circle

today is my last day in my house in london - its time for a new adventure.

i still havent decided where i will move next.

there are many places i would like to go and see.

....but thats another story and shall be told another time!

until then click here and make a circle.

my fake brother ADAM

do you remember my wish to have a fake aunt in london? (click here)

today i had lunch with my friend adam in the rochelle canteen and alcaeus (the nice waiter in the canteen) thought we are brothers.

then i thought okay fine - if i cant find a fake aunt its also nice to have a fake brother.

we been laughing and i took adam to work and introduced him as my brother...

adam.! its nice to have you as my fake brother. especially because i think you are a great person.

i will need to make a fake PAST up next time i meet him. so we can tell stories to strangers about us. :-) oh how nice.!

27th july

today my friend corinna and i had lunch at cecconi´s.

Enzo Cecconi - the youngest ever general manager of the famous Cipriani restaurant in Venice - came to London in 1978 and opened Cecconi's. It became an overnight success and in the 80s it was a Mecca for the rich and the royal (one lunchtime, during Ascot week, one waiter remembers serving members of four different royal families on four different tables).

i eat:

courgette flowers with smoked ricotta

smoked goose with black truffle
lemon tart with mascarpone ice cream

on my way to work i found a show window display with a statue covered by a tiger photo carpet. i liked it a lot.

after work i went to see a opera "Tomorrow, in a year" with the music by "the knife", with my club the "weekly day of things we have not done before" club (click here to read more about us)..

i wanted to close my eyes as i felt slightly embarrassed by the visuals of the show.

before i went to bed i had a thought:

in addition to my belief in my powers as a photographer - i had an idea that i was equal to writing a nice children book.

i decided i will start writing this august...

enrique

i am happy that i have a friend such as enrique in my life. yesterday he showed me some of his nice drawings and a text he wrote about his dream house.

click here to read about the day i met enrique!

******

My dream house

When I was a kid, a friend of mine used to live in a golf community just south of Mexico City. We used to hang out there a lot and take his dog for walks. She was a collie and we’d call her “Attila” in a real loud voice, hoping to spook some of the neighbours, as if she were some fierce Doberman or something. The dog’s name was actually “Cookie” and the people were simple unfazed. Still, though, it was one of my favourite games.

We would also talk about house; there were tons of different styles. Our favourites were the English-style homes –or at least that’s what they looked like to us- with their green ceramic brick façades and rigid forms, and gardens with tall pine trees and lots of shade. There were others with horizontally cut sandstone and small cantilevers that harboured these ridiculous water tanks; there was little vegetation, just a few low shrubs that accentuated their horizontal form. We didn’t like those, and it took me a while to realize that they would have been the Frank Lloyd Wrights of the neighbourhood. The Mies van der Rohe-style houses were also typical in that neighbourhood, but we thought those were the worst. They weren’t exactly boxes made exclusively out of glass and aluminium, nor were there any clean marble slabs. Actually, what stood out most were the textured concrete walls in shades of salmon.

My judgment was often influenced by the cars that were parked outside, since they had the effect of a second façade. A metallic blue Ford Topaz didn’t help things any, nor did an AMC Gremlin. Citrus coloured Datsuns were quite subtle, maybe because there were so many of them; same thing with VW Beetles. The English houses usually had a Jeep Wagoneer parked out front-black with the wood panelling. It’s been a long time since I’ve passed by there, and I wonder how the streets look with the newer, more rounded cars, most being silver with large headlights.

Those houses must have all been hideous inside: fully covered in brown carpeting, with embroidered rugs and porcelain figures on the electrical appliances, concealing them into these complex sculptures that accumulate dust and make the place more welcoming. All of those houses, regardless of their exteriors, must have been identical on the inside. I imagine that today they all have a big TV room with different generations of video consoles piled up one on top of another.

My mother always thought it was funny how that place was a field for study; she thought it was horrible, false and simply mediocre. She got excited about places that had an industrial air, the first local examples of minimalism and the more recent idea of the loft. Though the truth is that she didn’t have any better places for studies. I guess she based her ideas on the interior designs of certain shops at that time, which would be like the John Pawsons of the shopping mall.

Her ideas, exemplified in shop windows, had a major influence on me.

