Close to Barcelona, in Roses, the Restaurant of all restaurants is situated. This is elBulli, a three Michelin-starred world-renowned gem. This is a place where you would have to book a table a months beforehand, as we speak 2009 is already fully booked.  It receives 2 million requests per year, but only 8.000 are lucky enough to dine the fine cuisine of the 42 chefs operating at the place. The list of awards is as endless as the one for reservations.

The restaurant  can even be found in Wikipedia, where you can find the quote “the most imaginative generator of haute cuisine on the planet”, and Restaurant magazine has judged it the best restaurant in the world four (!) times.  The head chef for elBulli is Ferran Adrià.

The average price for a meal is 250 euros, so this experience will most likely remain unseen, but one can always dream..!

Big Bang

Almost every day I walk past a hotel on my street corner, and every time I look up at the beautiful lamps they have in their foyer. I have tried to find them in catalogues and on the Internet, without finding anything.

Finally, when I stepped into Vinçon (trust me, the store is so much better than the website) the other day there it was.

The lamp is called Big Bang and it is a masterpiece by Foscarini (designers Enrico Franzolini and Vicente Garcia Jimenez) and a very recent creation, 2005. But it is impressive. Available in white and red and with a price tag at around 800 €…

During my excursion I also found another beautiful piece, the Discoco by Marset (designer Christophe Mathieu). It is a fascinating pendant light with leaves, also a very recent piece. So look out for these beauties!

Discoco

a practice or habit considered immoral, depraved, and/or degrading in the associated society.

My vice is the magazine that has adopted the same name. I will here openly admit that I do not read the magazine for the articles, but for looking at the pictures.

Vice Magazine is, again borrowed from Wikipedia, better explained like this:

The magazine covers contemporary indie and youth culture. The magazine’s readership comprises young postcollegiate bobos, often labelled “hipsters”. Vice is known for its controversial content, and often strikes a sardonic and ironic pose on debauchery, sex, drugs, violence, crime, and social issues involving race and economic class.

I cannot in any way claim that I belong to the readership mentioned above, but I am in awe of the photos. I am the proud owner of the Vice Photobook,  a book that compiles the best photographers and photos in Vice history. The photos do not show the pretty things in life, but real life, that everything is not beautiful and happy. The pictures show what life really can be like. The portraits are sometimes stunning.

A quote from a book review on Vice Photobook in Harp Magazine:

Much of this (Vice’s success) can be attributed to Vice’s unflinching, unblinking eye, a collective oculus comprising photographers and photojournalists who quite literally bring you the world. The real world, the one we thought Life and National Geographic and Lonely Planet brought us, but now looks sanitized compared to the stark scenes and experiences in Vice.

And I completely agree. Buy the book. I know you want it.

But, after being brainwashed with article after article of beautiful homes, gorgeous living rooms in white with a touch of Josef Frank bravery I am now a little more convinced. Who could say no to the artworks below? Not even the most die-hard minimalist. In the right setting these can be the crown jewels of a home. But no, sorry, not in mine…

Pablo Neruda

Muere lentamente quien se transforma en esclavo del hábito, repitiendo todos los días los mismos trayectos, quien no cambia de marca, no arriesga vestir un color nuevo y no le habla a quien no conoce.

Muere lentamente quien evita una pasión, quien prefiere el negro sobre blanco y los puntos sobre las “íes” a un remolino de emociones, justamente las que rescatan el brillo de los ojos, sonrisas de los bostezos, corazones a los tropiezos y sentimientos.

Muere lentamente quien no voltea la mesa cuando está infeliz en el trabajo, quien no arriesga lo cierto por lo incierto para ir detrás de un sueño, quien no se permite por lo menos una vez en la vida, huir de los consejos sensatos.

Muere lentamente quien no viaja, quien no lee, quien no oye música, quien no encuentra gracia en sí mismo.

Muere lentamente quien destruye su amor propio, quien no se deja ayudar.

Muere lentamente, quien pasa los días quejándose de su mala suerte o de la lluvia incesante.

Muere lentamente, quien abandona un proyecto antes de iniciarlo, no preguntando de un asunto que desconoce o no respondiendo cuando le indagan sobre algo que sabe.

Evitemos la muerte en suaves cuotas, recordando siempre que estar vivo exige un esfuerzo mucho mayor que el simple hecho de respirar.

Solamente la ardiente paciencia hará que conquistemos una espléndida felicidad.

The English version can be found here.

I want a place I can make beautiful, where the eyes and the mind rest. Where the colours are kind to the eye and the materials soft to the touch. I want a kitchen filled with creativity, chocolate cakes, Sunday brunch and a table cloth. I want a living-room that is inviting, a room with light, to talk in and to listen. I want a bedroom that is quiet, calm, pastel blues and whites that rests the mind and the soul. A room for whispers and sweet, sweet dreams.

