The New Acropolis Museum & the "Elgin Marbles"--Sneak Peek!

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Today, Friday morning, as I walked out of the Grande Bretagne Hotel on Constitution Square in Athens I saw that metal detectors and guard ropes were set up in the hotel lobby and a crowd of police and secret service types outside were screening those who enter. This is because eight heads of state and various church dignitaries are expected to arrive at the GB today and tomorrow for the ceremonies surrounding the opening of the new Acropolis Museum on Saturday.

But last night, Thursday the 18th, Nick and I were lucky enough to attend an opening party at the new museum. About 280 people—mostly Greeks from Athens, I think—got to attend a sort of dress rehearsal. It was completely thrilling and moving and certainly the best Museum party I’ve ever attended. Thanks to the photos I took with my little digital camera, I’m able to give you a look at it all ahead of the foreign and domestic press, who are invited to do it all tonight (Friday). Then on Saturday will be the official opening with the heads of state and their bodyguards.

I realize the world press has already printed a lot of words and photos about the new museum because of the controversy over the “Elgin Marbles” which will move into high gear this weekend. Books have been written on this subject but to tell it in a nutshell — back in the early 1800’s when Greece was still suffering under its 450-year occupation by the Turks, British diplomat Lord Elgin got permission from the Turks to chop about half of the priceless sculptures by Phidias off the frieze and metopes of the Parthenon and cart them back to his estate in England. This act of desecration gave him bad karma leading to personal, physical and economic disasters (he lost his wife, his nose and his money, for example) which forced him to sell the marbles to the British Museum for 35,000 pounds.

Since then, Greeks and Philhellenes have been trying to get the British Museum to give back the marbles so they could be rejoined with the other half of the Parthenon sculptures, but the British have replied that they could protect them from pollution better and show them to more people than if they were in Athens. The new
Acropolis Museum, ten years in the building, has been created partly as a reply to those assertions.

In the new museum everything is climate-controlled and the surviving Parthenon marbles are displayed in a special top floor gallery facing the building where they originally existed. It’s a dramatic sight, especially at night when the huge sculptures are reflected in the window wall with the Parthenon lighted high above.

At the opening last night, after speeches by officials including Minister of Culture Antonis Samaras, challenging the British to return the marbles, we were led on a tour of the museum’s five levels. As always happens in Athens, when they started to dig on this spot, an entire pre-Christian village emerged underground, so the museum has been built on pillars so that the excavations can continue underneath. And the floors of the museum have been made of glass so that the excavation is visible even from the top floor. The glass floors made for a lot of nervous tiptoeing last night especially among those guests with fear of heights or extra-high stilettos.

On the tour, we were told not to take photos in the top gallery featuring the controversial Parthenon marbles, displayed in a continuous frieze, as they were meant to be shown on the Parthenon — with white plaster casts standing in for the missing British Museum marbles.

After the tour, we were led to the third floor where a string quartet serenaded while we filled plates from three separate buffets of bite-sized Greek delicacies. Then we wandered out onto the immense terrace jutting toward the illuminated Acropolis and I realized that there was a light show projected onto a wall and a large building that created a horizontal screen several stories high right below the Parthenon. (Other light shows were being projected on the front of the museum building itself.) The show featured objects from the museum collection but they were cleverly animated—a silent, smiling archaic statue of a goddess would slowly wink, a calf being carried on a marble kouros statue’s shoulders would suddenly swish his tail, and a primitive bird on a red clay vase would suddenly come alive and fly off toward the next building and up to the sky. (There were even archaic red cat figures rambling across the horizon—perfect for my next Greek Cats book!)

I watched the light show for over an hour, slack-jawed in wonder. Every new scene was unforgettable and a stunning way of dramatizing the treasures in the museum and making them come alive as a moving and vital part of the life of Athens in the 21st century.

On our way out we were given favors—a silver medallion stamped with two archaic horses from the museum collection. As we climbed the steps to the pedestrian walkway outside, toward the majestic outline of the illuminated Parthenon, we saw that dozens, maybe hundreds of passers-by who had not had the privilege of going inside were gathered, watching the light show.

I hope it will continue long after the festivities this weekend, and that everyone will have the thrill of walking through this new world-class museum at the foot of the Acropolis.

I also hope the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum will eventually be restored to this site where they were born. The elderly President of the Museum Dimitrios Pandermalis, said that he believes they will be returned someday, “but I wonder if I will live to see it.”

Pelicans, Rabbits, Dogs & Scads of Cats

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After 40 years of traveling in Greece and photographing the country’s ubiquitous cats, I put the best of the feline photos into my book “The Secret Life of Greek Cats” last year — telling each cat’s story, recounting their folktales and insights into Greek life, food, history, myths and holidays.

This year, I still can’t stop photographing every cat I see, so I thought I’d share some new ones taken on this trip. But I couldn’t overlook a couple of dogs we encountered, as well as rabbits, pheasants and of course Petros—the famous pelican of Mykonos.

First in the photos above is a cat we saw guarding the temples in the Roman Forum of Athens, right below the Acropolis, next is a cat on Mykonos who loved having her back scratched by the “Big Eleni.” Third is a cat who tried to crash Maggie’s Mykonos wedding by walking down the aisle ahead of the bride.

Next row shows Eleni and Marina getting to know Petros, the pelican who is the mascot of Mykonos. (There’s a Mrs. Petros too, and several other pelicans who keep an eye on the fishing boats as they come in every day.) Next is Marina holding Ruda, a morbidly obese and very spoiled little dog from Nick’s village of Lia who thinks she’s a person. Third is Marina again, getting to know a puppy belonging to our Corfu cousins, and finally — a sign on a Corfu handicraft shop asking if anyone would take six orphaned kittens and keep the siblings together.

