Landscape 8: Beep! Beep! Beep!

Beep! Beep! Beep! The noisy sonars of a line of red and yellow scooters races by. Whoooo! Whoooo! A group of boys, with their slick and pointy hair cuts that glitter in the light from a layer of hair gel, throw their thin hairy chests forward over their steering wheels, turn their gas handles up with their hearts rattling like the engines of their bikes. A girl on the back, her olive colored body displayed, desired, the curves of her thighs, warm and happy, spread against the curves of her seat, her skin shiny from her sweat under a scourging sun, she holds her arms above her ecstatic head, pointing her fingers up at the sky as if treading in the open air, her body floating on the desires, her own and others, speeding by Drafaki in the dusk of evening, on their way to Paradise beach. Whooo! Beep! Beep! Beep! The sirens of their hormones blowing in their bikinis and bathing suits. Tonight is the night. Today is the day. Life is short, time is long.

Landscape 7: Concrete Living

A wall of wooden planks is erected straight upward into the air, at the oblique side of the mountain slope, in an apparent random location in the landscape, a wedge of air in between the wall and the mountain, then the dirt road, next to it, a pile of shattered limestone rocks. The planks are gray and dusty, worn and torn, covered by traces of prior usage and concrete. Near Polikarpos the top of the limestone rock of the mountain pyramid has been scraped off by the dental shovel of a bulldozer. The hill sides run out into the open sea like the barbed tail of one of Poseidon's monsters. At random locations around the island in the pristine ridged mountain range random squared boxes have been scraped and hollowed out of the massive rock. Transformed into several new shapes of popular construction the limestone has been resurected into hundreds of white washed family pensions with little balconies with white taverna chairs at the doorside, green or blue shutters, homes half under construction, never to be finished, the steel rods rusting like newly constructed ruins on the rooftops, empty skeletons in the maquis landscape devoured by the goats. A little further, leaning against the stapled rock, brown red matrices of woven steel rods, leaning against the rock, unused, along eight concrete tubes of one meter in diameter for rain water drainage. Out of the concrete ceiling, electrical wire hangs down, hastily attached dangles a light bulb without shading. A hole in the wall crumbles open, and the television cable is led loosely on the ground to where the television now temporarily stands. In the bedroom facing the south east, from where the tormenting winter rains flooded the mountain slope, black stains of mold have formed. You could paint them over with white paint when spring comes, like the rest of the house, but they would return the next season again. When it rains, the walls suck in the water, until saturated, they burst like blisters, the rain pours directly into the hall, the supporting wall that separates the kitchen and the living area, until the towels are drenched too, and the blankets, and the shoes, the suitcase. Concrete is the lego of the islands. Bridge railing and bridges, road sides, dividing walls, the staircase to the beach, roads, squares, the moles at the harbor, the dockage, the ferry landing, the ramp up the mountain, transformer houses, the hydro-electric dam, the pig stable, the water reservoirs to irrigate the olive grove, the balustrade, the balcony, the chapel, the church, the belfry.

Landscape 6: Ducking and Shaving

I drag my feet behind me, my movement is determined by my hips rotating my legs forward instead of lifting my knees up, feet down first. Time has taken on a different measure. The southern summer constitutes a different season all together. A man in his late fifties, notoriously ugly like Plato, with a fat hairy chest, a reddened scrambled face and blond straw mustache, wraps a brown towel around his waist and wriggles his swimsuit off, pulling up a pair of dry undershorts. Three Greek men, unshaven, sun glasses on their foreheads, smoke and converse, gesticulating with chins and arms, formulate a philosophy of trivia. Several people stand in the margin of the water line. Hands leaning on their hips, elbows pointing outward. The wrinkled skeleton of an old woman in black bathing suit stumbled out of the water, arms swinging theatrically as if she's walking on glass. A man with his sunglasses on, in the water up to his ankles stares at the faded horizon. Everyone lost in the reflection of the sun on the water. Only the small children run with a clear purpose into the water. A mother leans back in her beach chair, holding a mini camera constantly pointed at the water line, ready to capture the moment. The shining lean bodies of two girls glide restlessly back and forth on their towels. The jolly comments of a Cockney accent rise from the water. The city walls of Rodos follow the contours of the old harbor. My body tingles from a sticky laziness, a layer of sweaty pearls covers my forehead. I stick my hands and wrists in a fountain at the Therme cafe, cooling off my face and arms. The impression of general stagnation is everywhere. Shops close in the afternoon, ice drinks float from table to table, nourishing the only life in town. Cold blood runs, warm blood stands still, stares in everyone's eyes, body's hanging in chairs, arms affectionately holding a shoulder. I twist open a frozen bottle of water, stir a straw around a frappe and feel the stream flow down my stomach, reviving a spur of consciousness. There is no doubt that intellect dies in such tropic heat, and disappeared a long time ago. Gone are the days of Heraclitus, Protagoras, Pythagoras and sophism. What remains are the pretentious monologues of retired doctors visiting from Athens and the warm-hearted smiles of a few modest professors from Thessaloniki, all evaporating. Two thousand years of irrelevance stuffs the hot air.

