Hi, How are you?

The famous stereotype that Americans will greet anyone with Hi, How are you while not actually caring about the response is a source for jokes all over the world.  Recently I called a friend in Russia, and as soon as he picked up said, Hi, How are you?  The friend started laughing and said, "Did you learn that in America?"

It is a true stereotype and it is also true that it crawls into your language, wherever you might be from, very quickly.

But the fun part is crafting the response when you happen to be addressed with the infamous greeting. In certain instances you are expected to reply, while in others - absolutely not.  For example, when you arrive to some sort of insignificant meeting, with someone you have never seen before, and never will again - you will most likely be asked Hi, How are you, and it is a gesture of politeness, to respond with Good, how are you?  However, in an instance like cashing out at the register in a store, it is usually proper to let it go and not waste time.

The fun part is responding in exactly the second type of situation, when your companion is not expecting it.  Not only does it catch them by surprise, it also makes them wonder, why the hell they asked in the first place.

If you'rein a benevolent mood, you might look straight at them, with a nice smile and reciprocate the question.  Many times they will brighten up at this unexpected concern, and gladly share their feelings with you.  Sometimes, though, people are ready for this as well and they finish off the exchange with the also standard, Good, Thank you for asking.  In this case you haven't surprised anyone.

The best and almost error proof response to a random Hi, How are you is to take the question literally and seriously.  Look back at the person and with complete, unmistakable, self confidence just say Good!  If you do it right, not only will your companion be surprised, they will stand there stunned, with a look that says How dare you?!  As if they are offended that you actually understood their question as an attempt to exhibit care in your direction.

Pistachio

In Turkish the word for pistachio is also the slang for a beautiful woman - fistik.

теперь я чебурашка

Leonid Afremov

Paintings done using a palette knife.

"Autumn Park"

"The Energy of Winter"

"Cellist"

Here's a video of the artist in action.

realist

жить и радоваться

Для того чтобы жить и радоваться надо всего две вещи: жить, и радоваться.

:)

daoism?

"The universe is my home, and my house is my underwear; so what are you doing in my underwear?"
 - from an old daoist Chinese story

fidelity sleeping

E. Manet "Olympia" 1863

If the dog is a symbol of fidelity, but a sleeping dog, like the one in Titian's "Venus of Urbino" is fidelity sleeping, might that be the reason Olympia's cat is so starkly awake?

Friedrich Nietzsche

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

argument

In an argument the person who wins is the one who knows how to make himself look like a king and humble his opponent down to nothing.  It has nothing to do with truth and integrity.

becoming

You know when you were ten years old, and you saw some fashionable, self-assured, grown-up girl, and you thought, "Wow, I want to be just like her."  And then 10 years later, you look at yourself in the mirror, you remember that girl, and you think, I have become just like her.  And then you remember all those other inspirations, and you realize that you've become just like all of them, but in your own way, you've become the girl, you've become a Girl.

Manet's Bouquets

Who knew E. Manet had such beautiful flower and bouquet canvases!

E. Manet "Flowers in a Crystal Vase" 1882

E. Manet "Des Roses dans un Verre à Champagne"
(Roses in a Champagne Glass) 1882

E. Manet "Two Roses on a Tablecloth" 1883

Vogue

"L'aspetto più importante di qualsiasi progetto de design resiede nella sua reale capacità di migliorare la nostra vita.  Perché soltanto la pura belleza è capace di tanto."

you just gotta do one thing well babe

And when you walk around the world, babeYou said you'd try to look for the end of the roadYou might find out later that the road'll end in DetroitHoney, the road'll even end in Kathmandu
You can go all around the worldTrying to find something to do with your life, babyWe only gotta do one thing wellYou only gotta do one thing well to make it in this world, babe
You got a woman waiting for you thereAll you ever gotta do is be a good man one time to one womanAnd that'll be the end of the road, babeI know you got more tears to share, babe.
"Cry Baby" - Janis Joplin

janis joplin

take another little piece of my heart yeah baby

stretch, two, three, four...

