Links to other cool stuff archive

10/19/11

"Synesthesia, from the ancient Greek, σύν (together), and αἴσθησις (sensation), is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."

How to Steal Like An Artist

Ladies and gentlemen, the practically inhuman Gillian Murphy

Would love to hire this guy to play music for us to dance to

Post-Katrina, graffiti said it all

This list is about things that inspire us...this blog is a constant source of both entertainment and inspiration

Considering our obsession with collaborative work, this is one of the coolest ideas/projects we've heard of in a while (full disclosure: the crush we've had on Joseph Gordon-Levitt pretty much since Angels In The Outfield, should in no way count as a bias towards this project)

Proof that dancers can be superheros

Like father, like son...both equally awesome

A world where people are just trying to connect

9/1/11

A day in the life of a Tibetan monk

Ok Go = awesome. Pilobolus = extra awesome. Therefore, by our calculations: Ok Go + Pilobolus = the awesomest thing ever

We could (and do) spend hours reading these

Zoe Keating...we have no words

The most brainy wedding photos ever

"Chinese super beautiful modern dance"...pretty much says it all

Dare you to watch this and not smile

The smallest, and largest stop animation films ever made...and both shot on a phone (be sure to also watch the "makings of"...it is seriously mind-blowing)

"Hey Ladies", an incredibly intriguing survey, put together by NPR, of women musicians from around the world

Can't decide if these make childhood monsters more scary or less...

Ballet is hard

7/2/11

The genius that is Radiolab

Currently kind of obsessed with Rodney Smith's photography & blog

"Life's too short for the wrong job"...we couldn't agree more

Brazil is beautiful

The lovely & brilliant work of Story Vessel Books

Timelapses videos that create eerily beautiful living photographs

"Her morning elegance"...stunning

You can thank us later for this

A vast plethora of design inspiration From Up North

"Jayus", an Indonesian word that means "A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh"...and 19 other awesomely un-translatable words from around the world

When the magic of dance and the magic of film collide, it creates something that neither could on their own

3 words...Indian. Pole. Gymnastics.

Neil Gaiman should rule the world

Falling's not the problem...

"I've fallen out of favor, and I've fallen from grace.
Fallen out of trees, and I've fallen on my face.
Fallen out of taxis, out of windows too.
Fell in your opinion when I fell in love with you.


I've danced myself up, I drunk myself down,
found people to love, loved people too drunk.
I'm not scared to jump, I'm not scared to fall,
if there was nowhere to land I wouldn't be scared at all.


Sometimes I wish for falling, wish for the release,
wish for falling through the air to give me some relief.
Because falling's not the problem, when I'm falling I'm at peace.
It's only when I hit the ground that causes all the grief."

I apparently picked the right profession

The past 4 days I have not wanted to dance.

I have not wanted to stretch.

I have not wanted to move.

The debate that usually happens in my head of deciding whether or not to go to class didn't even happen. The reminder alarm in my phone that goes off an hour before each class was given no attention whatsoever.

This may sound as though I'm being overly-dramatic (which is almost certainly the case).  But of all the reasons to decide to pass up an opportunity to dance (injury, illness, schedule conflict, exhaustion, flat tire, zombie attack, etc.), simply having no desire to is rarely the case.

Tonight I ended up going to the open gym practice at Mpact Gymnastics and worked on the fabric for a while, and after a little over an hour, the world was again as it should be.

Now obviously, I was just feeling a little burnt out (which is totally normal...tomorrow is the end of the 4 week dance camp I've been teaching for).  But it makes me happy that after all this time (22 years to be exact), and all the various occurrences of burnout over the years, still all I need is 4 days off from the burning drive to pursue it in order to fall in love with it all over again.

Rome

Rome is burning down in my mind.
Finding every excuse that traces the lines
left behind by smoking remains that glimmer
and reduce all my reasoning to whines and a simper.
Feeling sorry for myself, and abashed to admit
that I may have indulged when I thought I had quit.
Fell off of the wagon and bounced down the road,
rolled under the wheels, then stood up.  I suppose
that I'm being too hard on myself once again,
that it's not even necessarily the end.
But when will I learn not to strive and to strain
and to push so damn hard that I nigh burst a vein?
To just chill the fuck out and to just let things go
goes against every inch of all that I know
how to act, how to be, in my head and in life.
So obviously, I need a release...or a knife
to cut out all the crazy, controlling compulsions
that try to create/avoid the revoltion
that inevitably occurs whether I like it or not,
so I might as well get out of my head and my thoughts.

It's definitely you...

Current favorite Cadillac Sky song...I miss them being a band.

Old dancers never die...they just passé.

Okay, so I am nothing if not a huge, giant dork...today I came across a website selling god-awful-trinkety-vaguely-dance-related-gifty junk (mostly t-shirts and coffee mugs and posters and tote bags).  And though the sayings on everything were all unequivocally and almost unforgivably cheesy, several of them made me laugh out loud.  Read at your own risk.

If ballet was easier, it would be called football.

I may be a dancer, but I can eat like a fat kid!

Warning! Accident prone dancer.

Ballerina by day, deadly ninja by night.

I'm a dancer, I only count to 8.

When I'm not at school (work) I like to hang out at the neighborhood barre.

No, your other right foot.

I'm only wearing this because my tutu is in the wash.

Old dancers never die...they just passé.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein