Procrastination

Another treat, another creative idea. Animated.

http://www.ingredientx.com/watch/tales/procrastination.htm

Life is a musical

The link below takes you to a moment of sweet magic! Not everyone might share the fantasy that life is a musical, but those who do will thoroughly enjoy this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYZ6rbPU2M

In a different way, the Grand Central happening is quite impressive too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo&NR=1

Horror out of the everyday life

'The Orphanage' by the Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona brings Horror and Fantastic elements where they truly belong, making them work strongly on the audience: they are totally embedded in the most banal aspects of the everyday life. Contrary to the slash and gory movies (which can also have a certain appeal sometimes), in which effects come from gruesome serial killers or spectacular scenes of violence, 'The Orphanage' manages to entice the audience in a universe so close from banality that any abnormal details trigger an extraordinary tension: the disappearance of the son during the Orphanage opening day celebration, the scene when Laura find the bags in the wall and of course the sheer horror when Laura realises what has happened. Kafka in 'The Metamorphosis' threw only one fantastic element in the first sentence among a perfectly ordinary environment to make the story so powerful: ' As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin'; Edgar Allan Poe made it an art in most of his short stories like The Black cat, The Tell-tale Heart, The Oval Portrait, just to name a few.
This kind of story telling is what makes these stories delectable and really scary. Through his own stylistic vision, Bayona managed to enhance even more the story with amazing pictures. 'The Orphanage' is unmissable.

Public torture

No later than a few hundreds years ago, public executions of Vilains attracted crowds of people that would hysterically cheer at the accusation read by the prosecutor and enjoy watching the torture and death of the guilty ones.

Two days ago, a morning reality TV show's headline was about drunk parents: a teenager comes on stage claiming that she never had seen her father sober. Audience gasps. The guilty one is now exposed to the cameras, not clearly understanding where he is, nor why. Under the loud attacks and accusations of the demagogic presenter, the father hardly manages to defend himself. The crowd in the studio is hostile. The daughter tries to talk to him, the presenter adds more accusations; he brings the son on stage, the father repeats the same unintelligible words, both the son and the daughters speak, the TV presenter screams louder; some kind of expert joins them on stage, accusing the man as abruptly as the TV host. The father cannot remember what his daughter said a few seconds before, the TV presenter uses this incident to scream even more at him. The public approves and exults.

TV is switched off. The poor man was just a crowd-pleaser, a human sacrifice to the audience. Unendurable.

The impotent citizen

In a world dominated by the rethoric of the country leaders and the pollution of most media, it is very hard for the average citizen to make real sense of what is really going on. It seems that most give up and choose to focus on their own life (one winner of a reality show confessed this week in an interview that she had never heard of Obama or Hillary Clinton); some, perhaps more intellectual ot better educated tend to go on with their own rethoric; a minority chooses to act upon their convictions. And there are those who can witness the absurdity of the country leaders, however struggle to accept it any longer. Getting a better understanding appears quite complicated; as to find a way to contribute to a healthy change, where to start from?

The situation in Thibet is intolerable. Dramatic. People get killed for their ideas. The Chinese government accuses the Dalai Lama to encourage and spark the troubles. They hide facts on the real number of deaths. The Western leaders shyly protest, everyone is judging China and putting the Olympic Games in the middle of this situation. Economic stakes mix with political ones. Democracies versus Communist dictatorship, all tied up in economic interests. Perspectives opposed themselves, depending on where we stand, however using the same rethoric. After all, the Chinese government use the same arguments as the US and UK when justifying invading Irak or Afghanistan to justify their own action in Thibet. Facts are blurry, rethoric prevails. Supreme rethoric: Western countries act in the name of democracy, which allow them to criticize any model which is not democratic. But economic stakes will prevent them to act.

What is left to do for us average impotent citizens?

Can London be really conducive to Meditation?

In oversimplified terms (source: Wikipedia), Yoga Nidra is a practice that has become synonymous with yogic relaxation and guided visualisation techniques. It is a way to redistribute the energy in the body and also to connect a conscious resolve to our Unconscious , driving consequently our whole energy towards the realisation of this resolve (Shankalpa).

Part of the practice is to increase our awareness of the sounds around us, going from one to another without trying to understand them. Everyday for a week, practising Yoga Nidra in a remote part of Kanataka, allowed to hear many different birds, insects, the sea in the background, a bell...The refreshing natural surroundings created a pleasant, calming and relaxing experience, conducive to spiritual instruction and meditation.

Back to London, the vibrant voice of the Swami was replaced by a CD, which was bearable. Getting to the part of the Yoga Nidra practice focusing on sounds, there was no natural sounds to be found. The mind was wandering between an overwhelming road drill in the street, car engines accelerating, ambulance sirens, a door banged in the building, more car noises, more sirens, more drilling...

Can we just simply replace the natural sounds by the industrial ones - after all, the awareness of the sound is what matters in the practice, not what triggered them - and just adapt ourselves to our urban environment? Can this really be as conducive to Meditation than a natural surrounding? Most importantly, shall we just accept that, meditation or not, the sound of a bird is no longer a natural thing?

Life in itself has no meaning

'Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create a meaning. You will find meaning only if you create it. It is a poem to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced.

Buddha finds meaning because he creates it. God is not a thing but a creation. And only those who create find. Each individual has to give birth to God, to meaning, to truth; each man has to become pregnant with it and pass through the pains of birth. Each one has to carry it in one's womb, feed it by one's own blood, and only then does one discover.

The inquiry has to be pure, without any conclusion. If you are looking for a certain meaning, you will not find it - because from the very beginning your inquiry is polluted, it is impure. You have already decided.

For example, if a man comes into my garden and thinks he can find a diamond there, then to him this garden is beautiful. He cannot find the diamond and he says there is no meaning in the garden...And there are so many beautiful flowers, and so many birds singing, and so many colours, and the wind blowing through the pines, and the moss on the rocks. But he cannot see any meaning because he has a certain idea: he has to find the diamond, only then there will be a meaning.

He is missing meaning because of his idea. Let your inquiry be pure. Don't move with any fixed idea. Go naked. Go open and empty. And you will find not only one meaning - you will find a thousand and one meanings. Then each thing will become meaningful.'

Extract from The Silence of the Heart: talks on Sufi stories (The Times of India, Bangalore, 15.03.08)

Humour? Art? Fashion?

In the windows of the Louis Vuitton stores, the new bag collection is on display. Inspired by (or created with) the artist Richard Prince, the new collection is called Monogram Jokes. The bags look funky, daring, ostentatious - a strong fashion statement. Perfectly expected. Printed on the leather, some letters and sentences: the jokes. It looks exactly like one of Richard Prince's serie of painting called by the same name.

The jokes are the following:

"My wife is always asking for money, $200 one day, $150 the next, $125 after that"."That's crazy" my friend said " what does she do with it all?" "I don't know" I said " I never gave her any".

" Everytime I meet a girl who can cool like my mother, she looks like my father".

"My wife went to the beauty shop and got a mud pack. For two days she looked beautiful. Then the mud fell off".

" I've been married for 30 years and I'm still in love with the same woman. If my wife ever finds out, she'll kill me".

Let's accept that the whole spirit of this collection is to be edgy and provocative: fashion meets arts, esthetic mixes with messages, fashion keeps pushing boundaries like art does, bla,bla,bla... Ostentatious makes fun of the ostentatious, this is all second degree. The fashion victim who will show off one of these bags will make a statement that she has a deep sense of humour.

Will she really?

The 10 second incident

James rang the bell. He had made sure he was right on time: not too late, not too early.

The door did not open. After a few seconds, James stepped backwards and looked up towards the window. It happened sometimes: she was busy and she would take a few seconds before releasing the door lock and letting him in. But it never took so long. He wondered if she might be out. Did she try to contact him to let him know they could not meet today? He suddenly realised that she still had his old mobile number. He should have given her the new one several weeks ago but totally forgot. That was stupid... He suddenly heard the click of the door and smiled. Silly him, she was probably just playing at little waiting games!

When he saw her, he could not find anything to tell her. And yet, earlier, he was looking forward to seeing her. Now, he had to apologise for not being in the right mood. None of them were talking. She broke the silence after a while. She wondered what happened to transform his excitement to see her into an unexplainable struggle to be with her. 'Nothing significant happened', he said ' except perhaps the 10 second incident in front of the door. Nothing, really'. When he explained to her what the 10 second incident was, she asked him if he had panicked. The word was extreme, but in a way, yes, he had panicked. 'So, she said, you think that I put you already through a lot and you are angry at me...' He opened his mouth to protest but what came out was a burst of tears. Thinking back of these 10 seconds, he realised how deeply painful they had been. He very likely would not have even paid attention to them if it was not for her questions. But in 10 seconds, he got suprisingly worried; his brain came up with so many scenarios to explain the absence of response; he panicked at the idea of her not beeing here; he felt guilty for not having provided her with the new mobile number, almost to the point of hating himself for it. Yes, he really went through a lot, too much even. The burst of tears turned into manic laughters. How could he seriously be admiting to her that he went through so much during these 10 seconds when a lot more real suffering was going on in the real world? After a few minutes, he regained his calm. ' Shall we go for a coffee?', she asked quietly.

Home Shopping Selections

Well, well, well... here is some seriously good stuff, found accidentally in a leaflet that should never have been printed in the first place. All the following products are for sale, pushing the boundaries of consumption to another level.

The Car dent Puller: a suction system that can repair minor dents on car. 'Just place the cup over the dent, click the handles shut and pull gently'. Can also be used to carry sheets of glass, metal and mirrors.

http://www.hss.uk.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3476

Ear Cleaners: 'a small, gentle vacuum that removes troublesome and unsightly earwax gently and completely. A new advance in personal body care'.

http://www.hss.uk.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=508

Shower stool: 'Showers are so much easier to get into than baths, they are more refreshing and more hygienic. The only trouble is people like to sit down to wash and take the weight off their feet after a hard day. This shower stool allows you the luxury of both worlds'.

http://www.hss.uk.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=383

Scare cat: 'Keep your garden free of unwanted cats! The 14" black metal body has large glowing glass eyes to reflect ambient light, staring away those unwanted cats. Can be mounted to a post, tree, fence or directly on the ground.'

Pest Xit: uses high frequency ultra-sound and powerful transducers to make an area of 1500 sqft very uncomfortbale for pests and rodents. Comes in Ultra and Duo.

http://www.hss.uk.net/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=pest+xit

Is it where someone found the ultimate gadget, the Mosquito: 'a device which disperses young people by emitting a high pitched sound only they can hear'...?

Long life to short stories!

Watching 'Paris, I love you' - a serie of vignettes filmed by a selection of international directors - brings back the pleasure of the fine art of short stories. The genre is not in fashion, which is a shame. The format is not commercial enough; the demand not high enough.

It is time to read again Edgar Allan Poe, Maupassant, or Stephan Zweig...and many others. They capture in a few pages the essential, the core of what makes a story and characters. There is no room for approximation, all parts of the story need to be sharp.

'Paris, I love you' ends with a deceivingly simple vignette. A middle-aged American woman reads to her French class the story of her six days spent in Paris. While she is reading, the camera capture the images of her trip. It is a whole life that has been put in this story. Unsaid, however exquisitely suggested. In six minutes, the character unveils almost her whole lofe story, alternating humour and emotion. It is extrordinary simple and yet complex enough to touch deeply.

The movie has high and lows, but there are a few jems to enjoy. Here is a taster. Long life to short stories!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401711/trailers-screenplay-E32506-314

Leave Britney alone!

There is much more to life than Britney. Sure. But this 'Leave Britney alone!' clip is worth a watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWSjUe0FyxQ

This should be the last time Britney is referred to on La Confusion des sentiments.

Time to put a face!

It was time to put a face on Subconsiousholic.

After all, it is not just about words and thoughts.

Please do not get intimidated if this face shows a vague ressemblance to someonelse. Hey, life's a bitch!

And who knows, in La Confusion des Sentiments, faces can change all the time! This is the beauty of life, we are all just a fantasy, our own or someone else's!

Today is a picture. Tomorrow might seen more boxes in 'My complete profile' filled in. To reveal more about the fantasy? No, no, no... Boxes must not be filled, there is too much of this going on in the real world.

This blog is box free!

Are we Barbarians?

A French philosopher, Alain Badiou, recently defined President Sarkozy as a Barbarian: uncultivated, ostentatious, controlling and exhibitionist in a somehow obscene way. But let's face it! What the French President represents, his values and methods are simply the products and the accurate representation of the barbarian world that the Western model has generated: a capitalism which is now out of control, violent, oppressive, ferociously unequal. There is a certain irony in the French motto 'Liberte Egalite Fraternite': from a legal point of view, Equality has probably never been a stronger notion in our modern societies. However what about the social meaning of it, i.e. as the real and concrete definition of equality?

Here we are: business and mass consumption are the main driving forces of our world, a greater value is given to the 'shareholder citizens' rather than the 'employee citizens', globalisation is expanding in an uncontrolled manner, traditional institutions are now too weak to counterbalance the excesses of the economic model (Trade unions, governements, collectivities) and there is no successful alternative social or business model to ours. Our democracies devoted to this overpowering capitalism have become Barbarian.

One will argue that the Barbarian term should really apply only to the countries with no democratic system and based on physical repression and terror. It would be true, though quite subjective: interestingly enough, one of the definitions of the word Barbarian is: 'a member of a people considered by those of another nation or group to have a primitive civilization'. Should the unacceptable violence in other parts of the world prevent us from looking at ours? Can we really accept our Western model and its consequences on every citizens of the world as the only possible type of organisation? Are we not becoming Barbarians just by accepting that the only way to be is from within the existing system?

The good old chapters

Last night, phone call with an old friend and roommate from Buisness school. This was twenty years ago. It felt incredibly good and warm to speak to him after all this time (nickname: Bunny!!) and hear from the people who were close at that time. Surprisingly, there has been a deep feeling of happiness, comfort and belonging since the phone call. A generation thing? A trend thing? Finding the old chums seems to become an overwhelming priority for many of us at some point.

Up to now, past was to be left in the past. Not intentionally, however naturally the focus was on the future, the new adventures to live, the new chapters to write. This was where the excitment was! And here we are now, on Facebook or Friends Reunited, going back to old chapters, reading them again and bringing them back into the present life.

Is connecting with the past a stronger necessity that we might think?

Dryness

OK, total silence in the last days. Call it fear! Yep, fear. What was clearly designed as a space for free expression has subconsiouly become subject to the same anxiety of being rejected than in the normal life. Consciously, the symptom is sheer procrastination.
The funny part is that La Confusion des sentiments has been shared with only one person.
Back to business very soon...

I am a slave, full stop!

Moving to the celebrities territory, Heath Ledger is probably a safer bet to discuss on a blog. And yet, the situation around Britney Spears is equally compelling. The latest pictures of the young woman crying in front of her house after a row with her manager (about a boyfriend!) cannot let anyone insensitive. And this is just two weeks after the pictures of Britney Spears strapped on a ambulance cart.


From the moment she became a worldwide phenomenon, what was the big deal? Not much, really: Lolita pouts on noisy beats; mass hysteria around a perfectly manufactured product; the only funny part was this extraordinary twist of the tongue when singing the 'Ls' (check the videos!). The whole thing became even more tedious last year when her personal stories started creating more publicity than her songs.


What became fascinating and terrifying is how wrong this fairy tale has turned. Or maybe there was no fairy tale! Despite the fame, the entourage, the money, the exposure to a whole lot of new opportunities, the pop princess ends up having the same life than the one she would have had coming from her white trash background: dramas, one-day wedding, uncivilised battles around her children, a sister pregnant at 16, chain of unacceptable behaviours (how many stories about her driving skills, her shopping sprees?)... This should raise a question for all of us: can we really shape our life (the commonly used 'I choose to') and escape from what preceded us? Are all hopes to be what we want to be for real or is determinism prevailing despite all our efforts? Of course, we love to believe that we have choices. Hmmm....


Slightly less philosophical, but equally terrifying, has Britney Spears any change to escape from an entourage which has probably no interest in putting a stop to this series of dramas. Not even talking about setting herself free from her own past, can Britney set herself free from the toxic people around her?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Let's get lighter today! Here are a few whys found in a magazine.

Why do people send text messages rather than call each other?

Why is one hour a lot in the life of a butterfly?

Why within 45 years will there be no more skiing holidays?

Why do couples get mortgages on 30 years when in average they will stay no longer than 7 years together?

Why are they so many single people when it has never been so easy to meet people?

Why are they more poor workers than people who belong to Trade unions?

Why does no one say hello! when getting in the tube?

Shall I add: why does everyone seem to get into writing blogs rather than chatting with the ones they share a 30 year mortgage with?

Scarified or sacrificed?

Friday: Anniversary of eight years spent together; actually, 56 straight years: there is the x7 factor, like for dogs! Looking back at these years, only the idea of wanting plenty more comes to mind. As well as reflecting on these parts of our own individuality that we tend to forget when in a relationship.

Am contemplating between necessary compromise or true loss...

Saturday am: Conversation with my friend about relationships: the unbearable fear of seeing the other slowly falling out of love, starting a new story with another partner before ending up the existing relationship. For the one that witnesses the end, hell starts, no matter if he gives in to an imaginary scenario or senses the actual reality. Life becomes a constant struggle into compromises to save the relationship.

But can painful compromises prevent the loss of the loved one?

Saturday pm: 'Abusing love', a wonderful modern ballet by the Fish in a Bowl company at The Place. Two couples danced through the difficulties of their relationship. The woman of the first couple and the man of the second one commit adultery together which lasts the time of a dance before returning to their original partner. Despite what happened, both couples seem to reunite, even if changed. This ending felt like despair more than choice, with very sinister perspectives.

Can the wrong compromises take us to our loss?

Sunday am: Freudian slip, where 'scarified' replace 'sacrificed'. Sacrifice was referring to the compromises that kept popping up in the conversations during the week-end. No matter how compromises need to be part of life, can they feel anything else than wounds that need repair?

A space to be confused

...and here we are. Not really a start, more a continuation. A new space dedicated to words, thoughts and impulses. No intention to come up with clever theories, just to let simple associations happen. No structure, just randoms thoughts. No deep preparation, just improvisation (or almost!). And definitely not a crowd pleaser...what a relief! Just a space to let it go, to confuse and be confused. At last a space that has usually no space in the real life!

Is confusion scary to everyone or is anyone else better than me at dealing with it in their everyday life?