And my ideas haven’t changed much since then. I may have learned to distinguish plasterboard from a real wall, and an industrial space from a shopping mall, but I still enjoy seeing inconsistencies in an aesthetic discourse.

My dream house is a baroque mélange of Modern ideals. Orthogonal spaces arranged so as to avoid hallways and create almost a single space.

White walls and large windows facing a forest like garden… and no neighbours. It would

be supported by large concrete pillars with a Brutalist aesthetic, mildewy and some covered with ivy. On the inside there would be little more than plants with wood flooring and some concrete. The main bed and other elements would have angular geometric forms in cold, dark marble, like something from the Planet Krypton. A black and tattered Frank Stella. Books and records, some organized in a small bookcase and the rest piled on the floor. The house would try to give the feeling that someone recently came to live there. I would walk around the house wearing loose, colourful, Africa-inspired clothing.

A bedroom below the kitchen –warm with shades of brown- would be where I’d put all the things that mean something to me but don’t have a place in my new universe. There would definitely be a rug and some portraits, and a hazy with light filtered by the curtains.

Enrique Giner de los Ríos

welcome back!

i am back.!

after a weekend full of wonderful adventures.

oh and

i was eating green tomato + strawberry salad.

i was riding bikes at night trough paris with sylvian.!

i was doing a couture shoot which was beyond my imagination...

i was and i am really happy ( my mood ring is : blue! = calm and happy!)

more stories soon!

PS.:

i am playing with the thought of moving to paris for the summer.

paris in white

bonjour

hello.

i am off to paris for the next 3 days to do the haute couture story. i will come back monday with stories about dark bars and edith piaf songs, long baguettes and small croissants, lot of cheese and glasses of red wine, meetings with old and new friends... ( and some stories about wild dresses and colourful sets).

talk monday.!

mieke, squirrel and me

my dear friend mieke who is over for visit has a wonderful blog and she wrote about our days in london and our meeting with the squirrel.

click here to read more!!!

mood ring

today my friends and i bought mood rings.

i cant tell you how much i enjoy looking at how the color changes.

between my friends and me, my ring had always the most colors combinations.

its almost like having a little northern light around your finger.

business talk

i am happy to announce that i will be in 6 september issues of 6 different magazines.

cant wait to show you everything.

and i did a small web update. have a look. :-)

click here!

the flying spring onion

today was a very lucky day. my friends from belgium arrived and being around them makes me very happy.

i brought them to a special house. a house with walls made out of books.

a book house.!

we all found nice books.

my favourite books in the book house:

- The flying spring onion

- The forgetful Squirrel

food and friends

today was a day full of work but also a day filled with nice friends and nice food.

i went to see lenni for lunch at the rochelle canteen and we shared:

- Green Salad

- Duck Hearts, Pickled Walnut & Watercress

- Sweetbread Terrine & Broad Beans

- Poached Gooseberries & Elderflower Sorbet

for dinner i meet with isa, lale and andres and we eat nice too!

i had a steak and honey and thym rosted peaches.

what a nice day.!

today i was thinking: life just keeps on going.

my housemate stefan knew what i meant with that and we both been sad for a bit. but just a bit.

a tiny bit - so we could still enjoy the rest of a wonderful monday.

LION SEA

today i went with my "weekly day of things we never done before - club" to a place called LION SEA. ( well actually its called leigh on sea but lets pretent its called LION SEA)

if you dont know about my club click here!

we traveled by train with a nice selection of books and a wonderful nice ride trough the countryside.

our "train" book selection was:

- E.E.Cummings - selected poems

- Ted Hughes - Gaudete

- Three Czech Poets - Nezval, Bartusek, Hanzilk

- The golden treasures of the best songs and lyrical poems in english language

- Citroen the car

We wandered to a nice spot in Lion Sea and watched the tides while eating mussels.

i really like tides - its nice to watch changes.

the tides made me think of one of my favourite children books "The Neverending Story by Michael Ende" - and the desert of colors which exists in a symbiosis with Perilin the night forest.

A desert at day and a forest at night.

"If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless.

