Many thanks to "flyingdoc" Operations Director from Australia for documenting the story of Aurelia Grigore, one of the most inspirational persons in my life. Fortunately she is a member of my family and I had the chance to live her story when I was a kid. After her first accident I knew immediately that I wanna be a flight attendant or a pilot, travel around the world and save people. During communist times in Romania, for a small girl from Transylvania, Aurelia was the Wonderwoman ...
" There are many stories of true heroism amongst cabin crew and I will post some from time to time, but Aurelia Grigore's story stands out as she was the saviour of the passengers of not just one air disaster, but two!
Aurelia (Laura) joined TAROM, the Romanian state airline, in 1975 at the age of 21 and worked as a stewardess there for over 30 years. When she started, selection criteria for the airline required knowledge of geography and at least 2 foreign languages. As Romania was behind the Iron Curtain, candidates were not allowed to have friends or relatives that lived abroad.
On 7 Aug, 1980 a TAROM Tu-154B carrying 152 passengers and 19 crew crash-landed in the Atlantic Ocean about 300 metres short of the intended runway approaching Mauritania. It was 3 am and in total darkness, with the aircraft running aground on a sandbank and breaking in two. Grigore, then 26 and 2 months pregnant, went forward only to find that the front of the plane was missing and the cockpit had submerged! She and the rest of the crew ordered all the passengers into their life jackets but the overwing lifeboat compartment was jammed and they could not release the boats.
One of the pilots who had all escaped from the sinking nose section then climbed aboard - the #2 engine was still running and fearing that it might explode or that the plane might slide backwards into the depths, they ordered everyone into the water. The passengers and crew from the forward section had some lifeboats and they began swimming for shore. Only a short way from shore, Aurelia found herself being pulled back out to sea by the current but she was able to gain safety by climbing back up on the wing of the crippled plane. There, to her astonishment, she found a fellow hostess with a neck injury, unable to move! (The girl had been dragged there from her seat by other passengers earlier but mistaken as dead and abandoned) She stayed with her and comforted her for 3 hours until they were rescued. Eventually, all 19 crew and 151 passengers survived thanks to the professionalism of the crew. The only fatality was a male passenger who suffered a heart attack during the ordeal!
None of this was ever reported by the Communist press. Although severely traumatised, Aurelia knew she had to face her fear or never fly again. She returned to work 2 weeks later!
Only 6 years later in the summer of 1986 she was crewing aboard a TAROM An24RV with a full passenger load of 52 souls when it crashed at Cluj airport. It was a hard landing and the aircraft bounced with the nose gear then collapsing up into the cockpit area which caught on fire. The plane skidded off the runway into a corn field. Quick thinking by Grigore saw her open the forward escape door before the plane had even stopped moving and the 52 passengers were all safely evacuated. Smoke was coming from the cockpit door but it was locked and the cabin crew could not help the pilots. From outside the plane they could see the cockpit engulfed in flames. On of the co-pilots was trying to escape through the windows but his foot was caught and he could not get out. He eventually frred himself and was taken to hospital but died shortly later of terrible burns. The other 2 pilots perished, burned alive in front of the eyes of their colleagues.
Aurelia Grigore retired in 2004 after over 30 years service. Her incredible story remains largely unknown. To this day she believes it was God's will that saw her washed back out to the stranded Tupolev to save her friend. No doubt she was the saviour of many others in those 2 terrible accidents."
The Floating Observatories proposal by Romanian team Dorin Stefan’s DSBA, Mihai Carciun, and upgrade.studio wins the Taiwan Tower Conceptual International Competition
“Starting from the ‘geographical’ visual of Taiwan ‐ which is an island resembling a leaf ‐ we have developed the concept of the technological tree: we have designed 8 spatial leaves (with eight being a propitious number in the local culture) in the form of zeppelin‐like elevators which glide up and down the ‘tree trunk” and which serve the purpose of observation decks / belvedere. I have called these elevators floating observatories because each has a nacelle which can take 50 to 80 people; they are self‐sustained by helium balloons and are built from lightweight materials (borrowed from the spacecraft industry) and are wrapped in a last‐generation type of membrane (PTFE) and they glide vertically on a track positioned vertically in a strong electro‐magnetic field” ‐ Dorin STEFAN, Principal, DSBA
The tower layers underground and ground level spaces as well as in its vertical reach, the functions required by the conceptual theme: information center, museum, office and conference space, restaurants, fixed observation desks. Apart from the fact that we aim to design a tower whose silhouetted out of line echoes the local symbolism and has great impact in terms of visual identity, our solution is at the same time a model of green architecture: minimum footprint at land level; maximum green area surface; all circulations are vertically integrated (main and secondary functions for both services and tourists). The “chimney” effect is used for the natural ventilation of various functional areas. The office and services areas in the tower have a 360° orientation, which offers the possibility to minimize the green‐house effect through the use of cross‐ventilation. The electrical energy is produced by: a system of axial turbines located along the vertical central core, an adjustable photovoltaic panels on the whole height of the tower. The lighting of the basement areas and of the museum spaces under the sandwich slab (structure‐plants earth‐pedestrian traffic) is done through a fiber optics dome system. Heating of the floating observatories are done through an electromagnetic field using the electrical power created by the new generation membrane which wraps the helium tanks and captures through photovoltaic transmission. The rain water is collected from all platforms into a tank situated in the basement.
“Even though the floating observatories design was influenced by the sci‐fi computer gaming culture they are feasible and play a major role for the pathway of the tower’s museum by adding a new vertical dimension. Seen from above, the city itself becomes the key exhibit for the Museum of Taichung City Development. Seen from inside the museum, when they are nested, the floating observatories become themselves exhibits, fascinating proof of the present technological achievements.”‐ Bogdan Chipara, DSBA Architect
This post is dedicated to a very special friend that I am sure will remember the love romance with my country :)
I am completely fascinated by the concept behind Hurts, this "post-Renaissance" duo from Manchester, UK. They have a kind of visual music with a mix of influences that makes my inner teenager scream out loud of joy: a strange brew of Depeche Mode, a glimpse of Bros, even a sparking Pet Shop Boys energy , fashion , cinema and "heavy, emotional, and atmospheric love songs" ... Their videos are lessons of cinematography and style. If they will continue in the same direction, soon I will watch an entire Hurts music film.
And being a romanian this is "everything I ever dreamed of, and nothing like I expected." :)
~Enigmatic duo Hurts have shed some mystery by revealing what they call a "pistol crack" of a debut single. Better Than Love is the first release by the duo, who have been called 'Tears For Fears, as shot by Anton Corbijn'. The track has a lush video which singer Theo says was born out of "a love of ballet, Romania, Romanian girls and, most importantly, subtext." He added that the beautifully shot film was "everything we ever dreamed of, and nothing like we expected."~ BBC
FADER A new video from Hurts, the post-Renaissance duo who look like dapper thugs, a gang based on love, and sound similar, as though they wander the streets despondent, singing aggressive love songs, blaspheming false pop deities. Their words on their elegant new video are below, as they are infinitely better than any attempt of our own
And so,
Here we are.
We travelled from Manchester in England to Bucharest in Romania in 3 Trabants.
We visited sporting outlets, bars and casinos.
We toured the city, stroked dogs and forgot to sleep.
We hired lots of specifically Romanian models and made a video.
We shaved heads, waltzed with mirror images and faced many rhetorical romantic questions.
We didn’t leave Romania for a very long time.
And eventually, we present for you, Better Than Love.
Buna Scumpo!
Enjoy.
PS And because eventually everything connects, I've just noticed that in the theatrical trailer is Laura, a beautiful actress that I discovered years ago when I was casting in Bucharest.
Last week I had the chance to visit Turda Salt Mine. It was a totally SF experience. We filmed a short documentary there. I can't wait to share it with you.
Probably it was my first journey to the center of the earth.
