pretty urban landscapes

concrete pipes in surat, india

with coloured filters stuck on one end...

very pretty

canal in japan, via hello sandwich

and street tiles too

soothing the soul

some art to see

acca

Annika von Hausswolff
Hey Buster! What do you know about desire?
1993
Colour photograph
Courtesy of the artist and Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Mortality
8 October – 28 November 2010
Some of the world’s leading artists explore life’s journey from the moment of lift-off to the final send-off and all the bits in-between in this new group exhibition, part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival.
Exhibiting artists: Charles Anderson, George Armfield, Melanie Boreham, Bureau of Inverse Technology, Aleks Danko, Tacita Dean, Gabrielle De Vietri, Sue Ford, Garry Hill, Larry Jenkins, Peter Kennedy, Anastasia Klose, Arthur Lindsay, Dora Meeson, Anna Molska, TV Moore, Tony Oursler, Neil Pardington, Giulio Paolini, Mark Richards, David Rosetzky, Anri Sala, James Shaw, Louise Short, William Strutt, Darren Sylvester, Fiona Tan, Bill Viola, Annika von Hausswolff, Mark Wallinger, Lynette Wallworth, Gillian Wearing.
Plan your visit
MORTALITY includes several durational works. In particular you may wish to plan your visit to coincide with the screening times of Tacita Dean’s Presentation Sisters and Bill Viola’s The Passing.
Both films run for approximately an hour on the hour.

centre for contemporary photography

15.10.2010—12.12.2010

Gallery 1

TARYN SIMON

AN AMERICAN INDEX OF THE HIDDEN AND UNFAMILIAR

Inspired by rumours of WMDs and secret sites in Iraq, Taryn Simon decided to address secret sites in her own country, photographing hidden places and things within America's borders. Ranging across the realms of science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security and religion, her subjects include glowing radioactive capsules, a braille edition of Playboy, a death-row prisoners' exercise yard, an inbred tiger, a teenage corpse rotting in a forensic research facility, and a Scientology screening room. An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar explores a dialectic of security and paranoia that is distinctly American. Offering a heart-of-darkness tour of Bush-period America, it also reflects on photography's role in revealing and concealing.

i can see a rainbow

they may or may not be useful
some blogs about simplifying life, and being a bit happy and perhaps even zen

the simpler life

eg 5 Ways to Dominate Your Laziness Today

Get started on something, anything: Motivation seems to be an incredibly inertial beast. It’s hard as hell to get moving, but once you get that sucker moving, look out! If you find yourself being incredibly lazy, try finishing the easiest of easy tasks first. Then, tackle something only marginally more difficult. Then, a little bit more difficult. Before you know it, you’ve eased into your primary project and you have the momentum at your back.

Change your environment: My body is an idiot.

Try as I might to convince it that it’s ok to do work at the desk in my apartment, it’s convinced that this desk is only for doing fun things. It’s nigh impossible to be productive in the same space where I go to relax. So, when I have serious work to do, I have to take my idiot body to the library or a coffee shop. The change of surroundings is what it needs to be convinced to actually get to work. Maybe your body isn’t as idiotic as mine, but it’s a useful tip to try.

Look back at past accomplishments: Even the laziest of people have bursts of inspiration. Look back on things you’ve accomplished in the past as proof that this laziness can be conquered. Sometimes, when I feel particularly lazy I will read through my old blog posts. Every once in awhile I’m moderately impressed by what I’ve written. Present-Me doesn’t like feeling more lazy than Past-Me and the next thing I know the laziness has lifted.

Read, watch, or listen to something inspirational or motivational: When I am in the depths of laziness, it’s easy to feel like everybody is this lazy too. It doesn’t make sense, I know. To help me snap out of it, I like to read about inspirational people. Reading about Teddy Roosevelt usually helps. Or, an even quicker fix is to go to TED.com and watch a couple of the videos tagged as “inspirational.” Guaranteed pick-me-up. Organize and plan: A lot of the time, laziness stems from being unclear about what to do. When it’s not clear, it’s easy to just mope about and do nothing. Spending some time reviewing my projects, figuring out what I have to do to move them forward, and updating my next action lists is usually enough to get me inspired to work on them. I try to only commit to projects I’m excited about so spending some time thinking and planning helps remind me why I was excited about it in the first place.

zen habits

eg The One Deadly Sin of Changing Habits

Just start. Not feeling like doing the habit today? Tell yourself all you have to do is take the 1st step. Usually the 2nd step will follow, but if not, at the very least you got started. And that’s what matters most.

