july 27, 2009.

[ This is the second part of the transcript of a 60 minute spoken letter/diary, that a Greek girl in her early twenties (I will call her Eloise) recorded on her walkman. (The 1st part is here). She did that at home in Athens, in september 1994, addressing her Dutch boyfriend (I will call him Abelard). Eloise had just returned to Athens, where she passed the final exams for her studies, and begins a working life. She is involved in media kind of work (television, journalism). She fell in love with Abelard in Holland, where together they spent a 1994's 'Summer of Love' in Amsterdam. Abelard is a student of anthropology. He is also an amateur of gamelan, and he's playing in a band.

Probably needless to say, but I have not the slightest idea who are Eloise and Abelard (pushing 40 by now), what became of them ( * ), where they might be now and what they are doing. I do not know their real names, as these are never mentioned on the tape. In the transcript I have removed all names of friends, family and colleagues, that are mentioned by Eloise. I also removed names of companies and magazines, and have tried to avoid referring in too easily recognizable a manner to the 'media' that in 1994 Eloise was working for.

A 60 minute tape transcript is pretty long. There are about 8000 words to it, that I will post in three consecutive, daily, parts: on july 26th, july 27th (that is today) and july 28th. I suggest you save them, for example to your iPhone's "Read it later", and take this text along for your holidays.

Read it on the beach, preferably a Greek one :-) ... ]

---

"You, a bed, the sea ..."
[ 2. Athens, sept. 29th 1994 ]

Wednesday (cont.)

"I went to see the Chinese film with [C], at this open movie theatre. There is a bar. And there were some friends of mine and of [C] that were waiting there. We had a couple of wines. It was quite boring, I didn't like it. Then we came to my place, and we got really, really stoned, and we listened to this extremely good jazz that I re-wrote to another tape, and I'm really happy about it because I really like it.

And I was talking about you a lot! Really a lot I mean ... Or not about you personally. I was talking about you, by talking about the concept of being in love so much, so much that you don't care about anything else. I mean ... I don't know ... I think that being in love is a situation that doesn't depend only from the person that you are in love with, it depends as well from you, because ... I really ... I don't know, I'm not sure, but I believe that everything really starts from you.

If I was not ready to be in love with you, I wouldn't be, even if you were the greatest guy on earth. I mean, if I was blind at that moment, and if I was selfish and ... Because I was not selfish with you. I was really open and I was exposing myself to you, and I didn't care about shame, or about my attitude, or about whatever. I was feeling so free with you ... And you can not feel free with everybody. There are some people that you have to be free with, and with others that you really can't, even if you try.

All these problems inside my head ...
I'm trying to, to capture what we have, and to, you know, to transform it into a logical process, like, how is it when you're in love? So it's going to be like a lesson for me. But on the other hand I can't, because you cannot describe how is it to be in love ...

I suppose it is being in love when you are sitting outside of his door, and you're listening to chat, and you know that he is inside, and you know that you are missing him so much, and you know the only thing you want to do is be with him and stuff; but on the other hand you don't want to be there because you are going to lose all your dignity, and stuff.
I didn't have any dignity you know ...
You know what I mean, dignity?
Like I was trying to protect myself? I was not. People do try to protect themselves from other people. They think that they're gonna be hurt, or whatever.
At least, that's what I do.
I don't know if you do it.

[D] hasn't called me. So I haven't seen him yet, and probably tomorrow he is leaving. I don't know. I don't care right now, I just care about you and our relationship and what I feel about you. It is really strange that now I am talking to a tape recorder, in English, although five minutes before now I was talking in Greek with some friends of mine.
I want you to come here, to Greece. I want to find out if, here in my environment, is it going to be the same true love. Or will it be different?
It's a test.
I want to test our relation, on many levels.
Because, first of all, it is going to pass all these levels, and then second, if it will pass all these levels... : I am going to marry you! And I'm going to live with you for the rest of my life ... !
But I also want to feel secure, so I have to test it.
So you just have to come here for 3 or 4 months and see how do I react and how you react in a strange country, full of Greeks.
Strange Greeks.

It 's almost 5 o'clock now, so I probably have to go to bed.
But I don't want to stop the music, so I'm gonna put my walkman on.
I'm going to sleep with my walkman on.
Maybe I'm going to masturbate a little bit. Yeah, maybe I will do that, thinking of you ... Or maybe not thinking of you. Ha, ha! Good night, my love. I'm always going to be next to you."

...

