Things
Collection of things that inspire me every now and then.
What is to surpass yourself you might ask is to grow beyond who you are and what you were once able to do. The expansion of your capabilities and limits as well as your circumstances and goals.
The legend of the Wind by Joe Hisaishi from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind ❤️
Play
Homo Ludens
"Playing is something we all do. As children, we experience it in carefree exuberance and the elation of the present. As adults, playing remains omnipresent but assumes other forms, notably an abundant variety of leisure activities. [ ... ] Despite contemporary society's obsession for games of all kinds, adults seem to lose the ability to revive the spontaneous imaginativeness of childhood play."
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing, they say. Another aspect of "Play" that I love is the fact that you have to be fully present in the game, thus fully present in the moment. As sociologist Pierre Bourdieu says "One must accept to play the game, to participate fully, to be absorbed by the game"
Source: Play, Ballet by Aleksander Ekman
Yalla!
La grande interview avec soeur Emmanuelle. Grande leçon de vie, fortes émotions et ma curiosité grandissante pour l’ouvrage de Blaise Pascale, Pensées. Yalla!
There is no such thing as race if there is its human race
Enlightening article "Beyond Black History Month" by Thomas Chatterton Williams on how we take for granted the concept of race. The value placed on the color of the skin and the differentiation we make between these superficial physical characteristics are all artificially fabricated by our society and we need to unlearn the habits of thought about racial categorisation.
If I take the quote of my history teacher in high school "there is no such thing as race if there is its human race"
"For foreigners not steeped in what the writer Stanley Crouch termed the “all-American skin game,” it can be difficult to grasp why, as many on the left now believe, the best way to rectify the corrosive effects of racial differentiation and discrimination is to find new and better ways to differentiate and discriminate…by race." [...] "If we care about solving the racial dilemma once and for all, we should first strive to create a society in which Black people, and by extension all other identity groups, are not considered and celebrated as different."
"And the value placed on the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion" - James Baldwin from "Letter from a Region in My Mind"
More from the same author: The guardian interview with Thomas Chatterton Williams.
Nina Simone "Just in Time"
Just in Time from Nina Simone from Before sunset - The best!
Joe Hisaishi meets Kitano Films
The best. Went back listening to this album after watching again! the summer of Kikujiro directed by Kitano Takeshi and composed by Joe Hisaishi.
Je suis ravi de partager ma foi avec les autres, mais je n’ai pas besoin d’être avec les autres pour la vivre. Je ne suis donc pas quelqu’un qui participe à des cérémonies ou à des rites. Ma foi est nourrie par le silence, la méditation, la prière, l’expérience du monde, et même par la force intérieure que je sens en moi. - Eric Eammanuel Schmitt
Bach
Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.” - Douglas Adams
Shakespeare
“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” - Shakespeare
Garcin Gilbert
J’ai découvert l’artiste vraiment par hasard alors que je cherchais des images surréalistes sur pinterest. J’ai été immédiatement attirée par ses images et curieuse d’en savoir plus sur lui.
Il entreprend la photographie très tard à l’âge de 60 ans après avoir passé toute sa vie comme gérant d'une entreprise de luminaire. Il apprend le photomontage qui sera sa source d’inspiration. Son outil pour mettre en scène des situations tantôt absurdes tantôt poétiques. Garcin lui-même et sa femme se trouvent dans des décors surréalistes qui nous invitent à nous interroger sur les choses de la vie: la vie qui s’écoule, le temps qui fuit, la patience qu’il faut avoir pour continuer de vivre... Ses photographies évoquent les petites philosophies, les questions existentielles à la manière de Hitchcock mais aussi avec une une touche d’humour. Une critique les nommera “Photosophies”. Ou Théâtre existentialiste? Vide minimaliste? Haïku photographique?
Un photographe que j’admire non seulement pour ses créations mais surtout pour son ardeur à la poursuite de sa passion! Qui dit qu’on peut pas se réinventer et se renouveler à l’âge de 60 ans? 70 ans?
Complètement conquise!
