Lee Miller's exhibit at Jeu de Pomme

Sweet grand pa Picasso.

Cat from 1948. Animals, like cats and dogs, have no History, at least not their own. It is always fascinating to see photos of animals from long ago. Unlike people, whose faces often date, cats and dogs always look "contemporary".

Olga and Vladimir Berkman, after the Lee Miller show, in front of the Tuillerie, Dec. 28, 2008

One day before 2009: handicapped bike

Former professor?

Beggar, place Concorde...

Last night on Monmartre: le Bateau Lavoir

Bateau Lavoir where Picasso used to live and did drugs back in the early 1900s.

Season's Greetings!

Dec. 23, 2008

Rue Royale. I thought the Paris police was conducting an anti-terrorist excercise at the Crillon, but I was a few hours too late...

Skiing in Meribel/Courchevel

One day in Zurich

Ironing in 1988

Found in the old files

Dial

At last!

Autumn Song

by W.H. Auden

Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last,
Nurses to their graves are gone,
But the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbors left and right
Daunt us from our true delight,
Able hands are forced to freeze
Derelict on lonely knees.

Close behind us on our track,
Dead in hundreds cry Alack,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Scrawny through a plundered wood,
Trolls run scolding for their food,
Owl and nightingale are dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Clear, unscalable, ahead
Rise the Mountains of Instead,
From whose cold, cascading streams
None may drink except in dreams.

Exit

Clash of Civilizations

Poet Sergey Wolf

Great Russian poet Sergey Wolf, 1934-2005. They don't make them like that anymore.

London, Oct 8th

Eduard Levé

Surfing today through French sites, looking for information about Eduard Levé books, I realized it was a year day to day that Edouard Levé, one of my favorite French artists, committed suicide. I knew he killed himself, but I didn't know when. It was exactly a year ago, October 15, 2007. I never met Levé, but I knew his work fairly well and always thought highly of him. Writer and photographer, he had a rare for the contemporary French artists, articulated philosophical vision and a sense of sardonic humor. He was, it appears, a true "artist maudit", but unlike most of contempoarry "arists maudis", Levé was good. He was really good. What a depressing coincidence that I thought about him on the anniversary of his death. It rained practically all day.

Some pictures by Eduard Levé

All photos by Eduard Levé

In the metro

Irina Volkonskii exhibit in Paris

One of the better shows I saw in the past couple of months.

In the Valley of Ellah

Paul Higgis' In the Valley of Ellah shows excellent cinematography: the camera work gets five stars. However, the final twist in this otherwise, well-structured film, remains unimpressive and lacks depth. As a result, the film doesn't deliver that dramatic and philosophic punch that it, given the themes it dwells on - war and human nature, could have delivered. It ends with benign moralizing (perhaps Higgis had joined the Democratic Party recently). The fact that US soldiers (not all of course, but many) in Iraq kill for fun and lose any "normal" human reactions, is well established. But why does it happen? What triggers that? And what does it mean for the American nation? Higgis doesn't really talk about that. However, the film brings one important point: the link between the cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans. These two go hand in hand. I give three stars out of five to this film.

Last Supper

Japanese restaurant Itsu in London where ex-agent Litvinenko had his last Japanese meal with Mario Scaramella before being poisoned by Polonium 210.

The only decent picture at 104

Opening of 104, Oct.11

Korina Dolgin on Paris

Paris, Sunday, Oct. 5

Stewardess, KLM

Minister Serguey Lavrov

My favorite Russian foreign minister and poet Serguey Lavrov, having a good time in New York.

Shooting "The UN is Decadent & Depraved"

Mark Boswell and Olga Kopenkina getting ready to do the Coney Island scene, Sept. 2008

Mak Boswell and Jason Shurte, September 16, 2008

Actress Micha Lazare, September 2008.

My friend Yuri Yarmolinsky

>Designer Yuri Yermolinsky, on his balcony in NYC.

On the beach, at Gene Thornhill's in New York

At ten I wen to the beach. The planes were going to JFK, as usual, despite the impeding doom that was about to wipe out over 1 trillion dollars off the books on Wall Street.

Secret Agents

US secret agents in front of the Hyatt Hotel, New York, 26 September 2008

While the system is collapsing...

George W. Bush at the UN, Sept.24, 2008

Master and Servants

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon at the UN headquarters, NY, Sept. 26. Copyrights by Lee Mayr