Paris: A Rainy Day

Paris Street; Rainy Day (or Paris: A Rainy Day) is a large (212.2cm x 276cm) 1877 oil painting by the French artist Gustave Caillebotte. The piece depicts the Place de Dublin, an intersection near the Gare Saint-Lazare, a railroad station in north Paris. One of Caillebotte's best known works, it debuted at the Third Impressionist Exhibition of 1877 and is currently owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. Art Institute curator Gloria Groom described the piece as "the great picture of urban life in the late 19th century."

Caillebotte's interest in photography is evident from the painting. The figures in the foreground appear slightly "out of focus", those in the mid-distance (the carriage and the pedestrians in the middle of the intersection) have sharp edges, while the features in the background becomes progressively indistinct. The severe cropping of some figures further suggests the influence.

The point-focus of the image highlights the dimensions and draws the viewer's eye to the vantage point at the center of the buildings in the background. The figures appear to have walked into the painting, as though Caillbotte was taking a snapshot of people casually going about their day, hiding the fact that he spent months carefully placing his figures within the pictorial space.

This painting can be seen at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris (September 25, 2012–January 20, 2013), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (February 26–May 27, 2013), and the Art Institute of Chicago (June 26–September 22, 2013).

In his masterpiece, Paris Street; Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte brought an unusual monumentality and compositional control to a typical Impressionist subject, the new boulevards that were changing the Paris cityscape. The result is at once real and contrived, casual and choreographed. With its curiously detached figures, the canvas depicts the anonymity that the boulevards seemed to create. By the time it appeared in the third Impressionist exhibition, held in April 1877, the artist was 29 years old, a man of considerable wealth, and not only the youngest but also the most active member of the Impressionist group. He contributed six of his own canvases to the exhibition; played a leading part in its funding, organization, promotion, and installation; and lent a number of paintings by his colleagues that he owned.

About the Artist: Gustave Caillebotte (1848-94) was born into an upper-crust Parisian family who had made their fortune in textiles. Caillebotte was a lawyer, but after receiving a large inheritance, he decided to pursue painting and horticulture. He enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, of whom he later became a patron. He organized group impressionist shows including one in Paris in 1877, which featured his own Paris Street; Rainy Day.

How the painting got to Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago bought it in 1964 for an undisclosed price. The purchase was brilliant and bold, says Gloria Groom, the Art Institute's curator of 19th-century European painting, because the world had not yet recognized Caillebotte's talent. In 1995, the painting was the signature piece at a French retrospective of Caillebotte. It remains one of the few Caillebottes in any public collection; most of the artist's work is privately owned by his family.

TODO -

• Go to Art Institute of Chicago (may be next summer between June 26 - September 2013.), if I can find a resort in our vacation network near that place.
• Go to North France to find the Place de Dublin, an intersection near the Gare Saint-Lazare, a railroad station in north Paris (may be 2015)
• Start oil painting of this one (may be next month :-))) - how to get the wet feel of rain?)

Seed

There are many people in our life, some we love and some love us. Not everyone loves you, and you can not fall in love with most of those people. If you are lucky, you meet someone who loves you and you love him/her as well. That is true happiness. Treasure all the happy moment being together. This kind of happiness doesn't happen to everyone.

There are situations you happen to love someone who doesn't love you back. You are handsome, smart, and honest. Why that person can not love or even like you back no matter how hard you tried to please her/him?

There are situations you happen to have less/no feeling for someone who loves you. She/He is good looking and has nice personality, why you just can not have strong romantic feeling towards her/him even you thought you should and tried?

You ARE the source of love seeds. If you have the love seed for someone, the love will grow into lovely rose as time passing by. If other person has the love seed for you, he/she will gradually love you more and more as time passing by. If the person doesn't have the love seed, no matter how hard you tried to make him/her happy, there won't be any rose anytime in the future. There is no love seed. He/she could be good friends in your life, but just not that special one who lives in your heart. You love yourself better through loving others.

