White Xmas in Germany…
My brother picked me up last weekend and after a lovely wedding on Saturday (friends of the family in Morbio, who were absolutely sweet and fed me for lunch nearly every day while I was staying in Switzerland), I returned across the alps to Germany….
Driving across the alps was fun… snow storms and ice on the roads and getting to Germany was like driving into winterworld…. Had just recently complained about not having had white xmas in a while, but it looks like I might get lucky this year… This morning the thermometer was at 20 below Fahrenheit! Even after growing up here and the years I spent in Chicago, I am still not a big friend of the cold…. Soon to be in warm LA/Ticino again 
Wishing you all a most blessed couple of holidays with whatever labels and ceremonies you enjoy!
smiles
philip
Yet another new medium…
Yesterday I picked up the very first bronze sculptures I ever made. The creative process is truly amazing. I made sculptures from wax, and now, I hold them in my hands, 10 times heavier, and they are no longer wax, but metal, bronze. Really neat. Had always enjoyed the process of seeing something develop, whether a picture in a dark room, or a piece of stone waiting to set free a sculpture, or a canvas begging to be caressed with paint. But for the first time I created something, and had it cast. Feel like an architect, who drew plans and now sees the completed building for the first time. Really cool. Never had this particular creative sensation before (and of course I want more already). It is so exciting, how life keeps offering new opportunities to be creative.
Just this morning I was answering a client inquiry for liveartfully. A woman contacted me because she felt the need to be creative, she felt unhappy with the available templates on “how to be”, and wanted to “do” something to feel alive. Alienated by television, popular music, the bar scene, she was looking to do something to feel more creative and had tried a variety of media to do so, but could not find a good valve to let off her creative steam. It seems that this is a common problem these days. We appear to be in the midst of a major cultural transition toward conscious creativity and more conscious living. Following is roughly what I wrote her back…
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Dancing with the Green Fairy
Ahhhh….. the green fairy. Muse of many artists, poets, creatives of the past. She dances with you, tickles your brain; intoxicating, she lets the world be seen anew once again….
In case you are wondering… the green fairy refers to Absinth. Switzerland can be considered as the birthplace of Absinthe. In the Valley Val de Travers in the Swiss Jura the original Pernod distillery was located, and after the prohibition of Absinth, many bootleggers stayed around there. Now, almost 100 years after the prohibition, Switzerland is relegalizing Absinth as of the beginning of 2005 (most of Europe already did so a few years ago). I was lucky to have a little early taste of a genuine La Bleue (bootlegged, homemade, delicious) that a friend brought back from Val de Travers. It was utterly delightful and indeed created interesting cognitive phenomena. Yet again goes to show what an amazing neurological machine we have in our skulls. And again goes to show that nature was kind in providing in its many forms fuel for the machine…
To what end, though? Drunkenness? Inebriation? What’s the difference we wonder…
Green, Bronze, Meat,…
hmmmm…. where to start… I just realized it has been a week since my last post. Horrid. Time flies. If you ever thought that being all by yourself all day long without telephone and with limited email would feel like all the time in the world, think again. Time flies even on sabbatical. Anyway, not complaining Just noting. Was just thinking about time the other day. Our ancestors’ time was controlled by nature. Then, it was controlled by religion through ceremony and bells, and with the onset of the industrial age, time was controlled by machines. Being, that it takes about 100 years for a new scientific concept to sink in, and being that it has been about 100 years since the onset of quantum physics, maybe we will experience yet another step in the development of time in consciousness in the coming years.
Anyway… Just went to a local foundy the other day to drop off the first two sculptures I am hoping to cast in bronze (never did bronze before – mostly worked in steel). It was quite neat. If you have never seen a foundry, I would highly suggest that you check one out. Quite a process. Didn’t get to take pictures inside as it didn’t seem quite appropriate, but maybe when I will go back to pick up my sculptures… The picture to the right was taken outside the foundry – I just couldn’t resist…
Took some more pictures and am getting to love my new digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 4100). Amazing little machine. Lovely pictures and interesting filters, it even makes little movie recordings with sound and also takes voicenotes for pictures (which has been an interesting language learning tool). Read on to get to the meat…
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Twitter- International List of Futurology Research Centers - http://t.co/9bdE9acU http://t.co/FdDRY7Ts
- How Do Innovators Think? - Bronwyn Fryer - Harvard Business Review http://t.co/dHla2e7Y
- Fascinating overview of many new technologies on the horizon http://t.co/blav1MD6
- Star Wars re-mixed http://t.co/uiJipQfL
- Infographic: Why the movie industry is so wrong about SOPA | Matador Network http://t.co/pqxZWwbu
- Health News - Neuroscientists Find That Status within Groups Can Affect IQ http://t.co/1sMYEzWu
- Julian Baggini: Is there a real you? #TED http://t.co/Cf7c0gQ2
- Lisa Harouni: A primer on 3D printing #TED http://t.co/enLbpuTA
- Why own a car when you can share... http://t.co/c5xuRSfo
- “But the nature of the universe is such that the ends never justify the means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.” -Huxley
- Posts by others I enjoyed reading
- The Silliness of Busyness
- Remaining human: A Buddhist perspective on Occupy Wall Street
- The Fringes Disagree But Science And Religion Do Mix
- Five Tips to Break Through Your Filter(s)
- Reminders from the world
- Tattoo 2.0
- Violin made with a 3D printer
- Realtime Face Substitution softwear
- On The Creating And Sharing Of Awe
- Unautomate Your Money
- 5 Ways To Turn Fear Into Fuel
- Become a God of Learning Your Trade
- A Young Artist's Guide to Playing for Keeps, Pt. 15
- Twelfth century orgasmic brain heat
- Projecting meaning
- AGI and the Emerging Peer-to-Peer Economy: Ben Goertzel Interviews AI Researcher Mohamad Tarifi
- The Future of Brain Workouts
- Breaking Free From Consumerist Chains
- Data is the new Oil: must-read PDF by the World Economic Forum
- TED: JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out - JR (2011)