early Spring, April 4th 2017

A breathtakingly beautiful work of art, a labor of love, literally. 
Wait for it. 


Divers have been mystified by the crop circles that appeared on the ocean floor. Intricate, geometric, circular sculptures of sand on the sea bed. 

Japanese scientists, Hiroshi Kawase, Yoji Okata & Kimiaki Ito, discovered, finally, what they were. The lowly pufferfish creates these marvelous works of art, a kind of mandala of love, making just the right place for their fertilized eggs.

My MetaFilter post on this topic. Love the comments, especially this one:

my name is puf
and wen its nite
or wen the water
feels just rite
i make a pattern
so complex
the lady fish
wil give me sex
posted by drlith at 8:38 PM on March 29

The creations of the pufferfish are primordial in their beauty. They remind me of rose windows of stained glass and stone, of the crystalline structure of snowflakes and the geometry of mandalas. 















                    Love these collages by Karen Gallup

Tetsuya Noguchi's artworks making gentle fun of samurai

The artist,Tetsuya Noguchi, and one of his creations

Mind blowing Chinese money counting skills. She can even tell counterfeit bills, blindfolded. Twinkly smile too.

Also love this Chinese money counting skills video. Wow, what dexterity! 


A marvelous documentary about seeing and perception. 
Ways of Seeing. Ways of Seeing is a 1972 television series of 30-minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb. It was broadcast on BBC Two in January 1972 and adapted into a book of the same name.


Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Marvin Gaye in Ostend, Belgium and other things

There are certain songs one remembers the moment one heard. In 1973, lying in the bath in London, I heard Walk On the Wild Side by Lou Reed on my boyfriend's pea green transistor radio. Indelible moment. The same goes for Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing, which I heard in 1983 on a fashion designer's mixtape in New Delhi, while working on a clothing collection. Boom, it got me me right in the hormones. What a song! Still thrills me, decades later. 

Sexual Healing


Marvin Gaye's singing has been a part of my life since my teens with his marvelous Heard It Through the Grapevine.

A couple of months ago I learned a little about Marvin Gaye's really hard life. Read a bit of his biography online. What suffering he went through! 

At the lowest point in his life until then, he took an unlikely refuge in a small seaside town on the Belgian Coast, called Ostend. 

"By the early 80s, like soul itself, Marvin Gaye had fractured into a million pieces. He was washed up, drugged out, underselling, overweight, mid-divorce and promoting an album Motown hadn’t even bothered to let him finish. Belgian concert promoter Freddy Cousaert met Gaye in London, a bloated wreck, and took it upon himself to improve the lot of the fallen star. Gaye would later say he “didn’t even know where Belgium was”, but that he “left it to the hand of God”. The hand of God, it seems, fancied a waffle. Gaye boarded the Southampton Ferry in the spring of 1981 with his son Frankie, heading to the sleepy fishing town of Ostend to be guests of Cousaert, staying in his house, and joining his family."

Richard Olivier's Marvin Gaye: Transit Ostend, a documentary made of Gaye's time there shows him soberly revelling in the incongruity of his surroundings, staring out over the grey waters as if they were an aquatic mirror of his melancholy, strolling along the King Albert I promenade where he took an apartment, singing the Lord's Prayer inside a church, even visiting a fisherman's bar (long since torn down) and attempting to play darts with the locals. Gaye talked of Ostend in terms of a retreat, a penance - two years earlier, he had attempted suicide by cocaine overdose in Hawaii. In Ostend, however, he professed to be living a cleaner, even monastic life, purging his past sins with plenty of jogging, sea air and even forsaking sex.

Remember Marvin from Daniel Elbel on Vimeo.

Barely 18 months after quitting Ostend, Gaye, stricken by cocaine-induced paranoia, tormented by the push and pull between his good faith and bad habits, was shot dead by his bible-bashing father, in a probable act of subconscious suicide. Although it's assumed he always intended to return to the fatal dazzle of LA, the truth is, he was in two minds - just weeks before leaving, he bought a 21-room manor outside the city. Ostend could have been his salvation.

Magical Rings With Secret Compartments Inspired By Famous Novels by the lord of the rings, Theo Fennell

Every couple of months I need to see this video of the Georgian National Ballet rehearsal. The troupe is called Sukhishvilli. 

It's one of the most exciting dance performances I've seen, ever. 

A FaceBook video of some marvelous mechanical kites, made by a Chinese artisan, Zhang. A KickStarter video about the same man, whose kites are not just charming but marvelous works of art and ingenuity.

Ooh, such an intriguing title, The Flight of the Shadow. 

A few lovely book covers.

An animated chart of 42 North American butterflies

Selene by Albert Aublet

 (French, 1851–1938)

An addictively fun game, Line Square Dot. Try to get the dot into the box by making the dot bounce off lines

A selection of street foods around the world

Street food

peeling a pineapple clean and easy


Indian fast chapati maker


The king of cotton candy. Dancing and working at the same time.  His name is David Shtorm. Can't get enough of this fun street food/art performer


Traditional Korean Candy Cutter


naan thrower in Tamil Nadu


Best Food Carts in New York City


Korean honey strings


Amazing Indian Chef


Turkish ice cream vendor trickster


Instant Ice Cream Rolls By Street Vendor In Phuket Thailand


Chinese Sugar painting, Dragon


Paris Street Food - French Crepe


Thai Street Vendor Crab Fried Rice, "Khao Pad Bu"


Indian dosa king


Japanese baby cakes. Hikawa Shrine baby sponge cake Mishima-ya craftsmanship

Great mango cutting style


Hualian Taiwan Food making


Indian man cuts onion faster than a blender


The Amazing Street Food of India


Thai Street Food: Extreme Chai Yen


Jianbing (烙饼) - China Eats series 2009


Chai in Calcutta: Street Food Kolkata: Part 1


Ice cream making in India


Thai Street Food - Chiang Mai Night Market,Thailand


Palermo: streetfood


Street Food Thrives in Marrakech


The Halal Guys ♥ NYC Street Food ♥ Review Lamb & Chicken Platter


The Original Soupman Demo Video (The Soup Nazi guy, Al Yaganeh in NYC)


Insider Trick: How To Open A Coconut Professionally,  Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia


Street Food, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) 


Street Food Around The World - Amsterdam


Tamales In Oaxaca Mexico


Yummy street tacos in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico


Lobster roll, Maine

AN ULTIMATE GUIDE TO EUROPEAN STREET FOOD

JIANBING: A GUIDE TO CHINA’S FAVORITE STREET FOOD

Tuesday July 10th 2012

Photo credit:  

atlanticwire.com

Sunbathers in Qingdao, China's north-eastern Shandong province, who do not want their faces to become dark wear these protective masks.

Photo credit:  atlanticwire.com

More pics here on the Wall Street Journal

It's SUMMER TIME!!! Whoo hoo!

Water Time - Compilation - Zapatou

From IDV User Experience

Animated Tornado Tracks over 61 years Tornado Tracks by Year, 1950 -"Pro tip: check out 1974 and 2011"

Also there

Love this artist's work, Myeombeom Kim. Apparently her work is influenced by this concept: Hylozoism is the philosophical point of view that all matter (including the universe as a whole) is in some sense alive.

Something I learned about this week, Sahel Dynamics. What is the Sahel?

The Sahel is the semi-arid transition region between the Sahara desert to the north and wetter regions of equatorial Africa to the south. It extends from the Atlantic in the west to the Indian ocean in the east. It has high variability of rainfall, and the land consists of stabilized ancient sand seas. It is one of the poorest and most environmentally degraded areas on earth.