Tartuffe

Tartuffe, Molière @ teatrul Metropolis, Bucuresti

Tartuffe, amantul ideal: placere fara teama, amor fara scandal.

Batrani

Romania imbatraneste, aici.

Acesti oameni, un fel de extraterestri, din afara timpului nostru, impartind doar spatiul cu noi... Invatam matematica, fizica, istorie, literatura si toate celelalte. Dar nimeni nu ne invata cum sa cream legaturi intre noi, cum sa empatizam, sa oferim compasiune, sa interactionam, sa (ne) facem bine. Suntem singuri, fiecare in bula lui si nu stim sa ne atingem. Singuri si straini, noi cu totii, indiferent de varsta.

I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.

[East of Eden, John Steinbeck]

Pelerinul rus

Pelerinul rus, pdf
despre rugaciunea inimii.

Vacanta

...mare, de vara. Buna, de data asta. Foarte buna!
Poate ca am gasit reteta...

Scuba diving

pe o plaja ascunsa, abrupta, intr-o mare albastra

Dances at a Gathering, Psyché

Dances at a Gathering, Psyché @ Opera Garnier

des ballets qu'avec de la couleur et de la joie... comme l'été à Paris :-)

Clarence Darrow

Clarence Darrow
with Kevin Spacey
@ The Old Vic, London

just... omg!
no. other. comment.

fuck. i am so, so in love.

Les Miserables

Les Miserables
@ Queen’s Theatre, London

well known French story, English interpretation, music, dancing, drama... all the right ingredients for a modern soap opera :-)

beautiful. will do it again.

Tristan und Isolde

Tristan und Isolde, Richard Wagner
@ Opera Bastille

on feminism, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[We should all be feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at TEDxEuston]

Western culture clothing

"A lesson about Western culture: Women who wanted to be taken seriously were supposed to substantiate their seriousness with a studied indifference to appearance. For serious women writers in particular, it was better not to dress well at all, and if you did, then it was best to pretend that you had not put much thought into it. If you spoke of fashion, it had to be either with apology or with the slightest of sneers. The further your choices were from the mainstream, the better. The only circumstance under which caring about clothes was acceptable was when making a statement, creating an image of some sort to be edgy, eclectic, counterculture. It could not merely be about taking pleasure in clothes.

A good publisher had bought my novel. I was 26 years old. I was eager to be taken seriously. And so began my years of pretense. I hid my high heels. I told myself that orange, flattering to my skin tone, was too loud. That my large earrings were too much. I wore clothes I would ordinarily consider uninteresting, nothing too bright or too fitted or too unusual. I made choices thinking only about this: How should a serious woman writer be? [...]

An old friend said, “Wear what you want to; it’s your work that matters.” But he was a man, and I thought that was easy for him to say. Intellectually, I agreed with him. I would have said the same thing to someone else. But it took years before I truly began to believe this.

I am now 36 years old. During my most recent book tour, I wore, for the first time, clothes that made me happy. My favorite outfit was a pair of ankara-print shorts, a damask top, and yellow high-heel shoes. Perhaps it is the confidence that comes with being older. Perhaps it is the good fortune of being published and read seriously, but I no longer pretend not to care about clothes. Because I do care. "

[Why can't a smart woman love fashion?, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Elle Magazine]

advice (a lot of)

advice. a lot of it. kinda "this is gold" :-)
didn't read all of them. yet.
for example, this is a wonderful example of common sense life advice for everybody (not only young computer scientists)

enjoy!

[compiled by Michael Ernst]

Werther

Werther, Jules Massenet
@ Opéra Bastille

...avec Abdellah Lasri au lieu de Roberto Alagna dans le rôle de Werther, apparemment une bonne idée :-)

Beaucoup, beaucoup de drame, ah, les malheureux amants!
Et à la fin il meure bien sûr, mais elle ne se suicide même pas!

The modern sense of comfort

Notions like taste and practical chic are way too complex to sell today, when much of the world’s population is consumed with either acquisition or basic survival. For that reason it’s tough to talk about comfort and a moral economy of style without sounding grim or like one is trying to promote a car with three wheels (hey, but it drives!). On the other hand, this idea is not so far from something Coco Chanel offered when she arrived in New York, in March 1931. Asked by a reporter to define the fashionable woman, Chanel said, “She dresses well but not remarkably. . . . She disobeys fashion.” Then, perhaps thinking of her rival Elsa Schiaparelli, Chanel added, “But she is not eccentric. I hate eccentricity.” So she was extolling understatement and ease, yes, but also suggesting these choices reflected virtues like self-control and seriousness.

[Sign of the Times | Slave No More, by Cathy Horyn, New York Times]

Dom Juan

Dom Juan, Molière
@ Comédie Française

Pas seulement l'histoire de l'épouseur éternel, mais surtout un l’éloge de l’hypocrisie au pouvoir.

Still do, no matter how... darkest, lightest...