Αθήνα, Αθήνα... μικρό γαλάζιο κρίνο/ Athens, Athens, Little Blue Lilly.

Η μικρή μας πολιτεία είναι ωραία
έχει τα πάντα,
θα εκραγεί από ευτυχία

έχει δρόμους, ανηφόρες, κατηφόρες,
μαγαζιά όλες τις ώρες ανοιχτά, λεωφορεία,
ρετιρέ ψυχιατρεία,
για όσους δε μπορούν ν' ακούνε
την απέναντι κυρία που ουρλιάζει
που όλο λέει πως η μικρή μας πολιτεία
είναι ωραία και ότι σε λίγο θα εκραγεί από ευτυχία.
Η μικρή μας πολιτεία είναι ωραία έχει τα πάντα
θα εκραγεί από ευτυχία
έχει νόμους, υπονόμους, αστυνόμους,
παρανόμους, ταχυδρόμους,
δε θα τους αφήσουμε ποτέ ξανά στο σπίτι μόνους
όσους δε μπορούν ν' ακούνε
την απέναντι κυρία που ουρλιάζει
που όλο λέει πως η μικρή μας πολιτεία
είναι ωραία κι ότι σε λίγο θα εκραγεί από ευτυχία

Έχει σκύλους, έχει γάτες
συνεπείς επαναστάτες θα μου πούνε
πότε κάνω λάθος, πότε μ' οδηγεί το πάθος
στη διαστροφή, στην καταστροφή
θα 'ρθουν να σε σώσουν την κατάλληλη στιγμή

Παύλος Παυλίδης & B-Movies - Η μικρή μας πολιτεία, Άλλη μια μέρα

Our small city is pretty
Everything is available
It will explode out of happiness
It has gotten streets, uphill ways and ways downhill

shops are kept open, it has gotten buses, roofs,
mental hospitals for those
who cannot bear the screaming lady
that assures us that our small city is pretty
and will shortly explode out of happiness

November 1985, the assassination of Mikhalis Kaltezas

Our small city is pretty
Everything is available
It will explode out of happiness
It has gotten laws, sewers, policemen, outlaws, mailmen
we won't let them again at home alone those who cannot bear the screaming lady that assures us that our small city is pretty and will shortly explode out of happiness
It has gotten dogs and cats
consistent revolutionaries to tell me
when I am wrong,
when I am led by passion to perversion or destruction and who will come to rescue me on time.

Paulos Paulidis and B-Movies, Our Small City, One Day more

Α! και να μην ξεχάσω, "Καλά Χριστούγεννα"

Strange Portraits- Strange You and Strange Me

Now that Amman hosts a Rembrandt exhibition consisting basically of reproductions of the famous portraitist, my other source of echoes informs me that Diane Arbus's huge archive was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of N.Y. What does huge mean, when the person at stake is a great and suicidal inspired artist? 7,500 films, photographs commented by her before her suicide in 1971, some of her most famous pictures and a value which exceeds the 3.5 millions EU.
Born in 1923, she took the advice of her instructor Lisette Model seriously and she specialized her shots at people who live on the edge of societal acceptance.

People on the streets, in their homes, in the asylum, in temporary paradises of difference (or shall I write it differance now that Derrida is not among us?- parades, soirées, parks and masquerades), twins, dwarfs, manly women, delicate men, giant sons and minimal parents. The documenting and, simultaneously, tenderly humane eye of Arbus resulted in a classic value that the thirty six years and a half which have elapsed since her death did not harm the importance of her work, something rare concerning the art of photography.

She said:"What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own."
She also, presumably, said:"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.", something that may stand valid also in other accounts of life, in other forms of art.
I admire people who have an outlook,
I admire the ones who are geniuses with a cause,
I admire those who show me another world, beyond my hypnotized brains, in front of my lazy eyes.
I admire those who erase by their nails the definitions next to the term "normality".
Will I stick to them for the year to come?
Lucky N.Y. Metropolitan Museum.