FIRST SNOW

Yes indeed, first snow of the season has fallen today in Paris. Nothing much to celebrate as it has already metled and made the area even muddier. Otherwise, I'd say France was celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau last Thursday - the arrival of the youngest wine released to the market, has been put into fermentation just few weeks before bottling and releasing. It's more of a marketing thing than the taste actually. Yet I was wondering, why almost everyone is more happy this Thursday than usual.. Here comes the answer :) Last week I have been to this outstandingly boring show of modern dance in Paris' famous Centre Pompidou. Deborah Hay, this american choreographer by her show If I Sing To You managed to bore the audience to core. I haven't seen as much people leaving the theatre during the show ever, as much as this time. On top of that, a crowd started applausing before the spectacle was finished, to encourage the actors to leave the stage. A horrible sequence of weird moves, accompanied by some wild animal-like screams and yells from the throats of young women, acting as if copulating on Forum Romanum in the ages of paleolites. Absurd madness. Never seen anything like it - for TWO hours! I thought I'm a modern-thinker. But sorry, I guess I'm too traditional for such idiocity.
The positive thing about last week is at least the exhibition in Musee du Luxemburg (very nicely situated in the Gardens of Luxemburg) of Miró to Warhol. Quoting the exhibitions description: The seventy-four works on display in the Musée du Luxembourg correspond to five major artistic movements in the twentieth century: Surrealism (Miró, Dali, Ernst, Breton…), one of the strong points of the pre-1945 collection; abstraction from 1910 to the immediate post-war period (Mondrian, Tanguy, Arp…); Europe vs. America in the 1960s, with Nouveau Réalisme and Pop Art (Warhol, Klein, Soulages, Mitchell…) ; post-1945 plastic explorations (Riopelle, Schnabel, Stella…).

Thriving works, really well-organised exhibition, yet unfortunately just two works for each Miro and Warhol. Slight dissapointment in this matter.. but hey! - discounted entrance for 9 euros?! a bit too much?..
But then after all, what should we sponsor if not Art? :)


In the mood for: mo' horizons - yes baby yes

Oud Mood

I have just arrived today from Egypt. I have been there for the past 2 weeks.
Time spent there was amazing. I happen to notice that as much as I go there.. and come back to wherever I live now - I love the country more and more.
Even though I can see all the negatives, I can't stop being sentimental. It grabs me. I find myself attracted to it's places, people, music, food, sounds, views, venues.. Most of all, I think I just left a part of myself there. More than anyone who left this country in search of a better life.
An old friend of mine, whom I met after years of abscence last week, told me once that there is something magical about the place. Even though you hate it, or hate whatever everyday in Egypt brings along.
My Egypt lives in the lyrics and sounds of Oum Kalthoums songs, Abdel Halim Hafez, Abdel Wahab, Farid Al Atrache and now I learnt to appreciate also Asmahan after listening to her for the 10th time :) - the sound of oud and tabla, the old black and white movies, the new ones done with dedication to matters that concern modern life in Egypt with all it's political, enocomical, religious and social problems.
I love the silence in the desert, the sound of the sea, the shadow of the million palms on hot summer days, the crowded Cairo and always late Egyptians..
I hope someday Egypt will love me back.

Something for my 'Oud Mood' :)
why?
tell you why.
Thanks to Waleed, yesterday night I became a happy holder of this magical instrument - The Oud.

Enjoy Said Chraibi, even though he's not Egyptian :P - yet a master piece.