Casa Gilardi, Mexico City

一年前的此时，我第一次来到墨西哥城。行程只有三天。

没想到这短短的三天居然使得我爱上了这座城市。于是在今年的3月份又抽空去了一次。两次都是短短三天，走过了不同的街道看到了不同的风景，但两次贯穿始终的有一个主题，那就是拜访墨西哥著名建筑师路易斯·巴拉甘 Luis Barragán 的建筑。

巴拉甘是一个孤独的人。

他作为一个著名的建筑师，却也不被建筑界内的人所认可，只因他专业学的是工程。而建筑，是他因热爱而自学的。

我从来就对孤独的人与因着热爱去做所谓“非专业”事业的“门外汉”有着很深的喜欢和欣赏。

Casa Gilardi

爱上巴拉甘的作品，从他的“著名”而认识，最终却是深深地被他对生活和人生的态度所感动。沉浸在他的设计里，你会很少专注于技术和结构的支撑，而感受到的是他心中的空灵、诗意、宁静。

一栋巴拉甘晚期被房主说服而设计的民宅，围绕着jacaranda树建造。在3月份的墨西哥城上空，你会看到一簇簇的梦幻紫，这些就来自于jacaranda蓝花楹树。巴拉甘最为显著的建筑特点之一就是他巧妙的用光。这屋子里面的色彩没有一处是用电灯照出来的。在这栋房子，包括离得不是很远的他自己的住宅和工作室，你都会发现，巴拉甘的建筑不是“向外”的，而是“向内”的。他对外开的窗户很少，筑的墙高，而就算可以打开的向外的窗户，窗户也会被他分割成好几块，从而可以自由地运用他们本身对光的反射给室内带来不一样的光照效果，同时还能巧妙地阻隔外面窥视的眼睛。

一个孤独的人是向内的。因为ta清楚，一个人的内心远比这浩瀚的宇宙要复杂和丰富得多。ta之所以能够孤独，恰恰是因为ta的内心丰富至极。ta也懂得，世界上最有趣的，莫非我们的内心与它的力量。

Solitude. Only in intimate communion with solitude may man find himself. Solitude is good company and my architecture is not for those who fear or shun it.

– Luis Barragán

Casa Luis Barragán

巴拉甘的设计和墨西哥的文化是水乳交融的结果。墨西哥文化里的泥土芳香、内心的孤独、被侵略屠杀后和新建立的文化融合、土著血液里躁动的无限热情、天主教带来的顿悟平和与永恒的意念、还有他们因为坦然接受生死轮回季节变换而对死亡亲密的接纳，没有时代感，从而使巴拉甘的设计定格在永恒中。

（图片来自 The Modern House)

参观他自己的住宅和工作室，我没有买摄影权限，所以全程没有留下一张照片。有些许遗憾，因为这是我深深被触动到的地方。同时，又很庆幸，因为这一趟我有时间和空间去好好体会每一束光，和每一次转身由角度变化而带来的视觉变化。他的窄小而又不怎么有光线投进来的餐厅，四平八稳摆着一张桌子和一把背对着窗户并对着门的，孤独落寞得有些像是囚犯的椅子。后面是一个装饰圆盘，上面写了“soledad“ (西班牙语的“孤独”）。一个人平和地进餐，餐盘中可能会打进来一束阳光作为食材。也许囚禁的是对物质的欲望（尤其是在进食的时候），而获得的是内心的广阔自由吧。他一生未娶，很少有社交活动。他的家就是他给自己建造的圣所和避难所。它的卧室里，一个窄小的单人床，工整地摆在房间中央。好像这并不是个床，而是每天充满仪式感的通往另一个世界的门。躺下，便开启了旅程。卧室里面整整齐齐摆满了黑胶唱片，都是古典音乐。有贝多芬、肖斯塔科维奇、梅西安、巴赫... 而窗外，便是他后院里种植的浓密的树和植物。屋内静谧，屋外更是大自然庇护下的一方修行地和缩小的宇宙。

（图片来自 ArchDaily)

