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Juno with peacock hairpin, property of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collection

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Ciao Monica. It is selfish to still want you here.

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"I want to speak sincerely now, even if I get carried away, since the respect I think he has for me may be less in reality -- but I don't think so.

I think I can speak freely of this friendship that binds me to Fellini. It was an extremely important encounter for me, because never in my life had I met anyone or had a friend with whom I could talk freely. I'd never bared my soul to anyone. With Fellini it was like talking to a confessor. He'd come up with the right answer and the right advice for everything. And he helped me come to know myself, which is the crucial point. If I can forget for a moment that I'm an actor, meeting Fellini was far more important for me as a man than an actor. Because he helped me come to know myself as a man. I was very confused inside, and he helped -- he helped me understand that the mistakes I had made and continued to make, my mess-ups, my complicated ties, my lovers, my mental inertia, my melancholy, the fact I was still dealing with certain issues from childhood -- that all these things were completely normal. Up until that time I'd considered them serious and insurmountable problems. I couldn't deal with them or see that they were all very normal parts of being a man. He helped me understand all this like a sorcerer, like a confessor.

From that point on -- when I made 'La Dolce Vita,' I suddenly grew up ten years. I accepted certain situations I was in... and found the guts to deal with them. I'd never done that before. I'd never dared. I was much more of a hypocrite before. I lacked the courage of my actions. It was the atmosphere around 'La Dolce Vita' and Fellini's presence and friendship... that jolted me into action. I think it's very important. It's so rare. When do you ever meet someone like that in your professional life? It's very unlikely."

- Marcello Mastroianni in 1963 on his friendship with Federico Fellini. The two remained dearly close for the rest of their lives.

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The trees you planted in childhood have grown too heavy. You cannot bring them along.  Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Part One IV,” from Sonnets to Orpheus  (via willowingsleep)

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Ich war im November in Marokko und hatte die Chance, eine Safran-Farm zu besuchen. Vielen ist #Safran als eines der teuersten #Gewürze der Welt bekannt. Nur im Herbst zeigen die krokusartigen Blüten ihre volle Pracht und die Safranfäden können geerntet werden. Nach dem #Iran war Marokko lange das größte Anbaugebiet des Luxusgewürzes.……mehr unter: http://welt-sehenerleben.de/Archive/4143/marokko-atlasgebirge/

#Marokko #Reisen #Urlaub  

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Tomb of Xerxes I, Fars province, Iran

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“Behind the besieged walls of Troy, Helen tore her hair and cursed her beauty. Men would blame her for the war today, and the day after, and for centuries to come. But is beauty really so terrible, so destructive, that it could be the catalyst of a long, bloody war, metaphorically or otherwise? And even if it is, why is Helen responsible for the choices made by all the men around her? Women are often unjustly made responsible for the thoughts and subsequent actions of men. For example, in the United States, many people are familiar with school dress codes that are discriminatory against female students. School aged girls are told to cover their bodies in order to not distract school aged boys, who do not have the same rules applied to them. Forcing girls to cover up in order to keep boys’ thoughts pure purposefully teaches girls from an early age that they are responsible for the thoughts and actions of men, and that their beauty and bodies make men unable to control themselves. This is particularly heinous because when women are made victims. The backwards logic is used to victim blame, because if women are responsible for actions committed by men, supposedly, then they must be responsible for bringing those negative actions upon themselves. I would argue that men are not animals. I have known men to be intelligent, empathetic, and kind, certainly able to control themselves, and able to understand that they should never hurt other people. But time and time again, women are told that they will always be at fault, that men simply cannot control themselves, that the way women look causes men to act vulgar or violent. It is insulting to men, who are capable human beings, and incredibly damaging to women, who are scrutinized and not believed or taken seriously when they need support the most. They will say Helen’s beauty caused the Trojan war. They will call her “the face that launched a thousand ships.” But let us drop the veil of misogyny. A woman’s face, just by being beautiful, does not launch ships. The desire that a man has for a beautiful woman does not launch ships either. Neither Helen nor her beauty incited war. Indignant men, insulted by Trojans, with a thirst for conquering rich kingdoms, used Helen as an excuse to spill blood. […] They would have you believe that beauty is a curse that, if you’re not careful and submissive, could bring about a fate as terrible as a decade of war. Do not buy what they’re selling. Men are capable and fully in control of themselves, and women are responsible for neither the thoughts nor actions of men. We never have been.”

— Sara Long, Reparations to Helen: On Beauty, War, and Personal Responsibility

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“My heart is the Kurd’s ember over his blue mountains...”

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Traditional Albanian clothing from Zadrima.

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“Because the bird flew before there was a word for flight, there will one day be a word for what you and I do.”

—

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

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January in Tokyo

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Lady's Thumb - Margot Glass , 2020.

American, b. 1965 -

14 karat gold on blue ground, 12 x 9 in., framed: 14 x 11 in.

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maurice ronet et alain delon plein soleil (purple noon) dir: rené clément

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“Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.”

— Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy

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Jascha Heifetz rehearsing with Arturo Toscanini, ca. 1950.

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Flower fades to make fruit. Fruit rots to make earth.

—Robinson Jeffers, in “Shine,” Penguin Anthology: Twentieth-Century American Poetry