RIP Les Amis – “The world is too small to contain my pain:” – The last bouzoukia in Astoria

18 Jan

Screen Shot 2020-01-18 at 11.14.10 PMA friend in New York just informed me that Les Amis, the little after-hours Greek boîte I shot a short video piece on in 2015 has shut down.  As my video feared it would, it did.  Maybe we should be surprised, actually, that it lasted so long.

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Well, αἰωνία του ἡ μνήμη· it was the last büzükçidiko in New York, after Microcosmos, Akroama and the semi-trashy Thiasos had all serially closed, where you could hear live λαϊκά of half-decent quality, and not DJ-ed Anna Bysse· and the place just had the most enchanting vibe ever —  till six, seven, eight in the morning.
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But if Time Out lists you as one of the world’s 50 coolest neighborhoods, you know it’s like hearing your Ode to Joy and your Swan Song at the same time and that places like Les Amis, — places that make the world’s Astorias, Astorias — will soon disappear.  But gentrification is getting to be a boring topic.  Want something more interesting?  Move a little further out on the 7 train and come bei mir.
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I want to thank Paola Ramírez, Lucina Melesia Friedman, Mathilde Hammel, Aman, Yu Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn, Zain Alam, Alden Nusser, Calista Macharrie, Andy Menezes, Demetre, Soteria, Claudia, Kosta, Thanase and Julio for helping me out on shoots, or helping me scout out the place or just coming along with me for support.
 
Then I truly need to thank Yusuf Swide; when the anxiety of the shoot we were on together ended up leaving me trashed, he took over camera, sound and did a great job.  Thanks.  It wouldn’t have haven’t been possible otherwise.  Plus, he never neglects to offer ebbó to the Virgin of Regla (Yemayá) on my behalf whenever he’s in Cuba.
 
And FINALLY, I need to thank Travis Fox.  In my short stint at the CUNY J-School, he was my Craft professor, and perhaps the the one warm, funny and genuinely intelligent and supportive member of the faculty.  (Mind you, I’m talking the professor of Craft Video, not the eight-armed Durga-Maa and her assistant Kali that taught the first half of Craft Writing).
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When I handed in my final project Travis wrote to me: “I must
admit I’m mildly impressed.”  And I replied: “I must admit I’ve never been so flattered by mild praise.”
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My video is posted on Youtube at bottom.  Maybe that’s it for Les Amis.  Maybe it’s all over.  But the Gospels say that desperation is a sin, and talk around the mahalla says the NYPD is gonna let a place like Les Amis re-open again in another location, which, given sneaky Greek ingenuity, may have already.  So, to future post-parties, saludos, geiamas and zhivelis, wherever we’ll be toasting them… 
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Thanks folks.
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Love, N
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Every state’s least favorite state

18 Jan

When I first saw this tweet I kinna lept over it, thinking: “What a dumb tweet”, and then less than a second later, in testament to the power of identity to pull anybody into its little hell, I said: “Wait a second?  Who doesn’t like New York?  Fuck you.”  Then thought: ah, good, only Massachusetts, long-term rivals that have always shared gut-distaste for each other anyway.

Cool that almost nobody hates California.  As much of a New Yorker as I am, Cali is still the Promised land.

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P.S. Interesting that Jersey isn’t New York when it’s as New York as Long Island is: one of the the anthropological theses of The Sopranos.  It’d be fascinating to see some way that could measure how the inner suburbs of the city are now more New York than a sterile Manhattan has become.

But snort…   Boston…  Thinks who she is…

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Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com

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As Franz Josef once said, in all his Viennese fussiness, about the Hungarians: “It was terribly inopportune of these gentlemen to come and plant themselves here in the middle of Europe.”

17 Jan

Genuinely interesting thread.  But careful; one will have to watch how one participates or you’ll get nailed for all kindsa shit from all over the place.

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Balkans and demographic decline

17 Jan

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From Guardian: “Croatia has enchanting words for genitalia?”

16 Jan

“Why doesn’t the UK?”

Because English-speaking peoples have a rich and ancient literary tradition that they draw on, honor and will hopefully continue to do so into a future far, far, away.  With Croats, you feel like: well, if you’re from Gospić you have to do something.***

 

Adrian Chiles

I am friends with a Croatian couple who translate erotic fiction. This is eye-opening – not least my realisation that the UK doesn’t have nearly enough female-friendly euphemisms

 

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Bearing fruit … šljiva, or plum, an old Croatian word for ‘front bottom’. Photograph: Anton Eine/Getty Images/EyeEm

Some time at the end of the last century, I made a mistake. Friends of mine, a Croatian couple, asked me to find them a book called the The Art of Selling, and take it to them in Zagreb when I was next there. This was pre-internet and Amazon and all that caper, so it took some finding. Upon slapping it triumphantly on my friends’ kitchen table, I was told this wasn’t the book they were after; far from it. They had asked me for The Art of Sailing. Imagine their disappointment.

