A countryman.

I actually like drawing.

C'est Noël.

Nicky in the lab.

The other day I rediscovered (or even discovered) the joy of making prints with the enlarger. It took me two lazy days to setup the whole thing in the cellar, clean the dust and prepare the liquids, but Wednesday night I was hastily choosing a few negatives to start my tests (I can only use the lab at night because the cellar at my parents' is not really lightproof).

After struggling with some new (old) equipment that I bought several years ago and never had the opportunity to use until now, I finally got some decent results on the outdated Agfa paper and started seamlessly printing all interesting pictures that I had prepared. After a while I also decided that some music couldn't hurt and I included a mp3 player in the setup. That's when I started having fun, in the cold, low-ceilinged, red lit cellar, nodding my head to the rhythm while watching the image come up in the developer. I'll be back down there for sure.

A sunny day.

Back in the day, the backyard was sunny and there was less to worry about.

A sunny day.
Mise en ligne par NMCB

Allein in Buda.

Yesterday I was wandering in a cold and rainy Buda, climbing up a steep, wet, autumnal hill to the Citadella, wrapped in my duffle coat and lost in grave thoughts. On my lonely way to the top I stumbled upon a kind of small underground church built inside the rock. I entered, took off my beret and looked around. Even this cave-like church had the characteristic fragrance that until now I found in every christian place of worship. The fact that I can't describe it nor explain its presence must add to the mild awe that these cold houses of God inspire me. Maybe this scent is simply due to damp waxed wood, which all churches feature in great quantities, but anyway.

I stood for a while at the entrance to that artificial cave, staring at the rounded walls and ceiling covered in a humid concrete. An old man passed by me and into a narrow tunnel where I followed him quietly. The tunnel was only half a dozen meter long and evolved into the actual nave, where a bunch of silent chairs were waiting for the next service. The old man dipped his fingers into a primitive stoup and I tried to remember the last time that I touched holy water. He then marched to a corner where a woman was already kneeling in semi-darkness, and kneeled next to her. I observed the two for a few lengthy seconds.

On my way back to fresh air I wondered why I was all of a sudden feeling so gloomy. It occurred to me that, of this old man and me, one was terribly wrong. Being vaguely atheist, I usually regard prayer as useless and a thing of the weak. But yesterday, walking out of this sacred cave into the calm and chill daylight, the possibility arose that I could as well be the one in the wrong.

Both ways, I thought, this is all very sad. Either there is no God and these poor people are praying for nothing, or there is one and I should be the one kneeling for the salvation of my clumsy soul.

I tried to find an answer in the subsequent light rain damping my canvas shoes. Pensive and moved, I resumed climbing the steep path covered in soaked yellow leaves.

An old portrait.

A portrait from 2008 when I used to sport a rather pedophiliac beard.

picture by Charlotte Fournier

Some pencil.

A very important reminder :

And two T-shirts.

Back.

Alright that's it. I'm back.
I could argue that I am not really back, simply elsewhere, but I've been so obviously here before that I can be nothing else but back. And I don't like it.
Being back means that I was some place else for some time and now it's over. My twisted mind tends to see that as a failure, especially when I had formulated the wish of staying for a longer time. Well.
As a grown-up, I feel like I should look back on the past six months, have some conclusive thoughts, then move on with my life and certainly not live in the past.

All in all, I think I'm a better NMCB. I went from a pretentious sociopathic asshole to a slightly less pretentious, less sociopathic semi-asshole.

This experience additionnally results in a ton of good memories, a fistful of people that I now call my friends, and a fistful of other people I wish I had had the time to know better.

And a lifetime worth of projects.

First step in my evil plan : living in Brussels.

Plans. Changed.

I'm going back to Belgium in one week.

Leaving Berlin makes me a little sad but almost every last person that I know here is leaving these days as well so it makes sense in a way.

Additionnally, I like the idea of having a network of friends living in all european capital cities. And if I'm not the one residing in Brussels, who will it be ?

For now I'll be going back to my parents'. Both my brothers are there for the moment so it shouldn't be too much of a living hell, at least I hope so. I don't plan on being at home too much and too long though. I picture a nice apartment in some nice neighbourhood of Brussels, and having breakfast in a café every day before heading to my overly well-paid job, possibly behind the wheel of some car having that new car smell, or the old car one, I won't be picky about cars I promise.

But for now, I'm trying to make my last Berliner week memorable. I mean more than just a memory of tidying and cleaning for several days (gods knows my room needs it, and now you do as well). It should be fine though. I'm not making a checklist, because they never get completed and that's bad for my good spirits.

I never know if I will be missing the places and people that I leave. We'll see about Berlin. Belgium had better be nice to me though, otherwise being back to the third world will be tough. But I already know of a few cool only-in-Belgium things that will immensely cheer me up. Yay!

Studies. Over.

Some sources indicate that my studies are over. This long-awaited moment has finally come. I am happy yet sad. Being over with all bullshit associated with school certainly makes me proud of myself. But together with this achievement come a lot of goodbyes these days, and hard times in the coming weeks, months maybe.
All of these could have been avoided if I wasn't a fool but my foolish decisions are made and there's no stopping my foolish self now.
I hope I can take a sane, fresh start. Yet now I just feel like staring for hours at the garden from the cold, yellow-and-green room of my (now over) childhood.

