Obama Visits Greece and Nick Quotes Him the Bible

  Was it only last year that I posted this?   Why does it seem like it happened so many years ago?  Wonder if the current POTUS is as familiar with the Bible as Obama was?

Last Sunday, Nick and I were in New York when he got word that he was invited to attend the state dinner in President Obama’s honor to be given by the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos in the Presidential Palace in Athens on Tuesday night.

So we drove back to Massachusetts while Nick scrambled on the phone to find a flight out of Boston that would get him to Greece in time for Tuesday.  (There are no direct flights to Athens at this time of year.) He eventually flew on Monday afternoon on Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then to Athens, arriving midday on Tuesday. I really wanted to go too, but the Embassy told him no spouses were coming, not even Michelle Obama.

Nick has sent me photos of the event, which he thoroughly enjoyed.  Young women in native costume welcomed the 120 guests entering the grand dining room.  They were seated at long tables arranged like three sides of a rectangle, or the Greek letter pi. Obama sat in the center of the head table, at the right of Greek President Pavlopoulos and on Obama’s right was Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

 I was amused to see that Tsipras, who as a Marxist and leader of the leftist Syriza party made a point throughout his campaign of never wearing a tie, appeared throughout the state dinner and other events honoring Obama, always tie-less in an open-necked white shirt.  I was also amused that the Prime Minister, an avowed atheist, was seated next to the Archbishop of Athens. I wonder what they talked about.

While Prime Minister Tsipras speaks halting English, Greek President Pavlopoulos knows it well, but both made their public remarks in Greek and then paused for an English translation.  Watching the event on Greek TV, I heard Obama whisper to President Pavlopoulos, “Is this your house?  Do you live here?” and Pavlopoulos answered, “No, I have a home over by the Hilton.”

The menu, printed in two languages, featured “Shrimps with citrus fruits”, “rice with vegetables and herbs”, “baked grouper with greens, garnished with potatoes and cherry tomatoes”, “chestnut dessert”, ”seasonal fruit, two kinds of wines and coffee.

President Obama began his remarks with “kalispera” (good evening) and lauded Greece for the country’s hospitality, humanity and its contributions to the world as the source of democracy.  After the Greek president and prime minister spoke,  the children’s choir of the Greek National Opera sang four songs, both John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Simon and Garfunkel’s  “Sounds of Silence” and two popular Greek songs by Theodorakis and Hadjidakis.  Afterward, Obama enthusiastically mixed with the children and thanked them for their performance.

Sadly I have no photo of Nick talking to Obama.  At U.S. State dinners, there is usually a photographer who takes your photo as you are introduced to the President in a reception line, but at the Greek state dinner, Obama shook hands with the guests as they filed out of the dining room.

Nick had a brief conversation with Obama which delighted them both—Nick said, paraphrasing a famous statement made by Saint Paul right before his martyrdom: “Mr. President, you have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.  History will not slight you.”  Obama replied, “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”  Then he took a few steps, turned back smiling and said, “Letter to Timothy right?” (He was right, it’s from 2nd Timothy 4:7.  Proof that our President knows his Bible and was not dozing during Sunday school.)

The next day, Wednesday, Obama visited the Acropolis Museum and saw the Parthenon for the first time.  Then he spoke to a large group of invitees at the new Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center.  Nick was there.

I asked Nick, when it was all over, if he felt Obama’s visit to Greece had been a success. (It was covered live for three days on Greek TV, which I watched sporadically.) The New York Times said last Tuesday that Trump’s victory had rattled Greece because “Obama had been supportive of Greece’s efforts to get its finances in order, and of Europe’s bid to keep Greece stable.  Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hoped that Mr. Obama, who travels to Berlin on Thursday, might even persuade the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to offer Greece some debt relief by the end of the year.”

In answer to my question Nick said, “I think it was important to both the visitor and the visited. Obama, as he finishes his presidency, wanted to go to the fountainhead of the values he pursued as President. And that of course is Greece, where democracy and individual rights and equal justice under law were developed.  And the Greeks needed somebody to show compassion for their plight in view of the hard stand their fellow Europeans, especially the Germans, are taking. I think both of those goals were fulfilled very successfully. Obama was really in top form.”

 

Obama Visits Greece and Nick Quotes Him the Bible

 

Last Sunday, Nick and I were in New York when he got word that he was invited to attend the state dinner in President Obama’s honor to be given by the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos in the Presidential Palace in Athens on Tuesday night.

