top ten songs to freak out to when you are alone

Not too much of a discovery to say we all get these moments when we are alone and we want to dance and these somehow epic songs happen to pop up on our playlist. Here is a 100% subjective playlist of my ‘get crazy’ tracks of all times.

is tropical - dancing anymore

the emotions - the best of my love

sky ferreira - i blame myself 

black lips - bad kids

rick springfield - jessie's girl

glass candy - warm in the winter

new order - age of consent

GGOOLLDD - gold

journey - don't stop believing

the boys town gang - can't take my eyes off you

balthus

A genius of post-war European art. A friend of Alberto Giacometti. A man who embraced eroticism and love in equal measure. Balthus.

He spent his life on creation, travel, but readings about the artist draft an image of his best days. These were the times he spent with Setsuko, an embodiment of a woman, wife, muse and frame of Balthus's works. Sharing their worlds of intimacy and inspiration in Villa Medici and in a Swiss chalet, they created art emerging from mutual respect and curiosity. She, exploring the culture of the old continent, he, learning about the Orient, painting Shunga-infused acts. 

In the last 17 years of his life, Balthus painted only 13 works, probably none of them masterpieces, that's what the critics would say.

But I do not need a proof in a form of papers and letters to believe Balthus was a man who harnessed art. He has achieved it and built a home of his own that he cherished and loved. He described it with strokes in  'The Mountain'. A home where he and Setsuko kept a room locked, filled with exotic birds.

antwerp

Dear Antwerp,

you are a masterpiece. Created by Rubens and van Eyck and Bruegel and Adriaenssen, your streets are silent and dark.

I want to cross under the river Schedlt and think about your past. I see you from a distance and I see you close, the beauty of yours is all the same, no matter the perspective. You are home to fashion one of a kind, you let the creative minds of Dries van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester thrive and grow. Now it's time for you to get something in return.

People respect your tranqulity, they do not rush, they ride their bikes and take the trams and move slowly with clear minds. I was one of them for a while and back in London it is not the same.

I want to come back to be part of the way you embrace the history and novelty. There is something dated and fresh about you at the same time. This contradiction makes me understand why did I feel with you beside like never before. Cheesy, but true, you are exceptional.

See you soon and never change,

x

amateur discourse #2

I often wonder what disillusionment is. It is not that I never experience it. It is just I don’t accept it anymore. 

There are things in my life I wonder why they have occurred. Yet I get no answer. And I do know I will never find out why that particular thing happened and I stop questioning why, and wonder what for. This is constructive and does not allow my hopes and dreams crush like glass. This change of perspective is hard to obtain and even harder to maintain, but once possessed it makes life deep and meaningful and gears up individual’s aspirations to an unprecedented extent.

It is not self-deceit, it is self-motivation. When things move off track there is very rarely a chance to comprehend them, but what we can do and what can be constructive is to find no accident in them, yet in all their quirkiness and nonsense interpret them as most precious symbols pushing us forward.

I don’t want disillusionment anymore. I want to be wise. I want to feel my life is following its own path I cannot predict in anyway.

amateur discourse #1

If life is not about trying, what is it all about then?

I feel the imperfections, these little flaws we do possess can be embraced and cuddled and utilized. There are songs, no matter what they’re treating about, be it love, friendship, life, alcohol or party, that keep repeating the‘one more time’ phrase like a mantra. But how clever is that. It is all about one more times. Million more times. There is no limit to our attempts and to our laughing and crying from all the failures. We can be like a record with a replay button caught stuck.

For all the bad things we can do, we can tackle them by realizing they’re our own flaws, that may be temporarily intrinsic, but in a long-term this knowledge is our chance to become someone different.  Constant change makes things pretty meaningful. 

I can’t believe how long did it take me to reach a conclusion as simple as that.

#1 highly recommended

This is such a tacky thing to do it’s a shame to recommend it. But it is so efficient. Don’t try to do it though if you lack this bit of spirituality and romanticism, it won’t work.

Whenever you feel sad or stressed or down or depressed or unsettled or distraught. Whenever you feel all of it at once. Open the windows, as many as possible. Choose the one with the furthest view that can give you some perspective. Stand and stare. Feel the ambience of outdoors. Optionally, close your eyes for a while (this is the tackier alternative).

No matter it is humid, cold, warm or windy, get the best of all these. Think if what really made you feel so unbelievably bad constitutes the big or small part of the life you can now see in the street or forest or the block of flats in front of your window. Find a context and evaluate the relevance of your anxiety.

Then withdraw, close the windows. Go back to your life. Hopefully, you feel better now. Better does not mean perfect. Better means improvement. Improvement that should be the final objective. 

erwin, you were ahead of your times

He was ahead of his times. He knew it all before Juergen Teller or Terry Richardson. He was one of a kind. Yeah, you were so cool, Erwin Blumenfeld.

His pictures are sheer understanding of two factors that apply to contemporary fashion scene: beauty and commerciality. Everything full of taste and ingenuity, originality and spark, charm and longevity. It could be Vogue, it could be Harper’s Bazaar, it could be a portrait of Cecil Beaton. It could be fashion or advertisement. I just admire those who can grasp it all.

Enter google images and find more commercial pieces of his work. Look further to see his depth, type in a specific term like ’cigarette’ or ‘lighting’ to decipher his vision. There is something continuous and consistent about his work, but they are so perfectly adjusted to the circumstances or publication. Because fashion is full of specification. Model can easily get ascribed to a certain canon, designer to a defined style. Once you avoid that, you can have it all.

Erwin got away from any label, at least that was my first thought while seeing his exhibition at Somerset House. It’s still there, Blumenfeld’s private world of art for free. 

It is like walking into his mind and examining thought by thought. Nothing is more pleasant than such an intimate insight into fashion.