Third row shows what we found when we took a little boat from Corfu’s new harbor to the nearby island of Vidos to watch the sun set. The tiny island used to be home to expatriated Serbian officers (who got cholera and died), then to a juvenile detention school. Now the imposing buildings are in ruins and there is only a single taverna (and a lot of camp grounds,) but to our astonishment the island is teeming with rabbits—large and small and all colors—maybe thousands of them—and they’re tame. So are the pheasants that are nearly as numerous as the bunnies. The third photo show our Corfu cousins holding some of their four kittens as well as the afore-mentioned puppy.

The fourth row shows some of the six cats belonging to a British lady named Val who has a beautiful little resort of stone cottages on Corfu. Three of her cats are all white and also deaf. I already knew that white cats with blue eyes are usually deaf (it’s a genetic thing) but the one of Val’s that I photographed most—named Nobu—has greenish eyes.

Finally are two photographs of the hard-working taverna cats who decorate nearly every outdoor restaurant in Greece and usually wait very politely for scraps from the table. On the left are two cats at the Cephalonian taverna of Annoula where we were treated to the delicious local treats by Aunt Lillian, and on the right is a cat at the pink and blue Lefkada taverna called “The Seven Islands”.

Our Greek odyssey is drawing to a close in a week and we’re now in Athens where the dogs outnumber the cats. Right before the Olympic Games in 2004, the city picked up all the street dogs, had them spayed, vaccinated and dressed with a color-coded collar to show they belong to the city and put them back in the streets where they seem to be well fed by local merchants. The dog that lies sleeping by the door of the super-elegant Grande Bretagne hotel is nearly as fat as Ruda.

I Know I'm on Vacation When.....

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The other day, while driving from the harbor of Igoumenitsa to the ferryboat that would take us from Lefkada to Cephalonia, Eleni started making a verbal list:

“I know I’m on vacation when I ….
--eat bacon for breakfast
--drink wine at lunch
--wear my bathing suit all day instead of underwear.
--read books by Ruth Rendell and Agatha Christie then leave them at the hotel and pick up others from the left-books shelf.”

I added a few of my own.
“I know I’m on vacation when I:
--do the NYTimes crossword puzzle on weekdays as well as weekends (in the International Herald Tribune)
--take lots of photos of cats and windows and bicycles and the food I’m eating
--don’t check my e-mail every day (because I can’t find wifi or an internet café)
--can’t remember what day it is.”

When traveling in Greece, my perfect day includes eating outdoors overlooking a body of water. (Ideally the meal includes fish and a Greek salad with tomatoes, feta cheese and olive oil and there is a cat under the table begging for scraps.)

Eleni’s perfect day includes watching the sun set into a large body of water while drinking rosé wine.

We’ve been having a lot of perfect travel days lately and eating outdoors with stunning views and lots of sunsets and rosé wine and cats -- everywhere from Athens to Mykonos to Ioannina to Corfu to Lefkada to Cephalonia, where we are now. Eleni is researching a magazine article about “Secret Hotels of the Ionian Islands” so we change to a different (budget) hotel nearly every day. We were supposed to leave this afternoon for Zakinthos on the ferry but the wind and waves were too high so we are staying overnight at our friend Vicky’s house in the town of Kourkourmelata and leaving early tomorrow morning (we hope). And if we can’t get off Cephalonia, we’ll watch the sunset from here.

Here are some photos of our perfect sunsets and seaside meals. The top row are all about watching the sunset in Mykonos with a view of Little Venice and the famous windmills.

The next row shows us in Corfu Town—we always go to the roof garden at the top of the Cavalieri Hotel to enjoy the view of the Venetian fort below as the swallows go crazy right at sunset, swooping low over our heads chasing bugs. One night in Corfu we ate at the waterside in the Sailing Club restaurant hidden deep in the fortress where the sail boats are tied up.

The next row shows the terrace of our Corfu cousins’ house where we are always treated to a magnificent meal including vegetables from their garden. Another day we went to the west side of Corfu to watch the sunset at a bar called Petra.

The photos below show other views of Corfu, including a taverna called Le Grand Balcon. Sometimes the best view is from the balcony of our own hotel room.

The next row of photos shows where we ate last night and at breakfast this morning on the terrace of our villa in Lourdas, Cephalonia, including apricots right off the tree. Finally, photos of the tavernas in Lefkada (two days ago) and Argostoli, Cephalonia (today at noon) where we picked out the fish we wanted for lunch.

Next—Greek cats—the sequel.

Tinos' Miraculous Madonna, Corfu's St. Spyridon

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Mykonos is famous as a party island where anything goes (especially in August!) When we left Mykonos, we stopped on the nearby island of Tinos, which—in contrast-- is one of the holiest spots in Greece (after Mt. Athos, filled with monasteries, where no woman has ever set foot.)

Tinos is a place of pilgrimage especially for pilgrims who need a miracle to heal them, so in many ways it’s like Lourdes. The most pious and most needy pilgrims crawl on their knees from the harbor where they disembark, all the way up to the church, which holds the miraculous icon of the Virgin. In my photos you can see two women crawling up the special carpet which stretches from the harbor to the church. It’s a really long way, especially in the hot sun. Near the top of the climb is a statue of a faceless female pilgrim crawling and stretching her hand toward the church.

