But Sometimes It May Look Like This...

Nicolae Comanescu presenting Strategies for Fulfilling the dreams...

Love this painting.

It Looks Like This...

Nicolae Comanescu - acrylic on canvas, 80X120 cm, 2007

foto: VICTOR STROE Intact Images

It’s all about dust. The city of Bucharest full of blocks of flats that we don’t love or care for and their almost metaphysical sadness. So if someone would ask me to point a typical view of Bucharest I would definitely chose a painting by Nicolae Comanescu. ‘Dust 2 dust’, his last exhibition in Bucharest painted entirely with … dust - showing in a striking familiar way the way this controversial city feels like.

Bucharest looks dusty or grey or sad. The overwhelming legacy of communist architecture becomes more present when the weather is bad and there is a general sense of anxiety hovering in the air. Awkwardly my computer is just playing this very moment that it likes ‘London in the rain’…Funny character this machine.

Different

german chef versus chinese chef...

On behaviour and cultural patterns – Yang Liu exhibition ‘Differences of German & Chinese’. More here.

New Year

New Year ... new books, new pics, same us - new us...

Ki-Book

One day I read about - Amazon’s Kindle, the reading device - in a magazine and instantly liked it. Reading other reviews I encountered pros and cons regarding the device but at least, for now I feel this stupid strange desire that I need to have my own Kindle. I certainly love books, love the smell of ink, love the texture of the paper but the thought of having lots of books altogether and instant access to them all seems more seductive than anything.
Just a guess – but I find that Kindle would better suit my messy way of reading. Waking up late in the morning and trying to read in a hurry different things eventually while having fast-breakfast, reading in a cab, sometimes reading while working, reading while waiting… and so on.
I’m sure that paper books and virtual ones can live together just fine. Even though there may be a chance that sometimes, in the far future people will visit museums to see the way books used to look like. I don’t know, is this a scary/ sad perspective?

Re-think?

OMA - project

While studying architecture we had entire courses, both theoretical and practical dedicated to composition. A recurrent lesson that sometimes made us blind to the rich architecture’s significant and made us ‘slaves’ to graphic formalism. Undeniably basic rules…but it strikes now as when beginning a project we tend to think about different things. And it’s not the symmetry, the order, the rules, the dominant object that come to mind in the first place but a complete series of emotional and practical aspects. The people, the traffic, the context, the emotions, the materials, the networks real and virtual. Tactile and emotional architectural experiences that make use of materials, light, colors, sensibility, etc…
I thought about school especially after having certain chit-chats with one of my best friends teaching today at the University of Architecture. Somehow we reached a common conclusion that composition and metaphor manage to completely astound a young student’s mind who will stubbornly and formally try to obtain it in spite of a whole rational/conceptual discourse. It will also diminish his interest for experiments and even if I sound dramatic it will also cut part of his creativity.
The massive expansion of urban landscape, the way people live today always in a hurry, spending most of the time in their offices and connected to all kinds of strange networks, the chaotic traffic, the agglomerations… they all lead to rethinking architecture. And going further more I guess one may arrive here - Non-Plan: Essays on Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture and Urbanism.

Things

What happened to us? We gather around the table, drinking a glass of wine, at least some of us… eating good food and at a certain point people start talking about old times. We know little but we gather small pieces. A recurrent subject, already blurred in our memory but still… we do remember, we really do. The communist era when there were no lights (and no design ;) ) in the streets, when everything came wrapped in cheap paper, when people queued for any kind of food… and especially when freedom was not a sweetie but a torture. There is a beautiful passage somewhere in a book… telling about the way people saved themselves in hidden places through friends and dialogue. I always picture the frame as a cosy room, full of books and people sitting and talking, smoking smuggled cigarettes, good soft music and outside the guards. Inside the joy, the affection, the freedom.
I know what happened to us. We moved on. We’re in the never ending transition. And seeing the works of Dan Perjovschi at MoMA made me so happy. Happy.

Click!

