A summer survival guide

Film purists will tell you that the optimal movie watching experience is on the biggest screen imaginable with the newest Dolby audio design, comfiest chairs and in complete silence. These people are wrong. It's sort of like asking audiophiles on what the best way to listen to music is; they'd tell you about their incredibly expensive setup with their best-in-class noise cancelling headphones and lossless file format, but for most people the best music listening experience would be popping up a vinyl on a $200 record player, some cozy lighting and a drink.

For me, the summer season is the perfect time to watch movies no matter how suboptimal it may be. Open air theatres start popping up everywhere (in Athens, at least)/, and if you can ignore the mosquitos, humidity and mild discomfort, it enhances the movie watching experience tenfold. Hell, even watching a movie in an air-conditioned room at home while the sun is burning at a blistering 40 degrees, beer in hand and snacks all over the couch, sounds like a dream right now. I might be contradicting my 22 year-old self who thought that watching a movie should be like work, but my 22 year-old self was a dumbass. My 29 year old self is still a dumbass, but at least he knows that it's not that deep, watching movies should be fun and I couldn't care less if someone wants to watch "Lost Highway" on their 5" cracked iPhone 10 screen. That being said, I have some specific recommendations for movies and series that are perfect for this summer season, whether you're watching at home or at a fancy open air cinema overlooking the Acropolis.

Do the right thing

This is basically what prompted me to make this list, I've never seen a movie so accurately display the summer heat before this one, and it's a really fun one before shit hits the fan. Amazing depiction of how quick things can escalate and a very important movie showcasing the division even between minorities, and it will stick with you like a sweat-soaked t-shirt long after you've finished watching it.

Before Trilogy

I don't know if it's cheating to put a trilogy in here but I'm making the rules up as I go so it doesn't really matter. Spoilers: it won't be Linklaters only appearance on the list, the dude basically creates movies made to be seen in a cozy afternoon with a bottle of wine and a date, if applicable. There's not much more to say about these movies that hasn't been said before, it's my favourite depiction of a fairytale relationship with a turn to realism in the 3rd part, which is as beautiful as it is brutal.

I'm gonna go ahead and plagiarize myself from a previous review I did: The first movie is that one-in-a-million romance that ends in a what could have been, the kind of story that could have been a cliche if not for the natural performances of Delpy and Hawke, who I was devasted to learn weren't a couple. Hawke did give us Maya Hawke with now ex-wife Uma Thurman however, so I'll give him a pass. It's a great movie on its own, but it's elevated by being part of this trilogy.

Before Sunset is basically one in a million times two, which I guess would have made it one in two million? Basically the where the "what could have been" is resolved in the most romantic, least cheesy way, with a "baby, you're gonna miss that plane" and a content Hawke charming it up with a cool "I know", one of my favourite final scenes in movies, ever. 

Before midnight is the epilogue that gives us a reality check that we most desperately need, it's the movie equivalent of getting hit in the nuts with a bat. It gives us the depressing reality of a crumbling relationship that makes you understand that even fairytale romances will suffer from time's unavoidable touch. And we love it for that.

Dazed and Confused/Everybody Wants Some!!

As I said, more Linklater on the way. These two are meant to be watched back-to-back, as the original and spiritual successor which hit the same notes but for different parts of your life. Better enjoyed with a group of friends who don't mind watching people just going about their day, snappy dialogue and 70's/80's nostalgia included. The first one depicts the last day of highschool in a typical suburban town and the second one the last few days before the semester starts for a few freshmen who just joined their collage baseball team.

Dazed and Confused features a stacked by today's standards cast in roles you wouldn't expect them in, and Matthew McConaughey in one of his coolest roles, delivering some of the most iconic (albeit a bit creepy) lines in history. It's about the dread and excitement of growing up, it's about friendship, it's about having fun, it's about life, really.

On the other hand, Everybody Wants Some follows a whole different set of dudes who all want to party, drink beer and get laid in typical frat boy fashion. But reading between the lines of some teammates trying to compete with each other and one-up each other in every way possible, you can see a bunch of guys who have no idea what to do in their life and are just excited about what is yet to come. In between the partying and drinking and dancing, there's also using these formative years as a means to discover who you are, who you want to be and what you want to make of yourself. But, y'know, there's gotta be partying as well. Also Glen Powell is in this and he's fucking hilarious, if you needed more convincing.

Sharp Objects

This list was supposed to be about movies, but I couldn't let this one out. This mini-series is sweaty, dark, brutal and not at all like the movies I mentioned above. It won't make you feel good, it will make you gasp and cry and you might need to collect your jaw from the floor after it ends. It's based on a fantastic book by the brilliant Gillian Flynn, and it's a study of generational trauma and the cycle of abuse, disguised as a crime story about a fucked up journalist trying to uncover a series of murders in a small suburban town.

You can watch it in a couple of days and I couldn't think of a better way other than doing so in a breezy July afternoon. It's not an easy watch whatsoever, but it's a beautiful series with a fantastic soundtrack and it will make perfect sense why I included it in this list once you see it. Don't skip on the post-credits scene in the last episode because it's probably one of the most important scenes in the series.

    

Stray

Since we're already off the rails in this list I figured I'll include a video game as well. Well this is no ordinary video game, this is set in a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk-ish underground city which is inhabited by mostly benevolent robots. You go around solving puzzles, helping the robots and trying to find your way back home while creating all sorts of mayhem on the way. Oh and you play as a cat, and it's as cute as you would think. 

The Nice Guys

OK we're back to movies, I saw this on the actual open air movie cinema overlooking the Acropolis when it came out, and it's still one of my most memorable movie-going experiences ever. I think of this as the yin to "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"s yang, this is as much a perfect summer movie as the other is a Christmas movie. Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe in a film-noir/black comedy written and directed by Shane Black? Come on.

In the mood for love

Enough of the breezy, funny, easy to watch romps I mentioned before. If you want to watch one of the sexiest and yet most tragically romantic movies ever made, this is for you. The colours are immaculate, the performances are amazing and it features some of the most most subtle editing choices with shots that linger just enough to break your hea

rt just a little bit more by the second. Also a movie that makes smoking look so fucking cool. And since we're talking about smoking...

Cheap Smokes

If these things apply to you:

• Spent a lot of summers in Athens by yourself
• Enjoys a bit of pretentiousness in their movies
• Doesn't mind Haralambidis being a cheap Woody Allen knock-off
• Thinks smoking is cool

Then this is the movie for you.

For better or worse all of the above apply to me so I love this movie, and I'm not ashamed to say so. It's a movie made in the 00's that looks like it was made in the 90's, and it's so unabashedly campy that it becomes kind of endearing.

Y tu mama tambien

I talked about how In the mood for love is the sexiest movie ever, but this could be a close second. It's got two best friends on a road trip with an older woman, exploring their sexuality and fighting over her affections, it's grounded and human and very much focuses more on the characters and their relationships rather than the plot. 

The kings of summer/The way way back/The edge of Seventeen/Perks of being a Wallflower/Me and Earl & the dying girl/Looking for Alaska

Here's a lightning round of what I would call "melodramatic, bittersweet, coming-of-age" films, they all deal with similar themes but in their own unique way. Some of these lean into comedy, some of these into drama, all of them explore the dynamics of growing up and figuring stuff about yourself. Wouldn't recommend watching them all together, but they can be staggered in between some of the other ones if you're not "In the mood for love" but rather in the mood for some teenage angst. I snuck in Looking for Alaska as the only other series in the list because it fits the bill perfectly, and because I think it's just better than John Green's other young-adult adaptation in "The fault in their stars".

Stand by me

I was gonna lump this one with all the other ones above, but I think it was just a click above the rest. If you had those childhood friends who you used to hang out with in the summers but fell out of touch for one reason or another, this will hit the right spots. If not, it will still tug at your heartstrings all the same. You will see why River Phoenix is one of the biggest "what ifs", he could have had an incredible career if not dying so young. The sense of comradery between the kids with a very simple story that focuses on the journey rather than the destination, and a classic for a reason. The final line is a gut punch of the highest order, bittersweet and raw and emotional in all the right ways.

