There's no place like home, there's no place like home ...

For those dear patrons who were kind enough to swing by the Kaffeehaus and wondered where GAGA had been, in the last couple of months, well, I have been ... home. Returned. With my yet-to-be-exhausted suitcases. With my inscribed and smudged passport. I tapped my little red shoes three times, and muttered, repeatedly, "there's no place like home". I suppose I could also say, sweetly and sentimentally, that these words are true:

Another summer day

Has come and gone away

In Paris and Rome

But I wanna go home

or:

Another aeroplane

Another sunny place

I’m lucky I know

But I wanna go home

Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

Not quite. 2006 was a dream. A dream that, when I close my eyes, I can still feel the breeze blowing into my face when I sat in front of la Tour Eiffel; when I close my eyes, I re-experience the fear of being lost amongst the narrow alleys in Venice; when I close my eyes, I can breathe the air of renaissance of Florence; the taste of hot shoe-string fries with loads of mayonase in Belgium; the Charles Bridge of Prague on which anyone would turn into a poet; the mountains and lakes of Switzerland; the forever-sassy Spain and its Flamenco; The Kiss of Vienna and Mozart of Salzburg; the days in Bordeaux which we started off with homemade petit dejeuner francais and finished with their world-famous vin. And so I close my eyes again, and I see the blue-and-white tiles, some cracked, that walled the buildings of Lisbon. And what about the beautiful little Cotswold, the what-can-you-not-find-here London, the numerous remnants of hundreds-years-old castles of Ireland and their overwhelming drinking culture/problem, their friendliness, their accent, the faces of the friends who had treated me like family. When I close my eyes, I can feel your hugs again.

Reality is, I am now in a place where I can see my family everyday, where I am surrounded by old friends, where I find my childhood memories, where I feel safe. This place is called home. I am only grateful that my dream had led me to where I am now.

Europe: I trust you are going to stay well ... until we meet again.

Exposition de Photographie

How about this on a Friday afternoon?

Blackrock, Dundalk

2 Feb 2007

Van Gogh and blog

Self portrait (1887)

"I wish they would only take me as I am. "

Vincent van Gogh

a dedicated painter

2000+ works

sold one

failed to conform

failed to be understood

failed to be loved

never failed to live - in his own world

Vincent van Gogh

unwell? insane?

schizophrenia, bipolar, syphilis?

temporal lobe epilepsy, acute intermittent porphyria?

malnutrition, alcohol, smoking, absinthe? Yes.

Vincent van Gogh

North Brabant, Borinage, Brussels

Etten, Drenthe and The Hague, Nuenen

Antwerp, Paris, Arles

Saint-Rémy, Auvers-Sur-Oise

Whose heart was your home?

Vincent van Gogh

You became recognised, famous, loved; your works were admired, studied, sought-after.

Just a little too late for you to see.

Your Portrait of Dr Gauchet was recorded as the 4th most expensive painting ever sold (at $82.5 million in 1990 - roughly $127.3 million nowadays).

Yet you were living in poverty and once recalled yourself having had only 5 hot meals in months.

Why?

If only there was this strange thing called 'blog' in your times ...

you could have uploaded your works on your blog ...

auction your paintings on the internet ...

billions of people could have had a chance to see your sunflowers, your starry nights, your wheat fields, your bedroom ...

your talent.

doctors would have been fascinated by your illness, dying to give you a proper diagnosis ...

If only there was blog in your times.

被人嫌怪 被人辭退 被情人騙去絕望的感情 傻到留下耳朵給情人做裝飾的怪客 誰受過他感動 還是覺得驚嚇 畫完無數麥田和向日葵 贏到了後代的收藏研究 無奈有生之年才售得出一個客

(畫意 - 王菀之)

The Potato Eaters (1885)

Bedroom in Arles (1888)

Portrait of Dr Gachet (1890)

Starry Night over the Rhone (1888)

"When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars."

The Starry Night (1889)

Vincent's last words, "La tristesse durera toujours", meaning "the sadness will last forever".

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left inside

On that starry, starry night

You took your life as lovers often do

But I could have told you Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

(lyrics from Vincent, by Don McLean)

Exposition de Photographie

Prague

Summer

Dusk

Light shower

250th anniversary of birth of the genius

Augustine: "The world is a great book, of which they who never stir from home read only one page"

Two drifters

Off to see the world

There's such a lot of world to see

We're after the same rainbow's end

Waiting 'round the bend

"Moon River"

- lyrics by Johnny Mercer

Year 2005:-

December

Auckland

Hong Kong

Year 2006:-

January

Dublin, Dundalk

March

Dublin

London

May

Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome

June

Paris

Wimbledon, London

July

Brussels, Brugges

London, Cardiff, Pembroke

Galway

August

Prague

London

September

Zurich, Lucern, Geneva, Montrose

Barcelona, Madrid

October

Kilkenny

Salzburg, Vienna

November

Nantes, Bordeaux, Mont Saint Michel

Lisbon, Sintra

December

Dunboyne Castle

Year 2007:-

January

Liverpool, Warwick, Oxford, Birmingham, Cotswold, Bath, London

Feburary

Hong Kong

Auckland

"It was a very good year ......", so the song goes, by Frank Sinatra.