InstaGlam - Dolce & Gabbana

Welcome to LBM and Mirabelle's brand new series, InstaGlam, which explores brands that celebrate the beauty of life on Instagram! We start off on a strong and vibrant note with Italy's dynamic fashion duo, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.

D&G Alta Moda Collection, AW2015-16

There is something warm and generous about the Dolce & Gabbana brand, a little like a seasoned Italian mama: warm, spicy, friendly, coquettish, hands-on, streetwise and nurturing all at once. And no better way to appreciate it than via Instagram, where both D&G and Stefano Gabbana go beyond the call of fashion duty to share inspiration.

D&G Alta Gioielleria, Palazzo Gangi Valguarnera, Palermo

It is a sunny, vibrant, joyful, technicolor celebration of life, where the D&G man, woman and child lust for life. It is a far cry from certain couture houses out there that have a clinical, rigid, no-frills, monochrome approach to fashion and lifestyle, season after season. D&G is actually more than a fashion brand, it is a lifestyle umbrella.

Elements of nature, religion (Alta Moda Collection), tradition, artistry, and couture wizardry combine their threads to compose a tapestry of covetable craftsmanship with faerie-like, romantic, folklore and bohemian accents. Much detailing and ornementation are at play and those wearable works of art manage to pique our curiosity and send a message to those fast and furious fashion creators who have sent the high street bland and drab.

In our troubled times of transience and fickleness, and under the globalised aseptised world that elites are pushing us towards, D&G spells Italian heirloom, old money, oodles of originality, opulence and a waff of quirky flamboyance, not to mention an ode to cultural enrichment through the rediscovery of culture. In other words, they bridge past and future, like their flagship retail store on Via Montenapoleone in Milan.



Moreover D&G does not rest on their laurels. Their marketing and brand management is savvy, edgy and responsive. When a couple of months ago D&G faced a backlash due to their supporting US First Lady Melania Trump who proudly and consistently wears their outfits, Stefano Gabbana, a fervent admirer of Melania's style and persona, responded to his detractors boldly. He pre-empted any call for boycott on their part by actually launching a... #BoycottD&G campaign through social media as well as a matching tee-shirt range! No adverse publicity, just a smart move; what appeared risqué at first immediately brought limelight, coverage, and ultimately served the brand in a positive fashion! Well done!

D&G is fashion that sings and flutters and seduces like the Italian language itself. This is fashion lifestyle by a life-loving duo, and you can feel, breathe and eat it all you like! Bellissima pasticceria della moda!

D&G Sneaker Patches

Watch Out, There's a Hipster in Your Coffee!

I can't quite figure out how it came about. As my spoon cuts into the foam of my cappuccino and the cocoa constellation dissipates into the milky way of my cup, I look up across the packed out café and smile absent-mindedly. I vividly remember the turning point. At the turn of the millennium, the coffee revolution took us almost unawares and I welcomed it with open arms and a big kiss. In one swell swoop, it swept aside the shameless kettle and Nescafé combo, the gritty coffee pot at work whose treacle-like substance would be laced with lashes of full fat milk and a spoonful of sugar to tone the bitterness and general malevolence. The conservative coffee machine would not fare any better either if you were to self-proclaim coffee maestro. And tumble would the slightly higher-brow cafetière (French Press) that only ever had pride of place in those households that vacationed in France and Italy.

The London Coffee Festival 2015

At that point, coffee had ceased to be that monochrome, low budget, one-dimensional, nonchalant affair, black or white, one sugar, no sugar. Strong and you call it espresso like you're in the know. Weak and you call it Americano, once again if you want to flaunt your two words of Italian (three if we add 'pizza').

The London Coffee Festival

Coffee would be and it would be much more: a coffee named desire. Coffee was going to finally exist, express itself, albeit with attitude and a price tag that yells out indulgence. The Italian vocabulary would expand, and be re-invented should its linguistics become suddenly too limitative. Enter Frappuccino, the foam-at-the-mouth, shirty, expansive creation that makes the paltry espresso look like a size zero, deflated, monastic model. Savvy marketers gave themselves carte blanche to jazz up, sex up, amplify and yuppify coffee and make it indispensable under its new guises. Under the new paradigm, coffee became art creation, indulgence, a liquid brunch - and a neat, no-questions-asked multi-billion-dollar endeavour at the check-out.

The London Coffee Festival North 2016

The revolution would redefine coffee to the point where it would take a long sentence to define your drink to the barman, sorry the garçon, sorry the barista. Just so you can listen to yourself saying it in that all-knowing encompassing 'I'm in the club' way while the punter behind you in the queue quietly rehearses their prose before their grand finale, a brief, sudden verbal diarrhea of a purchasing interjection, cured by a fancy drink that costs a pretty penny.

The London Coffee Festival North 2016

Along with that morning white that suddenly became a long Ethiopian roast skinny decaff latte, the staff behind the counter would be redefined too. Enter Barista, full steam ahead, the busy body that is all arms, concentrated like a strong coffee! They whizz their magic within a few square feet perimeter on the other side of the counter like a storm in a teacup, precise, repetitive movements, attached to shiny expensive machinery with pumps and gaskets, and through the steam, the pulls and the metallic thuds, you would be forgiven to believe they're operating the Orient Express. They add the drama that you bought and paid for to your humble cup, tick boxes and scribble ancient codes on it, spin a thousand variants and combinations around coffee like they're the key to the Graal's safe, so many of them, they've morphed into algorithms. They froth up a hot beverage like a coiffeur teases a curl, with painstaking dedication. And if the impermanence of coffee art weren't fleetingly irrelevant, you have latte art to ponder about.




