Beth Arnold

Letter From Paris: Giving Thanks

Image by Feuillu via Flickr

 

It is the season of giving thanks to those who surround us in our daily lives and help us through it.  Not to mention those who live far away and support us through their thoughts and good energies, the conversations we have, and the letters or emails they send.  To the people who don't even know they make a difference in our lives, but lend a hand when we have fallen down or smile when we feel alone and scared.

 

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.   --Mark Twain

 

In this season of hope, and families and friends coming together to find common ground and rejoice with each other, I would like to give big joyous thanks, music dancing and wings of angels fluttering!

 

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

--e.e. cummings

 

That yes is crucial to open doors, move forward, and live with vitality and meaning.

Letter From Paris: The Skulls of Yahel Chirinian

Image by fredpanassac via Flickr

Fall yields a great season of art in Paris, this year being no exception. With exhibits like "The Treasure of the Medicis" at the Musée Maillol (pictured on right), the monumental "Monet" at the Grand Palais, "Arman" at the Centre Pompidou (how the French love the late artist), and more, we are dripping in art. But don't count out the small galleries that are interspersed around Paris. There is no better time than the holidays to drop into them, when store windows and streets are festively decorated, and Parisians are feeling the holiday cheer.

I was wandering down the rue du Mont Thabor in the 1st Arrondissement, which is one of my favorite Paris streets, when my eye was caught by this fetching window of skulls.

 

Galerie 13 Jeannette Mariana

I was taken with the skulls and walked into the gallery to see what I could discover about the bony sculptures and the artist who crafted them.

Letter From Paris presents...Paris Fashion Report

 

By Contributing Editor Philippe Perisse de Montchenu, Fashion Reporter and Consultant

A DISCOVERY : SAMPAR

Image Sampar : Illustration marque

 

WINTER IS FALLING upon us, and if it is important to wrap ourselves into a long and heavy handmade scarf, it is also important to take good care of our skin! As the old Chinese saying goes, there is no use in repainting the house if the foundations are rotten!  So, please, before the winter starts to strike, let's take good care of our foundations.

Letter From Paris presents...Paris Fashion Report

 

By Contributing Editor Philippe Perisse de Montchenu, Fashion Reporter and Consultant

WHEN GRANNY STRIKES BACK: GOLDEN HOOK




EVERY FALL WHEN the weather starts to cool down, I get this same strange envy to knit a scarf all by myself! But even a scarf is a pain in the A...when you are not especially gifted with needles.

Letter From Paris: In Honor of Brent

Image via Wikipedia

On the 20th of November it will be 20 years since my brother Brent died, and my heart cracked open and bled away.  The life leaked out of me as he took his last breath.  It was after a few hours during which Brent struggled to live--or was it to let himself go?--that the rattle of death surged through him.  I begged him to stay on this earth.  But Brent was as elegant in his last moments as he had been his entire life. 

My brother was handsome, brilliant, and charming, fantastic fun for anyone who followed him--he was a Pied Piper of lost and lonely souls, as well as for all others.  He was clever, generous, and kind, lapping up life as if he were a fine Cheshire cat drinking Triple Cream.  Life was a wonderland of adventure for Brent, and that didn't stop until the air seeped out of him forever. 

Letter From Paris: Cemeteries of The World

Since I returned from the United States, the fall has been falling around me, and I would like to bury myself in the leaves and hide for a month or two.  What would I see?  Where would I be?  What spirits would come out and sit with me if I were hiding in the leaves of Père Lachaise?  The park of a cemetery calls out to me with its serene ode to peace. 

Père Lachaise is evocative of a beauty in death.  An exhibiton there that showed this same beguiling quality in other cemeteries around the world just ended.  It is one I thought you might like to see...

  

Where, oh, where, would you like to be?

 

--Beth Arnold in Paris

 

 

Letter From Paris presents... Paris EyePhone

WAITING FOR ROMAIN DURIS

 

By Contributing Editor Mario C. Servin, iPhone Photographer and Traveling Economist

 

WOMAN IN BLUE looking out from La Perle, a nondescript bar
that has become the hangout of actors like Duris and fashionistas in
the ever trendy Marais district of Paris.

 

iPhone photos by Mario C. Servin.

Letter From Paris: (Republic of) Georgia Fashion Week

After the catwalks of Milan and Paris, Fashion Week in Tbilisi? As curious as it may sound, the answer is yes. It was a whirlwind of Georgian feasts, tours of the beautiful and textured city, museums with historic icons covered in jewels, parties galore, and show after show of hungry young designers who wanted to impress with their visions of what Georgian fashion could be. So many delicious layers to peel away in discovery. What could be more fun!

The small Republic of Georgia, located strategically at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, along the historic Silk Road routes, is a cultivation and clash of those dual civilizations. Think about the alchemy of East and West that stirred the Georgian pot, and how richly veined the history and culture are. In more recent memory, Georgia's long occupation by the former Soviet Union was in lock-step with the other countries around them. The concepts of art and fashion were officially snuffed-out to make room for a sea of Soviet conformity, and the high culture of fashion was lost for a time, if not forgotten.

Letter From Paris: The Influencers

Image via Wikipedia

CREATIVITY.  ALTHOUGH IT may come in different packages within us, we all have it.  We use it every day. 

Some of us are in the business of being creative, and some are creative in our business. Some of us may not even understand that we're creative.  We grieve this lack, and wonder how we find that part of ourselves, or how we can awaken it.  In others, creativity sparkles on their surface and resonates as the deepest part of their identities.  They live and breathe it.  They must create or die. 

Some have outlets to the larger world in which their talents can emerge, though many don't.  The Internet has helped with this, allowing us to present our digital calling cards in whatever ways we choose.  But that doesn't solve the problem.  Creators create for themselves and also so other people can see, read, experience, and connect with their work in some way--and be transformed by it.

I am a major proponent of recognizing and encouraging creativity, and I've run across two pieces of media that discuss aspects of this divine atttribution of ourselves--and I believe creativity is at the very essence of our true selves, our deepest me being me and you being you--that we all need to consider, individually and in a larger way. 

Some of you may have watched the first one already--a short film called Influencers that discusses the result of someone's natural creativity, how their actions and style--their presence--creates a new wave of culture. 

"I think an influencer has a certain confidence that probably not many people have.  They know that what they're doing is the right thing, because they're comfortable in it.  To me, an influencer is somebody who has a different way of thinking and a different way of expressing themselves...

"There's a group of people that are really just early adopters that really embrace all forms of culture..."

Here it is:

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

Letter From Paris presents...The Sound Hunter

THE ART OF LISTENING

 By Contributing Editor Des Coulam. Recording the street sounds of Paris attempting to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed

 

WHEN DID YOU last hear something indescribably beautiful? When did you last stop in the street and listen to the sounds around you?

 

 In real life, we tend to listen to beautiful sounds and we hear the street sounds around us.