Landscape 5: Acropolis of Fun, Food, Fashion

The Papasotiriou bookstore located in the basement. On the top floor, under the sky light roof, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Starbucks, Pizza Fan and Goody's. Life at a profit for all. I stare through the glass windows at bodies, faces. Toddlers, their chubby mums pushing strollers, and a tray of French fries and super sized coke. Greasy, white plastic tables in a larger space, designed to absorb light. A waitress in uniform and bow tie carries away emptied out carton. A young boy in pink polo shirt stares lovingly in the sparkling eyes of his girlfriend. From the bottom shelf, I pull out the back of Hertha Muller's The Passport, almost one hundred pages. Adidas, Nike, Puma, Foot Locker. Columbia, Levis, Diesel, Nine West, Nautica, Quicksilver, Timberland, Benetton, Virgin, Zara. Vodafone, Cosmote, Wind, Germanos. Multirama, FNAC. The insignificant lavishing big brands. Identity and who we are. The small incorporating the large at bargain price. The Village Cinema's doors closed, posters advertising the heroic epic of Robin Hood. Life at the Matrix. The obesity of imagination. The standardization of multivariate data sets and the dictation of target groups and advertising channels, correlated. The mall of masses.

Landscape 4: The Hands of Georgos

The hands of Georgos rested on his knees. His body was of the Doric order, not the gracious Ionian, not the rich Corynthian. The hairs of his thick mustache hung like dry straws over his wet lips talking. He posed a rhetoric question. 'Why?' I didn't answer. In the same breath followed with certain intonation and the emphasis on 'tell,' his own reply 'I will tell you why.' It was not a question. The skin of his fingers was like dried leather browned by the sun, weathered by the southern winds that carried sand crystals from the Sahara and preserved by the salt of the sea.
'We need nothing.'
'We have everything we need.'
I tried to reverse the order of these two sentences that seemed to hold the key to kingdom.
'We have everything because we need nothing.'
Georgos reached for his can of beer that stood close to the fire. He only drank his beer hot. His hand trembled, as he stretched it out far from his body, while his back remained straight. Georgos was eighty five years old, but when he spoke, his eyes sparkled and his words spat fire.
'I am the drunkest man in town,' he boasted.
'I have tomatoes, agurki, onions, grapes, figs, olives, lemons, oranges, many trees, I have many trees.'
I was going to miss Georgos. He would live a hundred years, Georgos was a tree of a man, the muscles of his arms like twisted heather, but every year another friend died, another branch broke off. How long can a man live alone with nothing.

Landscape 3: Rembetiko

All day it had rained, interrupting a hesitant summer that was late already. I pulled out a sheet of rolling paper, picked a tuft of Golden Virginia tobacco with my thumb and finger tops, and rolled a thin tsigaro. I struck the match against the box and lighted the cigarette with its flame. I inhaled a breath of relief, squeezed my left eye and looked around. The house of the community was filled to the last seat. New seats were passed along over the heads of people waiting for their drinks, cocktails in white plastic cups or cans of Mythos, at the bar, three tables covered with a white bed sheet. A half crescent of chairs was lined up on stage with microphone standards at waist length. Three socialist red curtains hung from the ceiling against the back wall, the stage lightened by six colored light bulbs, green, red, yellow, blue, yellow, red, hanging from a thick black electric cord. The pie baker walked to and fro, occupied and nervous, with a wasteful haste. The petrol man sat quietly at the far end table of the bar with the bottles of tequila and Red Label Johnny Walker. He greeted every familiar face with a broad Ikarian smile and dark frowned eyebrows. I recognized the doctor with his long pony tail, his droopy eyes, who studied the high number of cancer occurrence on the island. The room filled with smoke, leaving a hazy air of ashy smell and the tones of a lost era of open markets, crowded streets, tiny waterfront tavernas, passenger ships and refugees disembarking. The melancholic ruffling of the bouzouki, the bass of a classic guitar, the tearing of the violin and the soothing of the accordion, dancing away on the clouds of drifting mist in the early morning.





BBC Documentary on Rebetika Part 1

Landscape 2: Hush

There were no children squealing like piglets while being dragged to the slaughterhouse. There was no pop from a tennis ball slammed by a wooden bat, no short tired laughter. There was no shrill of horny teens being chased into the water. A few hundred meters squatted in the sand, two men sat like desert nomads, motionlessly conversing, in the sand. Further, a girl bend over her boyfriend on hands and knees, her lips kissing his hairy chest. On my other side, a group of chubby boys and girls wobbled like drunken cherubs into the water, attracted to each other by the sheer gravity of their fat wrapped constellations, an obese figure in bikini figured heavily at the water line, like the sun around which these planets of kids circled. But the strange thing was, I heard not a single sound. Higher up the rock, a topless man, hammering the planks for his terrace roof, not a single beat of sound. Even the sea, rolled its waves ashore tacitly. A single cloud hovered still above. A conspiracy to not disturb me.

Landscape 1: Puppy Love

I gulped down the last bottom of my glass of strong black wine, the local Homeric variation of home brewed wine on the island, and payed the bill, three Euro. I imagined to put down three silver drachma pieces. Would it not be better to still pay in ancient coinage? It is a wishful make-believe that everyone shared. It was night, the constellations guided my way home. The sky, the air, the tree and the road, everything was covered in pitch darkness. But in heaven the stars shone brighter than I ever saw before. I searched for Big Dipper and recognized its handle, the straight cup shape in the sky. The black blanket of night was pierced with flickering holes, a full view of curious eyes that spy on us. I walked up the hill, crossed the bend in the road and passed the trash bins. My eye fell on a carton box and the speckled white puppy head peeking over the edge.