Black Journal

välkommen till Stockholm

2011-12-12T13:57:00.000+02:00

you trickster you

2011-11-07T21:21:00.001+02:00

The beans in the pot on my windowsill are in full bloom. Don't they know it's autumn?

can you hear the Christmas bells?

2011-11-06T21:31:00.000+02:00

project: deer head

2011-10-11T20:58:00.002+03:00

A long time ago I found this tutorial on the Internet and decided that I will make one for myself. And finally, here it is:

hello, autumn

2011-09-24T11:12:00.000+03:00

saturday: appledom

2011-09-03T14:47:00.006+03:00

saturday: explorer

2011-08-13T12:06:00.006+03:00

monday: follow the dragonfly

2011-07-25T11:01:00.003+03:00

Erlangen

2011-07-11T09:51:00.000+03:00

Wrocław

2011-07-09T15:32:00.000+03:00

into paradise

2011-06-12T10:00:00.001+03:00

peonies

2011-06-10T12:41:00.002+03:00

george clooney and balzac

2011-06-04T22:52:00.004+03:00

Saturday night. My own kind of entertainment. I'm on my bed, wearing a colorful hoodie, worn-out jeans, and my latest purchase and obsession - a shiny pinkish necklace that I call "the berry necklace" because it looks exactly like a magnificent string of red bilberries [see post love at first sight]. Really, in my mind's eye I see the red juice running down my wrist all the way to the elbow when I squeeze it. A giant cup of steaming tea sits on the table next to me as I'm cracking open hazelnut after hazelnut and reading a magazine called Baltic Outlook. It is issued by airBaltic (they say it's an "inflight magazine") and you can pick it up for free at tourist information centers in Riga. It's one of those magazines that some companies come up with apparently just to have something extra to do. It is like a cauldron similar to that legendary one from which the Powerpuff Girls once sprang - it's an eclectic mix of "everything nice". It is quite interesting, however. This is the May issue and the main article is about Rome. That's eight pages in total devoted to the "city of eternal magic" and some places worth seeing there. But that's not all, oh no. There's also a tiny anothertravelguide.com pamphlet glued inside the magazine. It tells you where to eat, where to shop and what to see in the museums of Rome. There's also an article about airBaltic's bycicle rental project, which I was very interested in as I've been willing to try those bikes for a while now. There was an interview with the F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, which I was completely not interested in. There was an article about the Capital of Champagne - Reims, about the Go Blonde festival, about the third biggest airport in Europe - Frankfurt am Main, and a couple more. What grabbed my interesed more than any of the aforementioned articles however, was a small piece written by Robert Cottrell. You know, that British journalist who is all charming and charismatic and opened one of the first second-hand English book stores in Riga, therefore kicking my life up a considerable notch. Hell, my copy of The Lost Symbol comes from his shop, thank you very much. Books, however, are not the subject of this little article titled "Me, George Clooney and Balzac". Coffee is. Robert, the funny man, compares himself to George Clooney. What do they have in common? Their good looks, charm, taste for clothes and coffee. He goes into a short jabber about how he's tasted all the bad coffee in the world but his taste buds are still not able to differentiate between the tiniest nuances of the finest of coffees. He ends with mentioning that Balzac, the great coffee-drinker, would surely be outraged at the size of coffees available in this Starbucks age. This is a neat little piece of writing. But really, what is it about? Nothing. It's really about nothing relevant. It's just a short fragment of someone's neverending flow of consciousness. Just another rumpled piece of information in my already loaded mind, which will surely find a way to strike roots in my mind permanently. Oh, I bet it will. Like a parasite it will feed on and spread its spores over the useful files of information. If it's a parasite then why do I find it so interesting? Why would anyone choose to publish someone's surplus of thoughts as if it's something fascinating? Hey, who's going to publish my flow of consciousness? No one. Exactly. Because I've done nothing remarkable and no one cares which way my consciousness is flowing.