There's still a bunch of stuff I could have mentioned here but just to spice things up, here's an extra list of albums that would be perfect to play in the summer.

• Nas - Illmatic
• A tribe called quest - The low end theory
• Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
• AIR - Moon Safari
• Anathema - A natural disaster
• Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
• Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
• Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
• Kendrick Lamar - Good kid MAAD city
• Childish Gambino - Awaken, my love
• Mac Miller - Swimming
• Mac DeMarco - Salad Days
• King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Laminated denim

Blog no.31 - Don't Panic

 A couple years ago I visited my father's really, impossibly remote village on the boarder with Turkey and Bulgaria, former home of my late grandparents, and place where I frequently summered when I was little. A sense of excitement and fear overcame me as we approached, both of which eventually gave way to a sort of topical melancholy that imbues the barren-from-people Northern Greece countryside, once we finally arrived. It was exactly as I remembered it, but at the same time it was nothing like it at all. 

  Everything seemed to be in its right place, the layout was the same, the location of the house was the same, with the only glaring omission being the cut down walnut tree that used to tower all over the yard and served as a seasonal swing once you hung a rope and an old car wheel on it. Outside, the whole place was overridden by wild vegetation, and the inside became something like a housing project for an assortment of spiders, flies, wasps and occasionally, small lizards. The biggest change of all however, was the fact that the people who used to live there now don't. I guess the new tiny tenants made sense in a way, life always finds a way to fill the gaps. It had been fifteen years since I last visited the place, but my memories of the last time I was there were still quite vivid.

  I remembered pulling onto the entrance all that time ago and having my grandpa welcome us with a big smile across his face, and my always grumpy but equally loving grandma hugging us one by one to the point of asphyxiation. They would then sit us down by the big walnut tree and stuff our faces with various fruits and vegetables from the yard, or fresh fried eggs from their free roaming chickens. I remembered sitting next to my grandpa while he was driving his tractor, and then sitting on his lap trying to generate enough force to change the gear on that heavy-ass gearbox. I remembered going to the nearby river with the whole family, catching a ton of river fish and decorating small tree branches with them as if they were fish-shaped Christmas tree ornaments, in order to be able to carry them back home and feed both ourselves and the local kittens, who seemed to enjoy the river fish way more than we did. I remembered snapping shots of said kittens with my then new, now lost, digital camera, and then taking a rusty old bike on long rides with the other grandparent-visiting kids in the village. I would get back to the house by the evening, spend a few hours reading Harry Potter and playing on my brother's PSP (which I can now confess that I did, in fact, break), and waiting until it's time to hit the village square to drink some Coke, eat some pork skewers and play hide-and-seek with my friends. It was a nice, simple, boring routine, but I did love doing it.

 Visiting after all these years was nothing like that. When I last visited, I was a short, thin, feisty little kid with ambitions of becoming a football player (even though I sucked loads) or making video games or drawing comic books or whatever little boys used to obsess about back then. I think I might have visited during my "wanting to become a comic book artist" phase, due to carrying a bunch of semi-ripped apart Asterix & Obelix and Lucky Luke comics with me, gifts from my Greek cousins. In that admittedly brief but quite interesting phase, I was obsessed with comics and comic strips, I even did a whole ass presentation on comics, complete with a very professional interview with a guy who was at the time doing political satire for a local newspaper, and a PowerPoint on why politics would be more interesting if presented in comic book fashion. In retrospect, even though I didn't think it through, I have to give it to little me for comparing then prominent political figures to Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny. It's just objectively funny. In case you haven't noticed, I didn't become a football player (although I did stop sucking eventually), I didn't become a video game designer and the attempt I made in creating comic book characters was met with the kind of shock and awe that only your parents can give you when they think "this shit kinda sucks". In my defense, it's really hard to actually do what you think you'll be doing when you're ten. Hell it's hard to even know what you want to do at twenty. Or thirty. Or ever for that matter. 

 Despite all that, I was still content with the version of myself that showed up, as it was, up to that point, the best one so far. The village felt weirdly empty and I just wasn't sure if it was because everything felt bigger when I could barely qualify for the "have to be this tall to ride" slides, or if people just stopped visiting. The streets seemed narrower, the village square seemed smaller and not quite as loud, the one tavern that was left had us as the lonesome guests. Yet, I didn't feel the kind of sadness when you feel you've lost something, or the longing that you feel when you get hit by a wave of nostalgia, I felt something more akin to having finished a really good book. When you're reading the final few remarks, and you flip through the pages yearning for an additional bit of story, but there is none; this is it. Going back felt like closing the cover and putting the book back on the bookshelf. 

 Back in that tavern I felt the need, for the first time in my life, to smoke a cigarette in front of my parents. It's quite odd since I was 27, but it was kind of a breakthrough for me. It wasn't a sad or lonely cigarette, it was one that just made sense. Last couple of days in my dad's village I haven't visited for 15 years, being by far the youngest of the adults that were present. Yeah, a smoke break made sense. I lit it up away from the table, both to not upset my parents and to just get away for a bit and take it all in, the emptiness of the village tends to accentuate everything else. The silence - cricket concerto aside - was deafening. The sky looked as starry as ever. What I appreciate in these small patches of civilization is the relative lack of light pollution, even going a couple of meters away from the central square you could distinguish constellations you wouldn't even dream of in the city. During that short smoke break I just appreciated all the memories that were attached with this place, the games with the other kids, the river swims, the goddamn mosquitos, everything. It was a chapter of my life I'd forgotten about, and one I was glad to revisit.

  It's actually not that bad going back to places you've forgotten about or ones that fill you with nostalgia, it's quite comforting really. You've already read that book, but you can now appreciate how it felt to read all those years ago. It might not be what you expected it to be, but it feels a bit like time travelling. You see multiple versions of yourself experience similar events, only the latest version has complete knowledge of what happens at the end. I hope my younger self would be proud of my older self. My older self, if he could, would whisper in my younger self's ear: "Everything will be alright." And it will be. Maybe not now, but eventually.

Blog no.30: Snow

Dear solid water fans,

  It's been a year and a half since my last one more or less. Why am I taking time off my busy day to write this you're asking? No? Too bad cause I'm telling you anyways. Well, first of all I'm slightly sick so this time it's not frowned upon to stay inside in a Saturday night (as if that ever stopped me) and second of all, nobody cares so let's move on. Is this one really about snow you'll ask me? The answer is...no. Kinda, but not really. Besides that awful pun, I just wanted to pay homage to one of my favourite bands who I'll be seeing again after 8 years, this time with an older and a bit more appreciative view.

  One thing you have to know about me is that I absolutely love snow. I mean, who doesn't? It's white and fluffy and you can hurl it at people without risking assault charges. It's rare where I'm from which makes it's few appearances special, kinda like whenever Janice came on Friends: you appreciated her at first but then you just wanted to curl her into a ball and throw her on stuff. I become such a little kid when I see some snow that I want to punch myself in the face.

  The most underappreciated part of snowfall is the aftermath. We didn't get many (if any) snowfalls back in Cyprus but I've been fortunate enough to move to a city with a slightly more favourable climate, so a few winters in it finally happened. It felt just like walking into a teenager boy's bedroom in the 00's after his family switched to a DSL internet connection: everything was covered in white. Now, Athens is not the prettiest nor the cleanest city, but I love it nonetheless. After a snowfall though, all the ugliness and trash and imperfections are covered by a deep layer of fluffy, white snow. I mean it's still got some trash underneath, but don't we all? Everything looks so clean, calm, perfect, you feel a bit bad disturbing it at first so you just sit and appreciate it for a bit. You then make huge balls of it, stack it a meter high, stick a carrot and some buttons on it, and you give it a name to make sure that it  becomes a person before it dies a miserable death the following morning. 

  So this blog isn't really about snow, shocker I know, but rather about clean slates. It's something all of us need at one point of our life or another, some in multiple points of their lives. Some do it every year, but they call it "New Year's Eve", a day to drink our livers off and make resolutions that last shorter than that one carton of milk in my fridge. I'm not very fond of New Year's anymore, I haven't been for the last few years due them being regularly shitty for me, but I've decided to take the less cynical approach this time around and accept that the day does serve a purpose, just like any other arbitrary holiday. 

  However silly might seem that we celebrate another year around the sun, when in reality nothing changes but the dates on our calendars, it's still a nice checkpoint to which you can add things that have changed for you. You don't see anyone doing "Best movies of March 2019 - February 2020", it just doesn't make sense. A year is a pretty decent time-frame to see how you've fared, and I've learned to appreciate that in itself, even though I'm still rather skeptical about paying a small fortune to go out for drinks with my friends as opposed to any other day of the year. 

  For me it's been pretty damn decent. I've learned that it's okay to feel bad sometimes, and it's more than okay to take time to relax and do nice things for yourself, more commonly known as "Treat yo'self". I've lowered the number of times I have to go through exams in my damn university to single digits, I've had a kick-ass girlfriend for the whole year and I've finally moved from my lovely apartment, among other things. I was expecting the moving to be more, well, moving for me but I was surprised how easy it was for me to let go. I made almost 7 years worth of memories in that apartment, a few bad ones but mostly great, though I guess after taking a whole damn month to clean it, sell my furniture, move all my stuff to another apartment and deal with the shitty-ass owner of the house and his snobby wife, it felt cathartic seeing it for the last time, placing the key on the counter and imagining Jefferson Airplane's "Embryonic journey" playing in the background. It felt like turning a page, like a New Year's of sorts. It felt like fresh snow on a cold winter day. A clean slate. 

  It's always fun reminiscing times of the past with joy, even times that didn't seem so joyous the first time around. When I was in the Netherlands visiting my sister a few years ago on New Year's Eve, sick to my core and sitting by myself on the attic, watching the fireworks by the window I felt kinda sad, like I was feeling pity for myself. Looking back though, all I remember is drinking beers with my sister, binge watching Avatar the last airbender under some blankets and playing video games with a friend of mine, and that's a damn fine way to spend your Christmas, if you ask me. Bad memories tend to fade, good memories stay with you forever. If you're stuck in the past you'll never be able to create new ones so, like I did on my last day of moving, tear that wall down and move on. It was plaster, but still.

P.S. Since I made a point about top 10 lists of the year, but I haven't seen 10 films worthy of my top 10 list, here's my top 9. 

9. Booksmart
8. I lost my body
7. Joker
6. Dolemite is my name
5. Klaus
4. Ad Astra
3. Once upon a time... in Hollywood
2. Marriage Story
1. Parasite

2021 Edit: 

Blog no. 29: No surprises

 Dear nightcrawlers,

  You can never know how things will work out in the end. So many variables fall into play, a butterfly flaps its wings and I suddenly decide to order pizza instead of burgers, or something of that sort. It's fascinating thinking about how much a single event can change the course of your life, or the universe, or everything, really. A single book can change your whole worldview and shape your future, every single encounter builds up towards your life path.
  At points you will face your worst enemy: hindsight. With 20/20 vision we can all make perfect life choices and live happily ever after with rainbows and butterflies and all that crap, but the harsh reality is that we don't have that luxury. It's like when you're taking off your glasses, and after a while you're unable to find them because you're not wearing your glasses. Kinda like waking up and trying to make coffee but needing coffee to wake up and make the damn thing. And you're searching, and everything's a blurry mess, and you're thinking how great life was when you had your glasses on, hoping you had another pair just for these occasions.
  Humans are greedy creatures, we will always downplay a situation because we could have gotten more out of it. Someone gives us a choice between two suitcases full of money, and even though we end up richer, we will be frustrated that we picked the smallest amount instead of being happy we actually got a positive net gain. I don't judge us, it's just who we are, but living your life in "what ifs" is not optimal since it hinders your ability to choose wisely in the future, sort of like a hot hand fallacy. When you keep scoring 3-pointers you keep shooting instead of thinking about the alternatives. That's why it's important to fail every once in a while, when you start missing those shots you start thinking more clearly and weighing your choices instead of just shooting on instict.
  I've had my fair share of luck and misfortune, and most of the times these two seemed to overlap. I hurt my knee pretty badly a few years back playing football, and I although my chances in making it professionally were negative, it was something I considered myself good at and something I enjoyed doing. At the time of my injury I was going out with a girl I met at a party, and it just so happened that a few hours before our second date I had to inform her that I can't meet her and thus cancel the date. Unfortunately, a week later I was leaving for Cyprus for the summer, thus the second date never took place and we eventually lost touch during the course of my vacations. Now, when I came back I didn't have any hobbies left, and a friend of mine introduced me to a student magazine he was writing of, encouraging me to start writing for them as well, which I gladly accepted since I couldn't kill time playing football anymore. In the writing team there was this girl who I liked but didn't really talk with much, up till my nameday which was the same day as my flight to Cyprus for my knee surgery,  when she messaged me to wish me a happy nameday and I think you know where I'm going with this. You gotta think, if I hadn't torn my ligament I wouldn't have cancelled that second date, I wouldn't have started writing and I definitely wouldn't be as into movies as I am today. It's all very How I Met Your Mother-ish, which is why that show resonates with me a lot.
  There will come a point though when you've had enough bad luck for a while, and you're starting to think "good god gimme a break". But the universe doesn't work that way, silly. You can't just ask for no alarms and no surprises and expect it to work. In reality, life's full of them. Instead of trying to avoid them you can just learn to adjust better. Resourcefullness is one of the best traits you can have as a person. Knowing when to counter punch and when to take hit when you're on the ropes. Dribbling past any problem that's in your way. There are a ton of sports analogies I can make, but you get the point.
  Hell, even this summer I had the (mis)fortune of seeing this in full effect. After a week-long vacation in Spain, it was time for me to return to Greece. Now for some context, this was a week of camping at a festival somewhere near Valencia. Tiring? Sure, but having no responsibilities out of, well, not dying, was pretty damn great. Everyone was dancing and drinking non-stop, there were huge lines of people everywhere and people who seemed to have taken huge lines of various drugs, and at any point I was expecting Wall-E to show up and start stacking up trash because I'll be damned if the place didn't look like something out of a Mad Max movie. People were hiding their booze outside at the beach, since it wasn't allowed in the concert areas, digging holes in the sand or just throwing stuff around as if they were playing the nastiest game of Jenga. Hope that future pirates enjoy cheap vodka and bad sangria. Despite all that, the festival was fucking amazing. The pool parties were the best of the bunch, even if I wasn't  one of the brave ones that actually jumped in. I did want to bring back some souvenirs from Spain but an STD wasn't very high on my list.
  Now the aftermath? We lost a bunch of phones, some clothes, a smidge of our pride and a lot of our dignity, but we still made it through the week safe and mostly sound; kinda hard to not inherit some sort of illness from all the sand and dirt that was around. Something that stuck with me aside from the aforementioned dirt and sand, was the fact that you could do anything you wanted and nobody would bat an eye, because hell, they probably have seen weirder things already. Dancing like you have been shot with a tranquilizer gun on the ass? Sure, go ahead. Making dirt angels in the sand on the beat of some reggaeton remix? People will probably join you. Shouting football chants while under the influence? Be my fucking guest. It was an exhausting couple of weeks for me, and even though I had a fantastic time, after a certain point I just wanted to chill for a bit. Of course though, things didn't quite turn out that way.
  A friend of mine and I were supposed to return to Athens via the Frankfurt airport with a few hours of wait time inbetween flights, but turns out that German pilots were on strike on the day of our departure, something that wouldn't be very surprising in Greece, but damn I had the idea that Germany of all places is immune to these kinds of protests. My friend ended up booking another flight, but my, albeit tired, cheap ass didn't want to miss on the free hotel that I supposed I was gonna get so I decided to stay put until I find a flight back home. After three satisfying meals and a fantastic nap I figured I might as well explore Frankfurt for a bit, wouldn't want to just waste all my time at the hotel.
  Around 8 p.m. I start walking towards the city centre to get some money from the ATM and a beer by myself, or so I thought. After getting lost a couple of times and having to climb some sort of hill on a bridge, only to find myself on what looked like train tracks and nothing else, I managed to get the the centre. Reaching the ATM, I get the money but I realize that I can't see the machine returning my card, and in true IT fashion I start pushing random buttons as if it will realize that "gee dude that's exactly the combination of buttons I've been looking for to spit your card right back out". I then call the customer service number that was on the ATM, and a few minutes in I realize I don't actually understand german, hence I have no idea what the guy I called was telling me. A group of friends come out of the vestibule so I ask them if they can help with my situation. I give my phone to one of them who has a very interesting and agreeable 5-minute conversation with customer service, only to tell me that they can't help me cause it's Sunday and the bank's closed, of course.
  Being bummed that I wasn't sure the money I had left would suffice for the rest of my trip, since I had no idea when I would be able to fly, I took up to the guys' offer to join them for some beers, I knew I could use the alcohol at that moment. The streets near the main station were filled with drug addicts and trash, something not wholly unfamiliar to someone living in Athens, but a big surprise once again for someone who was visited Germany before. Nevertheless, we ended up going to a weird Colombian/German bar full of drunk middle-aged people and a very enthusiastic and voluptuous bartender. One of the guys who was just returning from the bathroom was very kind to inform us that the coked up dude in the table across from ours offered him some for a very appealing price, but none of us was trully excited to try their luck, or lackthereof. Eventually a few more people joined us, a freakishly tall guy and someone who had just broken up with his girlfriend and was, therefore, pretty damn wasted. I ended up having a ton of fun with those guys and was sad that I had to abandon their company, since I had to check in the airport early in the morning in order to see if I can get a flight out. One of them was travelling to Stuttgart the next day and offered me a place in his car in case I couldn't fly out and I wanted to visit my godparents instead, so we exchanged numbers and I'd update him as soon as I found out about my flight.

  My way back to the hotel was not without hiccups either. Google Maps insisted in me going through what looked like an active factory, full with smoke coming out of pipes and all that jazz, so I did just that. I ended up reaching a dead end where the river Rhine was, since the 5-metres-above-ground pedestrian bridge was closed, so I did what anyone would have done: I climbed some rusty, dirty, spiderwebby machinery as if I was freaking Ezio because honestly, I just wanted to get some sleep. I managed to get on the bridge, walk across the river and parkour myself out of it as well. Afterwards it was just a formality of walking through some forest with no lighting using my phone as a torch for half an hour, and a breezy walk towards the hotel. I was eventually able to fly the next morning, and had to refuse the offer to go to Stuttgart, but I was just happy to finally go home.
  A few days later I'm shopping at a market near my appartment, I take out my wallet and I see a shiny little thing that resembled the credit card that the evil german ATM selfishly devoured. Turns out I might have blacked out for a few seconds when I was getting money, just enough for me to put the card back in my wallet and not realize it, thus triggering all the events that transpired the previous day. I actually never told my parents about it because we had to cancel the card and go through the trouble to order another one, so in case they end up reading this: I'M SORRY.

  Generally, I have so much faith in failing upwards that whenever a misfortune comes my way I scoff, laugh it out and I try to make the best out of a bad situation. I just think that shitty things will eventually happen to you, and a whole lot of them at that. You can always play the percentages and take zero risks, assuming that your goal in life is to just live long and uneventfully. Or you can take some risks, get out of your comfort zone and make your chances count, your moments memorable. Captain Jack Sparrow, amongst many philosophical genious he showcased in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, quotes: "The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?" Aye aye captain. I understand.


G'night mateys. 

Blog no.28: Thinking of a place

Dear stargazers,

  I didn't know who to address this to and "stargazer" seemed like a really thoughtful, deep, pretencious-ish adjective to use so there you go. It's been a while and I'm listening to a track by The War on Drugs called "Thinking of a place" and I can't but do just that. But as I'm a man of many places that *cough* occasionally *cough* likes to sit on his ass and do literally nothing, I'm thinking of several instead of just one.
  I haven't been back to Cyprus in a few months, but most importantly I haven't been there for the past two summers which is pretty damn huge to me. I've always spent my summers there, same old boring summers, you know the drill, but they all had something in common: they were a tradition. Much like decorating a Christmas tree every Christmas and only taking it down when the first person tells you "Damn, you still have your Christmas decorations?", or having a "surprise" party for one of my university friends using the same non-birthday-candles and a lame excuse to hang out even though they probably expected it, as the sarcastic quotes aptly indicate. I've spent countless summers (well, 21 to be exact - guess counting ain't that hard when you're 23) sweating my ass off with my friends in the hot, humid bore that is the Nicosia "summer in the city" experience, but we always ended up having fun, more or less. Playing cards and videogames all day, getting drunk at live shows playing the same old, familiar songs, going to the beach every once in a while and arguing over the shotgun seat, randomly popping up on our vampire friend uninvited to watch a movie and raid his fridge, just being as carefree as one can be during the summer, basically. It's sort of like living in a semi-rural Southern US county, minus the guns and murder mystery novels. So those were my summers up till last year, when I thought that fuck it, I wanna try something new. Enter Athens.
  So summer last year was my first one away from Cyprus, from the ones that I do remember, and the first one away from my family and my friends. After spending a week in an island camping with awesome people, it was yet another summer in the city for me. And it's not a myth that the Athens city centre becomes a ghost town during August, it's the damn truth. After doing what I do best in these situations - sitting on my ass being as useless as I could ever be - I started going to some open air cinemas to catch a movie or two since they seem to flourish at that time of the year. I watched a few awesome movies and a crappy one, but the most important date of the summer was August 15th. The 15th of August in both Greece and Cyprus is celebrated the usual way: our families gather to slaughter and consume delicious animals because something happened to Virgin Mary a long time ago, supposedly. Not that we needed an excuse to do that but y'know, traditions and all. But wait, this time it's also AWAY FROM THE CITY! That's right, it's the one day of the year that everyone fucks off from the city and goes to the beach or the mountain to have their feasts because that's probably what the god wanted us to do, I guess. For my family this date is also quite important since it's my sister's nameday and the 16th is my brother's birthday, so we did something every year to celebrate both. My parents seemed to have planned their kid's births quite well, huh. Well, this time the celebrations were without a very key member in all the fun-havin'; that being myself of course.
  So here I am, alone in Athens, trying to figure out how to make this day seem not as miserable as everyone assumed it would be. After snooping around on Facebook I found a free showing of a greek movie called "Cheap Smokes", about a guy meeting and spending time with a girl on the 15th of August in the centre of Athens during the 00's and I figured, why the hell not. I was surprised to see that the theatre was packed, and I felt sad for those poor fucks that ended up here of all places, until I realized that I too was a poor fuck that didn't have very many choices and it all suddenly made sense. The movie was actually amazing for what it was, a nonsensical summer love story with wacky characters, a lovely soundtrack and beautiful views of Athens in the summer. The thing that resonated with me was the feeling of solitude it was oozing. The main character was just walking around the city at night, drinking coffee, pretending to know what he was doing, much like everyone else. His coolness, his effortlessness, just his general worldview seemed to resonate with me. Much like me, he enjoyed going places on his own. He liked these little talks with random people, learning about these small intricacies that make everyone unique. He liked looking for details, and in his words, he liked "collecting moments".
  After the movie I placed my headphones on my sweaty head and started walking at a random direction. I went through places from where I had collected these so-called moments, memories of the good and bad variant. The shuffle was on fucking point for the first time since forever, and the songs kept hitting me, one after another, with waves of nostalgia and moments of their own. I walked for what seemed like an hour and a half, following some of the movie's shots, with a huge grin on my face, dancing whenever nobody was around. I never wrote about it 'till today because it was an experience I couldn't easily describe. Saying this sounds cheesy, I know, but good god you had to be there.
  When talking about favourite cities or places in general, Athens comes up quite often. I've seen people shit on it for being too industrialized, too chaotic, too dirty or too crowded, and it is all those things but I'd be damned if I didn't love it all the same. I didn't use to be as fond of this city as I am now, it certainly grew on me I'd say, and it still does day by day. I do believe that for all the shit I often say about it, it has, I think, what others cities lack: character. I'm grateful for all the moments that it has given me, because these truly are the best years of my life. I wrote a piece, not long ago, about how the main character didn't feel like she had a place to call home anymore. I used to think that was the case with me as well. Now, what do I think about when I'm thinking of a place to call home?
  Bet.

