• About me

Café culture addict

~ Drinking tea, observing society and writing stories in cafés

Café culture addict

Category Archives: Life in style

Luncheon on Grass

16 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 8 Comments

I never liked this painting of Edouard Manet.

Because the women are naked or half naked while the men are fully clothed (with dark and quite heavy clothing, no less). And the foreground man seems to be pontificating. He’s wearing the hat of some students of the time.

As a woman, I felt it to be offensive. And I didn’t like, and still don’t, the display of patronizing way to, once more, assert a supposed superiority of male over female humans. So, pen being mightier than sword, here’s my countermeasure to this ongoing sexism.

It seems to me that the stark contrast shows how shocking it is, because it’s a seldom seen reverse of the “roles”. And it reveals how groomed we have been into thinking it’s ok to see a naked woman sitting between those two clothed men, with her female friend, half naked (or half dressed), knee deep in the pond behind them. Curious.(Original painting below).

This type of fantasist painting also reinforced in the collective consciousness the idea that it’s acceptable for women to be gallivanting in rivers in their undies or have luncheon naked.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it shocked people at the time, just as I was unimpressed when I first saw it. It brought fame to the painter as well as controversy, as Manet knew perfectly well how to use it ( look no further than his “Olympia”).

Art historians deemed this painting his most famous, because Manet brought nature into his painting to a perfect rendition. Ok, maybe. Probably here, fame (because of scandal) morphs into remarkable execution. Yet, I’m not convinced. I’d rather they were ALL naked…

And the fact that the woman breaks the “4th wall”, while unclothed could be read as an invitation for later… intimate games.

It also indicates a rule being broken by Manet.

It’s not a portrait, it’s a group painting. Looking at us, this young lady is showing she’s unashamed of her naked body (a good thing in my book), but in 1863, it could be read differently. And it sure sparked notoriety and controversy. The former because of the latter.

But still….

What kind of idea is that, if not another desire to portray women in a less than respectful way?

This is part of the so called “celebration of femininity” and beauty of the female body.

It’s just another lie to objectify women, evacuating their soul and personnality (and their consent maybe too?) of the equation and letting them know that they have nothing to say about it.

It’s also a trickster way to brainwash visitors into thinking that it’s the way things are and must be perpetuated.

This painting maybe a feat in terms of….. impressionist craft…. but it’s rubbish as to what message it aims at delivering and it’s time society stops celebrating art that devaluates this half of humankind.

Curiously, painting naked female body it ok. But painting or drawing naked male body and you’re bound to receive a warning, even be flagged as offensive and rated R. (hence the little club I had to put on the private parts of this gent for viewer sensitivity and to avoid to shock wordpress) .

As long as its not showing signs of … action… why should it be?

Why naked female body is ok and not male naked body? Why AGAIN a difference of treatment?

This society model is sickening.

But it’s changing, thank God(dess).

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Spell – Queen of Sheba

06 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 4 Comments

If the Queen of Sheba had been given a smartphone, what would she have done?

Well, what (most) everybody does, probably becoming addicted to the tech and the rabbit hole it is…

So, this is my latest Smartphone addiction serie installment.

What’d you think?

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Johnny Depp trial and why it matters

01 Wednesday Jun 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Johnny Depp

Just my thoughts here, a bit more grave pondering than usual. Bc as Mr Chew said, it’s out showing that the truth is worth fighting for.

Truth hath prevailed. Copyright Florence Vitel


The verdict has been given, and Johnny Depp wins. And with this, it’s all the silenced victims of arrogant abusers that, in a way, win. The gain here is the awareness being brought to unseen abuse, that happens between two ordinary sentences, actions, smiles, even. Behind closed doors, when there’s no witness. The other beneficial thing is that maybe now abused men will be taken seriously and get the strength to speak up.
Behaviors like his abuser inflicted on him are seldom understood by those who have the luck not to have been exposed to it for years. Too often, the abusers are deemed “difficult” to cope with, by not intimate or close family members that do not experience it first hand.
They are not difficult, they’re cruel, they choose to behave that way, they never take responsibility for what they do and they complain about everything regarding their victims.

This trial matters because the abuse that occurs behind closed doors is doubly damaging because people unaware of such behaviours can simply not fathom what it’s like to b on eth receiving end.

This trial matters, because narcissism has been too long discarded as a particular “irritability” of the perpetrators, and such actions, the verbal abuse have gone unchallenged, unpunished, and uncalled, for too long. The Meetoo wave has brought awareness to unwritten rules rampant within the movie industry, the beneficial result being that narcissism was brought to daylight, The personality of 45th president, being the narc he is, with many of his outrageous remarks, has been analyzed by experts and psychologists, and as his gross disrespect and despise for disabled, veterans, women, scouts, religions, etc… has been named for what they are : traits of a narc PD. Thus bringing into the common language and to ordinary people tools and words to understand what they might have been exposed to for so long, but for which they had no way to comprehend aside from a one-fits-all category: difficult.

