk first thing in the morning? To pay all due respect to your court we dressed in out
best clothes, I even borrowed my brother’s suit. And you, instead of honoring your own
courtroom, came drunk? And then you went on us like “get that many years and deaths, just
in case you felt a shortage”.
Enters George G. (without a moustache and looking twenty years younger too)
George G: Are you taking your time, chatting? Come to the cage-van quick; before I get
angry. We’re going back to jail.
Mihalis: “Get angry”? You clown didn’t hear what sentence we got? From now on all you
can do to us is to fart our balls.
George: You clown made the intellectual speak like us the dock-porters? I’ll let my union
know that you want to make us unemployed.
The voice of his mother, Despoina, is heard “Mr Policeman! Mr Policeman!”
George G. (to Mihalis and George): I would show you but somebody’s calling me.
194
He returns with Despoina at his side:
Despoina: There is God. The shameless will find it from Him. God how do I hold myself
up?
George: Oh, mom, c’mon! Cool it. Go home to calm down. You’ll also freak us out if you
stay here. Come tomorrow to get the suit before I ruin it in the execution.
Despoina: AAAAH! (sudden, short and heart-rending because of the sudden image he
caused her. And she falls down because she passed out)
HLAAATS! (Mihalis smacks George shouting to him:)
Jerkoff ! Is that a thing to say to one’s mother?
CURTAIN FALLS TO CHANGE SETTING
CURTAIN REOPENS
All three of them in a cell. No neckties. Low lighting indicates it’s just before dawn. They are dressed
and sitting on the same bed.
Three heavy metallic sounds in a distance are heard. Resounding like shots. Philip speaks for the first
time:
Philip: Well, well, well! Guess who is coming for a social visit!
Mihalis: Life goes uphill
George: Culture up to death! What would happens to a culture-freak if he didn’t make such
comments? Death by lack of air?
Rhythmic steps, as if by a small group walking synchronized, approach and stop in front of their cell.
George: Hello Georgie boy! Come on in! What’s keeping you? Did we lock by mistake? We
didn’t mean to!
The lock is heard unlocking. George G., enters
George G:…….before opening his mouth he stares at each of them successively……….
Finally he says:
George G: Philip Ioannou
After a short pause Philip rises in a decisive manner , as if ready since long enough, saying to George
G. :
Philip: Let’s go.
George G. doesn’t move , nor speaks. Philip goes to the door looks again at the guard and says:
Philip (more loudly): I said go.
When George G. starts moving Philip looks at the others and says:
Philip: We, have already said our goodbyes.
The others are as if frozen by gloom, and don’t even sit up. When the door has been locked and the
rhythmic steps start to go away, they spring up at the same moment and run to the door and sticking to
it they shout at their top of their lungs:
Mihalis: Goodbye Philip brothaaaaa!
George: We’ll remember you forevaaaaa!
Both aaaaa’s (at the end of brothaaaaa and forevaaaaa are loud not only in order to be heard but also
in order to cover the rising sob; in a way each aaaa is also the sob that it covers.
They drag their steps back to where they were sitting and sit in the low lighting in gloom.
While still walking George says:
George: Well, forever is relative. We mean forever until our turn. Any day now.
The steps are lost in the distance , then the door with the three metallic sounds is heard. A few seconds
later we hear howled orders:
At readyy! Fire
Resounding shot of some guns in unison. Immediately after the shot the following song is heard by a
cassette so as to contain the resounding instrumental, drum based, ending after the ending of the lyrics:
…It shines behind those iron bars
and life calls brothers buried
It shines behind those iron bars
Dead called to life by bells’ toll calling to the living
This earth belongs to them and to us as long as we’re breathing
With so many colors and so many leaves sun calls you to life
195
with so many nods and so many shouts freedom shines earth to sky
When some of us get killed, when some of us get killed
When some of us get killed, when some of us get killed
we and life continue to go uphill
we and life continue to go uphill
CURTAIN FALLS TO CHANGE SETTING AND REOPENS
A projector projects, at the same time, as snapshots on the wall of the cell facing the audience, two
scenes we have seen: The three prisoners (George, Mihalis, Philip) sitting, facing entering George G.,
the guard, in his young age, then the two other young prisoners (George Jr. and Mihalis Jr.) sitting in
the same cell facing entering George G., the guard, in his older age (with a grey moustache). It is kept
on the wall for as long as the following song is heard from the choir.
Each one you see now you’re going to see again, maybe on another ferry,
one’s name may then be George or Mike, another’s Harry.
Each one you see now you’re going to see again, the way to tell it is them
will be a prouder way to walk on all roads of this world.
Each one you see now you’re going to see again, again you’re going to hate them,
one, strong and youngest won’t be found,
for the most bitter turn he’s bound,
the lonely one, lonely and brave and the most beloved.
This one you’ll never find again, this one the world now misses,
you will not torture him next time nor his big heart tear into pieces.
This one you will not see again, this time he’s safely guarded,
the stars are guarding him from you, his sun and moon are watching, too,
now that they’ve taken him from here,
the lonely one, the young, the brave, the one the most beloved,
for him only I,
I, I, I, I am waiting
The last stanza is sung by the leader of the choir Despoina alone, symbolizing Poetry who is the only one waiting
for the ones whose relatives have been notified of their deaths and won’t be waiting on release days
.THE APPLE BELOW THE APPLE TREE
(Mihalis , the who was arrested with the shouters in the Polytechnic, is in jail, in the same cell with the
friend George C. who called him on the phone and was also among the shouters. They’re both sitting
on a bed. Suddenly George sits up and starts walking up and down)
Mihalis: Do you feel uptight?
George: What else could it be? Heavy stomach? It’s empty for both of us, isn’t it?
Mihalis: My uncle was right telling me that it’s better to be beaten yourself than hearing
others being beaten. It breaks your nerves. It was on purpose that they put us here to be
hearing all that for hours. Let’s concentrate to see how we can react. Panagoulis says that the
best break one can give himself when in pain is to pass out. That’s why the methodic among
the military police men hit with self control so that they don’t make you pass out. So the best
thing is to make them so angry that they lose self control.
George: How did you recite by heart this whole theory? You sure are a culture-freak.
Congratulations! You must have taken after your uncle, the intellectual. Through genes I
mean, not through studying, since you’ve been playing as much football in the streets as the
rest of us. So: If we make them angry we did solve out problem? Or we got a sure ticket to
getting crippled for good?
Mihalis: No we didn’t solve it, for I don’t know how to make them angry.
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George: What are you talking about? You did solve the difficult part and you got stuck in the
easy details? Just tell them something involving their mothers or sisters and the four-lettered
word and they’ll fly off the ground with rage.
Mihalis: No, I can’t say any such thing; it’ll lower the level.
George: Listen to that guy! And how will we make them angry then? OK, I can only explain
what you say by your going bananas with anxiety, just like me. Any different advice? From
your uncle possibly? Let me sit down before my knees melt.
Mihalis: When we were kids my uncle didn’t tell me such advice. Only after I got from high
school to the university did he. He used to say that between you and the torturer there’s a
personal battle minute by minute, second by second. He tries to bend you, you try to keep
straight. You bring to your mind some nice memories from nature or from girls and you say
to yourself: Let’s hold a little bit longer, let’s hold a little bit longer/A little bit longer, let’s
now last longer/
let’s just keep straight a little, control ourselves a bit, a little bit longer still/we’ll see the
almond trees flower, we’ see the almond trees flower, we’ll see the almond trees full of
flowers/ Let’s hold a little bit longer, let’s hold a little bit longer, we’re going to see the
marbles, they’re shining in the sunlight, the sunlight will make sea waves glimmer / as the
poet and the song go.
George: Oh, my God! You’re in far worse shape than I am. You try to keep straight by
murmuring poetry and chanting Mass. Is that some kind of yoga trick from India or you
went completely nuts by anxiety? Forget about your uncle, tell me about Panagoulis’ advices .
He sounds a reasonable guy in comparison. And he’s in jail now. Like us.
Mihalis: He writes in a poem “Let free the proud sobs of your pain but keep your mouth
shut at the questions of the interrogation. Complete your offer. Go on having pain”.
George: I got the picture. Invite him to your wedding and he’ll wish you “many happy
returns” as the saying goes. Tell me: Are you putting me on, or something? I just can’t picture
how you say that to a guy in pain. You go over him like a spaced out E.T. and recite poetry
not even showing proper respect to his suffering?
Mihalis: (Jumping up from where her was sitting, and howling very wildly over George’s
head):
Hold strong don’t tell them nothing. Stand under the baaar!
George (Startled so much that he falls on the floor): OK, you big! You convinced me, your
uncle too, and Panagoulis. But above all the coach of the weightlifting champ who was
shouting like that about the weight-bar convinced me. OK, I’ll be thinking of you shouting
like that to me; and you too think of me shouting that to you, or think of your uncle or of
Panagoulis. Or let’s both think of the coach.
