Friday, November 14, 2003
I went on another of my strange and exciting job hunts yesterday, and had a great time. This is a post stolen from an email to Megan, so it looks like a poem. They're supposed to call me in nine days. I'll let you know.
I had done some research on this company the day
before at the Agora, and they seemed reputable, so I
wasn't worried going out, but get this, I was
interviewing for a voice actor job, reading a text in
a little soundproofed room. So, I met the woman I'd
been in contact with, and saw a woman's broken foot
through another door, but she seemed to be the boss,
and I didn't meet her.
I walked down the street to the recording studio, and
the woman I'd met told me to read a few parts. I had
to be a 16 year old kid in a dialog with a 60 year old
man, so I had to read all the kid's parts and pause
for the man's parts. When I was done, I had to go back
and read all the old man's parts. Can you imagine how
bad I was at that? But then, I got to read stuff like
"Section Two . . . . Read and Learn . . . Number 1,
how to tell time . . . . in this section you will
etc.--basic text in my own voice. Well, I did really
well on that part, but I didn't feel good at all about
the acting bit, so I didn't know. The woman and the
sound guy (I talked to him about Cool Edit which is
what he recorded me on and what I'm using at home)
walked into the room with the woman with a cast and
talked, and then I was invited in there and the first
woman closed the door.
This woman with the broken leg was the woman behind
the whole operation, and we talked for about 40
minutes about everything from teaching, to how kids
learn, to poetry, to protests, to our president. Man,
does she hate him, and of course, I despise him, so we
talked about how much we hate him for a long while,
and I told her about Harper's and that she should read
that, and then she said, "Well they said you did well
on the narration and section work, so we'll call you
in ten days and pay you 25 euros an hour, and do you
think you can take a long book and turn it into a
basic reader because I might have some work of that
nature?" So, as far as I can tell, I'll be doing
recording out there for awhile and getting 25 an hour
for it. It was so weird.
I'm very happy about it though. I've always wanted to
do that, and now I am. I'm very interested in the
rewriting of texts too (she gave me a copy of Last of
the Mohicans which they'd done). Anyway, what an
interesting visit. Now, I think I'll go somewhere and
have a real meal.
I had done some research on this company the day
before at the Agora, and they seemed reputable, so I
wasn't worried going out, but get this, I was
interviewing for a voice actor job, reading a text in
a little soundproofed room. So, I met the woman I'd
been in contact with, and saw a woman's broken foot
through another door, but she seemed to be the boss,
and I didn't meet her.
I walked down the street to the recording studio, and
the woman I'd met told me to read a few parts. I had
to be a 16 year old kid in a dialog with a 60 year old
man, so I had to read all the kid's parts and pause
for the man's parts. When I was done, I had to go back
and read all the old man's parts. Can you imagine how
bad I was at that? But then, I got to read stuff like
"Section Two . . . . Read and Learn . . . Number 1,
how to tell time . . . . in this section you will
etc.--basic text in my own voice. Well, I did really
well on that part, but I didn't feel good at all about
the acting bit, so I didn't know. The woman and the
sound guy (I talked to him about Cool Edit which is
what he recorded me on and what I'm using at home)
walked into the room with the woman with a cast and
talked, and then I was invited in there and the first
woman closed the door.
This woman with the broken leg was the woman behind
the whole operation, and we talked for about 40
minutes about everything from teaching, to how kids
learn, to poetry, to protests, to our president. Man,
does she hate him, and of course, I despise him, so we
talked about how much we hate him for a long while,
and I told her about Harper's and that she should read
that, and then she said, "Well they said you did well
on the narration and section work, so we'll call you
in ten days and pay you 25 euros an hour, and do you
think you can take a long book and turn it into a
basic reader because I might have some work of that
nature?" So, as far as I can tell, I'll be doing
recording out there for awhile and getting 25 an hour
for it. It was so weird.