'2046' - while googling for film images


Is there a certain enlightenment when seeing things that have been photographed especially by your own camera? I can sense details better than before since starting taking pictures, details that I might have ignored and that escaped my already distracted attention. That reminds me of Antonioni’s film ‘Blow Up’ where reality is examined through photography. The small hidden details that a hurried eye never gets to notice. Even large scale details. I guess photography makes things look better, lighter or darker, softer... and even enriches the significant.

I didn’t quite follow the plot of Kar Wai Wong’s movie, ‘2046’ but I admired the sequences of episodes as they seemed to develop in a mute collage of images. Each moving sequence like a beautiful picture. Click! Click! Beautiful pictures.

In the Manner of ... ?

The sum of all fears. Here and now days are still vague, indefinite. Late stroll by night in Bucharest does not reveal sleek gleaming towers of glass and steel but the massive gigantic propaganda ‘soaked’ with light. Still alive, still functional, still proudly standing and powerfully shouting from the past. Does this also stand for our resignation?

And somewhere … in the far, far land architecture is spreading.

Estimated completion 2007 and 2008 for buildings such as… “ Watercube” National Swimming Center in Beijing designed by PFW Architects, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Arup Group / Olympic National Stadium, Beijing, Herzog and de Meuron, Arup Group, / China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters, Beijing, Rem Koolhaas and OMA / Beijing Books Building, Rem Koolhaas and OMA/ terminals of the Beijing Capital International Airport, designed by Foster & Partners…

Adrenalin anxiety in the manner of Blade Runner's set. China seems to be reinventing itself in an extravagant manner some already saying that construction has reached the orgy.

Immen-silly

I had small heroes when being a child. I assume I never dreamt about fairies or princesses. Fairies became an item this summer when accidentally I met two of them: Irish, bad haired and puking on the floor of a New York apartment. Already grown-ups heroes or discreet charms for forgotten happiness.
But I do remember that once… being a child … I was particularly fascinated by a long moustached leek. Or by a fugitive running mice family and their daughter Chitz-Miruna. Or by a small onion child and his onion father trapped in an adventurous green stuff world. Or by Horbe with his big hat and his many pickles jars.
And I remember those summer afternoons when my father made me read for an hour each day. Initially I hated the job. Until I found them – small queer heroes which I immensely-silly liked so much. Still do.

... those good old times

Sometimes I’m being scolded by certain close friends for not posting. New resolutions will include assiduous writing… from time to time. That’s just when there are no dinosaurs to be found running wildly on my desktop things which seem to occur when certain spam windows pop up on the screen. So if I do find dinosaurs I’ll leave then quietly grazing the grass. Anyway, no connection whatsoever I wanted to write about John Fowles to whom I was extremely found of while being in high school. And it’s not the hidden significant that I want to write about but the sense of good feeling when reading or re-reading one of his books. There are authors that I read when being sad. And they manage to warm up the world around me. And Fowles has always been one of them.

Like in… well like in…those good old times.

Like in ...

October.
I can hear his imperfect voice singing and filling the room.
“They'll take the walk. We'll sage the world. Sounds like October. A futurist nose. Our furious, curious, fantasist code.”
I can feel the certain sadness in his voice and I let it in overwhelming the space.
I can smell October because the autumn it’s more present now than ever. And it smells like basil, like cold, like dry leaves, like tears , like affection… it smells like familiar and strange altogether. Like in the fantasist code of my mind.

Days

Presumably there are days when things are so full of downs. When ups and downs don’t go together for lunch as they should. But this night the ups and downs met for dinner in happy moments shared with close friends. And then all of a sudden you forget about downs and the air is filling with… yes, with the absolutely smooth jazz. So further plans take shape again and there’s an exciting feeling that a new office is waiting for me, new projects and above all the cosy feeling of being home wraps everything around… as someone very dear to me once said… like a big fluffy, god smelling towel that mom used to dry us when being little children. And I miss you dear dearest crazy cow...

Walls

Photo here: http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/hongkongarchitecture/

When walls get tighter and the sudden urge to leave becomes so invasive there’s no poppy / green field in sight. This is just another cinematographic cliché that we’re dreaming about. Running happily, no worries left behind, stupidly mannered and dumb laughing towards an immensely poppy field… There are walls everywhere and this is a fact. Some walls are softer, more flexible than others but in the end they stubbornly remain walls.
The architecture of density creates so many walls and seeing them in the photographs of Michael Wolf just increase the insecure feeling of anxiety. Walls as abstract patterns or installation pieces strangely sheltering the Hong Kong lifestyle.

