Hidden In France

La Porte Rouge

Now how talented can a single person be?

There are artists whose work you look at and say “I recognize this person.”
I love the deliciously poetic world Nadia, a.k.a. One Silent Winter lives in. Her pictures which you can also find on her blog La Porte Rouge have such an eerie, nearly magical feel to them that I almost expect a unicorn or a fairy to appear. Her sensibility is unique and new, but the most surprising is that she is somehow capable of reinventing colors. Tell me of I’m making this up. Have you ever seen pinks look like this:

and reds or blues look like this:

(I would give a limb for this necklace by the way.)

She can also make yellows and greens look like this:

And blacks, look like this:

I am baffled. How does she do it?

But it's not just about the colors of course. Its about Nadia's eye, her vision, how each picture is its own small world, a more hopeful, happier world.

And more pink

Je vois la vie en rose en ce moment. This too shall pass. It's just so warm and beautiful outside. We heated the pool yesterday and had a house full of kids. Best friends popped in. My husband actually relaxed and planted tomatoes. I cooked a lamb tagine. I was hit in the head hard by a gigantic grasshopper. Not in that order.

Janet Hill's latest paintings really make my spirit soar. I want to live in them. You can buy them here but you must hurry. The paint might not be dry that it will be gone already.

Pink for a change

This week-end I must take pictures of my roses. They are so abundant and beautiful that I'm spending hours staring at them like the rose stalker that I am.

Meanwhile here are photograhs from the portfolio of Swedish stylist Eva Lindh via NÄBE FABRIC a beautiful french blog I recently discovered.

Also my husband is back from Vegas for good, after only having him here for the week-ends. I'm telling you, pass the first few days of enjoying a king size bed all to myself and not having to deal with washing pants and shirts the size of small countries, this single parent thing sucks. I don't like it one bit.

The Road Less Traveled (by rattlesnakes and BMWs)

I don’t mean to go all metaphysical on you, but I have been pondering about the nature of luck, and grace, and well… God. And because this is a visual blog i am adding images of the otherworldly work of artist Carol Hummel found via SwissMiss today.

In the last two weeks, my kids each had what could very well have been brushes with death. My fifteen year old was hit by a car, hard, as he walked down a street with no sidewalk. A BMW made a turn and BANG. My kid rolled on the ground, then jumped up to his feet wondering what had, quite literally, hit him. He was spooked but unharmed with only black and blue marks on his arm and leg. This was a hit and run. The BMW, like an angel of death, stopped for a second, saw he had missed, then dissapreared into the night. This happened with me barely yards away in my car, on my way to picking him up.

And then this past week-end my nine year old was attacked by a rattle snake. This also happened with me only yards away. (So much for thinking that the kids are safer when I’m nearby. ) We were enjoying a family hike in the Santa Monica Mountain. The rattlesnake must have been coiled in the bushes. It propelled itself several yards into the middle of the path onto my kid. With wonderful 9 year-old innocence, my son said the snake hit him very hard in the leg. My husband and I looked at each other and we both felt the chill. Bottom line, the snake bit him but thanks to the pants he was wearing, the skin was not broken.

My battle to get my nine year old to wear long pants had been met with the usual passive-aggressive resistance that can wear mothers out. I’m glad I’m as stubborn as he is. But here again, had fate been against us, there was absolutely nothing I could have done to stop this. I killed a rattlesnake before, but never in mid air.

Interestingly I wasn’t scared either time, (I find I get far more scared by what I imagine could happen than by real situations) instead, I was awed. How close to catastrophy human can get? Yet. Yet, they were safe.

It reminded me of the chapter in the book The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck called “ the miracle of health” here painstakingly typed by me, for you. Here is what it says:

“If readers examine their own lives at this point. I suspect the majority will find in their own personal experiences similar pattern of repeated narrowly averted disasters; a number of accidents that almost happened that is many times greater than the number of accidents that actually did happen. Furthermore, I believe readers will acknowledge that this personal pattern of survival, of accident-resistance, are not the result of any process of conscious decision making. Could it be that most of us lead a ‘charmed lives’ ? Could it really be that the line in the song is true : ‘This grace hath brought me safe thus far ‘?

