All posts by litt le mac

Uncategorized

Yannis Charoulis for 10 appearances, at the Southern Cross

One of the most popular Greek singers, The Yannis Charoulis, will be found with his excellent band at the Southern Cross for 10 appearances, from Monday 11 Of March 2013, every Monday and Tuesday.

From the 11 March and every Monday and Tuesday at Stavros tou Notou the songs become "Manganeas" of good, medicinal and magic potions.

Yiannis Haroulis is preparing for another year a program with the basic ingredients. With songs that are rooted in the center of emotion and collective memory. Songs that come from everywhere. Songs that take you everywhere. From place to place and from year to year. Many stories together telling a new story on the central stage of the Southern Cross. Songs from his personal records and his collaboration with Thanasis Papakonstantinou and others he chose especially for this year's program.

In the quiet and the conscious choice of Monday and Tuesday, Yannis Haroulis invites us to the Cross of the South to listen and sing.

Source : culturenow.gr

Uncategorized

Paris honors the new Greek cinema

Greek cinema celebrates on Balzac Street in the City of Light

From the 20 until 25 In March, the now established festival of contemporary Greek cinema will take place in Paris, which started timidly seven years ago and soon developed into a necessary cultural institution.
This year's event is organized by the Center of Hellenic Culture and with the support of the Hellenic Film Center, includes a rich film program, long and short films that stood out from the Greek production, either because of their commercial success (the "If" by Christoforos Papakaliatis, the "Christmas Tango" by Nikos Koutelidakis) or because of their distinguished festival track, acting as ambassadors of Greek cinema on the doorstep of the world: "Unfair World" by Philippos Tsitos, "Alps" by Giorgos Lanthimos, "The Boy Who Eats Bird's Food" of Hector Lygizos et al.
Two special documentaries will also be shown, or "Raw material" of Christos Karakepelis and "Smyrna, the destruction of a Cosmopolitan City" of Maria Ilios that give a hard dimension of the present and past of the Greek reality.    
The premiere night of the festival will be dedicated to Theodoros Angelopoulos with the screening of his first feature film, "Representation". The film will be prefaced by the director and president of the French Film Library, Costas Gavras.
As part of the program, several representatives of the new generation of Greek Cinema will visit Paris, such as Menelaos Karamagiolis (director of J.A.C.E),  Chitos, Papakaliatis and also Petros Sevastikoglou, director of the original film experiment «Attractive Illusion» and Giorgos Siougas,  director of the film "The milk".
"In the midst of a four-year crisis, Greek cinema is going through an unprecedented boom, declaring that it has something to say" says in a statement from the Cypriot Greek Cinema. "From the 20 until 25 March finds its footing in the heart of Paris and is waiting for you to discover it.”
The screenings of the films will take place at the Cinema Balzac on rue Balzac in Paris

Source : tovima.gr
Uncategorized

Gold and ivory from a 14th BC shipwreck. century

Speech by a Turkish archaeologist, ship's investigator

Products and merchandise from nine different cultures, from Sicily in the west to Mesopotamia in the east carried the ship of the end of the 14th century. X. century, which had been shipwrecked on the east coast of Ulumburun (Megalo Akrotiri) in the Antalya region in the south – western Turkey. The business is also huge, which lasted for years, organized in modern times to investigate this wreck, which yielded rich and impressive findings.
It is therefore particularly interesting to watch the lecture of the Turkish professor of Archeology Enalia, Mr. Cemal Pulak themed: "Bringing to light the oldest sailing ship – Late Bronze Age Wreck at Uluburun, Turkey", which will be given to the Acropolis Museum on 14 Of March, time 19.00. The organizer is Melissa Publishing House, which establishes from this year _and every spring_ a series of annual lectures in memory of its founder, Giorgos Rayas with invited scientists of international prestige and with topics of Greek history, art and architecture through the ages, as well as the sectors covered by the publishing house. The speaker will be prefaced by Mr. professor of the University of Athens Mr. Christos Dumas.
His summer 1982 was located by a sponge in the area known as the "Ulumburun Shipwreck" on the bottom of the eastern coast of the Great Cape and from the 1984 as the 1992 eleven archaeological operations were carried out and 22.413 (!) diving, in order to fully come to light, through the waters of the Mediterranean one of the most impressive underwater finds of the Late Bronze Age.
The research was carried out by the Enalia Institute of Archaeology, an international organization that was founded precisely in 1984, initially under the guidance of its founder, professor George Bass while from the 1985 as the 1994 the director of archaeological research at the Institute was Cemal Pulak.
The ship had sailed from a port in Cyprus or Syro-Palestine 1305 p. X. as his load showed. Without a doubt in fact, when it sank, sailed to the west of Cyprus with a final destination probably Rhodes, which at that time was an important transit center in the Aegean.
There were many findings from the wreck investigation, which today are kept in the Museum of Underwater Archeology in the city of Bodrum (Halicarnassus) even parts of the ship itself. Gold objects, copper, ivory, faience, agate, clay are included among them.
Upon completion anyway, of the on-site archaeological research the 1994 at the bottom of Ulumburun, specialist efforts have since been focused on maintenance, the study and analysis of samples in the Museum's conservation laboratory.
Mr. Cemal Pulak besides, graduate of Bosphorus University, Ph.D. of Texas A & M University and associate professor of Enalia Archeology at the same university specializes in the Bronze Age and specifically in the fields of navigation, of merchant shipping and technology.
Source : tovima.gr
Uncategorized