Michael Wolf's adventure ...“I was sitting in my room in Amsterdam and suddenly knew I needed to make a big change in my life. I had a picture of the globe in my head and when I came to Asia I knew that was where I needed to go.”

Captain Nemo

Some people make discoveries late in life. It’s approximately the year 2007 and I discovered the best designed thing in the whole world – the Imac. Although I still can’t name myself a Mac as I’m wondering in a hybrid MacPc state using Windows with an Imac.

Categories

Housing
Confronted with a collective housing project I ran into the 10 Stamps by Javier Mozas defining ‘the house’. ( ‘Density’, a+t). The new house – flexible, ecological especially allowing informational and social networking.

NEUTRAL HOUSE: container-drawer, with a character and identity that do not impose themselves on their surroundings.
GREEN: occupies a minimum amount of land, where nature participates in the building; includes waste recycling systems and the use of clean energies.
CAR-FREE: located in a dense environmental with all services close in hand and easy access to public transport networks, favours alternative transport means such as the bike.
FLEXIBLE: can be adapted and modified to any subsequent use, even other than that of a dwelling.
OFFICE: marketed in m3 instead of m2, with high ceilings and modular spaces; provides rapid access to information networks and allows occupants to work at home.
PIAZZA: with collective meeting points that make it easier for residents to get together in open spaces within the building.
DIVERSE: capable of embracing any kind of cohabitation unit of different size and composition: with a wide range of choices.
HOTEL: with commercial and leisure services that operates 24 hours a day.
ASSISTED-LIVING: allows temporarily or permanently-disabled people to get about easily and safely provides for medical care in the home.
PROTECTED: ensures physical and psychological protection in the immediate environment; makes vulnerable people who live alone feel safe.

My London

On Sunday morning my cab is sadly running to the airport. I can’t repress a smile when reading on the back of the chairs ‘specimens’ of British humor… ‘trading standards have ruled that a sausage called the welsh dragon be renamed as it doesn’t contain dragon’ and ‘caffeine soap was invented for people in a hurry who lack time for both a shower and a coffee.’
I refused to go and see Muse – ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ on Saturday night and now I regret the live show on Wembley Stadium. That’s part of what I didn’t do.
Four days in London are never enough. I’ve always stood against the tourist status so for most of the time I walked target-less. Although I confess I took the Big Bus tour. I spent a lot of time at Borders, looking for my unknown writers and especially looking for the fairies and shamelessly went eating quite often. Great food and scenery at Sketch along with Laurent Pernot’s video installations … Particles, Confusion, Gravity, Still Alive, Life’s attraction. Great lunch at Cipriani’s.
Went seeing the Dover Street Market, a completely crazy fashion concept store conceived by Rei Kawakubo. The seducing chaos as he called it.
And certainly went seeing the magic box, Tate Modern for spasms of pleasure and shorts moment of contemplation. It surely worked.
I seem to lack enthusiasm but I really enjoyed London. And thought about Bridget a lot. Friends know the reasons.

Bigger, Better, Faster

Extension Victoria Palace, Bucharest by de Architekten Cie, NL.
So from now on we’ll see paper planes and kites in the sky and pink, red, white balloons. And hopefully a more lucrative transparency.

and and and...

I just pulled letters and words out of a hat. I like big earrings and comfy chairs and low heels and home and little cats which I do not own and fairies and some writers and some books and sleeping when I can and routine when I don’t hate it and buying magazines which eventually I throw away and desire when there’s no trace of deceit in it and grammar and the safety of rules and the compulsive obsession of some tunes and films, a lot and useless fantasising about future and you, that’s just when I don’t hate you which is most of the time nowadays and immensely the smell of baked aubergines and peppers…

There’s always love and hate in all the things we love and hate. And tricky feelings. That’s why I’ll put back into the hat the words and perpetually wonder about the same things that … I love and hate.