Some may think that there is nothing exciting about all this, that all the things we have been talking about are simply manifestation of the survival instinct. But does the naming of something explains it ?... Actually, the matter of accidents suggests that our tendency toward survival may be something other than, and even more miraculous than, an instinct, which is a phenomenon miraculous in itself.”

The whole thing gives me the chill.

Terrain and urban outfitter

Found in Oh Joy!.

That tree stump is so frigging fabulous I MUST have one put in my living room, moss, pebble and all.

This is apparently a 11 acre garden center and home decor store by the people who brought us Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters. Read more about it on Oh Joy!

Happy Blogiversary to me!!

What, one year already? And 246 posts? It feels like I started this blog yesterday!

I'm still having fun, are you? There will be a time when I run out of things to say, but I will never run out of things to marvel at.

Adelap, the passionate woman behind the French blog J'ai Flâné Pour Vous gets the final word today for creating a post about Hidden In France that blew my mind here.

Thanks to her shedding some light on my blog, I can now see a method to my madness and understand a bit more about who and what I am.

What I am, it turns out, is insane!

A colorful kind of insanity.

These wild mosaics of pictures found on Hidden in France were created by Adelap, aka Alexandra de Lapierre, mother of Rencontres where she poetically features her superb photography work. Check it out.

Yvestown is moving to sweden

Yvonne, creator of the Yvestown blog , lover of Cath Kidston, Oli cloth and pastel colored DIY is moving from Holland to Sweeden. Exciting because it means a whole new house for her to decorate. This is what the Dutch house looked like:

I haven't met a blogger who doesn't love this baby blue smeg.

I love this rack she found to display her Cath Kidston china:

Love this!

Some people have it tough

Isabelle sent me this link. If you don't know already, read below to discover where the pictures were taken. I'll give you a couple of hints:

This for example, is not the massage area of a Soho spa.

This is not George Pompidou center's new cafeteria.

This is not the rec room of the next Big Brother-The Terminally Hip edition.

This is not a new twist on a state of the art marine biology obversation deck.

No, this very civilised environment is the new Google's European center in Zurich.

Only time will tell if it is possible to get any work done at all under such wretched and dire circumstances. Read here 9in French) for the whole story.

Sans parapluie and Lucas Rise

I'm done blogging for the week, i swear! It's just that i took a tiny little look-sy over at Design Sponge and found this. Oh my, I am weak...

These were created by an artist based in Buenos Aires. his name is Lucas Rise and the name of his company is Sans Parapluie. (without an umbrella.) His bio says that he spent most of his teenage years painting street signs (as in grafittis, I'm not sure) and now he spends his days painting while 'having mate' (mating maybe?) Anyway, he seems way cute and all this Psychedelic fun and Argentinian steamy hotness is just what I need right now.

Petit Pan pretty please

Petit Pan is a company I adore because what they create is colorful, happy and socially responsible. What's not to love. Part of its appeal to me might also be that Petit Pan is resolutely playing hard to get. No store sells their goods in the US yet. What are they waiting for? I'd redecorate my entire house with their creations if I could. In the meantime you can purchase their pretty things in Petit Pan's online store. But do they ship overseas?

I've showed you some of their famous kites here. Today i got a glimpse of their Parisian Marais store via the blog of the company Famille Summerbelle who shares these pictures:

I want to be there. Badly.

Famille Summerbelle is a British company but I believe that one of the owners is French. They sell their own decoupage creations, mostly decoration for children's bedroom, pillows and some incredible wallpaper. It's so fresh and cute, here are some of their products.

Voilà for now. My husband is still out of town and Saturday I have to be two parents again and go out of my mind-insane. That means one baseball game, one basketball practice, one tennis lesson and one seder dinner in a day. (Happy passover everyone.)

I'll rest sunday. Maybe.

I want to tell the world!

The Ultrasound is in and now I'm finaly authorized to tell the world that my baby sister is going to have a baby!!!
I could not be happier.

Do you think we look alike? Can you guess which one is me? (hint: the one with more chins than the phonebook in China.)

The rejection process

I though that periodically I should speak about writing and reading. Those are after all my two passions. So here I go. Sorry, no pictures today, you pictures junkies, just lotsa words. Hopefully I won't bore you.

I received the loveliest of rejection letters today.

I quote: "Dear Corine,
Thank you for sending your sample chapters--you write wonderfully, with a great rhythm to your sentences. However, I'm afraid that--after discussing this with other members of the office--we came to the conclusion that this is not quite right for us. Still, I hope you will continue writing and sending out your work... etc."

