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12 mai 2013 by a*urélie

Tags: Paris, Pictures, Spring
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CAMPO DE’ FIORI

12 mai 2013 by a*urélie

Place Vendôme

Paris is fascinating.

Its beauty and filth. The fascination it arouses itself.

Terraces. Aversion to change.
Latent anger and drama everywhere.
Striking perspectives, style and laziness.

Infuriatingly snobbish.
Inexplicably self-absorbed.
Heart throbbing with romanticism.

This week, it has been sweet and sour.

Tags: Anecdotes, Paris, Pictures
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BASEL

28 avril 2013 by a*urélie

First trip with my new job: Basel, Switzerland for Basel World, the World Watch and Jewelry show. I have only spent two days and a half there, mainly inside of the exhibition space where brands compete with impressive pavilions. But I walked around a little in the morning and the evening to enjoy some natural light. The weather conditions made Basel shine and I left thinking that it is a lovely city.

Five reasons to like it:

- Interesting sculptures everywhere
- Cleanliness
- Interesting design stores
- Plenty of bicycle riders ( beware of the tram though)
- The whole city drinking by the river in the evening

( and bonuses for me this time:
- a wonderful dinner at Les Trois Rois, a beautiful, old fashioned hotel
- a room in a floating hotel…)

Design store by the river

Heads or…

… tails

Angle of the University Hospital

Encouragement

Fountain

Sunset on the Rhine

Inspired contemplation

Determination

The palace hotel

The floating hotel

Tags: Basel, Pictures
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PARIGGI-NAPOLI

22 mars 2013 by a*urélie

A la Daido Moriyama (a humble attempt only)

Tags: Art, Pictures
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SURYA NAMASKARA

22 mars 2013 by a*urélie

And now warm up.

Tags: Capri, Les Arcs, Paris, Winter
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HAPPY NEW YEAR

30 décembre 2012 by a*urélie

Dear XXIst century,

Welcome to your teen years! A blessed age to provoke and question; a critical time for self-discovery; seven years to transform, grow and push away all boundaries; an opportunity for all to learn about love and cultivate more of it.

Twelve months only to enjoy your being thirteen.
No chance to extend these months nor start over.
A year that will be more plentiful if we share it.

That is how intense, unique and abundant I wish 2013 to be for all of you my friends.

These three qualities being intrinsic to it, let’s go with the flow.

Happy New Year!

With love,
A*

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OUH OUH OUH OUH AH AH

5 décembre 2012 by a*urélie

Lack of imagination, how terrible an affliction! Is it contagious? Is it necessary to see a doctor? There is a surge of the disease in my neighborhood these days and I am familiar with the symptoms: sickening vertigo of the blank page; stubborn clinging to old, worn-out dreams; continuous, hopeful search for new models to emulate; desperate certainty that the grass is greener elsewhere; or a combination of these.

Give me an antidote! That is what I would think before coming to a few realizations recently, experiencing a cascade of rather dramatic events through close friends. These have shed a different light on the contamination and prompted a new idea: the symptoms above mentioned do not betray lack of imagination – the latter actually being a defense mechanism of the mind against this creeping evil I am trying to capture in words.

I had never questioned the fact that imagination is this long arm that makes it possible to sometimes caress truth, beauty and freedom. Indeed, aren’t scientists, novelists, people who survive in a prison of any kind, etc., all living in a separate dimension of their own creation, ridiculing the limits of the body and mind. Isn’t imagination amazing? It has no boundaries…

Or maybe it does have one. Giving my belief a little more thought, I cannot ignore that nothing I have ever imagined in my life was, is or will be. The limit of imagination is… reality.

I am sure most of you – my innumerable crowd of enlightened, glamorous and patient readers (right, mummy?) – want to raise your voice now: “Oh so what’s the big plan? Be as literal as possible. See things for what they are? Kill hope? Now, that’s sexy!” Well, that’s the plan indeed, unless you propose otherwise.

Question: what is the difference between a 6 year-old walking around with a magic wand, pretending to be a fairy or an enchanter and an adult entranced with romantic love for someone (s)he believes is just about to uncover treasures of unrealized potential after years and years of unsatisfying relationship?
Answer: there is none. In both situations, the organ they bring into play is their imagination.

What I am trying to say here is not that kids should not be given a magic wand but that imagination is misused by most of us who confuse it with vision. Kids may learn a lot through imagination but for sure adults hijack and enslave her. We put uninspired words in her mouth. We feed her with fake memories or impersonal fantasies and fears. We teach her jealousy and servility.

While writing this, I must admit I am struggling with my presumption that something one cannot imagine cannot ever be. I am scared that a tamed imagination equals “no future”, while that is precisely the solution. As often, the dictionary* knew all about it from the start. Imagination is at the same time “the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality” and its object: “a creation of the mind”. Control is the spark that can fire this wild demiurge and the resulting make-believe can range from catastrophic to ideal but it cannot be more than an illusion.

Let’s not confuse the disease with the organ though. Imagination can also be the “ability to confront and deal with a problem”. This “resourcefulness” does not manifest when one floats in the illusion with closed eyes. Strictly speaking, there is finally no lack of imagination around me at all but a new interest and ability to picture reality as it is.
Imagination is dead. Long live Imagination!

* http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imagination

Tags: Thoughts
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CAFÉ

12 novembre 2012 by a*urélie

Two days ago, after a long debate, C* and I had concluded, once more, that in order to be happy, surrounding circumstances are secondary to one’s attitude and to the inner feelings one cultivates.

It is so obvious that I often find myself ignoring it.

I let myself think that Paris is not exciting. It is dirty. Brutal. Disorganized. Lazy. Mineral. Common. Heavy.

All of this needs translation. In a more accurate language, you would have just read: I am not adventurous enough. My eyes do not dwell on beauty. I am not nurturing my own needs. I am not focusing on what matters. I am procrastinating. I am not breathing properly. I am taken in a routine. I feel responsible for things I need not worry about.

So I went back to this comfortable place where the heart is. The next morning (yesterday morning) I sat at the counter, ordered an espresso in a café and only remembered I had to pay as I were walking to the door. It had happened to me before to forget until the very last minute that I was indebted, because I was distracted, absorbed in the details of a friend’s story, preoccupied by something. But this time it was out of the pure comfort of being there.

Tags: Paris, Thoughts
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