I'm very happy about it though. I've always wanted to
do that, and now I am. I'm very interested in the
rewriting of texts too (she gave me a copy of Last of
the Mohicans which they'd done). Anyway, what an
interesting visit. Now, I think I'll go somewhere and
have a real meal.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Today I began working at the Agora. They have a site at http://www.agathe.gr/ It’s an area to the Northwest of the Acropolis where all the major doings of the ancient city of Athens went down. It’s where they voted, lived, worked, built, worshipped. There’s the Temple of Hephaestus or the Hephaestion which I might have mentioned earlier which looks down on you from the hill. It’s one of the most complete temples in existence, never having really gone out of use. The building I’m working in is the museum which is on site to house and chronicle all that they found, and are finding in the area, including the Acropolis and all the area of the Agora—they’re finding new things every day and are moving the excavations into a busy commercial area. When they find something of importance, after proving its importance, they are allowed by law to buy out and remove the tenants from their buildings. The past almost always has more value than the present here.
My job goes like this: I stand near a long table with a magnifying glass in my right hand, a latex glove on my left, and I look though small manila envelopes which haven’t been opened since they were notated back in 1949 or 1938 or 1960, whenever the dig was going on in that section of the Agora. If I find something which is not cataloged yet, and which is interesting (this in itself is a kind of complicated value system, often coming down to, does it look cool enough to warrant further study at any point in the next hundred years), I double check its details. This is done by walking down the hallway into the records room where there are hundreds of little bound notebooks telling of the days’ finds. So, I find an interesting brass door handle, two tiny nipple-looking things, and it looks interesting enough to put in the catalog (and later into the computer file-maker pro system), so I walk down and read what they found on the 28 of September in 1949, and I try to find mention of the thing, to make sure it’s been labeled correctly. I also just like looking in these tiny books and trying to figure out the script of whoever happened to be writing the entry for that day. My boss and I spend about twenty minutes trying to figure out the word “carbon” written in cursive pencil on the envelope, and there we find it, written in ink in the book down the hall, the same curl to the “b,” the same missing “n.” When we are sure we know what the envelope says, we head back to the restoration room (where I started) and I build a tiny plastic base (like nice Styrofoam) for the little brass thingys. You have to carve a tiny nest for it with your scalpel, and I love this part as well, making a little bed where the thing will lie for awhile.
I saw pictures in these books from the site of the Agora taken when it was a housing settlement for displaced Greeks after the “disaster” in Turkey when the Greeks for forced out of there homeland back to Athens. The pictures of the finds in these little books are amazing as well and the amount of data that they recorded back in ’47 or whenever is amazing to me. The books are full of tiny photos, and it seems as if every bucketful of dirt was chronicled.
In one bag we found about 14 crusted coins which had this written on the bag: “29-9-47” except the 47 could have been 48 or 49 or even 41 if you squinted. I was firmly in the 1947 camp, so I got out about three possible notebooks for the days in question. One was sort of an over-view, the other two had to do with other dates and one was for coins. After looking for an hour, the only entry we found for the 29th was “Ditch” I think, but we believe that the coins were found in a well in 1949, and were sent for cleaning, and never made it. Many of the little bags I’m going through were found un-cataloged on a former worker’s desk, and some just fell through the cracks in the system. The whole of the building is filled with amazing finds, so I don’t want to give the impression that it’s unorganized, but there were periods of less action, less organization. In one room, where I finally put the little brass nipples, they’ve built a humidity and temperature controlled environment which they’ve found stops metal decay. I could hang out in that room alone for hours, looking at bronze knives, tiny metal hands, lead bowls and hundreds of other things I didn’t even get to look at.
I learned today about bronze disease, I type of corrosion which gets into bronze and fluffs it up like phylo dough, turning it a brilliant teal. By the end of the day, I could glance at a piece and tell if it was lead, bronze or iron by the patina—this is harder than it sounds, we found one bag labeled “various iron objects” but when we tested this label out (with that old stand-by the magnet) we found they were all lead. They were covered in a rich red-brown color of rust for some reason. It was an amazing and tedious and interesting and fascinating day.