Your fellow poor fuck,
Stelios. 

Blog no. 27: When the sun goes down

Dear people,

  It's just people this time, since I don't believe that "music" people exist. I refuse to believe that there are people who don't enjoy music; everyone likes music, it doesn't matter how shitty I think your taste is. Whether you enjoy some ultra complex progressive band with percussion, harmonica, saxophone and whatever the guy on cocaine figured would blend well together with his crummy guitar, or just some dude smashing the bongos at the corner of the convenient store for some spare change, you enjoy music, period.
 So, rant about music listeners aside, I went to a concert a couple of days ago. After paying a small fortune for my cheap ass to get the precious Arctic Monkeys ticket, and misremembering when it was taking place a month ago because I'm a fucking idiot, the day finaly arrived on the 6th of July, NOT on the 6th of June as some good people might have thought. I stocked up with some sandwiches and cheap wine which I was definitely not expecting to get through security, and after suffering a small heart-attack due to thinking I forgot my ticket at home, a couple of friends and I arrivd to the venue: a glorified grass field which, admittedly, felt a lot like a hippie festival.  We sat for a couple of hours while the supporting bands were playing in order to be ready for the tall task that was ahead of us: standing up for the rest of the concert.

  The wine I brought wasn't half bad, and the sandwiches I brought were, well, edible, so we munched through them quickly and listened to the "way better than expected" bands that would typically just be filler before the main concert, but were actually pretty damn good. When Miles Kane showed up on stage everyone stood up as if the pope was in the house, as a sign that the big names were starting to arrive. The dude was quite good, felt like listening to an 80's rockstar with modern influences, and of course, he was dressed appropriately, with a colourful flowery shirt and an equally flowery bandana. Everyone was really getting into the show while I was admiring the multitude of weird facial expressions his female drummer was pulling off and thinking about how freakishly long her tongue was. After his explosive hour-long set, and a small break inbetween, the next big name arrived:Alt-J.
  I hadn't listened to a lot of their songs before but what I listened to I liked, so I was pretty excited to see them live. The fact that their set was played out during the sunset might have skewed my enjoyment to their show, since I'm a sucker for sunsets, but damn were they good. Everyone was on their feet enoying the weird and oftentimes eerie sounds of the band. Occasionally, some cute girl that is actually a fan of them would hop on some dude's shoulders, and sing along to the unintelligible-to-human-ears lyrics while making a sign that could easily be mistaken for the Illuminati sign - heck, they both look like triangles to me. However much I wanted to listen to "When the sun goes down" when, well, the sun was going down, the moment they started playing "Taro", a song which even I and many other non-fans knew, the crowd went wild. I closed my eyes for a bit to take in the moment, because I realized I was gonna remember that one for a long time. The bass echoing through the speakers shook the ground so much it spread through my whole body, and I wasn't sure if my heart was doing its own thing or just following the rhythm: I could feel every vibration so clearly, I thought that even if I was deaf I'd be able to feel it. I turned around to see how much of the park had filled by that point, and the answer was all of it. Some people were singing, some people were dancing, a lot of them were recording non-stop with their shitty phone cameras, but all of them seemed to be having a good time, and that's when I realized why people go to all this trouble to see their favourite band live. It doesn't matter how good they actually are, the mere energy you get from being around fellow fans is enough for you to declare that money was indeed well spent.

  The Monkeys were great of course, and I'm so happy I got to see them live, but I wouldn't say that it was the highlight of my day. It's like Victoria's theory from HIMYM, that the moment that leads up to the kiss is the moment to cherish, not the actual kiss. That being said, the kiss was freaking good. Thrashing around during "Brianstorm", holding up our phones and accidentally taking a picture of the crowd during "Star Treatment", listening to high-pitched screaming when Alex Turner took his sleeveless jacket off and shook it around enough for its concentrated sweat to shoot in the crowd's direction, seeing the guy brush his hair every so often and "losing his train of thought" as if the bag of acid he had taken before the show just kicked in, all of that is part of the experience that contributed to making this an unforgettable night.
  To sum up: decent experience, a 4/5 from me.

Your friendly concert-goer,
Stelios Zesiades.

Blog no. 26: Blistered

Dear nostalgia addicts,

  Watching the sequel to Trainspotting a few weeks ago, I saw the now middle-aged characters latching to their previous lives and repeating mistakes of the past without missing a beat. I mean, seeing as they all were drugged up in their early twenties, their future was already looking grim. It's a miracle they all survived well into their fourties if you ask me, but it was sad that even though they tried to escape their past it just wasn't a choice for them, as is the case for a lot of people. Like how you get black-out drunk for the hundredth time, even though you promised to yourself you wouldn't drink again after your previous shenanigans, or how you decide to take out that tray out of the oven without using oven mitts, even though you've burned yourself the previous twenty times you've attempted this, as if this time you're freaking Elsa and your hand is magically immune to heat. Point is that sometimes even though we know we're making a mistake, we still do it because we feel the need to, and that's okay. Eventually our gag reflexes will reject alcohol, one hard liquor at a time, and our hands will be too blistered to even attempt cooking in the oven. Ι, for one, am fond of all those drunken memories (or lack thereof), and I can probably explain every scar I have with a cool story. By pure coincidence, those two usually go together. Who would have guessed  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  I once read somewhere that "it's funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different", more or less anyways. Looking back at four, five years ago is like entering a time capsule to a completely different time, with different people around you, different concerns, different tastes. Reading my diary entries from a few years back I realized how much different I was back then, and it baffled me because I didn't even realize it. Mind, me, I've only written a couple of entries since then, but those two are enough to give me an idea of who I was back then. I often find myself reminiscing about those times, much like Renton, Spud and Sick Boy did when "Lust for life" came on in the movie, not in a "life was so much better back then" kind of way, but rather because you've revisited those memories so many times, they've become familiar to you. And no matter how good your memory is, it's not like you're a reliable narrator of your own story, we tend to overexaggerate our memories to fit our narrative, and we tend to make them far better than they actually were. That's why we often revisit our failed relationships for another go, even though we know that the tray is hot, we still wanna touch it.

  Even in the off chance that our memories are actually as amazing as we think they are, there's still no point in feeling down that you're not reliving them, you should just be glad that you've actually lived them. Memory is a helluva drug, it drags you around and slaps you with waves of nostalgia, and it makes you reminisce about times that can't be replicated. All you can do is strive to make your days memorable and let go of the past. The sooner you do that, the carefree-er you'll be. It's a word, alright? 

"I wish there was a way to know that you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." - The Office

Your fellow memory latcher, 

Stelios Zesiades. 

About a cloud - pt. 1

Introduction

  You know that feeling when you think you’ve done everything right but you somehow still manage to fuck up? I mean, you have everything you wanted, friends, family, a girlfriend, a couple of dogs, and all of a sudden BAM. A car hits you on your way to the supermarket. No? Well I do, unfortunately.
   I must admit that it’s not a very pleasant situation to be in, but being dead does have its benefits. For starters you can’t die again, which is kinda neat. I can’t go through walls or anything worthy the attention of Murray and Co. but I can dο other stuff, I think. To be completely honest I still haven't found out what exactly I can do in this limbo-like reality I'm living right now, but I'm a fast learner so I'll figure it out. I like the one where I flicker the light for just a second so people are not sure whether it really flickered or they just blinked, it messes them up real good. That is my favorite past-time now that I’m eh, well, dead, y’know. Don’t judge me, it’s not like there’s a lot of stuff to do in the afterlife.
  But! This is not my story; I’m merely narrating it. This is a story of something much bigger than me, much more interesting and frankly, much more alive. This is a story about something that even though is seemingly insignificant, it’s actually of great importance. This is a story about a cloud.
  This is gonna be really long and weird, and I'm not gonna make it any shorter, so just try to keep up alright? To make it easier for you, I'll just break it off in 3 parts. The first one is the part where I die. Think of it as a How I met your mother situation, but instead of meeting your mother, I die. And no, it wasn't some idiot driver who got distracted talking on the phone, I was just jaywalking and, well, reading some funny post on Reddit. Hey at least the dude that made it can say that he literally made someome die from laughter, if that's any consolation whatsoever. Dying is all morbid and whatever but trust me, there's worse things that can happen to you. You could get expelled, for one.

