A playlist can have magical import upon your creative output. Here’s some music styles that have helped me for writing, creating, sorting and doing the more mundane but necessary tasks in daily life.
A few tips on selection
1. Seek out music that’s unobtrusive and doesn’t command all of your attention. It should overall be happy and positive, but could also have elements of light and dark in there too.
2. Steer clear of anything with too much personal association or strong memories. It’s never a good idea to play that track by Air or No Doubt if it reminds you of an ex.
3. Stay away from anything too complex in structure, remember that you’re reserving the lion’s share of your mind for something else.
Here is a playlist that’s particularly awesome when you have to work out your grey matter.
Music to avoid when trying to concentrate
Electro > leads to > dancing
Loud vocal tracks > leads to > singing, lack of focus
Anything too complicated and with a lot going on at once, i.e. Bjork > leads to > mind wandering, lack of focus
Punk > leads to > emo or agitated feeling
Metal > leads to > emo or agitated feeling
Trance > leads to > dancing
Folk > leads to > sadness or nostalgia
Music for optimising concentration
Tech House/Minimal > leads to > concentration
Trip hop > leads to > contemplation / concentration
Ambient > leads to > contemplation / concentration
Upbeat Classical > leads to > contemplation / concentration
Medieval music > leads to > contemplation / concentration
Tibetan/Gregorian Chanting > leads to > contemplation / concentration
Post Dubstep/ Liquid Dub > leads to > contemplation / concentration
But it’s such a personal thing. What about you? Do you have any recommendations for great music for concentration.
Our digital world is swarming with recently made-up words like YOLO and SWAG, plus misappropriated words like ‘awesome’ to mean pretty much everything. This demands that literary types everywhere come out of the woodwork in protest! Here are some luscious and fulsome words to sprinkle liberally into your communications. Alternately you could wield these words as Gandalf would a protective talisman.
All of these words have been hand selected for their dulcet and evanescent beauty. They are not guaranteed to win you any sort of real world success, but they simply exist as objects of far-reaching felicity. Like treasures in museums, some words are so beautiful that they deserve our attention and persistent use.
So find a cosy inglenook or seraglio, preferably in a bucolic setting. Settle down with a cup of tea. There’s a certain natural ebullience that comes with writing like an 18th century dandy.
1. Ailurophile: A cat-lover
2. Assemblage: A gathering
3. Becoming: Attractive
4. Beleaguer: To exhaust with attacks
5. Brood: To think alone
6. Bucolic: In a lovely rural setting
7. Chatoyant: Like a cat’s eye
8. Comely: Attractive
9. Conflate: To blend together
10. Dalliance: A fleeting love affair
11. Demure: Shy, sheepish and reserved
12. Denouement: The resolution of a mystery
13. Diaphanous: Filmy and transparent
14. Dulcet: Sweet, sugary
15. Ebullience: Bubbling enthusiasm
16. Efflorescence: Flowering, blooming
17. Evanescent: Disapearing quickly, lasting only a short time.
18. Evocative: Suggestive
19. Fetching: Pretty and attractive
20. Felicity: Bliss, pleasantness, pleasantness
21. Gossamer: The finest piece of thread, a spider’s silk
22. Halcyon: A defined period of happiness and carefree peace
23. Imbroglio: An altercation or complicated situation
24. Imbue: To infuse or instill
25. Incipient: The beginning, in an early stage
26. Ineffable: Unutterable, inexpressible
27. Ingénue: A naïve young woman
28. Inglenook: A cozy nook by the hearth
29. Labyrinthine: Twisting and turning
30. Lagniappe: A small gift given gratuitously
31. Lilt: To move and shimmy in a lively way
32. Lissome: Slender and graceful
33. Lithe: Slender, elegant and flexible
34. Mellifluous: Melodious and sweet sounding
35. Moeity: Two things which can be divided
36. Mondegreen: When two similar words are misunderstood
37. Murmurous: Murmuring
38. Opulent: Lush, luxuriant
39. Petrichor: An earthy smell of the dirt after rain
40. Quintessential: The most essential
41 Redolent: Aromatic, fragrant
42. Riparian: By the bank of a stream
43. Ripple: A tiny wave
44. Scintilla: A sparkling object or tiny thing
45. Sempiternal: Eternal, everlasting
46. Seraglio: Rich, luxurious oriental palace or harem
47. Susurrous: Whispering, hissing
48. Talisman: A good luck charm
49. Tintinnabulation: Tinkling
50. Wafture: Waving
There…Now after reading the list, let me know if you’re still uninspired by the English language!
