Culture

The House that Ubu Built

Posted by barneyspender on January 16, 2019
Posted in: Corbeil-Essonnes, Culture, France, History, Sport. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment
jarry-bicycle-r

Alfred Jarry riding his Clement Luxe outside Le Phalanstère in 1898

For the last 12 months I have been getting stressed. About a house. Not my house you understand, which by and large stands of its own free will, but a dilapidated building nearby which overlooks the river Seine in the heart of Corbeil-Essonnes.

Until last week, this stress related to the disintegration of this square-chested house with its crumbling walls and shattered shutters. This is a fate that hits many unloved structures, their owners deliberately leaving them open to the elements to hurry the rot and collapse of the building and thus speed the emergence in its place of a faceless peachy apartment block.

What made it worse with this house on Quai l’Apport was its special significance. Its postal address is just a number – it has juggled between 19 and 21 over the last 120 years – but for around eight months in the spring, summer and autumn of 1898, it was known by a name: Le Phalanstère.

Its occupants at that time were a group of writers, most of them forgotten now, who lazed away the summer under the pretence of seeking inspiration and exploring new ideas.

Rachilde was the matriarch of Le Phalanstère
André-Ferdinand Hérold had the best beard in the house, very possibly in France
Jarry watches Alfred Vallette at work with brush and easel in the graden

Gold stars to anyone who remembers the names of Marguerite Eymery, known better under her pseudonym Rachilde, her husband Alfred Vallette who founded the literary review Mercure de France, the opulently bearded André-Ferdinand Hérold, and Marcel Collière and Pierre Quillard who had collaborated a decade earlier on a translation and phonetic study of the ancient Greek poet Theocritus.

Hardly household names, unlike the sixth who was the latest hotshot of the Paris theatre. Alfred Jarry.

And yet when I first parked the car to take a closer look between the bushes, there was no recognition of Jarry’s occupation of Le Phalanstère, no plaque to mark the fact that one of the great innovators of 19th century theatre, creator of the immortal Pere Ubu and father, uncle, grandpa, dog – depending on where you stand in the literary argument – of absurdism, surrealism, dadaism and ismism had slept in his little room on the top floor, drunk here prodigiously (two bottles of wine before breakfast), hung out in the garden painting and shooting at the birds in the trees (sometimes at the same time).

Apparently the landlady objected to Jarry firing off his gun at every opportunity, on one occasion telling him that he was endangering her children.

“Madame,” he leered. “We can always make more children.”

Jarry is unlikely to have too many admirers in the #metoo movement. He was, it seems, a misogynist with little or no respect for women authors apart, it seems, from Rachilde who became something of a mother figure for him.

The most famous photograph of Jarry, perched on his bike, suited up as if for Sunday Mass, was taken in front of Le Phlanstère (see top of the article). Dodge the cars and you could get the same photo today.

jarry hotel 2

The Hotel de la Mairie where Jarry used to drink with his namesake. You will see the name Jarry still daubed on the wall (Photo: B Spender)

Jarry never paid for his bike but he travelled miles on it, pre and post-inebriation. He also kept a boat on the river, for gliding and fishing and reflecting, and regularly he would travel the 400 metres or so across the square in front of the Mairie of Corbeil to a hotel run by another gentleman called Jarry where he would drink absinthe and, ever so slowly, continue the process of killing himself. You can still see the faded name of Jarry stencilled across his namesake’s old hotel.

And during that summer, Jarry also wrote. Not Ubu but Docteur Faustroll whose contribution to Jarry’s notion of Pataphysics is immense. Sadly, the book was only published in 1911, four years after Jarry’s death at the age of 34.

Jarry’s association with Corbeil lasted longer than a single summer. The following year, with the Phalanstère no longer available for lease (the landlady valued her children more than the potential rent), Jarry shuffled a little further down the Seine, finding a small hut called Le Tripode, close to the barrier in the neighbouring town of Coudray. Rachilde and Vallette lived in a bigger house next door. He bought a plot and had plans to build a house when the drinking finally killed him on November 1, 1907.

But his house at Quai de l’Apport was a concern. At first sight it was unloved and tumbling, on the verge of disappearing from sight and memory. Initial inquires found that it had been the property of the mill next door since 1917, now a part of Groupe Soufflet. They didn’t answer my email.

alfred-jarry-r

Alfred Jarry , creator of Pere Ubu, by l’Atelier Nadar (1896).

My thought was that it would make a fantastic writer’s retreat or even a small Jarry Museum. Why shouldn’t Corbeil capitalise on his name to create some cultural tourism? Heaven knows we need it. The main stage in the local theatre is named after Jarry but in the street there is little to remind the local or the visitor that the town once played home to such an eminent playwright.

I spoke to the Mayor of Corbeil whose response was: “Who is Cgoing to pay for it?”

I contacted the theatre director Declan Donnellan whose recent Cheek by Jowl production of Pere Ubu had been quite a success. He sympathised with the plight of the house but said, quite reasonably, he was too busy to get involved in any kind of preservation campaign.

“I remember going crazy when they built flats on the site where Hamlet was performed,” he wrote. “I got a brick from the site. I have been there and failed.”

And I got in touch with David Thomas, the force behind the band Pere Ubu. We chatted briefly after a gig at the Borderline in London in May 2018 but his mind was elsewhere and I did not push it. He is not the kind of man to push, I suspect, if you want things to turn out well.

And then I got busy on other matters and Le Phalanstère drifted from my thoughts. Until last week when I drove past again and noticed the bushes had been cut back, supports had been placed in the window frames and the wall at the back of the building had been knocked down.

It didn’t look like demolition time. I parked up and went closer, walked around the back to stand in the truncated garden where 110 years earlier Jarry and Vallette had been photographed at the easel.

Le Phalanstère in January 2019
From the garden
Looking up to Jarry’s bedroom

I found a site worker who explained that the mill was undergoing some work.

“They are being preserved,” he said. “They are to be the new offices for the mill.”

I have been put in touch with the gentleman responsible for the restoration of the site. Fingers crossed I will be able to bring more news soon.

I am sorry that the house will not be a writer’s retreat. Nor even a museum. But Le Phalanstère is rising again. That is the good news as it keeps the town in touch with a small shard of its history. No more stress. The spirit of Ubu lives on in Corbeil.

©Barney Spender 2019

jarry square

The Sale of the Century

Posted by barneyspender on February 22, 2018
Posted in: Culture, History, Spender. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

The Roman Triumph by Peter Paul Rubens (National Gallery, London)

The guide at the National Gallery in London wasn’t entirely sure where I might find Rubens. She furrowed her brow and scratched her chin.

“Oh they have been messing about again,” she said. “They keep moving him. Last thing I knew he was in two rooms. Margaret?”

She summoned over her colleague who had been enjoying what can only be described as a quiet moment in her chair by the door of the neighbouring room where I had just moments before gazed on Titien’s Noli Me Tangere. To be fair it was a Sunday and the gallery was closing in the next 30 minutes.

Margaret sprang into action and bustled over to join us.

“Rubens? Oh what do you want him for, Judy? Can’t bear Rubens.”

“Can’t bear Rubens? Crikey. I love Rubens.”

“No,” said Margaret. “Very overrated. I wouldn’t want one on my wall, thank you very much.”

Fascinating though their debate was, I was feeling the feathery tickle of time. I also needed to find Domenichino’s Saint George Slaying the Dragon over in Room 37.

“Is he in 18 or 31? They split him up didn’t they,” said Judy, my original guide, wanting to emphasise her disgust at the gallery authorities.

“Oh no. That’s changed,” came back Margaret, brushing her fringe from her eyes. “He’s back in one room.”