  Yeah yeah, we all hate spoilers, I know, but the me dying part is actually the least important part of the story. I told you, this isn't a story about me, but since this part is integral to the events that occur afterwards I can't really brush it aside either. Anyways, to sum up, I was on my way home from the grocery store, on my phone, wearing headphones and crossing the road. Relatively new driver is cruising at a normal speed, perfectly in line with the rules and stuff, but she doesn't have time to react to the idiot crossing the road. She tries to swerve but it's too late; my face smashes on the windshield at first before my whole body is sent flying quite a few meters away. I die almost instantly, and that's that. And that thing they say about your life flashing I front of your eyes before you die? Well, either it's bullshit, or mine was just directed by some french new wave jackass experimenting with a still black frame, which is what I actually saw. If I see the big guy at any point, I'm asking for a refund.
  Now that I think of it, the actual dying part isn't even that relevant to the story, damn, I should probably change the name of the first part. Let's see: "The part where I ramble on for a third of the story". Nah, too tongue-in-cheek. "The one with all the exposition." Accurate, but it makes me sound like an awful story-teller, dontcha think? How about we name it something like, uh, "The part before I die." Yeah, that's a bit more accurate I'd say.
 I actually have to go way way back to give you some context otherwise it's gonna be a shitty story, and this is not something I'd like to fuck up. One would think that after dying you'd just seize to exist peacefully, like your soul rests and all your memories are gone or whatever, but I guess the universe has greater plans for some of us. I don't even really believe in god, or reincarnation, or life after death for that matter, but now I don't even know what or who to believe in anymore. In a totally unrelated matter, I really like squirrels.
  Since that's out of the way, now I can get to the real story. You know, the stuff that is actually important to the plot. To do that though I have to go all the way back, back to the day when Chris and I got adopted. Didn't expect that did ya? Well anyways, you ready? Here goes...

Nothing good happens after 2:00 am

I started rewatching How I met your mother the other day. At its best it's a brilliant show, not because of its comedic value, but because of the interesting way it treats concepts that are known to us but are left unexplored. At its worse it's a pile of crap that drags a single wedding to a whole season and then tears any character development of its last seasons to shreds, but that's another story.
  Last night I watched an episode called "Nothing good happens after 2:00 am" and it kept me thinking, how the hell did they come up with something so specific? It's such an arbitrary number that I fail to understand how such a rule can apply, plenty of good has happened both before and after 2:00 am. Then it hit me: it's not about the actual time is it? There's certain thresholds in which that rule applies, not because of its 2:00 am-ness, but rather because of the idea that there actually is such a threshold that makes us make all the bad decisions. Be it in the am's or the pm's, it's the point in time in which we're most vulnerable, a point where we seize any rational thinking and we let our insticts take over. Not the kind of instict that helps us survive from a bear attack or something, it's the kind of instict that makes you drunk text your ex after a night of partying, or the kind of instict that tells you that it's a good idea to eat that leftover pizza from last week's house party you hosted, or the kind of instict that makes you tell Robin you've broken up with Victoria when in fact you haven't, just to get a head start in your soon-to-be relationship. It's the kind of instinct that makes you drink your third post-midnight coffee in hope that you're gonna cover a semester's worth of knowledge in one miserable night. And trust me, in that context I can definitely agree: Nothing good ever happens after 2:00 am, it's just that my 2:00 am is probably different than yours. Besides, it's always after 2:00 am somewhere, technically.
  So take it from me, or take it from Ted's ma, "Nothing good ever happens after 2:00 am. When 2:00 am rolls around, just go home and go to sleep". Whenever your 2:00 am is. 

One for the road pt. 2: Sweet life

...

  The park was about a couple kilometers away from Jessica's apartment, but she didn't mind walking that much. She wanted to clear her head anyways, she thought the best way about it was to walk in the "not-so-woken-up-yet" town of hers. Growing up in a different country, before moving to study abroad, created this weird conundrum for her; she didn't feel like she belonged anywhere in particular, like she didn't have a place to call home. The house she had grown up with she wasn't really fond of and the place she was staying currently was too recent to create a connection with, so instead of having two homes, she had none. Like a traveler who is between connecting flights, lingering in the airport terminal for a while until they eventually board their next plane. Her world was one gigantic terminal, and since she didn't have a particular destination to be at, she just sort of lingered.


  Shuffling through a couple of songs that didn't quite fit her mood she stumbled upon an old favourite of hers, Frank Ocean's "Sweet Life", who she discovered by accident. She was travelling to Germany to spend Christmas with her godparents in Berlin, for which she had a connecting flight through Amsterdam. Her flight was the morning after, so she had almost a full day by herself. She booked a small room in a cute little hotel she had found online, and when she arrived she left her stuff and ran right out to not lose any precious time. Visiting Amsterdam was one of the top things in her bucket list, even if it were for just a day, so she figured it'd be a nice opportunity to go for a walk an see some sights. Not missing, of course, were her white on-ear headphones, same ones she's had for the past 5 years, a graduation gift from her parents. Walking through the quite cold, Christmas - decorated capital she couldn't hide her amazement of the buildings and architecture of the centre. She was so used to plain old roads and houses you couldn't tell apart, seeing a city that is almost literally floating on water was something extraordinary for her.
  After some exploration and picture-taking in the beautiful canals of the city, she decided to treat herself to a nice hot meal before heading out again. The place was swarming with Argentinian steakhouses and Italian pizzerias, and being a college student she'd have the latter every other day so she chose the former for a change. There, a clearly-not-Argentinian-looking dude welcomed her with a smile on his face and sat her at a table overlooking the local cinema. Table for two for one; Jessica hoped she didn't seem too sad about sitting by herself in a strange city. The beer was cold, the steak was great and the restaurant was playing some weirdly out-of-place tunes which surprisingly fit her music tastes. Eating Argentinian steak while drinking Belgian beer in a what seemed like middle-eastern-ish decorated restaurant in the heart of Amsterdam and listening to old-school hip-hop was something she would have never imagined doing, but there she was. After some funky Biggie songs and chill Nas Illmatic-era beats when something newer, less well known caught her attention. It was chill and had a great vibe behind it, some sweet male vocals as well. She liked noticing small stuff in her songs, like the mellow guitar rhythm or a gentle drum beat that just elevates a song to greatness. Interrupting her delicious dinner she tried to get the attention of the waiter.
  "Excuse me!" she exclaimed, raising her hand.
  The waiter took notice of her immediately and approached her table in an instant. "How can I assist you?" asked the mustached man that kinda looked like a young, less muscular Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  "Sorry to bother you but I really like the song, would you mind telling me who it is from?"
  The waiter let out a genuine laugh and stepped back from the table and into the kitchen. Jessica was baffled and kinda annoyed, as she thought that he was just being rude, making fun of her question. Just when she was ready to get up and leave, the waiter comes back with an even younger looking dude, tall, bearded and tattooed guy who looked like a guy who's last name ended in -sson.
  "This is my brother" said the waiter, "he's the sous-chef and our, erm, DJ of sorts." he added. He left the table and let the other guy do the talking.
  "Mind if I join you?" asked the guy.
  "I don't if you don't" said Jessica, kinda embarrassed by the situation.
  "Danny" he said, extending his arm to Jessica.
  "Jessica" she replied, a bit red on the cheeks. "Sorry about this, I just wanted to know about the song you played a few minutes ago, didn't mean to create all this trouble."
  "No trouble at all" said Danny, "I quite enjoy talking to customers with good music taste." His dutch accent was barely distinguishable through his crystal clear English, Jess thought. Guy before was Frank Ocean, think it was "Sweet life" playing if I recall correctly. I can check it for you if you want." he added.
  Their flirt-ish vibe was all over the dining table but in a weird, "This is fun but we aren't gonna get together" kind of way. They both knew it.
  "No I think that's it, I vaguely remember hearing 'Sweet Life' at some point in the song. Great stuff."
  "Been a fan since Channel Orange" said Danny. "Quite a talented dude." he leaned back on the chair and got comfortable. "So what brings you here?" he asked.
  "A plane" she said without realizing she just made a stupid joke. Danny's half-smile half-disappointed grunt made her retract her statement. "Er, I mean, I have a plane to catch tomorrow. I'm going to Berlin to visit my godparents for Christmas and I just had a connection here."
  "Awesome." said Danny. "Enjoying it so far?"
  "The city is so beautiful!" exclaimed Jessica. "It's just so different than-" She didn't get a chance to  finish her sentence before the waiter interrupted her by giving a disapproving nod to Danny which caught his attention.
  "I'm terribly sorry, I have to get back to work." he said, frowning.
  "It's alright, don't worry" Jessica  nodded.
  "If you'd like I can take you for a walk after I'm done, maybe grab a beer or something " said Danny.
  Jessica considered the option for a while and she found no reasonable reason to refuse the offer, which surprised even her when she did.
  "I was thinking about going to bed early to get some rest" she said, "but thanks for offering anyways!" She flashed an awkward apologetic smile at him while he was getting up.
  "Hey, it's OK don't worry about it." He reached into his pocket and handed her his card. "In case you find yourself lost in Amsterdam in the future." he said, winking.
  She blushed once more, thanking him. After finishing her meal she left the money on the table and sighed a half-hearted goodbye to a lost chance.
  She didn't actually go to the hotel right away. Instead, she walked around the city for a bit more, still listening to music. She pirated the whole Channel Orange album using some Starbucks free wi-fi and listened to it front and back a few times before heading to the hotel; "Sweet life" had become her official theme for the trip. The next morning she left early, went to the airport and flew an uninteresting, short flight to Berlin.


