Category Archives: Culture (books, music, videos, art)
Our Thailand Film
We shot a lot of video with the Go Pro on our little adventure so Max made a short film. It’s really good!
Enjoy!
Posted in Culture (books, music, videos, art), Everyday Living, Thailand
Tagged amphawa, kao yai, kho larn, thailand video
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Happy Chinese New Year! from Poet’s Circle Jewelry
Today is Chinese New Year!
Have a great day everyone!
(video featuring I Am The Queen and Coal Mining from Poet’s Circle Jewelry)
You Have To See This!
This video is beautiful!
Posted in Culture (books, music, videos, art)
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Cover Songs Better Than The Originals
I love when artists make a cover song sound better than the original.
I was a huge fan of Nirvana in high school but don’t really listen to their music much anymore. I really notice how music affects my mood or how I try to match my music to my mood and I am almost never in a grungy mood.
This cover version of Come As You Are by Yuna is beautiful…and positive…and beautiful…and it deserves a view for sure!
Speaking of cover songs being better than the original. Here is a cover of Elton John’s Your Song by Ellie Goulding which is just wonderful!!!
I can truly say I love it more than the original and with that being said, the original is an amazing song already.
Posted in Culture (books, music, videos, art)
Tagged come as you are, cover songs, ellie goulding, elton john, your song, yuna
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Spider vs. Bat, Tiger vs. Rat, Rabbit vs. Dove
Metric is my all-time favourite band! I’ve been religiously following their music since my friend turned on the song “Too Little Too Late” 6 years ago. I fell into the metric trance and was instantly intrigued by the risky, sexy lyrics.
I just found out via twitter that Metric is coming out with their 5th album called Synthetica!! Emily Haines (who I think is one of the most beautiful women ever!) wrote an interesting “letter” about the new album here.
Anyways, enjoy the music videos!
Alex Grey’s Artwork
I have been captivated by the artwork of Alex Grey for the past two years or so. I remember walking into Bryan‘s room one day and seeing an intricate replica of an Alex Grey painting and immediately asking where I could check out more of his work.
His paintings hold something close to my heart and something that I have never, ever seen before. And I will explain in a minute. First, let me give you a little background on who he is according to his biography.
Alex Grey began his artwork at a young age and the works always revolved around the ideas of death and transcendence. He had major mystical experiences growing up that quote “transformed his agnostic existentialism into radical transcendentalism” If you don’t understand what this means, these are types of life philosophies and I’ve linked them to a broader description.
He tripped on LSD with his wife, went to Harvard medical school working in the anatomy department, studied mind/body science and the bodies subtle energy fields, and then became the artist that he is today.
The reason I mentioned his path is so that you can understand where he is coming from in his works and also understand their accuracy.
I have begun studying the body’s energy fields, have been a long time believer in energy and the potential of energy healing, and have received treatments from other energy healers. This is a topic that is near and dear to me and when I walked into Bryan’s room that one day and saw the painting, it was exactly how I pictured the body’s energy when reading about it.
How he depicts the actual physical anatomy of the human body plus what is happening energetically, for example, at person’s death or the birth of a child, is beautiful to me.
Anyways, check it out and tell me what you think!
Here is the link to his website that has all of his works on it plus his biography: Alexgrey.com
Thanks for reading!
Back In The 90′s
A couple of nights ago I was sitting in my bedroom when Max walked in and all of a sudden I busted out in song, “Love me, love, say that you love me. Fool me, fool me, go on and fool me…” That lead me to asking him if he remembered that song from back in the 90′s and he said no. I was flabbergasted! I told him it’s probably because he was too young (I am older than him so I like to play that “you were too young” card sometimes). He said, “Or maybe because I was in Europe.” Then I said, “That’s impossible! I’m sure it was popular allll over the world. It was definitely because you were too young.”
Then I proceeded to search the internet for the song.
Here it is guys! Remember?
I had very similar fashion to that lead singer back in the day. I remember my whole collection (meaning 3) of floor length dresses with spaghetti straps and some funky print with weird colours. The nineties were no good time for fashion.
So after I listened to the song 5 or 6 times, making sure Max was listening the whole time too, I peered over onto the sidebar on YouTube and found this song:
Remember? Doesn’t it bring back memories!!?
I used to have sleepovers every week and watch She’s All That every time. Well, She’s All That and then Lake Placid right afterwards. That’s probably why I have a strange fear of being eaten by an alligator when I am swimming in a lake. It’s scary stuff, people! Anyways, I have seen both movies at least 225 times.
So I asked Max if he remember’s She’s All That. He said no. I was flabbergasted! And then the whole conversation from above happened again and I proceeded to sing him the entire song “Kiss Me” at least 2 times (I know all the lyrics…I surprise myself sometimes!).
And because I love you, I am also leaving you with a scene from She’s All That…the most memorable movie of my pre-teen years! Just in case you didn’t know, this movie is about a how a popular guy makes a bet that he can get anyone to kiss him, so his friends choose the biggest nerd in school and she ends up becoming very beautiful and they fall in love. Classic! And Freddy Prince Jr. was something special back then, remember? What ever happened to him?
