Two nights ago I watched The Dreamers at some ungodly hour of the night but it was worth the ordeal I put my stinging eyelids through. Once the credits began rolling, I couldn't help but covet the bohemian way of living... Once I do finish my uni course I so desperately want to take off and meander, meander anywhere and everywhere. Of course, I do need to set up a permanent address with my betrothed, but once our contract has reached its end, where do we go?! I'm trying to pinpoint whether its from my mountaineering pursuits as a pre adolescent or my European heritage but I have an indisputable itch to travel. So I did some brainstorming musing...
Above: stills from The Dreamers; anonymous bohemian style balcony; still from A Perfect Man; Egon Schiele/Toulouse Lautrec studies and paintings (I do believe...); Sasha Pivovarova in romantic and bohemian styling; still from Persepolis; hand embroidery.
(My sources are a bit vague but I blame it on the anonymity of the internet)
However there are a few factors that hinder my idyllic challenge. For a start, we do not live in the correct political climate in the United Kingdom. We are told we're too advanced as a country. There is no real strive for revolution; sure we're complaining at the complacency of our disordered government but instead most of the population are soulless, manipulated digital vacuums absorbing advertising and television as the true cultural force, who couldn't care less as long as they got to watch reruns of their favourite soap, god forbid miss an episode. (I am verging on sounding a bit hypocritical here I know, there are a few television masterpieces out there but I do understand the difference between control and excess.) The only real hint of revolutionary spirit can be interpreted through student bodies but their marches and demonstrations seem too contrived and fake to deem them as true noble and gallant revolutionaries. I am clueless on politics and can't say I've ever taken the greatest interest in it, but I suppose they go hand in hand with art and culture so I will go on. Anyway, I'm dwindling a tad yet I find myself writing with full force and gusto so I guess what I really want to pour out in this post is my nostalgia for times I have not known; for something that has not existed to me. What a worn out, sloppy cliche to use... But my ears are not tuned to the shit we get fed as loyal taxpayers of this first world society and I cannot fathom a computer game or console game or whatever they are called as I have not even mastered the correct terminology for it in my nineteen blissful years on this dummy soil. Having only myself to blame, my eyes rot at the duality of the mastered mechanisms of the best century yet. Despite all my immature strops, I do admit to the thought of worsening hours in the future. I suppose it's what one would call the calm before the storm. I guess I shouldn't be revelling in the prospect of a revolution or a chaotic disablement of government but at least that sort of storm would wake some of us up, and perhaps some of our bones do need to rattle and some blood needs to be spilled. I want to be able to fight for what I believe is right, just like I did at Pride a few weeks back. It's one of the only times you ever feel more alive; a fine line of a spider's web between life and death, which you are only ever blessed with snippets of through the mortal trudge like the casual risk tingling all across your frame as you stand ever too close to the edge of the train platform. It is then you feel the vigour of the purest form of existence. I'd hate to read over this and blush but I cannot stop my fingers rattling at the keys. I rarely ever do publish a hardly tweaked stream of consciousness so I guess I should see it fit to do so now.
I need to stop dreaming and getting off topic. What I really wish to say is that I long for a bohemian way of living.
My lazy eyes have finally soaked in the last pages of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Post reading, I probably committed the most unthinkable literary crime and mocked the sacrilegious written word by watching the film adaptation. Juliette Binoche is so young and plays the most numpty, clumsy and naive character that it's nothing but endearing to the viewer. As I watched the lothario Tomas scour the streets of post war Prague I couldn't help but think of my childhood spent in Poland, obviously I'm making a ridiculous leap in the historical timeline here but visually, aesthetically, Poland does still mirror something of its former communist past. To be a bohemian in those times! It would be utterly impossible and convenient if on the foul side of the border but if in France, in Western Europe... I found myself lusting over the Beat generation; they were only just discovering the freedom of speech; prohibited, mind altering, moreish substances and political ideologies!
