Adventures in Greece and Italy

Where has Old Ken been, you ask? Not that anyone has really been asking; but, I'll tell you anyway, friend. I've seen some some places that would knock your socks off. Places where you'd want your glasses to take it all in—but maybe they got stolen (don't worry, I'll get to that story!). First, though, let's start on the Greek island of Amorgos where the missus and I went for a family wedding.



What we're looking at here is the monastery of Hozoviotissa, which dates to the eleventh century.



As the pictures may suggest, we made our visit there on a pretty hot day. And after the steep climb up this paved goat path, visitors (such as myself!) who happen to be wearing shorts or other skin-revealing clothing are required to put on more modest attire. Thankfully, I can't share with you any images of the XXL khakis I was required to wear over my shorts to make the visit ... and encourage you to take on some sense of the majestic views outside instead.



From Amorgos, we carried on to the island of Chios. Unlike the extremely rocky and arid Cycladic islands like Amorgos, Chios is richly agricultual. A key crop—a crop, in fact, apparently unique to the island—is the dried sap of the mastic tree seen above.



The branches of the trees are sliced and the sap that oozes out dries on the ground as these little sugary crystals. Mastic has a flavor something like peppermint or maybe eucalyptus. In any case, it was regarded as a delicacy by the nearby Turks, invading Genoese and others. So the story goes, the southern half of Chios is the only place in the world where mastic will naturally coagulate in this way.



After some sun and relaxation on the lovely, pebbly beaches of souther Chios, we made our way to the village of Pyrghi where the beautiful Mrs. Digby has family roots. Among the many cool things about this literally maze-like village are the elevated walkways used to move between houses (and to pour boiling oil on marauding pirates) ...



... and the ubiquitous geometrical wall painting, visible at right.



Walking around the town, Old Ken was fascinated to see various places where these geometrical forms seemed to be carved in process ...



... and inscribed in materials other than plaster as in the case of the wooden door seen in the photograph above. I'll look forward to sharing some more thoughts with you on the graphic stylings of this fascinating village in the future.



But, from a world of graphic inscription, we were then on to the land of sculpture: the village of Pietrasanta in Tuscany where the marble quarries of Carrara—where Michelangelo cut stone for the tomb of Pope Julius II—loom in the distance.



Pietrasanta itself is a very picturesque and pleasant place; the central piazza in the early evening is visible in the photo above.



From Pietrasanta, we made a brief excursion to the walled city of Lucca ...



... where I found this convenient map of the world.



Also in Lucca, I was pleased to see that they had an important collection of sculptures by Donald Judd ...



... that were finally being asked to do an honest day's work in holding up this old wall!



Mrs. Digby unfortunately had to return home at this point, but yours truly continued on to Florence ...



... and then to Rome. As I did in fact have my glasses stolen there, my vision of the place was a little blurred. So, I recommend that you might want to check out these very characteristic sketches of Roman environs that I happened across in a random web search.



From Old Ken's point of view, this was one of the most pleasant scenes in Rome—walking to the Vatican Museums along the Tiber early in the morning in Trastevere. Maybe a hint of autumn in the air and just takin' it all in.

Momus' Door

In one of his dialogues, the Greek satirist Lucian narrates an exchange between Lycinus (who occupies the Socratic position) and a confident patsy, Hermotimus. The topic of their conversation is how to choose a school of philosophy.

A number of options are consulted: should you be democratic about it and just espouse the most popular views? Perhaps the style and the personal charisma of the philosophical teachers themselves should be taken as proof of philosophical excellence?

As Lycinus systematically exposes the untenability of these various views, he recounts a fable to Hermotimus. It is as follows:

"There was once a trial of skill ... between Minerva, Neptune, and Vulcan, which should produce the most complete work. Neptune made a bull, Minerva a horse, and Vulcan a man. When they came to Momus, whom they had chosen umpire, after a careful examination of every performance, he found greatest fault with Vulcan ... , for not making a door in his man’s breast, to open and let us know what he willed, and thought, and whether he spoke the truth of not."

Momus's folly, Lyncinus explains, lies in a kind of category error: he tries to submit to visual analysis what can only really be judged by other criteria. Willed intentions have no visibility in or on the organs of the body, but need to be assessed by reason. "Momus," so Lyncinus says teasingly to Hermotinus, "was so dull he could not see into these things; but you, with more than the lynx’s sharpness, can see into the breast of every man, and not only can tell what he wills, and what he thinks, but whether he is better or worse than any body else."



What Momus really wanted was a lie detector!

(I can't give a good reason for why I'm sharing this. Time to go outside.)

Lions in the Street

"Lions in the street and roaming ..."



"... dogs in heat rabid foaming ... "



" ... a beast caged in the heart of the city."

How better than a little Jim Morrison to get the old story off and on its way? What we're looking at here are some pictures of Athens by the light of the full moon taken last night. Apparently, it is a long-standing custom here that, on such evening, the lights that normally illuminate the Parthenon are turned off and all comers are let up on the Acropolis for free.

Although the images don't really register the fact here, we were told that in the moonlight the marble of the Parthenon "glows." What I like about this photo are the silhouettes of the visitors in the foreground; indeed, in the moonlight, the mingling of shadows cast by people and fragments of the temple itself made the whole expanse look like a kind of gorgon's garden filled with the petrified handiwork of some sinister Medusa.

Such a poetic mood was clearly not taking in all of the visitors. One snatch of overheard conversation went as follows, between a Dutch tourist (speaking in English) and a local guard:

"Why are all the lights turned off?"

"This is done every full moon so that people can visit the temple."

"But I can't shoot my video!"

"Well, why don't you just enjoy being here and seeing the site for yourself?"

"But I can't shoot my VIDEO!"

The mind boggles! To recover from that nonsense and to reclaim the poetic mood, let's get back to Jim Morrison:



" ... one morning he awoke in a strange hotel, with the strange creature groaning beside him."



Okay, this was a strange hotel where I found myself waking up and sitting on the toilet. More disturbingly, I was trying to read this "sanskrit" on the back of the door. (Obviously, the worms who did this lovely eating didn't really know sanskrit, but that cut little ice in my dream-state).



I'm not sure what the problem was: maybe the room was too hot in this B & B in Dorset and I should have turned down the temperature on my Dimplex!



Or maybe it was the excessively loud ticking of this carriage clock on the mantle. A family heirloom, you say? Perhaps a retirement gift? Surely, too nice to just leave a fine clock like this in a guestroom in a B & B?



Or then again, maybe not! I picked up this P.O.S. expecting it to weigh five pounds or something and my hand nearly shot through the ceiling. What a piece of crap!



But, good times were had and dear friend Catherine was very kind to put us all up. Fun!