If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next."
— Michael Ende (The Neverending Story)

second shoot / day 2

first shoot / day 1

today i photographed the owls from the harry potter movie and thomas penfound.

owls are such magical and wonderful animals. i imagine if owls could talk they would have a very plesant voice. dont you think so?

thomas was very nice too.

we had a lovely lunch today:

team:

- beetroot and salmon

- fig and walnut salad

- cooked vegetables

owls:

- chicken feet´s

the names of the owl´s:

twix, snickers and bounty

"...because i like chocolate" said the owl trainer.!

most played song today:

i am ready

following days:

my work marathon starts tomorrow

-H&M

-Men´s Collections

-Couture in paris

we planned some really nice things - and i will try to do things i have never tried before - which makes it always very exciting and challenging.

will show you soon.

to relax my mind today:

i was reading leonard cohen and i enjoyed very much this one:

GIFT

you tell me that silence

is nearer to peace than poems

but if for my gift

I bought you silence

(for I know silence)

you would say

This is not silence

this is another poem

and you would hand it back to me.

14th july

wood, soft boys, mini ice cream, haute couture and eliot

i enjoy my new bought wood pens!

i enjoy to talk with soft boys such as my sensitive friends milos and ralph.

if something has a mini version i mostly enjoy that more then the big version - such as mini coca cola cans or mini ice creams.

i really enjoy eliot and been reading in the train yesterday.

...

because i know that time is always time

and place is always place

and what is actual is actual only for one time

and only for one place

...

(t.s. eliot "ash - wednesday")

and i enjoy to think about that in few more days my first couture shoot will happen. i am very excited. will tell you all about it ... :-)

the fox returns

hello.! this is me saying hello from fox lane (first picture).

charlotte, hadas and me been on a fox hunt this sunday and monday:

traveling to fox lane which is on a nice hill.

staying in a hotel called "fox combe.

dinning in "THE FOX".

finding a leaf who looks like the head of a fox.

passing a statue of a fox talking to a squirrel.

seeing lots of pictures of foxes and even a door with a fox!

... but no real fox.

oh but we agreed to return next year and hunt again....

saturday 10th

nice designed books make me happy and if they are children books even more. yesterday i discovered a great new book shop in london and i would love to have all the old and rare children books i posted here.

how often i dream about how nice it would be to have kids or to have the kids of my friends over and to read together nice stories. with cookies and tea.

*

"the weekly day of things we have not done before - club." ice cream tour

(if you dont know about the club - click here)

sadly two of our club members had to cancel our original planned trip - but as we all want to go together we decided to postpone our trip for a bit.

still we did something we never did before and we decided on going on an ice cream tour trough london.

we had:

enrique

mirabelle sorbet

pistache

chocolate

speculaas

raspberry

vanilla

daniel

lemon sorbet

dark chocolate with nuts and marshmallow

vanilla

chocolate

speculaas

honey + ginger

***

and here an audio recording for gabriel who ask me to read out loud the poem from Ossip Mandelstam.

and enjoy the very nice image of my friend and wonderful artist ralph bonilla.

july 9th

july 9th

- is a great day to let squirrels free but first you have to make sure that they have a nice future ahead of them.

- today i found a spinach leaf in my favourite plate.

- on my way home i passed a tiger wearing sunglasses.

- today my club (click here to read about us) decided on our weekly day of things we have not done before - it will include shells, old trains and fishermen. tomorrow saturday the 10th will be our weekly day and soon i will tell you all about it!

-oh what a nice day to read german translated poems of ossip mandelstam:

Nicht ein Wort ist zu verlieren

Nichts zu lehren weit und breit –

Schön die Seele, Trauer spürend

Tier ist sie und Dunkelheit:

Keine Lehre will sie ziehen,

Nicht ein Wort, das sie behält –

Jung durchschwimmt sie,

ein Delphin

Weiße Schluchten alter Welt

Ossip Mandelstam, Der Stein

ins Deutsche gebracht von Ralph Dutli

and also a good day to listen to:

marvis

if you think brushing your teeth is boring - get yourself marvis toothpaste "jasmin mint". its so delicious that its almost like eating a candy.

i have friends over from antwerp and last night and this morning we been sitting all next to one another in the bathroom brushing really really long our teeth.

its nice to brush teeth in groups but even more with marvis! try it.

oh and then we went to my favourite place for breakfast:

"st.john"

and we shared

Old Spot Bacon Sandwich

Porridge & Prunes

Brioche & Poached Seasonal Fruits

Pikelets & Jam

*

all very delicious!