Archive | Greekish RSS feed for this section

Happy Birthday, Dimitri Mitropoulos

1 Mar

Happy birthday to Dimitris Mitropoulos! Born in Athens, the Greek composer began conducing the New York Philharmonic in 1949. He was raised Greek Orthodox and is remembered as being devout. From everything I’ve heard and read — I first heard about Mitropoulos through David Amram, who tells lots of stories about him in his books and remembers him fondly — Mitropoulos sounds like quite a character! To make music more accessible to the masses and reach a younger audience, Mitropoulos did a week of shows at the Roxy, a movie theatre in Times Square.

 

 

Tags: , , ,

“My life is not a story,” Wrote the Memoirist

28 Feb

9780547913995_p0_v1_s260x420

After reading about how Benjamin Anastas describes his father as “a brooding Greek beatnik” who is “potbellied from lentils and with a beard down to his solar plexus chakra,” I knew I had to read his memoir Too Good to Be True. After all, I write about  Greeks and so-called beatniks. Too Good to Be True is the story of the breakup of his marriage and the dissolution of his writing career.

Its not told in an overtly emotional manner, yet its frankness is almost unsettling. These days we’re used to people baring all when it comes to relationships, but to tell the truth about money? To admit that even though he’d taught at an Ivy League and published in big-name magazines, he had to dig around in couch cushions to come up with money for his son’s dinner? That’s the type of honesty that’s hard to read because you worry he’s sabotaging his career by admitting his writing isn’t going all that well and putting it out there for editors and agents to read without the distance of time.

But isn’t that the struggle of the memoirist? While many critics claim that memoir writing is egocentric, a memoirist must lay down his ego. He must sacrifice self and present the truth. And while a memoirist may be introspective by nature, the beauty of memoir is discovering the truth along with the author.

This section from the chapter “Old Friends” is worth considering in terms of both memoir writing and living life:

How much of our lives do we write, and how much of them are written for us? I’ve been thinking about this problem lately, looking back over the trail that brought me to this place, and reading my progress at every step along the way—as adrift as I have been from the usual compass points, as unaware of my direction—for signs of an author, for the fingerprints left behind by some great invisible hand. My life is not a story. It has never been a story, not for me, not even while I’ve been taking great pains with this testament to tell it truthfully on the page. I am in too deep to call it a story. It hurts too much for me to understand it. But I am trying.

The contents of the book may center around infidelity and a mid-career slump, but the deeper story, the one that Anastas circles around to, is the relationship between parents and children, the relationship he had with his parents and the relationship he has with his son.

If I could request a follow up to Too Good to Be True, I would ask Benjamin Anastas to write a memoir about his childhood.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

92-Year-Old Greek Diner Shut Its Doors in Literary Neighborhood

24 Jan

Ninety-two-year-old Greek diner St. Clair has closed down, reports Grub Street, after learning the news from Brownstoner.

Owned by five Cypriot brothers, according to New York magazine, offered various Greek dishes such as the Greek Delight Platter, Corfu Salad, and Greek Moussaka alongside classic American dishes like The Best Baked Meatloaf and 14 Oz. new York Cut Sirloin Steak Sandwich. Brooklyn Daily provided a little history that when the diner was revamped in 1967 it was opened up as the New St. Clair by the Costa family. In 2007, they sold it to Spiro Katehis, who also owns the Carroll Gardens Classic Diner. The Greek diner was at the corner of Smith and Atlantic in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.

In The Town and the City, Jack Kerouac housed the parents of his main character in Brooklyn and mentioned the Boerum Hill neighborhood. Of course back then, the neighborhood hadn’t gone through its yuppie gentrification—Kerri Russell and Michelle Williams have called it home—and was known as South Brooklyn or North Gowanus.

Considering the establishment had already opened in 1920 and Kerouac was in the area in the 1940s and ‘50s, it’s possible—though not proven—that he could have stopped in the St. Clair Diner.

The neighborhood is famously home to another writer: Jonathan Lethem, who told the New York Sun,  “’My image of the writer came from people like Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac.’” When he was younger, Letham hitchhiked to California and worked at used bookstores. In 2011, he was the Roy E. Disney Professor in Creative Writing at Pomona College, where I studied literature and Classical Greek.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Greek-American Tina Andreadis Promoted to Senior VP of Publicity at HarperCollins

18 Jan

HarperCollins Publishers promoted Tina Andreadis to senior vice-president of publicity, according to Publishers Lunch.  Hired in 2005 as vice president, director of publicity, Andreadis oversees publicity for many of the publishing house’s imprints.

