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THE GREAT GREEK TUCKSHOP BLOCKADE
That stupid kid,” my friend raged as his son cowered in the corner, protecting his carefully coiffed hairstyle from his father’s verbal onslaught. “A detention again! Can you believe it? I slave away...
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GOCMV GOES BYZANTINE
If one was called upon to guess the identity of the structure occupying the photograph accompanying these words, two possible answers suggest themselves, the first: that this is a representation of...
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ΓΙΑ ΤΑ ΛΕΦΤΑ
«Τι τα θέλεις τα λεφτά, να τα κάψεις, τι τα θες;» Eleni Vitali«Για τα λεφτά τα κάνεις όλα» Antypas.Recently, a friend, who is on the committee of management of a local Greek organization telephoned me...
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ANGEL FRANKENSTEIN
“how impossible the perfect finality of immolating you in wine – a bottle already emptied.” George Mouratidis.Central to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the exploration of unfulfilled longing, or rather...
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ARI, THE PRINCE OF WESTERN LIBYA
When I met Ari, in a tavern in Plaka that evening, it was as a kindred spirit. At least, that is what my Grecian hosts told me. “Come and meet an Αυστραλό like yourself.” And there was Ari, blonde,...
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A PENTELIC CHRISTMAS DIALECTIC
«Καλά δε νιώθς; Μη μ’ βανς ομελέττα, αφού δεν αρταίνουμι».My grandmother placed the pan on the table and stared at me in horror. If looks were capable of parakinesis, then that stare would have had me...
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PENSIVE PROGNOSTICATIONS: DEAN KALIMNIOU'S PREDICTIONS FOR 2019
JANUARY- Julia Banks attempts to form a new party.- Peter Dutton attempts to crash Julia Banks’ party and is exiled to Philip Island as a queue jumper.- South...
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THE PARTY LIASON
It was the eve of Christmas Eve that I saw him at the Deli, inspecting an oversized panettone. He circumambulated it slowly, then gingerly picked it up, and held it in his hand as if to weigh it,...
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THE ENIGMA OF THE ARRIVAL AND AFTERNOON IN GREEK MELBOURNE
Giorgio De Chirico, an Italian painter who was born and raised in Volos, painted “The Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon” in 1912. An eerie mood and strange artificiality pervades the cityscape....
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PLAYGROUND GREEK
After a year of silently observing us while dropping off his grand-daughter at school, the kindly old man with the bright blue eyes finally leant over and commented:«Είναι καλό που μιλάς στην κόρη σου...
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TSITSIPAS DEUS
Abdul the motor mechanic, is one of my oldest and closest friends. Heavily bearded and bodily hirsute, he hails from Florina. His original nickname was “freebie” because years ago, in a fit of...
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INTERNATIONAL GOTHIC AND PONTUS IN CRISIS
Mystery surrounds the exact date that renowned fresco painter Antonio di Puccio Pisano, also known as Pisanello, painted “St George and the Princess of Trebizond,” widely held to be the most astounding...
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VARIATIONS ON A THEME
It was an impromptu festive gathering of friends with musical pretentions that turned into an inebriated parody of virtuosity. One after the other, we proceeded to infuse with spirit of the alcoholic...
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BEFORE ITHACA
“Odysseus, noble son of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Zeus will be angry with you.” Homer, the Odyssey.The summary of perhaps Cavafy’s most famous poem ‘Ithaca,’ “It’s not the journey but the...
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ONE PEOPLE
“G’day,” a portly middle aged man sporting a grey, Fu Manchu-like goatee and wearing an eighties Bundaberg Rum t-shirt, approached me at the Epirus Cultural Stall during the Lonsdale Street Greek...
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THE MACEDONIAN HOARD
The logo of the Central Afghanistan Bank is restrained and unassuming. It is neither simplified to the level of an abstraction, as is the case with most Australian Banks, nor does it sport a garish...
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EGO, FAVORINUS
“Look,” Jani, my grandmother’s Albanian neighbour’s son, interrupted me. I was in the process of waxing lyrical about his father’s hometown of Fieri, near the ancient Greek city of Apollonia and centre...
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THE OTHER 1821 REVOLUTION
“It seems to me that you sir consider the folk, whose blood has been feeding and giving lustre to all the boyar kin, to be in fact nothing, and that you only view the pillagers to be the motherland......
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MARCH MAYHEM
This year’s Greek Independence Day march to the Shrine of Remembrance was dedicated to the victims of the Genocide of the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire. Most of the people who attended would not have...
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THE SAMIAN SAMOSA TAUTOLOGY
When Esperanto was the official language taught in Greek schools.“Doctor Anacreon was a gifted man,” my late grandmother used to reminisce. “He spoke in tongues. Some people said that he had been...
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