Charlie

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Socrates

Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We are what we repeatedly do.
Aristotle

Beauty is where the eye rests.

Joseph Brodsky

"Creative observation" (see William S. Burroughs).
POETRY.
Senseless acts of beauty.
Writing.
Acting.
Languages.
Research.
Flying.
Jazz.
Cooking, cooking, cooking :)
Snow.
Photography and lay-out.
Collecting antiques and movies.
All things Gustavian.
Constructive discussions.
Interior design.
Architecture.
NEW YORK.
Thor's spelling.
And his mesmerazing "bed time stories" :)
J's sarcasm.
And her new ballet studio.
Chopin.
Chess.
Chicago.
St. Petersburg.
Wittgenstein's Vienna.
Rialto Fish Market.
Vasilievsky Ostrov.
Rue aux Ours.
Le Marais.
Kinsale.
Greco di Tufo.
Goya.
Vilhelm Hammershoi.
Peter Lindbergh.
Early Deborah Turbeville.
Old Pirelli Cals.
Herri Peccinotti circa 1969.
AEFFE Group.
Summer Garden.
Central Park.
Sunday evenings.
Smoking hookah.
Laughing till I pee in my pants.
Listening to my daughter talking abt her new boyfriend.
Canova (both good old Antonio and my friend Ivana.)
Cashmere.
Silk.
Vintage.
Baroque.
Old porcelain cheese boards.
Aurélie Dupont and Manuel Legris in the Black Pas de Deux from John Neumeier’s "Dame aux Camélias".
Hummus.
Grilled polenta.
Fegato alla veneziana.
Fried brains.
And occasionally scrambled ones too, it seams ;)
Irish stew.
Charlie Trotter's.
Georgian pork kebabs.
Khachapuri.
Watching Russian mobsters eating sushi.
Carciofi.
Capers.
Guacamole.
Goat cheese.
Wasabi.
Tall chai lattes.
Sicilian lentil soup.
And the French onion.
Hot chocolate.
Cinnamon.
Salsa (as in dancing.)
The Dacha dump.
Propaganda.
Gardner & Kuznetsov.
Mariage Freres tea selection.
Russian winters.
Russian banya.
All Stars.
Sable fur coats.
Illegally crossing Russian borders with fake British fugitives.
Visionaire.
Vyborg.
Badminton.
Skiing in the Arctic Circle.
Gilding walnuts.
Being thrown out of the only club in town.
Law.
Men with firm handshakes.
Roof climbing with Max and Jellie (separately).
Aimone's Moscow office.
WASP - Airacobras - ALSIB.
History.
Coffee table books.
Watching Man Utd win.
Being unaware of Milan loosing again.
Slapping those who'd tell me it did.
Listening to Verona church bells from Brando's terrace.
Teasing Wes.
Canali (which honestly looked better on Leif. Dottor Paolo, ma t'impegni un po? lol)
Kiton.
Prada.
Prada-Prada-Prada-Prada-Pradaaaaaaa...
GAP essentials.
Alberta Ferretti.
Narciso Rodriguez.
Pellini.
Charlotte Rampling.
Sally Potter.
Cate Blanchett.
Otar Iosseliani.
Johnny Depp: ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.
Whiskey. (Midleton, thank you very much.)
Cigars.
Sex - as bad as it sounds, gotta admit it :)

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Salvador Dali

Some people never go crazy,
what truly horrible lives they must live
Charles Bukowsky

On its own reality is not worth a damn.
It is perception that promotes reality to meaning.
Joseph Brodsky

If there's something or someone on this slide show you don't recognize, just point at the pic and read the caption. Thanks.

A photograph is a secret about a secret.
The more it tells you the less you know.
Diane Arbus

To possess the world in the form of images is, precisely,
to re-experience the unreality and remoteness of the real.
Susan Sontag

Reality is a sliding door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
Robert Frost

Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,

Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives.
Wystan H. Auden

A poet is someone for whom every word
is not the end but the beginning of a thought.
Joseph Brodsky

Lord, let me always desire
more than I think I can do.
Michelangelo

There is nothing impossible
to him who will try.
Alexander the Great

Setbacks are to be expected.
Thor Stacey

A great wind is blowing,
and that gives you either imagination or a headache.
Catherine the Great

Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
Walter Benjamin

C'est véritablement utile, puisque c'est joli.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Elegance is refusal.
Coco Chanel

Give me the luxuries of life
and I will willingly do without the necessities.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything
without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
Robert Frost

Success is like reaching an important birthday
and finding you're exactly the same.
Audrey Hepburn

A scholar is someone who knows how to
limit oneself to the matter at hand.

Anne Carson

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.
Scott Adams

Style is the answer to everything.
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing.
To do a dull thing with style is preferable
to doing a dangerous thing without it.
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call Art.
Bullfighting can be an Art.
Boxing can be an Art.
Loving can be an Art.
Opening a can of sardines can be an art.
Not many have style. Not many can keep style.
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains
to the wall with a shotgun, that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style.
Joan of Arc had style. John the Baptist.
Christ. Socrates. Caesar. Garcia Lorca.
I’ve met men in jail with style.
I’ve met more men in jail with style
than men out of jail.
Style is a difference –
a way of doing –
a way of being done.
Six heron standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.
Charles Bukowski

If we resist our passions it is more
from their weakness than from our strength.
Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld

Age does not protect you from love,
but love to some extent protects you from age.
Jeanne Moreau

Love never dies a natural death.
It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source.
It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals.
It dies of illness and wounds;
it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
Anais Nin

If you haven't cried,
your eyes can't be beautiful.
Sofia Loren

When love is not madness, it is not love.
Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Oh NOOOOOOOOO, you didn't!
Jellie

The stupid neither forgive nor forget;
the naive forgive and forget;
the wise forgive but do not forget.
Thomas Szasz

Don't take life too seriously;
you'll never get out of it alive.
Elbert Hubbard

I've never been a millionaire
but I just know I'd be darling at it.
Dorothy Parker

My success and my misfortunes,
the bright and the dark days I have gone through,
everything has proved to me that in this world,
either physical or moral, good comes out of evil
just as well as evil comes out of good.
Giacomo Casanova

In three words I can sum up
everything I've learned about life.
It goes on.
Robert Frost

Any life, however long and complicated
it may be, actually consists
of a single moment - the moment
when a man knows forever more who he is.
Jorge Luis Borges

To never simplify what is complicated
or complicate what is simple.
Arundhati Roy

Life is perhaps lighting up a cigarette
in the narcotic repose between two love-makings
or the absent gaze of a passerby
who takes off his hat to another passerby
with a meaningless smile and a good morning.
Forough Farrokhzad

Non si ricordano i giorni,
si ricordano gli attimi.
Cesare Pavese

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle

For once you have tasted flight
you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been
and there you will long to return.
Leonard da Vinci

Mission #1 is ALWAYS to stay alive.
Rhino

The day we stop lookin', Charlie,
is the day we die.
Lt. Col. Frank Slade