Who I Am and What I Want

I laughed for a while… and then I tried to understand why. Googling for more of Jasper Goodall’s work I found David Shrigley’s illustrations and followed the links regarding his work. Black and white childish drawings minimal in expression, absurd situations, funny text accompanying. That’s why I laughed.

‘I don’t really get tired of anything to be honest. I just ignore it if I’m not happy with it. It’s perhaps not the best description of my work though; I do what I do in the way that I do it because it’s a process of reduction. I’m just trying not to do certain things, rather than being faux-naïve. I’m just not interested in rendering spatial relationships. I’m drawing in the most immediate, simple way that I can in order to communicate the things I want to communicate.

But my drawings are quite childish really. Well, they’re very childish. But I think they’re better than kid’s drawings. I guess.’ ... David Shrigley's inteview.

No Title Requested

Slow reading, my lazy summer days…

Fashionable Fairies

the author… my fairy partner, Windy aka Irina, famous graphic designer and architect, living and flying in her favourite Paris, located here for a while to do some magic.

Well … someone once told me disregarding my vivid awareness - that we live in a completely deranged world where values such as kindness, love, loyalty are forgotten. Although if I read between pages of European history there’s an inevitable feeling that the world has been deranged ever since. Different shades and overtones of blue, that’s all.
Is there a way to treat our everyday common spleen? The come back and appeal for imaginary might be a way to ‘survive’ the unpleasant fractions of sadness. Take for instance the fairies. Magical creatures, human in appearance that remind us of the glory days of childhood.

The word fay came to English around 1400 (as fai, fay) from Old French faie or fee (Modern French fée), earlier from the Vulgar Latin feminine fata, referring to one of the Fates, personifications of destiny (the Greek Moirae). The concept of a fate, an overseeing divine force who determines the length and eventualities of one's life, had changed over the years to refer to a spirit guiding or directing a given person (cf. guardian angel), and thence broadened to refer to local protective spirits, or nature spirits in general.

these days i don't read

playing the killers – read my mind over and over again. over and over again. hei, before u go… can u read my mind? eating apples, I don’t mind if u don’t mind. a small stupid thing that makes me happy. like a stupid commercial that gathers altogether all possible clichés of happiness. these days I don’t read.

Film Noir

This post is dedicated to you although most probably you’ll never get to read it. It’s about one summer night when so many words left unspoken. It’s also meant to treat my hopefully short-term sadness and my regrets.
One forgotten summer night when we enjoyed the beauty of contrasts ( dark blak, shades of grey and intense white) in a film noir - Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958) and Miles Davis’ music for the film and immensely disliked the colorful details of violence in a common Hollywood thriller.
And once you told me I was mistaken. That I'd awaken with the sun. And ordered orange juice for one. It never entered my mind...

Wonder

Remind me why did I quit smoking? And especially why did I start smoking again? This summer. Because being so relaxed in a cretan, sea, chill-bossa-morning rock, fish, grilled octopus, fairies, sand, sea, friends, palms holiday. Strangely how cigarettes make you feel confident and help communication and intimacy spread from one person to another. Been reading in the latest English version of Harper’s Bazar about banning smoking in all public places in England. A decision that I would not argue about after all. Small interviews with Jeremy Irons, Emilia Fox, Rhys Ifans and great photos by Lorenzo Agius. All questioning whether it is possible to ban anything in this world and whether a total ban is not after all a powerful denying of freedom.
"It’s probably a good idea, because it’s considerate to non –smokers, but it will be sad because it will split group. Part of the fun of smoking is being with the others. " ( Emilia Fox)

Reading Group (Illustrations)

The Illustrator's choice for this month. Dearest Irina... the architect reader. As seen above ;)

Our reading group evening/night just ended. Liana's book choice this month. Call it a late runner but it’s now the time when I get to check references on our latest book – ‘Doré's Bible’ by Torgny Lindgren. I’m not familiar in any way with Swedish literature nor with other works of Lindgren. I was telling my friends that I was not particularly found of his ecriture , of his way of phrasing and writing ( nostalgic, far to descriptive for my taste) , that I prefer yet a more outspoken, sober and rational kind of writing. Nor was I especially attracted by the theological questions part of the subject. But I did follow quite attentively the story of the dyslexic main character which life is dedicated to Doré's Bible and above all to the power of images. In his vision speech and pictures tell the truth. Written words are confusing.
Questionable of course as the whole discourse of the book.
I wouldn’t call it a magnificent book, reading different review I encountered this word too many times. But enjoyable… especially when between pages there’s a sense a human fragility.