BPDs and narc personality disorder are better understood, as they are detailed, and documented like never before. Body language experts help us understand the subtleties and signs, psychologists put names on all the manipulation and conniving techniques and tools they use to ensnare their victims. By explaining and giving access to a vocabulary and linking them with patterns of behaviors, they give the abused a path to having their pain and suffering, the very fabric of their painful reality, a possibility first to be precisely mapped out, understood, and recognized. And a path to healing. A key to self-restoration and closure. It gives them space and provides strategies to protect themselves, t finally being able to respond without being invalidated by the abuser. It allows victims to shake off the guilt because society demands we act a certain way. If the abuser is an aging parent, the abused child must nonetheless “honor” and sometimes provide for the said abuser. Well, it begs to consider if an abuser, because he/she is aging, must therefore be forgiven and get away with the cruelty and abuse he/she chose to inflict because it’s easier for a society to close its eyes a little longer to things that prove all is not rosy in modern western civilization.

This trial also draws attention to the fact that men can also and are abused. And shall not be mocked. Johnny Depp had et courage to set his life under the microscope, to get to the truth and have it recognized for what it is. He’s given a voice to silenced abused men, and he’s helped silenced victims of quiet and devastating abuse share their pain and have it recognized and validated. In a good way.


On a personal level, this trial has brought me so much closure, bc my mother is the same type of abuser.
This verdict, the awareness it allows, feels like a breath of fresh air.

Thank you, Mister Depp.

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Johnny Depp ink drawing

28 Thursday Apr 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 8 Comments

Finished my ink drawing.

Johnny Depp is not only an great actor and musician but also a fab painter.
He has decided to sell his NFT (Never Fear Truth, brilliant tongue in cheek play on NFTs) collection, & parts of the proceedings will go to Children Hospital Charities.
And regarding what’s happening in Fairfax, it seemed appropriate to recycle this advice, Never Fear the Truth and incorporate it in this ink piece.
So this drawing is a lil’ homage to this good soul.

#justiceforjohnny

#justiceforjohnnydepp

Johnny Depp. Ink drawing copyright Florence Vitel

Ink drawing copyright Florence Vitel

Johnny Depp. Ink drawing copyright Florence Vitel

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

For Ukraine

02 Wednesday Mar 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ Leave a comment

Recycling Zelensky famous selfie with his brothers in arm and fellow citizens, I just replaced the cellphone by the pole of the Ukrainian flag.

#freedom

 

 

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

A very Proustian year

22 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

marcel proust, parisian life

November, 18th 1922. It’s a cold gray morning in Paris, temperatures plummeted, and the following week would be colder.

This was the day when Marcel Proust, unforgettable author A la Recherche du temps Perdu, or In Remembrance of Things Past (nowadays retitled In Search of Lost Time, less poetic, if more accurate), would die.

He’d been finishing correcting and editing his last Opus, the last tome of the Recherche, with his devoted Celeste, his governess, until 3.30 am.

Too soon gone, a genius writer, forever connected with a delightful cake, the madeleine. And forever linked to Normandy too, Cabourg, more precisely, which was the model for the fictional town of Balbec.

Map of Proust’s Normandy by Proust Ink

Good bye Mr Proust.

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Spell – A ciggie and a perm

31 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 2 Comments

Because how would one spend their time while awaiting the hair rolls to do their magic?A lil’ browsing, a lil’ scrolling, a lil’ nicotine inhaling.Just a little, innocuous. Can stop whenever…But surreptitiously, inconspicuously it creeps in…And so groweth the addiction.

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Spell – Cooking time

28 Friday Jan 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 5 Comments

Comment not necessary.

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Spell – Wine a little

26 Wednesday Jan 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ Leave a comment

Even the best of wines can be outshined by a little screen and its tricks.

How sad.

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Spell – Evening routine (bis)

20 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 2 Comments

The attraction to all things new, flashy, shiny is deeply embedded in the human psyche, that’s why new toys are difficult to resist.

That’s also why attraction to said new toys doesn’t last long and needs constant renewal.

Smartphone, tech and highly addictive apps related to “social media ” are designed to trigger in the psyche the same reaction as new shiny toys and induce the pursuit of the gratification they procure.

Damages caused by these tech and apps are being studied and documented, yet their propagation and access to younger minds is not thwarted. It’s difficult enough as a teen or a grown up to resist the temptation of round the clock entertainment…. so for youngers, imagine….

Hence the question, are we doomed?

I leave it to your appreciation…

Spell – Evening routine. F.Vitel 2022

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Spell – Evening routine

19 Wednesday Jan 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 3 Comments

It maybe the first thing one reaches in the morning, and the last thing done before embarking onto the island of 1000 dreams…

Another sign proving of how endlessly addictive tech and apps have become.

⁶

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Another morning routine

11 Tuesday Jan 2022

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ Leave a comment

Another Spell drawing.

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

Merry Christmas

25 Saturday Dec 2021

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 2 Comments

And a good night to all.

