28 SeptemberBeing John Malkovich
photography:Sandro Miller
My comment about this excellent work is what Jean Paul Sartre has written about Imagination: "Imagination is not an empirical or super-added power of consciousness, it is the whole of consciousness as it realizes its freedom."
29 September
On a day like this Vincent's Van Gogh Starry Night took its eligible place in Museam of Modern Art New York
The Starry night is painted from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in 1889. http://youtu.be/nkvLq0TYiwI It is Van Gogh's best-known painting though in a letter to painter Émile Bernard from late November, 1889, Van Gogh referred to the painting as a "failure."
Actually I agree with him and I like much more the Starry night over Rhoen which was a painting before the breakdown that resulted in the self-mutilation of his left ear, and I have this starry night over Rhoen in my home and the Café Terrace two paintings i really adore as well as the almond trees paintings.
He wrote about existing in another dimension after death and associated this dimension with the night sky. "It would be so simple and would account so much for the terrible things in life, which now amaze and wound us so, if life had yet another hemisphere, invisible it is true, but where one lands when one dies." http://youtu.be/u2u9EuX8Y8E "Hope is in the stars," he wrote, but he was quick to point out that "earth is a planet too, and consequently a star, or celestial orb." And he stated flatly that The Starry Night was "not a return to the romantic or to religious ideas."
Soon after his arrival in Arles in February, 1888, Van Gogh wrote to Theo "I need a starry night with cypresses or—perhaps above a field of ripe wheat; there are some really beautiful nights here." That same week, he wrote to Bernard, "A starry sky is something I should like to try to do, just as in the daytime I am going to try to paint a green meadow spangled with dandelions. http://youtu.be/3qTAv3zw5Jk " He compared the stars to dots on a map and mused that, as one takes a train to travel on earth, "we take death to reach a star." Although at this point in his life Van Gogh was disillusioned by religion, he appears not to have lost his belief in an afterlife. He voiced this ambivalence in a letter to Theo after having painted Starry Night Over the Rhone, confessing to a "tremendous need for, shall I say the word—for religion—so I go outside at night to paint the stars."
1 October
Since we're talking about Vincent Van Gogh and his lovely paintings when he was living in Arles in the French countryside of Provence, Georges Bizet composed L'Arlésienne as incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's play of the same name, usually translated as The Girl from Arles.
It was first performed on 1 October 1872 at the Vaudeville Theatre (now a cinema known as the Gaumont Opéra)
2 October Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock died 2 days ago.
Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock was the first woman to fly solo around the world, which she did in 1964. She flew a single engine Cessna 180 (registered N1538C) christened the "Spirit of Columbus" and nicknamed "Charlie."
The trip began March 19, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio, and ended April 17, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio, and took 29 days, 21 stopovers and almost 22,860 miles. She was subsequently awarded the Louis Blériot medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1965. In 1970 she published the story of her round-the-world flight in the book Three-Eight Charlie. While that book is now out of print, a 50th anniversary edition was later published including maps, weather charts and photos. Three-Eight Charlie is a reference to the call sign, N1538C, of the Cessna 180 Skywagon Mock used to fly around the world
Shirley Brooks-Jones (left) and sculptor Renate Fackler pose with a clay model of the Jerrie Mock tribute sculpture that was been unveiled at The Works, in Jerrie’s birthplace, Newark, Ohio, on September 14th.
"Stop the World, I want to get off opened in Bradway on 3 October 1962 at the Shubert Theatre, eventually transferring to theAmbassador to complete its 555-performance run.
3 October http://youtu.be/VCQOIW83wWM
16 Tall ships sailed into Sydney Harbour last year for Navy centenary https://www.awm.gov.au/royal-australian-navy-fleet-entry-1913/
The interior of these tall ships is really amazing
6 October
The first chess tournament was held in New York City from October 6th to November 10th, 1857. Daniel Fiske and Thomas Frere were the organizers of the first American Chesscongress
The top sixteen players were invited (the Americans William Allison, Daniel Willard Fiske, Alexander Beaufort Meek, Paul Morphy, William James Fuller, Hiram Kennicott, Hubert Knott, Benjamin Raphael Hardman, Philips Montgomery ,the Germans Theodor Lichtenhein, Louis Paulsen, the French Napoleon Marache and the English Frederick Perrin, Samuel Robert Calthrop, Charles Henry Stanley, and James Thompson). First prize was $300.
lithograph of the First American Chess Congress 1857
Top row: Colonel Charles Mead (chairman), George Hammond, Frederic Perrin, Daniel Willard Fiske, Hiram Kennicott, and Hardman Philips Montgomery. Left column: Hubert Knott, Louis Paulsen, and William Allison. Bottom row: Theodore Lichtenhein, James Thompson, Charles Henry Stanley, Alexander Beaufort Meek, Samuel Robert Calthrop, and Napoleon Marache. Right column: William James Fuller, Paul Morphy, and Benjamin Raphael.
The tournament was a knockout tournament in which draws did not count and it was won by Morphy refused any money, but accepted a silver service consisting of a pitcher, four goblets, and a tray. Morphy’s prize was given to him by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
‘rare photograph of Morphy making a move against Louis Paulsen during the First American Chess Congress
One game of Paul Morphy against Paulsen in the final with an amazing sacrifice of the Queen
you can see all the games of the 1st American Chesscongress here:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=79271
12 October
Fondana di Trevie
The fountain at the junction of three roads (tre vie) marks the terminal point of the "modern" Acqua Vergine, the revived Aqua Virgo, one of the aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome. Legend holds that in 19 BC thirsty Roman soldiers were guided by a young girl to a source of pure water eight miles from the city of Rome. The discovery of the source led Augustus to commission the construction of a aqueduct leading into the city, which was named Aqua Virgo, or Virgin Waters, in honor of the legendary young girl. The aqueduct served the hot Baths of Agrippa, and Rome, for over four hundred years.
