So I was in the taxi again today. I know, I use them a lot. I should stop financing the lousy bouzouki music habit I am subjected to when i am in there going somewhere and ending up being incoherent and with a headache. Once, I had translated some of the lyrics of these songs to Stephanie while we were going home and you can ask her if you don’t believe me, these songs are the modern equivalent to medieval torture. It’s something between the Head Crusher and the Chair of Torture. May you be plagued with gnats, flies and locusts, O ye taxi drivers, creatures of the pit.
Where was I? Oh yes, the bouzouki in the taxi. It is so incoherent to me that people drive and listen to this miserable, whiny music and that this music accompanies them in their lonely task throughout the day. I would kill myself if I was forced to drive in Athens AND listen to this stuff. So I thought maybe taxi drivers are not that stupid after all. Maybe they are creatures of higher intelligence. And maybe they subject themselves to this music as a form of self discipline, to practise patience and fortitude. Now that I think of it, I am pretty sure they don’t really like that music. And I salute them in their quest of nirvana and undisrturbed bliss.
Freaks only:
Last night I watched this movie "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus" with Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. The film tells you little about Arbus, but it tells you a lot about freaks. If you, like me, often feel that you are a freak, that you belong nowhere, that you make unintelligible sounds instead of sentences, see this film. It is moving.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I find Robert Downey Jr. a really good actor, and if you’re recommending “Fur..” it’s on my list of movies to watch.
How do you get those lines on your toast?
September 20th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I LOOOOVE Downey Jr!! He’s such a bad boy
I can imagine that they could be crazy and rude and lunatic listening to that kind of music AND driving through Athens…so we need to have a little simpathy for them, I suppose.
That toast looks so soft, yummy.
September 21st, 2007 at 12:12 am
I saw the Arbus exhibit twice, just happening to bump into it at the MOMA in NYC and then the MOMA in San Francisco.
Here’s a New Yorker article about her:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/03/21/050321craw_artworld
September 21st, 2007 at 2:16 am
Funny you mention that word. I am in Detroit and there is a adult night club called
bouzouki
Hope your trip was good
September 21st, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Every taxi I have been in seems to play music that is native to their area…strange snake charming sounds in Morocco, western twangy music in the American south, you name it. I think taxi drivers have a code and that playing bad native music is one of their laws.
How are you think week, anyway?…
xo
September 21st, 2007 at 2:35 pm
I thought the music was funny, but probably because I was only subjected to it on holiday
Much worse to me was the taxi driver who played the horrible American rap/hip-hip hop (with swears left in! you can’t hear that on the radio here!) in order to impress us. All I could think was “Is this what people think we all listen to?”
PS - My experience with Boston taxis is that they are most often cheerful men from sunny lands who drive through snowy winter streets with a cheerfully terrifying incompetence. I guess as a result, I never notice the music much
September 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I am a freak so i guess i will have to find this movie and watch it, yes? LOL
cant wait to hear the horrible music in taxis when i get there… it may be charming for a day or two, but like you said, bring on the locusts after that. lol
i have missed my dear friend across the world from me. how i love you:)
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:43 am
I will take any music in the world over rap!
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:49 am
My theory is that taxi drivers that listen to whiney music are sadists content merely to inflict torture on their passengers. Maybe they hate it too but knowing that others probably hate it even more must somehow be invigorating. I suppose that makes them masochists too.
Just so you know, after reading the warning, I obviously didn’t read the last section of this post. Wait, who am I kidding? Sounds like my kind of film.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:41 am
Cab drivers can really scare me when I am by myslef. That is their business so you would think they would be nice…lol
Thanks for the beautiful postcard.
Sending you bunches of hugs,
Connie
September 24th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I happen to like bouzouki music, although I like other forms of Greek music more - but if it’s the synthesizer / tourist version you’re talking about you have my sympathy…
Also, straight back from Scotland - Edinburgh salutes you and wonder when you’ll be there…?
September 26th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
LAUGHED OUT LOUD!! (always do with your
witty sense of observation and humor)
I was obsessed with Diane Arbus for a bit -
but it was all so very very sad -
and torured.
I always feel like a freak - only I use the word
eccentric - love that about
myself
(hugs!!!)
September 28th, 2007 at 4:40 am
You make toast look so tasty!
October 1st, 2007 at 10:22 am
what a beautiful photograph. simply morning.