We walked instead of crawling to the church but made sure we were modestly dressed. We bought and lit candles to the icon of the Virgin that was so covered with jewelry and diamond offerings that you couldn’t see any part of the icon. Hanging from the church ceiling were hundreds of tamatas—votive offerings---often ships in full sail made of silver and gold. Also hanging there are silver houses, people, horses, autos, even a bicycle. In the harbor you can buy for a Euro a tiny flat silver image of whatever you want a miracle for (wedding crowns, a leg, an eye, a baby, etc.) and slip the tama into the slot of a box near the icon. You can also write your plea or prayer or the boon you seek on a piece of paper and slip it into another box (with an offering of coins.)

After visiting the interior of the Virgin’s church, we went into the underground basement? crypt? where everyone gathered holy water flowing from a spring under the church, filling little plastic bottles solo everywhere for this purpose.

On August 15th, the Virgin’s holiday (which is preceded by two weeks of fasting by many pious Greeks) you can hardly step from the ferryboat onto the harbor-- so crowded is Tinos with invalids and pilgrims seeking help. And on a day in September, the route to the church is filled with gypsies, who celebrate their own holiday of the Virgin Mary and often sleep in the vast church courtyard the night before the celebrations.

Our visit to Tinos was on June 1st . Yesterday, since we are now staying on Corfu, we stopped by the Church of St. Spyridon to visit the miracle-working saint—an old friend, since everyone visiting Corfu must stop by to pay him homage during their stay.

The tower of Spyridon’s church dominates the rooftops of Corfu—a wonderful old, Venetian-style city with narrow winding streets and balconies so close together that neighbors can reach across.

St. Spyridon’s blackened and wizened body is displayed in the church lying under glass. The line of pilgrims who come by to see him and ask for a miracle are expected to kiss the embroidered slippers on his feet. (Actually it’s been a matter of kissing the glass above them every time I’ve gone there.) Gerald Durrell in his delightful book “My Family and Other Animals” describes how his mother warned her children not to actually kiss the slippers for fear of germs—just as I did with mine many years ago.

St, Spyridon in his glass casket is brought out of the church and carried in a parade around town on four occasions during the year. One is Holy Saturday. (Of all the places in Greece, Easter is most dramatically celebrated in Corfu with music and funeral marches and fireworks and marching orchestras and a famous moment on Holy Saturday at noon --the first Resurrection-- when everyone throws clay pots filled with water—the bigger the pot the better—off their balconies, tossing away the sins of the past year until every street is Corfu town is littered with shards.)

The other excursions of the saint around town mark dates when he saved the islanders once again from plague, starvation or invaders. (Corfu has been invaded and occupied by nearly everyone, most notably the Italians and English—which is why the island has such an international flavor.) The Corfiotes believe that the saint secretly walks around every night doing miracles, which is why his corpse wears out a pair of slippers every years, which have to be replaced.

Photographs are not allowed in either of these churches but I took photos outside St. Spyridon, showing the two entrances and the sellers of candles and icons and the place where you can light a candle to the saint. I also photographed an old crone who was begging near the church. I did leave a contribution in her tin after taking her photo---although she never noticed. I was fascinated by the contrast between the old hag and the young woman in the ad above her head.

Corfu is probably my favorite island because of its mixture of cultures and the constant reminder of people and times gone by. One of my dreams is to own a home here some day.

Maggie's Mykonos Wedding

Right now we’re in Ioannina in Northern Greece, about to drive up the mountain to Nick’s village of Lia on the Albanian border, but I’m hoping to post about the fabulous wedding we enjoyed in Mykonos last Saturday. (Along with Santorini, Mykonos is the hottest – and most expensive – of the Greek islands favored by the jetset— or whatever they’re called these days.)

Maggie’s grandparents are from Mykonos and the family still have the traditional patriarchal home there. The groom, Paolo—is from Italy and the bride and groom met in Boston where they now live and Paolo has a restaurant.

Maggie wanted a traditional wedding on Mykonos and we Gages were thrilled to be invited. On the day of the wedding, Maggie’s dress hung over the antique bed in her late grandmother’s bedroom. As relatives gathered in the courtyard outside the house, and two musicians entertained them with accordion music, drinks and sweets and traditional wedding songs, Maggie dressed with the help of her friends. Then she emerged from the door of the house followed by her parents and her brother, Tony, and everyone danced in the courtyard as the musicians played and a relative shot a barrage of rifle bullets into the sky.

A parade of cars took the bride and her entourage to the ancient (1786) church where Paolo waited with his family. As the bride walked through the village’s central plaza, escorted by her father, the patrons at several tavernas applauded her and both groups shouted the traditional wedding wish for the single people: “and to your (wedding)! “

Paolo, the groom, greeted Maggie at the church door with a kiss and the bridal bouquet, Then everyone went inside for the wedding ceremony which climaxed in the “Dance of Isaiah” as the couple, wearing their wedding crowns and flanked by the two koumbari (sponsors), were led by the priest around the altar three times while they were showered with rice and rose petals.

After the ceremony the newlywed couple emerged from the church and received the wishes of all their guests , who were each given the boubonieres—little white satin boxes of Jordan almonds beautifully tied with a ribbon holding a sterling silver cross or heart pendent. We Gage women have been wearing our favors ever since, because they’re so beautiful.)

