Warning! The following might contain sarcasm.

As you've might noticed, yes, I'm specifically talking to you my dearest follower -I don't really like the word "follower". It makes me think of those moments in life when you're all alone, but somehow it feels like someone's watching you. Well, in that scenario it would happen that I'm indeed not alone and you're secretely hiding in the bushes. Lurking at me. Judging me.- ... wait, what was I'm typing about... oh yeah... As you've might noticed, there's been some changes. I'd like to call it a technological revolution, but that might sound a bit too grand, so I'll rename it an technological upgrade. From now on you can read this literature (because lets face it, how else am I supposed to call these fantastical writings I've done) on something fancy called Bloglovin'. If you aren't familiar with this kind of terminology (as was I) you can read this blogpost by the lovely Demi.

Also I've widespread my wings over other parts of the secret world called the internet. If you'd like to hear, see and smell more of me (and who doesn't want that?!) you can go to my brand new Pinterest page/account/thingy. I don't have the hang of it yet, but Demi is drilling me into the fine art of it. Have I ever mentioned to y'all that Demi is rather good with technology? No? Well, I do dare to say that she's quite exquisite with that what one can define as "technology".

So yeah, that's basically it. I'm really just writing this post because Bloglovin' has sort of forced me to (in a very gently like manner, don't you worry)... aha. Bit awkward ending, but that might be just the charm of it all.

Love,
Dominique


Hereby I solemnly swear that this blog is mine:
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11677037/?claim=jsefctag53d">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

They say that you can't understand songs about love until you've experienced it yourself. However, one can argue that the only thing humankind has in common with eachother is the concept of love (which for me is equal to the concept of hate*). We've all experienced some kind of relationship with oneanother. May this be as mother and child or as wife and husband or as whatever. I think that it's more about giving a song the meaning of a realtime thing, than not understanding its true message. I've listened to No Goodbyes by Blue for over a thousand times. Yet when I listen to it now, I burst out into tears. Not because I just discovered the message behind the song (after the thousand times + one listening session). No, I cry because the song for me now represents a feeling of lost that I've experienced. The song itself has not changed, but my perception of it has. And maybe that's what they want to say with "you first ought to fall in love before you can understand it". But I guess there's some kind of degree in what love is meant to be. Love is something individual that you can't generalize. I can never love someone again like I loved my grandma, who passed away about half a year ago. Which in itself is sad, but also unique and maybe that's not the best combo, but I've experienced worse.

So in general I understand love songs although I've never been in love. And it came to my mind the other day that basically every song is a love song. Love is a broad aspect of how you can look at stuff. I would even vouch that those silly party-songs like for instance We Like To Party! by Vengaboys can perfectly relate back to the concept of love and not only the fact that they really like to party...

We all understand what songs or for that matter music is about. And it's more that the creator puts their view (or creativity if you will) to transfer or communicate their feelings and ideas. Creation, I think, starts with something personal. Even those big time twenty-writers-for-one-supposed-to-be-hit-song songs must have started with one single idea. An idea that's very personal and initially very on its own. But when you look at ideas as a whole you, as an outsider, can be sympathetic or even understanding while you've got another background or ideas.

This week I had exams and one of the subjects was Heritage Theory: historical perspective. It was all about collections and how we've made orderings through centuries (along the theory of philosopher Michel Foucoult, which you can read in his book The Order of Things). And the last question of this exam was about a Dutch museum which has become a museum of a museum by displaying their collection like they did in the 18th century. Hereby they asked if we nowadays can value or see the collection like they did in the 18th century. Whereupon I've answered that we of course can empathize and try our hardest to understand it. We can put ourselves in someone else's percepective and even translate that into something of our own (like actors adopt a different personae). But the key word is indeed translate or adopt. In someway we have to feedback to our own mode of life to understand. So we'll always be spoiled by our modern way of looking, whereby we can't experience things to the fullest like they did back then. Then I came up with this theory that we, as modern day people, can understand the 18th centuries way of being by cutting of the new generation and let them grow up in a manufactored society which is a perfect resemblance of the 18th century. So, when they're old enough they can go to the museum and experience it like they did in the 18th century. But yeah, that would be quite an undertaking...

"I’m not an anomaly, so it feels weird that I get treated like one and have that pressure of “You represent all teenagers in the Western world. No stress!” The easiest way of dealing with that is just to try not to think about what your art might mean for others. I know that sounds bad, but honestly, if you want it to be meaningful to other people, you need to just totally not even think about that part and make something that will mean something to you. Then other people will be able to live inside it too and understand it."
Taken from an Rookie interview with Lorde. Skulls depicted beneath are from here.


