Improvisation/free jazz duo concert with pianist Alexey Lapin; includes my new work Castor and Pollux; will be transmitted on webradio: http://www.belive.in/index.php?ac_block=m_trans1; Gez 21, Pushkinskaya 10; St. Petersburg, Russia

APXE Ensemble; jazz and world music performance in relation to glass exhibit at Elagin Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia

29 May 2008
Mark Twain
United States of America

Dear Mark,

I’m in Russia.

Yes, I know that you realize this. The funny thing is that I don’t necessarily realize it, myself. It’s very interesting; you get into a, for lack of a better word, ‘routine’, and you forget where you are. Now, other than practicing and composing and doing my regular work-which I can do anywhere, thanks to technology-my days are not routine in the basic sense. I may go to buy groceries, meet with colleagues (who all speak English, thankfully), or go play a jazz gig or something, and I internally realize that I’m in a different country, but it doesn’t really consciously hit me anymore. Even the fact that I can’t understand any of the conversations happening around me has ceased to bother me. My ‘foreign awareness’ has disappeared…

…until Memorial Day. Now, Russia has a version of this, as well, called “Defenders of Fatherland Day”. And recently, Russia celebrated “Victory Day” which I wrote about in my last letter. So, when I say Memorial Day, I’m not referring to the actual Holiday, which I think is probably the most important American Holiday next to Thanksgiving. No, I’m referring to the cultural significance of Memorial Day, which is the traditional beginning of the Summer season. The time for warming weather, white shoes, out door grilling and ice cream, and of course, the most important American Summertime cultural activity…

…baseball.

OK, now granted, we do have the St. Petersburg “Zenit” here, who just won the 2008 Euro Cup. But, this is SOCCER…it’s ice hokey with sneakers, except slower. Yes, I realize that this is the most popular sport in the world and that due to my obviously barbaric American upbringing I can’t fathom the plethora of nuances displayed on the field, but come ON. It’s not BASEBALL. Soccer is neither fast enough to keep you riveted to the action, nor slow enough to allow you to multitask with unrelated conversations, hot dogs, and peanut vendors. This is where baseball has it all over soccer. It moves soooo slowly that you can literally engage in multiple unrelated tasks and at the same time be perfectly aware of what is happening on the field. It’s the ultimate Zen sport: you can be present and not-present at the same time!

Of course, what spawned this was the fact that I missed my sister’s Memorial Day barbecue. This also coincides with her birthday, and having come from a family of chefs and restaurant people, this is usually quite the event. My one major connection with American culture has been my morning Internet browsing of baseball Box Scores-Margaret, bless her, makes fun of me constantly for this; she did not grow up in a part of the US where baseball was a way of life, so she will never understand that we in the Northeast live and die by the daily happenings of our teams. This is very true. A casual baseball fan in the Mid-West is trying to figure out where second base is; a casual baseball fan in Boston would be calculating the angle of a pitcher’s sinker ball…and suggesting means of possible improvement.

For my European, Asian, and non-baseball-loving-American readers, ’Box Scores’ are summaries of the game via daily statistics-who did what, when, and how much. Baseball is a game based on statistics-it’s a mathematicians paradise. These statistics not only deal with past performance, but also are used for predicting future results. In fact, there is a popular theory, which some teams are based on, that break everything down to statistics and not to individual players abilities on given days. Thus, regardless of a player’s performance, he may be put in or taken out depending on how certain numbers come out. It’s frighteningly sterile in a way and has varied results.

But, since baseball is a game of statistics, the emphasis will always be on the individual rather than the team. Because of this, it’s the ultimate Humanistic team sport. Things rarely happen in tandem; a play almost always involves one player, or one on one. Only in certain defensive situations do you have players working together. Individual performance is so important because this also determines the size of one’s contract. In football (US football), a team can say that they will only pay so much salary for one position-a variety of skilled players can fit into the system. Not so in baseball. You play well, you make big money. It’s the great American sport-individual accomplishment brings rewards.

