All Sci-Fi Movies Are Coming True
can it get any crazier? – lucy
In Pacific Palisades. Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York Times
Won’t be using this platform to rant and rave about all that is going on but one would think something is amidst in the atmosphere for such a string of continual bizarre events occurring. One is almost afraid to get out of bed in the morning for fear of something else you have to cope with. But foremost on my mind since January 7th is the tragedy in California. Such beauty taken away in minutes. Having lived in Malibu and worked in the downtown area of Los Angeles I am familiar with the fear you experience with a raging fire. Never loss a house but it came close. Fast forward to today and seeing the videos of driving into and out of Malibu the landscape hasn’t changed that much in that the structures have been in place for a while. You memorized the houses along the road. Sure a few new ones popped up, but the scene hasn’t really changed. Breaks my heart for all the people hit by this destruction.
Hurricanes, floods and other weather events seem tolerable compared to this series of fires. With a fire everything is gone in a manner of minutes.
An article from January 9th and much changed since then: A Ring of Fire
Another article is About the Getty Villa and how the staff prepared for the fire:
Inside the dash to save the Getty Villa from the Palisades fire.
And the last article: A graphic description of how this writer handled the occurrence.
Reporting from a city, torched
What I found in my yard, about 15 miles from the nearest fire – Alissa Walker from her column ‘Torched’.
Now on to happier news…
Museums/Architects
The Neues Museum, on Berlin’s Museum Island was designed by Friedrich August Stüler and built between 1841 and 1859. Extensive bombing during the Second World War left the building in ruins, and the structure was subsequently left exposed to nature for over 50 years on the eastern side of the divided city. In the context of a re-united Berlin, the re-building of the museum took on national significance, requiring close collaboration and a profound understanding of memory and meaning.
The practice’s approach to restoring the museum was innovative in that it did not propose either an exact reconstruction or a contrasting contemporary extension. Instead, it followed the principle of conservation, restoring what remained and carefully inserting new material into the existing fabric only where necessary to give coherence to the whole. Conventional architectural methodologies were abandoned in favor of processes and procedures that were adopted and applied in different ways depending on the conditions on site. The building re-opened to public and critical acclaim in 2009 and today exhibits the collections of the Egyptian Museum and the Museum of Pre- and Early History.
David Chipperfield architect from London the architect and firm responsible for the renovation.
I invite you to visit the full listings of the firm’s projects as they are most extensive and diverse. Well done!
Clothing
A collaboration project with Illustrator Julia Rothman and Au Boulot.
Jacket was sold at a pop-up shop and not clear if still available.
French Secondhand Workwear
Au Boulot (French for ‘get to work’) is a concept brand that sources and supplies original French workwear garments, all hand-picked and upcycled to create a unique look.
Their collections, crafted from second-hand and deadstock treasures, feature one-of-a-kind pieces, limited editions, and exclusive artisan collaborations. Here, utilitarian clothing becomes your canvas to express your individual style.
Books/Art
A recent purchase from Julia Rothman collection of books. Check out her website for an array of cool products.
Julia has authored/illustrated over seventeen books. She runs The Figure Assembly, with James Gallagher, a live drawing event on Sunday nights in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Julia is the recipient of the 2023 Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf Visionary Award given by the Rhode Island School of Design.
For five years Julia had an illustrated column in the New York Times called Scratch with collaborator Shaina Feinberg about small businesses with big personalities. She has taught courses at School of Visual Arts and Rhode Island School of Design.
Julia co-founded Women Who Draw, an open directory of female professional illustrators, artists and cartoonists with fellow illustrator Wendy MacNaughton.
On Love……
‘Love:
It’s when you don’t walk the earth but float above it…
Two days before his death, Federico Fellini said:
“How I wish I could fall in love one more time!”
I was stunned. Standing on the very edge of life, he longed to experience love once more: to soar above the earth, to surrender to the one you wish to yield to, to hear the orchestra’s music within your soul…
He wasn’t speaking about a woman. He wanted to convey that love is one of life’s magical moments.
When you love, you stop being merely human and become a fragrance. You don’t walk the earth but float above it.
This state of being in love is the essence of life. And it doesn’t matter what you’re in love with—whether it’s a woman, your work, the world, or life itself…
Love is neither joy nor sorrow, neither a reward nor a trial—it’s all of these together. It’s a journey to a magical, enchanted land, a path toward a mystery waiting to be uncovered.
Love always departs; everything has its end. But one state always transitions into another, and this new state may be an even greater feeling than being in love.
Today, marriages are fleeting, and former lovers are deprived of the great revelation—how beautiful it is to walk hand in hand, together, toward death. Many believe that new relationships will bring stronger sensations.
But that’s not true.
In Italian, there’s a word that cannot be fully translated into Russian—“volere bene.” Literally, it means “to wish well.”
There is “amare”—love, and there is *“volere bene”—*when someone becomes closer to you than anyone else. Amare relies on physical pleasure…
But the strongest feeling on earth is when amare transforms into volere bene.
There is nothing more important on earth than the feeling of volere bene.
It comes only after years spent together, and those years must not strip away trust…
The loss of such a long connection is more tragic than the loss of love, and certainly more so than the loss of physical pleasure.
The loss of volere bene is the true, profound loneliness, the absolute emptiness.
There was a great volere bene between my dearest friend Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina.
The women of the world adored Fellini, but his final gesture was a true hymn to love for Giulietta. Practically paralyzed, he escaped the clinic when he learned she was dying in a hospital in Rome.
He traveled 500 kilometers and lay down beside her.
And when Fellini passed away, Giulietta followed him soon after.’
P.S. A remarkable illustration of desires and reality.
On the set of La Dolce Vita:
Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Federico Fellini…
1960.
We made it to the end of the week. Hugs to all and stay warm. Thanks for reading and supporting our newsletter. Love you ALL!
Volere Bene
And now that you don’t have to be perfect you can be good. - John Steinbeck
Volere Bene ❤️