Losing someone and grieving about it is apparently a very western (not in the sense of cowboys, but like the people who live on the west side of the world -North-America + West-Europe- (which is also of course a perception made by those who live in the west)) thing to do. In Mexico, I've been told, death isn't the end but part of day-to-day life. So when they grieve the dead on El dia de los muertos, they don't actually grieve but celebrate the life that's been given. And I think that's a beautiful, but hard thing to do. It makes you, or atleast me, think about the possibilities one has towards something like death. To me it seems rather healthy to look at it as a part of life that isn't gone, but lives through the minds (and therefore the actions) of the ones who are left behind. We're not here to avoid the subject because it would spare our tears. We're here to use the tears in our advantage, our knowledge, happiness, fortune or whatever to make the lives that's been lived our own.

So by listening to love songs you can experience the projection of an unique relationship into something that's been written on its own. To not instantly generalize the feeling but to make that feeling into something seizable. And until death do us part may be the fault we're making. Because death doesn't part us, it merely leaves us. By making death the bad guy, something I'm dearly afraid of, makes us -me- wanting to avoid the subject after it has struck. Making the one I've lost invisible into my day-to-day life, while she's responsible for how I experience it in the first place. So you don't need to surpass the feeling, if you understand that it's something to be celebrated. We can always mourn, there's no shame in that, but we ought to remember that there's no end until you've accounted it. Like Blue sings:

Baby there's no goodbyes
I'll always be right by your side
Though I may be far away
You know that my heart will stay with you, always

By listening to music we can make an unique perception of a happening our own. Hereby maybe surpassing the creators intention, but we can make an idea live through its time. Making love something of all ages.


Love,
Dominique


*"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not dead, it's indifference" 
- Elie Wiesel

In my eyes indifference isn't the opposite, but the act upon how it's enunciated. Although you could say that indifference is the beginning of the opposite, whereby the opposite could be indifferent.

Some days ago Demi and I talked about fainting. Because you know, talking about museums get boring from time to time so we like to jazz it up with our (horrible) life experiences. Demi talked about how she once fainted against a mirror (which she doesn't recommend). I stated that I've only fainted three times in my life, with two of them on the same day. However last monday (appropiately called blue monday) I was in hospital and they -mainly the doctor- wanted a blood sample. Suddenly it struck me that I've fainted more than three times in my life... way more.

I suffer from great anxiety, phobias and whatnot and one of those are (of course) needles and blood. It so happens to be that when they -mainly the doctor- want a blood sample, they get the needles out which simultaneously means that there's going to be blood. *and faint*

I don't have troubles with fake blood, but ones the label real hangs above it I'm on the floor. I for instance can't watch series or films based upon true stories. I once watched this film because an actor (who played in the Charmed series as the youngest son of Piper) was in it and I was curious of his acting ability besides Charmed. First of all it was a horrible film with loads of blood and fake vampires and murdering and not fun. Secondly, at the end of the film was a disclaimer that said that everything I've just seen was a reenactment of something that has happened for real. I couldn't sleep for about two weeks and when I think of it I get shiverings down my spine! Nightmares! Horror!

Happy Birthday Jack!

Although I'm pretty sure that Jack isn't able to use a computer... or read for that matter. I still feel obliged to celebrate his one year excistence. May there be loads more. So happy birthday little doggy-dog of mine!

Love,
Dominique

To be or not to be, that's the question - Hamlet by Shakespeare

I identify myself with the things I love. So for me it's a bad thing when someone I don't like love the things I love. My being is, I think, (mostly) formed by the things I love. It's part of this visual circle of being, growing, becoming and being again. I can't be without influences from others, which makes me grow whereby I become a new me. Thus, when someone I don't like makes the same growth as I do -loving the things I love-, I must be (similar) to that person... which is of course not someone I want to be.

But lately I've been questioning this reasoning. Because 1) the first being is different from my being, or for that fact everyones being, 2) growing is equal to process and we process things different, 3) because our process is different, the result also ought to be different and 4) after result (being again) there's also a difference of how we use the given information and add that to our base, which makes us grow. So basically it doesn't really matter, because from start to finish we're unequal and therefore always dissimilar.

Morse, more Morse, Tavi Gevinson by Petra Collins, deer on bed and a hotelbedroom.

However, what if there's a time and place when we synchronize? It may be a brief moment, but at that moment we are indeed equal and therefore simmilar. Does that make me the person I don't like? Or, because it's me, nature's provides us with some protection so we don't see that the one I don't like is in actuality me? It's pretty obvious that that's not how the world works and I can become someone I don't like. But I wonder if this has anything to do with the things I love. Because I'm drawn to things that not only I, but a lot of people (even those I don't particular like) love. Therefore there must always be a simmilarity in our unequalty. So can it be that we, as people, are stuck between the lines of identification -love- and disidentification -hate- making us always aware of both sides and thereby being the same person at ones?