Flexibility - mental as well as physical, is key to success and happiness :) .

that magic hand

Most of the times when we feel like we did something by ourselves, somebody has actually greatly helped us.

note to self

Note to self after experiencing with bangs:
I have a big forehead.

п.ж.

"Девушка предпочитает быть красивой, а не умной, потому что парень лучше видит, чем соображает..."

lady of leisure figurine

In one word, tell us what traveling means to you!

In one word, tell...:

'via Blog this'

Check this out, Hostelworld asked fans on Facebook to describe traveling is one word, here are some answers:

Living

Destiny

Life

Adventure

Freedom (I think that's the most common one)

Love (that was my thought too)

Fulfillment

Increasing global understanding (you lost points on the one-word requirement)

Experience

Fun

Enrichment

Horizon (I like this)
Making awesome pictures to make your facebook friends jealous! ( =D )

and the most interesting:

放( A Chinese word mean :to release , to free, to let go, to put )

There are so many different lives in the world, but during our whole life, we only get to see one.
I think no matter how well we think we know a person, we can never know what it's like to be them.

"Shoes for crazy young people"

Is this a shoe, a piece of art, or a statement?
Maybe it's all three because that is what we are trying to get to here in the 21rst century!

Гильке

Как сон всё это начиналось
И обернулось вдруг судьбой...

je veux l'amour, le joie, de la bonne humeur

Donnez-moi une suite au Ritz,
Je n'en veux pas
Des bijoux de chez Chanel,
Je n'en veux pas
Donnez moi une limousine,
J'en ferais quoi
Papalapapapa
Offrez moi du personnel,
J'en ferais quoi
Un manoir à Neufchâtel ,
Ce n'est pas pour moi
Offrez moi la tour Eiffel,
J'en ferais quoi

Je veux de l'amour, de la joie,
De la bonne humeur
Ce n'est pas votre argent
Qui fera mon bonheur
Moi je veux crever la main sur le cœur
Allons ensemble découvrir ma liberté
Oubliez donc, tous vos clichés
Bienvenue dans ma réalité

J'en ai marre de vos bonnes manières
C'est trop pour moi
Moi je mange avec les mains
Et je suis comme ça
Je parle fort et je suis franche
Excusez-moi
Fini l'hypocrisie moi, je me casse de là
J'en ai marre des langues de bois
Regardez-moi
Toute manière je vous en veux pas
Et je suis comme ça
Je suis comme ça

Je veux de l'amour, de la joie,
De la bonne humeur
Ce n'est pas votre argent
Qui fera mon bonheur
Moi je veux crever la main sur le cœur
Allons ensemble découvrir ma liberté
Oubliez donc, tous vos clichés
Bienvenue dans ma réalité 


--Zaz

Nouvelle Vague, Женя Любих

Из другой галактики, фото Антарктики...

5th Grade

From my 5th grade album:

My favorites:
School subject: Music
Hobby: Write about my flowers every day
Sport: Soccer
Food: Fruits
Place to eat: Flying Pizza
Movie: Doctor Dolittle
Book: Wayside School
TV Show: The World's Funniest
Song: Russian Fold Song, Swings with Wings

The person I most admire is my step dad because if I ask him something I perfectly understand his answer.
When I grow up, I want to be a veterinarian because I really like animals.
My most memorable Tremont experience was to run a mile in 9 minutes and 15 seconds.
Someday, I'd like to meet a well-known composer because I really like music and I want to be a composer (I already made up three songs).
If I could change the world, I would change it by writing a lot of pretty music.
The best advice I could give next year's fifth graders is do your homework.

***

Childhood is kind of like being drunk - it was so clear to you then, but you have no idea what you meant now.

Dynamism!

Boccioni "The Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash"
1912

Honestly, I'm not always a fan of futurism.  But this painting feels so energetic and joyful, that it's hard to resist.  As if somebody was taking a picture of the woman, then noticed the dog, and lowered the camera to the dog, and was completely mesmerized by the little running thing, with all of its short but quick paws.

Film called Thursday

Interesting... :)


Thursday from Matthias Hoegg on Vimeo.

