frabbejais

Old Old Wood

2012-02-11T15:50:00.000Z

After having a nightmare and waking up in the screams of my next door neighbour, all I need is a bit of quiet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhQswgkMPI

Playing with shadows

2012-02-09T13:23:00.002Z

Esenin

2012-02-04T14:57:00.002Z

In this life there's nothing new in dying,
But in living there is nothing newer.

Juan Gris

2012-02-03T14:48:00.000Z

I consider that the architectural element in painting is mathematics, the abstract side; I want to humanize it. Cézanne turns a bottle into a cylinder, but I begin with a cylinder and create an individual of a special type; I make a bottle - a particular bottle - out of a cylinder. Cézanne tends towards architecture, I tend away from it. (Juan Gris)

paintings by Juan Gris

Pushkin

2012-02-02T15:05:00.000Z

The night of the Ukraine is still,
The skies alive with starry glitter.
The drowsy ether lacks the will
To shake its languor; barely twitter
The poplar twigs with silver gleams.

Unreason

2012-01-28T21:34:00.000Z

dali birth of the new man

I do not seek, I find. (P.Picasso)

2012-01-28T21:33:00.000Z

Picasso Guernica

Omission?

2012-01-28T13:31:00.000Z

Degas Awaiting the Cue, 1879

Impression

2012-01-28T12:59:00.000Z

If i walk along the boulevard, do I look like this? Do I lose my legs, my eyes and my nose and turn into a shapeless blob?

Pissarro The Boulevard Montmartre, 1897

Dreams

2012-01-26T12:25:00.000Z

images from The Science of Sleep

Conscience

2012-01-26T12:17:00.002Z

graphics by Marcel Chirnoaga
http://www.stdb.ro/~vasile/emuzeuc.htm

Light

2012-01-25T13:12:00.000Z

Vermeer The Milkmaid

Irony

2012-01-25T11:27:00.000Z

I suppose that's one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment. Charlie Chaplin

Therapy

2012-01-24T19:04:00.001Z

My camera is my psychiatrist’s couch. Photographing is a way of understanding the meaning of my world. - Leonard Freed

photographs by Leonard Freed
http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspxVP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R14GRLX&nm=Leonard%20Freed

Observation

2012-01-24T18:48:00.000Z

drawings by Robert Liberace
www.Robertliberace.com

Balance

2012-01-22T17:09:00.000Z

jewellery by Nora Fok

http://www.norafok.com/

Solitude

2012-01-22T16:38:00.000Z

by Michael Kenna

http://www.michaelkenna.net/

Waltz of the Flowers

2012-01-22T12:45:00.000Z

paintings by Stefan Luchian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg1dMpu4v7M

Mad People

2012-01-22T00:38:00.001Z

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

illustration by Iassen Ghiuselev

Hope

2012-01-20T16:38:00.000Z

Dance of the Swans

2012-01-20T16:28:00.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd4VsbM4fOo&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Beauty

2012-01-20T00:29:00.000Z

Reflecting on some recent experiences I remembered Henry Moore's words: "beauty is a deeper concept than niceness, attractiveness, sweetness, prettiness..."

Identity

2012-01-20T00:23:00.001Z

The time spent away from my country, the place where I was born, has made me think deeply about who I am and where I belong. There are no more unanswered questions about my identity, however, for the time being, I am still away and worried that I would find it hard to express myself through my art separated from what I consider to be a part of me. I think about what C. Brancusi once said: "There are no foreigners in art."

Time and space

2012-01-20T00:11:00.000Z

Time and space have their origin in the core of each being. (A. Giacometti)

Reproductions

2012-01-20T00:09:00.001Z

If we limit ourselves to mere reproductions, we stop the evolution of the spirit. (C. Brancusi)

What is art?

2012-01-20T00:06:00.000Z

I like the circle because it is rolling and I like the square because it stands still. (C. Brancusi)

Geneza

2012-01-19T23:56:00.000Z

The artist

2012-01-16T21:42:00.002Z

From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. - hokusai

La Main de Dieu

2012-01-06T22:09:00.001Z

by Auguste Rodin

Consistency

2011-11-14T21:39:00.002Z

‘As in thought, so in feeling, a vague communication is no communication at all’ - Naum Gabo

First Step

2011-10-17T22:42:00.000+01:00

For the great artist, both the mathematical method of investigating proportions and the empirical method of copying models, could mean no more than a first step - necessary towards freely creative and yet well-grounded/natural production. (Albrecht Dürer)

Donna - Michelangelo

2011-10-17T21:49:00.004+01:00

Si come per levar, Donna, si pone
In pietra alpestra e dura
Una viva figura,
Che l'à più cresce, u'più la pietra scema:
Tal alcun'opre buone,
Per l'alma, che pur trema,
Cela il soverchio della propria carne
Con l'inculta sua cruda e dura scorza.
Tu pur dalle mie streme,
Parti puo' sol levarne,
Ch' in me non è di me voler nè forza.