So we drove back to Massachusetts while Nick scrambled on the phone to find a flight out of Boston that would get him to Greece in time for Tuesday.  (There are no direct flights to Athens at this time of year.) He eventually flew on Monday afternoon on Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then to Athens, arriving midday on Tuesday. I really wanted to go too, but the Embassy told him no spouses were coming, not even Michelle Obama.

Nick has sent me photos of the event, which he thoroughly enjoyed.  Young women in native costume welcomed the 120 guests entering the grand dining room.  They were seated at long tables arranged like three sides of a rectangle, or the Greek letter pi. Obama sat in the center of the head table, at the right of Greek President Pavlopoulos and on Obama’s right was Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

  I was amused to see that Tsipras, who as a Marxist and leader of the leftist Syriza party made a point throughout his campaign of never wearing a tie, appeared throughout the state dinner and other events honoring Obama, always tie-less in an open-necked white shirt.  I was also amused that the Prime Minister, an avowed atheist, was seated next to the Archbishop of Athens. I wonder what they talked about.

While Prime Minister Tsipras speaks halting English, Greek President Pavlopoulos knows it well, but both made their public remarks in Greek and then paused for an English translation.  Watching the event on Greek TV, I heard Obama whisper to President Pavlopoulos, “Is this your house?  Do you live here?” and Pavlopoulos answered, “No, I have a home over by the Hilton.”

The menu, printed in two languages, featured “Shrimps with citrus fruits”, “rice with vegetables and herbs”, “baked grouper with greens, garnished with potatoes and cherry tomatoes”, “chestnut dessert”, ”seasonal fruit, two kinds of wines and coffee.

President Obama began his remarks with “kalispera” (good evening) and lauded Greece for the country’s hospitality, humanity and its contributions to the world as the source of democracy.  After the Greek president and prime minister spoke,  the children’s choir of the Greek National Opera sang four songs, both John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Simon and Garfunkel’s  “Sounds of Silence” and two popular Greek songs by Theodorakis and Hadjidakis.  Afterward, Obama enthusiastically mixed with the children and thanked them for their performance.

Sadly I have no photo of Nick talking to Obama.  At U.S. State dinners, there is usually a photographer who takes your photo as you are introduced to the President in a reception line, but at the Greek state dinner, Obama shook hands with the guests as they filed out of the dining room.

Nick had a brief conversation with Obama which delighted them both—Nick said, paraphrasing a famous statement made by Saint Paul right before his martyrdom: “Mr. President, you have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.  History will not slight you.”  Obama replied, “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”  Then he took a few steps, turned back smiling and said, “Letter to Timothy right?” (He was right, it’s from 2nd Timothy 4:7.  Proof that our President knows his Bible and was not dozing during Sunday school.)

The next day, Wednesday, Obama visited the Acropolis Museum and saw the Parthenon for the first time.  Then he spoke to a large group of invitees at the new Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center.  Nick was there.

I asked Nick, when it was all over, if he felt Obama’s visit to Greece had been a success. (It was covered live for three days on Greek TV, which I watched sporadically.) The New York Times said last Tuesday that Trump’s victory had rattled Greece because “Obama had been supportive of Greece’s efforts to get its finances in order, and of Europe’s bid to keep Greece stable.  Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hoped that Mr. Obama, who travels to Berlin on Thursday, might even persuade the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to offer Greece some debt relief by the end of the year.”

In answer to my question Nick said, “I think it was important to both the visitor and the visited. Obama, as he finishes his presidency, wanted to go to the fountainhead of the values he pursued as President. And that of course is Greece, where democracy and individual rights and equal justice under law were developed.  And the Greeks needed somebody to show compassion for their plight in view of the hard stand their fellow Europeans, especially the Germans, are taking. I think both of those goals were fulfilled very successfully. Obama was really in top form.”

 

Before TV and Movies, There Were Stereoviews

This post was first published on 7/23/12
 

(Please click on the photos to enlarge them and see them better)

The Story Behind the Photos--19th Century Greece

Starting around 1860 and lasting well into the 1900’s, nearly every home in the USA was equipped with a stereopticon viewer and a good supply of stereoview cards.  Some of the stereo-viewers were fancy tabletop pieces mounted on a base, often with inlaid wood.  But most of them, like mine above, were simple hand-held models.

"An old dream realized at last, ship-canal through  Isthmus, E.S.E. Corinth, Greece" Underwood. 