Cheers

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

A new dawn to a new decade

10 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 4 Comments

So it’s my birthday…

Happy birthday.

Cake, friends, music, the entire band in the pub singing to me happy bday, what a blast …

Good night

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...

A cup of chaos and no sweetener available

05 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by Floreva in Life in style

≈ 2 Comments

How many of us are having this peculiar feeling that there’s a perfect turmoil looming over us?

  • Full moon over Vienna
  • Capitol in Washington, summer 2020
  • Abe Lincoln memorial
  • Brazos Bend Park, Houston
  • Place of the Heroes, Vienna
Mascaron in Paris and Bust of the Poet Lenau, Vienna

Lockdowns, lockdowns, empty cities, empty streets, curfews, empty sies, no travel, remote schooling and working, social distancing, masks, more virus mutation, more lockdowns, more climate turmoil, depletion of resources, the rise of depression, lack of energy, sugar addictions, tv addiction, social media (nothing social in them) addiction…

Climate patterns took leave of their predictable behaviours, super rich people build rockets, polarisations divide citizens in radical ways, the virus which must still remain unnamed on the internet is mutating, defying human frustration and need of control (the latter being different within each person, the former being increased by the said need of control), a nerd uncomfortable with social interactions (but a billionnaire nonetheless) exulting in creating a virtual world he hopes everybody will gleefully join (there’s nothing weirder than being more excited to not meet friends in real life and not experiencing things that makes humans human, maybe he’s a robot, as he suggested as per a recent speech slippage during a conference), recently discovered artefacts and cities that clearly show human high tech and advanced civilisations largely predates the admitted / mainstream academia of historians or archeologists, thus reshuffling the cards of our evolutionary steps as a collective, and bestowing new questions and no satisfying answers (think Disk of Sabu for instance, or Göbekli Tepe), webs of lies (from “celebs” or politicians, journalists, presidents even, or 15 min stars, Warhol-style) being told, then spotted, fact-checked and documented but nothing being done about it, and Alexa going mute when asked if she works for the CIA or the government (try it, if you have the house elf of said name, its weirdly funny but slightly worrying)…

So many questions. So many doubts… Are these things real, or manufactured to feed a narrative that eludes us?

It seems that more and more ask: Quid Bono? Who profits from this?

And so, rightfully, we can ask ourselves : What’s going on?

And what about the massive rise of consciousness, sense of spiritual self, and personal growth that are inversely proportioned to the “old systems” that we know ( and have experienced) to be unsustainable in the long term?

It seems a new era is opening up, and the old paradigm is fighting to justify its (dying) existence.

Time to reconnect with ourselves, I suppose after distractions were given a free rein for too long…Time to rediscover our spiritual, emotional layers hiding within our souls, and probably make peace with the part of our being that we forgot or were told is not existing or is not real, or worth acknowledging. As this year draws to an end, I am engulfed in reflecting more intensely on those past 2 years, I sailed through so many personal turmoils and losses, that my sense of self, purpose, life path even have been dramatically challenged and my inner world turned upside down. Possibly also because I’m soon to change decade. I have all those writing projects that need completion, Deep Waters, first, then another one about more personal family matters (in a pastiche/ non-sensical humor style a la Monty Python), then Mallory, and an art project…

The resurgence of the creative flow in myself is irresistible, its commandeering urge to translate into something tangible is not to be questioned, and man, does it feel good, after too long of lulling it back into the dark realm of doubt and undreamt dreams.

I’m back on track, wish me luck.

Share this:

  • Pinterest
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • P

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Harvest timeline

August 2022
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Jun    

Recentely brewed

  • Luncheon on Grass
  • Spell – Queen of Sheba
  • The Johnny Depp trial and why it matters
  • More guns with my breakfast, Hollywood, pls.
  • Johnny Depp ink drawing

Flavours

#inkdrawing #Inktober #Inktober2018 #Inktoberday1 #inktoberday14 #Inktoberprompt #pencildrawing #ww1 Absolutely Fabulous Andrew Irvine Banana Republic Bette Davis book book signing Café Central characters Chocolate Cinema climate change Coffee Coronavirus creating Cumberbatch David Burland Poetry Prize Deep waters Demel Don Draper drawing entertainment Eve Fashion George Mallory George Sanders Gossip Girl Grace Kelly Happy Birthday hero Hofburg Hoffmann ink inkdrawing John Malkovich Johnny Cash Klimt Kolo Moser Life London Mad Men Marilyn Monroe Mount Everest movies music Our world Paris Poetry publishing pulmonary infection Raul Ruiz renegades Route 66 screenwriting Script Secession movement self-empowerment Sherlock short stories Sissi spell Steven Moffat submarine Tea Theatre Vienna Winter wonderland writing.

All rights reserved (photos, drawings, other media and text) – cafecultureaddict, copyright F.Vitel 2012-22 , Floreva and cafecultureaddict, unless otherwise stated

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Café culture addict
    • Join 112 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Café culture addict
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: