National Costume (Miss Universe 2006)

Talking about fashion and folklore, this is the most outrageous deviation…

(Un)fashion Talk(ing)

[...] “The Greek portion of the community in the large towns, who consider it the “thing” to copy European dress, generally forsake the picturesque native costume for Whitechapel slops, and their women-folk look perfect frights in awful native versions of Paris fashions of ten or fifteen years ago; though I am glad to say that this craze for aping European customs and manners is at present confined to the larger coast towns, and there only among a certain class, middlemen and shopkeepers, and in the more remote villages in the interior of the island the natives are unspoilt and hardly changed from their earlier ancestors in their mode of living.” [...] Basil Stewart (a traveler in Cyprus between 1905 and 1906).

Stewart Basil, "My Expeditions to the Island of Cyprus", London, 1908 (published in “The Island of Cyprus: A Photographic Itinerary from the 19th to the 20th Century, Luicie Bonato, Haris Yakoumis and Kadir Kaba, Publications En Tipis, 2007)

Yesterday (Waiting and not getting what we already don’t want)

"Eshekistan"

[…] When the Turkish Cypriot policeman at the Ledra Palace Checkpoint looked up from his booth into the large sad eyes and long ears of a passport-bearing donkey demanding to cross, he was not caught by surprise. He was required to check one unusually furry visitor from the south with a fake passport. Under the name it wrote “Mr Cyprus” and under occupation “porter”. This was part of the stunt-protest demanding free movement and the lifting of all crossing restrictions by both sides, organized by bi-communal groups. The protesters held banners writing “We Demand Freedom of Movement of the Donkeys of Cyprus”. A Turkish Cypriot donkey was to cross the other way but it failed to appear. Event took an unexpected turn when the Turkish Cypriot authorities allowed the Greek Cypriot old man leading the Greek Cypriot donkey to proceed. The Greek Cypriot donkey stood in front of the police booth. The Turkish Cypriot policeman examined its passport. He looked at the photo and then back at the donkey. Even though the photo did not match, and the passport identified donkey as male while it was in fact a female – and pregnant as it embarrassingly transpired – it was ushered through without further formalities. Lurking Turkish Cypriot plain-clothed policemen grabbed the old man with his donkey and pushed them to an unmarked police car. They arrested them along with other Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot. The donkey initially walked unperturbed in front of the car, until another policemen took over and led it to the police station.

Wild speculation ensued. Would the Greek Cypriot donkey also appear in court? Under what charged? Were they going to photograph the donkey in the standard convict photo, profile with a hanging number? How about fingerprints? In fact, the donkey was not taken to court the next afternoon, only the three men who were released on bail after being charged for disrespect towards the Turkish Cypriot state and for causing a disturbance.

Political donkey-posters had a long history in this island that was once renowned for its donkeys, when they were a rare and valuable asset, until they were replaced by pick-up trucks. In the late 1950s, the British governor of Cyprus issued an ultimatum for EOKA fighters to surrender. A donkey displaying “I surrender” was left to roam the streets, until it was taken in by the British police. The recent protest played upon a long discussion on the Turkish Cypriot side sparked by a statement from the Turkish Cypriot leader, Denktash. He said that there was no Cypriot nation and the only true Cypriots were the Cypriot donkeys. Denktash explained that there were no Cypriots, only Greek and Turks in Cyprus. The left-wing Turkish Cypriot opposition immediately reacted with headlines like “of course, we are donkeys, otherwise how could we bear the heavy burden of our leadership”, or suggesting Cyprus should be called Eshekistan (“Donkeystan”). […]

Extract from the last chapter of the book Echoes from the dead zone
by Yiannis Papadakis, Ed. I.B. Tauris, London, 2005

“View of Cyprus: A photographic Itinerary from the 19th to the 20th Century”

This is a photo of the first photo ever taken of Cyprus. Just discovered by the collector Haris Yakumis and exhibited in “View of Cyprus: A photographic Itinerary from the 19th to the 20th Century”, which opened a couple of days ago in Lanitis Foundation in Limassol. The anonemous traveler photographed the school of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition (Larnaca) in September 1960.


From the same exhibition I really liked this photo of Fugères and Merle taken in 1902 in Nicosia. The clumsy framing, alongside with the elements composing the image create an symbolic synopsis of the Island’s projections, desires and realities. The ancient domed church in the background , the traditional ottoman outfit of the man in the middle, the half “westernised” man on the right and the donkey looking in a different direction becomes a rather accurate resume of the years to come (up to the stagnated reality of the present to overpass).

Two posters for the progress

Lost with Lia and Christina in Amsterdam. On the wall of Ikaros guesthouse in Limassol.

[3]

Toi

[...] J'ai tant rêvé de toi
que tu perds ta réalité [...] Robert Desnos

Tom sleeping

More memorabilia

I'm From Barcelona - We're From Barcelona

website, myspace

Yuri under the duvet

Just memorabilia

Goktug under the Pillows

Istanbul memorabilia

New Pillows

I got as present two brand new pillows and I am throwing away the old (keeping the dreams though).

Open-Closed

The open air stage at Kafkarides Drama School (Nicosia), before to get
cleaned for the summer.

Patinoire de l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris

It’s too hot today and I am plunging into the refreshing (and bloody) memories of February.

The man and the donkey

Among all the interesting pictures decorating the small tavern in
St. Andrew street (Limassol), I noticed yesterday passing by this documentation of a peculiar performance: A man standing behind a small donkey a man holding the small donkey.

[2]

Franz Schubert - Piano Sonata D. 959 (Adantino)

Allusive and agitated . This Shubert's Sonata always reveals new hidden lanscapes to me (here performed by Alfred Brendel).