Happy Monday everyone!
Thanks for reading!
Posted in Culture (books, music, videos, art)
Tagged music from the 90's, she's all that
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Wake Up Everyone!!
Yesterday morning, Mr. Max woke me up with this video. It did the trick (at noon!) and it’s hilarious!!
So everyone! Wake up! It’s Monday! Yay!
Posted in Culture (books, music, videos, art), Everyday Living
Tagged Monday morning
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It’s Monday…and boy do I have alot of awesome things to share with you!
I just came back from a chronic case of blogger’s block which I had been in all weekend, worrying about what I would write today, completely blank. That changed this morning when I realized I had a full weekend and have much to talk about what I did. So here goes!
Learning was the theme this weekend. After a huge party on Friday night, I wanted nothing more than to spend the whole weekend at home, relaxing…and relaxing to me includes reading, listening to audio books and researching the latest natural health news on Mercola.com
I received a Sony Reader in the mail from my dad for Christmas and now I officially have access to any book imaginable at my fingertips. In English!! Woohoo!
I gave one of my last English lessons to my wonderful students. I am super sad that these lessons will come to an end soon but I know, from the bottom of my heart that they received a ton of value from me, and that my friends, is what’s important. And that last sentence had a lot of commas in it.
I read the entire The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Herbal Remedies and it was amazing! I couldn’t put it down. The best herbal remedy for PMS? Try taking wild yam, Vitamin B complex, or try reflexology for the symptoms. And I love this series of books because you really do get the full perspective on any given topic…its a great way to introduce yourself to anything!
Then I read the first 4 chapters of Sex On The Moon by Ben Mezrich…I couldn’t get into it even though it’s a best seller and so I put it down.
I read half of The Help and it was such an amazing story that I had to download the movie and watch it before I could finish reading the book. I will finish the book because there are always other details put into books that their movie counterparts don’t include. (pic source)
I watched The Help and it was amazing. If you haven’t seen it then I don’t know what you are waiting for because its amazing!!
Here is the trailer:
I also listened to two audiobooks from Deepak Chopra: Quantum Healing and The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire both of which focus on the power of understanding Quantum Physics and using these laws to your advantage. Deepak Chopra is an Ayurvedic doctor so Quantum Healing focuses a lot on the mind/body principle and ayurvedic practices in healing, while the other book is more about the understanding of how energy works. Very interesting, if you are into this kind of stuff…it’s where the world is heading folks, so if you have yet to hop on this bandwagon than you better do it soon! (pic source)
I made my perfect pancakes on both Saturday AND Sunday!!
I watched these videos:
This one is inspiring…(I found the link via Olivine’s Charm School)
And this one is rather funny…
And to top this all off, I went for a wonderful bike ride with my love on Sunday morning!
What did you do this weekend?
Thanks for reading and here is to a wonderful week ahead!
Posted in Culture (books, music, videos, art), Everyday Living
Tagged deepak chopra, natural healing, sony reader, the help
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Its Book Review Day!! Last Up: The Life Guide to Digital Photography
Sheesh, this reviewing thing is tiresome on my brain.
The last book I am reviewing today is The Life Guide to Digital Photography -”Everything you need to know to shoot like the pros”
It is true, it really is all you need to know.
I bought this book, or rather it was a gift from my aunt for my trip, after browsing the shelves in the photography section of the book store for at least 45 minutes. I looked at every book! Seriously. I went through them. I would not settle for less than a book that covered all of the basics and this one was the best of the bunch.
You know Life magazine, right? This magazine always has extremely top of the line photos within its pages. Well Life asked two of its photographers to write a guide on digital photography and hence we have this book.
The book covers the essential topics of photography: Light, Lenses, Design Elements, Colour and Composition with a nifty “tips” section at the end.
The information builds within each topic; beginning first, for example, with what light is, then how the camera captures, then what kind of light there is, etc. And within all these pages are practical exercises for the photographer to practice. I am now using my camera in manual mode because of on of these very exercises.
Let me show you inside!
Part One: Light
Did I mention that this book also has spectacular photos within its pages?
The grey ares of the book are the areas that give practical advise and exercises rather than just theoretical photography (which is important and interesting to know as well. Thankfully, this book covers both!).
Anyways, I really had to pass on the Dummies guides for the first time in my life. I love Dummies guides but in this topic, the book surpassed that guide by far. Sorry Dummies, I really do love you.
I wanted something without post-editing (like Photoshop) information because I want to take great photos without always relying on Photoshop. If this bothers you, the Dummies guide may be more appropriate. Hey, I figure if I wanted to know how to edit photos on Photoshop, I would get a book about that but to me Photography and Photoshop are separate arts within themselves.
For practical reasons: This book is written by Joe McNally (an award-winning Life magazine photographer) with a foreward by John Loengard.
Read it though. Read it part by part. Just use it as a reference. Just look at the pretty pictures. The choices are plentiful, just own it! It’s great!
The End.