I don't know, to be honest. But it would indeed be something quite human to be or feel two extremes at the same time. Loving something while hating it. And maybe that's just part of our process... if there is a process. Maybe we're made to be like we become in the end. And everything that comes between the point of being, and I guess dying, is something pre-stated. Which makes me think of Sherlock Holmes and his tumble (the part where he fakes his death, may this been through the outlet of television or books). We can manipulate the state of the end, making a cliff-hanger -if you like- and therefore everything that's pre-stated isn't. Because the intention of being dead is often seen as the end. So when the end isn't actually the end, everything stated between those points aren't pre anymore. For example you've already got a gravestone, which is often something that's been pre-stated in your will as something you want, something that you've wished for (I wouldn't say love) and thereby you get. But if that moment has come earlier, because you've faked your death, everything that's pre-stated ought've been wiped out. So in theory after you've faked your death, you can become anyone because the timeline that you've been given is worldly seen as something that has passed. 

#SherlockLives #NotDead

So by faking your death you can, in theory, become something more like you. Because the things that's been hanging above your head has been removed, you can easily love something without the annoyance of someone you don't like loving the same. Because you aren't physically there. Now you can say that mentally you're still the same. Only the stage of you're life has closed it's curtains, but not the theatre. The performance is still going on, just without an audience. And I think that the audience is responsible for the mentality someone has regarding to love or being loved. So when there's no audience, you experience those subjects differently. And that's why I think Arthur Conan Doyle brought Sherlock back. Not because of the money, but because of the audience he was missing (alright, and the money). 

 Sir Conan Doyle could fumble around again with this character, because everything that's been pre-stated could be disregarded. Making the story of Sherlock Holmes, atleast in the books, irregular (or the books are irregular because at some point in his life he couldn't care less. But for now hold that thought). And this may also be the intake by everyone who makes the character into something new. A new form of media, a new way to present something that ones was believed dead. Maybe that's why series 3 of Sherlock (BBC) was quite different from those before. Because that version of Sherlock faked his death and is now in this changed environment making his return of "not dead". Hereby being confronted that the thing he loves is also loved by someone else. Only this is something he accepts (also when it turns out that it's been a very bad girl). He accepts the fact that not everything in life can be loved from one point of view. The creation of a being doesn't stop when lights go out, it can make you realize how much something is worth. So by faking your death you're not just the things you love, but the things that love you back.

Love,
Dominique

Sherlock, Cupido, Ladies with long yellow hair and the Chanel jacket.

Sometimes there are things that can make you feel fuzzy. You think about it every day and night. The image keeps hunting you. The air around it isn't just air anymore. It becomes something more than it is on its own. And on its own it's more than anything else. It becomes a representation of all the fuzzy feelings you've ever had in your life and before you know it, you've made an aureole hang above it.

The danger of this is that the line of fuzzy can steep down ones it redeemed itself. The thing of interest can become a big disappointment when you can (almost) grab it. The fuzz surrounding it can spoil the thing within. You get over it, because the thought about it was better than the actual thing. You suddenly realize that it became something more, but in otherways something different and therefore something less than it used to be (basically I've just described the plottwist of I Love Dick... sort of).

 Sometimes something presents itself as the best thing ever. Although the drive behind this is not that the something presents itself as the best thing ever, but we do. Someone judged the something and said to himself: "This is the best thing ever!", and so it is. But when you look at it, after the other has glorified it, you can't always help but feel a bit disappointed.

This is what I mostly get when seeing some paintings in real life. Take for instance The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn. I think there's a bigger circus surrounding it than that the painting depicts. A study showed that the average visiter of the Louvre takes about 5 seconds to look at the Mona Lisa (if you dare to take the brave journey through the masses of tourists). There's this drive surrounding us that we ought to have seen these paintings, because they are the best thing ever. However who've concluded that? Not saying that I could do it better, but somewhere along the line they've turned these paintings into caricatures (quite literally sometimes). We stand in masses before a painting, because everyone tells us to do so. It's almost a crime if you haven't seen it in real life. It's become a marking point where people can be flabbergasted about the fact that no, you haven't seen the Mona Lisa in real. There's more nothing surrounding it than actual involvement.

Grace Kelly, detail from The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn, Chanel yellow and Candy Cotton green.

So I was quite nervous when I went to a Chanel Exhibition (The Chanel Legend in Gemeente Museum Den Haag). Not because of the exhibition, because what could ever go wrong with Chanel garments displayed on a mannequin? No, I was nervous because during the exhibition you've got a chance to actually wear a Chanel jacket. Not a fake, but a real Chanel jacket. For some this might be a "whatever", but for me this is an aureole hanging above it (fuzzy feelings, fuzzy feelings). I was so scared to make the thing more than the thing is, because lets face it, everyone makes the things by Chanel more than a thing, that the air surrounding it was more worth than the actual thing... if you get what I mean. Basically I'd dressed myself up for a jacket (ah, but not just any oridinary jacket). It's sort of weird when you think about it. But then again, as my dad pointed out to me, everything is. But that's something for another time.

