The short film Passion by Zach Bainter acquaint us with beardsman Jack Passion, who´s beard has taken him on a winning streak and so far has won him The World Beard Champion title two times.
As a side note, I didn´t expect to hear words such as dark side and lust for blood mentioned in a discussion around beard. That´s passion!
Via Outside.
I have been practicing yoga close to three years now, and my practice has for the most time been Power Yoga. I practice from home, and will probably some time in the future seek out a teacher.
Almost on a daily basis, I step on the mat and use one of three yoga sessions from "Bryan Kest´s Power Yoga Series". To this day, I still deepen my yoga practice by doing this series.
Bryan Kest:
If I can do yoga, anyone can do it. If you'd seen my very first attempt at yoga compared to what I'm able to do now, you wouldn't need any convincing. And yes, the practice is very physical.
If someone stumble upon this post and start benefiting from the practice of yoga, you've made my day. But be cautious, it's very addictive, just writing about this makes me wanna get up and do some asanas.
Here are the Power Yoga videos (YouTube) I'm using:
For the time being, I haven't any membership at Power Yoga Online, but I did try out the service for a month a year ago, and since then, much work seem to have been added to the site with many classes to choose from. Worth noting, it's no hassle to cancel your membership.
Image credit: Images from Bryan's blog.
This is a neat little dessert. Since they are both healthy and seem to be very easy to make with very few ingredients, I´m going to try out these creamy avocado fudgesicles.
This is what you need:
How you put it all together:
Featured image: Photograph by Jennifer Olson.
A short video with the dancers and workers at the New York City Ballet about a ballerinas most important equipment, the pointe shoes:
Swedish artist Anders Weberg has taken on an ambitious project by making the film Ambiancé with a running time of 720 hours, equal to 30 days.
The premiere date is set to December 31, 2020 and the film will only be shown once, the master copy will then get destroyed after the screening.
A teaser has been shown online between 4-20 July 2014 and the next one is due to 2016 and will be around 7 hours long.
Unfortunately, this teaser is the only thing available:
I leave you with an audiovisual performance from 2012 by Marsen Jules and Anders Weberg:
Featured image: Via the Ambiancé website.
Related:
Artist Gary B's music always puts me in a great mood. I heard Gary's music the first time on Cafe Del Mar Volume 13 (video) with the track "Set Me Free" (video).
His album Step Into the Sunshine is an album I return to often, it's magical!
Here is an incomplete album playlist on YouTube and the complete album on Grooveshark.
Featured image: Album art via music store Silver Tentacle.
In the community Lily Dale, New York, located just south of Buffalo, 40 spiritualists that have undergone rigorous testing to be allowed to work as mediums, give visitors an opportunity to communicate with spirits of loved ones. Their work is captured in the HBO documentary No One Dies in Lily Dale (2011).
I have an interest in this field, but I think the documentary might attract viewers that haven´t.
Here is the trailer, however, I don´t feel it does the documentary justice:
You can wath the full documentary for free over at Culture Unplugged.
Featured image: Medium Michelle Whitedove who´s in the documentary. Via HBO.
Spomenik is the name of the book by Belgian photographer Jan Kempenaers. It contains a series of photos of monuments called Spomeniks located throughout former Yugoslavia. Commissioned by President Josip Broz Tito, these were built during the 1960s and ’70s to commemorate the Second World War.
Jasenovac, 2007:
Kruševo, 2007:
Niš, 2007:
Tjentište, 2007:
Via TwistedSifter.
Today´s daredevil selfie comes from above the skylines in Hong Kong taken by photographer Daniel Lau who took the daring selfie at 346m (1,135 feet):
Related:
Doing Time Doing Vipassana is a documentary about Kiran Bedi´s initiative, the former Inspector General of Prisons in Tihar Jail, New Delhi (1993–1995), to let prisoners learn Vipassana meditation as a means of rehabilitation. I´ve seen this documentary several times, so it´s dear to my heart.
Webdesigner Iain Mullan has created an interactive map that lists every town mentioned in the song I've Been Everywhere, originally written by Australian country singer Geoff Mack in 1959. The map uses Johnny Cash´s version and his portrait acts as sign posts for all the cities mentioned.
Via Laughing Squid.
In this CNN Money interview with Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, he gives us a good reminder why we should continue keep on working, even though the results might indicate otherwise:
"I'm still a punk," Dorsey insists. "What was amazing to me about the punk scene, which is why I got into it, is because there was this confidence of 'I'm not going to go off, be shy about learning how to be a musician.'"
The St. Louis native used to play music on the streets every so often. He says he'd like to get back to it.
Dorsey, a serial entrepreneur, cites similarities between punk music and emerging technology.
His example: a band could go from being awful their first time on stage to becoming superstars like The Ramones in a short period of time. Dorsey says the same thing can happen with coders.
"People would write code and it was terrible, and they would write it again and it was terrible, and a year from then it was Linux, and now it's running the majority of every system out there today."
