Last day in Athens: The National Archaeological Museum and ruminations of the renaissance of Athens

You may have noticed already, but one of my favorite modes of ancient art is the relief frieze. This is an excellent example of one, and yet they still lose their extremities...fingertips, nipples, noses, and penises seem to suffer the most from those tumbles to the ground, and from being battered by other marbles. Click to enlarge.

On our last day in Athens (July 17th), we went, via bus, to the National Archaeological Museum. This massive and comprehensive museum would take three days to go through wth any real scrutiny. We did it in a few hours, by focusing on the artifacts and antiquities we were really interested in, and especially those from the many ruins and excavations we had visited the previous month in both Asia Minor and in Greece.

The best part of the museum, by far, is the massive collection of statuary from Cycladic and earlier periods, up to a huge collection of Roman and Greek sculpture. You see a lot of the statuary you've seen in books, in art history class, and on book covers (of Penguin books and literary anthologies). After three hours, you are completely weary and there are still whole collections and periods of antiquity you've missed. I am posting photos of some of my favorites...but hundreds of my favorites aren't here. You'll just have to go to the museum if you get the chance. If you ever do get to Athens (and I highly recommend it), and you only have a day, split it between the Acropolis and the Museum.

Before I go onto the handful of photos, I wanted to say one thing about Athens. When I was there 25 years ago, it was a congested, hot, smelly, polluted town. Over the years, and especially before the Olympics, they have fixed a lot of that. The pollution was not all that much more than any city. They have implemented restrictions on cars, and they have created many pedestrian streets with no cars at all. And on top of that, for the first time in a month, we could actually drink tapwater! And it was great. It was such a great surprise to see the progress Athens had made. When Keelin originally scheduled us for three days there, I was very skeptical. As it turns out, I could have stayed there a week. The subways and buses are good, and if you stay in the Plaka, you can walk almost anywhere you need to go. Highly recommended!



Cycladic statuary (from the Cycladic Islands, like a couple we visited, Santorini and Rhodes). One of my favorite schools of sculpture. I love the abstracted, gestural figuration. Click to enlarge.


A bronze Zeus. You've seen this one on the cover of Penguin Books and literary anthologies. Click to enlarge.


Jack Brummet on the rooftop of our hotel, with a close view of the Acroplis' less-flashy backside.


A bust of Caligula (or head from a statue), from the 1st Century. Click to enlarge. This is one of my favorites, probably because I've read a few books about this mad emperor.


This is allegedly (although highly unlikely) Agamemnon's pure gold death mask, recovered from Grave Circle V, from the 15th Century BC. Note: the two holes were used with string to hold the mask to the deceased's face. Click to enlarge.


I loved this fantastically sculpted bronze of a horse and jockey recovered from a shipwreck. This was sculpted sometime in the second century BC. Click to enlarge.

I'll post some more favorites when I get out photos sorted out... /jack, in Seattle
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Bush to Schwarzenegger in latest 'hot mike' incident: "I ought to whip your ass, Arnold"

a snapshot during the exchange - click to enlarge

By Pablo Fanque

All This Is That National Affairs Editor

San Clemente, California, June 18, 2008

President Bush offered federal aid and words of encouragement on Thursday to the 25,000 firefighters battling wildfires in California. "I always come to make sure the federal government is coordinating closely with the state government," Bush said. "I know Gov. Schwarzenegger well enough to say that if we weren't, he'd let me know."

President Bush shakes hands with a firefighter glad to know the President is looking out for his best interest. Click to enlarge.

Since a lightning storm on June 21, over 2,000 fires have ignited in the tinderboxes of California, wiping out at least a million acres. Governor Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in 12 counties affected by wildfires and called in the National Guard to help. President Bush also appeared, offering additional help and encouragement.

"I'd like to let the people out here know that we're paying attention in Washington, D.C.," Bush said. "We care about you and we'll respond as best as we possibly can."

Following the press photo opportunity The President leaned over and said "I ought to whip your ass, Arnold," to the startled Governor. "I might actually give a s**t about your pleas except every other time I pick up a f***in' newspaper, I read about you tearing me a new one. . .how the President is ignoring the climate, 'the people' and all this other horses**t."

As Schwarenegger protested, the President hushed him, "How do you f***in' think it makes me feel having a man in my own party toss garbage in my face?! I don't give a rat's ass what you say to me privately. But you better put a lid on it out here. That would be just great Arnold. It may even speed up that federal aid..."