Now to the crux of the coffee is that correlation of late between fancy, jazzy, niche-market coffee from the café in the know, and the hipster. If we are to believe the hype, it's being percolated to us like it's non-negotiable.

Coffee has become art and science, especially in its percolation. Coffee is edgy: it has become the new absinthe. And in its heyday, absinthe was the poison of choice to the creative mind losing its mind in the buvettes of Montmartre. Modern creatives or wannabe creatives display their edge by drinking connoisseur coffee, a safer healthier option! They still look like the 1890s never quite went away, bar for the rolled-up sleeves displaying elaborate tattoos on their forearms. They wear the bushy beard, checkered shirts, suspenders. Unroll the sleeves to hide those arms, and the chaps wouldn't be out of place on those long-forgotten family photos circa 1890. But why, oh my, did fancy coffee and hipster become an item, if only for the fact that both are stuff of a fashion trend? I doubt I will eat my words on this one: fancy coffee will outlive the hipster but for the time being, chance is you'll spot them together like two coffee beans in a pod behind the counter, about to squeeze into that ristretto.




Hurry up if you wish to catch a gulp (sorry, a slice) of the action! The London Coffee Festival is taking place in a couple of days, 6th to 9th April, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London.

Transience, Pillar of Modern Society (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this essay, we established that theoretically speaking whoever strives to defy time would be able to make a claim for immortality. Thus whoever claims to be immortal has transcended the timely restrictions imposed upon their life as a human. The notion of immortality takes us back to the catchy aliteration of the timeless timeline of Time. Timelessness evokes magnitude, amplitude, uninterrupted vastness in space and time. It expresses continuity, cohesion and stability.

The Ouroboros symbolises eternity. (Pict source)

Transience, on the other hand, sits precariously on the opposite end of the spectrum. Transience implies a notion of time that is fleeting, brief, truncated, interrupted, non-lasting, whimsical and ultimately unreliable and inefficient. This is about discontinuity. There is a sense of disturbance to it like an underwater current. Beware the underlying chaos!

Now referring to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the noun transience is defined as 'the quality or state of being transient.' Synonyms: Ephemerality, evanescence, impermanence, momentariness. Antonyms: Endurance, permanence.

The adjective transient is defined as 'passing especially quickly into and out of existence: transitory. [...] Passing through or by a place with only a brief stay or sojourn.'

Bearing in mind the immediate adversity imposed upon us by entropy and mortality, the human prerogative aims to make the most effective use of time within a competitive production model. For should it not to be the case, the process would ultimately lead to doom.

Detail of the Vault, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

However it appears that our production model has redefined efficiency under a new paradigm. Efficiency used to involve durability under a long-lasting good or service. This as a mission statement had a vision to it, to serve not only the present but the future too. Transience does not and cannot sustain durability. It does not build upon an impetus, it interrupts it. A society whose production model is built upon transience is akin to a transient (casual) friendship that you cultivate with somebody: it does not grow roots or leaves, it does not evolve and deepen because there is no commitment to it, no fire, no bond, no guarantee. It is a stunted affair that remains so until the transient element is corrected.

The faceless banking corporations and multinationals that govern us have cleverly refashioned efficiency since the industrial heyday - and have accelerated its process with the coming of age of mass-consumerism. We mostly have one person to thank for this, Public Relations spin doctor and business insider Edward Bernays - Simon Freud's nephew - and a top influencer in the world of advertising and consumer psychology. He used consumer profiling to serve private interests, using strong-arm tactics to influence purchasing decision. He is indeed the father of customer trickery.

Another representation of eternity. (Pict source)

Bernays was also a trendsetter who wrapped both corporations and consumers tightly around his little finger. He for instance encouraged women to take up smoking by glamourising the cigarette in post-WWI New York City by way of savvy advertising campaigns that centered around personal gratification and desire, concepts that still ring true to this day in advertising. He also engineered water fluoridation PR campaigns to get public trust. Apart from getting us into bad habits, Bernays also wrote a few influential books, including Propaganda, a PR treatise whose most fervent reader was Joseph Goebbels, that's right, Hitler's henchman and future Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Germany's Third Reich.

When efficiency used to be defined by the clever use of time in order to accomplish a task and deliver a good or service via a process that would bring a lasting effect in terms of quality (to stand the test of time according to our human proclivities), this is no longer applicable. In the third and final part of this essay, we will see how vested interests have corrupted the production model under a socio-political ideology in order to reframe and rephrase efficiency, with transience at the core. I will describe the areas which I have identified as being of a transient nature, under the remodelled paradigm of efficiency. (to be continued)

_________

Transience, Pillar of Modern Society is a 3-part series:  Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3

The Gumball Theory

In light of political events currently unfolding in the West, there is no more à propos video than the one I am sharing here right now, and which I describe as The Gumball Theory. Let's stay smart here: I invite you to watch it with an open mind and from start to finish (it only takes 6 minutes!) before casting judgement. From the outset, if viewing numbers are to go by, the video's 4 million views since its release in September 2010, proves this is a hot topic!