I'd recommend you all to go to the exhibition if you happen to be in the neighborhood. However it's smaller than anticipated and you should check out other exhibitions within the museum. It was all very 1930's esque. The museum, not the other exhibitions. Although I find the exterior grotesque, the interior is quite pleasing.

The perfume, the jacket & me. *sigh*  

Lets get back to Jacket-talk. Alright, the moment was there. I stood in a line of excited girls, me being part of that excitement, and looked at this other excited girl who was wearing the jacket. Well, there were two of them, but they both are classified as the. I found it a bit embarissing to be honest, because all those girls are watching you while it ought to be a special moment between me, the jacket and the security guard (the jacket was attached to a sort of string which would go off if you pulled it... so no chance for bringing it home with me). 

It was finally my turn. So I went up the stage (no exaggeration, there actually was a stage) and reached for the jacket. My fingers touched the fabric and a shiver went down my spine (well, that is a exaggeration). But what I wanted to say is that the jacket intensified my fuzzy feelings. So now I'm burdened to buy myself a jacket. It could also be that I know that this jacket's physically in touch but practically not in my wardrobe. So the fuzzy feelings are intensified because the thing I want is in reach but not actually in my possession. I'd go with the first one. 


Mona Lisa & Green Cotton Candy.

When I took the jacket off (one of the hardest things I've ever needed to do in my life), it struck me that we -the jacket & me- had a Moulin Rouge going on. Another thing that struck me was that I could always go to a Chanel shop and try things on. So in retrospect, how special was this occasion?

Love,
Dominque

"It’s weird to be called a celebrity or talk about it. I don’t talk about being a celebrity in my business meetings. I don’t talk about it with my friends. It’s not a part of my life. It’s a media perception of who I am." -Mary-Kate Olsen

Who am I? That's a hard question, if not the hardest. I certainly don't know who I am and it's often perceived that the I is part of what it does. You are what you do. Although, looking at it literally, I am what I'm typing at this very moment and I mostly disagree or think what I'm typing is incorrect or incomplete. So thereby I'm incorrect or incomplete. But when is someone incorrect or incomplete?

Riddle: What have black and white stripes, Karl Lagerfeld, Choupette, Mary-Kate Olsen and Kurt Cobain in common?
Answer: They're all featured in this picture.

Although I absolutely adore Mary-Kate, I don't totally agree with her. She says that her being a celebrity isn't part of who she is, because it's a perception by the media (someone who's not her). While I guess that when someone acknowledge you as a being, is thus through the perception of others. Hereby not saying that you are what others think you are. But if no one acknowledge your excistence, how ought we to know if we excist? Again, hereby not saying that we are someone when we become well-known, because that's beyond the confirmation of our excistence.

We perceive ourselves differently and the confirmation of others is apparently part of this. Because Mary-Kate doesn't point out to everyone she's a celebrity, doesn't immediately mean she isn't. Maybe her being a celebrity isn't in her eyes the truth, but it is a part of her. She's been shaped by it from the beginning of her existence which gives her the ability to deny it. It's something that's come on her path and must've influenced her in a certain way. So the beings that acknowledge us influence the I.

Karl & the Olsen twin hanging out. Karl & Choupette hanging out. That Karl is a busy man.

However, there's also someone like Karl Lagerfeld:

"I build my own reality. I've created my own system that lets me sort out my life. I enjoy the luxury of being at the centre of this complete universe that's mine".

Karl is the one who confirms his own excistense and therefore excists. And maybe we don't need others than ourselves to perceive the I of who am I. But than again you need to be very certain of your case to be a Karl. Because Karl is Karl. And who am I to disagree with him.

"The personality I project to the media is a puppet. It's me pulling the strings. The most important thing is for the strings to be well tied".

Here Karl states that he's Karl and he's in control of what we get to see of him. However you could argue that what we see is perceived differently going by person. And maybe that's a part of how well tied the strings are (what do we get and how can we disfigure it?). So you could say that even someone like Karl ought to have someone to confirm his suspicion.

And then there's of course the famous "Cogito ergo sum" (Je pense, donc je suis; I think, therefore I am) by René Descartes. Which, like Karl, doesn't need confirmation of others because the I perceives itself. Therefore Who am I is I because I thought about who I am.

So basically, I don't know who I am and you may know who I am, but that does or doesn't influence the I of my being. Yeah...

Love,
Dominique