“Is he? When did they do that?” Judy lowered her voice, tucked her chin into her neck like a courting pigeon and murmured in a conspiratorial manner worthy of Catesby and Fawkes.

The National Gallery in London, home to eight of Champernowne’s collection

“They do this. They get these nonsense ideas, move everything around and no one ever tells us anything. So we end up sending people to the wrong rooms. They never tell us anything.”

I nodded understandingly and was about to say “It was the same with the moon landings” when Margaret chimed in again.

“Which one is it you’re after?”

“It is called A Roman Triumph. It is a procession…”

“…with the elephants? And the lions and stuff?”

“Yes that sounds right.”

“Well why didn’t you say so. Room 18. Through this door here, down to the end, turn left and keep going.”

I thanked them both and began to move off.

“Why do you want to see that one in particular?” asked Judy who had been a touch sidelined by Margaret’s instant and efficient placement of the Rubens.

I stopped and wondered about how I should reply.

Pride or Humility?

“Oh erm family reasons I suppose….We used to own it.”

 

THE CHAMPERNOWNES OF DEEPEST DEVON

The Champernowne coat of arms at the time Sir Arthur moved the family into Dartington

When I say my family used to own the Rubens, or  Titian or Domenichino for that matter, I don’t mean the Spenders. They never had the wherewithal to scour the palaces and galleries of Europe and nor, I suspect, did they have the inclination to lay out the family capital on works of art.

The Spenders were about business; from tavern owners in Bradford-on-Avon to doctors and newspapermen. My great grandfather Edward Spender set up the Western Morning News in Plymouth; his nephew JA became a highly influential editor of the Westminster Gazette. JA’s brother Harold was a less distinguished journalist although his son Stephen would go on to establish the Spender name in the literary sphere.

But no. We are not talking about Spenders here; we are talking about the Champernowne family and that is because on April 26, 1906, Arthur Edmund Spender, who was also a newspaperman, married Helen Frances Champernowne. My grandparents.

According to my great aunt Bessie, who wrote a mighty tome on the family history, Burke (as in Burke’s Peerage) “introduced, the pedigree of Champernowne with the fanfare; “The family of Champernowne which, in splendour of descent, yields to few in the West of England…”

She continues: “And yet it is remarkable that in spite of their erstwhile vast possessions, they never seem to have aspired to any higher title than that of Knight, and we do not find them standing out in the pageantry of English History but continually identified with local interests and activities and thus forming part of the background “behind the scenes” of English history and local government, on which our country has been built up.”

Coming from Normandy – Thomas de Cambernon had lined up against Harold at the Battle of Hastings – they only established themselves in England after 1120 when Jordan de Cambernon of UmberIeigh married Mabira, the illegitimate daughter of Robert FitzRoy, the 1st Earl of Gloucester, himself the illegitimate son of Henry I.

The Champernownes were not all bastards though.

Arthur Champernowne, art collector and great great great grandfather of the author. Painted by William Brockedon, an artist he championed and pattronised.

They set up shop in Devon; in 1554 Sir Arthur Champernowne acquired Dartington Hall, where they proceeded to live the landed life quite happily. They married into all of the local nobility so the likes of Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and, later, Sir Redvers Buller all pop up in the family tree.

So, fast forward to the late 18th century when a snot-nosed seven-year old called Arthur took over as lord of the manor.

This involved a little legal sleight of hand as his predecessor Rawlin had died without leaving an heir. Young Arthur was actually the son of the Reverend Richard Harington, the rector of Powderham Castle, but as his mother was Rawlin’s sister Jane, there was nothing that deed poll couldn’t fix.

In accordance with the will of his grandfather, he took the name and arms of Champernowne on May 3, 1774.

As Arthur grew up he became a sympathetic landlord and for a while represented the area in Parliament as the MP for Saltash. But his passion was art. He had a big estate in Devon and he wanted to use it to build one of the finest collections in Europe.

And he did.

I defer once again to my great aunt Bessie, known more formally as Elizabeth.

“Arthur Champernowne’s great interest lay in pictures and prints, his travels abroad, his drawings and sketch books, and also in his collection of minerals.

When seventeen years old he went on a tour with a companion whose name is not given; and in his diary he describes his visits to Stourhead, Fonthill, Wardour Castle, Wilton House and Longford Castle.

He mentions the Chinese or Roman temples in the gardens, describes the rooms with their dimensions, and lists all the splendid pictures.  Then on to Cambridge and South Wales; after which they crossed to Calais, and passing through Arras, Cambrai, Lille, Rheims, Strasburg and many other places which he describes, they came to Heidelberg and Frankfurt.

At Karlsruhe they introduced themselves at Court and dined with the Margrave, his Princess and the Princes.  The Margrave spoke English like an Englishman, “was very affable and quoted lines from Pope”.

He spent considerable sums over a period of years on pictures, of which he bought a good many at the Orleans sale in 1798.  Although he notes in the diary in 1795 that he would bind himself to twenty-five pictures that he might not lay out so much money in forming a capital collection, he probably spent more than his income would justify.”

Noli mi Tangere by Titian (National Gallery)

Arthur didn’t stint himself. The records show a long list of great works spinning their way to Devon.

The Memoirs of Painting by the art dealer William Buchanan, published in 1824, gives a catalogue of the collection, the names of purchasers and the prices realised, and mentions several bought by Champernowne including Titian’s Noli me Tangere and the Repose in Egypt and two by Rubens, A Roman Triumph and Rainbow Landscape, which he had from Buchanan in exchange for Guido’s Lot and his Daughters.

He also imported Agostino Carracci’s Baptism of Christ in Jordan and several of the finest pictures by Andrea del Sarto.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. One look at the catalogue of paintings in the Christie’s sale of June 30, 1820 which came almost a year after Arthur died, shows a Celebrity Who’s Who of Old Masters.

Alongside Titian, Domenichino and Rubens, sit Rafael, Rembrandt and Reynolds; Guido and Gainsborough; Caravaggio, Correggio and Carracci; Poussin, Murillo, Bassano and Van Dyke.

There is even a Leonardo de Vinci. The painting is described in the catalogue as “Virgin and child, painted with much sweetness of expression”. It sold to the Piazetta for 52 pounds and 10 shillings.

As it was, collecting art was a costly business and when Arthur died in 1819, he left his widow and eight children, one of whom was born after his death, with debts of almost 25,000 pounds. Hence the auction.

The sale, though, was not a great success as a lot of the paintings went for less than expected. The sale raised just over 6,187 pounds; the remainder of the debt was raised by selling the family estates in Cornwall and the London townhouse in Montague Square. It was the start of the inexorable decline of Dartington Hall which would be sold off just over a century later.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Murillo (Wallace Collection)

At the top end of the sale came Domenichino’s St George slaying the Dragon, the one to be found today in the National Gallery, which fetched 431 pounds and ten shillings. Murillo’s Adoration of the Shepherds, currently in the Wallace Collection, and Andrea del Sarto’s A Holy Family (“an elegant and finely coloured chef d’oevre” according to the catalogue) both sold for a pound less that St George.

The poet Samuel Rogers bought two Rubens, paying 341 pounds for The Roman Triumph (which would sell for 1102 pounds in 1856 after his death) and The Horrors of War for 162 pounds. Another of Champernowne’s old Rubens, the Rainbow Landscape also ended up with Rogers. It would fetch  4,550 pounds in 1856.

Today they would fetch millions.

 

BACK IN THE GALLERY

Domenichino’s St George slaying the Dragon (National Gallery)

I know, I know. Pride won over Humility. Not attractive but it remained as I gazed on each of the three paintings.

I am not sure I was looking at them properly though, not as works of Titian, Domenichino and Rubens but rather as paintings that had once graced the walls of the family. These were paintings picked out and cherished by my great great great great grandfather, Arthur Champernowne.

