Nothing is too childish for a grown-up person.

There just aren’t enough silly things on earth for men and for women to do. They would do them all. They would even go back to intrauterine habits, only if they could. If they can, they gladly skip normal nutrition and articulate words, “how do you do”s and normal walk, reasonable demands and discreet physiology.

The real fun starts from where they are however unable to forget the long, hard years spent with learning intricate social tricks and seduction devices involving dance, irony, mascara, refined lies, silk underwear, Calvin Klein perfumes, dismissing gestures, gastronomy, false naivetés and Kama Sutra.

…and the overlapping is hilarious, it’s beyond belief, it’s the drooling baby crawling on the floor euphorically babbling about sexual revolution and social democracy.

PS: And, of course, new painting is up. It’s called “Mind Games”, oil on canvas, 120 cm/100 cm.  It took me a month, 10 hours work/day to see it done. I never painted with such small, delicate strokes and I seriously question my ability (and will) to ever do it again. However, I dare say the real canvas looks better than the pictures I’ve taken. Don’t bid for this if you’re broke.

PS2: This fabulous video of The Sonics circulated gracefully on notorious social media a week ago. Can’t stop playing it since then.

PS3: The latest evening-ish phone picture is uploaded just for the sake of the trend; to be more specific, I was told it carries an “Avatar”-feeling. (Believe it or not, I saw the movie. It was so spectacularly bad, it made us all cringe and cry.)

I believe that many people who live with some sort of “feeling of destiny” can be just as far off their track as those who never had a “life-project”. What if we place ourselves everyday, with full commitment, in somebody else’s “thing”? Is the enthusiasm, the anticipation, and the amount of sweat we produce really enough for our quest to be justified?

We should be terrified by the possibility of us sitting in an alien’s life-plan; while our very own “thing” lies in a heavenly limbo, watched over by a drowsy angel – an old store keeper with dusty wings, snoozing in his chair. Waiting for nobody.

PS: Charlotte Gainsbourg’s new album IRM is unbelievably good. Beck’s contribution – as a songwriter – is of course substantial, but just like it happened in her previous collaboration with Air, she makes the music she sings seem surreal, subtle, sensual and yet dramatically serious and somehow threatening.  “Heaven can wait” , one of the most pop-friendly songs on the album, would have made the perfect soundtrack for the previous post. I’m keeping “Trick Pony” for today’s post (chilly lyrics, alarming beat), but I won’t say a word yet about my favorites on the album.

I love music demos. A demo gives you space to grow and develop as a listener. It’s a promise. And a test for your senses. A demo trusts you, a demo relies on you, it says: “look, I might not sound awesome right now, but have a little faith, OK? Think positively. Be open. This line, this note, this pause…”. Thereupon, a music producer is a believer. A very religious man, with a complex sense of future .

PS: …and I say: God bless Tony Visconti because he did all those wonders with Morrissey’s Ringleader of the Tormenters that, for some reason, I can’t stop playing. Oh what a believer!

And the recommended rough art for today is: Harrison’s demo of “The Art of Dying”, Matisse’s volume “Dessins – thèmes et variations”, and Franz Kafka’s diary.

The hands of growing-olders. Hands attempting to pick up a magazine, but, to their own surprise, ending up grabbing it; hands still longing to be tender, but ending up being austere and autocratic. Crossed hands in a rigid, marble-like pose, discretely showing their spots, like cinnamon sprinkling. These are melancholic hands that still have troubles with  calling time by its name.

And you can’t look at these hands without betraying our little teeny world. And they can’t stand being looked at without  anywhere to hide. They disappear in pockets, or cross over chest and lock up under arms, they bury themselves in gloves or simply move faster than required, nervously telling amazing stories about the one who dragged them all the way to here. They have their pride and stubbornness and no intention to drop the case.

Aging hands are very much like the two broken arms of a working clock. They never show time. They fumble with it.

PS: Beautiful Rufus Wainwright doing a Judy Garland, accompanied by his mother. May Kate McGarrigle rest in peace…

Life is often offered to us in a killer tandem: reality+dream; each reality backs up a certain kind of dreaming, each dreaming stands up for a certain kind of reality. Each reality promotes its specific dreams and vicerversa. An unshakable, unalterable tandem. One packing case, served together. And most importantly, each of the two becomes bearable thanks to the other one.

