Questioning everything is at the core of science; yet questioning science itself by challenging its foundations may lead one to be condemned and ostracized as an extremist. Still, it is the non-complacent, non-consensus-oriented thinkers who have provided the most profound paradigm shifts, redefining science itself. Of course, this takes courage or having nothing to lose. For two hundred years the… Read More

In the surreal genre of girl-you’ll-be-woman-soon-but-not-before-going-off-the-deep-end—think Alice in Wonderland, Patty Hearst, Dorothy Gale, and Atonement—Errol Morris, the documentary filmmaker of The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War, adds a new heroine: Joanna Harcourt-Smith-“Leary,” the tortured subject of My Psychedelic Love Story, his latest doc for Showtime. The film’s elevator pitch could easily be shelved as a cautionary tale: the privileged Avenue Foch socialite who fell for… Read More

Ο Τραμπ δεν δημιούργησε το χάσμα, ούτε τον φόβο. Τα έφερε όμως στο φως, και τώρα, όποιος και αν κερδίσει τις εκλογές (και όποιος και αν κέρδιζε το χρίσμα των Δημοκρατικών) δεν θα μπορέσει να το επουλώσει. Oποιος και αν είναι ο επόμενος πρόεδρος, ο Τραμπ άλλαξε την Αμερική για πάντα. Αλλά σε αυτό τον βοήθησε και ο Μπάιντεν με… Read More

Tasos zigzaged through washed down rocks and once again I shut my eyes. When I opened them, a show had begun. White stones sparkled after the rain, and greens jumped out of fallen walls. Gypsy women’s silk frocks swept the mud as they sat on white plastic chairs breastfeeding infants. We slalomed the street ponds raising walls of water. Kids… Read More

After the ’08 meltdown, the city was pulled together, just like 9/11, against clear and present dangers: Wall St, Sandy, Dubya… There was rage. But my drug-fueled brain-fog saw the fury subsiding in slow motion. ‘Occupy’ fizzled before shaping into the anti-Tea party, Obama’s transparency platform bounced on NSA’s one-way mirror, much like the sun on the new glass condos… Read More

BOOKPRESS. Στην κυρία Κλαρκ ο Χόκνεϊ αποδίδει στο πρόσωπό της, τη σκιά της Τζοκόντας. Για τον Χόκνεϊ η εναλλαγή φωτός και σκιάς στο πρόσωπο της Μόνα Λίζα είναι από τα στοιχεία που τον καθιστούν υποδειγματικό έργο τέχνης. Η σκιά είναι αυτή που φτιάχνει το αινιγματικό χαμόγελο της Τζοκόντας. «Ξεκίνησα τον χειμώνα να ζωγραφίζω αυτά τα δέντρα, τα οποία σιγά σιγά… Read More

KATHIMERINI. Writer Calvin Trillin said, “Among all the married couples I knew, they were the ones who were almost always together.” This was a Reagan-couple signature trait. Under the cautionary tale prism, and again ironically, Didion crossed swords with Nancy Reagan (someone portrayed as a distant and contentious mother by her daughter) when Didion described the Reagans’ abode in “The… Read More

To paraphrase Sigrid Rausing’s point in GRANTA, on the difference between the world as we see it and the world as it actually is, in hotel living perception becomes reality, the map is the territory. Or, at least, it was. When you live in hotels, you change. There are no rules. Or at least, fewer of them than we live by… Read More

The first ten years of my life I moved around Greece and believed in ghosts. The line between the present and the legend was crossed daily. My aunts and grandmothers baked wheat for the dead, and placed food at cemeteries to nourish the spirits. They bought shoes for mummified saints who would wear them out and every year, at their… Read More

ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ ΤΗΣ ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗΣ–ΝΕΑ ΥΟΡΚΗ–MORGAN LIBRARY. Ορισμένες εποχές είναι τόσο βαθιά ταραγμένες, που ο χρόνος είναι απόλυτα ταυτισμένος με τον χώρο: το Βερολίνο κατά τη δεκαετία του 1930, η Καλιφόρνια τη δεκαετία του ’60. Κάπως ανάλογα, από τα μέσα τις δεκαετίας του 1970 έως τις αρχές τις δεκαετίας του ’80 –με τη μάχη για πολιτικά δικαιώματα κερδισμένη και τη σεξουαλική απελευθέρωση… Read More