I scanned the article just in case anyone is interested in reading it. But if you're interested you might as well go here and download the current and all the previous issues in pdf.

muffins and more

2011-06-03T11:34:00.004+03:00

If you are in Riga and you like muffins there is only one place to go - Muffins and More at Gertrudes 9.

love at first sight

2011-05-30T14:08:00.007+03:00

necklace: Reserved
shoes: Ecco

saturday: life is life

2011-05-28T12:44:00.002+03:00

thursday: popberries

2011-05-26T13:05:00.000+03:00

sunday: nordea riga marathon

2011-05-22T12:20:00.003+03:00

saturday: botanic. the sequel

2011-05-21T12:07:00.007+03:00

thursday: botanic

2011-05-19T11:25:00.007+03:00

friday: wind in the liverleaves

2011-04-22T00:10:00.005+03:00

friday: thirteen

2011-04-15T22:50:00.001+03:00

sunday: strawberry fields

2011-03-20T21:39:00.001+02:00

firework studies

2011-03-17T10:47:00.007+02:00

explore the book

buy at Hassla books
found at thethinkingtank

sunday: breakfast of champions

2011-03-06T20:58:00.002+02:00

sunday: discovering america

2011-02-27T21:36:00.009+02:00

2

2011-02-27T21:07:00.004+02:00

My, oh my. This blog has reached its second birthday and I barely noticed.

the renaissance owl

2011-02-16T20:05:00.005+02:00

"Theory was the product of the attempt of scholars throughout the earlier ages to explain the world around them (and especially the unknown world) on a basis of quite limited information; myth was the result of two milleniums of romance and fairy tale, which did duty for scientific knowledge, and which had a particular attraction for the men of the Middle Ages; actuality was what men had actually seen - in this case the experiences of such figures as the Polos and their successors in areas which were either wholly unknown or else had been unvisited by Europeans since Roman times. Such was the threefold basis of geographical knowledge when the beginning of the fifteenth century ushered in the period of the great discoveries."

/Chapter 1 The Background Classical and Medieval/

kelis - acapella

2011-02-13T20:10:00.007+02:00

bare essentials

2011-02-13T19:29:00.003+02:00

milky

2011-01-21T15:50:00.001+02:00

kanye west - runaway

2011-01-01T17:06:00.009+02:00

Watch full-length film here.

ЯRMARKA

2010-12-27T19:24:00.010+02:00

Today I finally went to see the annual ЯRMARKA at the Art Academy of Latvia. It is one of the most important art events in Latvia which is a student work exhibition/charity fair.
It was like a maddening real-life kaleidoscope of inspiration. All the contents of that room of tamed imagination were threatening to burst out and everything - sexually frustrated deers, teeth-baring dogs, hordes of lucent butterflies, staring owls, sinew bunnies, teddy-bear trees and shoveling squirrels - was about to come charging at my easily vulnerable perception and drown me in unbearable waves of bright convulsions. All of that is sure to haunt me for the days yet to come.

somewhere in the exam-land

2010-12-20T18:13:00.012+02:00

snowflake factory

2010-12-05T20:16:00.004+02:00

Bored out of your wits? Here you can forget all about it and create your own snowfall by drawing snowflakes. You can make intricate, minimalistic, angular, round, crazy-bunny or meditative-buddha ones. Just give it a try and you'll be addicted!

postcards from penguin

2010-12-05T11:26:00.004+02:00

I desperately want this to be under my Christmas tree this year.
Isn't it the best gift you could give to anyone who loves books?
Ingenious.

buy at Penguin
photos: to be shelved

friday: the sound of silence

2010-12-03T15:24:00.002+02:00

Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left it's seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
'neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

/Paul Simon The Sound of Silence, 1964/

Harry Potter and the Free House-elf

2010-12-02T22:45:00.006+02:00

I cannot believe I still haven't posted absolutely anything on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I saw it two weeks ago, on the very first day of showing. Some theaters were actually cheating and showing the movie the day before the official premiere, which I think was an insult to everybody who's been loyally waiting for the movie to come out. But this is not the story about that.

