Sex Makes Headlines in the Greek News

Jeff–Saturday

 

In browsing through Friday morning’s news stories on what’s happening in Greece, I found the usual number of now traditional daily reports on Covid’s continuing grip on the country, and Turkey’s relentless efforts to undermine Greece. In many ways, America faces the same threats, although a more accurate description of those relentlessly seeking to undermine the United States should be spelled “turkeys.”

 

But then I fell upon an AP story in Ekathimerini (Athens' paper of record) bearing the headline, “Ministry orders investigation over movie with sex scene at Acropolis.”  

 

My first thought was, perhaps it’s an historical piece; a modernized telling of one the many Greek gods’ proclivities for random coupling with any number of willing and unwilling targets of their lust.

 

Or perhaps a fantasized version of statues trapped for millennia naked in stone­–so close but yet so far from one another–unexpectedly coming to life and doing what comes naturally.

 

Then again, perhaps it’s meant to present a series of vignettes depicting scenes of (fictionalized?) Greek life found on all manner of jewelry, pottery, trinkets, postcards, urns, towels, t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, and other tourist paraphernalia hawked broadly in a plethora of tourist shops across Greece.

 

But then I read the story.

 

Whether or not it’s an ‘art film’ I leave for you to judge, as well as whether it offends your “community standards,” though I’m guessing it’s not much different from what’s already out there on cable TV and the Internet.  I do agree, though, that more discretion should have been used in its production and appropriate permission obtained from the Culture Ministry­.  

 

TV Shows Containing the Most Sex Scenes

Still, it was a thought-provoking diversion from pandemic statistics and Turkish saber-rattling to be reading about sex at the Acropolis.  Perhaps next week they’ll run a story about sex on the beach of a Greek island?  Nah, who’d believe such a thing.

 

Here’s the Ekathimerini article as it appears in its Culture section:

  

The Culture Ministry launched an investigation Friday following the online release of a short film showing two men having sex at the ancient Acropolis in Athens.

The 36-minute movie, titled “Departhenon,” was released on December 21 but came to the attention of authorities this week.

The Culture Ministry said it did not give permission for the Acropolis film shoot.

“The archeological site of the Acropolis is not suitable for any kind of activism or other activity which would cause offense and displays disrespect for the monument,” the ministry said in a statement.

The movie contains several explicit scenes involving male and female actors whose faces are not shown. The scene at the Acropolis shows two men having sex while standing in a circle formed by other actors. Visitors to the ancient site can be seen walking close by.

The makers of the film, who remained anonymous, described it as “artwork that is also a political action.”

Spyros Bibilas, the president of the Greek Actors’ Association, described the movie as shameful.

“You can’t do everything in the name of activism. In fact, I don’t consider this to be activism,” he told TV network Antenna. “As a Greek, I feel ashamed.” [AP]

–Jeff

"Arch": Desmond Tutu 1931 - 2021

 Michael - Thursday

At the end of last year we lost the man who was South Africa's moral compass - Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He was one of a very few people who fought consistently for what was right, what he believed in. Victory made no difference. There was always another struggle ahead.

I wanted to write about him, but I didn't know where to start. His life can't be summarized in a few hundred words because his contribution stretched up to the day of his death. And even beyond. When I mentioned this dilemma to Stan, he suggested that I let "Arch" (as he was affectionately known) speak for himself. So here are a few of the things he said. And what he said he never recanted because each statement was always directed by that moral compass and his deep beliefs. But they were leavened by his gentle humour. Judge for yourself.

On humanity:

“A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.”

"A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are."

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

On the struggle against apartheid:

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

“There is nothing more difficult than waking someone who is only pretending to be asleep.”

"I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of human rights."

“We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.”

Tutu chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

On forgiveness:

“Forgiving is not forgetting; it's actually remembering--remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you don't want to repeat what happened.”

“We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.”

 "Enemies are always friends waiting to be made."

 “We learn from history that we don't learn from history!”

On colonialism:

“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”

One for writers:

“Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.”

On events since democracy:

"What has happened to us? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights, into license, into being irresponsible. Perhaps we did not realize just how apartheid has damaged us, so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong."

"It's worse than the apartheid government. Because at least you were expecting it with the apartheid government. Now with our government we were expecting it to be sensitive to the sentiments of our constitution."

On personal regrets:

"The struggle tended to make one abrasive and more than a touch self-righteous. I hope that people will forgive me any hurts I may have caused them."

Jacket reveal: LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ

Presenting the jacket design for the next Emma Djan Investigation, LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ, to be released in approximately a year. Originally, it was slated for June 2022 pub date, but another year of Covid severely delayed my trip to West Africa for research. The bad timing simply made it unworkable to have the novel ready for the hoped-for date. The publishing schedule works rather like an airport. Every plane has a time slot to push back from the terminal. If the airline misses the slot due to a delay, it must be scheduled for the next available time, and it can’t bump other planes from their spot. All Soho Press 2022 releases are already scheduled, so unfortunately LSIL had to be pushed back to February 2023. I know it’s painful, but I hope to make it worth the wait.

Research for LSIL took place over two months in West Africa, involving Nigeria, Niger, Libya, and Ghana. The novel takes place in these four different countries, making the plot and sub-plots somewhat complex. For the first time, Emma will travel outside of Ghana to Nigeria, a brand new experience for her (including flying, of which she’s terrified). She will visit Benin City, an ancient city with history that goes back centuries. Just one example is the Holy Aruosa Church, founded 1506.

Holy Aruosa Church (Image: Kwei Quartey)

Benin City’s roundabout, called Ring Road or King’s Square, is one of the largest in Africa, and maybe one of the craziest I’ve experienced. Its perimeter is dotted with monuments and statues. In essence, Benin City constantly reminds you of its ancient legacy.

Ring Road, or King’s Square (Image: Shutterstock)

But like many cities that are impressive on the service (e.g. Florence, Italy), Benin City has a hidden, dark side. It's arguably Nigeria's ground zero for human and sex trafficking.

NAPTIP sign in Benin City (Image: Kwei Quartey)

In LSIL, Ngozi, the daughter of the Nigerian ambassador Ojukwu, elopes with her ex-convict boyfriend, Femi. After someone spots her in a large suburb of Accra called Lapaz, Ojukwu appeals to Emma and her colleagues at the Sowah PI Agency to find her. Femi’s subsequent and surprising murder raises a crucial question: what’s the connection, if any, between Ngozi’s disappearance and Femi’s death?

As Emma investigates, she comes face to face with the brutality of sex work and sex trafficking, both locally and internationally. This is a tough case. It’s fair to say that this new adventure has been a challenge for both Emma and me!

Meanwhile, Mom has come to stay with Emma for a while (uh-oh), and Emma takes a new step in her relationship with Courage, her boyfriend.

Here’s hoping for a better 2022 that will have us nicely set for the release of LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ early in 2023.

Back to School (In Singapore)

Ovidia--every other Tuesday.

The 2022 school year in Singapore starts today, Tuesday January 4. 

It’s an even bigger shift after two years of Covid induced HBL (Home Based Learning) though some schools started bringing students back last October. 

(Yes, the kids are prepared. Vaccinations of children aged 5 to 11 started last December—this is Singapore after all!) 

I’d have thought children would be happy to stay home with year end exams cancelled, but as one child told the newspapers, ‘I feel like my hard work is wasted’.

And the main reason schools are reopening is ‘for social-emotional well-being of students’. 

HBL was hard on their parents too. Like one of our security guards who’s a single father requested gruelling months of night shifts only so he could teach his seven year old son at home during the day, because the child’s caregiver is his grandmother who can’t read English well enough to help him with his schoolwork. 

Even I can see staying home in isolation might get tough, though I was never a great fan of going to school (though this was in no way the school’s fault). 

I was lucky enough to have a plethora of phlegm producing allergies, easily dislocated joints, a heart valve problem and epilepsy.

I say ‘lucky’ because all this meant once I answered a question about the lesson of the day (not a problem because I read all my textbooks once I got them) I was usually allowed to spend much of my time reading in my corner of the classroom or lying down in the sick bay, and even then, reading was what I liked best to do. 

Looking back I see I was probably a very difficult student and I bless those long-suffering teachers!

(Me in my corner of the class. I'm so glad to be done with school forever--it's almost worth growing old for!!)

Even so I remember being excited about starting the school year. 

A new school year meant new books and new stationery and new boxes of chalk (yes I’m that old) in the classroom. 

But most of all, all the promise of the semester to come. I loved making lists of what I hoped to do. 

Mini bucket lists, in fact. And I still do. 

My favourite part of the year is that liminal space between Christmas and New Year that I try to keep free of all work so I can think about the year just passing away and the year just coming up. 

But then I read Annamaria Alfieri’s post here yesterday--and I can see why fucket lists make more sense, especially at the age I’m at now! 

But it’s hard to give up my precious mini buckets so maybe I’ve come up with five of each for my first quarter of 2022… 

January-February-March Bucket List: I will— 

1. Edit proofs of Book A 

2. Write a first draft of Book B

3. Play around with crazy ideas for Book C—the crazier the better at this stage 

4. Write 6 Murder Is Everywhere posts :) 

5. Rewatch all the episodes of Golden Girls 

(my January mini-bucket. The flowers and fruit are from the Golden Dew-Drop)

January-February-March Fucket List: I won’t— 

1. Finish eating anything I don’t like. 

 2. Finish reading anything I don’t like. 

3. Say yes to things I don’t want to do / attend 

4. Say no to things I feel I don’t deserve 

5. Save my dried burdock strips for ‘someday’ when I feel I deserve them. 

The world isn't going to end if I drink up my whole cache of burdock tea in the next three months. 

And if it does, it was likely going to end anyway and I’ll be glad I drank my tea before it happened! 

By the way, today is also the 11th of the 12 days of Christmas. 

The English version of the song marks today with ‘eleven pipers piping’, but the French version ‘Onze plats d'argent’ or eleven silver dishes is much more appealing.

We’re celebrating with popiah—very thin wrappers around a largely vegetable filling. They used to be popular in the Spring when there was an abundance of young vegetables after Winter, hence 'spring rolls'.

We've got eleven dishes of various ingredients spread around the table. My late mum used to make this on special occasions (it’s a lot of work) but being practical/lazy I have a favourite supplier. 

With the salted mustard greens soup that makes eleven...

The main, hot filling is usually made of strips of bamboo shoots cooked with dried shrimp and pork bones but you can get a vegetarian version too. 

The fun is in assembling it yourself.

Prepare by spreading a thin layer of sweet black sauce and garlic and chilli paste on the skin. The lettuce leaf holds the hot mixture—squeeze out as much liquid as possible first... then top it up with beansprouts, egg, shrimp, coriander, lap cheong (chinese sausages) and whatever else is available.

This you fold into a neat roll or packet.

and some people slice it into neat discs to be eaten daintily with chopsticks, but if you're like me you just eat it as is!

And it's delicious!

But that's not the only point here. When I was young I remember being told that the way you wrap your first popiah of the year shows what your coming year will bring you. 

Are you going to try to pile on and pack in so much stuff that the thin delicate skin of your popiah/ your life tears and falls apart? 

Or are you going to play it so safe and cautious that you end up with little more than a dry and safe but bland and tasteless wrapper around your days?

(Note: If your popiah bursts, you can always lick your fingers and plate!)

The Fucket List

Annamaria on Monday

I have never been one for New Years' resolutions.  I do, however,  have a penchant for giving  advice.  Given the time constraints upon me this week, I haven't got anything new of substance to say. So here I go again, with some counsel that may be timely while you are thinking about your new-year resolutions. Considering the challenges we have faced as a species over the past couple of years, my sense of urgency about the following thoughts from a past post are stronger than ever. CARPE DIEM! 

By inventing the phrase "The Fucket List," I am hoping to counteract a parallel trend—The Bucket List.  It started in 2007 with a movie of that name.  Directed by Rob Reiner, it stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as a pair of terminally ill patients who decide to ditch the doctors and go off on a world-wide odyssey in pursuit of all the things they want to do before kicking the bucket.  The film was predictable, but amusing thanks to the irresistible charm of its costars.

The notion that one should make and keep a bucket list struck a nerve with the larger public and gave rise to a plethora of bucket-list-specific stationery items and advice books.  Ordinary people started talking bucket lists around the dinner table.

Most of the books seem designed to make the reader feel inadequate.  For instance, I have visited thirty-seven countries and pretty much all the places I most wanted to see.  But then, in an aisle of the Strand Bookstore, I opened that list of 1000 places I am supposed to see before I die.  What a piker I am!  How could I have gotten this old and not seen the Taj Mahal, Anarctica, the Hermitage, Sydney, or sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar?  What’s wrong with me?

When my dear husband and intrepid traveling companion was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, we found that his cousin who is nine years younger was in the same boat.    That cousin’s wife and sister started making big plans for him.  They asked if I was thinking of doing the same.  “Are you going to do David’s bucket list?”