Afterwards there was impromptu dancing in the village platea outside the church until a cavalcade of cars carried everyone to the Royal Mykonian hotel for a champagne cocktail hour on a terrace high above the ocean. After sunset, everyone moved to a still higher floor in the hotel—also open to the ocean view-- for a lavish buffet. The dancing, singing and toasts went on until three in the morning but for me the best part was watching Maggie and her family dancing and saluting the bride in the courtyard outside the family home.

Athens Shopping - From "Gucci" Glasses to Lambs' Heads

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The best shopping in Athens is outdoors. We walked down Hermou, the pedestrian shopping street, past the chic dress shops and the gypsies begging and selling this year’s crazy gimmick—round rubbery liquid-filled tomatoes and piggies that smash into a completely flat puddle when you throw them on a smooth surface, then slowly reform themselves back into a round ball (with ears and legs, in the case of the pigs.) We couldn’t resist and I bought two at a euro each. (Sadly, a Euro now is $1.40) Sorry—no photos of the tomato and pig, but they’ve already provided hours of fun for the whole family. They’ll probably be confiscated at the airport because they’re filled with liquid.

Some of us bought “Gucci” and “Ray Ban” sunglasses from the African vendor near the MacDonald’s on Constitution Square before he gathered up his entire stock of glasses attached to a sheet, folded up the large cardboard box that was his table – all in one smooth movement -- and slipped away, Next we admired hand-painted flip-flops on display for a reasonable seven Euros a pair. Farther down, in the Monasteraki flea-market section, we bought necklaces and bracelets with the sparkling Evil Eye symbols that make such great gifts. (I got myself a new one that resembles a diamond-encrusted fish with a dark blue eye for its body.) These little symbols are meant to protect you from the Evil Eye, which can attack you and ruin your day even if someone innocently compliments or envies you.

We walked over to the central Meat and Fish markets near Omonia Square to do a little photo shoot. It’s a photographer’s heaven although the meat market, especially, doesn’t smell that good—sort of like the lion house at the zoo. You should really get there around 7 a.m. Unfortunately we got there close to noon so the displays were thinned out.

In the photos above you can see the entrance to the cavernous fish market, a seller of lambs and a pretzel seller. The collage of the wares from left to right are: shell fish including octopi, sardines, Fagria fish, crayfish and a grotesque display of lambs head. (In Greece the honored guest at a dinner party is given the lambs’ eyes to eat.)

Another photo collage shows a flower shop, a shop with bizarre dress dummies, Ellas—full of touristic knick-knacks, and a seller of patriotic stuff including the Greek flags.

We also stopped at Brettos—a photogenic store selling wine and liquors—to buy a Havana cigar for Nick for Father’s Day.

At the end of our shopping odyssey we waited for a subway at the Omonia metro stop and watched as, on the opposite side of the track, a young man snatched a shopping bag from a woman who began screaming for the police (who were in good supply on the floors above because of a bomb scare the previous day.) At first everyone watched him run across the platform, then as he ascended the stairs, two Greek men launched into action and ran after him. The train came so we never knew if they caught him

In Athens, shopping is always an adventure!

Next: Mykonos—Island of pelicans, vegetable sellers and weddings

Highlife and Hotels in Athens!

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Our family odyssey around Greece will take us from luxurious accommodations to budget boutique hotels (which Eleni is researching for a travel article) to roughing it in mountainous villages huts. Right now in Athens it’s luxury — the Grande Bretagne Hotel on Constitution Square -- a historic presence in the center of town since 1842. (During WWII someone tried to assassinate Winston Churchill — who had come to rally the Greeks against the Nazi occupiers-- by placing a bomb in the hotel basement, but it was discovered in time.) Now the basement is the site of a world-class spa – incense and steam-filled grottoes lined in semi-precious stones and an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

From the balconies of the GB, as the hotel is fondly called, you can watch the sunset behind the Acropolis and, in the other direction, the hourly changing of the Evzone guards in front of the Parliament building. A new pair of Evzones march up every hour and do a little dance with the retiring pair, in their pleated fustenella skirts and pompomed shoes. On Sunday at 11:a.m. they do a more elaborate changing of the guard with a full cast as tourists snap photos and feed the crowds of pigeons.

The GB was closed down for several years right before the Olympic games in 2004. When it re-opened, it had added a roof-top pool and a roof-top bar and restaurant and a lot of new amenities while keeping the best of the antiques and paintings from its Victorian past.

Yesterday, daughters Eleni and Marina and I walked from the hotel down Hermou (the pedestrian fashion street) and into Monasteraki (the flea market section), then over to the area of Omonia Square which houses the central markets.

We wanted Marina, who works in product design, so see a couple of the crazy new Classical Hotels, where Eleni and I have stayed. The Classical Baby Grand is, according to the brochure,, the “newest, hippest and most attractive spot in town.” “Fourteen international artists from the fields of urban art, graffiti design and illustration turned Baby Grand in the heart of Athens into Europe’s most exciting and creative city hotel.”

These artists have designed rooms—with wall murals and crazy furnishings—around cartoonish themes (there’s even a Spider Man room.) When we stayed last year we were in a jungle-themed room with a fake plush tiger-skin throw across the bed. Jungle noises could be heard in the halls, lamps in the bar were tiger-heads and ostrich tables projected from the walls. In the photos above you’ll see Eleni and Marina getting to know the gorillas in the foyer. The reception desks on the floor above are made from mini-Cooper cars.

The trendy restaurant “Meat Me” in the hotel was closed—preparing for an event, so we walked over to a sister hotel, the 2 Fashion House Hotel—equally modern and innovative in design and themed around fashion (You can see the blueish balconies lined with fashion shots in my photo.) There we had a cappuccino freddo and then headed into the teeming central Meat and Fish markets for a photo shoot which I will show you tomorrow (Viewer discretion advised.)