One of the most important salt mines in Transylvania, Turda Salt Mine has been known since ancient times, but it has been put into operation for underground mining work during the Roman period. The Salt Mine is mentioned in official documents for the first time in 1271, when the mine was offered to the Transylvanian Catholic Church leaders. In the Middle Ages, Turda was one of the biggest places of salt extraction in entire region. The salt was extracted as clods, which were then cut by specialist workers. The mines were lit by candles and tallow rush lights; explosives were never used for exploitation nor mechanical equipment used for cutting the salt. The microclimate in the mine is characterized by yearly variations of temperature between 11 - 12° C; the average humidity level inside is 80% and the air pressure is between 747-752 mm Hg. The lack of pathogen bacterium and a moderate air ionization is therefore favorable to breathing treatments. By its impressive galleries, long tunnels and mining system, great acoustics and very healthy microclimate, Turda Salt Mine is an excellent destination for every tourist and a perfect location for every filmmaker .
None of the great men of 1848 – a Romanian scholar noticed once – had a particular understanding of music. The boyar sons from a hundred years ago assimilated everything regarding the arts that they encountered abroad, but not music. Not even today, perhaps, do we have enough understanding in this respect. Because music demands not only intelligence… I interrupt here the flow of ideas that Professor Sextil Puşcariu developed in such a suggestive manner in an older History of Romanian Literature. Isn’t there something to learn from them? The cultured Romanian soul (the popular one is another story) doesn’t have all the dimensions. Not that it could have all of them at once. There took place, inside it, a worthy development, in the luminous areas of the spiritual life, but, in the areas that the ray of intelligence doesn’t reach, the growth was delayed. Will it delay any longer? But this is precisely what our time brings over: a musical understanding of things; a troubling triumph of music. There are, for instance, souls and nations which know how to “orchestrate”, while the others don’t. Why doesn’t some nation win battles? Because, maybe, it didn’t have a great musician – this came to me one day. It doesn’t orchestrate; it doesn’t think like in a symphony; it doesn’t really sing. And our time, as any time in which the “elements” tend to individualize themselves, needs unity and music. In the cultured Romanian soul, cut too much at the edges, sometimes, separated from things and from itself by the merciless censorship of intelligence, our time comes to pour harmony and the sense of the whole. There is something material in music, not only a simple poetic idea, and it is matter that a soul needs, that was too much challenged by the theoretic and by theory., as this intelligent cultured Romanian soul is. Only from music – unless you know it directly – do you learn what growth and becoming are. Symphony alone shows you how the matter of the sounds grows into meaning. Music familiarises you with that chaos of what isn’t there yet, which you will find later everywhere where life is: in you, if there is life in you; in history, where you seem to find too much of it. If we need today to familiarise ourselves with matter, to understand mess, chaos, then the spirit of music can give us a key. Of this key, most of our great ancestors were deprived. Titu Maiorescu left outraged the performance with Lohengrin. But it isn’t necessary to write this on the effigy that will soon be cast in his memory… That’s why the deepest cultural phenomenon, maybe, that has been happening for a few years in Romania, is the growth in interest for the great music. When you see these full concert halls, when you listen to the celebrating radio programs, you can hope that our cultured soul will know more, will understand more, tomorrow. It is true there are a lot of snobs: it is also true that many enjoy only the voluptuousness of music. But if art isn’t a superior form of cuisine, then what is happening today has a cultural meaning. Our times send us through music a refined message – to understand their darkness and lights.
Excerpted from Vremea, 1942
George Enescu "Romanian Rhapsody" conducted by Sergiu Celibidache in a unique and magnificent style
I have always been a fan of designhotels.com. That's how I discovered Marcel Wanders, one of the most prolific and celebrated international designers today. First I didn't know anything about him , but I was really impressed about his appearance. After so many years in the casting industry I tend to find in everyone a character. This guy could be easily a movie star.
Following Marcel Wanders on Facebook, I found out that he is looking for Elise.
