The Gifts Frontiers & cup of teas

As a bookseller I talked with a lady who wanted to offer a book as a present.

She was wondering…

1. If you choose something which will please the person, she’ll be happy, but she’ll stay in her comfort zone…
2. If you choose something more personal and you wish to make this person discover something you like, you take the risk to fail, and to bore the person. The useless present!

So there’s a frontier, a place to find : a surprise which will be delightful, opening a whole new territory of pleasures.

So it could be a 3. Choose something which is not necessarily your cup of tea, but could be the other one’s NEW cup of tea.

Mmmh? Stair’s strategy? What will you get, today? Something you like, something the other one likes, or something unknown you could like?

Your house? The other one’s house? Or a growing house for you? New room?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

What if we were many (inside)?

The idea of us having two faces or two sides is pretty common (and fascinating). A part of shadow, or a “the contrary of me, inside me”, anything schizophrenic…

So maybe we really have “another me” inside us. Most of the time, the idea says that the other one is very different. A quiet person has a tyrant inside. A mean human has a shy kid hidden in their head. Etc.

Sometimes it’s funny to extend and combine. For example, take the couple Lennon/McCartney, the tortured intellectual/happy fellow genius songwriting couple of the Beatles. When you read a little more about them, you see… the contrary.

Well, OK. Then you pull the string and ask some questions :

• When does the other one come out?
• How? Who triggers it? Why?
• What is needed? Music? Events? Alcohol?
• What if we all fall in love with the one who can see inside us? Who says “Hello you’re interesting” to everybody else they find inside?

 

Because yes : What if we were many (inside)? What kind of dance is it? It’s a metaphor, OR COURSE, but what does it show?

What if someone inside, hidden and protected (of course, protected!), one day takes the lead?

What if someone inside is suddenly missing, dead or sick or weakening?

What about three? Four? What if it was an accurate way to talk about us? Therefore what?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Both Sides NOW

The “Part of Shadow” according to C.G. Jung : an investigation

Creators of Intensity

Just after the war, in Japan, some directors were auditioning actors for a movie.

Akira Kurosawa tells that when he saw Toshiro Mifune in the room, he asked him to act angry, or waiting. He was in an awe. He was so amazed by his “presence”…

They made SEVEN movies together, including Seven Samurai. He’s the guy with the sword, on the left :

We all know women who, when they enter a room, make the room quiet. It’s also a presence.

It can be linked to beauty, a certain beauty, but not necessarily. It’s about essence. A whole pack maybe : intelligence, elegance, a… way.

There’s something here, a Type. I call this type “creators of intensity”. I had a few friends like that in my life.

These persons have always incredible stories to tell. They meet incredible people, who make incredible things because of them.

Their presence make other change. They gave’em energy.

Stars (Monroe?), great managers (ever heard of Napoléon?), or writers, or scientists. They are surrounded with incredible stories.

I think they give energy, and inspirations. People around want to prove something, they stand up to be seen, maybe. They can act crazy, really crazy.

Then let’s hope they’re not drama kings and queens! Before chaos will swirl around them then, even deaths. Endlessly.

Thanks for reading!

Unable to perceive the shape of you…

Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with your love.

It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere.

 

https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2018/03/who-wrote-the-poem-at-the-end-of-the-shape-of-water/

 

PS :

It’s disturbing : I always hated, more or less, Guillermo Del Toro’s movies. Pan’s Labyrinth is a real shame, Pacific Rim is just boring, and Crimson Peak ridiculous. But The Shape of Water was a cool smart little movie (great actors, great music, great ideas). The last words put me in an awe…

Picasso & how to glean the best from letters.

Some Picasso‘s exes were writing him letters, sometimes daily, for years. I read that he loved these a LOT.

I’m writing an article about “Types of Muses”, idea given by his life & wives. Instead of giving a list of names with a few labels on each (intellectual/innocent, tortured/happy, silent/talkative) let’s say he met very different persons – which is common, but means maybe a lot more for a artist.

Daily stories, thoughts, attacks, melancholia, gossips, hopes or life moments, anything : Picasso opened the envelopes and loved them all with gourmandise, like love of good food, it “made his honey”, like we say in France (“Faire son miel”) : He knew how to glean the best from these letters.

Why, what for?