White Moods

Hormonorium - by Decosterd and Rahm

Been thinking about psychological spaces and remembered the Swiss pavilion at the 8th Architecture Biennale in Venice. The Hormonorium by Decosterd and Rahm. Been there, done that and experienced the space. A dazzling white room, white light , white floor made of fluorescent tubes, alpine climate. Dizzying experience. No guide marks, no boundaries… a therapeutic work to redefine our space-body relation.

Is space capable of doing this... ?! -" this environment allows us to experience a decrease in fatigue, a probable increase in sexual desire, and regulation of our moods. Due to the presence of UV-A, the Hormonorium will be a tanning environment, while the UV-B rays will enable the synthesis of vitamin D. "

Ecosistema Urbano

Checking the BBC five days weather forecast for Bucharest – declared temperature during day time between 38C and 43C degrees. Measured temperatures inside dense urban arias arrive at least at 50C degrees.
Yesterday I saw some pictures of Madrid with a friend that was located there for several month studying architecture. I had especially enjoyed pictures of the Eco-boulevard of Vallecas which seemed as one possible solution of fighting heat.

"The proposal for the Eco-boulevard of Vallecas can be defined as an operation of urban recycling that consists of the following actuations: the installation of three social revitalizing air-trees placed along the existing urbanization. Three pavilions or air trees function like open structures to multiply resident-selected activities. When a sufficient amount of time has passed, these devices should be dismantled, leaving remaining spaces that resemble forest clearings. The air tree is a light structure, easily dismantled and energetically self-sufficient, that only consumes what it is capable of producing by means of systems designed to capture and use solar photovoltaic energy. "

Extremely eco initiative.

Midsummer Night's Dream

We all seem to be in a great and powerful need and desire for imaginary. Stories of wizards, witches, dreams, old legends, fairies, fantastical creatures have bloomed in extravagant readings and films. I’m anxiously waiting for the ultimate ‘Harry Potter’ release (both book and film) and had recently seen films that I enjoyed a lot… El Laberinto del fauno, (2006) by Guillermo del Toro and La Science des rêves, (2006) by Michel Gondry.

In the back of a taxi in London I was reading that ‘trading standards have ruled that a sausage called the Welsh Dragon be renamed as it doesn’t contain dragon’. Most probably they have just run out of it. Common misunderstandings.

And the best surprise was running into one of Martin Millar’s books - ‘The Good Fairies of New York’. Morag si Heather two fairies with swords and green kilts, flying through the window of the worst violinist in NY, an overweighed and antisocial type named Dinnie vomit on his carpet. No worry though as fairy vomit smells like honey. They're not entirely alone -- as it turns out, New York is heavily populated by fairies, including Italian, Chinese, and black ones.

Neil Gaiman introduces Martin Millar’s book as a familiar of magical creatures which he gathered in America. Haven’t read anything by Neil Gaiman, still checking his site.

I discovered that sometimes I’m a lousy fairy. Named Phix. Found a fairy partner in Windy. Sometimes we’ll go flying in Bucharest. If we’re glowing you might as well see us.

Just Blue

Eternity by Calvin Klein. Summer edition.

Novel for a Small Pianina

one, two... 3, 4, ...7, 8 writers

I feel beaten up by the ugliness of Bucharest these days. A huge and crowded swamp.

But... I’ll officially start the ‘small pianina’ project, a novel built together by the reading-group members. We’ll practically knit together via e-mail the chapters of the book. Seven – eight writers in one - most probably – clumsy but inspired novel. Literature expanded.

See us in library soon.

Do you hear the wind?