“No,” I said, already a bit sick of the whole concept.

“But what about all the places that David has always wanted to go?”

What about them?  Actually, we did our list as we went along.

You see, I had learned young not to put off my life satisfactions.  When I was barely out of college, I went to work in the HR Department of a Wall Street bank.  On my first day on the job, in the elevator I met a man named Earl.  When he got on the car, I was already there and had pressed five.  “You are going to my floor,” he said.  “No,” I replied.  “You are going to mine.”  Cheeky then.  Cheeky now.

Earl liked plucky women.  We struck up a friendship.  He was at the other career end from me.  At Friday lunches in the bank cafeteria, he would count down for me how many days to his retirement.  178…94…59….31…..10.  All the while regaling me with his plans for how he and his wife were going off to see the world.  His retirement lunch was planned for the following Thursday.  But he died that Sunday.  I promised myself then, that I would not put off anything I really wanted to do.

So when David took sick with his dreadful disease at only 67, I was able to console myself that we had walked all over this globe together.  No regrets about that.  The memories are splendid.

Now when people start a sentence with “Someday I want to….”  I say: “DO IT NOW.” 

You should, you know.  You never know what is coming.  DO IT NOW.

The very concept of a bucket list annoys me.  I say what we all need is Fucket List:  a list of the things we will not do.  Mine consists largely of things that I used to do that I am giving up.

Annamaria’s Fucket List (a work in progress)

 

I will not:

• Fret over whether other people might disapprove of my life decisions.
• Be polite to people who are being rude to me.
• Worry that I look fat.
• Keep reading books that bore me.
• Eat at bad restaurants because other people like them.
• Apologize for having a messy desk or a dirty car.
• Feel stupid because I am afraid to drive over the George Washington Bridge.
• Wait more than a half-hour for my doctor’s appointment, unless my life is on the line.
• Pass up an opportunity to eat good chocolate.
• Concentrate only on what I should do, and not on what I want to do.
• Accept gloom when joy is readily available.

Okay, mystery writers and fans.  What about you?  Will you join me and make your Fucket list?

Here is a motto for us to write at the top of our Fucket lists.  Straight from the grandfather of crime fiction—Edgar Allan Poe:  NEVERMORE!

  

Happy New Year . . . Old and New

 --Susan, every other Sunday

2022 is my fourth consecutive New Year in Japan, and it's been interesting to watch the transformation of this traditional holiday--and the surrounding celebrations--over the past four years. Although challenging on a personal level, the historian in me has found it fascinating.

In Japan, the New Year is a time for reflection, prayer, and family. While it's possible to find Western-style countdown parties and celebrations on New Year's Eve, many (if not most) of those who stay up for New Year do so to experience Joya no Kane, the ceremonial ringing of Buddhist temple bells (108 times, to commemorate the 108 causes of human suffering) or to make a midnight hatsumode--the first shrine or temple visit of the year, which is considered important to ensuring good fortune and health in the year to come.

I spent New Year's Eve of 2019 with my family, who had come from the U.S. to spend the holidays in Japan. As midnight approached, we headed for Yasaka Jinja, in Kyoto, to welcome 2020.

Gathering to welcome 2020. (Yikes)

Well over a thousand other people had the same idea.

A peaceful crowd. The year it welcomed? Not so much...

We greeted the New Year with cheering, songs, and laughter - little knowing what that year (and the next) would have in store.

I haven't been able to hug my family since this trip.

On January 1, 2020, I took my family to Kasuga Shrine in Nara, one of Japan's oldest and most important Shintō shrines, to experience hatsumode. There, we found (and waited in) a then-customary crowd that had gathered to make the vital first shrine visit of the year.

Egads. Just going to leave this and back away slowly.

The shrine let people through the gates in groups, and it took about two hours for us to get inside.

This was normal then.

Flash forward to New Year's Eve 2020. I didn't go to a shrine on New Year's Day - for reasons that I'm sure require no explanation. Many of the midnight celebrations were cancelled altogether, and those that were not were severely scaled back. In an ordinary year, shrines and temples would be quite busy throughout the first two weeks of the New Year. 

By the time I made my first shrine visit of 2021 (a week after New Year), it looked like this:

Cue the crickets.

And this:

A very different kind of new year

The infrastructure for socially-distanced visits was in place, and people cooperated. My local shrine even had social distancing "stand here" spots on the ground, one meter apart, all the way from the entrance gate to the worship hall.

