Check out the second installment of “The Cyprus Files,” my series of posts reflecting on Cyprus and my Fulbright year on the island.
This week’s post narrates a dramatic tale of the Crusades and how it illuminates the eclectic influences on the Cypriot built environment.
Thanks for reading, and if you are interested in more dispatches from the island of Aphrodite delivered directly to your inbox, be sure to subscribe!
Featured image: (Wikimedia Commons, PD-USA)
Many thanks to The Nassau Weekly for publishing a follow-up essay to a piece I wrote on the refugee crisis in Greece four years ago, a crisis which has recently entered an even more precarious phase given the Coronavirus. Thanks also to the Nass for inviting me to speak at their virtual open mic earlier this month. Read the new piece, “The End of Moria? Looking back on migration-crisis reporting in Greece as a college student,” here.
Please consider donating to The Nassau Weekly at http://nassauweekly.com/donate/ to keep this important Princeton campus publication afloat in these uncertain times.
I’m thrilled to announced my short story, “Falling,” will be published this spring in Tales from the Deep, an anthology of fantasy, horror and science fiction.
The anthology will be the product of Flying Ketchup Press, a small press based in Kansas City, MO, and be published sometime after May 2020.
“Falling” is a gothic horror retelling of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House for the Kaufmann family in Pennsylvania.
In the story, retail scion Edward Zeliger Jr. (a fictional representation of E. J. Kaufmann Jr.) becomes fascinated with a mysterious architect (a portrayal of Wright), who Edward Jr.’s father has hired to build their family’s country house. But The Architect’s sublime (and perhaps supernatural) work strives to achieve harmony with nature, a process which has devastating effects on the Zeliger family—and leads Edward Jr. along the dark path constructed by the master builder.
In July 2019, Fallingwater was proclaimed a World Heritage Site. So it is fitting that, a year later, this short story—an appreciation yet cautionary tale about Wright’s work—will reach the wider world. Thanks to all the beta readers who helped shape it!
Fallingwater. Photo by Harrison Blackman, August 2018.
Two years ago, I and five other Princeton journalism students had the opportunity to report on the refugee crisis in Greece. My main project—an investigation into Greek language education for refugees—was never published. Since then, recent NYTimes and WashPost reporting has revealed the situation has only become worse at the Athenian and island camps we visited.
I share my old project now as a historical document and as a call to action. While America seethes in intra-political turmoil, there are bigger things happening all over the world.
(For more reporting on this issue, check out NYTimes’ latest piece on Moria: https://www.nytimes.com/…/europe/greece-lesbos-moria-refuge…)
On September 15, 2018 I had the extraordinary opportunity of giving a talk at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, where I discussed the 1960 plans of architect Constantinos Doxiadis for Eastwick, Philadelphia, featuring some ‘cameo’ appearances from Robert Kennedy and Kevin Bacon. You can watch the talk here, courtesy the Bodossakis Foundation. Many thanks to Simon Richards and Mantha Zarmakoupi of the Delos Network for inviting me and allowing me to speak on this subject, one that has occupied my globetrotting research for the past three years.
The Delos Network is an initiative sponsored by the UK Arts & Humanities Council, with academic support from University of Birmingham, Loughborough University, and the University of Pennsylvania. This was the second of three conferences to discuss the work of global architect and urban planner Constantinos Doxiadis (1913-1975), the first such conferences in over a decade.
Thanks to the Delos Network and the University of Nevada, Reno, for financially supporting my visit.
Last June, I had the opportunity to visit Vergina, a small village in Northern Greece that is home to the tomb of Philip II, Alexander the Great’s father. It was a tremendous experience, full of the power and splendor of ancient Macedonia. In terms of the difficulty in navigating Greece’s public transit options, however, it amounted to a modern odyssey. The perfect exp
To read my travelogue of my visit to Vergina, full of awe, frustration, and some witty observations, check it out on Medium:
“The elusive star of Vergina: To visit the tomb of Alexander the Great’s father, a modern odyssey”
More summer travel memoirs forthcoming on Medium. If you’re looking for a hint—next up will be along the lines of “Coming into the country with ‘Coming into the Country’.”
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Photo of fields of Vergina by Harrison Blackman.
The Olympic Games.
Out of all international sporting events, those three words possess the most fanfare. They evoke tradition, history—and the symbolic flame.
But if the Olympics are inspired from an ancient Greek tradition, then how did the Winter Games—featuring hockey, skating and curling—come to be?
The answer is complicated, and it’s the subject of my latest essay on Medium: “The ‘First’ Winter Olympics: How Chamonix 1924 iced out a rival Nordic competition.” In it, you can find out about the origins of the Olympics, the Olympics’ early rivalry with the Nordic Games, and of course, the ‘first’ Winter Games.
To read more of my stories on Medium, please look at my Medium profile. You can also see an extensive list of my published stories on the “clips” page.
As always, thanks for reading.
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Image: Poster for 1901 Nordic Games. (Author unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
This past summer, I visited Lesbos as part of a Princeton journalism class on the refugee crisis. A month after our class visited the Moria refugee camp, its occupants rioted and burned Moria to the ground. This is my account of visiting Lesbos–-during the calm before the storm. While difficult to perceive, there were clues of the events to come. In all the turbulence of the past week, remember that there is a world elsewhere.
This is my article on the subject.
Harrison Blackman 