Do it, no matter how small. Need to exercise but don’t have much energy? Do it for a few minutes at least. Need to meditate? Three minutes will do.

Do it, no matter how badly. Want to form the habit of blogging? Write a quick and dirty post that takes five minutes of writing, no proof reading or formatting. Quality doesn’t matter when you’re forming habits — doing it matters.

If you fail, don’t beat yourself up – do it the next day. Let’s be clear: missing one day won’t kill your habit. Feeling discouraged about missing one day, and then missing the next and the next, is what will kill the habit. So let go of the guilt and just get back on your horse. Start again, immediately.

If you don’t do it the next day, do it the day after. If you miss two days, don’t let yourself miss a third.

Figure out what’s stopping you. If you find yourself struggling and missing a day or two, think about why. What’s getting in the way? How can you adjust for that?

Plan ahead. Life gets in the way, but if you know something’s coming up, think ahead and be sure to get your habit in.

Engineer success. Knock down the barriers and set it up so it’s harder to fail than to actually do the habit. Public accountability is a good way to do that.

5 Essential Zen Habits for Balanced Living

Awareness and mindfulness. Awareness is the key to balanced living because it lets you see every moment of your life and appreciate it. A mindful person lives in the present and does not get obsessed with the future or the past. It’s important to plan for the future and learn from your mistakes in the past, but it is even more important to appreciate who you are right now and find joy in this state.

When you are aware of this moment you are calm and you do not make any decisions that you might regret later.

When you are mindful you are in balance with the universe.

Appreciation of your body. By “appreciation” I mean taking care of your body. If you are grateful for the very first gift that you received in your life (your body) then you must take care of it. It means making healthy choices in life, exercising and being generally active, eating a balanced and healthy diet, letting your body rest when it’s tired and pampering it every once in a while.

Your body is the tool that lets you experience so many wonderful moments in life and you need to do your best when taking care of it.

Clearly, balanced living is not possible without a balanced body.

Creativity. Every day we face a lot of challenges and choices in life. Some of these challenges might be easy while others will be more difficult. If you approach each of your challenges with creativity then your life will be filled with adventures. Conversely, if you turn off your creativity, then your life will turn into torture.

Creativity is a wonderful tool that lets us turn our dreams into reality, turn play into work and work into play, and enjoy life even when it seems empty.

Creative people are the ones who can make the exquisite setting for the diamond of their life.

Patience. With patience we can overcome almost anything whilst without it we can ruin almost anything.

Patience can help us turn our dreams into reality (losing weight, starting a business or blog). It can help us be better parents, spouses, friends and even strangers (sometimes a smile from an understanding stranger can make the biggest difference when you are having a bad day). If you are patient you do not have to worry about the minutes spent in traffic or in the line at the grocery store. With patience you can see results in all your endeavors and you do not have to spend the precious time of your life getting mad or infuriated.

Patience leads to mindfulness and mindfulness brings you in balance.

Simplicity. Simplicity is probably the most important part of life balance. When you build your life around simplicity you reduce the number of out-of-balance things that can disrupt your happy living.

In balance everything is simple. There are two opposites (like black and white) and you just have to pick something in the middle:

Simplify you work schedule so that you do not have to think about a hundred things at the same time.

Simplify your relationships by

connecting with people you truly care about and getting rid of the ones you don’t.

Simplify your diet by choosing simple healthy ingredients that are part of balanced nutrition.

Simplify your social media exposure and enjoy living life and getting things done rather than wasting time online.

43 folders

getting unstuck

Hack your way out of writer’s block - “Literally. Put five completley random words on a piece of paper. Write five more words. Try a sentence. Could be about anything. A block ends when you start making words on a page.”

Solve problems by writing a note to yourself - “Seriously, open up your email program, type in your own email address, then choose a brilliant subject line that perfectly encapsulates your particular problem.”

Do a fast “mind-sweep” - “And as long as you let that stuff accumulate as chunky deposits on the edges of your perception, it’s very unlikely it’ll get done since — well — they won’t get done until they’re been captured and properly started, right?”

