Warheads or tractors When a country is in harmony with the Tao, the factories make trucks and tractors. When a country goes counter to the Tao, warheads are stockpiled outside the cities. There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever…
The lady with a mask. Post COVID, Louvre, Paris. Background: “La belle Ferronière”, Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490. “Encomendación”. The museum translation was ‘entrust’, I would rather say ‘mandate’. Artist: Inti, born in Chile in 1982. Inti is a great street artist who is now featured by museums such as the Petit-Palais. That painting is…
I had a house in Africa. Conakry, Guinea, West Africa, c.1962 “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.” Hong-Kong, 1956. (I wasn’t there but I was told.) “Local Fashion”. Montreal, 2023. The ad shows a proud model wearing Canadian fashion in the 60’s. I remember my mother wearing stuff like that when we lived in Holland.…
The great Way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths. Be aware when things are out of balance. Stay centered within the Tao. When rich speculators prosper while farmers lose their land; When government officials spend money on weapons instead of cures; When the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible while the poor have…
Memoir / Non-fiction / Travel
An African childhood movie I had an island in Africa. Well, not exactly ‘had’, but close. We lived in West Africa, where my father was the Air France country manager in Conakry, Guinea. There was a group of three islands called the islands of Los, half an hour away from the harbour. My parents were…
“Well, it’s one for the money “Two for the show “Three to get ready, “Now go, cat, go” “How do I look?” “You always look great, sir.” “I know, I know, I always look great. That’s my trademark. I AM great. Is there anything new that you notice?” (He’s put on a new face cream.…
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Paris blue. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vienna. Ile Saint-Louis, Paris. There stood the house of Heloïse and Abélard in 1118. A story of love and passion in the Middle Ages… “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan.” At the Béguinage in Kortrijk, Belgium. An old convent founded in Flanders in 1238. The houses were built in the…
Frida Kahlo. Self-portrait, 1942. MALBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina. (That is a very good museum.) Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, by Quentin de la Tour, Le Louvre Paris. D’Alembert (1717-1783) was a mathematician and philosopher who, with Diderot, edited the Encyclopédie, promoting science and rationality, not easy under the absolute monarchy of Louis XV. “Modernity”, by Ernesto…
Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them. Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint. Peace is his highest value. If the peace has been shattered, how can he be content?…
Shotgun 2 Iguana on the freeway around Cuernavaca, Mexico. Second in a series of shotgun art I took in January. The horse whisperer. The hands hold corn, the staple of many Precolumbian cultures… A Chinelo dancer profile. (See previous post) The dance of the jaguars is another popular traditional dance. ‘Musing’. Another good example of…
We have ‘been’ to Borobudur in Indonesia in a previous post. Built around 800AD, it is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. Originally home to 500 Buddha statues. It also features close to 1500 bas-reliefs as above, representing scenes of every day life and the life of Buddha. This dragon-like head is a water…
Previously: we’ve analysed two antagonistic attitudes, 1. ‘For me to be right, you have to be wrong’ and 2. ‘For me to succeed, you have to fail’. We now look at a third antagonistic attitude: Part 3. ‘For me to live, you have to die.‘ That is a third variant. It works as the ultimate…
Part 2. For me to succeed, you have to fail. For one’s success to depend on the other’s failure is a variant of ‘for me to be right you have to be wrong’. (See Part 1.) It is often classified as a zero-sum conception. In games theory, a zero-sum game means that whatever one gains,…
Part 1. ‘For me to be right, you have to be wrong.’ A few years ago, long before the current mess, a blogger friend of mine told me we had entered an era of antagonistic attitudes. By that she meant that most people now only considered their own -exclusive- position, and refused to even entertain…
Equinoxio 