Photography: Frogs! Frogs! Frogs!!
Nature
Photography: Shy Spring in France (and an angry cat)
Photography: Shy Spring in North of France. Weather stays cold, sunny or grey: cold.
Two days after I met this cat. What’s his name? What does he think? Is he angry? Why? What does he think?
Fshhh
Photography : When Nature Meets City
Out of the city I had a long walk took my cam and pictures where nature meets city things
Blurry Summer
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!
Your Garden is like your Spirit
This summer I watched and visited some gardens. I talked with owners. I tried to find my entrance : flowers, grass, trees & garden, maintenance, house & garden, proportions, harmony…
I came to this : a garden looks like the gardener’s spirit. It can be crazy, or multifaceted, or free, or clean, ordered, surprising, eccentric…
If your mind tends towards order, your life as a gardener becomes a fight, a struggle, a taming game.
Because your house is smooth and clean, but nature is growing, inventing, nature is funny, blossoming, changing. The garden lives, invites the sun, the trees, the leaves and the feathers, nature moves, casts shadows, and will always win…
So what? If I had a garden, I imagine I would consider my work as a dance with the forces I’m seeing. Offer flowers to the bees, shelters and water to the birds, some wild free places for the little ones like ladybugs and grasshoppers. Some pruning, but not to much. Tame it a little, the necessary only. Let it breathe in the wind…
In the end, rosebud throws up its little arms, right?
Thanks for reading!
Photography : 3 little things in the morning
Joachim Hildebrand : Wild West
It’s a book. I smiled because of the photographer’s simple knack : showing a shock between the “wild west” and the… civilization. It shows something…
Tamed nature, right? Hmm… It at least show how Americans are conscientious.
Passages, Modulations, Transitions
I love Bertrand Tavernier, a French movie director. One day, as I was watching a movie, something bothered me – but I didn’t find what it was. Then I found.
Transitions.
Movies are made of scenes, and this guy – within many other qualities – knew pretty smartly how to pass from a scene to another. It was so cleverly done!
Paul Valéry says that passages and modulations are the most subtle and fine and sharp secrets the of Arts.
Then he give examples from mother nature, a river, a stem, openings, mountings : there are thousands of types of transitions in nature and life, and it’s most of the time near to perfection.
You see me coming, right?
One could be interested in the “entre-deux”, the “between two”, the middle, the in-between. Studying transitions is another thing. It’s about the movement, choices maybe, combination, says Valéry, of action and matter.
I agree : talent for transitions is one very subtle secret of any art.
Where to apply this? Novels, poetry and writing? Modulations and other changes in music? Life (where to?)? If you work on a project (marketing, teaching, traveling), do you think about transitions?
- Link? Plug? What else?
- Split in two?
- You’re a teacher : where and what kind of transitions do you see?
Mhhh next time I’ll talk about EMERGENCE.
Have a nice day!
a french toolbox 