Jasmine, nicotine
Reflections on Athens, The Summer with Carmen, and Shirley Valentine
Athens smells like jasmine at night, and you can smoke pretty much anywhere (including, inside the airport). I have just returned from a week there, from a conference thinking about textiles, and where aroma was a frequent topic of conversation and research. Textiles dyed with murex (a technique common in antiquity, using a seashell) smell like garlic and the smell remains even after a very long time, and urine (specifically male urine) is still used in indigo dyeing. I thought a lot about clothing, about why textiles matter, and about time. Everyone I met at the conference remarked on how delighted they were about the smell of jasmine in Athens. Jasmine grows all over the city, planted in public areas and by the steps in Kolonaki (where I took the above photo) that lead towards Lycabettus Hill. These steps are also locations for many of the (clothed) interactions that take place in the delightful comedy The Summer with Carmen (Zacharias Mavroedis 2023), set in Athens and in what is clearly the clothing-optional queer cruising beach on Attica’s Apollo coast.
The Summer with Carmen evokes a languid summer holiday period, where Athenians head for the islands or the coast in order to escape the oppressive daytime heat. The aromas are jasmine, tobacco, oleander (its pink buds just coming into flower last week), and its tastes are sweat, medium sweet cappuccino freddo, sunblock, and sea salt. The Summer with Carmen dwells on the friendships, romances, family drama, and erotic entanglements of queer Greek men, interspersed with a winning performance from a very sweet dog (the Carmen of the title). The city’s dust and crush contrasts with the airy, pristine coastline, shot in a way to underscore how the cruising beach remains less accessible than other locations along the Athens Riviera.
On this solo trip, I felt somewhere between Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002) and Shirley Valentine (Lewis Gilbert, 1989); no longer someone young enough to be backpacking and finding themselves, with their whole life before them, but nor am I fleeing a sense of being washed up. Shirley Valentine is only 42, which for her marks a stage of middle-aged boredom and frustration. When she goes on holiday to Mykonos, she is looking for a change of scene, a new experience, and finds that she recaptures her sense of autonomy, the wild and vivacious feeling she remembers from her girlhood. Morvern is grieving, and she goes to Spain fleeing sadness, and boredom. Morvern travels to lose herself, and Shirley finds herself. I was not on any kind personal or erotic odyssey, but I was hoping to be inspired by Athens and I was not disappointed.
What I found in Athens was a reminder of what academia CAN be: a generous and generative place for ideas, an opportunity for curiosity and learning, and a willingness to apply those ideas in ways that make the world better for everyone. I also reconnected with an old friend, who invited me into a very precious space, to witness some exciting dance performances that made me remember why I also love to dance.
I also took the opportunity to slow down, to enjoy opportunities to write at cafe tables, to drift through tourist spaces without any particular agenda. I was a languid person in Athens in spite of getting up very early to climb the Acropolis slopes amidst numerous tour groups (French, Spanish, Italian, and of course the Americans). In his 1941 book, The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller observes on his first trip to Athens: “When we got to the Acropolis—it was an insane idea to go there immediately—there were several hundred people ahead of us storming the gate. By this time the heat was so terrific that all I though of was where to sit down and enjoy a bit of shade.” And while it wasn’t quite an insane idea, I look forward to returning to Athens at a less busy time.
As it turns out, Dionysus is everywhere in Athens, from his theatre on the slopes of the Acropolis, to the new Acropolis museum where his broken mask looms. Even his fragments are readily identifiable by their pouring jugs. And on my last day, when I climbed the steps surrounded by jasmine, I even found him in his role as the city’s patron saint at the Church of Saint Dionysus the Areopagite, where through the open door I could hear and see a priest in a glittering white cassock, surrounded by icons.
Jasmine is (of course) quite a common perfume ingredient but if you want something close to how it smells when it’s at home, then Artimique’s Jasmine Gyokuro is a good choice, with its heart of jasmine absolut. Korres, the giant Greek cosmetics brand, also makes good jasmine-scented products. But there is nothing quite like the air scented with roasting meat, the ubiquitous cigarette, and the night blooming flower, as you walk in the alleyways on white marble and concrete.