"You got three choices in life: be good, get good, or give up." (Gregory House, MD)

"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: it is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak." (Thomas Carlyle)

Early photos of Greece

Two of my favorite things - photography and Greece - are featured on this website, which displays a number of photographs from the early 20th century collection by the "philhellene photographer" Fred Boissonnas.

It's hard to pick a favorite, but I found this one to be one of the most moving. From 1913, it depicts a priest seated in a war-ravaged church:

I also love this one, of Mr. Boissonnas ascending Meteora in a net, which was traditional in the old days:

Bill Balaskas @ Kalfayan Galleries

While walking through Kolonaki the other day, I stumbled upon an art gallery filled with small architectural drawings. An exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries Athens by Bill Balaskas that closed this Saturday, it involved coloring in a small section of many of Lawrence's drawings of ancient Greek architecture. For example, this image of the topography of the Athenian acropolis:

(Photo via Kalfayan Galleries Athens

The website for Kalfayan Galleries includes the following in its biography of Balaskas:

The exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries revolves around the artist’s new in-situ installation titled “Architecture of Good and Evil”, which investigates the cultural origins of the current socio-economic crisis. The work features an inverted replica of an Ionic column and 172 works on paper. The artist has chosen to intervene on pages from the seminal book of A. W. Lawrence “Greek Architecture” (1957), which depict architectural sketches of ancient Greek monuments. By painting over a single part or shape of each sketch in blue, Balaskas raises questions regarding both the polysemy of symbols and the role played by their monosemous theorization in the formation of a national or cultural identity.

While I'm not sure I'd call Lawrence's drawings "sketches," I'm nonetheless intrigued by the concept - but it's just that, a concept. All of the drawings were framed and arranged at eye-level throughout the gallery, and readily visually accessible but to me, it fell a little short in its intended meaning. How does modifying a 50 year old architectural drawing - and by "modifying," I mean coloring in a little square or rectangle - make a statement about symbols and their place in the formation of a national or cultural identity? And what does it mean to remove such drawings from a book and the contextual meaning they're meant to represent, which is a visual interpretation of scale and preservation?

What would Lawrence think?

The Antikythera Shipwreck

Yesterday afternoon, I took a trip over to Athens' National Archaeological Museum. My goal was to photograph a bronze object for a friend and track down a couple of other objects for my Research Assistant project.

Besides taking care of these things, I was greatly happy (and mildly surprised) to find almost the entire museum open. This included both the bronze collection and the vase collection, both of which were closed on every occasion I visited the NAM last year. Of course, the few hours I spent there wasn't nearly enough time to cover everything. And, just as I was getting ready to leave, my eye caught a small room off the main hallway, where there was an exhibition on the Antikythera Shipwreck.

I'd seen the Antikythera Mechanism before, of course, as well as other sculptures from the wreck, such as this bronze philosopher portrait:

(doesn't he look rather philosopher-crazy?)

But here, everything from the shipwreck has been brought together, including a number of sculptures that had previously been located in the museum's courtyard, and often overlooked. These sculptures, all of Parian marble and thus probably from the same workshop, are really interesting because they show how the seawater and its inhabitants have eaten away at the marble while the parts of the sculptures that were buried beneath the surface of the sea have been preserved. And the display is excellent (thought I probably could have done without the strobe-like "underwater" lighting):

A whole room is devoted to the Antikythera Mechanism itself, showcasing not only the fragments of the mechanism, but the various reconstructions of it, as well as the history and conservation of the object. What I found most fascinating was the display case with the Antikythera Mechanism: not only did it have a digital, 3-D reconstruction projected on the glass, but the lighting was so good that I could make out some of the inscriptions:

The exhibition is up until April 2013, so check it out!

Saturday photo edits

Agios Demetrios, Thessaloniki

Since it's a lovely Saturday, I've spent the better part of the afternoon working on editing my (extremely long) backlog of photos. What do I mean by "editing?" Most of the time, very little. I usually do simple crops, basic color correction, and the occasional conversion to black & white. For example, above is a photo of the interior of the Church of Agios Demetrios, the patron saint of Thessaloniki.

I'm not sure how I managed to miss this church on my previous visits to Thessaloniki. It's one of Thessaloniki's oldest churches, its first inception dating to the 4th century AD. The crypt below the church, now a museum, is said to be the place where St. Demetrios was martyred in 303 AD. The five-aisled present-day basilica has undergone a number of transformations since it was first built: first a small oratory (4th century AD), then a three-aisled basilica (5th-7th centuries AD), then conversion to a mosque in 1493, then nearly destroyed in the great fire of Thessaloniki in 1917. 1949 saw the rebuilding and reopening of the church that we now see today.

I shot this image from the central nave, looking back towards the narthex, because I was quite taken with how the light was softly filtering in from the clerestory above. And, while I thought the original color image was quite beautiful, I wanted to see how it looked in black & white. A few slight modifications to the angle - I shifted the image 0.5 degrees to the left to make it more balanced - and I'm calling it a finished image.

From this...

(2007)

To this...

 (2008)

To this...

 (2009)

To this...

(2010)

To this...

(2012)

It's been a long journey, hasn't it?