This is so rare, a rejection letter! And a kind and personal one at that. I'll be! I have sent A LOT of query letters to agents and few are those who even sent an acknowledgement of having received it. It used to baffle me. Now I have no expectation. I've grown a skin three inches thick, that's why. And though I look like a Rhinoceros, at least I no longer feel the pain. Agents are not trying to be snooty. It doesn't mean I suck. It's just that they're busy and it's business.

It reminds me of Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather I just read. Whenever a member of the mob gets his throat slashed there is someone who says (New York-Italian accent) "it's not a-personal, it's a-business."

The process of getting a novel published is really an excellent school for life. Nothing is owed to you in this world. You have to work hard, be disciplined, tenacious, methodic and persistent. If you have talent, it a bonus. And even then there is no guarantee. But at least you will have tried, and trying is living. Pursuing a dream, creating, hoping, falling, picking yourself off the floor, that's living. Sitting on your ass lamenting about rejection, failing to take chances, self sabotaging is dying.

Growing up in France, in my family, the notion was that there existed in this world two kinds of people: There were the people with talent, and then there was us. Our family therefore never strived for anything. What was the point? If you were good at something, good. If you were not there was never any concept that hard work could compensate, that hard work, in fact, was the key.

I learned only in the last few years that it was a crock of doo doo. It IS all about hard work. There are a lot of fabulously talented people out there who have never been recognized because they have failed to try, believe in themselves and, basically work their tushies off.

I married the most driven man on the planet (and self proclaimed 'most rejected'.) Observing him was quite a culture shock. Yet I persisted to believe that he worked hard because he was just wired that way and I wasn't.

Well, in the last few years, I have rewired my brain, and I have changed. Now I work hard. And I refuse, absolutely refuse, to let rejections get in the way of my work or spirit. Ultimately, the only rejection that counts is my own. (I didn't write that but I don't know who did.)

My friend Peter Kaufman who's a (damned good and hard working) entertainment lawyer wrote an excellent post on the subject in his blog Deal Fatigue. He talks about how "The continuous, consistent rejection inherent to the profession is bound to erode the motivation and enthusiasm of even the hardiest of thespians."

Let's not do this to ourselves. Better to have failed trying than not to have tried at all.

Spring feevah

It must be spring because i am finding renewed inspirations in blogs all around. First thank you to Liberty Post for her lovely post about Hidden In France. Her theme this week was cherry blossoms and I love her new banner so much I borrowed the picture for my desktop.

The words she used to describe my post should bring both of us interesting folks via google search:

... and then there is this picture Liberty Post used as an illustration of what I'm capable of: Pia, I hate to bother you while your in Paris, but could the following be considered for Wandering Hearts?

Then Felicity of All Things Bright and Beautiful (who could be my long lost siamese twin, she knows what will make me drool so well) hit me over the head with pictures of this house she found on PurePublic:

And finally Creature Comforts featured the charming and colorful world of Linda Solovic, which reminds me of my husband's favorite poem: "Spring has sprung, the grass is greeze, I wonder where the birdies is." It's got a nice ring to it but e.e. cummings it ain't.

isn't this adorable?
Here is the etsy shop of Linda Solovic

Moron about Mormons

Sorry. Could not resist.

I have been reading the blog Dooce religiously lately, going into the archives for any nugget of information on Utah and the Mormon community. The novel I am working on is not set in France this time, but in Southern California, Italy and Utah. I’ll gladly take a trip to do my research personally in Italy and properly describe the feelings, scents, the gelato and the pancetta. But I’m not planning on doing any time as a Mormon. Since I’m not trying to make fun of the Mormon community here, only trying to understand it, Dooce might not be the source. I am also reading books on the subject but they are AWfully tedious. I’m wondering if any of you know of a Mormon blog or blogger whose brain I could pick.

Before my iMac self destructed, then rose like the phoenix I had mentioned writing posts on women I admired, this is a propitious time to mention Heather.

Heather of Dooce in my kinda girl. I admire her for her obvious honesty, her excellent, fluid, writing, her amazing ability to express love and her concerted effort to take nothing seriously except maybe free speech. And because I’m shallow and she is beautiful.

