Archive for September, 2008
The Erotics of Edvard Munch
Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | arts, people | 1 Comment
There is no such a thing as peace in Edvard Munch’s art. The Norwegian painter, well known as a precursor of the Expressionism, succeeded in establishing new aesthetic boundaries in a time when the 19th century was slowly dying, and the 20th was not even born. His passionate lines, his anxiety, his tortured, struggling characters mixed in order to create a deeply symbolical imagery, abstractive of fears, love, obsessions and mysticism alike. The woman, as Munch sees it, is either pure, angelical, high above all materialism, or the very embodiment of sin and decay. As the Madonna painting so strongly reveals us, sensuality and religious matters are forever entangled in artist’s vision, who won’t dissociate between mystical and sexual ecstasy: the beloved one is on love’s highest heights, and that gives her the very transfiguration of sacred suffering. The ultimate intensity is the path to ultimate truth. When lovers are lost in their union, love itself increases their delirious concupiscence, love itself becomes a devouring force, melting their individualities into one, center-absorbed spiral. And when love is gone, there’s nothing else left but despair and despair alone.
A Tale of Fate and Saudade
Friday, September 19th, 2008 | arts, mythical, people | No Comments
Ladies and gentlemen, may I humbly bow and talk to you about one of the world’s most melancholic and passionate musical genres. It is called Fado (a Portuguese word normally translated as Fate) and it miraculously emerged, under its nowadays shape, from Mouraria, one of the oldest Moorish neighbourhoods of Lisboa. Its mysterious birth dates from the very begining of the 19th century, although earlier, deeper roots are generally admitted. It seems to have been the astonishing, heartbreaking result of a powerful multicultural combination: the black rhythms of African slaves, the traditional music of old Portugal, the Moorish vocal inflexions and the Brazilian modihna.
Fado talks of loss and longing, talks of people’s lives and talks of people’s soul. It has in it the sea and its tenderness. It is mostly made of desires and their stories, desires that are not meant for fulfillment, but for singing and sublime renouncement. It is the ultimate strength of the human soul: to escape and overcome reality. It is poetry and poetry only. And so is the love it describes. Defined mostly by the untranslatable word “saudade” – which counts for infinite longing for someone or something, a form of nostalgia that is bigger than life and more profound than the Atlantic ocean – love in fado’s short stories is built out of poetry and tragic passion, it forever breaks the tide of ordinary to melt itself into its own flame.
This beautiful world of sounds and feeling is my gift for today. Hope you’ll enjoy it. The gorgeous lady in the above movie is Amalia Rodrigues, Portugal’s greatest modern days fadistas and one of Europe’s “grand dames”.
Global Warming, Human Cooling?
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 | analysis, people, style | No Comments
As the long, hot summer we’ve been through has finally ended, leaving room for some more refreshing times down here, we started taking serious concerns less seriously, and that involves the global warming issue, that we had previously been haunted by for weeks. I mean, it is bad… but Sans Innocence just had some huge amounts of white tea, lying in that old, cozy armchair and wishing the world would give her a break. With the catastrophes, at least.
Besides, there are other phenomenons related to the post-industrial era that sadden us in a similar degree. Phenomenons referring to people, interactions, relationships, communication. It’s like we’d be dealing with some kind of compensation’s law here: the earth is getting warmer, the people are getting colder. Yeah, thermodynamics… (surely, man is giving heat away to his environment, remember some physics principles here?).
However, it’s ironic that in the glorious times of email, instant messenger and micro-blogging people are more and more keen on growing apart from each other. How many truly significant relationships are you currently having? Or ever had? How high would you rate them, as for the quality of closure and of sharing them all? The fast, instant communication our modern stuff is offering us was designed to suit our fast, terribly fast way of living. Jobs, businesses, meetings, studies, trips are on the run. Live itself is on the run. Friendship. Love. Instant communicating offers us the sheer illusion we are somehow keeping in touch with people, and even establish a whole net of new connections – social networking, they say -, but the reality is those quick pings are nothing but life support to old friendships, while newly born ones get to have a development that reminds me of artificially nurtured fruits: no matter how big and pretty might seem, they’re absolutely tasteless. It takes time, lots of time, sincere involvement, honesty, mutual respect and confidence, and many other things in order to build a reliable friendship. You can’t put your eggs in IM’s basket, it takes real, face-to-face interaction. And same goes for love. The Internet abounds nowadays with dating and meeting-people networking, but ties grown here usually lead only to short flirtations and empty affairs, and that has a huge success because is exactly what everybody wants: having it fast and easy, and nevermind any quality concerns.
