Pregled posta

Marketing

This was taken on Panepistimiou Avenue, one of the main streets in the center of Athens. It was right in front of the National Library, and just a couple blocks from the hotel where I stayed.

I had just missed one of the open-air buses that takes tourists like me around the city, and I had half an hour until the next one arrived. So I sat on one of the steps and photographed people as they walked by me, just to get a sense of what "ordinary" Athens people look like ...

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When we hear the phrase “first impression,” we tend to think of a person. Was the politician I recently voted for as inspiring when I heard his first speech as he was years later? (More so, sadly.) Was the girl that I married as beautiful at 13 as she was years later, in her twenties and thirties? (Yes, and yes.) Did Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind send more of a shiver down my spine in 1963 than it did when I heard it drifting from a car radio 45 years later? (No. It stops me dead in my tracks every time I hear it.)

It’s not just people that make first impressions on me. Cities do, too, perhaps because I encountered so many of them while my family moved every year throughout my childhood. Or perhaps it’s because, after seeing so many cities that I thought were different in the United States, I was so completely unprepared for the wild variety of sights and sounds and smells that I encountered as a grown man, when I traveled to Europe and South America, to Africa and Asia and Australia. And even today, there are cities that I’m visiting for the first time, and which continue to take me by surprise.

Athens is one of those cities. I don’t know what I was expecting… Something old, of course, something downright ancient, filled with smashed statues and marble columns like Rome, engraved with unreadable inscriptions in a language I never learned — but probably not as ancient as Cairo. Something hot and noisy and polluted and smelly, perhaps like Calcutta or the slums of Mumbai. Something gridlocked with noisy, honking traffic congestion, perhaps like Moscow.

What I didn’t expect was the wide, nearly-empty highways leading from the airport into the city. I didn’t expect the cleanliness of the tree-lined streets that ran in every direction. I did expect the white-washed buildings and houses that climbed the hills that surround the city — but the local people told me that buildings in Athens were positively gray compared to what I would have seen if I had stayed longer and ventured out to the Greek islands.

I also didn’t expect the graffiti that covered nearly every wall, on every building, up and down every street. They were mostly slogans and phrases in Greek (and therefore completely unintelligible to me), but with occasional crude references in English to IMF bankers, undercover policemen, a politician or two, and the CIA. There were a couple slogans from the Russian revolution of 1917, from the Castro uprising in Cuba, and even from the American revolution (“united we stand, divided we fall.”)

Naturally, I thought all of this had come about in just the past few months, as Greece has wrestled with its overwhelming financial crisis. But I was told by local citizens that much of the graffiti has been around for quite a bit longer than that – just as it has been in cities like New York and London. Some of it was wild and colorful, with cartoon figures and crazy faces … though I don’t think it quite rises to the level of “street art” that one sees in parts of SoHo, Tribeca, and the East Village in New York. What impressed me most about the graffiti in Athens was its vibrant energy; I felt like the artists were ready to punch a hole through the walls with their spray-cans.

These are merely my own first impressions; they won’t be the same as yours. Beyond that, there are a lot of facts, figures, and details if one wants to fully describe a city like Athens. Its recorded history spans some 3,400 years, and it includes the exploits of kings and generals, gods and philosophers, athletes and artists. There are statues and columns and ruins everywhere; and towering above it all is the breath-taking Acropolis. It’s far too rich and complex for me to describe here in any reasonable way; if you want to know more, find some books or scan the excellent Wikipedia summary.

It’s also hard to figure out what one should photograph on a first visit to a city like Athens. It’s impossible not to photograph the Acropolis, especially since it’s lit at night and visible from almost every corner of the city. I was interested in the possibility of photographing the complex in the special light before dawn or after sunset, but it’s closed to visitors except during “civilized” daytime hours. It’s also undergoing extensive renovations and repair, so much of it is covered in scaffolding, derricks, and cranes. In the end, I took a few panorama shots and telephoto shots, and explored the details by visiting the

Mandy woke up with the feeling that her head was full of broken glass. She rolled over… and instantly regretted it as sharp shards jarred and scratched and grated and ground against each another inside her brain.