I, of course, was extremely jealous when I read all the amazing stories on averagewizard.com about the midnight screenings and people dressing up and role-playing and singing while waiting for the movie to start. I had nothing of that. But I did have the time of my life though. I was nearly jumping up and down in my seat and clapping my hands and giggling like a Hufflepuff first-year when the lights went down and the movie actually started!

Of course, Harry Potter is not the movie likely to ever come under my brutal magnifying glass of criticism. I simply enjoyed it. It's Harry Potter. All the criticism fails here. Because it is all really about the story. And that ... that is brilliant.

Basically the fan girl inside me could not be silenced. I was ready to jump up and cheer whenever a new character appeared on the screen. The biggest squeals from me went for Snape and Dobby, of course. And a tear for Dobby as well. Dobby the house-elf is trending right now. Last week twitter was overflowing with tweets about the brave little creature. The terrific artist Danny Roberts from Igor + André also paid a tribute to Dobby with this lovely piece of art.

Long live MAGIC!

did you know V

2010-12-01T19:27:00.003+02:00

The world's only immortal animal is turritopsis nutricula.

The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.

Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).

The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.

green.yahoo.com

sunday: birthday still

2010-11-28T20:31:00.007+02:00

just sayin'

2010-11-28T15:00:00.003+02:00

This is the most beautiful cat I've ever seen.

science of sleep

2010-11-23T15:13:00.006+02:00

Roger Ebert wrote quite an interesting article on dreams and films and on dreams in films. As I've always been fascinated by the mysterious dream world, I ate this article as if it were my breakfast this morning. Roger talks about such movies as "Rosemary's Baby", "Shutter Island", "Inception" and a few more promising ones which added to the length of my must-see movie list.

"Hi, and welcome back to another episode of "Television Educative". Tonight, I'll show you how dreams are prepared. People think it's a very simple and easy process but it's a bit more complicated than that. As you can see, a very delicate combination of complex ingredients is the key. First, we put in some random thoughts. And then, we add a little bit of reminiscences of the day ... mixed with some memories from the past ... Love, friendships, relationships ... and all those "ships," together with songs you heard during the day, things you saw ... Okay, I think it's done."

/The opening lines of the film "The Science of Sleep"/

Read full article here.

excerptum: nature

2010-11-22T20:09:00.009+02:00

[The American Transcendentalists Essential Writings by Lawrence Buell 2006]

Ralph Waldo Emerson NATURE (1836)

INTRODUCTION

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned by nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approximation to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable; as language, sleep, dreams, beasts, sex.

CHAPTER I

To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, - he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me.

CHAPTER III Beauty

The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual action of its structure and the laws of light, perspective is produced, which integrates every mass of objects, of what character soever, into a well colored and shaded globe, so that where the particular objects are mean and unaffecting, the landscape which they compose, is round and symmetrical. And as the eye is the best composer, so light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful. And the stimulus it affords to the sense, and a sort of infinitude which it hath, like space and time, make all matter gray. Even the corpse hath its own beauty.

But this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the least part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow, mountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still water, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and mock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from windows of diligence.

The production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of humanity. A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature. For although the works of nature are innumerable and all different, the result or the expression of them all is similar and single. Nature is a sea of forms radically alike and even unique. A leaf, a sun-beam, a landscape, the ocean, make an analogous impression on the mind. What is common to them all, - that perfectness and harmony, is beauty. Therefore the standard of beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms, - the totality of nature; which the Italians expressed by defining beauty "il piu nell' uno." Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world in one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art, a nature passed through the alembic of man. thus in art, does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works.

CHAPTER IV Language

Every natural fact is a symbol of spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. A lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us the delicate affections. Light and darkness are our familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love. Visible distance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory and hope.