Boléro de Maurice Béjart
Soirée exceptionnelle avec Nicolas Le Riche et le Boléro de Maurice Béjart. Sublime!
Joyeux Noël
Derek Sivers' view on Global v.s Local
You can focus your time locally or globally.
But if you over-commit yourself locally, you under-commit yourself globally, and vice-versa.
If you’re local, then you’re probably social, doing a lot of things in-person, and being a part of your community. But this means you’ll have less time to focus on creating things for the world.
If you’re global, then you want to focus on creating things that can reach out through distribution to the whole world. But this means you’ll have less time to be part of your local community.
Raoul Dufy
Prenez un bleu a ses diverses nuances, de la plus foncée a la plus claire, ce sera toujours du bleu, alors que le jane noircit dans les ombres et s'éteint dans les clairs, que le rouge foncé devient brun et que, dilué dans le blanc, ce n'est plus du rouge, mais une autre couleur: le rose.
Víkingur Òlafsson
Gros coup de coeur, superbe interprétation de Bach, lucide, dynamique et limpide comme l’eau claire d’une rivière…et tant de brio et de vivacité!
John Cleese on Creativity in Management, a lecture on the importance of creativity and how people fall into two distinct states: closed and open states. The closed state of mind tend to work on tasks with concentration (to get them done) while open state of mind is more relaxed and open to a flow of ideas that lead to creative thinking. Super inspiring lecture.
Tom Cruise, Jerry Maguire, 1996
The best! “And I’m FREEEEEE!! free falling....!” - Jerry Maguire, 1996
Joao Gilberto in Tokyo
Probably one of the best live performance of Joao Gilberto in Tokyo.
Le Pigeon - Patrick Suskind
“Jonathan s’était assis sur le bord du lit, en caleçon et tricot de corps, et il mangeait. En guise de table il avait approché la chaise, il y avait posé sa valise en carton, et etalé par-dessus le sac où il avait rapporté ses achats. Il coupait en deux les sardines avec son couteau de poche, en piquait la moitié et la plaquait sur une bouchée de pain, qu’il se fourrait dans la bouche. Une fois mâchée, la chair friable et saturée d’huile formait avec le pain fade et non levé une masse au goût délicieux. Il manque peut-être quelques gouttes de citron, songea-t-il, mais c’était déjà là une gourmandise frivole, car en buvant à la bouteille, après chaque bouchée, une petite gorgée de vin rouge qu’il faisait rouler sur sa langue et entre ses dents, il mêlait l’arrière-goût métallique du poisson au parfum aigrelet et tenace du vin, et le résultat était si convaincant que Jonathan fut certain de n’avoir jamais de sa vie mieux dîné qu’en cet instant. La boîte contenant quatre sardines, cela fit huit bouchées posément mâchées avec du pain, et huit gorgées de vin pour les faire glisser. Il mangea très lentement. Il avait lu un jour dans une revue que manger précipitamment, surtout quand on avait très faim, était très mauvais pour la digestion et pouvait même entraîner des nausées et des vomissements. S’il mangea lentement, c’est aussi parce qu’il pensait que c’était son dernier repas. Quand il eu fini les sardines et saucé avec du pain l’huile qui restait dans la boîte, il mangea le fromage de chèvre et la poire. La poire était si juteuse qu’elle faillit lui glisser des doigts pendant qu’il la pelait, et le fromage de chèvre était si bien égoutté et si compact qu’il collait au couteau, et il avait soudain dans la bouche un goût tellement amer et sec que les gencives se rétractaient avec une sorte d’effroi et que la salive manquait, l’espace d’un instant. Mais il suffisait alors d’un peu de poire, d’un morceau de poire fondante et sucrée, pour que tout glisse à nouveau et se détache du palais et des dents, et fonde sur la langue et descende... Et encore un morceau de fromage, léger effroi, et puis à nouveau la poire qui arrangeait tout, et puis du fromage, et puis de la poire... C’était si délicieux qu’il racla au couteau tout ce qu’il restait de fromage sur le papier, et qu’il rongea tout ce qui entourait les pépins de la poire et qu’il avait d’abord détaché. Il resta assis là, pensif, un moment encore, se passant la langue sur les dents, avant de finir le pain et de boire le reste du vin...”