"Marcel Wanders is designing the Kameha Grand hotel in Bonn. Since Bonn is Beethoven’s birthplace, the hotel will have an exclusive Beethoven suite. The suite is designed especially Für Elise, Beethoven’s most famous music piece so all the walls in this suite are dedicated to Elise, his secret muse.
Do YOU know Beethoven’s Elise? Are YOU her? Send us your picture! The selected portraits will be framed and used to decorate the walls. Marcel Wanders is looking for as many different faces of Elise as possible to add to the melody of the suite and be its muse.
Please send us your portrait in high resolution to elise@marcelwanders.com. The hotel will open in November 2009, so we need your picture asap! Thank you, we will let you know if your portrait was selected."
August 2009
Now the hotel is open and Bethoveen suite is ready to share with its guests the love and the mystery of Bethoveen's muse.
Now, writing this post, I realize that the iconical image of Elise is portrayed by this absolutely fantastical photography of Zena Holloway. Since I am fascinated by underwater photography, I couldn't miss her pictures. Actually I uploaded here some of her work in a post entitled CHILDREN OF THE NEW WORLD
I was still intrigued by Bethoveen's Elise. I don't know why, maybe because I simply adore the process of creating music, the inspiration, the divine moment when love transforms itself in a harmony of sounds.
Yesterday I had a creative meeting about a project that isn't right now an inspiration for me and I tried to use, let's say, a tangential inspiration, giving examples of different campaigns that I consider to be very cinematical, mysterious and sensual (in the advertising sense ). I don't believe in sellers, I believe in conquerors. The era of selling products and services as we knew it has gone. Tell me a story and make me believe that I am part of it, don't tell me lies and sell me bullshit. LOL. This sounds like a recent tweet which I liked a lot "RT @jobsworthGeorge Colony from 10 years ago. Be good because everything you do will be known by everyone #davossocial #wef"
Back to subject. Of course, I immediately remembered the story of Elise and the hotel suite (immediately because the place where I was it was exactly the same place where I read about Marcel Wanders and Fur Elise competition and our discussion and this fact were somehow related ). Laszlo, my colleague, told me that he may know who was Elise. I laughed because I thought it was a joke. In fact here starts a fantastical connection. Laszlo's family name is Forray. Forray was an old nobiliar family who owned Savarsin castle from Transylvania, Romania.
Savarsin is nowadays famous especially for the Royal House castle. Its history dates back to a long time ago. First, there was a hunting area and the location was a hunting manor, built in 1650. Brunswick family receives the domain as a donation from the Emperor of Vienna. Around 1800, Franz Brunswick's daughter,Iulia, married Count Andrei Forray and the castle belonged to the Forray family until sometime in the XIXth century.
Franz Brunswick had another daughter, Tereza Brunswick, and a very good friend: Ludwig van Beethoven. The german composer came at Savarsin and fell in love with Tereza. The story appears in the Savarsin village monograph including the fact that the famous composer dedicated a sonata to his beloved Tereza.
"Tereza Brunswick remained in legend as the great composer Beethoven's immortal beloved. In 1807, the German composer was in Savarsin, being in great intimacy with the Brunswick family. Cape of family, Franz Brunswick, was named dear friend and brother by the composer and Beethoven dedicated him a sonata, Apassionata. Later, he dedicated to Teresa Sonata 78, "writes Joseph Dohangie Cojan in" Monograph of Savarsin village".
It is likely that during the 1806-1809 period a close friendship developed between the composer and Therese (Tereza) Brunswick. To this very day, the exact nature of their relationship is uncertain. However it’s certain that this remarkable woman was devoted to Beethoven her whole life and for a while she even responded to his passionate feelings. Apparently, love was not to bring Beethoven long lasting happiness.
It is not certain who "Elise" was. Some scholars have suggested she was Beethoven's fifth mistress, while others have suggested that the discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, may have transcribed the title incorrectly and the original work may have been named "Für Therese".
It said that Tereza Brunswick is burried at the Catholic Church from Savarsin and she is one of the most important and with the greatest potential of all the women who were ever the object of Beethoven’s affection.
Maybe she was Elise, but for sure she was the Immortal Beloved.
In the summer of 1812, advised by his physician, Beethoven goes to the Czech resort, Teplitz. Even though the summer spent here didn’t have any positive influences on his state of health, it was very fruitful in memorable and interesting encounters. One of those encounters was the one between Beethoven and German poet Johann von Goethe. But the summer of 1812 is also important because it was the time when Beethoven wrote a set of mysterious letters that created numerous commentaries and assumptions among Beethoven scholars. The letters are known as “The Immortal Beloved Letters”
This letter was found the day after Beethoven’s death in the secret compartment of an old drawer, together with a picture of Tereza Brunswick, as well as other documents and valuables. The letter was either sent to the addressee and was later returned, or it was never sent altogether.
The letter may have been addressed to Tereza Brunswick. This woman undoubtedly played a positive role in Beethoven’s life. They were linked through a yearlong friendship and affection for each other. In order to understand why the 42-year-old composer wrote his 37-year-old friend such a letter, one must restore the entire process of their reciprocal relations.
Romain Rolland, who became acquainted with Tereza’s intimate diaries, cautiously concludes: " The assumptions about the immortal lover do not seem incompatible with what I have learned of the circumstances of that time." Besides this, Romain Rolland admits that there are a great number of bizarre coincidences, which may point towards Tereza as the immortal lover.
Bizarre coincidences ? No. I can say meaningful ones. We are in the age of synchronicity.
"Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance. The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect." Wiki
What can I say ? I am happy and excited. This story will lead me somewhere ...
Until my next episode I will kindly ask you to read Beethoven's Immortal Beloved Letters and listen his music. Maybe one day you will receive a message.
I will end with my thanks to Residence Hotels, a wonderful place in Bucharest where the magic happens.
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The Immortal Beloved Letter
July 6, in the morning My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be - Your faithful LUDWIG
Evening, Monday, July 6 You are suffering, my dearest creature - only now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays to Thursdays - the only days on which the mail-coach goes from here to K. - You are suffering - Ah, wherever I am, there you are also - I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!! thus!!! without you - pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither - which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it - Humility of man towards man - it pains me - and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He - whom we call the greatest - and yet - herein lies the divine in man - I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me - I love you more - But do not ever conceal yourself from me - good night - As I am taking the baths I must go to bed - Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?
Good morning, on July 7 Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I nedd a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a clam consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved. ever thine ever mine ever ours
Thanks to Diane Pernet, I discovered today Irina Lazareanu. She was born on June 8th, 1982 in Romania. Acording with Wikipedia at age 5 Lazareanu emigrated to Canada from Romania, settling into the Montreal suburb of Saint-Hubert, Quebec with her Romanian parents. At the age of 13 she moved to London to study ballet until she was derailed by a broken knee.
At age 17 Lazareanu attended an open call and signed with Giovanni modelling agency in Montreal with the hopes that it would help pay rent. From then on she did the usual rounds of London and Paris, occasionally appearing in Barcelona, Australia and Madrid fashion weeks. It wasn't until she was chosen by acquaintance Kate Moss to model for the December/January issue of Vogue: Paris, which she guest edited that Lazareanu received notice by fashionistas. Lazareanu has since become an increasingly popular fashion model, breaking the record for most runway work in one season.
She has modeled for many top designers, including Chanel, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Anna Sui, Lanvin, Versace, and many more. She is affiliated with the modeling agencies Marilyn (New York and Paris), Why Not Models (Milan), Select Model Management (London), and Giovanni (Montreal). In March 2007, Lazareanu was chosen by Kate Moss as the model for her new Topshop clothing range.
Vogue Paris has unveiled their list of who they believe are the top 30 models of the decade. Irina Lazareanu is one of the women that did more than stun us throughout the 2000’s.
She remainds me of a silent cinema star. She is a Lilian Gish of fashion.
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