Πέρασαν δύο χρόνια ή τρία… προτιμώ να μη θυμάμαι, αλλά νομίζω δύο. Την είδα χθες στον όνειρό μου, ήταν όμορφη, ζωντανή και λίγο μπλαζέ, όπως συνήθως “Πω πω, τι ήταν κι αυτό με τον καρκίνο, τι ταλαιπωρία! Ευτυχώς πάει κι αυτό! Χα χα! Τι να κάνεις κοπέλα μου, η ζωή συνεχίζεται!”. Γέλασα τόσο πολύ, ακόμα γελάω, γιατί ακριβώς αυτό θα έλεγε.
Φάγαμε κόλλυβα, ήπιαμε Grand Marnier, που έπινε κάθε βράδυ σ’ένα μικρό ποτηράκι του λικέρ, μετά το ιατρείο και είπαμε ιστορίες απ’τα παλιά. Όταν τελείωσε τους φίλησα όλους και της είπα “γειά σου Νινίκα!”, αλλά εκείνη δεν απάντησε τίποτα.
Avgoustinos Dimitriou describes how he was handcuffed and subsequently beaten by the Greek police on the 17th of November 2006, the anniversary of Polytechnio, the students’ uprising against the Greek military junta of 1967-74. At the time he was studying in the University of Thessaloniki, having left his hometown, Pafos in Cyprus. Six years later, six out of the eight sick and deranged policemen were found innocent, while the other two are going to prison for 2,5 years. Hurray for justice! Meanwhile Avgoustinos has suffered trauma, never finished his studies and is afraid to leave his parents’ house.
In fact he was only lucky to have been videotaped by random passers-by, as most of these stories never even gain any publicity, not to mention justice. Stories about the police, the covered-up crimes and the degree of corruption have been circulating for years, well I guess since the 60s. However, it used to be pretty uncommon for tourists suffering the same fate as protesters and indigenous passers-by. Tourists from New Zealand, the US, the UK, India, South Korea and… god I can’t keep up, have also been beaten up by the police, detained in police stations and hospitalised with serious injuries… and the reason was… errr well nothing really, just raging mood swings by policemen belonging to a mental institution.
Europe is turning a blind eye, patiently waiting for the fruit of corruption and disintergration to ripen (I guess Europe has it’s own problems and this is after all international politics and not kindergarten), while internally the identity crisis continues and no one is too sure what to make of this madness. However, there is one person who stands out and is at the moment in the spotlight of art and culture in Greece, it’s Paola Revenioti, an artist, an activist on sex issues, a transexual and a prostitute.
I met her at the opening of the first exhibition, dedicated to her photography, in Breeder gallery, one of the best galleries in Athens. She was wearing a wooly jumper, her blond hair was plainly falling down to her shoulders and her voice was warm and androgynous. Her attitude was so casual and her manners so warm and human that it would have been difficult for someone to guess that all those cool people were there mainly to worship her.
I hassled her rudely, introducing myself and congratulating her and although she explained that she was a bit overwhelmed with the size of the crowd that had gathered, she started giving me and a small group of gigling girls wonderful advice and insights on life and the way it has changed in Greece from the age of innocence and exploration to the inhuman Greece of today. Her references may have primarily been her sexual encounters, but the depth and insight of translating this knowledge into a political and sociological commentary left us speechless, as there was too much compacted truth and too little bullshit to allow us to come with a counter-comment.
Meeting Paola was just further proof for me that the biggest problem that has developed in Greece is neo-conservatism-imposed sexism (which from a Freudian point of view is pure self-destruction) and an education system of torture, developed by middle-aged religious spinsters, completely oblivious of the term ‘problem-solving’ and ‘child’ for that matter. I guess this is a time when people like Paola are most needed, as they remind us that repressed minds are sick minds, while free minds always shine above.
Watching Herzog’s Grizzly Man, I couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. It is a comment on man’s position on earth and it is cruel and crude in terms of arrangement. However, it is so deeply realistic that it shocks you. The perverse obsession of the hero, the grizzly man, with grizzly bears, becomes so clearly an unfitting behaviour for wild nature, where he lives and yet he manages to survive and be perceived by the bears like some alien explorer they are just not sure about, but are not inclined to harm. It’s almost like Herzog is implying that we either have alien descent or we’ve become perverse due to our evolution within our own society, to a point at which we stand above the laws of the ecosystems that surround us.
It also becomes clear that the only reason why he survived for as long as he did was that his behaviour exhibited such affection and sophistication in comparison to that of the bears, that they just couldn’t go ahead with killing him. When he eventually was attacked it was while he was sleeping and unable to dominate them with his affection, it was also at a point where he was starting to loose his head with paranoia. I guess nature allows little space for wasteful energy. Sadly the point at which he was killed was also a point at which he was in love. Desperate and in love he died trying to save his girlfriend, without success, as she remained by his side fighting against the bear, who eventually ate her too.
