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...