I. M. Pei – Great minds of our time

RIP I. M. Pei 貝聿銘 (2017 – 2019). I picked up my copy of “I.M. Pei: A Profile in American Architecture” in the early 90s as I began my lifelong love of beautiful architectures. So thanks to Mr. Pei for your inspirations.

I like to remember the recently passed with their own words if I can, here he talked about the various challenges and ideas in redoing the Louvre.

I. M. Pei at MIT – Tech Day 1994

American Architecture Now: I.M. Pei, 1980

I. M. Pei: A Centennial Celebration – Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)

Video description: //The GSD is proud to celebrate the 100th birthday of Ieoh Ming Pei, MArch ’46. Both I. M. and his wife Eileen Pei GSD ’44 studied at the GSD, as did their sons Chien Chung (Didi) Pei, MArch ’72, and Li Chung (Sandi) Pei, MArch ’76. Pei was also an assistant professor of architecture at the GSD. This event, with guests including Harry Cobb AB ’47 MArch ’49, moderated by Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of Harvard GSD and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, will focus on the formative years of I. M. Pei’s career as well as some of his special friendships, influences, and projects.//

P.S. There are some archival news footage of the building of Louvre in this clip.

(Hopefully more to be added later.)

Keanu Reeves & Warren Buffett have Love in common

Keanu Reeves left Stephen Colbert speechless

Keanu Reeves left Stephen Colbert speechless on Friday night when the subject of death came up as he promoted two of his upcoming projects (third “John Wick” movie & third instalment of the “Bill and Ted” film series).

“After the late-night host asked him what happens if they aren’t able to write the song, Reeves responded: “Well it’s the end of the universe, it’s the end of the time and space continuum. It’s all over.”

“So you’re facing your own mortality and the mortality of all existence?” Colbert asked.

“Yeah,” Reeves nodded his head.

Colbert quickly followed up by asking Reeves what he thinks happens when we die.

The “John Wick” star thought about it for a moment before giving the profound response: “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.”

As the audience said “Awwww,” Colbert appeared stunned. As a smile spread across his face, the late-night host said, “Wow,” before he shook Reeves’ hand for a moment and ended the segment.

Reeves is no stranger to tragedy. According to People, the actor lost his best friend to a drug overdose in 1993 and his girlfriend Jennifer Syme died in a car crash in 2001. Syme and Reeves previously had a child who was born stillborn in 1999.” [source text of this quote: Fox]

Watching Keanu’s insightful answer reminded me of a relevant Warren Buffett quote I read in his biography “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” by Alice Schroeder which also comes down to LOVE:

“Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

I know many people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them.

That’s the ultimate test of how you have lived your life. The trouble with love is that you can’t buy it. You can buy sex. You can buy testimonial dinners. But the only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love. But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.”

I’ve added Reeves’ quote and an excerpt of Warren’s quote to my long list of Quotes I Love.

Goodbye Agnès Varda (1928–2019)

Goodbye Agnès Varda (1928–2019). In memory and honour of her passing (France24 video report), I’m watching her “Cléo from 5 to 7″ (Kanopy). Here are some reviews of her last film “Varda by Agnes“.

Cleo from 5 to 7 / Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962) – Trailer

Agnès Varda in her own words at TEDxVeniceBeach. //Inspiration and good mood: THAT’S CINEMA!//

Agnès Varda. Cléo from 5 to 7. 2004 (via European Graduate School Video Lectures)

Stone Garden of Love and the dot dot dot

Love written in stones.
Love is hard work in life (and when written in stones & landscaping fabric).
Love creates beauty (and, yes, beauty is everywhere).
Love takes two to foster (and constant tender loving care).
Love is endless (just like the “…”).

It took literally thousands of stones to create this Stone Garden of Love (SGL) in September 2017. The SGL (made with stones & landscaping fabric) serves a functional purpose of stopping weed from growing on those ground. The creative genesis came to me when I realized I could use stones of two colours to write or draw things! And soon the name ATON was decided (a combination of my better half’s and my names). And the LYVM was easily decided as the second half. And then I have always tried to find a use for a bag of tiny coloured decorative stones sitting idle in the garage thus the idea for dot dot dot “…” was born. Because of the tiny size of the coloured stones used in the three dots after LYVM, they themselves numbered in the thousands! (Statistically, 2,000+ at least!) And if you ask me, the “…” are one of the best feature the garden as they are the most fragile and delicate to care for (removing leaves and tree branches, etc). Just like Love. I have my temper and sometimes I can act like a bull in a China shop. Luckily, my better half and I agree on many major issues but our smaller differences (and sometime really trivial stuffs) can lead to fierce arguments. But we have a rule. We don’t let our grievances or anger live pass 12 midnight each day. Anyway, as you have read this far, let me wish you lots of love in your life and give lots of TLC to your own Stone Garden of Love!

Designing the Canadian Flag

I recently watched the documentary “Design Canada – The History of Graphic Design in Canada” via online streaming service Kanopy (free thanks Calgary Public Library) and LOVE it! Especially loving the segment about the design history of the Canadian flag! I love that Canadian flag segment so much that I looked up more online and found some extra cool info produced by CBC News in 2015 to celebrate the 50th birthday of our lovely flag!

CBC News, Feb 16, 2015, “The real story behind the Canadian Flag”

Have a read of the lovely historical and insightful four-page document “Dr. George F.G. Stanley’s Flag Memorandum – “the genesis of the Canadian flag”” as shown in the above CBC News report.

Here is a trailer of “Design Canada – The History of Graphic Design in Canada”

P.S. I love Canada and the Canadian flag and I’ve requested a Peace Tower flag that has flown on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and hoping to receive it around the year 2060, hopefully I’ll still be alive to receive it!

I like the Greek proverb (?), “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” In requesting the Peace Tower flag that had a waiting list of 46 years at the time, I made myself a commitment/promise of sort to love, cherish, and to try to make Canada a little bit better than I found her!

2017 November Random

* CBC News, 2017 Nov 7, “Party crasher – Donald Trump delivered Republicans the presidency and both houses of Congress. That gift may prove fatal to the GOP” (very insightful and worth a read)

* Say this often and with love: “DRIVE CAREFULLY ME.” – Joanne Woodward (1930 -) (ref: 2017 Oct WaPo, “Paul Newman’s Rolex — with a telling message from his wife — fetches record $17.8 million“) (Just added this to my long list of Quotes I Love as we need a good dose of love in our crazy world.)

“DRIVE CAREFULLY ME.”

P.S. No idea Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward would get married later in life when I watched “The Long, Hot Summer” (trailer) but I thought their chemistry in the film were awesome!

* The Life and Legacy of Chief Justice Earl Warren (Earl Warren)

*

Heritage Minutes: “Boat People” Refugees

Today is World Refugee Day and I want to say I just LOVE this Heritage Minutes: “Boat People” Refugees

Saw the news story last night on CBC National (more info)

P.S. I’ve fond memories of my late Choi Uncle who also played the role of the elderly Chinese man in the Heritage Minutes: Nitro. Instead of being paid for his role, he asked for a commissioned painting from CBC instead.