Piet

Piet Mondrian
Still Life with Ginger Jar II
1911-12

Mondrian's early paintings leave me with really quite a pleasant sensation.  It is the way he divides space, which is not at all aggressive as so many other cubist works seem to be.  Everything in the room - the space, the air, the objects, are broken up into pieces - soft rounded shapes, not really rough blocks.  It feels as though I am wallowing through a room, and the pieces are hanging from the ceiling on strands of thread.  There is a light wind, that puts the pieces is a small, calming, constant motion.  And as I walk in the room, I have to use my hands to move away the pieces in front of me, but once I pass they float back into their original positions.  Everything is soft and welcoming.

3-D Street Art

3D Street Art Edgar Mueller

I've never come across this before - amazing how three dimensional it looks.  I wouldn't dare to step in the middle of that!  It's cool because as soon as they lay down the first lines, they already look like they're diving into the street.

unrelated post and music

When you get lost in emotions, look back at the facts.  You might find positive reinforcement.

dandelions

In the states people go through lots of trouble, money, and pesticides to get rid of the dandelions in their yards.  When I was in kindergarten in Russia I got in trouble for picking dandelions because they are flowers.

day dreaming, star gazing

Sometimes, when we're living our dreams, we forget about reality.  But reality doesn't go anywhere, reality is what will stay with you when the dreams are gone.  And when you're carried away, before you do something, you have to think, could this ever work in reality.  And maybe it can, maybe you can overcome all the obstacles of reality.  But when you don't see any obstacles, then you know you're just dreaming, because reality always brings obstacles.

ambitions

"By the age of 14 I could paint like Raphael.  I spent the rest of my life learning how not to."

-Pablo Picasso

P. Picasso "Meditarranean Landscape" 

2 stories

I was at work and a German guy came in with his two kids.  They spoke German to each other.  They ordered a hot chocolate, so I asked if they wanted whipped cream.  When the father asked the kids about whipped cream, they both yelled, "Jaaaaa!"  I laughed and said that even I understood that.  But the father didn't understand me, and thought that I meant to say that I understand German.

***

Сегодня в университете я стояла в коридоре и ждала пока освободиться комната, урок перед нашим задерживался.  Когда наконец почти все вышли, мы стали заходить - в нашем классе много народу, и один парень из предедущего класса не успел выйти и ждал пока мы все зайдем.  Я хотела сесть рядом с дверью, так что ждала рядом с ним.  Он спросил что это за класс, я сказала что История Искусства.  Я спросила его что за класс здесь до нас.  Он сухо ответил Math 536, и на этом мы разошлись.

modernity

I got out of class today and headed to the bus stop.  It was cold and windy, and the bus wasn't there.  I looked around and thought - I'm not going to wait here with everyone else, I'm going to walk to the next bus stop.  The bus caught up to me right as I got to the next stop.  I got on feeling sneaky and competent, feeling like I got away and got ahead, only to realize that I'm right back with all those people who were waiting at the last stop.

So I had to think - in this university, this city, this world, and especially this digital world, is there a way to escape, and way to get away?  Was there ever?  Or will society catch up with you no matter how hard you try to let go of it.  You try to be different, innovative, unique, but you end up in the exact same place as everybody else.  Is there a general tendency to search for an escape, and is it growing?

What about the western artists of the early 20th century, who tried so much to get away from urban cities, away from Paris, and back into land that was unexplored.  What about artists of the 21th century?  It seems that today artists are not trying to get away from reality, but mocking it.  But could it be the same desire to escape, except disguised?  Maybe we still haven't situated ourselves within modernity, but now we are afraid to admit it, so we make fun of it instead, making it look like it doesn't effect us, while in reality we still don't understand it.

we believe in science too

1 cm² blue ≠ 1 m² blue

oh my darling

There are two things I will carry in my pockets at the end
oh, my darling,
you are one of them
the way you look when you have a story to begin,
oh, my darling,
that's the other half

--Basia Bulat

blogging to chill out

You see, this is why you always have to be relaxed and always look at things calmly and from perspective.  A couple minor details that you happen to pay too much attention too, and you're all worked up, angry, upset, disappointed, even betrayed.  All of a sudden everything is wrong, you feel like the world suddenly turned it's back at you, nothing is right for a reason, like there is a force in the air that's trying to knock you down.

