Eileen Gray

Eileen Gray, Rue de Lota Apartment, 1919

Searching some images for a class, I found myself for a long time leafing through an old book of Eileen Gray. The book isn't too much interesting in terms of writing, but it is a good catalog of her work. What excites me most about Gray's aren't exactly the pieces she conceived, most of them design icons of the twentieth century, but the ability she had of, in the same space, put pieces together from completely different contexts and the set still works balanced and elegant. An interior of Eileen Gray is often a cult and sophisticated space, where no part steals the role from the other, no matter how exotic its origins may be. The pieces live together in perfect harmony.

Old men talk

We know nothing about ourselves. We always talk about our desires, and try to hide ourselves desperate and unconsciously. Life becomes almost interesting when you have learned people's lies, and begin to enjoy and notice that they always say something different from what they really think and want... Yes, one day comes the recognition of truth, and that means senescence and death.

Sándor Márai, 'The Candles Burn Down to the Stump'

How interesting can be a conversation between two old men! The entirely action resumes to a dinner where two friends, or old friends, meet after several years of separation dissecting and revolving some issues from the past. The dinner is more properly a monologue than a dialogue, but it's so incredibly intelligent and universal, so attentive to the human condition! This was one of those books that struck me recently, and thankfully, it has been a long time since I haven't read a story that really encouraged me and caused that butterfly feeling in the stomach. One of these days, a friend from ​​philosophy area just told me ... 'I haven't read too much literature lately, I prefer to read some essays or anything that relates to what I'm studying at the moment' ... How do I understand him. At certain point it becomes hard to find novels that really captures our attention and that are able to carry us beyond the trivial everyday life. Sándor Márai's 'The Candles Burn Down to the Stump' is pure delight for thought.

Douro

Douro Valley. Miradouro de Casal de Loivos

My empathy with the Douro Valley is weird. It's an old thing. I remember, when I was a child, some trips with my parents and, even then, I already felt that the land owned me. It was as if each landscape element spoke close to me. On any terrace, any cypress or white cluster, that rises here and there, everything seems so familiar, as if the earth and the voice that I hear inside my head talked the same language.