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Monday, June 21, 2010 |
Literature is not overrated. |
I'm feeling overwhelmed by nostalgia and snippets that were at one point a part of me. Mostly by books I used to love. They seem like old friends who went away to college and got kinder and smarter, and I marvel at them from afar without realizing we haven't talked in a good long time. |
My favorite books frustrate me! I always worry that I'm not intimately familiar enough with them to call them my favorite, but I persist in calling them that because I remember so clearly how each story changed a way of thinking or appealed to my soul. |
Like Alas, Babylon. On the one hand, I love stories about the collapse of modern society. On the other hand, who knew a circa Cold War novel about America after a nuclear holocaust would so inspire a revelation of character. I still have a freakish obsession with sustainable living, too. |
Or Perelandra. I put off reading The Space Trilogy for so long, because I'm so inclined to judge books by their covers. And yet here is a fiction book that made me love Jesus in a way I thought only the Bible could evoke, that versed truthes about obedience in a way that adhered to my understanding. |
You know Sarah Dessen? I've read so many of her books, these soppy teen romances, but Just Listen made me ask so many questions about the nature of honesty, it resolved me to a more direct mode of communication. Nationals this month reminded me just how freeing unnuanced conversation is. |
There are books I appreciate on the level that they convey interesting ideas or are artfully crafted or I just chanced to exceptionally enjoy. And then there are books I treasure for how they softened my heart and changed my mind. I can't tell what makes a book fall into which category. I have read beautiful, heart-cru... |
And so I'm torn with how to budget my time. It seems such a shame to re-read anything when there are so many fantastic books I have yet to discover, that will change my mind in ways I couldn't anticipate now. But at the same time, the books that won me over first are begging for a second or third or seventh perusal, al... |
Caitriona aka Catherine said... |
"So many books, so little time." |
K-Mac said... |
this is so true. by that i mean, the definite parts of it :P |
On my many recent plane rides I re-read The Island of Dr. Moreau, which is one of the books I've considered among my favorites even though I'd only read it once. |
I think reading things again always gives you a better and/or different perspective on the work. The Bible being the best example of that. |
I definitely got more out of tIoDM (woah, okay, i have no idea how to abbreviate that) by reading it again and I think many times it can be worth it. |
But, also, I can understand the desire to read more books. There are still so, so, so many to be read. |
Mani from Independence to the Present Day |
In the spring of 1821 the Greeks of the Peloponnese rose against their Turkish overlords. The timing was opportune as the Turks were diverted in crushing the power of the Albanian ruler Ali Pasha who had carved out a small and increasingly independent empire based in Albania and Epiros but in fact expanded to cover mos... |
Petrobey Mavromichalis |
The general uprising of the Peloponnesian Greeks meant within a few months over 20,000 Muslims (mostly ethnic Greeks who had converted) were systematically obliterated from the Peloponnese, their villages and mosques raised to the ground, their wells poisoned and blocked and, by and large, they themselves massacred in ... |
The torturous narrative and complicated course of the Greek War of Independence are beyond the scope of these pages - (for a clear modern account see David Brewer, The Flame of Freedom. The Greek War of Independence. John Murray. London. 2001. ISBN 0719554470) But much of the fighting either involved Maniates (the Mavr... |
After this short period of Greek domination and the unfortunate internal infighting the Turks were aided by the ruler of Egypt Mohammed Ali and his excellent if ruthless troops under the command of his adopted and pockmarked son Ibrahim Pasha. These troops, trained in western methods, invaded the Peloponnese in 1825 ca... |
Almiros - the northern gateway to Mani - above it Mount Kalathi - by William Gell |
Ibrahim's army swept all before them beseiging and taking the port of Navarino before taking Kalamata and making a punitive incursion into north western Mani, raising Kitries and the Bey's palace to the ground and according to The Times correspondent in Zante "…destroyed many villages, and penetrated into passes which ... |
He did however have some diplomacy and as Swan reported, "desired us to communicate to the Bey of Maina: namely, 'that for this time he spared his territory out of compliment to the English; and that he might thank Capt. Hamilton (of HMS Cambrian) for the safety of himself and his people. Another time he could not tell... |
The Greeks bought time over the winter of 1825-6 in talks with the Sublime Porte but these came to nothing and the Egyptian Ottoman troops continued to threaten Mani throughout 1826. There were even erroneous reports in despatches that summer that the Maniates had submitted to Ibrahim Pasha. Most famous is a story, ech... |
Navarino Bay - scene of the decisive sea battle of 20 October 1827. Depicted by William Gell c.1804. |
Eventually the course of the war was decided by the legally dubious intervention of the great powers in the guise of a combined French, Russian and British fleet. Although meant to be neutral this force under the command of the Admirals Codrington, Heyden and de Rigny "inadvertently" destroyed the Turkish navy at Navar... |
The French built roads and repaired the infrastructure - the grid system of Sparta's streets and some of the architecture and fortifications of nearby Pylos and Methoni date from this period. More interestingly the French sent geographers, artists and scientists to the Morea rather as they had on Napoleon's invasion of... |
The members of the Expedition Scientifique were fascinated by the Maniates, and in a report to The Times in 1829 the leader of the expedition , Bory de St. Vincent, rather erroneously claimed they were the first foreigners to visit Mani (to be fair, the actual volumes do not repeat this assertion). From this report the... |
The dominance and importance of Maniate leaders and their ferocious fighting men in the struggle had unforeseen results in the aftermath of the war. After much wrangling the Greeks appointed Count Iannis Kapodistria, a Corfiot who had served long in the Russian Foreign Ministry, as the new state's first President. Kapo... |
The French army was by now being used as a 'peace-keeping' force as the Greeks began falling out with one another again. In the summer of 1831 The Maniates lead by the Mavromichalis allied themselves with the islanders of Hydra and had to be persuaded to peaceably pull out of Kalamata by the French. There was then an u... |
Things came to a head when Kapodistria in the then capital of Greece, Napflion, incarcerated Petrobey Mavromichalis for his constant dissent. Petrobey wanted reparations for the money he had lost during the war of independence and was equally assertive of his sole rights to tax Mani - not Kapodistria's central governme... |
Georgios and his uncle Konstantinos fell upon Kapodistria as he arrived at church on the morning of 9 October 1831. Kapodistria was stabbed by Georgios and shot by Konstantinos - he died instantly. In the ensuing struggle Georgios escaped to the house of the French resident. Konstantinos, wounded in the fracas, hobbled... |
The extent of Greece after the War of Independence |
The introduction of a Bavarian King Otto (or Otho) by the western powers in an attempt to stabilise Greece hardly changed matters for the better as the Bavarians who made up his advisors and generals made the time honoured mistake of attempting to coerce the Mani into compliance with government policies. These included... |
Over the next decades, partly through the obduracy of the Maniates and partly the high handedness of the Othonian regime, there were regular major eruptions of violence. In 1839 a Mavromichalis was accused of inciting rebellion by bribing starving peasants with corn and when the British traveller, Carnarvon, reached Ma... |
The government reactions were draconian, Hundreds of Maniates were forcibly moved from Mani to Roumeli (northern mainland Greece) where with no sustenance many starved to death and there are dreadful hints of the poisoning of Maniate brigands by Government troops. In another blow in 1842, schools set up in the 1830s an... |
The old Kapetani families clearly continued to have influence, especially the Mavromichalis family who despite their assasination of Kapodistria and regular incitement of revolt in Mani remained influential on the national scene. Petrobey became something of an 'elder courtier' dying in Athens at the ripe old age of 82... |
Throughout the nineteenth century there are many instances which point to the lack of progress of the central Greek government in taming the Maniates. Mentions of revolts, raids and piracy are commonplace…two reports from 1845 are good examples |
'In Maina the slaughter has been very great, and in general everything looks gloomy.' |
'… the Government partisans acknowledged that 36 houses had been burnt, and that the Government troops had plundered the villages, as if it were regular warfare; the number of men, women and children killed is not yet known'. |
Throughout the Bavarian dominated Othonian reign there were therefore plenty of excuses for the Maniates to rise against the government even though the Maniat leaders seem to have changed sides with baffling regularity. Thus there are reports of the Mavromichalis family sending Otto and his wife 30 baskets of Mani hone... |
In July 1847 there were reports of savage massacres in Mani. A serious incident occured in northern Exo Mani which was reported in the London Times of August 10 of that year. The Gendarmerie killed a son of General Antonis Mavromichalis at Varousi (Stavropigio) and, on the approach of more royal troops, these insurgent... |
At first this went alright but one of the rebels cried out 'Friends! why should we deliver up our arms when we are no longer pursued? Let us return home, but keep our arms'. The majority agreed and started to break ranks when Cleopas ordered his troops to open fire. Government reports later claimed that the rebels bega... |
Lawnessness also abounded even though Capodistria had, with difficulty, introduced the concept of a national legal code and courts to the previously unruly Mani. In the summer of 1845 most of Greece was in turmoil and the Othonian government were using considerably more force than necessary to keep order. A local judge... |
In 1850 the Pacifico Affair occurred. An ex Portugese consul, Don Pacifico, a Sephardic Jew born in Gibraltar, and thus deemed a British subject, had retired to trade in Athens. In 1847 during anti-semitic riots during Holy week a mob had attacked his house and, while the police looked on, burned it down. After entreat... |
In the winter of 1851 and into 1852 the monk/priest Papulakis lead a popular revolution in Mani against the central government, in part a reaction to the dissolution of many monasteries, which were deemed a drain on the public purse, it was also fomented by the reactionary 'Russian' party in Athens - who were playing o... |
There were echoes of this a few years later in July 1854 when a minor incident at Kotronas, at the head of the Gulf of Kolokythia on the eastern side of Mani, blew up into a larger affair. It concerned an unprovoked attack on a French naval detachment from the brig Olivier which was looking for pirates in the Lakonian ... |
This fracas was orchestrated by another Papas, a certain Mentouris , who had been active in the Papulakis rebellion and was, in the opinion of The Times' correspondent*, working on the instructions of the 'Russian' party at court. This incident was unsurprisingly timed at the height of the Crimean War, when the major w... |
*The article was by-lined 'From our own correspondent' a practice of anonymity which was normal until relatively recently. However the measured tone of the report and its piercing analysis leads one to hope it was the work of George Finlay, clear headed philhellene and one of the greatest historians of Greece. He was, ... |
Even though an army revolt in 1844 had delivered a remarkably liberal constitution Otto's court continued to have a baleful influence on the body politic and in 1862 his increasingly unpopular reign was brought to an end by another coup d'etat. Otto had failed his adopted land in many ways, but most crucially he had be... |
Further south the inter family feuds and vendettas in the Mesa Mani continued apace and in 1870 reached such ferocity that the then Prime Minister (he held the office no less than ten times between 1865 and 1882 - often for a matter of days or weeks) Alexandros Koumoundourous - himself of northern Mani stock, son of th... |
There are plenty of stories of vendettas continuing well into the twentieth century and as someone once pointed out to me, "…they've just swopped guns for litigiousness." By the close of the 19th century Mani was in a state of decline, economically exhausted some Maniates left in the great Greek diaspora of the late 19... |
Another group of foreigners now began to move into Mani, historians and archaeologists. Rennell Rodd, who was a career diplomat, wrote of the Maniates in the late 1880s when he was Second Secretary to the British Embassy in Athens. His book on the folklore of contemporary Greece includes many observations on Mani which... |
'The old feudal chiefs are more a real power here than the law or the gendarmerie, and it is still impossible to put down the vendetta between family and family when blood has once been spilt. The slayer flies to the mountains, where he is safe from the gendarmerie…' |
The ambitious Laconia survey by the British School at Athens which started in 1905 and continued for the next few years. At first they only had the resources to concentrate on a number of scattered sights across the province. In Mani they looked at Thalamae (now in the nomos of Messenia but then in Lakonia) excavating ... |
With the political turmoil of the thirties and forties and the trauma of the Axis occupation and the vicious civil war of 1945 - 49 Mani became a backwater - clinging on to its traditions and subsistence living. It still has a reputation in Greece as one of the most backward, right-wing and foremost royalist areas of t... |
The Royal Navy faced a sky dominated by the Luftwaffe - what few fighters the RAF had - had been withdrawn to Alexandria (by the way the famous children's writer Roald Dahl was one of those fighter pilots). Therefore the British destroyers could only come in at night and had to be away well before daybreak. By the 29th... |
Edwin Horlington, who was then a Corporal in the Royal Army Service Corps had been in Greece since the previous November and spoke some Greek. He decided to make for the hills. After a number of days wandering around the olive groves, and contracting pneumonia in the process, he was extremely lucky and stumbled across ... |
Many Allied troops either beg, stole or borrowed local craft, caiques or even rowing boats from small ports all down the Mani peninsula in often vain attempts to escape across the Kithera passage to Crete. The journey was fraught with danger and the novelist Lawrence Durrell who was a teacher for the British Council in... |
In the early 1990s Edwin Horlington founded The Brotherhood of Veterans of The Greek Campaign 1940-41. This organisation (basically it is run from Edwin's home- 163, Walton Road, Walton on the Naze, Essex CO1 8NE Tel. 01255 677178- and through his enthusiasm) has arranged a number of veterans' trips to revisit Kalamata... |
Greece had been a country wracked by deep social and political divisions before the war and after the traumas of the Italian and the then much more draconian German occupation these tensions exploded in 1944-5 into tragedy. Many tourists to Greece are surprised to hear that there was a very nasty Civil War which raged ... |
A machine gun post above the village of Ag. Nikolaos - Vardounia. Such lookout posts were constructed by the Nationalist troops during the vicious Civil War 1945 - 49. There is another near Ag. Nikolaos (Selenitsa) on the other side of the Taygetus. |
One can still find memorials to entire families wiped out on a single day in the years 1946/7 and just on the entrance to Saidona there is a thought provoking memorial to all those hundreds who died in the district - on one side or the other - during the occupation and civil war. The bitterness of the memories of this ... |
In the 1950s, when Patrick Leigh Fermor and Robert Liddell visited Mani, conditions were still extremely basic although most outward traces of the endemic violence had disappeared and that road south still hadn't been built. Old attitudes were slow to disappear - I have talked to an educated Greek woman who came to Man... |
The geo-social study by Dr. Peter Hartleb of the Outer Mani in the 1980s showed that whereas the coastal settlements were beginning to show signs of economic bloom with the nascent tourist trade the villages in the hinterland were empty save a few elderly inhabitants and sorely backward in infrastructure. The Greek ent... |
My own experience of nearly thirty five years of visiting Greece has seen a shift from noisy and omnipresent donkeys to noisy and omnipresent four wheel drive cars - a middle class - mainly (and thankfully) absent in Athens unless it is Easter or other Public holy days or high summer - has appeared and roads and plumbi... |
In fact a great deal has changed in the last thirty years. The area is no longer as isolated as it once was - it is possible to drive to Athens in a morning whereas it would have taken that time to have reached either Kalamata or Githeon a quarter of a century ago. Then telecommunications would have been one unreliable... |
Many northern Europeans, have made Mani their home - often as a holiday retreat but also as first homes, and middle class Athenians of Maniate descent have their vacation retreats - but this has meant that property prices have often risen beyond the reach of locals - a common occurrence all over Europe in areas of outs... |
As with all progress some things' are being lost and much spoiled - one hopes that such a beautiful and unique region will be given protection from the worst blights of Mammon (although scandalously the Taygetus has still to be given National Park status). Certainly many of the villages have been given protected status... |
The Maniates are aware of the strains which tourism have placed on their land and traditions. The area is, hopefully, too remote and its shores too rocky to attract mass tourism though the mid-summer influx is already putting a strain on the few sandy beaches and extant accommodation. The Maniates need to think hard ab... |
Sunday, June 26, 2011 |
Bank Messenger |
The Scotia Plaza complex (with the waterfall from 2 days ago) consists of the original Bank of Nova Scotia building connected to a newer tower. The original building was designed in the late 20s as a very Deco structure but the stock market crash and the war resulted in it not being constructed until 1951 while still r... |
Lúcia said... |
Fantastic, I'd love to see that in person! |
Regina K said... |
I'm with you as an art deco fan and love to find images like this on walls and buildings. Beautiful! |
Karen Franzen said... |
I sent this blog link to my cousin who will be visiting from Germany this summer. |
many thanks, |
Randy said... |
That really is a lovely piece. |
Jack said... |
It is a grand work of art deco sculpture. Isn't it on a horizontal plane facing down? Odd location. |
RedPat said... |
Jack - Yes it is very unusual - it is the horizontal plane at the top of the window opening. Not sure what you would call it - it is not really a lintel, just a decorative piece. |
Kate said... |
I understand your appreciation because it is very attractive. |
Kitty said... |
wow, very interesting since not many people would notice this. |
I take it the surface is not horizontal but on a slant, so you see part of it when facing the building? |
Birdman said... |
I'm a fan of anything mythological. Go Hermes! |
Montreal Photo Daily said... |
OOOOPS! How did I miss this post? That's a beautiful decorative detail! Excellent eye you have. :) |
A side note: imo, TERRE D'Hermes is one of the nicest men's cologne on the market... check it out. |
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