"The mouse folded her arms and started chewing absentmindedly, then spat suddenly, having recognised the taste of chewing gum for cats. The salesman had made a mistake."

(Boris Vian, Foam of the Daze, p. 96)

blame it on the booooooooooooooogieeeeee!!!!!

scramble

Itugg mobi ulis

fol wob .dk

lag.ben ulomly

pg.beeny jr

[morning dadaist poetry on my 'new' nokia phone - after activating the English dictionary for text-writing]

Alien[ating] life?

here are two stories that i've been meaning to post in the past days; they kind of show the absurdity of life, but nevertheless, make no mistake about it [as US politicians like to say]. they are not fiction. they actually DID happen to me. both of them. and i thought i wasn't living in a science fiction novel... hmmmm

1: a story about Humans, Robots and Gynaecological examinations

i was back to my office from the early-day class and desperately needed a coffee. my mobile phone screen showed the digitally encoded remnant of a missed call; an unrecognised number that looked like one of those easy-to-remember, CALL US in case of emergency or in case you urgently feel the need / want to buy something from us. i shrugged. i wasn't going to call back, so i got down to my 'business' and worked for a couple of hours. until the phone rang again and i saw the same number on the display. aha! i was now going to find out who had been looking for me before! a soft voice whispered to my ear: "hello, this is a recorded voice message"; the first urge was to hang up thinking it was another one of those 'great offers' where you can hardly believe how lucky you are...but curiosity prevailed and i kept on listening. i wanted to see 'what was on offer'; it turned out there was absolutely no 'great deal' coming at me from the abstract realm of some impersonal and selfish company wanting to sell things to me or benefit from my 'innocence'; it was someone calling me about my health! a robot that cared! this soft female voice spelling out my name carefully, with emphasis on the vowels, making sure i understood every sound, was actually calling to confirm my gynaecological appointment that had been done for me months ago; it, or shall i say 'she', assumed that there was a high chance of me having forgotten about it, so 'she' said this was a kind reminder and also a confirmation that i could actually make it..... ah, the wonders of technology! the robot calling me to ask about me and my feelings, me and possible forgetfulness (a 'quality' that shows the deep 'inequality' between us humans and robots, we forget things, they don't!), me and my possible change of plans, circumstances or even preferences regarding the day and time of my appointment.... maybe i was embarrassed to call and change my appointment and now...thanks to this miraculous call, i was able to escape all embarrassment at the press of a button: "please press 1 if you would like to confirm your appointment and 2 if you would like to change it. thank you and have a nice day!"; and i did, i had a very nice day, because...at the end of it....the following happened...


2: a story about Italians, Romanians and aliens from outer space

I was going home after a very long day of work. my thoughts entangled with methodological puzzles and my eyes sore from too much staring into the unfriendly screen of my toshiba laptop. i was dead tired and my legs were moving quickly and resolutely, as if driven by an unknown force. as if set in motion by some sort of mechanism beyond my control. it was almost midnight and the road leading from campus towards my house was empty. i was passing by a bus-stop on my path, when a young man standing there with a bottle of beer in his hand, waiting for an invisible bus that was definitely was not going to come at that hour of the night, stopped me with a low-pitched 'excuse me!'; i thought he might ask me something about the time, the bus schedule or anything remotely related to the situation (i.e. him standing in the bus stop while me passing by), but he uttered the following words:
"you speak good English, no?"
"umm, i don't know..." [and i smiled in surprise]
"where are you from?"
"...mmhh, i'm not from around here" [visibly uncomfortable with the question]
"no, really, where are you from?"
"(pause) i'm from.... outer space!"
"from SPAIN!??!"
"no, no, from O-U-T-E-R S-P-A-C-E. you know?...space?!" [gigling]
"outer space?...ahhh...ok. I'm from Italy"
(smile)
"what country are you from?" [he asked again]
"Romania, i'm from Romania" [I finally gave in...the secret]
"oh. ok. bye!!"
"yeah.." [vexed; turned around and left]
as i was leaving, i heard him mumble: "outer space...nice one!!"
[giggles.]

the house

it was a green house. huge. empty. in the process of being renovated.
it was *my* house. but I was going to share it with others. no idea with whom. i had the big room on top, left side. the symmetrical left-side of the house, a sort of wide open attic that was identical to the right-side room. the renovator guy showed me around. he was the one who took me upstairs and then vanished into thin air, only to return when i needed him.