他的天台同样是砌成的高墙。一面乳白，一面九重葛粉，一面蓝花楹蓝。我们看到这宽阔的场地，立马就会想起来用它作为音乐会的演出场所或是室内乐的沙龙。可巴拉甘却常常一个人来，仅仅是为了思考和冥想。也许在高墙中会有感到些许幽闭，可抬头，却看见那他用墙头的线条划出的只属于自己的蓝天。这个天台除了几面面积很大的墙和一棵极其浪漫的九重葛温柔地把它的枝头垂在白墙的身上外，空空如也。可同时，我的内心却充满了无限的感动，久久不愿离去。

如果你去墨西哥城的时间很有限，而且也认为旅行的目的远超越拍照，你一定不要错过这里。

It is alarming that publications devoted to architecture have banished from their pages the words Beauty, Inspiration, Magic, Spellbound, Enchantment, as well as the concepts of Serenity, Silence,Intimacy and Amazement. All these have nestled in my soul, and though I am fully aware that I have not done them complete justice in my work, they have never ceased to be my guiding lights.

– Luis Barragán

Cuadra San Cristóbal 

这，应该是我至今去过的最如诗如梦的地方。

也许也因为这是我与瓷的旅行，而她，就要在旅行结束后结婚了。也许我每次想起这个地方，都会想起我们的青春和她坚强和美丽的样子吧。

巴拉甘毕生的热情都放在了三件事上：马、天主教、建筑。这是一处他设计的，有马，有水，与自然结合在一起的地方，也应该是他所热爱事物的最好结合体。清风拂面，我们去拜访了这里的马和狗，还有那位只说西班牙语的园丁。

If red is intensity, fecundity, is a burning desire and an eternal longing to return to white, then pink must be the journey. No less intense or painful, but you will walk with the dancing bougainvillea by your feet.

如若红色是肆意的浓烈，是被填充而致溢出的欲望，是永远想归于白色的无尽企盼，那么粉色定是这段归程。不少于一丝红色的浓烈和痛楚，但与你同行的是风中舞蹈着的，脚前的九重葛。

Capilla de las Capuchinas

这是一个隐藏很深的修道院。就算站在它的大门前，你也会很容易错过。隐蔽且神秘。（并且禁止照相）巴拉甘在世的时候没有人知道这里是他设计的，而他当年既是设计师也是资助者。修道院为我们讲解的修女就是当年与巴拉甘有交集的负责人。她一辈子都住在这里，举手投足都是坚定与平和。

站在修道院不远处的小路口

在第一次看这幅乔治亚·欧姬芙画时，其中的黄色使我不停地开始流泪。这种情感文字无力去解释。如果你懂得贝多芬第三钢协第一乐章结束，停留片刻后，第二乐章第一个和弦展开在耳边的温暖和坚定，你一定也会懂得欧姬芙的黄色和巴拉甘这所修道院里深沉的橘红色。它沉静到仿佛回到母亲的子宫中，这种颜色包围着你，没有任何可以喘息的机会 – 或者需求 – 因为气息已然通过母体送达到你身体里。你需要的只是存在，沉睡着，同时准备迎接另一个生命的到来。

乔治亚欧姬芙：Pelvis Series Red With Yellow, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1960

（图片来自网络）

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我以前对墨西哥的艺术文化完全不了解，第一次看到巴拉甘的名字是在准备墨西哥行程时在谷歌地图上看到的，第二次是看到一本墨西哥介绍书中提及的。结果没想到，他的工作室和Casa Gilardi民宅就算提前打电话预约订票也是差点因人满而与其失之交臂。想要参观的朋友们一定提早预约。

巴拉甘一生留下很少的书信笔录，他在接受Pritzker Architecture Prize 建筑奖的获奖致辞里谈到了很多他的理念，文字也很优美。我把链接分享给你：https://www.pritzkerprize.com/sites/default/files/inline–files/1980_Acceptance_Speech.pdf

