Only-apartments' blog

ONLY BE AMSTERDAMMER

ONLY BE BUDAPESTER

ONLY BE VENETIAN

ONLY BE BARCELONIAN

ONLY BE BERLINER

ONLY BE VALENCIAN

ONLY BE ISTANBULITE

ONLY BE FLORENTINE

ONLY BE LISBOETA

ONLY BE LONDONER

ONLY BE NEW YORKER

ONLY BE MADRILENIAN

ONLY BE MALAGUEÑO

ONLY BE MILANESE

ONLY BE PARISIAN

ONLY BE PORTUENSE

ONLY BE PRAGUER

ONLY BE ROMAN

ONLY BE SEVILLIAN

ONLY BE PROXIMAMENTE

ONLY BE ATHENIAN

ONLY BE COMING SOON

Last posts

Greed and a world without money

Mónica Boixeda Berliner

Winning or losing money, to have or to need money, to take or to steal money, to spend or to save money…How many times a day do we think of this word? Since the global economic crisis was declared, we are totally obsessed with money. If we think about it for a moment, it’s only paper. Can you imagine a world without money as Jean-Jacques Rousseau dreamed with his noble savage concept? This wouldn’t eradicate greed, the sin that takes one to the excessive and inordinate desire to possess and acquire wealth or properties. As a purge to greed, the penitents of The Divine Comedy (by Dante Alighieri) had to kneel on a rock and recite examples of greed and their opposite virtues. Wealth is not always synonymous with success. It seems that if you suffer from this sin, it will own you too. And if not, you only have to look at the famous miser Harpagon of the play The Miser of Molière , who lived a poor life so he could die rich, accumulating money and riches for no reason except to satisfy his madness. Greed is a condemned sin by the Catholic Church because it usually leads to other vices like envy, anger and pride. Greed is inner poverty because one is never satisfied with what he has, and one loses the value of objects, feelings and knowledge. Being greedy is not just about money matters, but it also has to do with things one wants to acquire and store for no further use: one can be also an intellectual or emotional greedy. Collecting instead of... read more

Gluttony – is it a pleasure or is it a sin?

Mónica Boixeda Valencian

Surely this has happened to you: you´ve got some cheese but you´re missing a piece of bread to appreciate this last tasty morsel with your last drop of wine….gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins: it is an unpardonable sin entailing a total loss of grace; the act or practice of eating to excess. At first glance, gluttony is a desperate call of our stomach. Who among us does not like good food? Who is able to resist the delicious Valencian cuisine for example, with its thousands of rice recipes, like their traditional paella, their seafood and their vegetables? In addition, the region also offers a very tasty wine selection. Filled to satisfaction, taste a little of everything and then take a nap, this is a good life! They would have to erase this sin from the list! It is said that the greed of love and affection is the more common form. And that it´s very common to see these people addicted to chocolate, sweets and sugar. In fact, the word “sugar” comes from the Sanskrit root “sukha” which means “happiness”. Children who are overweight, for example, seek a way to satisfy their hunger of love. Binge drinking, which if repeated can be destructive behaviour and also a form of gluttony. Constant drunkenness is also a destructive behaviour, and also a way of gluttony. In The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the penitents in Purgatory were forced to stand between two trees, unable to reach and eat the fruit hanging from its branches. The sweet-toothed were forced to smell the food without eating it. Now you know... read more

Photography, erotic or pornographic?

Mónica Boixeda Parisian

The photography lovers among others have been waiting for it all the year long: the Pirelli Calendar 2010 has finally been launched with photos taken by the photographer Terry Richardson. This company publishes this exclusive calendar, where the world’s best photographers have been photographing world famous models, since 1964 (with a break between the years 1974 and 1984). The images of the 2010 edition have been labelled as very erotic. What does “erotic art” exactly mean and what is the difference between nude photography, erotic photography and photography which is pornographic? Which factor really decides to which of these three genres an image belongs? Nude photography is not necessarily erotic. Sometimes it focuses only on some details of the human figure. The lights playing on the skin and the body can produce some astonishing effects and images of great artistic value. We can, on the other hand, define erotic photography as a kind of photography that is sensual along with allusive images aimed to stimulate our sexual desire. Typically, these pictures do not even show “everything”, the entire nude, but use accessories such as sexy lingerie, tight and almost transparent clothing and also objects that can make you think about a sadomasochistic sexuality. In fact there is a genre called “no nude” erotic photography. It is well known that the images, which only suggest, insinuate, without showing anything explicitly, stimulate our curiosity much more, our desires and the fantasy than the ones, where nothing is hidden. The erotic genre was already developed in the first part of the XIX Century, soon after the invention of photography and is obviously... read more