Summer in Paradise Lost

Sun, sea, heat and time seems to have lost it's meaning and relevance. Greetings from Greeceland aka my own private paradise lost. As my annual hermit, detox retreat is about to come to an end I thought I would share some of my favorite things that made this holiday paradisiacal. And what better way to start than music. My most beautifulest friend Giuseppe aka Porcarorama has made a Sunshine Summer and Moonlight Nights mixtape that I have been listening to on repeat all summer long. Just press play and trust me when I say that this is the ultimate summer soundtrack.

And of course one should always look the part. Hawaiian shirts should be included in everyone's summer attire, especially the ones made by my beautiful surfer boyz from Paleo Faliro, the seaside area in Athens where I grew up. I am beyond proud of them for launching, in the midst of the financial crisis,  their own brand MOHXA, of ossom clothes worn by the surfers, skaters, hipsters and THE GROWLERS! They say that chaos breeds creation and such start ups by young people in Greece have started proliferating despite the financial crisis or precisely because of it. As a principle I am a big fan of MADE IN GREECE so check them out. Below is my summer's favorite. 

And cause one of my favorite activities whilst being a lazy sunbather is reading here are some of the books I enjoyed and a few of my favorite quotes from this summer's reading list. Enjoy, they all come highly recommended.

The timeless classic which needs no further introductions.

"There is much to be said for contentment and painlessness, for those bearable and submissive days, on which neither pain nor pleasure is audible but pass by whispering and on tip-toe. But the worst of it it that it is just this contentment that I cannot endure. After a short time it fills me with irrepressible hatred and nausea. In desperation I have to escape and throw myself on the road to pleasure, or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain…A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life…For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity."  

Hermann Hesse Steppenwolf

On an entirely different note I also devoured the ultimate summer read,  a cross between a pulp fiction crime novel and the genius of the likes of Mr Philip Roth"The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair" by 30 year old Joel Dicker is a real page turner and the perfect book to accompany you to the beach. At times repetitive and not a literary masterpiece yet nonetheless hilarious and well written and I was thoroughly impressed by the accurate grasp and depiction of American society that a young Swiss man has. I say enjoy this one as a guilty pleasure. 

Tom Robbins  in one of my favorite authors, witty, sexy, hilarious and with a sublime command of the english language, what is there not to love! Needless to say when his "autobiography" or more accurately what he has termed A True Account of an Imaginative Life was published under the title  "Tibetan Peach Pie" I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and I was in no way disappointed. 

"You see, at that juncture in my life I wasn't evolved enough to understand the fluid nature of romantic love (its indifference to human cravings for permanence and certainty); its uncivilized, undomesticated nature (less alike a pretty melody than a foxish barking at the moon), or, more importantly perhaps, that it's a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it's paradisiacal if she or he loves you back, it's unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves lucky, honored, blessed that we possess the capacity to feel tenderness of such magnitude and be grateful even when that love is not returned. Love is the only game in which we win even when we lose." 

Almond picking has become one of my favorite summertime activities...

Because I am basically incapable of ever writing anything about summer without including something from GRACELAND…..Diamonds on the soles of her shoes….

My favorite beach 

Man Ray revisited or the kind of photos my mum takes when we are on holiday together 

Pastel decadence in Greeceland

The dog days are over

Or in this case they have just began. End-of-summertime-saddness has taken hold yet I thought I would share some of the things that caught my eye, occupied my mind and sweetened the return to city life.

Belgium is renowned (and rightly so) for contemporary dance and this week I went to see a dance performance choreographed by our very own Jan Martens called "The Dog Days Are Over" which had a very strong effect on me and made me feel rather uncomfortable to be honest. For about an hour you witness a group of dancers, of all shapes and sizes, wearing kitsch revealing gym clothes reaching their physical limits through the repetitive act of jumping. An exhausting gym routine for your viewing pleasure with barely any music or interaction amongst the dancers, who at times you feel are looking you in the eye with agony. A study on the nature of entertainment and its voyeuristic element and a critique on society and the pains we go through, running like hamsters on treadmills in order to attract the looks of others. Not the most graceful or enjoyable piece but very strong and thought provoking. It's on tour at the moment so I definitely recommend catching it if it's on at a city near you. 

PS: The lighting is perfection. 

The starting point for the work is a quote by American photographer Philippe Halsman who said back in 1958: 

“When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears.”

"Contemporary Dance is Striptease for the Upper Class"

Jan Martens 

THE DOG DAYS ARE OVER - teaser trailer from Jan Martens on Vimeo.


Happiness hit her like a train on the track....

On another note I can't stop thinking about the hunting photos of Francesca Woodman. A photographer who took black and white, often blurry long exposure photos in the late 70s and though her carreer was short (she committed suicide at the age of 22) the eerie beauty of her photos is much celebrated today.
Enjoy a selection of my favorites.

