Friday 27 February 2009

Theremin

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Hang Drums

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Awakening for life

One waits until one can’t put any food on the freezer to defrost it. One waits until one’s girlfriend completely drives one crazy to set one’s life free, or not. One spends one’s life trying to prove one’s thoughts right until one notices proving and thinking are sometimes opposites and a whole life’s gone. One get morbidly fat, one get stupidly slow, one reads all types of news everyday until its muscles can’t function anymore, crippled with fear, until it realizes one is better off reading some books sometimes. Dead.

I found myself in a similar situation. I waited years to download the fantastic soundtrack of one of my favourite films. I don’t understand why. Really don’t. Did it today. If in a 2012 extravaganza, I had to transform myself into a music style, I’m pretty sure I would be tango.

Listen to Waking Life’s soundtrack

Saturday 21 February 2009

Light Graffiti created with torches and a camera



By Daily Mail online: An artist has swapped paintbrushes for torches to create a range of stunning works which are created entirely with the use of light. Welsh artist Michael Bosanko creates the amazing light graffiti effect using only five coloured torches and by leaving his digital Canon camera on a long exposure. The 39-year-old has spent the past five years perfecting his art which is created in a similar way to how people write their names with sparklers on Bonfire Night.

Based in Cardiff, he draws most of his light art either in the empty urban night spaces of cities like Newport and his home town, or in the more desolate landscapes of the Brecon Beacons hills. 'I use my torches like an artist would use a paint brush,' says Michael 'I employ an exposure that lasts from ten seconds to one hour and then try to let my art manage to create what I had imagined. 'What I feel I am trying to convey is a sense of an aesthetically pleasing shape that clearly does not belong in that particular place or area.'


See it all

Found on www.socialvibe.com

Khoda by Reza Dolatabadi

The 5 minute film below, Khoda, was created by graduate film student Reza Dolatabadi. Although it appears to be a digital animation, it is much, much more than that. The video is composed of 6,000 individual paintings shown at a rate of 20 per second. SIX THOUSAND INDIVIDUAL PAINTINGS that Reza had to paint! Not surprisingly, the film took over two years to complete. Also unsurprising are the amount of impressive awards it has picked up so far. See the list at Found at Vimeo.

Found on www.socialvibe.com


Khoda from Reza Dolatabadi on Vimeo.

Wednesday 18 February 2009

$20 can give a person clean, safe drinking water for 20 years.



Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.


HOW WE WORK


Drilling a well can cost from $4,000 - $ 12,000 and many living on less than $1 a day can not afford one in their community, even if the money is combined. With the help of exemplary organizations on the ground, we can drill wells and provide people with this basic, essential need. charity: water partners with local organizations in each country where we work, choosing the partners based on expertise and the ability to impact real, sustainable change in the communities they benefit. For more information on how we select our partners, and who we work with, click here.


BUILDING WELLS


The local community is engaged in the well building process, carrying out small tasks for free to reduce labor costs. This also encourages community participation and ensures community ownership after the project is complete. When the well is built, a water committee is formed. It generally consists of 6-8 people, half of them female. In the case of hospitals, the committee will generally consist of nurses and hospital staff. In schools, the committee would likely be comprised of teachers. Since charity: was founded and began activity in August 2006, we have funded the construction of more than 1,247 wells that, when completed, will provide clean drinking water to 650,000 people. We're just getting started.

YOU CAN HELP


OUR PLANET IS 70% WATER.97.5% OF THAT IS SALTWATER.
THIS MEANS ONLY 2.5% IS AVAILABLE FOR THE 6 BILLION PEOPLE ON THE PLANET TODAY.

Friday 13 February 2009

Baby-faced boy Alfie Patten is father at 13

According to his father, Alfie Patten is just your average 13 year old boy who enjoys computer games, boxing and Manchester United. At his age the last thing he anticipated experiencing was fatherhood, but that's exactly what he's dealing with.

His 15 year old girlfriend Chantelle gave birth four days ago to a baby girl, Maisie. The infant was a result of one night of unprotected sex, that happened while Alfie, who is a mere 4 ft tall, was only 12 years old. The teenager became suspicious of stomach pains and paid a visit to her doctor, who suggested she take a pregnancy test. Upon receiving a positive result, Chantelle's initial reaction was something along the lines of "my parents are going to kill me."
Though both teenagers seem to be optimistic about their abilities as parents, both are obviously clueless as to the responsibility of a tiny baby. When asked what he would do financially, Alfie responded, "What's financially?"