 She'd been walking for around 20 minutes without realizing, and her mood had instantly changed. Her face shifted from a frown to a big smile as she shuffled to a few Channel Orange songs until she reached the park. At one moment she stopped, took her wallet out of her back pocket and shuffled through her credit cards. She takes one of them out, a black-and-gold one with red details that read "Los amigos Argentinian Grill & Tapas Restaurant" with gold letters and a "Johan and Daniel Janssen" underneath. She stared at it for a while and let out an audible laugh. "So close to Jenson" she mumbled. She put the card back in her wallet and continued her walk towards the park.

...
  

Blog no.25: Sing about me

Dear insomniacs,

  It's 4:47 a.m. and I have an exam in roughly 3 hours and a half, so naturally it's a great time to write some stuff, ain't it?
  I've been listening to the my Spotify-generated playlist (which I update every week with my new suggested stuff) for the past few weeks, which is mostly comprised of hip-hop and indie tracks including some really good shit I'd never have known about. It's amazing how much music there is available to us and I'm so grateful for being able to experience it and procrastinate to some amazing tracks, but you know what baffles me? Some people don't even bother searching for music! I mean I get having favourite bands and songs, I have those too, but you are able to type a few words and swim in an ocean of incredible, never-heard-before music and you choose to listen to Drake, Katy Perry or Coldplay on repeat? Don't get me wrong, I like all of those artists and enjoy listening to their stuff but don't you think it's worth discovering stuff by yourself and expanding your music tastes? Hell, even my favourite band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have so many less-popular songs that are so much better than the overplayed "Snow", "Otherside", "Scar Tissue" and the likes. "Hey" (Not Hey Oh, as an unofficial YouTube video suggested) has one of the most orgasmic solos I've ever heard, even more so than Muse's "Madness". Talking about Muse, they have so many amazing tracks (especially from "The 2nd law") which are not that well known for being too different than their usual stuff. Even Coldplay which I mentioned before have the spectacular "We never change" and the minimalistic "O", two very underrated songs from their discography.
  When I first listen to a song from an artist I don't know about, first thing I do is look them up on the internet (well, Reddit mostly), and find their most popular albums and download them in their entirety. I know I know shame on me for pirating but I'd literally be living in the streets if I paid for all the music I listen to. Point is, listening to an album in it's entirety is a whole different beast from just listening to a few tracks. Albums are supposed to be connected works of art, they tell a story, they have a certain flow to them that gets lost when shuffled and they are destined to be played beginning to end. Haken's "Visions" tells a story about, well, visions, death, dreams, time and ends with the titular track, which loops it back to the beginning. Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" talks about the effects of growing up in an uninspiring suburban neighborhood in a nostalgic, bittersweet way that takes you way way back. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the moon" is a brilliant example of a "concept album" because it flows flawlessly, with seemingly zero interruption from one track to the other and multiple callbacks to previous tracks of the same album. But of course the album I want to focus on the most is Kendrick Lamar's "Good kid m.A.A.d city". This album got me into concept albums in the first place a few years back. In the beginning you get in the back of the white van with Kendrick and his gang and you just start rolling around Compton, getting into trouble, going through shootouts, running away from the police, trying to escape the life of gangs, drugs and alcohol and ultimately making it big. It's a perfect album, but more than that it has one of the best lyrical songs I've ever listened to, "Sing about me, I'm dying of thirst".
  "Sing about me" for shorts tells a story from 3 different perspectives. The first person is a troubled young dude who lost his brother in a gang related incident (in the end of "Swimming Pools"), who recalls how difficult it is to grow up as a poor black guy with a bad background and thanks Kendrick for being there for his brother but is ultimately shot in a similar fashion as his brother. The second person is a young girl who blasts Kendrick for mentioning her sister in a previous album (Section .80) as an example of a girl driven to prostitution, saying that he doesn't understand that it was the only way for her and her sister to live since they were in-between foster homes. She mentions that he has no right to talk about her sister because he doesn't know where she is coming from and to let her do her thing without obstructing her life, but ends up fading due to some sexually transmitted illness. Now the third person, that is Kendrick himself. Kendrick talks about how he sees himself trying to make a difference with the only thing that he has, his raps, and that he thinks about death a lot and thus he's trying to make his mark in the world by helping others. Being an influential figure, he knows that he can help people from his neighborhood by getting their stories out even if it comes with sacrificing his own image. What follows is this:
  "And I hope that at least one of you sing about me when I'm gone.
   Now I'm I worth it?
   Did I put enough work in?"
First time I heard those lines they hit me like a truck, because I related so much to what he has to say. We're all trying to make our mark in the world, to be remembered, to have someone sing about us when the lights shut off and it's our time to settle down. It is said that you die twice, once when you stop breathing and once again when your name is mentioned for the last time. It's all very morbid but very true as well, it's in our nature. I don't care about being rich and famous, I don't care about having my statue engraved in the middle of a busy square, I don't care if my name isn't mentioned in the Guinness World Records book. All I'm asking, and all everyone is probably asking is to have at least one person who thinks you're important enough to be remembered. The feeling of knowing that you've positively influenced at least one person is more precious than all the money in the world, so all I have to ask is this: Promise that you'll sing about me when I'm gone, will ya?

Your chosen existentialist,
Stelios Zesiades

Blog no. 24: Films & music

Dear, uh, listeners?

