Angels...

The etching you see is made by Takis Sideris and is one of those which decorated the first edition of Elias Petropoulos "Ρεμπέτικα τραγούδια" (Rebetiko songs), 1968. The painter has drawn an angel passing behind the musicians. Sideris was right. The Spanish talk about "duende", a demonic dark power which gets in the flamenco composers and singers and puts fire on them. A fire which imparts itself to the public. Myself, as a Greek, I see angels instead of duende. No matter if we believe or not in such creatures, I need something that can help me understand the demonic talent of the majority of rebetiko composers. I believe that they did not know how talented they were. I don't want to be misunderstood. I mean that Dimitris Atraidis, for example, was much greater as a composer and singer than what he possibly believed. I have the same opinion about Vasilis Tsitsanis, though he knew it since his youth. But he was much more talented than he believed.

I am talking about that power which forced some of them and turned them into life's onlookers. Something that took them away to other landscapes, tore at their bowels and gave them inspiration. Concerning angels, I am not talking about tender and dumpy small angels, like those on Renaissance paintings. I mean hard, stern Byzantine angels, like those who looked strictly at us from the decorated church walls when we were kids.

I am talking about creative angels who do not indulge and whom cannot cheat. Angels demanding your marrow instead of giving their grace.

I am talking about angels of different sorts, shapes and sizes. Small and frothy but even bulky and big as jet planes. Angels who can fly noiselessly through grass and others who can make the night look darker when they fly in front of the moon.

I am referring to dudes and tough angels with big mustaches, like those who held George Batis every time he came into the recording studio, trembling and "high" from smoking hash,

about angels carrying bellows instead of growing the fire which Markos Vamvakaris bore in his thorax,

about transparent angels blessing the voice of the moist and melancholic Stella Haskil, painting it with soft and smooth colours,

about crowds of angels and nightingales jostling one another inside Dalga's and Stratos Payoumidzis's throats,

about old aged angels, wet from sea water who stretched Marika Papagika's vocal cords so that original wax records get damaged,

about Asia Minor angels who blew in the voice of Vangelakis Sofroniou,

about the wooden figurhead angel who sunk in the waves of Dimitris Atraidis voice, when he sung Ousak Mane "How many enemies look like trustfy friends, with lips of sugar and a poisonous heart"...

about feminine, sensual angels who lifted on their wings Rita Abadzi's fragile voice and Roza Eskenazy's iron voice,

about twenty small angels sitting on the silver fingers of Stelios Chrysinis and Kostas Karipis ,

about two luminous angels living in Giannis Dragatsi's (Ogdontakis) and Dimitris Semsis's (Salonikios) violins,

about the ephemeral, sui generis and strict angel who was fluttering in Vangelis Papazoglou's proud heart, whispering "hurry upp, the chosen ones die faster",

about a Mount Athos angel who fought against Nouros's demonic duende,

about provincial angels who pushed Daisy Stavropoulou's masculine voice and Georgia Mittaki's weedy one,

about bronze angels who flew over and behind Stelios Keromytis motorbike which had a lot of small Greek flags,

about the colourful and demonic angel who held a semi-transparent veil between the world and the inaccessible Vasilis Tsitsanis plaguing and enlightening him and,

about so many other angels sitting on violins, ouds, cumbus, santouris, accordions, guitars, bouzoukis and the small baglamas.

Angels who burst out laughing at blockheaded dictators and other foolish human beings, angels who felt disgust when rebetiko started being false. At the end they could not carry on, they formed squadrons and flew away, expecting new and better times. They will come back to plague, turn on new lights and blow stormy winds of creation...

(Βut) my position is "tragic"...

from Paul McCartney's song "Honey Pie"

Writing about rebetiko, in the way I do, is like murdering your time. It is like believing that you can meet a giraffe in your bathroom or a rhinoceros under your pillow. People looking into blogs are mostly young and focusing on other things. What makes things worse is that I mostly write about Mikrasiatiko. This era is more or less "unknown" though I believe that in time will be more and more discovered. Drawing parallels between the 30's and our time is also considered to be peculiar. I presume that it makes young people irritated, because they cannot still understand. Others who are more open to such but not interested of rebetiko, are getting frustrated so, "my position is tragic"...

The whole thing reminds me of a short and very advanced TV-advertisement for the Swedish cars SAAB.
We see a theater stage exactly the moment when the red curtains are drawn. We hear somebody applauding. The camera turns and we see only one human being, a young man dressed in tails, standing and showing his appreciation for the play. The scen is getting freezed and the slogan is, "SAAb has a few clients but very special ones..."

Ending this post, I wonder why I'm writing it... Am I claiming that there is no communication? No! I believe that we're getting borned alone and we're dying alone. Notning tragic in that but we are alone even when we commit suicide together with the one we love, as the couple Coestler(Arthur Coestler) did when they decided to die together holding each others hands in a hotell room.
On the other hand I have accepted J.L. Baudrillard's words "Why do we need to talk when we can communicate?"... And further on, en insect flying over a flower, does not need any special "communication, it just takes care of itself. The same thing do two zebras in love,when they run parallelly among thousands of others.Then, there is no special reason to be anxious, worrying, sad.
Today it is the 25th of March, it is a sunny Sunday, the sun came upp at 05:08 and will go down at 19:37. I'm pleased and happy by "οράν φάος ηελίειο" (Homeric language meaning, being able to see the sunlight, in other words, to be alive...

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...