Well, the world doesn't have a back, and that force in the air is called wind and it has much more to do with meteorological processes than your daily problems.  There will always be people and things that go wrong and do wrong, but if you just stop for a second, lift your head, and look around, you will see that nobody is doing you wrong.  And really, things are rather fine, and so are you.

Desktop background:

Our Backyard, Magnolia, 2008

bow before me, lolz

This is the pediment of an over life-sized solid bronze statue of William Oxley Thompson, the first president of Ohio State, in a long heavy persuasive robe.  To the right on the pediment is an engraving reading "William Oxley Thompson", to the left another engraving reading, "President of this University, 1899-1920."  

Now open 'till 2 A.M.

Now open 'till 2 a.m. - so reads the sign on every door of the building.  You would never know what this building is.  I think I remember seeing a similar sign on a huge billboard above Taco Bell - same font and everything...

This sign has appeared over spring break on every door of the main campus library!!

people

I recently discovered a very interesting singer (Basia Bulat - she is great!), and made a cd for my mom.  My mom liked the songs a lot, but said that she would like to know what she looks like.  And so I got to thinking that you can only make a judgement on a person after you know so much about them.  Think about someone like Bill Gates, maybe you know of his life, history - I don't.  I've heard the name hundreds of times, and heard that he is the richest person in the world, but there is absolutely nothing I can say beyond that.  Now think about meeting someone, maybe for a short while, and then finding out that he is the richest person in the world.  Then the fact really changes your perception, even though it is the same fact.  Even when you know a lot of facts about a person, there is a block that doesn't let you understand them at all.

Now think about high school, when the whole world seemed to fall into groups.  There were the ones that were really good, and the ones that were bad but still excelled academically, and the really bad-ass ones; maybe your school had a different hierarchy, but it's the same idea.  Once you get to college you start realizing that there are probably no two people in the world that can be categorized into any category like that.  And then you think back to high school, and start distinguishing one bad-ass from another, and you think - wow, they were so different, and bad-ass in completely different ways.

And when it comes to this formalized business world, you have to deal with people based on just facts.  But it is so hard, sometimes so unwilling, it just doesn't work.  Even in formal circumstances you try to know the person, try to get past that block of facts, and only then does the relationship produce something fruitful and successful...

VS

What makes me feel incredible?
"A good kiss." - Victoria's Secret angels

y tú también guapetón me gustas un montón

una canción de Bebe, como me gusta ... ;)


Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, a mi me gustas tu
Me gustas tú, y tú hermano
Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, un problema tengo
No se como resolverlo
Si con un mano a mano

El me mira tú me miras
Yo te miro, nos miramos
El te mira tú le miras
Y los tres nos miramos

Y entre tanto, tanto ajetreo
Dejo volando ojos cerrados
Ojos abiertos guiñados indiscretos
Entre tanto me esta dando un escalofrío
Que me gusta, mucho

No hace falta que halla jaleo
Con los dos me quedo
Tengo pa´ los dos
Y entre tanto me apunto un tanto
En todo el corazón

No te enfades por favor
Solamente fue un beso de amor
Lo que le di a tú hermano
Solo fue un beso de amor
Y después un revolcón

Total, fue total pero no te enfades  
Por que tú y yo quedamos mañana
Y que sabe nadie
De quien duerme en mi cama

Tu mirada, mi mirada, su mirada
Nuestras miradas todas juntas
Todas juntas metidas como una colada
Se cuelan por dentro de mi cuerpo

No sabrá si fue verdad
Lo que hice para tú cumpleaños

Total que al final
Ni chicha ni rimona
Menos mal que me pego un gustazo
Y me deje poner el lazo por los dos
Por que si no, no se que hubiera hecho
Me hubiera perdido una noche de cesad

Tu mirada, mi mirada, su mirada
Nuestras miradas
Todas juntas, todas juntas
Y revueltas en la cama
O en una esquinita del salón