The Greek America Foundation named Andreadis as part of the Class of 2010 winners of the Forty Under 40; she was thirty-nine at the time. They noted:

Andreadis is very involved in philanthropic and media efforts on behalf of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. In October 2009 she was a key member of the media team for Patriarch Bartholomew’s historic tour of the United States, working to promote his trip to America. Her influence helped secure an opinion piece by the Patriarch in the Wall Street Journal. Andreadis is an active member of Kimisis Tis Theotokou Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons. There she is media chair for the future expansion of the church and a committee chairperson for the church’s annual festival in Southampton.

Congratulations to Tina Andreadis on her new role at HarperCollins!

The New York-based publishing house’s origins go as far back as 1817 when Harper & Brothers was founded and is now one of the largest publishing houses in the world. Side note: like most publishing houses, they have a history of publishing Beat Generation-related books, including Rub Out the Words: The Letters of William S. Burroughs, 1959 – 1974  and Howl: A Graphic Novel.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Liking “On the Road” Makes You Undatable

15 Jan

A while back The Huffington Post, run by Greek American Arianna Huffington, posted an article entitled “9 Books That Make You Undatable.” Among the books was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

The reason?  Well, according to The Huffington Post, liking On the Road signals commitment issues and money woes.

Apparently no one ever reads a book for its literary merits or for pure escapism.

You may also like:

On the Highway of Love, Jack Kerouac Divides Men and Women

 

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , , ,

Blogiversary: Greeks Beat Kerouac in 2012

10 Jan

greek-greece-flag_pink

January 1 marked the anniversary of my blog! Thank you all for your support and encouragement of my writing and blogging. It means so much to me that you take the time to read and comment on my blog entries.

I just reviewed a report of my year in blogging, and it’s been a good year!

Here’s a recap of my most viewed posts of 2012:

Notice anything interesting? They all have to do with Greece, and four out of five of them have to do with Greek beauty and fashion. Despite the fact that most of my blogging efforts this past year were about Jack Kerouac, not a single Kerouac-related entry made it into the top 5.

Two out of the above-mentioned blog posts didn’t receive any comments, despite being popular views. My most commented on post of the year was:

That just goes to show you that comments and views aren’t necessarily correlated.

What were your favorite posts from 2012?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Blessing of the Waters

6 Jan

hudson

This past year, we’ve seen the power of water when Hurricane Sandy hit, devastating homes, businesses, and even lives. And yet water remains critical to our existence:

  • About 57% of our body weight is water.
  • Approximately 88% of 1.8 million deaths a year is attributed to unsafe water supplies and sanitation and hygiene issues. Most of these deaths are in children.
  • Water covers about 70% of our planet.
  • Africans spend 40 billion hours just walking to get water every year. It is usually women and children who have the responsibility of fetching water, and this arduous task keeps them away from school.

Water is a dichotomy of life and death.

I once saw a priest in Brooklyn throw a cross into the muddy waters of the Hudson.  It was a frigid January day, yet a bunch of boys jumped into the river to save the cross.

What would possess a priest to throw a cross into the river?

Theophany; or, as most westerners call it, Epiphany.

The word “Theophany” comes from the Greek “τα Θεοφάνια,” which means “appearance of God,” and January 6 is the feast day that commemorates the incarnation of Jesus.  It celebrates His birth and baptism.

When St. John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, the heavens opened up and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove.  God spoke from the heavens, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17, NIV).  It marked one of the very few times that all three characters of the Trinity—Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God—revealed themselves at the same time to man.

Jesus’ baptism marks His first step toward Crucifixion, according to Orthodox theology.

And so, on January 6, Orthodox priests throughout the world throw crosses, symbolic of Jesus’ crucifixion, into bodies of water, symbolic of His baptism.  This is called the Blessing of the Waters.  Volunteers jump into the water to retrieve the cross.  The priest, according to tradition, prays a blessing on the person who gets to the cross first and brings it back to him.

Here’s the Troparion (tone 4) from the Eve and Afterfeast hymn, which has some powerful imagery:

The River Jordan receded of old by the mantle of Elisha when Elijah ascended into heaven; and the water was separated to this side and that, the wet element turning into a dry path for Him, being truly a symbol of Baptism, by which we cross the path of transient age. Christ appeared in the Jordan to sanctify its waters.

Parts of this post were first published on my blog in 2011 and 2012.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

How I Spent My Name Day

31 Dec

400122_10200220737743484_402115136_n

For my name day, my family took me to Delray Beach, Florida. It’s a cute little oceanside town with lots of restaurants, antique shops, surf shops, and galleries. My favorite part of the trip was looking in the display cases at the antique store with my mom. When I was a little girl, she used to always take me with her to the antique stores we both loved so much. When we all moved, we had to give up a lot of our family heirlooms. Tea cups from my grandma’s side of the family. Handmade doilies from my yiayia’s side of the family. Exquisite purchases my parents had made when decorating their own home. I loved reminiscing with my mom in Delray Beach.

ccsb_mock_menu_33

Photo via Cupcake Couture.

