Reflections on love and other arts

Richmond, sunset, winter 2017, Thames, river

Lost in interpretation

February 14, 2017 by Lisa Samloglou

initial post 14 February 2017 – revised March 2018 I have been trailing the riverside of Kingston-upon-Thames and Richmond along the river Thames in Surrey from mid September 2015 to the early spring of 2017 Enveloped in silence, shadows and poetic imagery, patiently reconnecting the dots that would lead me further ahead … Winter has swept off relentlessly the lush green, dark branches where before was foliage. Up on the trees a second trail unfolds, soggy crossroads leading to deadlocks. Some branches ravel into knots, […]

Categories: My Travel Journals, Poetic prose, Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Cultural travel, Nature, Poetic prose, Richmond-upon-Thames, United Kingdom

τα Αρχαία Ελληνικά στέρεα πατήματα στα μονοπάτια που θα διαβαίνουμε

June 5, 2016 by Lisa Samloglou

Χθες βράδυ, 4 Ιουνίου 2016, στο κατάμεστο Royal Festival Hall, Southbank, στο Λονδίνο, ο Don DeLillo, ένας γίγαντας της λογοτεχνίας, “a giant of literature” όπως τον σύστησε δικαίως ο παρουσιαστής, μάς αφηγήθηκε πολλές ιστορίες με την ήσυχη βαθιά φωνή του. Μάς είπε πως την εποχή που έμενε στην Ελλάδα και έγραφε το ‘The Name’ (1982) / Τα Ονόματα (Εστία,1996) αντικρύζοντας στην Κρήτη την αρχαία ελληνική γραφή είδε «τα σχήματα των γραμμάτων να ταιριάζουν με τη λέξη». Μίλησε για μια σχεδόν μυστικιστική […]

Categories: Απόψεις, Ταξιδιωτικά μου Ημερολόγια, Publications, Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Cultural heritage, Culture, DonDeLillo, Europe, Greece, Αρχαία Ελληνικά, Ελλάδα, Ελληνική γλώσσα, Λογοτεχνία, Literature, Urban travel tales

Creative Work: ‘Mad Love Goes to the Beach’ by Lisa Samloglou

February 7, 2016 by Lisa Samloglou

Originally posted on Words, Pauses, Noises:
In her short piece, ‘Mad Love Goes to the Beach,’ Lisa Samloglou engages all five of her reader’s senses as she chronicles her internal struggle between her childhood love of the countryside with her rebellious teenaged preference for the city. She allows us to see the lush green of the landscape outside of Athens, smell the sea salt as she walks along the beach and picks up shells, hear the cicadas hum late at night, feel the…

Categories: Publications, Reflections on love and other arts, Stories not so Short • Tags: Greece, Life, Memoir, Publications

‘Every sound traveler conceives all the time the country he/she is traveling ‘ N. Kazantzakis

November 20, 2013 by Lisa Samloglou

for Greek http://goo.gl/NHUQbJ On the wall there is a map marked with the places I wanted to visit. Adolescence. Back then, we did not travel in the internet. We had relatives arriving from landscapes as diverse as New York and Sudan where they had emigrated and settled. I dreamed of London and Bavaria before I put my foot on it. I haven’t been to Tokyo yet. The delicate gifts I have received from my father’s Japanese colleagues when I was […]

Categories: My Travel Journals, Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Cultural travel, Culture, Greece, Greek Literature, Life, Literature, Long Reads, Nikos Kazantzakis, Photography, Travel, Urban travel tales, Writing

Η Επιστροφή με ένα Editorial και ‘έρωτα για τα πράγματα’

September 9, 2013 by Lisa Samloglou

For English http://to.ly/oQHw Κάποια στιγμή με έπιασα να λέω “το blog είναι η ζωή μου” και τρόμαξα. Όπου κι αν πήγαινα, ό,τι κι αν έβλεπα σκεπτόμουν μεγαλόφωνα “αυτό θα το ανεβάσω στο blog μου”. Δεν αποχωριζόμουν τη φωτογραφική μηχανή. Κρατούσα νοερά σημειώσεις για κείμενα. Επισκεπτόμουν blogs, μελετούσα πως να βελτιώσω το blog μου και περνούσα όλο και περισσότερες ώρες της μέρας αλλά και της νύχτας στα social media για να κατακτήσω τη ‘νέα γλώσσα’, να βελτιώσω την απόδοση μου και το […]