Have plenty love seeds for others. Accept both good and bad sides of them. Forget and forgive. You will love more people. Some day, you find that special person who loves you dearly the same way as you do. You will be in the happy cloud, and live happily ever after. :-))))

Something Greek

Greek cuisine is a Mediterranean cuisine, sharing characteristics with the cuisines of Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, and the Levant. Contemporary Greek cookery makes wide use of olive oil, vegetables and herbs, grains and bread, wine, fish, and various meats, including poultry, rabbit and pork. Also important are olives, cheese, eggplant (aubergine), zucchini (courgette), and yogurt. Greek desserts are characterized by the dominant use of nuts and honey. Some dishes use filo pastry.

Here are some items (below) I enjoyed (yummy :-)) at 2012 Annual Greek Festival at St Theodore Greek Orthodox Church (our neighbor in greenbelt) last Thursday:

Moussaka - Sliced eggplant and potatoes baked with ground beef and tomato sauce, covered with creamy béchamel sauce and topped with cheese.

Dolmades - Grape leaves stuffed with ground beef, rice and herbs and topped with a creamy lemon-egg sauce

Spanakopita  - Lightly buttered fillo dough stuffed with spinach and feta cheese, baked to a golden brown

Tiropita - Lightly buttered fillo dough stuffed with a blend of Greek cheese, baked to a golden brown finish

I like Spanakopita which is similar to the one that I can make myself (learned from my Turkish roommate long time ago). I also liked the Moussaka. The Greek dessert are pretty sweet. I tried them before. It is very nice to try different food together with good friends.

Greece is always mysterious to me because those Greek mythology books read before. My impression is: Greek people are beautiful (like Jennifer Aniston, Rita Wilson, Yanni). One of our co-workers is also a Greek and she is very beautiful.

Here are some handy phrases ...

Good morning - Kalime'ra
Good evening - Kalispe'ra
Good night - Kalini'chta
Hello/Goodbye - Yia'sou
Goodbye - Anti'o (also Yia'sou)
Cheers - Yia'sou
I would like - The'lo
Please - Parakalo'
Thank you - Efharisto'
How are you - Ti'Ka'nis
See you again - Tha'se tho'ksana
Let's go - Pa'me
Do you speak English - Mila'te Angklika'

Il Mare & Lake House

Il Mare is a 2000 South Korean film, starring Jun Ji-hyun and Lee Jung-jae. The title, Il Mare, means "The Sea" in Italian, and is the name of the seaside house which is the setting of the story. The Korean title means "time-transcending love". The two protagonists both live there two years apart in time, but are able to communicate through a mysterious post box. The setting for the movie was shot on Ganghwa Island's Sukmodo, and Jeju Island's Udo.

The actress, Jeong Ji-hyun (全智賢) (born 30 October 1981), is a South Korean actress. She is best known for her role as "The Girl" in the romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2001), one of the highest grossing Korean comedies of all time. Other notable films include Il Mare (2000) and Windstruck (2004). She is a very cute and smart girl.

The Lake House is a 2006 American romantic drama film remake of the South Korean motion picture Il Mare (2000). It was written by David Auburn, directed by Alejandro Agresti, and stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock as Alex Wyler and Kate Forster, respectively an architect living in 2004 and a doctor living in 2006. The two meet via letters left in a mailbox at the lake house they have both lived in at separate points in time; they carry on correspondence over two years, remaining separated by their original difference of two years. For Alex the time goes from 2004 to 2006. For Kate the time goes from 2006 to 2008.

This film reunites Reeves and Bullock for the first time in a film since they co-starred in Speed in 1994. The film is set and filmed in the Chicago area. The lake house itself was built on what is called Maple Lake, located within the Maple Lake Forest Preserve off of 95th Street in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. After filming the house was later removed and a simple fishing dock was put in its place.