It was traditional for wealthy families to send their adult children on a “Grand Tour” to finish their education.  Families of more modest means could sit in their parlors and view all the outstanding sites and monuments of the world in 3-D thanks to their stereo viewer.  The reflecting lenses inside the viewer fused the two images on the stereo card—which were taken by separate camera lenses-- into one image that appeared to be three dimensional.

"A Father and Son of the race of Homer, Patras, Greece. 1897"

From the very beginning of photography—the daguerreotype in 1839—photographers have created stereoviews that appear three-dimensional when seen through a  viewer, but if you ever come across a stereo daguerreotype (polished silver on a copper plate)  or ambrotype (on glass), you’ve found an extremely rare and valuable photograph.  Oddly, the few stereo dags I’ve seen often portray nude or partially nude women—I guess the porn industry began long before the invention of photography.

The stereoviews that flooded the country from 1850 were (first) albumen prints pasted onto cardboard cards.  From the 1880’s to the 1920’s, the 7  by 3 1/2-inch cards had rounded corners and were curved to enhance the 3-D effect.

In their parlors, Americans viewed the horrors of dead bodies on Civil War battlefields, exotic customs of foreign cultures and the wonders of the world.  Explanatory notes were usually printed on the back of the card. 

By the turn of the century, viewers often collected groups of cards that were posed by actors to tell a story—for instance a series showing a soldier leaving his fiancée to go into battle, then being wounded and finally nursed back to health by his sweetheart who traveled to the hospital to care for him.

Sometimes the series told a humorous story like 10 cards I once owned showing how Mrs. Newlywed catches on to her husband’s dalliance with the comely cook by spying a floury handprint on the back of his suit coat, so she replaces the attractive cook with a plug-ugly one.

Often identical views were published by more than one company—many of these were pirated and of inferior quality.

"Temple of Nike, Acropolis, Athens, Greece."

In the U.S. the major makers of these super-popular stereo cards were (first) the Langenheim brothers of Philadelphia, then Underwood and Keystone and dozens of other lesser-known publishers. I haven’t been able to find proof of a connection between the humorous stereoview series and early silent movie companies like Biograph which produced “The Keystone Kops”, but it seems that early silent movies would be a natural successor to the stories told by actors in stereoviews.

"Statue of Byron, Athens, Greece."

Before 2004, when Athens was preparing to host the Olympics, I started collecting stereo views taken in Greece around 1896 when the first modern Olympics were staged in the country where the Olympic games were born.  I used the photos on  these stereo cards to design a series of note cards and a poster, sometimes adding a touch of color.

Left:  "Recruits for the Army before the Temple of Theseus, Athens." 

Right: "The best preserved temple in all Greece, the Theseion in Athens"

What thrilled the original owners of these stereo views was the lifelike three-dimensional quality of the scenes. But what thrilled me, upon viewing the antique photographs of Greece, was the chance to see my husband’s native country and countrymen the way they looked as they went about their daily life at the end of the 19^th century.  It wasn’t the  temples and ruins that  intrigued me—they look much the same today when I visit Greece.  It was the people—the extras in the scene—that I cared about.

Left: "The Argolis plain, looking from Nauplia to Mykenae" 

Right: "East end of the Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens"

Because the photographer wanted to dramatize the 3-D quality of each photo, he would choose some important site—let’s say the Acropolis—for the background, then he would put something—or someone—in the foreground and often in the middle ground too.  And the “models” he’d ask to pose were people who were handy-—soldiers, farmers, school children, pedestrians.

Left: "The Acropolis from Philopappos Hill", 

Right: "Columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the Acropolis in Distance, Athens"

I’ve never read anything about the methods of these stereo photographers, so I don’t know if they paid the bystanders whom they coached to stay very still until the photographer had focused on the scene with his large, boxy stereo camera on a tripod.

Left: View from Lykabettos Hill past the Royal Palace and the Acropolis to the sea, 

Right: "Greek Girls among ancient ruins"

I suspect these “extras” in the scene posed for free, just to witness this new-fangled thing called photography.

"City milk delivery, Athens, straight from the goat."

But in their traditional dress and everyday tasks, these humble Greeks achieved a kind of immortality as they became extras in historic scenes illustrating how life was lived in the days before electricity and television, smart phones and I-pads.

"Shepherds bringing Lambs to Market, Nauplia, Greece"

When I first visited Greece in 1968, there was still no electricity in my future husband’s village of Lia in Epiros, and women often wore their traditional garb, including the headscarves and embroidered vests, but by the seventies, electricity and television made it to the villages and all that authentic traditional detail was lost by the time they’d seen “Dallas”  and “The Fugitive.”