Roy Hargrove
RIP Roy Hargrove, what more to say... you and your music will never be forgotten. One of the best America’s trumpeter, leaving behind him his best album Earfood by the Roy Hargrove Quintet, approaching the standards, Hard Groove by the RH Factor...!
Roy Hargrove, Strasbourg St. Denis (2007 New Morning Club)
Joel Meyerowitz
“La musicalité des couleurs, c’est la vraie motivation de ce travail” - Joel Meyerowitz
Erroll Garner's version of “Misty” is simply magical!
Choose Wisely from Todd Brison
You choose your priorities every day.
Every hour.
Every second.
You have 20 minutes. Are you going to randomly straighten up some room, delete some email, or finish those specs on your new product?
You have 15 minutes. Are you going to look for someone to chat with, mindlessly browse Twitter, or make 1–5 more sales calls?
You have 10 minutes. Are you going to watch the clock, text your friends, or knock out some of those dishes that have been piling up?
You have 3 minutes. Are you going to “tidy up,” or make a list of as many ideas as possible?
The Internet has gone habit crazy. It’s like if you don’t have your day planned from 5 A.M. (green smoothie) to 11 P.M (#hustle #entrepreneur #winning) you don’t have a prayer.
But life is made in the in-between. It’s the lunch date that cancelled. It’s the night you couldn’t sleep. It’s the time in-between projects.
How you choose to spend that time is going to make all the difference.
Today, you have 24 hours.
What are you going to do with it?
Source: https://toddbrison.medium.com/
Shadok
La série télévisée d'animation française, shadok
Comme le disent ces étranges bestioles tout en ronds et en becs dans l’un de leurs célèbres aphorismes: "Il vaut mieux mobiliser son intelligence sur des conneries que mobiliser sa connerie sur des choses intelligentes." Quelle découverte!
Jean-Paul Goude
Commercial for Chanel with Sergei Prokofiev's Dance of Knights
Richter plays Tchaikovsky 'June' from The Seasons - Budapest, 1983
Daniel Pennac
Les leçons de Daniel Pennac qui était un cancre...
"Les jeunes aujourd'hui, tout petit déjà dans le berceau, sont considérés par la société de consommation comme des clients. Ils sont poussés à consommer des portables, desvêtements. Et, ca c'est leur culture. La culture quotidienne. Et ces enfants arrivent à l'école. Ils vont se conduire vis-à-vis du professeur comme des petits consommateurs. Moi professeur, je m'adresse pas à tes désirs. Je m'adresse à tes besoin fondamentaux: le besoin d'apprendre à lire, à compter, à penser, à réfléchir. La plupart de ces besoins sont antinomiques avec tes désirs."
"Le problème, c'est que l'enfant, tout petit dans son berceau va croire que son désir est un besoin fondamental, que son bonheur dépend de la satisfaction d'un désir qu'il prend pour un besoin fondamental. Le travail d'un adulte c'est de dissocier ces notions. Et le bonheur, on peut l'atteindre en apprenant à comprendre...c'est ça qui rend heureux. Tout d'un coup je comprends...je comprends que la publicitè est mensongère, que la compréhension est une bonne source de bonheur véritable."
"Arrête d'avoir peur! Sois curieux. La curiosité est un bon remède contre la peur. Ouvre-toi... La réalité te fais peur? Photographie la! J'suis nulle en anglais! Prends un petit ami anglais! Ouvre! Ne te referme pas!" :)
Live - The girl from Ipanema
Bestest - all time favorite Erroll Garner playful play! This version of the girl from Ipanema is simply delightful!
Isao Takahata
Rest in peace Isao Takahata. Your animations have been a great influence in my childhood and even now: gauchu the cellist, anne the green gables, my neighbors the yamadas, the grave of the fireflies, pompoko...
