Is this blog nostalgic?

Nostalgy is like praying to a dead tissue. Nostalgy comes without asking for a permission. I´m talking about nostalgy for things lying in a distant past, not about the island we visited last summer or a sunset, two years ago. The brain has its own laws. Every tenth(?) year it changes wide-angle and gets a new position. It changes its way to see at things, it works up in a new way. While we keep on running after chimeras it changes directions without giving a warning. It needs different states of mind, it refuses to do the same mistakes. It is another story if we realize all that. If we do, we mostly regard changes as worrying and dangerous signs. We think we´re getting old. The same opinion have people around us. "He/she´s gone", "he/she withdraws", they whisper to each other and they keep on running, get out of breath, fall into the same traps.

Nostalgy takes you out of life´s boxing match. The question is: is real life taking place inside or outside the boxing ring?

Nostalgy can fasten you on something so that you can´t get rid of it. You can end up in its mud and, no matter how much you struggle, it drives you downwards into a humid darkness.
This blog has nothing to do with such a nostalgies. This blog is about a return to the real truth, the one we used to put aside because we did not have the time to work through. It is about creative and charp nostalgies. About revenging and flaming nostalgies who start digging in the subconscious mind instead of exhuming precious memories who have been covered by unimportant and stupid expectations or useless hopes.

I´m talking about revolting and anarchic nostalgies, about big refusals. In the middle of all that, if some liquids will be flowing, reminding of tears, there is nothing to worry about. Tears are relaxive...

A film about manges? (1)

En explanation from the very beginning:

My posts about rebetiko are not defending criminality, in general. A propos, criminality... WHO IS THE ONE WHO CAN GIVE THE REAL AND SINCERE DEFINITION OF THE WORD CRIMINALITY? Are different people leading the intenational economy and serving gigantic companies more, or less criminal than a poor street thief? I'm not defending street thieves either. I'M DEFENDING THE REBETIKO MUSIC, THE COMPOSERS, THE MUSICIANS, THE SINGERS, for the way they described what they saw around them. I'M ALSO DEFENDING THE REAL MANGES OF THAT TIME AND OF ANY TIME!

The film "Athens apaches" (ca. 1950)

The film was based on an operereta of Giannis Prineas and Nikos Hadjiapostolou. It was very appreciated at that time and is still played(...) by older actors in different parts of Greece The story was typical. A young man and a woman fall in love and their adventures leading to a happy end. The picturesque part of the film is two "manges" (read clowns) who are playing the main roles. Now it is 2008 and a lot of people, especially young ones, are looking for information and, if possible, live scenes from the past, focusing on manges. The "danger" to be led by the nose into the wrong paths is obvious. The disposable material of Greek films is just a ridiculing and superficial "sallad" made by very cheap ingredients...

Απάχης, ισσα (hood, ruffian - slang, hoodlum) is explained as following in one of the most serious (but conservative and typically reactionary) Greek dictionaries:

1. person with an ubnormal behaviour and irregular activities (synon. criminal) 2. mortis (synon. mangas)[french apache]

More info about the French apache: http://www.savateaustralia.com/Savate%20Essays/apache.htm

Α film about manges? (2)

What do you know about Greek films? Very little, I suppose. "Zorba", "Never on Sunday", "Stella" (buy and see the second and the third, they give a good picture about rebetiko, no matter what jealous people say), some Angelopoulos, perhaps. There are, of course, hundreds and hundreds of films produced since 1914 (even earlier), both comedies and dramas. About ten of them are really good. The rest is produced "for the people". Τhe Greek TV-Channels send continuously old films and people (even small children) adore them. I don't want to extend this post writing about the Greek filmography, even because I'm not a specialist. My point is to connect it to rebetiko. The Greek producers and directors knew nothing and understood much less about rebetiko. They joked with it and they made it seem ridiculous, until Tsitsanis and Chiotis came to the stage. They were too good to be ignored... They outlined the type of mangas in the most foolish way, they made him a clown. In other words they presented him according to the majority's belief. On the other hand we have to accept that this parody of mangas existed even in reality. Angeliki Papazoglou, with her blind eyes, has described them in the marvellous book where her son Giorgos Papazoglou published everything she had told him about the past. Here you can join a short fragment where she retells something a musician had told her:

"... You, good fellow...(said one of them who seemed to be the leader). You... you look sad...

He was talking with a low voice, toughly and roughly, as koutsavakia used to talk.

- Νο, you're wrong. Why would i be sad? Everything is OK...

-Τhat's it... Here we have a hotel with many stars.

- You don´t say...Where are the stars?

- Well...over there...Move a bit...you see?...Staaaars... a hotel with a lot of stars. But, I see why you're not in good mood. You are "hungry" and in need of hasch...come on...Take a snuff to be pleased, to make your liver be shaked... "... "And they asked each other all the time: Do you feeeeel it? Did you get the feeeeeling of it? Has the stink reached you?

"Ι kept on playing all night for them and they were doing a douhou...douhou...douhou... which had nothing to do with the rythm and, the leader told me: When we say douhou...douhou...douhou... you will shut your mooooouth, fellooooow...

- All right...I said, but it has nothing to do with the song and that makes me loose the tempo, when you do it in the middle of the song...OK, I see. I will just play the accompaniment and you can say as many douhou, douhou you feel like. I'm sorry, it's not easy for me. What kan I do?

- Υοu will just shut your moooouth. We're following the accompaniment, don't weeee? What do you mean in the middle of the sooooong? We're just coughiiiing...