Actually my childhood ends today. Quite a frightening idea.

September 3rd, 2010.
When by 2083 or so historians study my life, this date will be the last day of the first volume.

Eyebrow-frowning-ditpychs.

Some pictures, assembled in a "is there a reason at all ?" manner.

clicking on the images should open a bigger version in flickr, possibly in a new tab.

Baustelle.

I had a good laugh creating that image in Photoshop instead of working. I don't know about you, but this kind of visual+absurd humour is truly my thing. Now this could probably be much better done visually (Click on the image to view it larger)

.

Live young & die fast.

With deadlines in line of sight, life has increased pace to the point that every second feels like half a second. Accordingly, I'm trying to gather enough willpower to sit still and write an insanely large number of pages per day. This of course succeeds only sporadically since, as everyone knows, recent in-depth studies, carried on my humble self, of such willpower have found no trace. It seems that only urgency can wake up a couple ancestral instincts buried deep inside my carefree person.

In about one month my studies are over.

In one month my studies are over.

In five weeks I'm not a student anymore.

I try and get used to that idea, but yet it still sounds infinitely distant.

It however implies quite a lot.

1) Find a job (difficulty index : Berlin 16 / Brussels 16 / Kyoto ?)

2) Find an apartment (Berlin 8 / Brussels 15 / Kyoto ?)

3) Spare money to make it to the 31st (Anywhere 12)

Optional but recommanded :

4) Find a prospective wife (Berlin 14 / Brussels 17 / Kyoto ?)

5) Get a car (Anywhere 6)

6) Have a baby (Anywhere 0)

7) Have a dog (Berlin 3 / Brussels 7 / Kyoto 12)

8) Get a barbecue and invite former classmates (Berlin 19 / Brussels 2 / Kyoto 47)

9) Have a second baby, preferably the opposite sex as point 6) (Anywhere 13)

10) Get a substantial salary rise (Berlin 12 / Brussels 17 / Kyoto 11)

11) Prepare a giant surprise party for my wife turning 40 (Anywhere 15)

12) Buy a half-demolished stone house in Provence and spend every summer restoring till my 60s (Berlin 14 / Brussels 10 / Kyoto 22)

13) Spend the rest of my life in it with my 25 years old girlfriend, begging my kids (by then in their 30s) to come and spend a few days in one of the six guest rooms. (Provence 10)

14) etc (Anywhere 3)

I have to say that's a lot to realize at once.

Bleu pétrole.

Bleu pétrole.
Mise en ligne par exatnys

Although not new, I've decided this picture is the first of a new phase where photography and I are friends again.
Fick uni, fick my thesis, fick all these drills surrounding me (seriously, I hear them everywhere i go). Now I have a professional light meter, a bike and lots of people to take pictures of. Los geht's !

coming soon

i currently have a ton of ideas that i have to translate to pencil

theyre patiently waiting in a .txt file on my laptop desktop (i cant get enough txt files i juste love them)

Koniec hunters on a road trip.

Did I mention this already ? We went to Poland a few weeks ago.

Pencil frenzy.

So I started sketching a few days ago. It's been years since I last did it so it will probably take some time before the same character in two consecutive cartoons actually looks the same.

(click on the pictures to read the blahblah)

Mystery #1.

this one looks pretty sketchy.

Happiness

(I apologize in advance for my most probably failed translation of math terms into English)

And some T-shirts ideas.

The one on the left was inspired from a tshirt featured by Casey Spooner, half of electro duo Fischerspooner, saying "Artists have more fun" (It was on a CD booklet I think). As a casual music listener, I found it quite provocative, it was like "we are the ones having all the fun, and you dumb fool are paying for it" (I was still buying music at the time). A few days ago, on a "what cool albums did I use to listen to ?" rush, I rediscovered that band of the past (take that, Mister Spooner!) and it made me think of that offensive tshirt. That, mixed with my mild depression, lead to that revisited version.

The one on the right is just inverse censorship.

I'm bad.

I'm bad, probably the baddest.
I cut my hair accordingly. I look bad.
Today I hit the streets with my bad look.
I made my way through the crowd with my bad attitude.
I smiled arrogantly at people buying made-in-taiwan central-african handmade necklaces and vegan-buddhist-environmentally-friendly öko food.
I stared at a (good) Turkish band with a knowing bad look.
I checked the parade's feathers-covered dancing people from all around the world and decided that it was enough bullshit for one day.
I steered towards the U-Bahn station.

Hello every body.

Hey body,

I know what you're thinking.
"There's no way his English writing could be nearly as good as his French one."
You definitely are right, although I've not written anything in French for as long as my newly alcoholico-depressive memory can remember.
Anyway, this blog is not only about writing. I'm serious about including pictures taken by my humble self (forgot to get my negatives earlier today), along with drawings (I yet have to find a pencil), and why not dj mixes (I yet have to be good at it)(you really thought i could post dj mixes didnt you ?).

Well, I'll try and make something good out of this tiny piece of online delight.

Tschüß.