Oslo, August 31st

"On leave with a day pass for an interview as a publishing assistant, the future doesn’t look too bleak, if only he can bring himself to choose it. His conversation with best friend Thomas is a showstealer, laying bare his lack of desire for either love or career. It’s neither maudlin nor sentimental, just an ordinary man unable to accept the triviality of existence, and just as unable to let it go." ["dog and wolf" review]

"His friends, beneath a reassuring bourgeois surface, reveal to be suffering from the same malaise, although they successfully achieve to hide it by clinging to widely acceptable social conventions." ["Iceland chronicles" review]

"[T]he scenes in which Anders confronts his old friends and acquaintances all crackle with feeling and intelligence. They swap tales of middle class problems, ennui and "trivialities"; the way friendships dissolve and social excitement recedes, the way people "disappear into motherhood", how hard entering your 30s is for a woman when men bring 20 year-olds with "perky tits" to parties, all of it instantly recognisable to anybody in the affluent West of a certain age." ["Capsule in Space" blog] ("disappear into motherhood" was translated "absorbées par la maternité" in the French subtitles. It struck me.)

A film about unhappiness, options of adulthood, suicide, sense of futility, anhedonia, the age in one's life after the age of expectations. Somehow it was the film that finally arrived, the one that I have been subconsciously expecting for a couple of years now.

The final piano piece is the Allemande from Händel's 15^th Suite for Keyboard, HWV 447.

Céline: Voyage au bout de la nuit

It's hard to face the facts, even in connection with war the imagination holds it's own for a long time.

Mihaela Gheorghiţă: Dragonul

Dragonul e o poveste cu povesti in stilul Seherezadei, e o desciere dickensiana a emigrantului Roman in Spania, e un roman picaresc de capa y spada, e Bonnie and Clide, e scriptul unui road movie aflat in stare embrionic-romanesca, e o Odisee data peste cap, e un Bildungsroman secret, e Neo care vede textura Matrixului, e un teren de joaca al experimetelor textuale, e rechizitoriul lyrics-urilor, filmelor, reclamelor care accesibilizeaza esenta cite unui archetip, e o retea subtila de cross-referinte de scurta, medie si lunga bataie de care nici dedicatia cartii nu scapa. Un roman ambitios pe toate planurile. Foarte bun, dar nu perfect. Cautind nod in papura, pe alocuri lasa impresia ca impinge envelopa prea departe in sensul ca se resimte cite o protuberanta a erectiei autoricesti, vreu sa spun, al unui arc scapat de sub control intr’o saltea de altfel perfect mulata. Dar la urma cititorul atent este rasplatit cu o poveste complexa, deliranta si captivanta.
dragonul.timword.ro

Herzog: Auch Zwerge Haben Klein Angefangen

In Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, Herzog, among other things, mentions that after filming Even Dwarfs Started Small he threw himself into a cactus field. He speaks about it starting at around 9:35. It looks like a symbolic gesture as to compensate for the suffering the dwarf actors went through during the filming. Despite all the laughing and apparent fun, it is a cruel piece. There is a rebellion going on, at least it starts out as one against an unseen authority, but slowly it turns into revenge and the newly acquired freedom is lost into chaos. It makes sense to me only as another anecdotal evidence to support Sorin's theory of social coercion. Without which, the dwarfs destroy, burn down and crucify with impunity.
rottentomatoes

Science-themed photos or drawings

BBC: Science meets art in annual contest

Elena

The latest film by Andrei Zvyagintsev, the director who made "The Return". "Un Certain Regard" special jury prize 2011.

Virtuoso piano playing

Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody no 6, played by Cziffra:


I heard this piece for the first time some weeks ago at a piano recital by Evelina Borbei in a village church. I was stunned, her hands just left some skin-coloured blurry arches in the air, she was totally consumed by the playing, I hadn't seen anything like it before.

Liszt's Campanella played by Cziffra and Valentina Lisitsa:

Shostakovich: String quartet no. 8 - Borodin Quartet

Wikipedia | quartets.de | earsense

Tarr: A torinói ló

The latest (and planned to be the last) film of Béla Tarr is an allegory of life in the end times. To the two main characters and the horse there is nothing else to life than hardship. The daily routine of harnessing the horse to the cart, of dressing and undressing, the meals consisting of one boiled potato are a mixture of primitive savageness and a strange minimalist dance or a ritual. One would think that ritual it there to bing meaning, but no, the only activities that break the monotony are sitting at the window, watching the wind blow the leaves, and the two glasses of palinka consumed in lieu of breakfast. "The plot" consists of six days of utter monotony in a farmhouse of an old man with a paralyzed right arm, his daughter and their horse while outside the wind blows wilder and stronger every day. Things go from bad to worse. The horse stops eating its hay and refuses to pull the cart. The second day a neighbor comes to resupply on palinka and he talks about the loss of the goodness, of the nobility of spirit, of the corruption and ruin of world. Next a cart comes, gypsies are looking for water. They stop at the well, but it is obvious that they are not welcome. The image of the disabled man wielding the ax is ridiculous and terrifying in the same time. They give a book to the daughter "for the water" and flee chanting obscenities and maledictions. The girl reads out a text about the interdiction of performing rituals in desacralized spaces. Next day the well dries out. In desperation they try to flee, but they return as abruptly as they leave, and there is no explicit reason given for the return. Finally permanent darkness descends. The film consists of 30 long shots with unusual framing and camera movements. The soundtrack is either winds howling, or a counterpoint of two minimalist themes, one melancholic and one menacing. It is an apocalyptic vision, deeply pessimistic and defeatist. Event the trailer consists of a single shot of an oil lamp going out.