I would be very disappointed if you’d contradict me by invoking Jung, Laplanche, Pontalis, or, God forbid, Freud. Or Sartre. Or romantic poetry. Or Breton’s surrealism. They have nothing to do with this snowy morning of January. The coffee machine’s still snoring and I’m rushing to a conclusion: one man, one tandem.

PS: Erik Satie, Gnossienne no. 1 today.

The sudden, wild,  hysterical throb of optimism felt by him who realizes his hopes begin to melt.

PS: we’ve got a great song here.

Take the golden middle road, they say. But everytime I do it, I feel the urgent, alarming heaviness of both extremes pressing against my power of judgment. I couldn’t acquit of my existential and professional obligations with walking the middle path. As I work almost continuously these days, I am often pulled to one extreme side.

There’s nothing static or regular or “average” about writing or painting. The spectrum of failure borders on infinity, and there’s nothing you can do for you, as an “author”, to secure your creative “business”. There’s actually a cold war going on between your imagination and your intelligence that, occasionally, erupts into a full scale conflict. Either way, you end up a prisoner. A miserable slave of either your brain or your heart. In time, you learn to take this  tyranny as a mark of existential competence that every now and then turns into a moment of creative bliss. That you can use. And that only.

As for the peaceful middle road where everyone feels at ease, I’d take it as a mark of pleasant nothingness and decadent “democracy”. That’s where strategy is mistaken for approval, opinion is mistaken for judgment, emotion is mistaken for poetry, arrogance for wisdom, and Manhattan for art.

PS1: “Spiderman”, ink and pencil on paper.

PS2: Norah Jones. I liked her very first album back in 2002.  Somehow it was OK to think about Norah being warm, shy and impersonal, since she didn’t pen the songs on Come Away With Me. Then Not Too Late came out and noticed that somehow, it was already too late: her writing skills were vague, she seemed to have lost the grip. Now, that she tried her hand again with The Fall I have to say I can’t surrender to her music anymore. No thread to follow, no point to stick with. She’s sweet, but unspecific, soft, but not subtle, pleasant, but not imaginative. I have my little favorite though: “Young Blood”.

Cheese and almond pie anyone?

For a start, grind 300 g almonds in a blender and add them to a classically made pie dough (300 g of very cold butter blended together with about 3 cups of whole wheat flour, very cold water, salt and sugar) and mix everything gently (small pieces of butter should be visible in the dough – they’ll be responsible for the crispy texture of the baked crust). Refrigerate it for about two hours.

Preheat the oven at 250 degrees (Celsius). Flatten the dough with your hands and arrange it in the buttered pie pan. Keep it in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the filling: mix two yolks, two spoons of honey and a vanilla stick together. When blended, add 250 g of cottage cheese and stir well. Put 150 g of low fat cooking cream and 2 teaspoons of sugar in a blender, beat on low to blend then increase the speed until smooth.  Add the cheese mix and beat on low. Finally add two beaten egg whites and blend a little more.

Take the pie crust off the oven (it should be yellow-ish already) and pour the filling on top. Reduce the heat to 150-200 degrees and keep it in the oven 10 or 15 minutes more.

If you will, you can decorate it with slices of orange. No fresh mint leaves for me this time, which I think it’s a shame.

Bake your pie and let the first 2010 weekend come in peace (unless a war starts over who should clean the mess.)

PS: …but what’s a Friday pie without Humble Pie’s “Hot ‘n Nasty“?

If humans would only want necessary things like food and motherly affection, they wouldn’t be humans at all, but dogs. It stays in human’s power  to actually want the impossible with the same ardor and  confidence needed for a  very thirsty man to reach a can of  soda on a supermarket shelve.

Reasonably enough, there’s always someone or something to interfere brutally between us and our wildest dreams: mountains with their water gaps, people with their carelessness, years  with their endless seconds, kids with their video games,  operated hearts with their hesitating throbs, women with their marriage certificates draped in gold, warm waters  with their pools, noisy nights with their New York, world wide webs with their spiders, and well, everything  else that necessarily comes and
takes
the grace
away.

For the very most part, this world is about everything except our wishes.

PS: Speaking about the moon, listen to Small Faces‘ “Happiness Stan” from Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake (1968); this is their best album, undoubtedly.

Feeling overwhelmed is easy. And it’s usually for sale which makes things even easier.

An intense cinematic experience, sad, faultless acrobats at Cirque du Soleil, sad, faultless Madonna shows, Jacko’s death, my friend’s odd piercing: empty thrills that worth so much less than the luxury of a slowly built preoccupation. Too many tears, so little sweat; too much stupefaction, so little mystery.
I can be shocked, moved, puzzled or inflamed, but can you stir my interest? Can you? Can you really?

PS: Nancy Sinatra’s album Nancy Sinatra from 2004 is still a favorite. Morrissey’s song “Let Me Kiss You” is troubling, like all things involving Morrissey. “Burnin’ down the spark” is subtle-rhythmed, perfect for driving, “Baby’s Coming Back To Me” fits a Sunday morning like a glove. Eventually the album is elegant and steady. After years of listening, I still find it chic and womanish, in the French-music sense of the word. Try it here.

And HAPPY NEW YEAR!

…and then the beast in you laughs at you. Louder and louder.

PS: Merz, “Verily”. One of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. And I mean it.

The propensity to hope. This is something highly specific for human beings.

This is also something that  keeps all Gods lazy, sitting idly, with their iPods on full-blast, flipping through glossy magazines, always absent-minded, always cool and laid-back. They never got to use the keys of the billions of vaults where human misfortunes, failures and sorrows lie buried, locked up from very early infancy to the morbid age of 98.

You’d better put yourself at ease by constantly wishing and hoping. Because  contrary to general belief, no religion needs desperate people. Desperation, my friends, counts as a mortal sin per se.

OK. So this was my little Christmas thought. I hope you found it encouraging.

PS: …and, of course, a fine, Christmassy musical present to all of you wise people reading this blog: Ronnie Lane & Steve Townshend from the same acclaimed (by me) and underrated (by everybody else) album Rough Mix: Annie: “Winter has come, Annie/ No strength in the sun, Annie/ And when it’s gone, Annie/ Where shall we be?” Exquisite beauty.

Under almost any life scenario, you’re denied, shut down, contradicted, discredited, disbelieved, dismissed, rejected, nullified. It’s crazy, it’s unconventional and it’s bizarre to be accepted, confirmed or genuinely welcomed. The more you strive for perfection, the more you’ll be blamed for imperfection. The better you try to be, the more severe the punishment.

…I can see you right now, failing abominably to hold your head up and plead not guilty.

PS: New painting called “Higher Than Me”, oil on canvas, 100/160 cm. Pretty big surface, pretty much work. And no need to speculate, it is a self-portrait. Unfortunately I failed to take a really good picture (because of the size), so I’ll post the painting from a couple of angles.

PS2: When The Who met Small Faces amazing tracks  were born. More precisely, Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane: “Heart To Hang Onto”. I can’t stop playing this Rough Mix album…

PS3: Maybe you’ll find this of interest: www.fusionembassy.com

Once upon a time, there were two men: a mediocre realist painter and a mediocre writer of spiritless,  fashionable stories.

It happened such that the first was impressed with the two huge moles on the face of the second.

The painter decided the writer’s moles just needed to be painted. And thus a portrait was executed in a standard, unexceptional manner. However, the two painted moles were indeed extraordinary. No one has ever seen anything more vivid, more substantial, more repulsive.

Those painted moles were simultaneously a sample of craftsmanship and a token of the great inspiration our painter was stricken by. The portrait has soon been considered a fine piece of realism, and its model has soon become a fascinating, intriguing, veridical writer, driven in his art by the tragic story of his moles.

All in all, the two moles made the two artists famous. They were the key, the motto, the reason, and the fundamental engine of their art which has suddenly received worldwide recognition. New meanings were to be found behind their apparently ordinary writing and painting skills.

