Hellenic Quarterly focuses on 2004 Games and culture
Issue Number 13 (Summer 2002) of the Hellenic Quarterly, which, as the name suggests, is a magazine about Greece appearing four times yearly, is out with its customary blend of coverage of contemporary Greek subjects, artistic themes, and photo-imagery. This issue also revisits a topic of more than passing interest to Greece and Greeks, the 2004 Olympics, which was also the cover subject for issue No. 7 (Winter 2000/01). The journal is much improved since then: crisper printing, better layout, and superior reproductions, in this case, works of modern art. Other, now-familiar touches enhance the overall effect, such as the little poetry briefs tucked into page corners. Apart from pieces on the 2004 Games and Cultural Olympiad, it covers theater (focusing on Spyros Evangelatos, with interview); poetry (with selections by Miltos Sachtouris and others), and books and authors (including brief reviews). Other sections are short on quantity, a misallocation of material that might warrant a rethink about subject foci. However, the sole «politics» piece, by Haridimos Tsoukas, is a thought-provoking essay on the troubled tradeoff between information and knowledge in the digital age. Some of the Olympics coverage revisits well-trodden territory but, perhaps oddly for a cultural magazine, the nuts-and-bolts pieces are often the most informative (eg road and stadium infrastructure and an interesting piece on new technologies involved in the Games, oddly named «The Foundation of the Hellenic World»). HQ publishes to deadline and offers timely commentary while relying on translation. Generally this issue avoids the more egregious typos and iffy editing occasionally marring past issues. But more care still needs to be taken in order fully to justify the 7-euro newsstand price – up from 5.28 euros in just 18 months, a rise of some 25 percent; more ammo for the ongoing inflation wars, perhaps? Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Lara Flynn Boyle, Michael Jackson. Futuristic sequel adventure in which agents J and K return for another round of intelligent warfare against evil aliens.
