Rebetiko*. Resistance. Tears for a packet of cigarettes (which didn't offer the last)

Hard-headed and obstinate, a real mule, passion and faith. “Daddy you will take me to see Vembo”. From then on no release – only song. An uncompromising life. Marriage, beatings, vitriol in the face, prison. Return to the ‘clean’ urban life. Beatings again, the vitriol has run out, a place on a coach, a chance breakfast where the calendar show the date 28^th October 1940. Capital city. The Occupation. The search for a respectable family. Seven years later the search ends at a tavern table, “O Tzimis o Hondros” in Acharnon. No going back.

During those seven years sleep was taken in coaches, in parks, wherever it could be found. Working at whatever there was just to survive. Washing dishes. Organization National Freedom Front. A life of rebellion, like a biological imperative. One war ends, the civil war begins. Bowed over a plate of food in a tavern in Athens, a guitar hanging on the wall, the passion, misery and longing bigger than the hunger. “Ti exis ki olo klais?”; “Antilaloun i filakes t’anapli k’ o Gendi Koules”!

Someone is watching with great interest.

The next day he is there again with a group of friends.

“O Tzimis o Hondros” arrives, along with Tsitsani. The civil war still rages; prison, beatings from fascist sects. The streets are now strewn, but not with rose petals.

Song

Career

Passion

Coarse cigarettes

No compromise

Rembetiko

Big partnerships for her unique voice and unconquerable spirit; apart from Tsitsani there was Papaioannou, Mitsakis, Kaldaras. And Moutsis, Savvopoulos, Andriopoulos, Lagios. Greece changes faster than it can be built; boîtes in Plaka, concerts and the new fruit of cultural concerts. She is there.

In 1993 the battle that nobody wins, begins. Cancer of the lungs.

Towards the end she had no voice at all.

In August 1997 she turns her back on us.

Comments which accompany the video from the user ArikkadoGR ten months ago

She died alone in a hospital in Athens. At the end she couldn’t speak at all. Someone approached her, realising who she was and she signed to him: “Do you smoke?”

*Rebetiko is the urban Greek music, the poor's musik. The womb of rebetika was the jail and the hash den. It was there that the early rebetes created their songs. They sang in quiet, hoarse voices, unforced, one after the other, each singer adding a verse which often bore no relation to the previous verse, and a song often went on for hours.

He showed her his cigarette, and she burst into tears.

Whiffs

# Night in a wet city, behind the windows of small bars, two or three drinks on the counter, some cigarettes and the atmosphere lit up by red cheeks and rolled up sleeves, loud voices close to my ears. When I come out I will wrap my coat around my trying to overcome the damp of the night and the cigarette smoke on my clothes, and on my breath of course  - will be the proof that it was a good night. It’s worth is relevant, with no Added Value.

# The cigarette... the cigarette offered by someone you have never scrounged off, is like a pat on the shoulder. Usually standing up, at most, both leaning against an old wall. Five words in five minutes, shared breath, common space... brother! Thanks for the ciggy, don’t get lost,  see you... See you. The cigarette from the next packet (or one of the next).

# Visiting at the prison. With a packet of cigarettes in your hand. An expensive gift and a necessary one. The smell of freedom, the measure of time, of thought, of flattery. The exchange of values. “I will bring you cigarettes in prison” you said. You said it out of habit, but if you’d only known what you said! And more: if you knew what you did every time you kept your promise. You curse me as well as blessing me...

# Kavvadia’s* cigarettes were always damp and would never light. From the confessions of witnesses, but mostly from those stories of betrayal. When the lieutenant kept him company on the Watch, with coffee where you couldn’t see what was in the cup, and stories which couldn’t hide the sins. And the apprentice overheard, with the sickness to frighten him – how would he manage, how would he die or would his nose fall off before they made harbour.


*Nikos Kavvadias is the poet of the sea. As a radio operator in the merchant navy,  Kavvadias visited the harbours of the world and his poetry contains all he saw, learned and experienced. The sea is always present either as a lover or as his assassin. He died in 1975 in a hospital bed – his worst fear having been realised.