We run from place to place in our cars, spreading CO2 all over and rising global temperature, while in the same run we manage to cool down what was supposed to be our oasis of peace and well-being – our personal relationships. Bad choice, this speed of living. It is my ferm belief that we don’t actually need it (How many hours have lately you wasted in front of the TV? Or randomly surfing the net?) and that we really can take our time, make things right and give our social/romantic self the best it deserves. It is also my ferm, irrevocable belief and all we have to do is try, and let ourselves seduced by how great it gets. After all, it is our choice whether we want to submit to society’s self-destroying habits or stand up and dare to be free. Isn’t it?
Yin, Yang and the melting pot (part I)
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 | analysis, mythical | 1 Comment
Good versus Evil, North versus South, Darkness versus Light, Male versus Female. Although it’s the latter we’re going to concentrate upon, lets have a little look around first, shall we? Somewhere behind these opposite and their spectacular clashes lies the secret of all things, the root of life and the essence of all creative powers. Duality starts it all.
However, since bright colours were successfully invented, there is no such a thing as black and white worlds, if we exclude from this affirmation early film-making and photography. It’s abstract, unfair, and by no means representative, and that goes for modern Hollywood thrillers too – technical details won’t matter. Besides, duality seems to be taking its force out of mixing stuff: maniheistic legends, for instance, take a point out of combining Darkness and Light, Spirit and Matter in a forever enchanting struggle and “underground” collaboration – and these guys were most radical when it came to contrasts. Wonderful laws does the nature have.
Therefore, as you’ve probably heard more than often, the phrase “every man has a feminine side and every woman a masculine one” is more than just politically correct. Julius Evora, in The Metaphysics of Sex defines Femininity and Masculinity as some kind of strong, genuine opposites, resembling magnetical field’s poles in action and energy. There is impossible to find pure Femininity or pure Masculinity in any living creature, but, the more Femininity does a woman have, the more she embodies the warmth and attraction of it, the closer she will be to Perfection. Also, the more a man becomes the incarnation of powerful male archetypes, the more will he find himself above other weaker, less sexual men. However, as this equation’s poles are as far apart from each other as Antarctica and Greenland prove to be, in every genre’s exponent there will be a nice little – or not so little – leak of opposite energy. He or she may ignore it all lifelong, but it’ll be there, playing tricks on them from its sweet well-hidden place.It will never disappear, and it will grow stronger and stronger, feeding itself from the owner’s denial, like a smart outlaw would steal electricity from an energy plant. And this, my friends, is beautiful, and great, because, ultimately, the oh-so-neglected side of ours is an useful instrument, able to make us whole, if we let it.
Carl Gustav Jung named man’s feminine side Anima and woman’s masculinity Animus. They are important, base concepts in his work and ones of most significance in psihanalysis’s efforts of understanding the dynamics of human inner and outer relationships. Normally, a man will only be able to understand women and their behaviour through his Anima, which generates the proverbial irrationality, uncontrolled emotions and unpredictability view. It’s not the way women are, it’s the way Anima is and the interface it offers to real-world Femininity. Same, if no level of higher awareness is met, women have their impressions of men established through their Animus – the Animus is a source for ready-made logic, rigidity, judgementalism and when a girl shows off her list of prejudices, yes, sir, it ’s her Animus at work there. Sounds like a lot of trouble in male-female interactions, doesn’t it? Well, at this level, yes, it definitely is and as we all know from experience genre conflicts are not actually light-and-easy, right?
Still, solving the duality brings peace and freedom, and that’s why we must take things further on and go deep, deep, deep.
[to be continued]
Diary Excerpt (Anne)
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 | arts | 1 Comment
It was a cold, rainy morning and I was having a coffee at some cheap cafe when I met him. It seemed that the universe indulged itself into a moment of no importance, as my capacity of foretelling – so goddamn vain. There are some minor excuses I can think of, though. I was never fond of perfect things, they raised me no interest as I had an ultimate passion for the exotic, the unusual, the specific. He was obviously anything but my type: pure, classical face lines, classical black coat, classical everything. Depressingly classical. I successfully ignored his appearance, while pretending to be over-absorbed with my newspaper. Storms. Fire. Genocides. War. Middle East. Mexico Gulf. Arctic Ice. He ordered tea. Minutes later, got something with a slight cinnamon flavour, while waiting patiently at a small, round table, pretty close to mine. Suddenly, the cafe’s huge window opened wide in my back side, spreading its light as some white, weird mist. Windy weather. I couldn’t help feeling annoyed. I took a look around. The cafe was almost empty. Two people, two not-so-bare tables. No music.