Street protests demanding urgent action on climate change have galvanised hundreds of thousands of people all over the world into action in 2,000 locations worldwide.In NYC, the People’s Climate Change March took place on the streets ahead of the UN climate change summit in New York.
Image Source: The NYC Climate Change March was the largest in history
Image Source Huge demonstrations took place in Australia and Europe. Tony Abbott’s repeal of the carbon tax places sustainable energy industry and the environment in a precarious position. He has a lot to answer for!
Image Source: Finally, a powerful message to the Abbott government about their dubious position on climate change, which is firmly rooted in the sands of denial and ignorance.
Climate Change: Four Scenarios and None of Them Are Good!
Click on the image to see the larger version:
Climate Change: Four Scenarios and none of them are good
There’s no cut and dry answer to this question. Infact, typing ‘What makes a GIF into something great’ into Google gives almost no search results, only instructional guides about how to make GIFs.
We’ve already discussed Scorpion Daggers’ great work. This has led me to writing something on what constitutes a great GIF.
They visibly skip: An obviously skipping GIF has a certain charm and whimsy. It’s a fallible and tangible thing that can have a jolting and obvious beginning and end.
They are shortform storytelling: A talented gif artist knows how to make the most of this short loop and execute an irresistible story or vignette.
They are shareable and unpretentious: Great GIFs like a form of digital graffiti. They are slightly nefarious, itinerant and unruly. An image with such ubiquitous properties, found all over IMGUR and TUMBLR looks weird inside of an art gallery – that’s a good thing.
They do what all good art does: They allow you to see the world anew, to see art anew and to see yourself anew.
They don’t take themselves too seriously: Some GIFs are subtle, highly stylised and feature models as they would appear in magazines, but with tiny whisps of hair blowing. That seems a waste of the medium though.
They are funny: The repetitive nature of gifs mean that they bode well for groundhog day scenarios of people getting punched in the face ad infinitum. Along with other weird, random and completely insane things happening over and over again. When gifs are amusing then they are really really good.
[The GIFs] that I like to look at tell a story. I’m not so much talking about the video GIFs you see from movies or TV shows. I’m talking about GIFs put together in a way where there’s a beginning, a middle and an end. Mind you, I also really love hypnotic ones as well. In a sense, I like GIFs that are made with them being GIFs in mind. Not so much something that somebody captured and converted, but there are some hilarious one’s of those as well – Scorpion Dagger
This is just perfect for armchair travelers and people with incurable wanderlust. Take a step through this virtual door and be transported to some of the most curious, random and exotic locations in the world, all courtesy of Google Maps/ Google Earth. What a clever idea by this British door replacement company. Surely the marketing idea of the century! In the past hour I’ve traveled through a virtual wormhole to a Japanese bag shop, a wax museum in Madrid, a sauna in Sweden, a forest in the Netherlands and the oval office at the White House.
In about a week’s time Scotland’s people will be making a momentous decision for the country’s future. The decision to cleave away from their historic neighbours and become an independent country, or to stay and be a part of Britain. There have been fiery debates between Tory minister Alaisdair Darling and First Minister Alex Salmond. I don’t envy the Scots their decision as it’s a challenging one. The Better Together campaign led by Darling is largely a rational and economic perspective. Some would argue that this is the only real perspective that matters: How an independent Scotland would run in a sustainable and profitable way to support and benefit its people. How businesses and the economy would be impacted by independence.
I would argue that these are the only issues that are of key importance. The Yes campaign is premised wholly on romantic idyllic visions of having Scotland as an independent nation. That finally, after a millennia of monarchist overlords and paternalistic interference from the crowd down south, finally Scotland can fulfill its ”destiny” as an independent nation. This is a purely dialectical argument based on emotion. It’s the election equivalent of Mel Gibson painting his face blue and running through a meadow in the highlands. In other words it’s silly and harks back to romantic mythological ideas of historical figure Robert the Bruce and stories by Rabbie Burns.
There is no English oppression anymore. The partnership between England and Scotland is a productive and functional one. Sure there are problems in all unions, but also there are plenty of benefits and kick backs. There is the shared Pound Sterling. The fact that businesses can set up shop there with minimal hassle, the shared healthcare and education system, a shared tax and financial system. All of these decentralised and essential parts of peoples lives are critical to their well-being. And with an independent Scotland all of these things will be impacted quite dramatically and irreversibly.