A-Part

I was checking today the website of Body Parts Models Agency , which is a specialized model agency for body parts (arms, legs, lips, etc) and I got fascinated to discover such a variety of specialization. To achieve the hyper-perfection segmentation seems to be the only solution. I vote for Michael Hans who is the exception in perfection, he is a Scars Model and I like him a lot… Check him out (click on "unusual parts" and then on his name)!

So In Love

Rachel York

True Dear

Pierre called me this morning. He told me 1000 beautiful things I wanted to hear, I replied with 2000 promises...
and now we await for the future to come…

Self-Tourism

This morning I have been to the Kourion Museum - which I remember visiting last time as a child - and I got seduced by those two tiny exhibits… the first one is a “resisting” goat in bronze from Faneromeni area (2000 BC) and the second one is a an object from the great earthquake of Kourion with the poetic description: “Bone hairpin from fallen child”.

[1]

HOLLY...more

My friend Lefteris Tapas just sent me this beautiful drawing he did titled Peg Entwistle
... and this is a drawing Thomas Zoritchak (who has just became a father) sent me also today... it is from an unrealized project... have a HOLLY jolly good night everybody

Crazy Frog Bros

Promises

Dinner at Kakopetria village

Blume

In my second life

I find it kind of difficult to navigate in my second life but I enjoy getting lost in the dark starry skies and getting in Jacuzzis… I read this article and I am amazed, Sweden is setting up an Embassy, which is to be the first officially sanctioned embassy in Second Life. By the way in my second life, if you want to find me, I have the hybrid name half a “hero” and half a celebration: Leika Noel (join me)…

Lunch at aunt Tasia's house

There is one object I admire at aunt Tasia's house, where we go once a year for a post-Easter Lunch (sometimes we go also for Christmas). I used to admire this very object since I was a child for its technical complexity and now as an adult for its poetic directness . This is a puzzle my cousins did when they were adolescent and which is fading away year after year...

Picnic at Ais Giorgis

Weekend at Agios Mamas village

The view from my uncle’s country house veranda on Easter day morning

St. Nicolas Vs St. John

This year St. Nicolas boys did the best job… This Lambrajia (a traditional bonfire where to burn an effigy of Judas on Easter day) is huge… Burn the city guys…


St. John boys did great job also… Not so big but the ball on the top is super (remains of xmas snowman decorations)

… John again, a bit younger, posing with "Elgin"…

John Kemper on the beach

Super archive of classic body builders

Epicurus - Letter to Menoeceus

[...] "Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer." [...]

I was reading today this beautiful letter the Hellenistic Philosopher Epicurus wrote to his friend Menoeceus. I thought to share this extract with you (It might help to look in other directions in these crazy days of Easter).

Taylor Mac sings 'The Palace of the end'

"The revolution won't be masculinized!" Taylor Mac

The firefly, seen by daylight, is nothing but a red-naked insect. A Haiku by Matsuo

(Oxford Street deocrations, After the end of Frieze Art Fair and remains of xms decoration near my house in Limassol)

Some boys taking their t-shirt off with a ball on their neck

Some friends: I ask to take their t-shirts off… and they do

Having tea in Istanbul and looking at “Niagara” (with Sylvia and Antonis)

Some Hollywood sign imitations… (There are many more)

Hollywood-Land on fire

Two teenagers from Illinois set fire on Hollywood hills, next to the iconic Hollywood sign. No information about their concrete motivations, which could conclude to an important iconography, nevertheless five helicopters and 200 firemen extinguished the fire before it affected the sign. I have edited some info from wiki and elsewhere about the Holly****Land sign…


Originally installed in 1923, the sign read HOLLYWOODLAND and was part of a housing development advertisement. Its expected life was not more than a year and a half.


Still there, the sign became a logo of what we love and hate. In 1949, after an offer from the Hollywood chamber of Commerce the last four letters were removed and the rest repaired. The wooden metal sign continued though to deteriorate in the open air of the Hollywood Hills until 1978 when the Chamber decided to replace the sign with a more permanent structure. Nine donors gave $27,700, each of them replacing a letter (H - Terrence Donnelly, Publisher Hollywood Independent Newspaper O - Giovanni Mazza, Italian movie producer L - Les Kelley - Originator of the Kelley Blue Book L - Gene Autrey - With his pioneer television station KTLA Y - Hugh Hefner - Creator of Playboy Enterprises W - Andy Williams - Singer O - Warner Brothers Records O - Alice Cooper - In memory of Groucho Marx D - Dennis Lidtke). The new restored sign was unveiled in 1978 live broadcasted on TV. The artist Bill Mac bought the original sign in 1925 after it was put up for sale on eBay.


The sign is connected to a lot of stories and dramas, one of the most famous being the suicide of actress Peg Entwistle in 1932, when she jumped form the letter H. Her broken body was discovered in the bush and in her purse a note that read: “I am afraid, I am a coward, I am sorry for everything. If I had done that a long time ago it would have saved me a lot of pain. P.E”. Two days later her uncle opened a letter addressed to her from the Beverly Hills Playhouse. It was mailed the day before she jumped. In it was an offer for her to play the lead role in a stage production, in which her character would commit suicide in the final act. It is believed that the hills are haunted ever since by Peg Entwistle…

Dead Flowers

The flowers I have bought for your visit are now dead and I find it difficult to throw them away.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE CURATED symposium @ MOMA

THE NEW ART PRESS: Article on the work of Joseph Dadoune and his film Chanti (I am in). I found some old photos from the filming