Lighthouse Keepers

There's a lighthouse on the upper side of this blog. It was chosen on purpose. This blog as much as anyone's blog - opinion - way of lifestyle is a lighthouse. Some are remote, weathered, sea battered, others are well preserved but they're all beautiful in the eye of the beholder. The content of these 'lullabies' is a blurred mix of cultures and represent a context within a context. Pretentious as they may be, they sprung out of - what I thought it was - a dying lifestyle, and set to be a beacon of life as seen from a rooftop in the heart of the city. Reading other people's blogs and freepress newspapers I discovered there is an ever growing amount of 'Lighthouse Keepers'; rooftop observers of a wrestless city. People looking down, feeling a vibe and in love with the chaotic urban landscape down below. From the kids practicing parcourt in shopping malls, to bohemian wannabe writers, failed actors and lonely employees there's a world goin' on up above...

(Photo By Aleks Veledzimovich)

Silver & The Hidden Cash

A band sprung out of a dirty highway returns to the scene of the crime tonite when the clock strikes midnight in Ioannina, a town just southeast of Texas and northwest of Koutselio. Do yourself a favour and catch a gig yet to be legendary just like those which preceded it.

" Well, I had the carburetor, baby, cleaned and checked with her line blown out she's hummin' like a turbojet. Propped her up in the backyard on concrete blocks for a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks. Took her down to the carwash, check the plugs and points. Well, I'm goin' out tonight. I'm gonna rock that joint..." (Boss)

OFFICIAL SHC page - SHC MySpacePage

"I CAN'T STAND THE QUIET!!!"

Sequence from the film 'Simple Men' (1992) by Hal Hartley

9th & Hennepin

Well, it's 9th and Hennepin
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas are like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddam town is ready to blow
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs

And the horses are coming down Violin Road
And Dutch is dead on his feet
And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept there
And I'm lost in the window
And I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain
And I sleep in your hat

And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away she said
Such a crumbling beauty
Ah, there's nothing wrong with her a hundred dollars won't fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
Till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who'll listen

And I've seen it all
I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train

(Video by JacobMendel, words and music by Tom Waits)

Ascension Day

He wrote me: I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember, we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. How can one remember thirst?
He didn't like to dwell on poverty, but in everything he wanted to show there were also the 4-Fs of the Japanese model. A world full of bums, of lumpens, of outcasts, of Koreans. Too broke to afford drugs, they'd get drunk on beer, on fermented milk. This morning in Namidabashi, twenty minutes from the glories of the center city, a character took his revenge on society by directing traffic at the crossroads

(Words by Chris Marker. Clip: music By Talk Talk , shot and edited by Pyke)

Υπάρχουμε...Συνυπάρχουμε;

Του ΓΚΑΤΖΜΕΝΤ ΚΑΠΛΑΝΙ

«Το Λονδίνο είναι φιλόξενη πόλη», μου λέει ο Κούρδος ιδιοκτήτης του «Rose Supermarket». Βλέπω την ταμπέλα στην είσοδο του μαγαζιού του: «Αγγλικό- τουρκικό- ελληνικό- αφρικανικό- καραϊβικό μαγαζί τροφίμων». Ο ιδιοκτήτης χαμογελά με την επισήμανσή μου. «Σκέφτομαι να προσθέσω και πολωνικό φαγητό», λέει. «Τώρα μένουν αρκετοί Πολωνοί στη γειτονιά μας». Εκτός από τον δήμο, και πριν από αυτόν, την πολυπολιτισμικότητα εδώ τη ρυθμίζει η αγορά, που τρέφει και τρέφεται από τους μετανάστες. Αναρωτιέμαι εάν όλοι αυτοί οι πολιτισμοί συνυπάρχουν μεταξύ τους ή υπάρχουν απλώς ο καθένας για λογαριασμό του.

Photo by Anna Gostkowska

A Whisper Woke Me Up

The last good day of the year...a whisper woke me up. I looked outside, the solitude and calmness of it all. In a matter of moments it's 1st January 2003, a turning point...a millenium crisis that came too late. I walked outside in the frozen garden listening to the fading sound of my cell phone from up above and nothing else for miles...No more sounds of cracking bottles, nor any hysterical laughs...Everybody's sleeping now, the dawn breaks, it's cold. My cell phone finally gives up...and right before I head back home I see a young boy with Santa's hood on his head pissing the front door of the house right across the street.