Of course, this brings up the issue of cheating…this is the one major stain of the last 10 years. I don’t even want to get into the grand disappointment that I have for players whom I enjoyed over the years. Stardom and money-lust corrupts…

…so let’s not get into that.

The other event that spawned this letter was an article that I read on ESPN about top players who were not signed this year and were ‘pushed’ into retirement. The idea of retirement is an interesting one. I’m at that age now where almost all professional athletes are far younger than me, but a few of my age bracket keep holding on. People like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds were already making a name for themselves when I was still in school-they are only a couple of years older than me, but in a way it seems like they are far older since I’ve heard their names for well over 20 years. Athletes start young; athletes end young, too. It interesting that when you are in school and watching games with your friends, you are seeing your sports heroes and routing for them, but you also become aware of the ‘rookies’, the new signed ‘kids’ or draft picks, who are your age. You wonder how they will do. Over the years, many disappear, but one or two may become superstars. The list over ‘older’ players in the article contained names that I had known for 20 years-players that were my age, like Mike Piazza and Sammy Sosa-who have left the game or being forced out to pasture. I was with them the whole time during their careers. They’re kids, how can they retire? These articles also talk about how players are getting old and losing their skills, by 35! I was just getting warmed up at 35.

It’s funny: I’m in a career that I believe we get better as we age. You learn to be more efficient as a performer and become more wise and skilful as a composer. I plan on gigging at 105. Of course, the fact that I’m in a career that I really can never retire for financial reasons does feed into this, but let’s not get into that…But the fact that these peoples’ careers are over at 40, many even younger, is staggering. What do they do? The education system hasn’t prepared them for anything else other than hitting a fastball-what happens when those skills diminish…?

Why this long letter by a musician about baseball? I don’t know. It’s been a long year…I miss my country. Baseball is the one truly American institution that I can hold on to while I’m here. Heck, I wear my Boston ‘Red Sox’ cap everywhere here-mostly to counter all of the ‘Yankees’ caps I see. I’m serious-talk about an international brand name-and they stink this year! Ha…’Yankees’…give me a break…

So, thus ends these Americanistic thoughts. In a couple of months, I’ll be back in the States, enjoying the final days of Summer and all that it offers. For now, I sit in my little apartment in St. Petersburg, look at my little computer window on the world, and cross my fingers that Manny Ramirez will hit his 500th home run!

All best,

Demetrius

Concert and lecture on working with film and video; American Corners program (US State Department), St. Petersburg, Russia

Guest performer with the jazz group Voz dor Ar; Street Life Cafe, St. Petersburg, Russia

May 13-19, 2008 (Greece 2)
Mark Twain
United States of America

Dear Mark,

I must apologize for the long span in between letters; the weeks before my trip to Athens, although very, very busy, left me with little of great interest to fill an entire letter. The two only topics worth mentioning are the recording of my ballet here in St. Petersburg, which, although finished, was about as enjoyable an experience as being dragged over carpet tacks, and attending the Victory Day parade. The latter was the first such event since the beginning of the 1990’s and it celebrates the end of the war with Germany in 1945. It was a military parade, and all I could think of was how American attendees would react if a similar parade happened in say, downtown NYC or San Francisco; tanks and surface-to-air rockets being paraded in the streets of St. Petersburg to the cheering of millions-I would think quite a different reaction in the West…

But, this letter is about my second trip to Greece. I returned this time as a performer and composer in the Electro Media Arts Festival which was directed by Manolis Manousakis. Manolis is one of the Greek composers who I have been working with and whose works I performed and recorded in October-in fact, he was also the recording engineer. This Festival was a massive, five day project with everything ranging from solo acoustic to electro-acoustic to electronics and experimental film and multimedia, as well as art and video installations as well. The festival was held in this great space: a factory by day turned into an art/performance space/club at night. Very cool setting.