Baker Wardlaw's Vending Machine, via Designboom

Please do pay attention to the rationale and follow the logical process put forward by NumbersUSA founder, author and lecturer Roy Beck, through his ingenious and creative illustration of why full-scale, deregulated, open-door immigration (regardless of faith and ideology), promulgated on the basis of humanitarianism does not serve the humanitarian purpose. Put simply, it does not work for either the welcoming state or the state of origin. In fact none of the socio-economic problems (poverty, unemployment) at either end are solved, and no benefits are gained, contrary to what is being purported by the progressist (i.e. liberal) agenda.

This is no fantasist partisan presentation. Mr Beck's research is professional and factual, based upon data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Census Bureau, Population Reference Bureau and The World Bank. The presentation is not anti-immigration. It does however demonstrate that only sustainable levels of immigration - that is legal, controlled and managed - are to benefit both the new country of residence and the country of origin.



As a light-hearted note, you will never look at (or chew!) gumballs the same way after this!

P.S: NumbersUSA is an Education & Research Foundation, founded by Roy Beck and an advocate of lower immigration levels. It works in partnership with Moderates, Conservatives and Liberals. NumbersUSA describes itself as "a non-profit, non-partisan organization that favors an environmentally sustainable and economically just America and seeks to educate the public about the effects of high levels of immigration on U.S. overpopulation, the environment, jobs, and wages. We use government data to conduct research on the impacts of U.S. population growth, consumption, sprawl, and current levels of immigration and educate the public, opinion leaders and policy makers on the results of those and other studies."

P.P.S: Read the full PDF version (362 pages) of Roy Beck's acclaimed book, The Case Against Immigration, The moral, economic, social and environmental reasons for reducing U.S. immigration back to traditional levels, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1996.

A Quick Christmas Catch-Up

Life has been busy lately, yet despite the fact that I have made myself scarce around here, you will be able to catch up with me via my Lucca Comics & Games 2015 photographic review on my fiancé's blog. I added a short article that elaborates upon my earlier post on the Lucca extravaganza. The event lived up to its promise and expectation, and was a ball, and we cannot wait to return next year!

Prior to our Tuscan trip, Roby and I enjoyed a short (and romantic!) Paris city break together last October, and I couldn't resist sharing a few photos with you. As the year is wrapping up and the mid-decade is now firmly embracing its second half, La Baguette Magique wishes you a Lovely Christmas and New Year! Make sure to stay tuned for the exciting new developments I will be sharing in due time here, there and elsewhere!

Fontaine Saint-Michel symbolises the triumph of good over evil

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Promenade Maurice Carême stands by Notre-Dame

L'Arc de Triomphe stands at the top of the world-famous Champs-Elysées

Lucca Comics & Games 2015

There is a flurry of behind-the-blog-scenes activity for me at present - and we have a lot of rejoicing and travel in the pipeline! Amongst the exciting developments is my better half relocating from the USA to France, where we will finally be able to join and share our lives together.

Lucca province, Tuscany, Italy

And as everything tends to happen at the same time (doesn't it?), we'll be shortly hopping across to Italy. The reason being that Roby (my fiancé) has been kindly invited by an Italian game publisher to take part in the forthcoming Lucca Comics & Games, the renowned International Festival of Comics, Animation, Illustration and Games, held in the medieval Tuscan town of Lucca, Italy. Now picture the scene. You put in the same sentence (like I've just done) my dashing fiancé, a history-charged locale, Tuscany, culture, creativity, design and artistry, and you get a feature of cool that is bound to grace the likes of The Cool Hunter! A combination that gets a resounding WOW of wonder from this lady as she is typing away her bit of text! And the exclamation mark doesn't even give justice to the excitement itself!

I will be reporting back from Lucca, and posting pictures in due time. I am going to get up, close and personal with the world of D&D (Dungeons & Dragons), which may sound like some medieval secret society - but is not, so don't you worry. I will also probably be rubbing shoulders with other exotic-looking creatures, humanoids, and Halloweenesque comeuppances ('tis that time of year!), all escapees from books and celluloid (ok, I meant digital), Special FX and the works of imagination at play (and work is play for those creatives, like play is work), for a little fantasy fest jest. Right now, I am feeling like a kid on her way to the candy store!

Meanwhile I shall leave you with some pictorial prelude and all the anticipation that it includes... For more of the finger-on-the-pulse action, you may want to check out Lucca Comics & Games - and especially the Games section (our little bias) - if you haven't already done so. Happy browsing!

Garfagnana region, Tuscany (by Jim DeLutes photography)

[Update 08-Dec-2015]: Roby and I had such a great time at the Lucca Comics & Games 2015! Don't miss out the highlights!

Some Fishy April Fool's Day!

April Fool's Day is traditionally a day of jolly hoaxes and pranks. It is related to a change in attribution of New Year's Day to 1st January in line with the Gregorian calendar (introduced in 1582), which resulted in quid pro quo amongst the populations of Europe. 'The motivation for the reform was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of the year in which the First Council of Nicaea had agreed upon in 325. Because the celebration of Easter was tied to the Spring equinox, the Roman Catholic Church considered this steady drift in the date of Easter undesirable. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox countries continued to use the traditional Julian calendar and adopted the Gregorian reform after a time, for the sake of convenience in international trade. The last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923.' (Wikipedia).

