Mon Jun 29, 2009
Road Trip!
Yesterday - Sunday - I rolled to Pawtucket, RI - 47 miles door to door, not including my brief spell of getting lost once there - to substitute for liturgy. Fr. Philip is in Greece, and my beloved Fr. Gregory Houlakis (we are the only priests named Gregory in the Metropolis), a "retired" monk from Crete, is also away. It was a nice change of pace to be elsewhere, but it was also nice to return home to the Cathedral - I felt like Pope John Paul II when he would land in America and kiss the tarmac when I returned home. It was good to see Tom Philippakis, with whom I went to seminary, and he helped me immensely at the chant stand and in the altar. Everyone was great there, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately being there meant I missed the two baptisms at the Cathedral, but I was able to attend one of the receptions. As for this week? We had a funeral today, there is liturgy tomorrow - Tuesday - at ten, and there are several house blessings scheduled. After that, we will see what the week holds.
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Sat Jun 27, 2009
RIP
The sad saga of the life of Michael Jackson came to a sad end the other day. I hope he now finds the peace he never had in life. Some thoughts...
-Am I the only person not surprised by his demise? He was obviously frail and in poor health. He also was surrounded by people who clearly did not have his best interests in mind. He had long ago reached what sportswriter Bill Simmons calls the Mike Tyson Zone - that is, the point where a celebrity's behavior is so outrageous that you will not be surprised by anything that happens.
-I am disgusted by how the media has handled this. Michael has been the butt of jokes for something like 20 years and all of a sudden there are serious articles and features about how important he was and what he meant to everyone. I suspect that many of the fans who have been shown crying at impromptu memorials have made their share of jokes at his expense as well over the years.
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Thu Jun 25, 2009
Community Meal
Vaia and I went down to Southbridge this afternoon to partake of St. Michael Orthodox Church's community meal. They do this once a month, and it is a free meal open to the whole community, not just parishioners. There was a good mix of people from the parish and those from the greater Southbridge area. Fr. Peter manned the kitchen and I must say the food was delicious -my favorite, spaghetti. Vaia was, as you can imagine, a big hit with everyone and made sure to visit each table. She was especially enamored with a painting of a castle in Romania overlooking a river. She kept saying "salsa" (her version of Thalassa, "sea" in Greek) and pointing at it. I would like to do something similar at the Cathedral - it is a great outreach program and good neighbor thing.
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Sun Jun 21, 2009
Father's Day At The Cathedral
Today was the first official day of summer, the "slow" period in the church year, but let me say we had a lot of stuff going on at St. Spyridon. Father's Day traditionally is when we go to summer hours, so Orthros began at 8:10 and Liturgy at 9:30. Fr. Dean and I wore green vestments as a quiet gesture of support for Iranians. We presented our high school, college, and grad school graduates with gifts and scholarships after the service in the church. Many parishioners participated in the mouth swab test for potential bone marrow donorship in the auditorium foyer, and we had a good turnout for the combined Mother's Day/Father's Day brunch. After a delicious meal, a few of us went up to my office, grabbed drums (a dumbek, two djembes, and a bodhran) and held an impromptu drum circle in front of the Cathedral.
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Wed Jun 17, 2009
Gary Alan
If you have ever flown, you have probably ended up chatting with the stranger sitting next to you at some point. We have all done it. I have the blessing of having made a good friend of someone whom I met on a plane. Several years ago Prez and I (pre-Vaia) were returning from a trip and sat next to Gary Alan, a very talented impersonator and comedian as well as a great all-around guy. He specializes in Jay Leno impersonations, but he told me a fun story recently about doing President Clinton impressions at a club where Clinton happened to catch the act (Gary had no idea) and complimented him on the act! We speak occasionally on the phone, and yesterday caught up after quite some time. Check out his videos on the site - he is a hoot. When he next comes up to NY or Boston for a gig hopefully he will make his way to Worcester.
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Tue Jun 16, 2009
Happenings In Iran
As mentioned in the previous post, I have been going to bed early recently. Last night I received a burst of "tweets" from Twitter about events in Iran. Fr. Peter has a post on the subject and will be discussing it on WESO tomorrow morning. If you type in Twitter Revolution on Wikipedia it sends you to the linked article which is titled "2009 Iranian Election Protests". We will see how this all plays out. Authoritarian regimes have no problem cracking down on traditional media - tv stations, radio, newspapers, etc. - but the new media - Twitter, Facebook - are a different story.
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Been A While/Beatles Rock Band
I know, I have slacked off on blogging. I am back. This is just a quick post since I am off to bed - I have been getting up at 4:45 am for adventure boot camp and thus going to bed earlier. I leave you with something fun - the trailer for the new Beatles game in the Rock Band video series - it is awesome. I have always stayed away from video games because they are addictive and, I feel, a waste of time - give me a good book anyday - but since this involves the Beatles I may have to reconsider. Check out the trailer.
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Sat Jun 06, 2009
News In Easy Modern Hebrew
I am sure that very few Cathedral people know that Panos, one of our extremely talented chanters, is fluent in modern Hebrew. He told me today about a newspaper called Sha'ar Lamat'hil, or Gateway to the Beginner that is a great tool for learning modern Hebrew. I know biblical Hebrew pretty well and would love to learn modern but, well, there is only so much time in the day. The paper is published weekly and has sections of various degrees of easiness. And it has the vowel markers printed - Hebrew, like Arabic, omits short vowels in print except for children's books and scripture. Sounds great! One thing I miss about living in Brookline/Boston while at the seminary (and the campus has the border between the two cutting right through it) is being able to zip over to the Israel Book Shop, which happens to carry the paper as well as many other cool things.
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Thu Jun 04, 2009
When It Rains...
...it pours. We have not had a recipe on these pages for a while but now all of a sudden there are two at once. This is a dish from Aleppo, Syria courtesy of Nadia. It is called khudr al furn, or "vegetables of/in the oven".
2 lbs zucchini (4 or 5 normal-sized ones)
2 lbs tomato
1 eggplant
1 potato
1 green bell pepper
1 jalapeno
1 medium onion
1lb ground meat (hamburger, turkey, etc)
salt, pepper, allspice
1 small can (4oz) tomato paste
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Easy Olive Bread
Prez made this the other day - I will post a picture of it soon.
1 bunch scallions, chopped finely
3/4 cup pitted olives (Kalamata, of course) chopped finely
1 lb fresh pizza dough (ready made at supermarket)
olive oil
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