We also went to a super adorable cupcake shop my sister loves called Cupcake Couture.  All the cupcakes are named after fashion designers. I got the Jean Paul Peanutier, pictured above. So yummy! The frosting was a light whipped peanut butter. Oh my gosh, I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Image.asp

Photo via Wags to Riches.

We also stopped into a fancy pet shop called Wags to Riches. It was the type of place that sold rhinestone collars and designer-looking clothes in miniature form for dogs. They had some adorable puppies. I’m currently looking for an apartment right now that will allow pets because I’d like to get a dog of my own. I’m thinking of getting a Maltese. If you’ve ever had one, let me know in the comments section if they’re easy to train. Otherwise, I might get a poodle, which is what I had growing up.

After Delray Beach we went out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. It wasn’t my choice, and it was bittersweet for me. The last time I’d been to that particular Cheesecake Factory was with my grandma, who has since passed away.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I Am Crowned

27 Dec

200px-Saint_Stephen_11cent

Have you ever noticed that Greek families all seem to be named after the same relative? It’s customary in Greek culture to name the firstborn boy after his papou, the father’s father, and the firstborn girl after her yiayia, the father’s mother. Subsequent children are named after the mother’s side of the family.

According to the Greek Orthodox faith, though, children are supposed to be named after the saint whose feast day they are born on.

A child born on December 27 would be named after Saint Stephen. Stephen was one of the first deacons of the Church. However, after a vicious argument, he was accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death by stoning. Standing up for himself and his beliefs, he said that those Church leaders were the very people who persecuted the prophets. He is now recognized as a martyr.

The name “Stephen” comes from the Greek word “stephanos,” which translates to “crowned.”

My birthday is not December 27 nor was my yiayia’s name Stephania, so my name is a bit of a break from the Greek culture. I’m actually named after my father’s stepfather.  And yes, family reunions can get a bit confusing, with my cousin Stefanos and I both responding to “Stef.”

Today I’ll be celebrating my name with my family!

How did you get your name? Do you celebrate your name day? 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Gift Guide for the Greek Lover

6 Dec

Whether you’re giving a Greek American a taste of their homeland when they can’t make it back for the holidays or satiating a Hellenophile’s interest in Greek culture, there are countless foods, books, beauty products, and jewelry that will suit your needs.  Plus, select a gift made in Greece and you’ll also be supporting the struggling Greek economy.  Here’s just a small selection of Greek gift ideas, some made in the States, some in Greece, and others elsewhere, but all unique and lovely.

Gifts for the Greek food lover:::

 

Kokkari: Contemporary Greek Flavors by Janet Fletcher

 

How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking by Michael Psilakis

A selection of delicious dressings and marinades from Sophia’s Gourmet Foods

A selection of three different flavors of honey from Odysea Shop

Traditional Greek preserves (rose petal and pergamot) by Monastiri

Kalamata olive oil

Ouzo candies

Pavlidis Dark Chocolate

Pastelli with honey

Bonus tip! – Gifts appear so much nicer when they come as a set.  You may want to give a cookbook with some Greek spices.  A duo or trio of a certain type of product (such as honey or olive oil) is a great way for the recipient to try out a few flavors.  Or, you may want to give a gift basket of assorted Greek candies.

 

Gifts for someone who loves Greek literature:::

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Antigonick by Sophocles, translated by Anne Carson, illustrations by Bianca Stone

The Greek Poets: Homer to Present by Peter Constantine

 

The Odyssey: A Pop-up Book by Sam Ita

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holidays on Ice by David Sederis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bossypants by Tina Fey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Subscription to Greek America Magazine

Bonus tip! – Trying pairing the book with a book light, a notebook and pen, a bookmark with a quote by a Greek philosopher, or a coffee mug (maybe even with a bag of Greek coffee).

 

Gifts to make someone feel like a beautiful and pampered Greek goddess:::

Beauty products from Korres.  I would especially recommend Korres Wild Rose + Vitamin C Advanced Brightening Sleeping Facial. You can read my review here.

Olive oil body lotion by Olivia

Jewelry by Konstantino

Bonus tip! – Include a lovely handwritten letter.  A bottle of Greek wine (here’s my review of the Greek American wine Pindar) or some fine Greek chocolates (here’s my review of the Greek American chocolatier Chocolate Moderne) would also make someone feel loved and pampered.

 

As the Greek proverb says, “A gift, though small, is welcome.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →