Birds

This is a video from Pleix I really like. Check it out!

The making of

The topic of unconscious or 'well, it's not gonna kill me, is it?' acquisition of hazardous substances through food has been around for a while. Most of us eat fertilizers and pesticides on our fruit and vegetables, pop a few genetically modified bits in-between and then just do hormones and antibiotics in the steak. To focus on meat, why are hormones and antibiotics used so widely in the production of meat, should we be careful about consuming them, and if so, how can we avoid them in our food?

As much as I don't want to get activist here, but I can't help posting this video from Pleix. It may not be new, but it's quite to the point...



Sex hormones are often used in animal diets because they are an easy way to increase the animals' production of muscles and fat without having to give them more feed. Although the amount of hormones acquired through meat consumption cannot be measured in an accurate manner, as by the end of the processing one cannot tell the difference between the animals' natural and artificial hormones, there is a lot to think about when it comes to having those extra amounts of hormones floating in our bodies. Oestrogen has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer and to fertility problems in men. Progesterone has been shown to increase the development of ovarian, breast and uterine tumours in laboratory animals. And testosterone has been linked to prostate cancer in men. There have also been concerns about the acceleration of breast development among children in countries that allow hormone use in dairy production. Another concern is that hormones administered to animals could be passed with their feces and as a result have an effect on water and plants. Hormone use in meat production has been banned in the EU and does not allow imports of such meat into the area.


Like hormones, antibiotics make animals gain weight and therefore increase the meat industry's profits. They are commonly administered sub-therapeutically to increase the weight of the animals and also to preven the diseases that the conditions of factory farming can bring on. Some antibiotics administered to animals are also used to treat human illnesses. Long-term usage of such antibiotics can effectively make the bacteria within the animals immune to the antibiotics. If a person ingests such bacteria with the meat and gets ill, the bacteria will continue being antibiotic-resistant. Another larger-scale concern here is the arms race between bacteria and drug innovation that can lead to us having around diseases that we cannot treat appropriately. So far the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in meat has been banned in several countries in the EU and imports of such meat are not allowed into the UK.

The UK seems a fairly safe zone for both hormones and antibiotics in meat, but the US continues a much more robust use of these substances in their meat production. I guess the safest bet is to buying organic or going vegetarian.

The Sweater

This is a song by Meryn Cadell I caught on the radio while driving in the States about a year ago and I only now found the video online. Enjoy and follow!

Little Bo Peep

This is Phillip Roebuck, a real one-man-band...

Lykke Li

Here's Lykke Li, a young Swedish singer I was recently introduced to. Disregard the videos (I don't think they're that good) and get into the tunes...

Bruno, My Love

We say it's hard to pick our favorite favorites when it comes to many things, be it friends, countries, or pieces of art. Despite the wealth of choice of literature available and the intense differences between many a writers, I have come to a place where I can not only appreciate, but truly adore a writer.

Bruno Schulz was a Polish Jew, born in 1892 is a small down of Drohobycz in Galicia. Apart from creating drawings and a few magnificent pieces of writing, his life mostly revolved around teaching drawing and handicraft in a small-town Polish school. He was a man of a feeble health and an almost incurable state of self-perceived inferiority and insecurity. His life was an endless conflict between providing financial support for his extended family and carving out moments of freedom in which he was most creative. His life ended in 1942, when he was shot dead by a Gestapo officer in a street of his home town.


Despite not being widely known on an international scale, Bruno Schulz is regarded as one of the greatest Polish-language stylists of the 20th century. The quotation below referring to Jacob, Bruno's father, could easily be pointed at the writer himself.

It is worth noting how, in contact with that unusual man, all things retreated, as it were, to the root of their being, rebuilt their phenomenon down to the metaphysical core — they returned to their primordial idea, only to betray it at that point and lurch into those dubious, daring and equivocal regions which I shall here succinctly call the Regions of the Great Heresy.

Descriptive to the point of transcending the nature of objects and states presented, Bruno Schulz's writings are characterised by a language of incredible depth and color. The simplicity of the prose's content is transformed, liquefied, and brought to its very essence in light of the language used to portray it.

But even further from the light there were cats. Their perfection was alarming. Locked up in the precision and meticulousness of their bodies, they knew neither deviation nor error. They sank for a moment into the depths of themselves, to the bottom of their being, then they froze in their soft fur and grew menacingly and ceremonially serious, while their eyes grew as round as moons, soaking up the view into their fiery craters. But a moment later, cast out to the edge, to their surface, they yawned in their nihility, disappointed and without illusions.

Due to his entrapment with teaching and poor health, and above all, lack of free time, the body of his most popular written work includes only two collections of short stories: The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. In 1975 a collection of Schulz's letters was published in Polish as The Book of Letters. Several works have been lost or burned, including some short stories from the early 1940s that the author had sent to be published in magazines, and his final unfinished novel The Messiah.

This works have inspired other creations such as the adaptation of The Street of Crocodiles by the Quay Brothers:



Bruno Schulz's writings and life have been described in more detail in a book by the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski Regions of the Great Heresy. The texts of The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass are available here for free.

The Little Minx

These are two out of the six videos that can be found at The Little Minx Exquisite Corpse short film collection. Enjoy!

Chocolate Jesus

For those of you who may 'have trouble getting up on Sunday morning and going to church'...

Rabbit

This is an animation from Run Wrake that I recently fell in love with at Short and Sweet. Enjoy!

The Cat with Hands

I do apologise for not having much real written content lately, but my final year deadlines are catching up with me! Perhaps at the end of it all I'll finally be an educated woman!

Here's a piece from the lastest Short&Sweet:

Wildly beautiful

My first taste of Joanna Newsom was her 'Book of Right-on', which proved impossible to get out of my head for days. Recently I also bought her album 'Ys', which just blew me away with its beauty. Joanna Newsom's music is an incredible piece of instrumental and vocal originality. Her use of orchestral background and her chilling voice will make your day fall into slow motion. The lyrics are intricate, romantic, and longing for much of what we wish for in the cracks of our modern lives.

The Cat Came Back

This space is not transforming into be an animation-obsessed blog, I promise! I'll actually write something soon, but for the moment enjoy yet another piece of animation thrown at me recently...

Kiwi

I got this from my darling flatmate Vincent. A bit of 'optimism' can't hurt this morning...

Eat Dog Cat Mouse

I saw this last night at Short & Sweet. The creator is Kwok Fung Lam. Enjoy!

Tecktonik

I have two French boys staying in my flat for this month and one of the things I keep hearing about is Tecktonik. It's a fairly new style of dance that started last year in Paris. Just thought I'd share...

Think Think?

BigThink is a new platform of an intellectual exchange of ideas worldwide. At first glance it seems like a YouTube, except instead of random clips and music, it's filled with interviews with experts in all kinds of scientific and humanistic areas. If this idea sprawls like intended, it may become a very interesting source of opinions and information for all curious. The discussions vary from cloning to agriculture, so you're pretty much bound to find something for yourself. Except for providing information and opinion the site actually aims to include the opinions its members hold. You're free to create new ideas to discuss, rate the ideas of others and contribute to the general feeling on how ideas stand.

Postchristmasartum

I know it's after Christmas, but they say it's never too late for reflection...

Coco Rosie!

You must think that this blog is becoming a you-tube cluttered place. I will write something soon again, it's a promise!

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

The Devil

I saw her in London and she is one and the only one of the kind. Depth, agression, romance, and disturbance blend into a woman who seems to have transcended more than one life. This song keeps coming back to me. I looked for the version from London, but the only one I found with an acceptable quality of sound is from Spain...