who are we in the way we can see ourselves

"A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed." - Cioran

those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing

Scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so.

"The mind is a limited machine,"says Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan and lead author of a new study that measured the cognitive deficits caused by a short urban walk. "And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations."

One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard. Even these fleeting glimpses of nature improve brain performance, it seems, because they provide a mental break from the urban roil.

Boston.com | How the City Hurts Your Brain (And What You Can Do About It)

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were. - German Proverb

People Who Sit in the DIsability Seats While I'm Standing on My Crutches

"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art." - Susan Sontag

Tumblr | David Horvitz

we stand under it, but we don't understand it

Gregory Crewdson

title: bill callahan

and in a hundred years the same flowers and the same animals would be here again

Scott is a guerrilla gardener, a member of a burgeoning movement of green enthusiasts who plant without approval on land that's not theirs. In London, Berlin, Miami, San Francisco and Southern California, these free-range tillers are sowing a new kind of flower power. In nighttime planting parties or solo "seed bombing" runs, they aim to turn neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts.
Part beautification, part eco-activism, part social outlet, the activity has been fueled by Internet gardening blogs and sites such as GuerrillaGardening.org, where before-and-after photos of the latest "troop digs" inspire 45,000 visitors a month to make derelict soil bloom.

The Guerilla Gardener Movement

image: here

title: Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World

california, here we come!

A guard wearing a one-size-too-big military uniform salutes my driver through the gate at the grand entrance to Orange County. Suddenly we’re transported from China to, well, somewhere else. Where, exactly, is hard to say. It would be strange enough if Orange County, this gated community near the Beijing airport, were the straight-up replica of Southern California it claims to be. But it is stranger than that. The development, 45 minutes up the freeway from Beijing’s better-known Forbidden City, has the appearance of a Disney theme park where someone mixed up all the different sections—a smidgen of Epcot’s faux Paris intermingled with Main Street U.S.A.’s Americana. At Orange County, California-style ranch houses sit alongside English Tudors and a French-style formal garden complete with stately fountains (turned off for the winter). The street signs of weathered wood held together with rusty spikes conjure the Old West of Durango while the community clubhouse, called the Rive Gauche Town Center, has a mansard roof typical of a French country estate. The totem poles inside recall the Pacific Northwest and the fireplace mantlepiece is carved in the shape of English-language books, including Hamlet, Macbeth, and the erroneously titled Moby-Dock. So far from the West, the distinctions between France and America, let alone Colorado and California, get lost. (The Chinese would surely have a similar laugh at our expense for the popularity of “pan-Asian” restaurants Stateside.) I requested a Sunday tour, hoping that people would be enjoying the one-day Chinese weekend in their yards. But here in Orange County, China, just days after Christmas, it is not exactly rollerblading weather. The fake lake is frozen solid. A brave, bundled-up grandmother takes a baby carriage out for stroll. But for most, weekend fresh air is what you get when you walk from your home to your SUV. Though distinctly lacking in warm California sun, Orange County’s promotional brochures tout it as “flown over fresh to Beijing,” and even “pure American.” And there is at least some truth in advertising. The project, whose 143-unit first phase opened in 2001 at a ceremony including American diplomats and McDonald’s cheeseburgers, was designed by a trio of design firms from California’s Orange County, headed by Bassenian Lagoni Architects, a leading designer of McMansions that has been dubbed one of the most influential architects you’ve never heard of by The Wall Street Journal.

Welcome to the O.C.

art saved the city's soul

A sneak peek at a new documentary film on the subversive public art collective known as Graffiti Research Lab, who develop and distribute "open source technologies for urban communication."

take this as a sign

"If you give me $1,626 I will go to the small Okinawan island called Iriomote and send you an envelope filled with star-sand (don't worry, I've been there before, I know where to go). I will send it from there. [...]

"If you give me $30 I will walk around New York, and the first homeless person I see I will buy him or her whatever he or she wants to eat (as long as it is less than $30). I will mail you back the exact change (minus the paypal fee and the cost of the postage stamp) with the receipt for the food and the name of the person who ate it."

David Horvitz: "Things for Sale that I Will Mail You"

image:"FISKUR (fish)," 2004. 15 Polaroids placed in a row close to the floor. Each time someone took a look at the photos at the opening, another picture was shot and hung up beside the others. By Darri Lorenzen.

let's get out of the world

"in 1800, 3% of humans lived in cities.  by 2050, over 2/3 of us will.  we are becoming an urban species, and this trend is going to change our political, economic, and environmental policies."

19.20.21 is a new multi-year research project that's exploring the phenomenon of the "supercity."  specifically, it will  examine 19 cities with 20 million people in the 21st century.

img {wesley willis}

title: {phil elvrum}

enjoy your worries

Replate asks diners to leave their leftovers on top of trash cans in the city so that the homeless know where to find a free meal.

img {picturesofwalls.com} title {the books song}

amount of space required to transport the same number of passengers by car, bus, or bicycle