the 'going-up-to-my-room' part was the most exhilarating one! while going through this labyrinth of stairs and doors, i was mesmerised by the mystery of it all. i was excited with curiosity to find what was behind every inch of dusty piece of wood, of every white washed wall that seemed to crumble. going up to my room was the most eventful quest. it seemed to be a never-ending journey! so many stair-cases, narrow passages, hallways and little corners...all through an empty house! wondering how would my 'one' look like now, how would it look once it was completely renovated, redecorated, refurbished? My mind was projecting a whole story way ahead of what was going on at the moment, by this was not making every step less enjoyable or less enjoyed.

at some point I became annoyed with the idea that my room was so hidden and difficult to get to, but to a certain extent I was also happy that it was protected from the outside. if it was so hard for me to get to it, it would be the same for the 'harm'. i would feel safe in there, i thought. and kept on going, curious as ever, to see what other rooms this house had to hide.
at some point we reached the room. my room. it was huge and empty. big windows letting the sunlight in and...a white bathtub right in the middle of it, like the ones you only see in movies. Its corners were rough, cubical almost, which seemed odd, but I loved it! no furniture yet, of course, it was all covered in plastic sheets to make it easier to clean up once the mess was over. the floor was unstable. the guy told me i should be careful where i walked. it was as if i was truly in an attic and i needed to make sure i stepped on the right tiles, otherwise i would fall right down to where i had come from. somehow, I was not afraid of falling. it was just the excitement of discovery, mixed with that of sweet anticipation of how it would all look like when the renovating was going to be over.

i began exploring my future room and its corners. i found a tiny door leading to a small bathroom, and then another one, leading to another. I had two bathrooms! why would I need so many? a jacuzzi?..hm. too much self-indulgence, I thought. they were both immaculate white.

finally, I stepped out to see what was on the other side of the room. who, or what was going to be my next-door neighbour in this huge house? i opened shyly this white door in front of me and i instantly felt nauseous. one more step and i would have been falling down into the void. it was a vacuous room, a huge void going all the way down to the basement. an enormous black hole spanning on the whole height of the house, up to the roof. and dark as pitch. I couldn’t see anything inside! I was scared stiff and I quickly slammed the door shut. I couldn't breathe and stop wondering what was that room for? I imagined it wasn't really a room, it couldn't have been! there was no way the constructors of this house did this thing on purpose! there was absolutely no purpose for something like this! it must have been a mistake, or just..an intermediary stage. they WERE going to build something there, to build floors and rooms, and intricate hallways, just like in the rest of the house! I was sure of it. but just to make it even 'surer', i asked the renovator guy.

the house was not new, it wasn't something that was just being built for me. it was a pre-owned house that needed a lot of work.
After asking around as well (he seemed unaware of it himself!), the guy found out what that side of the house was for; he gave me the perfect alibi for it: apparently, it was not meant to be part of the initial house, it was added later. it was a sort of annex that was built for the purpose of 'keeping stuff'. it was a depot! it needed to be a huge open space so that as much air as possible would circulate, thus making all the ‘stuff’ thrown in there less likely to decay. i imagined it as a huge cellar, or barn, although i couldn't possibly imagine any food being stored in there. it was too dark even for imagination to populate it with objects!

i gave up, happy that there WAS an explanation for that void (i could not even call it a room, no matter how hard I tried) and that was it. I went back to my future room, contemplating, asking about this or that, wondering about nothing more than when will it be ready. i could not contain my happiness that at last, the prospect of me having a nice cosy room of my own was starting to take shape right before my very eyes...

it finally happened!

i am able to choose 'other not captured in male/female';
we are constantly trying to escape our own classifications, but how far can we get?
Monsieur Foucault would have been so proud to see this survey i recently took!
categorisations constantly create and re-create us and....this is a great example of how -somehow- someone- who probably has read too much [or too little!] of gender studies literature, has decided to be 'politically correct' and include those who do not feel their gender is CAPTURED in the millenia old dichotomy of male / female! but if we want to be so politically correct, why don't we say the female/ male dichotomy then? F comes before M, at least in the alphabet, right?!?!?


i am happy i could also choose another - this time "ethn0-racial" and tipically British - categorisation gem: 'White OTHER'.
It stands to reason that I am not as white as the british or the irish, am I?!?! me and the rest of the other 'white' world..
it reminds me of the cute english girl (Jackie- first one on the left) in the 7-UP series who, at the age of seven, when asked what she thought about 'people of color' said something like: "they're alright, the same as us, really... we are white, sort of pinkish we are"...