The city below Thessaloniki

The "City under the City" has a myriad of small and big secrets and amazing stories. If they come to light, attract and delight people.

1.000 from the 10.000 subway findings make their way to the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki and the Museum of Byzantine Culture
This will be done next year in Thessaloniki as well, where the ancient neighborhoods excavated during the metro works will "speak".
The best witnesses when people are gone are, most, the works of their hands, movable and immovable. Some, the second ones, they will go to the Pavlos Melas camp, regardless of what eventually happens with the byzantine crossroads at Venizelos station. The mobiles, which exceed one hundred thousand, they will have their place in some building of the camp, where visitable archaeological warehouses will operate.
This plan takes time to materialize. The competent prehistoric bureaus – classical and Byzantine antiquities, which have been digging for so many years along the entire length of the metro axis, prepare in the 2014 a long periodical exhibition with two strands. One will be hosted at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki and the other at the Museum of Byzantine Culture.

From the cemeteries
The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki will present the rich findings from the excavations of the IST’ Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. Emphasis will be placed on the findings found in two cemeteries ? the western one at the New Railway Station and the Democracy Square Station, the east at the Fountain.
Currency, vessels, lamps, jewelry, figurines, tools, clay vessels, spice jars will be on display. Among them the golden wreaths that had been placed as gifts. Findings from residential and building remains found at the Agia Sofia stations will be placed with them, University, Euclid.

More than 1.000 archaeological findings of the Byzantine period, which reconstruct parts of the history of Thessaloniki from the 4th century to the present, will be presented in the section of the exhibition organized by the 9th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities at the Museum of Byzantine Culture.
The protagonist here will be the main road axis of the city, large parts of which were exposed under today's Egnatia. The decumanus of the Romans, the Middle Street or Avenue of the Byzantines, with the laboratories, the residences, community service projects, it remained almost the same for centuries and testifies to the "secular" face of the city.

Of the approx 100.000 findings of the period, will be exposed 1.000. Among them: coins of different denominations, vessels, lamps, glass vials, women's and men's jewelry of all kinds and materials (pectoral crosses, glass and copper bracelets, gold, copper and silver rings), utility items from shops – laboratories – houses, as well as all kinds of grave goods.

"REASON FOR STUDY"
"It's a very good occasion to show the public what the city was hiding in its bowels", says the general secretary of Culture Lina Mendoni. “How important her past is. But also to give him something in return for the suffering he suffered because of the works."
The general secretary reminds that something similar was done with great success in Athens, where the exhibition "The city under the city" presented at the Museum of Cycladic Art was a great success.
He even emphasizes that this large periodical exhibition, which will last one year, it will provide motivation and occasion for the scientific study of the findings.

THE TWO TEMPLES
Off the main road, the exhibition on Byzantine Thessaloniki will highlight both early Christian churches found within the two cemeteries, east and west from the city center: a 7th century temple and a three-aisled early Christian basilica.