This leads me to some ideas or tools :

• Keeping bonds with personalities that count.
• A way to make excellent use of everything, extract or invent seeds of them.
• A form of happiness – to be a “best gleaner”, a happy amor fati person, a dancer with what “comes”.
• It also shows a strength. Knowing what he wants in his life, what he’s worth, in a way : “…but words will never break me”.
• What would one do else with daily letters? Trash them? It’s a pressure, right? Some likes pressure from others, because it’s life?
• Knowing that these persons think about him?
• Simple entertainment?

 

It makes me wonder about the daily writers too :

• Was it a promise – to keep in touch?
• When you know you write to Picasso (even if he is your “ex”), you stand up differently, you have to be “up to the conversation partner”, which is great for steam and inspiration, of course…
• Therefore it gives you a force, ideas, attitude, and a desire to impress, probably.
• A displacement/substitution for love and conversation…

 

(Hmm sorry I’ll be Picasso-ed for a moment)

Thanks for reading!

JP

 

Paul Valéry about “writing for someone”?

Why I talk to my exes

You’re great / You’re not great anymore

 

Love Poem by John Glenday

You see
it’s neither pride, nor gravity but love
that pulls us back down to the world.
…

The soul makes a thousand crossings, the heart, just one.

– John Glenday, 2009

(found in the great Sally Mann’s book : A Thousand Crossings)

from Instagram: https://ift.tt/2OMPIBP

“Wisdoms”, a poem by P. Valéry

WISDOMS

One wisdom runs away from love
Like the beast flees the fire;
She’s scared of being devoured.
She’s afraid of being consumed.

One wisdom looks for it,
And like the intelligent being,
Far from fleeing it, blows on the flame,
Makes it her strength and melt the iron,

Thereby, Love offers her his powers.

SAGESSES

Une sagesse fuit l’Amour
Comme la bête fuit le feu;
Elle craint d’être dévorée.

Elle a peur d’être consumée.

Une Sagesse le recherche,
Et comme l’être intelligent,
Loin de la fuir, souffle la flamme,
La fait sa force et fond le fer,

Ainsi l’Amour lui prête ses puissances.

Paul Valéry

Moments & Epiphanies

ONE

As a bookseller I just ordered the French version of Dan & Chip Heath‘s “The Power of Moments” :

“In this book, we explore why certain brief experiences can jolt us and elevate us and change us—and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our life and work”.

You’re probably like me feeling confusedly that there’s something true here, hmm?

 

TWO

Today I opened a book about Andrew Wyeth, one of the three Wyeth painters (Andrew is the father, Jamie the son, N.C. the grand-father), and I found this quote (in French, I try to re-English it) :

I know nothing more enthralling than to be simply sit in a corn field on a windy day, listening to the dry rustle.

 

THREE

Yeah, “moments”…

I admit I’ve been obsessed for years, as a young man, with the idea of “Perfect Moments”. I ask Wiki about Epiphany (I bolded the bold) :

An epiphany is an experience of sudden and striking realization. Generally the term is used to describe scientific breakthrough, religious or philosophical discoveries, but it can apply in any situation in which an enlightening realization allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective. Epiphanies are studied by psychologists and other scholars, particularly those attempting to study the process of innovation.

 

Where do I go with you here? We all know that we remember intense moments (good or bad). The first time you took your lover’s hand. A haunting place, a new city. Meeting a new person and becoming like close friends in a few minutes. A life changing idea. A religious ecstasy. An harmonic moment in family, a summer evening…

I think we all know this, in a way or another!

 

FOUR

I think we sometimes “need” a moment like that, in the deepest of ourselves.

Therefore, I believe we sometimes have a strong tendancy to get “out of the railroad” (for example : doing unusual thing, traveling in new places), just to find more chances to dive into these kind of “moments”. We push ourselves… unthinkingly.

So OK, there’s a book about the “usefulness” of these, but in the end, you and me know that we can’t really trigger them. Being ready for ecstasy is a great way to never meet it!

• Maybe one can place oneself on positions where it “could” happen.
• Maybe to have our eyes opened for little moments, or more precisely to be ready to catch spoons, minutes and modest sparkles, like remembering that a new day could be the beginning of some experience. The happy, hidden hope to discover a new point of view, maybe just that.
• Possibilities.
• Including intoxicating ones, marvellous ones, overturning ones!