Tenderness. I found tenderness in the film “The Lives of Others” ( Das Leben der Anderen, 2006). I was touched by the Brecht sequence – in which a Stasi officer gets humanized by a poem, touched by the idealist main character - the writer and touched by the optimistic approach that freedom, art, books are above all in a period fundamentally absurd.

Is this sentimental attachment due to my ignorance?

I live in a country who suffered a great deal because of the communism. Reading the film review written by Richard Porton for cinema-scope raises my doubts. I see flaws in my own sentimental scenario and I have that insecure and anxious feeling that somehow I have been ensnared.

Although litterateurs might appreciate, or at least wink at, the idea of poetry as deus ex machina, perhaps the single most ludicrous shot chronicles Wiesler’s epiphany as he reads a plangent passage from Brecht’s Baal. Nazi functionaries may have read Goethe in the morning and slaughtered with abandon in the afternoon, but loyal Stasi men apparently opened volumes of Brecht and were instantaneously transformed into civil libertarians... Richard Porton

Spring

Non posting days already turned into months. No books finished so far, there are pages stubbornly left on the floor in piles… “The Year of Yes” – a memoir by Maria Headly, a confusing and almost funny guide on dating. “Why not go out on a date with everyone who asks you?” Indeed, goodness, why not?
“Tourism” by Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal… young writer, young debut. Chick lit with a masculine touch… Immigrants, glamour, London, sex… “Portrait in Sepia” by Isabel Allende, my reading group book for this month. I'm supposed to finish it till Tuesday.

Stories

Never got along very well with short stories … the novella genre. But one day I ran into a collection of birthday stories selected and introduced by Haruki Murakami. Best surprise these days… best discovery… ‘The Moor’ by Russell Banks. Tender and heart-warming.
‘as long as this earth of ours continues to circle around the sun, your birthday will come around once a year, whether or not it gets reported on the radio, for you it will be a special day’… H. Murakami… in a radio midnight caller type of tone.

Fabulos Romania

Branding Romania… hot issue for this spring. “Fabulospirit” replacing “Always Surprising Romania”, new campaign sustained by GAV/Scholz& Friends.
No public auction organised by the authorities for the project which has been virulently criticised by the advertising & media industry in Romania ( via Cotidianul). People wondering whether this campaign is going to sell Romania. The campaign and our every day fabulospirit.

Reading about branding Poland… “Come Fly a Kite”. The simple, fun, young logo – the kite – got criticized as not being representative for a 1000 years old nation. ''It's bourgeois,'' Lawrence Weschler, the director of the New York Institute for the Humanities, who wrote a paean to the Solidarity logo years ago, says. ''It's capitalist. It says life is a holiday.'' ( New York Times – The Way We Live Now; A New Poland, No Joke).
I thought about this logo and I liked it…as I liked the New York Time’s article written by Sarah Boxer. (Sarah Boxer is a reporter for the Arts & Ideas pages of The Times) on branding Poland. Certainly a kite does not make you associate Poland with its reality… as they say…
gray, cold, vodka, poor, white, unsmiling, friendly, sad, boring, hard-living, fast-driving, hard-working, car-stealing, argumentative, creative, chauvinistic, chaotic, conservative, romantic, sentimental, anti-Semitic, Catholic, Walesa, Solidarity, Auschwitz, Chopin. But it’s fresh and fun and different and somehow modest.

''Why has Poland depicted itself as a day at the beach?'' Weschler asks. ''I don't know. Maybe if you lived its history, you might want a day at the beach.''

Reading Group 4

Next week on Tuesday… Martin Page and his novel “How I Became Stupid” … (Comment je suis devenu stupide , Le Dilettante, 2001).
Deciding whether ignorance is bliss or not.

Reading Group 03

( Irina : Adobe hand made...)

I missed our last reading group session. Theme reading : Ismail Kadare – “Spring Flower, Spring Frost” ( 2000) . But my friends were there … reading, talking and drinking … So asked them about it...

Olivia: a snake, frozen by the already ex-communism, marries a girl, becomes blond, and determines a young albanian to kill an artist. Or Kadare's, but-fair, obsession with the Kanun, put in more words and symbols then usual. Nice snaks i !

