Unveiling Strong Women

I’m surrounded by so many strong women in my life. I have fighters of life, warriors, bright writers, beautiful females that deserve an ovation bend. They have so much to give! My mother is one of them, I’ve never seen someone battling with such grace and smile on her sweating face.

Melissa and I went to a film mystére session at a film theater in Berlin. We have entered the big, dark room, it was full of crowds, no one knew which film we would watch, the whole audience was wondering in their whispers, two friends sitting behind us, one of them commented in German in which my sister translated “I think this movie will be a shitty one” the other acknowledged it with a “hum..”

After commercials the screen finally revealed a man reading in his office, he was on his 60’s, a woman was there with him, the woman that would be soon the caretaker of his wife. They were talking and suddenly his wife comes drunken and smoking, stumbling over the furniture interrupting the meeting. When I saw Meryl Streep I knew it was August: Osage County (2013) by John Wells. The film was even better that I had imagined. The story of a family of mostly women battling for life in the most ungrateful conditions. There are stories that connect itself with others, secrets that are carried with such bitterness yet in prol of love and for the sake of the beloved ones. The character of Meryl  - Violet is brutal! A woman that bears regrets in her heart and a sour-bitter-tongue, a mother of three daughters that carries the weight of her husband suicide and her health fragility, hiding dark secrets. I could only think “How could this woman bear so much? How could she take it that long? How can someone take, acknowledge and hide from everyone the fact that your husband impregnated your fatty sister with a boy that happens to be madly in love with your 30 something year-old daughter? Oh and that she’s as well in love with him! Let’s not forget!”

The dramas dèroulent until an explosion. Julia Robers character – Barbara is also an iron lady, she is not afraid to speak up and shout at her mother Violet, and stop her cruel word attacks to the rest of her family, she’s not even scared to call her bitch to stop her of telling a secret she kept for years to her daughter Ivy who’s the one that is in love with her own brother without knowing. She has balls! : I thought!

These women get so fucked up in order to maintain the conventional functionality. Wow bravo!

It was great to see these women, all in their own way to fight back through life's upcoming tough situations like marriage, children, teenage-hood, family's importance, careers, grief and sorrow etc.

Another great character on the big screen is Gloria played by Paulina Garcia from Gloria (2012) by Sebastian Leilo. A mid 50’s year-old women independent, she has raised her kids with good traits and character, she has a solid career that maintains her busy, she goes to Yoga and exists. One night she finds herself all alone in her living room, she’s divorced so she doesn’t have anyone to comfort her loneliness. What to do? She dresses up and goes to a dancing club for seniors to dance. She is flirty, sexy, humorous, and a beautiful creature. There she is radiant dancing with men. Who were the ones who told that life finishes before 50 (I’ve heard from youngsters)? Or that you must lead a quiet and respectful life, have settled down with someone years ago, taking care of your children, watching Tv or gardening to spend the time…. For Gloria No! She goes dancing in clubs, she has one night stands with strangers at some beach in Chile, she smokes pot to relieve tension, she falls in love with a man, she lives a new romance, her heart gets broken and she rises for revenge with style.

She lives, she screams, she cries, she makes love passionément, she gets lost, she finds herself, she makes discoveries, she learns, she still learns a lot from life. She’s human.

I loved her because of her wild spirit, not because she is an old woman who turned to be a badass, but because she is a full woman with such a young spirit, a fresh soul that desires to live, she doesn’t give up of life just because she isn’t 20 anymore. She will always dance with such fervor and devour life no matter her age. She’s awesome!

Women keep being bright, soulful, passionate, beautiful, inspiring, rebellious and fighters of life!

Publicação de Patricia Sall Lam Toro.

The Revolution of the African Print

There has been for a while in the fashion industry, the intro of the African Print. It came ravaging and vibrant, screaming colors all over and it has even hit Haute Couture like a revolution! 

When I look to all these kinds of designs I get goose-bumps, they are so colorfully dramatic and electric that I can feel it on my skin! From South Africa to North Africa, Central, East and West, the whole Africa is in motion, it is great to see this kind of movement in the fashion Industry, innovative and creative fashion art. Plus, Spring and Summer are coming soon, I’ll definitely try something like these!

It gives me the impression that the African print is all about “African feel with global appeal” as designer Bongiwe Walaza says. 

Ethical and sustainable fashion is “á la mode”, one can find a variety of organic and hand craft clothing and accessories in new labels like ETHIKA, Loza Máleombho, MIA, MODAHINK, DELLA that recently had a colaboration with VANS. 