Plot:

In 2006, Dr. Kate Forster is leaving a lake house that she has been renting in suburban Wisconsin to move to Chicago. Kate leaves a note in the mailbox for the next tenant to forward her letters should some slip through the system, further adding that the paint-embedded paw prints on the walkway leading into the house were already there when she arrived.

Two years earlier, in 2004, Alex Wyler, an architect, arrives at the lake house and finds Kate's letter in the mailbox. The house is neglected, with no sign of paw prints anywhere. As Alex restores the house, a dog runs through his paint and leaves fresh paw prints right where Kate said they would be. Both Alex and Kate continue passing messages to each other via the mailbox, and each watch its flag go up and down as the message leaves and the reply arrives, which takes place as they wait at the mailbox. They cautiously look around each time the flag changes, hoping to somehow spot the other, but in vain they do not, as they are alone at the mailbox.

Baffled, Alex writes back, asking how Kate knew about the pawprints since the house was unoccupied before he arrived. An equally perplexed Kate writes back, and she and Alex discover that they are living exactly two years apart. Their correspondence takes them through several events, including Alex finding a book, Persuasion, at a train station where Kate said she had lost it, and Alex taking Kate on a walking tour of his favorite places in Chicago via an annotated map that he leaves in the mailbox. Alex and Kate eventually meet at a party, but he doesn't mention their letter relationship to her.

As Alex and Kate continue to write each other, they decide to try to meet again. Alex makes a reservation at Il Mare (Italian for "The Sea"), a restaurant whose name is a homage to the original Korean motion picture, for around March 2006 — two years in Alex's future, but only a day away for Kate. Kate goes to the restaurant but Alex fails to show. Heartbroken, Kate asks Alex not to write her again, recounting a tragedy a year ago before, on Valentine's Day 2006, when she witnessed a traffic accident near Daley Plaza and held a man who died in her arms. Both Alex and Kate leave the lake house, continuing on with their separate lives.

A year later, on Valentine's Day 2006 for Alex, Valentine's Day 2008 for Kate, Alex returns to the lake house after something about the day triggers his memory. Meanwhile, Kate goes to an architect to review renovation plans for a house she wants to buy. She notices a drawing of the lake house on the conference room wall and learns that Alex Wyler — the same person with whom she'd been corresponding — had drawn it. She also learns that Alex was killed in a traffic accident exactly two years ago to the day and realizes why he never showed up for their date; he was the man who died in Daley Plaza.

Rushing to the lake house, Kate writes a letter telling Alex she loves him, but begs him not to try to find her if he loves her back. Wait two years, she says, and come to the lake house instead. Meanwhile Alex has gone to Daley Plaza to find Kate.

At the lake house, Kate sobs, clutching onto the mailbox stand, sure she was too late, but then the mailbox flag lowers; Alex has picked up her note. Soon, she sees a vehicle arriving and then a figure walking toward her. It is Alex. They walk toward each other. Kate says, "You waited!" She and Alex kiss, then walk toward the lake house.


Untouchable Lovers


The movie title was translated into "Untouchable Lovers". I like both Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. The Korea girl is also liked because of her other movies. One sweet friend of mine has a collection of her movies. It will be really nice to watch it again in a quiet evening imaging self crossing the time. Are you untouchable and remote?

European Shorthair

A cat with a whole continent to call home might easily be assumed to have wide popularity but the European Shorthair is less known than either its British Shorthair or American Shorthair counterparts. 

Over the years since the breed was established, it has become less cobby than the British type, with a slightly longer and less heavily jowled face, perhaps reflecting the typical feline type of warmer mainland European countries more than it did in the past. 

It has many of the same basic traits as the British cats, however, being strong and hardy with an all-weather coat. Its personality tends to be calm and affectionate, and it is a relatively quiet breed.

BREED HISTORY
Until 1982, European Shorthairs were classified with British Shorthairs. The European Shorthair does not seem to have caught the imagination of breeders, and remains rare. 

The breed is now being selectively bred, with no British Shorthair crosses permitted in the pedigree. It is not recognized by GCCF or major breed a registries outside Europe.

