coffee no. 145

An old man sits in front of me on a tram. He reads a newspaper and eats orange tic tacs. Suddenly one can hear a loud regular tone and the man starts to squirm. With a gigantic nervousness he checks his pockets and bag, the newspaper falls on the floor, people start to stare. I am not surprised by his behaviour because the view of elderly people fumbling for their phones is quite common. They often have big, old fashioned mobiles giving an annoying and too loud beep beep beep. After some seconds on the passenger's face appears a delicate smile of relief. He takes out of his leather bag a red cheap alarm clock, turns it off and takes back into the bag. Wakey!

coffee no. 144

http://www.christophehuet.com/

Champagne

coffee no. 143

Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.

Emile M. Cioran

coffee no. 142

This afternoon I spotted a big green and blue carpet, lying rolled next to the trashcan near the house I live. Nothing unusual; just a quick random glance around. When I was coming back home, late in the evening, something special happened. The carpet was unrolled in the middle of the empty pavement and it looked as it was waiting for somebody to sit down on it, somebody brave enough to begin a fantastic journey over the roofs of the city...
Unfortunately, it was not a flying carpet... Or I was not a proper person... ;)
Anyways, I took a photo of it with my mobile phone. It scarcely turned out in the darkness, but here is a proof:

coffee no. 141

When you look carefully enough, you will spot in almost every group of tourists one person totally odd -- dressed in some other way, or behaving differently than the rest. The most often it is a woman -- high heels, mini skirt and the hairdo like straight from the hairdresser, whereas the other people are wearing trainers, jeans and baseball caps. She is talking on the phone while her companions are listening to the guide's stories concerning monuments. And when they are looking at the monuments, she is looking around, at the people. She is chewing a gum whereas the others are eating their sandwiches. She is bored and smiling, tired and brave in her unconfortable shoes, ridiculous and funny as well. And absolutely unaware of the fact that she stands out...

coffee no. 140

The most important are photos we have not taken.
During my last trip I saw a long-haired Japanese woman, dressed in a wonderful flowery dress. Standing several footsteps behind her, I was observing the moment when she was adjusting her make up. I could not seen her face -- only the shapely red lips reflecting in a small round mirror she was holding in her hand. I was so mesmerized with that cinematic view that as soon as I remembered about my camera, the woman had her *job* finished.
Thinking about this non-existent photo, I suppose that it would not be as good in reality as in my imagination.
The best are photos we have not taken.

coffee no. 139

A couple of days ago I visited a photography exhibition of Gregory Crewdson in Prague's Rudolfinum. His art is out of this world so I spent a lot of time gazing at the big colorful photos and examinating every single milimetre of them. The gallery was quite empty and silent but suddenly I heard a loud, vivid conversation in the next room. It turned out that there were two very old women, standing in front of the photo entitled 'Beneath the Roses'. I could not understant what they were talking about but both of them were mesmerized and moved. They behaved like teenage girls watching the posters of some pop star or a famous, handsome actor. It was really great observing them, particularly because I was sure that they had not appeared in Rudolfinum by accident...

The Tuning Fork by Edward Gorey

coffee no. 138

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=79351&videoChannel=1

coffee no. 137

Near the city centre there is a small quasi-professional art gallery which I pass almost every day. They sell nice jewellery and horrible paintings. About a year ago on the display appeared a big copy of Klimt's THE KISS. It was awful as hell -- different colours, shapes, everything. Moreover, the paining kept on fading in the sun shining through the window. Yesterday I noticed a jarring change --THE KISS disappeared, visibly bought by someone blind or crazy. Uffff. I was standing in front of the empty gallery display, grinning like someone who at last threw away the most ugly armchair in their house.
Today the gap has been filled. With Klimt's JUDITH, painted by the same excellent *author*...

Thank goodnes in two weeks I will have an occasion to watch a REAL Klimt at Viennese Belvedere.

coffee no. 136

I do not know how it is but some people look completely idiotically when they smile. As long as they keep serious expression, they are handsome, beautiful, *normal*. But only when the smile appear on their face, they become really different, kind of versatile, or even piteous. Very often it seems as if they just came out with the uncontrolled, sudden grin like for example with a swear-word... The smile appears and the image collapses...
Maybe the more serious someone tries to be, the more foolishly they look while smiling...

Years ago somebody told me: Do not put your trust in people who look strange when they smile...