Egon Schiele
Friday, September 12th, 2008 | arts, vintage | 1 Comment
.GIF "schiele2")
When it comes to depicting sexuality and torment, Egon Schiele remains one of my favourite artists ever. His strong, expressive brushstrokes, the power of his drawing and the intensity of his bold, amazing colours produced quite an impression on me when, at some early stage in my life I had made the thrilling discovery of him. All those striking images, considered by many grotesque, even pornographic, constituted themselves, for the teenager I was back then, into a beautiful, tremendous revelation. This was the storm true passions and their clash was supposed to provoke, the fire haunted, restless, thirsty spirits I imagined would ignite all around them, this was the burning road to one’s self – somehow related, at a rather subliminal level, to the tantric yoga’s “Left-Hand Path”: getting to know the ultimate truth trough decadent, extreme practices supposed to integrate spirituality and sex in their reach for pure consciousness. A first impression which has never left me. And who proved itself persistent and influential to my imaginarium, all the way ’till now, I confess.
For more info on the Austrian expressionist artist you can read one of his biographies here and there are also a large number of online galleries hosting his works, such as this quite complete one or this. I wish you a pleasant and enriching experience in this so very controverted – at its time – world.
Thrill and Temptation part II
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 | analysis | 1 Comment
So, back to the flirting-almost-cheating subject. Where were we? Yes, The Spell… It just works great and it adds some interest to even the most ordinary life. After all, that’s the thing box office hits are made of. And although it sounds really interesting as a story, it doesn’t take a genius to realize nobody can go on like this too long. It comes a moment when it’s either black, either white. Or red.
Because almost-sexual relationships always come to a turning point. There ain’t such a thing as keeping them safe and private forever. It’s the same as in physics: the tension between point A and point B won’t manage to grow and grow without some discharge, sooner or later, stronger or milder. A lightning, maybe, if we’re charged enough.
Real world seems to be having some rules when it comes to any knowable, existing stuff. You can say: “ok, nice chatting, but there’s somebody waiting for me at home whom I really love.” and end it right there, or at least end the temptation and sentence future guilty excitement to death. When you have something really great with a significant other, you simply know it. Grass may seem greener on the other side, but, no, error, it ain’t. Love is what makes the world go round, and loved ones deserve our loyalty and respect. Or you can find yourself in the position to understand that you were not having the relationship you desired, that you were not in love or that you were wasting your time on something dead and dry. Here, temptation is useful and it helps you find your freedom. You may try giving up your current lover and start seeing your “temptation”, or you can just leave your relationship and go looking for your great, precious self instead. That would be totally worthed. Thrill and temptation are prone to bring good things in one’s life, but it takes some lucidity and some management skills to make it work. When it does, it’s great.
Two more possible situations may the victim of temptation encounter, not out of her will, but lack of. The temptation may turn into an affair, while the lying and cheating gets serious. It’s more than difficult to be involved with two people at once, and one would make a big mistake in offering herself as subject of this emotional torture. You will loose something anyway, at some point, and it may hurt a thousand times more. Same goes for trying to escape the decision, and pretend not to see what’s going on, while continuing with the flirting thing after it has already shown obvious signs of becoming dangerous. Duplicity hurts. Lies hurt. And there are two, wait, no, three people you have to show respect to in this story: your lover, your “temptation”, and yourself.
As for my dear old friend I was telling you about, she somehow managed to keep the thrill and throw away the temptation. I guess she realised it wasn’t quite worthed, and I also believe that, having gone through this, the overall relationship with her boyfriend actually improved. There are moments when you need to get on the edge in order to better see what you’ve got and what you could loose. And these are the very moments when you start loving more.
Mhmm… Sexy Lingerie
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 | sex-appeal, style | 1 Comment
I’ve found this fun photo here, as I was randomly, un-innocently browsing the Internet. As I found myself instantly amused, I couldn’t help remembering all lingerie-discussions I ever had with men and women alike, from the classic “I so like this one”, to the “sexiest color? sexiest cut?”.
“It just won’t matter what I am wearing.”, a close friend of mine once said. “It will always go off so fast, nobody will ever notice”. She was in a long, passionate relationship with an Alpha-man, who was always waaaay too excited to even pay attention to her lace underwear. To him, she was extraordinary and enchanting anyway. Which I consider beautiful and extremely healthy, and I also think each and every woman should find herself a similar place in her boyfriend’s heart. But no, oh no, this does not mean women should give up looking for the perfect turn-on in their underwear closet. There is never such a thing as enough flame, or enough turn-on in a couple’s life, as love is a delicate creature, nurtured out of fire and beauty, and one can never get enough of these ones, right?