I wondered about this man and his family whose blood I share. Would we also share the same values?

Had he looked deeply, as I did, into the luscious red folds of Mary Magdelene’s cloak? Or run his fingers, as I most definitely didn’t, down the frames? I wondered what had stopped his eye, what had raised a smile.

Hell, what is six generations and 200 years? For a few minutes the two of us had shared a moment.

And that, strangely, is quite humbling.

©Barney Spender 2018

First Night Nerves

Posted by barneyspender on November 8, 2016
Posted in: Culture, Dublin, Film, Greece, Running, Spartathlon, Sport, Trinity College. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

The Road to Sparta: movie poster (first relIt was inevitable there would be a few nerves. After two and a half years of hard work, The Road to Sparta was going in front of an audience for the first time. It was a relatively friendly crowd as we had chosen the Adventure Film Festival in Athens for the premier; these were people who were tuned in to extreme sports but there were nerves nonetheless.

Would this gathering of hardcore extreme sporty types go for a film which holds its shots and breaks into the contemporary narrative of four runners battling to complete the Spartathlon with a series of sonnets?

“Poetry, dammit, in a running film? What’s that about? And don’t get me started on the music…”

So yes. Nerves.

DUBLIN’S MIDNIGHT BUILDERS

It wasn’t the first First Night that my co-director Roddy Gibson and I had shared. That would have been sometime around December 1982 when we were at university in Dublin. I played the part of Aladdin in a scurrilous pantomime that Roddy had written with his two old schoolfriends Graham Pasley and Stanley Townsend.

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Quentin Letts backstage during Declan Hughes’ 1983 production of Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance. He was playing the role of the Mayor (Photo: Barney Spender)

Darragh Kelly backstage during Declan Hughes' production of The Duchess of Malfi, DU Players 1984 (Photo: Barney Spender)

Darragh Kelly backstage during Declan Hughes’ production of The Duchess of Malfi, DU Players 1984 (Photo: Barney Spender)

It featured such luminaries as Pauline McLynn, Darragh Kelly, (future Booker Prize winner) Anne Enright and “Mother Goose” Lynne Parker, all big noises today in the theatre, literary and telly world.  Quentin Letts, now a very respectable parliamentary sketch-writer for the Daily Mail, may have done something interesting with a carrot. As I recall my role largely consisted of vigorously rubbing a silver teapot while singing a smutty version of Down at The Old Bull and Bush.

For the next three years we worked on many productions together in Players. Occasionally we shared a stage – my Cardinal Inquisitor sparred sneeringly with his measured Galileo – but most often it was in the making of the play. Roddy was and still is a Master Carpenter so he was inevitably tasked with building the sets. I tagged along as the Carpenter’s Mate. Or perhaps that should realistically be: carpenter’s mate.

This would involve fetching nails, dropping nails, looking for nails; a lot of my work seemed to involve nails. And paint. And changing the music up in the sound booth.

There was a lot of Tom Waits (Blue Valentine and The Piano has been Drinking) and, when we were feeling very silly at about three in the morning, an album of traditional Danish folk songs. This was the cue for a break from the work and some semi-crazed thigh-slapping Morris-style dancing in the middle of the stage.  And a lot of giggling. Did I mention that a few beers were usually taken during the course of the set-building?

Sometimes stout was called upon to relieve the stress of studenthood. Roddy Gibson (right) and Barney Spender (centre) joined by Donald Clarrke in Maynooth 1985 (Photo: Barney Spender)

Sometimes stout was called upon to relieve the stress of studenthood. Roddy Gibson (right) and Barney Spender (centre) joined by Donald Clarrke in Maynooth 1985 (Photo: Barney Spender)

Sometimes these would be all-nighters. Beyond the beer and the silly dancing there were spells of silence and spells of talk. About Things. Things that 20 year-olds want to talk about but often don’t because they don’t want to look daft.

Going through the night builds a trust and an intimacy; something we rediscovered not just with each other but with other members of our crew when we finally got to shoot The Road to Sparta in September 2014.

The high point of Roddy’s carpentry skills was the construction of the serving hatch for my 1984 Dublin Theatre Festival production of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, featuring John O’Brien, another who has since built a career in theatre, and a fellow called David Taylor, nicknamed The Professor. Actually, this wasn’t really a nickname but a title. He was a professor; something clever in science or engineering. He could act too and quaff stout and tell funny stories. He was all right, The Professor.

The dumb waiter was wonderfully concealed behind wallpaper of fading newspapers which had to be replaced after every performance. And it was extra heavy which meant that when it first comes into play and slams down, the audience and the actors actually leapt in surprise.

midnight-court-4 midnight-court-2 Our last collaboration, though, and our last First Night had been in December 1987 when we helped another old university friend Mary McGuckian stage her version of Thomas Merriman’s The Midnight Court in an old biscuit factory in London’s Docklands. Roddy was again in charge of sets. This time it was a whopper and he needed more help and I was delighted that it wasn’t just me groveling around the floor looking for nails.

“Oy Geno! Stop feckin’ dropping nails!” would come the cry.

“Sorry man,” came the reply from a crest-fallen Kevin Rowland who had been roped in to help by Mary, his girlfriend at the time.

Kevin also helped us to strike the set at the end of the run, after which we drank beer together at the cast party. This was not his happiest period musically. He had had great success with Dexy’s but they had split and he was something of a forgotten man. I loved that he was so humble about what he had achieved; as far as he was concerned he was just one of the lads working back stage. And when it was his turn to fetch a beer, he went. I love that he found his muse again and reclaimed his place at the top table.

 

A NEW COLLABORATION

spartathlon-signAnd so fast forward 29 years. Where did they go? Well, Rod went into film-making and I went into journalism. Now our two paths had come together again to make The Road to Sparta.

This was no coincidence. It was as much a time of life thing as anything else. In 2012, Roddy’s great friend Graham Pasley died of a heart attack at the age of 50. In February 2014, our mutual friend Dessie Kirkpatrick  died suddenly from a cancer which hadn’t even been diagnosed a week earlier.

Dessie’s funeral at Golders Green cemetery in London brought together many of our old friends from Trinity. Amid the mourning, there was also much laughter and remembrance of times and collaborations past; a realisation that in this room were some of our favourite people in the world.

During Dessie’s funeral, I realised two things. One was that we were now at an age where putting stuff off was a risk. Graham and Dessie both died suddenly and way too young. That could happen to any of us so if we wanted to do things it was best to do them now. Or as my wife said: “Barney, either make this film or shut the f*** up about it!”

The second thing I realised was that in order to make The Road to Sparta happen, I had to have Roddy at my side. I knew the story and the overview of what I wanted; Roddy had a camera and, more important, faith.

He was certainly impressed by the core idea.

Rob Pinnington feeling the pain during the Spartathlon (Photo: The Road to Sparta)

Rob Pinnington feeling the pain during the Spartathlon (Photo: The Road to Sparta)

“So what is this Spartathlon?”

“Well, it is an ultra-marathon…246 kilometres.”

“Hold on, 246 kilometres? That’s about 150 miles…”

“Yes, it’s six marathons…back-to-back.”

“Hey?”

“Yes, they have to run it in 36 hours…”

“…that’s feckin’ mental.”

He was impressed by the race but still needed some persuading; my ability to sum up The Road to Sparta in a nutshell , known as my “pitch” in the biz, was less than convincing.

“Well, Roddy, it is a film about running but it isn’t a running film. It isn’t a sports film… Well, it is but it isn’t… I don’t want it to be about who wins the race… It is more than that… It is about dreams and history and beauty and trying to achieve the seemingly impossible…I can already hear it.”

