How I Replaced Existential Dread with Urban Planning

or 

How to Find Clarity In a Bialetti

or 

COFFEE and Whatever

Four days since my last post, and I feel like I'm slipping into the kind of creative void where even the sound of my own thoughts feels muffled. I had way too much natural—or not—red wine this weekend, and since then it's been a blur of half-formed ideas, the kind that float just out of reach. Inspiration? It’s somewhere on the other side of the haze, teasing me.
 

But let’s talk about coffee. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but coffee is my ritual. I drink four cups a day. Sometimes five—six, if the day (or my Friday night service shift) demands it. The first three are always black—no sugar, no milk, no frills, no fuss. Just pure, strong, unapologetic coffee. The kind that makes you feel like you’re still in control, like you’ve got a grip on this world that’s constantly shifting. And that first cup made with a Bialetti Moka pot in the morning? It’s pure magic. It’s the only thing that truly makes sense when the rest of the day feels blurry and unformed.
 

What happens when all those cups stack up, and you’re left with nothing but the caffeine jitters and a blank page?
 

I just lost myself on an article called Pavement Paradise: American Parking Space from The Center for Land Use Interpretation an in-depth study of parking lots, complete with a magnificent gallery of 126 photos.
Seems like a fresh perspective on what’s supposed to be so simple—like a cup of coffee or a moment of quiet. But for now, I’ll take the caffeine, the parkings, the noise. Maybe the words will find me once I’ve had enough of those.

 

How I Learned to Breathe Without the Smoke

Today is Lover’s Day, and I’m here to apologize. See, I have this little problem. A compulsion. A bad habit, the kind that gets me in trouble. Some people smoke. Some people bite their nails. Me? I do both but even more — I collect secrets like a magpie hoarding shiny objects—and sometimes, without thinking, I let them slip. It's like peeling a  clementine with too much eagerness, stripping away all the juiciness until there’s nothing left but a rind. It has just becomes empty and harmful.
 

There’s something intoxicating about knowing everything, like holding a map of the social world in my hands. It makes me feel like I have control, like I can move through life more gracefully, avoid pitfalls, navigate friendships and conversations better. I’ve been like this since high school—seven years of carefully gathered intel, whispered exchanges, and yes, mistakes. And mistakes, I’ve made plenty.
 

I won’t sugarcoat it: I’ve hurt people. I’ve lost the confidence of close friends. I’ve seen the way someone’s expression changes when they realize I know something I shouldn’t. And I get it. The thing about living in bubbles—whether it's a tight-knit friend group, an art scene, or just the microcosm of a city—is that you will hear things. The Morning-After recaps, the gallery-opening whispers, the drunken confessions over free wine at a vernissage. The tea is always brewing. And for the longest time, I just couldn’t help but take a sip.
 

But here’s the thing—gossiping is not —just— bitching. It’s storytelling, it’s connection, it’s the way we process the world and make sense of our relationships. The issue is knowing when to stop. When the curiosity turns into something messier.
 

Last summer, I finally decided to do something about it. I worked on it, really worked on it, because I saw how it could harm people, how it could damage trust and relationships. For months, I kept my mouth shut. I let secrets rest where they belonged. And then… well, you know how it goes.
 

A pressure cooker can only hold so much before it explodes. And after months of self-control, I cracked. A late-night conversation. One too many drinks. One or two slip-ups. A moment of weakness, and then, I was back at square one.
 

So, this is my V Day love letter and my apology— to the ones who trusted me, to the ones who maybe shouldn’t have, to the ones who have had to deal with my loose mind and mouth. I’m trying, I really am.
 

But let’s be honest: quitting gossip is like quitting cigarettes. You can promise yourself this is your last one, that you’re done for good—but then there’s a stressful night, a tempting moment, a friend who nudges the magnificent pack toward you, and suddenly, you’re back at it.
 

Maybe, in the end, that’s the price we pay for loving a good story a little too much.
 

So here’s to breaking bad habits. Or, at the very least, learning to smoke in moderation.

xx


Louis

a filtered cigarette

How to Find Beauty in the Morning After

How to Find Beauty in the Morning After

There are two kinds of morning-after realizations. The first is waking up to a pounding headache, the lingering stench of last night’s cigarettes, and the vague yet persistent fear that you might have revealed a friend’s deep  — more on that in the next article — secret. The second is waking up and realizing you’ve been wrong about something your entire life.
 

For me, it was clementines.
 

As a kid, clementines weren’t a treat; they were a chore. A fruit my parents would hand me at Christmas while launching into the speech—how, back in their day, a single clementine was the ultimate Christmas present — turns out it’s just a bloody lie, a classic French country side myth — Meanwhile, I was sitting there, TV remote control in one hand, forced nostalgia in the other, pretending to care. The clementine became a symbol of you don’t know how good you have it, of forced gratitude, of childhood guilt wrapped in citrusy disappointment. So naturally, I hated them.
 

And then, 22 years later, something shifted.
 