Nicola Salvi began the construction in 1732 and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Salvi's death, when Pietro Bracci's Oceanus (god of all water) was set in the central niche. Salvi died in 1751 with his work half finished, but he had made sure a stubborn barber's unsightly sign would not spoil the ensemble, hiding it behind a sculpted vase, called by Romans theasso di coppe, the "Ace of Cups".
The Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini, who substituted the present allegories for planned sculptures of Agrippa and "Trivia", the Roman virgin. It remains one of the most historical cultural landmarks in Rome.
The majority of the piece is made from Travertine stone, quarried near Tivoli, about 35 kilometers east of Rome.
Coins throwing https://youtu.be/sb-RFMHxhiI
Coins are purportedly meant to be thrown using the right hand over the left shoulder. An estimated 3,000 Euros are thrown into the fountain each day. The money has been used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome's needy; however, there are regular attempts to steal coins from the fountain
The backdrop for the fountain is the Palazzo Poli, given a new façade with a giant order of Corinthian pilasters that link the two main stories. Taming of the waters is the theme of the gigantic scheme that tumbles forward, mixing water and rockwork, and filling the small square. Tritons guide Oceanus' shell chariot, taming hippocamps.
In the centre a robustly-modelled triumphal arch is superimposed on the palazzo façade. The centre niche or exedra framing Oceanus has free-standing columns for maximal light and shade. In the niches flanking Oceanus,Abundance spills water from her urn and Salubrity holds a cup from which a snake drinks. Above, bas reliefs illustrate the Roman origin of the aqueducts. http://youtu.be/_99e25pmd5c
The tritons and horses provide symmetrical balance, with the maximum contrast in their mood and poses (by 1730, rococo was already in full bloom in France and Germany)
14 October
A wonderful man, an amazing leader
14 October 1969 Olof Palme forms his first Privy Council Government in Sweden
with the Socialdemokratin party
"The rights of democracy are not reserved for a select group within society, they are the rights of All the People"
"For us Democracy is a Question of Human Dignity
And Human Dignity is Political Freedom"
"Our goal is freedom, as far as possible, from the pressure of external conditions, freedom for individuals to develop their unique personalities, freedom to shape our lives in accordance with our own wishes."
Olof Palme changed the world and he does so to this day. His words and deeds still inspires people to commit to democracy, human rights and peacehttp://youtu.be/Do9dmKu0psk
In spite of his upper middle class origin, Olof Palme became one of the Swedish labour movement’s strongest leaders. His political career started in 1953, when Tage Erlander, the Prime Minister, employed him as his personal secretary. Already at that time Palme had formed the ideas that characterized his political work : the elimination of colonialism, the right of national self-determination, the need for a new economic world order, the fight against racism, the dream of equal rights and the democratisation of education.
Olof Palme remained a reformer all his life, pursuing traditional Swedish social democratic policies. He believed in a strong society where full employment and the public sector were the two most important means to increase equality between different social groups as well as between sexes. One of his basic ideas was the concept of a general welfare policy: everybody, regardless of their resources, should benefit from the welfare system. This would maintain solidarity and the will to pay taxes, and also help prevent the rich obtaining private solutions out of reach of the poor
At the beginning of the 1970’s the Swedish welfare system reached its peak, and the concept known as ”The Swedish Model” was coined. At the end of the decade , however, western democracies in general were beginning to experience what was sometimes called a crisis of democracy. Sweden was not spared. Olof Palme envisioned a renewal of democracy by reforming working life. Many new laws concerning the labour market were passed during these years. http://youtu.be/daILH1q0OaM
Olof Palme considered the fight against unemployment to be the most important task of social democracy, and much to the irritation of new ’liberal’ and single-minded free market advocates he defended a strong society with strong labour unions and general welfare to the very end.
As leader of a new generation of Swedish Social Democrats, Olof Palme was often described as a "revolutionary reformist".
Domestically, his democratic socialist views, especially the drive to expand Labour Union influence over business ownership, engendered a great deal of hostility from the organized business community. His reforms on labour market included establishing a law which increased job security. In the Swedish 1973 general election, the Socialist-Communist and the Liberal-Conservative blocs got 175 places each in the Riksdag. The Palme cabinet continued to govern the country but several times they had to draw lots to decide on some issues, although most important issues were decided through concessional agreement. Tax rates also rose from being fairly low even by European standards to the highest levels in the Western world.
Under Olof Palme's permiership tenure, matters concerned with child care centers, social security, protection of the elderly, accident safety, and housing problems received special attention. Under Palme the public health system in Sweden became efficient, with the infant mortality rate standing at 12 per 1,000 live births. An ambitious redistributive programme was carried out, with special help provided to the disabled, immigrants, the low paid, single-parent families, and the old. The Swedish welfare state was significantly expanded from a position already one of the most far-reaching in the world during his time in office. As noted by Isabela Mares, during the first half of the Seventies “the level of benefits provided by every subsystem of the welfare state improved significantly.”