Fish Platter by Andrew Ludick Ceramics

Now if you are not acquainted with French, Belgian, French Canadian, French Swiss or Italian traditions around April Fool's Day, you may not be aware that we like it fishy! Children (and the young at heart) attach handmade paper fishes in the back of unsuspecting relatives, friends, co-workers (yes!) and passers-by. The fish has some religious (Catholic) connotation attached to it, but whether you are a devout or not is totally irrelevant. What matters is to bring a smile to someone's face.

These days though, instead of sticking fishes in people's backs, I'd rather stick a fish dish on a loved one's table as a present! Those featured here are by Irish ceramicist Andrew Ludick and they bring together the decorative and the practical. His dishy Handpainted Ocean Life Platters are available to purchase from Crate & Barrel.

Fish Bowls by Andrew Ludick Ceramics

Handpainted Ocean Life Platters by Andrew Ludick Ceramics

Andrew's latest Fish Bowls

Napoléon the Great Fascinator

On 1st March 1815, having sailed back to the southern coast of France from his exile on the Italian island of Elba, Napoléon set foot on the beach of Golfe-Juan. He took to the road heading north, with an army of loyals and associates, and made a triumphant return to Paris. To reconquer a nation that was being divided by the drawn-out Napoleonic campaigns and the power struggles between empire, aristocracy and bourgeoisie was a wild card for the emperor. He had 100 days to prove himself, until the fated Waterloo defeat against England (18th June 1815), resulting in his capitulation and forced exile to the British island of Saint-Helena, the ultimate insult to a man who had been the world over feared, envied and lauded in equal measures.

French lawyer Frank Samson plays Napoléon (Corse-Matin, 02/03/2015)

As controversial as admiration may be regarding warriors, Napoléon remains the greatest man borne out of France. He was born in 1769 in Corsica, one year after the island became French, making his arrival a timely - almost tactical, one might think - affair in favour of France, for should he have been borne one year earlier, his genius would have served Italy instead! He was 20 years old when the French Revolution broke out, then again a timely occurence for any ambitious, educated, self-disciplined young man working on an ideal.

Napoléon was a genius in many intersected ways: a gifted visionary, thinker, strategist, tactician, modernist, social reformer and re-organiser, high-calibre administrator and educator. He was a pacificator of France and a staunch patriot. He also happened to be a European, way before the EU, and acted as an Illuminati inspiration for New World nations! He left a legacy that is still relevant today: Code Civil (French Civil Law), Code Napoléon, Conseil d'Etat, Code du Commerce (Trade Law), Cour des Comptes (Finance Court), Pension system for army veterans, Légion d'Honneur (merit award distinction medal), Metric System (a rationalised measurement system), Baccalauréat (academic qualification leading to University studies), to name but a few of his achievements in Civil Life, not to mention that he was surrounded by a winning team of skilled supporters, including the discoverer and the decipherer of the Rosetta stone that brought quantum leaps into Egyptology. Moreover his reign delivered a sober and classic style in architecture, furniture design and fashion, that makes it incredibly fresh and contemporary. He also championed civil engineering programmes, Université Impériale and Concordat.

Napoléon Auction Sales Catalogue by Osenat (16/11/2014)

Meanwhile his military tactics are still applied today and studied in high places like the US Military Academy at West Point.Undeniably, to depict such an emblematic character of encyclopedic proportions in a blogpost will not do him the justice he deserves and I can only apologise to the Napoléon purists out there.

Napoléon's archenemies Nelson and Wellington respected him and praised his tactical approach. Whenever I have discussed Napoléon with Brits, their immediate description of him has been 'dictator' (their obligatory label) before lowering their voice to express their personal admiration for the man. What I find ironically admirable is that when you visit the Waterloo battle site, Napoléon is treated as the victor rather than the vanquished.

What fascinates me though is that beyond the grave, Napoléon has enjoyed enduring popularity. He is the historical character who has inspired the highest number of documentaries, fiction films, biographies and studies the whole world! No matter how little educated or historically-inclined Joe Bloggs is, they will have heard of him.

(Wounded Eagle Flag Post, 1804, auctioned by Osenat, image via Nouvel Observateur, 16/11/2014)

Auction sales involving Napoléon and consorts are extremely sought after and prices reach astronomical heights! Last November, the prestigious collection of Napoléon artefacts put up for sale by Prince Albert of Monaco through Osenat delivered results beyond every expectation! As the most striking example, Napoléon's famous hat, the 'Bicorne' model fetched 1.5 million Euros! We find out from the detailed description by Osenat that from 1800 to 1815, Napoléon wore a total of 120 Bicorne hats. He constantly had 12 of those hats on the go, each of those made to last 3 years, and 4 replaced yearly.

Entombed in granite and marble, Napoléon still reigns. He leads armies of worldwide supporters and troops of re-enacters who don the costumes and get muddy down the battlefields, or tactically advance scores of lead soldiers across maps, while consulting their reference books. He is a commonality as an inspiration, a fascination, an adulation even, and certainly a leveller that transcends nationality, age group, class and every affiliation under the sun. My better half, who is American, is a Napoléon expert and admirer, and his admiration can only make me prouder to be French.

(Wikipedia)

P.S: The Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo will be commemorated on 18th June 2015 on a grand scale, with no less than 5,000 re-enacters, 300 horses, and 100 canons. Find out more here.