In the same interview, we get to know a bit more about his morning routine:
How does he deal with the pressure? Dorsey begins his day with a five mile walk to work. He leaves at 7 am, and it takes him an hour and a half to get to the office. In that time, Dorsey ditches email and texts. He listens to music and audio books and tries to take a new route every day so he can find inspiration on the streets of San Francisco. Each day, he tries to deviate from routine.
How does he deal with the pressure? Dorsey begins his day with a five mile walk to work. He leaves at 7 am, and it takes him an hour and a half to get to the office. In that time, Dorsey ditches email and texts. He listens to music and audio books and tries to take a new route every day so he can find inspiration on the streets of San Francisco. Each day, he tries to deviate from routine.
Featured image: Jack Dorsey art by Work By Knight.
Want a little bit of that luxury hotel feeling at home? Look no further, this is how you make the hotel fold with your towels:
Via Sköna Hem.
I find that BBC´s The Men Who Made Us Fat, written and presented by Jacques Peretti, is a great complement to the documentary Fed Up. I have recently seen the first episode and plan to watch the remaining two. This series is a real eye-opener!
Bob Proctor´s mentor Earl Nightingale had a simple way to look upon time management. In a world in which we tend to overanalyze and complicate things, I find this mindset to be so refreshing:
[...] Bob asked Earl, who he was working for at the time how on earth he managed his time, with all the projects, businesses, and commitments he juggled each and every day. There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to accomplish all that the famously extremely successful Earl Nightingale accomplished or so he thought.
Earl said “No such thing as managing time, impossible to do and this does not exist…cannot do it. What I do is manage my activities.”
Earl continued: “At night before I go to sleep, I plan and write down the 8-10 activities I want to do the next day. This prepares my subconscious mind the night before and sends a signal to the subconscious of all the people I will talk with, meet with, have interactions with… be it meetings, appointments, or phone, while I am sleeping. Additionally, the Universe, the Field, Infinite Intelligence is handling the details while I sleep and is getting everything ready for me so that my day will unfold and progress and that I will accomplish what I set out to do and or be shown what I need to know to accomplish my intentions. [...]
Earl continues with the instructions: “The next day I begin with the first thing on my list of 8-10 things and just focus on the 1st thing on my list…totally focus on that, complete it and go on to the next thing, focus on that…complete it and go on to the next one on my list until my list is completed. Just one thing at a time, do it, complete it, scratch it off the list and go on to the next one.” [You can have a list of less or more…up to you…Charles Schwab says he had 6 action steps on his daily list and that doing similar to the above contributed to his success.]
Earl said: “I am managing my activities not my time and it allows me to stay focused, use the Creative Intelligence of the Universe [...] to help me while I sleep.
Featured image: A vintage Jantar Russian mechanical alarm clock. Via Svpply.
I have never heard of such a thing as a fly-in community before. In James May´s Big Ideas episode Come Fly With Me, I learned that whole towns are built around the aeroplane, solving the problem of having to travel to and from the airport.
The whole episode is an interesting watch, so here goes:
Here is the part about the fly-in community.
Will Lisak creates beautiful handmade leather bags and accessories for his line Etwas, items that probably will last forever:
Related:
Humans of New York is the name of the site founded and run by Brandon. Photographing New Yorkers and publishing these together with personal stories and quotes from the people he meet, the blog makes for an interesting read.
The late bloomer:
“I was extremely shy when I was younger. I wasn’t asked to the prom or anything. Life didn’t really even start for me until I turned fifty. But let’s just say I got plenty of experience after that!”
A dramatic turn of events:
"Bank robbery was my crime of choice. You know, I hadn’t committed a single crime until the age of 54. But then I robbed my first bank, and after that I went on quite a tear."
Via A Cup of Jo.
Billy Hayes ended up in a Turkish prison after getting caught smuggling hashish in 1970. He wrote about his experiences in the autobiographical book Midnight Express which also became a feature film (full movie on YouTube) with the same name.
In this epsiode The Real Midnight Express of National Geographic Channel´s Banged Up Abroad, Billy now tells the full story, since neither the film nor the book was completely accurate due to legal reasons.
This is the work of German street artist ALIAS. Florence Reidenbach describes his work as follows:
[…] ALIAS’ stencil paintings are discreet. Both the chosen spots in the streets, and the material he finds, are an integral part of his work. He has a way of finding special spots that are going to contribute to the expression alongside the image itself. Conveying a very personal feeling he is dealing with. Those spots are as unique as what he is depicting.
By isolating people from the social background or situation they are in, ALIAS is triggering a direct emotional impact. All his subjects appear as little universes, neutral lands that all seem to want peace. It is the type of compassion you can find in the work of great artists like Bill Viola. It is art that makes us feel human suffering we can all relate to and that instills in us both condolence and reverence.
Kreuzberg, Berlin 2013. Copyright by iNfiNitY 33.
Praying in Berlin 2013. Copyright by andBerlin.
Featured image: Body Body Head in Shahpur Jat, South Delhi. Copyright by Akshat Nauriyal.
Some great energizing tunes from artists Tingsek and Timbuktu performing Fortsätt during Music Aid 2009 in Gothenburg:
Yes! I loved the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (trailer) from 2012 and am really looking forward to the sequel The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that´s due to March 2015.
