“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

I got to go to Bird Kingdom in Niagara Falls yesterday, and I started searching for images of birds online after my visit. I found these images, they feature birds of paradise and were made by Richard Bowdler Sharpe at the end of the 18th century. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous drawings and gorgeous birds.

This was the other room where it was allowed to take pictures at the Love exhibition at the Mori Art Center. It was one of the last rooms, so I didn’t have much time, and I couldn’t even catch the artists name. I tried looking it up on the website, but I couldn’t find it. If anyone knows the artists name, please let me know. I love the creativeness of this – it is different half-transparent jackets that can be filled with different items. I really liked “Wearing the fun”.

This week it is mostly illustration links. I went through my old bookmarks, and I found a tons of websites I hadn’t visited in years. Half of them were dead links, one fourth seemed a bit dated, but the last 25% is still going with tons of gorgeous work. Check them out!

1. Check out bookofbadarguments.com. This website is new and not from my long-lost archive, but I had to include it in this post. A super neat website where you can read through the entire book of bad arguments. It will tell you how to debate in a proper way. Neat text combined with awesome illustrations. Worth a visit.
2. If you love geometrical craft projects, head over to minieco.co.uk. I especially liked this free diamond template.
3. More beautiful paper crafts from essimar.blogspot.com. I have been following this blog for years. Simple and pretty, always inspirational.
4. Incredible paper-cuts from petercallesen.com. I don’t get how he does it. Mind-blowing detail.
5. Illustration work from byhanna.com. Pretty and wonderful, light and Scandinavian.
6. Awesome illustrations from yellena.com. I just want to draw, draw, draw when I look at her illustrations.
7. Super-intricate qulling-illustrations artyulia.com. God, how beautiful. No words. I wish that her website was better, because her work is awesome. Why do all the best artists have mediocre websites? I would love loved to see bigger pictures to really enjoy the intricate details.
8. Paper sculptures from carlogiovani.com. Neat!
9. Gorgeous paint and line art combined from danielegneus.com. Gah. Beautiful.
10. Geometrical illustrations from mayahayuk.com. Super neat and just beautiful. I love geometric art.

I went to the Mori Art Center in Roppongi on Friday, and for once it was actually allowed to take pictures of part of the exhibition. This is Kusama Yayoi “Love is Calling”. Beautiful! I felt like I was walking in wonderland!

I rarely watch movies that I am really touched by anymore, but I watched this Japanese movie from 2002, Oriume, and I thought it was beautiful and I wanted to share. (Terribly sorry about the horrendous picture quality, but it was all I could find online.)

The movie is about an elderly Japanese woman who moves in with her sons family so they can take care of her, as her Alzheimer’s progresses. It shows so many different aspects of Japanese family life, how the wife works part time and is the only one taking care of the house and the family, how the husband is overworked but under-involved with his own family, how Japanese people feel that they should take care of their elders and the shame and guilt connected to sending someone off to a nursing home. The movie is everything that Japanese film can be at its best. Slow, with time to think and time to be moved. I rarely feel that Japanese actors and actresses really do a world-class job, but this movie is both well directed and shows good acting.

Unfortunately, it is not available on Netflix or Youtube or anywhere else I could find on the internet with English subtitles. I think it is possible to order the movie with English subtitles from Amazon though. The only trailer I could find was one with Korean subtitles, since the movie was released in South Korea in 2011. If you know Japanese/Korean, I think it is possible to watch the movie here on this Chinese site.

Here is the trailer for the movie, in Japanese, with Korean subtitles:

Madeleine, jeg husker at vi var i Oslo, og at vi var hos noen venner av deg, de spilte Serge Gainsbourg sent på natten. De var møbeldesignere. Husker du det? Jeg vet ikke hvilken seng du lå deg i, og jeg husker ikke hvordan vi kom oss derfra dagen etter, men jeg husker at vi drakk vin fra store glass og at jeg ble forelsket i denne sangen. Jeg hørte også en annen sang, som jeg hadde glemt at jeg hadde hørt da jeg var mindre. Serge Gainsbourg, Je’taime. Da jeg hørte den, husket jeg at min mor sa at jeg ikke kunne høre på den sangen, fordi den hadde seksuelt innhold og ikk egnet for barn. Jeg elsket den likevel, og forsøkte å finne tonene igjen på pianoet da jeg var fire år gammel. Det var slik jeg begynte å spille piano.

“Soo Sunny Park’s installation Unwoven Light animates Rice Gallery’s expansive space, transforming it into a shimmering world of light, shadow, and brilliant color. Suspended from the walls and ceiling, thirty-seven individually sculpted units are arranged as a graceful, twisting flow of abstract form.”

(This is one of the most beautiful art installations I have seen in a long time, I just had to share.)

I have always loved kaleidoscopes ever since I was a kid, so I was really happy when I stumbled over the Kaleida Cam app. I have been sitting around giggling and making neat patterns out of my iPhone pictures. (And I obviously don’t need to say this, but there is no sponsoring on this blog, I just write about stuff I like.)

Long time, no see for writing about the things I love, but good links have been piling up, and here is some of the things I found on the internet lately that caught my attention:

1. This webpage shows all the trains in Tokyo in REAL TIME! How awesome is that. All the cute little trains are chuu-chuu-ing around Tokyo on this map. I probably stared at this for way too long trying to figure out how many different trains the Yamanote-line actually have. 
2. O-M-G. Totoro Nail Polish is awesome because…. TOTORO NAIL POLISH!!!!111one!
3. “Den lesbiske håndboken” har oppsummert alle reglene i som florerer i lesbemiljøet som jeg absolutt ikke var klar over eksisterte. Fnis.
4. The Useless Web will take you to a useless website.
5. Justhungry.com is a great resource for learning how to cook Japanese dishes. If I only could stand the thought of cooking, I would try some of these delicious recipes out.
6. emergencycompliment.com gives you… an emergency compliment just when you need it. I was told that my sneezes sounded like angels giggling.
7. Head over to laphotocabine.com to take some cute old-fashioned photo-booth pictures with a French twist.
8. The Power of Five Minutes: The Condensed Version – The benefits of taking five minutes each day to do part of your dreams
9. The guy that made behavioral economics fun and one of my favorite popular scientists, Dan Ariely writes about “Why wearing fakes makes us cheat more“. Well worth a read.
10. Jack Cheng writes about The Slow Web.