Head
Triangular to rounded, with well-defined muzzle

Neck
Muscular

Eyes
Large, round, and well-spaced, with colors to math coat

Ears
Medium-sized and upright, with rounded tips

Body
Medium to large, well-muscled, but cobby

Coat
Short and dense, standing away from body

Legs
Medium-length and well muscled

Tail
Medium-length, thick at base, tapering to rounded up

Silver Mackerel Tabby
The European Shorthair is bred in the three "'traditional" tabby patterns of classic, mackerel, and spotted. The silver tabby is popular because of the vibrantly contrasting colors in its coat. The markings should be symmetrical on both sides of the body.

Key Facts
DATE OF ORIGIN    1982
PLACE OF ORIGIN European mainland
ANCESTRY Household cats, British Shorthairs
WEIGHT RANGE   8-15 lb (3.5-7 kg)
TABBY COLORS (CLASSIC, MACKEREL, SPOTTED)
Brown, Blue, Red, Cream, Tortie, Blue Tortie

Temperament

This breed is very affectionate and loving, and likes to be around humans. They are also easygoing and very tolerant toward children, dogs and other animals. Because of their intelligence, alertness and agility, they are excellent hunters and also very independent.

Do you think you look like that? Maybe in previous life, you were a silver tabby cat? :-))))

Art Lesson

C2 agreed to continue art lessons as long as C1 is the accompany student. C2 wanted to become an animator and win Oscar some day when she grows up. So she should have this art training for that dream to come true ;-))

The first lesson, C2 started her very first oil painting piece: a white cat with a remote control. C1 ended up with a sketch of still life: a glass vase of flowers although she wanted to draw a cat too. They were happy at their first lesson.

The second is not so easy. C1 chose to draw her own cat in sketch: a pair of European Silver Tabbies displaying well-defined “necklaces” and well-spaced leg rings. It was frustrating as there were too many distracting details on this pretty creature. The thinner one looked fatter and the fatter one looked like a bat. Sigh.

C2 continued to add colors to her cat, with red background, brown tables, grey remote control, and suspicious crippled legs. The cat is supposed to look like a couch potato. C2 gave up coloring as she got frustrated too having trouble in figuring out the shade technique. Sigh.

Cute 4

               there is not enough space for me ...... need my own cave

                           have to comfort you although I am upset too

                        precious peaceful moment ...... in dream

                   you know why I am wearing dress shirt today

                                            Picture Day

                                         those fingers need love too ......

                                      I wish to use you as my model .....

                                     I just want to withdraw .......

The Rose

Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you its only seed.


It's the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance.
It's the dream afraid of waking
That never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give,
And the soul afraid of dyin'
That never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose. 

Quotes - Fleud

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

“We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.”

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”

“The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?”


“Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.”

“Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate. ”

“Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have , so to speak , pawned a part of their narcissism.”

“Loneliness and darkness have just robbed me of my valuables.”

“A love that does not discriminate seems to me to forfeit a part of its own value, by doing an injustice to its object; and secondly, not all men are worthy of love.”

“Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor.”

“Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.”

“Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea,they become powerless when they oppose it.”

“Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.”

“public self is a conditioned construct of the inner psychological self.”

“The unconscious of one human being can react upon that of another without passing through the conscious.”

“Love in the form of longing and deprivation lowers the self regard.”

“Our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution. Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience. We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other.”

“Instinct of love toward an object demands a mastery to obtain it, and if a person feels they can't control the object or feel threatened by it, they act negatively toward it.”

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud, was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis.

Freud was born the first of eight children to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Příbor, Austrian Empire, now part of the Czech Republic. His father, Jacob Freud (1815–1896), was a wool merchant. Jacob's family were Hassidic Jews, and though Jacob himself had moved away from the tradition, he came to be known for his Torah study. Freud's parents were poor, but they ensured his education. Interested in law as a student, he moved instead into medicine, undertaking research into cerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy. He went on to develop theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Though psychoanalysis has declined as a therapeutic practice, it has helped inspire the development of many other forms of psychotherapy, some diverging from Freud's original ideas and approach.