Critics have written about our painter’s obsession with apparently innocent deformities hence with human imperfection leading ineluctably to the idea of metaphysical failure. Psychoanalysts, at their turn, have spoken about our writer’s literary fixation on dispassionate literary scenes to mirror a sophisticated system of repression of guilt due to his mole-problem; which led, in fact, to the guilt he felt because of repressed libidinal impulses such as strong sexual and aggressive desires.

One day, an innocent young student who passionately conducted her PhD thesis in the art of her beloved master discovered something extraordinary: the  mother  of the writer, too, had the moles!

The news of this remarkable genetic heritage has spread immediately in the most serious niche  publications and we must say it led to a storm controversy in all those exquisite literary circles.

It was, from that moment on, clear to everyone who bothered to keep their eyes and ears open that the artist’s writings expressed the tragic dilemma of he who could never overcome a simultaneous love and hate relationship with a desired yet stigmatized mother; which led, of course, not only to an extraordinary degree of insecurity, guilt and anxiety, but also to a ferocious ambition and wonderful sublimation skills also known as the classical ingredients for making a worldwide artist out of a timid, neurotic  next-door guy.

It was now also clear that the brave painter had the extraordinary intuition of all these. He was the first to see through the two big brown moles, as through holes, deep inside the writer’s tormented soul; and found something that we may call these days the very human essence:  “I may not seem quite right, but  I’m not f***d up, not quite”. He, our painter, has seen all these and laid them on his canvas.

This apparently simple physical imperfection made any creative idea seem useless. Our painter needed nothing but this great, real detail: two moles on a writer’s face.

At his turn, our writer needed no talent, except this dramatic reality: two moles inherited from his very mother.

Some of the most courageous experts  soon dared to predict a suicide of the artist. They however didn’t tell which of the two are to commit suicide, so we could only assume it might have been both  (also taking into account the rumors about a presumed sado-masochistic relationship between the two.)

Due to the apparent accessibility of the theme, they’ve become not only valuable in high circles, but also popular among the masses. The writings of the possessor of the moles, the writer himself, as well as the paintings  of the moles together with the painter himself made it not only in the greatest exhibition museums and publishing houses around the world, but also in malls, pubs, public spaces and yellow media. Everyone seemed happy to agree upon the fact that physical beauty is not a requirement for pleasure and even less for art, fame and fortune. It takes two big hideous moles to make two men whole. And so the moles  were  shown in Vogue, in glossy men’s magazines and moreover in a Lady Gaga video being filmed as we speak.

After a short while of exposure to limelight, women rated moles among the sexiest physical accessories a man can have. “The bigger the better”, “Size Does matter”, “I want Your Mole” and “In Your Face” to mention a few of the most common titles in the glossy written reports of the latest months.

Sooner than expected, some weaker men have gone a little bit too far and bought at least one fake rubber mole on their cheeks and noses, just to get more attention from the ladies at cocktails and parties.

Damien Hirst however has been, as expected, a little bit shaken by the news and decided to put an end to this ridiculous mole story by exhibiting his latest masterpiece: two huge brown moles covered in diamonds. Our painter found the gesture completely unethical and  expressed his disagreement with Hirst’s work in prime-time on CNN.  He was later advised not to stop here, but sue the British artist and deal with him once for all. “This might be the end of him”, insisted one of  our painter’s advisers.

Our writer however didn’t agree with such harsh measures against one of the most prominent children of late modern art. Unlike our painter, he was a pacifist, or to be more precise, a conflict fearer. It was rumored that later that night, right after the public embarrassment of Hirst on CNN, he phoned our painter and begged him to calm down. The two moles belonged to him only after all, so he can sure do whatever he wants, including letting Damien do some clever work on them. When our painter has finally agreed to calm down and admitted  that yes, he was a little bit jealous and not really ready to share the moles with other artists, our writer also agreed it was perhaps the time to get a bit more realistic. The outcome of the long phone talk was the possibility of registering the two moles as a trademark. One hour later,  their common secretary was dragged off from bed by a phone call. She was asked to set a video conference  for 9 a.m. the next day with their two agents and six attorneys.