Miles Davis Improvisation
Le top des tops et ci-dessous la scène du film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud sur laquelle miles davis a improvisé ce morceau... juste magique
" Be yourself. I much prefer seeing something, even it is clumsy, that doesn't look like somebody else's work " William Klein
Coco Chanel ♥️
“Il y a les gens qui ont de l’argent et il y a les gens qui sont riches.”
“Le visage est un miroir où se reflètent les mouvements de la vie intérieure: accordez-lui beaucoup de soins.”
“La mode se démode, le style jamais.”
Florence Henri
Bretagne
Saul Bass
North by Northwest - Opening Titles
Horowitz plays Bach-Busoni
Une vraie pépite! Le grand méchant loup de Benjamin Renner
Marlene Dietrich's Marginalia
The actress Marlene Dietrich spent the last ten years of her life bedridden, in her apartment on Avenue Montaigne, in Paris, refusing to see old acquaintances and avoiding photographers. In her biography of Dietrich, her only daughter, Maria Riva, wrote that her mother’s legs “withered. Her hair, chopped short haphazardly in drunken frenzies with cuticle scissors, was painted with dyes.” She surrounded herself with a hot plate, telephone, scotch—and books.
She coped with isolation by running up a three-thousand-dollar-a-month phone bill and reading everything from potboilers to the pillars of the Western canon. She consumed poetry, philosophy, novels, biographies, and thrillers—in English, French, and her native tongue, German. When she died, in May, 1992, her grandson Peter Riva was tasked with clearing out nearly two thousand books from her apartment, many of which arrived at the American Library in Paris.
Ted Chiang
In the early nineteen-nineties, a few occurrences sparked something in Ted Chiang’s mind. He attended a one-man show in Seattle, where he lives, about a woman’s death from cancer. A little later, a friend had a baby and told Chiang about recognizing her son from his movements in the womb. Chiang thought back to certain physical principles he had learned about in high school, in Port Jefferson, New York, having to do with the nature of time. The idea for a story emerged, about accepting the arrival of the inevitable. A linguist, Chiang thought, might learn such acceptance by deciphering the language of an alien race with a different conception of time. For five years, when he wasn’t working as a technical writer in the software industry, Chiang read books about linguistics. In 1998, he published “Story of Your Life,” in a science-fiction anthology series called Starlight. It was around sixty pages long and won three major science-fiction prizes: the Nebula, the Theodore Sturgeon, and the Seiun, which is bestowed by the Federation of Science Fiction Fan Groups of Japan. Last year, “Arrival” was released, an adaptation of “Story of Your Life,” in which Amy Adams plays a linguist who learns, decades in advance, that her daughter will die, as a young woman, of a terminal illness, but goes ahead with the pregnancy anyway.
Source: New York Times - Ted Chiang's soulful science fiction
Jean Jullien
haha everytime I see it, this scene makes me laugh so much...
I said goodbye, it truly hurts.
Make it happen
Close your eyes and imagine the very best version of you possible. That’s who you really are, let go of any part of you that doesn’t believe it.
Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine
You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own
Marcel Proust
“Le véritable voyage de découverte ne consiste pas à chercher de nouveaux paysages mais à avoir de nouveaux yeux“ - Marcel Proust
Corcovado, Oscar Peterson Trio, in Rome 1969
Josef Albers
Don’t reduce the world to things you can explain.
Le repas dominical, un court métrage de Celine Devaux. Mon coup de coeur de ce mois.
I collect random images found randomly. I’m a strong believer in serendipity and it does me good. My work is quite influenced by randomness. I use every idea that I have, put it on paper and try it out. It’s only when it’s been brought to life that you can judge whether it deserved it or not. So I like random images on the internet. They are so menial, odd, irrelevant, yet Tumblr’s boom has proven that to each image its audience. There’s something cool about that. It’s Cinderella-esque.
But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of Hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sittin' up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms 'visiting hours' don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause that only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.
