Whittemore’s Smyrna

Last week Sharon Olinka, a New York poet, sent me her poem, Whittemore’s Smyrna and asked if I would like to add it to the Whittemore site. The site already has Helen Bar-Lev’s Jerusalem Whittemore poems, so I was only too pleased to add Sharon’s poem. Anything Whittemore related is welcome.

Whittemore’s Smyrna is from Sharon Olinka’s book The Good City. The poems in the book tell the history of Smyrna from an ancient cosmopolitan Mediterranean city to the modern Turkish city of Izmir. You can read more poems from her book here

Whittemore’s novel Sinai Tapestry has a harrowingly graphic description of the destruction of Smyrna on 14th September 1922. It is a little known atrocity. I had certainly never heard of it prior to reading Sinai Tapestry. Largely forgotten, it was overshadowed by the Second World War. Hitler is purported to have said, in support of his own plans for genocide,"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

These days there are many sites dealing with the burning of Smyrna, though no one appears to be quite sure who lit the fires that burned the city. The Greeks say the Turks did it, the Turks say it was the Armenians and Greeks. Here’s a link to a comprehensive article on the event on Wikipedia

Other news

Tomorrow night I’m off to see The Handsome Family. The show is sold out, so no doubt I’ll have to stand for several hours. I’m supposed to be writing a review for Nu Country and fortunately I now have a penlight, so I’ll have no problems writing in the dark. I’ll report, hopefully with pictures, on Friday.

The Panorama Has Moved

People who have read Edward Whittemore's Jerusalem Quartet would recognise the above phrase from Nile Shadows. It is evocative, but in fact relates to the Nile side cafe where Strongbow and Menelik Ziwar carried out their 40 year conversation.

I am digressing...

What it means in this case is that the Jerusalem Dreaming web site has moved to a new location on the web.

It now has its own domain name www.jerusalemdreaming.info and also a fresh new design.

If it is not accessible over the next day - I received an email from my hosting service advising of server outages tonight and tomorrow - keep trying.

Occupational Obsessions

Well, it's not really occupational, though it has kept me occupied for the last week...

If I have been very quiet on the blog front of late it is because I have been creating a fresh new web design for my Edward Whittemore tribute site Jerusalem Dreaming. It has occupied me all week, to the exclusion of almost everything else. When I am in web creation mode I tend to get obsessive and worry away at it until it's finished.

It is fortunate that I am also on leave from my real work, otherwise it would have taken much longer to complete the site. I put the finishing touches on it this afternoon, but it will not be online until next week most probably. Up to now, the Jerusalem Dreaming site has been hosted on my free homepage space allocated by my ISP. It was threatening to become too big for the space allocated (10mbs), so I decided to create a totally new site with a fresh design and get it hosted elsewhere. This also involves acquiring a domain name, which will of course stuff up all links to the current site location. I will advise the new domain name when the new site is online and you will be able to access it and take a look.

Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival

The Spring racing carnival is my favorite time of the year and it is now in full swing.

Last week the major WFA (weight for age) handicap, the Cox Plate was run. It was a thriller wherein the oldest horse (9 years old) in the race won by a whisker and the over-hyped favorite came second last.

Tomorrow is Derby Day and there are 5 major races on the card and 4 of my super stable are contending.

Last week my 3 super stable contenders came 2nd, 6th & 7th, but they all earned money so I am now coming sixth in the competition. If my 4 contenders win or place tomorrow, my virtual coffers will be boosted even further and if Tawqeet wins the Melbourne Cup next Tuesday, I might even win the competition. I did win the first Super Stable competition a couple of years ago, so if , like good old Fields of Omagh (the elderly winner of the Cox Plate who previously won in 2003), I might stage a comeback.

Here's hoping for good fortune...