I know. You can’t hear a film. Except when you come from a radio background and you already know who is going to be writing the music for the film.

He still wasn’t convinced until about one month before the 2014 Spartathlon. We were with our families at the Green Man Festival, lying back on the grass and taking in some gorgeous Welsh summer sunshine.

The directors at work. Roddy gets to grips with the camera while Barney considers lunch (Photo: Magda Gouma)

The directors at work. Roddy gets to grips with the camera while Barney considers lunch (Photo: Magda Gouma)

“Rod. What is the worst that can happen? We go and make a 20-minute film and have a great week working together in Greece. Beer, sunshine …  It’s not that bad.“

And so Roddy joined me on the road to Sparta.

And he was conquered. From the moment the race started in the arc lights under the Acropolis in Athens,  it stopped being “A Film by Barney Spender” and became “A film by Barney Spender and Roddy Gibson”.

A true collaboration which grew outwards. Roddy brought in one of his ex-students at Middlesex University, Marius Ulevicius, to operate the second camera. Later his Middlesex colleague Béatrice Herraiz joined the team to create the maps which play such an important part in the journey.

The RTS crew in Sparta: Standing Marius, Roddy, Barney. Seated: Tryfon, Andreas, Vasilios (Photo: Marius Ulevicius, 2014)

The RTS crew in Sparta: Standing Marius, Roddy, Barney. Seated: Andreas, Tryfon, Vasilios (Photo: Marius Ulevicius, 2014)

I had already booked in Tryfon and Andreas from Old House Playground to come out for the shoot; their task was to write a score for the film. They responded by bringing a guitar and djembe with them and composing on the road; sometimes literally on the road.

Occasionally they would disappear into a secluded olive grove; most usually they would create in the back of the van. Clive Martin had agreed to produce the music which, given that he twiddled the knobs when David Byrne was putting together his part of the Oscar-winning soundtrack for The Last Emperor, was a massive bonus. Clive knew about music in film.

A year later, in the summer of 2015, Alicia Stallings agreed to come on board as well. Alicia is a poet of distinction, a classicist who understands ancient and modern Greece. We needed a lyrical way of depicting the story of Pheidippides, and she responded with a wonderful series of sonnets. Manos Arvanitis joined us for a dawn shoot at Marathon Bay when Roddy and I went back  to do some pick-ups; another memorable week that led to Roddy’s first encounter with tear gas. Manos is a part of the team as the artist behind the poster.

Ownership of The Road to Sparta had gone way beyond Spender and Gibson.

So, why the First Night nerves?

I suppose it comes down to responsibility. To everyone who has contributed – the runners, the race, the artists, our families, the crowd-funders, the exec producers Jimmy and Tom who had backed the project from the start. Responsibility to Greece as well. We were showing the light and the dark. In some ways it is a love-letter to a very conflicted country.

Nervous also because Rod had sweated buckets in the previous two weeks to complete the colour correction and the audio dub. The film was effectively finished on Thursday, three days before the screening. I had not seen the corrected film; my first viewing was with the audience in Athens.

SHOWTIME

rts-prem-1Roddy arrived in Athens at 4am Sunday morning, a couple of hours after me. We had about three hours sleep before clambering out and heading off to Athens College. We were met by Christos and his wonderful electric hair. He and Roddy disappeared into the control room to fix the sub-titles while I chilled in the October sun, thinking about how to introduce the film to the audience. If there was an audience.

And then a surge of excitement as I stepped into an empty theatre. The film was running. It looked stunning on the big screen, the music better than before as it boomed from each side of the stage. Nervousness gave way to excitement.

As the morning progressed, people turned up, including two of our runners, Rob Pinnington and Angela Terzi. Sadly, Mark Woolley couldn’t make it over from Spain while Dean Karanazes was tied up back in California.

That word responsibility came back. I hoped we had treated all of our subjects responsibly.

When you run a race of 246 kilometres, you are stripped bare. There is no hiding place. A man with a camera can capture that. And that gives him a power. And a responsibility. You don’t want to hide anything but you don’t want to abuse the trust that these runners place in you.

Another responsibility: we heard that morning of the death of John Foden, the man who had proved that a runner could leave Athens and arrive in Sparta “the next day”, as Herodotus had claimed of Pheippides. Without Foden there would probably not be a Spartathlion. And without Spartathlon there would be no film. We all stand in John Foden’s debt.

All smiles after the screening: L-R: Barney, Manos, Rob (not in training), Angie, Vicki Karpouzi, Roddy, Magda Gouma (Photo: Nick Petalas)

All smiles after the screening: L-R: Barney, Manos, Rob (not in training), Angie, Vicki Karpouzi, Roddy, Magda Gouma (Photo: Nick Petalas)

When the time came, just about everything went according to plan. Roddy and I introduced the film, Kostis Papadimitriou, the president of the International Spartathlon Association, gave a short tribute to John Foden, and then we settled back into our seats.

It is an incredible feeling to watch your own creation appear up there on the big screen. Even more astonishing is the sound of the audience reacting; laughing at the funny moments, audibly whincing at the more unpleasant. And clapping and cheering at the end…what was that about?

Everyone was very kind about the way we had treated the race and Greece and the runners. Especially the runners.  Of all the comments that came our way, none meant more than those from Rob and Angie, two of the four that agreed to be filmed as they went through the seven circles of hell.

“You did it lads,” said Rob, giving us both great bear hugs. “You did it. That is what it is like to run the Spartathlon.”

Angie looked a little shaken by the film.

“It was very emotional,” she explained.

“I had forgotten so much of what went on. It all came back. And I love how you got inside the runners’ heads. The voices, so many voices. That is what it was like.”

A successful first outing which now means a year out on the festival circuit. We hope to get The Road to Sparta to every continent in the next 12 months so if you know a friendly festival…And in the meantime, I have to put my producer’s hat back on and try to sell the bugger to television. Never done that before so it could be interesting. Then there is the question of the soundtrack album. Not to mention tee-shirts, hoodies, hats and so on. And DVDs, of course. So much to do, so little time.

A great collaboration (Photo: Roddy Gibson)

A great collaboration (Photo: Roddy Gibson)

That lies in the future; in the present lay the question of celebrating the First Night. And we did okay there; in good Greek fashion, lunch rolled into evening and a trip to the pub. It was a memorable night. At least I think it was; made more memorable by my alarum waking me in Exarchia on Monday morning at 08.30 … just as my flight to Paris was taxiing up the runway of Athens airport.

No plane. Never mind. It’s Athens.

Better walk.

Or run.

©Barney Spender 2016

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Follow The Road to Sparta on Twitter @theroadtosparta or on Facebook

 

Brief Encounter … with Bowie

Posted by barneyspender on January 11, 2016
Posted in: Culture, Music, Spender. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Bowie 1 Like many people this morning, my thoughts are with David Bowie who has died in New York from cancer at the tender age of 69.

I heard the news at breakfast, much as I had done when news of John Lennon’s death flashed through the British airwaves 35 years ago. That was in New York as well. Dangerous place, obviously.

And as the news slowly filtered in, my mind drifted back to a late summer’s evening in London in 1986 when our paths crossed for the first and, as it turned out, only time. I doubt it was a moment that writ large in the great man’s memory-banks in the 30 years that followed but I am afraid I still revel in the fact that once upon a time, I met David Bowie.

GROWING UP WITH BOWIE

As with so many people, Bowie’s music has played across the background of my youth and my adult life. At school in the late 1970s, I recall heading over to Rupert Bates’ room to drink coffee and listen to the single of Ashes to Ashes. Again and again and again. It was that kind of a song.

