The challenge of sounds: a commitment to Greekness.

 I was taken to the orthodox church of Aghia Sophia, Los Angeles, on Monday, as we celebrated the Holy Spirit day. The congregation was small: some thirty people were present. The huge church overloaded with decoration looked almost empty. Yet, this very day was the ideal one for me in which to re-examine my perception of this place, from its sonic angle.

My first “acquaintance” with this place was shortly before Christmas 2012. I was completely struck by a number of paraphernalia which looked strange and unusual to me, an Argostolian-Greek recently settled in Los Angeles.

I can now recall some satirists who, in delineating Cefalonians and their features, talked about nagging islanders. On the other hand, my favourite anthropologist, M. Herzfeld, writes that when complaining one just recycles things, he does not help improve them. Aware of my status as a newcomer and  consequently the suspension of any possibility  of forwarding my perceptions of the place to anyone who is a regular to this place, I limited myself to expressing to my friend the differences that I had singled out and concerned orthodox churches in Greece and this one in Los Angeles.

 I admitted that  church objects and their place inside the church have to serve peoples’ needs so I could finally accept the Catholic type seats(see photographs) and the fact that congregation can be large-as I witnessed it on Palm Sunday 2013. Yet, I refused –and still do so- to accept the sonic aspects of this cluster of Greekness and orthodoxy. I am here concerned with the process through which sounds acquire additional meanings and can turn to symbols of belonging (or not).

Paul Stoller was writing in 1984[1] that “a deeper appreciation of sound could force us to overturn our static, spatialized world and make us consider in a new light the dynamic nature of sound, an open door to the comprehension of cultural sentiment”. He was an urbanite studying people in the forest and he was forced to discover the value of sound. I ,too, am an urbanite but I have been carrying the value of sound along with me  for many years. I just had to realize it and practice its importance during my research at home. What happened to me while settling in Los Angeles was the fact that I had to imagine-better relive sounds inside me- sounds and tones and assign them the role of a cornerstone. It was on this cornerstone that I judged other sounds and could confirm my belonging to “home”. I could see the performance of specific sounds as lying on the edge of separating Greeks in Greece from migrant Greeks living in Los Angeles. I thus see  church performed sounds not as a means to penetrating cultural sentiment but as a means to judging the similarity of sounds produced in specific institutions (eg the church) even though they might be far away from each other.  The extent to which similarity( or dissimilarity) is spotted  can talk about versions of cultural sentiment.

       Here is my story then:

Having seated myself on one of the church  seats on Sunday, December 16^th 2012, I started looking around and opened my ears up to what I was listening. My eyes searched for the psalts-the singers. As I was far away from the places they were supposed to occupy I found it difficult to see them. Still, there was not only one man singing; I soon looked up and backwards and located the source of sound: there was a choir singing. My reactions were spontaneous and emotional, but their basis was to be found in my background. So, I first felt as if I had been struck by a thunderbolt. Here things were different and I started listing these differences to myself: A mixed choir is unusual- to my own experiences- in an orthodox church, let alone a church organ! To add to this, their tempo was completely out of my own sonic experiences and expectations. I had listened to choirs in church but they were in tune and pleasant.  I could spot female voices superseding male voices and tones were not the ones I was used to listening while in church. For a moment I thought I was attending a catholic mass. My Greekness was hiding behind all comparisons. It was  there, up and protesting against this “sonic violation”-if I may call it as such- to which I was subject. I felt unable to follow the tempo, I felt displaced and, as some fellow Cefalonians would definitely say, “my ears were not pleased”. My static, spatialized world, as Stoller called it, was providing me the par excellence sense of  church sounds in Greece and paved the way for my reactions.

This past Monday, however, the choir was not there-people were out to work-and the organ stood silent. My ears however were very pleased in this silence, as there were two male psalts and the tempo was the most familiar one.

Being a Cefalonian means having an excellent relation with sounds and being strictly critical to any performer who does not please the ear and detours from peoples’ expectations. Living in Los Angeles, I can now say that I have found this virtue in me and used my Cefalonianess to determine the extent to which I am Cefalonian and behave like my fellow islanders. Most of all,  I can take a distance from my background and use it as a cornerstone on which to judge the role of sounds in affirming  aspects of Greekness.

