Walter Lassally, Cinematographer in Crete

Walter Lassally (centre), my favourite Director of Photography

Photograph taken in Sydney, June,1997, with Ruth Carr, Justine Kerrigan, Jim and Nina-Maria.

Walter Lassally now lives in Stavros, near Chania, Crete. Just look at his credits, from Free Cinema documentaries, to Tom Jones and Zorba the Greek (Oscar) and other classics of British and world cinema.

Wish I were back in Watson's Bay! Here the storm is raging outside.

Update:

Radio Prague Interview, June 1, 2015

God is an Englishman (sorry??)

This 1970 book by Donald Horne has been sitting unread on my shelves since I bought it in Sydney, Australia.

I wonder if the contents are as provocative as the cover? On first glance, he clearly had it against the conceited, self-assured "Upper English", as he calls the type.

I'll just take the advice of Bo Diddley

Maybe it  was intended as a spoof,  like this...

A test now, for the linguists:

When do you think the following book about England was published? These are the last two pages of the book:

Byron in Greece (just one more time)

The final episode in a drama

Poem 1

Poem 2

Song (Leonard Cohen)

Song (Joan Baez)

Lord Byron, Celebrity Dieter

Tony Harrison relocating the faded, inscribed signatures of Byron and Hobhouse, Delphi

Greek Cash in London (Prospect Magazine)

Prospect magazine article on this Greek phenomenon

and Athens News on farm subsidies in Greece

Jacques Prévert: Words for Austerity

Time to read Jacques Prévert again.

La grasse matinée

Interpreted by Marianne Oswald

Oh vous qui connaissez l'Angleterre (Cosy Corner)

Interpreted by  Béatrice Arnac

Je suis comme je suis, Wende Snijders

Je suis comme je suis, Juliette Greco

Two very different interpretations.

Dimitris Tsaloumas, Australian Poet

Dimitris Tsaloumas is probably Australia's greatest contemporary poet. He is often described as Greek-Australian, because he writes in both languages, Greek and English.

In the year of Greece's accession to the EU (1981) I was living and working in Thessaloniki. It was also the year that Tsaloumas's "The Book of Epigrams" was published by Nea Poreia in Thessaloniki, in the original Greek.

One poem in particular stands out now as particularly prophetic, Prodigal II, although I do not know when the poem was written or to which period the poem refers.

A pity no one paid attention! 

The English translation was made by Philip Grundy and appeared in The Observatory, University of Queensland Press, 1983 (enlarged edition 1991). I met Dimitri Tsaloumas in Australia and we became friends. One cannot exaggerate the importance of his work.

Another great poem is Autumn Supper.

Happy New Year!


Tsaloumas in French translation (update 2014)


Dimitris Tsaloumas died on 4th February 2016


A fond farewell for Australian Greek poet Dimitris Tsaloumas, Jason Steger, SMH


RIP Dimitris Tsaloumas: the poet, SBS - Dr Christos Fifis speaks to Themis Kallos about the contribution of Dimitris Tsaloumas to Australian and Greek literature.


Dimitris Tsaloumas and the Music of the Unseen, Vrasidas Karalis, Sydney Review of Books