Post-Olympic Athens

"The Games are just empty buildings, we have no use for them. But they have become monuments, so we can handle them and live with them. We are used to living among ruins. They are just ruins, they were never anything else." - a film-maker called Aristotelis

The quote is from an essay in the London Review of Books, "The Colossus of Maroussi," by Iain Sinclair (27 May 2010, pages 30-33). One of its theme is the prevalence of stray dogs in Athens, and how they were rounded up and killed before the Olympics in 2004. Written by a resident of London as that city approaches the 2012 Games, it's a cautionary tale, told with knowledge of the current state of the Greek economy, for which the Olympics did nothing. England could be next, he implies. Chicago and New York should thank their lucky stars.