Saturday, June 8, 2013
As
the World Churns
By Bob Nicolaides
Did you know that we Hellenes are the second in the
world as far as bank deposits in Switzerlad? It’s a bad thing, naturally, but
the fact is that ‘money isn’t scarce!’ It’s hard to convince this money of
repatriation since they’re afraid they’ll be eaten by the ‘chickens’ (need
explain which are the chickens? Just refer to the Greek proverb that ‘whoever
gets mixed up with the chicken feed is eaten by the chickens’
 |
| Anniston the stripper |
Jennifer
Aniston shows off her
stripper skills in the new red band trailer for her upcoming movie We’re the Millers. The 40-something
actress portrays a hooker in the kooky drug-running scheme and Jason
Sudeikis co-stars as a
small-time pot dealer who cooks up a plan to smuggle drugs from Mexico, so he
hires a fake family composed of Anniston’s character, one of his young
neighbors (Will
Poulter) and a ‘gutter
punk ‘ (Emma Roberts.) The faux dysfunctional family then crosses the border in an RV to pick
up what turns out to be a mas
A ceremony of Sumo Wrestlers?
sive amount of marijuana….A Special Screening of "What If..."was
held May 25th during the Gabby
Awards weekend celebration in Hollywood, CA with Greece’s highly acclaimed
actor-director Christoforos
Papakaliatis personally presented his flick and spoke about it,
taking questions from the audience on his ‘love story developing against
obstacles and upsets caused by life itself and not by other people. The screening was sponsored by Nikos Fillas of NYC’s Hellas FM. The movie has so far grossed
$4.5 M since its debut in Greece half a year ago and is considered one of the
top box office hits to date….Someone over at Time Magazine worries about
punctuation in movie titles. One of the examples he gives in his article is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “Without
the comma, he explains, we can’t tell if it’s a wedding that’s larger than life
or a ceremony of Hellenic sumo wrestlers.”Suggested fix: A comma-My Big, Fat Greek Wedding….The Cinema Village presented from
May 31 to June 6 New York City Greek Festival’s Run It, by Evangelos and George Giovanis. The raw and often abrasive drama is about a boy
who’s chased away from home by his mother’s violent lover and decides to play
hooky from school and try the streets to score a quick fix for all his
problems. Unfortunately everything goes wrong and the boy finds himself in more
trouble that when he started. Louis Zorich, Sam Coppola and Evangelos Giovanis star in
the movie, of an R rating…
 Mikis: Honorary member of Acedemy |
World-renowned music composer Mikis Theodorakis was elected honorary member of the Academy of
Athens in its May 30th plenary session. A distinguished personality of modern
Greece, Theodorakis, originally from Crete, was born on the east Aegean island
of Chios in 1925 and studied music at the Athens Conservatory under Filoktitis Economidis. He was awarded a
Paris Conservatoire scholarship where he studied under Olivier Messiaen and Eugene
Bizot. He is regarded as Greece's best-known living composer. He wrote and
composed numerous works including the
music for the films "Zorba the Greek"
(1964), "Z" (1969), and "Serpico" (1973).……Here’s a recap
of events taking place in Athens and surrounding area in the month of July. As
announced by the mayor of Athens There were none listed for August but I
wouldn’t bet there weren’t any happening. For June 20 to July 7, there are play
and dance performances by young artists at Kolonos open-air and Koumoundourou
Sq. theaters.-June 29 to July 20, there will be concerts and plays at Attiko
Alsos theater.-July 12 to July 14 there will be performances at the Open Air
theater in Technopolis.-July 15 to 19. Performers from the PIIGS nations hit
the hardest by the financial crisis (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and
Spain) will hold the Second Festival of International Music…. There was a
concert called One Armful of Songs held
at the Stathakion Center on Saturday, the 1 of June with the participation of Tasso Papaioannou and Elias Makrinos (vocals, guitar,) Eleni Andreou and Makaria Psiliteli, (vocals,)
Costa Psaros (bouzouki) Glafkos
Kontemeniotis (piano,) and George
Maniatis (piano.) It was organized by the Ionian Federation of America in
cooperation with the Federation of Hellenic Societies of New York… The nation’s capital was graced
with two cultural events of great interest. Both events occurred on June 8, the
first being Mario Frangoulis in Concert, at GW Lisner
Auditorium. The other was The Opera Camerata of Washington which
presented Pagliacci the same day. Greek
American superstar Anastasia Jamieson
and Metropolitan Opera's Gregory
Buchalter as Conductor were featured. The event was hosted by the
Ambassador of Greece to the U.S. Christos
P. Panagopoulos and was followed by a cocktail reception, held at the
Fairfax Embassy Row Hotel……Also on June 6th, Aktina Productions
presented the Greek Music Journey 2013
celebrating 20 years of Excellence in programming by presenting Melina Aslanidou Unplugged and
featuring the bouzouki of Andreas
Karantinis at the The Kaye Playhouse,
Hunter College, in NYC. …
For those who want
to enjoy a week in South Jersey’s ocean-side, and taste the difference from
Lake Michigan beaches, here’s what free entertainment you’ll get: Every Monday
from June 24 to August 26 you can ogle-and hear-the Irish Piper Brigade on the
boardwalk and 16th Avenue in Wildwood between 7 and 9 pm. Also there will be musical events on
Thursdays and Saturdays at 2nd and Surf Avenues in nearby North
Wildwood at 8 pm. Also fireworks from June 28 to August 30 you can enjoy
fireworks every Friday night at 10:30 pm. Now where would you like to stay? One
place in North Wildwood is the Florentine Family Hotel where there are more
surprises than you can fathom …..