Will suffer for fashion or how I fell in love with TOILETPAPER

A SURREAL TAKE ON THE NEW SEASON  or the coolest fashion shoot I have seen in a long long time and a soundtrack to go with it!

For New York's Spring Fashion issue, the masterminds behind TOILET PAPER MAGAZINE, conceptualist sculptor Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari teamed up to shoot standout men's and women's runway collections in a most delightfully absurdist manner.

  

 

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES 

KAPUTT, an installation by Maurizio Cattelan

Elena-Ghiaurov photo by PierPaolo-Ferrari

TOILET PAPER 
Cause I am totally in love with it! 

Scream for ice-cream 

Photo taken by yours truly in Greecelnd at New Hotel

And guess what the Toilet Paper team is also behind the rad new KENZO campaign

Summertime in Greeceland

Enjoy some photos of what summer looks like in paradise (Greeceland) with some tunes and quotes to go along. Hope you are all busy being lazy sunbathers on an island not so far away..

The only sign worth following all summer long.

Quintessential Greek Summer: FIGS

SEAHORSE

Look what I found in the middle of nowhere on a Greek island: A Rubik's cube transformer!

On the road

Greek Summer 

Boat Rides and Life Jackets 

A home with a view. Meet me between the music and the castle 

 Glitter in the Gutter in the sand dunes.

Sand Dune Love

Dry salt lake 

Greek Delight 

Absolute Summertime Essentials

 

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air 

 Sunset snack 

Dinner 

Scary sponge thingy 

Anchors Away

 Fisherman Blues

Summertime Essentials #2

Essentials #3

And given the beating my beautiful country has been receiving recently I must admit it was rather refreshing to read some praise from the master himself Mr Henry Miller in "The Colossus of Maroussi" (a definite must read for all you wandering romantic souls.) Miller spent 5 months in Greeceland just before the onset of the the second World War in the company of our hommes des letters such as Seferis, Katsimbalis and Ghikas. He speaks of the time just before we started getting it all wrong by buying into the American Dream. Enjoy...

"That conversation taught me immediately that the Greeks are an enthusiastic, curious-minded, passionate people. Passion-it was something I had long missed in France. Not only passion, but contradictoriness, confusion, chaos-all these sterling human qualities I rediscovered and cherished again in the person of my new-found friend. And generosity. I had almost thought it had perished from the earth."

Funny that Miller takes note of the glass of water that is automatically served the moment you sit down at any restaurant or bar throughout Greece. A lover from the North that visited my country several times was also rather taken by the way water is our constant companion throughout the day.

"The glass of water...everywhere I saw the glass of water. It became obsessional. I began to think of water as a new thing, a new vital element of life. Earth, air, fire, water. Right now water had become the cardinal element. Seeing lovers sitting there in the dark drinking water, sitting there in peace and quiet and talking in low tones, gave me a wonderful feeling about the Greek character. The dust, the heat, the poverty, the bareness, the containedness  of the people, and the water everywhere in little tumblers standing between the quiet, peaceful couples, gave me the feeling that there was something holy about the place, something nourishing and sustaining."

 

"There are so many ways of walking about and the best, in my opinion, is the Greek way, because it is aimless, anarchic, thoroughly and discordantly human."

"I liked the way they begged too. They weren't shamefaced about it. They would hold you up openly and ask for money or cigarettes as if they were entitled to it. It's a good sign when people beg that way: it means that they know how to give. The French, for example, know neither how to give nor how to ask for favors-either way they feel uneasy. They make a virtue of not molesting you. It's the wall again. A Greek has no walls around him: he gives and takes without stint."

"...the city of Athens. It is still in the throes of birth: it is awkward, confused, clumsy, unsure of itself; it has all the diseases of childhood and some of the melancholy and desolation of adolescence. But is has chosen a magnificent site in which to rear itself; in the sunlight it gleams like a jewel; at night it sparkles with a million twinkling lights which seem to be switching on and off with lightning-like speed. It is a city of startling atmospheric effects: it has not dug itself into the earth-it floats in a constantly changing light, beats with a chromatic rhythm." 

And to close a part from the introduction by none other than Mr Will Self:

"...if you believe in the brand of sympathetic literary magic that Henry Miller purveys, perhaps you will take his existential leap, go there yourself- and feel it anew. That's what he would have wanted. True avant-garde still had torsion. Delphi. The rest is noise."      

And since this post is all about summer enjoy an alternative version of  The summer hit that I am sure you have all danced to until the morning light it may lack some of the funky rhythm of Daft Punk and Pharrell but it is a personal favorite

And my favorite tune from the latest funktastic Daft Punk album

And one last one cause summer is tropical

One last one cause I want to see you HIGH