fuzziness

strange feeling...

however green
however little
however flowery
the rain that day
the smell of it
the need to cover ourselves
the road that goes nowehere
the newly discovered footpath in the woods
the need to kiss you
and the impossibility of it
the words came out like empty drops
and vanished immediately
their weight impossible and dry
their trace impalpable

i cannot feel more than i already do
the invisible word that i wrote in my imaginary diary that day
was indeed 'freedom'

and now it is 'love'

i saw a post

about love.

i can't stop staring at it

Incongruous. Indiscernible. Inconclusive

09 started for me with tremendous pain. It was a tooth-gone-bad on the right side of my mandible. I had mended at least 3 times it in the past – excavating-filling-re-excavating -re-filling-re- excavating again-re-re-filling – and so on. 2 different dentists had already worked on it and both had told me that the next time I come to see them about this same tooth, it would have to be killed: namely, the nerve had to go out.

This time I was in the UK, so it was a 3rd dentist that had the ‘privilege’ of working on my bad-tooth. The pain was terrible and it started right at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. It was impossible to get an appointment anywhere but I was lucky enough to have some painkillers, strong ones, from home. I took them until they finished, panicking at the thought that they’d run out or that I’d kill my liver in the process. They did run out and I had to bear the pain, bare, naked, hollow and deaf as it was, no matter how loud I howled. The dentist saw me and almost made fun of my whining, of my fear of further pain. He did not give me strong painkillers although I basically begged. I tried everything, even home-made remedies, the kind that grandmothers know. Nothing worked.

I was programmed for a root canal treatment. The dentist worked his way through to the core of my tooth, with all kinds of weird looking tools, and killed its nerve, the pain transmitter. The seed of my unrelenting, cruel pain. I was at last saved! I had undergone this procedure before on another tooth, back when i was 14, in Romania – and I knew that once the nerve was out, out was the pain too!

I wasn’t so lucky. The dentist told me, at the end of the procedure, after making some x-rays, that he needed to warn me about something that had happened, something that was not unusual to happen in the course of such procedures: the stuff he had used to fill up my nerve-emptied canal had spilled over a bit beyond the tip of one of the tooth’s roots. He said this might, or might not, cause a problem in the future. I might come back with a swollen cheek, or everything could be fine. I had a 5-year time span of worrying about it.
So I came back home without the relief I was hoping for. The tooth pain was not over with! It could backfire anytime from now, until 2014! The fear of this pain coming back and – most of all- NOT KNOWING whether it will - was paralysing.

I was programmed for a permanent filling a few months later, to give the tooth time to heal. But when the doctor found out that I still had occasional pain and that I couldn’t eat on that side because the tooth felt weak and painful, he made another x-ray. This time he said it may be more problematic than he had thought. He said it could be a ‘root fracture’, because there was a dark shade on one of the other roots. It was not the spill-over this time, it was that damn dark shadow that cast suspicion, a dark shadow that was there from the beginning of the treatment, as he realised after revisiting all my previous x-rays. The next step was a visit to a specialist, a dental surgeon.

As I was going to spend the next month and a half in Romania for research, the dentist suggested I see a specialist there. It may be much less expensive than in the UK, he claimed. And so I did. It was a good ethnographic experience for me: I went to the Dentistry Faculty and I was seen by a big shot surgeon – professor there. I was caught in the middle of practical exams (end-of-academic-year!) and was able to observe dental hospital life at its greatest! With patients, professors, students, almighty gatekeepers and angry assistants. After spending a few days in the corridors, being taken from one room to another, from one person to another and trying to reach the great-professor whose only expertise was good enough to say what the future of my tooth would be, I finally had 3 minutes of bliss: the professor looked at my x-ray and said: it’s inconclusive. He didn’t have any of my previous x-rays to observe the evolution, as the British dentist had not given these to me. The x-ray I had was a recent one and nothing could be observed. I was told to come within a month with a new x-ray so that a clear comparison could be made. The great-professor told me, whit a great smile on his face: “well, we’ll see what happens; if you swell up within a month, we’ll know that something is wrong and we’ll do what has to be done: a resection of the apex!” – which meant, in lay-wording, that they would have to surgically remove the tip of my tooth root, the one that was causing all this trouble.
Again, I was going home without KNOWING what would happen to my tooth.

