An Athenian Diary

14

Days Out, Nights Out, in Athens

       Psirri

There's a neighborhood of Athens called Psirri that's starting to get a reputation. It's still kind of seedy, with lots of Chinese import agencies and stuff lying on the streets; walking through it you have a vaguely uneasy feeling at first, as though maybe this were one of the few parts of Athens where you might not want to be wandering around at night. Then you pass behind a little church and its plateia and suddenly you're on a lively noisy street with the clinking of plates and utensils, heavenly with the odor of roasting fish, and there're tavernas in every building and people wandering the streets playing music. Psirri has become one of the places these days in Athens to hear traditional Greek music, and eat. Every Sunday lots of the tavernas are open in the afternoon and the music's on at a time when you can actually go and hear it. So we did -- for food, and in hopes of the music. With the music we were disappointed -- compelled by hunger we stopped at almost the first taverna we saw, which turned out not to have music, only some of the most delicious food we've had yet in Greece. And we did get to hear the wandering musicians, all under the protection of the local saints.

Addendum: We've now been back again, but without eating in one of the restaurants with music -- which turned out to be too rich for our blood that afternoon.

    Gagarin

Edie had read in the newspaper about a musician, Thanases Papakonstantinou. He is pretty famous and performs rarely; his forte had been traditional Greek music, but recently he had begun to write and perform his own songs too. He was making a rare appearance one weekend at at club called Gagarin, so, good followers of fashion that we are, we laid out the big bucks for a sitter and headed out one Friday night to find the club.

Easy enough on the Metro to zip up to the Attike stop. We hiked down Liosion Street, past miniature car dealerships, furniture stores, and suppliers of hardwood floors, to the Gagarin. A big picture of the Soviet Cosmonaut Hero of the People in a kind of anime rendition adorned the facade of an old warehouse, or maybe an old theater, converted by the addition of a ticket window, cloakroom, and bar -- no seats here! -- into a place for music. A drum set Keith Moon might have set up loomed over the stage. We climbed to the balcony in hopes of a better view; there were benches there, and more old folks like us, but we even saw two kids Alison and Caroline's ages trailing after mom. Far fewer tattoos and piercings than you'd seen in an analogous crowd in the USA. But there was one big difference -- smoking.

There's apparently no requirement for places like the Gagarin to provide any relief for the non-smoker. The fatally overstressed ventilation system seemed to do little more than recirculate the smoke. It felt like a thousand cigarettes were lit at any moment. As we waited for Papakonstantinou to start playing, the bluish-grey fog thickened around us, obscuring even the darkness. Meanwhile, mysterious people passed back and forth on the stage, calling forth shouts of disappointed hope from the crowd. Finally Papakonstantinou appeared, with his band -- guitars, standing bass, traditional Greek instruments, those extraordinary drums, and a woman singer with a stunningly powerful voice. The fans seemed to know every song; how they shouted out the lyrics while drowning in the smoke I will never know, because within a few minutes after the music started I couldn't even focus on it for the agony of breathing; I finally went outside and watched the traffic and passersby (noting especially women walking alone -- another sign of just how safe, even at 11.30 pm, so much of this city remains) until Edie too surrendered.

We strolled back to the Metro, amazed and dazed by the smoke, charmed by the music, and caught the last Metro home.

    Discography (with no claims to completeness)

    Agia Nostalgia, released 1996 on Lyra Records, CD 4660, recorded in 1993 (?), 13 traditional songs arranged by Papakonstantinou for a small orchestra of ten musicians.

    Brachnos Prophetes, released 2000 on Lyra Records, CD 4969, 12 songs by Papakonstantinou played on traditional instruments.

    Agrupnia, released 2002 on Lyra Records, CD 5001, 13 songs by Papakonstantinou in a more "fusion" form; part of the "new direction" the concert we tried to attend featured. Much controversy around the direction he has taken in this new music.

    politike kouzina

    This is the hot fall movie in Athens. Two weeks after opening it had sold 300,000 tickets, making it far and away the number 1 film currently running in Greece. The plot is nostalgia and yearning -- a man who works as an astrophysicist in Athens returns to Constantinople -- that's Istanbul, you know; no Greek calls it that -- where he grew up, and from which his father, mother, and he were expelled in 1959. (Turkey was expelling Greek citizens in retaliation for treatment of Turks on Cyprus, recently abandoned by the British.) Much of the remembrance centers, like Proust's, on food -- the cuisine of the title; politike (with the stress firmly on the first i) means "having to do with the Poli" -- and the Poli is, of course, an affectionate diminutive for Constantinople.

    Edie and I snuck away one Sunday afternoon to have a look. The theater was crowded -- with lots of older folks, as Voula, the maid, had warned us. You can however now get popcorn and goodies in theaters in Greece, just like at home! After the usual assault of previews and commercials, the movie started. The photography was beautiful, the acting (so far as we could tell) of high quality. The Greek hovered just beyond my ability to comprehend -- I picked up lots of individual words but often could not put the whole together (this is very often my highly frustrating condition these days). But the movie had qualities of nostalgia and yearning that couldn't be missed. The main character had had in Poli a young female friend, Turkish and Muslim, whom he left behind when he was expelled; coming back to Istanbul as a grown man, seeking to understand his origins, he meets up with her, all grown, separated from her husband -- and hopes that perhaps he will be able to revive, or finish, their relationship. He arranges to stay for six months. But, alas, she goes back to her husband -- a Turkish military doctor, also known from youth -- and, as he cannot have Poli, so also he cannot have her. Recent political events have lent Politike Kouzina a resonance no one who made it could have intended -- or wanted.

November 30, 2003

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