La buticul... | Wikipedia | rottentomatoes

Harpsichord

Stumbled upon this harpsichord piece while watching Bruno Dumont's L'humanité. I thought "this is not baroque, this must be a modern composer writing for the harpsichord". Some parts sound like rock on harpsichord. Some parts like Vivaldi's Winter. I was quite surprised to discover that the composer, Pancrace Royer, lived in full rococo period. Check out other pieces by him on youtube, this is not baroque. Sometimes it sounds like a dance composed for organ and played on harpsichord.

The Art of Violin, The Art of Piano, The Art of Conducting

An informal trilogy on the two most prominent solo instruments and on the art of conduction. Contemporary musicians candidly evoke and praise their colleagues an predecessors. Perlmann on the individual sound of early and mid twentieth century violinists:

Perlmann on Menuhin:

Oistrakh's cadenza for Shostakovich's Violin Concerto:

Menuhin plays the Ciaccona from the d-moll Partita:

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

imdb

The film I've liked most so far in 2011.

Koren Ensemble

11/11/11

Modernist Cuisine: Crazy Striped Duxelles Omelette

I know you first taste your food with your eyes, but this is a bit overboard.

I'd expect King Louie to eat that, not someone who needs "confidence to cook in his home".
I'm also a bit suspicious about the "frozen egg-yolk from the health-store" and the powdered whole eggs in the siphon - who eats that AND Duxelles? Those artists!
Anyway, I'll make it, and I'll even save for the book!
Full recipe here.

Robert Doisneau

Doisneau captured few unbelievable images on the streets of Paris. The excerpt below is from three-volume documentary film Contacts, part one: The Great Tradition of Photojournalism. He talks about the inner story or rather the self-narrative of the photographer taking some some of his well known pictures.

Photos at Staley Wise, Masters of Photography, Site officiel.

short film festival of Nice 2011 (France)

Big Bang Big Boom by Blu (Wow! For the beauty of gesture...)

External World by David O'Reilly (A little crazy, very funny.)

The Kinematograph by Tomasz Bagiński _trailer (Wonderful and so poetic idea.)

L'oeil du Paon by Gerlando Infuso (Dark eroticism.)

The lost town of Świteź by Kamil Polak_trailer ( My favorite one, a masterpiece! A film that refers to the icons and painting.)

Baroque music

Short text

În aceeași vena culinară: gogoneaua obraznică

Tapenade

O rețetă tributară ca origine regiunii franceze Provence, tapeno cică înseamnă capere, who knew?

*Ingrediente:*

• 1 kilo măsline prima (din care-o fi: verzi, negre, maro – culoarea se reglează din proporţia de măsline – cea mai frumoasă culoare a ieşit pe proporțiile 1:1:2), fără sâmburi, lăsate o noapte/24 ore în apă ca să se desăreze – se ia în mână bob cu bob şi se verifică de fragmente de sâmbure daca exista premisa că nu-s bine “dezosate” . Cam o mânuţă de măsline se pune deoparte, pentru decorațiuni.
• 30 ml ulei de măsline
• cam 100 gr assorted migdale/caju/miezi de semințe de bostan
• piper negru proaspăt măcinat, “to taste”
• 3 căței mari de usturoi
• roşii uscate la soare în ulei, trei feliuțe
• sucul de la o jumătate de lamâie
• Capere, anchois – nu ne plac, le-am eliminat. Experimentaţi!
• Manchego românesc – Brândză de capră fermentată HOREZU de la „5 continents” – n-am cântarit, cam cât doua cutii de chibrituri, tăiata bucăţele de dimensiunea unui cub de zahăr cubic.
• MIERE (dacă-s prea sărate măslinele, câte o linguriţă până devine gustoasă)

Mod de preparare
Se pun măslinele in robot, ulei cât să nu macine lama doar ingredientele uscate, iar apoi restul de ulei in firicel subțire în timp ce merge motorul. Mix pe viteză maximă până devine uniform, dar nu prea fin. Se adaugă brânza, nucile şi măslinele care au rămas. Se mai dau câteva pulsuri de putere la robot. Ideal ar fi să rămână mici fragmente care să păcălească limba/cerul gurii.
Dacă nu se consuma produsul pe loc se poate adaugă puțin ulei deasupra, ca să formeze o peliculă ce împiedica procesele de oxidare si contactul cu bacteriile (incinta vidată e la fel de bună). Dacă stă mult, uleiul acela devine inestetic si trebuie amestecat înainte de servire. Cam într-o săptămână fermentează, nu exageraţi!

Rameau: Pièces de clavecin en concert N° 5