Me gustas un monto
Y tú también guapetón
Me gustas un montón.

first impression

Today I was on the campus bus on my way to school, and I remembered the first time I rode the campus bus.  My dad had taken me to campus to ask about a summer job. It was right around the beginning of summer - beautiful day, gentle shining sun, all the trees green, everything frolicking in the joy.  And I remember thinking that everything felt so light and happy.  You could barely see the buildings behind the blooming trees.  Everything was in high spirits, the leaves, the students.  Even the bus felt like it was floating through a wonderland.  My future university campus seemed like paradise!
Of course today, with winter pressing on me from one side, and loads of missed deadlines and homework from all other sides, I had a slightly different feeling, but I still love our campus, sometimes just as much as after that first impression.

Personality Picture

It's so strange, goes along with feeling "in sync" with a desktop background - also important to feel in sync with your facebook profile picture. I mean it's not necessarily important, but if you're that kind of person and part of that kind of generation, than it sure is. So I spend quite some time every once in a while trying to figure out a good picture, one that would really match my facebook page from my point of view. It's pretty interesting in general, to try to understand what you're whole facebook profile means to you. I think for me the conflict is to match my facebook page to the person that I want to be. And whether it matches the person who I really am - I don't know, who knows who I really am?

But going back to the picture issue, I put up pictures from here and there, doing this and that, and most of them just don't really fit. So now, I put up a picture of me from ten years ago...and it's perfect! It's so weird, it's like all these pictures, where I'm trying to pose for the camera and show myself - are absolutely useless; but a picture where I was right next to my best friend, just being a girl, in a natural setting - just shines through with my true personality. I look at my profile and I feel like 'yes, that is me on the picture'. Doesn't matter that there I was 10 and now I am 20 - it's just simply me on the picture!

Birches

I often wish that my desktop background was reflected on my forehead for everyone to see.  I spend a lot of time on the computer, and get constant glimpses of my background.  It always has to match by mood in everything - content, color, and texture.  It just makes it easier to work when it matches.  The desktop background is kind of a reflection of my current mood, or the little backdrop to my current state which helps the day run smoothly.  So whenever I have a particular background, it means that at that moment I really have a lot of things to say about the image, a lot of emotions for it.

This, for example, is a little forest or field of birches, not far from the church in the previous post.  To me a birch is so natural, and most importantly so peaceful.  If I was to make up an international peace sign, or maybe a new yin-yang sign it would have a birch on it.  A small birch, slightly succumbing to a gentle northern wind.  And look at the ground, it is a carpet of moss, soft as the touch of love.  You feel as if the ground will embrace you if you take a step in.  You follow the birches and the tree tops are so gently rounded against the neutral sky.  Everything is perfectly set together, and you really feel the undamaged and unrivaled power of nature in its ability to create such a balanced loving seen.

The church in Sloboda

So much of art historic study focuses on churches.  I think a church, more than an abstract painting, a triumphant sculpture, a palace, or even a religious image, requires one to understand its purpose and meaning in order to understand the full significance of specific architectural styles and elements used for its construction.  So to get an insider view on a general feel and meaning of church, I think about the only church that has always been present in my life.

It is not any longer in use.  In fact it hasn’t been in use for a very long time.  You could say that it is hardly there at all, and hardly a church at all.  It stands in a now abandoned village, and I visit it when I go there once a year.  One of the domes has fallen off, the floor boards are dissembled, the wall frescoes are almost gone, windows broken, and only the long hook stretching all the way from the dome remains where a chandelier used to hang.

The wooden staircase from the second floor to the roof still remains, and we used to climb up there, using first the bricks sticking out of the wall, then the metal bars of the window, and then the staircase.  All accessible and seemingly inaccessible parts of the walls are covered in written and carved out names and inscriptions, and everything useful has long been taken out.