Here are two more  photographs from the church.

---

[1] Stoller, P. (1984) “ Sound in Songhay cultural experience”,  American Ethnologist  11(3), pp 559-570.

Magnolia grandiflora: a Los Angeles star

 Los Angeles is a fascinating place to explore, especially if one decides to indulge in trees and flowers. My first encounter with the “natural world” was right after my arrival. I was excited to see big and small magnolia trees lining up the boulevard and being in full bloom by mid September, October and early November.  I took this as a sign of a prolonged summer time. June 2013 almost over, I am enjoying these queen style trees in full bloom. I spend some time stepping closer, observing the white and fragrant flowers, noticing their decay and listening to the sound produced by walking on magnolia’s brown leaves on the pavement. I follow the play of sunlight and shadows cast by the foliage on the sidewalk and in vain look for the bird hiding somewhere on the tree. The semiotics of the tree can easily be accessed online. It is here suffice to say that  I was happy to discover that it is the symbol tree of the State of Mississippi and that it was named after P. Magnol who first studied it.

Here are some websites worth looking at:

http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/programs/uesd/uep/products/cufr475_street_trees_LA.pdf

http://www.yellowpages.com/yparticles/tree-service/8-gorgeous-flowering-trees

http://www.tytyga.com/California-trees-a/270.htm

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-10/news/ho-3282_1_deciduous-magnolias

http://www.arboretum.org/index.php/news/some_outstanding_shade_trees_for_southern_california

http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Mississippi/stateTreeMagnolia.html

And here is my fascination in photographs.

The marketplace for the senses: asyndeton in action.

Westwood village  in Los Angeles hosts a farmers’ market on Thursdays from 12 to 6 pm. Ever since I arrived in this city, I have been a regular to this marketplace. It is small-occupies a part of Bronxton avenue – it is clearly marked and there is a variety of fresh produce(fruit and vegetables, honey and nuts, cakes and food- on- the- go) as well as pieces of  art (paintings) and  apparel available to customers. The group of sellers is either  enhanced, as new sellers join in, or “shrinks” when sellers move out of the group. It is definitely smaller than the Santa Monica one, which extends to two avenues and in which there is a bigger variety of products on display.

I keep observing this place as I walk past all stands and record all sorts of interactions that happen within the limits of the marketplace. For one, this is a temporarily transformed place, there are indices to it and there is a set of relations to be understood, if one interprets these indices-marks of the farmers’ market.

I shall return to these in due time. For the time being, I am most interested in what the title of this post conveys: the marketplace for the senses. This means that there is an offer and acceptance of things and invited interactions that appeal to peoples’ senses. And it is exactly this offer that guides peoples’ footsteps to specific stands instead of others.  Let us recall M. de Certeau and his rhetoric of walking once again (pp101-102). One of the two fundamental  stylistic features of walking is asyndeton.  Asyndeton means that in walking, man selects and fragments the space traversed; it skips over links and whole parts that it omits. Asyndeton creates a “less”, opens gaps in the  spatial continuum, and retains only selected parts of it that amount almost to relics. Asyndeton cuts out:  it undoes continuity and undercuts its plausibility. A space  treated in this way and shaped by practices is transformed into enlarged singularities and separate islands. Asyndeton is, according to him, a rhetorical operation, like a turn of phrase.

Fruit sellers cause this asyndeton just by employing a quite simple technique: there is a sample to taste free to everyone and this is a small table placed on a different line than the one which sellers follow.  This table thus  stands out- I would take it as an index of this gap in the spatial continuum-  and works as honey to bees: people are attracted, stop, take a close look, grab a toothpick or small fork-  select and taste.  Some of them walk to the stand to buy  fruit they had tasted. Others just keep walking along the marketplace or walk away from it. I must say that it is a colorful spectacle-and tasteful one, even though I have never indulged in it.

Such people select this part and omit all other stands from their perspective. They chose to respond to the call for a bite. In this case, the “separate island” that de Certeau refers to, is the particular table (thus rendered a symbolic representation of the gap) at which sellers and buyers successfully meet. The gap in the spatial continuum is not just physical presence and walking: it is  a result of mutual agreement, an acceptance of the offer. It is not the walker who chooses his way independently of any variables, as de Certeau allows us to understand. It is rather, a response to the call for the pleasure of senses. And this is but one of the meanings of the marketplace for the senses….

