the intelligent and sexy Farryl answering modern proust

Farryl Purkiss

singer-songwriter, musician, 30, South Africa

                                                                                                   photo by Deon Maritz

"The times they are a changin’"

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? To live a life in fear of love. The ultimate contradiction.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? Been blissfully unaware and uninfluenced to the "faults" the world has tagged you with. As well as learning how to be open to give more love than you are even able to receive.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Laziness. Criticism. KFC.

Who are your favorite characters in history? Jesus Christ, Mahatma Ghandi, Robert Johnson, Dr. Seuss.

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes in real life? Nelson Mandela, Bob Dylan, my mother.

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes of fiction? The Three Musketeers.

Your favorite painter? Van Gogh.

Your favorite musician? Bob Dylan.

The quality you most admire in a man? Friendship.

The quality you most admire in a woman? Motherhood.

Who would you have liked to be? Robert Johnson's best friend.

Your most marked characteristic? The inability to come up with an honest answer to this question.

How do you like to spend your free time? Lots of BBQ's, surfing, chasing chickens on the farm I live on, vinyls, and wondering around the farm with a cup of coffee, and a serious look of contemplation on my face.

What do you most value in your friends? Their loyalty.

What is your principle defect? My ability to cast judgment on others. I have absolutely no right.

Who are your favorite writers? Dr Seuss, Roald Dahl, John van der Ruit.

What is it you most dislike? Politics, bad drivers, tax.

What thing you learned the hardest way? To gain ones respect you have to earn it.

What event in history do you most admire? Any man or women who, without question or hesitation, gave their lives in pursuit of making the world a better place.

What natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to be able to play any instrument I lay my hands on well.

What habit or characteristic you picked up during your early years? To raise one eyebrow when ever in deep thought, contemplation, or doubt.

What books or movies had a very strong impact on you? All movies by Wes Anderson. The Bible

How do you think, what is the biggest achievement of our time? The internet. Never again will we be bothered at our homes by encyclopedia salesmen.

What person or character can you call the role model or example for your generation? Nelson Mandela. A man who can be locked away for 27 years for simply defending human rights, and then be released as the new leader of a country, and not want revenge, takes a discipline I can't even imagine. He is the face of forgiveness and unity of our time.

What is your present state of mind? Hopeful.

the intelligent and sexy Katya answering modern proust

Ekaterina Zalitko

model, actress, Russia

                            photo by Anoushka Menon

Understanding your mistakes halfway to success

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Lost of closer.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? Being in harmony with yourself, each other, nature and space.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Self-indulgence. 

Who are your favorite characters in history? Leonardo da Vinci. 

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes in real life? Queen Victoria. 

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes of fiction? Angelique by Anne Golon. 

Your favorite painter? Theodore Gericault, Michelangelo.

Your favorite musician? Classics - Vivaldi, Mozart; new age - Michel Cretu. 

The quality you most admire in a man? Success. 

The quality you most admire in a woman? Independence. 

Your most marked characteristic? Versatility. 

How do you like to spend your free time? Dance. When I dance I feel alive. Read. When I read I learn. Write. When I write I reveal my inner voice.

What do you most value in your friends? Honesty and being yourself. 

What is your principle defect? No tolerance to people’s weaknesses. 

Who are your favorite writers? Dostoyevsky, Gogol, S. King, Louis de Bernières, Roger Zelazny and many many more. 

What is it you most dislike? Dumb flocks. 

What thing you learned the hardest way? Put everything in order: your cupboard, your mind, your life. 

What event in history do you most admire? World victory over fascism. 

What natural gift would you most like to possess? Good ears and voice (I’m horrible at singing, but I love it so much). 

What habit or characteristic you picked up during your early years? “When a man sees the goal, he grows wings to reach it “ Gogol. 

What books or movies had a very strong impact on you? Book by Dostoyevsky “Idiot” and  movie “Time” by Kim Ki-duk. 

How do you think, what is the biggest achievement of our time? Braking distance. 