I don’t know whether the evolution of our brains makes us seem so unearthly at times, or whether our genome contains extraterrestrial elements, but in any case I believe that nature is not a place we belong to entirely anymore.
Nothing can be more self-destructive and painful than being in love and yet that’s all we desire like zombies thirsty for blood. Everyone is thirsty, but no one is ever satisfied. The infected keep falling into the same traps and the oblivious pretend they know what they are incapable of imagining. What drives us and what kills our drive? Is it all in our culturally imposed perception of life-purpose? Is it a disease? An obsession? Or is it a primordial memory of how we were made?
Could this be means of reassurance for an awareness-baring species, which has already known for hundreds of years it is heading towards extinction?
Or is the universe in fact a hedonistic place of aimless magic?
Φώναζε στο γιο του “κάνε κοντρόλ!” , “πήγαινε για το τέρμα!” και άλλα τέτοια, τα οποία μου προκάλεσαν αρχικά αποστροφή και μία αυθόρμητη ανάγκη να διαχωρίσω τη θέση μου επικεντρώνοντας την προσοχή μου στις σελίδες του βιβλίου μου, αλλά δεν άργησε να μου την αποσπάσει και πάλι “ο γιος σας ποιος είναι;” με ρώτησε. Αρχίσαμε να μιλάμε για το ποδόσφαιρο, για την Ελλάδα και την κρίση φυσικά, μέχρι που βρέθηκα να αναλύω αυτάρεσκα τα συμπεράσματα που με έκαναν περήφανη και δε βαριόμουν ποτέ να επαναλαμβάνω, σαν κάποιου τύπου νεύρωση, όταν με διέκοψε… “Ξέρετε εγώ είμαι αστυνομικός στη ΓΑΔΑ” μου είπε, “αλλά είμαι κι εγώ αριστερών πεποιθήσεων και δεν είμαι καθόλου περήφανος για το επάγγελμά μου”. Φυσικά συνέχισα να λέω το ποίημα μου, λες και δεν είχα δώσει προσοχή σε όσα μου είχε πει, προσπαθώντας να κερδίσω χρόνο για να επεξεργαστώ τον αυτοπροσδιορισμό, την απολογία, την αναγνώρισή μου ως αριστερή, τη σκληροπυρηνική κοινωνική πίεση που με είχε επαναφέρει στη μαγεία του παράγοντα τυχαίο του παρόντος.
Έκανα restart και επαναπροσδιορισμό στόχων. Τον ρώτησα αν όλες οι φήμες αληθεύουν, ή αν κάποια από αυτά που λέγονται είναι υπερβολές. Μου είπε πως κάποια από αυτά που λέγονται είναι υπερβολές, αλλά δεν πίστευε ότι κανένα από τα παραδείγματα που του παρέθεσα ήταν αδιανόητα και μου αντιπαρέθεσε παραδείγματα που δείχνουν πόσο λάθος λειτουργεί το σύστημα. Μου είπε επίσης ότι πιστεύει ότι οι άντρες είναι πιο ευαίσθητοι από τις γυναίκες… φυσικά συμφώνησα.
Φεύγοντας σκέφτηκα “πόσο παράξενη εξομολόγηση”. Σκέφτηκα φυσικά και την περίπτωση να προσπαθούσε να ελέγξει τι άτομο είμαι. Αλλά κυρίως σκεφτόμουν, τι παράξενο να απολογείσαι για τη δουλειά σου σε έναν άγνωστο και τι κρίμα να μη μπορείς να εκφράσεις αυτό που έχεις να πεις ελεύθερα είτε είσαι αναρχικός, είτε είσαι δεξιός, ρατσιστής, ειρηνιστής, απολιτίκ, αλλά κυρίως αν είσαι μπάτσος.
Τώρα αναλογίζομαι “χμμ να αγωνιστώ για τα δικαιώματα του μπάτσου;”, αλλά μάλλον το μόνο καλό που θα απέφερε αυτό θα ήταν ότι ο αναρχικός, ο χρυσαυγίτης, ο δεξιός, ο αριστερός, ο απολιτίκ και ο ειρηνιστής ακόμα θα συνεργάζονταν για πρώτη φορά, δυστυχώς για να με δείρουν.
Bitchiness is more powerful than muscles and more resourceful than enterpreneurship, only that it’s socially undervalued due to ethical inhibitions of self-absorbed males. No worder most female primates live longer than males.
whatevahwhatevah 