"Holy Trinity Monastery, Greece, 1896" (Look at the artillery on the monk in the foreground!)

Whatever your area of interest—trains, ships, history, architecture, native Americans, anthropology, you can put together a great collection of antique stereoviews on the subject without a huge outlay of cash, thanks to EBay and sellers like my friends at Dave’s Stereos.  But if you come across any great views of 19^th century Greece, give me a heads up first.

"Monastery of Hagia Trias (Holy Trinity) Meteora Rocks, Northern Greece"

Amalia Discovers Athens and the Grande Bretagne

 Amalia had only two days at the end of her trip to Greece to enjoy Athens, but staying at the Grande Bretagne Hotel, (friends call it “the GB”) put her right in the heart of the city with a balcony overlooking Constitution Square…

… and a perfect view of the tourists gathering to photograph the Evzone soldiers stationed in front of the Parliament building.

Amalia was greeted with “Welcome” gifts from the GB, including flowers and this arrangement of chocolates.  Even the lady caryatid, who looks like the columns holding up the Erectheum on the Acropolis, was made out of white chocolate, but she was too pretty to eat.

Breakfast at the GB happens on the roof, and with your Herald Tribune and fresh squeezed orange juice,....

 you get this view of the Parthenon.

 Amalia’s first priority was to check out the  pool, also atop the building. (There’s also an Olympic-sized pool in the spa in the basement.)

 Bathing suit, check.  Sunglasses, check.  Nemo water wings, check.  Dora the Explorer hat, check.  Amalia was ready to hit the pool.

She tried to get Papou to go into the pool with her, but he had meetings scheduled.

Amalia decided she didn’t want to go any further than the first step down…

…despite Mommy’s efforts to coax her into the water.  (In the distance you can see Mount Lycabettos, with the Church of St. George on top.)

When she spied the fountains in the corner, Amalia decided that was much more her idea of water play.   

Later Mommy took Amalia in her stroller to explore the National Gardens nearby, which were originally the Royal Gardens for Amalia, the first queen of modern Greece.  But now they’re for everyone, including her small namesake.

The animal cages were empty--no doubt one more result of Greece’s economic crisis—but there was a pond full of turtles,

Some baby turtles rode on their Mommy’s back.

There were pieces of ancient columns to pose on

And swings to share with Yiayia Nenny

And a sandbox where this boy had some really cool sand toys and a dump truck he was filling with sand…

…But a bigger boy named Socrates took away the dump truck and the little boy cried and Socrates’ Mommy gave him a lecture, while Amalia was riveted by the drama.

Walking back to the hotel, Amalia wanted a close-up view of the Evzones doing their  goose-stepping dance in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  Barricades had been put up to protect the Parliament building from the  anti-austerity demonstrations which often take place here, but the pigeons and the tourists managed to get in easily.

Mommy pushed the stroller so Amalia got a really close view.

As the sun began to set, everyone gathered on our balcony to enjoy the “Welcome” bottle of wine  and watch the sunset.

The last dinner, on the roof of the hotel, included lobster and another dramatic view of the Acropolis, but by now Amalia was sound asleep, gathering her strength for the ten-hour plane trip to New York’s JFK airport, during which she would watch two movies, eat a lot, explore the airplane from one end to another and drive her Mommy and her Yiayia Joanie to distraction.

Before TV & Movies…Stereoviews

(Please click on the photos to enlarge them)

The Story Behind the Photos--19th Century Greece

Starting around 1860 and lasting well into the 1900’s, nearly every home in the USA was equipped with a stereopticon viewer and a good supply of stereoview cards.  Some of the stereo-viewers were fancy tabletop pieces mounted on a base, often with inlaid wood.  But most of them, like mine above, were simple hand-held models.

"An old dream realized at last, ship-canal through  Isthmus, E.S.E. Corinth, Greece" Underwood. 

It was traditional for wealthy families to send their adult children on a “Grand Tour” to finish their education.  Families of more modest means could sit in their parlors and view all the outstanding sites and monuments of the world in 3-D thanks to their stereo viewer.  The reflecting lenses inside the viewer fused the two images on the stereo card—which were taken by separate camera lenses-- into one image that appeared to be three dimensional.

"A Father and Son of the race of Homer, Patras, Greece. 1897"

From the very beginning of photography—the daguerreotype in 1839—photographers have created stereoviews that appear three-dimensional when seen through a  viewer, but if you ever come across a stereo daguerreotype (polished silver on a copper plate)  or ambrotype (on glass), you’ve found an extremely rare and valuable photograph.  Oddly, the few stereo dags I’ve seen often portray nude or partially nude women—I guess the porn industry began long before the invention of photography.

