The Best of Graffiti 2011

As I mentioned in the posting for Part 1–I feel 2011 was a good year for Graffiti. Here are the links to the original postings for the eight programs featured tonight in the first of two shows dedicated to the programs of 2011.

THE BEST OF GRAFFITI 2011

I feel 2011 was a good year for Graffiti. Here are the links to the original postings for the eight programs featured tonight in the first of two shows dedicated to the programs of 2011.

Thanks for listening and stay tuned of what’s coming in 2012.

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CLICK HERE TO REACH MY Conversation with Steven Pressfield: Author of “The Profession”. December 15, 2011

THIS POSTING IS THE INTRODUCTION FOR THE PROGRAM: A Conversation with Prof. James Romm, Editor of “The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander”  March 10, 2011

THIS POSTING CONTAINS THE LINK TO THE ACTUAL CONVERSATION: CLICK HERE FOR My Conversation with James Romm about “The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander”. Also A Reading from the New Testament to Celebrate the Easter Season. April 25, 2011

CLICK HERE TO REACH MY  Conversation with Prof. James Romm about his new book: Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire. September 22, 2011

CLICK HERE TO REACH MY Conversation with J. E. ‘Ted’ Lendon Author of “Song of Wrath: The Peloponnesian War Begins”. August 11, 2011

CLICK HERE TO REACH A night of poetry with Sylvia Mouzourou and Nicholas Samaras with emphasis on the poetry of Nobel Laureate: ODYSSEUS ELYTIS. July 14, 2011

CLICK HERE TO REACH THE Graffiti ARCHIVE Presentation. A Conversation with Demetri Efthyvoulos–Spirits of the Rainforest. February 24, 2011.

CLICK HERE TO REACH MY Conversation with Veronica della Dora: Author of “Imagining Mount Athos”. December 29, 2011

The hardest part about writing this posting for my conversation with Veronica della Dora is deciding which Mt. Athos story to tell. I’ve been there twice for a total of about ten days and though there are many stories I could tell from those few days spent on the Holy Mountain–from earthquakes survived to hearing ancient monks give readings of the future–I think I’ll tell the story of how I first heard about Mount Athos.

Back in the early ’70′s friends of mine, a couple, decided to travel overland around the world. Their trip was cut short when Steve ended up being rushed home with a near fatal case of hepatitis. As he recovered, his wife Gail, and later Steve, once he was released from the hospital, regaled me with tales of their travels. Their stories still resonate in me though almost 40 years have past and when I visit them, which isn’t often enough, after a glass or two of wine, I’ll press them to re-tell stories I’ve already heard 20 or 30 times.

It was Steve’s tales of this “island” of monks in northern Greece that introduced me to this place that time’s forgotten. It was his story that led me there a few years later. And it was on this trip when I started my love affair with the country…a love affair that still runs hot though so many years have passed.

Click here for the Amazon listing for Imagining Mount Athos.

Click here for the University of Virginia Press entry for Imagining Mount Athos.

Click here for information about Dr. della Dora.

Click here for a National Geographic photo essay on Mount Athos.

Click here for Part 1 of the “60 minutes” essay on Mount Athos (aired Spring 2011)

Click here for Part 2 of the “60 minutes” essay on Mount Athos (aired Spring 2011)

CLICK HERE to listen to the Conversation with Veronica della Dora: Author of “Imagining Mount Athos”. December 29, 2011

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What terrifies you? What scares you so badly that you can’t sleep at night. You’re kept up haunted by the fear of…what terrifies you.

As a kid that was simple. Everything. No, not really. Many things were frightening but I’ll never forget the one thing that terrified me was hearing the words: “PLEASE STAND BY! We interrupt this program to bring you the following bulletin.” I can’t remember the first time I heard them coming from the TV. More importantly I can’t remember when I first linked those words to my fear that they were about to announce the end of the world.