Designers & labels such as Adama Paris, Taibo Bacar, Gavin Rajah, Stefania Morland, David Tlale, Khothatso Tsotetsi, Tart, Karp, Angie Masike, Lazuli, Khosi Nkosi, Grapevine, Shana, Thula Sindi, RUALD RHEEDER, Danielle Margaux, and so many more are conqueering the world with their amazing designs.

There is even acessories and small pieces of furniture where the african print stands

The African Print has already attacked all the fashion capitals within fashion weeks in London, Berlin, Paris, Milano, New York, Tokyo etc, it came to stay! It is flourishing and developping widely in the world and we can't wait to see it around!

Fluxus - To Flow

Fluxus “Anti-art is life, is nature, is truly reality – it is one and all.”

I’ve always had a special endearment for Underground movements and recently I’ve found out one, or let’s say I got to know it more profoundly. Fluxus is one of these revolutionary and avant-garde ones.

I had a glimpse on live, just in front of my eyes when I went to Paris in the last Fall. I was walking through the old streets of old Paris with my Ukrainian rocker friend and I’ve just remembered that in that same street there was a Maison d’artistes, it is a building with several apartments that were transformed into open ateliers which artists from all kinds work or even live in there, it is such an interesting place, I told to one of them “I wish I could live here”.

Yoko Ono The Cuting piece

 At the second floor we walked in one of the ateliers, we were looking around there was every sort of objects, paitings, artistic pieces, even ordinary objects from quotidian like pans, cutlery etc, there was other wondered guests like ourselves, and suddenly an absolute silence.  A tall and fitted man dressed as a female version perhaps of himself, steps in and starts performing for us, we have become an audience to this performer and we were watching the scene attentively with big eyes. It looked completely like a Happening to me as he was joggling with all objects from that atelier and then he had inserted some dolls, they looked dead but he picked them from the floor as if they were delicate creatures. He spoke eloquently, seducing us with his Shakespearian English with a French accent,  he was just marvelous…  Marvelous! He came toward us dancing dramatically, so close, so confident! We felt transported to his world, he made us part of it, there was no escape.

Thinking of it, or remembering such an episode made me think about Fluxus  - Equals to flow. Inspired from Dada or Dadaism, the movement that is still alive nowadays was born with the genius George Maciunas in the 60's, as an attempt to fuse or marry cultural, social and political revolutionaries into a united front and action;

 “It was as if it started in the middle of the situation, rather than the beginning” 

This is a great definition of Fluxus because you never know where is the starting point when talking for example about happenings – the artistic performances that would occur anywhere be it on shops, streets, parks etc. Fluxus would fight the traditional artificialities of art and be revolutionary and protestant towards the conventional. Fluxus might expression itself by paintings, sculptures, collages, happenings, or just a mix of all that and much more. Some say that Fluxus died with Maciunas, yet you can still live it from several artists that continued the movement and new ones that keep showing up their creative souls.

Fluxus of today - Acceptance Bill Viola

A Muslim wedding

Two weeks ago, Maria, Agnieska and I went to work for a Muslim family, originally from Iraq, they wanted us to help them in a weeding party. Maria and I visited one of the daughters of this large family two weeks before the wedding, her house looked that it was one of the rooms of the king from the tale one thousand one nights, it has these Persian carpets and this beautiful ornamented canapés, it looked so surreal, suddenly we were in Persia. She looked to be in mid-thirties with two little kids, she was dark skinned and maybe around 1,56m. She had terrible English but at least she tried to be communicative and to explain the situation as she could, her name was Nuurs, and she sounded nice and trustworthy, with a strong personality when imposing her preferences.

The wedding day came, it was a sunny but cold day, I waited Agnieska in front of my apartment, this skinny polish girl nodded with a smile and told me to come to the other side of the street. Agnieska had just lost her job at the greenhouse that I used to work in, she was one of the supervisors of Saint- Paulia houses, Claus, the Devil Dane fired her due to reduction of work, or let’s say the slowness of the green market for this season. Honestly, I think he did a mistake, I’ve never seen someone so dedicated and hard-working like this woman, she would stress and make her orders on time and still give a funny laugh.