It is easily seen that there is nothing lucky or capricious in these analogies, but that they are constant, and pervade nature. These are not the dreams of a few poets, here and there, but man is an analogist, and studies relations in all objects. He is placed in the centre of beings, and a ray of relation passes from every other being to him. And neither can man be understood without these objects, nor can these objects without man. All the facts in natural history taken by themselves, have no value, but are barren like a single sex. But marry it to human history, and it is full of life. Thus is nature an interpreter, by whose means man converses with his fellow men. A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, the desire of pleasure, the desire of power, the desire of praise, - and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old words are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper currency is employed when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections.

paris vs new york

2010-11-21T14:38:00.004+02:00

parisvsnyc
via lanalou style

thursday: city ablaze

2010-11-18T20:43:00.002+02:00

Oh my God I see how everything is torn

2010-11-02T12:05:00.003+02:00

Agnes Obel - Riverside
agnesobel.com

via gris-bleu

leighton meester

2010-10-29T20:03:00.003+03:00

Leighton Meester in UK Marie Claire December 2010
via Smile

wednesday: park life

2010-10-27T19:58:00.000+03:00

precioussss

2010-10-25T15:44:00.003+03:00

let it be

2010-10-20T19:00:00.007+03:00

I'm tired of the world and the way it is. Everything is outworn and savourless. Everything is everywhere. Nothing seems special anymore. And life is a bit dull. Instead, I wish it could always be saturated. I want to live slow and enjoy it, make the possibly best out of it.

If it's FOOD, then let it be Pangasius, let it be golden roasted potatoes with rosemary, let it be baked apples with honey and caramelized nuts and sunflower seeds, let it be pomegranates, let it be Turkish Delight.

If it's MUSIC, then let it be Vivaldi, let it be Erik Satie, let it be a symphony rather than the regular pop hit of a nonsensical teenage superstar.

If it's CLOTHES, then let it be radzimir skirt, let it be silk blouses, let it be wool pants, let it be fitted jackets, let it be patterns of equestrian and jungle, let it be statement brooches.

If it's COLORS, then let it be charcoal grey, let it be midnight blue, let it be brick red, let it be moss green, let it be camel beige.

If it's FUN, then let it be dress-up, let it be dancing in the rain, let it be cotton candy, let it be riding a bike at night, let it be roadtrips to the middle of nowhere.

If it's RAIN, then let it be thunderstorm rather than drizzle.

If it's SNOW, then let it be the big fluffly snowflakes, let it be blizzard rather than sleet.

If it's FLOWERS, then let it be hydrangeas, let it be a rich set of peonies rather than the irksome metre-long blood red roses.

If it's a DATE, then let it be breaking in an observatory to stargaze, let it be a midnight picnic rather than the typical movie-and-popcorn.

If it's WORDS, then let it be "magnificent", let it be "lustrous", let it be "egregious" rather than "awesome" or "cool".

friday: sinologists do it better

2010-10-16T17:27:00.005+03:00

mr nerd

2010-10-14T22:02:00.005+03:00

It's after 10 pm and I'm in my room
with my headphones on, dancing
to Gob's Mr. Sandman like
a full-fledged nerd.
And I'm
in LOVE
with myself.

project: the grotesque bear

2010-10-13T14:46:00.004+03:00

lanvin spring 2011

2010-10-07T15:41:00.007+03:00

This is fashion heaven.

Heaven where Alber Elbaz is God.

That man is a genius. Again. Always.

elle.com

I think I just died a little

2010-10-07T15:01:00.002+03:00

Dries Van Noten Fall 2010

style.com

dip your toes in paint and dance

2010-10-05T21:13:00.005+03:00

My mother and I are exceptionally cool.
Our woollen socks are what makes us so.

decade in pictures

2010-10-03T22:05:00.008+03:00

see more: pixcetera

dear amusement park

2010-10-02T21:38:00.000+03:00

dear amusement park

behind the wall,

I despise your clanking and clicking,

squeaking and booming,

howling and pattering,

clinking and shouting,

your flashing lights and starry eyes,

and simply your pure existence.

