A Little Poetry - John Keats

"John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work only having been in publication for four years before his death." - Wikipedia

Bright Star 

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death. 

Things I Love #23

This the last Things I Love of 2012!!  Can you believe we are at the ass-end of the year already?  Me neither.  Anyway, I will be on leave from the 21st of December so I am going to take a little blogging break until I go back to work on the 8th of January.  Although I am fairly sure it'll be impossible, I am going to try and take a little break from the internet as well.  We'll see how that one works out!!  Without further ado (I like that saying), here's Things I Love #23:

Kat Von D's Wonderland Gallery is hosting a Skulls show at the moment that I would just love to see.  They are all anatomically correct and absolutely beautiful to look at!  I find the human head bone very aesthetically pleasing!!  Anyway, you can check out some of the work here.

Need a good way to waste some time?  Visit The Useless Web, click the button and be directed to one of the many useless websites floating about out there.  Hours of fun. Okay maybe not hours but still...

My new Domo arrived in the post yesterday!!  Out of all the Series 4 ones available, I managed to get my first choice...hooray!

Speaking of yesterday, I had my Tragus pierced yesterday and I can report that A) it's not that sore and B) I did not hear a pop.  I LOVE the way it looks.

Have you guys seen Paolo Pedroni's digital paintings? So, so pretty although they do remind me a lot of Mark Ryden.

I read Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass for varisty and it's one of my favourites.  You can listen to a reading here.

Are We Becoming Cyborgs?  Very interesting (but long) read from the NY Times.

We went to see The Hobbit on Thursday night.  I really, really enjoyed it!!  I definitely recommend checking it out but be warned - there is a lot that is NOT in the book!

And, while we're on the subject of Middle Earth, this video made me laugh!!

Do you know that you can follow the worlds first live-tweeting hamster on Twitter?  Created as part of a competition, his cage uses heat, motion and pressure sensing technology to work out where he is and what he is doing.  You can finds Squeaks' tweets here.

Here are twelve new book titles brought to you by the Random House Penguin merger.

Angela Datre is a photographer from New York who does an awesome job of capturing the energy of live punk shows.

The Scattered Crowd installation is made up of thousands of suspended white balloons.  It's absolutely gorgeous!!

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Lastly, Catherine Nelson is a digital artist who uses hundreds of photos to create amazing floating worlds.  They look absolutely magical!

And that's pretty much it for this Things I Love!!  I'll be back next year with more internet randomness to share with you all!!  You can check out the rest of this years Things I Love here.

Things I Love #19

Wow, this has been a long, long, looooong week.  Work has been extra busy and I felt like I was running on empty all week.  After two days of the worst headaches and a little sore throat, I decided to just take it easy this weekend which has been awesome.  Especially seeing as the weather has been less than great.  Anyway, somewhere in the midst of the business, I still managed to put together a fairly decent list for Things I Love #19:

The Neruda Cats tumblr features the poetry of Pablo Neruda as read by cats.  Too awesome.

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On the subject of cats, I would like this Hello Kitty Couch for my house please.  The My Melody one is rather cute too.

These Muscle Leggings from Black Milk Clothing are a little too creepy to be cool.

The Gue(ho)st House is a huge architectural sculputre outside of the Delme Contempory Art Centre is France.  Its pretty amazing.

Striped Icebergs in Antartica.  The things nature can do astound me!

Someone keeps swiping my coffee mug at work.  I really need to get one of these perpetually dirty mugs. Gross but effective!

CLOUD is an interactive sculpture by Caitlind r.c. Brown.  Its made from 6000 lightbulbs - 1000 working ones and another 5000 burnt out ones.  Its gorgeous:

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Something similar and equally amazing is the Artificial Moon by Wang Yuyang.  What I wouldn't give to have both of these in my home.

Inside Insides is a blog full of animated MRI scans of vegetables and plants.  It's definitely worth a look.

These stone sculptures by Hirotoshi Itoh are quirky and unusual and again, I wish I could have a few in my home.

The Heidelberg Project was started 26 years ago by Tyree Guyton.  He decorated the houses in his neighbourhood with paint and various objects collected on the street and in the process, turned the area into a tourist attraction.  Talk about using your art for good!

These old school ads would be pretty funny if they weren't so distrubing.  I am so glad we have moved on...

This stop-motio crochet octopus is too cute for words.  The video was put together for Wax Tailor as a music video and took over three months to film.

