Lazy yet creative Paris

Je passe mes vacances en France, à Paris. Il fait très chaud, même la nuit, mais pourtant, c'est merveilleux!
So I'm in Paris again, staying in my much beloved Montmartre. The ambiance got me a bit artistic, hence the photos.

Happiness in schools

Also belonging to the present summer’s pile of books to plough through is a book called Börja tala, Start talking. It’s on the art of rhetoric, on the stage fright many suffer from and on why Nordic speakers are know for being dull and non-engaging speakers. Such an essential book! Last weekend, me and some friends pondered why happiness isn’t part on the school schedule. I mean, Aristotle stated some 2300 years ago that what most individuals seek in their lives is happiness. Most actions strive to increase a feeling of being happy. Today, this is no less the case, on the contrary. So as all seem to agree that being happy is good, and worthy some effort, then why don’t we teach our kids how to try to find out what happiness means to them and how to obtain it? And why isn’t happiness part of any state program? I’d say the same about rhetoric, teach kids the art of storytelling, of capturing an audience in any purpose, may it then concern selling a product, to entertain or convey academic results. I wish I had had loads more training in this area when I went to school!

Summer reading

The first stack of books that I intended to read this summer is read and contemplated (see image to the right under the section Books getting my attention right now). These are the insights I gained:

• Lovage and ruta graveolens keep the flies out. Could be a priceless trick, I have to try it out!
  
• The 50’s must have been a dream for every interior designer, I love Eero Saarinen’s furniture and Verner Panton’s heart shaped chair.
• I still haven’t read the autobiography of the man stating: “I would love to play the part of Jesus! I fit it perfectly because I am a comedian" (Charlie Chaplin). It’s tough to try to get to know someone, perhaps that’s why people go year in, year out to shrinks: they just don’t seem to really get to know the person staring back to them in the mirror? I guess I’m a bit afraid of the amount of attention needed to reading an autobiography. It feels as if the words gotta weigh double the usual weight as the image conveyed in the autobiography is exactly the one the writer wants the reader to have, it's no second-hand information and rumours and therefore it’s harder to just skim through the book, to dismiss thoughts or paragraphs with a shrug.
• I now have a much deeper understanding of the background to the current situation in Sudan, thanks to Scroggins’ biography on Emma McCune. It’s been a while since a book surprised me in this fashion. Judging from the cover, I expected to read about Ms Emma McCune’s life, her voluntary work and marriage with a guerilla leader. But the book was much more, among other things a history lesson and a story of the author’s, who’s also a journalist reporting from the country, own, professional relationship with Sudan. But what got me going the most was something not specifically written but something I noticed along the way; how one’s significant others influence you through life. How the way of life your parents lead affect you, how relative’s actions influence yours years and years after they occurred and sometimes also subconsciously.
  
• The comic paper I bought, combined with the manga series Ragnarök, awoke my latent desire to take up drawing. I’ve been practicing calligraphy for many years and I love photography but the drawing interest failed due to lack of realism. Man, portraits are tough! Thus, I’m hoping that learning the basics in drawing Valkyries and comic series dogs will be easier.
  

Kvarken added to world heritage list

Together with 8 other sites, among which a Mexican landscape of blue agave that gives the world the tequila spirit, Kvarken was added to UNESCO's world heritage list yesterday. The archipelago is added as an extension to an already existing site, namely the High Coast of Sweden. The following is a statement of the World Heritage Committee:

It [Kvarken Archipelago] features unusual ridged washboard moraines, “De Greer moraines”, formed by the melting of the continental ice sheet, 10,000 to 24,000 years ago. The Archipelago is continuously rising from the sea in a process of rapid glacio-isostatic uplift, whereby the land, previously weighed down under the weight of a glacier, lifts at rates that are among the highest in the world. As a consequence of the advancing shoreline, islands appear and unite, peninsulas expand, lakes evolve from bays and develop into marshes and peat fens. This property is essentially a “type area” for research on isostacy; the phenomenon having been first recognized and studied here.

Garden documentation

Yep, today's been one great day to conduct the annual photo documentation of the garden, and (surprise, surprise) especially of the peonies.