Thursday

"I'm thinking of calling you. It's about 10.30, 11 o'clock in the night. But at the other hand, I said, eh, first I should talk to him on the mike. I'm preparing myself to go to a party in a club that is making kind of parties, you know. Special DJ's are coming, and I hope there is going to be a lot of club, house and trance and stuff, so I'm going to remember a little bit of Holland again ...

Today [C] came and she cut my hair. She cut my hair, yeah. It's quite good, she didn't cut them a lot, she just, like, about 5 eh 5 eh 10 centimeters? I don't know. Anyway. They look quite good, and I had to cut them. She came here with her boyfriend. And we stayed here, we played cards, we cooked a spaghetti, and stuff like that.

What else?

[D] called me. He left for Holland again. I really wanted to see him. Not only because I have his suitcase, but I mean ... I don't know, I think he wants to come back. But I'm not sure. I wish we would talk with him.

I'm going to take a shower now. I remember so much the times we had showers together, and me just sitting there, and looking at you having your shower. Most of the time you were the one that was washing and I was the one who was shitting. Or at least looking at you washing yourself.
It was nice. I don't think there are many things important in life, at least not as important as love, and the kind of love that 2 good people give to each other. Because we are, I think, we're a couple of 2 good people. That's true. And we have love inside of us. And we don't have so many, I mean, we don't have ... grief, or whatever, that could turn out bad as well.

Oh, my English are so bad! Fuck it!

I'm thinking of starting some Dutch lessons, with tape-recorders and tapes and, you know, by myself. To at least learn, you know, the typical stuff, like: 'Hello, would you like to spend the night with me?'
Well, I have to be prepared for my living in Holland!
We also have to be prepared for your living in Greece and I hope that you do prepare yourself about it!

It 's so very hot.
It's the end of september, but it's still very hot. I'm really disgusted about the weather. But I also like it, because I haven't had a proper summer, so probably I'm going to have more balance now. I had a winter, I had a summer, so it's okay. I was really afraid that I might come here and that the rain would start again. But that never happens, I mean, wherever I go, I bring the sunshine with me ...

(Eeehhh ... that's stupid, that's stupid, yeah ... )

I wish that you were next to me, and hug me, and fuck me...
I was listening to gamelan today. [C] doesn't really like it. And [E] was telling me, I feel like you can not listen to this music for a long time' ... Then I was thinking of the time we had sex with gamelan, and how good and how great it was. I hope you're not sad because you stopped gamelan...

I don't know how we can make it, I don't know if we can make it as a couple ... But at least we're gonna try, and that's important, and ...
I don't know. If you could come here in Athens it would be nice, because then I would see how would I react, towards, to you, in my hometown, with my friends, with my ... ex-lovers ... (Come on, just joking!) ... And ... anyway ... I want you to come, soon ... Soon, soon, sooner than soon.

Kisses, kisses. Bye."

...

Thursday (cont.)

...

"I'm in my kitchen, in the middle of the dark of my kitchen. The clock is going ... bad ... eh ... The clock in my kitchen, I'm talking about the clock of the oven.
It was 2 2 2 2, you know, and it still is.
It's more than a minute, I think.
I think it's stuck there.
It's amazing.
I was shocked, you know.
I'm still looking at it! I mean, it hasn't changed yet ...
2 2 2 2 ...
It probably is a sign ...
Ah!
It just went 2 2 2 3 now ...
Still, it is a sign, man, I mean ... It must be a sign, it's, it's ... the 2.
The 2 is, is a pair as well, you know.
So probably it's because we want to be together, and we want to be a couple. A pair. That's why there is always 2 2 around us ...

Fuck! ...
Wow! Wow, wow, wow! ...
Do you see it still?
Tell me about it.
I'm freaking.
And I haven't even been doped.
Woew!

I have an urge to tell you that I love you.
So I do: I love you.
I'm making stories with us, and I'm creating situations and small fairy tales that we can live and I feel very good about it. I think ... it 's strange ... I think I love you. I really do love you, and I'm in love with you as well. And strange for me, because I ... I don't know, I mean, I never felt that I could ... love like that, a person. I want to live with you, you know. It's strange. I want to live with you, yeah. And be with you from morning until the night. Do my jobs and stuff, and you could do your jobs, but ... we could be a couple man! Man, I mean ... you're very comfortable and you're very sweet and you're very generous and you ... you're such a good person, really, and you love me the way I want you to love me, not the way, you know ... Yeah, you're good, you're good to me. And I hope I'm good to you. I hope I was good to you and I hope I'm still.