What person or character can you call the role model or example for your generation? You build it yourself in long way of experiencing!

What is your present state of mind? Overflowing with love. 

The intelligent and sexy Chris answering modern proust

Christopher John Hills V 

22, model, poet, painter, Los Angeles

“The most beautiful of a women, Is when they are induced to awaken the morning, Watching the rise and fall of air, The breath of life breathing”

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Loosing loved ones.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? A child’s aura & unconditional love.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Keeping distance.

Who are your favorite characters in history? Galileo Galilei. 

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes in real life? My two sisters.

Your favorite painter? Zdzislaw Beksinski, Gustav Klimt and Leonardo Da Vinci. 

Your favorite musician? David Gray. 

The quality you most admire in a man? Independence. 

The quality you most admire in a woman? Compassion. 

Who would you have liked to be? An unaltered self, completely one with my own heart.

Your most marked characteristic? Empathy. 

How do you like to spend your free time? Constant creations and delicate affection.

What do you most value in your friends? Kindred spirits.

What is your principle defect? Hiding within myself. 

Who are your favorite writers? Percy Bysshe Shelley, E.E. Cummings and Suzzan Collins. 

What is it you most dislike? Corruption. 

What thing you learned the hardest way? Hardship strength never withdraws its sword.

What event in history do you most admire? The Renaissance.

What natural gift would you most like to possess? Purify the wicked.

What habit or characteristic you picked up during your early years? Absorbing feelings, accepting and forgiving. Never backing down and always standing up for what you believe in.

What books or movies had a very strong impact on you? Books: The Poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Alchemist, The Hunger Games. Movies: Ondine.

How do you think, what is the biggest achievement of our time? Ever opening minds. 

What person or character can you call the role model or example for your generation? Mother Nature. 

What is your present state of mind? In a cocoon awaiting the awakening.

The intelligent and sexy Olga answering modern proust

Olga Grbich

22, PR manager, model, Ukraine

                               photo by Dima Romas                             

“Oh well… whatever… never mind” Kurt Сobain

What event in history do you most admire? The seventh day of creation.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? To feel the pain of people I love.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? Happiness happens sometimes. It’s unpredictable.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Faults that caused by good intentions.

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes in real life? The great optimists.

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes of fiction? Kolobok. So daring and fatal!

Your favorite painter? Claude Monet.

The quality you most admire in a man? Charisma and intelligence.

The quality you most admire in a woman? I love the way they love.

Who would you have liked to be? Sometimes I want to be a little child again.

Your most marked characteristic? Softness, I guess.

How do you like to spend your free time? Dreaming.

What do you most value in your friends? Faith, sincerity, forgiveness.

What is your principle defect? Softness. Sometimes it is a real trouble.

Who are your favorite writers? Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Vladimir Nabokov.

What is it you most dislike? Human’s arrogance.

What thing you learned the hardest way? Math. 

What natural gift would you most like to possess? Super memory. I need it so much!

What habit or characteristic you picked up during your early years? Empathy.

What movies had a very strong impact on you? The movie “The Fountain” (directed by Darren Aronofsky), it’s absolutely beautiful.

How do you think, what is the biggest achievement of our time? Cyberspace.

What person or character can you call the role model or example for your generation? Kids of flowers, they were very nice, you know! Even if it caused by LSD only.

What is your present state of mind? Calm and peaceful.

Intelligent and sexy Masha answering modern proust questionnaire

Masha Tsvetaeva

20, fashion model, Russia

                                                                                      photo by Craig McDean          

No risk, No reward

What is the lowest depth of misery? The lack of indulgence. 

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Talking about facial masks.

Who are your favorite characters in history? Simone de Beauvoir. 

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes in real life? Louise Bourgeois.

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes of fiction? Mrs Dalloway (character from Virginia Woolf novel “Mrs Dalloway”).

Your favorite painter? Mark Rothko.

Your favorite musician? Richard Strauss.

The quality you most admire in a man? Sensibility.

The quality you most admire in a woman? Sensibility.

Who would you have liked to be? A painter.

