Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Immortal Beloved Letter

I have always been a fan of designhotels.com. That's how I discovered Marcel Wanders, one of the most prolific and celebrated international designers today. First I didn't know anything about him , but I was really impressed about his appearance. After so many years in the casting industry I tend to find in everyone a character. This guy could be easily a movie star.

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Following Marcel Wanders on Facebook, I found out that he is looking for Elise.

"Marcel Wanders is designing the Kameha Grand hotel in Bonn. Since Bonn is Beethoven’s birthplace, the hotel will have an exclusive Beethoven suite. The suite is designed especially Für Elise, Beethoven’s most famous music piece so all the walls in this suite are dedicated to Elise, his secret muse.

Do YOU know Beethoven’s Elise? Are YOU her? Send us your picture! The selected portraits will be framed and used to decorate the walls. Marcel Wanders is looking for as many different faces of Elise as possible to add to the melody of the suite and be its muse.

Please send us your portrait in high resolution to elise@marcelwanders.com. The hotel will open in November 2009, so we need your picture asap!
Thank you, we will let you know if your portrait was selected."

August 2009

Now the hotel is open and Bethoveen suite is ready to share with its guests the love and the mystery of Bethoveen's muse.

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Now, writing this post, I realize that the iconical image of Elise is portrayed by this absolutely fantastical photography of Zena Holloway. Since I am fascinated by underwater photography, I couldn't miss her pictures. Actually I uploaded here some of her work in a post entitled CHILDREN OF THE NEW WORLD

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I was still intrigued by Bethoveen's Elise. I don't know why, maybe because I simply adore the process of creating music, the inspiration, the divine moment when love transforms itself in a harmony of sounds.

Yesterday I had a creative meeting about a project that isn't right now an inspiration for me and I tried to use, let's say, a tangential inspiration, giving examples of different campaigns that I consider to be very cinematical, mysterious and sensual (in the advertising sense ). I don't believe in sellers, I believe in conquerors. The era of selling products and services as we knew it has gone. Tell me a story and make me believe that I am part of it, don't tell me lies and sell me bullshit. LOL. This sounds like a recent tweet which I liked a lot "RT @jobsworth George Colony from 10 years ago. Be good because everything you do will be known by everyone #davossocial #wef"

Back to subject. Of course, I immediately remembered the story of Elise and the hotel suite (immediately because the place where I was it was exactly the same place where I read about Marcel Wanders and Fur Elise competition and our discussion and this fact were somehow related ). Laszlo, my colleague, told me that he may know who was Elise. I laughed because I thought it was a joke. In fact here starts a fantastical connection. Laszlo's family name is Forray. Forray was an old nobiliar family who owned Savarsin castle from Transylvania, Romania.

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Savarsin is nowadays famous especially for the Royal House castle. Its history dates back to a long time ago. First, there was a hunting area and the location was a hunting manor, built in 1650. Brunswick family receives the domain as a donation from the Emperor of Vienna. Around 1800, Franz Brunswick's daughter,Iulia, married Count Andrei Forray and the castle belonged to the Forray family until sometime in the XIXth century.

Franz Brunswick had another daughter, Tereza Brunswick, and a very good friend: Ludwig van Beethoven. The german composer came at Savarsin and fell in love with Tereza.
The story appears in the Savarsin village monograph including the fact that the famous composer dedicated a sonata to his beloved Tereza.

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"Tereza Brunswick remained in legend as the great composer Beethoven's immortal beloved. In 1807, the German composer was in Savarsin, being in great intimacy with the Brunswick family. Cape of family, Franz Brunswick, was named dear friend and brother by the composer and Beethoven dedicated him a sonata, Apassionata. Later, he dedicated to Teresa Sonata 78, "writes Joseph Dohangie Cojan in" Monograph of Savarsin village".

It is likely that during the 1806-1809 period a close friendship developed between the composer and Therese (Tereza) Brunswick. To this very day, the exact nature of their relationship is uncertain. However it’s certain that this remarkable woman was devoted to Beethoven her whole life and for a while she even responded to his passionate feelings. Apparently, love was not to bring Beethoven long lasting happiness.

It is not certain who "Elise" was. Some scholars have suggested she was Beethoven's fifth mistress, while others have suggested that the discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, may have transcribed the title incorrectly and the original work may have been named "Für Therese".

It said that Tereza Brunswick is burried at the Catholic Church from Savarsin and she is one of the most important and with the greatest potential of all the women who were ever the object of Beethoven’s affection.

