Dandelion

Credit Photo: catmadoqma (Flickr)

Cork

When you first arrive in a new city, nothing makes sense. Everything is unknown, virgin... After you've lived here, walked these streets, you'll know them inside out. You'll know these people. Once you've lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times... it belongs to you because you've lived there. Corcaigh. This thing that sounds weird was added to the long list of old weird names that we have somewhere in our brain.

Telectroscope London-New-York

The telectroscope was the first prototype television system. The term was also used in the 19th century to describe imaginary systems of distant seeing. Most recently, the term has been used for the name of a piece of installation art with a visual link between London and New York City constructed by Paul St George in May 2008. In May-June 2008, artist Paul St George is exhibiting outdoor interactive video installations linking London and New York City in a fanciful simulated "telectroscope".


According to the artist's invented back story, the device works using a transatlantic tunnel started by his great-grandfather, Alexander Stanhope St. George.

Source: Wikipedia

FOUND Magazine

Found Magazine was created by Davy Rothbart and Jason Bitner. It's actually a collection of found notes, photos, and other interesting items, publishing them in an irregularly-issued magazine, in books, and on its Web site. Items found and published have ranged from love letters to homework assignments, and they are contributed by people who find them in a variety of places such as city streets, bus seats, inside school desks, and so on. I really like FOUND, because it's kind of 'alive', like pieces of puzzles, but we only see one piece of each puzzle. You can feel love, fears, tears, anger and so on.

I wish, I were cool


Found by Tyra Melai in Los Angeles, California
'I found this little doodle tucked between Beatles CDs at Amoeba Music on Sunset and Vine and started cracking up!'

I have an idea...


Found by Jeremy Solterbeck in San Francisco, California
'I was walking along Pier 40 behind SBC Park and this was lying on the sidewalk. I like how it's cryptic, and that he is saving the surprise for the phone call.' What kind of idea ?? I am still wondering.

Talk to her !!


Found by Miguel H. Gonzalez in Oak Park, Illinois
'I found this on top of a blue newspaper recycling bin on the CTA Blue Line El stop at Oak Park Avenue. It was a few days before Christmas.' It's so simple. It's like a message from above, from your angel. Actually, I need to talk to her as well.

No parking

Credit Photos: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Little sad clown

Blue eyed cat

Credit Photo: Robinpapa

Saturday morning thought

Like a dust being, a light being, we, humans appear so mysterious and in a way meaningless compared to the Universe. Who are we? What are we doing here? Why ? There are so many questions with no answers… Basically, we don’t know much about our world, about ourselves. The recipe of our life can not only sum up to a highly organized world of molecules. Matter, molecules are only the tip of the iceberg. The hidden part is so much more complex and important. We are more than just a chemical cathedral! Life is not just eating, drinking, sleeping and working. Among many texts about human conditions, I like the way some philosophers describe human beings as light beings, perfect reflection of what we are. Each one is unique, due to his weaknesses, his strengths, his fears, his hopes. But, we have to be aware of one thing. If we are on Earth, there must be a reason. A person can move mountains, improve our society. So, if you can contribute to our world, then just do it… even if your contributions may appear tiny and trivial.

What have you achieved in your life so far?
Probably, not enough…

Don’t be afraid to express yourself, your thoughts, to show your talent, to start new projects. Be ambitious. You are not born by accident. Everything has a meaning. Everything. That will be such a waste to realize you could have done better for yourself and the others. Ignore people criticizing you and your projects. Forget them, ignore them. These people are the ones that have NOT the courage and the motivation to live their dreams. Just try and improvise. We only live once. Don’t waste that chance. Please do, accomplish something even tiny. But, for God’s sake, leave a mark of your stay on our beautiful Earth !!!
François
PS: Sorry for the present post and my English... my brain is very slow this morning.

Credit Photos: imopen (Flickr)

Light writing

Credit Photo: kaalam (Flickr)
You can find some wonderful pictures and paintings from Kaalam on his website:
www.kaalam.com.

Sea and sky

Credit Photo: setev (Flickr)

Sunset in a water drop

Credit Photos: black_z (Flickr)

Passage Pommeraye in Nantes

The Passage Pommeraye is a shopping mall in central Nantes, France, named after its property developer, Louis Pommeraye. Construction started at the end of 1840 and was completed on 4 July 1843. The Passage Pommeraye is a passage between two streets, the rue Santeuil and rue de la Fosse, with one 9.40 m higher than the other. Midway, there is a flight of steps and the mall then continues on another floor. Two architects, Jean-Baptiste Buron and Hippolyte Durand Gasselin, contributed to its design, which is very elaborate and includes renaissance style sculptures. The Passage Pommeraye has been classified as a historic monument since 1976.