Now, along with the Festival, I was also there to help evolve the plans for the APXE project. I, along with Dmitri Mikhalevski, his wife Tania, and painter Aleksander Kondroff scheduled numerous meetings and events to prepare for our own festival in the Fall, as well as securing spaces for art and photography exhibitions. Quite a large scale task that proved to be very successful, but I ’ll get to everything in time.

I have to first mention that my flight to Zurich (on my way to Athens) was not uneventful; the plane (Swiss Air) was transporting St. Petersburg “Zenit” fans on the way to Euro Cup championship game in Manchester, England. Now, “Zenit” fans are, well, crazy. Hey, they have a great team, but man…on the flight, there was lots of yelling and drinking…LOTS of drinking…ILLEGAL drinking…many , I believe, were actually arrested at the Zurich airport. Not a good representation of your country, boys and girls…

So…I fly into Athens. Now, the Metro and the vast majority of the public transportation system stops at midnight, which means that the only way to the city is via taxi…and they know it. The fares double after midnight, and my relatively short ride from the airport was 50 Euros (like $77). But, what can you do…?

So…I stayed with playwrite/psychoanalysist George Boltanakis. Actually, I ended up sleeping on the ‘couch’ for his patients. He asked about my dreams and whether or not sleeping there had enhanced them; nothing for me, but I think that the negative psycho-energy went from his patients, through the couch, and into his cat. The cat was crazy…no, really crazy. I have never seen a cat viciously attack itself before. It was doing this constantly-hissing clawing, and biting at its own tail-talk about duality, it was like both sides of the cat hated each other. Crazy…
The next day brought meetings with my friends Nickos Harizanos and Marinos Koutsomichalis; both were composers from the Xenakis Center (along with Manolis) who I have been working with. I was to premier a new multimedia work by Nickos at the Festival, and Marinos was helping with the preparation of my entire program. We spent time organizing the films and presentation of the films and electronics, and even more time eating and drinking, which was fine by me. The best part about being out of Russia is that I don’t have to eat Russian food…but more on that topic later…

That evening we (the Russians and I) spent watching the “Zenit” game at the home of well known Greek playwrite Paris Tacopolous. Paris is a large supporter of APXE and was a gracious host to all of us. Now, I have to admit that this was the first time that I watched an entire soccer…oh, excuse me…FOOTBALL game. It was good-I liked it. This was not a sport that I knew growing up. I mean I played baseball and basketball (not to forget my main sport, track and field, but that’s not a ‘team’ sport) but soccer was not really on the radar as it is now in the US. Overprotected (and scheduled!) American kids are now ushered to soccer fields after oboe lessons by trendy suburbanites…I grew up in a city…soccer field?…we played on concrete basketball courts. I don’t know, I could rave unendingly about how kids in the US are now reared, metro-sexualized, and scheduled to an inch of their lives, but I’m an outsider…I don’t have any kids…Hell, I can’t even keep plants alive…

Anyways, the next day was taken by the Festival. Now, everything was running on “Greek Time”, which means at least a couple of hours behind. My 8PM performance happened early, about 9:15; this was only because of two or three cancellations before me. Otherwise, I would have played about 10:30. The performance was greatly successful-I presented my “Mythology and Modern Perception” multimedia program-it went over extremely well. I know this because Manolis’ mother enjoyed it the most. Now, when the Festival Director’s mother is happy, you know that you have been successful.

The Festival to me was very successful. Manolis did a great job by appealing to both the general, party going public and the avant-garde hep cats; he mixed electro-acoustic music with DJ performances…very clever.

We also took the opportunity this day to present Nickos and Marinos the idea behind APXE to see if they were interested in participating. Both the philosophical and educational aspects appealed to them, which was great. It would be good to have them participate in the Greek events later this year.

My other Festival appearance was Saturday evening…well, really Sunday morning. Again, we have the workings of “Greek Time”: I was told to be ready to play at 10PM…I played my first note on stage after 3AM…yup, they are on a whole different schedule then the rest of the civilized world; the funny thing is, they all consider this normal. The other non-Greek participants were being driven crazy (in particular one dressed as a giant, silver sperm…I think he was from Ircom, but I could be mistaken…), but the Greeks, as always, took it all in stride and enjoyed themselves.