Maybe she was Elise, but for sure she was the Immortal Beloved.

In the summer of 1812, advised by his physician, Beethoven goes to the Czech resort, Teplitz. Even though the summer spent here didn’t have any positive influences on his state of health, it was very fruitful in memorable and interesting encounters. One of those encounters was the one between Beethoven and German poet Johann von Goethe. But the summer of 1812 is also important because it was the time when Beethoven wrote a set of mysterious letters that created numerous commentaries and assumptions among Beethoven scholars. The letters are known as “The Immortal Beloved Letters”

This letter was found the day after Beethoven’s death in the secret compartment of an old drawer, together with a picture of Tereza Brunswick, as well as other documents and valuables. The letter was either sent to the addressee and was later returned, or it was never sent altogether.

The letter may have been addressed to Tereza Brunswick. This woman undoubtedly played a positive role in Beethoven’s life. They were linked through a yearlong friendship and affection for each other. In order to understand why the 42-year-old composer wrote his 37-year-old friend such a letter, one must restore the entire process of their reciprocal relations.

Romain Rolland, who became acquainted with Tereza’s intimate diaries, cautiously concludes: " The assumptions about the immortal lover do not seem incompatible with what I have learned of the circumstances of that time." Besides this, Romain Rolland admits that there are a great number of bizarre coincidences, which may point towards Tereza as the immortal lover.

Bizarre coincidences ? No. I can say meaningful ones. We are in the age of synchronicity.

"Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.
The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect." Wiki


What can I say ? I am happy and excited. This story will lead me somewhere ...

Until my next episode I will kindly ask you to read Beethoven's Immortal Beloved Letters and listen his music. Maybe one day you will receive a message.

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I will end with my thanks to Residence Hotels, a wonderful place in Bucharest where the magic happens.

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The Immortal Beloved Letter

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July 6, in the morning
My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -
Your faithful LUDWIG

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Evening, Monday, July 6
You are suffering, my dearest creature - only now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays to Thursdays - the only days on which the mail-coach goes from here to K. - You are suffering - Ah, wherever I am, there you are also - I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!! thus!!! without you - pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither - which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it - Humility of man towards man - it pains me - and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He - whom we call the greatest - and yet - herein lies the divine in man - I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me - I love you more - But do not ever conceal yourself from me - good night - As I am taking the baths I must go to bed - Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?

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Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I nedd a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a clam consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

2010

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designer Albert Exergian

He is fantastic. This his blog http://exergian.tumblr.com/ and this is his work http://www.exergian.com/

Friday, January 29, 2010

The powers of 10

In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames made a nine-minute film called Powers of Ten that still has the capacity to expand the way we think and view our world. Over ten million people have seen the film, and it continues to be shown in classrooms, business meetings, festivals and retreats around the world. Starting with a sleeping man at a picnic, the film takes the viewer on a journey out to the edge of space and then back into a carbon atom in the hand of the man at the picnic, all in a single shot. It is an unforgettable experience.





Making life decisions with the power of ten

During the split second when you hit the snooze button in the morning, a couple of competing thoughts may flit through your mind: first, it would be a good idea to get up now and push on with the day; second, to hell with it, I'm going to sleep for a few more minutes.

Buried in that larger decision are all kinds of micro-decisions that dictate the kind of person you are.

Are you the sort who can haul yourself off for a run each morning? Or someone who has been putting off a fitness routine for years?

Are you the kind who biffs out a novel for a couple of hours each morning, or one who just talks and hopes that eventually the time will magically open up to pursue a creative endeavour? Do you accept that extra glass of wine so as to enjoy the moment, or refuse it because it will impair your mind tomorrow morning?

The extent to which an individual moderates short-term pleasures in favour of long-term health and prosperity is the subject of a new book by Suzy Welch, a business writer married to Jack Welch, former chief executive of General Electric.

The title of her book, 10-10-10, refers to the framework by which Welch suggests we make decisions.

As you decide, consider what the consequences will be in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years. Hitting the snooze button and skipping the run may be good for the next 10 minutes, but not in 10 years as your health declines.