I came back later, after a month, with a new x-ray. Same corridors, same rooms, same waiting. This time, a different person saw me. The great-professor was on holiday. I was asked again:

does it hurt?

Well, it does, but not as much as last month.

Oh, so the pain is cooling down a bit, that’s a good sign.

Yeah. But does this mean it will go away for good in time?

Well, from this x-ray, I really can’t tell. I can see no big difference from the last x-ray. I really
don’t know what to say. I think it’s better to wait and see.

...?

There is no point in making a resection while the tooth is not in a really bad shape. If we do that, the life span of the tooth will be significantly reduced; you will lose that tooth anyway, but we can prolong it’s life if we postpone the surgical intervention as long as possible.

I see. so then what should I do?

Nothing, just wait and see what happens. If you’re in tremendous pain, you come back and we’ll fix it.

OK...

***
Needless to say, I was happy, momentarily, that I would not undergo any kind of surgical intervention, but my heart was not light. I was not happy actually. What did this mean? WHEN WILL I KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN WITH THIS TOOTH? Will I ever be free-of-pain from it?

It still hurts, occasionally. But is this enough to take it out? The dentist said no. I am afraid to take it out. I guess I will have to listen to the specialists....

The moral of the story? Or why did I feel the need to share this now? The tooth-saga is reflective of what I am feeling deep down inside. I am in a moment of my life when EVERYTHING is inconclusive. Let me explain:

The tooth had been deteriorating for years now. It had a huge outburst of pain, a crisis, and then something changed. Something very important changed, because something was taken OUT of its core for it to stop hurting me. But the pain didn’t stop. Not completely. The threat of future pain is still there. As is the hope of no more pain. They are both there, equal shares, incongruous (because I cannot BUT think of them as NOT mine), indiscernible from one another, inconclusively there.

Will I be able to live with this uncertainty? Yes, sure! I am used to pain (I am a Christian, am I not? If I feel pain, I certainly deserve it) but until when? Should I take the tooth out even if it doesn’t hurt that much just to rid myself of the fear of another outburst of pain? or should I let it there, endure the small occasional pain and get on with my life by avoiding to ever chew on that tooth again?...Why is it that all the dentists’ aim is always ‘saving’ the tooth or prolonging its life? Going with the inertia of having a tooth in there? Is this a ‘conservation of the current-state-of-affairs’ strategy that I should embrace? I guess I am already doing that.

I have NO CLUE if it’s the right thing to do, but I need to be fully aware of what I’m doing before deciding to take the tooth out. I need to have a conclusive x-ray. And right now, I don’t have one. The only thing I have is what I feel..the godamn tooth STILL hurts! And the fact that I STILL DON’T KNOW, after all these dentists, after all these x-rays, HURTS EVEN MORE.

isn't it ironic?....

An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic ... don't you think
Chorus

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought ... it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
'Well isn't this nice...'
And isn't it ironic ... don't you think
Repeat Chorus


Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face

It's a traffic jam when you're already late
It's a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic... don't you think
A little too ironic... and yeah I really do think...
Repeat Chorus


Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

diverted attention.

sometimes [for example this Sunday] this is what happens when we try to occult the important stuff. a crocodile found in a French lake (!!!) is more important than the killings in Iran going on at the same time. at least for yahoo. this was the first peice of news that came up when i opened my account.
But then again, such is life. people are selective. there is no ultimate, absolute, universal authority to decide WHAT is more important, is there? there are just little fragile human beings for whom crocodiles seem more threatening than a bullet sent straight to the innocent's heart. and sometimes, i guess they are.
it's just a matter of knowing how to recognize the evil that lurks behind. to know which one to fear most. or just to stop hiding from the truth.

but the question remains: is there any hidden truth out there to uncover??? the truth may be a treasure that we keep on desperately searching for hoping that it would lead to happiness, but to me, right now, it seems like an unending spiral, leading to nowhere, going down, and further down, the more I try to uncover it...and find an even more 'hidden' truth underneath...
i forgot where i started. is this normal!?

happy b-day <3

selfless

aching
wishing
trying
hoping
that there will be a time

when i will forget
about forgetting myself
and start truly
forgetting my SELF

dreaming of a time
when i will shed
layer after layer
of self-bruised ego
of self-mutilated ego
of self-absorbed
and self-victimized
selfishness

when i will not act impulsively
no matter how pushed over the edge
by my own mystifications
when i will act without
thinking for a moment
about
my pain
my pleasure
my goddamn self

without poses
without contradictions
happy to be who i am
happy to be naked in front of the mirror

when i will have become
truly
selfless

i feel stupid. and contagious.