Spiritul si expresia sa rezumata

2011-09-04T12:46:00.001+01:00

Batranul nebun dupa desen

2011-09-04T12:26:00.002+01:00

Finally, after 15 years, I have seen this amazing print in an art gallery.

Overwhelming and so fulfilling.

Sculptura

2011-08-21T10:49:00.000+01:00

Uitarea relatiilor esentiale il face pe artist sa se preocupe de accidental , de miscarea neobisnuita, de expresia exceptionala, de actiunea momentana...de impulsurile sentimentale. ( E. Faure')

Dali

2011-08-18T22:25:00.000+01:00

MW: What do you most enjoy doing with your spare time?
D: Becoming more Dali. Everyday more Dali...

Cumintenia Pamantului

2011-07-04T09:19:00.000+01:00

,,Nu mai avem nici un acces la spiritul Lumii - poate fiindcă nici nu-l căutăm’’ (Constantin Brancusi)

Sailing away

2011-06-27T08:30:00.001+01:00

Blood like lemonade

2011-06-26T20:22:00.000+01:00

You are a victim of the rules you live by

2011-04-29T07:00:00.001+01:00

2011-04-27T09:49:00.000+01:00

It's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear. (Breakfast at Tiffany's)

Teapots

2011-04-15T17:04:00.000+01:00

Recurring

2011-03-12T12:58:00.000Z

"De unde iti iei numeroasele tale istorii, Ludovico?"

2011-03-12T12:00:00.000Z

Studies

2011-03-12T10:09:00.000Z

Demands

2011-03-08T13:00:00.000Z

I demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

Orange and light bulbs

2011-03-08T12:59:00.000Z

Catholic Church Sibiu

2011-03-08T12:57:00.000Z

E.

2010-09-04T12:33:00.000+01:00

culoare

2010-08-08T08:50:00.002+01:00

Trebuie ca se petrece cu viata sufleteasca ceva asemanator cu apele care se coloreaza dintr-o data. E ceva care cade in apa, sta putin acolo si pe urma asa, fara un traseu anumit, se desface intr-o risipire de culoare. E o difuziune, e o culoare care creste in apa; e o culoare care creste in suflet. (methesis sau bucuriile simple - c.noica)

Ridicol

2010-08-08T08:39:00.002+01:00

"Alaturi de noi, in lume, sunt lucruri multe, insufletite si neinsufletite. Ele nu vad si nu inteleg. Dar daca intr-o zi ar intelege, cu siguranta ar rade putin de noi. Dar dincolo de lume sta un zeu vesel, care intelege cu adevarat lucrurile si rade cu adevarat." (mathesis sau bucuriile simple - c.noica)

Orbul cu telescopul

2010-07-01T19:06:00.000+01:00

Pe scurt, suntem o asociatie de depresivi, de anxiosi, de nefericiti, de ratacitori fara religie fixa, de atei debili, de apatici maladivi, de prosti carora le lipseste in mod vital tandretea, de sceptici bornati, de complexati si de handicapati afectiv...
(Matei Visniec - Mansarda la Paris cu vedere spre moarte)

Idealism

2010-06-07T20:51:00.000+01:00

I have tried to challenge this statement, but I realized in the end that it is such a beautiful and maybe sad reality altogether: Élie Faure used to say that our idealism is nothing less than the reality of our spirit.

Space

2010-05-29T18:23:00.000+01:00

My room has become a strange mixture of places, times, spaces and people. Things look unfamiliar not to myself but to each other, they are separated as if by insuperable abysses.

I am beginning my search for a solution.

Head up hen, or I'll cut it off!

2010-05-18T21:43:00.001+01:00

This is a picture I have received, undoubtedly with a subtle yet indisputable message, from my dear, loving sister. I thank her for the harsh reality.

Love,

Feathered, bizarrely adorned creature.

Psyche

2010-05-09T16:53:00.000+01:00

Kidnapped and exhiled in a palace, Psyche was making love every night with an unknown creature, that she could not see because of the dark. One night, she asked the creature:

"May I see you?"

