Garden Photography

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”.
Cicero

September 30, 2018, France

Soil Festivities (or taming)

That’s an old tale : watch inside a home, or even a bedroom, and you’ll guess a lot about the owner.

Then the contrary : hear the “judge” know-it-alling about it, and you’ll guess a lot about his mind…

1. If it’s a mess, you too much easily could tell about a messy brain – maybe the owner’s mind is not completely orderly. Maybe he suffers, or maybe he’s a genius artist, maybe he’s silly. See? You can say everything thus nothing, in fact.
2. If the bed’s done like a funeral one, and the pajamas are perfectly daily folded on “this” chair (and not another one), THEN you can tell…

Today with you, my reader, let’s gossip the same way about a garden.

When I think about a garden, I think about peace and silence, butterflies and dragonflies, about the grass I could walk on post commuting evenings. I think flowers, curiosity, trying to plant and take care about unknown species, watering, welcoming birds, combining these green/colored friends together for harmony, I think breathing little winds and smelling roses (and the earth, the soil).

Soil Festivities is the title of a great album of Vangelis.

Then I hear some people about their garden. All they talk about is invasion of spiders and nasty caterpillars, chaos to be contained, trimming everything around and cutting/pruning trees. Everything’s a enemy. They want order, taming, obedience, snapping scissors on short grass.

Tonight I realized they maybe want to repair, to fix, to contain nature, instead of repairing, fixing, containing events of their now life or past life, probably… right?

 

(Crummy psychology, I know. I’m sorry. I wish I had a garden to wander in. I’m jealous, that’s it!)

 

Today I took this picture. I offer it to you. Thank you for reading!

 

Homes by the Sea (France)

Which one, dear?

 

Signs of Bad Signs III : Panurgism & Sheeple

François Rabelais (1483-1553), says Wikipedia, was a French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar.

His literary legacy is such that today, the word Rabelaisian has been coined as a descriptive inspired by his work and life. Merriam-Webster defines the word as describing someone or something that is “marked by gross robust humor, extravagance of caricature, or bold naturalism”.

Who’s Panurge? He is one of the principal characters in Gargantua and Pantagruel, a series of five novels by François Rabelais.

“Suddenly, I do not know how, it happened, I did not have time to think, Panurge, without another word, threw his sheep, crying and bleating, into the sea. All the other sheep, crying and bleating in the same intonation, started to throw themselves in the sea after it, all in a line. The herd was such that once one jumped, so jumped its companions. It was not possible to stop them, as you know, with sheep, it’s natural to always follow the first one, wherever it may go”.

Francois Rabelais, Quart Livre, chapter VIII

In French, it’s a very well know idiom. People who behave like sheeps – herd behavior, herding, flock mentality.

We call them Moutons de Panurge (Sheeps of Panurge) and their behavior as Panurgism.

Of course it’s funny to see this in these fields : Fashion. Marketing (“cattle displacement”). Mainstream Medias. Consumers. Advertising.

It also leads to concepts to study : Discernment.

Wiki : Discernment is the ability to obtain sharp perceptions or to judge well (or the activity of so doing). In the case of judgment, discernment can be psychological or moral in nature. Within judgment, discernment involves going past the mere perception of something and making nuanced judgments about its properties or qualities. Considered as a virtue, a discerning individual is considered to possess wisdom, and be of good judgement; especially so with regard to subject matter often overlooked by others.

Herd Behavior the same : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_behavior

In animal behavior, panic movements, human societies, the Archetype of The Crowd, stock market bubbles, decision making, mass hysteria – there are many links to click at the bottom of this Wikipedia page.

One sure thing : if in a crowded store there’s a bargain announced, you see many people running, and you see only a few watching the consequentially disgraceful and unworthy mess.

Let’s have fun saying the one who claim they are NOT Sheeps of Panurge are herding in another way :

Asymmetric aggregation of animals under panic conditions has been observed in many species, including humans, mice, and ants. For example, when panicked individuals are confined to a room with two equal and equidistant exits, a majority will favor one exit while the minority will favor the other.

Characteristics of escape panic include:

1. Individuals attempt to move faster than normal.
2. Interactions between individuals become physical.
3. Exits become arched and clogged.
4. Escape is slowed by fallen individuals serving as obstacles.
5. Individuals display a tendency towards mass or copied behavior.
6. Alternative or less used exits are overlooked.

