Oh, what a magical world!

It is yellow, full of holes and in real world wouldn't survive for more than five minutes... What is it?

Having already spent two days in bed, surrounded by pills, antibiotics, tissues and a variety of hallucinations, I find myself in the pleasant position to announce that I have found a new, magical world. By now I have already watched about a full season episodes of SpongeBob Squarepants and about a dozen episodes of Southpark (yes, I know, these things are well known elsewhere but here in Greece showing cops beating students seems to be more interesting to show on TV).

What is it actually that makes a squarepants-kinda goofy-annoyingly happy sponge seem so lovable? Do audiences identify more easily with a character that looks familiar or with a character that is so different from them? Cause, really, Spongebob is like the child we once were only living in a simulation of the adults' world. And he actually makes it through pretty well in his pineapple house and his square pants and tie... Whereas, we adults, seem to be having trouble in the real world...

If only we could make it through by laughing and making bubbles! Maybe that's why he is so adorable. He is a reminder of how simple things used to be once upon a time. Goofing around with your best friend could make you forget all your problems and -most important- even though you always moved in a world of greedy-humorless-sly grown ups that had no impact on you, in a mysterious way!

So, Spongebob reminds me of how it used to be before everything turned out to be so complicated. And, just maybe, he is an adult's wish that he seems so adorable despite the misery he is in... Spongebob is actually giving someone the opportunity to find himself adorable even though he might be working for a few pennies or be so far away from what he really wants... And that's really something; when everything and everyone around us is trying to convince us that we are of no importance and we can have no impact on what's happening Spongebob is there to comfort us and carry us away in his magical-shiny bubbles...

Southpark is another story... A bunch of kids that in the real world would be what we call "punks" and would make any grown-up feel appalled by today's kids, but here they make us laugh... With what in real world would make us feel ashamed or cry. But this is another story...

I am going to blow my nose once again hoping that bubbles will come out of my ears and my eyes will twist... Oh, really, what a magical world!

1+1=2?

One, two, three... Like a, b, c...

I am numbers. I am my social security number, my ID number, my student ID number, my bank account number, the bar code on everything I like to eat, the number of my sit in the theater, my telephone number, the number of the metro line I use everyday...

I like numbers. In my mind they match and they combine in a magic way. I can easily remember a phone number or anything having to do with them. Music can be expressed in a mathematic way. Even God can be expressed in numbers -One...Or maybe the size of those who believe.

What is the number for sorrow? Or maybe for happiness... For curiosity? For moments of brilliance, or stupidity or maybe for making love?

To the vast majority of people around us we are just a number. A walkie-talkie bar code. We are treated like numbers; there's always someone above us on the list, someone next and someone who will take our place when we leave this place. This world we've created wants us "decoded", analyzed into other numbers. This world we've created wants us to express through numbers, to eliminate every trace of soul, thought, sentiment...

We feel. Let's not end up calculating. Accountancy is so boring...

Pavlov's Dog

I find myself recently unable to socialize easily...

The other day I was trying to have a "civilized" chat with my boss -who I see almost every day and scenes of mass destruction and brutal murder cross my mind instantly- but only to find out that there was nothing I could say since I am not up-to-date...

I also hadn't seen a couple of friends for a long time and I thought catching up was a good idea. Yet, after a while, I ended up drowning my boredom in cheap beer listening to the television broadcast and breaking news live on the table.

It wasn't until yesterday that i realized there's something wrong with me. One of my best friends called and wanted to see me -'cause ya know...Time passes by...And work is responsible for all these lost moments between friends...- TODAY.

I panicked... Cold sweat running down my forehead and my palms frozen. Oh my God!, what on earth happened and I HAVE to know? I managed to remain calm and used an obvious excuse, like "Oh damn, I'd love to but you know how my boss is a bitch etc..."

What's wrong with me? Where is my personal antenna? I cannot reach signal from people I know. Maybe my decoder has broken down. Maybe my link is unavailable. Oh no, I dare not even say it... Maybe my subscription has expired!!!!!!!!

Communication has reached a different level. We use TV language, we incarnate TV-personas in our relationships, we talk about everything on the news. Future "clochards" will be those not watching TV. We create great distances which we are unable to cover without a remote control in our hands and an-always-functioning antenna in our heads. We are trained to become TV soldiers-in time.

Report everything - record everything.
Monkey say - Monkey do.
Destroy target.

Everything In Its' Right Place

Everyone in Greece is concerned with the recent scandal that involves the man in charge of the most important social security institute in Greece who had an illegitimate affair with an employee whose husband killed him -or maybe it wasn't his fault, we're currently investigating the case- on the doorstep of his mother-in-law house at the moment the victim had just finished what it was he was doing with the recently-added-to-the-list-of-femmes-fatals and was ready to return home after a long day at work...

