Thursday, June 16, 2011
Where is Andros?
Bruce Longstreet is one of my oldest, dearest friends, unfortunately for me resides in Northern California. When he lived nearby, Bruce was good at challenging my ideas without sounding like he was attacking them - definitely the touch of a true goombah.
Last night he called out of the blue to say he was attending a writer's conference & workshop on the Greek isle of Andros, "famous for its Sariza spring at Apoikia where the water comes out of a lionhead" (I looked it up). This isn't the sort of adventure I associate with Bruce. Bruce had seen a flyer for the event, decided it something he wanted & needed to do, counted his money, & signed up. I was delighted. "It'll change your life," I said. Every Greek island has a poet, perhaps a god or two. Andros was the home of a Greek comic poet named Amphis, contemporary of Plato, works survive only in fragments. Some of the titles of his works: The Female Oiler; Women in Power, Crazy About Women, The Female Barber, The Vagabond Acrobat.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Last night he called out of the blue to say he was attending a writer's conference & workshop on the Greek isle of Andros, "famous for its Sariza spring at Apoikia where the water comes out of a lionhead" (I looked it up). This isn't the sort of adventure I associate with Bruce. Bruce had seen a flyer for the event, decided it something he wanted & needed to do, counted his money, & signed up. I was delighted. "It'll change your life," I said. Every Greek island has a poet, perhaps a god or two. Andros was the home of a Greek comic poet named Amphis, contemporary of Plato, works survive only in fragments. Some of the titles of his works: The Female Oiler; Women in Power, Crazy About Women, The Female Barber, The Vagabond Acrobat.