In 1971, eligibility for invalidity pensions was extended with greater opportunities for employees over the age of 60. In 1974, universal dental insurance was introduced, and former maternity benefits were replaced by a parental allowance. In 1974, housing allowances for families with children were raised and these allowances were extended to other low-income groups. Childcare centres were also expanded under Palme, and separate taxation of husband and wife introduced. Access to pensions for older workers in poor health was liberalised in 1970, and a disability pension was introduced for older unemployed workers in 1972.
Olof Palme was smoking his filter cigarettes almost anywhere anytime, he was a heavy smoker and I guess in this photo below he argues with Fidel Castro about Havana Cigars and his filter cigaretten
Olof palme was an outspoken supporter of gender equality, Palme sparked interest for women's' rights issues, here below with Greek famous actress and Minister of Culture Melina Merqouri
Olof Palme was a lover of Greece, lover of Greek civilisation and Greek music He was fond of the music of Mikis Theodorakis and close friend of former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou
On the international scene, Palme was a widely recognised political figure because of his:
”But if we shift from a geographical to a temporal perspective, those contrasts tend to fade away. For, it was essentially just such a utopian vision that animated the pioneers of the labour movement. They dreamed of a society that could offer human dignity, bread, work and security. That vision of the future inspired them to action and faith in the future, even though it seemed remote and unrealistic. Now, that vision has become commonplace and self-evident: Yesterday’s utopian vision has become today’s reality.”
continues due to technical problems
All of this ensured that Palme had many opponents (as well as many friends) abroad.
Al Burke writes "As a matter of fact, Olof Palme is still among us, in the form of the exceedingly valuable intellectual legacy he left behind. If we neglect or squander that legacy, we make of ourselves something less than what we are-- which, for the reasons noted above, is a important not only for us, but for the world at large.'
Security had never been a major issue, and Olof Palme could often be seen without any bodyguard protection. The night of his murder was one such occasion. Walking home from a cinema with his wife Lisbet Palme in the central Stockholm street Sveavägen, close to midnight on 28 February 1986, the couple was attacked by an assassin. Palme was fatally shot in the back at close range. A second shot was fired at Lisbet Palme, the bullet grazing her back. She survived without serious injuries.
Who is killing the Dream?
Who is killing the Peace?
Who is killing the Angels?
18 October
Greek poet Odysseas Elytis was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1979/press.html
Odysseas Elytis was the poet of the Aegean Sea and Sun. The blue Aegean sea and the unaltered azure sky of the Greek islands, the glorious infinite light, the white small houses, the olive trees and the churches, ancient amphorae and ruins, summer high noons and the winds define the scene where life is liberated and triumphant, mystical and deeply meaningful. The influence of the sea and the sun is diffused in almost all his poems.
To be a Greek and a part of its twenty-five-century-old literary tradition was to Elytis a matter of great pride. His words, upon acceptance of the Nobel Prize, gave evidence of this deep regard for his people and country: "I would like to believe that with this year's decision, the Swedish Academy wants to honor in me Greek poetry in its entirety. I would like to think it also wants to draw the attention of the world to a tradition that has gone on since the time of Homer, in the embrace of Western civilization."
Odysseas Elytis wrote about his poetry:“I consider poetry a source of innocence full of revolutionary forces. It is my mission to direct these forces against a world my conscience cannot accept, precisely so as to bring that world through continual metamorphoses into greater harmony with my dreams. I am referring here to a contemporary kind of magic whose leads to the discovery of our true reality. It is for this reason that I believe, to the point of idealism, that I am moving in a direction which has never been attempted until now. In the hope of obtaining a freedom from all constraints and the justice which could be identified with absolute light, I am an idolater who, without wanting to do so, arrives at Christian sainthood. There was always the oriental side which occupied an important place in the Greek spirit. Throughout antiquity oriental values were assimilated. There exists an oriental side in the Greek which should not be neglected. It is for this reason that make the distinction”
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1979/elytis-lecture.html
He said: 'I never was a disciple of the surrealist school. I found certain congenial elements there, which I adapted to the Greek light. Europeans and Westerners always find mystery in obscurity, in the night, while we Greeks find it in light, which is for us an absolute'
Elytis was born Odysseus Alepoudelis, in the city of Heraklion, on the island of Crete. To avoid any association to his wealthy family of soap manufacturers, he later changed his surname to reflect those things he most treasured. Frank J. Prial of the New York Times explained that the poet's pseudonymous name was actually "a composite made up of elements of Ellas, the Greek word for Greece; elpidha, the word for hope; eleftheria, the word for freedom, and Eleni, the name of a figure that, in Greek mythology, personifies beauty and sensuality."
I lived the beloved name
In the shade of the grandmother olive tree
In the roar of the lifelong sea "Sun the First" O.Elytis
I have brought my life as far as this
To this point when the youth on the rocks,
Ever by the sea
Ever restless with the sea, breast
To breast with the wind
Where can a man go
When is nothing but a man
Reckoning in dews his green moments,
In waters his visions of his hearing,
In winds his pangs of remorse
Oh Life
Of a child who becomes a man
Ever by the sea
When the sun teaches him
To take a breathe there
Where vanishes the seagull's shadow
I have brought my life as far as this,
Stone vowed to the liquid element
Further off than the islands,
Lower than the waves
Neighbor to the anchors
-When the keels pass a new obstacle
And tear it with passion and conquer it
And hope with all her dolphin dawns
Gain of the sun in a man's heart-
The nets of doubt draw in
A figure of salt painfully chisled
Indifferent, white
Turning to the sea the void of the eyes
Sustaining the infinite. Orientations - Odysseas Elytis
with Marina Karagatsi in Milos
Marina of the rocks
You have a taste of tempest on your lips - But where did you wander
All day long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
An eagle-bearing wind stripped the hills
Stripped your longing to the bone
And the pupils of your eyes received the message of chimera
Spotting memory with foam!
