Reviving Inspiration

Jeff--Saturday

As some of you may know, this past Wednesday I had shoulder surgery and won't be able to type two-handed for a while. So here's a blast from the past. this originally published February 11, 2011 and is only slightly modified from the original to account for a better video experience.

These days, searching the news for anything positive about Greece makes me appreciate the position of social director on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg: it’s all about the crisis, stupid.

But if you look hard enough, you’ll find what assures us who know and love Greece that no matter what happens in that tortured/torturing bit of central Athens known as Parliament, Hellas will survive. 

This week I found my inspiration on the GreekEscapes.com website in a film credited to Gladiator 33111. 

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou

It was an aerial video tour high above some of Greece’s most beautiful and enduring landscapes.  I’ve seen other film before, some with subtitles and a guidebook soundtrack, others set to the music of Vangelis.  You don’t know Vangelis?  Think Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner and of one of the greatest composers of electronic music of all time. 

But this is the best one I’ve found at capturing in fifteen minutes the essence of what is Greece.  Done in high definition video and set to largely traditional music, it briefly touches upon the environs of Athens, then drifts out to sea and on to Mykonos and Delos before soaring on to other islands (mostly Cycladic) and mainland sites, passing over Macedonia, Mount Athos, Meteora, Delphi, Olympia, and so many others. Here it is:

By the time it’s over I promise you will be at peace.  To remain that way, I suggest you stay away from all news for as long as you can stand.

I have one more inspirational site/sight for your consideration.  It’s a photograph I took three days ago from the same window in my New York City office as I watched the World Trade Center Twin Towers crumble on 9/11.

Centered in the photo is the new One World Trade Center on its way to reclaiming a dominant position in Manhattan's skyline.  Ninety floors up, fourteen more to go.  Proof that we in the US can survive catastrophes too.

God Bless America.  God Bless Greece.

--Jeff