I want to go and unplug you.

GG

2010-10-01T20:31:00.007+03:00

The entire summer we waited for GG to come back, and now that it has and is going at full throttle (just look at the fight B. and S. put up in episode 3, both literally and figuratively), we die a little inside with each episode, because of the gorgeous clothes and the luxurious life (it's not always beautiful, okay, but we'll ignore that for the sake of our guilty pleasure), and the sharp as knife expressions of our beloved characters, presented to us. Ah, what a life it would be to be an Upper East Side girl ...

"Once men have tasted caviar, it baffles me how they settle for catfish." /B./

photos: M C M

did you know IV

2010-09-30T18:29:00.005+03:00

Astronomers have found the first alien world that could support life on its surface. It is both at the right distance from its star to potentially harbour liquid water and probably has a rocky composition like Earth.

"That's the most exciting exoplanet I've seen yet," says James Kasting of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, who was not involved in the discovery.
The planet orbits a dim red dwarf star 20 light years from Earth called Gliese 581. Four planets were already known around the star, with two lying near the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone, where liquid water – and therefore potentially life – could exist on its surface.
One of those, which travels on a 13-day orbit, seems too hot for liquid water. The other, on a 67-day orbit, may be just warm enough for liquid water, but its status is not completely settled, says Kasting. Opinions "may continue to swing back and forth because it is hovering right near the outer edge", he says.
The newly found "Goldilocks" planet, called Gliese 581 g, lies in between the hot and cold ones. "You're smack dab in the middle of the habitable zone, so that's perfect," says Kasting, who has studied the two planets on the zone's edges.

Conditions on the planet would be very different from those on Earth. The host star is a low-mass red dwarf that is just 1 per cent as bright as the sun.
Because it puts out so little light and warmth, its habitable zone lies much closer in than does the sun's. At such tight distances, planets in the zone experience strong gravitational tugs from the star that probably slow their rotation over time, until they become "locked" with one side always facing the star, just as the moon always keeps the same face pointed towards Earth.
That would mean perpetual daylight on one side of the planet and permanent shadow on the other. A first approximation suggests the temperature would be 71 °C on the day side and -34 °C on the night side, though winds could soften the differences by redistributing heat around the planet.
Travelling from one side of the planet to the other, there would be a range of intermediate temperatures, says Vogt. "The most comfortable place on this planet … is along what we call the terminator, the line between light and dark," he says. "You basically see the star sitting on the horizon – you see an eternal sunrise or sunset."

les amours imaginaires

2010-09-27T21:28:00.006+03:00

I quite recommend this. It's not your typical French movie that makes you want to throw up or throw popcorn at the screen or maybe throw yourself down an elevator shaft. It's perfectly stylish and funny, with a tendency to heavy irony, visually beautiful, a bit comic, and with that touch of this-could-be-your-life.

It's by the surprisingly talented (he is only 21) and eye-catching (see the picture above) Xavier Dolan, who plays Francis in the movie (which might make you cry because he's "always been gay" in real life too), and whose movie J'ai tué ma mère - I Killed My Mother, in which he also plays a character, is probably the next on my "to-watch" list.

seventies goddess

2010-09-27T21:00:00.008+03:00

This editorial has it all.

Wavy hair, gold chains,

fur jackets, leopard print chiffons,

a wee bit of ruffle, and sequin galore.

Edita Vilkeviciute by Camilla Akrans for Numéro #117
fashion gone rogue

project: les chaussures magiques

2010-09-26T17:57:00.007+03:00

take a pair of nasty old shoes.

add some lace from your grandmother's closet,

some ribbons and beads,

and a dose of imagination.

put it all in a cauldron.

don't forget sugar!

shake well.

what comes out of it?

no, it's not the Powerpuff Girls

it's a pair of very impractical but otherwise nice shoes.

P.S. this particular piece of magic requires exceptional magical abilities.

