3 minutes/Víctor knows it all/Ode to Sam Pt. 3

I'll always remember the day I met Sam. It was actually by night in Beijing, but probably noon on our side of the world. I didn't take pictures of her when it happened, which I regret; if there's one moment in my recent past that I would have liked to keep captured, that's the first few words I exchanged with Sam.

I invited her to come and stay with me in Barcelona 3 minutes into our introductory conversation, if my memory serves me right. When you feel it, you feel it, they say. Intuition would beat science any day, and Sam would beat you all any day, as well.

All pictures taken between 4th and 5th September 2016 around downtown Barcelona, Spain. Special thanks to Víctor, and extra special thanks to Sam Jam because she's still the most amazing human being on the Milky Way although she doesn't know yet, and we'll be friends minimum until our 80s and we have telepathy. 

The Ballad of Goodman John/Ode to Sam Pt. 2

On a normal day or so it seemed

John went to work, on a day that beamed. 

He opened the shop and emptied the bins 

But saw some men, looking in. 

Oh John, you have to look them in the eye, 

But that cold sharp steel, 

It doesn’t lie. 

Cautiously approaching, he asked them why, 

In shear suspicion, they’re passing by. 

Grudgingly, they went away 

And didn’t return again all day. 

Goodman John, Goodman John, are you a hero of a man? 

Goodman John, Goodman John, are you a hero of a man? 

Or are you just a fool, 

Who doesn’t understand? 

Goodman John. 

Oh John, you have to look them in the eye, 

But that cold sharp steel, 

Doesn’t lie.

At nine o’clock, dark figures appeared, 

They ganged up with weapons, attacked and jeered. 

By half past nine, all till cash gone 

And so was the air 

From the lungs of John, 

From the lungs of John, 

From the lungs of John.

Goodman John, Goodman John, are you a hero of a man? 

Goodman John, Goodman John, are you a hero of a man? 

Or are you just a fool, 

Who doesn’t understand? 

Goodman John. 

Oh John, you had to look them in the eye 

And that cold sharp steel,

It didn’t lie.

Goodman John, Goodman John, are you a hero of a man? 

Goodman John, Goodman John, are you a hero of a man? 

Or are you just a fool, 

Who doesn’t understand? 

Goodman John. 

Goodman John. 

Goodman John. 

All pictures taken on 15th January 2017 somewhere around Bexley, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Special thanks to the great Derek Preston and extra special thanks to Sam Jam because, on top of all her well-known awesomeness, she's also a genius lyric-writer, and her birthday should be celebrated as one of the greatest landmarks and feats of humanity.

Sam Nike/Ode to Sam Pt. 1

"Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness."

Timothy Levitch on Waking Life (2001), as recommended by Sam Jam and because nobody in the entire universe dignifies a gigantic paper Nike shoe like she does.

All pictures taken on 3rd September 2016 in Sant Andreu de la Barca, Barcelona, Spain. Special thanks to Sam for being the most amazing human being in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as for her unrelenting refusal of such fact.