happy news
Two readers of mine sent me this photo, where they are holding my 1st book happy loo, that has been re-published by another publishing house. Touching, no? Plus, i think my readers are rather good looking.
Another reader of mine made a compilation cd with songs from Happy Loo. Meaning that he tracked all the songs of the book, and then searched for them, and recorded them. I think this is amazing! I wish he would send me the list.
This months’ Diva magazine has published some lines from happy loo. Almost a page or so. Nice.
Finally, i am about to have a book presentation in my hometown. I guess Americans would call it a ‘reading”. But i am not going to read from the book, some actor may read, and some other people will talk about me, and all i have to do is just SIT there and look nice and interesting, so i really have to buy some funky dress, or some very sexy dress so that people will be able to gossip about me, like”"she was so much taller/ thinner/ prettier when she was at school.”" Or “”Look at that dress, it is sooo short”". I must really wear something short. Give them something to chat about, cause this is my hometown we are talking about, and i will personally know half of the people, which is scary.
Lauren Cerant has suggested that we read a very sexy excrept at the reading, cause sexy is always the best for such occassions. I think this is excellent advice, and i have been looking for sexy excrepts all day now, and there are a lot in the book. But , hey Lauren, there will be a friend of my grandmother’s there, and my great uncle, not to mention my very own 70 year old DAD.
I have been tagged- whatever that means
Lauren Cerand has tagged* me with a “Seven Facts Meme” and I happily comply:
7 embarassing facts about myself then
1) I hate it when people ask me what i do for a living right after i have met them.
2) I love the sea but deem the mountains and the villages boring. i swim every day from May to October.
3. I don’t have a tv at home. Some friend gave me one but i got rid of it.
4. I hate tuna fish.
5. I compulsively eat whenever i am watching a dvd. Unfortunatelly i watch dvds all the time.
6. I go to bed verrry late. Around five in the morning that is, even when i am at home.
7. I have a bicycle but i haven’t used it for 2 years.
You’re it: keimgreek, loodepunk, mamalux, vain, kevin,
*Here be the rules for this meme thing: Each person tagged gives seven random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write on their blog seven facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and need to read your blog.
Πρεπει να γραψετε εφτα οτι να ‘ναι αληθινά πραγματα για τον εαυτό σας στο μπλογκ σας καθως και τους κανονες του παιχνιδιού. Πρεπει επισης να αγγαρέψετε εφτά αλλους να κανουν το ίδιο. Αφηνετε σ’ αυτους που δεσμευετε σχόλιο για να μαθουν οτι τους έχετε αγκαζάρει. Οκ, αs μην ειναι εφτά, ας είναι πέντε.
a night on a boat
I was trapped in a boat again, for a whole night. On my way to the island i have come to tolerate -or even adore at times. It was not so bad. It felt incredibly romantic, taking pictures on the deck and listening to that song that i have written on a cd 30 times. But the wind was blowing, and the sea was wet, and i had to get inside eventually.
What do you talk about when trapped in a cabin with two girls, one Greek (22 years old) one Albanian (25 years old), for 11 hours? Sanitation. Food cravings. The boys, naturally. The baby of the Albanian girl. Well, she did bring the subject up but we were not eager. She therefore showed us some pictures, the baby was cute. But most of the time we talked about the boys. The Albanian is in love with her husband. She was not at first but he was nice and cute, and now she really loves him. The Greek girl is in love with her high school sweetheart. How nice, to travel with happy girls. The woman that entered our cabin in Limnos island wasn’t equally nice. All she did was to shout ‘turn off the lights will you?” and turn her back to us. She can’t have been in love.
(I have to say-I hate this particular boat. The crue are impolite. The cabin manager is a fascist. People smoke almost everywhere on the boat. And the food is terrrrrible. But, the deck is still romantic if you have the right song)
being lazy is an art, like sleeping
I am being absolutely childish, which can be said for most of my life. See, I have been the receptor of grand pressure lately. People around me expect me to do stuff, ask me to do stuff, talk to me about doing stuff. Serious stuff like get married, have children, and buy a sofa (Yes, I don’t actually own one. Some people have tried to force a sofa on me, give me one for example, but I did not give in. I think that if you buy a sofa the next thing to do is to stay at home all day watching the telly. I am getting soft in my old age though, for i am considering the possibility of, er, getting one.). They expect me to work on my new novella too, cause its just one step from publication.