At the same time, at a "peaceful/quiet" village, an unemployed , psychiatric patient, father to two children (5 and 8 years old), husband to a paraplegic woman takes his shotgun at 05:00 a.m., points at his mother in law (who was the one taking care of the paraplegic woman and the children) and at his youngest son (who was sleeping) and kills them. The other son is injured at the head. The father turns the gun at his feet in order to commit suicide and ends up at the local hospital. The mother having witnessed the whole scene, unable to intervene, dies four days later, alone in her bed, due to cardiac arrest. The boy is currently hospitalized for his trauma and the father is going to be transfered these days to the central prison...

However everyone is concerned about whether, in the first case, the head of the institute had used Viagra, whether it was that that sent him to the other side and not the husband's punches, whether the fatal woman was using her boss to gain wealth or a higher post...

We are a nation of liars. We are shocked by an affair which was unveiled, we feel appalled by adultery yet we sneak and watch through the key hole with a sadistic mood. We feel superior; only because we get away with adultery. We are in position to feel petty for the dead, for the betrayed husband since they were just victims of a promiscuous, ambitious woman. Yet we avoid taking the blame for what happened in that village that day. The father is to blame; he was a psychopath with a shotgun. We cannot identify because we are so far away from madness... We fail to understand that it is the society we have built which leads people to the edge of the cliff.

A society full of unemployment, low salaries, exploitation, racism, corruption, decay of the province, economical crisis; a society which has lost its' social bonds. Yet a great part of this society is concerned with where to have the third coffee for the day, where to go for the night, how to leave work early to go shopping or have another coffee and -of course- the everyday-bursting scandals. One way or the other the government is always the one to blame for everything...And yet (!) we are far from madness...

Basic Human Rights

"You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can -and, believe me, will- be used against you.
You have the right to an attorney."

"You can say whatever you want.
Anything you say cannot -and, believe me, will not- be taken into consideration.
You have the right to not appear in court.
Your camera has already spoken for you."

I have the right to remain silent.
I have the right to remain invisible.

Industrial Daisies

The Candy House

My grandma died old... My grandpa not so old... Both exhausted physically by the time they had spent in exile... Those days communists were the enemies of the state and they spent their time on tour to the greek islands, staying in miserable, moist dungeons...

My grandma was so much in love with grandpa all this time, in spite of the situation. She made close friends to whom she wrote letters with lemon juice (poetic, aromatic, mystic letters) after they were released and with whom she played chess, a chess she had made of wood when in exile. My grandma was an excellent cook, and she designed and made clothes like no one in her time and she was such a tender mother, and grandmother later on.

She always talked about the importance of freedom in everything we do -freedom of speech, freedom to feel, freedom in relationships. My grandma had never lost her freedom; she had always the heart of a free bird and the eyes of wolf. Torture was what she got for that but never regretted for a single moment in her life.

I'm sitting now in my desk writing these lines. There's a camera across the street and policemen are guarding the building two blocks away from here. My mobile phone is next to me. My two credit cards are in my wallet. I'm getting phone calls from people I've never heard of but who seem to know me quite well; what my name is, how old I am, where I live... But they're just calling to make my life better, to offer me fast internet connection or more credit cards or free stuff....

Oh, how beautiful is this exile we've constructed! But we're getting candy for it. Sugar affects memory...

Industrial Daisies

E.T. :The Extra-Terrestrial or ....?

I was wandering today round the central square in my town -that is Athens-... There was a protest march, like every Wednesday for the last weeks, since students oppose to privatization of higher education....

Ooooooh.... Why do they bother? We are growing up into a society of deaf people... There's too much noise around us so everyone goes willingly deaf... An old lady passed me by screaming hysterically (wishing that even a deaf could hear her) "They're punks!!!!P U N K S !!!!".

These past few days people talk about UFOs, and making contact... A young man explaining on T.V. how they' re living among us... And I thought of that today; seeing all these young people screaming -wishing to be heard by the government or, at least, by us, ordinary people- and all of us people running to get to our jobs, or shop or just get away from them -because it is common knowledge in my country that the greatest enemy of the state is young people with lethal slogans that could kill anyone in a second!!

And I realized that it is not just common sense that there must be other forms of life in this universe... I MUST believe in extra terrestrials - we NEED to believe that they exist. Otherwise how can we justify such intolerable cruelty amongst men? How can we bear the thought of such inhumanity in human?

And I say: it is aliens that move amongst us and hypnotize us... They 're responsible for this mess... We can't see them because they' re fooling around with us... Otherwise, if they didn't exist that is, everything would work out fine for everyone and we people would live peacefully and in such harmony with the rest of human beings.

Men are deaf by choice - and blind by need.

Industrial Daisies