Ruxi ( no doubt the star... congratulations!!! ;))):
I have the joy to announce everybody that I am a dam lucky person (modest & intelligent) ...
I was invited in the US for a three months period to do what I like: teach & clinical research ! so I will miss you and the reading group! see you in July!

Irina: It was a rough start, lost in the mist of many senses and symbols of the book and a sweet late end, lost in the mist of four bottles of wine!
In the middle there was a tough and forceful discussion on politics and metaphysics and the endless meanings of folk stories like the one with the pig (aka ‘povestea porcului’). V nice!

Roxana: You, the ‘boss’! were missing! so not cool… never do that again!
We had a nice girlish meeting talking about a very good book (thx Irina! great choice).. and Olivia was the star of the night figuring out all the details of the book. ;) Domni punished herself and offered a blouse as a present… coz she didn't read the book.... and everybody appreciated her funny and nice attitude.

Domnica: I managed to read only 3 chapters of the book and I didn’t liked it … but honestly I enjoyed all the talk on the book and managed to understand the 3 chapters… ;))But all in all I appreciated the benefits of the reading group night, actually learned a lot, especially what ‘kanun’ means.

Alexandra_m: The book was great (great choice Irina!), filled with symbols, political and hystorical stuff. But in the end - a very late end - we've managed to put a sense into our heads.I don't remember how much wine I drank but my morning after was very rough. I loved it! Next one at my place!

( Later on... with complete comments from all members)

Sweeter

Today it tastes like grapefruit but sweeter.

Picture of Today

Thinking about the taste, smell, shape of disappointments and deceptions. Are they round or edgy, regular or irregular, colorful …? Today I can feel the trace of a big liquid black ink splash, shapeless on a bright white wall. Sober house interior. Heavy velvet drapes and a dark shade of parquet. Small drops of ink staining the floor… Bitter taste, grapefruit like.

...Noise and Plastic Attraction

(picture via Irina... urban art...)
Stubborn yellow plastic bag. Ever since seeing ‘American Beauty’ the bag has the same dream over and over again. Craving for a flying bag in the soft wind as filmed in a small art movie.
And a stubborn plastic giraffe. Craving for a yellow stupid plastic bag. Hoping that what they share would evolve into something plastic and elastic.

Silence

Haven’t been especially interested in Orhan Pamuk’s most prized book … “My Name is Red” but discovered “Snow” and the reviews made a click.
In the beginning there’s Turkey, the snow, a poet Ka and a long journey to Kars.
Ka believes that it only snows once in our dreams. And that snow is about silence.

Just for Two

Have recently been looking for a hotel in Rome. After screening and zapping through lots of hotels in the central area of the city, tired of all the floral patterns/textiles encountered in the way I entered the area of small boutique hotels… And oh joy! I finally… discovered minimalism and simplicity, concept design… delightful short time residences.
Nicest discovery – Franklin Hotel Feel the Sound, central/ downtown of Rome. Available – Soul Room (offers BANG & OLUFSEN cd set, more than 400 cds available in the lobby, ZEN cosmetics, 24 hours musical DVD…), Jazz Room, Blues Room, Rock Room, Pop Room, Peter Pan Room…

Craving for relaxation ? … find! design hotels / boutique hotels / lifestyle hotels …

Details

Filippo Lippi / detail: Madonna and Child, c. 1440

Sun and a soft trace of snow outside. Haven’t opened my computer for days now and I already feel the eagerness of going back home and plugging myself to the online internet. Long lazy winter days. A pastiche of mostly not doing something special at all. Also slow reading these days… managed to finish ‘Never let me go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro, eventually started my long promised holiday reading… ‘On Beauty’ by Zadie Smith and from time to time I guilty read glossy magazines. Shallowly I’m also enjoying beautiful clothes fashion details in some of the paintings of the great Maestros of the Italian art.

Holiday Reading

Short holiday… but here it is... via Design Observer a 2006 Holiday Reading List. My first choice for this holiday is Zadie Smith “On Beauty’, just got it for Christmas. Lovely gift, lovely book cover …