Governor Schwarzenegger snapped back at the President, "If it's anything like New Orleans, I'd be better off asking Hugo Chavez for help."

At that moment in the tense conversation, an aide pointed out a small ground of reporters near a media truck laughing and jotting notes on the exchange. A Press Office functionary hurriedly tried to convince the handful of reporters to not write about the incident in return for exclusive interviews and entree to limited access White House events. All This Is That, however, has nothing to lose, since our White House press credentials were pulled months ago.
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Kara Güneş - great street music from Istanbul, Turkey

One of my favorite musical experiences in Turkey were the times I watched Kara Güneş play on the Istikal Cad (a block or two from our apartment in Istanbul). I bought a great CD of music from them (it home-made, burned), with 13 tunes. You can hear four or five of their songs on their myspace site.



They play on the street a lot, as well as other venues, and are very good, and pretty young. I don't know a lot about them, other than they attract large crowds on Istikal (a very musical neighborhood) and most of what is written about them is in Turkish. They play native instruments and drums, but listening to their music, they I hear hints of musics from the west like rock and blues and folk/country accents of string band music. At times, their music reminds me of the jazz band Oregon, when they were really soaring...

Among the little I've been able to discover about them is that the late Kemal Kan, a Turkish director and writer, directed a movie of the same title once. I don't even know the titles of their songs, since the CD I bought from them didn't have functioning ID3 tags...so they're song 1, song 2, etc.
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Jack Brummet painting: Map of the inside of my head

Click to enlarge

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The Brummets & One Curran return to America

We departed Athens this morning at 6:00 AM via two extremely fast cabs to the airport (10 PM Pacifc Time) and arrived at our house in Seattle at around 6:00 PM (4 AM Athens time), after flying on two large transatlantic jets (747s) and one turb-prop from Vancouver to Seattle, for a total of 22 hours on the road. The three flights, Athens-->London-->Vancouver included a four hour layover in London and a mad scramble through customs and immigration in Vancouver before we caught a blessedly uncrowded and peaceful project to Seattle (a 25 minute flight over the San Juan and other Islands).

It's nice to be home...it's sweatshirt weather tonight. We haven't felt anything in the 60s since we left. And it's great to be in a town where you can actually drink the tap-water. Other than Athens, we have bought every drop of water we drank. For some reason, Athens has great tapwater. Everywhere else we went, even the natives purchased their water.

I will write some more about the trip in the next few days, and share more photos...
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Jack Brummet and Colum Brummet video clips from Greece

Here are two video clips: One is Jack showing how to order food in Turkish, and the other is of Colum singing.



Colum sings

Jack shows how to order in Turkish

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Aristophenes' Play Plutus at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus

Odeon of Herodes Atticus, shot from up the hill, on The Acropolis - click to enlarge

Tonight, we will go see Aristophane's last play, Plutus at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, just a few blocks from our hotel. The play is being put on, oddly enough by the Cyprus Theatre Organisation. It is part of a drama, music and arts Athens Festival that takes place most of the summer in Athens.

When Pausanias visited Athens during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, he described the Herodeon as "the finest building of its type". I was not longer after destroyed by fire, and later, rebuilt in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. It was originally a steep-sloped amphitheater with a three-story stone front wall and a wooden roof, and was used as a venue for music concerts with a capacity of 5,000. It was later buried, plundered for its stone, and restored in the middle 20th century. It is probably best known (is this pathetic or what) as the venue for Yanni's Live At The Acropolis in the early 1990's.

Here are the opening lines of Aristophenes' play, Plutus [1]. We will be watching it in Greek, but I do have an English text. We suspect it will somehow be captioned (like they do in opera).

[The Orchestra represents a public square in Athens. In the background is the house of CHREMYLUS. A ragged old blind man enters, followed by CHREMYLUS and his slave CARIO.]

CARIO What an unhappy fate, great gods, to be the slave of a fool!
A servant may give the best of advice, but if his master does not
follow it, the pool slave must inevitably have his share in the disaster;
for fortune does not allow him to dispose of his own body, it belongs
to his master who has bought it. Alas! 'tis the way of the world.
But the god, Apollo, (in tragic style) whose oracles the Pythian
priestess on her golden tripod makes known to us, deserves my censure,
for surely he is a physician and a cunning diviner; and yet my master
is leaving his temple infected with mere madness and insists on following
a blind man. Is this not opposed to all good sense? It is for us,
who see clearly, to guide those who don't; whereas he clings to the
trail of a blind fellow and compels me to do the same without answering
my questions with ever a word. (To CHREMYLUS) Aye, master, unless
you tell me why we are following this unknown fellow, I will not be
silent, but I will worry and torment you, for you cannot beat me because
of my sacred chaplet of laurel.