The Blog is Back! Sunday in the Park with Joan

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I haven’t written an entry since the weekend of "Brides and Pirates in New Orleans" and that was about six weeks ago! But I haven’t given up on the travels of A Rolling Crone.I had several writing deadlines and a hurricane of activity getting ready for our family trip to Greece but the deadlines were met (pretty much) and now I’m in Athens with Eleni and Marina waiting for Nick to arrive. Then we’re off to Mykonos for a wedding but I’ll tell you about that then.

Right now I want to celebrate Central Park the way it looked about four weeks ago. Everyone in Manhattan, young or old, flocked into the Park to savor the briefest but most glorious season in New York as Spring burst into bloom. There were horseback riders and bikers, brides and painters, boaters and picnickers, bands and singers and comedians and lots of pets. Nearly every year I visit the Park to photograph this evanescent miracle. This time I started off from daughter Eleni’s apartment on 80th and Third, stopped by Eli’s for an old-fashioned sugar cone, admired the flowers outside the brownstones. (One of them –double size—was just bought Madonna for a reported 40 million dollars.)

Into the Park by the Metropolitan Museum with background music by African steel drums. Children and their parents climbed over the Alice in Wonderland Statue (I used to take my kids to story hours there) and the statue of Hans Christian Anderson (I think that’s who he is—hence the goose?) On to the toy boat lake where you rent a remote-controlled sailboat. I headed toward the big lake and the Boat House Restaurant. (We had such fun there at a recent lunch watching Eleni’s godson Demosthenakis feeding everything he could get his hands on to the GIANT gold fish and turtles who live in the lake.)

Outside the Boathouse were a bride and groom posing under a blossoming cherry tree, and sunbathers and artists galore on the banks of the lake as rowboats sailed past. On to my favorite spot—Bethesda Fountain, watched over by the Angel of the Waters. (Those are healing waters-- you may remember the important role of the Angel in the TV version of "Angels in America".)

For forty-five years Central Park has been part of my life. Back when I was single, I was at a press party at Tavern on the Green when the first great New York Blackout hit. As we sat by candlelight, Nick, who lived nearby, came to rescue me. (That was the good black-out when everyone behaved valiantly. The second blackout—the bad one, when there was looting—was in July 1977 when I was married to Nick and in New York Hospital with a new-born Marina. The only lights visible in the city were in the hospitals, with their own generators.)

My kids grew up with the Carousel and the pony rides and the Children’s Zoo—I was there with other mourners when they closed the Zoo for its makeover.

Just last summer I stood in line for hours one summer morning at the DellaCorte Theater to score FREE tickets to a wonderful outdoor performance of the rock musical Hair—forty years after I saw it for the first time. The revival was magical. Now it’s on Broadway. And definitely not free!

They call Central Park the lungs of the city but to me it’s always been its heart.

In two days—photos and a celebration of Athens.

A NEW ORLEANS WEEKEND OF BRIDES AND PIRATES

This Rolling Crone has been in love with New Orleans since I first visited 23 years ago and saw an authentic jazz funeral that blew me away. We toured the haunted houses and feasted on crayfish étouffé and heartily embraced the city’s motto: “Let the good times roll!”

This past weekend, with daughter Eleni, I returned to NOLA for the first time since Katrina. I found the city as beautiful and vibrant and filled with festivity, food and music as ever. We were there for the grand New Orleans wedding of Katherine, Eleni’s long-time roommate and dear friend; a beautiful southern belle whose family call her “Blossom”.

All weekend, as we ate beignets and café au lait at the Café du Monde near Jackson Square, we found the French Quarter filled with brides and pirates. It was the weekend of the annual pirate convention, or PyrateCom, and the quarter was bursting with buccaneers and their wenches, virtually all of whom (the wenches) seemed to be ample and voluptuous and showing a jaw-dropping amount of décolletage. The long weekend festivities of the Pyrates included the “Search for LaFitte’s Ghost”, Haunted New Orleans Tours, the Voodoo Queen’s invitation to Party with the Dead at a grand ball, and the auction of afore-mentioned wenches. (We learned that the way pirates greet each other is with a very loud ARRGGHH!)

Katherine’s wedding , on a much more exalted plane, began on Friday night with a cocktail party given by fourteen couples at the elegant Appartement de L’Empereur in Napoleon House just off Jackson Square. On Saturday we began at Café Du Monde (where we counted in the Square maybe a half dozen brides with their attendants in tow). Then we toured the French quarter ending up at the First Cemetery and the grave of voodoo queen Marie LeVeau.

Saturday night was the wedding at the famous Arnaud’s “Classic Creole” restaurant just off Bourbon Street. To get to the wedding on time, we had to push and shove our way through a street filled to overflowing with the Pirates’ Grand Parade.

New Orleans’ grand families attended Katherine and Matthew’s wedding, which filled Arnaud’s rooms from the tiled floors to the crystal chandeliers. There was a jazz band and singers and rooms full of Creole delicacies, spirited dancing and a shrimp boat large enough to sail down the Mississippi. At the end of the evening I witnessed a New Orleans custom that I’d never seen before — the Second Line.

The bride and groom were each handed decorated umbrellas and the guests all received lavender handkerchiefs printed with the couple’s names and the date . Then the band began to play and the bride and groom danced along behind and all the guests, waving their handkerchiefs, boogied and shimmied behind the newlyweds as they “second lined” out into the streets of New Orleans to celebrate the marriage and to mix with the pirates and their wenches who were celebrating a Pirate wedding and also second-lining in their be-feathered tricornered hats. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

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The Hindu Wedding -- at Last!