Cringe-Busting your TODO list - “Per cringe item, think honestly about why you’re freaked out about it. Seriously. What’s the hang-up? (Fear of failure? Dreading bad news? Angry you’re already way overdue?)”

Patching your personal suck - “Every patch that fails teaches you a little something that might come in handy some day. Mistakes, as they say, can be a buddhist gift.”

michael beirut's used notebooks

The notebooks function like a security blanket for me. I can’t go into a meeting unless I have my current notebook in my hand, even if I never open it. Because I carry one everywhere, I tend to misplace them a lot. Losing one makes me frantic.

It’s a fascinating mini-memoir, told through almost three decades of lines in a go-to capture tool. To me, this is much more about habits, cognition, and memory than paper and cardboard.

Like most designers, I get asked a lot about my process. A lot of my ideas are so simple and dumb that a simple dumb drawing is all it takes to describe it. I probably did the drawing for the cover of Tibor Kalman’s monograph in a meeting. Picture on the front, stacked type on the spine: what if we did something like this? That’s how it came out. If a process is supposed to have steps, to reflect a method, that isn’t much of a process.

I disagree. Any process that stops feeling like a process has become an ideal process.

illuminated mind

give up

Give up trying to be cool.

Give up your golden handcuffs.

Give up wanting to be a famous musician, artist, architect, thinker, writer, whatever-it-is. Maybe it’s smarter to make your purpose to have an impact, instead.

Give up wanting to be different for the sake of being unique.

Give up trying to be perfect.

Give up keeping relationships with people you don’t really like.

Give up trying to be the center of attention.

Give up trying to be important. (Focusing on community is usually more fulfilling.)

Give up achieving a lot of ego-driven goals.

Give up trying to be super-focused. Sometimes the most compelling ideas come from the most messy, unexpected sources.

Give up trying to be indie.

Give up trying to popular.

Give up caring about owning a lot of cool things, which keep you distracted from acknowledging that you don’t like what you’re doing with your life.

Give up trying to have a perfectly organized workspace and a zero inbox.

With that said, there are a lot of ways we think we’re doing good, but we’re really not.

Counter-intuitive to what you think, it might make more sense to…

Give up trying to be super happy all the time. Instead, settle for being peaceful.

Give up needing a reason to share your love. Being alive is reason enough.

Give up trying to be everything to everyone.

Give up trying to fit the mold of your race, astrological sign, job title, religious group, political party or other erroneous associations.

Give up caring about being the smartest, best and fastest. At least don’t let your ego get caught up in it.

Give up caring about “being a man” or “being a woman.” Or doing what is expected of your gender.

Give up sacrificing your life for an expensive degree that makes you feel important.

Give up trying to be ultra productive, especially if productivity is making you miserable.

Give up caring about having a respectable job, a respectable resume, and a respectable life. Replace following a template, with freestyling life.

Give up trying to constantly improve yourself. Sometimes too much self improvement can cause you to lose sight of the present.

Give up caring about doing what works.

Give up thinking you don’t have the time or skills to make your dreams a reality.

Give up caring about knowing everything in advance before you take action. Put yourself on auto-response instead.

Give up trying to always find interesting experiences and interesting things to do. Alternatively, be interesting and be interested.

Give up trying to live up to the expectation of your parents, your friends, your boss, and peers.

Give up trying to live up to the expectation of… yourself.

Give up trying to have a flawless body, perfect face, or an impeccable wardrobe. Care more about beautifying your mind and being a person who takes beautiful actions.

Trying to make things happen all the time creates a lot of unnecessary anxiety. It’s stressful trying to deny what is.

When I give up, I accept life as it is. No strings attached. No wishing things were different. If an action needs to be taken, I take it. But I’ve given up letting my happiness be dependent on a thing.

Most of these problems only exist within our minds. They’re not real physical problems; they’re simply psychic, imagined obstacles.