The creature answered:

"Yes, you may, Psyche. But think well. Because once you see me, you will lose me.

One night, Psyche waited that her lover fell asleep and lit up a candle to see him. She then discovered the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Scared, Eros transformed into a bird and flew away while saying:

"Oblivious like you, simple soul, I disappear."

I wonder if Phyche represents the instinctual drives as well as the super-ego, the embodiment of social and moral norms. We are in the end no more than puppets in the hands of our fears and hunger, (creatures) made of sperm and blood. (Freud - from the epigraph of "The Interpretation of Dreams")

Sf. Augustin: Ce este un om? Ochi si fantome.

2010-05-08T11:43:00.000+01:00

Knackwursts and the meaning of life

2010-05-06T13:04:00.000+01:00

It is said that you can easily spot geniuses from early childhood.

Usually, according to Vandervert, in the child prodigy, "the transition from visual-spatial working memory to other forms of thought (language, art, mathematics) is accelerated by the unique emotional disposition of the prodigy and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum".

Others believe that prodigious talent tends to arise as a result of the innate talent of the child, and the energetic and emotional investment that the child ventures.

I tend to agree with both and stress the latter which underlines the diversity of the prodigious manifestations.

All these scientific explanations take me back to a memorable episode of my childhood which - like so many others - shaped my personality and (not to be ignored) of the persons that have lovingly surrounded me.

I was 9 or 10 years old, a restless and happy child - as many seem to be, but nontheless resembling no one -, spending my time in a continuous turmoil or hullabaloo (which seems a more appropriate word here), socializing with boys and desocializing with girls (both equally significant for my life to come), not doing my homework or ever know what my homework was, fighting with my teacher in the name of justice and leading my colleagues in wars with unknown evil forces that tried to corrupt their souls.

My parents were slightly worried of my generally resistant and slightly beligerant nature that stretched from my socially twisted behaviour to my unwillingness to write with my right hand - like everyone else - or even accept the generally tolerated (I thought) shape of things (I used to write numbers reversed, as seen in a mirror)...so one day my lovely mother, brought on the verge of insanity by moi, asked me in choleric rage: What is the matter with you?? What in the name of God (she actually named the other one here, the evil spirit) is wrong with you? What do you lack to behave naturally, just like the other children???

After a rather short pause, I calmly replied: Knackwursts, I need Knackwursts!

Mèrancolie

2010-05-03T06:40:00.001+01:00

In times of turmoil we retreat, first into our own selves, which soon becomes insufficient, making us look for a safer and even more isolated place. I had never realized which that was until, recently, desperately looking for that place I remembered an observation my father made once, when I was very young.

I used to be very sensitive to things around me. My sister would call it angst instead of oversensitivity because my reactions were usually very aggressive. Sometimes, when no one would see me, I would retreat. My father noticed me in one of these states without knowing what it was exactly and told my mother: look at her position; she is coiled as though she were still in your womb; I've seen her sleep like that a few times.

My reaction to his observation was...oh, well...hostile; he was just mocking me, I thought. However, deep down it must have triggered some kind of curiosity as it remained there in suspension all these years. A sketch by Leonardo da Vinci triggered it back to consciousness. It was an early sketch of a fetus in a uterus. This sketch made me understand why I had that particular position whenever I felt threatened or unsafe in some way. I was going back to the safest place possible: my origins, the humid night that precedes our existence, the protective timeless space before interaction, unconsciousness.

Charles d'Orléans used to call our state of regression to safe and stable places or times mèrancolie, because it is the maternal universe that we seek for when looking for a happier and more stable anterior state.

I think that maybe as adults we try to regain this state and recreate this crepuscular expression by creating ourselves; we are in a way our own makers, the result of the fornication (with more or less fetiches) between our many selves.

Life-style

2010-04-28T10:55:00.000+01:00

Being in a (long - I can feel it) period of self-research and discoveries (in spite of my long past adolescence) and looking for the (real, not evasive 42) meaning of life, I have found this hopeful and really exhilarating quatrain:

DANCE as though no one is watching you.

LOVE as though you have never been hurt before.

SING as though no one can hear you.

LIVE as though heaven is on earth.

Resonating with these wonderful words (although in a rather atypical way) gave me a high sense of self-fulfillment.

For example, when I read the dance value judgement, my mind immediately reacted: Thank God no one can see me!

Love - here only one word came into my mind: gimble (a word invented by Lewis Caroll that roughly means "screwing out holes in anything")

Sing - I think this is an unfair suggestion as sharing ones talents has always been one of my deepest convictions.

Live - this statement here really filled my head with ideas; only I don't know exactly what they are.

I guess I am just a borogove.

(An extinct kind of parrot with no wings, beak turned up that made its nest under sundails; lived on veal)

Did you ever see a more splendiferous crash?

2010-04-26T05:17:00.000+01:00

...or how to match the existentialist theory and Zorba.

Funny hours give birth to funny thoughts. Thoughts that I am pretty sure will not make sense by daybreak.

The essence of emotional states is not a feature of the mental world, but rather a transformation of one’s perspective upon the world, or at least this is what Sartre demonstrates through his phenomenological method in The Psychology of the Imagination.

The irony: although I was infatuated (for some probably egocentric reason) to have theoretically understood the apparently tangled concepts of the existentialist theory, after watching an amazing 2-hour '64 movie, I couldn't help but laugh to my immature infatuation because I realized I had understood nothing before I watched the vibrant demonstration of life.

The paradox: the two views on life go hand in hand or at least somehow complete each other. Whatever we love or hate, whatever we decide to remember through our selective memory and most of all the way we decide to remember it, the so-called bitter reminders of reality (whatever that means), what we create and how we decide to live our life, what we notice around us and what we never know it existed, perfumes that smell differently on people's skins, images that create nightmares, long-distance shapes that awake our imagination, all these illusions that make us think we have found the answer, they are all nothing but our own transformation of what we call the world.

The world is not what we want it to be; if it were, we would all be happy - I can hear the skepticals say, but paradoxically this is precisely what it is. It is all that we wish, imagine, feel, and even think it to be. All we need is a little bit of madness!

"A man needs a little madness, or else...he never dares cut the rope and be free." (from Alexis Zorbas)

Sables Mouvants

2010-04-22T11:06:00.000+01:00

Stillness is all that I have become to wish for myself while the world around me is moving sands.

The rewards of socializing

2010-03-10T16:53:00.000Z

After a long well-deserved isolation (on both sides: me and the rest of the world), I decided to offer myself to the world (in the most innocent non-erotic way) and started going out, speaking to people and most of all behaving like a rational and sane person. How did it happen ar even better, why, I have asked myself obssessively as well (especially because it made the passage easier). The answer is: NO, I mean there is no answer because there is no reason.

...maybe, if I really rout (so to speak) for a reason (somewhere in my messy mind), the only thing I am able to catch a glimpse of is the trace of a reason: I am finally steering some of my inner energy in the right direction.

But all I wanted to speak about are the rewards of socializing.

A few days ago, I was on the train, on my way to Craiova - my home town - and the myracle of socializing revealed itself to me: (actually, that's when I realized I had flushed myself to society) a litttle boy, his grandfather and his grandmother. Running after a jumping ball, the boy went - predictably - under the train in search of his ball. The train wasn't going to start running before 15 more minutes, so he was practically safe...from the train I mean, because once the train conductress and some old quarrelling man started projecting outloud thoughts of untamed death onto the little boy, Hell unleashed.

The grandfather was right: from that moment on, the boy didn't have to worry about being hit by a train, but of confronting the graciousely benevolent world around him. And so he got acquainted with the kindness of the people surrounding him (although I am not sure he also got aware of its universality): he was hit by his grandfather while told that he had embarrassed him by attracting the attention of the whole compartment and also of the conductor through his lack of obedience. He had brought shame on his educators and that was the superme mistake he had to pay for. Needless to say, the woman started screaming that she almost lost her grandson (at the same time her husband worried about the presumed reaction the boy's parents would have had, if he had been dead now) while the kind-hearted observers commented on the danger they had just prevented.

I hope the boy learned his lesson and never will he embarrass the world again.

...and I am of course deeply satisfied to observe society doing its duty.(I still wonder why on earth did I ever run off like that??)

Hide-and-seek

2010-03-07T20:20:00.000Z

Pio, per conservare la sede, perde la fede.

Pio, per conservare la fede, perde la sede.

Contrasts, choices, paths, crossroads, traps, dead-ends. It's all just a hide-and-seek game through a labyrinth.

On the way you have to leave behind - sooner or later - most of your possessions, the things you care about or believe in, and also most of your companions (if there are any reaching for the same hiding place as you). Choices need to be made, because the rules of the game don't allow you to stay hidden in the same place for more than 10 enumerations of animals, numbers, books, queens or whatever category you choose when you first subscribe to the game.

