If You're Going to Try

“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”




– Charles Bukowski

Wandering

There is So Much About my Fate...

"There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I’m going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts."

Elizabeth Gilbert

Monday Inspiration

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas.

~Paula Poundstone



Happy Friday!!!

"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless."

~Bill Watterson

Pirates, Pirates and more Pirates

The fourth instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides definitely lives up to the Pirates legacy. One would think that with a different director and some cast changes it would loose its touch, but Rob Marshall stayed away form making a "Pirates: the Musical" and stayed true to the well-timed comedy and overall chaos of the other films.

The story deals with different groups of pirates and officers searching for the legendary "fountain of youth". The Spanish fleet do not even bother to take out pirates on their quest for the fountain; Barbossa (the incredible Geoffrey Rush) has worked (or bribed) his way up in the English ranks to take control of a ship and some willing King's men to find it; a new addition in the form of the tyrannic Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his "Sparrow-corrupted" daughter, Angelica (Penelope Cruz) are using brute force and zombies to get to the goal and Jack Sparrow (you know who), as always, messes up the day to ultimately save it with his wits, skills and extensive common knowledge on everything "pirate." With two chalices and a beautiful, but very dangerous mermaid, they all set out to find the fountain for different reason: ranging from eternal life and revenge to the destruction of a misinterpreted belief system. Many interesting characters make their first appearances and comedy is more prominent than ever!

What I missed was the spectacular Gore Verbinski effects (Marshall was a bit more subtle, but still very effective) and the two crazy pirates with hilarious views on life and a rolling eye (Ragetti played by Mackenzie Crook and Pintel played by Lee Arenberg).

Jack Sparrow: Have you been there?
Captain Teague: Does this face look like it's been to the fountain of youth?
Jack Sparrow: Depends on the light.



Blackbeard: Bring the mermaid!
Philip: You're killing her.
Blackbeard: I'm a bad man. 

Barbossa: You can sleep when you're dead!


Jack Sparrow: [Standing on a cliff edge]

You know that feeling you get when you're standing in a high place... sudden urge to jump?... I don't have it.

Angelica: That's hardly appropriate for the first mate.
Jack Sparrow: Was I the first?

Where I Want to be Today: a Ballet Studio

I've been working from 6am to 10pm on a film shoot every day for the last two weeks and have been missing my ballet classes. I wouldn't exhange the film industry for anything, but I need and crave my ballet. It's the only thing that can truly relax me and it's soemthing I can just get lost in and enjoy. It's beautiful, it's fun and, most importanlty, it's challenging and pushes me to my limits. I'm also going to the Romeo & Juliet ballet at the end of the month and cannot wait!

“Ballet is the one form of theater

where nobody speaks a foolish word all evening

nobody on the stage at least.”

- Edwin Denby



Adventure or Nothing

Happy Weekend!

To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven, - to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
~John Keats, Sonnet XIV

Happy Weekend!

Remember to Breathe...

To Touch, to Move, To Inspire

"To touch, to move, to inspire. This is the true gift of dance."

-Aubrey Lynch

Where I Want to be Today: A Field of Sunflowers

It freezing in Johannesburg, so I want to be somewhere sunny, warm and happy, like a field of sunflowers:

"Bring me then the plant that points to those bright Lucidites swirling up from the earth, And life itslef exhaling that central breath! Bring me the sunflower crazed with the love of light!"

- Anonymous

Enjoy your Easter!

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right...~Phillips Brooks, "An Easter Carol"

Happy Friday!

"The rhythm of the weekend, with its birth, its planned gaieties, and its announced end, followed the rhythm of life and was a substitute for it." 

~F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Soft Toy Car

Aah! To be 3 years old and already quite strange...

"The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius." 

 ~Rebecca Pepper Sinkler

Enjoy your Thursday!

It is the Child...

 

"It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents."

~Eric Hoffer

Dancing to Degas

The Impressionist style may have been labeled old fashioned and unoriginal in the beginning of the 20th century, but that does not mean it got any less beautiful. Edgar Degas, the French master, created fairytale pieces with off-centre compositions and captured moments of movement and grace. Enjoy his incredible ballet paintings...

"A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people."

- Edgar Degas

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

"Nothing in art should seem accidental, not even movement."

Enjoy the Rain

Photo: Ben Hassett

"The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain.  This is the kind the anonymous medieval poet makes me remember, the rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked window with complacency. "

~Susan Allen Toth

James Blunt's Tears and Rain - a perfect song to go with these rainy days...

We don't Receive Wisdom

“We don’t receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that none can take for us or spare us.”

- Marcel Proust

The Road...