Celebrating the new H.Q. !

Nouvelle-Orléans

Traveler,
From whence do you come ?
And where do you go ?
The moon has set,
But the Sun has not yet risen.
In the chaos of darkness before the dawn
Seeking the light,
I advance
To dispel the dark clouds from my mind
To find a great tree unbowed by the tempest,
I emerge from the earth.

- daisaku ikeda

vintage magic revisited

Summer Royale !

...


silence
gong
warrior 2
greens
peace
movement
drums
joy


REPEAT

...

L'Art Français

une étampe d'un magasin d'encadrement, je crois... tombée du dos d'une toile de mon grand-père Henri,  peintre...

office, reinvented

images de Biggie Small, une expo à la Galerie VAV de Concordia, par Antoine Cloutier-Bélisle et Barbara Menzoda-Denis...

love me some shadows

in some random ancient restaurant in Côte-des-Neiges, graced by the sun spitting its rays on the window menus...

Montreal; Nothing revolutionary in form, but always in content : streets, people and moments of a day in my life in the city I am from...

Back into our woods

After years away from the land where my family came, I am back, with my dad's 70s snow moccassins and my grandmother's quilt... Perfect stillness.

Old pianos and all that jazz

I just love them. This one is at one of my aunts' in the eastern tip of the island (Montreal)

Juliette & Chocolat, some winter day in Montréal

In the recent weeks, I have been thinking about my use of this blog (primarily for news), and, parallel to that, the incredible amount of chronicling I do on a daily basis.. documenting my life, my surroundings, the people I see, the places where I eat, the beauty of a detail, the quote scribbled on a wall that nobody noticed, the design at the bottom of my cup of tea...

So, as I sat here at Juliette &Chocolat, a trendy spot where one may order all types of chocolate to drink (yes, I did say 'to drink'), I thought about all that, while in the process of documenting with my iPhone the quite incredible display of lights and the funky servers' hats. And so I decided, that instead of just being some sort of news channel for me via 8h51, I would transform this blog into a forum for the creative process, and an outlet for these chronicles.

As I pondered all of this, I had a cup of herbal tea, precisely 'Mayan chocolate with red pepper sparkles', which seemed quite appropriate considering I had just recently watched 'Chocolat' with the admirable Juliette Binoche and her fabulous counterpart, M. Johnny Depp, who in the movie admits to Mayan hot chocolate 'and a sparkle of chili pepper' being his favorite drink. Synchronicity, synchronicity.

After an interesting moment of creating eclipses of light and ying yang symbols at the bottom of my tea cup, I wrote down this quote, printed on the great mirror greating all visitors at the entrance of their little hot spot on Laurier street, in the Mile End quarter of Montreal :

(loosely translated) 'Happy is the chocolate, which, after traveling the world through the smiles of women, meets death in a delicious kiss and melts in their mouth' _ Brillat Savarin

So, I am offering the new spirit of this blog not as a crowned writer, but rather as a blessed child of the New World, blessed to live an exciting life, mostly on the road, between great deserts and little urban worlds like this one; a life I will do my best to share with ya'll.

On this, I am exiting through the blood-colored velvet curtains, leaving my little black kettle behind, and stepping right back into the great big adventure that is winter in Montreal.

Good night ! x

Le Soul Reel 2010

It's finally here ! :P

http://vimeo.com/9513690

... and a couple of street shots from the shoot of Wonder Chamber no 2

Wonder Chamber no 2 begins

Last week saw the 'official' launch of the creative process, this time in terms of making sonar ambiances and recording beats loops (in a creative collaboration between marie-michele jasmin-belisle and ffortissimo studios), for the second piece in my 'Wonder Chambers' series.

Wonder Chamber no 2 will delve into the misty nights of Britain, the sea port of Whitby and its Dracula-inspiring sceneries (it is indeed where Bram Stoker came, in 1890 to write his masterpiece on the Transylvannian count), the 199 church stairs, the ruins of the Abbey, and the alledged tomb of the famed vampire, its stone skulls and arabesques covered in moss ... meet Whitby in all its dark glory ...

And then, stroll down the flashy yellow trailer of a 'gyspsy' fortune teller, which probably hasn't been painted since the 40s, the trendy coffee shops with luscious Edwardian wallpapers, the Audi R8 parked in front of the 'M' lounge, the salons de thé, my wooden Buddha covered in gold leaf bought at an antique store for 5 pounds ...

These are but ideas and memories which may or may not end up in Wonder Chamber no 2. Overall, this is going to be an ode to the Old World, with trip hop beats and pixilated nights.

Some shots from the beginning stages :

recoloring the wwww

the new exciting project of the holidays, revamping mah web presence .. some photos of the work in progress :D

Happy Holidays !

With art and soul food, old books and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker suite, I wish you the happiest holidays from my family's Victorian mansion buried under snow in our tiny village, and pray for everyone to end the year on a high note, amidst personal victories, inner peace and joie de vivre ... :)