Where is the familiar slope of short September
On the red earth where you played, looking down
At the broad rows of the other girls
The corners where your friends left armfuls of rosemary.
But where did you wander
All night long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
I told you to count in the naked water its luminous days
On your back to rejoice in the dawn of things
Or again to wander on yellow plains
With a clover of light on you breast, iambic heroine.
You have a taste of tempest on your lips
And a dress red as blood
Deep in the gold of summer
And the perfume of hyacinths - But where did you wander?
Descending toward the shores, the pebbled bays?
There was cold salty seaweed there
But deeper a human feeling that bled
And you opened your arms in astonishment naming it
Climbing lightly to the clearness of the depths
Where your own starfish shone.
Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged
And time is a passionate sculptor of men
And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope
And you, closer to it, embrace a love
With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.
It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think of another summer,
For the rivers to change their bed
And take you back to their mother
For you to kiss other cherry trees
Or ride on the northwest wind.
Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or tomorrow,
Facing the dangers of the rocks with a hurricane hairstyle
You will say farewell to the riddle that is yours.
Prosanatolismoi, 1940 - Orientations
© Translation: Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
published in 1936, was Elytis's first volume of poetry. Filled with images of light and purity, the work earned for its author the title of the "sun-drinking poet." Edmund Keeley, a frequent translator of Elytis's work, observed that these "first poems offered a surrealism that had a distinctly personal tone and a specific local habitation. The tone was lyrical, humorous, fanciful, everything that is young." In a review of a later work, The Sovereign Sun, a writer for the Virginia Quarterly Review echoed Keeley's eloquent praise: "An intuitive poet, who rejects pessimism and engages in his surrealistic images the harsh realities of life, Elytis is a voice of hope and naked vigor. There is light and warmth, an awakening to self, body, and spirit, in Elytis."
The poet, however, disagreed with such descriptions of his work. He suggested that "my theory of analogies may account in part for my having been frequently called a poet of joy and optimism. This is fundamentally wrong. I believe that poetry on a certain level of accomplishment is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It represents rather a third state of the spirit where opposites cease to exist. There are no more opposites beyond a certain level of elevation. Such poetry is like nature itself, which is neither good nor bad, beautiful nor ugly; it simply 'is'. Such poetry is no longer subject to habitual everyday distinctions."
Elytis's next work, To axion esti ("Worthy It Is"), came after a period of more than ten years of silence. Widely held to be his chef d'oeuvre, it is a poetic cycle of alternating prose and verse patterned after the ancient Byzantine liturgy. As in his other writings, Elytis depicted the Greek reality through an intensely personal tone. Keeley, the translator of the volume into English, suggested that To axion esti "can perhaps be taken best as a kind of spiritual autobiography that attempts to dramatize the national and philosophical extensions of the poet's personal sensibility. Elytis's strategy in this work . . . is to present an image of the contemporary Greek consciousness through the developing of a persona that is at once the poet himself and the voice of his country."
The blood of love has robed me in purple
And joys never seen before have covered me in shade.
I've become corroded in the south wind of humankind
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.
On the open sea they lay in wait for me,
With triple-masted men-of-war they bombarded me,
My sin that I too had a love of my own
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.
Once in July her large eyes
Half-opened, deep down my entrails, to light up
The virgin life for a single moment
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.
And since that day the wrath of ages
Has turned on me, shouting out the curse:
"He who saw you, let him live in blood and stone"
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.
Once again I took the shape of my native country,
I grew and flowered among the stones.
And the blood of killers I redeem with light
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.
THE AXION ESTI, by Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) Translated by Edmund Keeley and George Savidis
Elytis poem - Monogram
The Monogram was written between 1969 and 1971 in Paris by the self-exiled poet. Ιt is considered to be one of the world's masterpieces of dramatic love poetry
The Monogram stands as a celebration of Elytis’ following own words: I introduced to poetry a new method of understanding the world through the senses... To me the senses do not necessarily carry erotic implications, as they have an air of holiness. Furthermore we can say that every reader who reads The Monogram may discover the endless dimensions of love; thus he comes closer, in a way, to immortality
Elitis was also a talented painter and produced illustrations of his poetic world in gouaches and collages.
Ανθ’ ημών η αγάπη – Instead of us is Love
“This is why I write. Because poetry starts where death does not have the last word. It is the end of one life and the beginning of another, which is similar to the first one, but it goes very deep, to the utmost point that the soul could trace, at the borders of antitheses, there where the Sun and Hades touch each other. The endless impetus toward the physical light which is the Word and the non-created light which is God”
21 October Paul Morphy at Theatre Italien in Paris
Last time we left Paul Morphy in Cafe De La Regence winning in a blindfold simultane all the people inside the cafe in his "works and days" in Paris as he's waiting for Anderssen to come on Christmas after the letter-invite he had sent to him early in October to travel to Paris at Morphy's expenses cause the greatest privilege for Morphy was to win the European GrandMaster Anderssen accepted the challenge with pleasure but he replied that he could not travel earlier than Christmas holidays due to work. Meanwhile Paul Morphy enjoyed his time in Paris
On 21st October 1858 Paul Morphy acquainted with the German noble Duke Karl of Brunswick and the Count Isouard who invited him to the Italian Opera House in Paris, Salle Le Peletier, where Duke Karl kept a private box which was, according to Morphy's associate Frederick Edge, so close to the stage that one "might kiss the prima donna without any trouble", and which always contained a chess set, the Duke being a keen player as well as an opera lover.