Now lets get back to our lace-and-silk subject…
We are not what we wear, but whatever we decide to wear express us, and that goes strongly for the bedroom, too. Actually, when it comes to a lady’s boudoir, the concern should at least equal same lady’s shoes or dresses, because this sweet aesthetic delight is destined to particularly and intensely please only the above mentioned lady and her dearest one, supposedly the most important people in the lady’s life. No gradma panties allowed when it comes to hot, and that goes too for any old, improper piece of underwear. I mean, don’t do this mistake ever, even if you don’t consider yourself a lady and you already have a man that promised to love you and only you no matter what. It’s just horrible. And dangerous in some very, very bad sense. You don’t wanna show yourself like a total mess, do you?
Investments are strongly advised. Even if nobody except you won’t be able to spot the quality of your lingerie, you’ll know and feel confident about it. Confidence is a great weapon and it makes a woman a lot more interesting and attractive. It’s also improving one’s mood, one’s spirit and even one’s health. Confident women are the ones aware of their femininity, and happily expressing it. Confident women rule the world.
So, first of all, make sure you know yourself, and your body, you know what fits you best and what doesn’t. You can try different styles and see what it goes and what it fails, you can even try imitating someone you admire, everything is permitted when you’re struggling to discover yourself. Then, use what you know, and go on expressing. If you’re strong and independent, go for bold colors, if you feel very sexual try transparencies, deep cuts, even leather, if you are more discrete get the lilac and beige pieces, they’ll suit you great, if you love refinement buy lace, if you’re the sensual type choose silk, and so on. Don’t be afraid to explore and don’t be afraid to get creative, you have only two rules to stick to: always go for quality stuff and always remain faithful to yourself. Because it’s something you deserve and owe to yourself.
Personally, I think the sexiest in lingerie is combining ladylike refinement with eye-appealing materials and cuts, and I would forever consider black, burgundy, plum and dark blue as most attractive colors to be worn in bed. But I also believe that a woman is at her best when she is comfortable with who she is and what she’s wearing, so role-playing definitely forbidden: if yellow and simple, sporty style makes you feel like a goddess, go for it. It’s the only way to sexy, and it goes through confidence.
Femme Fatale
Monday, September 8th, 2008 | analysis, mythical, sex-appeal, style | No Comments
There is a figure in today’s modern mythology that I found myself very fascinated with when I was a child. Oh, and in my early teenage period, too. It was the sublime, mysterious aura of so called femme fatale: the seductive, incentive woman that captures them all. Eyes, men, whatever. She had to have style and wits, and to posses that indescribable charm that was beyond beauty and glamour. Her sexuality was strong, dominant and enslaving, and there was no hope for the poor butterfly heading towards her light. A modern, powerful, superb witch.
Even though this image has blossomed fully during the ‘40 and ‘50 decades, in the period of the American “film noir”, I have to admit that one of my favourite bewitching characters is the cabaret dancer Lola Lola from 1930’s “Der Blaue Engel”. As everyone who has seen, or even heard about the movie that made Marlene Dietrich a star knows, the lovely Lola pushes Professor’s Rath life on a downward spiral using nothing but the power of lust that she so irresistibly awakens. The power behind a femme fatale ’s silk eyelashes is always meant to bring destruction in the aftermath of every sin, as her ravishing force will ultimately escape all control, even her own.
This was the black-and-white archetype that marked my age of restlessness. Surely, I eventually got to learn that it is only the incarnation of femininity’s destructive and unstoppable potential, and that it has nothing to do with reality. I have never met her in flesh and blood, only pale, wannabe roleplayers. As for any other common archetype (the mother, the maiden, the prophet, and so, so on), there is no human being that simple to match it completely. Humans are way more complicated than black-and-white figures, and even though our lives may, sometimes, resemble old thrillers, they have a little bit more meaning and underlying layers, don’t they? However, for short moments only, I can see her very glow in the shape of one of my female friends, or acquaintances, or other random girls I happen to randomly meet one place or another. And there she is, charming and dangerous, filling men’s hearts with desire, only to disappear some seconds later. Strange, glamourous epiphanies.
Or maybe just my imagination, as I truly, deeply love my inner world and its ghosts. So, reality check here: have you ever met Her?
A Few of My Favourite Things
Saturday, September 6th, 2008 | arts, sex-appeal, vintage | No Comments
A funny and full of sex-appeal performance adding lots of spice to the classic My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music.
Well, ok, I guess I can also share something here. The more, the merrier. So, my favourite things: white silk, black velvet, high heels, sandalwood, long kisses in dark corners, heavy winters and heavy snow, cream, hot tea, bold men, strong wills, wine, indigo paper, perfume bottles, good manners, grace, drama, trains, courtship, countrysides, fireplaces. Intuition. And smarts.
Time for evaluating them all, now: what are your favourite things?