growing up is a mere illusion of ours. we like to believe in it like we like to believe in god. we like to kid ourselves (or better said: we like to kid the kid in us) into thinking we actually 'know' what we are doing, at all costs, at all possible times. we brace ourselves. we are keeping our head and limbs INSIDE the car at all times. we are respecting all those rules that are telling us we need to constantly keep our seat-belt fastened, and hold on to the sustenance bars, the metallic structures that prevent us from falling - by virtue of inertia- when the vehicle stops its motion all of a sudden (like in the metro or bus, or any other ride you may think of).

is this how we are 'supposed' to act? is this what others expect of us- the generalized other's gaze, constantly judging us, deeming us 'illegitimate adults' if we fail to produce the 'grown-up behaviour' that is acceptable to their eyes?
i guess so. that is why we need to lie. most of all, we need to lie to ourselves, to damage ourselves, to mutilate ourselves to fit the 'grown up' pattern. the one that KNOWS what to do. when to do. and how to do. the omnipotent adult that never falters, never fails. the adult-as-god.

when i was younger (i cannot say 'when i was a child', because i still am), i used to look up at 'grown ups' (my mother, my father, my grandpa), and think they were never hurt. whenever i went to the doctors i used to think that when i would become 'like them' [when i will 'grow up'] the shot will not sting anymore. the teeth will not hurt. the body will not feel any pain. I used to think that pain was only a child’s predicament that would simply disappear, with age. something like a pimple or wound that cures with time. Was it simply because the grown-ups never showed their pain to me because i had to be [taught how to be] brave and not show signs of it or was it because they were trying to conserve the illusion of having actually... grown up?

i don't really know. but what i can say now, 20 years later, is that i was absolutely right back then. Pain IS the child’s predicament. But I was also wrong! because i thought i’d ever stop being one and that my ability to feel pain would fade away over the years.

i guess the only difference between me_now and me_then is that – although I STILL DON’T KNOW what the f*** i am doing – i can no longer be forgiven with a condescending pat on the shoulder by those who DO know. this time, i have to pay for my ‘innocence’. the child is oblivious to others' pain, but now at least i should know: others hurt too.

Crazy thing is, intuition never failed me. I always follow my patterns knowing exactly where they would lead. Knowing the disaster is there, at the end of the line. And this is something that never ceases to amaze me. The very moment of setting foot on my path is always new and exciting. It’s always an adventure, no matter how strongly i feel the end deep down in my guts. it's a fascination that i cannot resist. like the vertigo that draws you into the void. I do it relentlessly. I do it fearlessly and then i run away once i feel ashamed and guilty. Is it a change of mind? Is it proof of poor judgement? Or of no judgement at all? is it mere insanity? or, oh yes, stupidity. plain and simple stupidity. what can u ask from a 'limited' person?.. obviously nothing. you can just pity them. do not hold accountable the ignorant and the insane. forgive them, dear father, for they know not what they do.

No wonder they do not trust children until the age of 14 to make decisions in court! for example, whether they would choose to live with their mother or father in case there was an argument over custody. They are considered immature and unable to say who they’d rather be with. Of course, they have desires, they have emotions AND cognitions, they are perfectly aware of what they feel. But they cannot be trusted in their decision. The default assumption is that they will most likely make the wrong one. And then BAM! All of a sudden, when they turn 14, they are able to make decisions. not only able, but required. it's what adults *do*. And so they will be, for the rest of their lives. It’s an ability that blossoms in them. Once in full bloom, it can never be taken back. And the assumption is, it never fails to bloom.

My only question is: if everything blooms, then dies [by this not making the flowers less beautiful], if life is so beautiful and yet unfair... why can’t WE be beautiful too? Because one thing is for sure: we definitely are unfair.

BAS

JAN ADER
[i'm too sad to tell you]

....say what?

The Communist party in Moldova announced that the election of the new president which was scheduled for today was postponed because....well....of the Christian celebration of Ascension Day (the day when Jesus went up to Heavens after ressurecting on Easter sunday...)
[source -in RO]

hehehe!...
it certainly fits with the ideology...isn't that right, Mr. Lenin!!??

da-mi doamne..o femeie [din galeria de femei!]

citind egophobia (sectiunea de poezie)...am dat peste anunturile google la capatul paginii, foarte bine adaptate la subiect....si intre ele!!