Morphy was extremely fond of music and opera and was eager to see Norma, http://youtu.be/cofXNEnxzcY not with Maria Callas of course but with Rosina Penco. Unfortunately, his host had seen Norma countless times, and Morphy found himself forced to play chess, even seated with his back to the stage.
The chess game played between Paul Morphy and the German noble Duke Karl of Brunswick and the French aristocrat Count Isouard. Duke Karl and Count Isouard consulted together, playing as partners against Morphy. The game is often used by chess instructors to teach the importance of rapid development of one's pieces, the value of sacrifices in mating combinations, and other chess concepts. The game is sometimes called "The Opera Game"
As the game progressed, the two allies conferred loudly enough with each other, debating their moves against the American genius, that it attracted the attention of the opera performers. Madame Penco, who had the role of the Druidic priestess in Norma, kept looking into the Duke's box, to see what all the fuss was about, even as she was performing the opera. Then the performers who were the Druids, marched about, "chanting fire and bloodshed against the Roman host, who, they appeared to think, were in the Duke's box", Edge recounted: It is doubtful if the distracted opera singers had a good enough view of what was going on. Comically, Morphy created this brilliant game while spending his time trying to overcome his blocked view of the opera, while the performers tried to catch glimpses of what was going on in the Duke's box.
The Game
22 October 
A Shower of Orionids http://youtu.be/5dDqT1tx3jo
you can either catch a falling star http://youtu.be/GOSmSq0xuo0
swing on a star http://youtu.be/_B1OYLC4fuk
or wish on a falling star
http://youtu.be/pfNoGx7KJY4
anything you do you'll be revived with possitive energy, sweet dreams and hopes sparkled with starlight and dewdrops http://youtu.be/vnRmX0yqXzY
The Orionids are considered to be one of the most beautiful showers of the year. Orionid meteors are known for their brightness and for their speed. These meteors are fast -- they travel at about 148,000 mph (66 km/s) into the Earth's atmosphere. The Orionids are also framed by some of the brightest stars and planets in the night sky, which lend a spectacular backdrop for theses showy meteors.
The Orionids are viewable in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres during the hours after midnight. Find an area well away from city or street lights. Come prepared with a sleeping bag, blanket or lawn chair. Lie flat on your back with your feet facing southeast if you are in the Northern Hemisphere or northeast if you are in the Southern Hemisphere, and look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. In less than 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors. Be patient -- the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.http://youtu.be/7PH8025fFJw
Their radiant -- the point in the sky from which the Orionids appear to come from -- is the constellation Orion. The constellation of Orion is also where we get the name for the shower: Orionids. Note: The constellation for which a meteor shower is named only serves to aid viewers in determining which shower they are viewing on a given night. The constellation is not the source of the meteors. http://youtu.be/7hmwr3rYwO0
Also, you need not look only to the constellation of Orion to view the Orionids -- they are visible throughout the night sky. It is actually better to view the Orionids at least 90 degrees away from the radiant. They will appear longer and more spectacular from this perspective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteor_showers
If you want to have more showers of stardust and dewdrops many times a year you can determine Meteor Shower Activity for where you live
http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html
What a coincidence, on a day like this the musical "Swinging on a Star" opened in Broadway Music Box Theatre in 1995 http://youtu.be/QHjGt0Z0CNo
When you look up in the sky at night and you see the billions of stars like a magic carpet that covers the earth mother with twinkling shafts of light. The true majesty of the Great Spirit is apparent to you and you realize you are a very small infinitesimal part of the universe we live in. The beauty of which is awesome to behold from the smallest creature to the vastness of the Milky Way. As I stood in awe I played my flute and watched the beauty of the night in nature’s entire splendor. My feet could feel the moisture of the dew on the grass and my heart could feel the warm glow of my friends at my side. We are all just sparks in the Great Mystery’s Eternal Flame that fell from the sky to Mother Earth and one day like fireflies we shall return to the Stars in the Sky of the Great Star Nation. http://youtu.be/RRr_QyJ_cyU
From the book "The Storytellers Flute"
24 October
Greek poet George Seferis was awarded the Nobel prize for literature "for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Ellenic world of culture"http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=375
Greek poet George Seferis was born Georgios Seferiades in Urla, near Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey). He worked as a diplomat for the Royal Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1963." http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1963/seferis-speech.html In his banquet speech he concluded with a message for a humanitarian world and next day he commented in his Nobel acceptance speech http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1963/seferis-lecture.html "When I read in Homer the simple words “φάος ἠελίοιο” - today I would say “φως του ηλίου” (the sunlight) - I experience a familiarity that stems from a collective soul rather than from an intellectual effort. It is a tone, one might say, whose harmonies reach quite far; it feels very different from anything a translation can give. For we do, after all, speak the same language - a language changed, if you insist, by an evolution of several thousand years, but despite everything faithful to itself - and the feeling for a language derives from emotions as much as from knowledge. This language shows the imprints of deeds and attitudes repeated throughout the ages down to our own" http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/4357
"The angel 3 years we waited intently for him,
closely scanning the pines the shore the stars
One with the plough's blade or the keel of the ship
We were searching to rediscover the first seed
so that the ancient drama could begin again."