Mihalis: If enough of us stand and last a little, the people who want our signatures that
human rights are respected in these jails will be unmasked and stripped down in front of the
red Cross and Amnesty International and they’ll have to release us whether they want it or
not.
George: Yes I know: Consolation to the dying till they’ve given up the ghost. It’s been nice
chatting with you but let’s see how we’ll do on the act.
Iron bars opening and closing are heard
Mihalis: I’ve just thought of something decent to say to the MP-guards to make them angry.
George: I admire your timing. As if they are going to have a chat with us.
George G (with a grey moustache, same jailer who was young in the previous episode) and Miltos
enter. First enter George G. , stops, then enters Miltos. Both prisoners shout at the same time as if they
had arranged it:
You get paid the cheapest wages
to beat people of all ages
George G and Miltos, silent and with abrupt pushes get them out of their cell.
CURTAIN FALLS AND REMAINS CLOSED AS CHOIR SINGS THE
FOLLOWING:
There’s two of us, are you uptight?/the clock is striking eight at night/
the guard is near, turn out the light/I knew they would be back tonight/
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Now I can hear, it’s the headguard/the rest are near, the aisle is black/
silence in dark before they start/what is well known and they’re good at/
The blows are two, the blows are three/they are one thousand twenty three/
that hurts in you, that hurts in me/but who’s more hurt we can’t yet see/
but who’s more hurt in time we’ll see/But we are two, but we are three/
we are one thousand twenty three/we ride the weather and the time/
weather with rain and time with pain/counting the hours with blood’s drain/
and with the feel of our wounds’ nail…
Let’s go a little bit further, let’s go a little bit further,
to see the almond trees flower, to see the almond trees flower, to see the almond trees full of flowers
Let’s go a little bit further, let’s go a little bit further,
.
we’re going to see the marbles, they’re shining in the sunlight, the sunlight will make sea waves
glimmer
A little bit higher, let’s now rise higher,
let’s raise ourselves a little, let’s raise ourselves a bit, a little bit higher still.
A little bit higher, let’s now rise higher,
let’s raise ourselves a little, let’s raise ourselves a bit, a little bit higher still.
The scent of thyme filled up the slaughter house we live in
the red of sky filled up the ceiling of our cell
you know the reason guys like you or me are living
we’re cattle raised just to be slain each in its turn.
This noon again they came and took you to their office
I’m counting blows to know exactly how much blood
they’ll bring you back and we’ll be near behind just one wall
tac-tac you knock, tac-tac I knock
and what could mean this wordless message in between?
I still hold strong, I still hold good.
Then in our hearts begin parties and celebrations
tac-tac you knock, tac-tac I knock, tac-tac you knock, tac-tac I knock
After a while , behind curtain, irons bars with heavy metallic sound, resounding like shots, are heard, like every
time MP men are going to make their appearance. George G. amd Miltos bring into the cell Mihalis and George ,
with their clothes torn and bloody , and throw them with kicks and pushes to the cell’s ground
Miltos: Go to hell donkeys’ asses.
George G: Is your skin made of donkey leather? Hitting you makes our hand more hurt than
you.
Before leaving the two MP men take their time have a discussion in front of the prisoners as if all this is just
business as usual and routine they’ve grown quite accustomed to. The two prisoners turn to their side and are
listening to them more and more surprised:
George G. That’s true. We do get the cheapest wages to beat people of all ages. I’ve been
saying that since a long time.
Miltos: You complain? What should I say for doing it for free, just because I’m doing army
service? I wish I had even those cheapest wages, to at least get some face in front of my
fiancée who keeps calling me penniless, as if she herself had a dowry.
George G. There’s also another side the issue: Psychological wear and tear. Who pays that to
us? I haven’t received a bonus after years and years in the service. As if it’s any pleasure for
me to beat up every random bum and asshole and instead of hearing a “thank you” from the
Service, having my people in my neighborhood thinking of me as a ruffian and changing
streets when walking so as to avoid meeting me and telling me a “good morning”. How much
should I charge the Service for such social isolation? I do get angry but again I take it out on
the bums. Whom should I beat up? Our boss? Do you think this might be the reason they
don’t pay us well? To make us feel angry and thus do our job better? Two birds with one
stone? The Service does save money and has the job done better at the same time. What a
fucking job! The worse they pay you the better you do it. What do you say?
Miltos: These are small details for me. Let me first get to where you are and then I worry for
the extras. He who wants too much misses even the little, like the proverb goes.
They leave but without resounding iron doors, just squeaking. The prisoners remain on the floor while talking
198
George: So the only thing they didn’t say was that we should also fight for the rights of their
profession.
Mihalis: Is it possible that so stupid people do exist? At the beginning I thought I wasn’t
hearing well because my ears were ringing because of the slaps. Then I saw how attentively
you were listening and I said myself that I do hear OK.
George: You noticed? Each was hearing only what he himself was saying. One was stuck
with his fiancée not kicking him off for being penniless, the other stuck with psychological
wear and tear.
Mihalis: He was so close to touching perfection that the only thing that was bugging him was
the psychological wear and tear.
George: He must have heard the expression somewhere and he liked it and picked it up for
his case.
Mihalis: A case of cerebral shakedown? Or abyss is the souls of man? Answer: Who gives a
shit?
George: Their cheapness is so gross that it’s like a painkiller. I feel as fit as a lark.
Mihalis: Me too. So why are we lying on our backs like turtles upside down? What are we?
Women after childbirth? Let’s stand up!
George: Ouch! Aaah! Can we afford it?
Mihalis: Ouch! Aaah! We can’t afford it.
George: I see the kind of lark you are.
Mihalis: The same kind as you.
George: Any Panagoulis verse for our condition? OK, forget it. It will sound like “Surgery
successful. Patient dead”, or “take him to a funeral and he’ll tell you “many happy returns””.
Mihalis: Is Mikis OK? “That hurts in you, that hurts in me/but who’s more hurt we can’t yet
see”
George: Such I can make up myself: You be like Christ I like Allah, the two of us all ouch
and ah
Mihalis: You’re fun! You think one day we’re going to be saying this to our nephews and
laugh?
George: You say them to your nephews. Like your spinster uncle. I’ll be saying them to my
gran’children. What an idea! Not having a family so as to be free to go to jails and exiles
without making them unhappy. That’s why people like him are always sour-face. I always
preferred his friend, my name-mate who was telling us about the greaser’s shit-bucket.
Remember?
……….That’s where we started. Let’s also meet them just before they got caught……….
THE BUG
Iro (coming back from long shopping if we judge by the number of bags):
-Can you at least tell me what you’ve been hearing all day? Is it a policeman or a
rocker that I have married? All day long with that headset! You want me to bring you
your uniform so that at least I remember your job?
(Stamatis gestures that he doesn’t hear her)
Iro:
-That much I do know! Yet, let me check. You know the puzzle with Theodorakis and
the cop?
(Again Stamatis gestures he doesn’t hear her)
Iro:
-Good! If he hears that he will either laugh or start yelling. Which one I’m not sure. Who
knows these days the political beliefs of even his own people. Who dares to speak openly?
But if he hears me he can’t help reacting. Well, why did the cop whistle Theodorakis songs in
the street?…To arrest passersby because they were listening to Theodorakis’ songs since they
are forbidden. Ha. Ha. Ha. Gee, what loneliness. I’m only talking to myself and only hearing
myself. Yet from one point of view that’s good, I can express myself more freely. It’s all my
father’s fault who wanted to marry me to a cop, son o f a rightwing friend of his, lest the
opportunity for kosher stuff should be lost. My blindness is to blame too, I still wanted to
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receive the golden medal of the good girl, listening to her dad. Here’s what all that led to. Me
speaking my mind to him only when he has his ears plugged. Let me tell him something
hairier but neighbors shouldn’t hear that…
(Iro goes to close windows)
…we are even more afraid of them than they of us, the cop family. So? Should I try
escalating or I’m playing with fire?
Iro:
(Rhytmically as in demonstrations, but not loud)
You beat up people of all ages
and get paid the cheapest wages.
No reaction, if he had heard that he would have beaten me even for no wages at all.
So let me get it all out full volume.
You get paid the cheapest wages
to beat people of all ages
Aah! What pleasure! I really enjoyed this one.
Suddenly Stamatis reacts. He removes half of the headset, she is startled)
Stamatis:
-OK woman, I know we don’t get paid well, that’s why I work overtime, and bring
some work home. Our bugs tape people all day and then we listen to the tapes to see if
they say something illegal or secret or conspiratorial.
Iro:-Was it James Bond that I married?