CHREMYLUS No, but if you worry me I will take off your chaplets,
and then you will only get a sounder thrashing.

CARIO That's an old song! I am going to leave you no peace till you
have told me who this man is; and if I ask it, it's entirely because
of my interest in you.

CHREMYLUS Well, be it so. I will reveal it to you as being the most
faithful and the most rascally of all my servants. I honoured the
gods and did what was right, and yet I was none the less poor and
unfortunate.

CARIO I know it but too well.

CHREMYLUS Others amassed wealth-the sacrilegious, the demagogues,
the informers, indeed every sort of rascal.

CARIO I believe you.

CHREMYLUS Therefore I came to consult the oracle of the god, not
on my own account, for my unfortunate life is nearing its end, but
for my only son; I wanted to ask Apollo if it was necessary for him
to become a thorough knave and renounce his virtuous principles, since
that seemed to me to be the only way to succeed in life.

CARIO (with ironic gravity) And with what responding tones did the
sacred tripod resound?

CHREMYLUS You shall know. The god ordered me in plain terms to follow
the first man I should meet upon leaving the temple and to persuade
him to accompany me home.

CARIO And who was the first one you met?

CHREMYLUS This blind man.

CARIO And you are stupid enough not to understand the meaning of
such an answer! Why, the god was advising you thereby, and that in
the clearest possible way, to bring up your son according to the fashion
of your country.

CHREMYLUS What makes you think that?

CARIO Is it not evident to the blind, that nowadays to do nothing
that is right is the best way to get on?

CHREMYLUS No, that is not the meaning of the oracle; there must be
another that is nobler. If this blind man would tell us who he is
and why and with what object he has led us here, we should no doubt
understand what our oracle really does mean.

CARIO (to PLUTUS) Come, tell us at once who you are, or I shall
give effect to my threat. (He menaces him.) And quick too, be quick,
I say.

PLUTUS I'll thrash you.

CARIO (to CHREMYLUS) Do you understand who he says he is?

CHREMYLUS It's to you and not to me that he replies thus: your mode
of questioning him was ill-advised. (To PLUTUS) Come, friend, if
you care to oblige an honest man, answer me.

PLUTUS I'll knock you down.

CARIO (sarcastically) Ah! what a pleasant fellow and what a delightful
prophecy the god has given you!

CHREMYLUS (to PLUTUS) By Demeter, you'll have no reason to laugh
presently. . .

[1] The plot: The plot is of the simplest. Chremylus, a poor but just man, accompanied by his body-servant Cario--the redeeming feature, by the by, of an otherwise dull play, the original type of the comic valet of the stage of all subsequent periods--consults the Delphic Oracle concerning his son, whether he ought not to be instructed in injustice and knavery and the other arts whereby worldly men acquire riches. By way of answer the god only tells him that he is to follow whomsoever he first meets upon leaving the temple, who proves to be a blind and
ragged old man. But this turns out to be no other than Plutus himself, the god of riches, whom Zeus has robbed of his eyesight, so that he may be unable henceforth to distinguish between the just and the unjust. However, succoured by Chremylus and conducted by him to the
Temple of Æsculapius, Plutus regains the use of his eyes. Whereupon all just men, including the god's benefactor, are made rich and prosperous, and the unjust reduced to indigence.
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Athens/Athinai, The Erectheum, The Parthenon, Aristophenes, Lord, Byron, The Acropolis, The Plaka, and The Phaedra Hotel

The family, minus Keelin at The Parthenon


Keelin at the Erectheum - click to enlarge



Jack in front of The Parthenon-click to enlarge




The family, minus Del, at the foot of the Parthenon. Click to enlarge.


I loved this advertisement for absinthe in a liquor store window. It kind of captures both the spirit of Van Gogn AND absinthe. Click to enlarge.

We are staying in a wonderful hotel--The Phaedra--in the heart of the Plaka, just down the hill from the Acropolis, in the middle of Athens.

Since it was going to be around 104 fahrenheit today, we got a fairly early start, walking up the hill to the Acropolis, and stopping to gaze at a few other monuments along the way. As it turns out, one of my very favorite 19th Century poets, Lord Byron a/k/a George Gordon, made a big splash in Athens, and The Plaka. There are monuments to him, numerous plaques, and even a street named after him. He may have been a scandalous libertine, but the Hellenikis love him!

