I hope it is going to come to Switzerland too. I've read that Jar City was made into a movie! Hopefully it is going to be as good as the book. I love mystery books and everytime I travel to some country new to me I search for mytery books written by local authors. I discovered Arnaldur Indriðason while in Iceland and I have to say his books are amazingly written. I have already read all of them (at least those that were translated).

This weekend I decided to just run away! A whole weekend at the lake. Relax, shopping, reading, turkish bath, eating really good food, drinking amazing red wine and amazing mojitos!

a great weekend! Seriously, ohhhh, what can mint, sugarcane, limes and rhum do for your tired senses!!!! I just walked around the house with the glass! Or was the glass following me??

It has been quite a while since he was asked to participate in this blog. so, after chasing him with a virtual ax, our buddy with the ponytail finally decided to come on board!

We are all waiting for his beautiful writing to appear on screen!

How hard it is to relax lately!

You relax one minute and the next you freak out! You wake up in the morning all pumped up and you discover that internet isn't working! You restart the computer and the fax machine gets into a coma! Fix that and...something else cause you a problem that transform your life into a huge inferno! Technology is a beautiful thing...when everything works out perfectly. If that doesn't happen it just drives your nerves into the jammest freeway you have ever taken! But still, technology allows you to create (obviusly when your damn PC works!!!) virtual objects, virtual realities that do not really exist. They exist in a screen in front of your tired face!!! But they are there. And from your chair your can imagine yourself laying down in a virtual beach locatd somewhere in the technological world!

...Yet there is a place where I found the ultimate relaxing experience. Couple of months ago (I will not go into details!) I was really lost. Got really into a major crisis. So one day my mother just gets on my case really brutally...you know the kind of discussion like "I can't stand see you like this" or "you need to focus on important things and stop worrying about it" ( I worked for months on my "political campaign and I lost it in the most miserable way) so basically she proposes me to go with her to Iceland. She had a conference there so...I said yes. I know about Iceland through Björk but that's about it (eventhough I guess the Björk way is very accurate!!). Let me tell you: the trip was amazing. I went to this place called BlueLagoon which I believe now being heaven on earth. After laying down in the water for some time the sensation I felt afterwards was of perfect balance between body and mind. And, believe or not, I do not know if it was the water, the right time, or the entire island itself but the experience was magical and I came back a different person, still crazy, but changed and more focused on things that are important to me...and politics is not one of them!

One thing is for sure...I will go back to Iceland one day!

www.bluelagoon.com

ignore them all.

only YOU matter.

I woke up really pissed today. I want to say something out loud but for some reason I don't have enough energy... so I just write it on this blog, since it's mine I can say whatever I want! I was just wondering where are all those people who called you 10 times every f*?!°* day? Who text messaged you 20 times a day when they were needy, whiny, or just wanted to share with you all their freakin problems? And even if you didn't care, didn't have time you listen to them eventhough you didn't give a damn? Well, I guess they dont need you anymore. If they went to some other planet well...do yourself and myself a favour you whiny, needy freaks once called "friends": just stay there...

We had this event back at school called "Friday's @ five"! At five pm everything stopped just for one reason. Barbecue and beer... a lot of beer! Everything costed 50ç. We would drink like mad and spend basically nothing. We would sit out at the old SCI-Arc in this place called "the dome" and just chat and look at the stars and moon (yeah right!). The dome was a construction (a dome!!) built by an instructor called Nader Kahlili who used to build everything with the earth (adobe architecture). The environment was really amazing and soo peaceful. It felt like you were in the desert eventhough you were in an industrial area! The "Baywatch" headquarter was next door and thank god at the dome we would not see David Hasselhof running in his swimming suit trying to save some lost soul drowning in alcohol!

Here my friday @ five is totally different. First of all because it starts @ six! Second because there is no dome but still, the place is sometimes breath taking! Third... for 50 ç you do not even buy the waiter's attention!!!

I've never thought one day I will be writing about shoes! But since I read this morning Mel's blog about her throwing away her shoes I started thinking about mine!!!

I have an obsession with shoes. Not any kind, just one brand. And not all shoes from this brand, just one particular model: TWINS from Camper! I just adore them. I am so fascinated by them for a simple reason: they are calles twins, and obviously not identical ones since the left shoe is different from the right one! They have basically paintings on them, detail that are fantastic! In the past 6 years I bought all of them. And here I am the only one who wears them(figure out why!!!). But today was a sad one! The new collection still has twins but not the funky model I was the number one fan of!!!

I guess they changed the designer or maybe the designer got his/her brain back in focus...what a shame!!!

I first heard this song through my crazy friend Mel back at SCI-Arc. She would play it a lot and ultimately I bought it too (Malcolm Mc Laren)! So hot! And hearing Cathrine Deneuve sing is quite strange!

It used to be a long time ago when I first got knowledge of this word. It was through an amazing instructor (remember Margaret?) that we started developing the concept of the "subjective city" through the eyes of the flaneur.

Who is a flaneur (or flaneuse)? Is a person who is having a key role in understanding, participating in and portraying the city. The exemples we studied at school all happened in the beautiful city of Paris, because that's where the real flaneur was born thanks to Charles Baudelaire. He/she is part of the city but at the same time detached from it. The flaneur would sit at a café watching and analizing what happens around him/her. Would walk around and drift (la dérive as we used to say) through the city experiencing moods and feeling different states of mind depending from the location he/she would find himself/herself in. Today the flaneur still exist, but instead of just sitting at a café he/she would also walk around, maybe with a camera (like I would do!) depicting what lays around his/her existence from a one shot point of view. A shot of reality bound by the frame of the camera and discover hidden layers of society and of the urban landscape.