Stamatis:-Well, I shouldn’t be boasting but…
(He puts on the headset again)
Iro:
-Phew! For a moment I thought I got caught! But he didn’t hear the whole thing! Let
me try another antijunta joke. Our vice president passes in front of our national poet’s
statue and he hears him speaking to him asking him why they gave marble horses to
the generals’ statues and not to the poets’ too. He mentions it the president and he
doesn’t believe him so he takes him there and the poet’s statue says “I asked you for a
horse, not a mule”
(Stamatis gives no sign of life)
Iro:
-At deaf man’s door take the door and leave, as the saying goes. Do I love that
headset! Two birds with one stone! We pay those installments for our new living
room and I can also talk freely. That’s what I call conjugal communication. I’ m
going to make dinner, see you later
night coppee.
(Stamatis removes the headset again)
Stamatis:-What did you call me?
Iro:
-I said something about night coffee. Keeps one awake. I’ll fix something light for
dinner.
(As soon as Iro leaves Stamatis removes the headset and talks to himself in low voice)
Stamatis:
-Fuckin’ gadget, gives me an ear itch all these hours. I could hardly keep my cool and
not laugh. Terrific jokes. Yet she may be fishing me. Am I going insane? OK, they
told us at the seminar not to trust even our wives, but they meant she might be a
leftist, whereas what I fear is her spying me on behalf of my department in the police.
How much I want to to tell her a joke I heard on that buggin’ fuckin’ headset, but can
I trust her? Well, I mean even if she is not a spy maybe part of what she liked in me
was being the rightwinger her father saw in me. I myself thought high of her beliefs
200
when my father…Aaah! Forget all that! Anyway, apart from all that crap she was the
hell of a girl when we were newlywed. And she thought as much of me. And here we
are the hell of two shitheads speaking to each other only when the other is not
listening, this fucking job has really made us weirdos talking to themselves. How I
wish she had changed her beliefs like me. Fancy us sharing jokes and plans against
the junta. Aah! Forget it . Such things don’t happen in real life, only in serials. But
I’m going to tell her that joke, even if I only mumble it to myself. When our president
passed the slogan “Greeece of Orthodox Greeks” the ol’ man of democracy
commented “Greece of Orthodox Greeks catholically protesting”, as sharp as always
the ol’man.
Iro:-Darling, what the ol’man said was fantastic!
Stamatis:(Startled)
-Aah!You were spying on me? Not cooking?
Iro:
-No, I was just coming to tell you dinner’s ready because with that headset you
wouldn’t hear me and I just happened to hear you talking loud to yourself.
Stamatis:-How do you know I was not fishing you with that joke?
Iro:-Do you also suspect yourself now?
Stamatis:-Don’t you suspect me too ?
Iro:
-I would suspect that you were fishing me if you had only said jokes, but you also said
some thing about our honeymoon. And if you could only hear with what voice you
said them…you would be as sure as I am that you too are against the junta.
Stamatis:-Not so loud! We might have a bug.
Iro:
-After so many bugs you cops put everywhere you now suspect each other too?
Stamatis:-Say that again!…But not loud.
Iro:-Whom were you listening to?
Stamatis:
- Somebody we were bugging had a cassette of Mikis, “songs of struggle” it’s called,
terrific songs, it really beats me how the tall sent them from abroad, when his son
came to see his grandpa we had searched his coat even in the inside for cassettes, we
tore it up, somebody told us later he might have kept only the reel and rolled it around
on of those big coat-buttons, they may be hollow. Well we didn’t think of that.
Iro:-Are we going to hear it together too?
(They hear together “Beginning of Struggle” with their fists lifted)
Stamatis:-What if some bug’s bug is hearing us?
Iro:
-His marriage with his wife is going to be saved like ours was just saved
Stamatis:-What d’ you mean?
Iro:
-He’ll take the good example from how we came to terms with each other and will
come to terms with his wife too. Aah! Whoever is the guy you were shadowing and
wherever he is, he did something good for us. What you think he’s doing now?
Stamatis:-Maybe writing a poem. He’s a poet.
Iro:
-Really? And they keep calling poets sissy? I think they’re the ones taking the weather
with all you after them. Does he know you have bugged him?
Stamatis:-He suspects it.
Iro:-What does he do about it?
201
Stamatis:-I think he takes it like you do.
Iro:-What d’ you mean?
Stamatis:
-I heard him mumbling some verses as he was writing them, something about giving a
good example to the bugs.
Iro:-Wow me! Great minds think alike!
Stamatis:-You think I may have married a poetress and not known it?
Iro:
-This should be underlined by some people in this very room who thought that their
very wife spied on them. Will you do me a favor? Can you ask to become his
exclusive bug so as not to miss that poem when he completes it?
Stamatis:-Are you very curious?
Iro:
-Are you very jealous? My poor little dumb-dumb can’t think that now that I feel
we’re a real couple again I wouldn’t have eyes for anybody else? That I only want to
hear that poem to know how my words would sound if I had a talent for writing
verses?
Stamatis:-In that case let’s bug him together from now on.
(In the next scene the poet, Mihalis, rising from a table, holds a page in his hand and
in another part of the stage the couple is listening to his reading wearing one headset
each)
Mihalis:
-Hmm. Let’s see how it comes out:
(he reads)
My feelings are real brotherly and best
for all poor hounds who all the time surround my nest,
who, with snow or even rain,
my keepers all around the clock have been ordained,
who have to use their bugs and mikes to hear
whatever passes through my mouth or even near,
songs, swears, and jokes stupid or clever
within the kitchen or the toilet or wherever.
My brother cops and hounds you do remain
listeners and knowers of my every human pain,
you are and will remain the main witness
that my passion for my cause and that my sweetness
are as constantly with me as I with them.
Words that otherwise would be forgotten,
all in your tapes have been recorded and safeguarded
and when at home in bed at least you’re free to sleep
through whispers from your lips my songs can find some leaks.
My gratitude to you for this is really deep.
Dear colleagues, my colleagues, faithful and most dear colleagues.
Dear colleagues, my colleagues, faithful and most dear colleagues.
In the next scene the poem is heard played as a song in both the poet’s and in the
cop’s house, the poet dances it alone and very energetically and acrobatically, on
chairs and tables, the couple dances it tango-like with many fancy dance postures
showing how much in love they really are too. In the protracted and ironic “Collea-eaea-ea-gues” they all have their legs raised to the same direction and same angle and in
the manner of musical reviews, burlesque etc.
Follow up: Stamatis finally combined also tsamiko and zeimbekiko, Iro added ballet
poses on toes and also she had the idea to put a red tablecloth on the dinner table in
202
order to remove it and wave it to him like a toreador to make him dance in bull-like
poses against its redness (symbolic of communism too of course etc)
(The song is by the German poet Wolf Birman and was put to music by the Greek
composer Thanos Mikroutsikos)
Suddenly the phone rings at the policeman’s house. He picks it up:
“Hello…What? I’m coming”
“What happened?”
“Turn on the radio and you’ll see. I’m leaving. Oh! My uniform”
The phone rings at the poet’s house. He picks it up:
“Hello…Didn’t I tell you not to call here. I’m sure I’ m bugged. Oh, you call from a booth.
Then OK. What? Why didn’t you tell me? I’m coming. Radio? Fuck the radio. I’ve run out of
batteries. I’m coming there”
He puts on a jacket and leaves (the friend who called was George).
Iro turns on the radio, changes some stations and suddenly she hits on:
“This the Polytechnic. This is the Polytechnic. You are listening to the radio station of
the free fighting students, of the free fighting Greeks”
Shouts of demonstrators around the Polytechnic are also heard on the radio. They also shout
to people on buses passing by to get down and join them :
Down with the junta
Down with the junta
Show us solidarity
Show us solidarity
Get down from the buses
Bread schools and freedom
CURTAIN FALLS AND REMAINS CLOSED BECAUSE
A LONG PART OF THE NEXT EPISODE IS PLAYED WITH CURTAIN CLOSED
(A DVD player plays a scene where a teenager hearing on the radio the broadcasting from the
Polytechnic stands up, finishes his coffee standing, kisses his mom and leaves. We freeze the scene
where his mom sits and listens to the radio on the kitchen table.
The theater actors are still behind the curtain, we can only hear them like, at that time, the listeners to
the radio could only hear the students inside the Polytechnic or the demonstrators on the streets)
Emmanuelle:
This the Polytechnic. This is the Polytechnic. You are listening to the radio station of
the free fighting students, of the free fighting Greeks
The others shout:
Down with the junta
Down with the junta
Show us solidarity
Show us solidarity
We are united and decided
We are united and decided
This night will be the death of fascism
People remember tonight it’s now or never
People remember tonight it’s now or never
Sit up and fight they’re sucking your blood dry
Sit up and fight they’re sucking your blood dry
People you’re hungry why bow and not get angry
People you’re hungry why bow and not get angry
203
You are in hunger go get some rope and hang’em
You are in hunger go get some rope and hang’em
MP, SS, you’re people’s torturers/ you’re trash you’re scum, the shame of this land
Emmanuelle reads:
We need serum injections, fenergan, valium of two milligrams and of five milligrams
injectible
Thanasis :
(sitting next to Emmanuelle and the common microphone but still behind curtains)
And we need lots of lemons. Tear gas has well started . We also need paper handkerchiefs,
and plastic gloves and doctors, and whatever an organism needs in lack of air.