My home will not have things; my home will have life.

Photographer: Pearceval

There are times when thinking requires solitude. There are times when life screams out so loud that it interferes with reflection, it shouts in your ear so loudly you lose your thoughts. That is the time for solitude. A time to find yourself, listen to what you have to say and maybe change things for the better.

A German political theorist, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) had things to say on this subject. She claims that the activity of thinking needs solitude, which is different from loneliness.

Quote from Cutting the Edge:

“The activity of thinking needs solitude, which Arendt notes is different from loneliness. Loneliness, Arendt writes, is the loss of the experience of being with others that can strike one even when and especially when one is with others and lost in and amongst them. In contrast to loneliness, solitude demands that one actually is alone; and yet, in the being alone of solitude, ‘I am “by myself,” “together with my self.’ It is in solitude, Arendt sees, that we are least alone. Amidst the plurality that attains in solitude, there is the possibility for the activity of thinking that interrupts totalitarianism and fosters political action.”

In short, what Arendt is saying is that seeking quietness, time for reflection and thought is not loneliness. Loneliness is what is experienced among other people, when feeling different and not belonging. Solitude is self-imposed, and a gift for yourself when you need it the most. Arendt took it further, all the way into politics, but it does not necessarily have to be all that. Solitude is necessary when you can’t hear yourself anymore. When you feel things and you don’t understand why. In solitude pen and paper are your best friends, along with the time you give yourself. In solitude you don’t have to worry about giving confusing messages, you don’t have to take a hold of yourself and try to deny what is screaming and crying inside of you. Solitude is time given to you to gather your strength to go forward and have something to give to others again.

]]> http://lamarilla.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/loneliness-vs-solitude/feed/ 0 lamarilla Photographer: Pearceval http://lamarilla.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/longing/ http://lamarilla.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/longing/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:39:54 +0000 lamarilla http://lamarilla.wordpress.com/?p=257 ]]>

Monica Tarocco

…

Longing is like little wrapped explosions,

screams in a jar,

desperation in squares.

That is what longing is.

(Marcus Birro, a Swedish writer and poet on longing, translation from Swedish)

You can hear it. You walk home at night on a busy street. People are talking, walking, screaming, laughing. There are taxis, motorcycles, police cars. Then you hear it. A blackbird singing. It begins to sing and everything else suddenly disappears. A piece of nature has found its way between the concrete, and is announcing its presence. All you can hear is the blackbird, it’s dark, but you hear it, and you know it is spring.

You can smell it, too. One day at work when you are going for lunch, the sun is shining, and you can smell it. It smells warm and damp, and you know it is spring.

You can feel it on your skin. A Sunday afternoon you sit down on the busiest of streets, and there on a bench the sun strokes your cheeks and you close your eyes. The sounds, too, are so much gentler when spring comes. All the hard, mechanical noises of the cold, cold winter suddenly fall much softer to the ground. There is more laughter. More smiles.

Spring is here. And it did not come unannounced.

Antony

The music I have been listening to the last few days has captured my mind to the extent that I have to write about it.

The album is by Antony and The Johnsons, The Crying Light. I don’t know enough about music to comment on what it is, how it is made or what the sounds mean, but what I do want is to write down how it feels.

This album is to be listened to after a day of emotions. It is to be listened to when you have so much inside you that it has to come out. It is the sound of melancholic quietness, the kind of silence that screams out to you because it is so filled with feelings.

It is the sound of missing, the sound of summer leaving. It is the music that takes you by the hand and consoles, whispers in your ear and lets you feel what you feel. It is music to turn off the light to, it is music to go into your bed alone to in the middle of the night when nobody else is awake, and it is music to drift away to, when the thoughts eventually have left you.

A few songs caught my attention more than others. Another world hurts the heart, it is a song that brings to mind the most desperate souls I have encountered, those that have been hurt so much that there is not much left for them to wait for. The eyes of these people are so tired and so lifeless, they glance at you and when they do there is so much pain in them that it leaves you nearly breathless.

Daylight and the sun is quite the opposite. This is a song of forces stronger than you that grab you and pull you in a direction towards the sun, towards the light. It is a song of strength and light and power, a feeling of belief in yourself.

This is music that will haunt me. It impacts me and does not leave me when I have finished listening. The album is pearls, soft strokes on the skin, whispers in your ear.

Water and dust

Love the coal
Love the way you’re waiting
I love your kind patience
Dust and water, water and dust
Water and dust

Did you think I’d leave you here
Forever?
Dust and water, water and dust
Water and dust

How long can dust wait?
Ask the moon
But ask him soon
Ask him soon

Dust and water, water and dust
Water and dust

Dust and water, water and dust