Guest Post - Our Serendipitous World - by Robert J. Kuntz

[Dear friends, please welcome our first ever guest writer, Mr Robert J. Kuntz, who has kindly accepted my invitation to write an article for La Baguette Magique. It is a great privilege for me to collaborate with Robert, a published American author from the Midwest, currently finishing a book on play, creativity and intuitive processes, and how these all relate to open form, a concept which he is promoting as a pre-theory after 7 years researching the matter. Meanwhile Rob is sharing his views on serendipity...] 

When the wonderful hostess of this equally wonderful blog invited me to guest-write an article I couldn’t help but realize that this synergy had manifested by happenstance. I had happened upon her blog while “Googling” design. The “lifestyle with attitude” became an instant attractor for me, as I am destined to generate, and to encourage in others, a fresh (as in “refreshing”) attitude. A few choice comments between us and we have a different context. And that is what serendipity is partially about: the unforeseen emergence of positive circumstances.

So it was natural to focus upon serendipity as the topic for this article: a short example of how it once played out in my life; how it equates to staying open and inquisitive; and ultimately how it is always present, even when we are not.

The word, serendipity, came into being serendipitously! The writer, Horace Walpole, suggested it after reading a Persian fairy tale entitled The Three Princes of Serendip. He notes that the titular heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” [emphasis mine]

Horace Walpole

Historically the concept has been related to luck, spontaneity, surprise occurrences and anything that deals with the unexpected emergence of something satisfying, as has been the case with some notable discoveries in science and invention. Just before sitting down to peruse this subject I was thinking about inventions while heating a cup o’ tea in the microwave, that marvelous device that we pretty much now take for granted. Some time later, while reading a few articles, I discovered that the microwave was one of those inventions that had occurred by a fortuitous accident, i.e., itself brought about by a serendipitous moment in time.

This puts to rest the “accidents” as derived from Walpole’s impressions of the aforementioned fairy tale. Let’s now consider the “sagacity” angle.

Sagacity is the quality of being sagacious: wise and discerning in thought.

So… It appears that Walpole was suggesting that serendipity is our ability to discern immediate circumstances to enable whatever uniqueness that exists within these to manifest. He infers, though obliquely, that one has to be present and aware to identify situations that could effect change.

This is why the concept of serendipity transcends accidental discovery. It has been linked to lateral thinking, marketing, and to other channels of thought that leverage intuition and complex cognitive processes. In modern day parlance it could be summarized as being there and being aware.

Circumstances. We all have them. And we always consider ourselves there when dealing with or thinking about them; and thus we can claim to be aware in those instances…

I’m going to take a mental step sideways with the following example. With it I hope to expose not only what serendipity is but also what it can be.

My circumstance was being “in line” at a local store’s cashier stand queued behind several people who were making purchases. There I became aware of two things. None of the people were talking with each other. They were all intent upon the shopping experience: either unloading their carts or otherwise idle and waiting for their turn in the pecking order. This scene was reinforced by the cashier’s mode: greet the customer and perform my duty. I quickly scanned the store. It wasn’t swamped with activity. In fact many of the cashier lanes were closed. It was in that moment that I also became aware of the store’s noise. There were approximately 20-30 people within my viewing range. Live humans, mind you. But all I could hear was the store’s mechanical system working at peak efficiency.

George Carlin’s (R.I.P.) insight about time drifted into my thoughts for inspection as I shuffled forward in “the line”: “There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.” I would add to this that the mobile present should be considered analogous with the immediate future. So… As it became my turn to “check out” I responded to the cashier’s auto-mode inquiry of “Hi, how are you?” by first noting her name-tag (“Stephanie”) and then saying, “Thanks, Stephanie. I’m great! How’s life treating you today?”

George Carlin

There’s an old axiom that unravels something like this: If you desire change you must first remove yourself from your present circumstances. Stephanie’s demeanor changed due to my open gesture. Her eyes brightened. She smiled. And we had a fine conversation as she performed her duties. A joke I told even had another customer-in-waiting laughing along with us. Natural humaneness is infectious, but we sometimes succumb to the “grind” and lose touch with it due to the latter’s constrictive patterning.

What has this to do with serendipity? Quite a lot if one peers closely enough. There is discovery, change, awareness and sagacity in the above example. The accidental part has been turned on its head, just as it has been through current views about leveraging the power of emergent thinking for commercial reasons. But discoveries don’t only come from science and invention, especially when one adds self-discovery or self-affirmation to such a mix.

Serendipity will always be related to interactions between people, to their ideas, and ultimately to their hopes and wishes. Thus serendipity is about the world and the positive circumstances within it that shape our lives.

Marcus Aurelius

Or, as a great thinker of the past, Marcus Aurelius, duly noted: “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

©2014. Robert J. Kuntz.

Work and Play

Here's an ingenious demonstration of practical functional furniture design that brings together a pet of the feline variety and their owner. It's a desk that is nothing to do with the "all work and no play" desks that usually belong to the office cubicle culture. This one here looks like the wooden version of a generous slice of Gruyère cheese, cavities and all. It is expected to get more than a round of applause from cat lovers and more than a passing Cheshire Cat grin from their tabbies, Lil Bub included! In fact, we expect no less than roaring success all round, especially amongst the scores of our design-conscious urbanite friends working in creative studios that are one quantum leap ahead of the game and only too happy to integrate the latest trends into their work environment, a bit like those cool dudes over at Google.

Designer Ruan Hao created the aptly-name CATable for Hangzhou and Hong Kong-based architectural design practice LYCS Architecture. The finished product was proudly featured at this year's Design Milan Week.

