Here are the bullet points…

— I am going to Naxos this weekend for a mountain bike race, my third on that island.  27km around a mountain and through the town of Sangri, high above the port.  The weather predictions are good–high pressure, 14-18C, sunny, breezy.  Perfect for biking.  We have had some rain which will keep the dust down and reduce the amount of loose, gravely ruts.  I’ll go and have fun.

— I am grateful and happy to have joined up with the Photography Club of Paros.  They are a good bunch of photography-loving folks with excellent eyes who love to take pictures.  I will begin a long-term darkroom project with them tonight.  For most of them, it will be a first in this digital-automatic age.  Each week, a member gets a 35mm camera (Pentax K1000/f.2 50mm lens) and roll of 35mm film (Ilford Pan 400) and shoots the roll.  Then we (me and the group member) go into the darkroom, develop the film, print, etc…all in a week.  So far there are about 10 people signed up, but that number, I predict, will jump to 20 quickly.  The project will go until the end of April and then they will look at the assembled portfolio and hang a small show.  For more reasons than I can count, this is a superb thing/event/group/happening with which to be involved.

— My own work is moving along.  The year-long Canon G-11 project is ticking away.  I am ready to print a new portfolio of abstract pieces.  I have to re-shoot or otherwise re-evaluate a b/w still life idea.  I am unhappy with several of the pieces due to their DoF, i.e. focus.

— My gym membership is paying off.  I have been going 2-4 times a week for either Hip/Abs classes or just to burn off calories on the treadmill.  After only a few weeks I can once again fit into my 34″ green Levis.  I will go this morning and push some more limits.  That, plus the biking, is keeping me fit and sane.

— The world?  Well…we all read the news and while it isn’t all bad, it isn’t great.  Leaks in the dam…death and disease, as Polly Jo would have said.

My life is Greece is expanding and growing every day.  I am eternally thankful to the wise woman who advised me over 5 years ago that if were to stay here on Paros, I would need to build a life around me.  And so I have.  Biking and exercise, photography and fellowship, the arts and humanities, connections in the community.  Thank you Liz!

–JDCM

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–“Drumpf”–We all know it.  It is a fine example of onomatopoeia…the flatulent early-warning of someone who eats too much red meat…the sound of a fat drunk collapsing at the bottom of the stairs…the porcine grunt of a hog at the trough…a bamboozled public scoffing at the truth…the slow con hustle of the American Dream.

–I have been biking and swimming a lot.  Xionidaki and Kiri Marmalada start squeaking for their breakfast early, so I am up around 06:00.  Coffee, vitamins, email, the morning scan of the news…I am out on the bike by 07:00, swimming afterwards, coffee at a favourite cafe after that.  Obviously the routine is not that precise.  Suffice to say I am finished before it becomes too hot to exercise.  And it has been hot.  A few weeks ago Athens hit the mid-40sC and Paros was not far behind.  I had to use the AC in my flat, something I am not keen on doing since it  increases my carbon footprint.  It was either that or not sleep.  Thankfully is has been dry.  The prediction for next week is more heat.

            Xionidaki snoozing in the shade

–I have some work in a small group show this October in Hudson, New York.  I sent the 13 photos, matted and framed, a few weeks ago and they all arrived safely.  I will not be attending.  I also now have a good contact on the island of Antiparos for the photo show next summer. She really likes what I do and wants to hang it.  I was impressed by what I saw at the exhibit this year.  I still have a couple of irons in the fire for some events in between now and then.  I shall keep poking at them.

                 Kiri Marmalada

–Fish and vegetables.  That’s what I eat these days.  The local produce here on Paros is stunning.  Melons, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini…the cherry season seems to have lasted forever and I eagerly await the fresh figs in a couple of weeks.

–Oh yes…perhaps most important is that this month marks the first full summer I will have spent on Paros.  In the previous years I have always gone back to America to see my mother.  When August 12th comes around it will be a full year outside the walls of the Fortress.  I am happy for this.  It feels solid and right.

                Out biking…07:30 or so…

–I had a contrast MRI a few weeks ago in Athens to determine if there was anything I didn’t know about my Meniere’s Syndrome.  It was an easy procedure and I was in the clinic in the morning and back on Paros in time for supper.  Thank the gods for cheap flights!  The results are…nothing!  No tumors, no cysts, no aneurysms, no brain clouds, no small dwarves, no swelling of either labyrinth.  According to the ENT specialist, I have what they like to call a “Meniere’s-like Syndrome.”  Ha!  This will be the last investigation I will do.  I have the CD-ROM with the pictures but I do not have a DVD player or the required software to look at them.  I promise you all, I will sort this out.

After all, who doesn’t want to see the inside of their head?

–JDCM

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Paros has dipped back into the cold today and the rains have been glorious and dramatic.  It’ll be close to Zero C for the next 24 hours or so, and the weather man has posted a possibility of sleet.

I went biking the other day with a friend.  We both have new mountain bikes and I had only been able to ride mine two or three times due to the weather.  The day we rode the wind was low, the sun was out and the temperature was in the high teens centigrade.  Really nice.

I have converted my old mountain bike into my shopping/getting about bike, with panniers and 1.75 inch road tires.  Who needs a car?

Just a couple of guys with their new bikes!

— JDCM

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Today is the first day of Lent in the Greek Orthodox Church.  For the next 40 days there should be seriousness, sadness, contemplation.  Also no oil, no animal products, no leavened bread,no meat with a backbone.  No weddings, no christenings, no birthdays, no name-days…Thank the gods for octopus and chorta, fresh clams and beans with lemon juice!  Like most traditions co-opted by the Church, the idea began long before Christianity.  It falls around the same time of the year when the stores of food would begin to run low.  The fall and summer harvest’s bounty is beginning to be used up and it is too early for the new lambs…the seas perhaps too rough to fish.  So for the next 40 days we scrimp and don’t eat so much.  Or so we should.  I think, maybe, considering everything that is happening in the world,  we should do it just to experience a little starvation.   Many people don’t have this luxury.

Today is also my mother’s birthday.  She would have been 92 today and we would have gathered and helped her to celebrate with flowers and cards.  I can still celebrate the day.  She was very proud of me and my sisters, loved us dearly and without conditions, without judgment.  She worried, like all good mothers can and do.  She rushed to our aid when she could.  She let us go as we needed.  She gathered us in her arms when we returned home for a holiday, a weekend or a much needed break from all the difficulties that taxed her children’s existence.   For me, she was the parent I turned to for help.  In times of trouble she would look me in the eye and say, “Listen, this is all going to be over soon…” or  “You have always been able to just do it, just go out there and make your own way…!”  and eventually “The last thing I want you to do is waste your life taking care of me…I’m alright.  You get on with it.”  She was quite the woman.  Quite the mother.  My mama.  Our mama! I miss her every Goddamn day…that would have been something she would have said too.  She was brilliant, caring, gentle and could curse like a longshoreman.  Happy Birthday mama.  Many kisses.

Below are some images from the past few weeks–pictures drawn by the children of some friends for my birthday, a photo of me at the bike race receiving the 3rd Place Bronze…Mom would have been tickled pink to see these things and to be at the party.  I would like to think she was.

–JDCM

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Polly and Hilary in Provincetown, 1970.

I was thinking the other day that I have never been the “cool” guy.  Never hip, never dressed in the latest fashion…I was feeling down that day.  Then I realized I didn’t  care.  When I was younger, maybe, but then again I was envious of those around me who had better or more or newer or sexier (or so I believed)…not much weight there.  Pretty superficial stuff.  I hope they are happy in their respective lives.

So these days I do what I am wanting to do and this makes me happy.  I am not treading on the lives of others and I am moving forward and slightly uphill.  I am honouring my mother and my father in my life and activities.  I am finally getting around to reading a short biography of St. Augustine given to me by my sister a few years ago.  I am reading some Epicurus.  I am back to building fine scale WW 1 aircraft which give me great joy and satisfaction, not just in their execution but in the research involved.  I am in training for a very tough mountain bike race being held here March 6th.  I have a photo shoot coming up next week which I have been looking forward to for months.  It will be several hours of intense work, and then that stage will be done.  Then I develop the film.  Then I choose what to print, etc…intervals and stages, tension and release.  One day I am 50, and then the next day…

Biking here on Paros is a good metaphor for my life.  The stress of the uphill slogs are rewarded by not only the accomplishment but also the release of the inevitable downhill run, slaloming around rocks and through washed out sections of red dirt roads.  Then it is uphill again.

It all feels pretty cool to me.

–JDCM

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I have been back in Greece since January 22 and today is February 1, 2016!  Kalo Mina everyone!  I am back on Paros and the weather has been lovely–mid-teens Celsius with light breezy winds.  It was pretty cold when I arrived.  It will get cold again, I think.  I am a fortunate man.

     A view in Marathi, Paros, February 1, 2016

It is so quiet here, so perfect.  In a couple of weeks I will begin a new photo project and I am looking forward to that.  There is also a mountain bike race on March 6th for which I am training.  After two months out of the saddle I need some time to get fit, but hey, it’s like riding a bike, right?  Ha!

One would think that I have some great wisdom to impart, but really I don’t.  I guess I’ll have to paraphrase my friend Jac who reminds us all to follow your heart, do your exercises, and eat your peas…or whatever.  The food is relative.

–JDCM

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So much has happened in the past 4 months.  After my father died things changed.  A re-assessment of my life, goals, raison d’etre…Once again I am looking into what makes me ‘happy’.  Life, for me at least, is no longer about hitting myself with a hammer while thinking that the next blow wouldn’t hurt.  Time to stop doing what I do not like, when at all possible.

I am also moving house.  I have everything boxed up and ready to go save for my clothes, some small amount of kitchen stuff and what art is hanging on my walls.  I move at the end of October and assume all of my own bills and rent.   That will be a relief and a freedom I have missed.

boxed up and almost ready to go…

Here are some still lives from a friend’s back terrace…

Blue Vase, 2015

Ladder and Anchor, 2015

My header image is from a short bike trip I took to Antiparos recently.  It is a reminder of two of the things I love to do and have been neglecting the past few months.  It is also a reminder that William Henry Jackson may have had his mules but I have my mountain bike.

Yashica and Bike, Andiparos, September 2015

That’s it.

–JDCM

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I entered and raced the Athlos Nikolaos Stellas Memorial Mountain Bike Race last Sunday.  I (phyllo 3, Mastero, John) came in 4th in my age group and event (35+, bike only) at 59:50.  For some reason I cannot add links today.  Go to https://twitter.com/poparou and click around…However, the scores listed have me coming in 6th in the 16-35 year old group.  I am flattered.  I haven’t been 35 in a long time.

JDCM in the yellow and black jersey…59:50, 4th place.

I took the ferry to Naxos the other day for a day trip and rode over 90 kilometers on my mountain bike. It was stunning.  Spring in the Kyklades is not to be missed.

Agios Sozon Kalado, Naxos

Along the track past Maxairota, Naxos

I will be replacing the front forks of my mountain bike this week as well as the rear derailleur.  This will be an expensive, but very necessary job.  After almost two years of strenuous biking (with a bike that was well-used when I bought it) the current forks are worn out and have lost their lubrication.  Unfortunately they are a sealed unit which means I cannot re-grease, etc…so out they go!  After this big job I will have replaced almost everything except the frame.  Necessary maintenance.

At the top…Agios Tryphonas, Naxos, 578 m.

I have inventoried my works in progress for my new portfolio. I have a few more prints to make, however this will not stop me from beginning the selenium toning process.  I will be finished with this by the middle of May.  It is an interesting portfolio, very abstract, and I sure many people will not understand it, or perhaps not understand what I see.  So be it.  We all bring ourselves to these things.  It is not my job to guide people or tell them what they are viewing.

I will begin training in earnest for the 2015 Circle of Paros road race on June 6th this week.   I have ridden the route many times since last summer.  The rumor is that this year we ride the opposite direction.  Clockwise…

–JDCM

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I have been googling the term ‘artist’ and have come up with nothing relevant beyond a definition that everyone has heard before.  The jist is that someone has achieved this status after years of labor perfecting their skills and craft.  I know some artists here on Paros, people of curiosity and brightness.  I have been working with some other young photographers as of late, perfecting our technical skills.  If someone wants to call what we are doing ‘art’ then that is their business.  I would rather call it ‘work’.  I get up in the morning, go to work, have some leisure time away from work, etc…

Of course, there are some who hear the term ‘work’ and run for the hills.  I, on the other hand, find great satisfaction “in a job well done.”  I share this joy with family and friends.

Greek Easter was splendid and filled with the aroma of roasting lamb.  We paid homage to the spirit of the lamb and honored its sacrifice.  Our food had a face.  We connected the source with our bellies.

Here is an interesting link regarding Francis Bacon…

Slow Art Day at the Paros Archeological Museum was wonderful.  About 12 people showed up and we viewed three different works each for ten minutes a piece.  The kouros below is a small statue that I enjoyed a great deal.

This weekend I will jump back into the darkroom and, I hope, print at least 6 new pieces.  I also have 4-6 rolls of film to develop.  Next week I am off to the nearby island of Naxos for a couple of days.  There is a 75km mountain bike ride I wish to take.

roasting lamb, Easter 2015

5th cent. BCE kouros

-JDCM

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I have been printing a lot and I have 30 pieces so far for my exhibit next fall.  Another 20 and I can begin editing, then selenium toning, then off to the framers they go.  I will most likely use a local company here in Paroikia, but I must demand a better frame quality.  The most recent batch were inexpensive, lightweight and thinly lacquered stock and some people have brought this to my attention.  I will be a little more struct with this next exhibit.  What have I been printing?  Old stuff, new stuff, 35mm, medium format.  A little bit of everything.

I am going to invest in some archival storage for my collection of portraits that are still in their frames, in a box, in my bedroom, in my flat.  I should get them out of this situation and into something more manageable.  Plus, it will free a cubic meter of living space.

I have been biking a lot lately, which I need to do.  I have been working on my hills, getting advice, pumping the pedals.  There is an 18km mountain bike race in a couple of weeks that winds its way from Marpissa, through Piso Livadi, along Molos, through the valley to Glyfada and back to Marpissa.  I rode it yesterday with some very fit pro-am folks and we rode it in 1:16.  This included taking two wrong turns and not really going too fast.  I hope to ride it in an hour.  It is a solid goal.  Other than that, I have been out on the road bike and digging that, getting ready for the Circle of Paros road race on June 6th.

Orthodox Easter is next Sunday.  I will view the proceedings at Panagia Ekatontapiliani for Friday and Saturday nights, then at midnight on Saturday will break the fast with some friends at a local taverna!  Paidakia, kokoretsi, patates, salates…Yum!  Then the next day there will be a big feast at a friends home with whole lamb on the spit, chicken, sausages, pork chops…Yum again…

Two days later I hope to be swimming in the very chilly Aegean for my first swim of the season.  I feel a need to be anointed in wine dark sea…

–JDCM

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