Source : ethnos.gr

Uncategorized

The Culture of the Crisis

In Greece of recession and unemployment, the area of ​​art and creation employs more than 100.000 people

How many people are currently employed in the field of culture?; According to the research of "Vima", based on official agency records, more than 100.000. That's how many people do theater, music, cinema, visual arts, book, those who work in cultural institutions, private and public enterprises, festival, art schools, the technical staff and in general those employed in… behind.
Obviously this number doubles on a practical basis. A very large crowd that is active around culture, the "poor relative" or otherwise one of the biggest victims of the crisis, which, however, participates with a percentage 2,8% in the Gross National Product. The fund is minus and the cuts in the field of culture compose a rather gloomy landscape. Only in the field of music, the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Intellectual Property AEPI is registered 12.746 members. From them 9.051 they are artists. For its part, the Organization for Collective Management of Works and Speech (OSDEL) counts 3.000 authors, translators and others working in the book field, number multiplied by ten. Specifically, according to the words of those in charge, the number of those who have written cat’ exclusivity or have participated in the creation of a work during the last ten years amounts to 55.000 people. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority, the total number of employees (businessmen, artists, technicians, administrative staff, other workers, taxi companies etc.) in state and municipal theaters over time 2010-2011 it was 4.284, while the number of artists who participated in group exhibitions the 2011 5.755.
In the field of cinema approx 1.700 people work at festivals, 980 employed in distribution companies and 360 in movie theaters, according to the Hellenic Film Center. Six hundred are the members of the Union of Greek Cinema and Television Technicians and 180 the members of the Union of Screenwriters of Greece. Always according to the Hellenic Film Center 100 short and feature films were shot on 2011. Despite our efforts, the Society of Greek Directors could not provide us with data on the number of Greek directors.
The General Secretariat of Culture reports that as of 31.12.2012 they were working 6.748 permanent and indefinite and 3.681 contractors in the field of Culture – figures valid per quarter but showing slight variations.
A large group of people make up the teaching staff of professional drama schools, dance, Logistical upgrade of cultural spaces, music schools, conservatories – overall 9.408 during space 2010-2011 according to the Greek Statistical Authority. According to the same Authority, also the 2010, 1.932 workers were employed in libraries. If the above numbers are added, we have approx 100.000 people. Do they all manage to make a living?;
"Impossible to make a living writing books"
"In Greece it is impossible to make a living just by writing books" tells us the 46-year-old writer Amanda Michalopoulou. "His golden decades 1980 and his 1990, where the literature was a bestseller and the author was socially acclaimed, they have passed. Book sales have dropped dramatically, and naturally so. You used to see some people in banks with a book in hand. Today everyone has a plain look: they look ahead as if they are looking at nothing".
She herself tries to find other ways, more lucrative, to do what he knows how to do – "because I couldn't do any other job". It has, for example, two plays ready (one for children and one for adults) who intends to soon present them and request cooperation from groups that may be interested. Amanda Michalopoulou also teaches creative writing at the Heraklion Museum and at the cultural society of Kifissia Pyrna, while also doing private lessons working together with groups. "I think this choice of mine is mentally related to the need for communication that I feel," he explains. “In prose you always have one “holding”, you have to wait to talk. The only thing that could make me worry is that with all this the creative energy goes elsewhere – and not in writing. But I have the basic hope and feeling that these activities work in favor of writing. It's a slight shift in my activities. And when some people ask me “oh well, how is it possible to write with such desperation around;”, I answer them: That's when I grab the pencil".
"Just securing my food"
Our 59-year-old national tragedian Lydia Koniordou believes that the theater and the large number of those who serve it from many and different sides were not so shaken by the financial crisis. "Permanent positions never existed in the theater, We mostly worked on a project basis and were always looking for work. Certainly the jobs have decreased, multifaceted projects as well, opportunities are less, however, there is a clearing in the landscape: good shows do well and survive".
Lydia Koniordou agrees that in Greece there is a disproportionately large number of theaters in relation to the population. "That they work, however, it means that some people are getting money from this work," he adds. In her opinion, the big losers in theater at this time are the young people: "There is a lot to offer from young people, children are hard to absorb and pay more to show their work than get paid".
She feels lucky to be part of a show like Bob Wilson's Odyssey at the National Theater. "The salary I receive from the National with the reductions I have suffered is approximately the same as I received when Nikos Kourkoulos was artistic director. It is rather low compared to the years I have been in the theater, but since the time I was apprenticed to Karolos Kuhn I have learned to live with what I make. With the money I get from the National and acting lessons (SS.: teaches at the Ancient Drama Center "Desmi" and at drama schools) I can secure my food. I have given up central heating, I warm myself with an oil stove like when I was a student at Exarchia, I have minimized the use of the car and commute with one “duckling” of the 80's and… i can't pay the tolls, taxes and so on. I just pretend they don't exist".
"Crisis does not make high art"
For the 55-year-old visual artist Tasso Manjavino, the crisis is not going to highlight the good works and the notable artists. "The crisis hits those who have taken art seriously. Gross commercial works remain commercial. “He is being punished” the good painting, with collectors appearing as… mavaragorites and asking to step on the artist's need to buy cheap works" he says. "In my opinion, crisis does not make high art. Unless we're talking about heroes". He himself does not know any of his colleagues who face extreme situations of poverty, but he is sure that only those who have made sure to have a knot on the end survive.
"I don't think young directors are any different from other young workers from other fields, in light of the fact that all of them are subject to long periods of unemployment, working conditions with low wages, debts that are time-barred and an industry in collapse" tells us the 31-year-old filmmaker Giorgos Zois.
“In my case, because of the run of my films, I can and do live from my profession because of job offers made to me after festivals and awards and copyrights from abroad. But this was not done by any entrepreneurial economic development nor is it a ray of light for the youth of our times. I don't want to give my random individual path as an alibi to a fallen system that is anxious to blackmail reality out of isolated exceptions. Greek everyday life does not fit any of us".
Literary evenings… without a coffee
The surrounding despair did not stop 41-year-old translator Dimitris Alexakis, son of the writer Vassilis Alexakis, to create together with a new group of partners – his wife, actress and director Fotini Banou, the sociologist Ari Asproulis and the theater researcher Teta Apostolakis – the cultural activities area Television Control Center in Kypseli (Cyprus 91A), where his decades 1960 and his 1970 black and white televisions were being repaired and assembled. The Center opened its doors to the public in November 2012.
"We created something new in an era where everything is against" says Dimitris Alexakis. "And we realize that month by month the crisis deepens more and more. The place is suffocatingly full, for example, in the literary evenings that we organize for those who stay for three and a half hours in the mood for discussion and participation, but without even taking a coffee. And that for us is devastating, prof’ that we have bet to make our expenses from the small bar of the place. Bad lies. It takes passion and risking any family fortune to survive in this space creating something new in this day and age. Our parents supported us, who were not rich, but they felt that there was a question of dignity. And what,what we earn we dispose of in space. Yes, “we go inside” every month and we also have a small child, but we are proud of’ what we do and we don't plan to stop. We're just constantly cutting our expenses.".
Source : tovima.gr
Uncategorized

Bird people 8.000 years

Representations of the Mother – Goddess, games, symbolic objects of communication or experimentation of Neolithic people in their attempt to explore the human body;

The issue remains open for archaeologists who study the 300 and now clay figurines found at the Neolithic site of Koutroulou Magoula in Fthiotida, a particularly important number and one of the largest of the period in Southeast Europe.
Idols are also found in other Neolithic sites in Anatolia and the Balkans, however, both the number and the variety of types make Koutroulou Magoula stand out, say the archaeologists who deal with the area.
Figurines vary in size, from 3 to 12 centimeters in length. They were made in many ways. A very common one was that of the central clay core, around which other pieces of clay were added to create the body parts.
They were found in various places of approx 40 acres occupied by the Neolithic site, one of the largest of the period that has been identified- even in house foundations.
The variety of their forms gives scope for many interpretations, as gender is often not stated, while several are human-shaped – bird, which sometimes results in a four-legged base. The above suggests that their use was not only for aesthetic purposes, but that they reflect something much more: the culture, the society and identity of the Neolithic inhabitants in Koutroulou Magoula.
The site was inhabited in the Middle Neolithic Period (about 5800-5300 e.g.) by a few hundred people, who built neat houses of stone and bricks, with stone floor substrates. It is remarkable, also, the fact that it was also used later, the Bronze Age and the Medieval Years.
The excavation began 2001 by the honorary director of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Nina Kyparissi. From the 2010 is being carried out as part of the new partnership program between the Archaeological Survey and the University of Southampton, through the British School of Athens.
Source : ethnos.gr
Uncategorized, Book

To save the good book, its price must be reduced

Eleven bibliophile blogs in joint letter to publishers asking them to reduce book prices. They recognize , of course, that lately most publishers have reduced the prices of older books by making very tempting offers.

But the problem of modern books remains, whose price ranges between 15-20 euro, which in the days of crisis they consider to be prohibitive.
In addition, these bibliophile bloggers point out that publishers are in danger of falling into the "publish what sells" logic, which in the long run will destroy literature.

The signatories of the letter point out that they understand "the various difficulties, from obligations to employees, the cost of paper, rights burdens, of translations and so on within the particularities of the Greek market with its linguistic limitations and the small population" , but they emphasize that "again the book, precisely in the present crisis, we must spread it as a good and not as a luxury of the few".

They therefore suggest to the publishers to take "a courageous step: reduction in the price of new securities, so as not to stop the creative expression of all of them, among whom, always, there are talents that should not be wasted, because he will have qualified out of sheer necessity, the ephemeral and the salable".

The letter of the eleven blogs

“Ladies and gentlemen editors,

requested, both for you and for us bibliophile bloggers, is to increase readability in a Greece, who reads less and less.

The main problem in recent years is the crisis. An acute and multi-layered crisis. Your business has been invaded, but in a stratified manner it is now reflected in the largest part of Greek society and affects it, respectively proportionately and nevertheless dramatically, the lives of all of us. When unemployment and plummeting incomes have soared to their highest rates in decades, the main priority of course can only be the defense of Dignity in everyday life with all that it must include in conditions of Democracy: Health, Roof, Food, Education, Freedom.

For the bibliophiles of this country, which in the majority of them is not a privileged part, that lives outside of common economic reality, the book is a very important asset included in the above, which cannot and should not be included in their list, which will be reduced or cut completely, because precision often makes it unapproachable.

If with the offers, the bazaars, turning to the old titles and going back to the libraries seems like a good solution, what will happen with the new titles?;

They will concern fewer and fewer; And if this is consolidated as a forced condition in the crisis, we will go from publishing flood to publishing ebb, whose required characteristics will be described with the phrase we issue the,what can be depreciated;

Objections to the price of the book had been heard in the past, both by readers and by experts in the field, journalists and critics. When an average book costs €15-20, most people will prefer to watch a movie at the cinema, which costs much less than €10 or the same money to spend on another kind (entertaining) outlet.

The same is unfortunately true for the e-book. Where the price should be much lower, since the issuance costs are lower, slight differences are observed compared to the printed book. The reader would be logical, which has the corresponding device, to be motivated to buy intangibles, while he who has not, to find motivation to follow the development.
 Before we get to the sad and fundamentally anti-civilization point, that is, to completely annihilate the number of readers, let you try, the publishing houses, as this obligation primarily falls to you, a brave step: reduction in the price of new securities, so as not to stop the creative expression of all of them, among whom, always, there are talents that should not be wasted, because he will have qualified out of sheer necessity, the ephemeral and the salable.

 The book, today, it is expensive and prevents its purchase. This is the reality, which however, you, you can change.

 As readers, bloggers and citizens, we ask you for the biggest possible reduction and, if you do, us first, we will support her.

We understand the various difficulties, from your obligations to employees, the cost of paper, rights burdens, of translations and so on within the particularities of the Greek market with its linguistic limitations and the small population, but then again the book, precisely in the present crisis, we must spread it as a good and not as a luxury of the few.

Our blogs, always welcoming and without any kind of exchange, we worked and we are working, of course, as… book advertisers! Especially those that transcend the ephemeral…

 We can continue serving Literature together with you (and any other kind of reason) and contributing to its survival, if you also want to go ahead with it, which we now urgently ask of you: low prices on everything and especially on new books, without changing their aesthetics and quality.

Sincerely

bookworm,  Book cafe, Reading, Vaults, Anagnostria, Thalis' blog, Read-for-a-Life, Desperado, Kangaroo, Degas Reading Club, Spring Agreement".

Source : tovima.gr