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Month: September 2015
Vintage Glasses
Symmetry
The Augmented Reality – when you go nowhere with fun
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.
Augmented Reality is a real-time view of the physical world, with new elements (mostly graphic) added by computer, etc – thanks wikipedia – et voilà !
Now consider your reality as already augmentée. The game is now simple : bend over every human activity and flatten it to “just what it is”. De-augment it. Diminish it to its reality. C’est le contraire !
Then you can categorize things.
Leasures which are just dragging-moving people from A to B (climbing mountains, running in stadiums, Tour de France), or worse, from A to A and every activity “moving in circles” (racing cars, haha). In fact, every sport seems suddenly a bit stupid, and you don’t understand why some guys are throwing balls and run around – in baseball or football. Whatever. If you kitesurf or swim in a ABABABA trajectory you suddenly stop, realising the nonsensicall of doing “this” (jumping around on the beach or moving your arms and legs in the water to go nowhere). Etc
The kitsch loses immediatly all funny taste, it’s becoming what it is : an ugly boring old snap reality. Religion becomes strange words and activities (all the ritual things) towards a silent “God” (does he talk to you ?). Every picture you’ll see for advertising, with a top-model, will have the taste of what it is : fake smiles and words trying to sale you bouleshite. Etc.
You got it, I know : just flatten things, kill the augmented reality, look at what it is. Tout simplement.
Consequences : No movies any more. There is no Braveheart, just an Australian actor running in the grass. No novels either, because you now feel the writer “inventing” little stories to distract you.
Tool : Well it’s just a gaaaaame. If you do this all the time you’ll become like Shopenhauer or Cioran. Don’t do this. Use it when necessary. You’ll suddenly find time to do really simple things you can not de-augment, like eating un bon cassoulet or caressing your girlfriend’s legs. What ?
What happens on the border ?
What happens on the border ? Que se passe-t-il à la frontière ?
Astronautes et cosmonautes, when they are over our planet Earth, have a SHOCK.
You know what kind of shock ? They watch the Earth and well, they see something. In fact they do not see something :
“Les frontières n’existent pas”
No borders on our planet. No boundaries at all ! They are only in our heads.
Borders are full of questions. What do you find ON the border ? Checkpoints ? Holes ? Paths ? Gates ? Is a border a line, or a geographic large place (say : no man’s land ?) ? If it’s a large border, is it a whole territory ? Is a border closed or opened ?
Can a border separate different nature-of-things ? After all, ice could be the border between air and water ? Are borders imposed ? Moving ? Inherited ? Natural (river) or built (wall) ? What happens on the border ? Discovery ? Désillusion ?
What happens at the cross of A, B, and C territories ? What are mental borders ? When do we say “Tu vas trop loin” : you go too far ? And what if you cross that border ? Haha ! You’ll see… Tu verras, mon petit.
Tool 1 : It’s always funny to play with a simple concept and to apply what we know to other territories. Where are the borders in the house of a loving couple ? Between an employee and his manager ? What are the way to pass a closed one ? Are there some spécifiques “borders activities” ?
Tool 2 : No boundaries on Earth. These are all given, provided, confered, inside-of-heads things. Apply on some other borders, juste pour s’amuser…
Thanks for reading!
When you realise your own language is sometimes uglyweird…
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.
Well, le Français, c’est ma langue maternelle. I speak French since I speak, and so there. But sometimes I talk with people from other countries, and always comes a moment… well… it’s embarrassing.
They say : “Are you crazy or what ?”. Or something similar, meaning ça va pas la tête ?
For example, to say “92” you say Ninety Two and that’s done. Good. Belgium people say Nonante Deux and it’s the same. But in France we say “Quatre-vingt douze”, which is complety twisted, something like “4 X 20 + 12”, which is correct, but, you know, hahahahaha.
For example, when you say “Last week”, we say “La semaine dernière”, but also “Il y a huit jours”, which means “Eight days ago”.
What ?!
“It’s not eight days, but seven, so why do we say eight ?”. I don’t know. Sorry. Plus : for two weeks we say “Il y a quinze jours”, which means “Fifteen days ago” : this is just wrong. Well…
There’s no tool here. Just an idea : if you want to learn french, prepare yourself to wander with a huge question mark above your head. A blue, white, red one maybe.
The weirdelicious shame of loving a part of vulgaire…
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.
Une photo publiée par 🙋 Jean-Pascal 🐨🐾 (@jprobocat) le 13 Sept. 2015 à 2h49 PDT
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Today I bought a bad painting, secondhand, in the street. It’s just… ordinaire. Nothing really surprising in the colors, the texture, the light, nothing. The flowers : no. I just saw it and wanted to take a picture, in the street, for Instagram, when I saw something. My eyebrows moved upstairs, haha. Up.