(We’re still behind the curtains but the scene frozen on the DVD is the tank ready to break down the
gate to Polytechnic. The shouts behind the curtain continue)
Voice of Thanasis:
(still behind curtains. Thanasis wears a uniform. He deserted and came straight to Polytechnic without
even changing clothes):
The soldiers will not shoot their brothers. Long live the unbent morale of Greek soldiers.
Let’s call them to get down from those tanks.
All shout:
Get down from those tanks
Get down from those tanks
Isolated distant shots are heard
Pause.
Voice of Emmanuelle:
It’s unbelievable. They tell us Greek officers shot Greek soldiers inside tanks because they
refused to raise up arms against their brothers.
Suddenly the DVD becomes energized. The frozen tank moves on the screen and
breaks down the gate of the Polytechnic and enters the campus’ front yard. The curtain
opens and for the first time we see the students, standing behind Emmanuelle and
Thanasis A. who are sitting in front of the microphone on a table. Now they two also
rise. The soldiers have not reached this room yet but we hear repeated shots from closer
distances closer and closer and the sound of caterpillars of tanks rolling. The only
slogan they shout before they start singing the National Anthem is:
This night your children are getting murdered
This night your children are getting murdered
(the loudspeakers transmit it for repetition into the campus yard and it is repeated as if by as single
huge mouth heard on the radio too, like all other slogans so far, although the people in the yard are
also running for cover)
Then the students in the room start singing the National Anthem:
Freedom I can tell your face by your sword’s horrible sight
dust and earth you count and measure by your cutting edge’s stride…
At “cutting edge’s stride…” they are interrupted by soldiers jumping onto the stage after
breaking into the theater room from its side doors with shots in the air and dashing with
club-sticks on the shouters. To Thanasis who is seen in uniform and near a microphone two
soldiers dash and take him away with one pistol at each temple of his. Same treatment for
Mihalis the poet who was among the shouters standing and, as it seems, had been not only
bugged but also known as face to some of the invading personnel. George is also there. They
hit and make arrests by putting handcuffs on people and letting them lying down and guarded
by a couple of soldiers, and the rest to go to search other rooms too.
CURTAIN
204
IN-LAWS AND OUTLAWS
(Cast: Mom played by Rosa, dad by Vangelis, mother in law by Kelly, couple (Iason and Effie) played
by Panagiotis and Vaso. Later Rosa was played by her younger sister Olga and Vaso by Emmanuelle)
(Setting: Living room)
Vangelis:
-That was it! She’s going to hear it even in jail! Everybody knows. Our only daughter
has made asses of us in the whole neighborhood. And it’s not just the neighborhood.
In the office even the chairman knows. A director like me who had never given the
least...Aah! here we are now, a director looking for acquaintances in the police...I
even called up that asshole cousin of yours who had trapped us out of that inheritance.
I don’t even want to remember what he told me.
Rosa:
-What did he tell you? His daughter’s father in law is in the police. He could help.
Vangelis:
-Nope! He said that our so smart and cute daughter has no right to make an ass of him too just
because she liked the company of bums. What we let her become a student for? That’s what
he asked me. He kept his daughter at home until marrying her. That’s a daughter’s place. Her
place is not near students with whom God only knows what they discuss and what they do
when they are together.
Rosa:
The good-for- nothing idiot is again talking out of jealousy. He’s never talked good of
anybody! And quite a bargain of a husband he did find for his daughter. Drugstore
assistant. Big deal!
Vangelis:
-Jealousy or non-jealousy, it’s me who will be losing face and asking for favors with
the kind of upbringing you gave your daughter.
Rosa:
-Aristidi: read my lips. Cut all that about upbringing. My kin did not include fellahs
like your cousin Miltos. And you almost insisted on our daughter making his valuable
acquaintance because not having married and not having kids he wanted to see his
nephews and nieces. What was Miltos looking for in exile islands, Aristidi? And why
was he caught among the first this time? And why was it your daughter who would
visit him in jail to take him cigarettes? Don’t you think they have a record on her? Or
even on you? And you have the nerve to talk about my kin? And the upbringing I
gave her?
Vangelis:
-OK, OK, that’s beside the point right now.
Rosa:
-Oh yeah? When it’s about your kin it’s beside the point?
Vangelis:
-Woman, quiet down. We got to figure what to do.
Rosa:
-Sorry Aristidi, you’re right. I’m just too upset, and the least detail gets on my
nerves…And what about our in-laws? Have you thought of that?
Vangelis:
-I’ve told you not to see them as our in-laws until you see the wedding.
Rosa:
-You and your jinx! Bite your tongue.
(Knock-knock on the door. Rosa opens and says:)
-Oh! You name her, you see her. We were just talking about you, fellow-mom-in-law!
Coffee?
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Kelly:
-Such a problem in your family and you find the time to talk about me? Aaah! Youths today
have lost heir minds. I’ve not sat down since early morning visiting people who might be of
help. But I’ll tell you straight because I never lie. I absolutely disagree with the kind of
upbringing you gave your daughter. May God forgive me for what I’ll say but I’m only
striving for my son who has lost his sleep and not for you daughter who, after all, asked for it.
I almost reached divorce with my own husband. Agisilaos has not talked to Iason for two
days. He started softly “Iason, son, a student with a scholarship like you having company like
that!” and in no time they were quarreling at the top of their lungs, and I was running around
to close windows, these are not the days neighbors should hear a family’s political arguments.
But I tell you to your face. If it becomes a matter between me and Agisilaos I’d rather my son
left your daughter and be spared…
Rosa:
OK, I do see your point, but don’t stretch it that far! Effie was disoriented in a way
that Iason could have been disoriented too.
Kelly:
Yes, but Agisilaos was always watching over. A real watchdog.
Rosa:
D’you hear that Aristidi? And if he was such a watchdog over a son , imagine what a
watchdog he’d be over a daughter!
Vangelis:
-To the point!. Come to the point! Any acquaintance found finally?
Kelly:
-Fortunately. Iason’s godfather is a general. He called up the prison director and he said that
it’s up to him to let Effie out. But we should be giving a hand too.
Vangelis:
-We?!
Rosa:
-In what way?
Kelly:
-Some foreign journalists will be visiting the jail. Effie speaks good English. You can tell her
to speak on behalf of all prisoners and say that the jail conditions are good. And to be smiling
not look down or worn out, nobody will be mistreating her. Take her a bowl of her favorite
dish to improve her mood.
Vangelis:
-She’s real pig-headed, but I do have something in mind that is worth trying.
Rosa:
-Why don’t you say to Iason to come along? I too have something in mind but Iason with us
will make everything easier. I’ll tell her to dream with him about their household, I’ll tell her
about the furniture you and I ordered, I’ll tell her what joy it’s going to be for all of us if they
give us the grandchildren we’re waiting for.
Kelly:
OK, but don’t overdo it because she’s a smart girl and she’ll give you the cold shoulder. You
cook Effie’s plate and I’ll tell the general to ask when visitors are allowed.
Curtain falls to change to the setting a jail’s visiting room setting.
Waiting for it to re-open we hear the following song from the choir:
We’re law abiding citizens our own business we’re minding
we never had any mix-ups for which we should be hiding
we just cared that our interests to our way would be coming
and all our deals, medium or small, like clock were always running.
The way the things have now turned out, prison with chain and fetter
a rebel in the family makes us look worse not better
a rebel in the family makes us look worse not better
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What shame what shame this kid brought to our name,
what shame what shame this kid brought to our name.
Curtain reopens
(Prison, wire net between parents and imprisoned daughter )
Rosa:
-But my little girl always liked meatballs. Even as a baby. What’s wrong now? Is it out of
solidarity to your fellow prisoners you don’t eat? Oh, my poor little baby! Always sacrificing
herself for others. How well I understand you! You take that from me. I’m such a
humanitarian myself. Share them with everybody. That’s why I cooked them in our big pot.
Vaso:
-Mom, are you out of your mind? Do you really mean to tell me to take your meatballs to the
prisoners and then all play happy to the foreign journalists that will come to ask about the jail
conditions?
Rosa:
-Oh, well, our nation is poor and can’t feed all prisoners good dishes, but out of kindness it
allows relatives to bring their own food. Don’t you at least recognize that?