In other news, Kirsten just left for the last of her major trips, and she’s really very burned out, but after this, she gets to enjoy home life. We had our first dinner party on Sunday with some friends from the American School. I made pasta with a red-sauce, OH!!!! Listen to this: take five or so red peppers, cut in half, put them skin up in the broiler and blacken the skin, and then put them in a bag for a few minutes and later peel the skin and lay the peeled peppers in a bowl with a little red-wine vinegar, some olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and basil. Refrigerate for an hour or so. In a bowl mix up some yogurt and some finely-grated cheese (maybe Monterey Jack—something white and fairly mild, but with body and texture (?)). You’ll need about half a cup of cheese and two tablespoons of yogurt, and some parsley would be nice, though I didn’t have any. Mix up the cheese mixture, add some salt and pepper (maybe cayenne even). The peppers here are pointed here, so I took out half a pepper from the marinade, and started with the big end and put a small amount (two teaspoons? it depends on the size of your peppers) and started rolling toward the pointed end. When you’re done, just put the lovely little rolls on a clean plate and keep them in the fridge until dinner. They are really amazing in my humble opinion. The recipe is vaguely based on something we had in Santorini. In other food news, we were shown the Indian/Pakistani area of Athens and had an amazing falafel for 1.50 euros ($1.75). There are stores there with bushels of Cinnamon sticks and Cardamom and all the spices of the world—the smells in that part of town are worth the price of a plane ticket.
Keep those cards and letters coming. Ha, ha, whoooo, ahhh. Anyway, thanks for Mary’s cell-phone call, which is really the best way to call. I always have it, and it doubles as a portable for the house (this was another first for Mary, making her the grand champion friend of the first two months), thanks for Ben’s and Megan’s calls—It was really nice talking to both of you. Thanks also, Mary, for the postcard (dang, you’re the best). Oh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Emoke who has written Kirsten no less than five letters and Kathleen also sent a letter. Sandy sent her a sweet card. Oh, the other day, I went out to get Kirsten’s mail, and I said, “would you like a letter or a postcard today,” to which she answered, “I believe I’ll take a card, thanks” and guess what? That’s right, a card from her brother. How many letters have I received? Oh, lets see. Oh there was . . . !, no, that was to Kirsten. Oh but there was, nope, Kirsten. That leaves, um, none. Are letters for girls these days? Is that it? Do you think I’m above begging for mail? ha. I do get some wonderful emails and thank you all for those. I love everybody, and I miss you all very much.
Here’s a poem:
Language Lesson #18
The men of Greece shout into each other
red-faced, contorted, and I am ignorant
as a two-year-old discovering language.
I stare into one man’s shining face as he
tries to discover just who is sleeping
with his wife, or who said what
about the alleged size of his dick.
Or perhaps he’s shouting, “I’ll do it!
I’ll kill the American! I’m waiting
for just the right moment!”
But, my friend tells me,
what they’re really talking about
is the price of parsley.
Now I walk alone through these crowds
to come up with something even better
than the price of parsley. My genius
is often argued. Whether I deserve
monetary rewards for my job
of walking the streets of Athens
was the topic last night.
They end these intensities with a pat on the back—
quite un-American and disappointing—
where are the blows, the tears? I mope
towards my part of town, imagining
words for brother, for compassion
the word for thank you, the word for home.
Here’s another one:
Oedipus, Billie Holiday, Charles Foster Kane and You
Oedipus, limping, that old pain burning in his heel, hears a carriage
round his dusty bend of road. He stops under the olive tree,
a lost goat bleats in the distance, the sun swings above. The perfume
weaving through the wind is a scent he can’t place so he stops.
Stooping to gather a husk of locust, he stares at the passing men.
Billie Holiday walks with a smile through the noon brightness
stopping to talk to the shopkeeper on the corner about the price
of bananas. The light on the window shines too bright to see through
but ring the door open, find her swaying, moving her arms.
She erupts with a smoky laugh. Quietly at night, she sings in her bath.
Charlie Kane, playing in the snow, runs his sled up and down
the glistening hill as a dark car quietly rolls right on past
the quaint scene, and the driver remembers his mother’s snow globe,
feels the heft of it in his tiny hand. Two blocks back
and getting smaller, the boy fades into whiteness.
And you, walking down the street toward your mother’s apartment,
carrying your armload of flowers before you like the sun
don’t slip on the curb, don’t look up to see me as I reach
for your bouquet of sunlight in the street. You just glance
as I walk past, a smile of something like sorrow on my lips.