A friend (Hi Althea!) wrote: “I read your blog Monday (snow day) expecting to have a full accounting of the wedding. I loved everything else you wrote about, but no wedding? Maybe it’s going to be a book?”

It’s true I’ve been putting off describing the Hindu wedding that was the centerpiece of our trip to India, because there’s just so much to say. So I’ll do it with photos. And in two parts. (If you click on the photos they get bigger.)

The bride’s parents spent months planning a wedding so fabulous –three days of celebration, with fireworks, marching bands, dancers, musicians, buffets, and so much more. I ‘m sure I’ll never see another wedding to compare with this one.

The first party—New Year’s Eve—was western style so I won’t show any photos. It was held in a nightclub called “On the Rocks”, next to our hotel, the fabulous Ajit Bhawan which was a Maharajah’s palace and is still decorated entirely in the style of the Raj, with vintage autos and a staff of tall Rajput Warriors in turbans, who always greet you with the prayerfully folded hand gesture of greeting and the word “Namaste.” The brother of the Maharajah still has his private living quarters in this hotel and he invited the entire wedding party to come from the nightclub to his place after midnight so, as fireworks greeted the New Year, we were running through the palace grounds to the afterparty in a bar which seemed ready for Humphrey Bogart and Sidney Greenstreet to walk right in.

The next day the bride’s family led us to their local temple to Ganesh, the elephant god, to make offerings in honor of the wedding. We all rode in the ever-present motorized rickshaws—called Tuk-Tuks—and the one for the bride was specially decorated. The offerings in the temple given by the bride’s parents were sweets, money (distributed to beggars and holy men) and the marigold necklaces called malas given to the god.

That night, the bride’s parents’ front yard –about the size of a football field, it seemed—had been converted by miles of draped fabrics and sparkling lights into a huge tent complete with stage, dance floor , tables, chairs and an immense buffet that reached around two sides of the field. All sorts of vegetarian delicacies were prepared before our eyes, from the round breads dipped in ghee at one end to huge vats of a milky sweet dessert drink and fried pastries at the other end. I took a photo of one of the lady servers because I was fascinated by the bracelets she wore on her upper arm. How did she get them on?

The invitation to this event came with a real peacock feather, for peacocks were the theme of the night—visible everywhere including behind the stage. The ladies were invited to come early for the Mehendi—when everyone’s hands were decorated with henna by artisans hired for the occasion. The bride’s decorations were the most elaborate—she and the groom (who is not Indian but from California) had their feet and hands decorated. Both their names were worked into the bride’s design—which the groom has to discover for himself.

In addition to the henna-decorated hands, each woman was given bangles to match her garments, made by a man who created them from resin and sized them on a hot iron. The bride emerged from her house, looking like a film star in her red and gold sari, her arms heavy with gold bangles, and flowers woven into her hair. Her good-natured groom was dressed in a traditional groom’s outfit.

Couples began to arrive, piped inside and announced by musicians. This before-wedding party is the Sangeet which literally means “singing together”. Traditionally, it’s a time for good-natured teasing of the bride and groom. A troop of tribal musicians and dancers performed first. The women dancers gave me my first look at a popular trick—they would bend over backwards until they could pick up a ring from the ground using their EYELASHES. Don’t ask me how. Later I saw other dancers pick up things like a razor with their eyelids!

The bride’s family and siblings and cousins offered their own entertainment—dancing and singing popular Bollywood love songs. A group of their friends (including my daughter Eleni, the blonde in turquoise and pink) had been practicing a Bollywood dance number—similar to the dance at the end of Slumdog Millionaire. (I’ve heard that taking Bollywood dance lessons is becoming a craze in the U.S. now.)

At the end, the bride and groom and their parents also danced, and the bride’s funny uncle—the man in a dark suit with a long pink scarf-- performed a hilarious parody of the traditional bride’s dance—shy yet seductive.

The little children fell asleep on the canopied divans, while everyone else sang, danced, cruised the buffet, and admired each other’s saris or salwar kameezes or other traditional dress. No one wanted to go home, but the next night was to be the even more lavish wedding itself!

The Saga of the Bangle Lady Continues

A while ago I wrote about the Bangle Lady who, with many other women, sits on the ground in the marketplace in Jodhpur, India, near the Clock Tower and sells plastic bangle bracelets all day long. She is among the anonymous poor of India who somehow scrabble out enough to keep their families alive.

My daughter Eleni first encountered the Bangle Lady in January 2006 and took her photograph as she sat with her young baby boy in her lap, thrusting bracelets at potential customers. I liked the photograph so much—an Indian Madonna multi-tasking—that I painted her portrait in watercolors from Eleni’s photograph. (That’s a detail from the painting, above left)

As I painted, I noticed how carefully she had adorned herself with jewels in her nose, on her forehead, in her hair, on her arms and around her neck. Later , when I went to India this past December, I learned that a Hindu woman is supposed to wear 16 adornments. The bangle lady certainly followed that rule and I thought she was as beautiful as any movie star in her bright pink sari.

A year later Eleni went back to the same place and handed the Bangle Lady an enlargement of the photograph. She was thrilled, because she had never had a photograph of herself before. Now she was happy to let Eleni photograph her in her green sari. The little boy who had been an infant in her lap was standing behind her.

