“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
Slogan
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Author Archives: Michele
Life is a Bowl of Cherries
plumb cherries preferably in a martini glass, by the pool, summer breeze, a good book, beautiful music, the sun that sets, the small happiness of waiting for some good friends to share your dinner with, exhilarating conversations, good memories recalled, watching life unwind in front of your eyes.
i believe that happiness comes in small packets (quanta); the background noise of our every day routine is broken by these modest moments of simple pleasures.
“I will plant my hands in the garden
I will grow I know I know I know
and swallows will lay eggs
in the hollow of my ink-stained hands.
I shall wear
a pair of twin cherries as earrings
and I shall put dahlia petals on my finger-nails”
“another birth” by Forough Farrokhzad
“ Je planterai mes mains dans le jardin
Je pousserai, je le sais, je le sais, je le sais…
Et les hirondelles pondront
Dans le creux violac
Transformers
Emile Cioran (who later repudiated his fascist past) wrote in his book trouble with being born that “Man is a robot with defects”. Westwood, california, was invaded last week by “Robots in Disguise”; five movie theaters (yes i said five) in westwood were getting ready at 9:00 am to welcome the Transformers that night. i looked up from my newspaper in a coffee shop and started to smile seeing the huge robot across the street from me.
i’ve always had a soft spot for robots, friendly or not – i still remember doctor smith bickering with the robot in the “Lost in Space” episodes. being a trekkie (and in love with Spock for my entire 5th and 6th grade), Data has been on top of the list but who can forget the Borg?
i took some pictures in a hurry before they could disappear – which they did the very next day after a night of red carpet fun. only in hollywood…
“Let’s start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics…. We have: one, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. And three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.”
ISAAC ASIMOV, Astounding Science Fiction, Mar. 1942
Et in Arcadia ego, Memento Mori, fragile cargo
Glass has always fascinated me – they call Antoine Leperlier, an unclassifiable artist, a glass sculptor.I was transfixed by the unusual works of art by Leperlier in Musée nationale de ceramique.
He’s using old text and adages like “et in Arcadia ego” to emphasize his take on time and human history. interrupted movements in glass like pictures taken on high speed film. frozen poetry.
“chaos” has a special place in Leperlier’s work; “continual struggle between permanence and flux, cosmos and chaos, being and nothingness”…
the only other artist that i know in this caliber would be the great Dale Chihuly.
Never Explain…
“Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”
i thought for a long time that this quote is from Abraham Lincoln but i just found out that Elbert Hubbard is the author; the version i knew was a bit more modern than the above mentioned original:
“Never explain – you’ll bore your friends and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”
Hondarribia/Fuenterrabia
Hondarribia is a jewel of a region in the spanish basque country; I stayed in Parador to be close to Charles Quint, one of my favorite Habsburgs.
i was astonished by the tenacity of these people in regards to their language, Euskara. i am weary/wary of nationalistic sentiments – the idea that you can do better acting independently rather than collectively and that the people who spoke the same language or shared a common ethnicity should fight to build their own nation?states scares the hell out of me. Nazis and Fascists were ultra-nationalists – ETA hardly has anything to do with these two (even though it has plenty to do with other bloody mess) but i am frightened by talks of racial purity and xenophobia. i don’t want to see people, each having their own ethnic flag planted in their backyards; santa monica, california would be a very colorful city…
on the lighter side of the spectrum, spain is the country of tapas and tintos,
and sometimes carajios (an espresso with an added shot of alcohol) while watching your favorite matador at the neighborhood bar.
Bilbao
Living in Los Angeles, i was kind of blas
Basque Country
i have great images from this region but they need to be sorted out; these are my first impressions of this beautiful Basque region, south of france and north of spain.
to many, happiness is as simple as this:
coming from warm and dry california (with omnipresent washer/dryers), i was amused to see that everywhere i went in hondarribia, the laundry was hung out to dry even in the rain.
Victor Hugo
as long as we are in the Marais, i should mention la maison de Victor Hugo. his name always brings out phantasmagoric memories of Quasimodo and the Th
Marais
i like walking in the quartier du Marais even with tourists around! this little bookstore has a funny name.
i love la place des Vosges and this restaurant, Ma Bourgogne, where you can eat the best steak tartar in paris; Th