But I am totally reluctant to do any of the above.
Except work on my novella – that I will do, albeit not now.
Now I am busy being childish. I am in Kavala of Greece, my hometown, doing nothing. This is an art, it’s not a simple deed, and yes, I am soooooo lucky to be able to do it.
For example, I spent all yesterday taking photos in a park with a friend. Silly photos, which we could later use for an installation, or something, or that is what we said to ourselves. I posed as a very dead corpse, as a vandal, and as an ape. (See what I mean?) i tell myself it’s my artistic personality that makes me do it.
Then I spent the night with friends watching a film with Mark Raffalo, Laura Dern and Naomi Wats, “We Don’t Live Here Any More”. The Times call it a ‘marital film noir’. I have to say it has great dialogues and the women play better than the men. It’s two couples in crisis, very everyday stuff , and very well made if you care for that short of thing. I love Laura Dern. I have been wondering about what ever happened to her after Wild at Heart. So, she did this great movie in 2004 and now she is in another David Lynch film which is great news. While watching it we ate pizza and gratin asparagus and cheesecakes and stayed up until 4.30 in this very small, very smokey flat of this friend. Being childish is fattening.
Excuse me now, for i have to go collect sea shells. (I am so busy.)
being in Thessaloniki
I love visiting Thessaloniki – i stay in this cute flat alone, it is near the centre, there is a nice bed and stereo and friends to go out with.
The flat is not cute enough to hold me in there for a whole day. But i got the flue, and had to spent the entire day alone in there, hanging out with a thermometer and a pile of handkerchiefs. Luckily a friend sent me a fresh song, just out of the studio, and i developed an addiction to it.
Music is therapeutic.
Another friend came by the next day (that was the 1st of May, therefore the whole city was empty and full of parking spaces, which are a hot commodity here) to take me out, cause it was a gorgeous day indeed. We had coffee in the sun, ate at some funny and busy new place and on top of this went to a movie. We barged into the cinema like barbarians, holding 2 huge banana & chocolate popsicles – my excuse for it being that i needed my comfort food. We watched this wonderful Korean blockbuster with the lake monster that destroys everything, ( THE HOST) and then i remembered i was ill, and joined my thermometer at home.
the first pages of my novella
i love this Goofey, lovestruck look he has on his face. i just love it. Its from WILD AT HEART and this particular film/ scene has supplied inspiration for my (otherways oh so cynical) novella. And yes, i may have a thing for Michael Cage.
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Upon the request of the tre inspiring Lauren Cerant, i have translated the first two pages of my not yet published novella ALL THE APPLES, all by myself – well, not really though, cause i had some help in editing it from friends. Film maker Kevin Cameron, actor RAZACK MALIC, and LAURA did read the pages – i think once, and did suggest stuff. Thanks you guys!
This novella was to be published in May, and the publishing house has been waiting for it to be processed. But i am running late, due to HAPPY LOO that has been republished. I mean please, how many books can a girl publish in one single year?
Anyway, i still have to work on it. I will do so soon i hope. After the holiday and the parties that is. That’s right, i am going through my very personal holiday right now.
I have to admit the whole style of the novella is very different to anything i have written before. More ,,er,,, conventional really.
Lauren is too fast for me, and has already published the excrept, it’s hard to keep up with that girl.
Wanna read the 2 pages? click here.
my NEW YORK interview
Extra cultured, New Yorker, publicist Lauren Cerant has interviewed me for her luxlotus site. I am very happy to have my words, face & boots up there in her exciting New York joint, that i visit on a weekly basis. Boy, i read these events as if i am about to attend. I hope that sometime, soon, the rest of me will follow and visit the city, in flesh and blood – by means of airplane and not by DSL.
You may view the whole thing here.