 

But we can’t program epiphanies, right?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Paths of Iron & Supple Escapes

“Biases to Pieces” – when life goes wrong, do something unusual

Inventing Ecstasy? Inventer l’extase…

 

Instagram : bodylanguage

 

 

 

“Duty of Apology” against Dégringolade

In all languages of the world, you know that pattern : when you watch a word too closely, you find it very weird suddenly. Blop.

For “Tumble down”, we have a verb. The fact that we in France don’t use the “up”, “down”, “back” and so on, forces us to invent words. This verb is :

Dégringoler

Your bag of oranges crashes and opens at the top or your stairs : oranges dégringolent, they tumble down, right?

It happens for all men and women on the planet. A big betrayal, realizing something bitter, a failure, and you tumble down. You crash. You want to cryscream, you want to be hiddendead, you wanna kill the sky!

The common name for dégringoler is dégringolade, and it’s a word so funny (though everybody knows it here) that it becomes strange. Unlike your “fall” or “tumbling”, I reckon. You have your own strange words, right? “Betrayal” is strange…

Dégringolade

Some day, you see your spouse in full dégringolade. It’s messy. Your love or your partner is desperate, has lost it. Total failure.

And of course, it’s NEVER a total failure. You have to stand now, OK?

There’s a “Duty of Apology” here. You have to move your ass and pull your partner up, right? It can be a spouse, a collaborator, an associate. When someone’s down : ACT.

Apology : FIND WHAT’S GOOD here, and say it! Beat the drum! She needs it!

It’s your duty.

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : _bodylanguage_

Like watching a tree in the wind for a long time, it becomes…

Inventing Ecstasy? Inventer l’extase…

ONE

As a teenager, I was, for some months, fascinated by the idea of the “Perfect Moment”.

I dug in my father’s shelves to find books, elements to think on.

It was from the Oriental “nirvana” and “satori” to the special moment in summer when all is quiet and you have the feeling that “all is in place”.

We all know this feeling, the “Perfect Moment”. After or during good linked sex, in a concert with choir, fireworks, or religion of course.

TWO

When you hear about that, there’s a danger : you wait for it, or more, you crave. You’re impatient. Rapture, you want do deserve it, to know what it is.

Problem is : the more you want the Perfect Moment, the less you have a chance to live it.

I heard about one recently invented Church, where you’d better be visited by God’s angel (or messenger whatever) to become a real part of the community. So your choices are few : you fake to be visited (that’s another article : Because there’s no god in the sky? Because god has other cats to whip? Because you’re not ready?), or you begin to think that all this stuff is a theater, or you run away over the hill to have a glass of French wine.

I can perfectly imagine a girl who hears about crying after an incredible orgasm, from a friend, and then feels nothing like that ever (because she waits for it too much?).

I watched one day a TV program about a grown up man who was in love with a painting (in a Russian museum, I think). Of course the TV team travelled and brought the obsessed guy, blindfolded, in front of the painting. The camera straight on him, watching out for… his emotions. Of course he cried, kneeled, blah blah blah.

Maybe it was real? It was not.

THREE

You can’t invent ecstasy and rapture. Perfect Moments exist and happen, and they catch you by surprise always. It’ll end in tears, most of the times. It’s marvelous!

FOUR

A wrong way up is to look for it, and another one is to fake it. One day, it’ll happen, though. It can be so quiet and peaceful, or you can feel like you’re in front of the Sun.

This feeling, when you feel it’s going away…

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : body_language

When you can’t/don’t divorce, who do you choose?

I’m so sick of sarcasm and irony, I could kill!
Sincerely, the real root of things is love and sacrifice.
Ben Foster

 

 

PREAMBLE

Here’s a little joky conversation I had with a colleague recently :

As a bookseller, I order and receive hundreds of (new or not) books every month. They have their little life, and the agreement with editors is to keep each reference for at least three months (like : “Give our books a chance”). I also order older books on the occasion of (a concert, an exhibition, a movie, etc…).

So a bookseller order books, put them on shelves, and also, continuously, send them back to companies. It’s constant, a constant flow of in and out.

 

My colleague saw me pushing crates of books on wheels (as we all do almost everyday) :

– What do you do here?
– Returning books, silly!
– Sheeesh!
– What?
– You really have a problem, pal!
– And what is that problem, Sherlock?
– You return books, right?
– Yeah…
– That’s what I thought : you are wrong, somewhere, you are a bad bookseller!…
– How is that, tell me?
– You idiot should order ONLY the books that sells!
– Ohhhh! You’re a genius! Thank youuuu! I will now follow that rule!…

And we lolled.

