I have something really fun to share with you. As of today, you can walk into any French post office and buy a stamp portraying a bust of Julius Caesar that was made from a photograph taken by my love, Remi Benali.
There are one million of these stamps available for sale!
For any stamp collectors out there, you may not be surprised to learn that only the stamps bought on the first day of their publication are marked with a special seal, which gives them extra worth. This morning, 500 people lined up at the Musée départemental Arles Antique, which is home to the bust, in order to have the special seal.
As always, I am exceptionally proud of Remi. When we stopped by this evening to buy our stamps, he was not only congratulated but was also asked to autograph the set by many savvy collectors! To see more of his archaeological work (of which I will have news in the months to come), please click here.
And so for my sweetheart on this Valentine’s Day weekend, one of his favorite tunes:
And speaking of this very sweet holiday, I was delighted to have been asked by my friend D.A. Wolf at Daily Plate of Crazy to participate in her series on Food and Love. What I wrote, as with the piece that I wrote for my Mom, comes from the heart.
To read “Love in the terroir” please click here.
Keep sending out the Love for everyday is Valentine’s Day!
Oh wow! That's AMAZING!!!! I'm beaming with pride over here! I'm going to tell everyone in Le Petit Village! I actually have to go to La Poste today and I'm going to tell the postman too! xx
So wonderful. I wish I had been able to get a plate-block (isn't that what it's called?). Remi's hard work has been rewarded, something that will be around forever. This is the way I describe wonderful gifts, something that will be there forever. xx's
This is wonderful…well done, Rémi! Is Remi's current professional focus to memorialize through photography la patrimonie historique de la France? I look forward to spending some time exploring his site. Fascinatedly, Leslie in Oregon
Now I want to be a stamp collector – very nice indeed!
Having a stamp collector in my midst…I can appreciate just how special this moment is for you and Remi. Congratulations to Remi on having his photograph selected! It is wonderful! Great selection in music…as always. xx
My husband loves Miles Davis, too.
I am proud of your Remi alongside you, dear H. These moments are 'bust'ing with meaning and value. (Agh! Can you believe I'm that corny!)
xx
Well done to you both!!! Fame ……. and fortune to you hopefully – cheers!! The stamps are beautiful!!
Congratulations – you are both incredibly talented and should be justly proud. I wish I could photograph like Remi and write like you. Bisous
Congratulation . You are both such a talented couple.
Oh,Heather….I meant to send this to you and Remi, so that you could play it for him on Valentine's Day, but we've been stuck in a once-in-fifty-years snowstorm (which, actually, posed no problem at all in this old house with its six fireplaces).
In any case, play this for Remi (and congratulations on the stamp; Catherine's told me of how weird it was to mail a letter and find yourself licking the back of your own, mass-produced head; she was, as you'll know, the designated model for "Marianne" for a long while there)….go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj0yVN8pFNw
This may be, in fact (and, for better worse, I've an encyclopedic, grotesquely eidetic-memory for lyrics and music) My Favorite Love Song….perfect for Valentine's Day.
I love it because I could as easily send it to Herve as I could to my 77 year-old (and quite contentedly single, for decades) Aunt Martha (actually, my father's first cousin), or ANY friend I sincerely cared for. In that regard, it's an all-purpose, if quite sincere, love-song…..which is a rare thing in a society obsessed with prioritizing some single, supposedly "perfect" romantic/sexual relationship (if any of you have ever found that?…..please let me know the online-catalogue #, so I can order Christmas presents for the fifty-or-so of my friends and relatives who'd like to have such a thing).
the lyrics are:
Now the parking lot is empty
Everyone's gone someplace
I pick you up, and in the trunk I've packed
A cooler and a 2-day suitcase .
'Cause there's a place we like to drive to,
Way out in the country
Five miles out of the city limit we're singing
And your hand's upon my knee
So we're okay
We're fine
Baby I'm here to stop your crying
I'll chase all the ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than the monsters beneath your bed
I'm smarter than the tricks played on your heart
We'll look at them together, then we'll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that's true?….
Multiply life by the power of two
You know the things that I am afraid of
I'm not afraid to tell
And if we ever leave a legacy
It's that we loved each other well.
Cause I've seen the shadows of so many people
Trying on the treasures of youth
But a road that fancy and fast
Ends in a fatal crash
And I'm glad we got off,
To tell you the truth
All the shiny little trinkets of temptation
(Make new friends)
Something new instead of something old
(But keep the old)
All you gotta do is scratch beneath the surface
(But remember what is gold)
And it's fool's gold
(What is gold)
Fools gold
(What is gold)
Fools gold.
Now we're talking about a difficult thing
And your eyes are getting wet.
But I took us for better, and I took us for worse
And don't you ever forget it.
Now the steel bars between me and a promise
Suddenly bend with ease
The closer I'm bound in love to you
The closer I am to free
So we're okay
We're fine
Baby, I'm here to stop your crying
Chase all those ghosts from your head
I'm stronger than the monsters beneath your bed,
Smarter than the tricks played on your heart
Well look at them together, then we'll take them apart
Adding up the total of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two
Best Wishes and congratulations,
David Terry
http://www.davidterryart.com