That was January of 2007. The Bangle Lady never knew that I painted her and hung her portrait in my solo show last spring at C. C. Lowell’s First Gallery in Worcester, MA.

Now two years later, in January 2009, I went with Eleni to the marketplace in Jodhpur and there she was. I recognized her immediately. The Bangle Lady greeted us with enthusiasm. This time the baby by her side was a girl. We took her photo and, although we didn’t have any language in common, she made it clear to Eleni that this time she wanted two copies of the photo. When she smiled, I saw with surprise that one of her front teeth was missing and the ones on either side were discolored— this had happened in the two years since Eleni’s last visit. But when the Bangle Lady smiled with her mouth shut, she still looked as beautiful as a film star, young and serene.

That same day we went to a digital photo store and had the photos developed. The next day, when we went to give them to her in the market, we saw the Bangle Lady had brought her mother with her to be photographed --a toothless crone in a bright pink sari. (“Pink,” as Diana Vreeland famously said, “is the navy blue of India.”) I realized that this toothless hag, hunkered on the ground behind her beautiful daughter, was probably a good bit younger than I am. Maybe in her forties or fifties?

The Bangle Lady insisted that Eleni take some special plastic bracelets that she had selected for her – as a gift.

So here are photos of three generations of the Bangle Lady’s family. Eleni made sure that a friend took the latest photos back to the marketplace after we left. The Bangle Lady may be among the poorest segment of Indian society, but I noticed that she was beautiful and proud and wore a different sari in every photo.

Recession? The $150 Burger & $1,000 Frittata

I just got back from New York City where I was taken to lunch by a magazine editor to discuss an article I’m going to do. This kind of expense-account lunch has become almost as rare as the 15-cent subway token (and yes, children, I do remember the 15-cent subway token.) In fact, most people I know working in the media in New York are lunching at McDonald’s and waiting to be fired.

The editor took me to lunch at DB Bistro Moderne on 55 West 44th Street. It was crowded with very well-dressed people crammed shoulder to shoulder at little tables.

As soon as I looked at the menu I realized this was the home of the famous DB Burger—“A Sirloin Burger filled with Braised Short Ribs and Foie Gras” for $32. (DB stands for the famous chef Daniel Boulud.) Next came the DB Burger Royale which adds “10 grams of shaved black truffle” to the basic burger, bringing the cost to $75. If you really want to splurge, you can order the DB “double truffle burger” with 20 grams of black truffle. The price is $150.

No, I didn’t order any of these burgers, although the editor encouraged me to. I ordered some gnocchi that was on special. It was good, but a much smaller portion than you would get at Café Espresso in Worcester. She ordered a skinless chicken breast, which they make special for her, because she doesn’t want to “look like a blimp” (She was probably a size 0.) She also insisted we share a dessert of berries. They brought a small plate of assembled blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. Probably individually chosen, but they were just plain. No sugar or cream or anything. I have no idea how much they cost per berry.

It was a good meal – especially the ice tea which was made with Hibiscus. (Have you noticed that nobody drinks alcohol at lunch any more?) The editor requested liquid sugar in a tiny pitcher, which the waiter had forgotten to provide. It was fun to revisit the long-gone days when we magazine journalists thought nothing of expensing a lunch like this. But now even a $32 burger seems immoral, never mind a $150 one. And who eats foie gras any more, after finding out what they do to the geese? My own liver recoils at the thought.

The mega-priced burgers reminded me of the $1,000 frittata that’s on the menu at Norma’s on West 57th Street. The menu calls it the “Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata” and adds “Norma dares you to expense this.” It comes with 10 ounces of Sevruga caviar. (You can get the lobster frittata with only 1 oz. of caviar for only $100.)

Norma’s in the Parker Meridian Hotel is the ultimate power breakfast place (not the Regency on Park Ave.) where they serve the most decadent breakfasts imaginable from 7. a.m. to 3 p.m. every day. There’s always a tiny smoothie of the day gratis. Just people-watching is worth the price of admission. I certainly don’t order the zillion-dollar frittata and I don’t think anyone else does either.

After the extravagant expense-account lunch at DB Bistro, I walked over to Cartier because I had to replace the leather watchband on my Tank watch (a gift.) I had replaced it several times over the past 20 years. Normally it cost about a hundred dollars. When you went up to the second floor, you had to announce your name to the receptionist and wait until you were called. This time there was no one else in the store except for the smartly dressed employees—all in black. No waiting. The cheapest watchband cost $140. (To replace the alligator one that was broken would cost me $240. Just for the band.)

I was alone until four Japanese tourists came in. Two older men had trouble explaining what they wanted done to their watches. A staff member told me, when I asked, that the employee who speaks Japanese was off that day and it was too bad, because they had loads of Japanese customers every day.

Later, walking up Fifth Avenue and looking into the expensive stores like Tiffany’s, I realized that the best customers—almost their only customers—were the Japanese and the Russians. I wonder if they order the Zillion-dollar Lobster Frittata at Norma’s.

BURNING BODIES IN BENARAS

BURNING BODIES IN BENARAS

(Benaras is now properly called Varansi, but I liked the alliteration)

In my last post I said that the Ganges River and the holy city of Varanasi on its banks are believed to be a “crossing” or sacred place where mortals can cross over to the divine (and vice versa). That is why all Hindus want to die there or have their ashes thrown into the Ganges so that they can achieve moksha, the salvation of the soul from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. (You may have seen in the film “The Namesake” that the family brought the ashes of the dead father from the United States to throw into the Ganges.)