 

ONE

I was amazed how marriage stays a milestone in America. In France, more than 50% of marriages finish in divorces, and more and more lovers choose to avoid this old tradition – the government invented the PACS (a Civil Solidarity Pact) in 1999 : “A contractual form of civil union between two adults for organizing their joint life”.

Well : it’s like legal marriage without all bunkum you say at church, and it works for same sex couples too.

For example in 2013 you got 168,000 PACS and 231,000 marriages in France.

 

TWO

What surprised me a lot when I talked to American women is that, well, you almost HAVE to marry to get a proper life (and it’s the same in many countries). Even today. If you don’t, you’re not real. You have problems with many things, including healthcare… I found out that today 83% of women get married in the USA.

 

THREE

Therefore, as you are a smart young woman, as you watch around you, you probably realized that the guy you’re pressured to marry will probably be a failure 20 years after the fabulous wedding.

The causes for divorce in USA are said : adultery, abandonment, or cruelty, though “No-fault divorce (“irreconcilable differences”, “irretrievable breakdown of marriage”, “incompatibility”, or after a separation period etc.) is now available in all states“) are now evoked.

So people divorce but many others don’t, because it has a social cost, you lose plenty of privileges, it’s boring and loneliness is frightening.

 

FOUR

Like me with my books, you never know in advance what will fail. I just “try to” guess. And I fail (of course, and happily). My little sarcastic article is about this dial :

Who do you choose, then?

The guy who will be :

1. Bored
2. Boring
3. Violent
4. Silent
5. Workaholic
6. Alcoholic
7. Sexaholic
8. Indifferent
9. Dead
10. Stupid
11. Absent because :
12. Unfaithful
13. Garage handyman
14. Sportsman
15. Hunter

 

OUTRO/TOOL

Well, as I can’t guess how many books I have to order, you can’t guess how messy your husband will become. Maybe he’ll collect staplers – that’s not so bad, right?

How could you guess? Astrology? Give him a try for a few years before getting married? Listen to your friends and family who watch him? Listen to your guts? Your brain? Watch the slopes he’s taking with you about free time, sex, conversations, food and culture? What are the criterions you could watch?

What’s the process, from now on? Marry then watch the predicted slopes? Well : it does not work. Sadly you can’t return him to the company, in a crate on wheels. Or a wheelbarrow!

Thanks for reading!

 

Painting : Levitan

 

Love is when the other person’s happiness
is more important than your own.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

 

 

“What am I gonna do with you?”

Tonight is a good evening. I watched a terribly bad B-Movie (in France we call these “Film Z”, a Z-movie – makes sense?), called Beyond Skyline.

There are two types of low budget Sci-Fi movies. This one is bad. Dialogs like “Move Move Move!”, or “It’s OK! Ok? Okey…”.

But I liked this one, in a way, because there’s a really genuine will to do good. And it’s so bad! Poor guys!

The other type is the Monsters type ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1470827/ ) by Gareth Edwards, who directed since : Godzilla and Rogue One. Monsters was penniless but fantastic, great, inventive, gorgeous, magic!

 

In the beginning of Beyond Skyline I found this article idea :

A father (a cop) tries to talk to his son (a rebel) in the tube (before the ETs attack the Earth, OK?), and he says him :

“What am I gonna do with you?”

 

Oh I love that sentence!!!

And well, this is the subject of this article.

“What am I gonna do with you?” means a lot.

It says something about “a link, but”. About the complexity of life. About love. About something positive (I talk to you) but negative (you’re a mess, man!). This dance of love and bond and difficulties is one of the cores of life…

“What am I gonna do with you?”

What does it mean? What kind of smile dances around it? Why? What is it to be a mess (but I need you around)? Isn’t it the REASON why we like the person, though?

 

Thanks for reading! (it’s my 800th article!)

André Breton : Union – a French poem

‘Free Union’, by André Breton.

My wife whose hair is a brush fire
Whose thoughts are summer lightning
Whose waist is an hourglass
Whose waist is the waist of an otter caught in the teeth of a tiger
Whose mouth is a bright cockade with the fragrance of a star of the first magnitude
Whose teeth leave prints like the tracks of white mice over snow
Whose tongue is made out of amber and polished glass
Whose tongue is a stabbed wafer
The tongue of a doll with eyes that open and shut
Whose tongue is an incredible stone
My wife whose eyelashes are strokes in the handwriting of a child
Whose eyebrows are nests of swallows
My wife whose temples are the slate of greenhouse roofs
With steam on the windows
My wife whose shoulders are champagne
Are fountains that curl from the heads of dolphins over the ice
My wife whose wrists are matches
Whose fingers are raffles holding the ace of hearts
Whose fingers are fresh cut hay
My wife with the armpits of martens and beech fruit
And Midsummer Night
That are hedges of privet and resting places for sea snails
Whose arms are of sea foam and a landlocked sea
And a fusion of wheat and a mill
Whose legs are spindles
In the delicate movements of watches and despair
My wife whose calves are sweet with the sap of elders
Whose feet are carved initials
Keyrings and the feet of steeplejacks
My wife whose neck is fine milled barley
Whose throat contains the Valley of God
And encounters in the bed of the maelstrom
My wife whose breasts are of night
—
And are undersea molehills
And crucibles of rubies
My wife whose breasts are haunted by the ghosts of dew-moistened roses
Whose belly is a fan unfolded in the sunlight
Is a giant talon
My wife with the back of a bird in vertical flight
With a back of quicksilver
And bright lights
My wife whose nape is of smooth worn stone and white chalk
And of a glass slipped through the fingers of someone who has just drunk
My wife with the thighs of a skiff
That are lustrous and feathered like arrows
Stemmed with the light tailbones of a white peacock
And imperceptible balance
My wife whose rump is sandstone and flax
Whose rump is the back of a swan and the spring
My wife with the sex of an iris
A mine and a platypus
With the sex of an alga and old-fashioned candles
My wife with the sex of a mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes that are purple armour and a magnetized needle
With eyes of savannahs
With eyes full of water to drink in prisons
My wife with eyes that are forests forever under the axe
My wife with eyes that are the equal of water and air and earth and fire

L’Union libre

Ma femme à la chevelure de feu de bois
Aux pensées d’éclairs de chaleur
A la taille de sablier
Ma femme à la taille de loutre entre les dents du tigre
Ma femme à la bouche de cocarde et de bouquets d’étoiles de dernière grandeur
Aux dents d’empreinte de souris blanche sur la terre blanche
A la langue d’ambre  et de verre frottés
Ma femme à la langue d’hostie poignardée
A la langue de poupée qui ouvre et ferme les yeux
A la langue de pierre incroyable
Ma femme aux cils de bâton d’écriture d’enfant
Aux sourcils de bord de nid d’hirondelle
Ma femme aux tempes d’ardoise de toit de serre
Et de buée aux vitres
Ma femme aux épaules de champagne
Et de fontaine à têtes de dauphins sous la glace
M femme aux poignets d’allumette
Ma femme aux doigts de hasard et d’as de cœur
Aux doigts de foin coupé
Ma femme aux aisselles de martre et de fênes
De nuit de la Saint Jean
De troène et de nids de scalares
Aux bras d’écume de mer et d’écluse
Et de mélange du blé et du moulin
Ma femme aux jambes de fusée
Aux mouvements d’horlogerie et de désespoir
Ma femme aux mollets de moelle de sureau
Ma femme aux pieds d’initiales
Aux pieds de trousseaux de clefs aux pieds de calfats qui boivent
Ma femme au cou d’orge imperlé
Ma femme à la gorge de val d’or
De rendez-vous dans le lit même du torrent
Aux sens de nuit
Ma femme aux seins de taupinière marine
Ma femme aux seins de creuset du rubis
Aux seins de spectre de la rose sous la rosée
Ma femme au ventre de dépliement d’éventail des jours
Au ventre de griffe géante
Ma femme au dos d’oiseau qui fuit vertical
Au dos de vif argent
Au dos de lumière
A la nuque de pierre roulée et de craie mouillée
Et de chute d’un verre dans lequel on vient de boire
Ma femme aux hanches de nacelle
Aux hanches de lustre et de pennes de flèche
Et de tiges de plumes de paon blanc  De balance insensible
Ma femme aux fesses de grès et d’amiante
Ma femme aux fesses de dos de cygne
Ma femme aux fesses de printemps
Au sexe de glaïeul
Ma femme au sexe de placer et d’ornithorynque
Ma femme au sexe d’algue et de bonbons anciens
Ma femme au sexe de miroir
Ma femme aux yeux pleins de larmes
Aux yeux de panoplie violette et d’aiguille aimantée
Ma femme aux yeux de savane
Ma femme aux yeux d’eau pour boire en prison
Ma femme aux yeux de bois toujours sous la hache
Aux yeux de niveau d’eau de niveau d’air de terre et de feu

 

Instagram : bodylanguage

Another translation :

Free Union

My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child’s writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow’s nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby’s crucible
With breasts of the rose’s spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans’ backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to drink in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire

So you trashed everything your ex offered you?

Books & Scarves, hop in the trash!

Some people, after a break up, trash everything – “It comes from my ex”.

Good!

But I’m a constructivist, thus I know things are… “things”, the value is not “into” things.

The value of things is conferred.

By me.

And by the way, this great shirt is just a great shirt.

Err I won’t trash it.

I keep things I like. A good scarf looks good on me, and it’s warm. Period.

If I have to trash my scarf, it seems to mean : “I’m haunted by the past”, right?

“I loved this scarf, but today I’m terrified by it. Kill kill kill!”

I’m not haunted by “the past into a scarf”. The past is always interesting!

And it’s not into a thing.

If someone offered me a book, I will keep it as a good sign. And read it.

Good things stay good things : I just CAN decide it’s this way.

So I keep good things, in some states of mind :

1. This comes from a good moment, that built me.
2. I’m not “haunted” by imaginary feelings included in the thing.
3. It’s useful and I like it.
4. Dramaqueening is for teens.

 

“My now bf/gf is bothered by my ex’s things”. What about your body, then?

“What if my ex is now my enemy?”. What? Really? OK then. Trash your shirt. This book too. Voilà. Done. And now? Hmm? Feeling better? Any change? Anywhere?

 

I have some paintings on my wall which were given to me more than 25 years ago (by an ex). I have so many books. Yes : scarves, pens, a lamp, whatever. My mind-house is built on old stories. I love it!

And it’s a windy winter, brrrr…

You can also read :

• Why I talk to my exes
• You’re great / You’re not great anymore : has your talent evaporated?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

An empty letter from Madagascar (Silence Treatments Types)

I keep letters (and mails). All of them. It’s like a diary. It’s like traveling in time, being in two persons’ brains, “dialog archeology”, you feel the water under the bridge, too. And if the person died, you can talk with him/her endlessly.

 

I found an old letter in which a friend told me that she dated a guy and lived a few weeks of love before breaking up, because he was too intense, toxic, and jealous. Drama! He said he would left the country to live in Madagascar, and that he will never talk to her again! Then he disappeared…

One day, years later, she got an envelope. From Madagascar. She didn’t open it : it was empty.

She wrote me about her boiling brain since : Was it a mistake? Cruelty? A symbol? A paradox (“I think of you but I won’t talk”)? A “Hello”? In fact, she was so moved that it’s been good to her. It made her think about herself, about life, about him, about moving forward, etc…

 

This kind of cruelty made me think about the concept of “Silence Treatment“.

Silence Treatment always had many faces. And even in the Eighties and before, you already could play with it :

1. To sulk in a couple (for days, why not)
2. To disappear without an address
3. To commit suicide
4. Abandoned child
5. Quitting your best friend for ever because he/she went too far

Who does that and why? To manipulate? To forget? Protection? Cruelty? Stupidity?

 

Now we have smartphones and the Internet, tools outnumber old possibilities. You can just BLOCK someone one Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype, Email, etc… – and all pertaining games :

• you can block the blocker, so there!
• you can unblock someone, say something and reblock him/her (just to imagine the boiling process – which, beware could steam back… where it can).
• you can use real mail (paper) to bypass (I love when reality hits the virtual fan!).

 

I know a friend who has been almost destroyed by a lunatic pervert (living on the other side of an ocean) who constantly contacted her, flooded her with love and promises then disappeared for months for no reason, in a loop, keeping her disarmed in a boiling despair for years.

Silence treatment is dreadful (see, I learned a new word!), and we should only use it for protection.