Agnieska and I went to Volsemosse, to Nuurs palce. Her family was waiting for us in a car, an old and yellowish car, Maria also was there as she left earlier than us. We have arrived in Munkebo, to the party big salon, we were standing in the kitchen, supplied with so much food, varied fruits, Arabic chai, pastries, beverages, bread and everything you can imagine that can be served on a Muslim party. The warm meals would arrive in the night around 8 o’clock. We have arrived around 2, there wasn’t a lot to do there, we only had to prepare fruits to serve and brew some coffee.

Guests started to arrive, it should be half past 5, you could see the Arabic beauty stripping their dark burkas and reveling their shiny expensive dresses, it almost looked like a show, they would trade the black capes and flats for 20 cm heels and transparent skirts, take the blue or green eye lens as they can’t even show their original eyes color to stranger men, and be themselves. It was fascinating for me at the beginning, I could never imagine that these women that we often see them wearing black or dark color burkas and capes would be dressed like that underneath. They would show their long hair with very complicated hairstyles or just wear it simple, they would wear heavy golden jewelry and walk like they were on a catwalk. It was like I was spying a hidden sub-culture, something that you could never have outside of a situation like this, it was like I was an infiltrate on their world. I thought “they do know how to have fun and spend their husband’s money, and oh what about benefits?!” It wasn’t a malicious thought though, I’ve actually thought that they had some great right to take this advantage for the submission and oppression that they suffer from society, for being forced to endure such a hard life, for the fact that they are not free.

Once more I was mistaken by my naïve soul. “Who told you that they are not free?” I thought. They have created their own world, they can do whatever they want, they can dance, they can be naked in front of each other, they can have beautiful dresses and jewelry, they are supported by their husbands, they can wear makeup, they can be goddesses.  

We busted our asses to make everything like Nuurs wanted, we ran to take trash from tables, we served coffee, drinks, tea, fruits, sweets, pastries, meals, we cleaned, we washed, we carried stuff, we sweated like pigs to make everything perfect. I’ve never seen so much waste in my life, women and children would eat a piece or take a bite and then leave the food or drink untouched. Nuur’s old aunt was an evil queen, she would make us stop eating and go back to work without finishing, she would give orders like a tyrant, she would make us work like slaves! She was so unpleasant and ungrateful. Every women congratulate us for our great work but she wouldn’t even smile at us. We stayed there until 2 am, exhausted and sleepy, and deeply disappointed. The evil queen wanted to fool us and pay 5 or 6 times less of what we had agreed, we have protested obviously and then she called a boy to talk to us, Maria explained that the agreed was two times more than what she wanted to give us and then he translated this to the woman and then she gave more money but still, we were feeling fool as Nuurs promised us extra compensation. This woman had disappeared after the groom and the bride left the party to the hotel, yet she told us that she would come back. She did not.

The whole party I was feeling like a dirty servant from the old times to the fortunate Arabian goddesses, I really felt that I was transferred to an old century. They would look at me with despised eyes when I would go between the tables to clean the garbage, they would give me orders like I was some slave servant. Although others would be respectful and kind, most of them would be vicious.

My fascination and pity for them were gone, I couldn’t let myself avoid contempt and despise for them. It is convenient for them such a life, they do not work because their husbands support them, all they have to do is to have children and take care of them, they get extra money from benefits of European countries,  and they have their own world of vanity and luxury. When seeing their situation from this point, it doesn’t look such a burden to be forced to wear burkas and capes and almost look like Batman outside of the house or when strangers are near. Nowadays they can even engage themselves into high education, but who needs education when you have a husband to support you? Nevertheless these women are the derision of their own society I still believe that there are women with ideals and dreams that would like to be heard out of the black burka and reach what western women can achieve, I still believe that there are women being stoned to death in small villages as men believed somehow that they needed to be judged that way, I do still believe that there are Muslim women on remote places that are not free at all. Those, I do respect them and pity them.

Dancer in the dark

  

We’ve just watched the greatest musical ever, yet deeply tragic, it brought tears to our eyes, our hearts were so tight, like we had a chain tightening them up, it was worse than watching horror movies because it is a real situation, all we could think about in the end, at the last scene when they hang Selma: How the fuck could someone watch that? It “ain’t” a show; it is someone that is dying in front of an audience! We couldn’t watch her die, she was too precious to be lost forever.  
Someone that just sang a melancholically sweet song on an autumn day, she looked like a bird, a bird singing its last song but “it is the last song if we let it to be”, she said. A woman full of spirit, full of life, full of passion and imagination where life is her magical stage, her mind is her play and she’s the star of her own musical show. 