I guess I should explain a bit about why these words were so terrifying. I’m a child of the 50’s and 60’s. I was brought up in the heart of the Cold War. Cold War…kids today have no idea what is was like to live in the shadow of a nuclear attack. These things were imbedded in our consciousness. I even have vague memories of drills we did in case the bombs were dropped. The late 50’s all anyone ever talked about was the need to have a bomb shelter. Fear ran wild…and for a kid with a vivid imagination like me the words: “PLEASE STAND BY! We interrupt this program to bring you the following bulletin,” could only mean one thing.

I remember watching television one day when a bulletin came on–I was alone so I hide behind a sofa and stuck my fingers in my ears. I didn’t want to hear the man announce the coming end of the world. After a minute or so, after there were no big flashes of light, I unplugged my ears long enough to hear something about Cuba and a man named Castro. No mention of bombs or the end of the world. So I listened as the announcer talked about Castro’s revolutionary army marching into Havana. It was January 8, 1959 and I was 8 years old.

For some reason the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 didn’t scare me nearly as much as an incident that would happen just over a year later. But that isn’t to say it didn’t affect others…especially my mother. The days leading up to Kennedy’s address to the nation on Monday night, October 22. My mother had had two teeth pulled the Friday before and ended up in bed doped up to the eyeballs to deal with the pain. Being in bed meant only one thing to anyone in my family back in those days–reading. Over that weekend my mother devoured the two hottest books of 1962: Fail-Safe and Seven Days in May. Two very scary books that played on the public’s fear during those dark days of the Cold War.

For some reason I knew it was a scary moment but I was assured by the man who was our President: the young and inspiring, John F. Kennedy.

Just over a year later he was gone and I had my next fearful moment. I’ll save that story for another time.

As we get older the things that terrify us change. Recently I read a book, The Profession, by Steven Pressfield and it terrified me.

Click here for Steve’s website.

Steve’s Wikipedia Entry (a list of all his books can be found here)

L.A. Times Review of The Profession

Wall Street Journal Review of The Profession

Click here for many, many YouTube Videos by and about Steve.

CLICK HERE to listen to the Conversation with  Steve Pressfield: Author of “The Profession”. December 15, 2011. 

When I saw “The Ancient Guide to a Modern Life” sitting on the library’s NEW BOOKS shelf I grabbed it and, without a glance inside the covers, tucked it under my arm and made my way over to the New DVD selections. It was days before I got around to taking a look at what was inside “The Ancient Guide…” and I have to admit I was surprised by what I found there. For some reason I had the preconceived notion that a book with that title was going to be a new rendering of the ancient myths with an eye toward the idea that the truths that resonated thousands of years ago would still resonate today. So, as I mentioned already, I was surprised to find this was indeed a book about myths but not the myths of Olympus…but the myths we’ve been telling ourselves about the ancient Greeks and Romans and the time and society they lived in.

What Natalie points out so well in this book is that we must not for get the past, indeed we must learn from what has gone before, but do not believe for one moment that “…those were the days.”

I start my conversation with Natalie with some quotations from the chapter: The Price of Everything, the Value of Nothing:

Remember…when people lived in better, more innocent times? Only we never do remember, because we weren’t there. The better time is like the end of the rainbow, always a little out of our reach, no matter where we are. When we are presented with an apparently perfect world in film or on TV, we know there’s an ugly underbelly…. We realize that perfection means artifice when we’re in the fictional world, yet when it’s the real, historical world, we often forget to be quite so critical….

If we learn nothing else from the ancient world, we should at least try to break this Roman habit of living in a state of low-level hysteria because we believe that our contemporary moral and financial problems stem from the fact that we’re sliding away from a mythical time of moral and financial rectitude. We aren’t: there is no once upon a time.

Then in the Epilogue she continues the thought with the following thoughts:

It doesn’t hurt to look back to the past and realize how much we’ve achieved. If nothing else, it enables us to look into the future with optimism and courage, instead of the creeping fear that things inevitably get worse as time goes on.

Check out Natalie Haynes’s website.

Click here to listen to my conversation with Natalie Haynes. December 1, 2011.

Remember to check out Hellenic Public Radio’s/ CosmosFM’s website.