Sources: (1) to (3) The CATable, via My Modern Met. (4) Internet star Lil Bub.

Additional Resources: 

• CATable by Hao Ruan Offers a Shared Work Surface for Cats and Their Owners, via Dezeen
• Best of Milan Design Week 2014, via Yatzer.

Falling from Grace with Grace

Jérôme Kerviel is alluring and easy on the eye. He cultivates a sharpened edge these days and may look like a rugged fashion model on a casting for Davidoff Cool Water but he's certainly not being portrayed as a role model or some counter-culture hero by the media. He's the disgraced trader from French banking institution Société Générale (SocGen) that is miraculously celebrating its 150 years of trading (short of a resurrection after the €4.9 billion scandal losses directly imputed to JK back in early 2008).

Easy come, easy go? (Pict source)

2008 was a busy year. Europe and the US were bracing themselves for the first chills of the latest recession to date with the demise of Lehman Brothers and Bernard Madoff, the collapse of toxic loans and burst of the property bubble. It was also the year I got made redundant from my fancy Marketing job in the UK. Yeah 2008 was indeed one of those years.

While all of the above was crescendoing to the fore, Mr Dangerflirt had executed a few ill-advised high-risk moves across the financial chessboard that would bring SocGen, his employer, to the brink of a financial fall from grace. Six years later, does that still stigmatise him as a villain? Not in my eyes nor to those scores of keen supporters gathered along his publicised redemption pilgrimage that took him to and from Rome, where he met Pope Francis.

I do actually like JK as a person, his humility, humanity, dignity and quest for redemption and reinvention. He has learnt from his mistakes and he wholeheartedly accepts his share of responsibility in the financial demise. Having said that, I do not condone his actions as a trader. With the blessing of his industry, his chosen profession intrinsically praises a culture of fast cash at all cost - the dirty side of capitalism. The profession encouraged and incentivised him highly for playing cavalier risk-taker with investment funds that would yield him those juicy bonuses and deliver the sky-high dividends to his employer. While the profits were rolling in, it was win-win for the trader-employer combo. Then sh*t happened.

Never vanished nor vanquished! (Pict source)

What I do find villainous and hainous is how SocGen, which had allowed for the shady 'best practices' to take place in its offices, was quick to ostracise, victimise and repudiate its flagship trader for those losses. Yesterday's star became a scapegoat, pure and simple. However losses were to be expected as they come hand in hand with the volatility of the territory. As compensation, the highly-strung SocGen demanded that the trader paid back the €4.9 billion losses it had incurred. The decision was later overruled by the courts.

It's been a long drawn-out courtroom drama affair. Today JK faces a 3-year prison sentence once he crosses the Italian border back to France and he has now appealled to the French President for the case to be reviewed, his innocence claim to be heard, witnesses to be guaranted protection and allowed to testify, and his accomplices to be brought to justice. I wonder whether the justice system will decide to finally see eye to eye as it is always easier and more convenient to bring one isolated man down and shut him up than a bunch of top guys from an influent institution that is connected to the smoke screens of stock markets and the lofty world of politics.

Up in smoke? (Pict source)

Here's a guy fighting a system that made him a star player and unmade him once losses outperformed the wins. These were probably the implicit rules of the game. Off with a Baguette Magique ponder: in order to be both financially and professionally successful, should a trader be nothing short of a financial trickster and a rogue - after all?

A Tribute to Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela passed away peacefully a few days ago, aged 95. Peace had been his disarming strength and an inspiration to all of us. Starting off a young promising lawyer with the wrong skin colour, he - like Martin Luther King - had had a dream of a better world.

Nelson Mandela (pict source: Getty)

Mandela disapproved of the apartheid instored in his home country of South Africa and, as a result of his 'subversive' ideas on peace and freedom, was sent off to a penitentiary where he would serve 27 years for 'the crime' of defending race equality between white and black and the educational and work rights they deserved. Mandela would be made to break rocks as punishment, yet his spirit would remain unbroken. Eventually international pressure got the better off the government in place and the president bowed under pressure to free Madiba (as he was affectionately known as) - and the rest is a piece of history immortalised.

'365 Days of Hand Lettering : Day 167' by Lisa Congdon

Mandela could have harboured resentment and angst and revenge as he came out a free man in a country that had taken away his civil rights and a big chunk of his life, but he arose a hero, humble, reflective, wise, sporting a contagious smile and grand ideas for his country. His life took a turn for the better, as the new president of his home country, winner of the Peace Nobel Prize, and a living model of unity and equality, transcending racial origins, religious views, political afflilations, as he would rub shoulders with heads of state from British royalty to Bill Clinton via Fidel Castro. He would meet up with The Dalai Lama, The Pope, and 'A' List celebrities would come visit him.

Nelson Mandela became a symbol of redemption and reconciliation and the example par excellence that if you believe in and defend your ideas strongly enough, no hurdle will stop you.

Inspire Aspire - Huh, "Too Old", Did You Say?

Ok let me rephrase that: you've just told me for the umpteenth time that your life isn't fulfilling, you're not happy, you feel stuck, it feels like you're missing something, and you want more! OK I get it. And now in the same breath, you're telling me you're too old? Too old to turn over a new leaf and start over a new life... Too old to take up a new hobby, learn a new skill... Too old to take up travel, venture out, change your ways, shake up your routine... Too old to shake up that booty out of the comfort zone and shimmy down the road to a lifechanging moment... Huh, and you * really * want me to buy that and go down your list of excuses cos I bet you've got more? Like you were born in the wrong country, or you're scared of catching some disease, or you have too many freckles on your nose... Huh?

