A Shelf-Portrait with Alanis Morissette
Rock goddess, highly sensitive person and all-round legendary bookworm Alanis Morissette talks about the books that have shaped and improved her life. A lot of great non-fiction here about mindfulness, spirituality and personal growth.
The mystical beauty of an Ancient Egyptian daughter of Osiris (1913)
An anonymous autochrome photograph taken in 1913, nine years before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. This is the photo’s original colour, it’s not artificially colourised.
The unbroken and undisturbed seal on the tomb of Tutankhamun, not opened for 3,245 years! (1922)
Far Breton aux Pruneaux by French Cooking Academy
This recipe for baked custard with prunes seems really easy and looks unbelievably delicious, Apparently this is a French staple desert. I can’t wait to try it. The comments underneath of the video are all overwhelmingly positive.
Mother of Two Cubs (1991) by Agnes Nanogak
Agnes Nanogak Goose, born 1925 is an Inuit artist who has been very prolific with her artistic output including drawings and prints. She is a historian of prints and words and has illustrated for many books including Tales from the Igloo (1972). She is fascinated by fables and legends, stories of shamans, and myths, all of which she has illustrated, adding a touch of humor or mockery. Read more
Nature filmmakers recall their most memorable and emotional encounters with animals
This is an epic 50 minute documentary with short anecdotal stories from different documentary film-makers who have encountered cool creatures like baby sloth bears, wolf families, elephants giving birth and so on. This is really inspiring and makes you realise the wealth of love and beauty in the natural world.
This guy who fell off his chair and was given an embarrassed serenade by his huskie
The relationship between Māori and Japanese
On Kanariya Eishi’s blog, he has written a fascinating article about the relationship between Māori and Japanese languages:
The vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are practically identical though some of the Māori diphthongs (combinations of two vowels) can be tricky for Japanese speakers to pronounce.
The Māori consonants are very similar to Japanese, too, except for a few sounds such as the nasal ‘ng’ and ‘wh’ that is pronounced like the English ‘f’.
Some of the vocabulary are very similar as well as you can see in the table below:
| Maori | Japanese |
| Ana (cave) | Ana (あな): hole; “hora-ana”is a cave |
| Kōura (crayfish) | Koura (こうら): shell of a crayfish, crab, etc. |
| Tuki (to ram, bump, crash into) | Tsuki (つき; 突き): to ram, poke, etc. *The standard form is ‘tsuku’ (つく; 突く) |
| Puku (stomach) | Puku: stomach in expressions such as man-puku (まんぷく; 満腹: full stomach) |
| Kura (tank, container) | Kura (くら; 蔵): storehouse |
| Awa (river) | Kawa (かわ; 川): river |
| Tokotoko (cane, to walk with a stick) | Tokotoko (とことこ): onomatopoeia for the sound of walking fast in short steps |
| Pakipaki (to clap) | Pachipachi (パチパチ): onomatopoeia for the clapping sound |
| Ika (fish) | Ika (いか; squid) |
Marilyn Monroe Reading
Don’t you just love it when beauty meets brains.
An Early 80’s Mixtape of Fun, Upbeat and Eclectic Electro and Italodisco
This whole channel is brimming with amazing, little-heard music from Europe in the early 80’s and particularly Italty and Poland, it’s gold!
Time in a Bottle by the Barton Family
Paul Barton is famous as the pianist who serenades elephants in the Thai jungle by playing his piano. They sway and go into a beautiful trance. Here in this video, it’s a family affair with his beautiful little daughter Emilie singing, accompanied by illustrations for the song by his wife, Emilie’s mum. The song is dedicated to their 17 year old dog named Sunday,
This is the most wholesome thing I have seen on Youtube this week or indeed for a very long time!
A Recipe for Thick Almond Tea (1792)
Another recipe from A Dollop of History, this time for thick almond tea, originally created in China in 1792 from apricot kernels.
“This tea smells wonderful and it’s sweet and creamy. I especially like it cold. I’ll be honest though, I would personally classify this as an acquired taste. This doesn’t mean it’s not good! The apricot kernels are a new flavor for my palate and I couldn’t immediately decide whether or not I liked it, but the more I eat it the more I begin to enjoy it. This may or may not be against the rules, but I actually prefer eating it with a spoon.” ~ Sarah.
What do you think of these items? Have you seen anything cool this week that you want to share, please do so below.
Content Catnip 
All the findings are amazing! The most intriguing I think is the one about similarities between Maori and Japanese. And I’ll soon watch the long view with emotional wildlife encounters 😀
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Thank you so much Georgiana, I am so glad you found this interesting. Equally interesting is that Māori people came originally from Taiwan many thousands of years ago before progressively exploring the Pacific, and so, I wonder if there are similarities between Māori and Japanese because they once came into close contact, as Taiwan and Japan are in close proximity. Anyway, I have no idea but this is something worthy of further exploration. I think you will enjoy the documentary, it’s really cute and inspiring. Hope you have a good week! 🙂
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The Maori / Japanese connection is fascinating.
Nice to see that AM is such a book worm…what a library! Don’t share too many of her favourites beyond good ol’ TNH!
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Yes Alanis is a big bookworm and she seems like a fascinating woman! Yes would love to investigate that connection between Māori and Japanese further, it seems like it could be some kind of historical interchange between the two cultures, originally the Polynesians came from Taiwan so it could be within the realm of possibility! Hope you are having a good weekend Jeremy 😊
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Yeah there must be a connection. Unlike other cultures around the globe the Maoris settled NZ pretty recently…so the language would have had more recent contact with others I guess.
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