其实在墨西哥城内以及周边地区还有一些这次没有走到的他的建筑，以后有机会慢慢去看。墨西哥城在我的心里就如同它名片一般的粉色一样，既热烈又安静，既纯真又狂野。

另外一座巴拉甘设计的民宅。墨西哥城。

最近有一个叫做Jill Magid的美国艺术家做了一系列的关于巴拉甘的展：她用巴拉甘的骨灰做成了钻戒，想为墨西哥换回巴拉甘漂流远在欧洲的建筑档案。随后她把这段艺术行为记录下来作为纪录片放映。今年夏天回纽约时特意买了机票就为赶上最后一场在纽约的公映。

想了解当代艺术行为和巴拉甘建筑的朋友，我也把这部片子推荐给你：

 I am only a symbol for all those who have been touched by Beauty.

– Luis Barragán

– the end –

       既然都不完美，那就一起努力       

s o p h i e

哥伦比亚大学

音乐教育博士研究生

纽约现代艺术博物馆MoMA讲师

自由钢琴演奏者

室内乐演奏者

艺术与音乐教育传播者

纽约Lex54 Concerts系列音乐会

创始人和艺术总监

PhiloSophie

         除特殊标明, 图片内容均为原创, 转载请注明出处       

《简爱》电影观后感

“纯爱”、“女权主义”、”小清新”，是三个我绝对不会用来形容这个故事的词。

简爱作为一个19岁最左右生活在英国古板的维多利亚时代的少女，能够如此清晰地认识自己是谁，想要什么，与社会的关系，与男人的关系，真是一个令人惊诧的事情。在所谓开放和进步的现代社会，也很难遇到一个这样的女孩。不仅这和开放与进步没有关系，开放和进步恰恰给女孩子无从下手找到自己的机会，开放和进步恰恰给真正的禁锢披上堂而皇之的外套。

我还没有读过原著，也从来没有看过任何版本的电影，连故事都从未听过。但现在已迫不及待地去翻开它了。我现在想写下的，也仅仅是我从电影里得到的故事梗概引发的感想。

关于女权

我真正欣赏的是女人用她们独有的柔和的力量去与世间一切不平去抗衡。如果灵魂是没有性别的，简爱一样的女子从出生就一直拥有这样没有性别的灵魂。由此而言，去“抗衡”也许都是偏激的语言，因为她们天生不认为有什么性别上的不公平存在去被打破和抗衡的需要。真正需要去抗衡的女人是有着女性灵魂的人，她们才要努力地去打破被歧视的枷锁。简爱只是在做自己，这样的灵魂的默认价值就是平等自由，所以自始至终她们只是简单地去做自己。女演员的这种生硬和古板非常应景。简爱这种天生的简单真是一种幸运。

关于纯爱

性是美好的。但与爱一样，只有很少很少的人才真正经历过最美好的性。最美好的性从来与高潮迭起与否没有关系，大部分人之所以停留在以高潮去判别好坏的程度，是因为他们从不相信这么美好的爱情存在。那么真正美好的性是什么？性在我眼里大多数组成部分是自己对自己的态度。在与他人的性爱过程中，大部分是自己与自己的灵魂纠缠。真正美好的性之所以美好和少有，是因为它建立在双方必须忘我的前提下，那么也就是说在性爱的过程中是自己的灵魂被释放出来，而不再与自己的灵魂纠缠。要达到性爱中的忘我，需要两颗心最真挚地相爱。两颗心在没有性的染色下，才可以最自由地去交谈， 而在确认这最真挚最热烈的情感下，性爱的美好才能够真正被体验。”纯爱”不是什么高度，它只是最美好的爱情的一个重要决定条件。

小清新

我对其他典型的小清新作品不了解，所以不能妄下定论。但是我想说这部作品充斥着浓重的浪漫主义色彩 – 这里的“浪漫”不是仅仅指风花雪月你侬我侬，而是指起源于德国的浪漫主义文学作品，主人公无尽地在理想主义追求中的自我折磨和大胆的奇幻想象。个人认为这和小清新完全背道而驰。