Even the guardians were masked for safety.

With Covid currently under control in Japan (but the borders still closed), many of the celebrations have returned for 2022. The temple bells rang at midnight on New Year's Eve, with (masked) crowds in attendance (though some places still had limits on the total number of attendees).

On my traditional New Year's Eve climb this year (which I made last year as well, though in a quieter location)  I noticed many more people visiting the shrine at the base of the mountain, and based on the preparations, they appeared to be expecting far more people than they had on New Year's Eve in 2020.

Preparing to welcome 2022

Tsukubasan Shrine, in Ibaraki, December 31, 2021

It's hard to say, today, what the long-term impact of the past two years will be on Japan, or the rest of the world at large, but it's nice to see tradition--and people--persevering despite the struggles. 

I definitely note more optimism in this year's preparations, and observances, than I did last year. Which makes me cautiously optimistic about the year to come. 

One thing I know for sure: 363 days from now, New Year's Eve will roll around again. The bells will ring. The year will change. And people will greet that dawn with a mixture of hope and sorrow, joy and tears, and dreams and expectations--as they have since the first dawn of the first New Year, and as they will until the end of time. Because regardless of the state of the world, a new year represents a new beginning, new opportunities, and all the potential a beginning brings. I only hope this year is kinder to us all, and that next year, we can welcome 2023 with open borders as well as open arms.

Until then, I wish each and every one of you good health, good fortune, and many good opportunities in 2022. May you and your families be blessed in 2022, and in all the years to come. 

It's Auld Lang Syne Time Again

 

Jeff—Saturday

Several years ago, a Mykonian lass who'd read my parody of "T'was the Night Before Christmas," suggested I take a crack at a similar treatment of a New Year's Eve standard derived from a poem by perhaps the most famous Scot of all (other than our Caro)–Robert Burns (1759-1796).  I haven't posted that parody in several years, because I see "Auld Lang Syne" as a paean of sorts to not forgetting old friends; somewhat of a downer subject as we all hope and pray for a far better new year for our world.

HOWEVER, this year I took another look at my parody, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but new meaning for all, both uplifting and clear. [Sorry, I couldn't help myself.]  For I realized the question posed in the first stanza is answered with optimism in the final line of each following stanza. Or so I think.

Robert Burns

 

Burns wrote the poem (here’s the original version) in 1787, set to the tune of a traditional folk tune (Roud #6294).  Its seminal phrase, “Auld Lang Syne,” is traditionally translated as “long, long ago” though “old long ago” is more literally correct (based upon my deep understanding of the Lowland Scots language) and is a song about love and friendship in times past. For those of us who believe in time travel, astral planes, and questionable sobriety, I should point out that the phrase “auld lang syne” has been used by other poets in their work, including one Allan Ramsay (1686-1757), which I guess gives our Caro and her Alan a claim to have beaten me to the punch (bowl).

The other Ramsay...also with another career, a wigmaker

Happy New Year, everyone—and please forgive me, Scotland.

Should odd acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should odd acquaintance be for not,
And made to toe the line?

As in odd.

For all fond thine, I cheer,
For all fond mine,
We'll share a cup o' kindness yet,
For we’re all fine.

And surely you’ll pick yours to hug!
And surely I'll pick mine!
And we'll show a lot o' kindness yet,
For we’re all fine.

For all fond thine, I cheer,
For all fond mine,
We'll share a cup o' kindness yet,
For we’re all fine.

We all have run about the hills
In search of flower wine;
And wandered many a weary foot,
But we’re all fine.

For all fond thine, I cheer,
For all fond mine,
We'll share a cup o' kindness yet,
For we’re all fine.

We too have paddled up the stream,
In mourning, fun, and grind;
And seas between us broad have roar'd,
But we’re all fine.

For all fond thine, I cheer,
For all fond mine,
We'll share a cup o' kindness yet,
For we’re all fine.

And here's a hand, my trusty friend!
And give a hand o' thine!
And we'll drink to kindness and good will,
For we’re all fine.

For all fond thine, I cheer,
For all fond mine,
We'll share a cup o' kindness yet,
For we’re all fine.

To get your head back in the holiday mood in case I misread the uplifting nature of my parody--and me hopefully back in the good graces of the Scots--here's the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards playing Auld Lang Syne accompanied by a journey to the timeless Scotland of Robert Burns' inspiration.

A Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year to ALL!

—Jeff