Have fun. Thanks for reading!

Exhausted Rich or Happy Rich?

ONE

Talking yesterday with a father, about jobs & choices – high valued big jobs like doctor, lawyer or financial jobs, and workers, like electricians and plumbers. With this observation in mind : good workers make big money, yeyyyy.

Then a category split appeared with a few examples we saw :

1. This electrician he knows, who says he never stops working, he never takes holidays, because he is “very much in demand”, all the time.
2. This lawyer I knew who worked half a month before traveling everywhere in the world with his wife – I used to see him biking with his briefcase!

 

TWO

There, I have to put what a banker told me one day (which seams almost a law) :

most people live just a little OVER what they earn

I think it’s true!

 

THREE

Now there’s a huge difference between the US and other modern countries : health. In Europa you don’t need to have millions of dollars in bank to pay all the treatments and cares needed after an accident. Everybody pays a little, every month. It’s not made for poors and olds, but for everyone. It’s NOT socialism. It’s Left and Right. You won’t ever hear about a personal bankruptcy because of health, in France!

 

FOUR

OK let’s imagine we’re in Europa. You can :

1. Pile up money into bank accounts. You work all the time, then you’re dead. Rich.
2. Pile up money to buy things, cars and big houses.
3. Pile up money to buy free time and experiences.

So we talked about this guy, who works three weeks and takes 10 days off : holidays. Every fucking month.

He could make much more money, but what for? To have much more money?

 

…most people live just a little OVER what they earn.

What’s smart, then?

Exhausted Rich or Happy Rich?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

The thinker and the sea

September Morn

…September morning
Still can make me feel that way
Neil Diamond

 

…therefore I walk to this park to take a few pictures, saw shadows and colors, ridiculously funny fluffy flowers, but a flowerstar at the end, for you my readers.

Have a great day

JP

Blessed Holy Mother(s)

Some religions forbid to represent their god. Christianity has no problem, as it seems. I found many Marys this Braderie day, c’est formidable! Well, I’m not even sure it’s her, on some…

So, I took pictures. They are “on sale”, in the streets. But I am aware each one has her little story inside. Maybe this one helped someone a lot, for years, who knows…

Tree & Water

The Art of Unfinished Art

If you explore books, quotes, articles about Art, you always meet the concept of “finished/unfinished“.

And this is what you find :

ONE

A whole lot of “simple” authors who seem to have common sense and think Art is like a normal part of society. They all say that a piece of Art must be finished :

• “Never show unfinished work.” – R. Buckminster Fuller
• “Behind unfinished art cries an unfinished artist.” – Terri Guillemets
• “Finish the work, otherwise an unfinished work will finish you.” ― Amit Kalantri
• “I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.” – Mary Oliver

This sounds very good, right? It’s very satisfying. Everything must be finished, otherwise the world goes to chaos…

TWO

Another whole lot of artists, of course, say the contrary. Suddenly it becomes interesting :

• “I always believed that my work should be unfinished in the sense that I encourage people to add their creativity to it, either conceptually or physically.” – Yoko Ono
• “When I’m playing, I’m never through. It’s unfinished. I like to find a place to leave for someone else to finish it. That’s where the high comes in.” – Miles Davis
• “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” – Leonardo da Vinci
• Put your energy into ‘finishing’ – and you’re missing your next great painting. (J.R. Baldini)
• In talking about the necessity to finish a thing, we said American painters finish a thing that looks unfinished, and the French, they finish it. I have seen Matisses that were more unfinished and yet more finished than any American painters. Matisse was obviously in a terrific emotion at the time and he was more unfinished than finished. (William Baziotes)
• I don’t like finished things, because finished is over, dead. (Norbert Bisky)
• To the impressionist, the work was finished, no matter how casual the execution, when the idea was completely realized on the canvas. (Richard J. Boyle)
• How do you complete a painting, really? There are paintings by so many different artists that are interesting precisely because they haven’t really been completed. (Peter Doig)

 

Many masterpieces are unfinished : symphonies and cathedrals, Proust “La Recherche”, but most of modernity artists and thinkers know that finishing a work is killing it, it masks the work, the soul…

I found dozens more quotes. Each one could lead to an article…

What do you think?

 

Thanks for reading!

Cf Non Finito : Inchoateness in Art

 

 

“One or Six but not Two” (the buying bookseller dilemmas)

Booksellers or often books buyers. They are visited by editing companies sales representatives, who present them books they’ll sell a few months in advance.

For example, these weeks of September I order Christmas books…

This is something you can teach (there are a few “principles”), but mostly, you need a few years of experience to be a good buyer.

Flaws are obvious : you can order too many books, or too few. You can have a crush for a book which dismally fail, or you can hate a… future hit.

When you order books, you logically have to think about… where you’ll put the books when they are delivered later.

You order none if the book is impossible, or too complex for your customers, or… if you really disagree with the subject – which is rare, because most booksellers have this phrase in mind (often told as a Voltaire quote but it is not) :

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

1. You order one if you need one on his shelf : you have to have it, but you don’t need to “show” it on a display (specialized books, unknown poets…) or you don’t have the room.
2. You can show books on long lecturns (then you order 4 or 5 – one on the shelf (you HAVE TO), the others in sight), or on tables (then it’s a stack : 6 or 8), or on front displays for big authors or probable success books : 10, 20 or more.

 

Booksellers have private jokes. One is “You never order two!”. Why? Because it would be one on the shelf and an orphan volume you effing don’t know what to do with.

In fact, you sometimes do it (when you have to put it aside for you or a customer, when you’re pretty sure you’ll sell one quickly, etc)…

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25…

Never 7 or 11 or 13, or 17 books ordered. Why? Who knows?

I endeavor to once order 7 books during each appointment I have with a salesman. It’s a lucky charm, and it makes people smile. “Seven are you suuure?”. Yep!!

My instinct knows when to do it : in front of an improbable lovely book, the oblique one, the unexpected one. This job is very cool, you know?

One or Six, not Two, nor Seven. Could be a rhyme, right? In which other territories do we have “holes” like these. Numbers, but “you’re not supposed to use this one”. 13th stairs? What else?

Thanks for reading!

(Picasso : Boy with a Pipe)

 

 

Picasso’s whirlwind

What is your exploration field, today? Japanese cinema, French classical music, British painters of 19th Century, US Civil War?

Picasso for me. There are constant exhibitions around the world, but there’s a big one in the Musée d’Orsay this fall in Paris. As a bookseller, I got the usual shower of new books. I opened one, and the summary stung me.

Mahler, Proust, Marx, I chose these three examples for this article : Jungle Syndrome. Something, in these, is “too much”. Too complex, too rich, too interesting, too big. You pick a leaf, then you have a tree, a forest, a universe. Gasp !

I also realized I had to find my own path : Feeling the air of Waterloo & other oblique explorations…

One explorer’s pleasure – when you want to explore a subject like this – is to gather weapons : documentaries, downloaded images or pdf, books. I ordered some, bought second handed others…

I’m reading the “first little guides”, one of Picasso’s wives biography, and many prefaces and introductions.

I ordered a huge biography, bought a second hand two volumes chronological illustrated book, found other things in my own shelves…

I already feel the fire, “this” fire you all know…

“Towering genius of the century”, “long and prolific career”, what I already know is this : nobody can explain or frame Picasso’s work. Every author talks about paradoxes or multifacets (like for every important artist or writer). Variety and never ending exploration, but with strong themes and structures under. Modern, but based on classics. Childish, but with strong work and maturity. Free, daring and casual, all driven by terrific invention. Revolutionary on many stairs.

So, yes, it’s whirlwindy, immense, impossible to cover. One of the good things is that Pablo Picasso talks and explains a lot about his work, about what he wants…

This will be a lovely autumn, right?

Thanks for reading!

Cutlery Test & Clean New Suburbs

I moved house, and laughed with one of the movers. He said that you can say a lot about someone according to the way the cardboard boxes are sealed.

Pattern : this summer, in a few houses, I watched the way the cutlery was placed on each side of the plates.

I’m a constructivist, therefore : as I know people need forks and knives and spoons near their plate, I effing don’t care if there are “rules” for where I put cutlery.

In the contrary : if your boxes are a mess, there will be moved as well – there are no rules here. But beware of what you’ll find at the end !

I could name this article “the constructivists”. We are people who construct (decide) of many aspects of reality. Call us the pragmatics, or the practical, or rules questioners/deciders : as soon as the cutlery is “there”, you don’t have to follow cutlery “rules”.

We have here an interesting language thing between French and English. The world “Acquis”, in French (the past participle of “Acquérir”, but also and adjective and a noun), is the same for MANY of your English words, who are nested, layered :

• Benefit, asset, knowledge, gain, laurels, acknowledged, assured, recognized, won over to, as read, established…

 

The question dancing around is this one : what is assured and established… and shouldn’t be? Can we examine “rules” of life, and decide it’s useless, or more : stupid?

Cardboard boxes well sealed are perfect : they don’t crash themselves in the truck. Perfectly aligned cutlery is great if you have 4 forks and 7 knives and 5 spoons (boring dinner), but not for family snacks. And do we absolutely have to iron the bed sheets?

What do we “HAVE TO” do that we… don’t have to do?
What do we “HAVE TO” do that we… should do?

Should I become a rules questioner today? Where? Why?

Perfection seeking, the absolutely followed rules, the straight lines everywhere, what do they say about him, her, you, them?

Is it a progress not to believe?

Why is it such a pleasure so see cracks in the concrete, or little grasshoppers, or two daisies fighting for their way near the white perfect walls of clean suburbs like this one?

Will nature win always?

(yes she will)

Have a nice day!

Toy Boats Street Photography

Dans la vitrine / In the glass case

In the glass case, I saw a proud boat, a lonely cactus, an exhausted plant and a dancing bird…

Logan, X-Men, Avengers & Levers

I love movies, I love De Palma & Kazan, I love Welles & Bergman, and I love these US Big Machines with Jedis and Superheroes too!

Yesterday I watched Logan, a Wolverine movie, and I was amazed by its… tone.

First, it’s been directed by James Mangold, who made the hilarious and perfect Knight & Day, the great Walk the Line, the stressful Identity, and more : this little jewel of Copland.

Good, very good director.

Logan is a surprise for Mainstream X-Men like movies lovers : it’s dark, complex, much more violent, risky, and full of great ideas.

It’s not as easy as “I broke the toys”, though Charles Xavier is old and Alzheimerized, though Logan is not “repairing himself” that much.

That movie sweats intelligence in every scene. The diner is perfectly played. The horses scene is delicate. The casting is marvelous (the albino, the little mutant girl).

 

It brings me to this pattern :

When you have big success with mainstream big things, like Star Wars, Avengers, how do you move forward?

 

One good thing is to pull out big show-offers and smart pants makers to entrust these big projects to… good directors, who made personal intelligent things before.

• Give Logan to the man who made Cop Land.
• Give Rogue One to Gareth Edwards who directed Monsters.
• Give The Last Jedi to the man who directed Looper.

 

But one can see something happening : Levers Choice.

Marvel tried these :

1. Reboot the thing, like they did twice with Spiderman. And why not?
2. Get bigger. From Iron Man to the last Avengers with dozens of heroes…
3. Butter up idiots & geeks with vulgarity and puns : Dead Pool (it worked!).
4. Drive to complexity, more adult themes & concerns : Logan.

 

Well : it’ll be interesting to follow…

Thanks for reading!

 

Tim Burton & Charles Burns

ONE

OK I don’t like Tim Burton’s work – though I watch most of his films.

Sometimes I admit it gets perfect, like in Nightmare Before Christmas.

I love his musician : Dany Elfman. I love Lisa Marie in Mars Attack, or the snow scene in Edward Scissorhands.

I find most of his films boring because he’s doing a little symmetry from Disney (where he comes from, right?). Not obsessed by love but by death, not pink but black, etc. Moons, nights, claw-like trees, fog, it always the saaaame. For me, it’s as much platitude cliché than romantic sunsets with lovers.

He’s playing doll, he teaches us nothing, he never frightens us really, he’s a blah blah blah false macabre.

In his last interviews, Burton admits he’s running in circles, having said, maybe, everything in his little territory, which I could call :

mainstream harmless cute gothic, with sweet crackpots

I dreamed of Burton making other movies (which, I reckon, is stupid). It’s harmless, and I see the pinky behind the “dark fairy tale” imagery. And I hated all of Alice. So there!