My job goes like this: I stand near a long table with a magnifying glass in my right hand, a latex glove on my left, and I look though small manila envelopes which haven’t been opened since they were notated back in 1949 or 1938 or 1960, whenever the dig was going on in that section of the Agora. If I find something which is not cataloged yet, and which is interesting (this in itself is a kind of complicated value system, often coming down to, does it look cool enough to warrant further study at any point in the next hundred years), I double check its details. This is done by walking down the hallway into the records room where there are hundreds of little bound notebooks telling of the days’ finds. So, I find an interesting brass door handle, two tiny nipple-looking things, and it looks interesting enough to put in the catalog (and later into the computer file-maker pro system), so I walk down and read what they found on the 28 of September in 1949, and I try to find mention of the thing, to make sure it’s been labeled correctly. I also just like looking in these tiny books and trying to figure out the script of whoever happened to be writing the entry for that day. My boss and I spend about twenty minutes trying to figure out the word “carbon” written in cursive pencil on the envelope, and there we find it, written in ink in the book down the hall, the same curl to the “b,” the same missing “n.” When we are sure we know what the envelope says, we head back to the restoration room (where I started) and I build a tiny plastic base (like nice Styrofoam) for the little brass thingys. You have to carve a tiny nest for it with your scalpel, and I love this part as well, making a little bed where the thing will lie for awhile.
I saw pictures in these books from the site of the Agora taken when it was a housing settlement for displaced Greeks after the “disaster” in Turkey when the Greeks for forced out of there homeland back to Athens. The pictures of the finds in these little books are amazing as well and the amount of data that they recorded back in ’47 or whenever is amazing to me. The books are full of tiny photos, and it seems as if every bucketful of dirt was chronicled.
In one bag we found about 14 crusted coins which had this written on the bag: “29-9-47” except the 47 could have been 48 or 49 or even 41 if you squinted. I was firmly in the 1947 camp, so I got out about three possible notebooks for the days in question. One was sort of an over-view, the other two had to do with other dates and one was for coins. After looking for an hour, the only entry we found for the 29th was “Ditch” I think, but we believe that the coins were found in a well in 1949, and were sent for cleaning, and never made it. Many of the little bags I’m going through were found un-cataloged on a former worker’s desk, and some just fell through the cracks in the system. The whole of the building is filled with amazing finds, so I don’t want to give the impression that it’s unorganized, but there were periods of less action, less organization. In one room, where I finally put the little brass nipples, they’ve built a humidity and temperature controlled environment which they’ve found stops metal decay. I could hang out in that room alone for hours, looking at bronze knives, tiny metal hands, lead bowls and hundreds of other things I didn’t even get to look at.
I learned today about bronze disease, I type of corrosion which gets into bronze and fluffs it up like phylo dough, turning it a brilliant teal. By the end of the day, I could glance at a piece and tell if it was lead, bronze or iron by the patina—this is harder than it sounds, we found one bag labeled “various iron objects” but when we tested this label out (with that old stand-by the magnet) we found they were all lead. They were covered in a rich red-brown color of rust for some reason. It was an amazing and tedious and interesting and fascinating day.
In other news, Kirsten just left for the last of her major trips, and she’s really very burned out, but after this, she gets to enjoy home life. We had our first dinner party on Sunday with some friends from the American School. I made pasta with a red-sauce, OH!!!! Listen to this: take five or so red peppers, cut in half, put them skin up in the broiler and blacken the skin, and then put them in a bag for a few minutes and later peel the skin and lay the peeled peppers in a bowl with a little red-wine vinegar, some olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and basil. Refrigerate for an hour or so. In a bowl mix up some yogurt and some finely-grated cheese (maybe Monterey Jack—something white and fairly mild, but with body and texture (?)). You’ll need about half a cup of cheese and two tablespoons of yogurt, and some parsley would be nice, though I didn’t have any. Mix up the cheese mixture, add some salt and pepper (maybe cayenne even). The peppers here are pointed here, so I took out half a pepper from the marinade, and started with the big end and put a small amount (two teaspoons? it depends on the size of your peppers) and started rolling toward the pointed end. When you’re done, just put the lovely little rolls on a clean plate and keep them in the fridge until dinner. They are really amazing in my humble opinion. The recipe is vaguely based on something we had in Santorini. In other food news, we were shown the Indian/Pakistani area of Athens and had an amazing falafel for 1.50 euros ($1.75). There are stores there with bushels of Cinnamon sticks and Cardamom and all the spices of the world—the smells in that part of town are worth the price of a plane ticket.
Keep those cards and letters coming. Ha, ha, whoooo, ahhh. Anyway, thanks for Mary’s cell-phone call, which is really the best way to call. I always have it, and it doubles as a portable for the house (this was another first for Mary, making her the grand champion friend of the first two months), thanks for Ben’s and Megan’s calls—It was really nice talking to both of you. Thanks also, Mary, for the postcard (dang, you’re the best). Oh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Emoke who has written Kirsten no less than five letters and Kathleen also sent a letter. Sandy sent her a sweet card. Oh, the other day, I went out to get Kirsten’s mail, and I said, “would you like a letter or a postcard today,” to which she answered, “I believe I’ll take a card, thanks” and guess what? That’s right, a card from her brother. How many letters have I received? Oh, lets see. Oh there was . . . !, no, that was to Kirsten. Oh but there was, nope, Kirsten. That leaves, um, none. Are letters for girls these days? Is that it? Do you think I’m above begging for mail? ha. I do get some wonderful emails and thank you all for those. I love everybody, and I miss you all very much.
Here’s a poem:
Language Lesson #18
The men of Greece shout into each other
red-faced, contorted, and I am ignorant
as a two-year-old discovering language.
I stare into one man’s shining face as he
tries to discover just who is sleeping
with his wife, or who said what
about the alleged size of his dick.
Or perhaps he’s shouting, “I’ll do it!
I’ll kill the American! I’m waiting
for just the right moment!”
But, my friend tells me,
what they’re really talking about
is the price of parsley.
Now I walk alone through these crowds
to come up with something even better
than the price of parsley. My genius
is often argued. Whether I deserve
monetary rewards for my job
of walking the streets of Athens
was the topic last night.
They end these intensities with a pat on the back—
quite un-American and disappointing—
where are the blows, the tears? I mope
towards my part of town, imagining
words for brother, for compassion
the word for thank you, the word for home.
Here’s another one:
Oedipus, Billie Holiday, Charles Foster Kane and You
Oedipus, limping, that old pain burning in his heel, hears a carriage
round his dusty bend of road. He stops under the olive tree,
a lost goat bleats in the distance, the sun swings above. The perfume
weaving through the wind is a scent he can’t place so he stops.
Stooping to gather a husk of locust, he stares at the passing men.
Billie Holiday walks with a smile through the noon brightness
stopping to talk to the shopkeeper on the corner about the price
of bananas. The light on the window shines too bright to see through
but ring the door open, find her swaying, moving her arms.
She erupts with a smoky laugh. Quietly at night, she sings in her bath.
Charlie Kane, playing in the snow, runs his sled up and down
the glistening hill as a dark car quietly rolls right on past
the quaint scene, and the driver remembers his mother’s snow globe,
feels the heft of it in his tiny hand. Two blocks back
and getting smaller, the boy fades into whiteness.
And you, walking down the street toward your mother’s apartment,
carrying your armload of flowers before you like the sun
don’t slip on the curb, don’t look up to see me as I reach
for your bouquet of sunlight in the street. You just glance
as I walk past, a smile of something like sorrow on my lips.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Hello, this is just a general note to let you know that Kirsten took some beautiful pictures of Northern Greece, and I put some up on the page. There are also some panoramas which I don't know if you've seen or not. I put them together on the PC and then up on the page. Let me know if you want a full sized copy of any of these photos, and I'll try to email them to you. All is well here--we had the first great thunderstorm of the fall today, very loud and very wet all day long. It's been very nice though and may help clean the streets a bit. The garbage strike is over which is nice. I'm working on gettting my students to pass the preliminary test which is at the end of November, so I've been thinking about it a lot. I also have a lead at the Athens News as a copy editor, but I have learned from experience here, not to count on anything, so I'll let you know what happens. I'm almost through with Moby Dick, and as many of you more literate readers know, I still haven't seen the dang fish.