Your most marked characteristic? Curiosity, unpredictable character.

How do you like to spend your free time? Watching the clouds, inventing some silly stories with friends, reading.

What do you most value in your friends? Independance.

What is your principle defect? Independance.

Who are your favorite writers? Marcel Proust, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolf.  

What is it you most dislike? Conformism.

What thing you learned the hardest way? Be myself in all circumstances.

What event in history do you most admire? The creation of miniskirt.

What natural gift would you most like to possess? Always finding without searching.

What habit or characteristic you picked up during your early years?  Watching the stars, having an obsession wanting to become a cosmonaut!

What books or movies had a very strong impact on you? Book “In search of lost time” Marcel Proust. Film “The Hours” by Stephen Daldry.

How do you think, what is the biggest achievement of our time? Considering our small planet as an infinite source of enrichment, craziness and connections between people.

What person or character can you call the role model or example for your generation? Maybe Kate Moss, but I do prefer Louise Bourgeois!

What is your present state of mind? Amused.

Intelligent and sexy Tim answering modern Proust questionnaire

Timothy David Dorans

26, fashion model, thinker, Canada

"Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again, fail again. Fail better".

                                                                                                                      Samuel Beckett 

                                                                                  

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Judging other people. 

What is your idea of earthly happiness? A reciprocated love in the eyes of a lover or friend.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? How we treat the elderly and the poor makes me want to vomit.

Who are your favorite character in history? Filippo Brunelleschi.

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes in real life? The kind and the selfless.

Your favorite painter? Hieronymus Bosch.

Your favorite musician? Impossible to answer.

The quality you most admire in a man? Self-discipline and patients.

The quality you most admire in a woman? Intelligence and appreciation of the arts.

Who would you have liked to be? I don't know. I've never had a role model.

Your most marked characteristic? My ability to listen to people.

How do you like to spend your free time? With friends or reading.

What do you most value in your friends? Their support and acceptance.

What is your principle defect? Depression or a self-defeating nature.

Who are your favorite writers? Hermann Hesse.

What is it you most dislike? Driving a car in traffic.

What thing you learned the hardest way? To not expect the world from myself.

What event in history do you most admire? I don't know. The non-violent revolution of India in 1930. The violent revolutions of Ernesto Guevara. 

What natural gift would you most like to possess? To draw.

What habit or characteristic you picked up during your early years? Defiance.

What books or movies had a very strong impact on you? "Narcissus and Goldmund", "Siddhartha", "Steppenwolf", "Catch-22", "Notes from the Underground". 

How do you think, what is the biggest achievement of our time? The creating a single celled organism and modern neurology show that science is literally around the corner from vast improvements in the way humans live, treat disease and deal with poverty. 

What person or character can you call the role model or example for your generation? I don't think there is one.

What is your present state of mind? Happy-depressed. Listening to Jean Sibelius' Symphony no. 5 (the finale). 

my subjective view on the greatest world’s classics

Homer “Iliad”, “Odyssey”

Dante Alighieri “Divine Comedy” 

Giovanni Boccaccio “Decameron” 

William Shakespeare “Hamlet”

Miguel de Cervantes “The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha”   

Voltaire “The Maid of Orleans”  

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “Faust”   

Daniel Defoe “Robinson Crusoe”  

Jonathan Swift “Gulliver’s Travels”

Hans Christian Andersen “The Snow Queen”, “The Little Match Girls” 

Lord Byron “Don Juan”    

Herman Melville “Moby-Dick”

Virginia Woolf “To the Lighthouse”, “Orlando” 

Alexander Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”, “The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin”   

Fyodor Dostoyevsky “The Idiot”, “The Gambler”  

Leo Tolstoy “Anna Karenina”

Mikhail Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita”, “The heart of a Dog” 

Anton Chekhov “The Lady with the Little Dog”, “Kashtanka”, “The Seagull”, “Uncle Vanya”.