He continues, "“I didn’t think about how we would afford it. I don’t really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me £10.....I didn’t know what it would be like to be a dad. I will be good, though, and care for it.”

Read more on... yeah... guess where? Yes. The Sun

Thursday 12 February 2009

Tamba Trio

I've been meaning to write this post about my last trip to Brazil and add some music to it and everything but every time I start listening to some brazilian music in order to choose the one to post, I end up having a little party here and forget to write the stories.

Here's one of the bands that stopped me from telling you all. Tamba Trio, a bossa nova jazzy cool little old band from Brazil :)

Tamba Trio - Avanco

Monday 9 February 2009

Minds like water



What a singular thing it is to have a mind like water. Winter comes and it all gets cold, summer comes and it turns to clouds, four seasons in one day, what a singular thing. This morning it felt like candy floss, with thoughts of you intertwined to it, awkwardly, then it melted into a pink fluffy dough of love, condensing into despair, cut into suspicions to later on be shaped just the way we like: nothingness. And I nearly forgot about the mind itself. So curious a thing. I watched it. How can it be like water? What a weird thing this singular thing sometimes is.

I can’t use the verb to be the same way you do, not because I read Korzybski, but because my mind is like water. I am, now or ever, I was, I will be or won’t, I’m not sure. Is you mind like water? I sometimes think it is, but then a 2 minute spring rain washes this very thought away and I’m back to winter. I’m sorry I forget.

It’s good when two minds like water meet, sometimes each in a different state, mine liquid, yours solid, frozen, and we watch them exchanging heat till they merge, till they swap places, what an irony. Now we know we have minds like water, and that’s mostly because they met, cos water won’t watch itself, won’t turn itself from a stream into the sea fully aware of it, cos it flows and changes, cos it absorbs the world, cos it’s a big job to be water.

Tsunami, it all comes down like a deadly storm, I cry, and then a rainbow with 7.000 shades. I smile. It’s a big job to be water.

It’s hard to have minds like water, but we’re blessed cos we’ll have to be painfully honest, scrutiatingly aware and we’ll go that extra mile in life, towards the sea, always changing, strong and gentle.

Picture by Schrollum

Friday 6 February 2009

Lux Interior dies at 60

By August Brown
9:39 PM PST, February 4, 2009
Lux Interior, the singer, songwriter and founding member of the pioneering New York City horror-punk band the Cramps, died Wednesday. He was 60. Interior, whose real name was Erick Lee Purkhiser, died at Glendale Memorial Hospital of a heart condition, according to a statement from his publicist.

With his wife, guitarist "Poison" Ivy Rorschach, Interior formed the Cramps in 1976, pairing lyrics that expressed their love of B-movie camp with ferocious rockabilly and surf-inspired instrumentation.

The band became a staple of the late '70s Manhattan punk scene emerging from clubs such as Max's Kansas City and CBGB, and was one of the first acts to realize the potential of punk rock as theater and spectacle.

Often dressed in macabre, gender-bending costumes onstage, Interior evoked a lanky, proto-goth Elvis Presley, and his band quickly became notorious for volatile and decadent live performances.

The Cramps recorded early singles at Sun Records with producer Alex Chilton of the band Big Star and had their first critical breakthrough on their debut EP "Gravest Hits."

Read it all on LA Times

Download my favourite Cramps' song: Bikini Girls with Machine Guns

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Mat made of moss stays alive with the help of bath water

A new bathmat made of moss is kept alive by the water that drips from your body as you dry.

The mat contains a total of 70 pieces of ball, island and forest moss measuring 2.4in (6cm) each in diameter.
It feels soft underfoot and does not smell when it gets damp.
Each piece of moss is cut into a foam frame, which prevents the moss from spreading or growing out of control.
Its designer, Nguyen La Chanh, from Switzerland, says the mat is very relaxing and needs little care.
She said: "The idea was to find a new way of having your plants inside.
"Not only plants in pots quietly standing in the corner of a living room but alive plants, evolving in the house.
"I think this mat would appeal people who miss a corner of nature in their appartment - perhaps if they live in an urban environment, far from parks and nature areas.
"It's relaxing, feels lovely and soft under the feet and doesn't need much care."
Miss Nguyen is looking for financial backing so she can mass produce the mat for less than the £220 it cost her to make.

Found on http://www.telegraph.co.uk

They want peace