Vaso:
MOM! Do you know what’s going on in here? I’m only not telling you to spare you some
deep worries.
Rosa:
-Is this a way to speak to your MOTHER? Aristidi , say something, too! Am I supposed to
say everything myself?
Vangelis:
-You the young forget one thing. It’s not you who’ll change the world. If the world was going
to be changed by the young it would have already been changed since we ourselves too have
been young. And what did your uncle Miltos accomplish? He impaired his health, his life is
full of wear and tear and the grand total sum is zero. No result. No change.
Vaso:
-Let’s leave that subject or we’ll have an argument and this is not what I want. You are quite
upset already, I see no reason to stop saying “hi” on top of that. OK?
Rosa:
-Listen to the way she’s speaking to her parents themselves! Aristidi what was the idea of
bringing up Miltos at this hour? Baby, listen, Iason adores you, get out of here and marry him.
He’s right here out of the door longing to talk to you. We leave you two little birdies say all
you so much wanted to say to each other. So we don’t say good bye yet. Say your own things
and we’ll be back.
Vangelis:
And hey, man, be a realist. You’re an idealist? You want to change society?. Right on! I’m
with you! I congratulate you. I admire you. But find first a position with power and prestige
so that your opinion can count and so that what you propose can make a difference. Be
somebody. Amount to something.. How are you going to do it? Are you going to kick on the
pricks barefoot? More pricks than kicks, as the saying goes.
Rosa:
-OK, Aristidi, OK! Well done! And quite enough! Let’s leave now, the kids will have so
much of their own to talk about. Let’s go.
Act three
(They go out, Iason comes in almost running)
Iason:
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-Effie, are you alright? I haven’t closed an eye. Shit! What am I talking about? Is it my
staying up that counts or yours? In this hell! Fortunately my godfatheris a general and they
allowed me to see you.
Effie:
-Iason, it’s not enough to stay up about me. Solidarity to me can’t help much. It’s on the night
of the invasion to the Polytechnic you should have stayed up. To express your solidarity to the
struggle like we all did.
Iason:
-Effie this is no time for heroism. Things will only change gradually. Foreigners will also
help. We can help too by taking our degrees and finding positions with power and prestige.
Vaso:
-How will the foreigners help? Finding even prisoners well-fed with borrowed meatballs?
Iason:
- Effie, you’re something else! You never lose your sense of humor!
Vaso:
-I don’t lose it so that my folks not lose their sleep. I would pity them if they could even
imagine what goes on in here. But I wouldn’t hide it from you.
Iason:
-Don’t tell me. I heard about it. Did they hit you too?
Vaso:
-If that is the only thing you care about I don’t answer you. Why don’t you ask whether they
hit others? Must it be my turn before you care?
Iason:
-If I only had some high position of power and prestige and resign and make asses of them in
front of the foreign journalists!
Vaso:
-But you even went along with my parent in the plot of deceiving foreign journalists with
those meatballs! Are you that influenced by them? Are we going to implement things we
were taking as jokes? You know what my mother used to say to my uncle Miltos? Vote for
the right for the time being until we straighten out our finances and when the elections can’t
rock the boat anymore we can all vote left and straighten out our beliefs too.
Iason:
-Oh, Effie, joking even in jail! I can’t help saying it again. That’s why I admire you.
Vaso:
-No, I’m not joking. And find something harder to admire. It’s in this jail that my eyes
opened. In your school not everybody has been caught. The organization is still in business.
The kids are still there. Waiting for you like for others.
Iason:
-So what do you propose?
Vaso:
-Make up your mind. Don’t waste your time visiting me here. Do something against the junta
and if you get caught you’ll feel me near you either in this jail or in any other. But try not to
get caught so that you manage to have some action. If you only dream of our household and
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our moms’ furniture and of their grandchildren and of positions of power and prestige, then
just find another bride. With some dowry too.
Iason:
-Effie I don’t recognize you.
Vaso:
-I wonder if I ever knew you.
Iason:
-Effie, I’m not saying this in a bad sense. I mean I admire you and I’ll think very seriously
everything you’ve told me.
(Suddely mom rushes in, outraged, dad is following, obviously they were eavesdropping)
Mom (Rosa) to her daughter:
-You shithead made a moron out of him too and he sits and listens to you instead of slapping
you back to your senses? We had hoped he would take you out of here and this idiot has
almost signed in here. I knew all those come-and-go’s with Miltos’ cigarettes in jail would
not have a happy ending.
Vaso:
-Iason, please just take them and go away before I say any words I don’t want to.
Dad (Vangelis):
-But visitor’s time has not ended. You’re still free.
Vaso:
-I end it myself. And concerning “free” just forget it. The prisoners are you out there, not us
in here. Bye. And have a nice freedom.
Curtain falls under the sound of the song “The free and the beautiful live behind bars”
(All the beau-, all the beautiful and free now
live behind, live behind some prison bars…)
CURTAIN FALLS TO CHANGE SETTING AND REOPENS
Note: Having a humorous and lighter story , of a somewhat related subject, at the end of tragic
trilogies was not , in antiquity, the definition of catharsis. The catharsis that we skipped, for brevity,
was before the above ending, but let’s only mention the following part of the meeting of the two older
friends , after we see, shortly, the meeting of their two, younger, name-mates who were kids in the fist
episode.
George: Now I see why our name-mates used to be so uptight about discussing those old
days.
Mihalis: It was a coincidence that it was Felipe and not one of them who was shot that night
after which legislation changed.
George: Ever since, with every change in their life, marriage, kids etc, they would think of
what Philip would be doing if not shot.
(Is there any kind of happy ending or catharsis for this story? The projector shows (as snapshots; not
in motion) the faces of the two couples of friends thirty years after the fall of the junta , in two parallel
photos . The younger couple is graying the older is completely white haired. Then the picture of the
white haired couple becomes animated:)
Mihalis: What triggered all those memories we’ve been reminding to each other?
George: God bless the big tall, Theodorakis, who’ll give the concert on the island itself, for
those of us who are still living to show it to our grandchildren and to pride in having helped a
bit ourselves to the world’s change.
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Mihalis: To have concerts there where we know what was happening.
George: History’s comeback as the big tall calls it. It turned out real. Remember when we
were asking the guards what would they have to tell their grandchildren? I mean us who did
not plan to remain eternal bachelors. And the tall was telling the guards “When your tanks
will have become rust, people will still be singing my songs. And even on this very island
there will be a concert.” Wow! Was it I who remembered that ? Not you? Culture is
contagious it seems. You’re tall too, that explains it. You the tall ones, contact it to us. Will
we go to the concert! Hell, even swimming we’d go! I’ll go with children and gran’children.
Are you coming with our bunch?
Mihalis: My nephew Mihalis and his friend George, your name-mate, have also invited me.
But we can make the two bunches join each other.
George: Who? The two brats who were asking us about the greaser on their way to street
soccer? What became of them? Are they now students? What am I talking about? We lost
each other for so many years that I didn’t ask you. They already were students when they had
come to the hut, so now they have bunches with kids about to get married or even have
gran’kiddies of their own. They’ll be asking us again about our youth?
Mihalis: No, we’ll be asking them about their youth. They have their own stories. Theirs was
the Polytechnic’s generation.
George: How years pass!
Mihalis: But…OK, “Drop it. It hurts”, as the song goes.
George: I got it. That’s what I too thought, but I didn’t mention it because it always makes
you either angry or spooked. Aaah, Philip, you should have seen the comeback of history, but
you see, you were killed early, it was your number that came out on the lottery-wheel that
night…Early? Early, my foot! It was only the next day all death sentences became life
sentences. Yours was the last execution in the country for years to come…OK, I’m spooked
too. I drop it. Tell me about our name-mates in the Polytechnic. What a generation that one
too! Remember the kind of men we saw in those days? What a catapult Panagoulis was to his
judges! And his guards sometimes were pleading with him, or sometimes they were
crucifying him, to make him sign a petition for grace so as to spare the junta the obligation to
either kill him and be exposed to the international community or to not apply the death
sentence and look yielding to the people they wanted to terrorize. And on those petitions ,
instead of signing, he just wrote messages to their leader like “Hi arch-clown and archbuffoon”; and they went from mock execution to mock execution just in case they could
scare him. But they made more and more ridiculous asses of themselves, not being able to
bend him even with subjecting him to Christ’s passions as the expression goes or, rather, in
his case it was not an expression. It was their everyday routine and practice for years.
Mihalis: It’s like the proverb “May God keep you from what your strength can stand”. Just
imagine: he had said that before he got into this he was te kind of person who faints at the
dentist’s if he sees blood. You see he was a poet too, like those on the island. But when they
started asking him about names and hideouts of the people he worked with he became a rock.
