an account of a puppet show (and the music)

in lawrence durrell's prospero's cave (p.47 onwards) there is an account of a puppet show with kharaghiosis and his sidekick hadjiavatis. 

it was a shadow-puppet show. it is possible the shadow puppet show originated in indonesia and was brought to the ottoman turks by the trade routes (and thus to the greek islands).

'two violins and a drum keep up a squalling sort of overture, punctuated by the giggles of children and the pop of ginger beer bottles...

our seats are right at the front, where the orchestra can scrape away right under our noses... thus equipped we prepare for the spectacle of kharaghiosis, whose greek is sure to baffle us however much his antics amuse... 

presently the acetylene lamps on the hedge are extinguished... but the orchestra is still driving on with the awkward monotony of a squeaking shoe... the familiar noise of sticks being rattled together sounds from behind the screen. this is a sign for the play to begin...'

kharaghiosis (black eye) is a hunchback with one outsized prehensile arm. he and hadjiavatis are always poor and engaged on some ridiculous get rich quick scheme. in this case a getting elected to public office.

'the drama reaches its peak with a faked election, in which kharaghiosis, in order to win, manages to resurrect all the corpses in the local cemeteries, who pass in grizzly single file across the stage to the polling booth to vote for our hero.' 

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yesterday a visit to town

accessions diary

- orlando (virginia woolf) - one squid hospice shop in a pretty vintage classics edition. this contains a baileyshome.com bookmark (a shop near bridstow near ross-on-wye).

- travels into bokhara (alexander burns - cousin of robbie burns, victorian explorer and spy) - one squid hospice shop  in an eLand edition. 

this copy contains an off-peak day return rail ticket from wivenhoe to london terminals (£26.70) as well as a dedication happy birthday mary. phil. (probably this mary loosemore horsemouth worked out with the aid of another inscription)

supplementary expenses 

£3 each way on the bus, £3.20 sandwich, £1.30 bus down the valley. walk back. 

whilst he was there he saw sproatly smith but didn't manage to speak to him because he wasn't convinced it was him. (but they chatted briefly online later).

it is the morning. it is a cold morning. horsemouth has been out to see the chickens who seem remarkably unbothered.