From the Mythistorema in Collected Poems
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
In 1914, Seferis and his family moved to Athens. He studied law at the Sorbonne in Paris and entered diplomatic service in 1925. Seferis was exiled from Smyrna when it was claimed by Turkey; he subsequently spent many years living and working outside of Greece. Before World War II, he was posted in England and Albania. During the war he moved with the Free Greek Government to Egypt, South Africa, and Italy. After the war, his diplomatic posts included Ankara, London, Lebanon, and Syria. Seferis served as Royal Greek Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1961. In 1962 he retired and moved to Athens. http://youtu.be/KgMrxliF-bQ
Wandering and exile are present in Seferis’s poetry, and his work is attuned to the history of Greece—the Nobel Prize committee recognized him as a “representative Ellenic poet.”
Just a little more
And we shall see the almond trees in blossom
The marbles shining in the sun
The sea, the curling waves.
Just a little more
Let us rise just a little higher
I woke with this marble head in my hands;
It exhausts my elbows and I don't know where to put it down.
It was falling into the dream as I was coming out of the dream.
So our life became one and it will be very difficult for it to separate again http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4112/the-art-of-poetry-no-13-george-seferis
The Dream
I sleep but my heart stays awake
it gazes at the stars, the sky and the tiller
and how the water blossoms on the rudder
(translated by Edmund Keeley)
Some interesting works, essays and dissertations on George Seferis
http://www.academia.edu/1470186/Preliminary_Remarks_on_George_Seferiss_Visual_Poetics_Byzantine_and_Modern_Greek_Studies_32.1_2008_80-103
http://www.enotes.com/topics/george-seferis
http://www.fryktories.gr/article/hope-and-futility-poetry-g-seferis
Denial (Greek: Άρνηση) is a poem by Giorgos Seferis published in his collection Turning Point ("Strophe") in 1931. After the coup that overthrew the Greek government in 1967, Seferis went into voluntary seclusion and many of his poems were banned, including the musical versions which Mikis Theodorakis had written and arranged. Denial came to be the anthem of resistance to the regime and was sung by the enormous crowds lining the streets at Seferis' funeral.
DENIAL [English translation by Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard]
On the secret seashore
white like a pigeon
we thirsted at noon;
but the water was brackish.
On the golden sand
we wrote her name;
but the sea-breeze blew
and the writing vanished.
With what spirit, what heart,
what desire and passion
we lived our life: a mistake!
So we changed our life.
other poems: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/george-seferis#about
http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_58_n_3.pdf
http://books.google.gr/books?id=dN3_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PR5&lpg=PR5&dq=george+seferis+poems&source=bl&ots=TVNKL3SeUk&sig=Gn_8WpXqFcg_2ClwuKwYWuNGDeA&hl=el&sa=X&ei=J1tOVIvLFZPtaI2VgDA&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBzgU#v=onepage&q=george%20seferis%20poems&f=false
George Seferis was an Elected Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and became an Honorary Fellow of the Modern Language Association. http://youtu.be/-4zp3otTQXI
11 February Nelson Mandela is released free at last on 11 Feb 1990 Nelson Mandela. "As we let our own light shine, we unconciously give other people permission to do the same"Nelson Mandela. - A warrior of Light regained his freedom on a day like this and a lonely tear rolls down my cheak as I'm trying to write a few lines about it
Triumphant Nelson Mandela walked free from Victor Vester Prison in Cape Town in the afternoon holding the hand of his wife Winnie
““As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.-Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela, had been imprisoned for his beliefs 27 years in order to prevent his light not to be seen by the people
"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to see realised. But if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."- Rivonia Trial Speech, 1964
“A winner is a dreamer who never gives up”
“ Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility. There is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings irrespective of their social status.” ― Nelson Mandela, Conversations With Myself
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.” Nelson Mandela
British Pop song "Free Nelson Mandela" composed by Jerry Dammers helped a lot ! Mandela never forgot the debt he owed to supporters in the United Kingdom. In 1996 he used a speech to both Houses of Parliament in London to give his thanks: "We take this opportunity once more to pay tribute to the millions of Britons who, through the years, stood up to say: No to apartheid!" In 2008, singer Amy Winehouse joined Dammers for the finale to a concert in London's Hyde Park marking Mandela's 90th birthday. The song's message had long since been realized -- and indeed the by-then-frail elder statesman appeared onstage -- but it was received as warmly as ever.
“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.”
― Nelson Mandela
12 February Torvill & Dean win the gold medal in the Winter Olympic of Serajevo 1984
Torvill and Dean (Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean) are British ice dancers and former British, European, Olympic and World champions. At the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics the pair became the highest scoring figure skaters of all time (for a single programme) receiving twelve perfect 6.0s and six 5.9s which included artistic impression scores of 6.0 from every judge, after skating to Maurice Ravel's Bolero.