 

Thus I’m back thinking about the empty letter from Madagascar. As an optimist, I choose this (because I choose to think people can’t be “that” mean) : It was a way for the guy to say “I promised I won’t talk to you anymore, but here’s something to show you I think of you, though”.

Awweeeeee!…

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Let’s make it a dance” tool

Hefez : La Danse du Couple (really need a translation?) is a book written by a couples therapist. He says that a couple is an impossible thing to build and to live – the other one never “fits”.

Therefore, we all have to think, watch the other and our alliance, and realize that there are stairs to climb, paths to invent, that we have to think and “find a way”. All this gestures-mess is a DANCE.

“Let’s make it a dance” is a tool which says :

“When it’s difficult somewhere but you have to insist and you have to stay in the system, just accept and absorb the difficulties – and invent a dance. Your dance. It’s a mess, but you can dance it, smile, and climb the stairs”. And ignore the others. Nobody can understand your own dance. It’s a secret.

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : tammygucci

John Giannatos, Greek Street Photographer #streetphotography

I follow more than 2400 persons on Instagram – I love this tool. This is Earth, humanity! For only a few ladies & guys, I activated the “tell me when she/he publishes” option. John Giannatos is one of them.

No genius here. He is just GOOD. He’s a street photographer. And you can see kindness, empathy, a sense of the things which make a good photography : light, moment, frame. He loves people, that’s obvious. John Giannatos. I don’t know him. You’ll find it, right?

Bravo, and thank you, stranger.

 

Thanks for reading!

Corks of reason pop out when the Real Thing appears & other unpinnings : Chronicle 28

“A man who is weak is a man who simply has a lack of love”. Is it true?

Decades ago a friend of mine bought a puppet in a store, in Europa. Once she chose it, someone said “You bought death”.

Corks of reason pop out when the Real Thing appears.

“Put on a happy face”, “Keep smiling”. I think it’s very strange to say that; if you’re not happy, you just don’t “put on a happy face”, and I don’t find any French idiom about that. What madness is that? Smile “on order”, naturally, for the picture, and you look like a fool…

Smile when you smile inside…

“Dans la solitude, on sent très bien le danger de la folie” : in solitude, one feels very well the danger of lunacy.

A certain silence arises from the other’s absence.

What do you do, when you see someone you like… rushing into a new project which you sense and foresee will be dangerous or a disaster? You shut up. One does not ask for your opinion : just shut your mouth.

They should invent a “people weather forecast”. “Today, people are obnoxious idiots. Go outside only if necessary”. “Tomorrow, people will be slow and dumb. Stay calm if you have to go outside”. “Don’t go around Quivira today, there are drunk bored couples everywhere”.

Write the storiy of Three Cursed Syisters. Eaych one has her own way of beying cursed. By what? Sex & Love, of couyrse!

How to decurse a curse?

When you hear the river, but you don’t see it.

A Folleti is a kind of Italian impish imp with a large red hat. He comes to comfort a little girl who is crying in the shade, on a porch behind a house. He invents magic tricks and a beautiful waltz. Then, she laughs. A chaffinch is singing somewhere.

Creation as association of ideas. Of course. Which ideas? How do you connect? What could be a adjuvant?

These days I read dozens of letters from the nineties. Forgetting the past is maybe the hugest mistake of humanity. Thanks to these letters, I’m see ideas and scintillations growing from the soil. Forgetting the past, the child we were, our siblings, our paths, hesitations, lovers, dialogs, mistakes and joys. Come on!

Ideas and feelings are alive in your head and are not frozenprinted : they blossom, de-blossom and re-blossom. Constantly evolving… If they don’t, they are called Pinned Mindsets. How to unpin?

We create our reality, our brain is a living forest breathing informations, dealing with reality in a complex layered dance. What kind of dance is it?

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : kikivancheese

 

 

 

 

 

“I’ve never said that!”

There are dozens of articles about manipulators, but I loved this one :

http://iheartintelligence.com/2017/08/23/end-emotionally-draining-relationship/

The author lists 4 signs, which are :

1. Twist what you’ve said in their favor
2. “I never said that!”
3. Play the victim
4. Belittle all of your problems

It’s a great article, and today I focus on 2.

“I’ve never said that!”