The rest of my stay was taken up with APXE doings. We were there to raise interest, shoot videos (which I’ll get to), and to fix a sculpture by our colleague Vladimir Tsivin. Now, Tsivin was one of 20 sculptors world-wide invited to participate in the Olympic Sculpture Park. The problem: they put the sculpture together wrong…now, the artist had been trying for over 2 years to have this fixed. He sent letters and plans and called and called and no one paid any attention. Now, when our international delegation showed up at the park to fix this, all Pandemonium broke loose. They didn’t understand that we just wanted to move a couple of pieces of the ceramic sculpture to the sculptor’s wishes. This took hours of dealing with bureaucracy…as typical, no one wanted to take responsibility…the eventual moving of the sculpture took all of 6 minutes. But, all was good in the end.

We also had newspaper interviews and continued filming around archeological sites. Most of the filming was of me playing flute (for a new film) among the ruins…well, when we weren’t being threatened by guards…we also took many-an-opportunity to take pictures with the APXE flag at many of these locations.

Now, I have been to Athens on many occasions, but I went to some new places. Probably the most important was Elevsina, the home of the Eleusinian Mysteries. This is probably the most important site in all of Greece, due to the fact that this was not only the center of religion, but also inspired the beginning of both philosophy and the arts. Unfortunately, it’s off the tourist map-there were 3 other people in the whole site. It was a very powerful place-full of energy. Like other spiritual experiences, I can’t even begin to put into words what I felt, so I won’t. You have to experience it for yourself, if you’re open enough to it. Let’s just say the both the Ancient and Modern world’s concept (conscious and un-) of death and change are centered here…’nuff said.

I also saw for the first time the jail of Socrates. For me with my Platonic inclinations, this was also a powerful experience. I sat in silence for a long, long time here…

The final destination was the Theater of Dionysus. This was the manifestation of the Eleusinian Mysteries into dramatic form. I won’t get into this fully here in this letter, but you can be sure that I will soon…

On my last evening, we hosted a party for the ‘artistic crowd’ at our hosts home. I was sent on a “Mission from God” to find an open market-all was closed on Sunday, so I failed. But… my Russian friend’s did manage the party beautifully…they served Russian food! I can’t escape it…but it was good…

Traveling back was uneventful. This time, we phoned a taxi and I got a good, honest driver. It’s interesting, his name was Demetrius (like me), was 39 (also like me), and was from Larissa (the city of my mother’s family). It actually made me think about what my life would’ve been had my family not emigrated to the US. What would have happened? Had I even been born, what was my destiny? Who knows? But it does make one think…

Anyways, now I’m back in cold St. Petersburg-it is 20 degrees Celsius colder here-and preparing for the next slew of events. I miss Greece; I want to go back and have time to enjoy it…this hasn’t happened yet in my adult life, since I’m always working constantly when I’m there. I’ll be back for the APXE events/festival in the Fall and hope to have some time for enjoyment and relaxation. The festival will be in Thessaloniki, which I’ve never been to; I have also never been to my family’s home towns. This needs to happen sooner rather then later.

I need to be more in touch with my roots. I know my culture, but I need to understand it more intimately.

Your traveler,

Demetrius

ElectroMediaWorks Festival; Multimedia/laptop/film/electronics/electro-acoustic jam session; Athens, Greece

ElectroMediaWorks Festival; Multimedia solo concert, includes Natasha Bogojevich Balajica, Nickos Harizanos Aeolian Windbag, William Susman Native New Yorker, and my In Celebration of Sunrise; Athens, Greece

Improvisation/free jazz duo concert with pianist Alexey Lapin; includes my new work Castor and Pollux; Rimsky-Korsakov School, St. Petersburg, Russia

Guest performance with the Society of Overtone People; The Stray Dog Cafe, St. Petersburg, Russia