Vladimir Nabokov “The Gift”, “Lolita”, “King, Queen, Knave”

Mikhail Lermontov “A Hero of Our Time”

Aleksandr Kuprin “The Garnet Bracelet”

Nikolai Gogol “The Inspektor-General”, “Dead Souls”, “The Nose”, “The Overcoat”

Saltykov-Shchedrin “The History of a Town”, “Boy in pants and boy without”

Lewis Carroll “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, “Through the Looking-Glass”

Mary Shelley “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”

Jack London “The Call of the Wild”

Ernest Hemingway “The Sun also Rises”, “The Old Man and the Sea”

Oscar Wild “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Gustave Flaubert “Madame Bovary”

Charlotte Brontë “Jane Eyre”

Truman Capote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”

Theodore Dreiser “An American Tragedy”

Franz Kafka “The Metamorphosis”, “Amerika”

Astrid Lindgren “The Pippi Longstocking”

Mark Twain “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” 

Arthur Conan Doyle “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”

Herbert Wells “The Invisible Man”, “The War of the Worlds”

What else would you add to this little snobby library?  

my modern Proust

       As a little intro, I'll start this blog with myself. 

       I'm Yuliya Danylyuk, 23, daughter of post-soviet union.   

In a process of a progress

What is your idea of earthly happiness? A book in every women's purse. 

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? Compliments. 

Who are your favorite heroes/heroines in real life? Nikola Tesla, Indira Gandhi, Virginia Woolf, Anna Akhmatova, Audrey Hepburn, Steve Jobs, Jimmy Wales.  

Who are your favorite heroines/heroes of fiction? Pippi Longstocking, Tom Sawyer, Humpty Dumpty, Puss in boots, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin.  

Your favorite painter? Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali. As for the modern painters, I love Jonas Lofgren’s girls. 

Your favorite musicians? Music is my fetish, so it’s probably the hardest question of all. But if I have to choose one band from each style of music I like, it would be: Lou Reed & The Velvet Underground (alternative rock), Rolling Stones (classic rock), Bob Dylan (folk and blues singer-songwriter), My Bloody Valentine (shoegaze), Broken Social Scene (indie rock), Sigur Ros (icelandic instrumental rock wonder), Karen O (indie-rock chick), Cat Power (pop-rock diva), Pretty Girls Make Graves (punk), Beirut (folk). 

The quality you most admire in a man? To be a man. 

The quality you most admire in a woman? To fall in love like a cat. 

Who would you have liked to be? The person that made a difference.

Your most marked characteristic? A daughter of post-soviet union. Idealist with carrot and stick. 

How do you like to spend your free time? Traveling and writing. I studied journalism for five years, but I wrote my best piece when I was seven – the letter to my principal, explaining why I punched my classmate in the face, and why I don’t regret it. In my defense i must say, that little punk drew horns on the portrait of Pushkin. 

What do you most value in your friends? They take me as I am, no milk or sugar. 

What is your principle defect? Impatience. 

Who are your favorite writers?  I’m such a snob when it gets to literature. I grew up on the Russian classics: Bulgakov, Nabokov, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Gogol. It’s pretty much formed my love for the real good literature and shaped my intolerance towards fakes. 

What is it you most dislike? Vulgarity of mind.

What thing you learned the hardest way? Curiosity killed a cat. 

What event in history do you most admire? The invention of the internet. 

What natural gift would you most like to possess? Patience. 

What habit or characteristic you picked up during your early years? Stubbornness. 

What books had a very strong impact on you? Books by Arthur Schopenhauer, Sigmund Freud and  Friedrich Nietzsche.

Your favorite movies? Made by Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch.  

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? To became too much of a grown up. 

How do you think, what is the biggest achievement of our time? Paul Watzlawick proved that “one cannot not communicate”. Social networks cultivated it. Thanks to it we can share our interests, such as pictures of our blind drunk friends, or make a profile for our just born baby, let the world know that we are single or married and send funny videos or adverts to our loved ones. 

What person or character can you call the role model or example for your generation?  I wish that girls were less of Clara Zetkin and boys were more of Peter Pan.