If you want sudden immersion in Heather Armstrong’s world, (love it or hated, there will be no turning back) I recommend her periodic exclamation point posts where she responds to selected hate mail. Also I found this very interesting interview in the blog rebecca’s pocket.

Pictures snatched from Dooce's flickr stream and rebecca's pocket.

She is also a stylish woman. Here's a photo of Heather's Armstrong brand new hat:

The house that Rice built

A pity I had to scan these pictures from an old Living Etc. The original photographs were wonderful until they were rendered vile by my scanner. Does anyone know how to get these pictures online? Because this here, is my all time favorite kitchen:

You might recognize the red Akurum cabinets from Ikea, so gloriously red and shiny they give me palpitations in a good way. Here the red cabinets are arranged in a more European way with no top cabinet. I love the simple white shelves with colorful bowls, and the blue toaster is pretty darn near irresistible to me.

These are pictures of the ancient Danish country home of Charlotte Hedeman Gueneau and her French husband Philippe, owners of the company Rice Denmark. You’ve seen their products in magazines as well as here and here. But I’m still not sure where to find Rice products in the US (I think Urban Outfitter has some but that’s simply is not enough.)

I am slowly working at “Rice-ing” my kitchen, and the rest of the house as well to be honest. This is the style I want, this is the look I want, these are the colors I want.

Here are some ingredients for a charming and personal home:

Things that don't necessarily match.

Simple Ikea mirrors make this room.

A entire floor devoted to lounging...

Or is it an home office?

A portrait, a whimsical cabinet.

A painted bed frame and a quilt.

une peau de bete.

And an entirely unexpected black bathtub.

Do you know that the crochet items made by Rice in Madagascar alone assure the survival of 300 families. I just love this company.

I love technology

Life is good. My computer is alive and well. It was the power supply watchamacalit, and it was under warantee. Yeahhh!

I had to laugh because of all the supportive comments I received from you guys. I really felt the love! But seriously, it takes a blogger to give such heartfelt words of sympathy over a frigging machine! You knew my pain because you too have come to depend on computer technology for so much. In my case, the dependence is emotional. What have I become?

The Mac store being inside a gigantic mall the size of a small airport, Apple graciously offered to have someone carry the computer back to my car. The young lad was a self proclaimed 'part time Genius'. I asked him if that meant he got to relax and be really stupid the rest of the time. (I simply can't resist these kinds of things.) His answer was that he hoped to be upgraded to full time genius soon. Which I took as a yes.

Because I am capable of learning from my mistakes, I now own a back up drive named Lacie. (real name.) Not much bigger than a pile of five CD cases, that hungry little bugger can gobble up all of my precious files, including all my photos, like it's a small snack and keep is safe for me.

I'm seeing life through rose tainted glasses since my good news, so here are a few pink rooms from Marie Claire Maison via A Beautiful Living a magnificent scandinavian blog.

Have a lovely week-end. I hope your weather is as gorgeous as it is here in Southern California.

What is fear?

Analyze this: just as I write an emotional tirade about courage, self expression, self-censorship and being more myself in my blog, the Gods of Blogging prudently decide to silence me by killing my beloved Mac G5. The way my reptile brain works i am suddenly convinced the Gods of Blogging know do something I don't.

Yesterday, I decide to turn off my Mac for the night instead of leaving it on sleep, something I never do but I've been working on shutting down appliances at night to save the bloody planet. But in the morning, instead of humming happily, my Mac is very unresponsive when I push the power button. I try everything, change electrical outlet, change cord but nothing happens. No buzzing, no vibrating, no pulse whatsoever. My Mac simply refuses to wake up.

Now i will tell you what fear is.

Fear is having two novels, three screenplays, a business plan, hundreds of pages of research, over six thousands family pictures, hundreds of letters and bookmarks and ten years of diaries trapped inside a dead computer.

I make frantic phone calls to Apple, then drive maniaccally to the mall, I'm the first one there at 9:59 am. I park then run, tears streaming down my face, cradling my lifeless (and very heavy) Mac to the (terribly ill-named) genius bar where I am told the diagnosis: My computer will not turn on.

Apparently it took genius powers to figure that out. (By the way, who came up with that lousy idea. Put an average Joe behind a desk and put the word 'genius' above his head, and he will certainly become a complete jerk, above us mere mortals, with a horrible attitude and worse breath.)

Then, my spirit broken, I ruin two-weeks of diet by ordering a large PinkBerry. Why is PinkBerry so damned close to the Mac store? The two are evidently in cahoots.

And now i'm waiting. They need parts. They need time. It sounds serious. They can't tell me anything yet. I am shitting bricks. I SHOULD HAVE SAVED!!!

Courage is not the absence of fear.

In this censored world, blogging is one place where one can be entirely oneself, right? It's perfect for me and my burning need for self-expression. Yet. Yet on this blog, my baby, my playground for self-expression, I end up continuously censoring myself because this blog is also a business platform.

But are blogging and business becoming mutually exclusive? I want to be myself on this blog, but to be entirely myself would mean having to say (or admit of doing) god-awful, reprehensible things.

A friend who reads my blog said the other day that I was far more cynical in real life. That’s very true. I am a cynical individual, but I’m also wildly optimistic in my own way. I’m cynical in the sense that I see things for what they are, but I’m optimistic in the sense that I just KNOW that things will get better, that people will see the light, that the human race as a whole will sooner or later wake up and change. I see reasons to be optimistic every single day, and when there is really nothing to feel good about, then I hurriedly poke fun and laugh at the things and people who have pissed me off. What is the alternative? Bitterness? But should I dare bring forth the pumped-up, high on sugar, cynical me? I mean really bring it forth?

Or am I chicken?

So the next few days I will post pictures of women I admire for taking enough chances in life to be hated by some. And yes, being shallow, I prefer the pretty ones. I admire Madonna for her success, her strength, but mostly for her willingness to go where few women have gone before, always exploring, wanting, and taking chances.

I was inspired by Liberty Post’s (another brave woman) blog post here. Pictures are taken from a Vanity Fair Madonna retrospective.

Blooms

Found via Oh Joy the magnificent creation of a florist in the bay area. Rosenow floral design's website is organized by color. Those floral gems are in the tradition of French floral artist Christian Tortu. I could eat them up they're so beautiful. (Yes, still on a diet.)

Selina lake magic

In matter of photography, I'm not asking for much, all I want is to be able to do this:

These are fresh from Selina Lake's flickr page. I love the use of this deep purple and all that white. Of course, the photographer Sussie Bell has something to do with the final result, but Selina is still my girl. Remember, she's the stylist who brought us these:

If I had the time I would take a digital photography class at my local community college to get to the bottom of the issue. I'm using a very good camera, a nikon D200, which should, in all logic, do the job. But no. I suck. Once in a while I'll take a picure I like but can never understand how I did it, let alone reproduce the small miracle.

Maurice Renoma is hot stuff

The latest design from Maurice Renoma via the ever cool French blog J'ai Flâné pour Vous. Maurice Renoma was already an old man when I was growing up, and it is amazing to me to find him at the heart of some of the hippest French designs. I love the classic bourgeois shapes combined with irreverent pictures.

All pictures borrowed from J'ai Flâné pour Vous.

Maurice Renoma's photographic work and his designs can me enjoyed at the trendy café and gallery on the uber chic Avenue George V in the 8th arrondissement of Paris as well as in a boutique in my own quartier, rue de la Pompe in the sixteenth arrondissement.

How jet-settish is this?

An elephant paints his self portrait.

No! WAY!

This has to be the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen.

Un Eléphant réussi à peindre son autoportrait !
Uploaded by BriKO

And if this is real. If it isn't a trick, then the entire way we look at the world needs re-thinking.

Tricia Guild guilt.

I.. hmmm.. feel a bit guilty because I'm not so sure I'm allowed to show you the folowing pictures.

My readers are familiar by now with my reverence bordering on idée fixe for Tricia Guild. In some countries it might even be defined as stalking. But just how much stalking am I capable of you wonder? Well, now that we have peeked into the abode of Designer's Guild hot shots, first Mark Homewood and then Liza Giles, here is the interior of the queen bee herself.

Sorry about the blurry aspect. I was undercover, and I'm no James Merrell.

Oh hi Tricia!... Please don't mind me. Go about your business while i take some picture. What's for dinner?

Lovely home. Thanks for the visit.

Rodeo-while-you-work

Ellen and her Hawaiian Chair. I laughed out loud.

Thank you Dayna for the link.