It's one of my favorite shopping place in Nantes.

Credit Photos: guillaume.lejeune, chloe_flickr (Flickr)

Sunbeams and clouds

Credit Photos: Krystian (Flickr)

Special day for a special person...

Happy Birthday, Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Bon Anniversaire sister !!!!

Hyde Park - London

Credit: J.A. Hampton

Somewhere over the rainbow

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true


Credit Photos: nicolas_valentin (Flickr)

Bavarian Alps

Ettal (south of Bavaria). Nice little village with gorgeous beer gardens...



Kochel (south of Bavaria). Typical B&B.



Location: next to Kochel See and , ~60 km in the South of Munich (Germany). I took this picture last September.
Credit Photos: Wiki, me

Bar Rouge - Basel, Switzerland

A universe of senses. On the very top, in Switzerland's highest building, close to heaven. Bar with lounge, boudoir and separé. A place of art, culture and cult.

Credit Photos: me, barrouge.ch

Imagine...

Le Pont Des Arts

If there is a bridge to see in Paris, that's definitely the Pont Des Arts (Bridge of Arts).

The Pont des Arts or Passerelle des Arts is a pedestrian bridge in Paris which crosses the Seine River. It links the Institut de France and the central square (cour carrée) of the palais du Louvre, (which had been termed the "Palais des Arts" under the First French Empire).



Pont Des Arts with the Palais du Louvre in the background.



A typical summer afternoon in the Ponts Des Arts. Lot of people, music bands, lovers, tourists, people enjoying the weather, drinking wine, chatting... It's usually a nice place to chill out. Actually, my favorite place for lunch in Paris !!



Pont Des Arts by night. The Institute of France is in the background.

Art historian Kenneth Clark is credited with writing about the Ponts des Arts in his book Civilisation:

"I am standing on the Pont des Arts in Paris. On the one side of the Seine is the harmonious, reasonable facade of the Institute of France, built as a college in about 1670. On the other bank is the Louvre, built continuously from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century: classical architecture at its most splendid and assured. Just visible upstream is the Cathedral of Notre Dame --not perhaps the most lovable of cathedrals, but the most rigorously intellectual façade in the whole of Gothic art. [...]

What is civilisation? I do not know. I can't define it in abstract terms --yet. But I think I can recognise it when I see it: and I am looking at it now."

Kenneth Clark, Civilisation (1969).



Credit Photos: Olivier G (Flickr), Wordpress, Wikipedia, me

Île d'Arz - Brittany

Île d'Arz is an island (in Breton: An Arzh, the Bear) in the département of Morbihan, in Brittany, France. It is located in the Gulf of Morbihan.
I took these pictures three years ago.

Stairway to Heaven

There’s a lady who’s sure
All that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.

There’s a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
’cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
There’s a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

There’s a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it’s whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow
Don’t be alarmed now,
It’s just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it won’t go
In case you don’t know,
The piper’s calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow,
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How ev’rything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.

- Led Zeppelin -

Credit: jahdakine - clicky'z (Flickr)

I have a Dream

'I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."


I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.


I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!'

Martin Luther King

Credit Photo: itzme.... (Flickr member)

Collioure

Collioure is a seaside Mediterranean town and commune a few kilometers north of the Spanish border in the French département of Pyrénées-Orientales, a part of the ancient Roussillon province. My favorite town in South of France !
Credit Photo: me (Flickr member: francois82)

Imagine, the wall of peace and freedom

The Lennon Wall was an ordinary historic wall in Prague, but since the 1980s, people have filled it with John Lennon-inspired graffiti and pieces of lyrics from Beatles songs.
In 1988 the wall was a source of irritation for the then communist regime of Gustav Husak. Young Czechs would write grievances on the wall and in a report of the time this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge. The movement these students followed was described ironically as Lennonism and Czech authorities described these people variously as alcoholics, mentally deranged, sociopathic, and agents of Western capitalism.
The wall continuously undergoes change and the original portrait of Lennon is long lost under layers of new paints. Even when the wall was re-painted by some authorities, on the second day it was again full of poems and flowers. Today, the wall represents a symbol of youth ideals such as love and peace.