Like someone once said (I have this quote but I do not recall who said it!) :

"The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque".

I can't wait to go to Paris! Sit down au Café de Flore like Hemingway and watch people during their everyday routines. Take out my notebook/sketchbook and just write, write and write. Whatever comes to my mind. And then walk around the Quartier Latin, go eat at the Brasserie Lipp or at La Coupole. Go to the Beaubourg, to the Fondation Cartier, to every corner of this amazing city and just enjoy it's everyday essence.

It's quite funny actually!
This morning I woke up with a thought that's been in my head for so long. I just wanted to put it out, to write it out loud in this space. But first I checked Facebook. That's when I realized I am not alone. My dear friend Mel just wrote the same thought I had. Same feeling about life. Well, that's how it is:
I've been trying to figure out what's going on with my life. It hasn't been easy here. At the beginning it was fun coming back to Switzerland after spending 7 years in LA. Now though the fun is gone. After living my life here for the past 7 years I started wondering about friendship, about self improvement, about happiness and about a lot of other stuff. Am I happy? What is friendship? Do I have real friends here? I can't say I'm unhappy but I can say I do not believe I have real friends. My mind start flipping through the pages of my life. Real friends are those I left around the world. Those I shared stuff with: art, fellings, literature, movies, laughs, discussions, parties and fun. Here nothing like that happens. The people I am sourrounded with are somewhat empty. I honestly came to realizaton that I've almost nothing in common if not the same fucking nights out during weekends. Drinks (many) and same superficial conversations everytime. No talks about exhibitions, about taking a plane to nowhere, well that we talk about but nobody is really interested in taking a plane and fly to Paris to go to the Pompidou or the Palais de Tokyo...here all they think about is going out and get wasted...tomorrow is another day. Well, I do not need nor want this type of relationships and this type of life anymore. I know that many of my old friends feel the same way.
I need a big change in my daily routine. Maybe I just dont need a routine anymore.

As I was cleaning up a little in my office I found a very interesting art book. It's called "il rumore del tempo" (The sound of time) by Gaetano Pesce. The book is about his exhibition at the Triennale of Milan couple of years ago. Its form is not the usual. The pages are broken on their sides. The more you open it the more the pages brake. Colorful and at the same time B&W. And the cover is hairy!! It is sooooo inspiring it makes you want to start building beautiful things. Because time is passing very fast. Because is full of colors, of shadows of gray, of smells and sounds. The "Sound of time"! Can you hear it?

How many things I start! How many things I do not finish! My notebokk/sketchbook has sooo many drawings, studies, or simple words...but still so many empty pages and unfinished work!

the party in my head keeps going. it's never stopped. I'd kill to be able to do yoga. but I can't focus that way. I have been drinking and smoking waaaaaaaaaaay too much. that's why I work out in the pool (karate!). where I drown myself and my thoughts.

After too long I started practicing yoga again today! Great! Great! Great! I really nedded it! For some reasons I didn't take care of my physical and mental health lately: too many parties, drinking and smoking got me seriously out of balance. So tonight, with the old crew I got my shit back together! Paripurna navasana, ardha pincha mayurasana, ardha urdhva upavishta konasana and much more and I am back! Now a good bath! And tomorrow is new day! Hopefully a wonderful one!

David is a funny guy! That's the reason why he happens to be my cousin! He was so excited to start his new school that he had to take pictures of himself with the suit he will wear during class. He sent me some pics. As I opened them I started wondering if he has really enrolled at the EHL (Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne)... the webpage of the school says : "The Art and Science of Hospitality Management"...I keep wondering...

I found this piece of a box on Burnside Str. in LA couple of years ago. I love the pink D that's attached on it. D as what? D as Diadem, D as Dynamic, D as Dandy, D as Dwell, D as Disguise, D as Dazed, D as Deprival, D as Dwarf, D as Depressed, D as DESIGN?

D as I Don't care! It's simply a beautiful piece of a box with a pink D on it!!

My father asked me to scan this image. His class on a cold day in 1947. He is trying with others to figure out who is who! This makes me laugh since me and my friends (Mel! Efrem!...!) do not even remember our classmates of...10 years ago! Good luck dad!

Since I came back from LA my life in this town has been quite boring. Nothing really happens, at least nothing that I am seriously interested in. Sure, we just had the wine festival, sure I go out at night, sure, sure, sure. But what about feeding my brain with beautiful images? I am starving for art! The one that provokes some sort of reaction from my part. The 14th is going to be a good day! The Biennale of Architecture is going to open in Venice. I have to go!

Image via Comensoli Foundation

natalie portman's shaved head - sophisticated side ponytail from thatgo on Vimeo.

My dear friend Efrem has the funkiest ponytail ever...years and years have passed, he grew older, he said he was on a super-diet (yeah right), he went through earthquakes, storms, seasons and much more...but the ponytail is still there.
Efrem with no ponytail is like the Trevi fountain with no water!
This is for you!!!

I don't know exactly what happened! But when I found these labels in a store I thought to myself: "how cool it would be to start labeling everything"! And when I say everything I really mean it! But I will not start doing that soon...for some reason I find this little package of labels extremly fascinating!

This morning, first thing as I woke up, I started wondering if it's better to add or to cut...! As I started sipping my first coffee of the day I found extreme pleasure daydreaming about Gordon Matta-Clark.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Today I think will be the perfect day to cut forms, structures and thoughts. Tomorrow, maybe, we will reconstruct them!

it's raining like mad here. it's strange that it's almost like the ocean has stood up and started falling!