Restoration work on the Caryatids

Yesterday's TO BHMA had a short article on the Caryatids from the Erechtheion and the laser restoration work on them that was undertaken recently. The International Institute for Conservation gave the New Acropolis museum an award for their use of laser technology (χρήση τεχνολογίας λέιζερ), an approach undertaken particularly well as it involved visitors being able to watch the process, as opposed to taking place in a lab. Almost two million visitors since December 2010 have witnessed the process of the laser restoration work!

I was a little lost on how the process actually works (my Greek is not so great, and my scientific knowledge is even worse), but from what I remember from actually seeing the process last year was that it was particularly innovative and included a sort of live-screen streaming of the process, so that visitors could watch it occurring but not be affected by the lasers.

The New Acropolis Museum hasn't allowed photos since the first summer they opened (Summer 2009), which is when I took this photograph of the Caryatid's fabulous hairstyles.

Living in Greece

Hey, wanna know what it's like to live in Greece?

Scenario: I am informed that the letter I have from my health insurance company is insufficient for the Greek Ministry of Culture, who are the ones in charge of issuing my residence permit.

Step 1: Call the number listed on Health Insurance Company's (HIC) website. Once you finally get through to someone, explain that you can't give them a callback number because you're in Greece and on Skype. Read every. single. stipulation that must be on the letter that they are to craft (not a simple form letter, but a very, very specific letter that outlines every minute detail of my coverage). Get to the end, and be told that your deductible is $50 higher than what the Greeks allow. Be told that you can switch to a conversion plan, whatever the f that is, and you are given another number to call.

Time: 22 minutes

Step 2: Call the number regarding the conversion plan. After giving all of your personal information (name, SSN, DOB), be asked if your name is Sharon (uhhh...). Be told that you can't do a conversion plan until August 2013, which is no good because I need to apply for the residence permit now. Also be told that you need to speak to someone related to your school's HIC's plan specifically, and be given a third number.

Time: 8 minutes

Step 3: Call that third number. Once you finally get through to someone, explain that you can't give them a callback number because you're in Greece and on Skype. They insist on some kind of number, so you give them your mother's cell phone number (and if they have to call her "back," she can't call you for the next 6 hours because she can't use Skype from her office). Be told, Hey! We can't do anything to change your $250 deductible to $200 or less, but we can tell you that if you get a referral from the Student Health Center, the deductible is only $75 per incident. Insist that the letter you need cannot include per incident, but must be per year. Have it suggested to you that perhaps you can cancel your current plan and enroll in a conversion plan, and by the way here's that conversion plan number AGAIN.

Time: 19 minutes

Step 4:  Call the conversion plan number. Finally talk to someone who understands what you're talking about. But, you're told that any plan you "convert" to will have a deductible higher than $250, not lower than, and therefore there's no point in converting. Be told that you should call the...second?...number once again, and/or your university itself.

Time: 21 minutes

Step 5: Decide to call your university Registrar, who is in charge of student health insurance and coordinating with your HIC. Get her phone number from the university's website. Call the number, only to find that "due to the high volume of calls, it's best you leave a voice mail message with a number I can reach you at." Of course, you don't have a number you can be reached at, because your only number is a Greek cell phone, and who at your uber-rich university is gonna want to call that? So you dig around for this woman's email and email her, asking what a good time for you to call on Skype would be. An hour later, you get a response that she's not actually with the Registrar anymore - as is listed on the website - but she's instead with the Registrar at the BUSINESS SCHOOL, and would you please email x or y instead?

Time: 10 minutes

Step 6: Explode from trying to work your way through a freakin' $50 difference in deductible. I offered to more than one person to pay the difference myself. I pointed out the ridiculousness of offering health insurance to non-university spouses and children, but not offering me, a lowly graduate student on $20,000 per year (actually half that this year), OPTIONS for my shit health care. I will pay you $50 for you to just state on a letter than my deductible is $200 rather than $250.

Step 7: Decide to blog about the whole ordeal, rather than yell at another person at your HIC.

Time: 20 minutes of attempting to calm yourself down through words.

To be continued tomorrow. I am sure.

The Home of the Gods

5 years ago, I was at the base of this mountain as an ASCSA Summer Session participant. I knew at the time that that summer would change me, but the process of it filtering into my brain took months (and perhaps even years when I think about it).

Two years ago this Saturday, I boarded a plane in Philadelphia that was the first step towards an entire year in Greece. This time, too, I had little idea of how much that year would change me. I saw myself grow a great deal professionally, I lost one of my closest friendships, and I came back with a stronger sense of who I was and who I wanted to be.

This Saturday, I'll make the great ascent up this mountain. Gods willing, I won't fall off a cliff. And again, I'll prove to myself this: I know who I am, and I know I can get through anything.

Καλό Μήνα!

Καλό Μήνα, everyone! A traditional Greek greeting on the first of the month. This first day of September also brings us a full moon. I suspect both at the same time is relatively rare. As it may be my last free Saturday in Northern Greece, I decided to take the day off and go to the beach. Well, first I got up at the crack of dawn, ran 3 miles down by the harbor, got groceries, bread, and bougatsa, wrote a little, took a nap, and THEN I went to the beach.

It took two buses and a little over an hour to get there, but it was so worth it. An umbrella, frappe, and pleasant conversation made for a very nice afternoon, and the water was fabulous. As I've mentioned several times, I can definitely feel autumn in the air, so this may be one of my last chances to enjoy the beach in Greece until next summer.