NB! if you try to do anything remotely like this at home, don't forget a thimble.

unless you enjoy severe pain in your fingertips, that is.

mr. nobody

2010-09-21T23:08:00.009+03:00

I enjoy going to movies. When it's raining outside, and the streetlights are making the wet asphalt look golden. When the others are running in all directions. And when the ones that are at least a tiny bit alike, gather to feed on new inspirations. I enjoy going to movies. Alone. And watching people in the darkness, but afraid of being caught. Making mental notes to myself of writing things down. And forgetting them as soon as the light comes up again. I enjoy going to movies. And acquiring a new obsession for myself. This time it is Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody with Jared Leto in the lead.

Fucking brilliant! Can't believe I hadn't seen it sooner, but better late than never. Mr. Nobody has everything that I look for in a movie - incomprehensible plot, jumps in time, tons of material to ponder on, the last-minute comprehension, wit, sarcasm, and ingenious camera angles + lovely newbie celebrities to have an immediate crush on, who in this case is Toby Regbo, (see video below) who plays Nemo at 16 (not that I enjoy him much with hairstyles other than the one seen in this movie), AND who is, by the way, playing the young Dumbeldore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

"You have to make the right choice. As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible."

"Everything you say is contradictory. You can't have been in one place and another at the same time. Of all those lives, which one is the right one?"

"In chess, it's called Zugzwang... when the only viable move is not to move."

"What do you see when you look at me? A grumpy old man who never answers questions? Who mixes things up? Who's kept busy by getting his meals? That's not me. Me... I wear shorts. I'm nine years old. I can run faster than the train."

saturday: urban thicket

2010-09-18T22:39:00.007+03:00

lanvin for hm

2010-09-16T20:03:00.001+03:00

sunday: run Riga, run!

2010-09-12T18:58:00.008+03:00

saturday: 9/11

2010-09-11T19:21:00.001+03:00

vintage score!

2010-09-10T19:55:00.003+03:00

WARNING: this post contains some serious boasting.

[Not that I can help it, really.]

Today I scored this vintage Francesco BIASIA small satchel.

Yay! Do you want me to torture you with the price?

Yes? About 60 cents.

Of course it's battered, but it is a Genuine Leather Made in Italy.

Totally made my day!

Zoe

2010-09-06T16:27:00.002+03:00

Why do I like her? I don't know. I just do. Since Avatar she's turned dead cool.
I think I would like to see her star in pair with Marrion Cotillard. hmm.

saturday: which way to Sydney?

2010-09-05T21:28:00.007+03:00

so pretty it hurts

2010-09-03T12:41:00.006+03:00

photos: the cherry blossom girl

"nothing" to eat?

2010-09-01T21:15:00.009+03:00

put slices of boiled potatoes and mushrooms in well-greased serving cookware, add butter, salt and spices of your choice
put in the oven and let bake for a while
when the mushrooms have baked brown, add pieces of sausage or ham and an egg per portion
when the eggs have baked, add parsley and/or dills and/or other greens and a slice of cheese on top of it all, add spices again (you can turn the oven off by now and just leave everything in the heat)
eat!

I know, I know, I'm an ingenious recipe-teller, but this is so simple (and you can add practically anything to it) that I had to share.

sunday: recovery

2010-08-29T11:29:00.000+03:00

Hollywood kids VI

2010-08-27T12:56:00.002+03:00

How freakin' perfect is this!?
Olivia Palermo and Johannes Huebl

misswallflower

status: unavailable

2010-08-24T14:11:00.005+03:00

Yes, I am reading this, which means I will not be available for the proximate 36 hours or so.

sunday: autumn foreboding

2010-08-22T20:04:00.003+03:00

It's a wind, rain, falling leaves, recycled paper, and reading books in the park time.