They never got one word from him.
George: And Ritsos as young poet on the island?! When we asked him how he could stand as
much as a tough guy like the greaser he said that to get used to seeing blood before ending
there he used to go to the slaughter houses. And Panagoulis’ poems, since he didn’t have pen
and paper, started as poems on the wall written with blood. And some guards, seeing what he
stood through, felt as such total zeros that they risked not only bringing him pen and paper but
also smuggling the poems out of prison to pass around from hand to hand. Some people’s will
woke up only after they saw his will.
Mihalis: My nephew told me that in those times he was the idol of all the young and that the
feeling somehow was that he was the one giving the people outside jail courage and support,
not the other way around, and that when some of them were also caught they felt a giant was
backing them from wherever he was, and was telling them to go on and not be bent by
anything. A Chinese proverb says that if you try to silence truth through prison , then the
prison walls become loudspeakers and shout it louder. Wasn’t this what happened here? The
jailers themselves propagated the poems.
210
George: I wish I saw the face of that bigshot politician hearing that! I only saw his mug
when he said that bullshit about “poets being lumps”. Hey! You made me listen to Chinese
proverbs? I thought proverb books were sissy stuff. Sometimes you even make me think that
“culture-freak” is not an insult. By the way: Remember when in the trials of the torturers after
the junta’s fall that torturer was shouting that Panagoulis was very cruel to his torturers
because he despised them and was swearing at them all the time and that he continued this in
court by not calling him a mister? What a brain-shake! That clown was quite an event.
Mihalis: The craziest of all things was that he went over to congratulate Panagoulis for his
oration as a witness, when he testified against him.
George: You only know up to there?
Mihalis: Is there a sequel?
George: You missed the best: he pushed his hand into Panagoulis’ to congratulate him and
when Panagoulis said “I again feel the touch of shit on my hand” he said to him “My Alekos,
you had said that to me so many times that I’ve grown used to it”. Is there a Nobel for brain
imbalance? This guy sounded almost nostalgic as if sharing nice memories! Just fancy that
one!: “You had said that to me so many times , my Alekos…”. Oh, I just conceived a slogan
to shout: “Follow the way, opened by the greaser”. It must be because of the shit line I’ve
just quoted. History repeats itself, “each one you see now you’re going to see again” as the
song goes. You’re making a culture-freak out of me. Only when I’m with you I feel verses
coming.
Mihalis: Strange: Only when I’m with you I hear about shit and feel I’m hearing about
poetry.
George: So our collaboration does pay off. Oh: So the song “Each one you see now you’re
going to see again” was not only about predicting that we would get out of jail at some point,
and our families would see us again because the trials that gave us life sentences were illegal,
but also about predicting that the new generation would have the likes of us going on with the
story we too helped go on.
Mihalis: Most true.
George: Let’s go and have something to eat. Too much thought makes me hungry. Or better
postpone more thinking for tomorrow? Or how about next Monday?
Mihalis: Do you want me too to surprise you too with a funny story that you don’t know? If
you knew it you would have mentioned it right now.
George: Shoot.
Mihalis: OK, Panagoulis had that cell specially built to be like grave with not even enough
room to stand up. But it was in the middle of the MP camp’s yard so as to have no
neighboring cells and to be visible from anywhere lest he escapes or is approached by
anybody. This positioning gave him one advantage. Every evening, when the soldiers who
had an exit were preparing to leave, Panagoulis made a voice theater show playing two
voices, the penniless folk comic hero for centuries , Karagiozis and the folk poor-devil
symbol, Hatziavatis, to whom Karagiozis is always sarcastic for reasons depending on the
title of each episode, e.g. for trying to be a newly rich, a charmer, an ass-kisser of some
bigshot etc., and whom by the end he always gives a beating. So Panagoulis put himself in
the position of Karagiozis and the director of the jail in the position of Hatziavatis and made
a new episode every evening, specially timed to be just a while after the exit, so that the
director seeing the soldiers not leaving, knew they did want to hear the episode and were not
just passive listeners. To the beating that Karagiozis gave to his victim, Panagoulis added a
fucking. So he was making all the time an ass of the jail’s director who just could not do
anything to stop it since he did not have any means with which to threaten Panagoulis. The
only thing that had not been tried on him was to expel him from prison. At one point, under
the pressure of international public organizations and foreign governments, the junta gave
amnesty to all political prisoners and they had to announce to him too that he was free. But he
said “Just for you not to think that you are doing me a favor, since I do you a favor if I leave,
since you need to satisfy the people who pressure you, I will not leave unless you bring me
French cologne and a passy of soldiers to give me honorary salute as I will be getting out of
the yard”. To at last get rid of him and of his evening voice-show the director , fed up, sent
211
for the cologne and for the soldiers, most of whom did mean their honorary salute to him
anyway. That’s the way he got out. What do you say? Panagoulis has left you speechless
once more. No?
George: He made my day and my night and my tomorrow day. And my week. And…Oh,
this calls for a big-big treat to you who made my night and day etc by telling me all this. So I
won’t treat you dinner in a souvlaki stand. We’ll go to a bouzouki place. I’ll also treat you a
basket of gardenias. I give them to you, you offer them to whoever you like, I can’t make
suggestions to you wild bachelors or monks, I’ve never figured which of the two you
intellectuals are. Some, even good friends, have even said that you are either…Oh! What an
asshole I am. What am I talking about after eighty years of friendship? And on such a day of
celebration! Gaaad! What a story! Aaah, Philip, it’s such stories too I feel sad you lost.
Greaser, Philip, Panagoulis, to your health we’ll drink, we’ll wish you to live one thousand
years…Well, where you are you’ll live a thousand and a million….Oh, I also mean you’ll be
remembered for as many. Did I think of that too? Thanks for the story culture-freak…
Dear Hernán and Aristides: 1)All three of us southerners come from countries where such
stories are very usual among the previous generations, so I’m not writing them as original or
additional information but as part of the so many déjà vues about each other that facilitate our
communication and make it to feel to us like a friendship that is decades old even if we know
each other for short or very short times. 2) Hernán, you, being a medical doctor , thus a
rationalist and pragmatist in what you consider an offer to society, and, Aristides, you, being
a teacher like me, and knowing of course that it is a naïve error to teach kids only things
related to emotions or to humanities and not also things related to tangible things that should
not be snubbed as too materialstic, OK, you both understand that the reason why I propagate
all this is not to make the reader stuck to such stories and unable to exert himself in things that
need more discipline, but on the contrary, the reason s to show him how easy it is to absorb all
that, and have it in places of his soul from where it can act simply as part of psychological
constitution** and make him a better person and a better citizen of whichever country
3) Hernán, you, having lived in US for many decades and having read the first, and very long,
pdf of this site, last June, when its reformulation as a meeting of three southerners was not
even conceived since we had not yet heard of Aristides, OK, Hernán, you know quite well if
the site as a whole makes an effort to pinpoint the similar channels through which a
Southerner may find Notherners who espouse similar values for anything functional that
might result. OK, more precisely we should be speaking of Southwesterners and
Nortwesterners, I have no experience of how Easterners , whether in South or North, think
and feel, I try to learn from friends who know, but whether I learn or not, to call our site a
meeting of Southerners is more based on the fact that we happened to already communicate
without having to ask ourselves “Let’s first find also people from India and Arabia, spend a
whole lifetime to understand them, and then be allowed to write something about the South
in the way we do it”.
*like all humanities courses act, as the par excellenece application of Einstein’s definition: “education
is what remaisn after we forgets all we have learned”
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Notes:
1)To see both differences and similarities between how things sound in theater and how they sound in
real life we tell kids to read the narration by kyr Vangelis we saw in the previous pdf
2)To see the advantages of theatrized presentations of books, arguments etc let’s remember a famous
example that was being played in London in the period NATO was making the famous “humanitarian
bombings” in Yugoslavia* and written by Michael Frayn**. It will help in the sequel if we see a
summary of it (in which we won’t be going back and forth between the characters, but one character
will say, in one breath, all that she (and her husband) said in the play and then another character will
say, in one breath, all that he answered her in the play (the characters are Bohr’s wife, Bohr, and
Bohr’s ex student Heisenberg). Their discussion takes place in the heaven, in afterlife:)
“When I realized you came to Nazi occupied Denmark to fish your ex teacher’s advice with Nazi escort
I got so mad and even spooky that I stopped believing in human nature. You had father-to-son relation
with your teacher , you wrote history together doing top rate work in physics, you enjoyed music
together, you were playing with our baby son on your knees , you knew how grieved your teacher was
because we had lost that son to an accident in which he drowned in front of his father’s eyes , yet you
did come to fish advice for Hitler’s bomb..”