Categories: Ταξιδιωτικά μου Ημερολόγια, Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Greek islands, Ελλάδα, Ταξίδι, Φωτογραφία, Life, Long Reads, Love, Urban metaphors, Urban travel tales

urban travel tales, love/eros for things

The Return with an Editorial and ‘love/eros for things’

September 9, 2013 by Lisa Samloglou

For Greek http://to.ly/oQHD At some point I caught myself saying ‘my blog is my life’ and I got scared. Wherever I went, whatever I saw I was thinking aloud ‘this can be a post in my blog’. I would not let go of my camera. I kept mental notes for the texts. I kept visiting blogs, studying how to improve my blog and spent more and more hours of the day and night on social media to conquer ‘the new […]

Categories: My Travel Journals, Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Culture, Long Reads, Love, Photography, Urban metaphors, Urban travel tales, Writing

urbantraveltales, storytelling is a guaranty of sanity

Let’s play storytelling

April 6, 2013 by Lisa Samloglou

I am walking mesmerized by the odor of thousand lemon trees like a sleepwalker in slow motion, eyes wandering but not seeing, enveloped in the blurring light of festive green. I get a glimpse of the Santa hat, an unusual sight in April. A teddy bear is hanging with the laundry left out to dry in the garden; a common practice in our Mediterranean countries. I stop still, nailed on the ground. I start taking photos as if shooting could give me the answers. […]

Categories: Athens for your eyes only, Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Art, Culture, Gardens urban, Greece, Life, Poetic prose, Travel, Urban travel tales, Writing

a bench with a view

March 26, 2013 by Lisa Samloglou

This blog post is an experiment in poetic prose matched with photos from the island of Kea or Tzia that have inspired it. It is reviewed by the highly acclaimed Exile Room, an art space and very active non-profit organisation operating at the centre of Athens with specific “obsession” the art & practice of documentaries. The last years they have been showing regularly distinctive documentaries from the international scene; they also organise seminars and host the most hospitable events. Thank you Exile Room, […]

Categories: Greek islands, My Travel Journals, Poetic prose, Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Art, Cultural travel, Culture, Gardens, Greece, Greek islands, Kea island, Life, Love, Nature, Photography, Poetic prose, Public spaces, Travel, Writing

urban travel tales, spring at Greek island of Kea

a tree is blooming at the Greek island of Kea /ένα δέντρο ανθίζει στη νήσο Κέα

March 2, 2013 by Lisa Samloglou

A tree is blooming at the Greek island of Kea I discovered this tree last summer, last August, in my garden, drowned in a jungle of oleander shrubs and bushes. I started clearing the ground off dried leaves, mowing twigs that sprang up stiff and leafless. And then I was surprised to reveal two trees, very close to one another that had become one, their trunks abandoned to the wildness of vegetation. They had formed a symbiotic pair, inseparable, that for years had […]

Categories: Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Culture, Gardens urban, Greece, Greek islands, Κυκλάδες, Κέα/Τζιά, Kea island, Kea/Tzia, Life, Love, Nature, Travel, Urban travel tales, Writing

urbantraveltales, spring at Greek island, Kea

Walking by the sea after a long winter…

February 25, 2013 by Lisa Samloglou

Usually the words come first. Today, looking at the photos from my first walk by the sea, I have no words. Words do not serve me. What I need are brushes and a huge palette of paints to catch the arrival of spring after a long cold angry winter that took us by surprise. The intensity of the weather left some of us deeply wounded. We turn to nature to find a shelter for our uncertainties. To see a sign of the regeneration we are […]

Categories: Reflections on love and other arts • Tags: Cultural travel, Greek islands, Kea island, Kea/Tzia, Nature, Photography, Public spaces, Travel, Urban travel tales, Writing