21, 000 people dancing on Michigan Avenue in supposedly one of the world’s largest flash mob. I got a feeling that the world could do amazing things if we got to together. I got a feeling…the song is getting stuck in your head whether you like it or not.
Via National Geographic: Most people think that once a plastic bottle has found its way into the ocean that it will remain there for the rest of its indestructible life. According to National Geographic, some plastics decompose rapidly in the ocean. And this isn’t a good thing. Degrading plastics are leaking toxic chemicals such as Bisphenol A, a chemical building block of plastics, into the ocean. Apparently this decomposition of plastics is occurring at cooler temperatures than expected and within a year of the rubbish hitting the water. A Japan-based team collecting samples in US, Europe and Indian waters discovered some astounding results. The water samples contained derivatives of polystyrene, a common plastic used in disposable cutlery, Styrofoam, and DVD cases. This plastic soup is just another thing our marine animals and plants have to fight. How can we prevent this? Stop using plastic water bottles and bags. You’ve heard this before, but with the state of the world’s oceans, it doesn’t hurt for you to hear it again. For the full article, visit National Geographic.
Bloggers are definitely in fashion, if the image above from the Dolce and Gabbana Spring/Summer 2010 fashion show held in Milan is anything to go by. No longer are the highly-coveted front row positions reserved for magazine editors and celebrities, bloggers are infiltrating the ranks and designers are even providing laptops for live reporting! The image above shows Bryan Boy of Bryanboy and Tommy Ton of Jac and Jil making a sandwich of Vogue’s Sally Singer, Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles.
This amazing short clip was made by Blu and David Ellis.
If you have ever fantasised about a world where chocolate was the primary ingredient for breakfast, lunch and dinner, then you will be thrilled to know that in September, we are one step closer to that dream! 31 Days of Chocolate is on right now, and there are only 5 days left to take advantage of arguably Brisbane’s greatest festival. Hosted at the Sebel & Citigate King George Square, each day will have a chocolate buffet available for lunch and dinner. If Mango White Chocolate Mousse, Double Caramel Chocolate Tarts, or Choc Chip Banana Slice is something you would prefer for lunch over a toasted sandwich or sushi, then you better hurry before it’s gone for another year!
How fun would it be turn part of your home into a store, especially if it’s as cute as nook? Fans of independent, vintage and hand-crafted items should check out nook, the latest and loveliest little store to open in West End, Brisbane. Filled with accessories, homewares, clothing, crafts and other knick-knacks, nook is great for those who love eco-friendly and one-of-a-kind finds. Head down to West End this weekend, grab a coffee and visit nook at 19 Browning Street. Image via nook.
It’s been six years, but Brisbane duo Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke, better known as fashion cool-kid sass & bide, have made their return to London Fashion Week in spectacular style. Embellishment was the look du jour with much of the collection revolving around heavily studded, sequined and beaded dresses, leggings and tunics. Bad news for those wishing for an end to the unforgiving harem pant, they will be back over the summer, this time in a shorter, looser style. The Spring/Summer 2010 collection has been well received, even touted as their “best”, an amazing result for the girls flying the flag for Australian style.
With a good job, great prospects, steady married life and a daughter she loved dearly, Joan Didion’s entire world was perfectly ordinary. In one terrible year, things went horribly wrong and Joan’s world turned unimaginable with the onset of her daughter’s life-threatening disease and the sudden death of her husband. How she coped with the trauma is central to the heart of this candid and compassionate play. Directed by Cate Blanchett and costumes by Giorgio Armani, The Year of Magical Thinking will be a tribute to Joan Didion’s best-selling memoir and stars Robyn Nevin.
Can you believe this photo is from 1909? It was taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, a chemist, photographer and one of the first to pioneer colour photography. The image was part of Prokudin-Gorskii’s ambitious project to document the Russian Empire circa 1907 and 1915. Travelling around in a specially fitted darkroom railroad car, Prokudin-Gorskii documented the history and culture of the empire using his own method of colour photography. He took three consecutive photographs of his subjects with three separate filters – red, blue and green. The filters were then layered on top of each other and projected into full colour. The results are vivid, eerie and captivating. Using digital processing, the Library of Congress restored the images and is exhibiting the collection online. Image via the Library of Congress.
Dallas Clayton, author of An Awesome Book! has taken his crusade to help the world chase its dreams in life a little bit further. He has now created Awesome World Foundation, which, for every book sold, gives one away to a young person to encourage them to pursue their dreams. The foundation was formed to try and promote children’s literacy and encourages kids to dream of magic watermelon boats, and musical baboons, or teeny tiny trumpet players training pet racoons. Yet there are places in the world where people dream up dreams, so simply un-fantastical and practical they seem – to lose all possibility of thinking super things, of dancing wild animals with wild-coated wings. For anyone who hasn’t yet had the pleasure of reading An Awesome Book!, it’s well worth it, and now there’s an added incentive …
There are more slaves in the world today than ever before. This figure continues to grow with the 2.2 million children sold into slavery every year. Documentary film Call + Response ventures where no cameras have gone to uncover the slavery and sex trade booming in the brothels in Cambodia, the slave brick kilns of rural India and the streets of Bangkok. This movie shockingly reveals that, in 2007, the world’s slave traders made more money than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined. Various celebrities and music-industry figures have supported the documentary, including Cornel West, Daryl Hannah, Ashley Judd and Nicholas Kristof, to reveal this shocking truth via music. As the documentary points out, music is part of the solution. Just as the slaves in North America once did, Dr Cornel West connects slave music to the popular music we listen to today to create a rallying cry and end to slavery across all continents. Call + Response opens nationally October 22.
