Two flights that merge

A friend from Tokyo reached out to me last fall that he will be in LA in early March after his business trip to Barcelona. No idea why he flies from Barcelona to LA to go back to Tokyo but it's wonderful to catch up. Last time he was in LA was three years ago. A few months ago, another best friend calls up and says that he wants to stay over at my place on his way back from his business trip to Mexico City. They happen to arrive on the same day, on different flights, but leave on the same flight back to Tokyo. They don’t know each other, I am the connection.


What a coincidence. A world full of coincidences.

Cezanne: London - Chicago connection

I found out that there is a large Cezanne exhibition at the Tate, London. Stumbled upon this Youtube clip. Well, it is almost ending. (ending March 12th, 2023). The largest Cezanne exhibition in the last 30 years in the UK.

Checked out the Tate site

At the time, still life was, at least traditionally, considered the least important of art genres, but he wanted to show the art establishment just how meaningful these modest objects could be. ‘With an apple, I will astonish Paris!’ he declared.

It reminded me of the Cezanne exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute that I visited in June, 2022, the first major retrospective of the artist’s work in the United States in more than 25 years.

And of course they are related. I completely forgot, but The Art Institute of Chicago organized this with Tate. So, the art work that I saw last year is now in Tate London.

It all came back to me. That the Cezanne exhibit experience in Chicago was one of the most memorable, and impactful that I have ever experienced (I need to add this to the photo essay section in the future). I would have loved to see it again, at the Tate London. Especially since I have never been to London.

I need to survey the word more closely to know what other significant exhibitions are on at any given time.

This we will do at Balse.

Zettelkasten, 2023 concerts schedule, and Paul Bowles

I had a breakthrough in my daily knowledge management system. A significant one. I said to my friend, ‘before Zettel’ and ‘after Zettel’. Not an overstatement. By implementing this process, it fundamentally changes how I interact with knowledge. It forces me to slow down, reconstruct, and connect with a piece of knowledge, in personal ways. Zettelkasten is a knowledge management system. Gathering information, summarizing them on index cards, connecting them with various themes across your other cards (Zettels), and, most importantly, enables you to retrieve them in your desired use case/context. It’s hard to explain here, so I will promise to create a separate page to gather the year of research on this.


2023-24 concert schedules are being released from major venues around the world. MetOpera released last week, Carnegie yesterday. We will be reviewing those soon.


Revisiting Paul Bowles lately. Digging up some docs from the library. The Sheltering Sky, my favorite, and The Spider’s House, which I have not read.


BALSE Newsletter - 0002




Back through the photo album.

Walk Melrose.

Hear me out, better in color?

Monochrom thoughts.


Pull out the guitar. That you don’t have.


Pop music. Sometimes.


Oh how I wish it rained every weekend.


The Sunday Times, throw away, before reading.


The vast and near. Horn in the horizon. I see the sunset across all fields. Singing.




Past two weeks at Balse at a glance.




The story of the Centre Pompidou

Continuing on the research on Pompidou. This



Re-learning.




Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin

Very extreme form of mysticism.












Kassem Mosse - Workshop 32 A1 [WORKSHOP32]

techno, freshness burger









The Terror of Everything Everywhere All At Once

quantum superposition. There was a doc called ‘what the bleep to you know’, ten years ago. I used to own that DVD, I can’t find it anymore, but I do agree with this guy, quantum physics is certainly entering our shared consciousness.








Blow Up (1966) - Michelangelo Antonioni - trailer

Alexandre Saturday morning screening sessions. Can’t believe I had not seen this film before. Such a great one. Must see.






M:I:5 - Logorrhöe 2

Classic, techno.





New Poetic Visions: Rainer Maria Rilke

More on Rilke. Continued.





Björk shows residential recording studio in Spain







Rita Ackermann - Vertical Vanish

Rita Ackermann - Vertical Vanish

I really like this painter. Now on view at H&W downtown LA.



0:05 / 4:11 M:I:5 - Logorrhöe 3










Giuseppe Verdi - Falstaff - Georg Solti, Gotz Friedrich

Preparing for the Met Opera, later in March.




Bauhaus Rules

A deeply spiritual place. 

When heard sound, he saw color. When he saw color, he saw music. 