Cum sa ne rugam ca sa ne raspunda Dumnezeu la dorinta de a ne intalni dragostea...? pai simplu, ne rugam facand click pe galeria de femei!!!! ca doar ce-i frumos...si lui Dumnezeu ii place. pai, nu?...



ioi, Doamne, ce ne mai objectifica barbatii astia si ne pun prin galerii....

First BOOK launch: Congratulations, Lori!

Exactly one week ago, I witnessed the most touching book launch event of my life (okay, i haven't been to that many, but still --).
I admit, it may have had to do with the fact that I do share a special connection with the author of this book and I do feel very close to her (both academically and personally), but it was also because she gave a very good and charismatic speech. She made the whole audience feel her emotion, she made us all part of her inner thrill, she shared with us her childhood dreams and aspirations and literally brought tears of joy to our eyes [well, at least to some of us..]

Her book, called "The First 20 Seconds", is the fruit of her PhD thesis (maybe one day...i will dare to do the same) and it presents the first social-psychological experiment ever conducted in Romania in the field of Non-Verbal Communication. I think it's a must for students of communication and the wider public alike!

so this post is just to say "Congratulations, Lori!"
& thank you! :)


[photo credit: tritonic blog]

un, deux, trois...vive la reine!

Alexandrina 's video - shot at her painting exhibition opening back in 2007 - in my favorite Bucharest book-shop/ culture-shop / music-shop/ art-shop but most importantly: tea-shop: Carturesti [recently migrated to NY]

Bucharest, my <3

I just cannot contain my happiness!
it was a lovely day today, in Bucharest...

Travelling back home, yes, home, after - well - countless months (possibly the longest i've ever been away from home - and almost [?!!?!] having created a new home away from home), i had quite a rough impact with the city:
huge turmoil in the streets (with incredible holes being dug out for the sake of infrastructure), many cars, loud honking and mis-directed frustration at every corner - nothing new! yet it all seemed so distant and strange. the feeling of having been here before but not being exactly from here, of having seen all this, of having grown up here- yet not being able to take it all in. a feeling that you get when sometimes your own skin does not even feel like yours anymore. a feeling of repudiation. what was all-to-familiar had suddenly become unrecognizable- with just a few funny reminders of 25 years of living in this place. a city, of course, has many faces. and this one has changed so much in the past 25 years! but this was the first time i could hardly recognize my home-town! "have i actually grown out of it?" i asked myself, amazed. relentless. fascinated by this mixture of old and new. discovering it again and not understanding anything.

going up the old elevator, my mum wondered how i felt to be back home. in this rusty cubicle taking us up to the 9th floor, the only home i ever knew until i reached my 25. bearing the signs of old-age. doors scratched. paint chipped. i said it was strange. and it truly was. she wondered whether it was an 'ugly spectacle' for me, coming from 'abroad', where everything is supposed to be shiny and new. i said no, it's not that. it's just...that i feel out of place in my own place. ALREADY.

maybe it really just takes 2 days to get used to a place. maybe it takes 3. i don't know. but today, things were different. i went out to the heart of the city. and i contemplated it. i immersed in it. i took the bus. i took to the streets. interacted with strangers. made photocopies in the local shop, re-activated my pre-paid sim-card, called my friends, went to the post office, paid a bill, made some shopping and...filed my request for a new passport. went through the local market, watched TV - cheap sopa operas, a ridiculous dating show, a cooking contest, a huge public scandal, the social-democrats electoral campaign start off and (what i like to call) cheesy politics (or even better: a sinister display of ideological masquerade).

at last: i feel at home.

i thought she said maple leaves...

sweet lyrics...sweet song

kiki forever

Feminite, 1930

Wire, tin, wood, and paint

18" h.

(calder foundation)

tribute to kiki de montparnasse (the artist, the woman, the model) and her nose - what clader considered to be the epitome of feminity and to her beauty, where man ray-and many others-found their inspiration...

calder's circus

"Calder's Circus" is on temporary exhibition at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

see also: the 19-minute film by Carlos Vilardebo (1961) showing a white-haired Calder - homo ludicus....

Absolutely beautiful: EIKOH HOSOE photography

from the 'Ordeal by Roses' series:





thanks Mariya for sharing!