A friend casually offered me a slice of their clementine, and without thinking, I said yes. The second before I bit into it, I braced myself for that awful texture—those little pieces of skin sticking to my tongue, the sensation of eating freshly cut grass. But then—pure, juicy, citrusy perfection.

Suddenly, I wasn’t chewing on childhood resentment; I was tasting something good. Like, really good. It was sweet and bright and somehow exactly what I needed.
Now, I’m officially obsessed. I stock up on clementines like they’re an essential vice, right next to coffee and cigarettes. When the season started this year, it felt like finally reuniting with that long-awaited, never-arrived love.
 

In the end its about seeing the glass half full.
If there’s a glass half full moment, there’s also a glass half empty lurking nearby. The realization that maybe I’ve missed out on 22 years of perfectly good clementines. That maybe—just maybe—there are other things I’ve written off too soon, other flavors of life I’ve refused to taste out of sheer stubbornness. What else have I been wrong about? What other joys have I denied myself for no reason at all? Maybe I’d actually prefer a proper milk tea over my usual pitch-black coffee?
 

Once you open that door, you start questioning everything. The foods you hate, the people you avoid. What if the thing you’re so sure about is just waiting for the right moment to prove you wrong?
 

As I stand here, peeling another clementine, I realize how easy it is to reject things you don’t fully understand. Turns out, rediscovering something is sometimes better than discovering it in the first place.
 

The real question is—what else have I been missing?

 

xx
 

Louis 

the one that I just ate

How My Dead Phone Saved Me From A Neoliberal Heaven

 Saturday, I woke up to the rare sight of sunlight spilling over the magnificent Porte de Hal, and for some reason, it made me want to buy new bed sheets. Not just any bed sheets—the kind that make you feel like you finally have your life together. Which meant one thing: the full Ikea adventure. Leaving the house around 11:30, getting there just in time for lunch, and indulging in that strangely satisfying, overly affordable pretended—Swedish meal. I hadn’t done it in years—probably not since I first moved to Lille. I heard they’d expanded their vegetarian options, which somehow made the whole trip feel like an event. The plan was simple: in and out, back home by 3, and still have the rest of the afternoon to wander through some galleries, maybe sit in a café with a book I’d pretend to read.
 

But there was also the metro ride—the part I was oddly looking forward to. 45 minutes of solitude, of watching the city change through the window—it’s only tunnels— of listening to the kind of music that makes you feel like you have control on your mood swings. There’s a particular kind of satisfaction in doing things alone, in proving to yourself that you can. That you don’t need company to turn a mundane errand into a full-fledged neoliberal classic 21th century human experience. I don’t do it nearly as much as I used to.
 

Then reality kicked in. I got out of bed, had two coffees, a clementine and a banana, and a cigarette. I looked at the sun, exhaled dramatically, and checked my phone—only to realize it was dead.
Suddenly, the entire plan collapsed. Because really, who willingly endures a 45-minute metro ride without music, podcasts, or some kind of distraction? The whole thing suddenly felt impossible, like attempting a road trip with no car.
 

So I gave up.
 

Instead, I cooked something, let the day decide its own course.
 

Later, a friend called. She was placing an Ikea order for some kitchen stuff and asked if I needed anything. It felt like fate. We combined orders, split the delivery fee, and there it was, I got what I wanted—without ever leaving the house.
 

New bed sheets are officially on their way.

xx 

Louis 

fig1.  Innovation

What Goes Up Must Come Down

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Part 1: How I Became Obsessed with Buildings Being Blown Up

5'min read

 

I grew up in the heart of Burgundy, France—where, beyond wine, vineyards, and sleeveless Jott puffer jackets, the air was thick with industrial history. But then came the 2010s, and with them, a new wave of change. Out went the old industrial world, and in came… well, the Kodak factory in Chalon Sur Saone’s infamous explosion. Yes, you read that right. Kaboom.

 I remember being about a kilometer away from the building, surrounded by a crowd of people, all eagerly waiting for the destruction. It was raining, but somehow everyone was smiling. It felt almost festive—like we were witnessing the past being torn down to make way for something “better.”. The authorities promised this destruction would pave the way for a “utopia of employment” (or something equally dramatic).

 Imagine the 5-year-old country boy in me, holding my father’s hand, terrified of loud noises (fireworks were my mortal enemy), and actually, I’m not really sure why, but my dad thought it was a good idea to bring me there. But there I was, watching, as the factory came down in a cloud of dust. It was loud and violent. Somehow, it all went down flawlessly, and with that, they started their own little dynamite tour across Burgundy. More on that in my upcoming book.

  Fast forward to my first few months in Brussels, and the city greeted me with its own peculiar history of destruction: Bruxellisation. In case you didn’t know, Brussels used to be an Art Nouveau paradise, a beautiful city before the '50s, when the economy pigs decided to roll up its sleeves and get to work—shaking things up in the name of progress. The local bureaucracy, eager to embrace the modernist ideas of the time (pre-crypto, mind you), went on a tear.