To our knowledge, the legal procedure of registering the moles as a trademark has been completed in no more than 5 weeks. Today is up and going, as you’ve probably already heard on the news.

PS: The above story was inspired by a certain remark I’ve read in Dostoevsky’s “Diary of a Writer”.

PS2: This is a song that my husband loves a lot. It comes from that amazing 60s garage collection… “Miracle Worker” by The Brogues. Shake it!!

Apart from its obvious (commonly known as nasty) characteristics, moving from one house to another also involves a failed attempt of retouching yourself.

For a start, you’re forced to take yourself from the beginning; to rethink your past, present and future, to look at your living as if it’d be someone else’s, to find a way to put up with a long enumeration of objects of uncertain value, dozens of boxes  carrying your decomposed self into priceless and useless pieces. And that’s where the existential discomfort begins.

Spoiling the natural hierarchy of objects and temporal processes that took place within you by throwing away all the stuff you think you won’t need, rearranging the rest according to some newly invented rules and actually believing you’ve just reinvented your lifestyle  is nothing but a feeble revolt against yourself.

However once you’ve reached the new place you’ll again be surrounded by objects of uncertain value and you will then have to admit that you haven’t invented any new living rule worthy to be followed, that you haven’t quite taken any salutary decision, that you haven’t quite thrown away the stuff that really perturbed you, all you’ve actually done  was producing  exasperated, hasty, neurotic gestures to ease your physical effort and save some valuable, objective time.

It is, in fact, exceptionally difficult to take some relevant decisions for interfering in the “inner workings” of your  own destiny. It is, in fact, exceptionally difficult to move yourself along with your furniture, books, shoes and plates. They’ll be going on. You’ll be staying still.

PS: I kept thinking about my favorite cover project of all time, but I couldn’t possibly take the risk of deciding upon such an important matter. However a temporary solution came to my ears while jogging in the park the other day. The cover album I’m refering to is about two years old. I loved it enormously back in 2007. I still love it today. I believe it makes a perfect winter holiday soundtrack: it’s Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s Raising Sand. Brilliant concept. Get a taste here.

PS2: The strangest photo I’ve taken lately can be seen above. I even felt like giving it a name: “The Dying Circus”.

Failings and successes do not lie within the natural scheme of things, but within a (well?) intentioned scheme of supra-things.

People should be told right into their face that the path they choose with their beating heart and by the sweat of their brow is rarely – if ever! – the victorious path. Because life itself does not “carry” any failings or victories; life is something else.

PS: Sorry for the long break. Now back to normal. Moving was a nightmare. Maybe I’ll post some reflections about it sometime in the near future. Meanwhile, the cover-series goes on with The Monkees “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone” (what an amazing tune!). Per Gessle gave it a try in his 2009 European tour. This is the Amsterdam attempt.

I’d choose a delirious, irrepressibly arrogant Babylon over an impostrous  Las Vegas – an anxious  peacock doing a Robert Redford.

PS: Things happened lately. Some were, for sure, good. Some were nevertheless bad. See you in a week. Or after Christmas. If not, happy conscience everyone!

PS2: Some wrote and complained I only like old covers. That’s not true. Here’s a proof: Lykke Li covering Kings of Leon’s “Knocked Up”. Divine.

The days. Tomorrow, yesterday, the day after tomorrow, the day you were kissed by a stranger, the pre-day of an important meeting, the day before yesterday – they zig and zag chaotically through your life. Some of them were bad, some of them were sad, some of them cannot even be located exactly, some still make your knees shake, some were late, some were far too soon, some never passed – they just  melted and formed a bad smelling puddle you often walk into, when absent-minded; and finally some days will never come, they’ve been suspended forever.

Do you feel like you know where you’re heading to? Do you feel like you’re in a hurry? Are you impatient? Do you enjoy making predictions? Or having goals? And secretaries? Well, think again. Your days are here to rudely disapprove your sense of direction.

PS: The Who’s version of “Under My Thumb” is probably better than the original Rolling Stones. Personally, I take covers very seriously. I even collect them. I learned to pay attention to them when I first heard Cat Power’s Jukebox.

PS2: I couldn’t find a name for the above charcoal. It might not even deserve one after all.