Captain Corelli's mandolin and the walk of fame

 The film "Captain Corelli's mandolin" appeared unexpectedly on my TV screen this afternoon. The movie channel featured the film and it took me by surprise. I can be proud of being a Cefalonian and, at the same time, of having recently walked along the famous Walk of Fame in Hollywood. It might be easily inferred that we stopped by Cage's  and Penelope Cruz's star.  We made a special stop as we felt the link between these two actors and our birthplace, Cefalonia.

So, here is an attempt to visually represent the island - the famous Antisamos beach- and the Walk of Fame...



A dearly beloved memory, a great anniversary

 Today's tribute is to St.Andrews, Scotland as input to the anniversary of the University. I graduated from St. Andrews university with a Ph.D in social anthropology in 2010. 2013 marks 600 years from the establishment  of the university, so this is the great anniversary that the title alludes to. I have just seen that alumni express their most warm feelings while the media applause the excellent quality of studies and place the university among the best in the world. As an alumnus, I ,too feel proud of having studied there. Yet, I cannot disentangle St.Andrews from the town itself.

I have dearly treasured all memories from my student life in St.Andrews and I am honest in saying that I miss this little corner of Scotland. I have always thought of the town as springing out of a fairy tale or, when dark clouds were on us, fully armoured soldiers will rush out of the castle and defend the town. Scotland is an ideal place for feeling such an ambience-at least if one is romantic. Trust me: one can imagine such things especially when walking all around the castle in absolute silence. You cannot but let your skin feel the presence of elegant ladies, servants and musicians... And you cannot but fully enjoy dance events, like the ceilidh  that took place on the day the photograph shows.

Here is a view from St.Andrews castle to the open sea and here is what I have been talking about so far.  Shall we dance?

The rhetoric of walking (1)

I came across Michel de Certeau in 1998, during my postgraduate study in Edinburgh University. I read some chapters of his  The practice of everyday life ( the whole book is available at:http://danm.ucsc.edu/~dustin/library/de%20certeau,%20the%20practice%20of%20everyday%20life.pdf).  The chapter that I dearly treasure is the one that refers to walking(chapter 8: walking in the city).

Walking around the city has, according to M. De Certeau, rhetoric. The pedestrian makes selections, condemns certain places to inertia or disappearance and composes with others spatial “turns of phrase” that are “rare”, “accidental” or illegitimate. He transforms or abandons spatial elements.  There are possibilities and prohibitions and the walker actualizes some of these possibilities. In that way he makes them exist as well as emerge. By actualising some possibilities, he increases their number as well as the number of prohibitions.(pp98-99)

It is this selection process that marks the rhetoric of walking and creates a temporary –and sometimes a permanent- structure of paths in the city. This structure depends on the balance (I would rather say, imbalance) between possibilities and prohibitions that one keeps up with. Moreover and most important, the balance-and consequently- the structure depends on the drives of selection. The rhetoric of walking can be as multifaceted as the numbers of walkers. And it can be even more versatile when looking at the daily walking practices of one and the same walker.

 I am concerned with the following questions: What are the qualities of such drives? What makes us abandon spatial elements while actualizing possibilities? What drives pedestrians to actualize possibilities more than prohibitions-and vice versa?

I shall here take myself as a case study. An Argostolian , I have already spent some months in Los Angeles. I am by definition subject to endless selections and possibilities. I am allowed to write endless texts-as de Certeau put it. In selecting possibilities, I am driven by the pleasure that my sensory perceptions transmit to myself when passing by nice and tidy gardens in full bloom. Now, this drive takes me to avenues other than the main boulevard. So I impose a temporary prohibition to myself not to walk along the boulevard. I abandon it for the sake of  sizes, colours,  known and unknown to me flowers and smells. (I am better with the word aroma instead of smell). This last sense is so pleased that I proceed to take an intentional “turn of phrase” when reaching a crossroad and insist on walking along a certain avenue. I thus transform a spatial element to the most aesthetically pleasing one and accredit it with high value. In addition, I make a point of stopping, looking and smelling the jasmine that has fully covered the street lamp post. I create a structure here among spatial elements, that is avenues. I pick and praise a bush by not walking , turning to it and feeling it.  I even create a structure of my  pace. I take advantage of the possibility that the spatial element itself offers to me, while other flowers and bushes are not available to me as such.