It´s a bit sad that I´m not going to see one of the main characters from the first movie played by one of my favorite actors Tom Wilkinson, but I guess I can cope with some great acting by Richard Gere instead:
Via @kenchawkin.
Bejing-based artist Ren Ri worked with bees in his project Yuansu II with stunning beeswax sculptures as a result:
The bees did the grunt work of building the honeycomb, while Ri manipulated the environment and his group of collaborators to suit his creative designs. Each sculpture started out with the queen bee suspended in the center using wooden sticks that encourage the bees to build around her – and every seven days he changed the polyhedron’s orientation based on a random roll of a dice.
Due to the summer heat and long sunny days, these Norweigan twins had a hard time getting to sleep. To solve this, their mother tried out different methods, and one of them was to keep them in separate bedrooms, something that didn´t turned out quite as expected:
Following the publication of this clip, the mother has met criticism, which is beyond me.
The music is the theme from The Benny Hill Show (video).
Whenever I have stumbled upon photos of tiny world terrariums, I´ve been fascinated by them. Twig Terrariums has now released a step-by-step guide on how to create your own terrariums with the use of tiny figurines and toys, creating thoose beautiful tiny landscapes.
Hoffmaestro is a Swedish band with a rather unusual lineup consisting of eleven band members. This live version of Dreams is so good, I just had to share it with you.
In New York Observer´s article written by Ben Widdicombe, we find that more and more business people practice Transcendental Meditation.
“Some business people were meditating and they came to our fundraising galas,” says Mr. Roth [Bob Roth, executive director of the David Lynch Foundation]. “It spread by word-of-mouth. What interested them was three things: handling stress, the idea of more focus and creativity, but also work-life balance. When they’re home with their kids, they want to be home with their kids. And they appreciate that they sleep better at night.”
One prominent evangelist has been Mr. Dalio. With an estimated net worth of $15.2 billion, Forbes lists him as the 30th-richest person in America. A meditator for 42 years—he heard about TM during the Beatles phase—he offers to pay half the course fee for everyone in his firm.
“I feel a lot less anxiety since I’ve ben meditating. I feel like a ninja in a fight,” Mr. Dalio said in February, on a panel devoted to extoling the virtues of TM to business leaders. “Now, when something comes at me, it seems like it comes in slow-motion.”
Mr. Dalio has introduced several associates to the practice, including leading philanthropist and wealth manager, Mark Axelowitz.
“It’s some time I enjoy doing every day, it’s like two 20-minute vacations,” Mr. Axelowitz wrote to the Observer in an email.
“One of the biggest benefits I believe is I think clearer and make better business and personal decisions. I am in better moods, calmer, happier. It gives me more energy to do things. Which I need, because I am up 18 hours every day doing many different things.”
Featured image: illustration by Anita Kunz.
Via @kenchawkin.
Barry's Bespoke Bakery is a short film directed and written by Denis McArdle.
In this film, we get to see the choosy pastry chef Barry, the owner of the bakery, and his employee making a wedding cake for a very special occasion.
Sadly, I can only leave you with a short trailer, I watched the full film on Swedish television yesterday. A longer trailer to be found at Behance.
In the documentary "David Wants to Fly", German filmmaker David Sieveking feels a bit lost after graduating from film school, and upon seeing an ad for a conference, he travels to the U.S. to hear a talk about the source of creativity by filmmaker David Lynch.
This is the start of an interesting journey of examining the Transcendental Meditation technique.
Karin Badt from Huffington Post has written a very good and balanced review of the film.
Tip: See also my post "Transcendental Meditation and the Alternatives".
Gypsy brewers doesn´t operate a brewery of their own, instead they use the services of other breweries to produce their beer.
In this video with great visuals, Danish Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, founder of Evil Twin Brewing, in collaboration with fellow countryman, chef and chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt, produce the chocolate stout Even More Denmark.
Related:
Finding out about my friend´s loss, my work suddenly feels so utterly pointless, so no more posts for today. Wishing you well and we´re thinking of you!
Veronica Maggio Sergels torg:
This is so cynical! Black cats are getting abandoned by their owners because of one of many reasons: they aren´t photogenic:
They may be the symbol of good luck, but black cats have drawn the short straw in one respect: they don't look good in selfies.
Today the RSPCA announced a rise in the number of black cats being abandoned by their owners, and attributed it to them not photographing well.
A spokesman for the animal welfare charity said that more than 70 per cent of the 1,000 cats in its care were black, and blamed the trend for people taking pictures of themselves with their phones.
He said: 'There are a number of reasons for us having so many black cats, including the fact that black animals tend not to photograph as well as other cats with more distinctive markings.
Featured image: One cool looking Bat Cat via Fashionably Geek. Found via Rumiram.
In designer Anna Burles´s hand-crafted typographic map of Central London, you´re guided by the the fictional characters from novels set in London. Anna took the name of these well- and not so well-known characters and placed them on the location they´re most associated with.
These fine art giclée prints are made in a limited edition of 750 and signed and numbered by Anna.
Via @passandbrush and @LondonKiwiEmma.
Update: Anna now sells a new screenprint version of the Literary London Map.
