Pensioners stand behind shutters of the Alpha Bank headquarters in central Athens on June 29: photo by Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
February 10, 1969
Yannis Ritsos: The Unhinged Shutter, from Railing [1968-1969], in Exile and Return: Selected Poems 1967-1974, translated by Edmund Keeley, 1985
People wait outside the National Bank of Greece headquarters in Athens on June 29, hoping to receive their pension payments, even though banks were ordered closed for a week: photo by Petros Giannakouris / Associated Press via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
Pensioners wait to get to get their payments outside an Athens branch of the National Bank of Greece on June 29: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
Pensioners wait to get to get their payments outside an Athens branch of the National Bank of Greece on June 29: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
A man working at Athens' central fish market waits for customers on June 29: photo by Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
A notice at an Athens gas station reads "NO Fuel.": photo by Milos Bicanski via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
#Greece defiant as default looms: image via Reuters Live @ReutersLive, 30 June 2015
Carrying banners calling for a “NO” vote in the forthcoming referendum on bailout conditions set by the country’s creditors, protesters gather in front of the Greek parliament in Athens, late on Monday. Some 17,000 people took to the streets of Athens and Thessalonique to say ‘No’ to the latest offer of a bailout deal Monday, accusing Greece's international creditors of blackmail: photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP, 30 June 2014
#Greece defiant as default looms: image via Reuters Live @ReutersLive, 30 June 2015
Unhinged: Saying 'No' to the banks
Carrying banners calling for a “NO” vote in the forthcoming referendum on bailout conditions set by the country’s creditors, protesters gather in front of the Greek parliament in Athens, late on Monday. Some 17,000 people took to the streets of Athens and Thessalonique to say ‘No’ to the latest offer of a bailout deal Monday, accusing Greece's international creditors of blackmail: photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP, 30 June 2014
Protesters gather in central Athens on June 29, urging rejection of the latest offer of a bailout deal by Greece's international creditors: photo by Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
Demonstrators
gather in front of the Greek parliament in Athens on June 29 to protest
what they say is an unfair bailout deal offered by the country's
international creditors: photo by Aris Messinis / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
Supporters of a "no" vote in the upcoming referendum on a proposed bailout deal for Greece gather near the White Tower, a landmark in Thessaloniki, on June 29: photo by Sakis Mitrolidis / AFP via Los Angeles Times, 30 June 2015
Explaining 'the situation': Don't worry, Europe helps you
#Greece: Austerity street art (photo by Louisa Gouliamaki): image via image by Pedro da Costa @pdacosta, 30 June 2015
#Greece street artists vent their fury over financial crisis with graffiti masterpieces: image via Jim Roberts @nycjim, 30 June 2015
#Greece street artists vent their fury over financial crisis with graffiti masterpieces: image via Jim Roberts @nycjim, 30 June 2015
Sadness in Hellas
Illegal
Tender, ever
green
#Greece street artists vent their fury over financial crisis with graffiti masterpieces: image via Jim Roberts @nycjim, 30 June 2015
#Greece street artists vent their fury over financial crisis with graffiti masterpieces: image via Jim Roberts @nycjim, 30 June 2015
Tragic: #Greece bank manager explains 'the situation' to distraught retirees (photo by Yannis Behrakis) #EuroCrisis: image by Pedro da Costa @pdacosta, 29 June 2015
Unhinged: Stardust of capitalism, disintegrating
Stardust of Capitalism. Xin-Y, Taipei, Taiwan: photo by Brandon Wong, 8 January 2013
The Disintegration of Capitalism: photo by Ian Sane, 7 August 2010
Capitalism Kills Love (Brussels): photo by Jeremy Hunsinger, 5 January 2009
Capitalism=death. Esquina de Mendoza y Buenos Aires (Rosario): gaviota paseandera, 7 August 2005
Capitalism (Ann Arbor, Michigan): photo by Ross, 30 March 2007
Capitalism: image by rstrawser, 7 October 2007
Women line up for a job interview at a Buenos Aires store promoting “liquidación", or sale, amid Argentina’s default crisis of 2001: photo by Diego Giudice/AP via The Guardian, 30 June 2015
Way of Capitalism (Hamburg): photo by Txmx 2, 3 December 2014
Capitalism (Varna, Bulgaria)): photo by marcel601, 25 May 2012
Unhinged: A head full of snakes
Head of Medusa: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1598-99, oil on canvas mounted on wood, 58 cm diameter (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)
Where
capitalist production is fully naturalised... The social statistics...
raise the veil just enough to let us catch a glimpse of the Medusa
head behind it.
Perseus wore a magic cap down
over his eyes and ears as a make-believe that there are no monsters.
Karl Marx, Capital, 1867, preface to the first German edition
Destroy Capitalism $30 [stencil art by Banksy, on exhibit in downtown Los Angeles]: photo by lance robotson, 16 September 2006
Oh the irony: Banksy's "Destroy Capitalism" prints for sale on Walmart.com: image via Emily CohnVerified account@emily_cohn, 3 December 2013
The Horror [stencil art by Banksy, on exhibit in downtown Los Angeles]: photo by lance robotson, 16 September 2006
Enjoy Capitalism. I just printed a hundred of these together with a friend. We are going to sell them to people who enjoy capitalism and market economy: photo by Jacob Bøtter, 23 December 2004
Unhinged: Refill it all
Refill it all. Los Angeles, California: photo by michaelj1998, 2 January 2015
Stoli. Los Angeles, California: photo by michaelj1998, 24 October 2014
Saul. K-Town, Los Angeles, California: photo by michaelj1998, 13 February 2015
Oreo. Wilshire Blvd: photo by michaelj1998, 13 March 2015
For an unhinged future: tight lips from Frau Nein, chump change from Bono, growing resolve to dump the capitalist model -- and a mysterious smell of burning plastic turncoat
BREAKING: Merkel says she won't discuss #Greeces new bailout proposal until Sunday referendum: image via RT @RT_com, 30 June 2015
Bono "delighted" to donate €2 to #Greece: image via Eurohand News @eurohand_org, 30 June 2015
#GreeceCrisis | "We don't owe, we won't sell, we won't pay": Voices from the streets of Athens: image via teleSUR English @telesurenglish, 30 June 2015
Zeus sent home thousands of pro-Troika protesters, earlier today in #Athens #Greece: image via 15MBcn_int 15 @15MBcn_int, 30 June 2015
A sea of umbrellas saying yes to reform and the eurozone. Smell of burning plastic in air. Don't know why. #Greece: image via Ros Atkins @BBCRosAtkins, 30 June 2015
5 comments:
from The Travelling Players (1975): New Years 1946
Given the context of the currrent Greek "situation", including this crucial scene from Angelopoulos’ masterpiece is a stroke of genius. I wonder how many Greeks remember it.
Thanks very much, Vassilis. The brilliant scene from Angelopoulos seems to enact so much, condense so much, virtually without need of words.
One of the very few truly great historical films. I've actually tried to teach it, once upon a time. Of course, nobody was willing to sit through it. Fatal flaw, it doesn't "explain", merely demands at least some level of conscious attention. Given that, it grants a whole new understanding of the meaning --- and mystery -- of the passage of time.
Our conversation here about the clip, in the present context, came down to that cruel yet hardly avoidable phrase, "the party's over". But surely it would be overdetermining things, at this point, to so over-simplify. And fatalism offers what?
In any case it seemed (seems) wrong to damn to a proleptic conclusion something brave that's still struggling to get to its feet. One must constantly remind oneself that no matter how ancient and broken-down one may be, there are still young people out there with the energy and desire to change this world that is crushing the frail bones of the weak and the old.
It wouldn't be long after '46 that the Marshall Plan would come into operation and see Germany rescued from a fierce economic castastrophe. Just saying like.
Duncan, the way that plan was understood at the time was as a part of the global anti-communist strategy (which of course it was), and as a means to the restoration and expansion of markets (for, first off, of course, American goods), through the invention and development of international corporate capitalism (which it also was).
There have been many ways of thinking about the "plan" of having American business manage the world party.
There's this classic Spanish film:
Bienvenido, Mr Marshall! (1953)
The Greeks of course only received a minor pittance of the Marshall money. Ten percent, finally, went to Germany. The lion's share -- twenty-six percent -- went to cement that famous "special relationship" with the UK.
Marshall Plan beneficiaries, by nation
I spent the summer of '64 in Athens. The buildings were still riddled with bulletholes. But the US Sixth Fleet was parked in Piraeus, and love for Americans was not exactly overflowing.
Angelopoulos captures a bit of that spirit:
from The Travelling Players (1975): Wedding party at the beach
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