Spending time with your children may come second to work for now but how will you feel in 10 years' time? Might you want that time back?
Read more : http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23688586-making-life-decisions-with-the-power-of-ten.do

From Making life decisions with the power of ten by Philip Delves Broughton

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ May 2009

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

DREAM BALL

From flemingdesign.com:
In poor, often war-torn countries, many kids can’t afford a soccer ball - and use plastic bags, coconuts, and rags to fashion their own sports equipment. Seoul design studio UnPlug Design has come up with an idea that gives more children in the Third World - countries like Tanzania, Rwanda, Somalia, and the Congo - the opportunity to play soccer and other games by creating balls the children themselves can assemble from relief and aid packages provided by organizations like the UN and Red Cross. By taking the paper or cardboard from an aid box and following the patterns on it kids can make their own soccer ball, handball, or baseball. These Dream Balls give kids a chance to play and, in the process, hope for a better life.

Via FutureBlog/Design Hotels http://futureblog.designhotels.com/
via LovelyPackage http://lovelypackage.com/dream-ball/

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Photo and design by UnPlug Design

Latest Creation at 10am Pacific Time

10am Pacific Time on Wednesday, January 27 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Latest Creation - Apple Media Event

Probably a historical moment for the digital culture: Apple's tablet launch‎.



LIVE coverage here http://theappleblog.com/2010/01/26/live-coverage-of-apples-january-27-media-event/

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Night of the Hunter

I discovered this movie tonight. I find it wonderful. Every frame is a work of art.







The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Directed by: Charles Laughton
Starring: Robert Mitchum (at his best), Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
Music: Walter Schumann



Rev. Harry Powell: [when he notices John staring at the words "love" and "hate" tattooed across his knuckles] Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I'll show you the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warring and a-tugging, one agin t'other. Now watch 'em! Old brother left hand, left hand he's a fighting, and it looks like love's a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love's a winning! Yessirree! It's love that's won, and old left hand hate is down for the count!

Children of the new world

A complete set of energies. Perfection in existence.
These children are highly intuitive. They see all that is, and perceive all at once. They do not think within their mental structuring in linear form, but rather holographically. This type of thinking brings high intelligence. Their perceptive abilities are utilizing once dormant areas of brain matter that is coming alive with the genetic changes that are occurring at this time
These children are being misunderstood, and even considered abnormal in their behaviors. It is not so. It is that they come remembering that which you have forgotten. They have no patience for everyday smallness as it exists in your reality.

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by Zena Holloway http://www.zenaholloway.com/zena.html

Sport England launches partnership with Facebook

Hope one day this kind of project to be a good example for all the companies and institutions from all over the world ( particulary in Romania) for learning how to use the power of social networking.



Sport England and Facebook have announced a new partnership that will transform the way sports bodies engage with participants as they deliver a lasting Olympic legacy of one million people playing more sport.

It’s the first long-term collaboration between Facebook and a government or public body in the U.K. – and will use the social networking site’s unrivalled influence to bring people together around sport in the run up to London 2012.

The partnership is worth up to £20 million, with Facebook providing an in-kind investment of £5 million a year until March 2013.

Students and young people who use Facebook are the first to benefit though a pilot scheme run by British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) and six sports:

Table tennis
Squash and racketball
Badminton
Judo
Athletics
Volleyball.

The pilot has an ambitious target to get 12,000 students participating in sport in just four months. Sport England’s commercial team is already talking to a wide range of NGBs in order to expand the use of the Sport Hub.

Read more: http://www.sportengland.org.uk/about_us/our_news/facebook_launch.aspx

Photo : volleyball match by ~Karmel88

SPORT FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

I strongly believe that the power of sport can drive the social change, bringing us together for a great cause. Yesterday evening, at at Luz stadium in Lisbon, forty international football stars and over 65.000 spectators helped Haiti to hope for the future.





LISBON, Portugal—Kaka and Robert Pires were among the scorers in a charity game to raise money for victims of the Haiti earthquake.
More than two dozen current and retired international players pulled on jerseys for the annual Match against Poverty.
They also included France's Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry, and Portugal's Luis Figo. Romanian football legends Gheorghe Hagi and Gica Popescu have played again on an all-star team. The game was organized by the United Nations Development Program and Portuguese club Benfica, which hosted the game at its Stadium of Light on Monday.
Kaka and Zidane's team drew 3-3 with a selection of current and past Benfica players.
Proceeds from the game and associated activities were for relief and reconstruction efforts in Haiti. The amount raised was not immediately available.


© Copyright 2010 Associated Press/Daily Life

Monday, January 25, 2010

I LOVE CHARLIE

I love this little boy. He is my hero today. Charlie Simpson, THANK YOU !