It’s interesting how we seem to have so many problems, so many dilemmas. But most of the time the answer to solving them is doing nothing. Giving up.

self-help, and letting go

freycinet peninsula

virgin blue has cheap flights to tassie around australia day
we might go to freycinet after the tennis (p's dad is coming down)

maybe p&i can go down earlier and hang out



accommodation in coles bay nearby, well seymour
We have the beach directly in front of the cabin, so any beach activity you can think of is right at your fingertips.
Wildlife abounds!!! Particulary birdlife: Penguins walk past the cabin on the way home to their nests. Sea eagles fish off the rocks and nest nearby. Shearwaters return here every year (the only time they ever come on land) to breed during September to August. Grass parrots, wrens, wattlebirds and other honeyeaters are common. Whales and their calves often come into the bay to rest up on their migation either north or south. Seals and dolphins also follow the natural curve of the beach on their fishing expeditions. We have a large population of Paddymelons and Bennett's wallabies, wombats and bandicoots...
We are half way between Bay of Fires and Freycinet Pennisula and Wineglass Bay.
We are also halfway between Launceston and Hobart in terms of travelling time, being approximately 2 hours from both.




in bicheno, again between freycinet peninsula and bay of fires - currently available early february...

Tidelines of Bicheno,
an apartment and separate studio accommodation

Sandpiper Ocean Cottages

or this "artists' haven", Eclipse, in dolphin sands
The top floor of Eclipse is open plan, with a mezzanine platform for sleeping, which makes for great star gazing.
Downstairs there is another bedroom opening onto the bathroom.
"Eclipse" is nestled just behind the primary sand dune, which makes it nicely sheltered downstairs, while from the top floor you can enjoy the spectacular view across Oyster Bay to Freycinet, from the house, or the top floor verandah.
Eclipse is approximately About 2.5 hours from Either Launceston or Hobart 19km from Swansea (Max 20 min drive) 50km from Bicheno 50km to Coles Bay

Other peoples food blogs

The Ethicurian
sustainable responsible eating


Everybody likes sandwiches - recipe index



Asti's recipe card blog

food

http://www.asm.org.au/lifestyle/recipes/#salads

in search of nothingness

clear my mind
embrace the emptiness

gokula are running meditation classes for free on monday 8, 15 november
Two-Part Discover Meditation Course (Monday Evening)
No charge - please contact us to book your place.
November
Part 1- Monday 8th.. 6.30-8.00pm
Part 2- Monday 15th..6.30-8.00pm

440 Smith St (Entrance on Mater St), Collingwood VIC 3066Phone 03 9415 9651

gokula have hatha yoga classes $10 on tuesdays...
wikipedia says (among other things) that

The signs of success in hatha yoga are slenderness of the body, cheerful face, hearing mystical sound, bright eyes, sense of well-being, control over the bindu, increase in gastric fire and purification of the nadis.

now how could any of that be bad?

meditative creative spaces

paul barbera takes photos of people's studios - in a series called "where they create"
good images, good meditative creative spaces

Mama Kanoa ( CURACAO / SOUTH AMERICA 13.5.2010 )
She makes painting of her dreams, not for sale not really for show, she just paints and makes.. This was the local surf beach in the north of the island,

ruangsak anuwatwimon, bangkok

apps-olutely

via inhabitat: 5 most useful apps for artists and designers
including

What the font free

Brushes
Brushes has a simple yet powerful UI (unlike SketchBook Pro), and is often considered the best app for digital painting. This app's toolbar is located at the bottom of the screen and includes a color picker, eye dropper tool, paint bucket, brushes, brush properties and an eraser. On the bottom right of the screen, users can redo or undo any action and have direct access to all of their layers. Because this app was developed specificly for painters, the advanced and accurate brush features and capabilities are impressive but not surprising. It is awesome.
$4.99 at iTunes

Palettes make it easy for anybody to create a color palette anywhere at anytime. You can grab colors from a photograph, website, or any one of 5 color models offered. And if you are really serious about color, definitely consider paying the extra dough for the Pro version.
One of the best features of the pro version is that it allows you to Import and Export palettes to and from Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks, GIMP, Paintshop Pro and OS X Color Chooser. This app is a must have for graphic and web designers.
$5.99 at iTunes

Rulers 2
We all know the importance of accuracy, and so does Rulers 2, which has given us the tools to be accurate and on point everywhere we go. Available for your iPhone and your iPad, this app will turn your mobile device into a handy measuring tool. Rulers 2 features a pointer with a digital readout, so all you have to do is line up the device with what you are measuring, and poof! a precise measurement is at your finger tips. Literally.
The added beauty of this app is that you actually get a pointer with a digital readout. This means that all you have to do is line up the device with whatever you are trying to measure and you will get the precise measurement instantly. This measurement will be displayed in inches--complete with fractions--or in centimetres with decimals, depending on which option you choose.
$0.99 at iTunes