Behold the tui. Songstress with the most gorgeous cadence and sonorous sonata, native latter day dinosaur of the shaky isles. Every throat gargle and warbling melodious titter could be experienced so much clear when viewed through the lens of our new camera. This little beauty was in our garden the other day crying out to…
Continue reading ➞ Behold the tui: seductive songstress of the shaky isles
Our new camera got a big work out on our night walks through the eastern suburbs. This looks towards the city centre and with a huge zoom on the camera we were able to capture the night-time hustle and bustle of the Ports of Auckland. A constant fixture of background activity is always going on…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: Auckland by Night Part 2
Every night I was going for a massive walk along Tamaki Drive in Auckland, a long stretch of beach-side road. It was very atmospheric at night and had a sense of eerie abandonment. This bridge in between Orakei and Mission Bay once was a ferry terminal until the 1960's but is now an old fishing…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: Auckland by Night 1
Philosopher Michel de Montaigne lived in a time (the 16th century) when nobody batted an eyelid at the ritual murder and wholesale destruction of people, natural environments and cultures – let alone animals. Yet he was shocked and disgusted at these horrors. He was undoubtedly a kind and gentle man. An anomaly for his time.…
Continue reading ➞ What Montaigne And Deep Sea Aliens Teach Us About Humanity
As an occasional driver along the Eastlink in Melbourne, I have had the odd experience of passing a hotel with no trace of human habitation around it. A hotel completely devoid of people and life and yet that lights up in a unique configuration of lights from fake windows each night. Located in Melbourne's south…
These photos by Ed Freeman all elicit a deep sense of alienation and a weird sort of fascination. They underline questions that we want answered. What happened here? Who lived here? How did these places fall into disrepair? Through the atrophy of the material world we can get this uncomfortable sense that we're all destined for…
Continue reading ➞ Abandoned Desert Buildings On Creepy Lunar Landscapes
Herbal tea has always been lauded as possessing many medicinal qualities that help with everything, from fighting off a virus to stopping nausea and vomiting. What to Look For In Herbal Tea Some fruit teas contain synthetic ingredients. These synthetic ingredients don't taste as good as the real thing, and they have no real therapeutic…
Oh, my God. What if you wake up some day, and you're 65 or 75, and you never got your novel or memoir written; or you didn't go swimming in warm pools or oceans because your thighs were jiggly or you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on…
Why do we say a gaggle of geese, a flock of sheep, a pride of lions or a swarm of bees? Well it harks back to medieval times when sportsmen grouped together collectives of beasties to refer to them in movement or attributing a quality to them - presumably while the poor creatures ran away…
Continue reading ➞ Thirty great medieval epithets for people and beasts
Copyright Content Catnip 2008 Souls love. That’s what souls do. Egos don’t, but souls do. Become a soul, look around, and you’ll be amazed-all the beings around you are souls. Be one, see one. When many people have this heart connection, then we will know that we are all one, we human beings all over…
If you ever go to Edinburgh and find yourself in one of its countless excellent pubs, you may want to strike up a conversation with one of the grave looking, old guys at the bar drinking pints. If so, you will want to be able to hold a conversation while also not making a fanny…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: A Survival Guide to Edinburgh Slang and Scots Words
The Lewis Chessmen were likely to have been made in Trondheim in Norway from walrus ivory. This kind of bone was hard to come across at the time (1150-1200 A.D), as it required hunting during a brief window of time per year in the Arctic Circle, using primitive hunting tools of the time and in…
Continue reading ➞ Here be the Viking Hoard: The Mystery of the Lewis Chessmen
Currently, I'm in Poland and I didn't hesitate to visit the Kolejcowo in Świebodzki Station in Wrocław. This is the largest model railway in Poland, but also a rather amazing depiction of how life in Poland actually looks. Everything, right down to the petrol stations, graffiti, and the shops actually exists in real life in…
Continue reading ➞ Kolejcowo: A cute and creepy version of Poland in Miniature
I've written a lot about gifs in the past and how they throw a comical light on old forms of art, when remixed with renaissance art and also discussed what makes a gif become a piece of art. I've looked at the intricate moving world of Paperholme, gif art which shows the whimsy of a…
Continue reading ➞ Beautiful Geometry: Hypnotic and Satisfying Geometric Art Blogs
Okahu Bay yachts, Auckland © Content Catnip 2018 www.contentcatnip.com I am writing this post on the 5th of January and all going well, we will leave our current home and be residing somewhere else by the publishing date of this post at the end of March/April 2019. Back to the future indeed. Time passes so…
Continue reading ➞ Every picture tells a story: Spectacular sunset over Okahu Bay, Auckland
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. Something more will arise for…
Helen Keller was not just some blind lass from the last century. She was a fierce socialist, pacifist, author and sufragette who believed in birth control, workers rights and women's rights. The first blind person to complete a Bachelor's Degree, she was a bold trailblazer with a sweet nature. Keller won hearts all over the…
Continue reading ➞ Helen Keller’s Fierce Friendships and Bold Legacy
Copyright Content Catnip 2014 We should meet in another life, we should meet in air, me and you.Sylvia Plath
Asakusa, Tokyo by Night. Copyright © Content Catnip 2018 www.contentcatnip.com Here's another photo I took strolling around at night in Asakusa in Tokyo. In these little alleys, there is an air of intimate and cosy homeliness, I guess this is thanks to the locals. On a micro scale, these alleys had a really neighbourly and…
Continue reading ➞ Every picture tells a story: Rainbow neon street scene in Asakusa
Yeonmi Park has to be the bravest girl/woman in the world. She was born in the North Korean city of Hyesan which is separated by a river to the Chinese border and at the age of 13, she boldly and bravely managed to escape from there and gain her freedom. Yeonmi Park’s autobiography written at the…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park