At university in the early 1980s I was in a Players’ production of The Duchess of Malfi, directed by Declan Hughes. He was an exciting director to work and learn with, Tarantino-esque in his musical vision. All his plays had fantastic soundtracks, even the Jacobean tragedy of Malfi.

Bowie LowHe opened the play with a tableau of corpses, beautifully lit by John Comisky, and the haunting strains of Bowie’s Warszawa. It was compelling theatre.

I danced, or did my feeble impression, and chatted up girls to songs like Let’s Dance and China Girl. I liked him as an actor too. Not just big shows like Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence. I was particularly taken with him in a BBC production of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal. And many years later when I had kids, I revelled in the way they clicked with Changes when it came up in Shrek, albeit in a non-Bowie version. They instantly recognized the original when I had Hunky Dory on in the car. And later when we introduced them to the television series Life on Mars, they again jumped at the music. Bowie for all generations.

But let me tell you about that night in 1986.

METAMORPHOSIS

The Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars: the first theatre to be built in the City of London since the 17th century

The Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars: the first theatre to be built in the City of London since the 17th century

I had left Dublin in the summer and found my first job in London, as stage doorman at the Mermaid Theatre, an oasis in the cultural desert of the City. The theatre had been set up by Bernard Miles for precisely that purpose. The fact that it was so close to one of Shakespeare’s old theatres in Blackfriars gave it a borrowed heritage. Miles would drop in regularly to say hello to the workers. John Junkin too.

Barbara Penney was the theatre manager and she had done a deal to bring in Stephen Berkoff’s Metamorphosis on an eight-week run. Tim Roth, pre-Reservoir Dogs and Hollywood stardom,  played Gregor Samsa with Linda Marlowe, Saskia Reeves, Gary Olsen and Berkoff himself miming their way through Kafka’s tale of dung beetles and isolation.

It was outstanding and quickly became the hot ticket in London. It became usual to have big names come to the stage door to meet the actors. Usually they were old theatre friends but sometimes they were big names: Dustin Hoffman came through as did Topol, Roger Daltry, Adam (of Ants fame) and even a rather pop-eyed Jeff Goldblum who was charmingly giggly as he asked to meet with Tim Roth.

“Yeah you know, I don’t know him but I thought it would be kinda neat…you know The Fly meets The Beetle?”

METAMORPHOSIS_MERMAIDHe laughed and I laughed with him. I had been to see him in The Fly just a few weeks before at the Phoenix in East Finchley. It was rather a nice idea. Had I been a hack at that stage I am sure I could have made a few bob with the tabs on that angle.

Then one evening it came to pass.

Another superb performance, we could hear the audience whooping and cheering at the curtain call. Then the cast came off stage, drained and sweating, and wearily headed up the red staircase to their dressing rooms.

At this point there was usually a short lull. The audience couldn’t come through to us direct from the auditorium. They had to exit the theatre, walk around the building into Puddle Dock and come in at the stage door.

As usual there was a huddle of autograph hunters gathering outside and a line of well-wishers queueing up to talk to the stage doorman: me.

Waiting at the back of the line was a tall, slender man in a well-cut suit. He hovered as others came and went. Finally, when there was no one left in the line, he stepped forward gingerly and smiled.

“Hello. I wonder, would it be possible to go up and see Steven Berkoff. He’s a friend of mine.”

There was a pause. Not that I was waiting for him to say any more. I was just star struck. Standing in front of me was David Bowie.

David. Fucking. Bowie.

Standing.

In front of me.

And asking my permission.

To go and see his mate.

I blinked and gathered myself. Tapped out Berkoff’s dressing room number.

Steven Berkoff performing in his 1986 adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis (Photo: Roger Morton)

Steven Berkoff performing in his 1986 adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis (Photo: Roger Morton)

Of course they were friends. They had just made Absolute Beginners together. Julian Temple had been panned for it but there had been some good moments, notably Bowie and Berkoff. It was another film I had seen recently at the Phoenix on a late night double bill with Stop Making Sense.

I had gone to see it with Omar Shawkat, a would-be actor from Louisville who had somehow landed on the doorstep in East Finchley when I shared a flat with Donald Clarke and Roddy Gibson. Omar had insisted that it was de rigeur in Kentucky during Stop Making Sense to leap out of your seat and run around the auditorium.

Sounded a bit daft but fuelled by a couple of pints of Old Speckled Hen we had given it a go. But what they get up to in Louisville didn’t go down so well in north London and we were in no uncertain terms invited to cease. Absolute beginners. That was us.

“Sure,” I said. “Let me just check in with him. He may be coming down.”

“Of course.”

A pause. Then phone in hand, I looked up at him.

“It is Mr Bowie, isn’t it?” I asked stressing the pronunciation of the name. Bowie as in Bowie Knife as opposed to Bowie pronounced Bow-wow-wow.

“Yes,” he smiled. “Bowie.”

I nodded and smiled back as Berkoff answered the phone.

“Hi Steven, Barney here … There is a gentleman down at the stage door to see you. Mr Bowie… Just wondering if you are on your way down or whether you would like me to direct him to your dressing room…sure…not a problem…I will do that…ok…cheers.”

I put down the phone and stood up. I wanted to be on eye level with the great man.

David Bowie in Julian Temple's Absolute Beginners which also featured Steven Berkoff

David Bowie in Julian Temple’s Absolute Beginners which also featured Steven Berkoff

“Steven says you should go on up to his dressing room. Have you been before?”

“No.”

“Ok, well they don’t have numbers here. They have names. Stephen is in Cripplegate. Just go up the stairs and turn to the left. You will see it on the right hand side.”

“Top of the stairs, turn left.”

“That’s it.”

“Thank you, Barney.”

He turned towards the stairs and headed up to Berkoff’s dressing room. I remained standing for what seemed like minutes, hours. Time stopped. Had I heard right? Had David Bowie just thanked my by name?

And that wasn’t quite the end. When he and Berkoff came down the stairs about 20 minutes later to head off for dinner at Joe Allen’s – everyone went to Joe Allen’s – he said it again.

Berkoff handed over his dressing room key and boomed a parting farewell. I liked Berkoff immensely but he did like to boom.

As he followed him out of the stage door, Bowie turned towards the stagedoorman.

“Thanks very much, Barney. Have a good evening.”

And he was gone. Only later did I kick myself for not looking closer at his eyes. I had heard about the different coloured eyes but in spite of looking straight into them, I hadn’t registered them. Never mind. I had just met David Bowie.

Ok, so our total mutual interaction on Planet Earth was probably under two minutes but for me it was so much more than that. He gave me the gift of a story that night which I have occasionally unfurled in the interim. And of course there is his music, his art.

Bowie may have gone but we will always have the music. That is an amazing gift for all of us.

Thanks Mr Bowie.

©Barney Spender 2016

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Farewell to the King of the Sporting Lens

Posted by barneyspender on September 19, 2015
Posted in: Culture, Rugby union, Sport. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 5 Comments

Mike King (Photo: Charlie Sanders)It is almost two weeks now since the photographer Mike King collapsed at his mother’s house and died at the appallingly young age of 52. It has been a pretty horrible fortnight for everyone who knew Mike.

Many of us hadn’t seen him for months or years but his regular presence on Facebook, sometimes chirping and chirruping on other people’s posts or sharing one of his own photographs, meant that he was very much a presence in our lives. His sudden death has stunned us all.

The more comments I have read during the week has made it abundantly clear that I was not the only person who valued Mike’s basic core of decency as much as his extraordinary talent with a camera. But perhaps this is the norm when someone dies, we hurry to sing their praises. And then forget them.

Except I don’t think Mike will be forgotten quickly.

