friday: sun and thunder

While I was waiting for my bus to go home the sun was generously warming me, but by the time I got home it was overcast. All day it had been hot and sultry and sure enough, in the very evening we had the first thunderstorm of the year! Boy, was I happy. I am one of those weird people who love watching the lightning and listening to the thunder. I didn't manage to capture any of that mightiness on my camera though, unfortunately.

J'aime l'océan

As a consolotary-gift for the hard time I've been having lately, I went to see the movie Océans by Jacques Perrin and Jaques Cluzaud. It is the one movie that everyone who admires and marvels nature must see. It made me both smile and cry. It is a deeply touching movie that shows nature and water in all its might and also helplessness. How many species have men extinguished? Just because they want something. Just because they can. Just because they feel superior. But, really, mankind is nothing compared to the vast diversity of life that can be found underwater. Oh, what wouldn't I give just to dive in the blue eternity and swim next to the enormous whales or sharks, like divers do in this movie. For once in my life to truly realize how small we are ...

Definitely visit the official move webpage, where you can see the movie trailer and videos and photos of amazing sea creatures. -> oceans-lefilm

photos from oceans and imdb

turquoise dream

Simply YES! I want to spend my summer there.

found at house of turquoise

into china

Boy, can school reading sometimes be interesting! This time it was a real pleasure to read John Man's 'Xanadu: Marco Polo and Europe's Discovery of the East'. In this book, he is tracking down the route along which Marco Polo travelled through China in the 13th century. Marco Polo was known to exaggarate and use his imagination when telling about what he saw and encountered in China.

_

Marco Polo's vivid and occasionally misinterpreted descriptions of his travels inspired the medieval artist Granger to depict dragons in China. Photo found at amazon.com

_

Here are my favorite quotes from Chapter 3 'Into China':

"Like a comet at the extreme adge of China's gravitational influence (..)"

"Far ahead, glowing beyond a corridor of mountains like a rising moon, loomed 'the glistening mass of a great snowy dome'."

"The borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan were as sensitive as sunburned skin (..)"

"(..) the surrounding peaks glowing like polished saws in the setting sun."

"(..) and all around, the mountains, rugged as crumpled cardboard, and snow-capped."

"The cleft which leaves the north peak several kilometres from the southerly one is now filled by the greatest of its fourteen glaciers, which looks like white scar tissue healing the mountain's wound."

"(..) a collection of hills that seem to belong on the moon: light grey, rounded as pillows, and veiled by a mist that turns them into ghost-mountains."

"The road passes a dreid-up lake made of sand so fine that the wind whips it into gossamer curtains, which drift like mist over the mountains, coating them with fine grey dust."

"An ice-cap clamps like a hand over mountain-top, with glacial fingers reaching down steep side-valleys."

word of the week VI

gossamer n.

1. a fine filmy piece of cobweb made by small spiders.

2. any flimsy delicate material.

_

Oxford Paperback Dictionary (1988)

springy

I want my spring to be spring. I'm tired of digging through books and papers. I want to go outside and I want to go out, I want to run away and I want to shop, shop, shop. I wish for lazy days on my balcony, sipping cocoa, listening to rejuvenating music and maybe reading an interesting, fun book for a change, not some "Colloquial Chinese". And then, after I've had a good rest, I want to devote myself to making things. There. That's my rainy-day's fantasy.

inspiration: big hair

found at Late Afternoon

word of the week V

juxtaposition n. [juhk-stuh-puh-zish-uh]

1. an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast.

2. the state of being close together or side by side.

dictionary.com

nostalgia in blue

I went to see a marvellous exhibition today. It's theme was the traditional Chinese art of batik (or tie-dye). I was more than inspired by the rich blue fabrics with the intricate patterns and motifs in white. I was once again assured that the Chinese is and has always been a step ahead of any other civilization. Maybe it is just my "sino-centrism", but I am so damn proud of the Chinese and everything they've managed.

_

Long ago, the Chinese often used a kind of blue and white colored hand-woven cloth in their daily lives. Although this cloth is simple in craftsmanship and dyed with pure natural pigments, it distinguishes itself visually with its sensational beauty and with its decorative pattern changes. According to historical documents, this traditional hand-woven cloth has more than a 2000 year-old history. The remains of these fabrics have been unearthed on the color plastics on the Bodhisattva sculptures in the ancient Dun Huang caves. The earliest unearthed relics can be traced back to the 4th century AD. They have been indentified as a kind of material that was printed and dyed in an ancient Chinese folk style. This craft spread widely over China and was very popular in the Tang Dynasty. This traditional handcrafted technique survived in different parts of China each with different modes of production. These can be subdivided into three kinds as a result of the different printing and dyeing process: bandhnu, batiks and blue print.

Currently in China, all of the three crafts have been listed on the state-level Intangible Cultural Heritage List and have received national recognition. They have been put under state protection as living cultural relics.

_

Bandhnu

This type is specifically ascribed to the Bai ethnic group in Yunnan Province of China. The usual bandhnu method starts with drawing of the outline of the design on the cloth, followed by needling the cloth together to create the "flower" pattern by a variety of folding, bundling, pinching, twisting, stitching, winding, knotting, clipping etc, so that the cloth is tied in various shapes. The knotted cloth is then dyed by being soaked repeatedly in the pigment solution. Due to the different density of the ties, the fabric absorbs the pigment at different intensity levels. After the knot is untied, the cloth appears to have different shades, rich in color layers.