简爱为什么会选择Rochester？是因为他不仅懂和欣赏她没有性别的灵魂，而且还有那个时代男人极少有的（是否该说是根本不存在的，毕竟小说是虚幻的）勇气去选择与她这样的灵魂在一起生活。虽然我们现在的社会标榜自己的进步和开放，可是我认为这样的男人在现在也十分少有。女人，遇到这样的男人便是美好，没遇到我们便继续做那作为一个human being该做的事情。

虽然安娜依斯宁在我眼里是一个女人的灵魂，但我想以她的一段话作为结尾：
I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

flowers under the SF fog

Woman of mystery

Men like to complain about women being too emotional, too complicated, too hard to understand. I complain about women the same, so I complain about myself as such, too.

Anais Nin talks about being a woman, a mother – a mother who gives life not to children of the earth, but a mother who gives life to the men who are artists. And of course, being an artist is being somewhere ever so close to God, the Creator.

Orgasm.

Have you ever wondered why women orgasm? Unlike men, it does not serve any functional purpose for women. There are quite a number of women who never experienced orgasm in their entire lives. And even for the same woman who is capable of reaching orgasm, she may find orgasm an entirely whimsical fairy.

Oh but when it comes, it consumes you from the depth of your soul, gushing your tears out, breaths short, eyes shut.

Yes. Ecstasy. Ecstasy, the utter beatitude, and tears. (Have you ever wondered why tragedy is placed on a higher ground than comedy?)

When a woman reaches that ecstatic moment, the equivalent of male orgasmic functionality is achieved – to give life to the Stimmung, 洪荒，where artists springs to life, where one is closest to God.

It takes a lifetime for the woman to unveil this mystery about herself, and it takes much more for a man to unveil this mystery with her, and for her. If you are a woman, consider it a great privilege to be a woman of mystery; and if you are a man, oh… when you meet the woman for you, what great mystery stands before you to unveil…..

 

Hello 2017

I woke up to this old photograph (photographer unknown), and I cannot help but to beam.

I realized that I’ve forgotten how to fully expand my soul in each moment of happiness. They say realization is the first step to improvement, well, here’s to a year of putting the heart into everything  – and I mean, everything – that I choose to do, and letting the soul fulfill each moment.

Questions: dependence, women, artist, etc

I’m picking up writing again. Because: I realized I am (whether or not consciously) attracted to a stream-of-conscious style of writing (Henry Miller, Montaigne, Anais Nin’s diary even), and that more important than the product of writing itself, is the self-discovery during the process of writing ( as Kafka puts it: “It is, in fact, an intercourse with ghosts, and not only with the ghost of the recipient but also with one’s own ghost which develops between the lines of the letter one is writing and even more so in a series of letters where one letter corroborates the other and can refer to it as a witness.”). So it is my hope here, then, to keep writing as much as I can manage in order to keep my brain deft and well.

Two questions stemming from the same vein caught my attention lately. One (first asked by a friend of mine who happens to be a highly accomplished, serious, classical musician): if making money and achieving that desirable state of living is easy, would an artist still strive to work hard still?

As I’m typing this it seems a rather silly and self-evident question. If an artist forfeits his/her artistic effort due to easily accessible material comfort, it is obvious he/she is not a true artist. Why? Because the goal isn’t for art. But in my friend’s case, as much as I know about him, he certainly is a serious and dedicated musician. Perhaps the answer is this: for an artistic mind (or otherwise; as I believe it is true for the majority of us), materialist accumulation has no end. And therefore such unquenched desire for material gain and living comfort will always propel such people like him to strive for a higher ground artistically.

Second question is, for a woman who can easily obtain such materialistic comfort by means of men, would she still strive for self-fulfillment as an independent human being? I am a woman and I have no desire whatsoever to achieve a comfortable living through men – in fact, I tend to possess strong self-loathing feelings if I were ever close to that. So I can’t really answer this question. Maybe I will another time.

A slightly related thought: I think the sexual freedom women achieved through feminist movements is as much about choosing to have sex outside of a marital status with only the married partner as it is about choosing not to perform sexual act as a duty to her married partner within a marriage.