One monument commemorating Lord Byron lies in the very same plot of land near the plaka where the tomato was first introduced and grown in Greece! Wow. Considering how great and totally ubiquitous the tomato is here, it's amazing.

Since our 1982 visit, The Acropolis has been greatly enhanced, opened up, restored, with new buildings and areas opened up to the public. When we came here in '82, there was one way in, and a lot of closed off areas that have been excavated and restored in the ensuing years, The Acropolis, and particuarly The Parthenon and The Erectheum, with its wonderful Catydid (msp?) statues are even more impressive than before. The theatre is in the middle of restoration, and like all the many theatres we've seen, awe-inspiring.

I love this place! It's so great to walk around the Acropolis again, and see where all those great things happened and all those great works of art were made, and all those great thoughts were thought. Thank you Socrates!


The Odeon theatre, on The Acropolis, where we will watch an Aristophenes play in Greek tomorrow night--click to enlarge

Tomorrow, we check out some more ruins, monuments, and go to the fantastic and huge museum here. And even better, perhaps, tomorrow night we are attending a performance of an Aristophenes play in the ancient Odeon theatre, at sunset. Is this cool, or what? And the next morning at 5 AM we begin the long journey home, first to London, then to Vancouver, B.C., and finally Seattle Thursday night.
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Athens/Athinai, Hellas: It will hit 40 degrees celsius today (e.g., 104 fahrenheit)

The Acropolis

We are in our first full day in Athens, where it will hit 40 degrees celsius this afternoon (104 fahrenheit),

f = 9/5 c + 32

We will be visiting the fantastic and huge museum we went to last time, as well as visiting the Acropolis and its excellent ruins at least a couple of times.

Tomorrow night, on our last night here, we currently plan to attend a play in an ancient theatre. Aristophenes. And in between, we will visit other ruins, if possible, try to keep cool, and face up to our trip coming to an end, about which, more later.
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A few random pictures from Greece

click these to enlarge. A picture we took that turned out colored like a 1960's postcard


On the beach at Naxos yesterday before we sailed to Athens


The dome and stone set in masonry walls of the tiny (no longer used) St. Giorgio's Greek Orthodox church at Hilka


Some of the very intact female statuary recovered from Knossos


some of my favorite faces from the fallen friezes at Afrodesia


Colum with an old still at the Citron shop in Hilka (msp?). Let me publicly apologize to Colum because I just discovered that I have frequently been writing his name as Column! You don't know how many columns I've looked at in the last month!


Love and Mercy,

Jack in Athens, July 15th, 2008 (two days to go...).

Poem: Sailing To Athens

1.

In a pale grey fog,
I see the ghosts
Of ancient Helleniki mariners

Sailing phantom steamships, sloops,
Prams, dories, catamarans, dinghies,
Trawlers, purse-seiners, frigates and tugboats

Across the cerulean blue sea,
Trawling for the fish
That are phantoms now too.

2.

Wine, saffron, ruby-red, pale lemon;
Emerals peppers, rocket, and capers;
Pink carpusi, crystal white Ouzo;

Cheeses in every tint
From snow white to ivory,
Cream, tan, grey, and muted gold.

3.

Gifts of olive oil, wine, raki, ouzo,
Apricots, plums, cake, ice cream,
Citron, carpusi, sorbet, wildflowers,

More caprusi, poetry, more ouzo, and songs
Sung on the street
Direct from the heart.

4.

I leave with a song in my heart
And knowing whatever we sing, eat, play,
Drink, wear, smoke, worship, or dream,

They're all just people
Like you and me.
Amen. Selah. Namaste.
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Poem: Sailing To Naxos, or, The Vortex

Saling through the poly-blue Aegean
On a hot day in a steamy haze,
Our ship makes a wide looping turn
A few kilometers off
The white house-dappled shore
Of Naxos, parked in the sea
Like a gem in a finding,
The houses and villas
Strung along the shore
And two layers above
Like a three strand pearl necklace
On the stout and broad neck of a Cyclops,
Waiting to leap from the sea,
Grab our boat from the water
And use the ship to beat the sea
Into a churning and foaming
Soup of blue whirlpools and funnels
That suck everything in sight
Into a sapphire blue vortex
With the water cooling each meter
As it swirls down and cascades
Into Neptune's drain and picks up speed
As it descends into the dark
And lonely bottom of the sea.

July 13, 2008, on the Aegean and Naxos
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