When you hear it from a person you love, you immediately fall from horse. Then you wonder what’s happening…

• Why so much bad faith?
• Are you victim of hallucinations?
• Why does he/she lie?
• Maybe he/she really forgot?
• You’re emotionally manipulated then : what for?
• To get something?

Then you hear :

• “You got me wrong”
• “You’re too serious”
• “You invent stories”
• “You try to manipulate me”
• “I was joking”
• “You expect too much”
• “You’re always complaining”

 

Well, etc. You are a prey, that’s it. You’re confused, and that’s the purpose of it…

“They will convince you you are just inventing problems. That you are seeking to find them.That you are ungrateful. You are weak. You are stressing them out. You are just not good with finding solutions. You focus so much on the bad. You exaggerate. And so on.”

 

The manipulator will always accuse you of what he/she’s doing. You’re dramatic. You use him/her to entertain. They have “trust issues” exactly when you shouldn’t trust them. Etc.

 

As you’re intelligent, you notice all this, your “knowledge of the other” is growing and you begin to pack your ideas in your mind to stay safe. But then, of course, the manipulator changes his/her face. Becomes a treasure again (although never sorry for what happened). You melt. You’re done.

If you’re married there is no solution. Find your own way to escape (hunting, biking, muscling, whatever) and try to explode in rage the less you can. Murdering your demon not good. Jail not good. Breathe.

 

Oh, to finish this. There’s only one thing to understand if you don’t already know it : they will NEVER accept they’re like that. It’s maybe the dark core of all manipulators – there is no cure, ever.

 

You can also read : Signs of Bad Signs : our shades of narcissism and Narration of cold sadism as low form of gaiety : a narcissistic tropism

Thanks for reading!

 

Instagram : _bodylanguage_

 

Beautiful day without you (ah) : Chronicle 25

 

 

People buy books to prepare their travel.

There are books to prepare your travel into Arts. As a bookseller, I order and present piles of them. Not for the experts, who already have their own maps, for beginners.

I love this series of books. 1001 paintings you have to see in your life (“you must see before you die”, you say in America). You probably don’t “have to”, though! They do it for architecture, pop music, classical music or movies. Or beers, or whiskies.

They are mapbooks, they present windows and paths. What will you explore FROM there?

There’s something to look at in the idea of laughing. Laughing is good, right? But when you think about it, there are many unpleasant ones. Coarse. Vulgar. Mean. Sarcastic. False. Crazy. Sniggers. And well, you die of laughing…

You have some laughs in you, who are sleeping.

 

I took this picture in 2004 in the park next to…

 

Röyksopp’s lyrics :

Living on my guard (guarded)
Wind is on my neck (fateless)
Sun is on my face (have courage)
Beautiful day without you (ah)

I wonder about someone who have to say “Beautiful day without you”. Is it a lie? A way to be mean? A tearful saying, like “Ah, hell, of course not, how could it be?”. A Coué incantation (I say it I say it I say it, it’ll maybe become true)?

It’s a great song, though. This science of weaving!

 

I have a theory.

Have in your house something you dislike. If you hate whisky, have a bottle. Sauerkraut (c’est de la choucroute !) is too bitter tasting? Have a box in your closet. Chinese tea maybe?

My theory is that when you life is sad, boring and bitter, don’t fill you up with sugar. It makes you fat, and it does NOT work.

Have something bitter. Make a link. Quietly, discreetly create an harmony, a balance between your state and your stomach. It will create a match, your bitterness will sit on its ass, shupping off into a “OK Well, Fuck”.

Chinese tea is awful. Smoked. Gunpowder feeling. Terrible. Try it.

 

 

More and more people replace crosswords by sudoku (where are the sparkles?). Kids are now evaluated with numbers (but how do you say about instability or shyness, then?). Jünger says that when numbers come, Gods retreat. A beautiful metaphor?

 

 

Why are disappointed people interesting?

• A disenchanted was enchanted, before, right? How come?
• He wants to warn others. Or not. Why?
• Failure leads to choices, lead to more failure (most of the time?).
• How do you ride back on your horse?
• What does he have to understand? To accept?
• Did he expect too much?
• Insisting. Waiting. Letting go.
• Before disillusion, he’s a happy imbecile. What do you say to him?
• “This time, it will work”.

 

 

What is this moment : “To become aware of” ?

 

Thanks for reading!

Life is fucking short. Let’s dance.