Thing is you're reading this and I bet my bottom Dollar you're not even 35 years of age... I gotta rest my case. Please though do read this amazing bio summary piece written by Louise Hay in her latest newsletter to date entitled "Your Future Is Always Bright", and I promise that you're in for a reality check!

And as a P.S. please remember that we are the ones responsible for creating our own boundaries and limitations. So if you are desperate for that change in your life, tell your mind to shut up and kick excuses in the teeth! Then, to paraphrase Nike's motivational mantra, just do it! You won't get any wishy-washy sympathy from me. You can do it for sure and I'll see you on the other side! High five!

Nike T-Shirt Design by Mats Ottdal, via Typedeck and Designspiration

P.P.S: Age is no excuse and it's never been too late for Fred Beckey to live his passion either! An accomplished mountain climber, he tackled the Dolomites for the first time at the tender age of... 89!

Inspire Aspire - Vitamins for the Soul (Part 2)

Then after watching Gabby Bernstein's video and deciding that she was to become another one of my Ladies Who Launch, I noticed that YouTube had cleverly listed to the side of my screen a Marie TV video suggestion featuring – wait for it – Gabby Bernstein. I told you earlier, it's a small world! Soon enough you learn to navigate it with ease and glean the information you need at a particular moment. Which reminds me of what Louise Hay said, that the universe makes sure you come across all the information that you need at a particular time in your life, as a useful coincidence that brings you the facts. This has actually happened to me countless times, hence the fact this succession of online coincidences from last week were not as coincidental as they appeared, and I knew straight away I was meant to act upon them.

Mastin Kipp's The Daily Love

A day or two later, my Marie Forleo newletter featured a video interview with Nick Ortner. Wahey, bingo! And then YouTube landed another Marie Forleo video on my lap (so to speak!), this time featuring Mastin Kipp from The Daily Love. Sorry, the daily what? I had heard of Daily Candy, but not The Daily Love... What planet am I from? So much catching up to do, Nat! This was another epiphany moment as I found out about a young man who in a not-so-curious twist of fate lost his job, house and girlfriend in the space of a few days and identified it as his calling from the universe to carry on an online project called The Daily Love. From then he moved on to being featured on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday and rubbing shoulders with the Louise Hay crew, although this was never in his vision board. The way Mastin's life has panned out shows a fantastic reversal of fortune! Sometimes you need to bite the dust before you can raise like the phoenix towards the life you are truly meant to have.

For me, this succession of happy coincidences were treble/ quadruple whammies from the universe showing me that what I believe to be impossible is actually a limit I have created inside my head, when really I have the competence and gift and eloquence to turn my own dreams and aspirations into a tangible reality which will in turn benefit the common good.

Nicole Moore's Love Works

Besides this, I have also joined relationship lifecoach Nicole Moore's The Lasting Love Series featuring fellow seasoned relationship coaches. I came across Nicole via the B-School Facebook group, as I am fortunate enough to be currently following Marie Forleo's RHH-Business School classes and interacting with a posse of smart, independent inspired ladies looking to turn their passion into a business.

Alongside it, I have enjoyed Kelley Rosano's latest Aries New Moon - Brilliant Breakthroughs insights and Libra Full Moon New Paradigm talk which are further calls to action, while I am still debating as to whether I should join her amazing astrology seminar to be held in Florence (across the water for me!) in the next few days. In my life there's always a Plan B, and this one by The Astro Twins in Tulum, Mexico, is tantalising, to say the least!

All in all, I have never enjoyed online information and communities as much as I have lately, purely because they have brought so much to my life in matters of personal growth. And cherry on the cake, not only was this amazingly free of charge but also by the same token totally priceless! This has motivated me back on track when I felt a bit wobbly about it all, while bringing me up to speed with the people in the know, the key movers and shakers in my field of personal development.

(Pict source)

The point of this article was about paying attention to the signs and clues that the universe sends you. If there is any information which you are meant to be aware of, it will bring you the facts in a chain of events and series of serendipitous moments like no other. Then it's of course up to you what you do with it. Take it from me, randomness is never that random. And maybe that energy-sucking office job is not what you are meant for. Jack it in for the life you are meant to have and those unique qualities of yours which you are meant to develop in order to serve others. The world needs you to make it a better place. Go follow your heart!

Snowed Under! (Part 1)

The cold wave that has been sweeping through Europe over the last couple of weeks has been well documented across the media. Images like that of the Vatican under snow will be remembered for some time, and so will the chaos that this unforgiving Winter has brought to our lives in different degrees of harshness. Let's bear a thought to those less fortunate, who sleep rough on the streets or manage just about to keep home temperatures bearable despite being affected by the recession.

'Adamo ed Eva Pupazzi di Neve ai Fori Imperiali' by Libero Guerra, via Flickr

When you might think Corsica is safe, think again my friends, for we've been having our share of the bad weather too, and working outdoors for a garden preservation society I have been able to appreciate the cold first hand!

As I am typing up this post from the comfort of my parents' home on my spare day, it is snowing out there. Bearing in mind that I live a mile away from the coast, the weather is bound to be even harsher inlands, especially in the alpine region of central Corsica. Roads are routinely blocked most winters with snow drifts and I don't dare to imagine what they must look like right now.