Freud postulated the existence of libido (an energy with which mental process and structures are invested), developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association (in which patients report their thoughts without reservation and make no attempt to concentrate while doing so), discovered transference (the process by which patients displace on to their analysts feelings based on their experience of earlier figures in their lives) and established its central role in the analytic process, and proposed that dreams help to preserve sleep by representing as fulfilled wishes that would otherwise awake the dreamer. He was also a prolific essayist, drawing on psychoanalysis to contribute to the interpretation and critique of culture.

Psychoanalysis remains influential within psychiatry and across the humanities, though some critics see it as pseudo-scientific and sexist, and a study in 2008 suggested it had been marginalized within university psychology departments. Regardless of the scientific content of his theories, Freud's work has suffused intellectual thought and popular culture to the extent that in 1939 W.H. Auden wrote, in a poem dedicated to him: "to us he is no more a person / now but a whole climate of opinion / under whom we conduct our different lives ..."

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder in which the individual is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity. This condition affects one percent of the population. First formulated in 1968, it was historically called megalomania, and it is closely linked to egocentrism.

Many of the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder are relatively easy to identify. They include an overinflated opinion of the self, a desire for and expectation of constant praise from others, a lack of empathy toward others and a tendency to be harshly critical. Additional features of the condition include fantasizing about success and eventually receiving the recognition of others, being concerned if possessions, appearance, or self are not perfect, exploiting others to get things, and having an extremely fragile self-esteem that is marked by underlying deep self-criticism and fear of shame.

It should be understood that symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder represent a spectrum. Most people have their moments of excessive self-criticism or grandiosity, of envying others or of having fragile self-esteem. These don’t represent a disorder, provided a person’s relationships to others or ability to function in the world is not constantly being impacted by these things.

One of the areas where this is the case is when adolescents are assessed for narcissistic personality disorder. Many teenagers would appear to have this condition due to their developmental stage and their fundamental work in forming an identity separate from caregivers at this time. Generally, though exceptions exist, narcissistic personality disorder is not diagnosed until people are in adulthood.

The symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder make sense when considered together and they have to be considered as emanating from the inability to individually maintain a strong image of self. People with this disorder constantly look to others to mirror them or provide praise. When they attempt this process on their own, they lack a strong core set of beliefs about their own worth and instead encounter self-criticism.

To deflect from the constant self-loathing, narcissists focus on outward shows of personal worth, which could include bragging about possessions or accomplishments, seeking friends only among those who will admire them, or castigating others for having or being less. Expressed opinions about the self are often overestimation of importance or talent that lead to unrealistic and unjustified bragging. Grandiosity and boasting can cause the most confusion because these things sound like high self-esteem, but they really represent the opposite and are an attempt to get others not to see the core lowly self that is a source of perpetual shame.

Certain symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder further block people from the path of having real relationships with others; though many narcissists do marry and sometimes marry other narcissists, which creates constant mirroring between the couple. Children who come into this picture may be treated as prizes, and if they are accomplished, they may receive affection from narcissistic parents, but only if they meet parental standards.

Probably the most disliked symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder are the tendency to have no empathy for others and to use and exploit people for personal gain. Someone with this condition could feign deep friendship with another to get a job promotion, or could lose interest in a friend who suddenly has life problems and seems to need sympathy. Narcissism ultimately represents failure to understand belonging with the rest of the human race, so sympathy with it is impossible. As long as a person with this disorder remains untreated, on the outside he is special, elite and different, and on the inside, he is so terribly unworthy he can never do or be enough to hide his shame. At either pole, he is alone with little real closeness to others.

In real life, there are such people trying to show off their new money, houses, etc. Those people are pretty greedy types. Unfortunately there are plenty of such kind of spices that it is hard to get rid of.