between the folds

2010-08-22T19:00:00.008+03:00

Alexandre Vassiliev
Art deco style. Fashion during the Interwar Period (1918 - 1939)
Exhibition of costumes from the private collection of Alexandre Vassiliev (Paris)

saturday: it's a crocodile street

2010-08-21T19:59:00.000+03:00

starry eyed

2010-08-21T18:55:00.000+03:00

excerptum: talisman

2010-08-19T13:19:00.012+03:00

Stephen King Peter Straub

The Talisman

Chapter 13

The Men in the Sky

And now something else occurred to him - the time his mother had taken him with her to see her friend Myrna, who was a real ballet dancer, practicing in the loft of a dance studio on lower Wilshire Boulevard. Myrna was part of a ballet troupe and Jack had seen her and the other dancers perfom - his mother often made him go with her and it was mostly boring stuff, like church or Sunrise Semester on TV. But he had never seen Myrna in practice ... never that close up. He had been impressed and a little frightened by the contrast between seeing ballet on stage, where everyone seemed to either glide or mince effortlessly on the tips of their pointes, and seeing it from less than five feet away, with harsh daylight pouring in the floor-to-ceiling windows and no music - only the choreographer rhytmically clapping his hands and yelling harsh criticisms. No praise; only criticisms. Their faces ran with sweat. Their leotards were wet with sweat. The room, as large and airy as it was, stank of sweat. Sleek muscles trembled and fluttered on the nervous edge of exhaustion. Corded tendons stood out like insulated cables. Throbbing veins popped out on foreheads and necks. Except for the choreographer's clapping and angry, hectoric shouts, the only sounds were the thrup-thud of ballet dancers on pointe moving across the floor and harsh, agonized panting for breath. Jack had suddenly realized that these dancers were not just earning living; they were killing themselves. Most of all he remembered their expressions - all that exhausted concentration, all that pain ... but transcending the pain, or at least creeping around its edges, he had seen joy. Joy was unmistakably what that look was, and it had scared Jack because it had seemed inexplicable. What kind of person could get off by subjecting himself or herself to such steady, throbbing, excruciating pain?

katie melua - the flood

2010-08-18T13:36:00.003+03:00

Glad that there are still people who know how to make good artistic videos without using incredible amounts of special effects. And actually make these videos for great songs as well. I want to see more of that.

the book of monsters

2010-08-17T12:13:00.003+03:00

mood today VI

2010-08-13T12:57:00.000+03:00

bloodinthesubway

he's done it again

2010-08-12T13:04:00.003+03:00

George,

of course.

wednesday: porcelain tourist

2010-08-05T22:23:00.007+03:00

I found a lovely 'new' place in the Old Town fit for playing tourists. So that is what I did. And I also visited a Portuguese tile exhibition. Very scarce for my taste, but beautiful nevertheless. How could I not love tiles with deers on them!? Besides, the fact that the exhibition was not even open yet but they let me in nevertheless, made me feel even cooler yet. ha!

discovery day

2010-08-04T22:37:00.007+03:00

Today in a very short while I discovered many inspiring and interesting works of talented artists. They all surely deserve separate posts, but as I am too lazy and depressed they will all be compressed into one. Click on the names for links and be sure to explore for more.

Kate MacDowell

Ann Wood

Geoffrey Gorman

Julie Morstad

all found at koki

fungi fun

2010-08-04T21:55:00.003+03:00

This really has GOT to be the most amazing thing ever!

Limited fungi by Katharina Mischer

Endangered mushroom species are translated into a limited design edition. Buying the shelf helps saving biodiversity, as part of the money goes to environmental projects that try to save the specific fungi species. A limited design for unlimited life.

Kuehneromyces Lignicola; rare mushroom species.
Conservation status: Austrian red list, critically endangered.

Each mushroom is numbered.

droog.com
found at child of danu

unintended experiment

2010-08-03T19:28:00.006+03:00

You know how when a marrow has gone bad and gets all smelly and drips all over your shelf? Yes, yack. But this one is no ordinary marrow. We had forgotten about it and found it being very desperate to live and raise up seed, the little freak. Can you believe how vivacious can the flora be? Talk about grass being able to burst open asphalt.