The Lux Lotus Interview: Evi Labropoulou
FEAR OF ATHENS
i nicked this photo from here, cause its gloomy and artsy {View it larger.}
I ”d like to reply to jayherron’s comment , to my post BARS ARE NICE. He doesn’t see exactly why i hate going to Athens, although he does offer a perfect metaphor for it (Athens is my Miami)
See, I have a hate-love relationship with it.
I have to go to Athens on business. It is usually fun business, an interview, a photo shot, a literary event. (I realise i am making this worse) Plus, i love airports.
However. When i find out i have to, i don’t wanna go. The plane shakes, and i never know if the feng sui of the place i will sleep in will allow me any night sleep. I don’t know if i will be appointed the bed or the smoky sofa. Or if, when i go to relatives, noisy children (in whose bedroom i am sleeping) will run into the room in order to get their bag/ ipod/ laptop/ underwear.
Plus, people in Athens are terribly busy, and as i am not an organised person, i might end up not seiing some friends at all. See, i usually find i am enjoying myself beyond any doubt. Then i find i am in fact lonely in a huge unfriendly city, in an empty flat, in some suburb, considering the possibility of getting a half an hour taxi in order to meet some people i am not sure i want to meet.
In the end i get incredibly tired of trying to be invisible and discreet with the people who are having me as their guest, and are starting to get tired by having me around, sleeping in their -not so spare- room until 3 in the evening -because i didn’ t manage to sleep at night for some reason.
What do i need? A flat of my own. Or, maybe only a room, like Virginia Woolf.
Last time i was in Athens i found my friend Kiki, in whose marvellous though suburbian flat i spent 5 days, was looking for a flat for me to buy. Engrossed in her newspaper, she announced that i have to buy a flat and live in Athens forever. Are you going to pay for it, i asked. And then she came up with a complicated plan for me to pay the loan. Man, a flat in Athens is ridiculously expensive. As is everything else in this city, apart from the second hand books and clothes.
Should i buy in flat and live in Athens forever?
Naah. It has huge traffic problems and pollution.
a bar (inter)view
I had the most fun bar interview last week. It was in retro bar Mommys, in Athens, and i kept drinking stuff in order to relax for the photographs, so i was half drunk for the actual interview for Newspaper PROTO THEMA. But who cares, nobody reads the text, people just look at the photographs, right?
It was a threesome interview, 3 writers talking about literature and stuff, which sounds boring, but it was in fact tre interesting at the time. What about modern literature, and how much do reviews and marketing help a book sell itself, that kind of stuff.
Marvelous photographer MICHALIS Skourlis set us up like a rock band, something like Juliette &the licks, i like to think. In which case i get to play Juliette, of course. Do not laugh at me, please, it has always been a fantasy, to be in a band, and this picture somehow fakes it. Well, i don’t know what YOU think, but my mother thinks so!
We stayed there till well after two o clock, with Tina Mandilara the editor in chief of the paper, with whom we discovered a common passion for Brit pop, vintage boots, psychoanalysis terminology and late sleep. The conversation naturally strayed towards urban loneliness and sex subject area, therefore i truly hope that the tape recorder was off!
It felt at home in artsy-fartsy Mommy – my nickname, after all, is Mary Quant. (Inspired by Laurie K.)
bars are nice
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ME & DIM TALKING ABOUT ART & THE STATE OF LITERATURE IN MODERN GREECE. (HAHAHAH, about bars and booze is more like it! But we did talk about art and his new play)
UPSTAIRS-The ladies-owners of the bar
I am in Athens -again. I didn’t want to go, but when the plane landed in ELVENIZELOS AIRPORT i became absurdly social, a regular coffee animal. I visited a number of bars, and a number of coffee shops and a number of places.
My writer friend D. Generalli took me to this cute brand new place for a quick coffee. Its called KEY. From then on i had 3 coffees in a row with several other people. Friends came and went, and i was still there, waiting for the next person. Them bar people therefore offered me the absolutely best cocktail i had in months. Its made of fresh green apple juice, cinamon, gin. So delicious i had to have more.
Enough with the coffees.
