Café de Flore Archivi - Keep Calm and Drink Coffee

EVIDENCE

Oct 29, 2022 | A COFFEE WITH, CULTURE

Evidence means the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

Evidence is an audiovisual montage that crosses the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud and René Daumal in their journeys to new horizons.

Stimulated by these metaphysical journeys, the music and sound composition of Perfect Vision is the starting point for this new multidisciplinary exhibition, collectively designed by Soundwalk Collective and Patti Smith for the Centre Pompidou.

Have you ever visited the Centre Pompidou?

According to this video, tourists don’t know about it …

Undoubtedly a nice way to promote yourself, anyway I guess if I agree.

I’ve been there every time I’ve been lucky enough to visit Paris, and I find it hard to believe that tourists ignore it.

Of course the gimmick of the QR code embedded is rather ingenious, or is it?

Especially when I think that we visited Paris following complimentary hotel maps with all the Metro lines … yes, it was just that couple of years and technological eras ago … 🙂

Incidentally, “chatting” through the comments with Olivia, I was just remembering our attempts to ask for coffee by repeating serré over and over again in the vain hope of drinking it as short as possible …

Also pictured is Patti Smith, portrayed by Annie Leibovitz, having coffee at Café de Flore, in Paris.

Patti said in an interview that Evidence is about travel.

Smiling, I think of the Pompidou Center’s gadgets: inspired by the classic souvenirs commonly considered as a “proof” of travel to be carried as a souvenir to display at home, or as a thought for friends and acquaintances.

So what is the proof, that is, the gadget you purchased during one of your trips that you particularly cherish?

KALADZE

Nov 4, 2021 | WORLD

After talking to me about the Italian courtyards Lela told me that the ballots for the election as mayor of Tbilisi have just been concluded and that Kakha Kaladze (Georgian: კახაბერ კალაძე) has been reconfirmed for the second term.

Although my soccer ignorance is periodically picked up by my son in his attempt to enlighten me, when Kakha Kaladze, or more precisely Kakhaber Kaladze is transferred from Dynamo Kiev to Milan, he was not yet born.

The numbers of his victories speak for themselves: with Milan he won a Scudetto, a Coppa Italia, a Supercoppa di Lega, two Champions League, a European Super Cup and a Club World Cup.

And his current political victory follows similarly significant previous posts as Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and later Deputy Prime Minister.

A beautiful family to crown even private life: four children with his wife Anouki Areshidze fashion designer even if, even more than the creations, my attention was attracted to this hat from the Café de Flore, curious coincidence?

Their firstborn is called Levan.
Anyone who already knows the life of Kakha Kaladze knows why.

I, for a change, have only just discovered it.

In the photo you can also see the monument to Liberty representing St. George defeating the dragon.

Many times we fail to defeat evil.
For the Kaladze family and for all those who have hoped with them, this has been the case.

Levan was Kakha’s brother: kidnapped a few months after his arrival in Milan. He was only twenty years old.
His body was found five years later.

Since I have mentioned San Giorgio, even though April 23 is far away, I would appreciate the Spanish custom of giving roses and I would dedicate one to the memory of Levan and all the other victims of kidnapping.

LA PASSIONE DI FRIDA – FRIDA’S PASSION

Oct 8, 2021 | BOOKS, PENDING COFFEE FOR, WOMEN

Frida’s passion published by tre60 is also the passion of Caroline Bernard pseudonym of Tanie Schlie who for her twenty-seventh birthday receives the biography of Frida Kahlo written by Hayden Herrera and begins a journey of immersion in everything that revolves around the artist.

On her website in the foreground the sentence: “And then I sit in Paris at the Café de Flore and I order my inspiration” … same Café de Flore in which Frida also sits on page 270.

The book also talks about a small café called La risa: laughter, but above all it talks about the PASSION mentioned in the title.

A passion so strong and visceral as to be unique and unrepeatable, a real bond made of earth, painting and blood that Frida Kahlo reports not only on her works but also in every single moment of her life.

A painful life, a life without discounts, never.

I particularly received inspiration in terms of living with pain, but it was other types of suffering that raged on Frida that came to me with the same intensity of her determination.

That hole in her heart remains indelible.

But superior is the strength with which her example arrives of how the will transcends the physical, managing to touch the impossible.

As much as fate is cruel.

At her death, her personal items were collected and banned from the public for a period of fifteen years at the behest of her husband Diego Rivera, but in reality the years passed before they were exhibited are fifty.

Among the photographs available thanks to The Guardian I was struck by the boots. Observe them well.

And I tried to imagine the perfumes of Casa Azul

Mexicanidad.
In a sentence in the book, her sister Cristina, who bears the same name as the friend I thank for the book, tells Frida that she is Mexico.

But she is also pain, tangible, inexorable, irreducible.

Thanks to the book, it is possible to witness the birth of some of his paintings following a thread of emotions, as if they could not be thought otherwise.

Do you have a favorite?

You can see them on the Foundation’s website, or here you will find a selection combined with quotes.

I conclude with a news, reported by Fantastic Nonna: the Municipality of Milan has dedicated a square to Tina Modotti who plays an important role in the book.

I fell in love with this photograph.