Hollyrood Palace at Sunrise
In this regard, the Yes party led by Salmond offers no real solid solutions about where the money will come from to run an independent Scotland. He has hedged his bets on the oil rigs in the North Sea, despite the fact that this is a finite resource, bad for the environment and is estimated to run out in 12 years time. In fact when pressed by Darling during a recent TV debate, Salmond insisted that there would be no alternative to the Pound Sterling. That Scotland would indeed keep the Pound, his vehement belief that the Pound will remain in Scotland forgets that it’s the Bank of England that sets the price of the Pound Sterling, so keeping this currency after independence will be about as fiscally wise as using monopoly money. When pressed in the first debate, Salmond couldn’t even offer a plan B if the Pound Sterling was not possible. He was completely annihilated in the debate by Darling. Now don’t get me wrong, if I were British I probably wouldn’t like the Tory party one bit, and I’m not at all fond of the pompous oscillations of the Royal family. But Darling’s vision for the future of Scotland seems like a happy-go-lucky trip down the garden path, unfortunately it wouldn’t surprise me if all of the thistles were dead though.
George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, 1905
Here is the first Salmond Versus Darling debate in full
Why my interest in Scotland you may ask? I used to live there for a long time. I feel invested in it as though it’s my home country as I hope to one day return there to live. I love Scotland’s people and their nice melodic accents, fresh produce, nature including the mountains and animals. All in all it was a wonderful and comfortable place to live and work. I shudder to think what will happen if Scotland becomes independent. I will rethink the plan to move back there.
Through the ages, there have been immense struggles, wars, famines and upheavals of power. Here are some of they key dates in history of Edinburgh, my favourite city in the world. I’ve written about Edinburgh before, with a yarn about a book that convinced me to move there long ago. Here is part 2 of my homage. Along with some glorious pictures from the past of this very beautiful city, yet another of my homes – my beloved Edinburgh.
Edinburgh’s History In Timeline Form
c. AD80 – The Romans invade Scotland
c. AD600 – Warriors of Gododdin ride out from Castle Rock to a heroes’ death
c. AD960 – The Scots conquer Edinburgh from the English
1093 – Queen Margaret dies in Edinburgh Castle, having built the chapel there that still bears her name
1314 – The castle is liberated from the English by Thomas Randolph, nephew of Robert the Bruce
1329 – King Robert the Bruce issues the town with a charter of rights
1357 – After 60 years of war with the English, David II begins rebuilding the castle and city
1457 – Mons Meg arrives at the castle
1507 – Scotland’s first printing press is licensed in Edinburgh
1544 – The English burn the city
1570-73 – The Long Siege: supporters of Mary Queen of Scots hold the castle, while the regents of James VI try to defeat them
1583 – Edinburgh University is founded
1637 – Attempts to introduce a new Episcopalian prayer book cause Presbyterian riots
1688 – James VII is deposed. The castle is besieged again
1707 – The Scottish and English parliaments unite. Government moves to London
1726 – First lending library opens in a luckenbooth – a small shed – beside St Giles’
1744 – Bonnie Prince Charlie holds court at Holyrood
1766 – The New Town is designed
1822 – King George IV visits Edinburgh. Sir Walter Scott reinvents Scottishness
1828 – Burke and Hare are put on trial
1920 – Edinburgh and Leith become one city
1947 – The Edinburgh Festival begins
2004 – The new Scottish Parliament building is completed
2014 – Independence Referendum on the 18th September 2014.
Did you watch the debate? What do you think of the views and promises put forth? Is it just me or does Salmond seem to be all about spin and posturing rather than concrete strategy?
Mono Sodium Glutamate was a buzz word from the 80’s and 90’s. It seemed that everyone had a story to tell about the after-effects of this flavour enhancing food additive. MSG used to be a dirty word, but it seems that in the past decade, the tide of scientific evidence has turned the other way. Do we have anything to worry about?
After moving to Auckland my boyfriend and I were frequenting some Asian food courts. Then we started experiencing these overwhelming…let’s just say….amplified, severe and hallucinogenic affects after tucking in to Asian food. This led me to investigate into MSG and other nefarious ingredients. Perhaps we all should be more vigilant about the additives, preservatives and flavour enhancers allowed in our food?
Preservative 635, monosodium glutamate, preservative 621 or anything that says flavour enhancer.