Finally, I got the meaning . They were doing that sound, that douhou douhou, instead of hiding the sound of their coughing. So that nobody could understand that they're smoking hasch. And they kept on with that douhou, douhou... The daybreak came over there... it was the longest night of my life. I thought it would never come to an end. But they didn't harm me and then I left them"...

(to be continued)

A film about manges? (3)

Τhe film manuscript is naive, as usual, superficial and misleading. The two -so called- manges are two poor people "pretending" in a childish way, as usual, to be tough. They pretend to be koutsavakia and they are cowards. In the beginning of the film you can see them sitting in a small taverna "playing" a song which is not rebetiko but a cheap serenade. The content of the verses is though interesting. You can find similar texts in rebetiko songs. It is about that typical, though natural, attitude towards money. In some words, "I'm stone broke, but I don't give a dumn. A cloudless life and retsina means everything to me..." (concerning this matter and attitude, I'm going to write a post, as soon as possible) . The film was produced during the beginning of the 50's and the echo of the refugee problem was still actual. When one of the two "manges" inherits a rich uncle from Konstantinopel, all his "indifference" towards money is changing radically, and his behaviour too. This is a typical superior, bourgeois capitalistic and propagandistic point of view meaning, money is everything no matter if you pretend the opposite (unfortunately, partly, right).
But,
the main reason of this post was Grigorakis Asikis, L. Leondaridis and A. Savvaidis. Three big musicians who are "participating" in this bloody film. I don't mention Savvaidis dotter or wife(?) who sings a Turkish song dressed as a traditional Turkish woman, because I don't believe that it was insulting. The three musicians are used as comical figures in a ridiculous and cheap surrounding pretending to be a Paschas' reception hall. The typical effort to earn money by investing as little as possible (because the scenography is unimportand and nobody will observe it, as they believe and still do...) and the superior attitude Greeks have towards Turkey and its people, is obvious.

The three musicians are playing a Turkish song. We see them only by chance because the camera is focusing on a group of chicks, supposing to be a Turkish harem. The two main "actors" are sitting among the chicks, trying to improvise in a totally foolish way.
I really feel pitty about the Greek "umbearable lightness of being" which is, unfortunately, always actual, missleading and self-destructive. Turkey with its conscious and stubborn foreign policy is a future country, a very big and promissing market. Greece proves every day that our future is ambiguous. It is not enough anymore with our seas, our islands, Greek food and Parthenon. Any different opinions?
All people say how much they love truth but, how many can bear it?

Life is a feast...

Life is a luminous feast between darkness and darkness...

Confessions and complains...

foto 1 - shadow theater figure

foto 2 - the dead friend

In a scene of the famous film "Matrix", the android agent Smith gives the following underestimating and disdained comment about human beings : "You are like goats. You establish yourselves in a place, you overexploit it, you destroy it, and then you move to a new place where you do exactly the same..."

Agent Smith was right.

Many years ago, I constructed a miniature of a swadow theater scene, made by cardboard. I decorated it and I painted an old street performer. I liked it very much and gave it as a present to a still beloved friend, who is a painter. He liked it too. What he did afterwards was that he copied it, in a way, and made an oil painting. When i saw it he confessed with a friendly smile: "I`ve alvays copied your things". I did not give any further comment, as I use to do... The other days, all of a sudden, this little picture came to my mind. I called him and asked if he still has it. " Oh", he said, "I gave it as a present to my brother-in law, but he´s dead now. His wife hated him and I´m sure she has destroyed it". I did not give him any further comment...

Some years ago, I did another painting. It was a boat with five manges on it, ( foto 2 - though you can the see four of them), playing and singing. One of them, (the first from the left and green one) is dead. The meaning is that the others invited him to leave the Other World for a while, and come to them so that they could play and sing. Two small and transparent angels are flying over the boat, offering the dead musician a small glass of retsina and a string of beads. I emailed the picture to http://clubs.pathfinder.gr/rebetiko where it still is. Somebody published the picture to Google Images rebetiko and an "intelligent" Greek (intelligent is, mainly, synonym to "cunning" in Greece)(...) copied it and used it as a cover to a CD with rebetiko songs. No comments...

A lot of years ago, I was "sculpturing" on cardboard, with a hummer and a special tool, a shadow theater figure (foto 1). This old fashioned tecnique takes a lot of time and is monotonous. (I`m publishing half of the foto because I don`t feel like giving a similar opportunity to another cunning person). I remember that while I was working, I felt like a pensioner who was trying to spend his time. I`m saying that because I often get the same feeling when I`m posting texts about details of rebetiko. This music is drawned - no matter what we believe - like "Phlebas the Phoenician" ( http://www.infoplease.com/t/lit/wasteland/death.html ) and there are only CD`s floating on the surface of the sea. At the same time I feel that the path I`m following is not nostalgic ( see http://elkibra-rebetiko.blogspot.com/ 8 Januari 2008 - in Greek). I`m drawing parallels all the time between that time and our time and I`m trying to show out that we won`t find the real rebetiko masterpieces only in focusing to a couple of hundreds of them... I`m also trying to say that we are still inside the storm caused by throwing the Mikrasiatika into the darkness (1937). I insist that only there you can find the origins of manges, the real singers, the real composers, the warm heart of this music!

Like a greengrocer...

Feeling like a fruit and vegetable dealer who´s trying to sell his products in an open market, I´m in the pleasant position to inform you that the two very interesting posts about widows are completed! (I´ve added some more details even in the first post - "When the widows came to Greece... -). I´m saying that because it concerns a very important part of rebetiko and gives explanations about things you, perhaps, always wondered but you did not "dare" asking. Even if you had asked you would not get any answers, because the people who know all that, do not potter with rebetiko (unfortunately...)