tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7503414687298565438.post2540328444615034665..comments2024-03-16T09:26:42.761+11:00Comments on South of the Border - a South Melbourne Hellas blog: Soccor - П. O.Paulhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07844708719537648292noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7503414687298565438.post-85337700762654144232015-11-24T16:48:26.397+11:002015-11-24T16:48:26.397+11:00Just watched the relevant Acropolis Now episode (o...Just watched the relevant Acropolis Now episode (of which my illegally downloaded copy for some reason doesn't include the whole of), and it's a fairly bizarre caricature of a poet. I don't even think Epsilon actually reads out of any his own poems - surely a Pi O parody should at least include some sort of poetry reading in a Pi O style?Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03206486881622385464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7503414687298565438.post-63647061809283349672015-11-23T13:25:18.804+11:002015-11-23T13:25:18.804+11:00During the 1970s my dad (and later my mum) lived i...During the 1970s my dad (and later my mum) lived in Collingwood. My dad worked for his cousin at Venus Carpets which was on the corner of Gertrude and Smith Streets I think at the time. My dad will still pull out the old stories of what Smith Street was like in those days, a migrant street and a mainly Greek migrant street at that.<br /><br />My own experience of that precinct has been over the course of 25 years of visits to Melissa and seeing its Greekness vanish, to the point where even I won't make a detour out there for a spanakopita (though at $6.50 a slice, I don't see the point, no matter how good they are).<br /><br />Pi O was hired once to do a special lecture/performance for us at Victoria University in the Malthouse Theatre. He was mesmerising, tireless, though I still have to go back look at the parody of him they did on Acropolis Now which he railed against (their poet was named 'Epsilon').<br /><br />I was lucky enough to be in the car with him that night on the way back to Flinders Street,along with Ian Syson and fellow academic Phil Dimitriadis. We had a good chat in the short time we had, though I can't remember much of the detail - this would have been around 2008/2009 I think. Interesting character, fabulous poetry, though actually being Greek and understanding it can in its own way be counterproductive to reading his poems in terms of the phonetic qualities he wants to stress - instead of reading the syllables/phonemes as separate entities, a Greek will likely fall into the trap of just reading them out normally.<br /><br />On the other hand, in a discussion with a mono-lingual associate the other day, he is fascinated whenever I start speaking Greek, for the phonetic quality on its own terms.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03206486881622385464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7503414687298565438.post-20846911326020919042015-11-23T12:58:08.606+11:002015-11-23T12:58:08.606+11:00Hi Paul,
The timing of this posting is quite apt....Hi Paul,<br /><br />The timing of this posting is quite apt.<br /><br />Yesterday I was walking through Collingwood (with my Greek Australian friend, his WASP American wife, and her WASP American friend) on my way to the incorrectly termed Spanish Festival (should be Hispanic) when a sound started wafting through to my ears. I thought, could the music from the Festival be audible all the way past Smith Street?<br /><br />But moments later I realised it was Greek music and I could spot, in the shadow distance, a small older man tending to his garden with Kazantzidis, as it turned out, playing on his cassette (or radio?).<br /><br />I made an oblique comment in Greek to which he showed what I thought was some mild interest with his response.<br /><br />But about 100 meters after I passed him, I turned around and I turned to salt like Lot's wife! Only joking ... What I could see was the elderly Greek gentleman standing in the middle of the footpath staring at us!<br /><br />What had him so mesmerised by us?<br /><br />Did I, or our group, exude a non Greekness that shocked him?<br /><br />Has Collingwood become so gentrified that he felt like he was seeing a ghost from the past?<br /><br />Have you ever met P.O? I think he was based in a laneway off Flinders lane a few years back.Savvas Tzionhshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05763693747144083898noreply@blogger.com