Odd man out: Diego Maradona catches the camera before taking on the USSR at Italia '90. ((Photo: Mike King)

Odd man out: Diego Maradona catches the camera before taking on the USSR at Italia ’90. ((Photo: Mike King)

On a professional level he was one of the best sports photographers there has been. If you want to think in sporting terms directly then he was to photography what Usain Bolt is to athletics, what Lionel Messi is to football. One of the best, not just of his own generation but across the ages. His images will outlive all of us.

He started young, just 22 when he went to Los Angeles for his first Olympic Games. And from there he was launched. Olympics, World Cups, Grand Nationals. He did the lot, always delivering a punchy news image which had an X-factor in terms of mood and composition. He wasn’t trigger-happy in the way many photographers now are in the digital age. I recall interviewing him in around 2006 for Athens International Radio and he made the brutally frank observation of the future of photography: “If you fire off a thousand pictures, one of them is bound to be half-decent.”

West Germany striker Juergen Klinsmann takes a tumble during the 1990 World Cup final (Photo: Mike King)

West Germany striker Juergen Klinsmann takes a tumble during the 1990 World Cup final (Photo: Mike King)

Mike learned his craft in the age of smoke and mirrors when a photographer would shoot some film during the first half of a match and then send it off with a runner to deliver direct to the sports desk. I seem to recall a lot of hairdryers in press boxes as well but that may have been in the 1990s when laptops came into play.

Mike’s work for the Observer and the Sunday Telegraph was outstanding. His image from the 2001 Grand National of a jockey flying through the air, won him many awards including Sports Photo of the Year. It is now an iconic image as indeed are several others including Diego Maradonna in the team line-up and Juergen Klinsmann rolling on his head. There are others. Many others.

Mike's favourite photo: so many stories going on in this image of the 2001 Grand National (Photo: Mike King)

Mike’s favourite photo: so many stories going on in this image of the 2001 Grand National (Photo: Mike King)

“When I was embarking on my career in the strange world of sports photography the person who helped me more than anyone else was Mike,” wrote Tom Jenkins, another master of the lens, on Facebook.

“He was a massive inspiration not only because of his beautiful creative eye but his technical ability was second to none. He was the undoubted master of follow-focus in those halycon days when cameras didn’t tell us what to do.”

What has come through since Mike’s death is how universally liked he was. In his excellent obituary for the Sports Journalists Association, Steven Downes describes Mike as a “kind and gentle man.” I cannot put it better.

I was the recipient of his kindness on several occasions. Once when I was running the London Marathon for the first time in 2002, he offered to do some shots of me so that I could boost my fund-raising for Lepra. On a crisp February morning, we met on Peckham Rye and he fired off a roll of film. They are all excellent photos although perhaps, if I were to criticise, they showed the rolling contours of the runner’s stomach just a little too clearly.

Haile Gebrselassie giving some good advice to a first-time marathoner

Haile Gebrselassie giving some good advice to a first-time marathoner (Photo: Mike King)

I was also working on the race as a writer and had managed to secure a ten-minute spot with the great Haile Gebrselassie. We did the intereview in a little broom cupboard of an office; at one point the door nudged open and there was Mike with his beloved Nikon F3 up to his eye and a grin on his lips, snapping the moment. Not sure it meant too much to Haile but it meant a lot when Mike later sent it to me.

Not long after that I roped him in to do some photos for a feature I was writing about Martin Johnson, the England rugby captain. It meant a trip up to Leicester.

“I’ll drive,” said Mike in a manner which brooked no argument.

“Sure that would be great,” I replied. We are going to meet him at the training ground at 11. I would like to be there by half ten. Traffic is never too clever getting out of London. How about we leave at about seven?”

An example of Mike's vision. A stunning photo of rowers at Hampton in 1991. (Photo: Mike King)

An example of Mike’s vision. A stunning photo of rowers at Hampton in 1991. (Photo: Mike King)

“No I will pick you up at half past eight. Plenty of time.

“But Mike, we have to get around London and then on to the M1. That might be cutting it a bit fine.”

“Ok, call it eight-fifteen.”

The famous black Saab stopped outside my flat in East Dulwich at around eight twenty-seven.

But I needn’t have worried about time. We were in Leicester by ten and eating a traditional trucker’s breakfast at his favourite cafe.

I won’t pretend it was the most relaxed drive I have had – I am not a great passenger and did feel the need to close my eyes on a number of occasions. But Mike was chilled to the core as he drove and chatted all the way.

As we lived close to each other in East Dulwich we would occasionally drive to Twickenham together. I think his record was about seventeen minutes. Had he not ben a photographer he might easily have become Cabbie King in London. He was a true Londoner – he took some wonderful photos of the city – and understood the backstreets as well as anyone – and this in the days before SatNav.

“Snap of my day. Clouds from Greenwich Park on a long exposure.”
Mike King, October 19, 2014

Later, when we had moved to Greece we were letting out our flat in Nunhead. He was across the Rye in East Dulwich. Our boiler went on the blink leaving leaving our tenants in the cold. Mike volunteered to take them some heaters and made sure they were ok.

He didn’t need to. We were mates but not bosom pals. It was just Mike. If he could help he would.

Mike will be missed for many reasons. Mainly because he was such a good guy. All of those who knew him will be thinking of Mike’s kids. They are still young, perhaps too young at the moment to understand what a broad impact their father had on the rest of us.

One day, when they are able to take a step back from the grieving, I hope they realise not just what a fine man he was but also what a great artist he was; the King of kings.

©Barney Spender 2015

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Stallings takes on the men for Oxford poetry chair

Posted by barneyspender on June 4, 2015
Posted in: Books, Culture, Greece, USA. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments
Stallings4

AE Stallings takes inspiration from the Classics

The literary world is aflush, it seems, with ruddy-cheeked excitement at the election for the next Oxford Professor of Poetry, a chair that has cushioned many celebrated posteriors since Joseph Trapp first took up the post in 1708. According to that fine literary reference library Wiki, he was a churchman fond of reciting the works of Shakespeare in Latin.

Since then there has been a stream of prominent churchmen (not all of whom could quote Shakespeare in Latin, I suspect), a series of academics and critics and even a couple of genuine A list poets; Cecil Day-Lewis, WH Auden and Robert Graves are all on the list as, indeed, is my old friend Seamus Heaney.

Did I ever ever tell you the one about how I persuaded Heaney to translate Beowulf?

There are five runners this year: Simon Armitage, Wole Soyinka, Sean Haldane, Ian Gregson and AE Stallings. Reading between the lines, any of the five would be excellent but I have to admit that I am biased on this one. Had I passed through the hallowed halls of Oxford rather then the dirty doorways of Dublin, then my vote would be going to Stallings

It is important that I lay the cards on the table. I have never met Armitage or Soyinka although I will admit, in the case of the latter, considerable hair envy. Shades of Don King. With a beard. Nor have I come across Gregson or Haldane.

The demands of being one of America's top poets: signing at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

The demands of being one of America’s top poets: signing at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

But I have known Stallings for the best part of a decade now, almost throughout the period that we lived in Greece and since. She has mixed me the most divine mint julep; her husband gave me a job; our kids have played together. Absolutely, I am biased.

What was interesting about Alicia is that, unless you were particularly wired into the poetry world, you would never have guessed that she was such a prominent voice. I mean lots of people say “oh yes, well my wife writes poetry” but how many of those actually mean anything more than a six-line ditty  in the kids’ birthday cards? She always came across as a very decent, funny, slightly frazzled young mother, more concerned about keeping the lollipop out of her son’s hair than composing an epic poem in iambic pentameter.

The first indication I had that she was a touch above the ordinary was when I went to a reading at the Athens Centre in the lovely suburb of Mets. Her poetry bristled; it flowed effortlessly with rhyme and rhythm. There was a lot of humour and a great deal of dexterity in the way she swapped her forms. She explained how she would set herself exercises, writing in different meters and different forms. Every poem was different. She enthused about the mechanics of poetry as well as the ideas within a poem.