And like in all choice matters, you are obliged to make compromises. (It has been thought to secretly be a game of the mind, because it is told that by its end - which few or none have reached, as there are only a few legends that record its end - you need to give up your thoughts as well). That's when you need to make a hierarchy of your values and give up some of them, the ones you need to classify as 'unimportant'. Unlike in the case of Prometheus, it will be neither the eagles nor Zeus, but you yourself that will need to decide which part of you is indispensable and can be left on the way, in the name of the blinding hope that maybe you will find the exit to the labyrinth and win the game.

There is another way of winning the game - but it is so improbable that it is only mentioned as an optional rule to the game, that you can check or not when entering the game -: finding the other competitor that wears the same mark like you. The difficult part is that you cannot see the mark because of the clothes and masks everyone needs to wear; the only way to do it is to just choose one of the competitors using only your intuition, if that is one of the values you have decided to stick to. Unfortunately, if you choose wrong, you are immediately disqualified from the game and banned from entering it for a long time.
As this is the only game available, it can get really frustrating, so most competitors decide to participate individually and make it on their own.

The game only finishes once you get tired and give up. That's when you are allowed to take a rest - a permanent one, of course - in the place where you decided to quit: sometimes a beautiful peaceful meadow with a monotonous landscape, other times a litter box, or surrounded by tall fences. (there are a few more options, but as they belong to the same category, they are not worth mentioning)

Break a leg everyone!

Shapes and contrasts

2010-02-28T20:32:00.000Z

"Shapes and lines do not exist. There are only contrasts." (Paul Cézanne)

According to Paul Cézanne's theory, shape is created through a precise association of tones. Thus, once this connection is reached, the painting forms by itself.

Isn't there any way this principle can be applied to human relationships and more specifically to love affairs? What if once we met someone we didn't try to categorize them or draw around that person lines and limits that don't really exist? How would love affairs be if we didn't try to shove the person we pretend to love into the shape we think would best fit him/her?

Life would be easier, lighter, more beautiful, or, at least more volitional and less frustrating.

If we just let the association of tones do the job, instead of making efforts to draw twisted shapes, we wouldn't be "modelling" but "modulating" our own lives.

About loneliness and disorder

2010-02-21T14:15:00.000Z

Seems that the chant is working. My blog has become voodooresistent. (after it deleted my Japanese waves dream, but anyways...)

Petru, this time I will use your titling style, that's about how much I am able to pirate from you.

Lately I have had some time for introspection, and among the many wrong conclusions I have trigger, I found a few (very few) thoughts slightly interesting, at least as a starting point for further introspection.

My apartment (or one room and a half, as I like to call it - so unfair, as it's the nicest place I've had so far: notice the optimism) is always at least half messy, or in disorder, or a complete disaster most of the times.

Why? Why have I never asked myself why? Cause I've never spent enough time in it to ask myself any such question. Confusing? Slightly...but it is actually simple: it's just like when you live with someone but not as close as to discover who that person is in fact. In this case I will identify with my apartment, but it would be weird to call it I2 or the other I, so I'll just call it my apartment.

I never clean my apartment entirely. Sometimes I clean the room I sleep in, sometimes the small room where the dresser is, sometimes the bathroom, and almost never the kitchen.

I always thought I was too lazy to it it completely, which I still think is true, but surprisingly, it is not the only reason. I never clean it entirely because a spotless apartment reminds me of how lonely/uninspired I am . There's no one/nothing there to mess around with my stuff, either because he (impersonal "he") has no idea what they represent or where their place is, or because he just doesn't care if they are misplaced, or simply because there's a much better spot for them to begin with.

Not few times I have surprised myself looking at the clean sink or at my freshly well-ordered shelves and had this almost evil urge to mess them up completely. It was a very strong frustration feeling. Never knew where it came from until one day when someone made a complete jumble out of it. Strangely, it gave me a wonderful exhilarating feeling.

As my sister would say, the optimal state would be somewhere in between.

Self-Portrait

2010-02-20T10:41:00.000Z

Blog curse

2010-02-16T00:23:00.000Z

Howl howl gargle howl gargle howl howl howl gargle howl gargle howl howl gargle gargle howl gargle gargle gargle howl slurrp uuuurgh = my reaction to the consecutive deletion of my blog and hopefully a good incantation for preventing its further deletion.