“My hope was that instead you would have said to my teacher “A person who played with the son he
knows we lost , a person that did top rate work with you and had a father-to-son relation with you can’t
possibly have come to fish advice from you to help the Nazis who occupy our country. If these things
were true I would stop believing in human nature. Something else must be going on” and then my
teacher would have said “The question he asked me is an undergraduate’s question. He would have
solved that with closed eyes when he was in high school , at twenty he was doing Nobel prize level
work. Either his mind gets blocked when he works for Hitler or something else is the case as you too
say. So he must be giving a message which he phrases like a physics question to confuse the Nazi
escort, he says that he plays cretin as head of the atom bomb project, so he is sabotaging it, so we must
escape to Los Alamos but not to help them to hand over the bomb to the US generals before he hands
his bomb to Hitler’s generals but in order to tell them there is no race with Hitler, and that this weapon
should never be constructed”. Yet neither of you got the message. You escaped under spy-film
conditions to US and helped make the bomb there. The American atom bomb was not sabotaged like
the German one was, by me who had not resigned because the next head of the project might be
someone who would not want to sabotage it. And not only was the American bomb constructed but
also used against human targets and not on a desert little island as a display of force and proof that the
bomb did exist as physicists had proposed to Roosevelt in order to start the project using Einstein as
their most authoritative and thus most convincing representative in that famous letter he wrote to
Roosevelt from Princeton. And not only was it used against human targets but these targets were
civilians; and were bombed after Japan’s surrender. As also civilians were the more than one hundred
thousand people Churchill had bombed in Germany after Germany’s surrender. Yet it was me who
later was considered a criminal , for collaborating with Hitler, and not with my overseas colleagues.
And OK, I would not so much miss their handshake in physics conferences, nor would I so much miss
the appreciation by my compatriots of my caliber as a physicist for not having the German bomb in
time, but if a German asks me “well, for you, a German, Germany was not only Hitler as it wasn’t for
so many of us, either. Germany was also our childhood friends and also it was the German
civilization”, like I and Planck had said to ourselves and we didn’t leave like Austrian and Jewish
physicists correctly did, and we stayed to help Germany as we should , well if a German asks me that
then I sometimes do get a hind dilemma which I then knew I shouldn’t have. The worst thing is that
there are other physicists that still do not, or do not yet, have the opposite dilemma and this is very
bad for the future of mankind..”
After that discussion the world is not saved from further nuclear worries, of course, but at least Bohr’s
wife believes again in human nature; but only when they’re in heaven, on earth these explanations were
never given, Frayn came too late, for them as persons, but hopefully early enough, or in the nick of
time, for the application of their points to their and our collective concerns.
Concerning the advantages of theatrized presentations of books, arguments etc we mention that this
play was staged by an arts high school in Salonica and its presentation in an experimental physics day
in Athens was was made a video circulating in all high schools http://www.gymkallampel.gr/?p=1422#more-1422)
(Let’s also mention Mumford’s remark that he who wins a war is not he who survives physically at its
*And Chomsky was writing at the time (1999) that they were the equivalent of the strategy of the mafioso of the
neighborhood going around and breaking a couple of the arms that he was only twisting that far, to give the
message he was not joking when pushing, but at a scale describable as “the new state of things is that around the
globe, above a height, an umbrella of arms has been installed and US is like a Jahve not always just, not even
sane, and very often angry…” (this is quoted by memory, not verbatim, and without a precise newpaper reference)
**The same playwright who had written, about 30 years ago, the famous utterly hilarious comedy “Noises off ”.
213
end but he whose ideas and methods are finally adopted by, or imposed on, society. And since the atom
bomb was used, and on civilians, and since some of Hitler’s experts were given the choice to skip
Nuremberg if they agreed to work for US intelligence and pass on to them some methods, therefore
Hitler won2nd World War*)
3)Concerning the “interactiveness” of the education through theater but also its present impasses let’s first include
K.Papaioannou’s insights (which, he had said, were borrowed from Plato but with one change: Plato spelled out
the role of theater to accuse Athens (and say it was ruled by “theatrocracy”), Papaioannou borrowed Plato’s
insights but to praise Athens for that**. We take them along with their context in an article*** with scope wider
than theater “...After all, interactiveness between education and action may have worked in ancient Athens, where
people were given, for free, top courses in both political criticism and self-knowledge in the form of comedies and
satires, and high drama about man’s “beckoning potential selves whose imitation in moments of crisis would help
him overpass the mediocrity of the safe and the habitual” (Mumford’s phrase for the function of the tragedies’
contribution to the self-knowledge of the citizens of Athens) but very crucial differences ruin any hopeful analogy:
Besides the way in which size allowed immediate, rather than representative, democracy (a difference which, OK,
there are people who do not consider prohibitive but try to work out ways for how the advent of the internet can
undo) there is the following crucial difference spelled out in the by K. Papaioannou in France in the ’50s: the
weapons that the state would use in a war, if we except besieging machines, were just the sum total of the weapons
the citizens kept at home (so there was no room for politicians’ jokes like “let people demonstrate as much as they
want, as long as they’re paying their taxes”. Of course we’re not saying that if all citizens kept a rifle at home,
democracy would become better! For one thing the state now can counter any group of them with weapons
infinitely more powerful than the sum total of their rifles; for another, as realized already by Hegel who also wrote
it, if not earlier, and as propagated by the film “The last samurai” featuring Tom Cruise, the advent of gunpowder
equated thugs and bravehearts, since any of the former could kill any of the latter from a distance, so a democracy
of one rifle per household would not exactly implement some noble analog of the interactive role of theatrocentric
political education, but just Mad Max values or Columbine massacre barbarity)...
4)Concerning the relevance of education (in general, whether theatrical or not), so frequently debated in our days,
whether through words or facts, and acts too, it will help in the discussion later if we now include, as introduction,
a part of the (Zspace) article from which we’ve quoted right above “...So let’s move to the next question,which is
equally central, naïve and commonsensical, but is more frequently asked because it does not presuppose one’s
having already heard of a proposal like Parecon’s or any other; and thus a question more frequently snubbed or
ridiculed by analysts and activists who are fed up with the unreality of both parts of the expression “representative
democracy”. Here’s one way to phrase it: “We live in a world of global ecological problems, multinational entities
doing the decision making, and mechanisms where, even for local problems and decisions, institutions and
parameters of grand or even global scales are appealed to, both for actual reasons and for reasons of concealment.
Politicians are not more equipped to face such challenges than their voters and public dialog, or dialog within
parliaments as reported by media, is hardly illuminating or conducive to progress. Appointed panels of experts
enjoy only a tiny fraction of trust and so the question arises: Why isn’t part of the broad, or even nationwide,
briefing that the state and the media consider themselves obliged to offer to the public, some periodic presentation
of the questions several panels would have for some politicians and for their expert aides, and out of which the
public would choose some panels to represent them? (e.g. maybe the public would like to see the answers of Bush
and Cheney or of Obama, and of their panels of specialists, to some questions proposed for asking by Monbiot,
Stiglitz. Akerlof and Chomsky”)…Of course to this , too, applies the objection “And how would one pass
legislation to make such public dialog mandatory to politicians and media?”, but let’s first complete the
question:…Presumably, these dialogs, if continued for some time, giving the public more background and
training in thinking about issues that are relevant , or even urgent, would also make the voters more ready to
recognize for their worth candidates proposing completely different ways to deal with crises and impasses; and
would make people with such proposals more probable to think about proposing them for more immediate
implementation and not for something more eventual for whenever may, just may, be a correct time. The final
question: Why is this “parliamentary” road to be snubbed (e.g. as revisionist), not tried, doomed from the outset,
skipped in favor of more drastic measures towards which we must not lose time in unnecessary experiments etc
etc?”. The usual and main, among rational, answers to it is that probably numbers don’t come out right. The
number of people educated in this or other similar ways would remain subcritical for what would be needed for
any change”. Upshot question: Can ways for “education at home” act like ancients’ weapons kept at home?
*Mumford had also made the conjecture, which seems to be verified by news in the last 3-4 years, that the way the
Russians had made an atom bomb in zero time after the war, was that Americans knew of only the Heisenberg
group of atomic scientists, but maybe other scientists, possibly notified by them before they were put under
surveillance, rushed to Russia to help make the bomb and end up with an equilibrium of terror at least, rather than
with the one side’s unreinable rule. (Those other physicists knew of the progress , and the progress was more that
the one reported to Hitler because Heisenberg’s group did not want to help him win. And they didn’t want, either,
the other side’s scientists to give the bomb to any military whatsoever. But after they saw they did give it, and the
US military did use it, and on civilians,they, or some of them, switched to the alternative plan just mentioned)
**The book in which he wrote these things was “Mass and history” ...published posthumously in Greek (in 2003),
but many of its points had been included in other books of his written in French...