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The reading starts at 7:15 pm.

Here are a number of sites I want to offer links to:

BLOGS:

The Things We Need (to Make it Thru the Day)

PoemAlley Blog

Wordsmith Blog

My website: BillBuschel.com

If you want to get on the PoemAlley mailing list e-mail myself bill@billbuschel.com or Rolf Maurer PoemAlley@yahoo.com

Photo by CiciArtist

November 11, 2011. 11/11/11. Mark the date. Tape it to the screen of your computer. Write it in indelible ink on the back of your hand…and the palm. That’s the date THE IMMORTALS will be hitting theaters everywhere.

Tonight I had a so much fun talking to the two writers of the film, Charley and Vlas Parlapanides. In about a week you’ll find that conversation here but for now let me give you something to whet your interest until that’s posted.

First let’s watch the trailer for THE IMMORTALS:

WOW!

Now let’s meet Charley and Vlas (this is a bit dated being from 2008):

Click here for something a bit more recent.

Click here for our conversation that aired on CosmosFM on November 3, 2011.

Late last night (VERY early this morning) Charley Parlapanides sent these links to me:

A Theseus Featurette.

A Set Design Featurette. 

When I e-mailed Professor Romm to set up a date to do the radio show I mentioned how this book read like a mystery novel. I realize now that I was wrong with that assessment. It’s not a mystery but a political thriller.

You may ask: Thriller? How can there be any intrigue when we all know what happened?

But do we? Do we really know what happened back in 323 B.C. and the years that immediately followed?

We know the great empire that Alexander built during his lifetime suddenly came apart but why? And how? What do we know of the double-dealing? The back-stabbing? The lies? The murders? What do we know of the personalities involved? Precious little. 

Click here to listen to our conversation recorded on September 22, 2011.

The book was released on Oct. 11, 2011. Click here to order.

Click here to listen to our conversation about The Landmark Arrian: TheCampaigns of Alexander.

Click here to visit Prof. Romm’s website for upcoming events concerning the book.

In my case the connection to baseball came to me through my mother. My mother was a rabid Yankee hater, and I, an equally rabid fan of the team. But in 1998 and 1999 she actually came around.

Those were hard teams NOT to root for with Bernie Williams in Center, Joe Girardi and Jorge Posada catching, Scotty Brosius at third–Tino Martinez, Dale Sveum, Mike Lowell, Paulie O’Neill in right (bashing everything in sight when he struck out), Curtis, Ledee, Timmy Raines and Darryl Strawberry launching those monster blasts into the night sky. On the mound: Coney, Mike Stanton, Hideki Irabu, Ramiro Mendoza, Pettitte, Nelson, Rivera along with crazy, David Wells and the Aussie, Graeme Lloyd.

They turned out to be my Mom’s last seasons. We all knew she was sick, very sick.

I’d go over to the house and we’d play gin rummy while the games were on. As we watched I’d keep asking her, “Mom, how can you not like these guys? They’re fun to watch and they seem like a good bunch of guys.” She’d mumble something about not liking the Yankees. Old feelings die hard. Then one night as we played cards and watched the game something happened–it was some play by a Yankee–whether a hit or a play in the field I don’t remember–and I heard her cheer under her breath. I just looked at her and smiled.

Click here for Peter’s Website.

Click here to listen to our conversation from August, 25, 2011.

Back in 2005 I interviewed J.E. ‘Ted’ Lendon about his new book Soldiers and Ghosts a fascinating study about the crucial role culture played in ancient Greek warfare. At the end of our conversation Ted mentioned that he was working on a new book about the Peloponnesian War. Earlier this year as I was wandering through my library’s “New Titles” section and saw the name J.E. Lendon on the spine of a book. The books title:  Song of Wrath: The Peloponnesian War Begins. It took half a decade but there it was.

Click here to listen to the 2005 conversation about Soldiers and Ghosts.

Click here to listen to our conversation on August 11, 2011 about Ted Lendon’s newest book: Song of Wrath: The Peloponnesian War Begins.