A woman from Slovakia that left her country to live a better life, a woman and mother, the best mother a son could have that thought communism is better for humans than everything else, maybe she thought it was easier, we have to admit that the ideology of communism at the very beginning was an utopia, a very beautiful one that could have turned to paradise if the human itself wasn’t so greedy, maybe she agrees with us. Well, this woman worked on a factory, she spent most of her day time there making these utensils, those that we forgot the name but we remember them from school cantinas where they put food to serve and to keep it warm.  At the end of the day she would go home and spend time with her son, play cards or chat with her neighbors that were also her friends, at least she thought. On Thursday nights she would go to Drama classes to practice her character Maria from a play that her group and she were enacting. Jeff would often try to charm her and offer lifts to her place but she just didn’t want a boyfriend she kept saying to him, however, he would never give up. 

Selma was losing her sight, she was gradually becoming blind, she couldn’t even work right, if it wasn’t for her friend Rita that would always watch her back and be the best friend that embodies an older sister, she would be lost. Everything changes when her friend and neighbor grows close to Selma and finds out that she’s blind and that she saved a lot of money to pay for her son’s  future operation, as she really thought he would inherit her condition. When Billy got to know these facts he immediately steals the money. Selma knows that he did it, who else could it be?  Nevertheless she doesn’t accuse him or betrays the secret he told her, she goes there to get the money back but things get uncontrolled, Bill asks her to kill him, they fight, she fights and tries to avoid it but it is unavoidable, he doesn’t want to let go of the money if he’s not dead, so she obeys his request and shoots even though she can’t see a thing. She keeps shooting and then she runs out of bullets, so she grabs a heavy object and starts to beat him to death and takes the money away. On her beautiful world he dances with her, and he forgives her, he kisses her and tells her to run singing along. Selma sings even when she kills, when she cries, when her world is falling apart, she dances frenetically and does everything to make sure her son will have a future that he will see everything that has to be seen. 

 Every time I watch Lars Von Trier movies I always think about Jean Luc Godard for the openings. I didn’t want the movie to end, “Dancer in the Dark” is one of the best films I ever seen, one of us is such a great fan of Von Trier that just devours everything he has to show to the world.

 
Bjork is such an artist, her whole soul has 
 that artist spirit, she’s so touching and her voice is so surreal, and when sounds, ordinary sounds get entangled it is just becomes derisory.

The Autumn

The Autumn has come to stay, for me it started since the end of August in Denmark, for Glen who lives in Germany, well I guess it was a little bit later. We have a so called love-hate in what concerns to this season, as our beloved summer ends, the wind comes to wipe us when we ride our bikes to work, sandals and light dresses no longer fit into our bodies, we have to hide them with warm coats instead. Despite the slight dislike for it, we do enjoy long walks to stare at the trees transforming themselves, and those beautiful sunny days with that lovely typical autumn breeze.

The autumn, often known as Fall is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter in September or March when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier. Fall is mostly described as being melancholic and in this season people often miss summer, however we have been hunting down a little and we found someone who is actually very fond of this season, for him it is his favorite of all 4.

An interview to a stranger from Baltic seas:

He wanted to remain a simple stranger without revealing anything personal from his life. We had a quick interview with this mysterious young man that was from somewhere between Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania – “ I’m from Baltics, just Baltic, Europe” he said. It was a rainy and cloudy day somewhere in the depths of Danish lands.

Me: Define Autumn.

Mr. Baltic: Personally, Autumn is a feeling more than a season. It is the feeling of something final. It is that feeling of suspense that everything is about to die. A sort of end is about to come and this is your last chance to enjoy some special moment. It is for example when you are at a great party, in one of the best parties you ever been and suddenly you have that final moment that it has to end and you need to say goodbye, for me that is the fall. It might be kind of melancholic but it does have some beauty in it, that moment that something magical is about to die.

Me: Why is the autumn your favorite season and what do you like the most about the autumn?

Mr. Baltic: Because it this the perfect season and because I like the feeling that gives me. It is not too cold nor too hot, is it just perfect. It is the last moment of summer’s breath, leaves are falling and It reminds me that nothing last forever.

Me: Which kind of activities does autumn offer?

Mr. Baltic: To enjoy lakes on the shore, walks in parks, or just to stare at the trees and to enjoy nature. To eat sweet browns and fruits of the season.

Finally he said in his poem recital tone type," the fall is that sweet cold you breath when you go out and it doesn't burn ".