Climbing Eyebrows Criteria…
Well, I bought it ! 3 € only. Let’s say $3.40. I brought it home and wondered about her expression (Thoughtful because of the past, the future ? Tea’s cold ? A decision to make ?) and the source of the cold expression I find (eyebrows ?) for a long moment.
Since this I wonder. In the different worlds of Art : la musique, les films, l’architecture, what’s happening when we are touched and moved by a single, a tiny element of a bothering piece of… ok, Art ? A phrase in a mendelssohn sonata ? A ray of light in an ugly church ? A miracle scene in a B-movie ? A few words of magic in a bad poem ?
Lever : What is the surprise here ? How does it work in our brain ? What kind of struggle do we fight ?
Tool : What if we choose méthodiquement to DIG into a hangar of pigshit (well, with good protection), just to find gold nuggets ?
Well, in fact : it’s a NO from me. Let’s keep it random. Let’s find gold nuggets without digging into dirt. Mental health’s important. Bim.
Festivities your are not invited to
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.
Rats !
Vous n’êtes pas invité ? So there !
After all, do you really like… “festivities” ? Parties ? Really ?
Why aren’t you invited ? You’re a boring person ? People know that you don’t like to party on schedule, when ordered to ?
Well, if invited, you would have say : “Non merci”. Don’t you ?
OK. Maybe it’s just sarcasm. Now you sulk. You would have liked to be invited, so you say you don’t, because you’re proud. You are NOT invited. Maybe it’s a mistake, but maybe it’s on purpose. Efff…
No. Happy alone. Listen to some opera. Read some French book (Giono ? Colette ?).
Rats !
Tout gain s’accompagne d’une perte – Every gain involves loss
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.
Every gain involves loss ?
Ça pourrait être : Economy. Or some Levi Strauss. Or Beckett maybe ?
Peut-être…
When I was a student, I read something about Prokofiev. It was before the Internet, so I walked in the city (the mood of the sky ? See picture below – I remember it), entered the library, found a Deutsch Grammophon CD – Ozawa ! – borrowed it and I brought it home.
I read the booklet, and listened to the 2 CDs for two weeks. Many, many times. I explored it. It was precious ! Of course, as a 20 years old young man, I was moved by the Montagues And Capulets strange modulations zigzagguing music.
What about today ? Que se passe-t-il, aujourd’hui ?
A young female student hears that music in a movie, ohhhh ! She just writes “Prokofiev” in YouTube and get 408.000 results. If she’s smart, she tries the Russian way to write it : “Прокофьев“, to get… 42.100 more movies.
See me coming, don’t you ? The whole thing is just here. But… do we focus the same way, when the choice is that big ? No ! No no no, and no. Every gain involves loss. You just wander into the océan of the musique de Prokofiev, et voilà pour vous.
This “dial/lever/tool” text is not about scale of knowledge and the blissfull possibilité to get lost in it. I should write another one, un autre jour.
Dial/Lever/Tool : Observe what you have. Imagine you’re 30 years before. How would it be, then ? What if you put something aside ? What if you close some possibilities ? What if, as a photographer, you get back to film ? If every gain involves loss, what have you lost, then, with the vast “new thing” ? What will you do to recover that ? What if you had to keep 100 books in your shelves.
Is “Every loss involves gain” right ?
And what is the way to link this concept to the Wrong Way Up ?
She loved him, and nobody knew…
Washington, I love you
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll you eyes.
When the US government, or president, takes a decision, the medias use to say : “Washington decided to…”. If you think about it, it’s funny, c’est cocasse. Because Washington can’t decide anything : it’s a city !
Synecdoche ? I’m not sure. Votre opinion madame ? Monsieur ?
Well it’s not finished. It’s funnier. Because Washington, the city, was named in honor of George Washington (1732-1799). So, to be short, voici ce que je trouve intéressant : Instead of using the name of the president, medias use the name of a city, named after… another president.
OK. Everybody knows that. And we don’t even think about it. The word “Washington” entirely lost its substance. It’s just like a little lever linked to strings…
Notre capacité to forget the sense of words is énormous-tremendous. It’s too easy ! We can play with some pop-bands names, for example :
How great was The Police ? Sting is a great bass player and his voice was perfect with the sparkling sprinkling style of Copeland the crazy drummer, and the sophistication of Summers’s guitars. The Police ? Really ?
You NEVER think about the police when you listen to The Police. Never.
Use your attention now on Chicago, Yes, Kansas, Suede, UK or Japan, or Pink Floyd. See ?
Tool & Dials : Do we use, in daily life, this capacity of erase-vanishing the sense of words ? What about “How do you do ?”, or automatic “I love you”s ? Comment ça va, d’ailleurs, aujourd’hui ?
Tool 2 : How could we call this effort, consisting of… bending over empty words to refill them with all necessary things : radioactivity, sense, feelings, connections. Why should we do that ?
a french toolbox 