A businessman I am

On the road to creating my business I have still a few hurdles to pass. From my point of view (artist’s eye) the business aspect of my task is only a necessary downfall of my project. Business profit being only a means to an end – the end being creation, and the mean is to feed the artist (at least) and if possible prevent him from being affected by everyday hassle of survival (oh dear!).

So coming from where I come, I do acknowledge I have a few – many (oh dear!) – lacuna and one of theme is not having a hyper-developed sens of business. So, being somewhat dedicated to my goal, one of my milestones is to improve my business skills, and so trying to develop my awareness of business opportunities. I must start to see my surroundings as a sum of economic unbalances that I should take advantage of (what am I talking about?). Nevertheless I am proud to say today that I have made an important step towards success.

Task of the day: Bargain bread price at my Boulangerie. (oh boy!)

Mission accomplished! I used the good old “That’s all the money I have, take it or leave it”. Savings of the day: 2.20% on my baguette!

De retour à Paris

Alors qu’est-ce que ça fait de rentrer à Paris?

Hm, je ne sais pas trop en tous cas il y a des choses qui m’ont manqué et que je retrouve avec joie aujourd’hui ici. Des choses personnelles et puis d’autres comme la culture. Je me souviens de ses gens d’Afrique du Sud incrédules qui ne comprennait pas que cela puisse etre si important.

Ca l’est. Et j’étais comblé hier que se tienne la nuit des musées, à laquelle j’ai participé pour la première fois.

Cet après midi, expo Dave LaChapelle et ses photos à carractère sex trach et acidulés; un peu decevant: rien de nouveau et peux d’oeuvres.

Qu’à cela ne tienne, ce sera bientôt peut être notre tour.

Year End Thumbs Up

In a few days – 7 – I wil be in the plane back to France. A little satisfaction a few weeks ago is becoming more of a relief as the time approaches.

I realise suddenly that more than a year has passed, far from my family, friends and country. I will be back in cold and dark winter but I can’t wait for my “pain au chocolat”, brioche and “eclaire au cafe” ; my streets, my champs de mars, my Paris. It’s a bliss, and one of the many perks of living abroad, it makes you realize how great home is.

Looking back at this year I must say it’s full of great memories, beauties and pride. I’m happy I have accomplished all I wanted to achieve this year, and looking at how things are going regarding work I can only wish things will continue getting better next year.

I am counting the days to when I will meet them all again.

Brush Strokes and Afterlife – or – The Cruelty of Age Discrimination

“Art is a jealous mistress and if a man has a genius for painting […] he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.” R. W. Emerson

Afterlife, after here. My next life, my next job. Where do we go from here? If I continue down the path I have been taking, at the end of this mission I will end up asking myself the same questions I couldn’t answer four months ago.

Today I contemplated a first option: the most unlikely and of course the most attractive. It’s been sitting in the back of my mind for some years now, but I never considered it seriously. Now, for some reason, it doesn’t seem as utopian as it did. May be I got accustomed to the implications, may be I lost track of what people are expected to achieve, may be I can’t remember as clearly as before what I want to become and why. Besides, I just started to understand and admit that I will not win the rat race, I have become to fat. Rack-a-tack-tack.

Go back to school and get a degree in fine arts. No, become a full time creator. Live solely on my imagination and my skills. No, earn a living by being fully dependent on other’s will to waste money on superficial and expensive things.

America. Study in the School of Art of a top University, may be in New York –to add fun to the fun – and get a bachelor’s degree in two years. I am a man with a plan. $60,000 to $80,000 for the degree. I am a bamboozled man.

Back to basics. Paris, France, my home town, my shelter. “Les Beaux Arts” one of the most prestigious Art School in the world. The admission tests seem very tough but I can cope with that. And then shock! Get out. Students must be at most 26 years old on the day of admission. All my hopes suddenly crumble down.

I’ll be starting to save – or rather find – money. Approximately 100$ a day as of today.

Down Spiral

I was surprisingly unaffected by my departure, neither exited nor worried, until last Friday. Suddenly, after this weekend I started do get slightly depressed.

After: I’m worse

So, I think we should make a law to prevent what I call hair cutters from auto-proclaiming themselves “hair stylists”. The one I paid – I need to mention it as people might think it could have been a free job – was barely a hair cutter, just good enough to shave sheep.

At the end, she said:

Is that short enough?

Did I ever say I wanted them short! It’s a ridiculous hairdo, If I had been her, I would have apologized and tried to make thing better… Now that I think of it may be she was asking “Is that short enough?” (so that nobody can fix it!).

That’s me after…

Before: I’m fine

Now is the difficult time of the year when I need to get a haircut. I want something a bit trendy, a bit corporate too. I fear the worse: I am always disappointed.

That’s a picture of me before…

The Assassination of Damien by the ecstatic happy bunny

Back in Paris, I spend most of my time crossing out items of my to-do list one after the other. Day after day, the list shrinks until I have done it all. With a week and a half to go, I have a lot of time on my hands and little to do. For some reason – that I have since then identified – I have an itch: I need to visit my past.
This does not look like it yet, but this has to do with sweat and blood. I need to introduce my subject first.
So I sit around all day on my couch, bored and stressed out because I am not doing anything. Finally, I decide to call friends I have not seen in months, some in years. We have a drink, a chat, nothings much has changed and nothing much will.
But I’m still itching, so I decide to answer an email from my former high school and meet teachers over there – to talk about dejavu-production.com – and others things.

Fly me to the moon

So hours go by, slowly and unstoppably. Twelve days to go. I want to say it is going to be both a very long period and a tiny chip of time. But it is not. I feel like I am leaving tomorrow, that I will be gone for a while before I realise what is happening.
I think I have fulfilled all the administrative tasks requested before my departure. I was still waiting to receive my plane tickets and details on my journey and arrival.
I just received them.

I was expecting a smooth trip, Paris-Johannesburg, around seven (7) hours of high flying. I was wrong. I got a ticket Paris-Dubai-Johannesburg, eighteen and a half (18h30) hours of journey. Oh Boy! I’ll be getting there on Friday afternoon, so I guess I will have all weekend to get organised, and hopefully socialise.
As the very conscientious digital writer that I am, I had to check the actual direct flight time lengths. I was wrong. Count more than ten (10) hours to go down to the south of southern Africa.
So what am I saying?

I am under-prepared. But that is not necessarily something to fear.

Say it loud!

So I had friends over from the UK last week-end. Yes, let’s have fun. I had decided to spend an evening at the karaoke, thursday night, in a Korean restaurant. Everybody wanted to come, no one – or just a few – wanted to sing and as soon as we set foot in the private booth we already had a few dozen songs lined up. We sang like there was no tomorrow, we sang as if we knew how to sing.

New hits, old classics, cheesy tunes. We sing and we shout, What, tonight our shame went to bed early. Yes, another glass of Soju please. In the background, behind the lyrics running on the screen, images of tourist videos.