And, indeed, during early June, the international shipping community deserted its berths around the world and set sail for Athens to attend the world’s largest shipping-spree, the six-day Posidonia maritime exhibition, held this year in Piraeus. While the brokers, underwriters, engineers, suppliers, bankers and financiers, and shipowners, who comprise the international shipping family, sailed in and for a few days dry-docked (considering the flow of champagne, it might be more accurate to say wet-docked) at the leading hotels, the Posidonia’s organizers and exhibitors rushed to complete the one-hundred and-fifty odd booths at the exhibition hall.
On the morning of the 7th of June — the occasion of a press preview — with six hours to go until the inauguration ceremony, the exhibition area resembled the aftermath of a shipwreck. Wooden splinters and other flotsam littered the booths, many of them in varying stages of incompletion, while the members of the press, skipping nimbly over sundry bits of mighty, sea-going vessels left abandoned in the corridors, wondered how it was all ever going to be ready on time. At that hour the main exhibits were a fine showing of carpenters and free-wheeling painters. Anyone getting within brush-spatter range was in danger of emerging striped and decorated in the patriotic blue and white national colours of Greece, which were also the choice of colour-scheme for many of the stands.
The press preview included a visit to one of the saloons of the Epirotiki-owned liner, M/V Jupiter, where the press corps was joined by a rather corpulent, no-nonsense pelican, whose name was also Jupiter. Normally in residence at the Grand Master’s Palace on Rhodes, Jupiter had been brought to Athens especially for the Posidonia, and he was clearly exasperated by the hustle and bustle of city life and the curious stares of so many people. Throwing public relations to the wind, Jupiter lost his temper. With a sideways glance reminiscent of certain photographs of Richard Nixon, he took a swipe at the nearest object — one of the members of the Fourth Estate. After a few harmless pecks with his large and sharply-ridged bill, his good temper was restored, and he waddled away to chase pistachio nuts across a nearby table.
Jupiter, however, was nowhere in sight when we returned to Piraeus that evening for the inauguration ceremony. Outside the exhibition hall crowds milled about beneath the row of the participating nations’ flags and the large head of Poseidon and his trident presiding at the entrance. Two rows of white-uniformed marines armed with musical instruments, announced with a flourish the arrival of the nation’s ‘master helmsman’, the Minister of Merchant Marine, to the accompantment of a chorus of chagrin expressed by the crowds at the non-appearance of Prime Minister Karamanlis. Speeches and prayers were carried away by the breeze, the blue ribbon was cut, and the show was underway.
We waded through the babble of languages and, turning left, came upon the Japanese exhibit, a graceful circular area with sail-like hangings floating overhead, a traditional Japanese boat and models of contemporary ships. We collected en route one of the decorative, blue-and-white carrier-bags, which they were thoughtfully distributing to visitors to hold the pamphlets and literature we would amass by closing time. On to Brazil for a peek at that country on slides and to the Italian Fincantieri’s futuristic, abstract, white, sculpture-like formation announcing the firm’s name.
There was not a piece of driftwood or a carpenter in sight. The exhibits, despite the confusion of the morning, looked as if they had been sitting there peacefully for years. On the ground floor, a demonstration of a series of rhythmically closing hatches caught our eye. We made a mental note of Hawthorn Leslie’s revolving beacon, which was serving as a directional signal to visitors lost in the sea of exhibits. On the second floor, Aluminox of Greece had produced an entire ship’s galley in stainless steel. We filled in a free lottery at Hempel’s Marine Paints hoping to win a model boat. Standing before Det Norske Veritas’s giant photograph of a vessel in a foaming storm taken from the bridge by a member of the crew of a Scandinavian ship, we thought of ‘they that go down to the sea in ships’. Further along, the American Bureau of Shipping was distributing catalogues.
A ‘waiter’ dressed in a red cape and top hat was the star of the British contingent. Such liveried gentlemen are members of the administrative staff of Lloyds of London. When not visiting Posidonia, their duties include relaying information at the illustrious London establishment. They are called ‘waiters’ because Lloyds was, in the seventeenth century, a coffee house, owned by Edward Lloyd, and a meeting place for businessmen, some of whom were willing to subscribe policies insuring sea risks. Messages were carried between tables by the waiters and the nomenclature continues today. Within the same area at this year’s Posidonia, Crypto Peerless’s booth was filled with enormous food mixers big enough to mix cement. We climbed the ladder to the split-level Danish exhibit. Inside, guests and exhibitors were sipping champagne. At the white and red Russian stand, Hydrofoils, recently purchased by Greece, and augering fast runs to the Aegean islands, were represented by posters. The Russians were not offering any fast, hydrofoil – spins around the Piraeus harbour, however, so we moved on to Canada’s red, black, and white exhibit, which was visually one of the most attractive. We remained on the third floor to watch demonstrations of colour television for maritime use which were drawing a crowd.
On Inauguration Day, however, the major attractions were the shipowners themselves. Attention was focused on spotting the Big Names in the business who had arrived en masse. As the
champagne flowed, people wandered from stand to stand, glasses in their hands, and Posidonia became a giant international party. With the closing of the exhibition that evening, the shipping community made full steam ahead for the numerous cocktail parties—an important feature of Posidonia, and the area where, many believe, the serious business is transacted. Several of these parties—it is said that there were at least eighty-five — took place simultaneously, from Ekali to Skaramanga.
We paddled over to the Hilton Hotel where four Posidonia parties were underway. Throughout the hotel — which had become a benevolent Tower of Babel — guests were meeting and remeeting, only to collide again in transit. The many parties were creating certain navigational problems. Many seemed to be suffering from the same confusion as the absent – minded G.K. Chesterton who, on one occasion, cabled his wife — Ί am in Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?’ Guests at the hotel not attending Posidonia sat watching the comings and goings with dismay and incomprehension. One Hilton telephone operator, bombarded with incoming and outgoing calls to the various parts of the globe, and unaware that the Posidonia was in full sail, solemnly asked a banker where war had broken out.
Towards the end of the evening, the atmosphere mellowed into one of universal camaraderie, and certain guests, especially those who had imbibed heady brews at all four receptions, displayed a distinct list to starboard, to be righted by the morning when it was back-to-business at the exhibition. By June 13 the shipping community was cruising out of Athens.
Peripatetic Panigiri
WHILE the Olympic flame zooms over to Montreal via laser beam for the Games, the Lyceum of Greek Women will fly to that city via jet where their dancers and musicians will perform at Montreal’s Expo grounds during the Olympics.
The Lyceum of Greek Women, established in 1911, is dedicated to the preservation of traditional Greek folk culture: music, dance, crafts. Their shop on Dimokritou Street sells handicrafts made in their own workshops around the country. During the winter, they offer folk dance classes to young and old and their troupes give weekly performances at the Rex-Kotopouli Theatre in Athens. They employ a staff of experts to research and record the folk arts and traditions. The dancers and musicians are all amateurs, ‘butchers, bakers and candle-stick makers’, many of them from villages, where folk dances are part of every day life. The musicians play the traditional instruments.
One rarely sees folk dances spontaneously performed at social functions in the urban areas of Greece. (Although taught in the schools as part of the athletic program, the institutionalized atmosphere discourages students from considering them fun.) They are, however, still part of everyday life in the countryside where they are danced at weddings, baptisms, and panigiria — country fairs with music and dancing.
Greek emigrants — most of them are from rural areas — carried their folk dances with them; they have remained more or less preserved intact in communities abroad as part of their ethnic traditions. It is not unusual to see Greek folk dances performed at even the most formal balls in major North American cities. Montreal, with about one hundred thousand Greeks, is no exception, and the Lyceum during its performances will no doubt find many in the audience joining in their dances.
This is what happened when a group of their dancers visited Birmingham, Alabama last March. What began as a decorous display of Greek folk dancing turned into a panigiri.The occasion was the Alabama International Fair held every year in the American city; fifteen of the Lyceum’s dancers and four musicians were flown to the United States for the occasion. Members in the audience were eager to learn the hasapiko which has become universally popular since Anthony Quinn danced it in Zorba. They were invited onto the stage to join the dancers. This proved so successful that the hasapiko and the kalamatianos were taught at following performances. Soon the news of these developments reached the ears of the members of Birmingham’s Greek community who appeared at the performances requesting and joining in dances from their native regions in Greece. To the delight of the Lyceum, the dances came to life as what they are: a living tradition meant to be performed by all in the atmosphere of a panigiri.
Epistle to Athenian Ladies
NEWCOMERS to Greece are frequently impressed by the prevalence of domestic help and some Athenian women’s reliance on this sector of our work force. Few things are more exasperating to a woman accustomed to coping alone back home in England, France, Germany, the USA or
wherever, than to listen to an Athenian Lady (home-grown or imported from abroad) complaining that she is on the verge of physical collapse because her cleaning woman has quit, and she is now left with only one full-time, live-in maid. How, she asks, can she run a household consisting of her husband and son — as often as not two, able-bodied six-footers. Our friend Kyria Elsie, a Realistic Athenian Lady, arrived in our office not long ago with one of her epistles that administers a firm rap on the knuckles of this rather pampered species:
The Athenian lady is hard to please, and is accustomed to being indulged. With the social revolution overtaking the entire world, one wonders how long this attitude can last! Exigent ladies already have had to modify their demands where domestic service is concerned, since the modern maid is now in a strong enough position herself to be exacting and demanding. With the cost of living rising, many luxuries must be cut. Athenians will have to learn what others have long accepted: to ‘Mend and Make Do’, and to ‘Do It Themselves’. It is hard to imagine these exquisitely turned-out women perched on a ladder painting walls, but they may yet come to this. When maids become prohibitively expensive, Madame will have to learn to sweep and dust — duties which have been performed by her counterparts in New York and London for several decades.
While some Athenian ladies do putter about their terraces tending their plants, many still employ a regular gardener to ensure that the gardenias are insect-free and the rosebushes properly clipped. Green thumbs may soon replace varnished fingernails, and the joy of making things grow will become a new and rewarding experience. Always knowledgeable about cuisines and very often a gourmet cook, the day may come when Madame is forced to shop for, prepare, cook and serve the daily meals.
If and when this metamorphosis takes place and the Athenian lady becomes practical as well as ornamental, perhaps she will even come to enjoy being self-sufficient.
We certainly agree with Kyria Elsie but think it unfair to overlook Athenian Gentlemen. Expecting to be waited on hand and foot at home, often incapable of making themselves a cup of coffee, they employ a regiment of secretaries, assistants, and runners ready to attend to red tape and menial errands. When the revolution finally comes and the Athenian Lady and Gentleman must attend to their affairs and the every-day, petty realities, singlehandedly, we believe that our society will suddenly be transformed. It has often occurred to us as we consult our schedules and agendas, and drop everything to dash out to catch the shops before they close, that the day Prime Minister Karamanlis has to interrupt a meeting with his advisors to run out and pick up his shirts before the laundry closes, is the day real social equality and sensible shop hours will be instantaneously legislated.