She’d had a thermos like that once. She’d slipped on ice on the way to school and later, when she poured her milk, it came out thick and shiny and tinkly. At first she thought it was frozen. Then she realized the bright silver spears in the white were not ice, but shattered glass. She recapped the thermos and shook it slowly… exploring the shapes and textures of the sound. Her head felt that way now. If only she could uncap it and pour it out.

Eyes still closed, she felt across the bed for Steve. He was curled up facing the wall with his back to her. His skin was cool. Her own was hot – even her hands, which were almost always cold. Her mouth was dry, cottony. Her stomach felt precarious. And, as much as she wanted to just lie still and wish it away and sleep it off, she could not ignore the growing pressure on her bladder.

She sat up on the side of the bed, wincing… holding her head as the broken-glass feeling shifted and sent splinters of pain through her jaw, her eyes, her teeth. She kicked at a lumpy pile of clothing on the floor… found Steve’s plaid flannel shirt from the night before… and slowly knelt to pick it up, moving her head as little as possible.

She walked to the bathroom with her eyes half closed, trying to avoid the light… shirt unbuttoned… flapping loose around her nakedness. She sat on the toilet and, for a blissful moment, the relief of finally emptying her bladder overrode the horror of her hangover.

She had already flushed and was on her way back to bed when she noticed the girl in the tub. All she saw at first were legs – calves, to be exact. And feet. Two feet splayed out at odd angles, hanging over the edge of the tub, arched within a millimetre of impossibility in leopard-print pumps with five-inch heels. The calves were thin. Too thin. Child like. Bird like. The bones of the ankles like spurs on a rooster.

“Ahhh, shit,” thought Mandy, holding her forehead as though the pain could be contained. “One more piece of party trash to clean up later.” She went back to bed, flannel shirt and all. Avoided looking down the hall to the living room and kitchen, which were littered with bottles and ashtrays and glasses and crusty stains and damp things stuck to the floor.

She curled up against Steve’s back and lay still, waiting for the jangling in her head to settle. He groaned a little, not quite awake. She reached around and put one hand on his stomach, and moved it… flat, palm down… in slow light gentle circles. Steve sighed and nestled more closely against her. By the time they woke up it was afternoon and already getting dark again.

“Ugh,” said Mandy. “I’m never drinking again.” Steve was quietly stroking her hair and, right then, it felt like the only thing keeping her from vomiting.

He laughed. “You’re such a featherweight. I feel fine. And I had way more than you did.”

“Good,” she said. “Lucky you. Then you can do the cleaning up, ‘cause I am fucking sick, and we need to get this place in shape for tomorrow.”

Tomorrow Mandy’s folks were coming. It would be their first visit since Steve and Mandy moved in together, six months ago.

The parents had reservations about “the arrangement” (as Mandy’s mother called it). Serious reservations. Very, very serious. They’d expected more from their daughter.

“Couldn’t you at least finish school?” her mother asked. “What am I supposed to tell people? That my daughter quit to work at a donut shop and shack up with a millworker? A millworker, for pity’s sake. Is that the best you can do? Is that all you want from life? A man who, like a gradeschooler, still leaves the house with a lunchkit every day and comes home at night with his hands black and calloused and his clothes full of sawdust and the smell of slaughtered trees?” She threw up her hands. “What kind of life is that?”

Mandy knew the questions were rhetorical but could not resist saying, “It’s a good life. It’s my life. My life, Mom. Not yours. I love you, but I have to make my own decisions. And this is what makes me happy.”

That had been six months ago. Now, Mandy hoped, her parents might finally be ready to accept Steve. Much would depend on their upcoming visit, and Mandy was determined to impress them.

“I’ll get up and make coffee,” Steve said. “I’ll bring you a cup when it’s ready.” He kissed her forehead and pulled on his socks and jeans and t-shirt from the pile beside the bed. She curled into the warm spot he’d left, and hugged his pillow, and breathed in the scent of him… eyes closed, smiling.

She could hear him moving around in the kitchen, running water, turning on the radio. Floorboards creaked as he walked down the hall, and then she heard him gasp.

“Honey?” he called from the bathroom