*** Reachable either by googling with One effort to answer some of the questions of (Western only?) common
sense to the “Reimagining society project” that is hosted by Zcommunications or by clicking on One effort to - Z ...
214
5) Well, speaking of education, let’s make sure we don’t forget to anthologize exceprts of its sages:
“…children do have to be prepared for the economic world—but the invasion of the public school by
mercantile values has deeply demoralized teachers. I’ve been in classrooms where the teacher has to
write a so-called mission statement that says, “The mission of this school is to sharpen the competitive
edge of America in the global marketplace.”
Jonathan Kozol
“If you want to rule address yourself to the idiot, they’re the majority…I would never entrust the state
with my education”
Mark Twain
“Always obey your conscience, even if the state allows you not to… Dare to take your ideas seriously,
because it is them that will shape you…Education is what remains after yoi have forgtten everthihg yu
learned”
Albert Einstein
“…This is not a prophecy: it is a factual description of what is already happening before our eyes, with
murderous confrontations and infantile tantrums taking the place of rational demands and cooperative efforts.
Yes: the physical structure of the power system was never more closely articulated: but its human supports were
never more frail, more morally indecisive, more vulnerable to attack. How long , those who are now awake must
ask themselves, how long can the physical structure of an advanced technology hold together when all its human
foundations are crumbling away? All this has happened so suddenly that many people are hardly aware that it
has happened at all: yet during the last generation the very bottom has dropped out of our life; the human
institutions and moral convictions that have taken thousands of years to achieve even a minimal efficacy have
disappeared before our eyes: so completely that the next generation will scarcely believe they ever existed”
Lewis Mumford
Right now humanity finds itself on a race between universal education and universal destruction/Lewis Mumford
(in the early ’50s)
...“-Well, there are really some moral truisms. One of them is that opportunity confers responsibility. If you have
very limited opportunities, then you have limited responsibility for what you do. If you have substantial
opportunity you have greater responsibility for what you do. I mean, that’s kind of elementary, I don’t know how it
can be discussed. And the people who we call ‘intellectuals’ are just those who happen to have substantial
opportunity. They have privilege, they have resources, they have training. In our society, they have a high degree
of freedom—not a hundred percent, but quite a lot—and that gives them a range of choices that they can pursue
with a fair degree of freedom, and that hence simply confers responsibility for the predictable consequences of the
choices they make…”
Noam Chomsky (to Schivone in 2007)
Chomsky to Navarro in 2008:
Navarro: Thank you. I had promised not to take too much of your time. Just one last question, a personal one. A
lot of people in the world thank you so much for the work you do, but where do you get your strength? How do you
carry on? Here you are, in the center of the Empire, speaking quite clearly to the powerful forces and being
silenced, ostracized, marginalized. Meanwhile, all over the world, people admire you, read your work, find it
extremely helpful. Chomsky: I don't feel marginalized in the United States. When I get home tonight I will spend
five hours answering e-mail, and probably several dozen letters will be invitations N: I meant marginalized by the
power structures C: I don't care about the power structures, that's not where I live. If I wasn't their enemy I'd think
something was wrong. That's why I have that picture of the magazine cover [The American Prospect] I described
earlier so prominently displayed.N: It's the best way to indicate you're doing the right thing.C: Yes, that I'm doing
the right thing. It's partly that. But what keeps me working is things that are illustrated by some of those
photographs over there [pointing]. One shows the worst labor massacre, probably in history. In Chile, a century
ago, in Iquique, miners worked the mines under indescribable conditions. They and their families marched about
thirty kilometers to the town to ask for a slight increase in wages. The British mine owners welcomed them,
showed them into a schoolyard, allowed them to begin their meeting, and then brought in soldiers and machinegunned them all: men, women, children. Nobody knows how many were killed - you don't count the number of
people that we kill - maybe thousands. It was a century before there was any commemoration of this. That [shown
in the photograph] is a small monument, which I saw last year; it was put up by young people who are just
beginning to break out of the iron grip of the dictatorship. It's not just Pinochet. Chile has a bitter history of state
violence and repression. But now they're breaking out. So, yes, the atrocity took place, and now they begin to pay
attention to it.That one over there [pointing] is - you know what it is, of course - a painting given to me by a Jesuit
priest. On one side, Archbishop Romero, who was assassinated in 1980. In front of him, six leading intellectuals,
Jesuit priests, who had their brains blown out in 1989 by U.S.-run terrorist forces who had already compiled a
hideous record of massacre of the usual victims. And the Angel of Death, standing over them. That event captures
Reagan - not the cheerful uncle. That's the reality of the 1980s. I just put it there to remind myself of the real
world. But it's been an interesting "Rorschach" test. Almost no one from the United States knows what it is;
because we're responsible for the massacre, we don't know. People from Europe, maybe 10% know what it is.
From South America, I'd say, everyone knows what it is. Until recently. By now, young people often don't know
because they, too, are having history driven out of their heads. History and reality are too dangerous. On the other
hand, they're now coming back. The Iquique commemoration was mostly initiated by young people, rising up,
wanting to recover the past, recover idealism, and do something about it. So that's enough, I would say, more than
enough, to keep me going. N: Thank you. It has been great. You have a standing invitation to come to Barcelona
and Catalonia. Thank you on behalf of millions of people.
215
“…You ask what happened at the Baghdad museum,
“A more practical proposal is to help change
OK, the TV played many times the scene with the guy
the culture of the domestic society enough
running away with a vase and some people thought
so that what should be now done could at least
thousands of vases had been stolen, but it was the same vase,
be made a subject of discussion”
how many vases can Iraq have? ...You ask if I myself went
to Iraq to sell weapons to Saddam. Well, I don’t remember
….You ask me what I say to the people in this room
who were taken out because they shouted things defaming me.
I say to them that I believe in Free Speech.… You ask me if
what we have is victory. To answer this I’d have to first see
statistics which would show if the rate we kill terrorists
exceeds the rate at which they show up…”*
*Quoted by memory. Should one look it up? No, since, obviously, citing Rumsfeldisms is not one of
the jobs for which one should say “something not worth doing well is not worth doing at all” but is the
par excellence example of the jobs for which one should say “something not worth doing at all is not
worth doing well”. E.g one may take, by memory not verbatim, two or three Rumsfeldisms , put them
together and them pretend that a (verbatim) Chomsky quote referred to that statement by Rumsfeld
and see how it sounds. Also one can put quasi-imaginary subtitles to body languages**. See next three
pages:
** Self-explanatory if one has heard Donald Robust Rumsfeld say in interviews things like “there’s
old Europe and young Europe, whereas USA, being a young nation, is all robust” and if one has heard
that he had passed from Princeton and if one has heard that the PostNational anthem of Europe is
Beethoven&Schiller’s “Hymn to Joy”.
216
-What
What was a bunch like you up there
-How did an orang--outang like you
doing with an orang-outang
outang like this?
scrape through a place like that?
-Now all fellow Germans
among you guys,
take a good look at me
and try to look equally robust
or you’ll get no greencard.
217
UPSHOT TO ALL US WESTERNERS:
DO JOIN THE “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS” YOU SEE BELOW:
-What do you think of Western Civilization?
-That it would be a good idea
(Notes: 1)Of course the above subtitles’ dialogue was from a Gandhi interview
2)Of course the first photo is the cover of Tariq Ali’s “Crusades and Jihad,
the Clash of Fundamentalisms”)
218
-How many roads must a man walk down
before you call him a man?
-Take a good look at me and try to look as robust
to make Europe as robust as America
-North or South?
-Come again…
219
-How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a robust man?
220
“…It was in the theater that the Greek citizen saw himself and obeyed the Delphic maxim:
Know Thyself. Best of all, in the comedies…he learned to see himself, wryly ,
as others saw him, chastened by their painful laughter…
… And in the tragedies he beheld , in the larger figures of heroes and gods,
beckoning potential selves whose imitation in moments of crisis,
would help him overpass the mediocrity of the safe and the habitual”
Lewis Mumford (“The City in History”)
221
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSSjM6-fUFE
How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
How many doors must a man walk out before you call him a man?
222
…traia la lluvia hilos celestes…
…y e dios de los altares impregnados
devolvia las flores y las vidas…
…the rain brought celestial threads…
…and the god of the impregnated altars
restored flowers and lives…
223
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7w5RUAb3jg
A las tieras sin nombres y sin numeros bajaba el viento desde otros dominios,…
To the lands without names or numbers the wind blew down from other domains,…
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231
232
233
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC7uzalG5rU
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrLxb-DVAmw&feature=related
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7w5RUAb3jg
A las tieras sin nombres y sin numeros bajaba el viento desde otros dominios,…
To the lands without names or numbers the wind blew down from other domains,…
239

Arístides Mínguez - Put together by Yiannis Alevizos

Transcripción

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