For me, books have been an especially satiating pleasure since my childhood. Thus I have a ritual for almost every birthday – I gift myself so many books I barely manage to take home. however, lately on several occasions I discovered that I didn’t feel the familiar wild enthusiasm for books and I am struggling to choose even one I want to by.

Whether this is a function of information overload, my filter is getting narrower, the overwhelming abundance on the bookshelves rebuffs me from the onset… I don’t know…

But I do know that when something truly amazing comes up, the delight is absolute.

Continue reading “La part de l’autre” by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt at Acrista Cafe.

I set apart this movie from the February movie mix on purpose. Not only because it is European production, but also because it moved me exceptionally.

I admit I knew almost nothing about Astrid Lindgren, although I grew up with Pippy Longstocking, The Brothers Lionheart, Karlson, Ronia the Robber’s Daughterand Emil of Lonneberga. After watching the movie, I saw the rich context explaining why things were the way they were in my favorite childhood books…

the young Astrid (Unga Astrid– the original title of the movie) was overflowing with energy, light and life, but she was “lucky” to be born in a small Swedish town, among manners narrowly bound by religious rules, which did not allow for any frivolity, spontaneityand equality.

Continue reading “Becoming Astrid” at Acrista Cafe.

I knew that the second season of Genius would be inspiration, contemplation and very much needed context, as if a long time ago you had started putting together a puzzle of somebody’s live, but you missed pieces and reasons.

A few things keep resonating in me after the ten episodes for this extraordinary, whimsical, driven innovator which some would call a prick, a rake, an egoist and they might be right depending on their viewpoint:

• his purposefulness and outright refusal to compromise
• his fierce desire to surpass a colleague by whom he felt awed (Matisse) and thus to surpass himself
• his hectic search for the new, the different, the radical
• using women as source of love energy, mystery, inspiration that incessantly keep him “hungry” for life
• his unconditional rejection of any rules
• placing art before and above all (which is a condition for greatness as long as one is ready to pay the price)

Continue reading “Genius: Picasso” at Acrista Cafe.