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

John Lennon


Credit Photo: lucy_vis and hermeti (FlickR)

Thank you Mr. Prevert

Notre Père qui êtes au cieux
Restez-y
Et nous nous resterons sur la terre
Qui est quelquefois si jolie
Avec ses mystères de New York
Et puis ses mystères de Paris
Qui valent bien celui de la Trinité
Avec son petit canal de l'Ourcq
Sa grande muraille de Chine
Sa rivière de Morlaix
Ses bêtises de Cambrai
Avec son océan Pacifique
Et ses deux bassins aux Tuileries
Avec ses bons enfants et ses mauvais sujets
Avec toutes les merveilles du monde
Qui sont là
Simplement sur la terre
Offertes à tout le monde
Eparpillées
Emerveillées elles-mêmes d'être de telles merveilles
Et qui n'osent se l'avouer
Comme une jolie fille nue qui n'ose se montrer
Avec les épouvantables malheurs du monde
Qui sont légion
Avec leurs légionnaires
Avec leurs tortionnaires
Avec les maîtres de ce monde
Les maîtres avec leurs prêtres leurs traîtres et leurs reîtres
Avec les saisons
Avec les années
Avec les jolies filles et avec les vieux cons
Avec la paille de la misère pourrissant dans l'acier des canons.


Jacques Prévert

Translation in English by Gilles de Sèze

Our Father who is in Heaven
Stay where you are
We, we will stay on earth
Sometimes so beautiful
With its mysteries of New York
And besides, its mysteries of Paris
Well worth those of the Trinity
With its little Ourcq canal
Its Great Wall of China
Its River of Morlaix
Its mint humbugs from Cambrai
With its Pacific ocean
And its two basins in the Tuileries' Garden
With its good children and its bad chaps
With all the Wonders in the world
Which are over there
Simply on earth
Offered to everybody
Dissipated
Marvelling at being such wonders
Without daring to avow themselves
Like a fair dreadful naked girl shy of showing herself.
With the dreadful hardship of the world
They are legion
With their legionnaires
With their torturers
With the masters of this world
The masters with their priests their traitors their ruffianlies
With its seasons
With passing years
With beautiful girls and old bloody bastards
With the straw of poverty languishing in the steel of guns.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

A great song mosaic...


Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she’s gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmellow pies,
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That grow so incredibly high.
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you’re gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties,
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstyle,
The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

Credit Photo: Jahdakine (Flickr member)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jahdakinebrah/102285035/

Sunflower

How many flowers can you see ? One ? Two ? More?
Credit Photo: cobalt123 (Flickr member)

Free hugs in Toronto

Credit Photo: Moonwire (Flickr member)

Home Sweet Home

Clisson (Breton: Klison), is a town in western France, in the département of Loire-Atlantique (Brittany), situated at the confluence of the Sèvre Nantaise and the Moine 17 miles south-east of Nantes (reachable by rail). Pop. (2001) 6,102.

The town and the celebrated family of Clisson, the most famous member of which was Olivier IV de Clisson, take their name from their stronghold. Clisson has its imposing ruins, parts of which date from the 13th century. The town and castle were destroyed in 1792 and 1793 during the Revolt in the Vendée. Credit Photo: my dad

Ein neuer Tag - A new day

weißt du eigentlich was du bist für mich?
alles andre als normal
und jederzeit loyal, royal
du bist mein fundament
keine die mich so gut kennt
keine die mich sieht wie du
old Shatterhand ich winnetou

immer werden wir so bleiben
jung und frei, schön wir beide
stehen auf der guten seite
jahr für jahr
immer werden wir so bleiben
lachen über schlechte zeiten
deine schmerzen sind auch meine
jahr für jahr

weißt du eigentlich
was du tust für mich
wenn du meine lasten trägst
und dich mit meinen feinden schlägst
ich vertraue dir mehr als mir
und ich liebe dich dafür
dass du bist wie du isst,
dass du niemals vergisst
was das wichtige ist
wir beide

immer werden wir so bleiben
jung und frei, schön wir beide
stehen auf der guten seite
jahr für jahr
immer werden wir so bleiben
lachen über schlechte zeiten
deine schmerzen sind auch meine
jahr für jahr

By Juli, Ein neuer Tag

Quote

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one!

-C.S. Lewis

Cats and shade

I wish to be one of these cats, enjoying the weather!! The cat in the middle is the only one standing... probably the Godfather! Credit Photo: Tjflex2 (FlickR member)

On my way to the lab this morning...

My morning walk before going to the lab: green, quiet, birds, river, trees, nature.

Make Art Not War !

Spencer Tunick organized a large scale nude photo shoot in Austria (Vienna) on 12th May, with about 1,800 stripping down and posing for him. The next Spencer’s shoot will take place in Ireland (June 17th in Cork). Credit: AFP Photo

Street Corner Poet

This beautiful shot was taken by Glynnish. You should have a look. She did some incredible shots. Credit Photo: Glynnish, FlickR member