So, the drive is season based, aesthetically oriented and stands on the edge of what is by definition offered and what not, of what is “public” and what “private” and thus security protected.

This is a first approach of my rhetoric of walking. It is, by now, a conscious act of walking and observing myself according to de Certeau’s perceptions that Los Angeles is gradually transforming to something else. Better, I am the agent of this transformation. And this venture is worth while pursuing…

June gloom

Weather in Los Angeles is currently coined as June gloom. Mornings are gloomy and they give on to sunshine in the afternoon-even though not always. Here is a photograph I took just a couple of hours ago. Gloominess, if I am allowed to use such a term, is more than just weather conditions: it is about unfufilled expectations of bright, sunny days. It is about losing the sense of seasons and, furthermore, it is about projecting myself to autumn or winter. Most of all, it is about feeling displaced: I feel as if I live in Scotland. The photograph below, which I took in  late June 2010 and shows Edinburgh, also shows "classic" weather in Scotland during summer. In terms of weather expectations being fulfilled, Edinburgh makes me feel "at home" with June gloom.....

Argostoli,Greece: a port or a sign of relief?

I took this picture on a hot July 2012  afternoon, just before we disembarked from a small boat.  This picure marks my relief to getting back home safe and sound.  The well known view of my hometown is then not taken for granted and not ignored. It is, on the contrary, sought for and invested with joy and relief. I noticed the high degree of subjectivity to this matter: other people on board felt at ease and had no problems riding a very small boat. I was teased by family members for my anxiety. Yet, I am sure that noone felt as I did when leaving the boat. Did they miss the moment?......

A piece of the puzzle: myself



What does one do when facing  for the first time the blank page of his just started blog? The hand that is set to type, composes an introductory message to all possible readers and viewers. There is also the potential of  placing a motto or a verse at the top of the page followed by a somewhat literary  introduction. Is there, however, any feeling-and verbalization of it- or realization of the immensity of the world to which one attempts to reach while blogging? Is there any sense and display  of the feeling about the unknown readers and their reactions to the  new blog? Is there excitement interwoven with awe and a strong sense of  responsibility  while typing letter after letter?
Well, this is the introduction to myself and my initial reactions while setting to write my first post to my new blog. I have experienced all those reactions about the content of the introduction  and the inescapable need to write a message different from "classic" ones-which may, at times, lead to the use of common phrases, words and even style , given that at the end of the day nothing sounds as exciting to the blogger as it should be.
You might have already taken a guess:  here is an emotional person engaged -or trapped in a labyrinth?- in the task of mastering words and emotions and decently presenting them to the globe. No matter how risky this proves in everyday life, I feel it is a great advantage when it comes to looking at photographs and interpreting them. Emotional reactions guide  fingers and cameras, emotions turn events, situations, people and places to unique "momenta", single them out from any other event or place  and thus here lies the excitement of photograph taking and photograph interpretation.
Here is another piece of my personality puzzle. How much do you allow for emotions to take the lead? I would say: so long as you are aware of your emotions and you enjoy their presence in photograph taking, just keep going. So long as emotion expression  comes to contrast with other people -even your dearly beloved- and you feel this is your trademark, just keep going. If, to add to this,  your "audience" loves your way of expressing yourself, even more so, keep going!
 Here is, then,  what you need to know about Effie, the Greek from Argostoli and her relation to photographs, which seals her attempt to this new blog.
 Yet, beyond such attitudes to photographs, there is an unpleased and pending desire  always hand in hand with joy, to post these photographs that I have been taking for some time now. My aim is to read what comes before an exclamation mark or a question mark while commenting on places, people and situations that you and I might have shared, lived, remembered, forgotten.... We will all be pleased to read interpretations other than mine , hence opening the possibilities of endless interpretations and confirming that photographs are like texts.
It does not sound complicated. It is exciting. And it is this engagement between me, my photographs and you that can make a community what it is.
Shall we set sail?