I don't know, I really don't know how it's going to be when you come to Greece. Probably it's going to be great, because you're just coming for vacations and I will arrange to have some vacations and it's going to be as in Holland, you know, but just in such a sunny place. But on the other hand, how would it be if we lived together here? And you would go to university, study and stuff, and I was working ... I don't know. I would really like to try it. That's why I am begging you so much to come here, to stay with Erasmus. I hope you will do it. Yeah man, it's gonna be good! And we can check it out, you know. Because I really don't want to lose you like that. I don't want to think that I haven't done enough for us to stay together. On the other hand, you know, I feel so much love inside of me, and I am so good with myself because of you, mostly because of you ... because you, you gave me good things and you, and you highed my self respect, and you do this kind of stuff. Well, other people do it as well, but I don't care about other people, I care about you. So, and I don't know, so I have this love feeling all the time, so I'm like I can love anybody. But no one treats me that good as you, so ... how can I love anybody else?

Pfff ... Now I wanna have sex with you! ... wowww ....

...

I came back at 3.30, not because I wanted to, but because the others were dragging me to go. They had to work tomorrow. But now I'm so tired ... I mean, I haven't danced so much since Holland. And probably even in Holland I didn't dance that much...
The DJ was great!
The two DJ's.
One got just out from prison.
He was 5 years in prison, for drugs.
Before that he was working at another club, the best club in Athens. The name of the old club was Faz ( ** ). And eh, there were many people that were wearing strange clothes, eh, pants and eh, or spoons, or whatever. You know, they were wearing them. Or just simple paper, or just ... nylon bags ... It was fun. I was going a lot there, in the beginning. But not afterwards ...
Wow ... and eh ... it was good today, it was very good.
The club is called West Club, and it was an ex-factory. Actually the first name of it was 'factory', but in Greek: εργοστάσιο. It's εργοστάσιο, which means 'factory'. And then it changed a lot of names and it changed a lot of styles of music and stuff and every thursday now it's going to be trance and ambient and ... that's cool ... yeah.
Today was a special night, because the team, which is called Magna, was making it.
It was different.

I would like to start a club. To own a club. And to have people working there. And I would be working there as well. With drugs, and many people laughing to each other, and nice spaces.

Today I was wearing the orange jeans and I had a silver blouse. It's not silver, the material, it is, eh ... No, you haven't seen it, no. I did not bring it to Holland. It is like stars, really impressive, and everybody was, like, 'O, nice!' ... Almost everybody, anyway.

And eh ... I feel so tired now. I'm lying on my bed, alone, and I'm thinking of you. I'm thinking the times that in Amsterdam we returned back from clubs, and we went to the bakery, and we bought candies and apple pies and brownies, and we were going home, smoking a joint, and eating them. Not having sex, because we were really tired. But still, we knew that tomorrow morning we would have sex. I also remember times that you slept immediately and I couldn't sleep at all, because I was really excited, and I just listened to your small little nice cute snoring ...

My hair are so wet... I think if I sleep like that, tomorrow I will have a pneumonia ...

O, you know I found someone for [X] to be a guest in the show. Because that's what I do: I find strange guests for the show. And I found someone in the club. His name is [F]. He's from Australia and he is playing didderidoo, you know, this tube, and eh ... I took his phone number, and I will call him tomorrow. And he was really excited about that as well. About the show. Hope it won't disappoint him though, I mean, he is not going to play more than 5 minutes. But I told him, so it's fun. Then I won't have the squirrels, I will have didderidoo and eh ... the skaters. It's good. It's really good.

My dope is diminishing quickly and I would really appreciate if you could send me next week some dope. Some hash. But, I mean, you have to order it really like a leaf, you know, so that it is not bigger in the letter, and, eh ... like a leaf, yeah ... well. And you write me some pages and you put, you put the dope inside the pages. I don't think it's going to smell or whatever if it's in a plastic bag. Maybe you should buy a yellow envelope, they are more solid than the white ones. But you have to write a different name on it. The name I gave you, I think was [H]. I'm not sure. Was it? ...

Oufff ...

I'm tired.
I'm smoking now.
Last cigarette before I go to bed.
No, I don't want to smoke a joint.
Do I?
No.
If I was with you I would, but not now, no."

...

[ tomorrow: 3. Athens, sept. 30th/oct. 1st 1994 ]

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notes __ ::
(*) As once sighed my daughter when the lights went up in the movies: "Ca c'est dans le film, mais il y a encore toute la vie après ..." [ ^ ]
(**) FAZ Club" (1988 - 1992) was the first house club in Greece, opened by Petros 'Floorfiller' Kozakos. [ ^ ]

tags: Found tapes, Athens, Amsterdam, 1994

# .323.

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