My Ithaka

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

MUSIC BY GEORGE DALARAS from an Album entitled:
"Erima Horia (Deserted Villages)"

available here.

Comments

[demonax]

Long live Politsani, indeed – and Voreio Ipiros – and all of Hellas, in fact.
Excellent song too. I've not heard any of the stuff from the album before.

[Stavros]

Next year in Yialousa

[Hermes]

Very good photos; especially, all the young people dancing and the iconography. Tremendous.

[Margaret]

I couldn't get this to work on my other computer, but have now. I think you've put it together really well. I especially like the way the photos change when the tempo does - from being wistful landscapes to dancing people, and back again to solitary scenes of a depopulated countryside.

[Stavros]

Margaret,

Anyone, including a technology challenged person like me can make a decent slide show at One True Media, a free service. Thank God for Mike Dilios, his pictures were much better than the few I took during my pilgrimmage to Politsani. When I heard this song by Dalaras, it represented in a strange sort of way what I was feeling about this place. I knew I had to put the music and the photos together. I'm not quite finished with it. I'd like to add some more photos.

I'm curious, do you like any of the music on Radio Axion Esti? I realize that it may not be what you are used to, however, I often wonder if it appeals to people of different backgrounds.

BTW, seems like you have created quite a stir with your canal adventures.

[Margaret]

Stavros, my appreciation of Greek music is very, very unsophisticated. About the level of the boys from Piraeus. Theodorakis, Marinella. That's about it. I liked Dalaras's voice a lot, and I like some of the tracks you've loaded on to Radio Axion Esti (mainly the 2- tracks, not sure where they are from). Don't worry about appealing to a broad church - you seem to be doing very well with your core Greek readers. My taste is always going to be the same in any language - emotional, melodic, middle of the road, and I'm always going to be tagging on behind :).

As for the canal adventures ... if that's what it takes to boost my stats, I'll settle happily for the few readers I've already got. Trouble is, pretty much every holiday is like that. I haven't told the story about the man with a machine gun behind an isolated pyramid in Egypt yet ...

[Stavros]

I got a peak recently at the stats for a blog that I like to read, written by a political commentator named Hugh Hewitt. He has an average of over a million readers a day. Problem is that most of it seems to be in one direction. There does not appear to be a whole lot of interaction between reader and writer. At least that is how it appears to me. I think I prefer a smaller group of core readers made up of people like you who act as a reality check on things I write or who give me a different perspective. Still I think that your readership will increase exponentially over time if you keep at it.

I look forward to hearing about the man with the machine gun someday. At least Colorado was uneventful.

[Margaret]

Uneventful, but not boring. A good combination, and we're going back for the same week this year.

I agree with you though ("I think I prefer a smaller group of core readers made up of people like you who act as a reality check on things I write or who give me a different perspective."). A sort of virtual, long drawn out dinner party (one of my next posts).

[irene]

Finding this site is a God send!! Bravo and thanks to all who make it available!

I live in Florida...where can I buy kriti's tsikoudia? On last trip to Kriti,our homeland in the horio, we brought some back....I have no more... I fell in love with this drink!! Is there anyone in the US who sells it?????

Kalli Anastasi,

Irene

[Stavros]

Irene,

If you like MGO, you will love this site:

http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/

We call it tsipouro in Politsani. Be careful it will make your head explode. It's also good as a paint remover.

Kali Anastasi to you and your family.

[irene]

Stavros I do LOVE this new site...wonderful travel notes....recipes....insights and commentaries...
You have further opened my eyes and heart about our homeland....Yia sou Stavros!

I have searched for a place to purchase tsipouro/raki in the states with no luck....seems shipping costs from Crete are too high now. Any source you know about?

Efharisto for your generous sharing....O Theos mazi sou.

Irene

I LOVED EL GRECO!!!

[Istvan]

Wonderful pictures; the crumbling walls of the little chappel and the young generation dancing.
As long as there's someone to share the good
"spirit" with dripping from that distilling kettle , there's still plenty of hope for brighter future.
Must have been quite an experience standing in the church where your ancestors used to pray. The perfect way to finally meet them.
Great Dalaras music, one day he may sing in
Northern Epirus as he did on Imvros.

[Stavros]

Irene,

Glad to be of service.

Istvan,

Thought you might like this quote:

"A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar nonmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge."

—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)

I wrote this after my visit:

http://greekodyssey.typepad.com/my_greek_odyssey/2007/08/politsani-engli.html

[Istvan]

Thank you Stavros