Romantic escapes usually conjure up images of intimate bungalows set on secluded beaches. In the heart of Cappadocia, Turkey, there is a different type of space for travellers looking for some privacy and it’s been inhabited for more than 5000 years. The Gamirasu cave hotel is located in a restored thousand-year-old Byzantine monastic retreat and offers modern conveniences without taking away from the spiritual feeling of the area. Each room is decorated fittingly with Turkish rugs and furniture that fit neatly into a real cave that has walkways and windows carved out of it. This Turkish hotel certainly brings another dimension to the idea of a romantic escape and boutique hotel accommodation.
When you’re touted as one of the best chefs in the world, you can do almost anything you want. Ferran Adria of elBulli wants to open up a pizza restaurant in Italy (which isn’t going down too well with the Italians), and he’s just released a beer that wants to be wine. The beer – Estrella Damm’s Inedit – has a unique bouquet of barley, malt and wheat with hop, coriander, orange peel, liquorice, yeast and water. Cloudy, fruity, creamy and delicate, Inedit should be kept on ice and drunk out of a wine glass. The beer can be paired with most foods and goes particularly well with oily fish, vinegar-based sauces, salads and citrus flavours. Inedit is yet another example of how Ferran continues to challenge our perceptions of food and flavours. But he’s not the first to make a beer that resembles wine.
In this day and age, where businesses are realising their need to do justice to the environment in which they operate, it’s activists like Paul Hawken that you want at a boardroom meeting. Environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and best-selling author, Paul Hawken moved to Boston at age 20 (he is now 63) to study macrobiotic philosophy. This sparked his dream to dedicate his life to changing the relationship between business and the environment, and between humans and living systems. Paul’s work includes starting and running ecological businesses and writing and teaching about the effect of trade on the environment. His latest book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being, and Why No One Saw it Coming profiles the ever-present green movement that largely goes unnoticed by political parties and world organisations. This book is yet another attempt by Paul to illustrate to businesses, politicians and the public to remember the environment when undertaking any venture.
This Friday, September 18, is PARK(ing) Day. It is an international day of action that was started in 2005 by the arts collective Rebar to raise awareness about the lack of parks and green spaces in San Francisco’s downtown. They transformed an on-street car park into a ‘people park’ by temporarily providing turf, seating and shade. It is based on the idea that paying for a parking meter is like ‘renting’ a public space, and that you don’t technically need to put a vehicle there. Since the original PARK, the idea has been creatively adapted by hundreds of people around the world and in over 50 major cities. In 2008, Brisbane was the 3rd largest city worldwide with over 40 PARKs and it’s back and bigger this year. Continue reading ‘park(ing) day 2009′
If you have ever been in love, thought you were in love, or even had someone fall in love with you, then Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Summer is a must-see. Breathing life into the tired romantic-comedy genre, this movie accurately charts the evolution of a relationship between two people, Tom and Summer, with two different views on love. Adding to its charm, the movie doesn’t play in chronological order, allowing you to come to your own conclusions about the characters – who are played by the lovable Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. 500 Days of Summer is a post-modern love story that has a beautiful soundtrack and plenty of soul, and is definitely worth the price of admission.
Scott Schuman, no doubt one of the original street style bloggers, has turned his fashion blog The Sartorialist into book-form. The book, also titled The Sartorialist, is a collection of Schuman’s best and favourite photographs from his blog, which documents his encounters with the style-savvy around the world. While Schuman’s style preference has been poked fun at, his ability to find elegance and cool in everyday people (regardless of age, sex or race) and capture people’s confidence in their own style (no matter how unconventional their look is) is really what sets The Sartorialist apart from the many street style blogs out there. Due for an Australian release in late September, The Sartorialist is sure to be the most eclectic and inspiring book on your coffee table. Schuman was also recently in Australia to shoot a campaign for Saba denim with models hand-picked off the streets of Melbourne by the man himself. Image via The Sartorialist.
Brisbane Festival 2009 proudly presents the world premiere of Miracle in Brisbane, an opera by innovative and much acclaimed Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli. Miracle in Brisbane tells the story of a group of homeless Indigenous people ‘living on country’ who build a shantytown on Brisbane’s outskirts. The discovery of oil under the site leads them to acknowledge ancestral spirits and the life-changing wealth of the land, but people with powerful interests soon start making other plans. An outstanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cast, including Aaron Fa‘Aoso, Deborah Mailman, Djakapurra Munyarrayan and Casey Donovan, brings to life this very Australian story under the direction of one of Australia’s most accomplished directors, Rhoda Roberts. Book now via! Judith Wright Centre 07 3872 9000 or visit www.brisbanefestival.com for details.
This is a short clip from composer Jarbas Agnelli who saw a photo in the newspaper of birds sitting on power lines. He then translated their positions into notes on a music scale. A Simple but brilliant idea!
map magazine proudly supports Brisbane Festival: “A culture is not an abstract thing. It is a living, evolving process. The aim is to push beyond standard-setting and asserting human rights to make those standards a living reality for people everywhere.” – Mary Robinson. Don’t miss your one and only chance to catch Mary Robinson as she presents her insightful address ‘Creating a World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism’ At QPAC on Wednesday September 30. Mary Robinson was Ireland’s first female President from 1990 to 1997 before becoming the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. The theme is close to her heart as she firmly supports equitable trade, corporate responsibility, the right to health, humane migration polices, gender equality and global accountability. . Book now via qtix 136 246 or www.brisbanefestival.com for details
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