 

TWO

I read Black Hole, from Charles Burns, a very disturbing experience. It haunts you, it makes you think, it makes you wonder about his metaphors, monsters, difference, art, unadaptability, sickness of society, decadence, melancholy…

There : it touches something, it works – even if it’s not pleasant.

 

 

THREE

Burton has something in common with Charles Burns. He depicts the American way of life as a sweet suburb nightmare. One is harmless, the other one is… terrible.

 

The questions are :

What do I think about this state of mind who wants to be shown differences, to be disturbed… but without any more consequences than pleasure? Is there a matter of borders?

For example, I love action movies with accidents and gunshots (Fury Road, The Heat), but I absolutely can’t bear cam footages of real murders and deaths on 4chan.

Burton bores me. Burns fascinates and disturbs me. There’s a border, right?

Is it a fakeness problem? Where could I find this frontier, elsewhere? In music? Is there a fake avant-garde? Where? What is a rebel in his parents’s house? Where do I use MAYA here (most advanced, yet acceptable)? In front of Art, do I want to suckle sugar pleasure, or do I want to be disturbed and questioned a little?

Hmmmm too big. Needs other articles, right?

Thanks for reading!

Decision : Is today the day after yesterday or the day before tomorrow?

Is today the day after yesterday or the day before tomorrow?

You can now take this little idea-stick and use it for concepts. Let’s do it with decisions.

As all we have is the “now”…

There are two types of persons, those who think in little simple boxes and let themselves trapped by words, and those who know life’s complex and moving. The first category can be divided in

1. Therefore, most of wise-asses will stand up and pompously claim that “Haha, today is the day before tomorrow!!” – they make decisions watching the future.
2. Some other saddened sad-pants will mourn and stop, watching the past only, the yesterday. They are mocked by 1.

 

Of course, my article would like to show that we need the past and the future to make decisions.

Considering the yesterday is drawing maps, spot mistakes to avoid, increase intelligence, preparing lines towards the tomorrow, inventing goals, foreseeing paths, inventing propositions. Tango!

…inspiration coming from appropriation of experience…

 

Have a nice day!

I told you soers & other uneasers

My daughter is 17 years old. She told me yesterday that I taught her a good lesson one day, and she remembered each of the words I said.

I do not remember “each word”, but I’m not surprised I told her this!

When and if one day you have the possibility to unease someone with your words, don’t do it.

Well, that seems obvious. I saw and heard it myself so many times, though…

For example, when one has the possibility to say “I told you so”, one should stay quiet. “I told you so” is a stupid simple way to tell the other you’re smarter. So what? It’s done, and the lesson is probably learnt, and your pal doesn’t need or wish to hear they’ve been stupid.

“I told you soers” just prove they’re, in fact, weak. They need to big themselves up. Probably because they’re not confident enough?

 

Unless for mean persons, they are other moments we should just keep quiet instead of jumping like a spider to wordhurt someone. What are these moments?

Other question : What happened which made my daughter remember this so precisely? Was it after kids drama? Have I been solemn or serious about it? Do your kids feel when you’re talking from somewhere deeper in ourselves?

Thanks for reading!

 

“I’ll put this one on my SOB (Stack of Books)”

Librarians, booksellers, booklovers : we all know the SOB, the Stack of Books (to read).

In French we call it the PAL (la pile à lire).

You know this, right? You just bought a book, or you’re just being stung by a subject (thus you picked up some books in your shelves).

• It can be a couple of books, but it can be two dozens, or a whole shelf, yeeeesh.
• It can be a real stack, or a stack… in your mind.
• You can read them in order, or begin all of them all – so there!
• While you attack your stack, you’ll probably add more books on it.

Yes, it’s sisyphian.

It leads me to this (if it’s a pattern) : Don’t we all have other “stacks”? Things to do? Things to think about (when I have a little time alone)? Things to talk about when I’m with this person? Clothes (to iron, obviously)? Methods? Recipes? How do we choose into a stack ?

Isn’t a stack a list made real?…

Here’s my current one. I invite you to post yours in the comments 🙂

Have a nice day!