Unrepentant smokers

Veiled in smoke, yellowed fingers, the scene shrouded in mist. All types of artificial  respirators can be found ready-made in packs, in tobacco pouches, and in pipes!

The smoke which goes inside us leaves the marks of nicotine and the smell of burning. That which quells the fire, brings it close, very close to the face, and satisfies the mouth. In an odd and unaccountable way it also satisfies the taste buds and the sense of smell - even though it will eventually numb them.

Smoking is perhaps the first sin in the journey towards adulthood. The first caress which contains the promise of death; the pleasure of forbidden fruit; or political unorthodoxy in a world which develops people into machines - without passion, thoughts, desires, deviant behaviours or peculiarities. It is one bright signal to the world, a lighthouse which can warn of danger or show a harbour...

The unrepentant smoker knows that the ban on smoking doesn’t target cigarettes and health: the goal is the passion and obsession. The goal is the canker in a “bright and healthy” system, which may kill you, but doesn’t allow you to die.

“I know they never aim at the legs. The mind is the goal. Watch out, eh?” Katerina Gogou*, film** Parangelia *** 1980

*Katerina Gogou was born in Athens on 1 June 1940. She started her career as an actor from a young age and played secondary roles in a host of films during the golden age of Greek cinema. Later she turned to poetry. Her poetry is characterized by her unconventional, coherent character, her anarchic ideas and the black colour which they seem to emit. She took part in the film “The Parangelia” (1980). She committed suicide with a mixture of sleeping pills and alcohol on 3 October 1993. She left a daughter, Mirto.

The film “Parangelia” [“Request”] is based on the true story of Nikos Koemtzi. In February 1973 the recently-released from jail (convicted for robbery), Nikos Koemtzi, along with his brother Demosthenes were enjoying themselves at the nightclub “Neraida”. Demosthenes requested the Vamvakaris’ song, “Vergoules” to be played specifically for him, as is the custom. Suddenly another customer broke in onto Demosthenes solo dance and three plain-clothes policemen got involved in the brawl which followed – Koemtzi thought they had killed his brother - and knifed all three of them. He was duly sentenced to death. In 1977 his death sentence was changed to life in prison. He was released in 1996 after 23 years in jail where he was treated very badly, partly due to his political views; his criminal record; and the fact that the dead were all policemen. Today he hawks his autobiography round the streets of Athens.

There was a strong Greek tradition of respect for the parangelia. When a man requested a special song to dance to, the rest of the customers would automatically leave the dance floor as long the dance lasted. The abuse of the parangelia  - when someone else would dance at the same time as your parangelia - was too  great  an insult to ignore and would usually end up in a massive fight, a kind of very personal vendetta, usually involving knives. Today, in essence, this has disappeared from places of entertainment.

A dozen artworks please!

After we have sorted out why, on this blog, art is served up by the dozen (see: “Interpretations, with no excuses”) the time has come to welcome you (and ourselves) to the teeming cyberspace.  And the time has come to present a “chart” of points of view, which will direct us on our way. The beginning is all about people

“Hey, that’s news!” you might say

You can tell me, nobody will ‘get’ the irony and so it will lead on to: As the beginning is about people and people are subjects; so the choice of the dozen artworks which follow will have subjective criteria.

The same with the themes and the material which will be posted on the blog

Over the past 30 years or so there has been a big effort to abolish subjectivity. Firstly in the work arena and then in all other areas, dialogue occurs not with those who want or have something to say, but with the ‘specialists’, with those who have been ‘authorised‘  to speak. And all those who are ‘authorised’ are specialists, that is to say they are knowledgeable about one very specific way of seeing things.

To promote and direct the vision in the name of objectivity.

Our good lady objectivity is a very helpful lady and has room for all of us.

Objectivity is self-explanatory.

It is the point which stops every discussion, and the call is not negotiable

It is the total argument, the end of thought.

It is the ritual of the religion called science

And if objective criticism and objective conclusions are necessary to fly aeroplanes and build houses, they are not necessary for gratification.

 Thus, this blog won’t be concerned with objectivity, or with dozens of artworks, or with the dozens of postings which will follow.

We prefer the coexistence of both subjective and the objective criticisms.

Art is the appetite and adozenofart, the apple pie!