The stereoviews that flooded the country from 1850 were (first) albumen prints pasted onto cardboard cards.  From the 1880’s to the 1920’s, the 7  by 3 1/2-inch cards had rounded corners and were curved to enhance the 3-D effect.

In their parlors, Americans viewed the horrors of dead bodies on Civil War battlefields, exotic customs of foreign cultures and the wonders of the world.  Explanatory notes were usually printed on the back of the card. 

By the turn of the century, viewers often collected groups of cards that were posed by actors to tell a story—for instance a series showing a soldier leaving his fiancée to go into battle, then being wounded and finally nursed back to health by his sweetheart who traveled to the hospital to care for him.

Sometimes the series told a humorous story like 10 cards I once owned showing how Mrs. Newlywed catches on to her husband’s dalliance with the comely cook by spying a floury handprint on the back of his suit coat, so she replaces the attractive cook with a plug-ugly one.

Often identical views were published by more than one company—many of these were pirated and of inferior quality.

"Temple of Nike, Acropolis, Athens, Greece."

In the U.S. the major makers of these super-popular stereo cards were (first) the Langenheim brothers of Philadelphia, then Underwood and Keystone and dozens of other lesser-known publishers. I haven’t been able to find proof of a connection between the humorous stereoview series and early silent movie companies like Biograph which produced “The Keystone Kops”, but it seems that early silent movies would be a natural successor to the stories told by actors in stereoviews.

"Statue of Byron, Athens, Greece."

Before 2004, when Athens was preparing to host the Olympics, I started collecting stereo views taken in Greece around 1896 when the first modern Olympics were staged in the country where the Olympics were born.  I used the photos on  these stereo cards to design a series of note cards and a poster, sometimes adding a touch of color. 

Left:  "Recruits for the Army before the Temple of Theseus, Athens." 

Right: "The best preserved temple in all Greece, the Theseion in Athens"

What thrilled the original owners of these stereo views was the lifelike three-dimensional quality of the scenes. But what thrilled me, upon viewing the antique photographs of Greece, was the chance to see my husband’s native country and countrymen the way they looked as they went about their daily life at the end of the 19^th century.  It wasn’t the  temples and ruins that  intrigued me—they look much the same today when I visit Greece.  It was the people—the extras in the scene—that I cared about.

Left: "The Argolis plain, looking from Nauplia to Mykenae" 

Right: "East end of the Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens"

Because the photographer wanted to dramatize the 3-D quality of each photo, he would choose some important site—let’s say the Acropolis—for the background, then he would put something—or someone—in the foreground and often in the middle ground too.  And the “models” he’d ask to pose were people who were handy-—soldiers, farmers, school children, pedestrians.

Left: "The Acropolis from Philopappos Hill", 

Right: "Columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the Acropolis in Distance, Athens"

I’ve never read anything about the methods of these stereo photographers, so I don’t know if they paid the bystanders whom they coached to stay very still until the photographer had focused on the scene with his large, boxy stereo camera on a tripod.

Left: View from Lykabettos Hill past the Royal Palace and the Acropolis to the sea, 

Right: "Greek Girls among ancient ruins"

I suspect these “extras” in the scene posed for free, just to witness this new-fangled thing called photography.

"City milk delivery, Athens, straight from the goat."

But in their traditional dress and everyday tasks, these humble Greeks achieved a kind of immortality as they became extras in historic scenes illustrating how life was lived in the days before electricity and television, smart phones and I-pads.

"Shepherds bringing Lambs to Market, Nauplia, Greece"

When I first visited Greece in 1968, there was still no electricity in my future husband’s village of Lia in Epiros, and women often wore their traditional garb, including the headscarves and embroidered vests, but by the seventies, electricity and television made it to the villages and all that authentic traditional detail was lost by the time they’d seen “Dallas”  and “The Fugitive.”

"Holy Trinity Monastery, Greece, 1896" (Look at the artillery on the monk in the foreground!)

Whatever your area of interest—trains, ships, history, architecture, native Americans, anthropology, you can put together a great collection of antique stereoviews on the subject without a huge outlay of cash, thanks to EBay and sellers like my friends at Dave’s Stereos.  But if you come across any great views of 19^th century Greece, give me a heads up first.

"Monastery of Hagia Trias (Holy Trinity) Meteora Rocks, Northern Greece"