Common foods that contain MSG
Chicken Twisties
Cheese Twisties
Cheetos Cheese and Bacon Balls
Doritos Cheese Supreme
CC’s Nacho Cheese
Cheezles Original Cheese
Arnott’s Shapes Nacho Cheese
Smith’s Cheese and Onion chips
Smith’s Chicken chips
Smith’s Barbecue chips
Smith’s Salt and Vinegar chips
Homebrand BBQ flavoured rice crackers
Kraft Snackabouts cheese spread
Maggi chicken flavoured noodles
Maggi beef flavoured noodles
Fantastic Chicken and Corn noodles
Fantastic Chicken noodles
Suimin Chicken noodles
Soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Common Symptoms of ingesting MSG
Studies indicate that up to 36% of us are sensitive to MSG and other flavour enhancers and preservatives. Symptoms can range from everything from a simple skin rash to asthma, migraines, headaches, heart palpitations, tachycardia, seizures, heightened awareness, incoherent thoughts, and insomnia. These symptoms can occur anywhere between 2 to 8 hours later.
It’s not considered important enough for public disclosure in Australia and NZ
In 2002, consumer health body Truth in Labelling submitted an application to the NSW Health seeking to mandate that all restaurants and food outlets disclose when their food contains MSG. This mandate was refused. This despite many people’s violent and severe reactions to food additives!
Artificial food additives have long been a part of our eating lives, but are they really innocuous?
The list of approved food additives in New Zealand and Australia is long and exhaustive. However despite the government’s insistence that these additives are safe, consumers are nowadays taking back the food that they eat. With the recent move towards buying non-GMO and organic produce, free-range eggs, guerilla gardening and veganism. These are all reasonable and rational consumer responses to these concerns.
A recent documentary about GMO foods called GMO OMG revealed that scientific studies done about genetically modified foods, were funded by the companies who cultivate these foods.
See filmmaker Jeremy Seifert talk about his documentary here
Consumer concerns about MSG go unanswered
Consumer concerns about the long term health effects of MSG have not been adequately addressed with appropriate peer-reviewed research. This leads the curious and inquisitive people (like myself) to question why there is a distinct lack in reliable scientific information about the long term affects of the human consumption of mono sodium glutamate. There have been many studies done, but so far none have provided concrete proof of serious long term side effects. However speak with anyone who ingests MSG and they will report violent and scary symptoms.
Consumer information is rather sketchy about MSG
This pamphlet explodes the ”myths” associated with MSG. It was commissioned by a respected healthcare body in the US. The factsheet seems informative and genuinely factual. Until I had a closer look at who commissioned it. A consumer health and food information portal called International Food Information Council Foundation. This supposedly non-profit, non-partisan group has board members from major corporations like Mars, McDonalds, McCormicks and Danone. This makes the pamphlet and all other information on this pristine website take on a much more uncertain character. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily wrong, but corporations have unfairly influenced the way that the facts are presented here.
What can we do about food additives?
Well if the government won’t change anything, then it’s up to people to change their food habits. We should start being granular and picky about our food choices. And stop buying highly processed foods and to lobby for more clear labelling on food products in Australia and New Zealand.
Let me know if you have any stories about MSG or other food additives…
Haunting, weird, controversial and wickedly funny, these gifs created by James Kerr A.K.A Scorpion Dagger are made from parts of well-known Renaissance paintings along with the flotsam and jetsam of his insane imagination.
Renaissance and Medieval art has been hitherto considered too high brow to be messed with. Although Scorpion Dagger proves that anything is ripe for the picking, when you combine medieval art and digital methods of graphics production. Suddenly there are countless more ways to reinvent art. The gif is an ideal format for grotesque meme combinations. It’s infinitely corruptible, portable and viral: that’s why it’s special.
These paintings all originally had figures painted with expressions of fierce and cold piousness. Now they have the piss taken out of them in an infinite number of ways. No religious iconography is off limits either.
I am trying to create this world where all of these characters exist in art history, but that they can exist outside of the paintings that they are in. – James Kerr
Kerr begun taking out pieces from his own portfolio, animating them and posting them. After he starting exhausting this, he went to the Library of Congress and sourced copyright free images and begun animating those. There is a transition point where he started looking at medieval manuscripts and renaissance paintings.
You would see a scene in one of these paintings and you’d wonder…what the hell is going on. You wanna have fun with it. Imagine if da Vinci was into Sasquatches? – James Kerr
Originally he was going to only make 1 gif per day for 1 year as a reason to stay creative and keep working during a quiet period. Now that his gifs are hot property all over the world and he loves the creation process so much, Kerr is finding it harder to find a reason to stop!