But when you look at the rounded wall of where the altar must have been, the tripartite entrance to the altar, and the remaining frescoes beneath the dome, it is very simply and clearly – a church.  And then I start thinking that it has a basilica ground plan, that must have come from the western cathedrals, a bell tower attached to the main body of the church, a feature that started in Pskov, but I have to stop… 

Because I can’t think of this church as an exemplar within a large history of building churches.  This church is just a church.  This church is a set of my memories, my feelings, and my experiences.  The importance is not how the architecture of this church relates to other churches, but how it relates to me, and how I relate to it.  And I think that this is exactly what one has to understand about churches.  That it forms a privacy, a space for a person to be with himself.  And the only way to understand the physical elements of a particular church, is to search for the spiritual meaning that they convey to you alone.

wine & cheese

This is a little stream of thoughts on my newest re-discovered love, wine & cheese.  What do you think when you think wine & cheese?  I think: mmmmmmm...

But beyond that, I think a completely relaxed state, a warm happy friend, in a perfect world - some kind of gentle warm music, a sort of 'whole in the wall' restaurant, and maybe Paris outside the door.  And then of course, unlimited wine, and cheese, although in a wine & cheese combination there is always enough cheese, and almost always enough wine.

I have always been called mouse, but never because of cheese, because, in truth, I barely ate cheese until a few years ago.  I only ate one kind of cheese, and only with breakfast.  Before leaving to live in Spain, I realized that I should try to gain an appreciation for olives (which I did, and it came in very handy), and somewhere along with sumptuous olives came sumptuous cheeses.  The best of Spain was manchego cheese with Andalusian sherry.

And so it happened, that here I am now, blogging about wine & cheese...

она одна

Вы знаете, вроде живу и живу, изо дня в день, и жизнь веселая, втречаються приключения, приятные моменты, комфорт, все нормально.  А потом вечером, ползаю по Контакту, полу-случайно включаю добавленую знакомым песню, какую-то простую, даже совсем не интересную песню, и вдруг чувствую что мне не надо стараться чтобы уловить слова, уловить мотив, натсроение, аккорды..  С первых секунд перед глазами темный спокойный вечер, дворы, парадные, какие-то то боли знакомые люди, совершенно понятные ощущения, и у кого-то на мобильнике эта простаю, не интересная песня..

Я не знаю точно почему, но некоторые вещи такие родные.  Если только податься этой родине, то ничего больше будет не нужно.  Но почему-то боишься, боишься что-нибудь потерять, не успеть, забыть.  А неуежели что-то может быть лучше?

New York City

A subway crossing the Manhattan Bridge at night, not quite as beautiful as when two subways cross it going in opposite directions...

the Smoker

Paul Cèzanne
The Smoker
1901

You know those yearly planners that have an image for every week?  I got an "Impressionists" one for 2011.  This week's is Paul Cèzanne's, The Smoker.  Right away I notice the little still life in the back, a few apples and an unidentified  bottle.  I think if a portrait like this by Cèzanne didn't have that little addition, I would feel uneasy, like something is wrong, terribly out of it's place.  But with the apples there everything is in its place.  It's not just a backdrop, it's as if those items were the man's companions.  At first glance one thinks this man is lonely, lost in a quiet room.  But no, he is in his proper place, in his thoughts, with his own world.  Also I've noticed that Cèzanne's bottles, although never crisply painted, are always open, with the cork already sticking out.  The bottle was started, and closed for a little break.  It gives a sense of continuity; like the bottle is not just a useless item of decoration.  It's constantly being used.  And such is the man.  He is not a useless lonely man, he has a full part in this world, but here he is on a break.

I'm not sure which version of the painting is truer to the original, but in my version the man's eyes are fully open.  He is not falling asleep, not bored.  He is alert.  He does not seem to be looking at something in his surrounding, but he is looking at his thoughts, almost imagining them in front of himself.  Of course, he is 'the smoker.'  So what can I say about the pipe.  You know often someone in a painting with a pipe in their mouth gains a sort of maturity, or deepness.  Here, though, I think he could easily do without the pipe.  Maybe Cèzanne painted it in last moment just to give the painting a title...probably not.  But his pipe is only reiterating that the man has won a couple moments for himself and his own thoughts, away from the needy world around him.

clock

it's strange, you always hear the clock ticking at other people's houses, but you never notice it at your own..

:-)

Happy New Year!

All the best in 2011!