However, in a lifetime of unforced errors, this one was more or less alone in that it actually turned out for the best. My friends read The Art of Selling, liked it, saw a market for it, translated it into Croatian, sold lots of copies, and their publishing business was born. I saw them last week; these days they are engaged in the translation of erotic fiction into Croatian. This, as you can imagine, has its challenges. The word “manhood” is one. “What’s that all about?” my friend Zrinka asked me.

“No idea,” I shrugged. There is a Croatian word for manhood but in this context it sounds absurd. Also, she tells me there is no translation for having sex that is neither lewd nor technical-sounding, like the word “copulation”, which she is often forced to use. It’s nicely neutral, she says. I took this as a compliment to our language, but it probably says something less complimentary about our attitude to sex.

The words for orgasm are similar to ours, although they do have a charming archaic one in occasional use: sladostrašće, which is literally “sweet passion”. Nice. “It’s kind of like la petite mort,” said Zrinka. “You use that in English, don’t you?”

Do we? I’ve heard tell of it, but can’t say I’ve ever uttered it.

“Any trouble with other words for cock?” I asked, eager to be of assistance.

“No, we’re good for those. We have plenty.”

But this led us on to nice words for our reproductive organs. Willy, she reminded me, is pimpek (pronounced pimp-ek). Sweet. But ever since I begat daughters I have bemoaned the lack of a sweet word for girls’ bits. Willy is a lovely word: sweet, affectionate, harmless and a bit funny. It’s so bad, and telling, that we don’t have such a thing for girls? What’s our nice little word for vagina? There isn’t one really, is there? The one I hated most when my girls were little was “front bottom”, which is plainly awful. Who thought that one up? “Fanny” was eventually plumped for, in my girls’ case. It kind of did the job, although their grandparents winced. Asked for a better suggestion, they just shrugged helplessly and changed the subject.

My mum said to me that when she was a little girl in the 1940s in Zagreb, she called it her šljiva, which means “plum”. Hmm, more confusion if you ask me. Now they have a better word in Croatian. It is related to the boys’ pimpek: “pipica” (pronounced pip-i-tsa). Trust me, it’s an enchanting, affectionate diminutive.

We ought to have something similar. Honestly, I think it is rather sad and even unhealthy that we don’t have something similar. Or can we all just settle on fanny and be done with it?

This was kind of gross.  But if “pimpek” and “pimpica”: (“dickie” and “little dickie” and “sweet little dickie”) are the sum of your culture’s literary accomplishments — what are you going to do?  I now have no idea how I’m getting to get the image of a middle-aged Croatian couple writing porn out of my head.

[***Snaaaaaag, ok, bro, you caught me on the Auntie Mame paraphrase.]

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Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com

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President

16 Jan

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He must chuckle at night as he drifts off thinking of his next day’s meeting with Drump and Kürt Paşa.

Nole! – history will vindicate Serbia…

13 Jan

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…in many more and deeper ways than this.  In the meantime, don’t think he isn’t that long-suffering country’s reigning King of Public Relations.

ATP Weekend Winner: Djokovic soaks up sounds of “Nole!” and “Serbia!”

Tripe: FOOD!!!

12 Jan

Lovely serious orchestral arrangement of Albanian: paçe; Bosnian: pače; Bulgarian: пача; Greek: πατσάς (patsas), Persian: کله‌پاچه  (kalle-pache); Turkish: kelle paça).

Eat.

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Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com

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Another cool video: paça with hot pepper oil.

Jordan Peterson: Watch this guy:

11 Jan
…for those who never had the experience of the Mao-Kim-Hoxha nightmare, or had their family and people put through the communist meat-grinder, and are still going around wearing Ché, Martí, Lenin and Stalin t-shirts ’cause they’re cool: do the reading, absorb some stuff, and grow up a little.
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And addressing the isolation and ignorance of the Western Hemisphere, particularly Latin America, from the rest of the humanity from certain experiences, is something that some one needs needs to watch for and guard against.  This time of year…  I know…  A downer.  Something more than just pastel, lechón and Jay Balvin.
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Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com

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Word Press and photos: HELP

10 Jan

When I first started writing this blog you could, with almost any photo, click to larger or the largest size.  Now it’s become impossible and you stuck with the photo of a very beautiful thing then you can only see in micro.

DOES  ANYONE KNOW HOW TO CHANGE THAT OR WHY IT HAPPENED?

PLEASE HELP.

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