Sviatoslav Richter plays Mendelssohn Variations Sérieuses, Op 54
Triste by Oscar Peterson
She felt love and gratitude for that book because it kept her company throughout a very bad, dark time. For some inexplicable reason, whenever she felt on the verge of bottoming out again because of his leaving, she would reread the story. It invariably calmed or kept her busy. It tided her over till the sadness, the anger or the panic attacks passed and she was pretty much all right again. People - family, lovers, friends - are supposed to do that: keep us same or balanced at difficult times. But sometimes things really are better at pulling us back from the edge. - Jonathan Carroll
Georges Delerue "Legrand choral"
Du baroque pourtant écrit au XX siècle! Beautiful!
Le cinéma règne
"Le cinéma règne" (Cinema Rules) is how Truffaut describes the feeling when everything falls into place during filming
Sharon Clark "Just Friends" ❤️
Memory of her concert from Washington DC
James Nizam "Trace Heavens"
Spleen
Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle Sur l'esprit gémissant en proie aux longs ennuis, Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle II nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits;
Quand la terre est changée en un cachot humide, Où l'Espérance, comme une chauve-souris, S'en va battant les murs de son aile timide Et se cognant la tête à des plafonds pourris;
Quand la pluie étalant ses immenses traînées D'une vaste prison imite les barreaux, Et qu'un peuple muet d'infâmes araignées Vient tendre ses filets au fond de nos cerveaux,
Des cloches tout à coup sautent avec furie Et lancent vers le ciel un affreux hurlement, Ainsi que des esprits errants et sans patrie Qui se mettent à geindre opiniâtrement.
- Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique, Défilent lentement dans mon âme; l'Espoir, Vaincu, pleure, et l'Angoisse atroce, despotique, Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir.
Les Fleurs du Mal, Baudelaire
Vuillard
From Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection
Les toiles fendues de Lucio Fontana
Lacération. Un geste bien aggressif mais aussi un geste de silence et d’ouverture, qui permet une nouvelle perception du monde et de la matière.
"Quand je m'assois devant une de mes fentes, à la contempler, j'éprouve soudainement une grande deétente de l'esprit, je me sens un homme libéreé de l'esclavage de la matieère, un homme qui appartient à l'étendue du présent et du futur.
"When I am sitting in front of one of my cuts, contemplating it, I suddenly feel a great relaxation of the spirit. I feel like a man freed from the slavery of the material world, a man who belongs to the expanse of the present and to the future"
Sarah Vaughan - Speak Low (Live @ The London House) Mercury Records 1958
Speak low when you speak love Our summer day withers away too soon, too soon Speak low when you speak love Our moment is swift, like ships adrift, We're swept apart, too soon...
John Coltrane
Sense of time lost when you listen to it. Even after all these years.
Chet Baker
"I get along without you very well"
Except sometimes...
I get along without you very well, Of course I do, Except when soft rains fall And drip from leaves, then I recall The thrill of being sheltered in your arms. Of course, I do. But I get along without you very well.
I’ve forgotten you just like I should, Of course I have, Except to hear your name, Or someone’s laugh that is the same, But I’ve forgotten you just like I should.
What a guy, what a fool am I. To think my breaking heart could kid the moon. What’s in store? Should I phone once more? No, it’s best that I stick to my tune.
I get along without you very well, Of course I do. Except perhaps in spring. But I should never think of spring, For that would surely break my heart in two.
Dance of the little man... from Twin Peaks by David Lynch.
Annie Hall
One of my favorite endings to a film...
"This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. ' The doctor says, 'Well, why don't you turn him in? ' Then the guy says, 'I would but i need the eggs. ' ... I guess that's pretty much how i feel about relationships. They are totally irrational, and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs"
Just a Gigolo
One of my favourites movie scenes from Mad Dog and Glory (1993) with Louis Prima "Just a Gigolo" XD The best - !
“La photographie est, pour moi, l’impulsion spontanée d’une attention visuelle perpétuelle, qui saisit l’instant et son éternité. Le dessin, lui, par sa graphologie élabore ce que notre conscience a saisi de cet instant. La photo est une action immédiate, le dessin une méditation.“ - Henri Cartier Bresson