_

Batiks

The production process is comprised of using beeswax and paraffin wax and drawing the patterns with a melted wax liquid and a hand-tailored wax knife or a sharpened bamboo stick on the cloth and the dipping it into the indigo blue dye solution. The part of the cloth without the wax becomes dyed blue. The cloth is then put into boiling water that removes the wax and enables the blue and white design to appear. Due to the wax cracks that naturally occur after the wax solidifies and in the process of soaking and dyeing, the patterns will be full of natural cracks.

_

Blue Printed Calico

This type of craft uses soybean powder and lime mixture as the protecting agent, and uses hollow carved patterns as the printing plate. To imprint the pattern on the cloth, the dyer puts the carved pattern frames on the cloth and then plasters the soybean and lime mixture into the cloth into the hollowed sections of the carved patterns. This forms white patterns on the cloth that the pigment is unable to penetrate. The cloth is then dried and submerged into the indigo solution. After wind-drying and the dried paste being scraped off, a bright blue and white calico pattern emerges.

_

simon's cat

My Internet Explorer wouldn't let me upload videos. As I now have a Mozilla, I can fully enjoy the video-sharing option. So here comes another one. I've wanted to post this for a very long time.

found at gris-bleu

the musician: Ben Meyers

Don't ask me why, but I've been quite obsessed with younger guys lately - mostly imaginary, mostly 17 years old. Cool, active, a little shy but also cheeky, quiet and creative youngsters. I know, I know, I'm confused myself, but this incredible video of Ben Meyers using his whole empty school as an instrument does nothing to ease this unreasonable infatuation.

found at Debonaire

estonia

The previous post about the Estonian blogger reminded me about my last year's trip to Estonia, Hiiumaa.

I grew a bit sentimental and decided to share some photos of those lovely days.

_

the blogger: sequin magazine

This Estonian girl is basically the epitome of cool. At 16 she's the ultimate dollface. She has a wardrobe full of awesomeness and a great sense of fashion. She can sew a skirt or two and has done some seriously cool DIY projects. She goes to a lot of fashion shows and even gets to participate in some. She seems to have this air of an effortless person, who rushes through her life, taking all the best out of it and snapping wonderful photographs on her way. Way to live, girl!

_

sequin magazine

inspiration: white frames

found at erin.ever.after

monday: black ribbon

We mourn for Poland.

sunday: a plain ignorant fellow

friday: lace characters

thursday: sinfonia

persian letters

I have to read Charles-Louis de Montesquieu's Persian Letters for my exam. I was scared of it. I expected it to be a boring, dry piece of work. I was wrong. It is highly interesting and has some very mind-catching ideas and phrases.

_

"To me it seems that things in themselves are neither clean nor unclean: I can conceive of no inherent quality which makes them the one or the other."

Letter XVII

_

"There is no people in the world who hold more by their vehicles than the French: they run; they fly; the slow carriages of Asia, the measured step of our camels, would put them into a state of coma. "

"(..) there is another magician, more powerful still, who is master of the king’s mind, as absolutely as the king is master of the minds of his subjects. This magician is called the Pope."

Letter XXIV

_

"The curiosity of the people of Paris exceeds all bounds. When I arrived, they stared at me as if I had dropped from the sky (..)"

"If I visited the Tuileries, I was immediately surrounded by a circle of gazers, the women forming a rainbow woven of thousand colours. "

Letter XXX

_

"The soul, while united to the body, is a slave under a tyrant. "

Letter XXXIII

_

"This Asiatic gravity is the result of the unsocial life which people lead: they never see each other except on ceremonial occasions. Friendship, that dear solace of the heart, the sweetener of our life below, is almost unknown to them; they withdraw into their houses, where they always have the same companions; and in this way each family is, as it were, isolated. "

"(..) what is to be expected from an upbringing at the hand of a wretch, who makes his honour consistent with the guardianship of other’s wives, and prides himself upon the most loathsome employment which society affords; whose only virtue, his fidelity, is utterly despicable, because it is prompted by envy, jealousy and despair; who, belonging to neither sex, burn to be avenged on both, and yet submits to the tyranny of the stronger, in order that he may afflict the weaker (..)" [about eunuchs]

Letter XXXIV

_

"Another much-discussed question is, whether women are intended by nature to be subject by men. “No,” said a very gallant philosopher the other day; “nature never dictated such a law. The dominion which we exercise over them is tyrannical; they yield themselves to men because they are more tender-hearted, and consequently, more human and more rational. (..) they exercise over us a natural dominion – that of beauty which nothing can resist.”"

Letter XXXVIII

_

"(..) prodigies always accompany the birth of extraordinary men, as if nature suffered a convulsion, and the celestial power could not bring forth without travail."

Letter XXXIX

_

"I would abolish all funeral pomp. Men should be bewailed at their birth and not at their death. "

"We are so blind that we know neither when to mourn, nor when to rejoice; our mirth and our sadness are nearly always false. "

"(..) my heart bleeds for the extravagance of humanity."

Letter XL

_

chanel paris-shanghai

Oh, yes, please - the Red.

found at la chanelphile

dream home

This sophisticated and elegant home has been my favorite ever since I first saw it. The first thing I noticed - there is a chandelier in EVERY room - got my heart. The kitchen and the breakfast area (the last two photos) with the black and white tile floors, white tiny-paned cupboards, the solid black stove area, the shabby white metal chairs, the flower-pattern wallpaper, touch of purple and the absolutely stunning chandelier above the table are my ultimate favorites. Everything is so well-appointed and the breakfast area in particular sure reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. Isn't it an ideal place for a mad little tea party?

_

found at plush palate via belle vivir