Yummy Wakame

Barack BEAN-bama

Photo Credit: Noel Kerns

This little gem is a little further down the desolate highway 90 from where we’re living in the middle of nowhere, TX… amazing!

The work was located on the outskirts of Valentine, Texas near Marfa in 2005 on desolate ranching land with no other visible trace of civilization. The artists Elmgreen and Dragset states:

“As one drives toward the artwork it will appear to be a large minimalist sculpture, as one gets closer it will look like a luxury boutique where a display of Fall 2005 high-heel Prada shoes and bags will be seen through the store front windows… [It]blends into the exciting historical structures of the area in which it will be placed… As we purposefully will not preserve Prada Marfa, it will eventually become a ruin so that even in a future decayed state it will remain relevant to the time in which it was made…”

Perfect. There are so many beautiful ruins around here and so many to explore. Marathon Texas, where we’re living right now, is such an amazing place to live. Its so disconnected from the rest of the world, anything goes out here. I’m so keen to explore Marfa!

photo credit: Melissa Mermin, California

A full length episode from the new season starting on HBO this Sunday!

*giddy*

Willard Wigan makes micro sculptures that fit on pin-heads or within eyes of needles. Some of the parts of his sculptures are the size of human blood cells — visible only through the lens of a microscope — so to steady his hands he has to work in between the beats of his heart.

Check it out in full screen on YouTube.

BBC Inside Out: Microsculptures

The stillness of it is very important — you have to control the whole nervous system, you have to work between the heartbeat — the pulse of your finger can destroy the work.

How did it all start?

When I was little I had a fascination for ants so I set about making houses for them. I got obsessed with miniature things.

Apart from his incredible talent, he seems like such a lovely, sweet person with a really unique perspective of the world. I would love to meet him some day.

Jews Against the Occupation

NO OCCUPATION IN OUR NAME
We as American Jews reject the Israeli government assertion that it is “necessary” to subjugate Palestinians for the sake of keeping Jews safe. We assert that security can only come from mutual respect, and that the occupation of Palestine is only worsening the position of Jews in the Middle East and around the world.

RESTORE HUMAN & CIVIL RIGHTS
The Israeli military fires bone-crushing rubber bullets and live ammunition at unarmed Palestinian civilians engaged in peaceful protest, failing to distinguish between peaceful and violent resistance. The Israeli government has been demolishing Palestinian houses and crops in the Occupied Territories, while allowing Jewish settlers — many of them American — to illegally occupy the same land.

END U.S. AID TO ISRAEL
The U.S. government provides more aid to Israel than to any other country—the vast majority of this is for military purposes. Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have propped up the occupation and fueled the Israeli government’s war machine (as well as disguising the occupation’s true cost). This aid must end.

LET PALESTINIANS RETURN HOME
Thousands of Palestinians were driven out of their houses and off of their farms during and after the creation of Israel. They must be allowed to return to their homeland.

ANTI-SEMITISM VS. CRITIQUES OF ISRAEL
Jews Against the Occupation stands firmly against anti-Semitism and racism in all its forms. We see our historical struggle against anti- Semitism–a cornerstone of European white supremacist ideology–as inherently linked to all struggles against oppression. We therefore stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom.

Judaism is a cultural and religious identity, which must not be equated with Zionism, a political movement. Criticism of the state of Israel, its policies, or the idea of a Jewish state does not by itself constitute anti-Semitism. Dismissing critics of Israel or of Zionism as “anti-Semitic” is a means of stifling debate and masking the impact of the occupation.

See also: Jews Against Zionism homepage – This website documents how the ideology of Zionism promotes anti-Semitism

NPR: Andrew Bird is an unlikely rock star. A classically trained violinist and former swing-jazz musician, he performs a quirky mix of Gypsy ballads, jazz, folk and art-rock, with frequently whistled melodies. It’s a sound that leaves critics swooning and fans giddy with the kind of devotion normally reserved for pop idols. At a recent performance in Chicago, a crush of more than 15,000 Bird fans filled Millennium Park to hear the gangly singer, complete with young women in the audience screaming, “I love you!”

photo credit

Fat Possum Records and Andrew Bird have offered an exclusive preview of the entire Noble Beast release on NPR Music, which is out for release 20th of January.

You can stream it here

DivineCaroline is a little addiction of mine. In this article I just stumbled on, kids were asked advice on marriage and relationships. At first I was thinking how cute and clever these kids were, but then it started dawning on me the more I read just how much we can mess kids up and crush their chances of good relationships or even wanting to be in one when they grow up by the pearls of “wisdom” we throw around in their presence, or just how we treat each other around them.

There were a few excellent and imaginative ones though, like this one:

What would you do on a first date that was turning sour?

I’d run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns.
Craig, age 9

more: How to decide who to marry: by kids