So now this is our unintended experiment. The little leaves are already opening up and have turned green.

spain again

2010-08-03T19:17:00.004+03:00

I can't believe I still haven't posted about Spain becoming the World Champions! It's probably due to the fact that I was away at that time. So here goes:

Epic.

P.S. I'm almost as good as Paul the octopus.

by the sea

2010-07-29T11:46:00.008+03:00

Last week we went to the seaside and travelled a bit. We were lucky to discover the most perfect beach I've ever been to. The place of wind and golden sun-warmed water, the place of white waves, the place of every-color pebbles and the place of absolute human-less-ness. Later we went to a paradise of kiteboarders, the realm of enormous strawberries and dill and the place of constant sun-thunder-sun-thunder-sun. This little adventure was amazing but I felt absolutely exhausted after it, having spent too much time wave jumping.

kaleidoscope

2010-07-20T21:49:00.003+03:00

My favorite thing in the world has been recovered!

summer so far

2010-07-20T21:29:00.006+03:00

I've just returned from a week of getaway to the countryside and I am soon off again. I can say that summer has been good so far. Sun, wind, thunder, sleep mode, long and lazy swimming in the most perfect lake, berries with milk and sugar, mushrooms, future tea flower-meadows, one restless baby, ice-cream, kittens, some ruckus and a complete retro festive feeling. That's what my summer consists of. There are things to be decided, but I am not thinking about them now. I know I will regret it later, but, oh well, it is a well-deserved rest I am having. Hope you're enjoying this wondrousness!

alessandra

2010-07-06T11:22:00.002+03:00

alessandra ambrosio by jacques dequeker found at fashion gone rouge

tears for MJ

2010-07-05T20:13:00.004+03:00

Chris Brown may be a crap of a boyfriend, but he knows a thing or two about performing and assurances of esteem. This is something seriously amazing. I had to cry as well.

hello, I am a hot-water bottle

2010-07-04T17:53:00.004+03:00

This is my new favorite item in our home. We found it in a second-hand store [the very same and my favorite, probably] for only 40 cents. It's the most amazing thing ever AND in perfect working conditon. We were thinking about giving it to our very little relative, but I'm probably keeping it to myself. It will be very practical, as my feet is always freezing when going to bed at cold winter evenings. Can you say CUTE?

project: lace vest

2010-07-04T17:46:00.003+03:00

This funny little vest was bought in a second-hand store for about 60 cents. I, of course, couldn't live with it being so simple, so I just sew some [familiar] lace onto it.

m and m

2010-07-03T20:54:00.007+03:00

Oh, bless him, he's back (guess who?) and he's as good as ever. I know I'm a little late, but I only just saw this video for the very first time. It's really good, although the super-man-flying thing was a bit awkward. But the fact that eminem is back yet again made me almost teary-eyed. I did shout out loud "WHAT?" in a store when I first heard about him collaborating with Rihanna (that seems nothing like him, but what do we know about him, right?), but I suppose people like them have to work together. It's almost inevitable (just as long as he is not collaborating with Miley Cyrus I don't really care). But, hey, he sounds (and looks) great, and as his music had a profound influence on my early life, I really should get my hands on the Recovery for the sake of good old times. Ah, reminiscence...

thursday: sleeping city

2010-06-24T19:18:00.005+03:00

Everything is dead today. Barely a soul in the streets, except for my own, wandering one. In my naive hope to get in a book store of free books, I packed and set out for a walk. I should have known better. Midsummer's day, lots of beer, lots of singing and dancing, lots of closed doors in front of me. Meh, seems like I am the only one who is not in for this annual craze'n'daze. I had enough with singing in the very heart of the city and becoming a tourist attraction, thanks to the national costume (and the flower crown) I was wearing. Though I have to say it was quite enjoyable.

portugal 7 - 0 north korea

2010-06-22T20:09:00.001+03:00

Boy, do I love football.