“The more abstract the form, the more clear the more clear and direct its appeal” Kandinsky






Life's meaning is found in nature - Hermann Hesse's Genius Philosophy

The Big Year

If you had one year of sabbatical, what would you do?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3MiQHyOAyM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAN1G22Mty4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGgq5FdaaA8


I came across these guys on Youtube, and immediately sent it over to my best friend, who loves bird photography. And what do you know, he says he was thinking of taking a break from life and doing something like this.


It is the ‘Big Year’.


What is a ‘Big Year’? It is a challenge to see as many bird species in a set period of time, in this case, one year. Here’s the Wiki.


A big year is a personal challenge or an informal competition among birders who attempt to identify as many species of birds as possible by sight or sound, within a single calendar year and within a specific geographic area. Popularized in North America, big years are commonly carried out within a single U.S. state or Canadian province, or within larger areas such as the Lower 48 contiguous states, within the official American Birding Association (ABA) area, or sometimes the entire globe. The ABA big year record of 840 species was set by Andrew Pochonita of Southern California in 2019.[1] The big year world record of 6,852 species was set in 2016 by Arjan Dwarshuis of the Netherlands [Wiki]


Fascinating.


I bought several books to learn for myself.


Birding Without Borders, by Noah K. Strycker


Birding on Borrowed Time, by Phoebe Snetsigner

rest and docs

Caught a cold and stayed in. The rain hitting the window and thunder approaching. Watched the film Banshees of Inisherin. No affirmations, no yoga, not even coffee, just time to rest. One of those Saturdays. Headache and exhaustion, but the space and time is a bliss.


Pondering whether to re-watch the documentary on Bruce Chatwin next.

80/20

The focus. 80 percent of your outcome is derived from 20 percent of causes. Focusing on the 20 and trimming down on the 80 percent will increase the velocity of crystallization. Here is the question. What is that 20 percent? This is where I must stop and ponder. Observe, picture, and strategize. Scrutinize the list of goals and areas of focus. Without careful selection, I risk wasting years. Worse, I may end up elsewhere, which is terrifying. The next step is to increase the 20 percent, which is to identify the ineffective 80 percent, and to trimming. This will increase the outcome.


The focus is clear: studying Art History, and writing. Deep read The Story of Art, and gain knowledge for application. What does that look like? It is an index card database, a knowledge box that has wealth of knowledge. Each card is full of nutrients. Neurons that talk to each other. My concept fermentation ground, which will turn into my magic mushroom. A universe, a start to a project.


So, the focus is getting through The Story of Art, by E.H. Gomrich, re-reading and summarizing as the knowledge base.


Goal: get through the book by the end of March. Re-read three times throughout 2023.


How to Achieve Impossible Goals: video


Today’s listening selection by ClassicAsobi:

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 27 – 32

Rudolf Buchbinder

Jump in, stop to listen

Reading, writing, photography, publishing.


Put another way:


Research, output, curation, with style.


Element to make a decent issue. Working, improving on these daily. Keep this going for five, ten, 20 years, it will reach unimaginable heights.


One more word, 'experience'. Experience, such as seeing Falstaff, Norma, or Der Rosenkavalier, at the Met Opera in NYC. Going to the Guggenheim Museum to see, in person, the art by Alex Katz. Walking through the wonderful scent of spices in the markets of Marrakech. Seeing the migrating Cranes in the winter snow fields of Hokkaido. But then there is the life and death that is all around us. The everyday, when I stop and listen, the songlines.

So I jump in, stop to listen, then paint.

Today's sound pick by ClassicAsobi - Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos 27, 30, 31 & 32

Artur Schnabel

Rilke & Zettelkasten

Only someone who is ready for anything and rules nothing out, not even the most enigmatic things, will experience the relationship with another as a living thing and will himself live his own: existence to the full.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet


Finished picking important quotes from the book over the weekend. I am building up my first Zettelkasten box. A completely manual index card, real paper, and a box. Started trying this about a month ago, still 20 or so cards. Pretty exciting. More posts that I found interesting here.



Back to the quote. No preconception, no judgement, no expectation, in a good way. No limits or restrictions, so naturally lives and breathes possibilities, sky is the limit, open minded, here and now, amor fati. These things come to mind. 'Existence to the full' sound exciting.

Georges Pompidou

Pompidou


Found a great documentary on the development of the Pompidou Centre. Watched half of it yesterday, planning to watch the rest today and will take notes.


Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974) came from a modest farmer family. He studied literature, and started as a teacher a public secondary school in Paris. In 1953, Rothschild, a bank, hired him, and appointed him general manager in 1956 - 1964. President Charles de Gaulle hires him to manage a Down Syndrome foundation. Becomes Prime Minister under President Charles de Gaulle from 1962 - 1968. President of France from 1969 - 74. He continued the de Gaulle policy of modernizing France. 1977 Centre Pompidou inaugurates.


His ascent from teacher to banker to politician is impressive. Especially with he was a novice as banker and as politician.


Based on the documentary, Pompidou was an avid art collector. He had a keen eye on modern and contemporary art. The story of having a conteporary art hung in his presidential office was quite telling.

The French Revolution Rabbit Hole

Watching documentaries on the French Revolution. Things that I did not know. The ideals "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité", and the event's profound impact, I recall. But I was less aware of the long social unrest and the Stalin like atmosphere. Planning to re-watch the doc to further understand the event. I plan to add notes to the post.


I am curious how the French Revolution and the ideal developed our ways of thinking. Not only the French, but how it continues to influece our lives today. Such a large topic with many branches to explore, including music, art, and literature. Rabbit hole. Fascinating.


Morning hours.

Morning hours.

Los Angeles, Saturday 6am. Sky is blue, grey, light orange. My writing table, aka dining table, look toward the balcony. Potted plants, white rail, then two large strong trees. Partial leaves. They trim them down to the bare in winter. In Spring it grows with fresh. In Summer, the most deep green, thick, glowing with energy. Plume of foliage packs the frame. I reach and touch. There is an owner. A squirrel. He visits us daily onto the balcony and digs through my plants. A feisty one, loves one cactus, not others. Then there is the pair of doves every now and then. They like to flap and sit together on different branches. My cats love to watch them. Of course, the humming bird that zips by, but you wonder if you saw anything. Finally, there is a small, chirping bird that comes by every spring. It sits right in the middle of the tree, on a branch, that looks staged, made for it to parch. It is a chirper. Oh does it chirp, into my living room, talking to my cats. It comes everyday, for weeks, until early Summer. She is my favorite.

It should be back soon.

Palazzo, window sunlight

I met Mikele, a young gallerist last November, in Venice, Italy. Tea, my host, an architect, went to the opening reception a few days prior. She was adamant that I go see the exhibit and meet the young gallerist.

A Venezia local, spent ten years working at a gallery in Los Angeles. A year ago, opened his own magnificent gallery space, steps away from the Accademia Bridge. Doors were open, the entrance space kept dim with paintings lit along the long side walls. A local Venetian contemporary painter was on exhibit. Psychologist by training. Colors, fire, strange, and wonderful.

The second floor is where the midday sun was pouring in. Large paned windows, overlooking the square with a statue of a linguist in the distance. Alone in the space, warm, wooden creaky floors. Spacious palazzo rooms, three of them, fifteen or more pieces by the local painter.

Standing, inside the painter. I close my eyes to see.


Checkout Barbatti Gallery, Venezia Italy.

Fuoco, vuoto by Venetian painter Riccardo Muratori

Due North

I love birds. It grew on me, since I saw the Audubon exhibit at the Huntington Library. I must have had interest from many years ago, but this is the first point that I can pinpoint.

They live around me that live in the same environment every day. Then there are geese that fly over me as I drive on the 405 freeway. When I see the migration, I talk to them, in Japanese ‘gambare-, gamareyo-’ No good direct translation. Google it, and it says ‘do your best’, but doesn’t feel right. In this instance, especially, there are many feelings involved. And some are mutual.

I hope you get there. Admiration. What strength and endurance! Wish your species remain forever. How lucky to come across you. Glad the weather is nice. Must be tired. Be careful with the falcons.

All that they see, to the north.

do check out All That Breathes, if you have not yet seen it.

Balse 2.0

What is balse? This is the question that is consistently on my mind.

Balse originally materialized as a quarterly techno event, in Brooklyn and then in LA. Inspired by the legendary LOFT, by David Mancuso, an eclectic selection of sound that defies genre and unparalleled sound reproduction, this spirit of LOFT is at the core.  The process of research is something that should be shared.  The daily studies, routines, connection, and collaboration. Growing mind,  transforming self, expanding horizons, reaching new ground.

This is what drives Balse; from literature, philosophy, history, art,  music, language, culture, this world is a playground. Following the fun.

What is our purpose?

Creating the next Pompidou.