  This one's for music (again) so let's just say the greeting makes sense, yeah? Great. Two days ago was international music day as I found out, and I can't simply let that go unnoticed because if you're not gonna celebrate music what the hell will you ever celebrate about? I wrote a piece in greek for an online magazine a year ago, so allow me to slightly plagiarize myself and translate some of it for this one. Oh and since I'm a huge fan of music and I like to consider myself a cinephile, it made sense to write about them both, so here goes.
  You see, those two mediums are so closely intertwined, nowadays even more so than in previous decades, so you can't have one without the other. Even the absence of a soundtrack is, in a sense, an artistic choice some filmmakers use, with the most concrete example being the complete lack of background music for a large stretch of the Coen bro's "No country for old men" duration, which made everything so realistic, grounded, bleak, giving a sense of dread, making us scared of the things the ever-menacing Javier Bardem (and his equally menacing haircut) would do to get what he wants.
  On the other side of the spectrum, there are others that literally hang from their soundtracks as if it were their lifeline. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jaws wouldn't be nearly as good as they are without John Williams' incredible scores, "The Lord of the Rings" wouldn't be nearly as epic as it is without Howard Shore's bombastic compositions. Einaudi's score for "Les intouchables" and Tiersen's "Amelie" one are basically front and centre in every "listen while you're studying, start contemplating life instead" playlist. Abel Korzeniowski's score (whose name I definitely did NOT have to Google) made my heart fucking pound during last year's "Nocturnal Animals" and I'm not ashamed to say that I shed a tear or two at the end of the second Pokemon movie, when the beautifully simple ocarina melody was played during Lugia's revival. Hell, even forgettable or mediocre movies like "The Notebook" and "Remember Me" are elevated considerably solely on the merit of their incredible soundtracks.
  Whenever you're listening to Simple Minds' "Don't you forget about me" the image of the criminal's fist from "The Breakfast Club" immediately jumps to your head, "Mad World" takes you back to Jake Gylenhaal's manic laughter from "Donnie Darko", The Do's "Dust it off" makes you gaze into "I Origin's" protagonists' beautiful eyes, and Debussy's "Claire de lune" puts you next to "Ocean's Eleven" and in front of the Bellagio Fountains. More recently Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" made me tear up during the not too shabby Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2 but that might be because it's a really really good song regardless. Tarantino, amongst others, is a master of making a song get stuck in your head and connecting it with his movies and his smug face. Django's "Freedom", Reservoir Dog's "Stuck in the middle with you" and "Little green bag", and Kill Bill's "Twisted nerve" are some of the songs you'll find in my playlist from that stupidly eccentric, brilliant dude's filmography.
  Other directors more recently found some very inventive ways to fit their soundtracks into their movie's narrative. Matthew Vaughn, known for his extremely violent action scenes, manages to blend blood and mayhem with odd music choices in "Kick-Ass" and "Kingsmen", making the scenes jarring, ridiculous and, above all, hella fun. Hans Zimmer uses Edith Piaf's "Je ne regrette rien" as a literal tool for his characters to time their "kicks" in Christopher Nolan's Inception, and utilizes various slowed-down versions of the song in most of the film's soundtrack which is a brilliant way to represent the whole "time slows down in dreams" concept. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross worked together in Fincher's "Gone Girl" in a way that differentiated the dreamy sequences of Amy's diary to the grounded and mysterious scenes of Nick Dunne's attempts to find the truth. In Wong Kar Wai's "In the mood for love", the same song is being repeated throughout the whole movie, but the duration of it is analogous to the closeness of the two main characters.
   There's just so many examples but, being a *cough* responsible *cough* university student, I will spare you the details so I can actually pretend to study for my exams. Either way you can all make me and yourselves a favour and pay attention to a movie's soundtrack, it might just make you understand movies a bit more and make your music collection grow a bit bigger.

Your friendly know-it-all,
Stelios Zesiades.

P.S.

One for the road. pt.1: Flight of the navigator

  Jessica was ready to join the others for a few beers at the park. The clock read 4:26, she was melancholic, lonely, and it was a hot summer sleepless night so she figured a beer might have helped all that go away. She jumped out of bed, wore her red shorts and a black sleeveless shirt which had a negative space bunny printed in the middle, grabbed her phone headphones and keys and left as if she was late for something. She wasn't late though, people aren't often late at 4:26 a.m. unless they have a plane to catch or a drunken friend to drive home.
  Walking out of the apartment she stopped at the front door mirror for a second, Pink Floyd's "Fearless" echoing from her headphones. At first she tried to fix her hair, but as she moved closer she just stopped and gave a long, wide-eyed stare. It wasn't a stare to check if she looked good, no, she didn't care if she looked good at the time. It was more of a glare, her eyes fixated at her own reflection. "What the hell are you doing?" she whispered, looking at her sorrowful eyes. "What the hell are you doing." she repeated, her eyes watering up. She took a tissue from her back pocket and wiped the single tear dripping from her right eye, sighed loudly and in one quick motion she opened the door and left while fixing her long black hair underneath her white over-ear headphones.
  Gambino's "3005" queued up in her playlist, but she wasn't feeling it at the moment. She wanted something to fit her mood, the kind of mood you have when you're walking alone in the break of dawn, before the city has even woken up. She chose the same artist's "Flight of the navigator" and kept going, feeling each vibration of the gentle acoustic guitar run through her body. She remembered the first time she heard that song: it was during an exam period a few years back, her future ex-boyfriend was sitting at the studying room in the weirdest position, his feet dangling from the side of the table next to his laptop and his notepad sitting on his legs. He was holding a pen on one hand, fidgeting with his fingers. He suddenly drops his pen, lets out a mild "fuck" and turns around to see if he can reach it without disturbing his sitting position. Jessica picks the pen up and hands it to him, giving him a smile and a nod. He mutters an inaudible "thank you" while smiling back, takes his feet off the table and takes his headphones off to turn to Jessica.
"Have I seen you somewhere?"
"Chemical engineering major?" she asks.
"Nah, electrical" he answers. "Tried that too but was out of my element." he adds
Jessica lets out a genuine laugh, "Oh god you're one of those" she smiles.
"What, an electrical engineer, or a guy with a good sense of humour?" he smiles back.
"Not sure if you'd fit in either category to be honest." Jess says playfully.
"And you're in?"
"Well, chemical engineering if that wasn't so apparent."
He facepalms for a second, and extends his arm to Jessica. "I'm Nick by the way. Wannabe electrical engineer, bad humour specialist and quite stupid to be frank."
"So is it Frank or is it Nick?" she asks while shaking his hand. "I'm Jessica" she adds.
"Well Jess, I see you're ready to join the bad humour club."
Both of them seemed quite into each other at that point, and they both knew it but nobody wanted to make a first move so early after they met.
"So what are you listening to?" asks Jessica to break the bit of awkward silence that had formed in the past half a minute after the handshake.
"Childish Gambino" answers Nick while turning to his laptop to navigate his music files. "You know, the guy from Community."
"He makes music?" asks Jessica, quite surprised.
"Not only that, he's amazing. Wanna listen?" he asks.
Jessica takes her chair next to Nick's and lets him put his over-ear headphones on her head.
  She's thinking how great the song is, while Nick is staring directly at her with a big smile on his face, the kind of smile you have when you introduce someone to something you're sure they will enjoy. After the song ends, she sits there and stares at Nick for a while, not saying a word, and Nick himself staring back and smiling contently.
"Wanna go out sometime?" he says all of a sudden.
Jessica smiles a wide smile and answers playfully "As long as we get to listen to some more of that stuff."
"My headphones are an extension of my head, so you can bet on that." he says. They exchange numbers and facebook profiles and Nick turns back to his laptop to continue studying. "If you have your own headphones we can study together and start listening to my stuff right now," he says. Jessica pulls her red in-ear ones and hands them to Nick, who plugs them into the audio splitter and resumes his studying position, Jessica taking her own next to him. He played "Flight of the navigator" a few more times during that studying session and the song made it to Jessica's own playlist in a matter of a few hours.
  Two years later even though she and Nick had broken up a while ago after dating for half a year, the song was still in her playlist and every time she listened to it she was reminded of him and how much fun they had together at the short period they dated. She checked her phone and scrolled to find her last conversation with him. It was from February, Nick had wished her a happy birthday and they exchanged a few messages before returning to being mostly strangers. She felt sad knowing that a person she shared all those memories with, and who knew her so well was now a stranger. She typed his phone number and put her finger over the "call" button but then she remembered: she was the one who broke up with him, and she was the one that didn't want them to keep in touch. She hoped relationships were easier than that but alas, they're not. She deleted the phone number, changed the song and moved on.

...