Returning to the post war communist block... I admired the vitality of Tereza documenting and taking photographs of a fast pacing sixties Prague, full of Beatniks and free loving dandies. Though the same cannot be said for her reluctant depiction of a pathetic feast for the communist vultures on the torn and damaged streets of Prague. The film is a weeping eulogy for the past but it is so captivating to watch. One of my favourite moments of the film are the final scenes of the couple's slow paced lives in the country with the grazing cattle and sheep, homemade produce and village drunk and rusty tractor. Once again I was left yearning for a different time. Here are the final scenes from the film:
Perhaps one day after my bohemian revelry I too shall elope and begin a romance with the fields and grass, betrothed by my side.
Though both films deal with a different way of living - the former with Noveau Bohemians gorging in excess and hedonism and the latter living a more humble way of life; both films are set in shaky political climates and the characters in both films are striving for some sort of purity amongst their troubled existence. Now, even more so, do I feel heavier than air.
There is a fragment in Milan Kundera's novel that I believe sums up my wanderlust and urge for upmost existence beautifully:
“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
I chose weight a long time ago and I will always chose weight.
From left (clockwise): coffee in an authentic mug from beloved Łódź; an array of the Sunday papers (now mostly worthless because their sole purpose is yesterday's news); two cakes- one store bought (tasty salted caramel, pear and nut Whole Foods cake) and one homemade carrot cake with the stickiest walnut icing. Background (not visible): Berceuse in D Flat Major. Op. 57. Andante Frederic Chopin
Year after year I still voluntarily return to St Angelas Ursuline School and its a rare moment for me to put my vocal chords to good use and own the stage like some cabaret starlet drunk on narcissism, even if it was for a brief moment. We decided to be a little ludicrous and on top of performing a Puppini Sister's rendition of Blondie's Heart of Glass we slipped in a Soko classic straight after a Primary School gave a butter wouldn't melt repertoire on loving friends and happiness and sunshine and all things imaginable... We flaunted our performance seasoned with plenty of bravado and explicit language and as, well, ex-students of preen and poise, it was either going to be a hit or miss.
There was a hubbub of unexpected laughter mid song but apart from the odd slip up, everything was just, well, dandy.
;-)
EXPECTATIONS:
REALITY:
After all that razzle dazzle we headed to our local for a cheeky pint or two all in good intention for dear Ernesta's nineteenth; smiles all round!
Last Saturday was magical. We were all subdued in a mass high, the shrills of Born this Way echoed a radius covering many miles of Central London and the whole of Trafalgar Square was baptised in a pool of drags, divas, flamboyant mavericks and performers and specks of the most ordinary individuals waving their flags like a precious medallion embellishing their necks. There was a sense of unity amongst us all that didn't seem fake or contrived. Daylight drunk means only one thing, crashing the parade. Ironically, the skinniest one didn't make it through the barriers. But never fear, we marched on, breaking smiles with Z lists and various charities.
After the parade we did what the youth does best and stocked up on stomach inducing copious amounts of various poisons and designated a spot-on spot in nearby St James's Park. I made friends with a few new faces! Buried in my drunken vertigo, we prowled the Strand like a runaway circus and headed on our merry way to Rory's birthday party at his house, fashionably late.
(The night ended with a ridiculous pig out back home with the missus and my sister).
I was fortunate enough to snap up three tickets to a dinky little catwalk of Yohji Yamamoto's spring summer 2011 collection at one of my fondest London museums. The runway was set in the Raphael gallery, adorned by hanging Renaissance paintings which contrasted beautifully with the futuristic air of the Japanese designer's clothing. I overheard a small group of Japanese behind me, who muttered some comments on how us Britons need to be educated on their nation's fashion, but in all honesty I was much to occupied oogling the luxe clothing, where sinuous fabrics and fluidity play an important role to the motion and rhythm of the outfit - once again proof that Yamamoto's clothes are extremely wearable and current to the hectic lifestyle of our times.
The clothes were modelled by real life couples, how adorable (and I suppose it brushed over the superficiality of the fashion industry, making the entire experience some what a whole lot more meaningful?)
(The intricate detail of the paisley print was very clever! How refreshing to juxtapose gentlemanly dapper dressing with a sharp cut and asymmetric silhouette.)
(Loved the skirt in person, but the top read a different slogan along the lines of being superficial, which I definitely preferred... if speaking as a potential client...)
All in all a worthwhile visit! And I'd urge all to visit the V&A shop (the Christian Lacroix papier collection is divine!!!!! That is all.)
