Brasc0

Today I had the pleasure of taking pictures of James aka brasc0 (on Soundcloud). The music of the talented rapper touches on all sorts of social and political matters with clever lyrics and catchy beats. I seriously love listening to it personally, though he can be very faaast...

It probably was the funniest and most laid back "photo session" that I've ever had. Photo session in quotation marks because we didn't actually spend much time outside, just took some quick shots. But considering that I rarely photograph guys I must say I did enjoy the way he didn't take himself so seriously and mocked some of his own photos...

Genuinly though, he is a fantastic rapper and invests so much of his energy working on his music. I admire the way he balances his time with not only his music, but also engages in a serious commitment to basketball and, of course, his academic life. That's the spirit I am looking for, hard work!

Say whatever you want about rap music, maybe you don't think you've liked it much in the past, but brasc0's music is definitely worth checking out. My favourite ones are "Honest Ideas" and "Living in Harsh Times". Emphasis is definitely on the lyrics, they resonate so much with our daily lives, so listen carefully :)

These photos are also the start of the 365-day photo challenge that I want to undertae - so popular among  amateur photographers. Haha. 

I'm grateful for getting to know someone so dedicated. The first time I actually saw James rapping with my own eyes was Friday night when we went out. A couple of us decided to take the bus to the club, 'cause we're cheap like that. Anyhow, it was drizzling and darn cold, but I didn't really notice it too much because as we were walking to the bus stop someone started beatboxing and James started rapping to it. It was amazing. Even in my tipsy state of being I was blown away that he was actually doing it. It got even better in the bus when there was a crowd of other students in the back who were all really loud but jointly silenced as soon as James did his rapping and the others their beatboxing.
And because I lack all sort of inihibition when it comes to dancing, I think I was basically just moving to the beat. Hahaha...
Such a cool night and perfect end to a really good week, finally (after all those difficult weeks)

Moments like that make me regret not carrying around my camera 24/7! Haha, as if that's even healthy!

Paris II

On the third day we went shopping on the Champs-Élysées so I didn't take my camera and thought I could use M's camera if I was really desperate. There weren't any special stores for shopping but I did find some lovely red shoes in ZARA (yep, couldn't have found a more original store, haha) which I wore on the same evening,...which happened to be our very first date.

Bizarre right? In all those months we've been together we had never gone on a proper date. We had been on special occasions together, like prom....but to dress up a little fancy for each other and eat dinner somewhere outside made it our first date for which apparently it was necessary to go all the way to Paris.

I felt obliged to act in a certain way that I wouldn't normally do around Max, somewhat shy and mysterious, which made it all the more awkward. Different from the usual awkwardness people experience on their first date, of course. It was very lovely. So lovely that we forgot time and that we still wanted to see the Eiffel tower blink.

The Metro's timetable was all confusing at that time - maybe at around 11ish. And as a result, we noticed that there was no train back when it was already too late. Either we would have to take a taxi or walk.
We chose to walk.

To my surprise, those red shoes proved to be super comfortable over our 2 hour midnight walk. Perhaps it was also the breeze at nighttime that made it much easier, or the fact that the streets were completely empty, but my generally-heavy feet carried me home effortlessly. Max joked about how I should click the shoes together three times repeating "There's no place like home" like Dorothy does in The Wizard of Oz which could speed up our journey home.

But I didn't mind the walk. Paris is especially beautiful when most of its residents are already asleep. In fact, I got rather hyper and sang random songs almost all the way home. Not well, I admit. But it helped make the walk seem shorter. And when we got to our apartment we rather rapidly fell asleep.

For the last day we visited the Sacré Coeur together with the Montmatre. Somehow fragments of my memory revealed to me that many artists collectively sat there displaying their paintings. Thus, I had to see it.

On the Metro there I noticed one of the good things about not understanding a language: due to the limited auditory information that is available it is easier to observe the people on the train and pick up many more distincitve details about the way they look, dress, behave, what they do. The girl with the messy hair and the big head phones, the guy nervously holding on to his bible while reading it whith a frowned forehead, the woman with the blue turban on their head matching her dress.

I thought how lovely it would be to take out a pen and paper and write those details down. Imagine their lives. Or even talk to them. Maybe it's the psychologist in me, maybe the creep. Or maybe I've read too much Sylvia Plath...

When we arrived at the Metro station closest to the Montmatre I blindly followed Max until we reached our destination. Art was everywhere, literally. May it be the old man sketching your portrait for 20€ or a girl with her flute presumably earning money to finance some of the fun of uni life.

The last pictures portray some of the artists I photographed of the centre of the Montmatre. I loved the concentration they had (particularly the lady with the cap and the glasses). I'm always very nervous when taking photos of strangers but luckily I had M to encourage me and overcome my fears.

I miss the time M and I had in Paris, already!

Teach me how to breathe

Some time ago my cousin told me a sweet and possibly made-up love story: when John Lennon wanted to get married to Yoko Ono, and she initially appeared somewhat hesitant, he simply took her hands and said to her: you teach me how to breathe, Yoko. Maybe those weren't the exact words he said to her. Maybe it wasn't even John Lennon saying it. It could have been the title of some band or song or just words from somewhere that wouldn't leave my memory. Point is, I immediately fell in love with the idea. Thus, it became the title of my blog.

Just think about it: breathing in and out is a continuos process (air is inhaled, rib cage expands, diaphragm contracts, and the opposite occurs when we exhale). While we all naturally under go it, we rarely focus our attention on it. Yet, it is such an important process that if we ever were to fully stop doing it, this would mean the end of our lifetime. And yet we all take said breathing for granted. So by telling Yoko she teaches him how to breathe, to me, it connotes this idea of learning to appreciate even the littlest things we experience and sense in life to be able to live to our fullest potential.

I thought it was rather beautiful - especially since it seems that the rapid advances in technology nowadays have enabled us to often live without much thinking and questioning and we have gotten used to the materialistic ideas that the media cunningly likes to confront us with so that we forget what it is like to be without our instruments of infinite accessibility, what it is like to just sit in the forest by yourself and read a book or watch worms creep out during heavy rains. 

Enough of my philosophy, and more about the intentions of creating a blog: I felt guitly for posting so many of my photos on facebook and perhaps spamming people's lives with futile visual information that I thought I could have a go at documenting more about my oh-so-interesting-life on here. Haha.

Knowing me, it probably won't have much of a lifetime. But I've wanted to keep an online diary anyway for a while now, and since there are big changes going on in my life at the moment (taking a big step on the career ladder by leaving High School and moving to University) and, in addition, having my friends live abroad due to attending an International School for two years, I thought it wouldn't harm to document it on here. 

If you are still reading, know that your patience is very much appreciated. I always seem to digress of what I originally plan to write, bu Finally, I welcome you to this construction of what will hopefully (probably not) be a château of memories. Anyway, have a lovely day!

Your D

Aaaaand, since we were talking about John Lennon anyway: here are some pictures I took with Max last week. The first one reminded me of Lennon (but I guess it's just the shape of the spectacles/goggles/ whatever-they-are).