Christopher Zoukis's Blog, page 29
May 12, 2014
Imagination - 1
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy www.britainfromabove.org.uk-
New St. Paul’s Cathedral resides in Central London. The adjective ‘new’ refers to the fact that the extant structure was rebuilt from the ground up after the Great Fire of 1666. The Old Cathedral dated back to Saxon times, circa 600 A.D. Saxon, of course, refers to the ancient Northern Germanic people, who spoke the Low German dialect.
The cemetery holds the bones and ashes of those who await the Second Advent and the trumpet c...
May 9, 2014
Rock and Ice - 2
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy aryan-buddhism.blogspot.com-
His real name was Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola, aka Baron Evola, aka Julius Evola. When he died he was seventy-six years old, had never married, had no children and no remaining family.
Born in Rome into an aristocratic Sicilian family, Evola inherited enough wealth to make him independent. A natural yet ultraistic intellectual, after participating as an officer of artillery in the Italian Army in World War I, he sought out the e...
May 7, 2014
Rock and Ice - 1
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy fotofred.cz
The gravesite is high and cold and detached. No one knows its precise location anymore. For it’s been nigh onto forty years since they took him up there.
Back in 1974, his ashes were poured in an urn, which was placed in a backpack, which was strapped to a man’s back as the ascent was made. Next to the urn in the backpack was a hand drill, like a small rotating auger. When the drill was energized by human strength, razor sharp stainless steel b...
May 5, 2014
Open Court - 2
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy opencourtbooks.com
Open Court Publishing Company published affordable copies of the classics of philosophy, along with original scholarly books in philosophy, science and religion. Some of which were vague presentations of newfangled ideas. One of the newfangled ideas was Pragmatism, which reconciled logic as a system of symbols. In other words, logic was not a rational system of correct reasoning based on cause and effect. Rather it was symbolic, that is,...
May 2, 2014
Open Court
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy youtube.com
There’s a dark green bench near the tombstone, one of the old ones with the wooden slats and iron legs, like the ones city governments placed at bus stops. It’s as if he’s inviting you stay for a while. Sit, relax and let us converse.
His name is on the back of the bench, along with his birth date and his death date. Of course that got me to thinking that maybe the bench isn’t for sitting and relaxing. Maybe it’s part of the tombstone, kind of...
April 30, 2014
Queen of the World - 4
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy zazzle.com
Things were now out of control. Total chaos and anarchy ruled Constantinople, not Justinian or his Empress. Beyond belief, women left their homes, flocked into the streets and urged their men to fight, to attack the royal palace.
Inside the palace, Emperor Justinian and his high-ranking officials discussed fleeing the city, which appeared to them to be their only option, if they wished to continue to live.
Again beyond belief, because women, eve...
April 28, 2014
Queen of the World - 3
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy historycentral.com
While they waited, Theodora and Justinian connived to upset the political and economic well-being of Constantinople. They were both members of a liberal-extremist group called the Blue Faction. The Blue Faction was made up of young anarchists who despised everyone but other Blue Factionists, because everyone else was stupid, and unsophisticated. Therefore the Blue Faction should be the power elite, not these other bumpkins.
Theodora and...
April 25, 2014
Queen of the World - 2
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy mayfairgames.com-
Back in the glimmering city, the Emperor Justin ruled over the empire. Justin’s nephew, Justinian, lived in the royal palace of his uncle. Justinian functioned as his uncle’s most trusted political advisor. Most people saw Justinian as the next Emperor.
There is no record of how Theodora met Justinian, or of how she seduced him. Whatever the means, she soon moved into the palace as a Patrician, living openly with Justinian. Her promotion...
April 23, 2014
Queen of the World - 1
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy vhinkle.com
She was a very practical woman, in everything, including death. Sixteen years before she died, she gave a speech in which she said, “It is impossible for someone who has seen the light of this world not to die.” She was thirty-four years old. And she spoke the words just after mercilessly ordering the slaughter of 30,000 rebels in the city’s sports stadium.
The great chest of her sarcophagus is made of rosy alabaster marble, which is highly pri...
April 18, 2014
The Giving Tree
By Christopher Zoukis 
Image courtesy everydaylanguage.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu-
His name was Shel Silverstein and, like Sonny Liston, he was discovered dead in his home. When his housekeepers left one Friday, he was fine. Returning the following Monday, they found Shel lying on the floor. Somewhere in that three-day window he died.
He also wrote a children’s book called The Giving Tree. The book came out in 1964. When I first read the story, it brought tears to my eyes. My throat puffed up like a...