 I learned about the Maison du Peuple, this beautiful Art Nouveau masterpiece by Victor Horta, once a gathering place for workers of the world to unite and share ideas. Well, some real estate mogul thought it’d be a great idea to replace it with a 282-foot-tall eyesore right in the middle of the Sablon. And, of course, the city didn’t say a word.

 Walking past that monstrosity is a bit like walking past an art museum that’s been turned into a fast-food joint—not only is history erased, but now you've got a questionable menu in its place. 

This is the mentality that shaped Brussels—hence the black tower near the Cambre Abbey Park, and why they tore down entire neighborhoods in the north to put up a graveyard of modernist business towers. Ah, Brussels, you funny little thing. I learned that at one point, they almost wiped out the entire Marolles district just to expand the Palais de Justice. Thankfully, the people fought, struggled, and won.

 I couldn’t help but be both shocked and fascinated by this mindset—the destruction of everything old to make way for shiny glass buildings. It was like watching someone tear apart their favorite sweater, hoping that the replacement will be just as cozy, just as comfortable—but deep down, you know it never will be.

 Then Dan, Dan Graham. His thoughts on modernism, postmodernism, and American architecture really got me thinking. This guy has a way of linking architecture, astrology, contemporary art, and rock music. I haven’t finished reading Some Rockin’ (a collection of his interviews), so I can’t say much just yet, but his approach to architecture has already left a mark on me. He talks about Venturi, Mies van der Rohe, etc. His arguments are rooted in the idea that modern architecture, particularly the monumental, brutalist buildings that emerged post-World War II, were born out of a particular moment in history—a dirty one—a moment that can’t just be wiped away because it’s deemed "ugly" or “outdated.” Yet, in the 2010s, the vibe was the destruction—the blow up—of iconic modernist buildings like those of the 60s and 70s, only to replace them with more of the same, and it all feels like a Belgium irony.

 I then found myself having a late-night watch session of a few videos on architecture and boom—suddenly, I was lost in the algorithm. Now, I’m binge-watching 30-minute YouTube videos like "15 Structural Demolitions GONE WRONG", "Architect Breaks Down 5 of the Most Common New York Apartments" by the lovely and tender Michael Wyetzner, or “How To Dispose of a Skyscraper.”. That’s what drew me deeper into the fascinating world of American architecture—its past, its future, and more specifically, the curious and enigmatic world of the AMERICAN DREAM MALL, where architecture mess, Best Buy, New Jersey, Louis Vuitton, and Mr Beast Burgers collide…

 But, I’ll save it for last. Stay tuned for part 2.

 I hope this long-winded, obsession-fueled article didn’t feel like one of those 3 a.m. drunk tunnel conversations we’ve all had at least once.

 xx

 Louis

a classic sleeveless Jott puffer jacket

How I Stopped Being a Cry Baby and Started a Blog

    Back then, I use to wrote in a little notebook with a blue Bic pen. There I was, convinced I was channeling the spirit of the tortured artist—scribbling down my "feelings" in an almost theatrical way, as if each word was somehow meant to be a poem. I romanticized the idea of the artist, creating on a whim, when inspiration struck—everything I wrote felt like a masterpiece in the making. I was so first-degree about it all, jotting down my poor, misunderstood white boy angst like some heartbroken teenager with a pen and a notebook. My heroes? The beatniks, of course. Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith... they were the ones who showed me that writing could be raw and real. Or so I thought.
 

Then, reality set in. Those pages? Empty. Those "poems"? Soulless. I had this naïve idea that writing my feelings would help me make sense of the world—but it didn’t. It just left me more confused. So, I stopped.
 

And then I moved to Brussels. Moving there was like stepping into an entirely new world of expressing—one that didn’t require feeling everything in the deepest, most dramatic way. It was there that my ex (now a great friend) introduced me to artists like Sophie Calle (to say the less), and suddenly, I saw writing in a whole new light. It was less about me and more about how we tell our stories, often with a bit of distance, a bit of irony, and a lot more truth. This wasn’t about a deep dive into my own personal emotional ocean; this was about exploring the spaces between the lines and finding the beauty in that ambiguity.

When Tao Lin came into my readings, I discovered the beauty of writing about yourself, but not in the self-indulgent, "artist misunderstood by the world" way. I could still lie, still exaggerate, but the honesty would remain. Writing became less about confession and more about exploration. 

So, I did what any self-respecting try-to-be-artist would do: I ditched the old “poor me” writing and started channeling these ideas into my art. I was all about found images and class transfuge themes now—because apparently, feeling stuff isn’t enough when you can make it into a whole art movement.
 

Enter my friend Irma vape. She started her blog, and I couldn’t help but wonder—why not me? After a few too many nights binge-watching Sex and the City, I thought, why not try blogging as a way to talk about things I’m not covering in my art? Things that are still important to me but don’t quite fit into the realm of my "art practice."
 

And here I am—my debut in the blogging world.
 

xx


Louis

my desk at l'erg