AE Stallings reading to a packed house at Rhodes House, Oxford, June 3 2015 (Photo: Julian Baird Gewitz)

AE Stallings reading to a packed house at Rhodes House, Oxford, June 3 2015 (Photo: Julian Baird Gewitz)

By that stage I already knew her husband John Psaropoulos in his capacity as editor of Athens News, a weekly English-language newspaper that had been going since the 1950s. I had managed to persuade him that non-Greeks living in Greece really were interested in knowing what was going on in the world of Greek football and hence a column was born. Alas, a change of ownership in 2008 led to John’s departure and the Athens News has subsequently closed down. John is still going strong as the Athens correspondent for Al-Jazeera.

One of the high points of the summer was their garden party to coincide with the Kentucky Derby. As a Georgia girl, it was the one sporting event bred into Alicia from an early age. And with it came the mint julep. And a very late night.

Alicia’s reputation has grown over the last decade. The award in 2011 of a MacArthur Fellowship propelled her into the premier league; it is sometimes known by its other name of Genius Grant. At that point, I did my one and only interview with her for the magazine Insider Athens (which you can read below).

And now Stallings, who was herself a student at Oxford, stands alongside four men for the vote, open only to graduates, for the post of Professor of Poetry.

I hope she wins for many reasons but there are three that stand out.

First, in the 307 years since Joseph Trapp took up office, there has never been a woman in the post. Actually, that is not quite correct. Ruth Padel did win the election in 2009 but stood down nine days later over an argument about the nature of canvassing. And that is a serious omission that urgently need addressing.

Second, as a Classics graduate and translator as well as poet, she may be the first Professor of Poetry to go one better than Trapp and quote Shakespeare in Ancient Greek.

And third, because she is an all-round good egg who will bring vibrancy to the lecture theatre and inspire the new crop of Oxford students to dig deep and discover their own poetry.

 If you are a graduate of Oxford University then you are entitled to vote. Registration – which can be done by clicking here – closes at noon British Summer Time (GMT+1) on June 8 while voting ends on June 17. The winner will be announced on June 19.

 ©Barney Spender 2015

Follow me on Twitter @bspender

Literature Genius rhymes with…

Athens InsiderPoet AE Stallings talks to Barney Spender on her new status as genius, after receiving a grant from the Chicago based MacArthur Foundation, popularly referred to as ‘genius grants’ and on meeting her Muse in modern-day Athens

The American poet AE (Alicia) Stallings hails from Atlanta, Georgia but for the last few years has been living in Athens. Her first collection of poems, Archaic Smile, won the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award and was shortlisted for many other prizes, including the Yale Younger Poets Award. In 2008 she was given the Benjamin H Danks Award by the American Academy of Arts, partly in recognition for her 2007 verse translation of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things). She is also the Poetry Programme Director of the Athens Centre. In 2011, she was one of 22 fellows worldwide to receive the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States and has awarded more than US$4 billion in grants since its inception in 1978.

Congratulations on winning the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship… what does it mean to you to be named a ‘genius’?

The MacArthur Foundation discourages that nickname (the genius grants) precisely because ‘genius’ comes as so loaded and fraught a word. It’s the sort of thing that could potentially be intimidating for a writer, because of course a writer always has to be willing to start with the blank page and to write something bad, to fail utterly. Still, I have been thinking of it as the “no excuses” grant. I can’t go around and complain that I can’t afford the babysitting to work or a space to work in. Now I can, and I just have to get on with things!

You have two small children; is that a help or a hindrance for your poetry.

There is a famous line from Cyril Connolly: “There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.” In a sense, he is probably right. The most obvious way in which having children has affected my writing is that there is less of it. On the other hand, children also are fascinating for a poet to have. It is like having the world made new before your eyes the way they look at things. And of course, language acquisition – much less bilingualism – is fascinating. Kids are natural poets. A three-year-old can beat a working poet for inspired lines or phrases with one sticky hand tied behind his back any day. I am not above stealing lines from my children.

Was the grant for a particular work – or for a body of work?

a-e-stallingsAs I understand it, it is for future work, which may or may not be a continuation of what you have been doing already. It is a big vote of confidence, basically, that you have more to write and do.

How is it likely to affect your standing as a poet in the US?

It does certainly raise your profile. There was a spike in book sales for a while (never terribly high for a poet anyway), and I think that my forthcoming book, Olives, will get more attention—and be subjected to greater scrutiny, perhaps.

Does being a ‘genius’ now mean that you can beat your husband at Scrabble?

Sometimes the better part of genius is NOT beating your husband at Scrabble. And presumably you can now get him to do the chores around the house Well, I hope it takes some pressure off John as being the sole breadwinner in such uncertain times. He’s always been helpful around the house. (I have a much higher tolerance for chaos—though genius has a nicer ring to it than slob.)

Is there such a thing as ‘a good place to be a poet’?

Anywhere you can write poetry is a good place to be a poet. Some poets need urban decay or dreary provincial towns to be inspired, some need to wander lonely as a cloud among drifts of daffodils. I was worried when I moved to Athens that the Muse wouldn’t have my forwarding address, but she seems to have found me here. Actually, being a Muse, she was probably born here. So how does the noisy, polluted, strike-laden city of Athens suit your process? I probably prefer daffodils – or wild amaryllis – to urban decay, so maybe it is not so much Athens as Greece that suits me. But, again, the poems get written. I can write pretty much anywhere if need be – a side-effect of motherhood – and often write at a local café against a backdrop of throbbing Greek pop music and the clacking of backgammon.

You have a background in Classics – has that helped you relate to Greece?

Maybe. Maybe it hurts. I am not sure. I think in a way it was easier to write about Greek mythology when I wasn’t smack in the midst of it all the time.

What was the first poem you ever wrote?

I couldn’t say. I was probably making up poems from six or seven years old. I had my first poem accepted for publication at 16.

Did it win any prizes?

Olives_StallingsNo, but I got paid! I got a cheque for fifteen dollars. And the poem only took about an hour to write so I thought, “Well, this is an easy way to make a living”. And, er, here I am.

So, did you always set out on a career path to be a poet?

I think I always knew I wanted to be a writer, but probably didn’t know I wanted to be more exclusively a poet until high school. And the enthusiasm of editors for my poetry – as opposed to a novel manuscript languishing somewhere in a drawer – may have nudged me in that direction too.

I like the fact that use humour in your poetry; it is something that many people feel is incongruous in “serious” poetry…

I love humor in poetry. And rhyme is certainly a good vehicle for humour. Humour and seriousness, of course, are hardly exclusive of one another. A humorous poem can say deep and serious things, and a ‘serious’ poem can be shallow as the paper it is written on, not to mention dull. Plenty of serious poets such as Housman and Eliot, have written splendidly funny poems.

You mention those two – who else is on your poetry reading list?

I love Seamus Heaney, William Blake and I am also a big fan of Philip Larkin, Thomas Hardy, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop. Among contemporary poets, I always look forward to new books by Don Paterson, Kay Ryan, Richard Wilbur. I like poets that nourish my own writing. I am attracted to wellcrafted, musical poems that take some emotional risks.

Any Greeks?

ae-stallings6Cavafy is my favourite modern Greek poet, which is hardly surprising. Lately, I have been very much enjoying reading and translating Sikelianos, who writes in a wonderful assortment of forms – sonnets, quatrains and so on. And I am currently at work on an English verse translation of the Cretan epic-romance Erotokritos.

I did hear a rumour that your cure for writer’s block is a strong mint julep. Any truth in that?

I wouldn’t turn one down. Are you buying?

Athens Insider, February 2012

Tsagarakis has Designs on the Parthenon Marbles

Posted by barneyspender on February 25, 2015
Posted in: Culture, Greece, History. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments
Artwear by Spyridon Tsagarkis: photographed at the Parthenon in Athens by George Katsanakis, 2014 Copyright: George Katsanakis

World Exclusive: Artwear by Spyridon Tsagarakis: photographed at the Parthenon in Athens by George Katsanakis, 2014 (Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis)

Spyridon Tsagarakis is perhaps best known as a fashion designer; his clothes can be found in the wardrobes of many high profile women such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama and the Duchess of Cambridge.

But he is also an artist and more recently a campaigner for the righting of a wrong that Britain did to his native Greece over 200 years ago and which continues to sour relations between the two countries.

“I have been working on this project since 2004 and I will continue working on it until the Parthenon Marbles are returned,” says Tsagarakis who chose barneyspender.com to reveal for the first time a photograph of one of his art works taken in front of the Parthenon in Athens (click on the photo above to see it full-size).

Ever since the 7th Earl of Elgin laid out his towel in the Hellenic sun at the start of the 19th century and bought a favour from the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire, debate has rumbled on about who is the rightful owner of the set of Parthenon Marbles that currently resides in the British Museum in London.

Another British earl, a contemporary of Elgin, weighed in early. Having already taken a snap at the Scotsman in his 1807 poem The Curse of Minerva, Lord Byron took a second swipe in his longer and better known poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

Byron in Albanian Dress by Thomas Phillips, circa 1835

Byron in Albanian Dress by Thomas Phillips, circa 1835

“But most the modern Pict’s ignoble boast,
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared:
Cold as the crags upon his native coast,
His mind as barren and his heart as hard,
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared,
Aught to displace Athena’s poor remains:
Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard,
Yet felt some portion of their mother’s pains,
And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot’s chains.

Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers o’er the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne’er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorr’d!”

Unlike Elgin, Byron’s stock is still high in Greece, which is hardly surprising given that he showed his philhellenism not by making off with a shipload of swag but by joining the fight for independence, dying in the cause in 1824.

7th Earl of Elgin by Anton Graff around 1788, before his looting of the Parthenon began

7th Earl of Elgin by Anton Graff around 1788, before his looting of the Parthenon began

Notwithstanding the legality of Elgin’s actions – a documentary currently being made by my old colleague Helen Skopis debunks the veracity of the firman that he obtained from the Ottomans – there is also the question of morality. Where should the Parthenon Marbles be kept: the British Museum in London, which has been custodian for the last 200-odd years, or the Parthenon Gallery of the Acropolis Museum in Athens where the marbles were born and where they resided for the 2000 years before Elgin appeared on the horizon?

For Tsagarakis, who was born in Crete but is based in London, there is no question to answer.

“The marbles are not the Elgin Marbles, they are the Parthenon Marbles,” he says. “It is quite obvious they belong in Athens.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise to discover that another admirer, who has invested in his work, is Amal Alamuddin, the lawyer consulted by the last Greek government about the return of the marbles. Last year saw the release of her husband George Clooney’s film The Monuments Men, the story of an Allied team trying to save artefacts from the Nazis.

“Lord Elgin arrived in Athens in 1800 to make a study of the Acropolis monuments,” says Tsagarakis. “Athens, remember, like most of the Hellenic world, was a part of the Ottoman Empire. It had been occupied, just as it was by the Nazis in the Second World War.

“Elgin secured a written permission from the Grand Vizier of Constantinople to conduct excavations around the foundations of the Acropolis provided that will not cause damage to the monuments and make casts of statues to decorate his home in Scotland.

“Elgin had not written permission to remove any part of them. Nevertheless, he bought the silence of the Ottoman officials and stripped sculptures from the Parthenon, causing untold damage to the monument.

Some of the marbles removed from the Parthenon by Elgin. Note the folds in the dress and how they match those of Tsagarakis

Some of the marbles removed from the Parthenon by Elgin. Note the folds in the dress and how they match those of Tsagarakis

“He removed the back of the frieze and cut sections from the Parthenon and the Erechtheion which caused one of the metopes to break. And so he dismembered one of the most important works of art in the history of mankind which had remained largely intact for more than two thousand years.

“It was an act of vandalism and an act of theft. How can that possibly justify the British holding on to them?”

For the British Museum’s justification for keeping the Parthenon Marbles in London click here.

The issue so vexed Tsagarakis that he decided to use it as inspiration in his work, notably an art piece whose folds and design echo the Parthenon itself.

Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis

Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis

“It started to visit the archaeological site of the Acropolis and studying each item,” he explains. “Then I entered the process of constructing the fabric in France, so that I got the right tone. The making of the fabric was the only part of the process when the work moved out of my hands. Then  when I got hold of the fabric I started to crease it by hand.

“It isn’t a quick process. It takes about four years to complete ten pieces. Each year I continue to work on the project and each year I add more pieces to the collection, although they are all different. I am currently busy on works that will be sent to the White House and Smithsonian in Washington DC.”
SHOOTING ON THE ACROPOLIS

Four months ago, Tsagarakis finally fulfilled an ambition, working with the photographer George Katsanakis to shoot the creation at the Parthenon itself, a notoriously difficult achievement given the strict guidelines on photography of ancient monuments laid down by the Greek Culture Ministry.

“I wanted to photograph the art work on the Acropolis and have the picture travel across the world. I am an artist and it is perhaps the only way that I can make this statement in a way that it will be heard. That was important to me.”

So important that Tsagarakis also issued an artist’s statement to run with the photo, giving his views on the Marbles.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis

Copyright: Spyridon Tsagarakis, George Katsanakis

“The richness of the folds, which made the Ancient Greek sculptures unique, is used as a means of expression through a modern approach. This particular collection of my work, under the umbrella titled ARTWEAR, is a conscious choice with cultural reference to Ancient Greece. These art pieces, consisting exclusively of loose folds of wool, imply the ancient Greek statues, some of which have not been returned to Greece and are still in the British Museum. Each and every one of the Parthenon Marbles is a monument of inestimable value both for the Greek nation and humanity in general.

The Parthenon Marbles which are still in the British Museum must be returned forthwith to the Acropolis Museum. The visitor to the Museum is bound to feel not only admiration and honour but also respect and awe inspired by the Parthenon and the Sacred Rock of the Acropolis.”

Artist-Designer: Spyridon Tsagarakis
Photographer: George Katsanakis

For Tsagarakis, who says his works belong more in museums than on catwalks, the ancient culture remains a major influence on his creativity.

Lady Gaga on a visit to Athens in 2014 wearing a Tsagarakis creation (Photo: Spyridon Tsagarakis)

Lady Gaga on a visit to Athens in 2014 wearing a Spyridon Tsagarakis creation (Photo: Spyridon Tsagarakis)

“The art of Ancient Greece has exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries right up to the present.

“The techniques they used awakens in me the idea that I can construct anything I imagine. And that is very important because I can isolate any idea and so generate many thoughts from that. Above all, there is absolute harmony in the construction and that is something I want to achieve when I create something.”

Single-handedly, Tsagarakis, who has agreements in place to work with Givenchy, Alexander McQueen and Hermes, may not convince the British Museum that it should return the marbles to their birthplace. But he is another artist chipping away at the hard rock of public opinion.

With the help of the likes of Lady Gaga, Björk, Lana del Rey and the Duchess, he may just keep the issue in the public eye until the day the marbles are returned home.

You can keep in touch with Spyridon through his Facebook page.

©Barney Spender 2015

Follow me on Twitter @bspender