Charlie Simpson waves during his five mile cycle ride around South Park, west London, Sunday Jan. 24, 2010.



A young British schoolboy has raised nearly 100,000 pounds ($160,000) for Haiti's relief effort. Seven-year-old Charlie Simpson was so upset by the devastating images of Haiti's deadly earthquake that he asked his mother if she could help him set up a sponsored bicycle ride around his local park in west London. Charlie originally hoped to raise 500 pounds ($800) for UNICEF's Haiti appeal with Sunday's 5-mile bike ride but his Internet page was flooded with donations. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/ Tim Ireland/PA Wire)

More about his story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245717/Haiti-earthquake-British-schoolboy-7-raises-50-000-just-day.html

Irina Lazareanu - a beauty of the decade

Thanks to Diane Pernet, I discovered today Irina Lazareanu. She was born on June 8th, 1982 in Romania. Acording with Wikipedia at age 5 Lazareanu emigrated to Canada from Romania, settling into the Montreal suburb of Saint-Hubert, Quebec with her Romanian parents. At the age of 13 she moved to London to study ballet until she was derailed by a broken knee.

At age 17 Lazareanu attended an open call and signed with Giovanni modelling agency in Montreal with the hopes that it would help pay rent. From then on she did the usual rounds of London and Paris, occasionally appearing in Barcelona, Australia and Madrid fashion weeks. It wasn't until she was chosen by acquaintance Kate Moss to model for the December/January issue of Vogue: Paris, which she guest edited that Lazareanu received notice by fashionistas. Lazareanu has since become an increasingly popular fashion model, breaking the record for most runway work in one season.

She has modeled for many top designers, including Chanel, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui, Lanvin, Versace, and many more. She is affiliated with the modeling agencies Marilyn (New York and Paris), Why Not Models (Milan), Select Model Management (London), and Giovanni (Montreal). In March 2007, Lazareanu was chosen by Kate Moss as the model for her new Topshop clothing range.

Vogue Paris has unveiled their list of who they believe are the top 30 models of the decade. Irina Lazareanu is one of the women that did more than stun us throughout the 2000’s.


She remainds me of a silent cinema star. She is a Lilian Gish of fashion.









"Charming and lovely Irina Lazareanu" with Diane Pernet. Discover more: http://www.ashadedviewonfashion.com/

Sunday, January 24, 2010

A VISION OF IDEAS. Diane Pernet

It's 4.26 AM Bucharest time and it's probably the coldest night of the year.
I am reading Diane Pernet's memories from her blog. Sometimes I cry. I am not sad, but I have a vision of her life and it's an splendid film that I would like to watch someday. It can be even a documentary because her journey is already an epic tale of love, creation and mistery. The sense of cinema makes me very sensitive; I always imagine the feelings of hundreds, thousands or milions of viewers.
I met her in Bucharest, in the first days of the last month of the decade. Her presence is magic. She has wings.

Diane on feelings, ideas and art:
" I think in terms of contemporary art, process isn't as important anymore as ideas."
" I think I never liked the really method of storytelling. I think my work still tells stories to a degree. I'm more interested in trying to convey feelings that are more layered and not so easy to define. "



A non-iconical picture of her that I like very much.
More on shaded view of fashion

Coming soon: My cinematical meeting with Diane Pernet

"Later",

Andreea

Haiti and Love Evolution

The world's incredible outpouring of help to thhe people of Haiti raises the queestion: are we evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive? A research team at the University of California, Berkeley, says "yes."
(via @Wildcat2030 on Twitter )

Read more http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/01/the-haiti-response-is-the-human-species-hardwired-to-be-compassionate-a-weekend-feature.html

Jim Carrey on the Power of Intention

"There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that once, unleashed, can make any vision, dream or desire a reality." -Anthony Robbins
The driving force is the human emotion, wonderfully translated by Jim Carrey in the Power of Intention. Everything is possible, it's just a matter of time.



“Andrea.”
“Are you aware that—do you have the distinct, palpable feeling that your intention helped create this evening?”
“Absolutely,” she replied promptly.
“Do you understand that all of this, this entire event, is happening inside you?”
A pause, then an uncertain, “Ye-e-e-s.” The audience laughed.
“I hope you can feel that,” Carrey said. “I hope you can understand that you are one of the creators of this evening. … And then I hope you are able to ask yourself—“Why did I get such a crappy seat?”

:D :D



PS I dreamed Jim Carrey few months ago. No joke :))