Torvill and Dean's 1984 Olympic free dance was skated to Maurice Ravel's Boléro. Ravel's original Boléro composition is over 17 minutes long. Olympics rules state that the free dance must be four minutes long (plus or minus ten seconds). Torvill and Dean went to a music arranger to condense Boléro down to a "skateable" version. However, they were told that the minimum time that Boléro could be condensed down to was 4 minutes 28 seconds, 18 seconds in excess of the Olympics rules. Torvill and Dean reviewed the Olympic rule book and found that it stated that actual timing of a skating routine began when the skaters started skating. Therefore, they could use Boléro if they did not place their skates' blades to ice for the first 18 seconds. They timed the performance so that when Torvill first placed a blade on the ice, they would have the maximum skating time remaining.
Both are from Nottingham, England, where the local National Ice Centre is accessed through a public area known as Bolero Square, in honour of the pair's Olympic achievements. There is also a housing estate in the Wollaton area of the city named 'Torvill Drive' and 'Dean Close' which is located just off Torvill Drive, with many of the surrounding roads named after coaches and dances associated with the pair. In a UK poll conducted by Channel 4 in 2002, the British public voted Torvill and Dean's historic gold-medal-winning performance at the 1984 Winter Olympics as Number 8 in the list of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments
13 February - First feminist newspaper in Paris
La Citoyenne (The Citizeness) was a French feminist newspaper published in Paris from 1881 through 1891 by Hubertine Auclert. It was first published on February 13, 1881, and appeared bi-monthly.
The newspaper was a forceful and unrelenting advocate for women's enfranchisement, demanding changes to the Napoleonic Code that relegated women to a vastly inferior status. The newspaper demanded that women be given the right to run for public office, claiming that the unfair laws would never have been passed had the views of female legislators been heard. Notable feminists such as Marie Bashkirtseff wrote articles for the paper.
In a strange rare notable coincidence, 26 years later, on 13th February 1907, 400 English suffragettes storm British Parliament! as Emmeline Pankhurst, grandmother of Dr Helen Pankhurst, (photo below) who Leads A Lobby Of Parliament On The Erosion Of Women's Rights
energised their fellow suffragettes, then with Charlotte Despard they led around 400 on a march to Parliament and 60 women were arrested but 15 of their number managed to reach the lobby of the Houses of Parliament (the "Old boys' Club" as they named it)
The Women’s Social and Political Union, well aware that the King’s speech on February 12 1907 would contain no mention of giving women the vote, organised a meeting at Caxton Hall for the following day to rally their forces before marching on Parliament. Even before that meeting the leaders had primed a hard core of 200 activists, in turn divided into sections in a quasi military fashion.
Writing this I remember my adorable grandmother Marika who was singing Beatles to me in the kitchen and in whose arms I grew up. My grandmother was a very tough woman, born on the greek highlands of Souli-Hepirus, and she was claiming to me that she is a real sufrazette because she was working harder than all men since my grandfather was killed in the war, she was left alone 28 years old with 4 daughters and she managed to raise them all in style without marrying again, and make them scientists, my mother judge's secretary in the Court, and my 3 aunts, two archaelogists and one teacher of English literature. Here is an old photo with her watching my father playing piano, she loved both of us very much (I took that photo)
Not many people know about Kallipatera and that she was the first woman to watch the Olympic games in ancient Greece may be she deserves to be considered as an ancient suffragette
Ancient Times it was forbitten to women to watch the Olympic Games, not only because of men nudity, but because women didn't have equal rights with men. The only woman who could be present in the Stadium was the leading priestess of godess Dimitra The punishment for any other woman was death by falling down from the top of Tipaio mountain
Kallipatera was the daughter of Olympic Champion Diagoras from the island Rhodes. her husband was another Olympic champion Kallianax, while all of her 3 brothers were Olympic Champions and triumphant in the Olympic & Istmian games as well.
It was the 96th Olympic Games in ancient Olymia at 396 b.C, when her beloved son Peisirhodes was favourite to win the Olympic Champion Title in wrestling !
Kallipatera could not be absent on a moment like this, so she dressed like a man and went into the stadium. When her son won the title she jumped into the arena, but she lost her clothe and her female nature became evident. Her enthusiasm and her love had put herself into a fatal danger
The Olympic Comitee decided to make an exemption for Kallipatera and not follow the austere Law because all her family were Olympic Champions
This is the ancient text from Pausanias: "κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἐς Ὀλυμπίαν ὁδόν, πρὶν ἢ διαβῆναι τὸν Ἀλφειόν, ἔστιν ὄρος ἐκ Σκιλλοῦντος ἐρχομένῳ πέτραις ὑψηλαῖς ἀπότομον: ὀνομάζεται δὲ Τυπαῖον τὸ ὄρος. κατὰ τούτου τὰς γυναῖκας Ἠλείοις ἐστὶν ὠθεῖν νόμος, ἢν φωραθῶσιν ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐλθοῦσαι τὸν Ὀλυμπικὸν ἢ καὶ ὅλως ἐν ταῖς ἀπειρημέναις σφίσιν ἡμέραις διαβᾶσαι τὸν Ἀλφειόν. οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ ἁλῶναι λέγουσιν οὐδεμίαν, ὅτι μὴ Καλλιπάτειραν μόνην: εἰσὶ δὲ οἳ τὴν αὐτὴν ταύτην Φερενίκην καὶ οὐ Καλλιπάτειραν καλοῦσιν. [8] αὕτη προαποθανόντος αὐτῇ τοῦ ἀνδρός, ἐξεικάσασα αὑτὴν τὰ πάντα ἀνδρὶ γυμναστῇ, ἤγαγεν ἐς Ὀλυμπίαν τὸν υἱὸν μαχούμενον: νικῶντος δὲ τοῦ Πεισιρόδου, τὸ ἔρυμα ἐν ᾧ τοὺς γυμναστὰς ἔχουσιν ἀπειλημμένους, τοῦτο ὑπερπηδῶσα ἡ Καλλιπάτειρα ἐγυμνώθη. φωραθείσης δὲ ὅτι εἴη γυνή, ταύτην ἀφιᾶσιν ἀζήμιον καὶ τῷ πατρὶ καὶ ἀδελφοῖς αὐτῆς καὶ τῷ παιδὶ αἰδῶ νέμοντες--ὑπῆρχον δὴ ἅπασιν αὐτοῖς Ὀλυμπικαὶ νῖκαι--, ἐποίησαν δὲ νόμον ἐς τὸ ἔπειτα ἐπὶ τοῖς γυμνασταῖς γυμνοὺς σφᾶς ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐσέρχεσθαι."