My Dog: The Paradox is a comic from The Oatmeal which totally captures dog ownership.  It also makes me wish for a dog so much...sigh...one day...

I wish that someone would make me this Ewok Bento Box for lunch tomorrow...it would totally make my Monday.

Another things that would make my Monday, or rather my everyday if I owned it, is this super cute Totoro Phone Stand.  Want!!

And last but not least, I introduce Trotter the French Bulldog:

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His owner Sonya Yu dresses him up in the most awesome little outfits and then posts the pics to Instagram.  You can find him here.  Also, how cute is the Fluffington Post???

Have you found anything awesome on the internet this week?  Feel free to share below:)

Things I Love #16

So, I am typing this edition of Things I Love from a desk!!!!  Usually, I update this blog from the couch, with my laptop awkwardly balanced on my knees or a cushion, while crossing my fingers that I don't accidently dump it on the floor.  Anyway, yesterday we got a desk and a chair!  After rearranging our teeny, tiny lounge we have an awesome new space to work in.  It may seem like a silly thing to get excited about but when I look at how far Jason and I have come (no fridge and only cushions to sit on ) to today (nice flat full of things we couldn't dream of affording before), I can't help but be pleased.  Moving along, here are somethings I loved over the last two weeks:

My squishy-face dog obsession has reached a new high! I found these two awesome bulldog tumblrs during the week; one for French bulldogs and another for English bulldogs.  I swear if we don't get a puppy soon, I might just explode!

Everyone needs an anthem.  This is a pretty awesome article about how powerful music can be.  It got me thinking about what my own anthem might be.  I'll let you know when I decide..

This awesome picture of my very young parents and my grandparents in Paris.  Out of all the sidewalk cafe's they chose the one with English writing!

Stellar Four have created 12 awesome fictional fantastic birthstones.  My traditional birthstone is an Opal which I have always liked but my fictional one is Unobtanium from Avatar which is pretty awesome too!

Tim Tadder makes wigs out of water.  Don't believe me?  Click the link and check them out.  The best part is the first guys facial expression!

These ceramic toy sculptures by Rhonda Gushee are super creepy...in a broken down neglected sort of way.

Check out this tattoo flash with a South African twist by Ninjabreadboy.

And on the subject of tattoos, Contrariwise is a collection of tattoos inspired by literature.

The Phraseology Project is one of the coolest ideas I have seen in awhile.  You submit a word or phrase and they will create it using some pretty amazing typography.

I know this is kind of old news now but here is a great article about why the band Pussy Riot matters.  They may have been sentenced and the news may have moved on but I doubt that is the end of this story.   On a related note, this article about Making Punk a Threat Again is also worth reading.

Pop-up aquariums are a pretty awesome idea if you ask me.  These ones hold up to 5 000 goldfish and were created by Hidetomo Kimura.

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I love fireworks.  I also love these long exposure pictures of fireworks by David Johnson.

A little while ago I mentioned the prawn sushi salad I had for lunch.  This afternoon I cam across this recipe for a sushi bowl.  Definitely something I would like to try out!

I really like these life-like fashion illustrations by Jorge Roa.

I love this list of literature's greatest closing paragraphs.  The final paragraph of The Great Gatsby has always stood out for me and I am glad it's included here.

The Goths in Graveyards tumblr is pretty cool.  I really enjoy the imagery.

The writer of this article believes that W.H. Auden was the worst famous poet of the 20th century.  I am not sure I agree but it's an interesting read none-the-less.

And finally, I came across David Foster Wallace's commencement speech the other day.  I don't know much about him and I haven't read any of his books but I still found it very inspiring and very relevant. The things he says are definitely things that I need to learn to keep in mind.  

And that's it.  Have you found anything cool you'd like to add?

A Little Poetry...

When I was at varsity, I went through a serious e.e. cummings phase.  I borrowed his complete works from the library repeatedly and religiously transcribed my favourites.  The other day I came across this poem which I love so I thought I'd share it here:

let it go - the

smashed word broken

open vow or 

the oath cracked length 

wise - let it go it 

was sworn to

go

let it go - the 

truthful liars and 

the false fair friends

and the boths

and neithers - you must let them go they 

were born 

to go

let all go - the

big small middling 

tall bigger really

the biggest and all

things - let all go

dear

so comes love 

- e.e. cummings