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