However intrepid snow veterans like some of my mates will have used this as a challenge to brave over 20 miles of treacherous icy tracks to reach the disused ski resort of Haut Asco to snowboard down the piste freestyle. Others like I would rather play it safe and stay indoors. The only ice I like is the one in my glass, with a shot of Havana Club and a dash of orange, thank you very much!

Now if Winter is your cuppa and it makes you jingle and jiggle all the way, be my guest and feel free to browse our selection of topical Baguette posts to keep you warm and fuzzy on the inside and deliciously frappé on the outside: 'A Week-End Wonderweb', 'What a Load of Waffle', 'Winter Comforts', 'T is for Tea' and 'Hot Shots'. (to be continued)

January 2012 - Five Random Faves (Part 4)

Fave #4: Getting old gracefully with Converse!

Some gentlemen age gracefully. Take George Clooney. What else?



George Clooney per Nespresso: il backstage del nuovo spot from Caterina di Iorgi on Vimeo.

Some products age gracefully. Take the Chuck Taylor All Star Converse sneakers that were never meant to stay prim and proper. In fact, the more they get battered with age and use, the better they look, and the more mileage they clock, the more rock 'n' roll street cred they get. Just check this well-travelled pair, now totally rain-washed, with two careless owners to boot, not quite destined for the bin just yet despite being holey in different places. Kurt Cobain would have been proud! (to be continued)

From Home to Rubble in Sixty Years (Part 2)

Maison Bonavita belonged to a man of the world, Paul, a relative of my grandma on her maternal side, who had made it as a high-flying civil servant, no less than Chief Administrator of the French Colonies, based in Madagascar until his retirement. As I have intimated much earlier in this blog, my ancestors on my maternal side were truly citizens of the world and Corsica their stopover homebase between travels.

So how come did Maison Bonavita's glorious existence end so unceremoniously, I hear you think? Paul passed away in the 1950s. Mémé's mum inherited the property but died soon after. Then Claire, mémé's paternal auntie, took the responsibility to look after the house, as mémé and her brother (my great uncle) lived away. Claire was getting elderly and frail, yet single-handedly endeavoured to keep an eye on the property despite living off-site. The house was even advertised as rent-free to whoever would be interested to live there, but no-one expressed an interest, and this sealed its fate.

Unsurprisingly like other village houses, Maison Bonavita got broken into. Remember, it was off the beaten track and therefore easy to break into, undisturbed. When Claire and her brother (my great-grandad) passed away a few years later, the property had become an open sesame to the local builders, tradesmen, antiques dealers, reclamation yard dismantlers, residents, visitors, holidaymakers, people we knew, people we knew less, people we thought we knew, and people we didn't know, in fact anyone with a compulsion (and a reason so they'd say) to snatch, break, steal, unscrew, detach, tear, smash, pull anything they could lay their hands on, and not necessarily with a purpose in mind. Just for the darn sake of it.

The looting started off with interior fittings: shelving, cellar barrels, a wooden coffer, coving, shutters, doors, windows, staircase, railings, tiling. And then it became structural: steps, fireplaces, roof slates and beams... It took less than 20 years to turn it into a state of ruin, while the Winter rains, scorching Summer heat, the natural ravages of time and persistent assaults from the wild vegetation didn't help the cause either.

My parents and grandma did try to sell the property three decades ago, before it achieved its sorry state, in fact when the house was still standing solidly. A couple of selling opportunities presented themselves but in the cold light of day the sale never materialised. Meanwhile we couldn't possibly afford the upkeep and even so, it would mean 11 months of the year when the house would lay vacant and subject to further vandalism.

My dad put 'No Entry' signs up, boarded up the cellar entrances, we cleared the surroundings, made it known around us that the house was still under ownership (meaning: Keep Off!), but these hardly deterred any 'visitors'. In fact by the following Summer, when we returned to the property, the boards and sign had been ripped up, a clear statement to us that they didn't care about our warnings and the looting would carry on regardless! Oh boy, which it did...

To steal is to show no care, respect nor consideration for the actual property and its owners. Perpetrators, in their tunnel vision, might see it as only a door, a couple of stones, a plinth, a dozen terracota tiles, but these are acts of trespass, vandalism and looting, they are illegal and punishable, pure and simple... Thing is, someone just needs to get caught red-handed by the gendarmerie, or someone just needs to name and shame, with solid back-up evidence. But in Corsica like in Southern Italy la loi du silence (the law of silence) is a principle by which honest members of the public are 'encouraged' to give wrong-doers protection, out of fear and intimidation.

I cannot help but shiver at the potentially destructive results that unbridled, uncontrolled architectural salvage (let's call it looting) has on these seemingly abandonned, closed properties, not just in Corsica but elsewhere in the world. Maybe potential buyers should be less gullible and more willing to question the origins of some of those original features that end up online or down the high street or back street...

Today there is no much left of Maison Bonavita and if we are considering to put it back up for sale, it is as a bid for the future and dignity it deserves as a restored family home, through sympathetic renovation and TLC. This is our last shot to save this property from its wipe-out destination. Maison Bonavita has a name and a glorious past, now it needs the future it so rightly deserves. It is a Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs in the making, and the potential of this property is truly, most definitely awesome!

For further enquiries on Maison Bonavita with a view to purchase, please contact the author in confidence (only genuine requests please): nathalie@baguetteblog.com