You’re one of the world’s mightiest characters. You’re tall and strong and are respected by many. But with great power comes great responsibility, and you find that often you’re reassuring people that ‘My home is your home’ as you make room for another to settle in and take shelter. Because of your strength (if not physically then definitely your inner) you can persevere through tough times, and it is for this reason that people recognise your qualities and feel like they should protect you. With strong links to New Zealand culture, you take pride in your heritage and know a lot about what went on long before those around you arrived!
Sometimes it’s as if you’re from another time, holding a wise and quiet knowledge of the past’s secrets. You’re easily affected by weather and temperature extremes—when it’s warmer you’re more inclined to potter in the garage, discuss our chances in the World Cup, and can find it hard to listen properly to those around you. When it’s cold, you feel the need to call up friends and discuss small details in depth, go shopping or curl up on the couch and watch some trashy TV. Like Beyonce, you’re a survivor and you don’t let predatory people or tough times bring you down.
You’re a quiet sort, although you’re not afraid to speak up or call out when you’re in your element—which is any time after six in the evening. Definitely not a morning person, you focus best once the day winds down and the stars come out. With an unexplained connection to Maori traditions, you’ve almost got psychic traits. Often your musings on what could happen end up being right, and sometimes you could have eyes in the back of your head for all people under your watch know. But you are just looking out for them, somewhat of a guardian really.
Always sticking your nose into other people’s business, you can’t help wanting to know what’s going on around you. You’re just so intelligent that boredom comes easily and as soon as anything new or out of the ordinary comes along, you’re there. You can talk your way into or out of any situation and have no trouble twisting people around your little finger. A burning need to pull apart and know how new gizmos work means accidental breakages are an accepted part of your life. But with the gift of the gab, you manage to charm everyone and you’re known for your cheek and mischievous ways.
You work best on your own and enjoy spending time in your own company. In no rush, you move through life at your own pace—you know you’ll get there in the end. You tend to feel a bit panicky when you’re in unknown territory, so you like to know that home’s comforts are there at all times, and not straying too far from these brings you a firm sense of security. You spent a lot of time with your mother growing up, and as such you are (or will be) close with your own offspring. Despite not being overly social, your presence is inspiring and many find you quite breathtaking. For this reason you always seem to end up in front of the camera as people quickly try to snap a pose.
I am so grateful to be alive today. When there is chaos and impending war all around us, that’s about all we can say, in our own individual humble way. All of my posts this week and next were prewritten about a month ago. Before all hell was unleashed in both the Middle East, Russia and the Ukraine.
It’s Unimaginable
How can the average person even conceive of what has happened? It defies belief and yet it is indeed happening. Everywhere on the news there is a sense of impending doom and gloom. Of lots of major decisions that will soon be made by global powers. These will have a ripple effect that reaches all of us, everywhere in the world. Right now the future of the human race seems uncertain. If you think I’m being melodramatic then all you need to do is look at what scientists are saying, and take a look at Google News today. Then I ask you to draw your own conclusions about the future.
I normally never write in the first person, but I thought this time I will make an exception. I feel as though it’s impossible to continue to post about wildlife, history and quirky discoveries when there is an elephant in the room, in everyone’s room called #MH17 and #Israelconflict.
Escape Into What We Know
Despite these recent events, there is only so much sadness, horror and helplessness that one can take. Eventually we need to draw away, to distract or divert our attention to other things more wholesome and uplifting. Like making an Irish stew and watching a mindless comedy film with my boyfriend on a lazy sunday. This sort of thing is necessary so that you don’t become a total blubbering mess, so I hope you don’t feel guilty about it.
I have secretly sworn to renounce all society and escape into a remote part of the jungle and build a log cabin and form an off-grid community with other like-minded folk if the forementioned bullshit continues. I (naïvely perhaps) believe that humans were meant to co-exist together in small village sized groups, with cooperation, mutual respect and kindness being the common denominator. Again I repeat, I am naïve.
A Word of Advice: Don’t Watch Live Leak
If you value your sanity, please don’t watch Live Leak for your news. It’s full of unedited and uncensored gore. This channel is necessary of course, for knowing about the real unadulterated truth outside of the media. Something that I am very passionate about. However not seeing these images in the mainstream media is a mercy.
If you are anything like me, a sensitive and gentle soul then these videos will haunt your dreams and make you feel helpless and depressed.
I hope that there’s someone out there who can relate what I’m saying, it’s mental how we all live on this impossibly small pale blue dot and yet all of this bullshit is happening.
Content Catnip 
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