Ample make this bed

There are many ways to categorize people (“categorize” people, of course each person is an individual; but please bear with me for the sake of this topic). One way is to separate people into these two kinds: one who have led an innocent life, a life without the kiss of death; and the other, who have made choices so burdensome and gruesome, that the only way to continue living is through atonement. If one is strong enough and lucky enough, one will live through a metamorphosis after paying off the debts.

It is in such debts that we feel most closely bound to each other. We come to understand each other. Kinship. Humanity.

If you are debt free,  I pray the kiss of death will never be near. In an age of social media prevalence, I hope your display of happiness truly stems from the happiness of life.

I chose not to live lightly nor frivolously. Make this bed with awe.

Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.

– Emily Dickinson

Innocence by the sea

When was the last time we screamed, jumped, laughed as the ocean reached our feet? The fun of almost being devoured by the force of nature but residing in the safety nest of its benevolence at the same time – let’s not forget.

Good Sunday morning

It is not like everyday that I get to wake up, drink a cup of tea with the sunlight pouring in from my window onto my table. This morning had to be one, so I have decided.

One of my favorite pictorial fragments of San Francisco is the oily green lemon tree leaves offsetting the golden lemons, standing in front of the backdrop of the blue San Franciscan sky. But one of my most cherished experience in San Francisco comes from exactly a week ago.

Last Sunday morning was a chilly and gloomy one. The fog that accumulated during the night has not yet cleared up. It was nearly 10:30 AM, and I went to wait at the bus stop for the bus that was to take me to church, where I was to visit for the first time. The route was, of course, one that I had never taken before also.

The bus arrived exactly on time. I got on the bus, took a seat by the window. The route was not exactly the most scenic one, but it was warmly quiet and peaceful. Down the winding road, it was obvious that we were journeying on a hill, that sometimes through the gap between two houses I can see the valley. I don’t remember when it first caught my eyes but a charming Tudor house appeared for the brief minute or two I could muster while the bus drove by, and the next thing I new more houses of the Italian style started to emerge. The cobble steps, the flowers and the windows that seemed to lead into intriguing secrets from each households, I knew I was not in San Francisco, I was not in 2012, and I was not on a bus. The mist flowed around, houses kept appearing and disappearing, and yet time was suspended. A beautiful fountain was there, in the middle of a road. Our carriage had to go around it. I could hear the giggles from the girls from Jane Austin’s novels, I could see the English garden just 10min walk away. It was all misty, and still.

As we reached the end of the road, I saw a muni car waiting on the other road we were reaching. No, we were on a bus not a carriage afterall. But was it real? I was for a brief moment transported to a completely different reality. All came about from nowhere, with no expectations.

I felt so satisfied. A feast of beauty.

Later on I looked up the neighborhood I went through, it was called “St.Francis Wood”. But it didn’t matter what it was called. Or to what fame an renown it associated itself. It was a moment of unexpected wonder that unfurled itself onto my experience, serendipity to the fullest extent.

And that’s what life is about, isn’t it?

I am in San Francisco

Dear world, dear self,

I have not felt such a strong urge to write in a long time. It is 1:10 AM in beautiful San Francisco, and I am sitting in front of my newly acquired computer with a cup of aromatic chamomile tea, desiring not to rest but to write. The only reason, for the first time in my life I believe, is that from the depth of my being I have a need to write again.

I has taken me, up to today, 3 weeks to finally believe that I am in San Francisco, enrolled in a chamber music program and doing what I have always been so passionate to do. It in itself is truly a wonder, for which I have always been so in awe and so grateful.

Today was just another day. Yet, with all the musical ideas I have received from my lesson on Op.110, it felt like I’m probing into a distant memory. Closer to understanding a vast inner world, and thus living a different present reality. In the past week, the amount of coachings I have received was overwhelming, and I think if I do not try to straighten them up every day or so, they will be all cluttered and useless.

I have begun to observe that the older we grow, there seems to be more of a desperate need to simplify. Simplify the shaping of a phrase, the observing of a harmonic change, and our way of experiencing.

I am afraid that I must say goodnight now.