As soon as we arrived in Vanarasi, riding in a taxi from the airport, we encountered a funeral procession – four men carrying on their shoulders the poles of a stretcher on which was a body wrapped in red silk and covered with flowers. (We later learned, if the body is wrapped in a red sari, it’s a woman. If it’s wrapped in gold cloth, it’s a man.)

When you walk along the ghats or steps on the sides of the Ganges you will see two cremation ghats where male untouchables cremate bodies all day and night. We went near with a guide but kept a respectful distance and did not take photographs, of course, because it would be disrespectful. The photos above of dead bodies are post cards I bought.

Later, after dark, like all other visitors to Vanarasi, we hired a small rowboat to take us down the river where we saw the burning ghats from a distance in the darkness and then anchored near the shore to watch the holy men perform their synchronized fire worship with torches. (They now perform beneath neon-lit “umbrellas” which represent the large umbrellas under which they sit all day.)

On the river there were two larger boats full of Japanese tourists who wore masks over their nose and mouth, which was not a bad idea since I managed to inhale enough ash in the smoky air to have a coughing fit. One can only wonder about the lifetime effects of breathing in that smoke (which casts a constant fog over the river). But somehow the natives don’t seem to become ill from swimming in the polluted river or inhaling the endless smog.


Fascinating facts about the cremation of the bodies on the huge wood fires made from logs of teak and sandalwood. The bodies, wrapped in silk, are first bathed in the river, then coated with a flammable paste and incense powder to hide the smell. Fat people burn faster, thin people more slowly. It takes about four hours for the body to be reduced to ashes which are then thrown into the river by a male relative. It’s also a male relative who lights the funeral pyre.

Our guide told us there are seven kinds of people who are not allowed to be cremated (due to bad karma, I guess, or the danger of spreading germs in the smoke.) I can name five of these: people who died of suicide, snakebite or smallpox, pregnant women who died with the baby unborn, and newborn babies. (I don’t swear this is accurate—it’s what I was told.) Those who are not cremated are wrapped with stones in the wrappings and tossed into the river, to sink. An estimated 45,000 UNCREMATED bodies are dumped into the river each year!)

Watching the fires burning at night from the distance of a boat on the river, it’s an awesome and beautiful sight. Even watching close up from the shore, it’s a moving and sacred thing to see these individuals being delivered into the afterlife with such ceremony and love. While we were there, the children were all practicing kite flying because the nationwide Kite Festival was approaching. As the dead were being burned, women in saris were doing laundry, the holy men were bathing and chanting, the children were playing and selling necklaces of flowers to throw into the river. On the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi the bustling activities surrounding life and death all take place side by side , unremarkably, because birth, play, work and death are all threads in the tapestry of life in India.

Naked Yogis, Clothed Goats & Recyled Cow Pies

Varanasi -- Naked Laughing Yogis, Clothed Goats and Recycled Cow Pies

No amount of photographs and words could convey how strange and wonderful, bizarre, surreal, jaw-droppingly amazing…is the holy city of Varanasi on the banks of the river Ganges in India.

Mark Twain described it as “older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”

Varanasi grew up on the banks of the Ganges. Long rows of steps called “ghats” line the banks, and the steps are crowded day and night with pilgrims and holy men and just plain folks who live there, as well as goats, cows, water buffalo, and the occasional monkey. Every day you will also see funeral processions and bodies wrapped in silks being burned on giant wood fires before their ashes are thrown into the river

Varanasi is considered a “crossing” (tirtha) or sacred place where mortals and gods can cross into each other’s worlds. Every Hindu wants to die in Varanasi or have his ashes thrown into the River Ganges because that is how to achieve moksha, the salvation of the soul from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. (In other words the river is an express train to salvation without having to go through all that reincarnation first.)

For this reason, fires burn on the steps of the Ganges as people from the untouchable class cremate the dead 24 hours a day. But the cremations are something I’m going to write about in my next posting. Today I’m just going to list some of the other bizarre sights that soon become “normal” in Varanasi, which is perhaps the oldest surviving Holy City and the most efficient recycling plant in the world.

The banks of the river-–the steps of the ghats—are like a three-ring circus that can be viewed while you are sailing down the river in a row boat or walking along the steps.

You will see:
-- Herds of cows and water buffalo that are periodically bathed in the Ganges and decorated with leis of marigolds by the faithful (they’re sacred cows after all!)

--Women in saris and men in turbans doing laundry in the murky river and laying out rainbow-colored saris to dry on the steps. (Somehow the clothes come out clean.)

--Holy men, wrapped in saffron-colored loin cloths sitting under umbrellas, praying, chanting, waving torches in fire worship (after dark), stripping down to bathe and brush their teeth in the river. At dawn, the “Laughing Yogis”, swim out into the river (which was freezing when I was there) and shout out their loud Ha-Ha-Ha’s of laughter, as they are answered by guffaws from yogis still on shore. Their laughter is part of their worship.

--The goats in Varanasi wear shirts. At first I thought this was some sort of exotic religious practice – naked sadhu’s (holy men) swimming in the river and clothed goats on shore. But everyone assured me when, I asked, that they put shirts and sweaters on their goats “so they won’t get cold.”

--Everywhere you walk in Varanasi you have to be careful not to step into the cow pies left by the sacred cows and water buffalo. But in a brilliant example of re-cycling, there are men on the ghats who gather the cow poop and pat it into neat little patties and dry it on the steps (see the photo above). This way, everyone can use the product of the sacred cows to burn as fuel.

(Next posting: Burning Bodies in Benares.)