25Μarch - Greek Independence Day
The uniform of the Greek presidential guard "Tsolias" becomes 150 years old this yearhttps://whyathens.com/evzones-uniform-greek-soldier/?utm_sq=fpo46v406f&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=WhyAthens&utm_content=Events
In the 1868 the Evzone battalions were issued a special uniform of a white wool jacket (φέρμελη) with dark blue cord embroidery (γαϊτάνια), with the battalion number embroidered in crimson at the end of each sleeve. The jacket was also decorated with two rows of twelve yellow metal buttons in the chest, and eight on the sleeves. A fez (φέσιον) with a silk tassel, bearing the national cockade and the crown was worn on the head, and a knee-length fustanella of white cloth below, closed by a belt of cotton in blue and white stripes. On the feet were worn tsarouchia, and white wool leggings and garters, the former decorated like the west in dark blue embroidery. For poor weather, an "iron-coloured" knee-length cap was issued.
During the German invasion in 1941, a memorable event is said to have occurred: on April 27, as the German Army was entering Athens, the Germans ascended to the Acropolis of Athens and ordered the young Tsolias who was guarding the flag post, Konstantinos Koukidis, to haul the Greek flag down and replace it with the swastika flag. The young soldier refused to hand over the Greek flag to the Germans, and instead, wrapped himself in it and fell off the Acropolis to his death.
13 August- Especially dedicated to our honorable member "anogia" Giorgos in rememberance of the destruction of the heroic village which lasted 23 days in WWII -- this is how Nikos Kazantzakis describes http://www.explorecrete.com/history/WW2_Anogia_Destruction.html
16th August another memory day of the unending list...
Before commiting the war crimes in Kefalonia island as I described in page 2 of this forum
the 98th Regiment, of the German 1. Gebirgs-Division (First Mountain Division)spent some weeks killing innocent people in various villages in Greek mainland
on 16 August 1943, executed 317 inhabitants and torched the Kommeno village in Arta Greece. Colonel Josef Salminger, the commanding officer of the 98th Regiment, ordered 12 Company's leader, Lieutenant Röser to attack the village. All women and children (74 of them under the age of 10) were killed indiscriminately
27 September
Jean-Francois Champollion, a teacher at Grenoble who had produced a scholarly work on ancient Egypt, shouted “Je tiens l’affaire!” (“I’ve got it!”) to his brother and promptly fainted after his tremendous effort to desaphinate Rosetta Stone
After three days, on 27th September 1822, he adresses his "Lettre à M. Dacier" to Bon-Joseph Dacier, secretary of the Paris Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. This "Letter" immediately published by the Académie, marks the real breakthrough to reading Egyptianhieroglyphs
http://youtu.be/aMAkHfEtPT4
The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text isAncient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. The stone dates to 196 B.C., and was recovered in 1799 by a French soldier inRosetta, aka Rashid, a port on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. Discover is a noble word — the stone was part of a wall in a fort!
Despite being an Egyptian artifact, and despite the fact that it was recovered and ultimately translated by the French, the Rosetta stone currently resides in theBritish Museum, as it has done since 1802. It is the most-visited object in the British Museum.
In July 2003, on the occasion of the British Museum's 250th anniversary, Egypt first requested the return of the Rosetta Stone. Zahi Hawass, the chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, asked that the stele be repatriated to Egypt, urging in comments to reporters: "If the British want to be remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity". Two years later in Paris he repeated the proposal, listing the stone as one of several key items belonging to Egypt's cultural heritage, a list which also included the iconic bust of Nefertiti in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin; a statue of the Great Pyramid architect Hemiunu in the Roemer-und-Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim, Germany; theDendara Temple Zodiac in the Louvre in Paris; and the bust of Ankhhaf from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During 2005, the British Museum presented to Egypt a full-size replica of the stele. As John Ray has observed, "the day may come when the stone has spent longer in the British Museum than it ever did in Rosetta."[77] There is strong opposition among national museums to the repatriation of objects of international cultural significance such as the Rosetta Stone. In response to repeated Greek requests for return of the Elgin Marbles and similar requests to other museums around the world, in 2002, over 30 of the world's leading museums — including the British Museum, the Louvre, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City — issued a joint statement declaring that "objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values reflective of that earlier era" and that "museums serve not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation"
P.S. If you ask me I would never go and pay to visit museams which exhibit loots, but I'd rather choose to give my money to repatriate them to the countries they have been created where they will regain their spiritual and politismic worth and value.