Word of The Month:
Prosopagnosia; Not recognizing people you’ve met. Word coined after a condition
of Brad Pitt. Composed of the Hellenic
Words Προσωπον and Άγνοια.
Heralding the Truth
Did you know that we Hellenes are the second in the
world as far as bank deposits in Switzerlad? It’s a bad thing, naturally, but
the fact is that ‘money isn’t scarce!’ It’s hard to convince this money of
repatriation since they’re afraid they’ll be eaten by the ‘chickens’ (need
explain which are the chickens? Just refer to the Greek proverb that ‘whoever
gets mixed up with the chicken feed is eaten by the chickens’
Jennifer
Aniston shows off her
stripper skills in the new red band trailer for her upcoming movie We’re the Millers. The 40-something
actress portrays a hooker in the kooky drug-running scheme and Jason
Sudeikis co-stars as a
small-time pot dealer who cooks up a plan to smuggle drugs from Mexico, so he
hires a fake family composed of Anniston’s character, one of his young
neighbors (Will
Poulter) and a ‘gutter
punk ‘ (Emma Roberts.) The faux dysfunctional family then crosses the border in an RV to pick
up what turns out to be a massive amount of marijuana….A Special Screening of "What If..."was
held May 25th during the Gabby
Awards weekend celebration in Hollywood, CA with Greece’s highly acclaimed
actor-director Christoforos
Papakaliatis personally presented his flick and spoke about it,
taking questions from the audience on his ‘love story developing against
obstacles and upsets caused by life itself and not by other people. The screening was sponsored by Nikos Fillas of NYC’s Hellas FM. The movie has so far grossed
$4.5 M since its debut in Greece half a year ago and is considered one of the
top box office hits to date….Someone over at Time Magazine worries about
punctuation in movie titles. One of the examples he gives in his article is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “Without
the comma, he explains, we can’t tell if it’s a wedding that’s larger than life
or a ceremony of Hellenic sumo wrestlers.”Suggested fix: A comma-My Big, Fat Greek Wedding….The Cinema Village presented from
May 31 to June 6 New York City Greek Festival’s Run It, by Evangelos and George Giovanis. The raw and often abrasive drama is about a boy
who’s chased away from home by his mother’s violent lover and decides to play
hooky from school and try the streets to score a quick fix for all his
problems. Unfortunately everything goes wrong and the boy finds himself in more
trouble that when he started. Louis Zorich, Sam Coppola and Evangelos Giovanis star in
the movie, of an R rating…
World-renowned music composer Mikis Theodorakis was elected honorary member of the Academy of
Athens in its May 30th plenary session. A distinguished personality of modern
Greece, Theodorakis, originally from Crete, was born on the east Aegean island
of Chios in 1925 and studied music at the Athens Conservatory under Filoktitis Economidis. He was awarded a
Paris Conservatoire scholarship where he studied under Olivier Messiaen and Eugene
Bizot. He is regarded as Greece's best-known living composer. He wrote and
composed numerous works including the
music for the films "Zorba the Greek"
(1964), "Z" (1969), and "Serpico" (1973).……Here’s a recap
of events taking place in Athens and surrounding area in the month of July. As
announced by the mayor of Athens There were none listed for August but I
wouldn’t bet there weren’t any happening. For June 20 to July 7, there are play
and dance performances by young artists at Kolonos open-air and Koumoundourou
Sq. theaters.-June 29 to July 20, there will be concerts and plays at Attiko
Alsos theater.-July 12 to July 14 there will be performances at the Open Air
theater in Technopolis.-July 15 to 19. Performers from the PIIGS nations hit
the hardest by the financial crisis (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and
Spain) will hold the Second Festival of International Music…. There was a
concert called One Armful of Songs held
at the Stathakion Center on Saturday, the 1 of June with the participation of Tasso Papaioannou and Elias Makrinos (vocals, guitar,) Eleni Andreou and Makaria Psiliteli, (vocals,)
Costa Psaros (bouzouki) Glafkos
Kontemeniotis (piano,) and George
Maniatis (piano.) It was organized by the Ionian Federation of America in
cooperation with the Federation of Hellenic Societies of New York… The nation’s capital was graced
with two cultural events of great interest. Both events occurred on June 8, the
first being Mario Frangoulis in Concert, at GW Lisner
Auditorium. The other was The Opera Camerata of Washington which
presented Pagliacci the same day. Greek
American superstar Anastasia Jamieson
and Metropolitan Opera's Gregory
Buchalter as Conductor were featured. The event was hosted by the
Ambassador of Greece to the U.S. Christos
P. Panagopoulos and was followed by a cocktail reception, held at the
Fairfax Embassy Row Hotel……Also on June 6th, Aktina Productions
presented the Greek Music Journey 2013
celebrating 20 years of Excellence in programming by presenting Melina Aslanidou Unplugged and
featuring the bouzouki of Andreas
Karantinis at the The Kaye Playhouse,
Hunter College, in NYC. …
For those who want
to enjoy a week in South Jersey’s ocean-side, and taste the difference from
Lake Michigan beaches, here’s what free entertainment you’ll get: Every Monday
from June 24 to August 26 you can ogle-and hear-the Irish Piper Brigade on the
boardwalk and 16th Avenue in Wildwood between 7 and 9 pm. Also there will be musical events on
Thursdays and Saturdays at 2nd and Surf Avenues in nearby North
Wildwood at 8 pm. Also fireworks from June 28 to August 30 you can enjoy
fireworks every Friday night at 10:30 pm. Now where would you like to stay? One
place in North Wildwood is the Florentine Family Hotel where there are more
surprises than you can fathom …..
Chicago's Greek Media Club hosted Summer Kickoff 2013 in a constinuation of their 10th year celebration on Thursday, June 20th at Upper Crust...…. An event of
utmost importance took place at the Dream
Downtown Hotel in New York City, and it was the Grand Tasting of the
eternally Modern Wines of Greece. Over 50 wineries from Greece participated in
this bacchanal event that this year featured regional tables focusing on
individual varieties including older vintages…What came first, the chicken or
the egg? The question here is which Artopolis
came first? The one in Chicago or the one in New York? They’re both bakeries
but if I’m correct, Artopolis in
Chicago has bigger Café facilities than its namesake in New York which is
limited to just a few tables…Another Pastry Shop or Patisserie if you wish is Zorba’s owned by the Panagiotopoulos brothers..Speaking of
bakeries, one to visit is the Bay Ridge
Bakery in Brooklyn, NY, which besides Greek products it features everything
that Europe has to offer. It is owned by John
Nikolopoulos, a recognizable name in the pastry circles….The Pegasus restaurant and the Pegasus On The Fly at the O’Hare airport, both feature Mediterranean
menus….In Chicago you also must visit Nia
restaurant’s summer terrace. You’ll also like its live entertainment and other
seasonal events. Nia Asimis is the
owner of this establishment in the West loop…Have you been to Dengeo’s Restaurant in Skokie, IL? If
you haven’t, you must know that it is one of the most frequented establishments
in the area….Authentic Greek Cuisine is what is served at Melanthios Greek Char House on Broadway Avenue in Chicago. The
restaurant is open seven days a week… The latest Greek restaurant in the Manhattan scene belongs to Nikos Karvelas and is located at 200
East 60th Street. It’s name: Anassa (Breath) Taverna.
Word of The Month:
Prosopagnosia; Not recognizing people you’ve met. Word coined after a condition
of Brad Pitt. Composed of the Hellenic
Words Προσωπον and Άγνοια.
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